BONUS no.1: Grandmixxer NO DRUMS MORE FUN

Just a mind-glowingly great mix, free to download.

Well we did pretty well getting the first three Q&As out on a nice tidy fortnightly schedule. However, I’ve been ill and the interviewing / transcribing has gone a bit skew-whiff. DON’T WORRY, though: 1) we’ve got some absolutely spectacular names locked in so we won’t be letting up on momentum, and 2) here’s some bonus content from one of our upcoming interviewees, and one of the best DJs in the world, who Brian has already photographed:

Grandmixxer: not actually mixing

I won’t give Grandmixxer the big intro now - we can save that for his interview - but I WILL give it the big one about this DJ mix. It was originally done for my Worldwide FM “across the ambient spectrum” show last June, and I’ve had so many requests for a download of it that it felt like it was about time to share it properly.

Grime has a long tradition of versions of tracks without any drums, going right back to its beginnings. This is something Grandmixxer has regularly done with his own tracks - he calls them “Starship Mixes” of the tunes, and there are loads on his Bandcamp - so I asked him if he’d do a full hour DJ mix of beatless tracks. I couldn’t have imagined how good it would be. Honestly, it is like a movie. It takes me right back to the magic of being a teenager just discovering electronic music and listening alone in the dark… in fact I highly recommend doing exactly that. As with all his work, it keeps the sonic spirit of classic grime alive, but is absolutely futurist at the same time. It is epic, in the truest sense of the word. It also, it delighted me to see, contains a remix by my old university mate Martin “MDK” Wood Mitrowski, a Coventry skateboarder now resident in Macedonia and huge grime fan, who’d made contact with Grandmixxer completely unbeknownst to me. Anyway, it’s sublime, it’s free to download for subscribers (as ever anyone on low income, educators etc is welcome to shout for a free sub), and it goes a little something like this: