Morris Gould was born in
Brighton, Sussex, England, but grew up in
Lincolnshire and was educated at
Millfield in Somerset, and
King's College London. At 15 he founded a
punk rock band, The Ripchords, whose sole release, an eponymous
EP with four tracks, was championed by the
BBC Radio One DJ
John Peel. After leaving university, he began working as a DJ in 1985 with his "Mongolian Hip Hop Show" on
pirate radio station Network 21 in London – the handle Mixmaster Morris was suggested by the station director. After a year of managing a club called "The Gift" in
New Cross, which had been founded by Keith Gallagher and named after a Velvet Underground song, Morris began releasing material as
The Irresistible Force in 1987 in collaboration with singer-songwriter
Des de Moor. – which was the subject of a piece by Peel in
The Observer. A show with the band
Psychic TV led to him becoming full-time DJ with
The Shamen, and touring with them on their 'Synergy' tours for nearly two years. The first release as The Irresistible Force was the single, "I Want To" (1988), but success came with the first album,
Flying High, released in 1992 on
Rising High Records. In 1994, Morris released the second album
Global Chillage which featured a holographic sleeve, and was released in the US on
Astralwerks. After a period of legal problems, the third album ''It's Tomorrow Already'' came out on
Ninja Tune. In 1990, he made one of the first
chillout compilations,
Give Peace a Dance 2: The Ambient Collection for the
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, followed by the series
Chillout or Die for Rising High Records. A mix tape for
Mixmag shared with Alex Patterson was also released as a CD.
The Morning After became his first major-label mix album, followed by
Abstract Funk Theory for Obsessive. Through the 1990s he was a regular DJ in the chill out room at
Return to the Source parties in London, around the UK and abroad. In 2003 he released the mix CD
God Bless the Chilled for the
Return to the Source Ambient Meditations series. He has produced many
remixes since 1985, including
Coldcut's "Autumn Leaves". This remix was nominated by
Norman Cook as his favourite chillout track on
BBC Television. His mix for
INXS was a Top 20 hit in the UK. Other early remixes were of
Lloyd Cole, Dave Howard Singers, Bang Bang Machine,
Stump, Higher Intelligence Agency,
Sven Väth and Rising High Collective. In the early 1990s his key residencies were alongside the Detroit masters at Lost,
Megatripolis at London's
Heaven, and also the
Tribal Gathering parties. He became known for wearing holographic suits, produced by the company Spacetime, which he modelled for
Vogue magazine. Throughout the decade, Morris wrote about electronic music for the
NME,
Mixmag, and
i-D. He was resident on
Kiss FM for several years, and then a regular on Solid Steel, the
Ninja Tune syndicated radio show. He made his film debut in
Modulations (Caipirinha Films), and his music was used in a number of other films including
Groove and
Hey Happy. Morris has played in over fifty countries at
nightclubs and parties, and particularly music festivals such as the Full Moon parties in the
Mojave Desert,
Glastonbury Festival, Rainbow 2000 and Mother SOS in Japan,
Chillits in Northern California, and Berlin's
Love Parade. He also ran the downtempo night Nubient in
Brixton. In 1995, he played at the first
The Big Chill festival, and then became a resident for the next 16 years. He also collaborated with the German musician
Pete Namlook under the name Dreamfish, recording two albums. Also with SF-based musician
Jonah Sharp and
Haruomi Hosono of
Yellow Magic Orchestra he made the album
Quiet Logic for the Japanese label
Daisyworld. In 1998 he joined the UK's Ninja Tune record label, with whom he toured as a DJ and made three releases. 1999 saw him win 'Best Chillout DJ' at the Ibiza DJ Awards at
Pacha,
Ibiza, and in 2001 he won the title for a second time, becoming the first DJ to achieve this. He has appeared in many lists of the world's top DJ's including the
Ministry of Sound book
The Annual and 2003's
DJs by Lopez, and
URB Magazine's Top 100 DJ list. Morris records regular radio shows for the Japanese internet radio station Samurai FM. In 2006 he started a new club at the Big Chill House in
Kings Cross, London, and did a guest mix for BBC Radio 1's
The Blue Room show. His essay about
jazz was published in the book,
Crossfade, and he made a one-off appearance reading it aloud. In March 2007, together with Coldcut, he organised a tribute show to the writer and philosopher
Robert Anton Wilson, which they performed at the
Queen Elizabeth Hall. He also played in
Goa for the first time with The Big Chill, and started a new residency at The Prince in Brixton. In May 2008 Morris undertook an ambient mix on BBC Radio 1, and put a The Irresistible Force band together to play at The Big Chill festival. In 2009, he compiled a podcast for
Tate Britain to accompany their
Altermodern exhibition, and opened a new AV night called MMMTV in Camden. The mix CD,
Calm Down My Selector was released in January by Wakyo Records, and he made a tour of Japan to promote it. In 2010, he won another Ibiza DJ Award, for the third time. In October that year, he was announced as Head of A+R for
Apollo Records. 2011 saw him rejoin
Bestival as part of their "Ambient Forest" team. 2017 saw Morris continue to stay at the top of the psybient/downtempo movement and charts, especially
Mixcloud where he held top positions in most categories relating to ambient music for the full year. 2017 also saw the triumphant return of Mixmaster Morris with his acclaimed release "Kira Kira", a lush soundscape that was received well by many publications and listeners and earned a spot in "Extreme Chill's" top twenty of 2017 along with releases by Brian Eno and Steve Roach. ==Discography==