September’s show sees not one but two guest mix contributors for your Autumnal delectation and the two mixes are nicely contrasting and wholly complimentary. Both DJ nonDom and J Mansfield have demonstrated their unerring knack of creating mood and space throughout their respective mixes and have provided something new and fresh for this month’s show.
Both gentlemen are relatively mysterious with just enough intrigue to draw the listener further into their auditory world. Once you have read the interviews and heard their mixes I think you will want to find out more, to delve further into the silvering sonic realm in which they both reside and emerge with your ears humming and your mind tone-jacking into auricular entropy.
The Jupiter Room concocted some questions for these good fellows and tried to find out more about what makes them tick.
First in the hot seat is DJ NomDom:
The Jupiter Room: Tell us about yourself. Who are you? What do you do?
DJ nonDom: I am a music collector and enthusiast, beer maker and father, who works as a marketer to make ends meet.
TJR: What is your connection to music?
DJnD: Music is my direct fuel injection. Without it, I’d grind to a halt and end up on the hard shoulder of life. I’m always on the look-out for something new and I have very few genre boundaries. I imagine I share most of these with listeners of the Jupiter Room!
TJR: What is your earliest musical memory?
DJnD: Listening to my Mum and Dad’s Motown records and George Benson on our long summer holiday car trips to South Wales.
TJR: What did you grow up listening to?
DJnD: I had a pretty mixed-up musical history. My folks have a great taste in music so I loved sharing their music. My first record was George Harrison’s Cloud 9 which I was desperate to buy after hearing ‘When we were fab’ on the telly. I then bought and listened to whatever captured my imagination.
TJR: What inspires you musically?
DJnD: Originality, good melodies and strong percussion.
TJR: Where do you DJ?
DJnD: Since becoming a dad I stopped DJing regularly. I play the odd gig around Liverpool when we can get our act together. Me and my pal DJ Feet used to host a rad monthly party in Brixton which we still have fond, if slightly shaky, memories of.
TJR: Tell us about the mix you’ve done for The Jupiter Room.
DJnD: I selected some of the tunes I’ve been listening to recently. I chose some laid back and spatial tracks and mixed the vinyl during a hot summer’s day.
Tracklisting
John Arnold – Oceans
Language Lab – Motorway One
Theo Parrish – Ah ft. Duminie Deporres, Ideeyah, M. Pittman
Debukas – Minus 24
Floating Points – Myrtle Avenue
TJR: What are you listening to at the moment/who should we be checking out?
DJnD: I’m still playing Steve Mason’s Meet the Humans album, which I just can’t stop listening to. It’s so rich and musically brilliant. I’m really loving the Christine and the Queen album, especially ‘Tilted’ and Migration by Bonobo is almost perfect. Pye Corner Audio’s Stasis album is sublime electronica.
TJR: What’s your favourite sound?
DJnD: Hmmm I’ll have to have a think about that one and get back to you.
TJR: Who’s your favourite DJ/producer/remixer?
DJnD: I really don’t have a favourite – on the dancefloor I love Moodymann, Theo Parrish, Louie Vega, Floating Points, Arthur Russell and Mr Scruff. Keiran Hebden makes some amazing music, and I’ve always respected Danny Krivit – he did some incredible things with some tape and a pair of scissors.
TJR: If you could make music history, how would you do it?
DJnD: I’d have made friends with Dave Mancuso and tried to get involved in his 70s Loft parties in New York.
TJR: What are you currently reading?
DJnD: The Mikkeller Book of Beer and the latest issue of Private Eye
TJR: What are you up to at the moment?
DJnD: I’m in the process of starting a micro-brewery.
Thanks Dom.
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We took those very same questions and fired them in the general direction of J Mansfield and he was good enough to fire some answers back at us:
The Jupiter Room: Tell us about yourself. Who are you? What do you do?
J Mansfield: I’m J Mansfield and I grew up in London. Since then I’ve lived in various places but now reside in south Liverpool. I work in the creative industries, where I make things out of driftwood and egg cartons.
TJR: What is your connection to music?
JM: A permanent place in an ever changing world. Often it is somewhere I retreat to on my own, other times with friends, occasionally on dancefloors around the world with strangers.
TJR: What is your earliest musical memory?
JM: Folk music in Ireland in a pub as a child. A smoky distant dream of happy people, the smell of Guinness and the never-ending beat of a bodhrán drum.
TJR: What did you grow up listening to?
JM: Hip hop, original breaks and house music.
TJR: What inspires you musically?
JM: Hearing new things and above all experimentation.
TJR: Where do you DJ?
JM: Limited live outings these days – Emotion Wave, street parties and one offs. In the past Ibiza, Scotland and all over the place in London from places like The Marquee Club to the Ministry of Unsound.
TJR: Tell us about the mix you’ve done for The Jupiter Room.
JM: Most of my mixes and listening material is downtempo and experimental. As I said before I love hip hop and breaks, so this is a little different from my usual and features some beats that have been floating my boat recently. Also included a classic track by Don Cherry, who I love.
Dedekind Cut – Conversations with angels (feat. DJ Shadow & Chino Amobi)
Don Cherry and Latif Khan – Sangam
DJ Shadow and DJ Spinn – What Does Your Soul Look Like Part 4 – Teklife Remix
Sugizo – Shangri-La of the Europa
Blockhead – Crashing Down
Musette – Coucou Anne
Lord Jamar and RZA – Deep Space
Synkro – Broken Promise
TJR: What are you listening to at the moment/who should we be checking out?
JM: Not sure really, too many good artists and too much good music to narrow it down. Latest vinyl purchase is by a producer called Andras – Sanity 12 – off kilter deep house doings. I like !
TJR: What’s your favourite sound?
JM: Experimental – anything really that pushes boundaries, is out there, crazy stuff that makes you WTF first listen. From banging techno to beatless.
TJR: Who’s your favourite DJ/producer/remixer?
JM: Nina Kraviz at the moment – heard her play out a few times in the last couple of years. Always challenging and intense – I’m also a fan of her label Trip and sub-label Galaxiid.
TJR: If you could make music history, how would you do it?
JM: Revive some dead musicians and let them loose with technology.
TJR: What are you currently reading?
JM: Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari – futurism, in a slightly bonkers way.
TJR: What are you up to at the moment?
JM: I’m always making mixes at home – in the past pure vinyl but in the last 2 years gone down a digital route. And I’ve really enjoyed it. Mainly downtempo and ambient mixes up on my Mixcloud
In the past I’ve made some music myself – only one track was ever released, so that might be something I go back to. Also I currently record a lot of ‘found sound’ and make weird field recordings, again they might one day see the light of day, and again they might not. Who knows?
Many thanks Mr Mansfield.
Find J Mansfield on the web: Mixcloud
Many thanks to both guest DJ’s this month.
Originally broadcast on Thursday September 28th on Fourculture.
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