Mumdance (GB)
Artist
Jack Adams, better known as Mumdance, is an artist defined by an appetite to explore and unite music of different tempos, backgrounds and eras - and one who is rightly regarded as one of the UK’s most crucial DJ/producers.
After first cutting his teeth working across various strands of more upfront, club-focused output in the mid-00s - including a brief spell under the tutelage of US super-producer Diplo - Mumdance started to embrace the full, widescreen scope of his musical influences, writing records that would span everything from hardcore to techno to grime.
Finding a sparring partner in Logos - a producer with a shared appreciation of dance music in its most abstract forms - Mumdance was soon running with ideas that challenged as much as they intrigued, a sentiment backed up by the release of inadvertent comeback record, ‘Springtime’ (released by UTTU), in 2012. Sugary, giddy and euphoric, it welcomed him into a buzzing scene of producers intent on treading their own path through club music - and gave Mumdance the perfect place from which to challenge its dynamics as he saw fit.
Releases with Rinse, with whom he has also hosted a monthly radio show since 2013, and most crucially, XL, were soon to follow in 2014 and 2015 respectively, as well as excursions with Pinch’s Tectonic label and a new joint venture with Logos - the excellent Different Circles imprint, which birthed the "weightless" subgenre of electronica. It was 2014’s ‘Take Time’ though - a collaboration with fierce young spitter, Novelist - that fully took the UK underground by storm and positioned Mumdance as a key player in the UK’s club scene, as well as winning him plenty of fans within grime’s blossoming instrumental framework.
A series of further highlights have also punctuated a hectic few years; an inaugural fabriclive CD, the rise of abstract, drone-inspired live act, The Sprawl, which he works on with both Logos and Shapednoise, tours of Europe, North America and Asia, numerous festival appearances and a number of collaborative projects that saw Adams record with local artists across Brazil, Mexico, Egypt and Japan, where he also joined forces with acclaimed video game producer Yuzo Koshiro, Shaangaan Electro prince Nozinja, Cumbia mogul Toy Selectah & Egyptian Maharagant Mc Sadat
Although complex, these various threads to Adams’ career are a testament to not only his ear for sound, but hard work - all of which is motivated by a desire to leave a lasting mark on the musical landscape.
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