Audio: Hamid Shares a Mix Inspired by our Club

If you visited our club on a regular basis on any Saturday night between 2006 and 2013, you’ll almost certainly be at least familiar with Hamid. He first started visiting our Farringdon space after moving to London in 2006, and within a short time he became one of our most regular visitors. Drawing inspiration from watching our own Craig Richards play in Room One he started to play and make music for himself, with the pair soon becoming close friends and musical collaborators. While Hamid still keeps in regular contact with us, for the last 3 years he’s been pursuing his music career in Berlin. As an avid explorer of experimental and stripped-back sounds, it might not come as a surprise to learn his tastes have been shaped by the fabled Club der Visionaere – we even caught up with each other on a recent visit to Berlin watching Ricardo Villalobos and Zip play at the riverside shack on May 1st. For the last few months he’s also been involved in one of Berlin’s most exciting new musical offerings: playing as the resident DJ at Perm, the experimental party organised by Magda. With his Farringdon debut happening in Room One alongside Magda and Craig Richards later this month, we contacted Hamid to ask for a mix and interview ahead of his appearance. After stitching unreleased music together with well-known cuts across an hour of shuffled bleeps and breakbeats, Hamid explained that this was intended to be a representation of his formative clubbing experiences with us. Download: Hamid fabric Promo Mix What was your main idea when presenting the mix? I was buzzing at the idea of recording a mix for fabric, so I dug through my many memories of hearing really amazing music in Room One and feeling incredibly excited as a clubber. Somehow I tried to convey that feeling, with a mixture of funk and cognitive stimulation. The idea was to have a mixture of older records with newer music. There are some well-known records, as well as unreleased music from friends. I’ve tried to draw from a selection which could represent a larger scope of my musical universe. You moved to Berlin to pursue music – from where in the city do you draw most of your inspiration? One place I hold very dearly to my heart is Club der Visionaere. It’s difficult to express in just a few words how amazing this place is – this is the epicentre of anything stripped-back and groovy. My discovery of electronic music first started at fabric, and this continued when I first started going to CDV. It’s without a doubt the other landmark venue for the development of my musical understanding. You’re a key part of Magda’s party Perm – can you talk more about the concept behind it? Perm is an event series attempting to create bridges between different art forms and musical scenes. We have different installations running through the venue, involving projections, lights, and VJing for example. The music policy also covers more experimental and left field areas of clubland. Musical guests have included Nicolas Lutz, Cristian Vogel, and of course Craig Richards. Other guests have included Tobias. presenting his new AV project Recent Arts. The events starts at 6pm on a Sunday and runs late – sometimes you might not hear a single drum sound until 5 hours in. We are also a bridge between established artsts and younger talents like Alex & Digby, Pascal, Melina Serser or Baby Vulture and myself whom as part of our residency are given the opportunity to experiment and invite friends for impromptu jams. We’re also taking Perm on the road – our first date is happening in Istanbul this summer. How has it been playing with more experimental live acts? So far this has been an amazing opportunity – as a resident I often have the task to play between the experimental and more club-focussed part of the evening. It’s a great challenge to make a coherent transition within one narrative, and this has also broadened the scope of the music I research. I’m really enjoying the ride. You’ve described Craig Richards as a big inspiration – how did you first come into contact with one another? My relationship with Craig first started with me frequenting the club week in week out throughout my 20s when I was living in London. Over the years we had many friends in common, until we eventually also became good friends. He’s the one that inspired me – I decided to try to make and play music after seeing him in Room One. My personal musical ethos comes from many years of observing “the master”. I have to say, now that I know him well I admire him even more. It was a real honour the make some music in his studio last year and to release 2 tracks together on my label H+. Now I’m really looking forward to appearing in Room One together.