Biography: My Nu Leng

As you may or may not be aware, every time we release an artist's CD on either of our ongoing mix series (fabric/FABRICLIVE) there happens a lot of behind the scenes conversations that are all part of the preparation. One of these is a tailor constructed artist biography that's written to give the press extra background information on the artist in question: where they were born, where they grew up, how they got into music, etc etc. In truth, these biographies often become quite enlightening documents in their own right and from now on, in the week before we release the mixes to the public, we'll be publishing the biographies here to give you, our faithful readership, the exact same additional insight.

My Nu Leng (FABRICLIVE 86)

BORN: Jammo: I was born in High Wycombe and spent my childhood there before moving to Bristol when I was 21. Tommy: Margate, Kent. MUSICAL ROOTS: Jammo: My early musical memories are filled with bands like Steely Dan, Santana, Pink Floyd etc. And I remember hearing Deacon Blue almost every Sunday when my parents were tidying the house. I definitely was inspired to start learning guitar because of this and I played in a band for a number of years. As I grew up my musical tastes were constantly changing, from Screamo to Happy Hardcore and everything in between. My first love of dance music was definitely drum & bass. My first raving experiences were watching drum & bass DJs in and around London and I dreamed of playing in clubs and writing that 'big tune'! I borrowed some belt drive turntables and a big pile of vinyl and started to learn how to mix. Tommy: A lot of electronic music; my parents would listen to a lot of 80s music. Duran Duran, Flock of Seagulls etc. as I was growing up. Then through the 90s they would listen to all the dance tracks whilst getting ready to go clubbing on the weekends, so the classics like ‘Insomnia’ & ‘Dreamer’ would be on weekly rotation. My dad went on to introduce me to people like Boards of Canada & Orbital when I was about 15, which led on to me wanting to become a DJ. I got very into ‘Golden Era’ and UK hip hop at about 15 and asked for a set of decks for my 16th birthday. I got some Argos belt drives & had no idea what to even do on them! I DJed in a scratch crew for a youth club where a lot of drum & bass/garage MCs would go and eventually I got heavily into drum & bass. I got one Technics 1200 for my 17th birthday, went a year with that and one belt drive, then got my second on my 18th and eventually learned to mix, ha ha! FIRST PROJECTS: Tommy: I made a lot of trip hop with a friend, who was also an MC at the youth club I went to. I moved to Peckham and grew out of production whilst I just DJed every night, driving a lot of the people around me crazy. I would play in pubs and empty clubs most nights for 2 years before moving to High Wycombe where Jammo was running a drum & bass night. We started just getting together to mix every night, and eventually moved onto production! We would play sets for beer, sleeping on a promoter’s floor and paying our own travel for the majority of the early My Nu Leng years! Jammo: My early productions were drum & bass, I released a few things digitally and on vinyl but it never really took off. After Tommy moved to High Wycombe, we started DJing together and then started a few tracks. The mix of our musical tastes and skills worked well together and the rest is history!

"Every track in the mix has made us feel a certain way, and we hope people listening get that same feeling. We are huge believers in the UK underground, and much of our mix is made up of every genre coming out of the UK." - Jammo, My Nu Leng

LABELS & PRODUCTION: Jammo: We have been very lucky to have the support from some really forward thinking independent labels. The belief they had in our music really helped us progress to where we are today. In the last few years we have released with Black Butter and MTA Records and remixed for Warner, Virgin, Island and lots more! FABRIC: Jammo: My first memories of fabric, although a little blurry, were partying at Playaz nights. I remember being blown away by the music I heard and the whole venue was like a maze of discovery every time I was there. Some of the FABRICLIVE mixes inspired me to DJ and to be part of such an iconic series is an honour. Tommy: Like Jammo, it would have been the Playaz nights, being a little tops off front speaker sweaty mess, ha ha! It was always one of those clubs you’d grow up dreaming of one day being able to play, and eventually playing for the first time in room 2 at an Urban Nerds night felt such a massive achievement! THE MIX: Tommy: We wanted to do something that can be listened to over & over again. I remember buying the Caspa & Rusko FABRICLIVE album & having it on repeat for a silly amount of time, and since then it’s always been a huge goal to have one of our own. Jammo: We spent a lot of time collecting music that has shaped our sets over the last year, as well as some classic iconic music that has inspired us. Every track in the mix has made us feel a certain way, and we hope people listening get that same feeling. We are huge believers in the UK underground, and much of our mix is made up of every genre coming out of the UK. We hope it is a snapshot of the huge diversity of music out there in 2016. THE FUTURE: Jammo: Over the last few years we have been touring all over the world and hopefully we can keep that going over the next few years, we are working on some really interesting music and have been lucky enough to work with some of our biggest inspirations; we can't wait for people to hear what we have coming up. Tommy: We are trying new things and striving to keep things interesting. We don’t want to be pigeonholed within ‘bass house’ and have some really exciting projects on the way. Hopefully at some point in the not too distant future we will put out an album, but it’s not something we want to rush into as we want it to be the best it can be! FABRICLIVE 86: My Nu Leng is out now. Order your copy from fabric here. Get this and every fabric release from just £5: http://bit.ly/fabric1st Photography: Jimmy Mould