Mumdance

U.K. producer Mumdance, aka Jack Adams, has navigated his way through an eclectic batch of genres from the beginning of his musical career, taking in everything from grime to kuduro. Growing up in rural Sussex on a diet of ’90s hardcore, jungle, garage, and early-’90s guitar music, Adams had originally started out as a club promoter with fellow DJs and producers High Rankin and L-Vis 1990 — who had all attended the same school — with their drum’n’bass night Fallout in neighboring Brighton. A stint with Vice magazine as their events manager saw Adams promoting various events, and also heralded the arrival of his Mumdance guise. After hearing the Diplo remix of Black Lips’ Veni Vidi Vici — which was released on Vice Recordings — Adams decided that a grime version would be a perfect match, and with strings pulled, he teamed up with grime MC Jammer to record a remix. Sending their bootleg version to Diplo and others, the track was immediately picked up by Annie Mac, Sinden, and, most notably, Diplo himself. With a release in 2009 under his belt for Southern Fried — a collaboration with French producer Brodinski on Eurostarr — Adams followed this with his first release for Diplo’s Mad Decent label, 2010′s The Mum Decent EP. Dropping the Tarahtif EP the same year for grime label No Hats No Hoods, Adams became the go-to name for his eclectic take on grime, dubstep, and bass music. That same year Adams released his first full-length mixtape, Different Circles, a 40-minute mix of his own productions and remixes up to that point. Slightly disillusioned with the scene after a grueling tour schedule, Adams retreated back to the countryside for a rebuild of his studio — which saw him move from a software-based setup to a hardware one. With the new hardware setup informing his direction, he started to draw on everything that had inspired him during his teenage years and beyond. In mid-2013 he released the second mixtape Twists and Turns, which featured a new direction, harking back to jungle, early grime, and even shoegaze. Collaborations with fellow producer Logos saw the light of day the same year in the form of the genre-bending single Legion/Proto on Tectonic and also the Genesis EP on Keysound Recordings. At the beginning of 2014, Adams released the eclectic Turbo Mitzi/Whiplash single with Bristolian dubstep producer Pinch. The duo subsequently released the mix CD Pinch B2B Mumdance on Pinch’s Tectonic label. Mumdance’s 2014 single “Take Time,” featuring MC Novelist, was one of the year’s biggest grime hits. The duo followed it up with “1 Sec,” an early 2015 single on XL Recordings. 2015 also saw the release of Proto, Mumdance’s collaborative album with Logos, and Mumdance’s mix CD Fabriclive 80, which traveled from experimental dark ambient to grime to early-’90s U.K. breakbeat hardcore. The following year, Mumdance and Logos showcased their label/events series Different Circles with mix CD Present Different Circles. ~ Rich Wilson