M&A #20: Gideon Lee

By Joe Hilton

At Milk & Alcohol we are always on the lookout to discover the most passionate, talented and enthusiastic musical minds to feature on our mix series. People serious about music with a true drive and charisma. Gideon Lee encapsulates all these things. Taking influence from jazz music and hip hop, Gideon churned out a full lo-fi EP of hip-hop beats before turning his attention to electronic music. Having mastered the skills of music production, Gideon’s tracks range from club bangers to lofi beats, sampling from the sounds of garage, house, RnB and rap music. Finally, with a vault of unreleased dancefloor weapons hidden away on his harddrive, Gideon takes to decks at Lait at Night next Monday. In this mix, Gideon takes us on a tour through sweet RnB vocals, deep melodic basslines and irresistible rhythms. 

How did you record the mix?

On Joe Hilton’s old decks (DJ Console RMX 2) which I’ve shamelessly hijacked and really need to give back to him.

What were you trying to do with it?

I don’t really how to answer that to be honest. What is anyone trying to do when they do anything?

Which DJs/producers/musicians are you most inspired by?

Too many but to name a few - Bill Evans, Archy Marshall, Amy Winehouse, Slum Village, Wes Montgomery, The Libertines, Jimi Hendrix, MF Doom, Mac Demarco, Stan Getz, Skepta, Moodymann, Kerri Chandler, J Dilla, Madlib, Q-Tip. The list goes on.

A DJ I’ve been loving recently is Tommy Gold. He’s got a show on NTS radio and there’s a couple of sets he’s done on YouTube - his selection just absolutely hits the spot for me.

I understand you are starting a new show on CamFM. What made you decide on venturing into radio DJing and what should listeners expect from the show?

Everyone kept telling me I had the perfect face for radio, so when I found about CamFM I immediately knew I had to jump on it. It became obvious quickly that I couldn’t do it alone, which meant I had to find someone equally ugly, so, I decided to recruit the one and only, Dita Jaja a.k.a D-Money. It’s a show called ‘D&G sessions’, where we’ll be DJ’ing every week, traversing all genres, space and time. More to come on that front soon, but just know that we’ll be terrorizing the airwaves of Cambridge very shortly.

Before you got into DJing you spent your time producing music. What made you first begin producing your own music and how has your taste developed since then?

At the time I was completely obsessed with boom bap producers like Madlib, MF Doom and of course the big daddy, J Dilla. I spent loads of time just going through all their catalogues of music and I found discovering all the samples that they had used so satisfying. Finding all these samples opened up a whole world of music to me and I was put me onto so much good stuff that I would have never found otherwise and it was at this point that my appreciation for Jazz really developed. I really wanted to emulate their sound, so I would just take samples that I liked, loop them and put kicks, snares and hats over them and maybe put an acapella over it or some vocals. A lot of that music is still hidden somewhere in the dark depths of soundcloud. Loads of the house music that I had a taste for comes from a similar tradition of sampling and crate digging, so it was a natural progression from there. I think because of the insane amount of access Spotify, Soundcloud and YouTube gives you to almost every piece of music ever made, it’s made me pretty open to listening to just about anything. If it’s good it’s good.

Was there a particular moment that inspired you to start DJing or has this been a gradual process? 

I guess I just always wanted to be involved in some way with the music that I love and I realised that Dj’ing was such a good avenue to go about doing that. I’m also quite particular with the music I like so I started making mixes just so I could listen to them. Backed myself on the AUX a bit too much as well

What’s your musical guilty pleasure?

Getting in the shower and letting Barry White’s caramel cadence drizzle all over me

What’s the last song you listened to?

Lujon - Henry Mancini 

Which song from the mix means the most to you and why? 

At the moment, probably the Sam Wise track, just because I was rinsing it over the summer. The best music is usually tied up with the best memories.

What is your go to tune to bring a party up/banger?

Biggie Smalls - Big Poppa 

What’s coming up for you in the future?

Well, since he first heard I was Dj’ing in Fez, Mark Ronson has been blowing up my phone asking me that very same question...

Gideon's Tracklist:

Pharrell and Kanye West - Number One (Sam Gellaitry remix)

Linden Jay – Be Like You 

Faith Evans – Love Like This (Sh?m B-Sides Bootleg)

Kenny Dixon Jr. – Goes On

Channel Tres – Topdown

MC Pinty – Honey

PALACE – Dreamscape

Subjoi - Love Shy 

Disclosure – My Intention is War (Fig ii)

Octavian – Lit

Kerri Chandler – Yellow (GA Heal My Heart Edit)

NY STOMP – The NY House Trak

J.D. Reid – Toast

R.I.P Productions – Pick Me Up (Licenced Mix)

Sango - Me dê Amor 

Sam Wise – Lizzie