Night Vision Vol 1 – MAN MAKE MUSIC

If your a regular reader of Take Flight Club you will know that our mix series features the best new up and coming producers. However with Night Vision, our new mix series we plan to shed light on our favourite promoters and club nights throughout the UK with a short interview and a guest mix. Our first mix comes from Man Make Music a collective who have built a fine reputation by ignoring the boundaries of musical genres. We caught up with the boys to find out what makes a Man Make Music night special, their favourite guests and how they were lucky to have friends living in a  warehouse in Hackney Wick. You can check the mix as well as the track listing and interview by clicking read more.

Who is Man Make Music?

Man Make Music was founded and is run by Nikhil Shah (Sketchy), Amit Gudka (Another Amit) and Sam Leon (Noel Mas), but it also includes a group of resident DJs and producers such as George Fitzgerald, Love&Mercy, and Murkules. Everyone does their bit at the parties, and in between.

How did MMM start and what was your ideas and motivations behind it, and did you have any clear influences in mind when you started the night?

We all used to DJ and run parties at University – mostly at the same venue. We had a lot of fun so once we hit London it felt like a natural progression to take our different musical interests, as well as a core crowd of mates, and take on the big city. To start with we did a night at a tiny bar with a capacity of 150 on Old Street, and when double that number turned up after a few texts we thought there might be something in it!

At that time (late 2006), dubstep was pretty fresh, we were experimenting with different types of 4/4 dance music and it felt like we had quite a unique blend of sounds which wasn’t really being done elsewhere. I guess the blurring of genres is everywhere now – not saying that we were pioneers or innovators or anything of the sort, but at the time it felt pretty fresh. There seemed to be links forming for a whole host of different musical genres – techno, house, garage, dubstep, jungle, dancehall, hip-hop, fidget etc – and we thought it would be interesting to run with all these sounds at once.

We were lucky with timing – we had an interconnected social group of like-minded people around London who wanted a big, unpretentious party. Facebook had just popped up and it made it easy to bring everyone together. We were also incredibly lucky to have some good friends from University living in a warehouse in Hackney Wick – so we had the perfect space to throw the insane parties where we first made our name. We owe a lot to Orazio and Alex!

How would u describe the MMM sound?

Bashy was a word that got bandied around a lot when we first got going. We’ve certainly still got a penchant for the bashy and bassy, but we’ve also gravitated to deeper waters recently. Let’s say tough, melodic, futuristic, and occasionally vocal!

Who would you say has been your favourite guest at MMM so far?

We always enjoy having Justin Martin down, he’s a a lot of fun and always make his mark on the party. For the first few nights we saw a lot of N-Type too, we had some particularly memorable moments at our first warehouse parties with him behind the decks.

Describe your MMM mix/what were you trying to portray with it?

Its a slightly deeper tech-house mix than usual (for us). We’re trying to give a sample of what us residents get up to on warm-up/ support duty at our regular night, every other month at the Star of Bethnal Green. After all the big room warehouse/ car-park/ club parties we’ve done (and which we still will be!), it felt like it was about time we had a regular, intimate home for all the MMM crowd to come and get their fix, without the commitment of a 6am finish. There is always a main-headliner, with MMM DJs warming up/ supporting, and its usually from a platform of some of these tunes that George, Love&Mercy or whoever else headlines will take things in their own direction. Our sound has become progressively housier and I guess this mix shows that.

What have been your finest moments running MMM?

Digesting what had happened after some of those Hackney Wick parties is always pretty memorable! Our room at Eastern Electrics back in May was pretty special too – the atmosphere was unbelievable. Most recently it has to be the New Years’ afterparty at the Star at 9am, with Love&Mercy and Justin Martin going b2b with all sorts of tropical re-edits and classic disco house… emotional times!

What are your future plans for MMM?

We want to build on the success of nights at the Star – they really feel like they reflect how the MMM crowd and ourselves have progressed. We’re planning a big one-off this year too, so watch this space! And i guess further down the line, the real ambition is to have a venue of our own. Man Make Space?

Man Make Music’s next event takes place on April 3rd at the Star of Bethnal Green, flyer above. Our next mix is from Cardiff’s finest, stay locked for further details.