MIDFIELD GENERAL

Midfield General is the DJ/Production alter-ego of Damian Harris and this April sees the release of his second album General Disarray, a mere 8 years after the release of his debut album, Generalisation in 2000........................................................ ............................................................ .................In 2005, after 11 years running Brighton’s Skint Records, Damian realised that he was much happier in the studio then behind a desk and decided to leave his full time role at the company in order to concentrate on making music again. Seeking inspiration, and in a bid to rejuvenate his passion for music, which, by his own admission had been slowly ground down by the music business, Harris moved to Paris... partly because it rhymed, but mainly to finish his ridiculously delayed second album....................................................... ...............So, with a laptop full of samples and a mini keyboard he set off on the afternoon London beat Paris in the bid for the 2012 Olympics to spend a year immersed in music-making and fun. The year previously Damian had been over to license a record from Ed Banger Records and he was kindly taken under their wing when he arrived. As part of the cultural exchange program he went out a lot, smoked fags and took looks lots of pictures. He taught them how to swear in English while they taught him how to chop up audio files properly.................................................... ............................................................ ............................................................ ..The love-in extended to Damian remixing Krazy Baldheads’ track Crazy Moth3f2ck8z. He also took on the Executive Producer role for Justice’s single D.A.N.C.E. and in return Xavier De Rosnay helped produce the forthcoming single Disco Sirens...................................................... ............................................................ ......................................…................... ............................................................ ................................Finished back in Brighton, the album is a collage of Damian’s production and a very varied set of vocal collaborations. After an early career appearance on Generalisation, Noel Fielding from the Mighty Boosh returns to tell one of his surreal adventures over a dirty funk track. .......................Actor Ralph Brown features on the track Teddy Bear, which revisits the curious truck driving CB radio Country hit by Red Sovine that tells a tale of a young crippled boy over a melancholy soundtrack........... Disco Sirens, the first single from the album, features vocals from Vila of the Bumblebeez and production and mix help from Xavier De Rosnay from Justice and Soulwax....... Elsewhere Robots In Disguise, 70’s soul singer Pat Stalworth, and excitable Dutch football commentator Jack Van Gelder also appear.............. The album manages to contain leftfield pop, hip hop, cinematic epics, house, techno and soul, yet still sound like a cohesive and personal album, taking in Paris, Tokyo, Moscow, New York and Whitstable along the way…........................................ ............................................................ ............................................................ .......................................Damian moved to Brighton in 1989 to do a Fine Art degree. Although enthusiastic at his coursework it was in Brighton’s nightclubs and record shops that he was learning the most. After being rejected by the conceptual art world, he started Skint Records as an offshoot of Loaded Records in 1994. Kicking off with Santa Cruz by Fatboy Slim, the label has gone on to release a broad spectrum of music including The Lo Fidelity Allstars, X-Press 2, Goose, Kidda, Alloy Mental, Dave Clarke, Freq Nasty, Alter Ego, Super_Collider, Lucky Jim, Tiga, and International Pony........................................................ ............................................................ ..............................................In 1996 he started a club night, called The Big Beat Boutique. He thought it would be nice to have somewhere for himself, Norman Cook and other Skint artists and DJs to play the records they where putting out... and of course they were just copying the Heavenly Social.... The club enjoyed an amazing time in the sun, playing host to some truly memorable nights, special guest spots and live performances, and also spawned the On The Floor At The Boutique mix series. The third of which was Damian's own, where he tried very hard to show the club wasn't just about Big Beat by gluing together his own personal Boutique favourites of soul, hip hop, drum'n'bass, house, techno, breaks and some old jazz funk records..... The Boutique went across the country and the world with memorable residencies at The End, Fabric and Heaven with Bugged Out......................................................... .............................Damian's DJ career started at the seminal Whitstable Labour Club, and went on to the giddy heights of Canterbury Art College, The Coco Club at The Zap in Brighton, The Heavenly Social, Bugged Out, Reading, Glastonbury and various places around the world. In the summer of 2002 he toured Japan during the World Cup and then came back to open up the Big Beach Boutique where, as he likes to constantly remind his ‘electroclash’ friends, he played to 250,000 people on Brighton Beach. All of them there just to see him......................................................... ......................The first Midfield General artist release was in 1995; a double A-sided 12" Bung / Worlds which was a kinda electro, hip hop thing. For his second release he ‘invented’ Nu-Skool breaks with a track called Go Off. After tarting around remixing lots of indie bands, he finally released his first album Generalisation in June 2000. The critically acclaimed album was a mixture of styles, from sweet soul to banging techno but all with Damian’s distinct style. It featured collaborations with Linda Lewis on the track Reach Out, a track called Midfielding featuring a pre-Mighty Boosh Noel Fielding and Coatnoise which was mixed to devastating effect by Dave Clarke...................................