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Music

Nightmares on Wax Unveils a Treasure Trove of Old Mixtapes Recorded in His Mom's Living Room

Listen to the second installment of a series created between 1986-1997—offering a new portal into the pioneering producer's sampling techniques.
Photo courtesy of Warp Records.

Nightmares on Wax's

seminal 90s albums for Warp, like

Smoker's Delight

and his debut

A Word of Science

, offered a heavily soul-infused take on the trip-hop sound that was shaping the dance music landscape at the time. Shedding a bit of the gloomy electronics of pioneering groups like Massive Attack and Portishead, George Evelyn (Nightmares' real name) brewed up syrupy beats and succulent samples that were impossible resist. If you've never delved into his discography, now's probably a good time to

start

.

With his last full-length released in 2013, followed by a retrospective boxset of classics and remixes the year after, Evelyn's since turned most of his attention to DJing, and his Wax Da Jam residency in Ibiza remains one of the island's most loved nights after seven consecutive seasons. While he continues to spread his sound—a smooth mix of dub, latin, funk, and grooving house—to the masses, Evelyn's reached into his vaults to unveil a series of mixtapes dubbed The Now Experience. Recorded between 1986-1997 in his mom's living room in Leeds, Evelyn shares with THUMP over email that the tapes—many of them demos—were all cultivated with his original production crew, the ICL posse, on a four track cassette and sampler. "The mixtapes became the foundations of A Word of Science and Smoker's Delight, and I still reference back to them now and again for inspiration," he says. Check out the second installment in the series below for another look into one of dance music's most treasured minds.

Nightmares on Wax's

seminal 90s albums for Warp, like

Smoker's Delight

and his debut

A Word of Science

, offered a heavily soul-infused take on the trip-hop sound that was shaping the dance music landscape at the time. Shedding a bit of the gloomy electronics of pioneering groups like Massive Attack and Portishead, George Evelyn (Nightmares' real name) brewed up syrupy beats and succulent samples that were impossible resist. If you've never delved into his discography, now's probably a good time to

start

.


With his last full-length released in 2013, followed by a retrospective boxset of classics and remixes the year after, Evelyn's since turned most of his attention to DJing, and his Wax Da Jam residency in Ibiza remains one of the island's most loved nights after seven consecutive seasons. While he continues to spread his sound—a smooth mix of dub, latin, funk, and grooving house—to the masses, Evelyn's reached into his vaults to unveil a series of mixtapes dubbed The Now Experience. Recorded between 1986-1997 in his mom's living room in Leeds, Evelyn shares with THUMP over email that the tapes—many of them demos—were all cultivated with his original production crew, the ICL posse, on a four track cassette and sampler. "The mixtapes became the foundations of A Word of Science and Smoker's Delight, and I still reference back to them now and again for inspiration," he says. Check out the second installment in the series below for another look into one of dance music's most treasured minds.