DT850 - Ben Gomori - Data Transmission

To celebrate our 850th Podcast in our 15th Birthday year, I thought I’d invite back our very first editor Ben Gomori to join The Podcast series!

London-based DJ, producer, label owner and promoter Ben Gomori has a long and varied career in dance music, stretching from illegal raves in ﬁelds in his birthplace Cambridge through residencies at some of London’s most legendary clubs to some of the biggest venues and festivals in the world. He plays an eclectic, inimitable mix of house, disco, electro, afro, acid, garage, tirelessly digging for lesser-known gems from the past through his RecordReplay bargain bin vinyl radio show (Balamii, Soho Radio) and seamlessly ﬁtting them alongside the sounds of today, sprinkled with his own acclaimed edits and productions and a high-energy mixing style.

Owner of the highly-rated Monologues Records and G-Edits labels, he also curated and produced edits for hugely popular African music reworks label Sterns Edits. He also runs Pitchblack Playback, a series of album and DJ mixtape listening sessions in the dark, of which Rick Rubin said “this sounds great” and Jamiroquai’s Jay Kay said was “a fabulous idea”. Currently a resident for Pleasurehood, XOYO’s ﬂagship Saturday night event, he has also played regularly at Berlin’s hallowed Sisyphos since 2019.

Thinking back he might have done a mix in a very early part of the series, where he brought records for £10 from a charity shop to make a mix, I’d need to back through Mixcloud to see.

Today, he joins us on the podcast. Listen to it below, on Mixcloud or iTunes here.

Data Transmission · DT850 – Ben Gomori

Sum up this podcast in 10 words…
A trip back to 2008; the year Data Transmission launched.

What’s your personal favourite track on it?
I think Joris Voorn’s remix of Robert Babicz’s Magnolia is an absolutely stunning piece of music that really stands the test of time. I have a very vivid memory of being high as kite hearing Sven Väth play it in the dance moat at EXIT Festival that year… mindblowing!

What’s the special ingredient in this mix?
Time, and my lived experience. These tracks have aged like fine wines and having some distance from them has made my appreciation for them grow stronger. 2008 was a big year for me: I helped launch DT as its first editor, and everything I have in my career followed from there. It was an exciting time to be clubbing and DJing in London, with minimal house & techno, dubstep & grime, electro house, nu rave and the disco revival all vying for our attention, making it a genuinely exciting time to be involved in music. This mix reflects a little of all of those trends, and looking back it was an excellent year for dance music. Lots of big labels, artists and sounds that are still around today blew up that year. There are some bangers I’m definitely going to be bringing back into rotation here that I forgot about! So many great memories in here. I remember hearing Todd Terje play Pryda ‘F12’ at a Krankbrother day party in West London and thinking, and having my head blown off by hearing Chiristian Smith & John Selway ‘Total Departure’ at Mobilee’s roof party at Sonar…

Tell us about your next EP?‘
Overstimulation Generation’ is coming out on my Monologues Records label on November 24. It’s a weird sort of blend of electro house and garage but hopefully it works. I’ll let y’all be the judge of that! I’m also dropping a remix I’ve done for Jacana People & Anthony Szmierek on Bandcamp this month…

What have you got coming up?
A little Yazoo edits 12″ on Stamp Records alongside Josh Ludlow from Make A Dance and Pigeon, a big beefy club track on Faith featuring New York drag/ballroom legend Kevin Aviance (as sampled by Beyoncé!), and I’ll be dropping some festive edits of some pop classics as a Christmas present.
Gigs coming up at XOYO and Night Tales in London, Kings in Dundee and working on some dates in Manchester, San Francisco, New York, Cluj-Napoca and Budapest which will hopefully be firmed up soon.

Then I’m monthly on Balamii with my RecordReplay bargain bin vinyl show, and working slowly on an album…

And finally, do you have a special message for our readers?
Big up to yourselves for supporting DT over the years! My time editing the site brought me lots of happy memories and great connections and I’m glad it’s still going strong.

Oh and get yourself some hearing protection. I’ve had tinnitus since I was 18 and fortunately have been protecting myself as a result since and don’t have any hearing loss, but everyone should act before it happens to them.

If you’re a musician you can get pro earplugs from £50 including moulding via Help Musicians’ scheme, otherwise, they’ll cost you about £150 which is worth it considering how valuable your hearing is. You can get some perfectly good ones for £20 if you’re a clubber and can’t afford the pro option. Just get SOMETHING!

Tracklist

Hercules & Love Affair – Blind (Frankie Knuckles Remix)
Risk Soundsystem – The Sounds Is Yours (Kerri Chandler Instrumental Remix)
Stimming H.O.S.H. – Radar (Original)
Jon Da Silva – Just Want U 2 Dance
Kabale und Liebe Daniel Sanchez – Mumbling Yeah (Loco Dice Tribute) [Remote Area]
Kevin_Saunderson_Just_Want_Another_Chance_John_Tejada_Remix
BURIAL – Archangel (Boy 8-Bit Simple Remix)
Claude VonStroke x Peaches x Jesse Rose – Whistle While You Fuck (Ben Gomori Bootlegedit)
Sébastien Léger & Chris Lake – Word
Surkin – Next Of Kin (Todd Edwards Re-Kindled Mix)
Sébastien Léger & Chris Lake – Ghost
Pryda – F12
Robert Babicz – Dark Flower (Joris Voorn Magnolia Mix)
Deadmau5 – Alone With You
Christian Smith – Flyertalk
Christian Smith & John Selway – Total Departure

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Grahame Farmer

Grahame Farmer’s love affair with electronic music goes back to the mid-90s when he first began to venture into the UK’s beloved rave culture, finding himself interlaced with some of the country’s most seminal club spaces. A trip to dance music’s anointed holy ground of Ibiza in 1997 then cemented his sense of purpose and laid the foundations for what was to come over the next few decades of his marriage to the music industry.