Grime Auteur Mr. Mitch Breaks Down His 5 Key Influences

One of the central narratives running through the electronic underground in 2014 was the return, and subsequent abstraction, of grime—and London's Mr. Mitch is one of a few people at the forefront of twisting the sound into new and intriguing shapes, as evidenced by his new Planet Mu LP Parallel Memories, which explores the other, placid side of grime. Now, Mitch himself has shared a new mix, Parallel Parallel, taking some quite-familiar tunes and giving them the Parallel Memories treatment. As Mitch told FADER in an email, "It is called Parallel Parallels and it involves me blending some of my favourite RnB and pop vocals with some grime mutations." He's also broken down his five key sonic influences for us; check those out below.

1. Raymond Scott, "Lightworks"

I discovered Raymond Scott in my mid teens and I just got obsessed with the Manhattan Research Inc. This is probably the most well known of the collection but also my favourite, anytime I make a sound that resembles anything Raymond Scott would have made I feel like i've accomplished something.

2. Hot Chip, "Playboy"

I don't think I've ever sat down to listen to the lyrics properly so I don't even know what the songs about but this is another one that is one of my all time favourites because of the overall feel of the track. The ghostly chords and Alexis Taylors fragile falsetto voice, its just beautiful.

3. Portishead, "Roads"

Such emotion. It's songs like this that touch me the most and it's what channels through me when I make music.

4. Wiley, "Avalanche"

I was never I record collector as a kid, record shops always seemed like an intimidating place to me so I used to listen to previews of records online. Not many record shops really had much of an online presence back then but independance records had 30-60 second previews of everything. When I heard "Avalanche" for the first time it really took me somewhere else. It sounded so futuristic to me, the sounds, the off-kilter melodies, it stays with me.

5. Kwes, "Tissues"

Kwes and I went to the same school, he's a couple years older than me so we didnt really know each other at the time but in the myspace days we spoke a little about music. I loved this song from the moment I heard it, Kwes made me realise that I could do really unconventional things within conventional structures.