Seeds Mix #5: Openmind’s “Leave your phone at home & discover paradise after a forage in the forest”

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Music

Telepathic Fish co-founder DJ Food, aka one part of Openmind, takes us on a trip into the world of 90s chill out.

Strictly Kev likes the company of plants when he’s working on music… so that’s handy for us isn’t it?! We’re assuming he’s talking about a beautiful Calathea sitting in the corner for inspiration, tho his dream plant setup – a conservatory packed with Romanesco broccoli, trippy Caladiums, and Persian Shields – is something we’d be well on board with too.

Enough of the plant talk for a second and back to the music, ambient music to be clear. For those that weren’t squatting in South London back in the early 90s, Openmind were the four-piece behind the mighty Telepathic Fish – the legendary ambient afterparty that transformed chill-out rooms from dub-playing afterthoughts into proper destinations.

Kev, along with Chantal Passamonte (Mira Calix, RIP), David Vallade, and Mario Aguera, started in a shared house above a shop with no neighbours to complain/bash the door down. What began as art school parties quickly grew into Sunday afternoon sessions in squatted venues – a former dole office in Brixton and even the derelict Roundhouse on New Year’s Day. They hosted everyone from Aphex Twin to Mixmaster Morris among wall-to-wall mattresses, UV installations, and Coldcut’s Matt Black with his boundary pushing video projections.

The idea was simple: recreate that post-clubbing comedown vibe but on a massive scale, as an “aural and visual blanket” for club-rattled minds. They even published a fanzine called Mindfood and worked at the scene’s hub, Ambient Soho record shop, helping shape what Simon Reynolds called a “wombeldelic sound-and-light bath” in contrast to the current trend of hardcore and it’s relentless assault.

Thirty years on, that spirit’s having a comeback. Events like London’s A Loose Ting are bringing back the bedding and the hushed reverence, while Berlin’s Overflow is going full sensory overload with vibrating mattresses, fountains, and harpists. New York’s Planetarium gatherings have people mostly horizontal, inspired by psychedelic therapy sessions. There’s even and ambient sauna in South London you might have come across via the wonder of Music To Watch Seeds Grow By’s recent takeover. Our very own Watching Trees dabbled in said chill out space this year, pairing the abstract and the ambient with projected dappled sunlight visuals from the mighty Jamie House. Turns out people still need those little havens away from the madness, especially in this day and age!

Also handily 30 years on the Openmind crew have just compiled the first-ever Telepathic Fish retrospective for Fundamental Frequencies – a double vinyl love letter to those hazy early-90s mornings when the music finally slowed down.

For this Seeds Mix, Kev has leaned into his love of minimalism and systems music – repetition built from layers of loops offset against each other to form subtle polyrhythms. There’s a deliberate avoidance of drum machines here in favour of organic percussion, and around the eight-minute mark, a section from Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia that captures the feeling of being deep in the forest, phone abandoned, discovering that paradise was just a forage away.

Living on the third floor without a garden might limit his horticultural ambitions for now, but there are plans afoot for a dedicated psychedelic garden somewhere down the line. Until then, there’s this mix – 90 minutes of patient, slowly unfolding ambient music that asks very little of you except that you sit still long enough to let something grow.

The Telepathic Fish compilation is out now Fundamental Frequencies.

There’s also a dedicated Telepathic Fish Insta now

Listen and read the interview below:

Ransom Note · Seeds Mix #5: Openmind’s look at the stars, surrender to the void and ‘float downstream’.

Who are you?

I’m Strictly Kev aka DJ Food aka Openmind. I’ve DJ’d for four decades now, been a part of the Ninja Tune label for over three as an artist / designer and I write stuff occasionally too. The latter pseudonym used to be my DJ name pre-Ninja and I’ve also used it for my design work for the past 30 years.

Why are you here?

When a man and a woman love each other very much… Seriously, it’s a long series of hard work and fortuitous meetings that’s brought me to be writing these words at this very moment. The specific reason for this mix and questionnaire is the Telepathic Fish compilation I co-compiled with my fellow Openmind compadres, Mario Aguera and David Vallade. A selection of ambient tracks we used to play at the chill out parties we hosted under this name alongside fellow flatmate Chantal Passamonte (RIP) back in the early 90s when we all shared a house together.

Do you consider the emotional connection humans have with nature when creating music?

Honestly, no. I’m usually too busy wrestling with whatever technology I’m trying to create music with. Nature can come into the picture later when the music is being ‘consumed’.

When are you happiest?

When I’m creating something or experiencing the creativity of others. Also laughing at absurd comedy or combing carboot sales or collections of ephemera.

How do you approach creating music that mirrors the slow, steady rhythm of plant growth?

I’m a lover of minimalism and what some call ‘systems music’, slowly evolving repetition that builds over sustained periods by small shifts or rearrangements in timing. My favourite means of creating this is by building layers of loops then offsetting them against each other so that they form subtle polyrhythms.

What did you grow in your garden this year?

Sadly I don’t have a garden, I live on the third floor and any window boxes I’ve attempted over the years are sorely lacking. I have a couple of cacti and that’s about it but I have plans to move to somewhere with a dedicated space to curate a psychedelic garden.

What role does silence or pauses play in evoking the growth process in your music?

Silence and space in composition requires nerve and I have a tendency to overload things and fill in space. I’ve recognised this and now try to take things away or slow the pace rather than add more. I recently left about five seconds of black screen in the middle of a video mix, it was intentional and it works in context but the normal reaction to something like that would be that it was a mistake.

Have you ever used music or other sensory experiences while tending to your plants?

No, but I’ve used plants while tending to my music.

Congrats, you’ve won the plant lottery! You can choose anything you want, what is it?

A conservatory full of Caladiums, Canna, Persian Shields, Rex Begonia, Amaranthus Tricolor, Purple Oxalis,

Begonia Maculata, Fittonia, Calathea, Romanesco broccoli and a mix of Dahlias.

What instruments or sounds do you evoke the feeling of nature and growth most effectively?

Percussion, the sound of wood on a natural surface, organic rather than synthetic, definitely no drum machines. There is a section in the mix that perfectly evokes nature to me with this method on a track by the Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia, it starts around the eight minute mark.

If you were a plant what would you be and why?

Maybe a Liberty Cap that could be found, consumed and create a memorable experience in the mind, a bit like a mixtape.

Tracklist:

Sylvian & Czukay – Plight (The Spiralling of Winter Ghosts) excerpt 1
Marshall McLuhan – What’s That Buzz?
Exquisite Corpse – One
Vernon Elliot – The Clangers Intro & Dialogue
Steve Halpern – Cosmological Eye
The Beatles – Tomorrow Never Knows (acappella)
Ecstasy Orchestra – Paradise
Ongaku – Mihon #2 (intro)
Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia – Obsidian (Deconstructure intro sounds)
Louise Huebner – Seduction Through Witchcraft (excerpt 1)
Paul Horn – Shah Jahan
MLO – Wimborne (Original Mix)
Louise Huebner – Seduction Through Witchcraft (excerpt 2)
The Orb – Star 6 & 789 (intro)
Group Modular – Lonely Pylon
Hypnotone – God C.P.U. (acappella)
Mergener / Weisser – Sunbeam
Global Communication – Ob-Selon Mi-Nos / 14:31
Todd Rundgren – Born To Synthesise
Jamie Lidell – Multiply The Voices
Vangelis – Blade Runner Blues
Ken Nordine – What Time Is It?
Scritti Politti – Absolute (acappella)
Slowly – On The Loose (Autechre Remix)
Sandoz – White Darkness
Tangerine Dream – Phaedra
The 7th Plain – Boundaries
The Shamen – Re:Evolution (a cappella)
Vapourspace – Gravitational Arch of 10 (intro/outro)
Paul Horn – Prologue/Inside
Sylvian & Czukay – Plight (The Spiralling of Winter Ghosts) excerpt 2
Yoshinori Sunahara – Journey To The Stars (excerpt)
David Sylvian – Answered Prayers
Grace Jones – The Crossing (ooh the action)
This Mortal Coil – Ive & Neet
Bill Nelson – Calling Heaven, Calling Heaven, Over (acappella)
The KLF – Waiting (excerpt)
Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Warriors (Return intro)
This Mortal Coil – Heart of Glass
Bill Nelson – Gnosis
Meat Beat Manifesto – Pot Sounds (intro)
The Future – Last Man On Earth
Meat Beat Manifesto – The Sphere