For most DJs, the thought of mixing Belinda Carlise into DJ Shadow or playing Lindsay Lohan over Daft Punk is not only sacrilege, it’s dancefloor suicide. If that’s the case, Sydney trio, The Impossibles, pull the trigger laughing on a weekly basis. “I think the purists hate us, but that’s alright,” explains Andrew Bell aka DJ Munkay. “It makes the breaks tunes we play a bit more interesting if you drop Green Day or a bit of, God forbid, Britney Spears,” says Heath Jansson, otherwise known as DJ Impact. “We do like to do something a little bit different, even if it is defined as a bit ‘batty’.” “But it’s not even,” refutes MC Adam ‘Forey’ Forster. “Because Lindsay Lohan is a serious artist with serious credibility. She’s tired of rumours starting, she’s sick of being followed.”
With their brazen mix of breaks and beats, The Impossibles have been “annoying chinstrokers” for almost two years now. Along the way, their ‘anything goes’ sets have seen them support breakbeat royalty like Atomic Hooligan, JDS and the Breakfastaz and earnt them two solid residencies. The first at Fuzzy’s now defunct club night Hijack put them on the map last year, and no doubt led to their current tenure at Chinese Laundry. Needless to say, it gives these mad scientists plenty of time for new experiments. “I think it comes down to our lack of attention span,” explains Jansson. “We’ll start playing something and two minutes in, we’ll be like ‘I’m bored now and I want to change it’.”
This type of DJ ADD has played an integral part in the evolution of The Impossibles. Jansson, the elder statesman of the group at 31 (as the others like to remind him), had been hosting a Pulse Radio internet show, ‘Lunacy’, in his lounge room since 2000. Tired of rolling solo, he asked Bell, 24, to join him two years ago and the two quickly became sonic sparring partners. “After playing individual sets, we started going back-to-back,” recounts Jansson. “Soon we got bored of that too, so we started throwing tracks at one another just as a challenge to see who could play the most fucked up track and mix into it. Then we started mixing over one another and eventually, we got to the stage where we are now. This was all over three or four months.”
Luckily for Forey, Bell’s school friend of 12 years, they got restless again and recruited him as their MC. Their first show out was a DJ comp at Sydney’s swish Peppermint Lounge where they unleashed their first live set, which turned out to be far more intimate than expected. “It was the first and only experience where I’ve been mixing with someone and also spooning them as the same time,” laughs Bell. “The eternal problem with us is that DJ booths are made for one person in Sydney.” “It got to the stage where Bell was standing in front and I was just mixing from behind,” recounts Jansson. “We shared headphones too, which was hilarious.” By all reports, they deserved the first prize of a club residency but alas, they played mostly breaks and the club played house.
These days, you can find The Impossibles packing out the Slip Inn’s new breaks hotspot, Break Inn, every Friday. They’ve been residents there since January and had the pleasure of playing the first ever set on opening night. The response surprised even themselves. “As soon as the doors opened at 11, people just flooded in. Playing the early set, you never really expect it to be full, but 10 minutes in, the place was packed,” says Bell. It proved too much for Forey, who stacked in mid-set and ended up on his back for three days afterwards. “Everyone was really enthusiastic. So I started the showpony thing, headbanging and jumping round – and over-extended. Then I was down,” he recounts. A mate of ours who was there is a chiropractor, had a quick look and said ‘you’ve fucked your back. Go home and rest.’” “The actual pathetic thing is we didn’t even know until we left,” says Bell.
The lads may have recently pulled the plug on their radio show, but The Impossible ethos it gave birth to shows no signs of fading. Nine Inch Nails, System of a Down, even Mozart and the cheerleader chant from ‘Bring It On’ (“I’m sexy / I’m cute / I’m popular to boot…”) – all of them have been dropped into the Impossibles breakbeat blender of late. “Back in the days of Lunacy, we used to drop in random stuff just to piss the other one off in the mix,” explains Bell. ‘Like ‘here you go, get out of this!’ That just grew and we’re not afraid to do it in clubs.”
So how do they explain sampling the Crazy Frog? Surely even the most indiscriminate DJ wouldn’t touch that one. Bell explains: “It was only a little loop of it – the ‘baa baa’. I started it off at the normal speed and slowed it down and kept adding reverb so it basically became a bassline. Then Heath dropped a beat over it and it worked!” “I’ve got to give Andrew props on this because I was so against him putting it in the set, but it actually sounded good,” says Jansson incredulously. “I love giving Heath the shits. That’s my role in the group I think – to get the most annoying thing possible and make it work so he hates me.”
With a shit-stirring attitude like that, it’s no surprise The Impossibles can’t wait to spend more time writing their own tunes. “We’ve done the whole remixes and bootleg thing so now we’re moving into our own original stuff,” says Jansson. I think bootlegging’s just a good excuse to get familiar with the technology to write as well.” “The way we approach original work is really no different to how we approach our mixing,” says Bell. “We’d consider a duet with Lindsay Lohan if she’s up for it and started eating again. We’re talking to her people…”
The Impossibles play Break Inn at Slip Inn every Friday. For more info and downloadable mix sets check out http://www.theimpossibles.com.au.
