United Kingdom · happy-hardcore · hardcore

Gammer

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British producer who kept happy hardcore alive through its unfashionable decade, then found a Monstercat audience willing to go that fast.

Gammer is Matthew Lee, an English producer and DJ born on 1 October 1985, who first appeared in the UK hardcore scene in 2002. He began as a hard dance producer before moving into hardcore, and a track called "Go" caught the attention of Andy Whitby, who signed him to the AWsum label.

He came up through the British rave scene of the 2000s, releasing much of his work through the Essential Platinum label alongside its founder Dougal, and playing the raves that kept the tempo alive after happy hardcore fell out of wider fashion. He also runs his own label, Muffin Music, founded in 2007, and co-founded the label Together We Rise.

His records sit around 170 BPM and upward: pitched vocal hooks, four-on-the-floor kicks, breakdowns built for singing along. His 2006 track "A New Feeling" won Song of the Year at the Hardcore Heaven Awards, and he was named Hardcore DJ of the Year multiple times between 2008 and 2012, an award he shared with Dougal in 2010.

The later run on Monstercat, including tracks such as "Party Don't Stop" and "Over the Edge" and the EP The Drop, brought him to an audience that arrived through dubstep and hard dance rather than through UK rave. He has worked with artists from that world, including Kayzo and Riot Ten, alongside longstanding hardcore peers such as Darren Styles and Dougal.

Live, he tends toward fast mixing and heavy use of edits and mashups rather than long, patient blends. In 2021 he began releasing singles from a debut full-length album through Dim Mak Records, including collaborations with Fatman Scoop, Riot Ten, and Staysick and Nytrix.

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