Ursula 1000

Ursula 1000 is a stylish American DJ who spins (and produces) sampladelic easy listening breakbeat tracks in a style similar to continental popsters from Pizzicato Five to Dimitri from Paris. Born Alex Gimeno, he was raised in Miami, where he studied commercial art and owned an underground comic-book store before joining the local band 23 as a drummer. Determined to make some money from his enormous record collection, Gimeno soon fused his fanatical love of music and pop culture to birth Ursula 1000. He bought turntables and a mixer, learned to spin, and began DJing at both a local college station and Miami nightclubs, recording along the way as well. After becoming a fixture -- as both DJ and drummer -- in the Miami scene for nearly a decade, Gimeno relocated to New York City to further both his mixing and production career. After negotiations with Island's Palm Pictures broke down, Gimeno signed to the Eighteenth Street Lounge label run by D.C.'s Thievery Corporation, which became the outlet for virtually all of his releases. From 1999 through 2009, he issued four studio albums (1999's The Now Sound of Ursula 1000, 2002's Kinda' Kinky, 2005's Here Comes Tomorrow, 2009's Mystics), a remix set (2007's Undressed ...Remixed), and a pair of mix albums (2000's All Systems Are Go Go and 2004's Ursadelica). His 2011 release Mondo Beyondo featured rapper Ms. G and vocalists Fred Schneider of the B-52’s and Thievery Corporation’s Natalia Clavier. While his sound became increasingly heavy and more dancefloor-oriented, his sense of genre-mashing playfulness never waned. ~ John Bush, Rovi