Get to know Tee Mango

Music subcultures are often as defined by fashion as they are by sound, and few people marry these worlds as well as Tom Mangan. The Londoner’s Millionhands brand has designed clothing with some of the coolest names in music such as R&S and Planet E, while its record label offshoot houses a wealth of mystical tracks including Canadian psych-rock group Brasstronaut trying their hand at disco.

Prince’s ‘Purple Rain’ video got Mangan hooked on music and fashion as a kid. He would raid his mum’s wardrobe for “anything with shoulder pads”, taking his first steps as a selector by choosing tunes to soundtrack his parents’ dinner parties, picking everything from Balearica to soul.

Studying music technology at Kingston University helped develop his production skills, setting him up for a career that has seen him release on labels such as Bedrock and rather bizarrely produce for a Chinese show-tunes artist. “He wanted to sing as if he were in Cats, while we put an arpeggiated synth underneath. It was a very strange session,” Mangan says.

Fourteen years on from his debut, Mangan’s newest project Tee Mango is his finest work yet. Through the Theo Parrish-inspired, vinyl-only ‘Tribute’ EP series he’s shown a flair for creating magical, disco-tinged tracks, each of the four instalments selling out rapidly. “It now feels like I’m making the music that’s going on in my head,” he says.

Debut LP ‘Imperfections Vol 1’ arrives this month packed with warmly textured tracks, and work on a follow-up is underway with The Invisible set to collaborate. Tee Mango proves without doubt that there’s beauty in imperfection.

‘Imperfections Vol 1’ is out on Millionhands BLK now

Patrick Hinton is Mixmag's Digital Intern, follow him on Twitter