Mr Mischief - Kissy Sell Out

The bundle of energy that is giggling down the phone is recounting the perils of snowboarding misadventures. “I'm not like one of these French guys that can do double back twists. When I was younger I used to go roller-skating a lot and I could do all kinds of things, but these days, you know if you fall over it hurts now. I remember when I was a kid if I fell over and hurt my shin I'd just carry on. But now I think 'fuck that shit! I'm going for a fucking pint! I'll go for a Fanta indoors and watch TV!’”

The delivery is pure Woody Woodpecker, all mischievous laughter and hungry intent, but the voice is unmistakably Kissy Sell Out - toxic remixer, Radio 1 DJ and now curator of the snowbombing bash, Tignes; literally one of the coolest festivals in Europe.

It’s no surprise that Kissy is a freak for snowboarding. Listening to his late night Radio 1 show feels like hurtling down a glacier with a massive grin while he throws an eclectic snowball of club classics, mash-ups and rabid mixes of the likes of Bat For Lashes and Little Boots at you. Amazingly, for a show that is delivered at breakneck speed, with Kissy’s enthusiastic passion and ear for a ridiculously great tune, he never crashes and burns, leaving that for the actual boarding.

“Yeah, I got taken down by the blood ambulance once,” he says, recounting one messy episode. “I broke my nose going through some trees. I went off a big hill that was very steep, like a mini cliff, and my board hit the ground first and my body kind of followed and I smacked my face, I cracked my goggles and my goggles went into my face and cut goggle marks into my face.” He quickly pauses, and you can practically see the laughter swelling up in him. “And that's why my nose is so big! Hahhhhahaha!”

Mixing two of his favourite passions - snowboarding by day and über-cool new music by night – Kissy jumped at the opportunity of booking some of his favourite new acts like Black Peter Group and Jackbeats for Tignes. More boutique and intimate than the much larger Snowbombing Festival, Kissy compares the vibe to the hectic fun of Camdem Crawl, just high-up in the French Alps rather than the dim-lit streets of North London. And it’s all free.

Curating alongside fellow devotee of new music, Eddy Temple-Morris, has fired Kissy up, yet he finds it frustrating that there’s a lack of similar events showcasing fledgling artists. “The thing that I've got in common with Eddy Temple-Morris is we both actively look for unsigned music. We both get a kick out of finding something really cool. I suppose when we looked around at other festivals it kind of - I mean I've always thought this - I've always just wondered why there isn't more stuff like this happening, more unsigned stuff. I mean most of the really good tracks I play come from unsigned artists. So I think it's a really good idea to actually have a festival that's based on that entire idea.”