First gig of the new year and it’s only 3 weeks away! I’ll be doing some sort of AV DJ set at this on the 24th, possibly the O Is For Orange set or variation of. Funki tells me it will be a loose multimedia kind of vibe with workshops, Q&A with artists and performance. Tickets here
As is the custom on this blog, Dec 31st heralds my personal favourites of the year in various categories, leaving it until the last moment to make sure as much gets caught in the net before we flip to 2026. Despite the horrors we experience through the media daily, 2025 was a bit of a vintage year for me personally with new work and family milestones reached despite the hardships all around us. This year has been hugely productive and I’ve released a few things, designed a lot and contributed to several big projects that I’m super proud of. The Autumn was dominated by the Telepathic Fish compilation, something that out-performed our expectations by some way and rumbled into the winter months, making several end of year lists to our delight.
This is not the last word on the Fish…
Music:
Snapped Ankles – Hard Times Furious Dancing LP (the Leaf Label)
clipping. – Dead Channel Sky LP (Sub Pop)
Paten Locke – Dance On My Grave LP (Full Plate)
Hieroglyphic Being – Dance Music 4 Bad People LP (Smalltown Supersound)
Hieroglyphic Being – RE-SELECTED PSYBIENT JAZZ SOUNDSCAPES VOL. 1+2 (Mathematics)
Move 78 – Game Four LP (self-released)
Marshall Jefferson – Yellow Meditation For The Dance Generation (Joakim’s Horizontal Remix Instrumental) (Utter)
Stereolab – Instant Holograms On Metal Film LP (Warp/Duophonic)
Telefax Productions – Break This House Down 12″ (Classic Music Company)
Coastal County – II LP (Lomas Productions)
Kif Productions – Still Out LP (Sound Records)
Move 78 – In The Age of Data (self-released)
Group Modular – The Tunnel / Lonely Pylon 7″ (Delights)
Jo Johnson – Alterations vol.1 LP (Silver Threads)
Podcasts:
What Went Wrong?
Some Assembly Required
Tales From A Disappearing City
The Bureau of Lost Culture
What Did You Do Yesterday?
Oh God What Now?
Rule of Three
The Adam Buxton Podcast
We Buy Records
The Fanzine Podcast
Gigs / Events / Exhibitions:
Eno and Anne B @ the British Library, London
Mick Jones’ RRPL @ The Farsight Gallery, London
Visiting Neil Rice’s home with friends for a personal light show display
Linder Sterling @ The Hayward, London
Leigh Bowery @ The Tate Modern, London
Strangely Familiar – Photographer’s Gallery, London
The Dream House, East Dulwich, London
Future Language of the Ikonoklast book launch @ Greyhound Pub, Peckham
My 2hr gig turning into 3 hours @ Cabron Bar, Folkestone
The Epic Story of Graffiti, Birmingham
Telepathic Fish launch party @ Arch555, London
The Jonny Halifax Invocation play Ravi Shankar, Mildmay Club, London
Beautify Junkyards @ Waiting Rooms, London
The closing of the Penge street art gallery, London
Barry Kamen @ Graces Mews, London
Obey/Hirst/Invader – Newport Street Gallery, London
Welcome To The Pleasuredome LP Atmos playback @ L-Acoustic studios, London then pub visit with the Universal team + Holly and Ped!
Furrowed residency @ Rose Hill Tavern, Brighton
Factory Floor and Sculpture @ Simple Things festival, Bristol
The Audiovisual Assembly, @ Bath House, Hackney Wick, London
Packaging / Design:
Got to say, I’ve been a bit underwhelmed by a lot of the design I’ve seen this year, not a lot stood out. The fashion seems to be either surrealist photography in an attempt to ape Hypngosis or terrible painting. Typography on front covers is the exception rather than the rule. I thought maybe I’d just not been paying attention but googling a bunch of ‘best covers of 2025’ lists only reinforced my opinion. It’s all subjective though isn’t it? I didn’t see much if any AI in the lists which is good.
Various Artists – Rave Wars: The Acid Awakens 7″ + Star Wars figure (Rave Wars)
Field Lines Cartographer – Apeiron Anxiety LP (Castles In Space)
Drumetrics – DRB 001 4×5″ records in etched box
Kid Koala – Carpal Tunnel Syndrome reissue LP + flexi disc (Ninja Tune)
Krash Slaughta – B-Boy Mastamind 7″ (Krash Slaughta Records)
Sully – Model Collapse etched 12″ (Fabric Live)
Drumetrics – Drumetronome tablet
ES – Planet Beyond – Selected Cuts Vol.1 LP (Ruiger)
Artists:
Kurt Jackson (above)
Ray Tijssen aka 0010×0010
Odeith
Chris Bigg
Oritoor
Toor Pentel
Books / Magazines / Comics:
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Cartoonist – Adrian Tomine (Faber)
UltraMega – James Harren (Image)
Bowling With Corpses – Mike Mignola (Dark Horse)
Robot Tod – Farel Dal (Floating World Comics)
Absolute Martian Manhunter – Camp/Rodriguez (DC)
OK Okapi – Martin Andersen & Chris Bigg
Future Language of the Ikonoklast (Velocity Press)
The Editor’s Cut – David McDonald (Hibernia Books)
Absolute Batman – Snyder/Dragotta/Martin (DC)
Heatwave – John L. Williams (Monoray)
The Absence – Rian Hughes (Unpublished)
A Humument – Tom Phillips (Thames & Hudson) (A late but important discovery)
Granny Takes A Trip – Paul Gorman (White Rabbit)
Bedetruite – Samplerman (LDC)
The Absence – Budgie (White Rabbit)
Face The Music – Paul Stanley
Stephen Stapleton – The Formless Irregular (Timeless)
The Vaughan Oliver Archive (Unit Editions)
Instant Public Art – Ulrich Blanché (Arthistoricum.net) Read here:
Plunderphonics – Matthew Blackwell (Bloomsbury Academic)
Film / TV:
I just have to admit it, I really don’t watch much film or TV and what I see doesn’t do much for me evidently. I did see the Beautiful Losers documentary from 2008 and like it though.
Another year over and what have I done?
Designed the Cobalt 60 LP release for Ollie Teeba & Jonny Cuba
Played at the closing of When Spaceships Appear record shop
Co-compiled and designed the Telepathic Fish compilation, booklet, Float III mixtape and Mindfood 5 fanzine for Fundamental Frequencies
Released the 20th anniversary cassette Raiding the 20th Century Expanded version on Delic Records
Continued my Electrik Collage radio show until April then paused to rethink
Designed the Dan Curtin ‘The 4 Lights’ album for De:tuned
Released the Locked Loop Group 8″ lathe cut zoetrope with Acid Lathe
Designed The Herbaliser Band’s ‘Rehearsal Session’ album
Contributed heavily to the 40th anniversary boxset for Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s ‘Welcome To The Pleasuredome’.
Collaborated with Al White on the Terrace ‘Branches’ LP design for De:tuned
Logo design and branding for OTA Recordings
Provided guest mixes for Oonops Drops on Brooklyn Radio and the 45 Live show on Dublab
Appeared on the Cheap Digs podcast with Moz, the Tales From A Disappearing City podcast with Controlled Weirdness, the Skinny E Media show with Mark, the Do!!You!!! Breakfast show with Charlie Bones and The Bureau of Lost Culture podcast.
Supported the Orb on a few dates of their UK tour
Held an exhibition of Openmind artwork at the Cabron Bar in Folkestone, then also Upside Down Records, Deptford
Contributed a track on the Rave Wars: The Acid Awakens 7″
Held a release party for the Telepathic Fish album at Arch555 in Brixton with Mixmaster Morris, Matt Black and KiF Productions
Taken charge of both the Orion and Pluto lighting archives Larry Wooden (RIP) and Micky Thompson (RIP) from respectively
Revived & updated my O Is For Orange video mix and provided a new version to Bleep for their September guest mix
Created two hour-long Float IV and V mixes for the guest spots on Dublab and Ransom Note respectively.
Finally finished and printed my collage comic, the All Colour, High Fidelity, Radio Cartoon, after 5 years
Designed two zoetropes for Disclosure’s ‘Caracal’ 10th anniversary reissue
Attended the Bound Art Book Fair in Manchester as a seller and speaker then DJed at YES in the evening
Played the Simple Things festival with Graham Dunning and Puttyrubber at the IMAX in Bristol at the behest of Steve Davis
Appeared at the first AudioVisual Assembly gig, performing O Is For Orange alongside The Light Surgeons, Bitvert, Pat Grimm and David Leister
Designed The Real Tuesday Weld’s Crow at Christmas 3″CD Xmas card
Designed Nate Krafft’s Crimson Arsenal/Man Machine reissue for Musique Pour La Danse
The Telepathic Fish LP earns Juno Daily’s and Rough Trade Compilation of the Year (with an exclusive blue vinyl edition for the latter) as well as mentions in the end of year polls by Bleep (with an exclusive T-shirt), Phonica, Resident, Brooklyn Vegan, HHV, Moonbuilding and the New York Times.
Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s Welcome To The Pleasuredome receives Reissue of the Year in Classic Pop magazine as well as compliments from the band.
Recorded an album’s worth of extended turntablism material with Furrowed for a future release
Designed the first cassette for my Infinite Illectrik label, Extended Turntablism vol.1 by Graham Dunning and myself. More to come in 2026…
RIP:
David Lynch, Micky Thompson (Pluto Electronics), Bill Ham (light show pioneer), Marianne Faithfull, Mike Ratledge, Rutherford Chang, Rick Buckler, Roberta Flack, Gwen McCrea, Gene Hackman, David Johansen, Mark Pawson (UK counterculture legend), Roy Ayers, Doug Lear, free speech in America and the UK, John Peck aka The Mad Peck, WH Smiths, Robert McGinnis, Alan Yentob, Sylvester ‘Sly Stone’ Stewart, Brian Wilson, Lalo Schifrin, Luis Jardim, Peter Shapiro, Ozzy Osbourne, Terence Stamp, JD Twitch (Optimo), Larry Wooden (Orion Lighting), Drew Struzan, Ace Frehley, Diane Keaton, Bunny Bread aka State of Art (Non Stop Artists), Dave Ball, Gary ‘Mani’ Mounfield, Pam Hogg, Frank Gehry, Martin Parr, Rob Reiner, Ken Downie (The Black Dog), Brigitte Bardot, Martin Jones (UK Hip Hop historian and early champion).
Currently there are several projects lining up for 2026, I could do with some more DJ gigs and I want to find time to revive the Electrik Collage radio show and make it better than the version that was on ROVR radio. There will be more cassettes from Infinite Illectrik too including a long-projected compilation and an album from Duplokit. Thanks to everyone who read this old-fashioned blog over the year, it may finally get an upgrade in 2026, I hope you all had a great Xmas if you celebrated and wish you all a prosperous New Year. See you on the other side.
Looking forward to:
Foetus’ final LP, ‘Halt’
An Openmind exhibition in Krakow?
More Infinite Illectrik cassettes
Sophia Satchell-Baeza’s The Sensual Laboratories book, finally?
Cineolascape…?
Andrew Humphreys’ ‘I’d Love To Turn You On’ book
The Rogue Trooper film
You can now listen back to the 2hr Telepathic Fish ‘Float IV’ guest mix from last week on dublab with Doug Shipton and I. My set is largely new tracks with a couple of classics and Doug dives back to the 90s and beyond for his hour.
Tracklist:
STRICTLY KEV MIX
Patrick Carpenter – Santosha (Bandcamp) Space Drum Meditation – Yarra (Space Drum Meditation)
Lo Five – Unbecoming You (Castles In Space)
Paul Cousins – Blueprint (Castles In Space)
Advisory Circle – Gog (Cafe Kaput)
Listening Centre – The Death of Group D Meter (Castles In Space)
Loula Yorke – I Felt A Melting In Me (Castles In Space Subscription Library)
Dub Squad – Blown Fruit (Music From Memory)
Multicast Dynamics & Sid Hille – Metamorphosis – Part 1.1 (Astral Engineering)
Eurythmics – This City Never Sleeps (acappella) (RCA)
John Lennon – Space (Mind Games Meditation Mix Binaural ∿Theta Waves∿ 8Hz) (Universal)
Klaus Back & Tini Beier – Interferences (Buried Treasure)
Kosmologic Research Society – Rift (Confused Machines) Multicast Dynamics & Sid Hille – Metamorphosis – Part 1.2 (Astral Engineering) Spooky – Orange Coloured Liquid (Test Pressing)
Dream 2 Science – My Love Turns 2 Liquid (acappella) (Confusion Records) Multicast Dynamics & Sid Hille – Metamorphosis – Part 1.3 (Astral Engineering)
LF58 – Radials Part 1 (Astral Engineering)
DOUG SHIPTON MIX
Reload – The Enlightenment (Infonet) Christ. – Arctica (Benbecula) Biosphere – Decryption (Apollo) William Orbit – Silent Signals (I.R.S.) Kat Epple & Bob Stohl – Spiritus Sanctus (Dead Cert) Global Communication – 14.31 (Dedicated) Some Other People – Relativity (Infinite Mass) Black Dog – Raxmus (Warp) Ami Shavit – Alpha 3 (Amis) Gescom – Cicaca (Skam) Emerald Web – Ice Caves (Stargate) Bola – Aguilla (Skam) Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Providence (Constellation) Essential Chrome – Mika (Wide Area Network) Deuter – Ecstasy (Kuckuck)
This weekend (25/26th Oct) I’ll be at the Bound Art Book Fair at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester with a table selling my latest collage comic, the All Colour High Fidelity Radio Cartoon. This was started in lockdown in 2020 and worked on intermittently for five years until recently when I exhibited some pieces in Folkestone and decided I had enough to assemble a comic/zine/whatever at last.
That had always been the goal but there was no deadline so I just continued to work on pieces for years, slowly building each page to a point where they were ‘finished’. With the Bound Art Book Fair invitation for Saturday, I decided that would make a suitable deadline to compile a first version of these works.
Unless I’ve got a deadline I can tinker with things forever (hence no new DJ Food music in years) and this has been on the Infinite Illecktrik release list since 2020 (ii03 – to be accompanied by an album of the same name but that will come later now). Talking of which, I am also readying some new releases for the label which will take physical form soon…
But I digress, the comic – I’m calling it a comic because a large proportion of it is taken from comics and you can ‘read’ some pages, but really I have no idea what it is – is 32 pages, full colour and includes a free pair of 3D specs to view the centre spread. The first 50 come with a random sticker applied inside and I will have a random selection of badges free for buyers at the fair this weekend.
I’ll also have the new Mindfood zine (issue 5) and very limited original copies of #1,3 & 4 for sale as well as copies of the Float III mixtape and a handful of the Telepathic Fish LPs. Also there will be copies of my Wheels of Light book, the comic book version of my Search Engine album and whatever else I can find.
In addition to that I’ll be giving a talk at 1pm on the Mezzanine about the Telepathic Fish parties and the zines we made at some point on Saturday and in the evening I’ll be playing at YES alongside my good friend Moz. That’s quite an itinerary for Saturday. The comic will go on sale online next week via Bandcamp for those who can’t make the fair.
There’s a new interview and exclusive Openmind ‘Seeds’ ambient mix (based around my set at the recent Telepathic Fish launch party) over on The Ransom Note website. The fifth in their mixtape series, this actually started out as a ‘Float’ mix but was reconfigured and retitled as, ‘Openmind’s leave your phone at home & discover Paradise after a forage in the forest’ for this piece. Doesn’t quite trip off the tongue I know but you’ll see why when you listen, I’m very pleased with this set indeed. Buyers of the deluxe album set will have the ‘Float III’ mixtape and a two hour special ‘Float IV’ mix arrives next week on Dublab via Doug Shipton and I, more details soon…
I was interviewed by Lloyd Briggs for his Deeep Space show on PBS 106.7FM in Australia recently, here’s a link to the show.
I also spoke to Ben Cardew at Radio Primavera Sound for his Line Noise podcast
Reviews have been popping up in Record Collector, Mojo, Uncut, The Wire and more and the second pressing of the album is now in hand and pre-orders being fulfilled.
I’m part of two amazing bills coming up in November – the Audiovisual Assembly that pits The Light Surgeons with Bitvert & Pat Grimm and myself. The Surgeons will be performing their incredible ‘The Consensual Hallucination’ which was one of the most psychedelic things I’ve ever seen and I’ll be doing a rare performance of my ‘O Is For Orange’ set.
It’s on Nov 21st at The Bath House, Hackney Wick, London and tickets are on sale now with limited early birds cheaper than the full price. https://ra.co/events/2276158
Earlier, on Nov 8th, I’ll be at the Simple Things festival in Bristol with Graham Dunning engaging in modified turntable madness with Puttyrubber on live visuals on the huge IMAX screen. Sculpture are also on the bill with Stunty & jb glazer. Tickets here:
Two weeks before that I’ll be in Manchester for the Bound Art Book Fair at The Whitworth where I’ll be selling things like the Mindfood fanzines (including original copies) and my new collage comic, ‘The All Colour, High Fidelity, Radio Cartoon’ which has been five years in the making.
Today sees the premiere of a new mix I’ve done for Bleep in support of the Telepathic Fish compilation which is currently their album of the month. A version of this mix first appeared in 2013 at a night to celebrate the release of Boards of Canada’s ‘Tomorrow’s Harvest’ LP. It then morphed into an Audio Visual DJ set that I toured around the UK in 2019, playing the Bluedot festival to a packed tent that year. The idea was to thread Boards of Canada’s music with original sample sources, tracks they’d remixed, fan remixes or songs that fitted their sonic blueprint.
To listen go here: DJ Food Bleep Mix
By coincidence I recently resurrected and refined the mix for a gig booking, updating it into a new version. Tracks were removed, new ones added and remaining ones re-edited, videos were upscaled or replaced entirely. This happened to be a week before I was due to deliver my guest mix to Bleep and it seemed to be too good an opportunity to pass up, given that it also featured a host of other Warp acts too. I abandoned the mix I was going to deliver and put down the first hour of the 90 minute DJ set, including this video mix to go with it. I used stem splitting apps to deconstruct some of the tracks into unique versions before video mixing it all on turntables using Serato then editing the recording in Premiere. Enjoy and spot the recurring themes.
Full audio and video tracklist:
Sesame Street – ‘Oh! Orange’ (Sesame Workshop)
Video: as above
Galt MacDermot – Aquarius (RCA Victor)
Video: ‘Conquest of Light’ – dir. Paul Cohen / ‘Hair’ – dir. Milos Forman / Wobass – ‘Aquarius’ bass solo
Sesame Street – ‘1-10 count’ (Sesame Workshop)
Video: as above
Sesame Street – ‘Slot Machine (legs)’ (Sesame Workshop)
Video: as above
Boards of Canada – Aquarius (Warp)
Video: ‘Moog’ advert – dir. Julian House, / ‘Opening Flowers’ – dir. Bjorn Svin / ‘Yellow Submarine’ number sequence – dir. George Dunning
Girl with Orange dialogue
Video: ‘Everyman – The Beyond Within’ (BBC documentary, 1986)
Ken Nordine – Orange (Philips)
Video: as above – dir. Jada Lewis, ‘Orange Bird’ – Food & Fun (Disney), ‘Kia Ora Orange’ 70s advert,
Sesame Street – Alphaquest: S (Sesame Workshop)
Video: as above
Boards of Canada – ROYGBIV (Warp)
Video: as above – dir. Triff (fan video)
Delia Derbyshire & Barry Bermange – The Dreams: Colour (ROYGBIV re-edit) (Silva Screen)
Video: ‘ROYGBIV’ (PBS Kids)
Yosi Horikawa – Wandering (First Word)
Video: Yeasayer ‘Henrietta’ (Official Vignette) – dir. Yoshi Sodeoka
Broadcast & The Focus Group – The Be Colony (Warp)
Video: Broadcast – ‘Witch Cults’ #1 & 2’ promo films, – both dir. Julian House
Nevermen – Treat ‘Em Right (Boards of Canada remix) (Lex)
Video: iloobia – ‘Films To Break Projectors’ – dir. iloobia
Boards of Canada – Everything You Do Is A Balloon (Skam)
Video: as above (fan video – dir. Nonameno5), taken from ‘One Got Fat’ (1963) – dir. Dale Jennings
Bomb The Bass – One To One Religion (Skankapella) (Stoned Heights)
Jan Hammer Group – Don’t You Know (Nemperor Records)
Video: Andy Shauf – ‘The Magician’ – dir. Winston Hacking / ‘Outer Space / Collage Animation’ – dir. Sabrina Ashleigh Tan
Sesame Street – ‘Valentine I Love You’ (Sesame Workshop)
Video: as above
Clocolan – Humantime (Bandcamp)
Video: Sculpture – ‘Plastic Infinite’ – dir. Reuben Sutherland
The Books – Group Autogenics I (Temporary Residence)
Video: ‘Terminal Self’ – dir. John Whitney Jr.
No-Man – Heaven Taste (Beats)
Video: Noel Gallagher – ‘It’s A Beautiful World / Holy Mountain’ (edits) – dir. Julian House
Boards of Canada – Happy Cycling (Warp)
Video: as above – dir. Framewall (fan video)/ ‘A Bicycle Trip’ – dir. Lorenzo Veracini, Nandini Nambiar & Marco Avoletta
Boards of Canada – Just An Illusion (Societas x NTS mix)
Video: ‘Phase 4’ – original lost ending – dir. Saul Bass / Imagination – ‘It’s Just An illusion’ video / ‘Bees Hexagons’ – dir. unknown
Boards of Canada – The Colour of the Fire (Warp)
Video: Sesame Street ‘I Love You’ (Sesame Workshop) / ‘Der Phantastische Film’ – dir: Heinz Edelmann
Meat Beat Manifesto – Prime Audio Soup (Boards of Canada remix) (PIAS)
Video: ‘Series 4′ – dir. Normand Grégoire (Nation Film Board of Canada)
Boards of Canada – Dandelion (acappella re-edit) (Warp)
Video: ‘Dive To The Edge of Creation’ (National Geographic)
Autechre – Teartear (Warp)
Video: ‘The Public Voice’ – dir. Lejf Marcussen
The Human League – Being Boiled (Fast)
Video: as above What’s On Granada TV live appearance 1978 / ‘Beyond The Black Rainbow’ – dir. Panos Comastos
Boards of Canada – The Devil Is In The Details (St.Vitus Dance Remix / DJ Food re-edit) (fan mix)
Video: Puttyrubber video feedback / BBC title sequences edit
Datashat – Stop The Message (DJ Food edit)
Video: Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five – The Message (Sugar Hill Records)
Boards of Canada – Nlogax (Skam)
Video: ‘Bridget Riley – Painting The Line’ (BBC)
Indeed – Last Night A DJ Saved My Life (a cappella) (Sound of New York)
Video: as above
Boards of Canada – Olson (Midland re-edit) (mp3)
Video: ‘The Hello Machine’ (AT&T) – dir. Carroll Ballard
Jamie Lidell – Multiply The Voices
Video: Multiply multi-layered – dir. Pablo Fiasco
Boards of Canada – Telepath (Warp)
Video: as above, dir. Faastwalker (fan video)
Spooky – Orange Coloured Liquid (Guerilla)
Video: ‘Tonespor’ – dir. Lejf Marcussen, / Plastic Flowers – ‘Open Space part II’ – dir. Karina Logotheti
Dream 2 Science – My Love Turns To Liquid (Padappela) (Confusion Records)
Sesame Street – Many Me’s (Sesame Workshop)
Video: as above
Markey Funk is in town, he plays Upside Down this Saturday with Doug Shipton and myself and Spiritland next Wednesday – it will be great to see him after all these years.
The current issue of Electronic Sound has a six page feature on Telepathic Fish by Ben Willmott, someone who was around when we did these parties and certainly came to several. Aside from interviewing the three of us, he’s pulled in quotes from Matt Black, Robin Rimbaud and Daniel Pemberton – all people in our orbit back in the day who have first hand experience of the Fish too. I’ve not included the text of course, you’ll have to buy the mag but later in the issue is a review of the forthcoming compilation by Ben Murphy and nestling next to it is none other than the guvnor, Brian Eno.
If you can’t get the mag or don’t do physical then you can read the feature online if you become a premium member.
It’s just two weeks away from the launch party in Brixton on August 31st and there’s still much to do, the LPs are in the UK, the cassettes are made although we now have to assemble 150 acetate inlays, the badges and fanzines are delivered and a very special liquid wheel has been custom made by Bubblevision for the night. There’s more press to come and several guest mixes which I’ll post about in the coming weeks, lots in the pipeline still and new things bubbling to the surface daily it seems… Launch party tickets: https://ra.co/events/2218194
It’s that time again, my annual 45 Live mix over on Dublab for the fortnightly 45 Live show, hosted as ever by the mighty Greg Belson (whose unreleased 1995 album with Nick Faber under their The Hightower Set monikor finally came out last month). As ever I’ve been stockpiling those electronic 7″s from the acid house and rave era and this is a mostly techno and bleep-orientated mix, only occasionally straying into rave territory (believe me though, I have enough to make a stonking piano-led pop house set and probably two full-on rave/hardcore sets).
Kev’s 12th mix – House / Techno / Bleep ’88-92 – Aug 2025
Unknown – The Cimex Invasion promo advert
LFO – We Are Back (intro)
808 State – Cobra Bora (7” edit)
A Guy Called Gerald – Rhythm of Life
The Style Council – Can You Still Love Me?
A Guy Called Gerald – Hot Lemonade (Radio Edit)
Emmanuel – We Shall Overcome (Technogizer Instrumental edit)
Friends of Matthew – Out There (Technomix)
K-Klass – Rhythm Is A Mystery (Percussion mix)
Kraftwerk – The Robots (Single edit)
D-Shake – My Heart, The Beat
Rickster – Rickster Twister (Radio Mix)
Bassomatic – Attack Of The 50 Foot Drum Demon (Psycho Biker Mix)
Rhythmatic – Take Me Back (Robert Gordon Radio edit)
Kenny Larkin – Colony
GTO – The Bullfrog
Kid Unknown – Mayhem
Unique 3 – Rhythm Takes Control (Original Style mix)
Rhythmatic – Frequency
808 State – Open Your Mind
GTO – Listen to the Rhythm Flow
LFO – We Are Back
G.T.O. – Pure
Underground Posse – Hold Back
LFO – Nurture
Kid Unknown – Nightmare
Papillon – The Bully (Original Mix)
Orbital – Halcyon (Edit)
The Shamen – Phorever People (Shamen Dub)
Inner City – Unity
I spoke with Charlie Bones about all things Telepathic Fish and beyond for his Breakfast show on Do!! You!!! Radio on Tuesday whilst we played through selections from the forthcoming Fundamental Frequencies compilation.
I’m resurrrecting my Boards of Canada-centric Audio Visual mix this Saturday in Margate at Faith In Strangers – come down and relax as the sun goes down. Tickets here: DICE
I had a chat with my friend Neil Keating aka Controlled Weirdness about my formative years in music; record buying, clubbing, graffiti and a fair bit about Telepathic Fish. This is an indepth chat, probably the deepest I’ve gone about some subjects and I provided Neil with a load of vintage photos to illustrate the chat on the YouTube stream.
Glad to be a subject on this excellent podcast, if you like it, check some of the older episodes, the Jerome Hill, Aaron Trinder and Ian St. Paul ones are particularly good. Thanks to Neil for having me and putting the work in with the picture editing.
If you visit Upside Down Records over the summer you’ll be able to see a selection of my design work for Ninja Tune, De:tuned, Castles In Space and more as you browse the racks. The selection comes from some of the work I recently exhibited in Folkestone but concentrates mainly on record-related designs so there’s none of the collage work that I previewed there, I’ll save that for when that project is ready.
The shop deals exclusively in used vinyl with a few racks of CDs and a small selection of vintage cassettes, they also deal in vintage hi-fi so if you’re in the market for a turntable, speakers or an amp, then they might have something for you. If you’ve not visited the shop before then they’re one stop from London Bridge on the overground or a 15 min walk from the heart of Greenwich. They’re open Wednesday-Sunday, check times online. Thanks to shop owner and good friend, Philippe for hosting my work and for the speedy install today.
I recently found these photos, completely forgotten save for the one above, whilst looking through files for another project. These show four collages and six zoetropes (some of the first I ever made) from 2013 before I had them randomly inserted into copies of the 4xLP vinyl version of my ‘The Search Engine’ album for Record Store Day 2014.
The zoetropes are high quality prints but the collages are originals, so far I only know of three that have been found, one zoetrope in Estonia and two collages in Helsinki and Nurnberg. I sometimes wonder if the rest are nestled inside people’s copies, still waiting to be discovered, please leave a comment if you have one. The one on the top right of the image below later became the sleeve for a Janko Nilovic and Lavotta Arpad 7″ on Broc Recordz.
The new Rave Wars 7″ suddenly appeared today, I wasn’t prepared for it, nor for my track to be revealed but then nothing is normal about this release.
3 different covers (maybe 4?)
3 different tracks, pot luck as to which 2 you get
8 different labels
Multiple different vinyl colourways
1 of 80 different random original SW figures
Vinyl package of the year?
This must have been in the works for over 2 years now, glad to be a part of it and have it out in the world. To top it all I found a nice little Lego Stormtrooper mech in the charity, must have been a sign. Order a copy from HERE
It’s been very quiet on here because I’ve been doing so much I’ve not had the time but I’ll spare you the carboot sale trips, Tate Modern gig with Doug Shipton and Mixmaster Morris and venue location scouting. Press for the Telepathic Fish release has started and I spent a few days hand-making some promo CDs with tracing paper covers for a lucky few. The Openmind exhibition in Folkestone came and went and will be arriving somewhere new soon hopefully.
I lent Warp some bits and pieces for their show at the Barbican this past weekend too and I’ve been co-ordinating getting the first wave of Acid Endless lathe cuts out to people in the UK.
The pre-order for the second run of those ends at the end of the month and they will be cut to order so contact me if you want one and you’re in the UK.
Last week saw a visit to the Royal Albert Hall to see Holly Johnson (ex-Frankie Goes To Hollywood) in concert, expect a huge announcement connected with that soon…
Also last week was the soft launch of a new book from long time friend Remi Rough and Velocity Press – Future Language of the Ikonoklast – an amazing collection of work from the graffiti crew of the same name that operated from the late 80s in the UK and rewrote the rulebook on what could be classed as writing. Seen here with Remi’s latest album, you can pre-order the book and there should be a proper London launch around September with one in Birmingham at the end of the month with special guest Henry Chalfont!.
Speaking of Birmingham and Henry, one of the reasons he’s there is because there’s an exhibition of his photographs from Subway Art and beyond on RIGHT NOW and it ends at the end of June! Get up there, and while you’re there the High-Vis graffiti/comic festival is on this weekend 21st June in Kingsheath too – all roads lead to Brum.
Slightly late this month (been very busy) and still no new episode of the Electrik Collage show (it’s coming) – I’m enjoying having two releases and three cover designs in this month’s list. The Locked Loop Group lathe cut zoetrope is on its second pressing now and will be cut dependent on orders received by a cut off date. Big news for this month is the final announcement of a project I’ve been working on with Doug Shipton at Fundamental Frequencies for a year now – Telepathic Fish: Trawling the Early 90s Ambient Underground.
This double album compiles tracks I and my friends were playing at the ambient parties we held under this name between 1992-1995 in London and beyond alongside Mixmaster Morris and Matt Black and a 20 pg booklet included with the package details the whole adventure. I also collaborated with artist Al White on the Terrace album cover for De:tuned (he did the cover, I did the reverse and labels – it came out nice).
Elsewhere, the Move 78 album is one for the end of year lists, Hieroglyphic Being – who has released about five or six albums in the last month alone – mutes the drums for a new series of ‘Re-selected Psybient Jazz Soundscapes’ which are quite revelatory in revealing the complexity of his compositions. I’d missed his ‘Dance Music 4 Bad People’ album on Smalltown Supersound but it’s one of his strongest of late, my suspicion being that his self-releases can suffer from a lack of quality control sometimes whereas music for other labels steps up a gear.
JG Thirlwell‘s third Xordox album is a synthesiser sci-fi epic and Kate Brooks unearths an album’s worth of outtakes from her Advisory Circle project. I’ve not included the new Stereolab album as that was in a previous list but it’s out now and every bit as good as you hoped it would be.
It’s been a bit hectic recently, hence not many posts as I’ve been busy framing and preparing artwork for my latest exhibition. After 2 days of transporting, hanging, re-hanging and cleaning up artwork, my Openmind show of work is finally up at Cabron Groove Bar in Folkestone.
The bar will be open 6-10pm for viewings week days and 2-11pm weekends until the 14th June when I will be returning to play a set with support from Brassica and Bobby Dazzler (see posters at the end for full details)
There are nearly 50 pieces in the show from 1995 to the present day and I’m now working on a digital catalogue of pieces for sale (I totally ran out of time to do that for the show opening).
I recently had the pleasure of chatting to Moz from 0282 for his ‘Doings’ podcast, about finding cheap records, or the things I look for that are cheap anyway. One of life’s pleasures is looking for and discovering new music and I look almost every day.
There’s been a lot going on recently which is why there’s been few updates here. I did a couple of gigs supporting the Orb recently, have been designing a lot of stuff I can’t quite talk about yet and am currently framing a lot of my work for an exhibition next month in Folkestone, see details below. It’s followed by a gig in the same bar as the exhibition on June 14th so, if you’re in the area that weekend, come on down.
Another bumper selection this month – too much good music! From Richard Norris‘ triple CD psych compilation to Little Barrie & Malcolm Catto‘s short but sweet ‘Electric War’ LP to the biggest surprise of April – a new Stereolab album! For beats you have the new Move 78 album (in the green cover, top right), Paten Locke‘s posthumous ‘Dance On My Grave’ and the reactivated Bassbin Twins‘ ‘Beats Are King 3’ EP. I’m a new convert to goat(jp) and if the sound of Tortoise playing with military precision in the style of a Steve Reich composition is your bag then you might like them too.
310‘s classic prog cut up masterpiece ‘Prague Rock’ is on Bandcamp in a new edition and whilst trawling through the (In)Active Listener‘s comps I came across Scotland’s Nebyudelic Soundsystem with a sitar-drenched wig-out named ‘Down By The River’. Barely active over the years, there’s little else by him out there but there are treats on his Soundcloud page. King Gizzard have a new orchestra-led album coming up but for all your acid needs you could do worse than the L/F/D/M release on Don’t Recordings which twists things into new shapes. Also you may have noticed my own release nestling in there, a Quadraphon turntable acid jam under my Locked Loop Group alias which has taken well over a year to come to fruition due to general tardiness by myself. But here it is, an 8″ lathe cut zoetrope picture disc of two tracks in a die-cut sleeve from Acid Lathe in the US, it’s very limited, it’s not cheap but it’s what I and the label came up with as a release and it’s one of the best zoetropes I’ve done IMO. Pre-order is up as of today and if anyone in the UK wants to save a bit on shipping then contact me as I will be getting artist copies sent over soon and we can get a package together and sort out a deal with minimal postage.