One month until this happens, event page here…
DJ Food
Full line up – just saying, not bad at all. October 11th, Motion, Bristol, tickets here
Another mix from me this week on Solid Steel, this time it’s a continuation of the ‘O is for Orange’ mix I did some months back. You may remember that this was the Boards of Canada-inspired one for the night we did called ‘A Few Old Tunes’ that happened around their LP release.
Well, I had 30 minutes recorded left over from that initial mix so I’ve added to it to make a second part. I’ve worked pretty hard on this and there are a few moments in it that I think are among my best when it comes to placing music together. It’s probably going to annoy some BoC purists for several reasons, most likely because I’ve layered other elements over a pristine recording of the officially unreleased ‘XYZ’, of which I’m lucky enough to have a copy.
Unfortunately this time the set is not accompanied by a video mix of the same but I may get round to that later and the images above are taken from several tracks that I already have footage for.
Out now via Ninja Tune‘s Beat Delete repress label – the mix PC and I did in 1997 for a face-off between Coldcut and DJ Krush. It’s a triple disc with the mixes on opposite sides of each disc, if you have two decks you can even mix the beginning and end parts together to form the full thing.
I remember recording this in a professional studio somewhere in London’s West end, I think it took us less than a week after some initial ideas had been gone over in our own studios and a selection made.
The brief was for only Ninja and Ntone releases as this would be easy and quick to license. We did add a lot of spoken word from other sources though. We also made a conscious decision to include some of the more esoteric sides of the label as we second-guessed the kind of material Krush would go for. We were thrilled to have him as a part of it as MoWax was (and still is) one of our favourite labels.
This is the mix with the infamous ‘Bug’s Eye View’ spoken piece that I detailed the source of earlier in the year. We had an engineer recording and editing what we did the whole time, tracks would be mixed live and then sections edited together and overlaid if need be.
It was nice to give the artwork a good brush up and sort out the myriad of spelling mistakes that were on the original. I never liked what I did first time round and, whilst this isn’t a million miles from it, it’s a hell of a lot tidier and easier to read. The idea was that the cover could be placed either way up and that East met West from either direction, being that Krush hails from Japan.
‘Nightrous’ by Peezee was an exclusive track that only features here, PC pulled it out of the bag when we needed something to fit into a troublesome section. Listening back to the mix recently for the first time in 15 years I really enjoyed it as a time capsule of the label at a point where the Trip Hop thing was coming to an end and the label was set to branch out with the ‘Funkungfusion’ compilation the next year.
You can buy it now direct from Ninja Tune.
I’ve been in full on mix mode this week. I finished off a follow up to the Boards of Canada-inspired ‘O Is For Orange’ set from earlier this year called ‘T Is For Trapped’. This was already half recorded as I couldn’t fit everything into 1 hour before so had 30 minutes left over which I’ve updated and added to with other like-minded songs that have been patiently waiting their turn. At the moment I’d love to do a video version too but just don’t have the time, but it may happen as I have video for at least half of it.
The second mix, that I’ve literally just finished, is for the In Motion night we will be doing in Bristol with DJ Shadow, Coldcut, Cheeba, Civil Music and more. This set is straight up club material, unashamed four to the floor stuff and a load of ‘Amen Brother’ flavoured d’n’ b as well which will probably debut the week before the gig in October.
But firstly it’s another mix up on Solid Steel – ‘Out Of The Future’ – in a similar vein to ‘T Is For Trapped’ it features lots of synths, spacey sounds and such. The title comes from an old ad for Micronauts toys that appears at the start and Gary Numan, The Simonsound, Four Tet, Scanone, Sinoia Caves and more feature. Late night headphone music… enjoy.
In other news I’ve just finalised a DJ Food library compilation of material with Jon Tye for his Lo Editions imprint. This will be music for TV and film and it features unique edits, instrumentals, reworks and even the odd bit of unreleased material. You won’t be able to buy it but I’ll put a link up in a couple of weeks when it’s online so that people can have a listen.
I’m also about to begin work on not one but two remixes for The Amorphous Androgynous (!) and write an album of new music based around samples from the Bruton catalogue in conjunction with Universal. There’s also the small* case of rehearsing the ‘Paul’s Boutique’ mix with Moneyshot and Cheeba and the usual DJ gigs…
*(not small at all)
This is pretty different to what I usually do but I like a challenge and this will be a lot of fun – the clubbing experience with kids in the mix (no pun intended). Saturday afternoon Sept 21st I’ll be playing some classics at Big Fish Little Fish, a new event (can’t call it a ‘night’ on account of it starting at 2pm) aimed at parents who want to bring a bit of the rave to the kid’s party. ‘2-4 Hour Party People’ is one of the best taglines I’ve seen in a while. Find more info about events here.
Very proud to be on this line up for our Solid Steel 25th anniversary gig in Bristol, first time sharing a bill with Shadow, another one ticked off the list.
There are also many more on the line up, not sure why they couldn’t fit them on the flyer? In the Civil Music room there’s: Om Unit, Débruit (live), Reso, Brassica (live) and Civil Music DJs. In the Inflect room there’ll be: EAN, Adam Elemental, Wascal, Daffy and Kensei
Get tickets here.
The last showing of ‘The Search Engine’ 360 dome show is on this Thursday at Birmingham’s Think Tank planetarium. The remaining two shows have been cancelled as there has been a reshuffled in personal so August 22nd is the last date on the cards to see it at this moment in time. Dome Club will continue but outside of Think Tank in various other ways but with Mario Di Maggio at the helm.
This promises to be a pretty unique event, you’re not going to get a line up like this every day. Even more so once the Very Special Guests (3 in total) are announced. The end of the 25th year will be seen out in style and Cheeba, Moneyshot and I will attempt to recreate the Paul’s Boutique mix we put together last year.
Tickets can be bought here and we should be announcing similar events in Bristol and Paris very soon.
Two gigs back to back next weekend, Friday sees a FREE gig with DK, Jon More and Ross Allen just down the road from me in Herne Hill – should be fun. Saturday sees a return to Seignosse in France for another gig with ex-Ninja DJ Vadim, possibly the third time we’ve been billed together in the last year.
Just some of the labels now signed up to Beat Delete. Check out their site, there are all sorts of releases up for a repress once there are enough pledges.
Only 12 orders left until they repress the ColdKrushCuts mix on 3xLP.
If you missed any of the showings of my full dome show at Dome Club UK earlier this year then the second batch of dates has been announced. First one this Thursday!
Just found this, the special T-shirt we made after the first year of the Solid Steel night at Ruby Lo to thank everyone who played. Ruby Lo (short for Ruby Lounge) was a basement bar in London’s West End near Bond Street, down a side street by Selfridges. DK and I were the residents each month, the night was only £3 but we didn’t announce who was playing, you had to trust that we’d get decent guests. We really wanted to do a residency at a place where it was intimate, had seating and a DJ booth on the floor rather than a stage. As it turned out, the booth was in the middle of everything with a dancefloor on one side and seating directly behind so we were virtually in the round.
What a line up, 2005 was just as good, I need to find that list too. It would fill up with after work drinkers early on but they would clear out by about 9pm and our crowd would come down to see the set list pinned to the wall with who would be playing. I’m pretty sure this was Diplo‘s first ever London DJ appearance, he was playing Fabric the next night and we only got him because he wasn’t announced. For Luke Vibert‘s appearance he bought Aphex with him and for the December resident set DK and I gave away every record we played after we’d finished with it (pre-Serato days).
This week I decided to put down some of the set I made for ‘A Few Old Tunes’, the Boards of Canada-inspired night we did on June 20th. Because I’d edited so much video to go with it, I thought I’d finally get round to my first solo video mix too, so here it is.
(UPDATE: Vimeo closed the Solid Steel account that hosted this mix after three copyright strikes so it’s currently offline but some kind soul has uploaded it to their own ‘Solid Steel’ account here but I can’t embed it here)
‘O Is For Orange’ is the sound of weathered tape saturation, detuned analogue synthesisers, vinyl crackle and machine hum. It’s also the look of unfocused, flickering lenses, mirror image filters and blurry grain embedded into film. Unofficial fan films sit alongside experimental animation, public information shorts and even the odd official video. Material that BoC took inspiration from blends with their own work as well as many that they inspired.
I make no apologies for the quality of the vision here, some of it is only available via the web at frustratingly small sizes. In a couple of instances I’ve actually downgraded the look and quality of the image to make it blend in better and in others, even my best attempts at filtering can’t disguise the low quality of the source material. No HD or widescreen here, I’ve gone back to 4:3 for this one even though some of the clips were originally 16:9 or wider.
On the Vimeo page I’ve endeavored to list as many of the videos and their respective directors as possible alongside the track list. When we’ve done video mixes in the past we’ve repeatedly found that some film makers take exception to having their work used like this, whereas few artists would email you requesting that you take their track out of a mix. I can see why, especially if a promo they’re done for one group ends up being re-edited and bolted on to a completely different track.
Anyway, enough guff, thanks to everyone who inspired this mix, especially Boards of Canada, and everyone who requested that we recorded our sets for ‘A Few Old Tunes’ last week. Josh from Posthuman‘s is already up in audio form (here) and I’m reliably told that Tom Central has his waiting in the wings for next week.
This week’s Solid Steel has a definite African slant and I kick things off with a mix of music I call ‘Afreaka’. Percussion heavy funk with a tribal feel, from Madlib sample grabs to Malcolm McLaren or Eno & Byrne‘s imagined ethnic soundscapes. For part two we welcome Melt Yourself Down into the guest slot for a whole world fusion of flavours from Ali Hassan Kuban to the Mad Decent stable.
The band release their debut album on June 17th via the Leaf Label after a trio of killer singles that fuse post-punk Pigbag skronk funk with acid electronics. Catch them on tour across the UK right now with a must see live show that recently ripped Jools Holland‘s ‘Later’ show a new one. Check out their site for date, music and merch.
Jon More fills the Solid Steel 25th slot with a mix of African music proper. Over the past quarter of a century, if there’s one continent that has been well represented since day one, it’s Africa. Coldcut have always dug deep into it’s rich musical heritage and Jon More displays another fine selection of Afrobeat and African inspired music. There’s Bala Miller from Nigeria, Alemayehu Eshete from Ethiopia and Julien Babinga from Congo, plus music from Ocote Soul Sounds, Shina Williams and Troubleman.
Those lovely people at Beat Delete have put the mix PC and I did alongside DJ Krush in ’97 – ‘ColdKrushCuts’ – up for a 3LP repress. Originally only available on CD, (aside from an ultra limited 2xLP version in Japan) they have set a 200 copy limit to be reached before the pressing is closed of which a third have been filled as of writing. Weirdly I only posted about the origin of the ‘The Bug in The Rug‘ sample from the same mix two weeks back.
Beat Delete have steadily been adding other labels to their repress roster too, you can now find selections from Tru Thoughts, KPM (The Big Beat!), Fat City, Mr Bongo, Brownswood, Leaf, Catskills, Ghostly International and Celluloid amongst others. I’m also in the process of curating a compilation of special oddities, offcuts and overlooked tracks for a possible future pressing with them.
Here’s a trailer I put together to give a flavour of what’s in ‘The Search Engine’ full dome show, of course you can’t get the real surround sound feel of the dome but you get the idea.
To celebrate the release of the new Boards of Canada album and – purely because Josh from Posthuman and I would really love a space to play their kind of music all night long – we bring you ‘A Few Old Tunes’. We’ll be joined on the decks by Tom Central from Keep Up! and Mark Van der Vord on visuals.
The premise is simple: occupy the upstairs room of Catch on June 20th for a night of music and film by or inspired by Boards of Canada. Don’t worry, it won’t be back to back BOC, we want this to be more than a 1 band love-in. Expect plenty of Ghost Box, electronica and hauntological material with a fine set of suitably degraded visuals to go with it.
Shortly after Storm Thorgerson died I did an interview with Matt Meuse of CBC Music about why sleeve art matters and where it will go next. Also in the interview are Jeff Jank who designs for Stones Throw and David Jones (pictured) who owns the Vinyl Records store in Vancouver.