Music

The Force Awakens holographic vinyl release

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Several boxes were ticked last Monday night when I was invited to Abbey Road Studios in North London to feature on a panel to talk about Star Wars and its influence on music over the last near 40 years. It was part of the launch of a new vinyl edition of the soundtrack to Star Wars: The Force Awakens, complete with holographic Tie Fighters and Millennium Falcons etched into the surface of the two discs by Tristan Duke.

Abbey Rd StormtrooperJournalist Andrew Harrison (Your Empire Needs You T-shirt) chaired a small panel of myself, Tristan Duke (peeking over my shoulder) – the man responsible for the holograms, and Alex Milas (centre back, editor of Metal Hammer magazine and life-long SW fan). After plenty of nerdy fan banter two First Order Storm Troopers strode in to deliver the LP to Tristan who then played it as it was projected onto the screen above. Food was served, vinyl was cooed over, photos were taken with Storm Troopers and much was discussed of a fanboy nature.

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A few days later I took on trying to capture the holograms from my vinyl copy at home. This was easily achieved with just direct sunlight or you can use a torch or lamp in dark conditions. This is what the hologram looks like in normal light (above) and this is what it looks like when having direct light pointed at it (below)

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TFALP_embossThe LP sleeve is printed on thick mirror board card which makes the star field sparkle when light hits it and the cover logo is embossed. It’s a beautiful package that Disney/Universal have really gone the extra length to get looking and feeling special. There’s also a 16 page 12″-sized booklet with a forward by JJ Abrams and stills from the film.
It’s released worldwide on Friday, June 17th.

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On the panel I remarked on how the new release is so like the original OST in layout – minimal and tasteful. That made be want to dig out my 1977 copy, check the poster and gatefold. I’d forgotten how big the poster was!SWvsTFALP_ SWLP +poster SWposter

How many Millennium Falcons? Early John Berkey concept painting when the Falcon was a rebel fighter – there’s a fascinating glimpse at more Star Wars Berkey prelim paintings on his siteSWgatefoldSWLPback

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Jonny Trunk / DJ Food hook ups

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Two dates for your diaries: June 25th I’ll be DJing with Jonny Trunk at Camberwell’s finest used record emporium, Rat Records. They recently bought in a really good selection of soundtrack, electronic, library and weird records which we’ll be playing selections from before adding them to the racks for punters to buy. Let US try, before YOU buy.

But before that  – this Saturday to be precise – I’ll be sitting in for Jonny on his OST radio show on Resonance 104.4 FM from 4.30-6.40pm. There’ll be a theme to the show and I’ll have special guest Jonny Cuba from Soundsci talking about library digs and soundtrack finds. Listen here this weekend

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Basement Finds #17: 12s, 10s, 7s & LPs

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The front and back covers of two amazing religious spoken word records – love the double entendre.
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Below: Four Music De Wolfe 10″ library records, the ‘Electroshake’ is particularly good, there’s a vol.2 as well…BF_Electroshake BF_YoungFriends BF_BeatGroup BF_MDeW BF_Butterfly

45 finds – the Public Enemy includes the instrumental on the flip

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A fun little flexi disc from Fermaley Flame – nice electronics at the beginning and end

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Lastly – a beautiful Robert Crumb sleeve from 1974

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New Sculpture video for the Splice Festival

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“Untitled” by Sculpture from The Wire Magazine on Vimeo.

More ideas in 8 minutes than some people have in an entire career…

Sculpture will be appearing at the first of 3 nights under the banner of Splice in London next weekend 3rd-5th of June along with many audio-visual acts like The Light Surgeons, DJ Cheeba, Addictive TV, Pete Elastic Eye, Cassetteboy, D-Fuse, Blinkinlab, Matt Black, Plaid, Joe Catchpole, Mixmaster Morris, Matt Sharp, Mark Pilkington and many more.

Splice Festival 2016 from Splice Festival on Vimeo.

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Dennis Corrigan artwork

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I’ve always been fascinated by this cover art, the artist is simply listed as ‘Corrigan’. On the back of the Castor LP it has a passage about the cover, possibly written by Corrigan (?):
“The illustration depicts Jimmy Castor in a double role: as a Gemini and Cancer personality. Gemini’s aspects are described as egocentric, intellectual and airy. Castor’s egocentric aspect is affirmed by his unconcealed face; his intellect is symbolized by the tube running from a fitting on his temple to a fitting in the musical tree. His mind drives his music. A second tube runs on to a small cluster of clouds hovering near Castor’s head, symbolizing his airy and mutable nature. Castor’s Cancer aspects are symbolized on the right by the slum tenement which rises out of wasteland. Castor is directly above a large opening in a wall containing his heart; this serves to stress Cancer’s intuitive qualities. Castor’s face is partially concealed to correspond to the introverted nature of Cancer personalities. The tube which runs from his heart is attached to an armored egg; spilling out of the egg are three elements associated with Cancer: the moon, water and food. The prehistoric, “Troglodyte”-like figures are the end products of the intellectual, emotional and astrological input of Castor from above.”

After a bit of help from fellow facebook-ers, it seems the man responsible was Dennis Corrigan, a surrealist American illustrator who only has one other record sleeve listed on Discogs (The New York Rock & Rock Ensemble, front and back covers below).

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Still with us and now teaching at Marywood University in Pennsylvania, he has work in various art institute collections and illustrated for the likes of The New York Times, Random House, Pan American Airways and more. He’s had several books of his work published, ‘The Amusement Park’ from 1982 and ‘True Love Knows No Boundaries’ from just last year. You can find more about his weird world at his website, Dennis Corrigan Artist.

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Oxygen aka MC Just Divine – new 45

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Out today, another banger from Soundsci – this time concentrating on Oxygen. ‘1-4-9′ is under two minutes and comes with an instrumental to match on the same side, surely a first for a 45? This is the second in a trilogy of 45s from the crew before they drop their LP, ‘Walk The Earth’ and features a great cover from Paul ‘Sub2’ Trewin who also did all the character designs for the 45 Live roster earlier this year. Buy it here before it goes

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Selected Aphex Works 2 mix

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Earlier this year I was asked by the organisation ‘Give Crohn’s A Slap From Me’ if I would provide them with a mix as their remit is to help raise awareness of the disease through art, music and design. For their hospital radio slot they’ve already had the likes of DJ Vadim provide one and I wanted to do something a little different that would, potentially, bring more people to the site than your standard mix selection.

I always wanted to do a follow up to the ‘Selected Aphex Works 1’ mix I did early in 2015 for Solid Steel, an 86 minute collection of my pick of the bunch of tracks uploaded to Richard D. James‘ User48736353001 Soundcloud account during the early months of that year. The plan is to hopefully get some of the near 100,000 people who listened to the first mix to come to the Crohn’s site for more so, beginning from the place where the first left off, here’s a second volume, culled from tunes uploaded after the first mix was finished.

Up until mid February 2015 there were around 160 tunes to choose from but, as I was completing the first mix, there were still more tracks being uploaded. At various times after the transmission date on Solid Steel of Feb 24th around 90 more were uploaded with the final total being an estimated 275 tracks before they were deleted. There were more than enough to make another mix and there could easily be a third from all the songs that wouldn’t fit or didn’t make the grade the first time round. There are albums worth of material as good as any official Aphex release in the Soundcloud uploads, which I view as one of the most important ‘releases’ of 2015.

On the subject of Aphex, I recently found this poster below, designed in my third year at Camberwell College of Art in 1993. I’d recently discovered his music via Colin Dale‘s Outer Limits show on KISS FM and took inspiration from his music to make my own designs for releases – this one being ‘Xylem Tube’ on R&S. The original design was supposed to be portrait but I prefer it landscape now with the benefit of hindsight.

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The Belbury Poly – New Ways Out LP

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I did some pack shots of the new Belbury Poly LP for Jim Jupp at Ghost Box. The multi-coloured cover art and Rainbow-esque inner sleeve does the music justice; a seemingly random collection of tunes emanating from approximately 1974. Autobahn-era Kraftwerk meets Glitter Band glam stomp meets folk-tinged vocals and sunshine Sesame Street ‘ba-ba-bum’ singalong harmonies. New Ways Out is a perfect title for this release in many ways, it’s his most curious and varied work to date and – much the same as The Soundcarriers and Hintermass releases – pushes out of the usual territory you’d expect from the label. Be prepared to be taken in new directions on 10 track vinyl and 11 track CD, up for pre-order on the Ghost Box shop now.

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Also coming soon is Other Voices 08 featuring two tracks from Beautify Junkyards on June 10th…GBX718 cover 2000

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Secret 7″ 2016

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Bit late on posting these as it’s been on for a few weeks but I thought I’d let RSD die down a bit and there’s still time to view the Secret 7″ entries before buying day. As every year, I went along to see what was being cooked up on the custom 45 front. This year they reside in the Sonos building in Shoreditch and the sleeves are displayed until May 1st. On May 2nd they are all up for grabs at £50 each which, this year, goes to Amnesty International UK. There are 700 this year and, if you go, make sure you check upstairs as I nearly missed that half.

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Cavern of Anti-Matter Solid Steel mix

I totally forgot to post this last weekend as I was away. After their storming gig in London in February I asked Tim Gane from COAM if he’d be up for a Solid Steel mix for us. Not only did he say yes but he delivered two exclusive hour long mixes titled ‘Whiteout Mix’ and ‘Blackout mix’ that parallel each other with some of the same artists appearing on both hours. As a result we gave the whole of last week’s show over to him.

“An abstracted trawl through some prized recordings. Music can be like a fever dream with no rational interpretations possible and all these tracks have given me that rush. Over the years they have shown me the door and window to another kind of sound and new forms of composition and an endless collage of possibility.Totally shocking listening to these tracks again and putting the mix together. I have included one of my own mess about loops from about 8 or 9 years ago.”

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The Comet Is Coming Solid Steel mix


The Comet Is Coming celebrate the release of their debut album Channel The Spirits on The Leaf Label, King Shabaka, aka Shabaka Hutchings (also of Sons Of Kemet and Melt Yourself Down) drops his first mixtape with a quality selection of music personal to him.

“I’ve never done a mixtape before so when asked to do this I immediately though back to my favourite DJs and what their selections did for me. I love it when I hear massive leaps in genre during a set which seem to make sense despite all the odds and retain a trajectory of intensity. Immediately I think of Gaslamp Killer who I toured with last year and was able to see him do his thing up close, and Ntone Edjabe who is a DJ extraordinaire based in Cape Town. These are all tunes that have meant a lot to me at various points in my life so it’s interesting for me to see the narrative which connects them.”

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Karel Zeman ‘Invention For Destruction’

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Czech this out (sorry, couldn’t resist) via Jonny Trunk’s fabulous weekly newsletter comes a trailer for a remastered mix of live action and animated collage from 1958 (!) Think Jules Verne meets Terry Gilliam.

The launch party for Jonny’s new book, ‘The Music Library’, last night was excellent with a bit of celeb-spotting going down (Jarvis, Matt Berry) and a storming reggae cover version set from Jerry Dammers. The book is an expansion of the original version he released 10 years ago, this time with twice as many covers and a nifty, if pricey, slipcased edition with a 10″ record. There is of course a reasonably priced version without either of those two as well, get them both here.

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The Dandelion Set – Stolid Seal mix + LP promo

Yes, you read that right, Stolid Seal, not Solid Steel unfortunately as this mix got squeezed out of the selection process due to an overflowing number of guest mixes piling up for the show. I asked Glyn and PK from The Dandelion Set to do a mix last year after the band had played at the Delaware Road event in Reading. To me this is prime SS material and he’s done a sterling job but alas, it wasn’t to be. But, by the miracle that is the internet, you can still hear it and see what you’re missing.

I’ve featured The Dandelion Set before, way back when their releases were confined to digital only, and I’m now pleased to learn that their debut album is coming out on a favourite label of mine, Buried Treasure. It also features the sleeve notes, lyrics & vocals of none other than Alan Moore (surely no introduction necessary?) among others. Inhabiting the worlds of folk, radiophonics, jazz, psychedelia, library music, soundtracks and spoken word, the album is packed with over 20 tracks and enough tricky time signatures to require some very deep listening. ‘A Thousand Strands’ is out April 22nd on CD, LP, cassette (yes!) and download from Buried Treasure. Beautiful cover too

CD LP cover

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