Original turntablism / scratch / cut up cassettes from the mid to late 90’s. 
There are also a couple of Skam label and Aphex Twin promo cassettes, now all gone save for the Rob Swift, Cash Money and Vin Roc…
Music
For no reason other than they did some great sleeves. (Click for bigger version)
Yes please! The vinyl reissues continue from Ghost Box, can’t wait for these beauties.
Back in December I posted about three forthcoming releases on ZTT: Claudia Bruken‘s ‘Combined’ compilation, Frankie Goes To Hollywood‘s ‘Liverpool’ expanded edition and ‘The Art of the 12″‘ overview covering the label’s famed 12″ remixes from the 80’s and beyond. They are released today but only two will be available due to an 11th hour pulling of the ‘Liverpool’ release for reasons yet to be explained by either the record label or members of the band. Speculation is rife on the Alternate ZTT board as to the cause of this last minute recall as copies have been around for a few weeks now in industry circles with a few even turning up for sale on the continent before the release date. The main culprit seems to be (and this is pure speculation based on what has been said online) the appearance of several tracks as bonuses which had both hardened collectors and members of the band scratching their heads in puzzlement as to their origins.
In this internet age it’s rare that any scrap of information slips past uber-fans, some known for collecting every known foreign pressing of each release alongside demos, live recordings, session tapes and any scrap of print relating to their favourite bands. For instance it’s well known to the average Frankie fan that the band recorded a demo version of ‘Slave To The Rhythm’ before the song was immortalised by Grace Jones at Trevor Horn‘s hand, but few have ever been lucky enough to hear it. But when a track list for the expanded version of ‘Liverpool’ appeared last December, several tracks were complete unknowns to the legion of online fans, with one member of the band who frequents the boards even asking if anyone knew what they were or had mp3s of them.
I was lucky enough to receive a copy over a week ago from an industry source and the tracks in question sound like demo ideas, jams or basic track building, including a vocal-less cover of the Rolling Stones‘ ‘Satisfaction’. Frankie did many cover versions, both released and unreleased, over the course of their short career. Some were for B-sides, some were simply a way to let off steam and take a break during recording sessions that stretched for months during the making of ‘Liverpool’. Holly Johnson tweeted last week that he had no problem with the release and a statement is promised soon, interesting…
Fortunately we are in the middle of the biggest archive reissue / remaster / repackage period of ZTT’s history at the moment – courtesy of Ian Peel – and the other two releases can tide us over until any problems get ironed out with Frankie’s second coming (sorry, couldn’t resist). 
I’ve not received a copy of ‘Combined’ yet but ‘The Art of the 12″‘ 2xCD compilation is one of the best from the label, including several completely new and unreleased gems from the archives that add a few more pieces to the puzzle that fans of the label strive to unravel to this day. Newly unearthed versions of classic’s like Frankie‘s ‘Two Tribes’ and ‘Relax’, Propaganda’s ‘Dr. Mabuse’ or Nasty Rox Inc‘s ’10th Wonder’ sit alongside extended workouts of ‘Moments In Love’ and ‘Close (To the Edit)’ by Art of Noise, ‘Pacific’ and ‘Cubik’ by 808 State and Act‘s vastly underrated ‘Snobbery & Decay’.
A couple of infamous ‘lost’ ZTT groups have tracks presented for the first time too – Instinct, who only had one track appear on the label previously before disappearing into the vaults, have what was to be their first single debuting 25 years later. Also another piece of the Art of Noise puzzle is here for the first time to tantalise us – a glimpse of what Paul Morley and Trevor Horn did next after the rest of the band jumped ship and played the Pop game. The group Art & Act were bandied about in various press releases at the time but nothing was released until an AON box set a few years back yielded a few snippets. Here we get 8 minutes of a group that could have been but wasn’t destined to be until over a decade later with the reformation of three of the Art of Noise proper. Both absolutely essential for any ZTT fan.
That old devil Steve Stein aka Steinski – who should need no introduction to readers of this blog – has been hard at work on the musical and spoken word front recently. Firstly, go to his site – Steinski.com – and download the monster of a spoken word podcast he’s made for New York’s WFMU station entitled ‘Walkin’ & Talkin’. It’s a wild and varied ride through all manner of spoken word material whether from the Beats’ hip poetry to Hip Hop or a surprising amount of British Pop from the 80’s. Steinski guides you through the whole thing and, if you’re so inclined, you can follow it up and watch a lot of it via the mammoth post he’s made on his site illustrating most of the content with YouTube clips. It’s a very rewarding 2 hours plus and I suspect the site content will take just as long to hoover up.
On the music-making front Stein has just given some new Dennis Coffey material the remix treatment, one track of which will be released as a 7″ on Record Store day. A full album of new material and covers by Coffey is coming on Strut on April 25th featuring contributions from Mayer Hawthorne, Paolo Nutini, Kings Go Forth, Mick Collins of the Dirtbombs and more. Check the cover referencing artwork too.
I got sent the new Reso ‘Valken’ EP yesterday and was so taken with the lead track – ‘War Machine’ – I decided to make a video for it using animation from Vexille, Appleseed and the end titles of the first Iron Man film. If you like your music heavy, intricate and indestructible and your robots the same then this is for you.
The EP is out on Civil Music on February the 21st and contains four tracks.
I seem to be on a late 80’s kick at the moment and one of my favourite bands as the the 80’s turned into the 90’s was Fishbone. I saw them at least twice but missed their legendary Astoria gig where Angelo jumped off the balcony because my girlfriend at the time decided to dump me that day. One of life’s big regrets. Seems they’ve been around for 25 years now and, even though their recorded output fell off by the mid 90’s, they still hold a place in my heart.
[youtube width=”640″ height=”480″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChXk4R0mGNw[/youtube]
A new documentary is doing the rounds called ‘Everyday Sunshine’ – named after possibly their biggest hit – and you can see how influential they were at the time by the names cropping up to pay homage. Chuck D, Flea, Ice T, Perry Farrell, George Clinton, Les Claypool and, er… Tim Robbins and Gwen Stefani (!). Fair enough on Gwen, No Doubt were a ska band before they hit the big time. Anyway, the trailer looks very promising, Larry Fishburne narrates (nice touch) and let’s hope they get the dues they deserve after all these years. There’s a full website devoted to the doc and the DVD should be out late summer.
Also, does anyone remember an early 90’s TV show with David Rappaport called ‘Beyond the Groove’? I think it only ran for one series and it was a music show fashioned as a road movie of sorts. David would drive around and meet people or find himself in different situations and bands or artists would appear and do their thing. Fishbone once featured at the end of one episode when David drove into a deserted outdoor film lot, the screen flickers into life and you see the band doing a live version of ‘Behaviour Control Technician’ from their (at that time unreleased) ‘Reality of My Surroundings’ LP. I had it on videotape for years and tried to find it recently but it had been taped over! Nothing on YouTube, in fact very little about the show at all, if someone has a copy of it, I’d love to see it, likewise their performance of ‘Fishbone Is Red Hot’ on the Big World Café programme.
And here’s the ‘Beyond the Groove‘ clip courtesy of Matt Davies (see comments below), thanks so much – the power of the internet!.
[youtube width=”640″ height=”480″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qeYUOf4s8g[/youtube]
I was recently asked to play at a night called Classic Material, run by Chris Read and Nick Armitage. The idea for this is to give each month over to a year from Hip Hop’s past and only play tracks released during it. DJ Format did ’87 (entirely on 45’s!), Andy Smith – ’88 and I was given 1989. ’89 was a special year for me as it was the year I moved away from my home and parents and started studying in London, a city I’ve remained in for more than half my life now.
It was also a year rich in musical delights with the beginnings of gangster rap taking over Hip Hop and the emergence of De La Soul‘s Daisy Age with their incredible ‘3 Feet High & Rising’ album. Actually possibly my top three all-time favourite Hip Hop albums were released in ’89, the aforementioned ‘3 Feet High…’, the Beastie Boys‘ ‘Paul’s Boutique’ and the Jungle Brothers‘ ‘Done By The Forces of Nature’.
The Beasties’ album was critically mauled at the time but has undergone a reappraisal since and is now hailed as the classic it is but the Jungle Brothers’ record is still only really feted by Hip Hop heads in the know. It’s their strongest record with as much inventiveness as the De La album if not quite the wackiness of Prince Paul‘s production. In it you can hear the whole blueprint for the Native Tongues movement that was beginning to emerge but also a precursor to Deee-Lite‘s ‘Groove Is In The Heart’ – which would be the anthem of 1990 – Towa Tei was even involved in aspects of the record. On the west coast the Dust Brothers were in their most high profile period with Tone Loc, Young MC and the production of the Beastie’ record. The whole NWA/Ruthless Records camp was basking in the glory of ’88’s ‘Straight Outta Compton’ and surrounding releases like the D.O.C‘s ‘No One Can Do It Better’ album.
Hip House and the general speeding up of Hip Hop was the order of the day with a lot of UK only remixes of licensed US tracks having this edge to them. Alongside this you had the Stone Roses’ debut album and the whole Maddchester scene as well as the fallout from the acid house excess of the previous year making it’s mark on both the charts and surrounding music genres. S’Express made their best records and Tim Burton‘s first Batman was the film of the summer, complete with soundtrack by Prince.
Whilst all this was going on I was doing my Foundation course in Art and Design in Reigate and used the screen printing facilities to make some custom T-shirts for myself and others featuring De La Soul surrounded by psychedelic lettering I drew. It’s with this design that I want to illustrate the mix I put together for Classic Material, done completely on vinyl – what a pain that was after using Serato for 5 years!
’88 was great but ’89 is mine by DJ Food
Elsewhere J Saul Kane was starting his own journey with the first Depth Charge releases on DC Recordings but that comes to fruition about five years down the line.
New 1 hour video mix by my DJ sparring partner DK. Catch us tomorrow at Videocrash alongside Hexstatic, DJ Cheeba and Digitonal at the Electrowerkz in London for some of this and more.
[vimeo width=”640″ height=”480″]http://www.vimeo.com/19005861[/vimeo]
Ordered. For those that missed the three 12″s, they’re all here plus another 40 minutes in lavish Andy Votel designed sleeves.
Stumbled across this on Amazon today, love the cover.
This is new to me but about 6 months old, love Cut Chemist’s stuff, one of my favourite DJs.
[vimeo width=”640″ height=”480″]http://vimeo.com/13404672[/vimeo]
Very sad news of Trish Keenan from Broadcast’s death this morning. My thoughts go out to her family and friends. Official statement here
[youtube width=”636″ height=”480″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqINetENovg[/youtube]
Wagon Christ has a new album called ‘Toomorrow’ set for release in March. The excellent Celyn Brazier is on artwork duties again and you can hear a track from it here.
[flickrvideo width=”636″ height=”480″]http://www.flickr.com/photos/strictly-kev/5334664470/[/flickrvideo]
and you can hear the performance in full here…
Sculpture Live at the London Short Film Festival 2011 by tapebox
You wait for ages (well, not that long actually) and then 3 come along at once – loving these ZTT reissues from Salvo. A fanboy’s wet dream come true and more archive excavations than straight represses. Due early next year…
‘Liverpool’ tracklist:
Disc 1:
1. Warriors Of The Wasteland
2. Rage Hard
3. Kill The Pain
4. Maximum Joy
5. Watching The Wildlife
6. Lunar Bay
7. For Heaven’s Sake
8. Is Anybody Out There?
9. The Waves
10. “Pamela”
11. Pocket Vibrator
12. Suffragette City
13. Roadhouse Blues
14. (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
15. (Don’t Lose What’s Left) Of Your Little Mind
16. Rage Hard (Voiceless)
Disc 2:
1. Rage Hard (Montreux Mix)
2. Warriors Of The Wasteland (Montreux Mix)
3. Warriors Cassetted (Featuring Highlights From Both The 7″ And 12″ Single, Warriors Of The Wasteland, The Twelve Wild Disciples Mix And A Phenomenon Of Megabytes)
4. Drum Loop (Monitor Mix / Wisseloord Sessions / November 1985)
5. F*** Off (Monitor Mix / Wisseloord Sessions / November 1985)
6. Wildlife Cassetted (Featuring Orchestra Wildlife, Watching The Wildlife (Hotter), The Waves, Bit 1, Bit 2 And The Frankie Condom Mix (For A Wilder Time)
7. Our Silver Turns To Gold (Monitor Mix / Ibiza Sessions / May 1985)
8. Delirious (Monitor Mix / Ibiza Sessions / May 1985)
9. “Stan”
10. For Heaven’s Sake (Monitor Mix / Wisseloord Sessions / March 1986)
‘Art of the 12″ ‘ tracklist:
Disc 1:
1 Propaganda – Jewelled 7:48
2 Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Rage Hard (The Young Person’s Guide To The 12” Mix) 12:07
3 Art Of Noise* – Closely Closely (Enough’s Enough) 7:10
4 Act – Theme From Laughter (06.12.87, Extract) 1:08
5 Act – Snobbery & Decay (Extended, For Stephanie Beacham) 8:31
6 Instinct (7) – Sleepwalking (12” Extended Mix) 9:36
7 Art Of Noise* – Moment In Love 1:12
8 808 State – Cübik (Kings County Perspective) 6:00
9 Nasty Rox Inc. – 10th Wonder (12″ Mix) 7:02
10 MC Tunes Vs. 808 State – Dance Yourself To Death (License To Thrill) 5:40
11 808 State – Pacific 909 (Mellow Birds Mega Edit) 7:05
12 Art Of Noise* – Moments In Love (Beaten) 6:58
13 Propaganda – Testament Two 0:24
Disc 2:
1 Frankie Goes To Hollywood – The Power Of Love (Singlette Mix, Extract) 0:28
2 Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Relax (Sex Mix Edit) 8:15
3 Anne Pigalle – Souvenir d’Un Paris (Mix Aguicheur) 7:14
5 Glenn Gregory & Claudia Brücken – When Your Heart Runs Out Of Time (6’20”) 6:20
6 Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Warriors (Compacted, Extract) 0:51
7 Andrew Poppy – 32 Frames (Drummed Up) 8:33
8 Propaganda – Dr Mabuse (12″ Master Mix For Germany) 6:13
9 Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Two Tribes (Hibakush-ah!) 6:59
10 Art & Act (A pArt Of Noise)* – Life’s A Barrel Of Laughs (Out Of This World Mix) 8:05
11 Art Of Noise* – Dreaming (Silver Mix, Extract) 2:00
12 Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Welcome To The Pleasuredome (Pleasurefix) 9:37
13 Frankie Goes To Hollywood – The Only Star In Heaven (Starfix) 3:47
14 (lomax•)* – Waiting In Vain (Extended Dub) 4:44
15 808 State – Pacific (Bonus Bird Beats) 2:58
16 Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Rage Hard (++, Extract) 0:22
‘Combined: The Best of Claudia Brucken’ tracklist:
1. Dr.Mabuse (A Paranoid Fantasy) – Propaganda
2. Duel – Propaganda
3. (The Beta Wrap Around Of) P:Machinery – Propaganda
4. Absolutely Immune – ACT
5. Snobbery And Decay – ACT
6. Femme Fatale (The Woman With The Orchid) – Propaganda
7. Absolut(E) – Claudia Brücken
8. Delicious – Andy Bell And Claudia Brücken
9. Cloud 9ine – Onetwo
10. Thank You – Claudia Brücken
11. Sequentia – Onetwo
12. Light The Way (Radio Seduction Edit) – Chrome Seduction Feat. Claudia Brücken
13. This Is Not America – Claudia Brücken And Paul Rutherford
14. Night School – Claudia Brücken
15. In Dreams – Claudia Brücken And Andrew Poppy
Got hold of this last week, it’s every bit as good as the first two and might just be the thing that turns rock music down a more interesting path in the next decade, who knows. It’s supposedly out at the start of January but I got a copy from Sister Ray on Berwick St. recently and they have copies at their FSOL Digital store which has had a makeover too. Here’s 20 minutes from it, turn on, tune in, freak out.
A bit of a special one this: Videocrash and Solid Steel team up for a XXmas knees-up at the Electrowerkz in an Audio Visual rave up this Saturday. Hexstatic will be presenting a ‘Trailer Trax’ special, Cheeba will no doubt be previewing some tidy new pieces and DK and I will round out the year with a final showcase of our own Ninja Tune XX AV mix before packing it up and putting it to bed. Joining us will be Digitonal showing their new ‘Deep Space’ a/v set – an hour long set constructed around a voyage that starts with Earth. moves past the Moon and planets, and into the infinite…
Not only that but Graffiti artist, stenciller and sticker-er (?) supreme, SNUB23 from Brighton will be joining us and painting an original piece live from 11pm. This will later be auctioned off in aid of the MacMillan Cancer Support charity after being signed by all present. He might also bring some stencils for custom T shirts too (see below). It all starts at 8pm and will probably end messily at 4am, this is a final farewell to a great year for Ninja and the 20th celebrations before we break for Xmas.
Some Dreams You Never Forget (An Experience In 3 Acts)
Get this quick before the lawyers move in, I was lucky enough to have a preview of this in NYC a few weeks ago but was told to keep schtum. Blow Your Headphones!
It’s that time – the race for the (UK) No.1 spot in the charts. This year I’m fully behind the Cage Against the Machine rework of John Cage’s 4’33”, the famous ‘silent’ piece. Here are links to buy the Cage single and a video of the rerecording made in London the other week.
Every purchase of 4’33 will now count towards the Christmas Chart – you must buy the ‘Cage Against the Machine version though – you can buy the original on it’s own or the full package of remixes, either will count as a purchase. Please keep spreading this and remember proceeds go to various charities for the deaf or those with impaired hearing 
For this to work we need to give this a really big push and now!!
Just Giving charity for the deaf
BUY Cage Against the Machine on iTunes
BUY Cage Against the Machine on Amazon (cheapest!)
BUY Cage Against the Machine on 7 Digital