According to the tape box, this was a Coldcut Solid Sphinx, that being a 2 hr set with no ad breaks or chat from us. Given that I have most of it on tape that bears out the description but of course there are no track lists on the mic and no indication as to who is playing when. I could spot my section though and, from the sound of the rest of the tapes, Matt, Jon and PC were also present. Not enough mention is given to the insertion of jingles, spoken word and fx over the top of the DJ mixes and this was something that really made the radio shows special. Matt, Jon and Patrick were expert at this and would frequently have something ready for a break or pause in the music, all flown in live as we DJed.

All the shows were done in one take back then, although mostly pre-records on the Friday evening before they were aired Saturday night/Sunday morning. We didn’t have the facilities to do hard disc edits back then – well, KISS did but we didn’t like we do now – and also there wasn’t time. So if things are a little rough round the edges occasionally that’s because it’s all live. A quick run through of the tracks; Sam Sever from his Raiders of the Lost Art 12” licensed to MoWax kicks things off, I had to transplant the start of it from another source as the tape cut in after it had started. I see the ‘record company is the pimp, the artist is the ho…’ analogy attributed to Ice Cube a lot on the web but he was evidently cribbing from whatever source Sam sampled this from. DJ Shadow’s debut release, ‘Entropy’ had either had a repress after his first releases on MoWax due to high demand or someone had booted it, either way, copies started floating around again in 1995 and Discogs suggests it was the latter.

Another semi-official /semi-boot release was Think Tank, sporting a Tommy Boy label but on Hakattak Records. Both tracks appeared on the Information Society’s LP ‘Hack’ the same year so was this a promo idea from Tommy Boy because of the huge James Brown and Kraftwerk samples? The Jungle Brothers’ Ultimatum megamix came with the free 12” available with copies of the UK release of their debut LP, ‘Straight Out The Jungle’ and Ultimatum were actually the Stereo MCs when DJ Cesare was part of the crew. More trip hop, DJ Krush with ‘Ruff-Neck Jam’ from his debut LP and then into DJ Crystl’s classic ‘Let It Roll’ on the wrong speed for a quick switch up in tempo.

This stuff, along with early Photek and Droppin’ Science 12”s, were some of the first D’n’B I bought when I was working at Ambient Soho, jungle had largely passed me by but this newer, sleeker, more intricate form was working its way into the record box. The next track with ‘Gunshots… Firing’ initially drew a blank but Anon in the comments identified it as something from Luke Vibert’s Plug series, ‘3:41’ from Plug 1 – Visible Crater Funk. Link’s ‘Amazon Amenity’ Chameleon remix stands out a mile, such a tune, utter classic, and Danny Breaks’ ‘Step Off’ fits right in, funny that they collaborated later on too. Funki Porcini’s ‘Wicked, Cruel, Nasty & Bad’ rounds things off, from his Hed Phone Sex debut LP, I’d forgotten this, must dig that album out again. Speaking of Funki (as I was just the other day), he’s making high quality prints of my Fast Asleep album cover again very soon so if you fancy hanging that on your wall then check his website in about a month.

Track list:
Sam Sever & The Raiders of the Lost Art – Words of Wisdom (They Don’t Know)
DJ Shadow feat Gift of Gab – Count & Estimate
Think Tank – A Knife & A Fork (The Massively Parallel Mix)
Jungle Brothers – Ultimatum Ultramix
DJ Krush – Ruff-Neck Jam
DJ Crystl – Let It Roll
Plug – 3:41
Link – Amazon Amenity (Chameleon remix)
Danny Breaks – Step Off
Funki Porcini – Wicked, Cruel, Nasty & Bad

Rather than an archive mix this week I’ve decided to do a new one – of sorts – for subscribers as I’ve had this on the laptop for several months, waiting for a chance to edit and post it. There will be two parts and it’s culled from a DJ set I did earlier this year. There are no edits in this first section, just a fade in at the beginning from a longer piece. Part 2 follows next week with more info on the mix and I’m readying another Mixcloud Select Exclusive mix for May too…

Back at the start of the year, at the end of January to be precise, I took part in an outdoor sound and light celebration as part of the Candlemas festival at the Royal Foundation of St. Katherine in Limehouse, East London. I was mainly responsible for the music selection but also bought along some projectors and FX wheels to add to the many others happening around the site. Alongside me were Julian Hand and Paul Naudin, boiling oil and ink inside slides which they then projected around the canopy we were stationed under. Elsewhere Heena Song and Joe and Janie from Whyte Light Visuals were doing similar things either inside one of the cafe tents or in the main chapel area.

The musical brief was ambient / psychedelic / krautrock / cosmic and I was using a small digital controller to layer tracks and add FX, seated outside in the freezing cold, wrapped up in layers of clothing, thermals, hat and scarf. As part of my set I added a truncated version of the Solid Steel mix for the show’s 30 anniversary a few years back, so that I could have some time to socialise and see the rest of the site. This 30 minute mix could be seen as a continuation of the Influences set I put together for Dust & Grooves nearly 10 years ago, full of key tracks from the last 50 years that have stuck with me and informed my tastes. If you missed it back then then it’s a very densely layered set that took many hours to get right in the studio, not live by any stretch of the imagination, but something I laboured over to create a gently shifting flow of songs and textures. That it also included some religious references was a bonus considering the event and location we were playing at. It begins and ends with the Linda Perhacs track ‘Parallelograms’ and is preceded with some very deep ambient, largely from the German school.

More photos and details of the evening here:

Part 1 Tracklist:
Cyclicia (Extended) – Jon Brooks
Electric Garden – Conrad Schnitzler
Phaedra (shhhhhh) – Tangerine Dream
Aqua – Edgar Froese
Slow Action – Pictogram
– Solid Steel 30 A Dream Within A Dream mix (short version 30.29) – DJ Food
Parallelograms / Linda Perhacs
The Carrier / Brian Eno & David Byrne
On The Run / Pink Floyd
Autobahn / Kraftwerk
Ascent (An Ending) / Brian Eno & Daniel Lanois
Our Prayer / The Beach Boys
Gravitational Arch of 10 / Vapour Space
Love Is Lost (Hello Steve Reich Mix) / David Bowie
Rain Dance / Herbie Hancock
Messer, Scissors, Fork & Light / Can
Rainbow Dome Musick / Steve Hillage
Tardis Cymbals / Cavern of Anti-Matter
Electric Counterpoint fast / Pat Metheny
Music for 18 Musicians / Steve Reich
Wet Rubber Soup / 10cc
Rainbow Dome Musick / Steve Hillage
Answered Prayers / David Sylvian
E2:E4 / Manuel Gottsching
Deep Shit (The Cult of Mu 7″ mix) / The KLF
A Mechanical Eye / Jon Brooks
In C (Version 4.2) / Terry Riley vs Meat Beat Manifesto
Telepath / Boards of Canada
Obsidian (Organically Decomposed) / Psychic Warriors of Gaia
Waves Become Wings / This Mortal Coil
Rainbow Dome Musick / Steve Hillage
A New Day / Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith & Suzanne Ciani
Gravitational Arch of 10 / Vapour Space
Parallelograms / Linda Perhacs
Butterfly – The Fox

Recorded on the 30th March but broadcast three weeks later on the 21st April, 2006 – this set of vaguely psychedelic, drum-heavy tracks was another dip of the toe into the melting pot of funky freakout gear I was getting more and more into by the mid 00’s. Some pretty pedestrian stuff here to be honest but most of it still holds up. Some of the mixes come fast and furious, barely holding in there as tempos and swing are all over the place but that’s the beauty of it isn’t it? This was all done from vinyl but I would shortly switch to Serato after a disastrous trip to Dublin where my record box didn’t take the same plane and I had to raid the promoter’s record collection to piece together a set on the spot. I’d just been given a demo of Serato at Mr Trick’s house and this was all I needed to push me over to the digital side.

We all know the Beatles, The Osmonds’ number is a great track from their Crazy Horses album and I have a soft spot for them as there are some killer tunes in their catalogue alongside the schmaltz. That Rastas track has the most insane drum solo, I think I found that on one of the North American tours and the cover has definitely been nibbled by a few mice in its time. DJ Food fans might recognise elements from Lalo Schifrin’s ‘Life Insurance’ but I’ll say no more, the Vanilla Fudge was also plundered later on… Andy Votel’s mix of Schwab’s ‘DJs In A Row’ was a killer DJ party tool that DK and I used to cane in the latter half of the 00’s in our 4-deck sets, especially the latter half with it’s multi-tempo breaks, I even cut a nice video to it at one point which I should dig out some time. DK and I must have edited hundreds of custom videos to tracks over the years between 2008 and 2012 when we regularly toured our AV sets, maybe once these tapes are done I should dig them out and upload them for all.

‘Freakout’ by the Electric Flag with John Simon (presumably controlling the electronics and mix) does exactly what it says on the tin, a 10 minute utter craze-fest with panning effects and samples flying everywhere. In my head there’s a definition of psychedelic music and this is one of the benchmarks of the 60s era – few are as insane and relentless as this monster vamp. It’s the last track on the You Are What You Eat OST if you need a copy. Sweet Smoke’s ‘Silly Sally’ is another huge, phased drum solo from the latter half of their side-long, Conny Plank-produced debut LP. The Sub’s ‘Ma-Mari-Huana’ is a tune from the German band’s only single and The Mind Expanders’ album is a must for a pot shot at all things psych in 1967 even if it does sound like a bit of a cash in.

Charlie Daniels’ ‘Funky Junky’ was something I found in a Greenwich basement and bought on spec, turns out it’s a funky rock tune with a killer breakdown – nice. Beaver & Krause have another nice breakdown in the middle of their country-rock tune ‘Gandharva’ (with a bit of a Ken Nordine voice-over from the intro to the Jackson’s ‘Triumph’ no less). Rock doesn’t get much funkier than Deep Purple’s ‘Flight Of The Rat’ with that wah-wah guitar in the mix, there must be a re-edit of this somewhere? We take a slight pause from the percussion mayhem with a snatch of The Hellers before Don Sebesky’s fuzz jazz cut ‘Elliot’s Pad’ from The People Next Door OST. Elliot’s Pad seems to include sitars, flutes and drum breaks too and then we’re back into big beat breakdowns from Cozy Powell, The Osmonds (again – showcasing ‘My Drum’) and a second pass for Lalo Schifrin from his Rock Requiem LP which opens like Stereolab and then goes all Jesus Christ Superstar on us, sounding more David Axelrod than David Axelrod in places.

The Flies’ cover of (I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone is just the right side of nasty and Dr John’s evergreen ‘Right Place, Wrong Time’ is always welcome. Rare Earth’s bass line to ‘(I Know I’m) Losing You’ mixes remarkably well out of it too. I’ve always wanted to do something with that but never got it to work in a track, probably too late now as the sample boat has long sailed. Over the extended breakdown you’ll hear Frank Zappa, Alvin Lucier and the ‘Persons are gifts…’ monologue from Rosko that I would later feature on the Ninja Tune 1000 Masks mix.

Tracklist:
MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR – THE BEATLES
HOLD HER TIGHT – THE OSMONDS
BLACK CAT – RASTAS
LIFE INSURANCE – LALO SCHIFRIN
THE BEAT GOES ON – VANILLA FUDGE
DJS IN A ROW (ANDY VOTEL MIX) – SCHWAB
FREAKOUT – THE ELECTRIC FLAG & JOHN SIMON
SILLY SALLY – SWEET SMOKE
MA-MARI-HUANA – THE SUB
LOVE SYNDROME – MIND EXPANDERS
FUNKY JUNKY – CHARLIE DANIELS
GANDHARVA – BEAVER & KRAUSE
FLIGHT OF THE RAT – DEEP PURPLE
ELLIOT’S PAD – DON SEBESKY
AND THEN THERE WAS SKIN – COZY POWELL
MY DRUM – THE OSMONDS
INTROIT – LALO SCHIFRIN
(I’M NOT YOUR) STEPPIN’ STONE – THE FLIES
RIGHT PLACE, WRONG TIME – DR JOHN
(I KNOW I’M) LOSING YOU – RARE EARTH

Kicking off with a good old Stereo Phase Test skit by Man Or Astro-Man? who I never remember owning a record by but maybe it came off a compilation. Then we’re quickly into a track that came out in the late 90s on Oxygen Music Works, a small NYC label that put out some interesting releases at the time. Riz Maslen aka Neotropic was involved with them for a bit and Kurtis Mantronik put out a few 12”s and an LP with them, re-emerging from the wilderness under his own name after the major label Mantronix Mk2 had seemingly ground to a halt and he exited the music industry for a few years. The version here is actually the Phat Girl’s remix, a brief alias of Riz’s, and she goes sample crazy, piling all manner of old snippets from his back catalogue into the mix. From one beat pioneer to another, we move back in time to the Art of Noise, old Brits giving Kurtis a run for his money, with a cut from their debut LP over a decade before, still sounding fresh, then and now.

Switching into jazz mode for one of the new remixes Mo Wax had put out for the reissue of Innerzone Orchestra’s ‘Bug In The Bassbin’ (odd that Talkin’ Loud put out the subsequent album though?). This new version of the classic (even then only four years old!) reworks it in a live band context, adding double bass and taking out the original drum sample, replacing it with a drummer who seems to barely be holding it together and it’s all the more exciting for it. Right in the middle it seems I thought it was time for turntablism and we dive into a slow scratchathon between DJs JS-1 and Spinbad, the latter of which was one of the fastest, funky scratchers of the time. Then suddenly, it’s a DJ Vadim instrumental for less than a minute and then a Kid Koala track that still makes me laugh from his debut LP. ‘The Mushroom Factory’ sound like someone is rolling something squashy back and forth over a metal grill for no other reason than it sounds cool.

Suddenly, attention deficit disorder strikes once more and Japan’s Fantastic Plastic Machine bluster in with the incredible ‘Mr Salesman’. FPM seemed to emerge perfectly in time with the whole easy listening revival in the UK with DJs like The Karminsky Experience Inc., Martin Green and bands like The Gentle People and this was from his self-titled debut LP. An obvious sonic choice to follow this seemed to be ‘Cooper’s World’ from the debut Warp LP of Squarepusher. Sounding like it could have soundtracked some epic Sunday afternoon travel-come-chase programme – Tom is straight out of the gate in manic jazz bass mode in this superbly melodic D n B stormer.

Another slice of Kid Koala – this time containing the immortal phrase, ‘This is stupid!’ (from an Incredible Hulk record, fact fans) and yes, it is. As is Sukia’s ‘Vaseline & Sand’ – a very odd Dust Brothers-produced album from a duo who went on to become DJ Me DJ You. PC and I actually remixed a track from this album (‘Feelin’ Free’) but they’d split up by the time we’d finished so it surfaced on the extra disc of the XEN Cuts compilation a few years later. This track however, obviously takes The B-52’s ‘Planet Claire’ as inspiration and attempts to recreate it with spoken word such as, ‘picture if you will… a lemon’ over the top – a minor classic that saw a release on MoWax too. We end with a slice of Req’s ‘Razzamatazz’ from his debut 12” on Skint, I loved his music for all its lo-fi, mastered-to-cassette, old school-isms and he later got signed to Warp before re-emerging on Seagrave a few years back.

Track list:
Man Or Astro-Man? – Stereo Phase Test
Kurtis Mantronik – Bass Machine Re-Tuned (Phat Girl’s Tuning)
Art of Noise – Who’s Afraid (Of The Art Of Noise)
Innerzone Orchestra – Bug In The Bassbin (Jazz Mix)
DJ JS-1 feat. DJ Spinbad – Babylon 5
DJ Vadim – Conquest Of The Irrational (178 Metre High Instrumental Mix)
Kid Koala – The Mushroom Factory
Fantastic Plastic Machine – Mr Salesman
Squarepusher – Cooper’s World
Kid Koala – Thank You, Good Night, Drive Safely
Sukia – Vaseline & Sand
Req – Razzamatazz

The first of two parts from a mid 1997 Solid Steel tape which bounces from uptempo drum ’n’ bass-ish techno to turntablism and jazz. Kicking off with Bedouin Ascent’s ‘Cat Can Blow!’ from the Law & Auder compilation Avantgardism III, I was wrong-footed into thinking this was Squarepusher at first. Kingsuk Biswas (Bedouin Ascent’s real name) contributed to many of the Law & Auder compilations – usually a title ending in ‘ism’ – and it seemed that quite a few of the Rising High roster found a home at the label when the techno label folded, including Luke Vibert who released a full album with BJ Cole in 2000. The identity of the two tracks following has been lost in time, I can’t place them at all and Shazam has nothing – as ever, if you recognise them, please leave a comment.

UPDATE!: Thanks to Edward ZentaurusMan for filling in some of the tracklist gaps

We take a drop in tempo to half time with DJ Ruthless’ ‘Flat Chested’ scratch-athon from the Return of the DJ vol.2 compilation next and I was very much in thrall of the west coast turntablist scene at this point, finding it an incredibly exciting progression in the art. In hindsight it hasn’t aged too well and although skilled on the decks, few of the DJs broke out of the standard mould and had the production skills to transfer them well to records. One DJ who definitely did though was Kid Koala, not that he was ever fully in the standard mould of your Skratch Piklz or Xecutioners, he always had one foot firmly in his own camp. To see how far he’s come today is humbling, scoring film music, putting on live shows with stories performed by puppeteers or conducting 50 turntable orchestras – his scope and vision is breathtaking. Here’s the record that started it all with Ninja Tune and the story has been told often – most prominently in the 20 Years of Beats & Pieces book – of the fateful car journey on tour in Canada. Eric popped his demo tape into the stereo while PC, Jon More, Funki Porcini and I were riding somewhere and this was the track that all ears pricked up to. From then on, we knew he was on the same page as us and duly signed him to the label and the rest is history.

Another piece of Ninja Tune history is PC’s classic remix of The Herbaliser’s ‘Mr Chombee Has The Flaw’ – completely rebuilt and renamed, ‘Mrs Chombee Takes The Plunge’ with little of the original identifiable. It shows how the art of the remix can translate a song into something completely new and we were all stunned hearing it for the first time. ‘The Art of Prophecy’ was the album that As One’s ‘The Huster’ first appeared on via the short-lived Shield records, a sub label of Substance Records, and Kirk Degiorgio does as only he can do with a dirty slice of techno jazz (added to by the KISS FM station compression and tape fuzz). Funki Porcini’s cheeky cut up of old war film dialogue, ‘Pete Pete Pete’, from the Let’s See What Carmen Can Do EP plays over the top and the title was a nod to Ninja Tune label head Peter Quicke (also of Mr Quicke cuts the cheese fame).

This tape brings back fond memories of frantic days spent designing, touring, rushing to and from the Ninja Tune office in Canary Wharf and a general sense of excitement over where the label was going next after the huge swell in popularity it had gained in the two years previously. Great music was pouring out of everywhere it seemed and we were gearing up for the release of Coldcut’s ‘Let Us Play’ album that summer which would be another Ninja milestone that would take Matt and Jon around the world, and some of us with them for the next two years.

Part 2 next week

Track list:
Margoo – Intro
Bedouin Ascent – ‘Cat Can Blow!
Quant – Intestinal Sound
The Bowling Green – Caucasian Flotsam
DJ Ruthless – Flat Chested
Kid Koala – Tricks ’N’ Tricks
The Herbaliser – Mrs Chombee Takes The Plunge
As One – The Hustler
Funki Porcini – Pete Pete Pete

Back To The Old School! Possibly the first person to want to get back to the old school – at that point only a few years ago in hip hop history – Just Ice aka Sir Vicious teamed up with Mantronik on production for this incredible album cut. Sounding anything but old school at the time, revisiting this for this upload it strikes me that it sounds like a dub version of a vocal tune, the way the vocal drops in and out with the delays. Hard to write a track like that with snatches of lyrics punching through, I wonder if any other versions exist? Certainly still sounds fresh though. A bit of ‘Mella’ from Jazz Brakes vol.2 with a snatch of the exorcism from the I Am Lucifer LP I finally located last year on vinyl.

The thunderous ‘Break Dancer’ by The Boogie Boys is now a forgotten classic in the mould of Art of Noise’s ‘Beatbox’ and only a year behind it, release-wise, love those huge beats. Bedouin Ascent’s ‘Internal Bleeding’ from his Pavillion of the New Spirit EP is just an incredible piece of techno jazz, the whole 12” is utter electronica gold and criminally un-heralded, one of the true unsung heroes of 90s electronic music. I think I mixed the Autechre track in on the wrong beat from here, in time but off beat. We take a pause for the cause and I thought I’d leave the ads in for curiositie’s sake – the East Coast Dr Dre and Ed Lover advertising Lugs footwear and a plug for a weekend of rare groove on KISS.

Then we’re back for some 9 Lazy 9, ‘Checkin’ On You’ on Ninja Tune, James and Kier’s funky jazz project before James went off solo as Funki Porcini. Still going strong, his latest project is his Laserium, multiple lasers reflected through prisms synched to his music, forming a new kind of Lumia projection show. I’m seeing him this weekend in Bristol at the IMAX along with old heads The Light Surgeons and ex-Hexstatic Stuart Warren-Hill’s Holotronica project. Jon mentions assembling at the South bank that weekend for a march and you can hear a shout of ‘Injustice!’ from Matt in the background and I think this refers to the Criminal Justice Bill protests happening around this time. The track underneath the chat I cannot remember and Shazam has nothing either, but coming in again on time but off beat is ‘Triangle’ from Sounds From The Ground from their debut EP.

Mix URL:

Track list:
Just Ice – Back To The Old School
DJ Food – Mella
The Boogle Boys – Break Dancer
Bedouin Ascent – Internal Bleeding
Autechre – Further
Ad break
9 Lazy 9 – Checkin’ On You
Unknown – Unknown
Sounds From The Ground – Triangle