DJ Food ‘Kaleidoscope’

LP back cover
Inner sleeve A
Inner sleeve B
Inner sleeve C
Inner sleeve D
LP on body labels
CD on body with spot UV
Straight No Chaser 1 page advert
The Wire 1 page advert
Breakin Point advert
'A Dub Plate of Food' vol.2 10" cover
sleeve rough layouts
sleeve rough layouts
sleeve rough layouts
  • RELEASED: Apr 2000
  • FORMAT: 2xLP / CD
  • LABEL: NINJA TUNE
  • CAT No.: ZEN47 / ZENCD47
  • DESIGN: Openmind
  • PHOTOGRAPHY: Openmind, Alice Ceresole, Sandra Cole
  • EXTRA ZEN: ninjatune page / BUY

In ’99 I went with a load of friends to a thing called Colourscape on Clapham Common – a large warren of rooms in different colours that worked with the light outside to make the whole environment seem drenched in different hues. We all took turns in taking pictures and – when PC came up with the name ‘Kaleidoscope’ for the album title – I knew these would be perfect for imagery. I wanted something ambiguous but colourful and also otherworldly because the music touched on that and didn’t really warrant one specific image. Some of the images, the cover for instance, were composites of various images blurred together to make them even more ambiguous.

I wanted the layout to be clean, similar to classic jazz covers and the front to look more like a soundtrack to something, hence the DJ Food at the bottom and the title at the top. The front was colour and glossy and the back matt and black & white, again like the classic era of jazz album sleeves. I did many variations, some based on favourite covers of mine and others not –  some of these wound up as inner sleeve designs. Various friends are featured in the images along with two very anonymous pictures of PC and I.