ZTT turns 30

The great Zang Tuum Tumb Records turns 30 years old this month and to celebrate they have a compilation out called ‘The Organization of Pop’. I’ll be reactivating my dormant Art of ZTT site to post a host of updates later this month too featuring exclusive images from some of the people who were there at the beginning.

The label issued a short press release last week with the phrase, ‘Today is officially the end of the beginning.”


Looking down the track listing there aren’t too many surprises in the form of unreleased gems but the inclusion of both Grace Jones and Seal as the first two tracks hopefully means that some sort of legal agreement has at last been worked out and we can expect to see proper reissues of their work in the future. Also note that this is the New York Edition – further London and Tokyo Editions are planned for next year…

ZTT Records Presents The Organization of Pop (New York Edition)
Music From The First Thirty Years of ZTT Records

Disc 1: The Organisation of Pop (the Action Series, from ZTT)

• Grace Jones – Slave To The Rhythm
• Seal – Kiss From A Rose
• Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Relax (New York Mix)
• 808 State – Pacific (Justin Strauss 0101 Mix)
• Art of Noise – Beat Box
• Propaganda – Dr. Mabuse (Abuse)
• Tom Jones – If Only I Knew (Cold Stop Version)
• MC Tunes vs 808 State – Dance Yourself To Death (Dust Brothers Radio Edit)
• Propaganda – Sorry For Laughing (Unapologetic 12” Mix)
• 808 State – Cubik (Pan American Excursion)
• Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Two Tribes
• Shane MacGowan and Sinead O’Connor – Haunted
• The Frames – Star Star
• Art of Noise – Moments In Love (Beaten)

Disc 2: The Disorganisation of Pop (the Incidental Series, from Zang Tuum Tumb)

• The Buggles – We Can Fly From Here (Part One)
• The Frames – Say It To Me Now
• Shane MacGowan and Maire Brennan – You’ve The One
• Lee Griffiths – Sweet Baby James
• Das Psycho Rangers – Homage to the Blessed
• Art of Noise featuring Rakim – Metaforce
• Nasty Rox Inc. – Escape From New York (12” Mix)
• ACT – Snobbery & Decay (That’s Entertainment Mix)
• The Buggles – I Am A Camera (12” Mix)
• Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Welcome To The Pleasuredome (Fruitness Mix)
• Lisa Stansfield – The Moment
• The Buggles – We Can Fly From Here (Part Two)
• Andrew Poppy – Kink Konk Adagio

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‘T is for Trapped’ mix on Solid Steel

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.

Posted in DJ Food, Mixes/Solid Steel, Solid Steel. | 3 Comments |

Angry Birds Star Wars 2 promo films

I’ve been giggling along with these this morning with my kids who are extremely excited that Angry Birds Star Wars 2 is out today. This (in case you’ve been living under a rock) bolts the Star Wars franchise to the Angry Birds games and it’s done extremely well and with great humour in all the designs and promo.

It’s one of the SW franchise spin-offs that they got right and now it’s the turn of the prequel characters to get a turn. Which means you get to play as Darth Maul, General Grievous, Anakin and yes, even Jar Jar. Despite that there are some beautifully crafted promo films which I’ve honestly had more enjoyment watching that the whole prequel trilogy put together. ‘Boba’s Delivery’ has a brilliant moment with Vader and a carton of juice and Darth Maul‘s spot is just as cute.


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ColdKrushCuts 3xLP repress now in stock

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.

Posted in DJ Food, Mixes/Solid Steel, Ninja Tune, Records. | 3 Comments |

‘Out Of The Future’ mix on Solid Steel

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)

 

Posted in DJ Food, Mixes/Solid Steel, Solid Steel. | 1 Comment |

How To Program Your 808 posters by Rob Ricketts

These are available from Bleep – step by step visual guides on how to program classic beats on the Roland 808 drum machine by Rob Ricketts. A3 prints at a reasonable £12 each (although the website confusingly says A2 in some places). The grooves of Electro classics like ‘Planet Rock’, ‘Needle To The Groove’, ‘Clear’ and ‘Al-Naafiysh (The Soul)’ are all within your grasp with these beauties.

There’s also a particularly tasteful A2 version of ‘Planet Rock’ in black and gold available on Rob’s site too for £40.

Posted in Design, Poster / flyer. | 1 Comment |

Big Fish Little Fish – Sept 21st, Brixton, London

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.

Posted in DJ Food, Gigs. | 1 Comment |

New Delta shows

Boris Tellegen aka Delta has work in three new shows this month:

Rennes – Groupshow at Les Ateliers du Vent “Teenage Kicks”
Sept. 7 – Sept 29, 2013 – 59 Rue Alexandre Duval  35000 Rennes

 

Paris – Groupshow at Backslash Gallery “(de)constructions”
Sept. 12 to Oct. 31, 2013 – 29 rue Notre-Dame de Nazareth, 75003 Paris
Opening on Thursday 12 September, from 5 to 9 pm / closed from Sept. 24 to Oct. 4 included

 

Amsterdam – Groupshow at Mini Gallery “Col.la.ge”
Sept. 14 to Sept 28, 2013 – Nieuwe Looiersstraat 68-1, Amsterdam
Opening 13 Sept.

Posted in Art, Event. | No Comments |

Ian McQue

I’ve been following Scottish concept artist Ian McQue on Twitter for some time now (he’s English you know, he just lives in Scotland). He has a thing for flying tug boats, future tech and the odd robot now and then.

He posts the most incredible images and calls them ‘doodles’, ‘sketches’ or ‘speed-paints’. It’s good that people with this much talent are also humble. Check out more of his work on CGHub or his blogspot (but he posts a lot more on Twitter).

Posted in Art, Design, Robots. | 1 Comment |

Luke Vibert – Nuggets 3 coming October

Coming in October from Lo Recordings – the third installment of Luke Vibert‘s ‘Nuggets’ compilations. Digging deep from the Bruton vaults he’s unearthed another 26 tracks.

“Packed full of Sci-fi funk jams, truly cosmic disco and robot rock this was music designed to soundtrack the future, or at least a bright and optimistic early eighties vision of what the future might be”, says the press release.

Mmmmmmmmm… double vinyl too.

Posted in Records. | 1 Comment |

DJ Shadow / Solid Steel 25th at Motion in Bristol

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.

Posted in DJ Food, Gigs, Solid Steel. | No Comments |