An odd assortment from mid 2002 here with a bit of party-style mash up, a bit of funk, some Four Tet and some cut ups thrown in, sounds a bit like I was tidying up some loose ends. The inclusion of ‘Milk’ by The Basic dates it instantly to around the time of DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist’s ‘Product Placement’ mix, of which this was a staple, both musically and visually. It’s also the first time Luke Vibert’s ‘Homewerk’ gets an airing, a track that would be in the record box from most of the decade and still comes out for the Kraftwerk Klassics, Kovers and Kurios set.

‘Yoda’s One Man Band’ sounds more like Kid Koala than he did back then and I’m not entirely sure it was serious. I never knew who the Freelance Hairdresser was, obviously a play on the Freelance Hellraiser and in early on with the mash up craze. Here he/she mixes the BBC Pot Black theme (Winifred Atwell – Black & White Rag) with Eminem to ‘hilarious’ effect, hasn’t dated a bit – but seriously, this is half of what I enjoyed about the bastard pop craze, it was ridiculous and unpretentious fun, mostly made by people who had nothing to lose.

‘Funk’ is, of course, the less famous B side to Meco’s huge disco-fied hit, ’Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band’ although something tells me they needed a filler track quickly for the flip and didn’t stop to think too hard about the title. Here comes Luke with his obvious steal homage to the Dusseldorf Quartet and I have to say, that tempo switch down mix out of it into Paul Kass is inspired. There’s also a link between the two as ‘Underground Agent’ is featured on the Further Nuggets compilation of library music that Luke made for Lo Recordings around this time.

And here’s The Basic with their advertisement for the dairy industry, not 100% sure where the spoken word about cows comes from that I’ve slung over it but it’s probably a Sesame Street sketch. I remember seeing the Product Placement show at, I think, the Scala of all places, in London. Shadow and Cut confounded a few people after the party-tastic ‘Brainfreeze’ set by digging pretty deep to the point where the tracks were cool but more of a head-nod than a get down. Z-Trip ripped it up on that show, pure showmanship with Nirvana cut ups and plenty of mic action.

A couple of Four Tet pieces follow, first, a remix for James Yorkson, and second, something he did for the Domino label which takes a big slabs of John Abercrombie’s ‘Timeless’ and weaves it into something beautiful. It comes as a 7”, split over two sides and features a photo of a young Kieran with his sister on the cover. We play out and turn off the light with Al Dente and Ill Chemist – friends of Steinski’s – and a little track from a CDr I was given I think as I can’t find it anywhere on the web. Nighty Night!

Track list:
DJ Yoda – Yoda’s One Man Band
Freelance Hairdresser – Marshall’s Been Snookered
Meco – Funk
Luke Vibert – Homewerk
Paul Kass – Underground Agent
The Basic – Milk
James Yorkson & the Athletes – The Lang Toun (Four Tet remix)
Four Tet – I’m On Fire (Part 2)
Al Dente and Ill Chemist – Nighty Night

Back for part 2 of the set from last week where Matt Black and I recorded a Solid Steel session in my bedroom as the KISS FM studios were booked out. This hour is a mix of the two of us but it’s hard to determine who played what so I’ve left the thing whole, the tape also started with Cypress Hill’s ’Scooby Doo’ but it was incomplete so I’ve cut it. I kick off with a snatch of the Psychic Warriors Ov Gaia’s majestic ‘Obsidian’ remix before Digital Underground’s ‘Packet Man’ – a tale of a sexual experience sold in a pill. A short snatch of a DJ Spike track precedes the newly released ‘Sound Of The Police’ from KRS 1’s Return Of The Boom Bap LP, a virtual classic as soon as it hit the streets before a ‘pause for the cause’ and into a bit of Matt on the decks. The Tape Beatles had become a spoken word staple on the show since the Orb visited and hipped Matt & Jon to their work and the first two tracks from their Music With Sound album feature here. Steve Reich was also a mainstay of shows, continually popping up over the years in different mixes with his minimalist works, joined here by a spoken word piece, read by Matt’s dad. Out of this comes another ambient classic, ‘Flurescence’ (spelling as on the record) from Jonah Sharp’s debut EP as Spacetime Continuum, another track that got many outings in the early 90s.

A NSFW sketch about vinyl opens the next section with a a near ‘C bomb’ moment quickly cut with a fader. Tournesol’s ‘Holy Cow’ was a bumping trip hop-y moment on their Kokotsu album for R&S, followed by early Chemical Brothers when they were still masquerading under the Dust Brothers’ moniker with ‘If You Kling To Me I’ll Klong To You’. Brian Eno’s ‘Alternative 3’ from Music For Films creeps in with the exorcism from the I Am Lucifer album which I only finally found last year, always a favourite of Matt’s and one he used extensively on the show. The Future Sound of London’s ‘Lifeforms (Path 2)’ was new at the time too, what a time to be alive! I wish I knew what the track following was but it’s gone and Shazam doesn’t know either. Likewise with the burbling acid track after that although I do recognise some bits of David Sylvian & Holger Czukay’s ‘Plight & Premonition’ in there somewhere but it might be as a sample. Ah, here comes Global Communication according to Matt although I can’t identify the track and neither can he (I’m not entirely sure it’s them actually). Matt’s dad crops up again reading a passage about ‘the 9th world’, “How does an eye work? How does a foot work?” – another spoken word favourite. It’s all beginning to blur into one ambient mass around this stage until we get to Attica Blues’ ‘Contemplating Jazz (D’Afro’s Picky Head Dub)’ which plays us out only to be rudely interrupted by the KISS news jingle.

Track list:
Psychic Warriors of Gaia – Obsidian (Organically Decomposed)
Digital Underground – Packet Man
KRS 1 – Sound Of The Police
The Tape Beatles – Beautiful State / Green, Blue Beautiful Place
Steve Reich – Six Pianos
Spacetime Continuum – Flurescence
Monty Python – Vinyl record sketch
Tournesol – Holy Cow
Dust Brothers – If You Kling To Me I’ll Klong To You
Brian Eno – Alternative 3
The Future Sound Of London – Lifeforms (Path 2)
Unknown – Unknown
Unknown – Unknown (Global Communication?)
Attica Blues – Contemplating Jazz (D’Afro’s Picky Head Dub)

Happy New Year for 2023! I hope it was fun for you all, sorry this is late today, I’ve been deep in design and gig mode, opening for The Art of Noise two nights in a row at the Jazz Cafe. On with the show I promised in the last entry.
Matt Black rang up one day in the summer of 1994, there was a problem. KISS FM had been booked out, both studios, for the Friday pre-record so he needed somewhere else to record the show that week. I’m not sure if Jon More was around, maybe away DJing with PC? I’m also not sure the exact turn of events aside from KISS wasn’t available but could he come over and do the show at mine? Wow, this was a turn up for the books, I’d only been a guest on the show for just over a year, had a handful or more under my belt and was becoming part of the crew due to now providing artwork for the label as well as the odd gig away with Coldcut. OK, come over to East Dulwich and set up in my bedroom and record Solid Steel, why don’t you? Holy shit!

At the time I shared a house with Chantal Passamonte (Mira Calix further down the line), David Vallade and Mario Aguera and we had hosted the original Telepathic Fish party in the three story house above a chemists on Goose Green which we’d dubbed 102 Central. Mario had by now started working with Hex as a computer programmer and David and Chantal were working in Ambient Soho, the record shop in Berwick St, Soho, while I was up the road at Books Etc. on Oxford Street. At the time I had three decks set up in my room, a couple of Technics and something else I forget, not sure what the mixer was but it was the same one on the cover of the Funkjazztical Tricknology compilation. I also had a keyboard, a drum machine, CD player and an odd flanger guitar pedal hooked up – see the blurry photo for reference. Matt came down and we took turns playing into a portable DAT player he’d bought along I think. Can’t remember what we used for a mic but it was probably a pair of headphones plugged into the mic. input hence the terrible sound quality. I think the Coldcut jingles were flown in off cassette and this recording was probably taken from the radio broadcast as it has the KISS news jingle added onto the end, probably live by the sound engineer.

Starting off with a then holy trinity of electronica pioneers Autechre, MuZiq and Caustic Windown (Aphex Twin) tells you we’re in the golden age of Artificial Intelligence era electronica. AI only took another 30 years to become part of everyday life. None of the tracks here have aged badly either, I still play the Aphex track out sometimes too. Following ‘On The Romance Tip’ (where did that title originate? It’s not on the record anywhere) there’s an elongated trance-ish acid thing that makes me think it might be European. Shazam gives me nothing and the ears don’t recognise it at all – anyone? Starts about 11 mins in and bubbles away for another four minutes until Global Communication’s ‘Sublime Creation’ races in on 45 instead of 33, sounding not far off Acen’s ‘Trip To The Moon’ in places.

Cut for an ad break and more Glob Comm with the opening track to their classic 76’14 album, ‘4’02’ with the opening of The Orb’s remix of Material’s ‘Praying Mantra’ slurped over, a common DJ tool of mine. Another was the phasing, filtered and panning intro to Mergener / Weisser’s ‘Sunbeam’ from a New Age Music comp on Klaus Schulze’s Innovative Communication label that Mixmaster Morris had hipped me to, I think I found this in Beanos or somewhere along Berwick St. on my lunch break one day in Soho. This can be heard bridging ‘4’02’ and Kraftwerk’s ‘The Man Machine’ classic, which needs no introduction. Out of the other Fab Four into Coldcut’s own ‘Eine Kleine Hed Musik’ – fresh on vinyl from the extra disc that accompanied the Ninja Tune vinyl version of the album and first heard opening the original Coldcut meets The Orb radio show on New Year’s Eve 1991/92. Which brings us full circle, 31 years later… exit Matt Black stating, ‘Openmind in the house, or rather I’m in Openmind’s house!’

Track list:
Autechre – Lost
MuZiq – Nettles & Pralines
Caustic Window – On The Romance Tip
Unknown – unknown
Global Communication – Sublime Creation (on 45)
Global Communication – 4’02
Kraftwerk – The Man Machine
Coldcut – Eine Kleine Hed Musik

A quick half hour from mid 2000 when we first started doing BBC London Live with Solid Steel, hence the title (despite pre-recording it in my studio in SE5). Kicking off with Taskforce from the amazing Voice of the Great Outdoors EP – still one of the defining releases of UK hip hop. Lots of space-themed samples overlaid including bits of Ren & Stimpy’s ‘Space Madness’ episode and then into Icarus’ UL-6 from their single on Output, each cover of which was ripped and torn or defaced in some way. I’d gone a bit overboard with the spoken word as it was an early show on the Beeb and I wanted to make a good impression. Funkstorung’s ‘Grammy Winners’ still sounds fresh 22 years later, featuring an MC called Triple H who appears to have done very little else.

Bowery Electric were a really interesting band who had excellent remixes and their ‘Freedom Fighter’ one is my favourite, made by the band themselves and featuring snatches of Kraftwerk, the combination of vocals, strings and beats just works for me. Cherrystones’ ‘Pressure Cooker’ appeared on the short-lived AP.E. Records, what a fertile time this was, all sorts kicking off. Off to LA for a few tracks with P.U.T.S., Jurassic 5’s incredible ‘Swing Set’ and a swing-based oldie from Fishbone. Nice little nod to the BBC’s Bush house in a sample over Jurassic too, I think the ‘horn master’ answer phone message before Fishbone is actually DJ Vadim playing silly buggers. Morgan put out an album and a number of singles on Source around 2000 but never quite hit. Divine Styler’s ‘Concept Design Deflon’ was from Mo Wax’s again short-lived Vecta label – so futuristic. My friend Tamsin leaves a message that she was going to see the new Star Wars at the very end – this was unfortunately to be The Phantom Menace and we know how that ended.

Tracklist:
Taskforce – Cosmic Gypsies
Icarus – UL-6
Funkstorung – Grammy Winners
Bowery Electric – Freedom Fighter (remix)
Cherrystones – Pressure Cooker (Blues In M.A.)
People Under The Stairs – Live at the Fishbucket
Jurassic 5 – Swing Set
Fishbone – In The Name of Swing
Morgan – Let Me Hear Your music
Divine Styler – Concept Design Deflon