We may have packaging of the year here – Thundercat 10th anniversary repress of The Golden Age Of Apocalypse on Brainfeeder – “a translucent red LP housed in a beautiful shiny gold mirri board sleeve with a large Thundercat logo hologram sticker and gold rainbow holofoil detail” – out this (Black) Friday.
This half hour comes from a disc with two mixes on it (see MS 81 for the other) although I’m not convinced the date on the disc matches with the actual transmission dates on the solidsteel.net website so I’ve made an educated guess as to the TX date. Sometimes I wrote dates the mixes were made on the discs when archiving which would have been in the files titles. I’d send these off to DK, the show producer, and they would air when he had a slot for them unless they were time-sensitive. In this case, a mix made in November of 2003 saw the light of day over a month later.
An excellent updating of the Meat Beat classic ‘I Got The Fear’ opens the set, just check those drums, no one makes heavy beats like Jack Dangers and with long time collaborator Ben Stokes aka DHS on the remix (his classic ‘House of God’ still stands up) it just gets better. DJ Revolution was always one of the funkiest of the wave of turntablists who came up in the wake of the ISP, X-Men, Beat Junkies era of the 90s. Here he faces off against The Allies, a DJ Craze, A-Trak, Infamous and DVLP coalition of world class DJs in ‘4+1’ from his album, ‘In 12’s We Trust’.
It’s odd doing these mix round ups and checking Discogs for details on records and artists that were made by seemingly major players at the time only to find they haven’t released anything for over 10 years. Koushik seemed to be a unique talent amongst the Stones Throw roster even if he wasn’t as prolific as some on the label and his mix of beats and acoustic guitar songwriting stood out. ‘One In A Day’ comes from his second single of the same name. The Bran Flakes were Otis Fodder and Mildred Pitt’s cut n paste project, full of fun and silliness, and ‘Give Yourself A Stereo Check Out’ comes from their 2000 album, ‘I Don’t Have A Friend’. Otis was running the 365 Days Project on WFMU at this time and we bonded over the weird and wonderful world of vinyl oddities. He would of course do his own Solid Steel guest mix at one point and we still keep in touch to this day.
Nestled inside or on top of these tracks are several other oddities, Not The Nine O’Clock News’ Hi-Fi Shop sketch where Mel Smith wants to buy a ‘gram-o-phone’ and the young salesmen in the shop – played by Griff Rhys-Jones and Rowan Atkinson – give him a hard time over the technicalities of a stereo set up. Also floated in are excerpts from a Tom Baker voice over session outtake compilation that was doing the rounds on the web at the time and has subsequently been sampled by people like Wagon Christ. The internet was throwing up all sorts of material as speeds got faster and people started sharing audio clips on forums and servers.
Belleville Rendez-vous is a beautiful animated film from the same year and this track must have been inspired by the electro swing fad around at the time. The Evolution Control Committee track is an insane bit of cut up fun in a similar style to the Bran Flakes with some samples of a young Ken Nordine in the mix by the sound of it. This track originally turned up on the Free Speech For Sale compilation by Snuggles. The DJ Ordeal track shows how you can also do something poignant and charming with cut ups and dodgy pause buttons and comes from an odd four track 7”. Ordeal released loads of cut up/concrete music in the 00’s but again, another artist who hasn’t had a release for over a decade. The Scala cover of Nirvana’s classic was odd and unique 18 years ago, little did we know that this sort of guff would be soundtracking every Hollywood blockbuster trailer in the future.
Tracklist:
Meat Beat Manifesto vs DHS – Cease To Exist (DHS remix)
DJ Revolution vs the Allies – 4 +1
Koushik – One In A Day
The Bran Flakes – Give Yourself A Stereo Check Out
Ben Charest – Belleville Rendez-vous (version Francaise Par -M-)
Evolution Control Committee – IGA Giant Pineapple Party
DJ Ordeal – You Win 4 I
Scala – Smells Like Teen Spirit
Boris Tellegen – A PLAY THING
27 nov – 19 dec. Opening 26 november
Encore Alice, 91 Rue de Flandre, Brussels
https://alicebxl.com/exhibitions/a-play-thing
Marc Oosting & Boris Tellegen – Copy
20 nov – 15 jan. Opening zaterdag 20 november 15:00 – 18:00
Gallerie Vriend van Bavink, Geldersekade 34
https://www.vanbavinkgallery.com/exhibitions
In other Delta news, Boris and I have granted the Tasmanian wine maker Dr Edge the rights to use our cover image for DJ Vadim‘s ‘USSR Life From The Other Side’ on a range of wine bottles. The good doctor has done several collaborations with Robert ‘3D’ Del Naja already and you can find these wines here.
This should be a fun night, next Friday at Spiritland on the Southbank. A night for the headz – warming up for James Lavelle, I’ll be pulling out lots of stuff that’s not been aired during the 18 month pandemic lay off. Early bird tickets have gone but mid price are still available.
Tickets: https://ra.co/events/1478022
This mix had a lot of current tracks on display, from Luke Vibert’s drum n bass alter-ego, Amen Andrews (vol.5) and the Soundmurderer & SK1 releases on RePhleX at that time kicking things off in a hectic style. The DJ Patife track is actually a remix of a Michel Magnet track on the excellent Cinemix compilation put together by Fred Elalouf aka DJ Oof and contains loads of excellent remixes of French soundtracks by the likes of Carl Craig, Howie B, Sofa Surfers and the ever-present Luke Vibert.
Bonobo’s ‘Pick Up’ is expertly worked over by Four Tet, a hang over from our tour of North America in late 2001 where they bonded over clattering jazz drums. Ty’s ‘Wait A Minute’ seems to come in at an odd place in the bar but it all makes sense once the chorus kicks in and the two tracks align melodically but it’s still rough and ready which makes me think this is probably a one-take mix made at home.
Forss’ ‘Journeyman’ is from one of those albums that went under the radar and has remained there but definitely deserves reappraisal. Made by Swedish producer Eric Wahlforss, his debut in a minimal, unassuming blue cover entitled, ’Soulhack’ is a very deep record taking in trip hop, jazz, electronica and drum n bass, earning comparisons with Amon Tobin’s work at the time. Preceded in the mix by Deckard’s photo-enhancement scene from Blade Runner (my inclusion) it takes the set into different territory with a spoken word vocal by Rich Medina that’s rarely been bettered. It’s never been reissued and is freely available cheap on Discogs, go and find a copy. Apparently Eric went on to co-found Soundcloud which might explain why there are only four releases from him in the last 20 years.
The set continues in a similar vein with UK MC HKB Finn aka Huntkillbury Finn who featured on early Music of Life releases in the 90s and later had several releases on Ninja offshoot, Son. This must have been taken from the CD promo as the title was shortened to ‘In The Stillness’ for the 12” release. I wouldn’t call it hip hop in the regular sense, more a commentary on a night out in the city, and it plays the set out in fine style. I’ll feature the other mix, ‘Symphony in F’ next week…
Tracklist:
Amen Andrews – London
Soundmurderer & SK1 – Stylee
DJ Patife – Compartiment Tueurs
Bonobo – Pick Up (Four Tet remix)
Ty – Wait A Minute (acappella)
Forss – Journeyman
HKB Finn – In The Stillness of the Night
This was mixed totally live on air via 3 decks and a CD player (the old rack mounted ones) with a few Coldcut jingles being thrown in off of 8 track-style carts by Matt Black (Jon wasn’t in the studio for this session). The third of the Openmind sets on Solid Steel, I took the second hour after Mario Aguera and kicked off with an Albert Hoffman monologue, borrowed from Mixmaster Morris who had the 50th anniversary of LSD album that it’s taken from. As can be heard throughout I was mixing indie rock ambience in with the electronic kind as student funds were tight and I was still digging around in bargain bins at places like Cheapo Cheapo’s, occasionally unearthing a Roedelius or Bill Nelson album. Also on a huge 4AD kick around this time and hoovering up Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance and This Mortal Coil albums which fitted into the mix but have since become forgotten in the history of things around this time, as has dub.
I wasn’t quite earning enough or on enough promo lists to have all the latest Warp and R&S releases yet so there’s an element of making do with the little you have, but limits can sometimes be good and foster more creative results. Sylvian & Fripp’s sole collaborative album had just been released and ‘Bringing Down The Light’ was the Frippertronics piece on it, getting plenty of play around this time. I also slipped in a little 808 State sample from ‘Open Your Mind’ as an ID of sorts for us. Klaus Schultze and David Sylvian’s ambient releases got tons of play for their drifting openness and were constant mix tools. Leonard Nimoy reading ‘Quequeg and I’ was from a spoken word album about whales. Bill Nelson was one of those artists that was always on the periphery of loads of scenes but never quite got the attention others like Eno did, his albums around this time are full of weird and wonderful experiments and worth a revisit. Voyager was an alias of Moody Boyz’ Tony Thorpe and ‘Arrival’ is a 20 minute ambient piece only available on the CD single of the release – another ambient mix staple as you can fly it in and out anywhere without disrupting the flow.
The opener to Orbital’s second album was always good to float over a mix and I’ve taken the trouble to correct something that’s always annoyed me with this mix since it was done. The Cocteau Twins always came in way too loud and kind of jolts in the mood of the mix so I’ve turned it down. I’ve also joined two sections as there was a tape turn over moment during Eno’s ‘An Ending (Ascent)’, a track that became almost a cliché in ambient sets around this time due to its ubiquity. Senser’s ‘The Key (The Other Side Mix)’ was totally out of character for a band mixing rock and rap in the same manner as PWEI or Asian Dub Foundation. Playing out the B side of the single it was remixed by Club Dog’s Micheal Dog, dragging the band into a brief tangle with ambient, one that I don’t think they ever repeated. Pedro & Man where basically Cheech & Chong, a scene from Up In Smoke and, I only just realised, drops the phrase ‘motherfucker’ if you listen carefully. Schultze appears again and Eno for the first of two appearances before one of Youth’s epic dub remixes of The Sugarcubes’ ‘Vitamin’ lumbers into view. This was an age of indie groups getting dance remixes on 12”s, no doubt from the fall out of records like Screamadelica, a practice that would continue for most of the 90s as dance music culture grew and grew.
Eon’s ‘Spice’ 12” contained a lock groove at the end which I used to transfer from an ambient wash to a 133bpm groove so that the Psychic Warriors Ov Gaia’s ‘Exit 23’ could enter the fray. This was a big tune at the time and actually originated in 1989 on their first release, being remixed into the monster groove that it was in 1993, securing their place in the ambient scene. Diving back into the indie scene, Cranes had J.G. Thirlwell remix their ‘Clear’ single and the B side was a remix by Ivo Watts-Russel and John Fryer – basically a form of This Mortal Coil – I always thought the voice was way too high pitched but changing the speed just made her sound like a man. S’express’ ‘C.O.M.A.’ (not to be confused with ‘C.O.M.A. II’ on the album) was given away free on a 7” with Record Mirror around the end of the 80s and I always used to mix it over things back then, being just respirator breathing and sonar pings.
The set ends with a glimpse of what was to come in ’94 – elements of trip hop but from the US rather than the UK. Cypress Hill’s weed-extolling ‘Hits From The Bong’ and Justin Warfield’s acid LP opener, ‘Introduction by Ellis Dee’. I’d kept my eye on what was going on in hip hop and most of what interested me was on the fringes as most of the rest of that world dived into gangsterism following NWA and Ice T’s successes. Little did we know that Mo Wax were about to release DJ Shadow’s ‘In/Flux’ in the weeks after this show aired which would set a whole new scene in motion. I dearly love this mix, it evokes a certain time when I had just left college, was finding my way into the music scene, still putting on parties with friends but soon start to DJ more regularly with Coldcut, design for Ninja Tune and start producing and playing as part of DJ Food. But that was all yet to come…
Track list:
Albert Hoffman – Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
David Sylvian & Robert Fripp – Bringing Down the Light
808 State – ‘Open Your Mind’ sample
Klaus Schulze – Bayreuth Return
David Sylvian & Holger Czukay – Plight & Premonition
Leonard Nimoy – Quequeg and I
Bill Nelson – Calling Heaven, Calling Heaven, Over
This Mortal Coil – Andialu
Voyager – Arrival
Unknown (phasing up and down)
Orbital – Time Becomes
Cocteau Twins – Oomingmak
Senser – The Key (The Other Side Mix)
Pedro & Man – 1st Gear, 2nd Gear
This Mortal Coil – Late Night
Klaus Schulze – Bayreuth Return
Brian Eno – An Ending (Ascent)
The Sugarcubes – Vitamin (Decline Of Rome Pt.II) check
Dead Can Dance – The Spider’s Stratagem
Eon – Spice (locked groove)
Psychic Warriors Ov Gaia – Exit 23 (Source)
Brian Eno – Alternative 3
Cranes – Cloudless (Thais mix)
S’express – C.O.M.A.
Cypress Hill – Hits From The Bong
Justin Warfield – Introduction by Ellis Dee
Oh yeah, roll on Dec 29th
I was looking for a Halloween/horror mix for ages for this week’s upload but just cannot find it anywhere (anyone got any ideas?). I’ve chosen this one instead as a little half hour entitled Strictly Research Labs with a mix of electronica from the summer of 2000. This must first play of ‘Monacle’ from the as yet unreleased Quadraplex EP which wouldn’t see the light of day for 6 months. The set is peppered with spoken word snippets taken from the Survival Research Laboratories documentary based on Mark Pauline’s incredible industrial robot performances.
The Wagon Christ remix of David Sylvian appeared on the CD of his ‘Godman‘ single and manages to retain both the original and be quintessentially Luke Vibert at the same time, one of his best remixes IMO. Alder & Elius were on the Skam label with the weird Andy Warhol-sampling 7″, the 23 Skidoo track is from their reformation rather than their golden era. The Federation started out on Mo Wax but this track was from the B side of a 12″ on Indochina. Andy Votel does his thing with The Avalanches before the finish with Stratus, a 12″ on the Pussyfoot label offshoot, Fragments, that contained none other than Martin Jenkins aka Pye Corner Audio.
Tracklist:
David Sylvian – Godman (Wagon Christ remix)
Alder and Elius – King of Pop
DJ Food – Monacle
23 Skidoo – Ayu
Mos Def – Umi Says
The Federation – Sea of Green
Avalanches vs Andy Votel – Thankyou Caroline
Stratus – Uplink
The second of the free interviews with Brian Eno about his career as part of the Sonos Radio station, The Lighthouse. I could listen to him all day and his station as part of Sonos has an ever expanding collection of unreleased music from his archive. You can access it by subscribing here
I was amazed to see the originals of Dave Little‘s covers for S’Express‘ Original Soundtrack album and Jibraro ‘Electra’ 12″ at the screening of the 1988 documentary, Club Culture tonight at Arboretum. There was a small show of his work including Renegade Soundwave, Spectrum, Junior Boys Own and his Acid screen print. If you look closely at the Jibaro sleeve you can see the stuck on lettering peeling away. You can buy some of these as prints from Dave’s site.
Appearing on the latest episode of Stephen Coates‘ The Bureau of Lost Culture are Coldcut‘s Jonathan More and myself, picking several personal favourite examples from the history of cut and paste and talking about our experiences with working with samples in our music.
My copy of Matt King and James Edward Clark‘s ‘Tales To Enlighten’ arrived from the US this week (for more context see here). I’m lost for words at how good this is, comic of 2021 for me for sure – and yes I am biased, but after the years this has been in production they’ve pulled it off and then some. The story is insane (definitely NSFW), the pin up gallery is huge and the quality off the scale. Matt King may be more familiar to Solid Steel fans as King Megatrip who made several guest mixes for the show and was one of the biggest and earliest collectors of tapes from it.
The attention to detail with fake ads, in-jokes and other myth-enhancing material is spot on and the print quality, superb. This is a huge book, 300+ pages and I look forward to diving right in after reading an early PDF copy last year. It has the spirit of underground comix but with the next few decades of comics knowledge thrown in and some serious art chops. I’m also thrilled to have a couple of spots in the book including a genuine endorsement on the back cover (unbeknownst to me, cribbed from an email to Matt after I’d seen the PDF).
The mixtape cover of religious music to help the Kickstarter along (they didn’t need it, it got funded in six hours!) is also featured in the back. I’ve uploaded the mix to my Mixcloud so it’s easier to find.
I’m so pleased for the whole crew after hearing about it for literally years and being teased to the point where I was going, ‘just put the damn thing out!’. There’s a volume 2 in the works too…
I’ve no idea where this came from, it was on a DAT tape with no info, it’s definitely me playing but I’ve no idea the date aside from these tracks are all from around 1996. It’s trip hop all the way though with UNKLE’s mix of Tortoise opening and on into the Sonic Assault mix of Attica Blues’ ‘Tender’. Danny Breaks’ ‘Science Fu’ Pt.2 is followed by something I just cannot remember and Spotify cannot identify – anyone got any ideas? I’m think it’s maybe European?
UPDATE: Edward ZentaurusMan – one of Solid Steel’s biggest fans – has set me straight, it was by Si Begg and the exact date was 29/12/1996 – thanks Edward!
Brighton graffiti artist Req makes his debut on wax for the Skint label at the end and it’s all done in under 30 minutes. The presence of random spoken word samples makes me think this was recorded up at Ahead of our Time studios in Clink St rather than KISS FM and it’s fairly basic on the mixing side of things. I’m wondering if it was even broadcast, it’s unusual to have no date on something.
Fun fact: I painted and sealed the walls of the studio above once it was built (we never got round to properly painting it after), it stood inside the main office of Ninja Tune in London Bridge, sound proofed and the Journeys By DJ mix, A Recipe For Disaster and Let Us Play were largely recorded there among others.
Tracklist:
Tortoise – Djed (Bruise Blood Mix)
Attica Blues – Tender (Sonic Assault Mix)
Danny Breaks – Science Fu (Pt.2)
Si Begg – Nothing Is True Zen Say
Req – 8 Models In A Sauna
The repress of The New Obsolescents‘ LP on Castles In Space is finally ready and the pre-order goes live on Friday 22nd October at 8am UK time on the Castles In Space Bandcamp. Some will also be available in selected record shops and a few left over for the Levitation festival in Whitby on Nov 5th/6th.
The album is presented in a revised second edition sleeve. After the first run of LPs with the Heliophore foil covers (see below) sold out in 25 minutes I started looking for other options for a repress that would equal the first as the stocks of foil were now depleted.
I chanced upon a prism effect card which gives the illusion of depth and was a new addition to a card-maker’s stock. Inverting the original design and printing white onto black, I gave them to Jonas Ranson at paperHAUS who (again) expertly screen printed the covers – front and back this time – before they went off for assembly. 
As with the cover, we decided on a silver and white hybrid moon surface effect for the vinyl, hopefully making the repress just as covetable as the first.
The prism card is very difficult to photograph as it gives a 3D effect and catches whatever light is nearby, colouring the card. Here’s a quick clip of it to illustrate, the white print appears to float on it.
Here are the original and the repress sleeves side by side
Also available will be these enamel badges with screen printed backing cards by Kvist using offcuts from the original foil sleeves.
Finished copies of the Steven Rutter 12” I designed for De:tuned arrived yesterday and I couldn’t be happier with the final result.
This took a while, not least because of the worldwide delays with vinyl production, but also because we had to change details of the design after an initial die cut cover option proved unworkable. No matter because the final result is one of my favourite designs in recent years. Available in black or copper/brown vinyl.
And that’s not to forget that the music it houses is absolutely beautiful, a career high for Steven. Available now from all good record shops and De:tuned just launched the full label on Bandcamp last week too.
Part of the Simian typeface package from the House Industries type foundry. I made two ape-‘themed’ tracks to accompany the font, Simian, which referenced the shapes and typefaces in the Planet of the Apes films. These two short tracks came on a 3″ CD housed in a leather wallet, embossed with the Simian type logo. Probably the most expensive DJ Food tracks available.
I felt like a bit of hip hop and found this hour where I was playing catch up with a load of mid 2005 releases, the quality is outstanding with a leaning towards West Coast artists in particular, the underground was really firing 15 years ago. Not too much to say about this really except that it contains a couple of Soundsci demo mixes that changed a little by the time they were released.
Tracklist:
Pangea / My Private Utopia – Solid Steel intro
Cage feat. Jello Biafra – Grand ‘ol Party Crash
Stateless – Exit
Blackalicious – Rhythm Sticks (remix)
SoundSci – The Remedy (demo mix)
Porn Theatre Ushers – She’s Busted
Madvillain – Rhinestone Cowboy (Fourtet remix)
Quasimoto – Bully’s Hit
Tom Caruana feat. Arch Co – It’s Arch
Hot Karl feat. MC Serch – Let’s Talk
Madvillain – Strange Ways (Koushik remix)
Madvillain – interlude
Koushik – Too Many Ways
Living Legends – Good Fun
Nextmen feat. Dynamite MC – Spin It Round
Edan – Fumbling Over Words That Rhyme
Natural Self feat. Alice Russell – I Don’t Need This Trouble
Quasimoto – Rappcats 3
Edan feat. Percce P – Torture Chamber (Cut Chemist remix)
SoundSci – The Illness (demo mix)
APSCI feat. Mr Lif – See That?
Ultramagnetic MCs – Poppa Large (Devil McDoom remix)
Ch3vy – Hard Massage
Last week I did a long interview with Thomas and Kaden from KTMusicOnline in the US, talking about all sorts from origins, design, Ninja Tune, Eno, Bono and even parenting. It was a great chat, actually our second as we did it last month and their recording failed, and the hour flew by. I warn you, I can really bang on about stuff…
Not only has the Belgian label, De:tuned, announced another new Humanoid release, this one is remixed by Autechre, Luke Vibert and Mike Dred! The label, who I’ve been designing sleeves for alongside The Designers Republic for the last five years, has also set up shop on Bandcamp – look at that discography.
I’ve been experimenting with photo colouring / enhancing / animating apps like Remini and similar on various things recently and thought it would be interesting to feed some classic black & white record sleeves into the apps and see what came out. The results are fun, extremely fast – usually about a minute, and have the delayed joy of waiting for a Polaroid to appear. It seems to work better with images that contain a lot of tones rather than high contrast like some seen here. Colours are patchy, sometimes missing parts of the body and there’s a lot of sepia or beige for skin tones which occasionally gets things wrong if the images are abstracted. It’s also not seemingly able to recognise non-Caucasian faces too easily and architecture comes out in an ad hoc way. Some of them do very odd things with text (see the Yussef Lateef cover at the bottom) and sometimes adds strange colour artefacts – notice the blue/red object on the Dirk cover repeated on the Marshal McLuhan. 
