Mixcloud Select 15: Openmind – Wizard of Oz – Coldcut Solid Steel 04/03/94

July 17, 2020January 26, 2021

Track notes:

What an embarrassment of riches this mix holds, a very special time musically as you will hear over the course of the hour. I’m fairly certain that this was probably my third ever appearance on Solid Steel, still as part of Openmind and not yet DJ Food. You can hear the chill out scene still going strong, but the beginnings of trip hop emerging and the Artificial Intelligence era of techno in full swing. Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works II must have just come out as he gets a huge six tracks played, Autechre get two, Global Communication also weave in and out with Locust and Drome. Tricky, Justin Warfield and the Beastie Boys signpost the tripper end of hip hop gaining momentum.

I think we recorded this live on air on a Saturday night at KISS FM, it was myself and Mario Aguera from Telepathic Fish (who did the second hour after I did the first) and Matt Black from Coldcut on the mic and various samples. We were still new to the radio studio and it was nerve wracking knowing that we were live on air with Matt watching and listening. A couple of my mixes are a bit wonky to say the least and I remember Matt would always shout ‘escape!’ if he thought a mix was going out too wildly, still makes me smile when I think of it. I decided to weave bits of the soundtrack from The Wizard of Oz in and out of the mix to give it some continuity, hence the mix title.

Track list:
Coldcut – Strange music jingle
Edgar Frose – Ngc 891
Wizard of Oz – intro
Beastie Boys – Namaste
Chapterhouse – Blood Music: Pentamerous Metamorphosis – Beta Phase (Global Communication retranslation)
Tricky – Aftermath
Chapterhouse – Blood Music: Pentamerous Metamorphosis – Beta Phase (Global Communication retranslation)
Justin Warfield – Tequila Flats (inc Hidden Material, Ghosts of Laurel Canyon)
Autechre – Lowride
Aphex Twin – Untitled from Ambient Works II
Justin Warfield – B-Boys On Acid
Aphex Twin – Untitled from Ambient Works II
Wizard of Oz + Whale noises
Aphex Twin – Untitled from Ambient Works II
Drome – Age of Affordable Retina
Steve Hillage – Rainbow Dome Musick
Reload – The Biosphere (Global Communication Remix)
Insides – Skinned Clean
Wizard of Oz – Tin Man
Aphex Twin – Untitled from Ambient Works II
Locust – Lust
Autechre – Basscadet
Aphex Twin – Untitled from Ambient Works II
Wizard of Oz – outro

Posted in DJ Food, Mixcloud Select, Mixes/Solid Steel, Music, Radio. | No Comments | Tags: Mixcloud Select

Almost Jazz Funk & Soul Festival online event

July 10, 2020

Birmingham’s Mostly Jazz Funk & Soul Festival, like so many others, is under threat and they are putting on a fundraiser online and a virtual event to raise funds to keep the wolves from the door. I played last year and it was one of my favourite gigs of the summer. Tune in for a special audio visual mix by myself and DK based on our Now, Listen Again mix sets and if you can please consider donating to this good cause.

Crowdfunder Link: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/help-to-keep-mostly-jazz-funk-soul-alive

Almost Jazz Funk & Soul: https://www.facebook.com/events/705871909987295/

Posted in DJ Food, Event, Film, Gigs. | No Comments | Tags: Mostly Jazz funk and soul festival

Mixcloud Select 14: Steinski vs Strictly Sevens for Solid Steel 12/08/2005

July 3, 2020January 26, 2021

Track notes:
Steinski was coming to the UK, cut up collagist and all-round nice guy legend that he is. We’d known each other since 1998 when we played together in Brighton for a night Krafty Kuts had put on and had kept in touch ever since. He was visiting the UK for a holiday with his wife and we asked if he would play unannounced at our monthly Solid Steel night in London to which he agreed.
The night had a policy of never announcing who the guests were, it was DK and myself as residents and you paid £3 on the door and found out who was on the bill when you got downstairs to the basement where the club was. This meant that people genuinely wanted to be there and felt part of something when they could say they saw Four Tet or Diplo or Luke Vibert the night before in a sweaty basement in central London for less than a fiver.

So Stein comes over and hangs out and has made two special mixes for the night too, which he gracefully let us play on Solid Steel a few weeks later. Not only that, I’d bought a box of 45s on eBay a few months before but the seller only shipped them within the US. I got them sent to Steve’s place in New York and he bought them over. There were a couple a quite rare Christian spoken word 7”s in the box, one including John Rydgren but there was plenty of other good stuff too. This mix is made up of the contents of the box plus a few random flexi discs I also added to the mix. Add in Steinski’s two mini mixes and you have an hour of very random beats, bits and bobs.

There’s a lot of drug messages in this as several of the records were about that. The Fenella Fielding flexi disc is a classic and Jonny Trunk swears that she farts at one point in it. The Kenny Everett and Michael Aspel disc, ’On Love’ is very strange, Kenny seems pissed or high, Michael makes an inappropriate confession about his daughter and Kenny confesses to unrequited love with someone called Henry which, given that this was made way before he was out of the closet, is another one for the list of now obvious clues he dropped throughout his broadcasting career.

Track list:
Steinski – Ruby Lo mix 1
Dr Donald B. Louria – Is Marijuana really habit forming?
Rhythm Heritage – Theme From Rocky
Dr Donald B. Louria – Does LSD Increase creativity?
Marc Hamilton – Tapis Magique
Everyday People – I Like What I Like
Guitar Self instructor For the Very Beginner
The Cousins – The Robot (Madison Twist)
John Rydgren – The Butterfly
Steinski – Ruby Lo mix 2
Doobie Brothers – Listen To The Music
Grand Funk – Destitute and Losin’
Cliff Richard – A Personal Message To You
Kenny Everett & Michael Aspel – On Love
Love Unlimited Orchestra – Sweets Moments
Fenella Fielding – Limber Up with…
Elton John – Bennie & The Jets
Dr Donald B. Louria – Are people using other potent hallucinatory drugs?
John Rydgren – The Lord Is My Shepherd
Dr Donald B. Louria – Is Marijuana really dangerous?
John Gibbs & the US Steel Orchestra – Steel Funk
Jerry Samuels – Who Are You To Tell Me Not To Smoke Marijuana?
Kenny Everett & Michael Aspel – On Love

Posted in DJ Food, Mixcloud Select, Mixes/Solid Steel, Music, Radio, Records. | No Comments | Tags: Mixcloud Select, Steinski

Indie Label Market & Bandcamp fee-free Friday recommends

July 3, 2020

Analogue meets digital as two of my favourite music-buying events have teamed up in the virtual world to launch an Indie Label Market fee-waiving Friday on Bandcamp. Not that most of the content on Bandcamp isn’t indie labels already but a few of the hipper bigger artists have got on board recently (Underworld and Bjork to name two). Below are a few recommendations, recent or new releases I’ve been waiting for which I’ll no doubt be adding to as the day goes on…

SimfOnyx – Magenta Skyline / The Unresolved 7″ (Delights)

Russian Library label: (checkout the whole label)
Aural Design – Looking and Seeing
Listening Centre / Pulselovers

Luke Vibert Presents series (Hypercolour)
Modern Rave

Rave Hop. pre-order

Amen Andrews

Castles In Space label
Clocolan – It’s Not Too Early For Each Other

Bernard Grancher – Soleil Gris Eclatant

Polypores – Azure

The Allergies – Say The Word (Jalapeno) pre-order with T shirt bundle

Deepchord – Lanterns (Astral Industries) – repress of the first even AI release!

Posted in Music. | No Comments |

Mid year summary

June 26, 2020

I’m very aware that this blog seems to mostly be mixes at the moment so I thought I’d update people with what else has been happening these past few months. Since lockdown and the loss of all gigs I’ve been super busy, firstly trying to adjust as we all have to this new weird order, and working on lots of projects.

I started a Mixcloud Select channel 13 weeks ago (as you can’t fail to have noticed if you read this blog) – weekly uploads from my tape archive for the price of a cuppa a month.

I also started a digital-only label on Bandcamp, Infinite Illectrik, for my turntable experiments and other non-DJ Food projects. I’ve been working on several collage pieces (examples seen here) which will eventually result in a comic to be included with another project I’ll be recording for the label, The In-Sect, no release date for that yet, probably next year.

An old collaboration with Howlround has been resurrected and completed under the name The New Obsolescents, I’m listening to the masters of the album as I type and preparing the handmade covers over the next few weeks, it will be different and the sleeve will be very special indeed. More info very soon…

PC and I compiled three Kaleidoscope companion mixes to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the album we made in 2000. We’re currently assembling a proposed release for it, i’ll let you know what becomes of that.

I’m currently in the middle of composing a soundtrack to a book that’s being published this summer, again collaborating with a few different people, that should be getting a CD and digital release this year too.

Graphic work largely ground to a halt during lockdown including a trilogy of albums for The Real Tuesday Weld and a zoetrope project for another artist. That work is slowly picking back up it seems and I hope to finish these as well as starting another zoetrope job for a huge act next week.

I then have a mix for 45 Live to do, a live stream audio visual mix of my Kraftwerk Kover Kollection airs on July 18th and there’s another very special mix which I’ve yet to record that will be getting a physical release at some point too but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Posted in DJ Food, Mixes/Solid Steel, Music, Openmind designs. | No Comments | Tags: collage, The In-sect, The New Obsolescents

Mixcloud Select 13: Strictly Session – Coldcut Solid Steel 05/05/1996

June 26, 2020January 26, 2021

Track notes:
Firstly, this tape actually dates from 1996, not 1995 as it says on the label. I know this for sure because not only did most of the records played come out in ’96 but I remember taping this on my then girlfriend’s stereo as it was broadcast. She later became my wife and we hadn’t even met on this date in 1995 (my birthday funnily enough) so I’m pretty sure I labelled it wrongly.

Anyway, this was a good one, a proper headfuck of a mix, lots of trip hop – heavy beats, scratching, trippy sounds, electronics, tape loops and weird spoken word – that’s trip hop in my book. Trouble Funk and As One bring the groove, Camping Gaz & Digi Random (actually from Spain, not Italy as Jon More says) bring the comedy and Scala (a little remembered offshoot of Seefeel with Locust’s Mark Van Hoen producing) bring a distorted slice of filth called ‘VDT’.

Richard Dorfmeister appears twice, remixing Alex Reece with partner Peter Kruder and in his Tosca guise, DJ Shadow gets a whole side of his Mo Wax Excursions release played, accompanied by frenzied scratches via a Bionic Boogie Breaks record and Kirk Degiorgio crops up again at the end. The As One tracks were from his album for Clear, ‘The Message In Herbie’s Shirts’ which, I had an unlabelled test pressing of at the time so I didn’t know the titles. I even impressed myself by playing Pauline Oliveros in 1996, her track ‘I of IV’ is from the same record as Reich’s ‘Come Out’ which is then sampled in UNKLE’s remix of Tortoise’s ‘Djed’.

The Up, Bustle & Out track is a real oddity, actually a remix by Gwen Jamois and a pre-Cinematic Orchestra Tom Chant who recorded under the name The Sycophants, they remodel it entirely into a skronky jazz track! Squarepusher shows up under his real name in the lesser-heard ’Squeak’ from the Worm Interface 12” ‘Bubble & Squeak’. This was on the shop Ambient Soho’s label and there are three versions of it out there, a colour screen printed cover and B&W cover with crayons stuck to it, both my fellow Openmind designer, David Vallade. Then there’s a third version designed by me with photos provided by Tom.

Track list:
The Groove Robbers feat. DJ Shadow – Hardcore Instrumental Hip Hop
The Groove Robbers feat. DJ Shadow – 1/2 Bonus Scratchapella
The Groove Robbers feat. DJ Shadow – Last Stop
Steve Reich – Come Out
Tortoise – Died (UNKLE Bruise Blood remix)
Req – Req’s Garden
Trouble Funk – The Beat
As One – The Kiss
Pauline Oliveros – I of IV
Camping Gaz & Digi Random – Camping Gaz (Calliphora Vomitoria Mix)
Scala – VDT
Alex Reece – Jazz Master (Kruder & Dorfmeister mix)
Tom Jenkinson – Squeak
Tosca – Fuck Dub
Up, Bustle & Out – ‘Revolutionary Woman of the Windmill’ (OestroGwen mix)
As One – A Short Track About Love

Posted in DJ Food, Mixcloud Select, Mixes/Solid Steel, Music, Radio. | No Comments | Tags: Mixcloud Select

Juneteenth on Bandcamp – more recommendations

June 19, 2020

I know I’ve been going on about Bandcamp a lot lately but they really have turned out to be a saviour in the last months and more artists and labels from the independent sector seem to be getting on board, realising that the payments from streaming companies like Spotify and iTunes are never going to give them a return they can live on. The music industry was duped into believing that the revenue from the deals they signed would replace dwindling physical sales and here we are, with our content filling their apps for returns that make minimal wage the lap of luxury.
Today is Juneteenth (June 19th) a day commemorating the end of slavery in the United States. After giving all artists 100% of their sales revenue in recent months, Bandcamp have decided to give 100% of their own profits to the Legal Defence Fund for the next 24 hrs (PDT, so ending 8am tomorrow GMT). So if you want to buy new music and support artists via their platform them today is a good day to do it.
Here are some recommendations and recent purchases I made.

(above) Suzanne Ciani – Improvisation on Four Sequences at Festival Antigel – All Spatial Mixes

(below) The new release on Markey Funk’s Delights label – Simf Onyx – Magenta Skyline / The Unresolved

Lo Five‘s brand new album – The Art of Living

The expanded edition of Eno’s ‘Neroli’ – a great album in itself but expanded with a complete extra hour long bonus track. The physical 2xCD release of this goes for silly money but All Saints have their output on Bandcamp for easy purchase including all their expanded Eno releases.

Clipping‘s last two releases – There Existed An Addiction To Blood and The Deep.

I also recently picked some favourites from my BC collection for John Jervis’ Carry On Bandcamping blog with links and recommendations – go here

Posted in Music. | No Comments | Tags: Bandcamp, Juneteenth

Mixcloud Select 12: DJ Food – Mixed Bag – Solid Steel 09/06/2003

June 19, 2020January 26, 2021

Track notes:
Going through my CDRs this week to make them easier to sort, I tried to find a show that was close to this week’s date. Worryingly there seems to be a batch of CDs yellowing around the edges so I should get them encoded before the CD rot sets in further.

This mid 2003 set from 17 years ago seems to have several links from some sort of meditation record which for the life of me I don’t remember. Musically it’s the era of great chart hip hop, reggae, silly mash ups and garage-y club bangers. Also there seem to be a couple of Marilyn Manson tracks nestled in there which I remember caused a few raised eyebrows at Ninja back then. The funk 45 craze was still unearthing treasure and the show opens with Serge Gainsbourg and Jean-Claude Vannier’s incredible ‘La Horse’ which had just been reissued as part of DJ Oof’s Cinemix project.

Nestled in the middle of the mix is a mash up I made under my Flexus alias called ‘Bite My Salami’ (there’s a whole album’s worth of these which I used to make for DJ sets). It layers Justin Timberlake’s ‘Rock Your Body’, Queen’s ‘Another One Bites The Dust’ and Pepe Deluxe’s ‘Salami Fever’ and sort of works but really needs some of the guitar from Timberlake’s tune. At the time you couldn’t get the a cappella for this so I ended up buying the CD single and using the phase insertion trick with the vocal and instrumental versions to cancel out everything but the vocal. Then Sean Paul gets overlaid with a version from The Bug, it was a different time…

Track list:
Serge Gainsbourg/Jean Claude Vannier – La Horse
Geezers of Nazareth – Loving the Pole (pt 1)
HIM – The Way the Trees Are
Cardinal Offishall – Belly Dancer
Trashman – Got To Get Ya
Connie Prince – The Badger
DJ Format – Here Comes the Fuzz (Quartertones remix)
Prince Paul feat. Chubb Rock, MF Doom, Wordsworth – People, Places and Things
Marilyn Manson – Baboon Rape Party
Amon Tobin – Hot Korean Moms
Flexus – Bite Your Salami (demo mix)
The Bug – Slew Dem (version)
Sean Paul – Get Busy (acapella)
Massive Attack – Butterfly Caught (Jagz Kooner remix)
Marilyn Manson – Thaeter
Camping Gaz & Digi Random – Circus World (Skamping Gaz Simphony 2)
Jammin’ – Tonka
Tubbs – 5 Day Night (Baloo mix)
Instrumental – All Shook Up

Posted in DJ Food, Mixcloud Select, Mixes/Solid Steel, Music, Radio, Solid Steel. | No Comments | Tags: Mixcloud Select

Mixcloud Select 11: DJ Food – Osy Kicks It Off – Solid Steel 04/03/2002

June 12, 2020January 26, 2021

This week’s upload was requested by never_be_game_over who cited it as one his favourites. Titled ‘Osy Kicks It Off’ in reference to Osymyso who starts the show with a recording culled from another show at the time, XFM’s The Remix. Why was I pulling audio from another programme? At this point in 2002 the bastard Pop / bootleg / mash up scene was in its early stages with a handful of physical bootleg records available but the majority of these creations existing purely online through sites like Boom Selection (run by a 14 year old school kid called The Dr but that’s another story).

Eddy Temple-Morris and James Hyman’s XFM show, The Remix, quickly became the place to showcase a lot of these tracks and host mixes by the leading lights of the scene, Osymyso being one of the originators alongside The Freelance Hellraiser and Cartel Communique who started the first London club exclusively playing mash ups. Originally named ‘King of the Boots’ before changing to the much more direct ‘Bastard’, this was a monthly event in a tiny, sweaty basement under a newsagent just off Tottenham Court Road in London’s West End and were some of my favourite clubbing experiences ever. There’s a brief clip of it at the start of this Swiss TV piece featuring Osy and myself DJing at Bastard, just look at that pre-mobile phone crowd.

Anyway, Osy’s Intro-Inspection was a megamix made completely from intros of famous pop songs and the recording I pinched was the only way of getting it as it hadn’t been pressed yet. It didn’t occur to me to actually ask him for a digital copy even though we’d met years before and have since become great friends but I heard it and thought it was so brilliant that it had to be the show opener. You can hear Osy (Mark Nicholson to his mum) and James Hyman at the end and James even names checks Coldcut as being up next which is odd as I don’t think they ever had an XFM show, maybe it was a guest mix, either way I thought I’d leave it in.

The rest of the show is a mix of current hip hop, both UK and US, which is in rude health by all accounts, mixed with trip hoppy experiments by the likes of Sirconical (on the then new Twisted Nerve label), Sixtoo, Money Mark and the first fruit from DJ Shadow’s second LP, the incredible ‘Monosyllabik’ track, allegedly made from only two samples. Lightening the mood are more mash ups from Girls On Top feat The Sugarbabes (later to be a UK no.1), Pitman’s take on Pharaoh Monch’s ‘Simon Says’ and Wevie Stonder’s sound effects guessing game. Whilst the US rap scene was embracing RnB and having crossover pop hits with the likes of The Neptunes and Timbaland the underground had gone back to the old school and was pioneering a much rawer composite of back to basics sampling exemplified by The P Brothers and their Heavy Bronx sound in the UK and Edan in the US. The early 90s was a golden age for music magazines too with the likes of Big Daddy and Wax Poetics picking up the baton land down by the Beastie Boys’ short-lived Grand Royal mag and doing in-depth interviews with scene pioneers even as the music industry plummeted into the abyss of file sharing.

Track list:
Osymyso – Intro-Inspection (part two 48-101)
Sirconical – Spank
Ultramagnetic MCs – Poppa Large (accapella)
Wevie Stonder – Kenkeneb
Midnyte – Nott’s Rep
DJ Shadow – Monosyalabik
Sixtoo – Camino
Girls On Top/Sugarbabes – We Don’t Give A Damn About Our Friends
P Brothers – Science
Jehst / Jzone / Harry Love – Staircase To Stage
Dr Dre (feat Nocturnal) – Bad Intentions
RJD2 – The Proxy
D Stroy – Roll Out
P Brothers (feat Cappo) – Nottingham Bronx
Pitman – Pitman Says
Edan (feat Mr Lif) – Rapperfection
Blade – Survival of the Hardest Working
Money Mark – Soul Drive 6th Avenue

Posted in DJ Food, Mixcloud Select, Mixes/Solid Steel, Music, Radio, Solid Steel. | No Comments | Tags: Mixcloud Select, Osymyso

Infinite Illectrik featured in the new issue of Electronic Sound magazine

June 11, 2020June 11, 2020

My customized turntable – the Quadraphon as I sometimes call it – is featured in the opening spread of this month’s Electronic Sound magazine including a piece I wrote about it. Once again, the magazine is full of so much it’s hard to know where to start – Suzanne Ciani, Sonic Boom, a tribute to Florian Schneider and a peek inside Neil Arthur’s memorabilia collection as well as tech news, tons of reviews and an exclusive Suzanne Ciani 7″ if you subscribe to the double bundle each month. It’s also still one of the best designed mags on the shelves.

But with a lot of major newsagents and record shops closed they’re relying on subscriptions and mail order right now so if you’ve been meaning to take out a subscription then now’s the time. There are also plenty of back issues and other vinyl in their online shop but those bundles sell out pretty fast.

Posted in Design, DJ Food, Infinite Illectrik, Magazines, Music. | No Comments | Tags: Electronic Sound, Infinite Illectrik, Suzanne Ciani

Dieter Roth

June 10, 2020June 10, 2020

Sometimes an artist’s work stops you in your tracks and you have to put aside all current tasks to check them out. Today I saw Dieter Roth‘s work for the first time and it is stunning. These are spreads from his ‘Kinderbuch’ work (Children’s Book) where shapes gets progressively smaller as the book unfolds and each page has a die cut showing parts of the next through it. He did a similar thing with the follow up, ‘Bilder Buch’ (Picture Book) which had transparent coloured film with die cuts that made different compositions when overlaid.
He also made books from overprinted printer’s proof cast offs, comics with holes cut in them and op art designs, although those are harder to find decent images of.

Posted in Art, Books. | No Comments | Tags: Dieter Roth

De:tuned DE:10 Interview and mix for WAV radio

June 8, 2020June 12, 2020

I’ve got an exclusive mix of the De:tuned label’s 10 year anniversary tracks airing on Belgian station WAV (We Are Various) tonight between 8pm-9pm (CET – 7pm in the UK) plus here’s an interview about the mix & designing for the label. It should be on Soundcloud after so I’ll add it in once it’s premiered. UPDATE and here it is…

De:tuned · 10 Years Of Detuned – DJ Food Mix

Posted in DJ Food, Mixes / Podcast, Music, Openmind designs, Radio. | No Comments | Tags: De:tuned, WAV

Mixcloud Select 10: Openmind – Daydreaming at Night (Float 1 side B) 1993

June 6, 2020January 26, 2021

Track notes:
Side B of a mixtape created for a Floatation Centre in Brixton called Aquatonics who wanted a mix of continuous ambient music and sounds to play to their customers that would aid their floatation trips. Recorded live on two turntables and a basic CD player with no pitch control direct to this cassette in the house I shared with fellow Openmind associates David Vallade, Mario Aguera and Chantal Passamonte (later Mira Calix). The title was coined by David and was also used as a track title on Chantal’s debut album for Warp.

This week I’ve dug out one of the original flyers used to advertise this in the Ambient Soho record shop, this was an incredibly early computer design by yours truly, probably one of the first. I think this was done on Mario’s computer at his work as we didn’t yet have one at the flat. He was a computer game programmer at that point (working on a game for Queen (the band) I seem to remember) and later worked with Hex creating visuals and animation for a game they were working on. The music selection is a pretty good representation of what we were playing at the Telepathic Fish parties at the time: The Orb (of course), Future Sound of London, Dreamfish (Mixmaster Morris & Pete Namlook), Sven Vath and a few side steps like ambient sections from ZTT and 4AD releases. We used to play bits of This Mortal Coil, Cocteau Twins, Grace Jones and there’s even a bit of U2 in there (!) There’s also a fair bit of stuff that I just cannot work out in amongst the layers so if anyone spots anything I’ve missed then please comment.

There is one particular moment that makes me cringe on this side – at the end of an Orb mix of whale noises I’m playing over the ‘Return’ mix of Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s ‘Warriors of the Wasteland’, suddenly a fairground Wurlitzer strikes up the opening notes of ‘I do like to be beside the seaside’. I wasn’t paying attention whilst mixing with three decks and this caught me off guard, quickly being faded out before it could launch into full flow. It may have ruined a few floats… I used to have two copies of the Frankie tune and the intro to this mix is a lovely ambient piece before going into the full song, I would crossfade them together three of four times to extend the intro, sometimes at different speeds or pitches.

Track list:
The Orb – Back Side of the Moon
Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Well…
Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Warriors of the Wasteland (Return)
Grace Jones – The Crossing (Ohh The Action…)
Sven Vath – Caravan of Emotions
U2 – Mysterious Ways (Apollo 440 Magic Hour Remix)
Brian Eno – Lantern Marsh
System 7 – ?
The Orb – O.O.B.E.
This Mortal Coil – Filigree & Shadow
Kraftwerk – Europe Endless
Dreamfish – School of Fish
This Mortal Coil – Firebrothers
Future Sound of London – Papa New Guinea
Sven Vath – Caravan of Emotions

Posted in DJ Food, Mixcloud Select, Mixes/Solid Steel, Music. | No Comments | Tags: Mixcloud Select, Openmind designs

Bandcamp Friday recommendations

June 5, 2020June 5, 2020

As you may have heard, Bandcamp, the online shopfront and streaming site for many independent labels and artists, have been having monthly Fridays since lockdown began where they give 100% of the revenue made to artists and forego their cut. Today is another of those days so I thought I’d compile a list of new releases and current personal favourites to check out if you can’t see the wood for the trees.

*also remember that it operates on Pacific Daylight Time which is 8hrs behind UK time. So, buy from 8am onwards in the UK up until 8am Saturday morning to maximise the support for artists and labels or check depending on where you are in the world.

I’ve structured the list Artist / Title / Label then further recommendations if the link is to a label

Timbuktu & Ollie Teeba – Million Dollar Note (Urbnet) – album
https://timbuktuollieteeba.bandcamp.com/album/million-pound-note

Zyklus – Gumbo Gulag (Buried Treasure) – album
https://buriedtreasure.bandcamp.com/
also check out: Revbjelde / The Dandelion Set / The Delaware Road compilation

Various Artists – The Isolation Tapes (Castles In Space) CD/Cassette/DL – album
https://castlesinspace.bandcamp.com/
also check out: Clocolan / Dalham / The Heartwood Institute / Concretism / Lo Five / Twelve Hour Foundation / Soundhog

Astral Industries (label)
https://astralindustries.bandcamp.com/
check out: Heavenly Music Corporation, LF58, Multicast Dynamics, Deepchord
– 50% off the label’s entire discography

Quadraphonic Stylus Ensemble – Four Tet in Sixteen Locked Grooves (Infinite Illectrik) – single
https://infiniteillectrik.bandcamp.com/
also check out: The Infinity Curve – (full disclosure – this is my label!)

Coldcut – Keleketla! (Ahead of Our Time/Ninja Tune) – album pre-order
https://coldcut.bandcamp.com/album/keleketla

SimfOnyx – Magenta Skyline/The Unresolved (Delights) 7” pre-order
https://delights.bandcamp.com/
also check: Project Gemini, Group Modular, Nicola Spiromarino, Markey Funk

ScanOne – Break EP (Yellow Machines) EP
https://yellow-machines.bandcamp.com/album/ym017-scanone-braek-ep

Cleon – Blowback / Varonos – The Bitch (Acid Cuts) – clear 8″ lathe cut singles
https://acidcuts.bandcamp.com/

Mat Ducasse – We Are Stardust / Lord of the Cosmos – single tracks
https://matducasse.bandcamp.com/

Pictogram – Trace Elements (Miracle Pond)
https://thepictogram.bandcamp.com/
also check: Beam Weapons

Granary 12 – High 1987 (Balkan Vinyl) EP – first of the weekly Balkan Wednesday releases
https://granary-12.bandcamp.com/album/high-1987
also check: Luke Vibert, Posthuman, Ben Pest

Howlround & Merkaba Macabre – Cantor Dust And Monster Curve (Psyche Tropes)
v. ltd. lathe cut 7″ in aid of Iklectik venue support
* this is already sold out but you can buy the digital and support by donating more
https://psychetropes.bandcamp.com/
also check: Howlround, Sculpture

Milleu – Statuettes Part Two (Milleu Music) – album
https://milieumusic.bandcamp.com/album/statuettes-part-two
also check: there are just too many to check, the man is a music making machine

Various Artists – Isolation Compilation (Shapes of Rhythm) – album
https://shapesofrhythm.bandcamp.com/album/isolation-compilation
also check – Body Moves, Gaijin Blues
Richard Norris – Music For Healing (Group Mind) – 20 min tracks
https://richardnorris.bandcamp.com/
There are now 11 Music For Healing releases, all proceeds go to the charity MIND

Trevor Jackson / Playgroup – donating 100% of revenue today to the Stephen Lawrence Trust
https://playgroupofficial.bandcamp.com/
also see Pre_Recordings
https://pre-recordings.bandcamp.com/

JG Thirlwell / Foetus / Steroid Maximus (Ectopic Ents)
https://jgthirlwell.bandcamp.com/
Fill your boots, an embarrassment of sonic riches

Scanner – Spore – hugely expanded reissue available today (inc. ‘Arc’ one of his greatest songs IMO)
https://scanner.bandcamp.com/

If you’re not signed up to Bandcamp it’s easy and for any purchase you make, a digital version immediately goes into your online collection whereby you can then stream on your device or to portable speakers and the like via their app. Artists can sell merch as well as physical copies of their music, you can follow them and other users and explore their collections for recommendations. Here’s mine https://bandcamp.com/strictlykev

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Four Tet in Sixteen Locked Grooves by Quadraphonic Stylus Ensemble

June 5, 2020

Using the Quadraphon turntable, a customised deck with three additional arms, I remixed side D of Four Tet‘s ‘Sixteen Oceans’ album which contains only locked grooves. These grooves play one revolution infinitely, looping the sound, and played in multiple combinations with added FX you can create endless remixes. I call them ‘Phonomontages’ – two are released today via my label, Infinite Illectrik https://infiniteillectrik.bandcamp.com/

Posted in DJ Food, Film, Infinite Illectrik, Music, Openmind designs, Records. | No Comments | Tags: Four Tet, Infinite Illectrik, locked grooves

De:tuned DE:10 series repressing on coloured vinyl

June 3, 2020June 12, 2020

The final (I’m assured) part of the 10 Years of De:tuned release programme – after the initial ten 12″s, the special silver vinyl #10, the poster, the tote bags and the super-limited wooden slipcases for Touched Music – a repress of the entire series on coloured vinyl. Some of the originals sold out super fast and are now going for much more than anticipated so a final edition in a corresponding colour has been arranged.

Listen to the series here: https://soundcloud.com/detunedrecords/sets/10-years-de-tuned-l-de-10-01

Pre-order here:
Bleep: bit.ly/3dQ23RF
Juno: bit.ly/2Zb4iLd
Red Eye: bit.ly/2yaq4nb
Deejay: bit.ly/3dQwPty
Horizons: bit.ly/2WCfMWr

I’ve also done a special promo mix of a selection of tracks from across the series which can be heard here

De:tuned · 10 Years Of Detuned – DJ Food Mix

Posted in Latest Designs, Music, Openmind designs. | No Comments | Tags: DE:10, De:tuned, vinyl

Robert Fripp – Music For Quiet Moments

June 3, 2020

Robert Fripp has been posting weekly tracks from his archives each Friday for the last five weeks under the banner ‘Music For Quiet Moments’. So far they are beautiful examples of his ambient Frippertronics style mixed with synth and strings, ranging from six minute to nearly half an hour in length.
He plans to release one a week for 50 weeks in total and on the promise of the first five alone it should be an incredible body of work. You can hear and subscribe to them on his official YouTube channel (above) or buy them direct from his DGM site or Apple Music/iTunes.

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ii08 coming this Friday

May 30, 2020

https://infiniteillectrik.bandcamp.com/

Posted in DJ Food, Infinite Illectrik, Music, Records. | No Comments | Tags: Infinite Illectrik

Mixcloud Select 9: Openmind – Floatation Space Station (Float 1 side A) 1993

May 29, 2020January 26, 2021

Track notes:

As I recall (although the memory is vague) this mix was created for a Floatation Centre in Brixton called Aquatonics, they had one in Notting Hill as well apparently. I was approached by the guy who ran it (Mark, maybe?) who wanted a mix of continuous ambient music and sounds to play to his customers that would aid their floatation trips. This was whilst I was working at the Ambient Soho record shop on Berwick St. in London and it’s possible he came into the shop to enquire. I certainly remember designing an A5 flyer that gave you £2 off your first float that we would hand out in the shop, part of which forms the inlay for this tape.

The selection is a pretty good representation of what we were playing at the Telepathic Fish parties at the time: The Orb, The Irresistible Force, FSOL, the Fax label, Global Communication, bits of This Mortal Coil, Cocteau Twins, Eno, even Grace Jones, U2 and Frankie Goes To Hollywood crept in as my meagre student budget demanded that any corner of the collection was game.

Recorded live on two turntables and a basic CD player with no pitch control direct to this cassette in the house I shared with fellow Openmind associates David Vallade, Mario Aguera and Chantal Passamonte (later Mira Calix). There are some moments that make me cringe at their out of tune-ness but mixing in key was something only Mixmaster Morris did back then, I was still very much learning my craft after years of playing hip hop and party music. I never went for a float so have no idea how this went down but they asked for a follow up mix which will appear sometime in the future no doubt. The B side of this tape, ‘Daydreaming At Night’, follows next week.

Track list:

DJ Spike – Outer Land (Part One)
Sequential – The Mission (Live From The Outer Zone)
The Orb – The Blue Room
S’Xpress – Coma
The KLF – Justified And Ancient Seems A Long Time Ago
Sven Vath – Drifting Like Whales In The Darkness
The Shamen – Re:Evolution (Accapella Vox)
The KLF – Madrugrada Eterna
This Mortal Coil – Tarantula
Clytus Gottwald & Stuttgart Schola Cantorum – Lux Aeterna
John Barry – Theme From The Deep
Yellow Magic Orchestra – Tong Poo (The Orb House Of Bright Colours Mix)
Unknown – Unknown
Brian Eno – Tal Coat
The Shamen – Re:Evolution (Accapella Vox)
Blue Pearl – Mother Dawn (Orb Bucketeer Mix 2)
The Irresistible Force – Mountain High (live)
Mystic Institute – Ob-Selon Mi-Nos (Repainted By Global Communication)
The Shamen – Re:Evolution (Accapella Vox)

Posted in DJ Food, Mixcloud Select, Mixes/Solid Steel, Music. | No Comments | Tags: Ambient Soho, Floatation, Mixcloud Select, Telepathic Fish

Mixcloud Select 8: Coldcut & DJ Food – Shibuya FM session 1996

May 22, 2020January 26, 2021

Track notes:
A live multi-deck and laptop set recorded at Shibuya FM in Toyko whilst on tour in Japan, 1996. Messy, scratchy, improvised turntable decknology mixing up ambient, jazz, drum n bass, electronica and other beats as only the Solid Steel crew can.

This was recorded on the evening of October 28th from my tour itinerary and ended a day of interviews. The itinerary says we did two sets which explains why it says Pt.1 on the tape. Not sure where Pt.2 went but I think I’ve seen the DAT of the whole thing somewhere, if I find it, it will appear here if it’s any good. The set was fun and furious and Japan was a revelation as anyone who’s been there will tell you.

This particular recording comes from a tape of a Solid Steel once we got back to the UK so I’d date the UK broadcast as somewhen in November 1996.

Track list:
Morton Subotnick – Silver Apples Of the Moon
Spacetime Continuum – Flouresence (on 45 rpm)
Photek – Rings Around Saturn
Miles Davis – Fast Track
Photek – K.J.Z.
DJ Food – Scratch Yer Hed (Squarepusher remix)
Kruder & Dorfmeister – Shakatakadoodub
The Herbaliser – A Mother (For Your Mind)

Posted in DJ Food, Mixcloud Select, Mixes / Podcast, Mixes/Solid Steel, Music, Radio. | No Comments | Tags: Mixcloud Select