Victor Moscoso has been posting pictures of his original art on social media recently – seen here alongside other oddities culled from Heritage Auctions‘ site.
(above) Character from the cover of Rip Off Review of Western Culture #2
Dance Pinnacle Concert collab with Rick Griffin
An alternate (rough?) Zap Comix no.10 front and back cover – pre-colouring!
My second monthly Electrik Collage radio show is now archived on ROVR radio, download the app to get archive access. APPLE or ANDROID
Show #2 May 2024
Patrick Carpenter – Arrival
Man From Mantis – Digitalis
Planet Battagon – Wezlee’s Disco Inferno
Stone Roses – Fool’s Gold (DJ Food Re-Fix)
Touni Minwi – Babani Soundsystem
Humanoid – 808 Nation
The Best Ever & Muhammad Ali – Rope A Dope
Chicago Housing Commission – Good Good Feeling
Jerome Hill – Harlesden Shuffle (DJ Food Edit)
Cleon – My Mind…
Rebecca Vasmant – Teen Town
Hard Ton – Slow (Hard Ton’s Rave Mix)
Hieroglyphic Being – The Moon Dance
Smart Systems – The Nu Generation
Bullant – Orange Baby
Planet Battagon – Escape from Sedna
Ictus – Soul Meeting
The Luvmenauts – Rasputin’s Mystic Frozen Appendage Pt. 1 & 2 (feat. Adam Beer-Colacino)
dgoHn & Badun – VHS Copy 1979
Emperors New Clothes – Heading Out (Past Mendota Tower)
Prefuse 73 – The End of Air
Markey Funk – Eyes Closed
Kid Acne – Eat Right
Coast Contra – Scenario Freestyle (DJ Food Re-edit)
Primal Scream – Xterminator (DJ Food Re-edit)
This version of The Beach Boys‘ Smile has been enhanced by Dae Lims (Smile Ad?) into a subtlely different take incorporating elements from multiple versions, adding harmonies and spoken word that pushes it to new realms in places. It’s a VERY minimal remix, some tracks don’t have anything different that I can hear but occasionally things will take a left turn from the version you know. As is says on the post: “All songs remixed using AI de-mixing technology.”
*Tracks 3,4,5,6,8,9,10,12,13,14,15 contain new AI vocals.
*Tracks 3,4,7,9,10,12 contain AI enhanced vocals.
*”Do You Like Worms” contains new melodies, partially based on “Little Pad” by The Beach Boys.
*”Child Is Father Of The Man” contains new lyrics and melodies, inspired by the original and 2004 versions of the song.
From what I understand he’s used technology to re-mix and enhance existing mixdowns, generated new voice parts approximating the BB’s melodies, possibly used stem-splitters to pull stereo tracks out for new sections. He hasn’t prompted AI to remake the album – it’s too close and I don’t think that’s possible yet, more used existing apps to take the original apart and put it back together as if he had the master tapes. Whatever he’s done he’s nailed it, it’s respectful to the original material and obviously done with a deep knowledge of the myriad of versions out there. I used to devour bootlegs of this material before Brian finished it and the box sets appeared from the vaults and I truly believe that if it had been finished in the 60s it would have rivalled The Beatles’ efforts that he was so obsessed with. The Child Is Father of the Man/Surf’s Up sections can still reduce me to tears with their beauty on any given day, give it a listen and see what you think before it gets taken down.
I’m constantly saving stuff I like the look of from the web, sometimes I need to follow up on an image I come across, other times it’s inspirational or a better quality version of something I’ve seen before. All these were cluttering up the desktop with nowhere to go and, as I treat this blog as a form of scrapbook, consider me adding these to a page. Above, the poster and some screen shots from Be The Fool, a new documentary about two members of Dutch design group, The Fool. This is currently only doing the film festival circuit but hopefully will show up on streaming at some point. Below, a lesser seen poster by Hapshash & The Coloured Coat for an Italian festival in 1968, this recently came up for auction and went for big money.
The backing card for a pair of op-art tights called Kinkies from the 1960s. Available here from the excellent Division Leap seller on eBay.
From the same seller, a flyer for a 1980s San Francisco punk event, Z-RO G.
An alternate front and back cover for comic book Spectregraph by Tradd Moore
Windy & Carl‘s Consciousness LP sleeve, recently reissued I think.
Which my partner has just indignantly pointed out is a huge rip-off of this Archie Shepp album cover
The Who Sell Out promo poster by Adrian George, printed by Osiris Visions in 1967, another one that recently came up for auction and sells for a fair bit. These came with initial copies of the album and were reproduced a few years back for the reissue.
That’s My Boy! was a trilogy of tapes I made whilst living in a house share in East Dulwich, they were given out to friends and neighbours around 30 years ago as my DJ career was just starting with Coldcut and Ninja Tune. Weirdly my old friend Jem Panufnik sent me a photo of his copy of this tape he’d found just a week after I’d digitised it (see below). There were three volumes of which this is the second and I was showcasing the tracks of the day whilst trying to find my style as the times shifted out of the ambient scene I had been playing in for the last few years. The first strands of what would become known as trip hop were mutating out of the hip hop, indie dance and acid jazz scenes and it was a fertile time for electronic music with Warp leading the pack with their Artificial Intelligence series. You can still hear the tendrils of the German kosmischer scene overlaid in places as well as the collaged soundscapes of the Orb and others of their ilk but this volume definitely ups the funk factor with cuts from the Beastie Boys’ then current Ill Communication album, the Ballistic Brothers vs the Eccentric Afros EPs and early Mo Wax and Ninja Tune releases.
There was definitely something in the air, the music was shifting and my hip hop knowledge from my first 80s forays into DJing was informing my tastes. Despite the late 80s tip into gangsterism which had soured some of the genre for me, I was still listening to hip hop via Max & Dave’s show on KISS FM alongside Coldcut, Colin Dale and Colin Faver’s more electronic-based shows and finding more interesting material coming out of the west coast. Even recently I’ve been finding hidden gems from the early 90s that never got past the promo stage or had limited releases but slipped between the cracks as they maybe didn’t hit the flavour of the day. The Prince Paul-produced Resident Alien album, Justin Warfield’s unreleased ‘Return To Planet 9’ and the recent reissue of Hard 2 Obtain’s ‘Ism & Blues’ all fit the early 90s overlooked rap bracket and are well worth tracking down.
This mix was probably done live on three decks and a basic CD player – the two Technics were used to mix beats and another old Panasonic belt drive deck for adding ambience with the CD reserved for more ambience of the occasional spoken word segment. The 4-channel mixer had a basic at best ‘echo’ function but this is mostly kept at bay as it was awful. You’ll hear bits of Sheila Chandra, Orbital, The Woodentops, Pulsation, Blue Pearl and more over these tracks as I was always layering and keeping to the chilled end of the beats. This was also the first time I’d used a Ken Nordine track, having been turned on to him by Mixmaster Morris the year before and then hunted down the Rhino Records compilation of Word Jazz they’d issued. There’s not too much you could call dance floor here, more of a head nodder for the smokers, something that would change on vol. 3 I seem to recall. Side B next week…
Side A Track list:
Material – Mantra (Praying Mantra mix)
La Funk Mob – Motor Bass Get Phunked Up
Saint Etienne – Like A Motorway (The Dust Brothers remix)
Unknown – unknown
DJ Toolz – Intercontinental
Beastie Boys – B-Boys Makin’ With The Freak Freak
Cypress Hill – Scooby Doo
Sheila Chandra – One
Unknown – unknown
Saint Etienne – Your Head My Voice (Voix Revirement)
The Woodentops – You Make Me Feel (Late Night Mix)
Ken Nordine – What Time Is It?
My second monthly Electrik Collage radio show debuts this afternoon: May 10th at 2pm wherever you are in the world on ROVR radio, download the app to get archive access. APPLE or ANDROID
As it’s my birthday weekend this week I thought I’d save this one until (nearly) last. Either recorded or broadcast on my birthday 21 years ago (it’s not unusual for me to work on a birthday) it’s one of the bumper crop of mixes I recorded for Solid Steel in 2003, probably my most prolific year on the show. The Glitter Band stomp of The Timelords’ ‘Doctorin’ The Tardis’ was a no-brainer to put with Goldfrapp’s ‘Train’ so I started off with a mash up of the two by Lionel Vinyl before progressing into the original and then Ewan Pearson’s straighter 6/8 and 4/4 mixes which still manage to be funky. RSL’s ‘Wesley Music’ was such a jam, huge tune back in the day, I once played it at a party some years later and a woman started screaming when she heard the opening bars, we thought she was in trouble but she actually just loved it so much! Linda Lewis’ ‘I Keep A Wish’ came out on Riz Maslen Council Folk label, was an acoustic ballad which serves as a near acappella here and I’m doing something with it with the Numark CDJ FX I used at the time by the sounds of it.
The Nextmen make over Reno’s ‘Rock n Roll’ and do a nice pitch up trick from downtempo to UK Garage beats before The Baker Brothers who had a nice run of funk 45s on their own ARSE label around this time of which this was the third I think. This slides smoothly into The Cinematic Orchestra’s ‘Man With The Music Camera’ which was possibly preceding the album at this point. The script flips quickly into the Geezers of Nazareth, a weird little 7” which is listed as a mini-album on Discogs, containing seven tracks and apparently soundtracking the short film, ‘Pole’. I was never much of a Blur fan but their track ‘Out Of Time’ really resonated and later named Miranda Sawyer’s book about middle age which I can recommend once you get there. The spoken word about Marrakech I overlaid was because they used the Marrakech String Orchestra or something for the backing.
Quite a change of mood and pace next with Kid 606’s remix of Amon Tobin’s ‘Verbal’ and then a sequence I would use often in my DJ sets around this time with Z-Trip’s mix of DJ Shadow / The D.O.C. / Nas all blended into a party-rocking mess. Actually a lot of this second half is something I would work into DJ sets in a myriad of variations over the 00’s, that Z-Trip mix was so useful as a mix tool. I think the Quantic Soul Orchestra mix of Sunshine Anderson’s ‘Heard It All Before’ was from one of the Tru Thoughts Rebtuz 12”s that were possibly not exactly legit but would arrive in the promo post of the day, this was from the first apparently. Frenchbloke & Son’s ‘Sound of da S-Club’ is one of THE best mash ups of the day – wrong-foots everyone when they first hear it but is so stupidly obvious you have to give it to them. For some reason I decided to add a bit of Neil Sedaka into the middle as the band were possibly breaking up at the time, pop showbiz gossip in the middle of a Solid Steel mix!
I used to do the Lisa Maffia/Lil Kim mix all the time, it required a pretty swift change of the record to get the acappella in on time and then switch from the instrumental to vocal version. Mr Guder was a funk combo with Dr Rubberfunk on drums who released a couple of 45s with breaks medleys – vol.1 and 3 but no vol.2. I recently asked the good Dr what happened to vol.2, did it come out and I miss it? Apparently not, they never finished it but he still has the tapes as well as sessions for vol.4 and 5! They sound pretty good too and he’s getting to finishing them soon… The Roots’ ‘Thought @ Work’ is one of those great pieces that can legitimately be filed under ‘old school hip hop’ despite being made in 2002 without violating the trades descriptions act. The band perfectly reimagine the old Bronx park breakbeat jams and I get busy with a copy of ‘Apache’ over the top, doubling up snares before running into Grandmaster Flash’s ‘rock steady’ cut up of the same for his Strut compilation. Another dose of the Quantic Soul Orchestra comes in the form of a vocal retake of their classic ’Super 8’ track and an Ochre edit-heavy mix of Justin Timberlake’s ‘Like I Love You’ plays us out. I’m constantly surprised at how much work I put into some of these mixes, lacing much of it with relevant spoken word clips sourced from Megatrip’s Soundbank CDs – that’s what happens before you have kids!
Track list:
Lionel Vinyl – Doctorin’ The Train
Goldfrapp – Train (original)
Goldfrapp – Train (Ewan Pearson 6/8 & 4/4 mixes)
RSL – Wesley Music
Linda Lewis – I Keep A Wish (Re-edit)
Reno – Rock ‘n’ Roll (The Nextmen – The Mines mix)
Baker Brothers – Aargh, Aargh, Aargh
The Cinematic Orchestra – Man With The Movie Camera
Geezers of Nazareth – Introducing the Pole
Blur – Out of Time
Amon Tobin – Verbal (Kid 606 remix)
DJ Shadow – Right Thing (Z-Trip Get The Party Off mix pts 1 & 2)
The D.O.C. – Portrait of a Masterpiece
DJ Shadow – Right Thing (Z-Trip Get The Party Off mix pt 3+bonus beats)
Nas – I Can (acappella)
Sunshine Anderson – Heard It All Before (Quantic Soul Orchestra mix)
Frenchbloke and Son – Sound of da S Club
Neil Sedaka – Breaking Up is Hard to Do
Lisa Maffia – All Over (acappella)
Lil’ Kim – The Jump Off (instrumental/Vocal)
Mr Guder – Mr Guder Breaks 3
The Roots – Thought @ Work
Incredible Bongo Band – Apache (Grandmaster Flash Rock Steady mix)
Quantic Soul Orchestra – Walking Through Tomorrow (Super 8 Pt 3)
Justin Timberlake – Like I Love You (Ochre mix)
Here’s this month’s recommends – Bandcamp Friday is on May 3rd so fill your cart ready
Artist Jeff Keen‘s collage comics from the 60s, Amazing Rayday 1-4, along with other related works. Keen was a fascinating multimedia artist – Jonny Trunk put out an album of his work some years ago. The one-sheet comics came on my radar today so I’ve put them all here for future reference – check Keen’s work out online, there’s films, art, music, poetry…
A classic smorgasbord of then-current releases and retro oddities laced with spoken word in the best Solid Steel style, opening with Dani Siciliano’s ‘Walk The Line’, co-produced with Matthew Herbert (we had her take on Nirvana’s ‘Come As You Are’ from the same EP a few uploads ago). I can’t remember where the dialogue about drum machines and drummers was from or which band was doing the talking but it’s verging on Spinal Tap territory. Ricci Rucker was definitely one of the leading abstract turntablists around this time as his disjointed ‘Dirt’ shows, not one for the party rocking crowd. Unlike Yasuharu Konishi’s Lesson-like breaks cut up, ‘A Tribute to Simon Harris’ which came from a flexi disc – possibly from Relax magazine in Japan.
The tempo is all over the place and that was the common thread behind DJ Zinc’s album, Faster, the title track of which follows, steadily gaining speed as did each subsequent track on his LP. Zinc was always one of the most forward-thinking of the drum n bass producers, able to turn his hand to a myriad of styles. Again, I’m not sure the origin of the spoken word I’ve garnished the beats with but it sounds pretty cosmic. Mordant Music’s ‘Dark Side of the Autobahn’ mash up slips into the mix and I always wondered how he’d done this as he appears to have stems to a number of the elements, either that or there’s some very canny EQ-ing going on. Digital Midgets’ debut EP also heralded the Lost Idol remix of the title track by label-mate James Dean who is still going from strength to strength under the moniker.
‘Shining Pain’ is a fine bit of 90’s trip hop from 2003 ‘presented’ by St. Germain on the Warner Jazz label, Soel was a frequent collaborator with him and a trumpeter to boot. A slight change of pace from smooth jazz to electronic hip hop via Prefuse 73’s remix of Beans’ ‘Mutescreamer’ next before a slightly out of tune mix into Quantic’s excellent ‘Compartiment Tueurs’ remix from the incredible Cinemix album which saw a raft of producers remixing rare French soundtrack cuts by Morricone, Roubaix and Vannier/Gainsbourg. Compiled by old friend Fred Elalouf aka DJ Oof, this was rich with more hits than misses, something these projects can sometimes suffer from and it can still be had very cheaply for a triple vinyl LP. A super-rare John Rydgren flexi disc follows – possibly grabbed from the online 365 Days project curated by Otis Fodder on WFMU as I definitely don’t have a copy.
Moving on we get a Prop track remixed by Mice Parade that comes on like a Steve Reich piece before the Diverse/RJD2/Lyric Born rap banger that is ‘Explosive’ – on Chocolate Industries who were definitely putting out some of the most interested rap of the era. Some ropey scratching from me of Sly & Robbie’s ‘Boops’ instrumental provided the intro to the CJ Scratch version so I could float the a cappella of FYA’s cover – which works for the most part but it’s a bit busy with all the samples underneath. Then it’s rap throwdown time again as I cut up two copies of The Returner’s ‘Throwdown No.1’ under Obie Trice’s ‘Got Some Teeth’ a cappella. Immediately this trio is over Missy’s ‘Pass That Dutch’ a cappella is in with Keno 1 (aka Natural Self) and The Hermit’s ‘Heavy Heavy’ – must dig that 45 out again, so tough. The second half morphs into Luke Vibert’s ‘Yoseph’ for a bit of light acid and an odd tempo change into Diplo’s Big Dada debut ‘Epistimology Suite’ and the drum machine evangelists are back. Forss’ micro-edited ‘Flickermood’ from his Soulhack debut LP plays us out with a moment of calm, like a jazzier Akufen and with that, we’re done – phew!
Tracklist:
Dani Siciliano – Walk The Line (Dani’s original mix)
Ricci Rucker – Dirt
Yasuharu Konishi – A Tribute To Simon Harris
Zinc – Faster
Dark Side of The Autobahn – Dark Side of The Autobahn
Digital Midgets – We Always Have Been (Lost Idol mix)
Soel – Shining Pain
Beans – Mutescreamer (Prefuse 73 remix)
Quantic – Compartiment Tueurs
John Rydgren – Unknown
Mice Parade/Prop – Remora (Free From The Shark remix)
Diverse feat. RJD2 & Lyrics Born – Explosive
Sly & Robbie – Boops (instrumental – CJ Scratch)
FYA – Boops (Acappella)
Return of the Returner – Throwdown No.1
Obie Trice – Got Some Teeth (Acappella)
Keno 1 & The Hermit – Heavy Heavy
Missy Elliot – Pass That Dutch (Acappella)
Luke Vibert – Yoseph
Diplodocus – Epistimology Suite (Don’t Fall/Like Cats)
Forss – Flickermood
*Apologies – I’ve been away on holiday and thought I’d posted this on Thursday night last week
An Alien Sphinx or sometimes Solid Sphinx was a 2 hour, ad-free show where we dispensed with any chat and just went heads down into the mix. I’m not sure why there were no ads (maybe advertising was lacking that week and you’d get less coverage at 1am in the morning?) but this seemed to happen a couple of times a year at KISS FM. Here’s my section from a 2 hour ‘rub’ as Matt would call it, where the four of us were present in the studio; Matt going first, then me, PC and Jon last I think – I can usually tell by the song selections or playing style. While one of us was playing the others would be slurping spoken word or ambient sounds over the top to pad out the mix, hence the busy nature of the sound field.
Kraftwerk spring out of the end of Air Liquide from Matt’s set to being mine and then into Coldcut’s own ‘Beats & Pieces’ B-side, ‘More Beats’ which gets a speed switch half way to up the tempo. Motorbass’ Ritchie Hawtin/Plastikman slow-burn remix slides in before the second Kraftwerk outing of ‘Home Computer’ which then has its own tempo switch in the second half. Drome’s ‘Hoax! What Did You Got?’ from the slept on Ninja album is riding that early drum and bass sound but with classical Indian overtones. Actually this was released on Ninja TONE, but confusion made the label retitle it Ntone – a sub-label for more electronic fair. Bedouin Ascent’s astonishing ‘Manganese In Deep Violet III’ from the Pavillion of the New Spirit EP is somehow mixed in by the skin of its teeth, one of the hardest tracks to mix ever. There’s a snatch of an unknown ambient dub cut, some War of the Worlds dialogue and then we finish with Mantonix’ ‘Get Stupid Pt.3’ which samples Art of Noise and Billy Cobham’s ‘Spectrum’ three years before Massive Attack would make it their own on ‘Safe From Harm’.
Track list:
Kraftwerk – Boing Boom Tschak
Coldcut – More Beats
La Funk Mob -Motor Bass Get Phunked Up (Electrofunk remix)
Kraftwerk – Home Computer
Drone – Hoax! What Did You Got?
Bedouin Ascent – Manganese In Deep Violet III
Unknown – unknown
Mantronix – Get Stupid (Pt.III)
My first monthly Electrik Collage radio show from April 12th is also now archived on ROVR radio, download the app to get archive access. APPLE or ANDROID
Show #1 April 2024 track list:
Coast Contra – Breathe + Stop Freestyle (DJ Food Edit)
Valentine Unlimited Orchestra – Take You Back
Resident Alien – It’s The Resident Alien
Your Old Droog & MF DOOM – Dropout Boogie
Resident Alien – Are You Ready
Tuff Crew – Soul Food
Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul – Ceci n’est pas un cliché
Edan – Real Bad Promo
Itsu Uno – Noise of the B-Boy
DJ Format – Beyond Disco
Edrix Puzzle – Lapetus
Jlin – Nyakinyua Rise
Rei Mitsui – Rekodoten Disuko
ScanOne – Serious Rhythm
Rei Mitsui – Kotozuke/Owaru
Clesse – Gehm
Raj Pannu – Elements
Beans – Pendulum
The Stone Roses – Begging You (Lakota Mix DJ Food Edit)
Emperors New Clothes – Boogie Electric
Planet Battagon – Endeavour Tugg Luke
Raj Pannu – The Heat
Prefuse 73 – Forever Chase (Scene One)
Patrick Carpenter – 27 Degrees of Sagittarius
Markey Funk – Five Minutes
Nevermen – Treat ‘Em Right (Boards Of Canada Remix – Instrumental + chorus re-edit)
The Luvmenauts – ’71 Shuttle
DJ Fingers – Pelham
A couple of Sundays ago The New Obsolescents played live at the excellent Wow And Flutter record shop in Hastings. Chris Weaver, Robin The Fog and myself, improvised live for several hours in-store as people watched, listened and shopped. As you will see in the video, hanging above their heads were test printed sleeves for the second pressing of our debut LP that had been passed over in favour of the prism version we eventually used. These unique items have been retained by the shop and will be sold (with the vinyl) on a first come, first served basis to those who visit over the next month before the remainder go online to those who can’t make it down to the South coast.
Here’s a little snippet of our performance put together by the shop’s own Tim Scullion as a very early taster for our second album as we will be using some of the recordings made in the shop on the next release. Thanks to everyone who came down, Colin from Castles In Space and especially Tim and Susan from Wow And Flutter for having us. This is their 10th year in business and they are planning nine more in-store events over the year so give them a follow or better yet, a visit!
We also play at the Deliaphonic all-dayer in Coventry on May 2nd at the newly re-christened Delia Derbyshire Building University alongside… well, just look at that line up! Entry is FREE via the sign up here. I will also be playing a solo Quadraphon set with PuttyRubber on the visuals to close the event. By coincidence, Delia and I share the same birthday just a few days later.
My first monthly Electrik Collage radio show from April 12th is also now archived on ROVR radio, download the app to get archive access. APPLE or ANDROID
I think the app has a few bugs, bear with it, it does work but it’s all very new.
Here’s the track list if you’re interested:
Show #1 April 2024
Coast Contra – Breathe + Stop Freestyle (DJ Food Edit)
Valentine Unlimited Orchestra – Take You Back
Resident Alien – It’s the Resident Alien
Your Old Droog & MF DOOM – Dropout Boogie
Resident Alien – Are You Ready
Tuff Crew – Soul Food
Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul – Ceci n’est pas un cliché
Edan – Real Bad Promo
Itsu Uno – Noise of the B-Boy
DJ Format – Beyond Disco
Edrix Puzzle – Lapetus
Jlin – Nyakinyua Rise
Rei Mitsui – Rekodoten Disuko
ScanOne – Serious Rhythm
Rei Mitsui – Kotozuke/Owaru
Clesse – Gehm
Raj Pannu – Elements
Beans – Pendulum
The Stone Roses – Begging You (Lakota Mix DJ Food Edit)
Emperors New Clothes – Boogie Electric
Planet Battagon – Endeavour Tugg Luke
Raj Pannu – The Heat
Prefuse 73 – Forever Chase (Scene One)
Patrick Carpenter – 27 Degrees of Sagittarius
Markey Funk – Five Minutes
Nevermen – Treat Em Right (Boards Of Canada Remix – Instrumental + chorus red-edit)
The Luvmenauts – ’71 Shuttle
DJ Fingers – Pelham
A short half hour this week consisting of cover versions or mash ups. Opening with two versions of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ by The Bad Plus and Tori Amos – superimposed over each other with a splash of the original at the end. The Evolution Control Committee take a brief walk on the moon with a cluster of pitch-shifted Beach Boys’ harmonies before we get another Nirvana take, this time from Dani Siciliano in a jazz style, it seems the Seattle trio’s music lends itself to the genre nicely. I’ve always thought Pendulum’s ‘Another Planet’ could be done in a firey jazz style with a Coltrane sax blast replacing the synths but that’s one for another time.
Vicki Bennet aka People Like Us stretches and splices The Carpenters into oblivion on ‘When I Was Young’ while the Roy Merriweather Trio take on the tune which most Brits will know as the theme to Film (insert year here) with Barry Norman. It’s actually ‘I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free’ from the Jesus Christ Superstar Goes Jazz album which annoyingly doesn’t have a version of ‘Heaven On Their Minds’ but does include ‘McArthur Park’ (!?). The Quantic Soul Orchestra’s ‘Hold It Down’ (featuring an early vocal from Alice Russell) is an original and then we’re into the home stretch with Max Tundra’s take on Wings’ ‘Coming Up’ and Frenchbloke & Son’s mash up of the same with Destiny’s Child’s ‘Say My Name’ which both up the electro quota and bounce to the finish line. The final skit comes from one of Si Begg’s Noodles comps where a phone prankster plays Arnold Schwarzenegger samples down the line to a hapless employee. A short and slightly silly half an hour that I enjoyed revisiting even if it’s not a classic.
My first monthly Electrik Collage radio show drops today April 12th on ROVR radio at 2-4pm wherever you are in the world. Tune in live here https://rovr.live/#/ or download the phone app to get archive access.
Track list:
The Bad Plus – Smells Like Teen Spirit
Tori Amos – Smells Like Teen Spirit
Evolution Control Committee – Walk on the Moon
Dani Siciliano – Come As You Are
People Like Us – When I Was Young
Roy Meriwether Trio – I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free
The Quantic Soul Orchestra – Hold It Down
Max Tundra – Coming Up
Frenchbloke & Son – My Name Keeps On Coming Up
Friday 12th April sees the start of my new monthly show on ROVR Radio – streaming 2pm-4pm wherever you are in the world. Electrik Collage will be 2 hours of music culled from my current DJ sets and listening choices with a bit of older material thrown in as well but I’m going to try and keep the balance to newer music as there’s so much out there. The station has a great line up of selectors and you can stream it live from your desktop or access archived shows via the phone app which is free to download. No ads, no playlists, no algorithms, no chat, just music.
Tune in live here https://rovr.live/#/
This last one was part of a magazine article apparently
Here’s this month’s Buy Music Club list and it’s Bandcamp Friday until 8am Saturday so remember to support
As we approach the 200th upload from the archive I’ve decided that I’m going to finish on that round number and end what has become four years of weekly posts as the collection is nearly complete. The DATs were done long ago, there are only three CDrs left in the book and after about 2007 things started appearing online on Soundcloud, servers and such as internet streaming got better so should prove easy to find. There are still a few tapes left to be done but I’m down to a handful now and I think it’s time to move on, stop looking back and start looking forward.
One thing I realised when I started encoding all these mixes during the first lockdown was how evocative of their time they were and how many memories flooded back listening to them – good memories, often great memories. But as time passed I also found that I wasn’t making the equivalent for today so that in 20 or hopefully 30 years time I could be doing the same thing. I’ve not had a regular radio show for sometime now, my contributions to Solid Steel fluctuating after about 2014 until my final one as the show closed in 2019. I’ve done an annual 45 Live mix since 2015 and I featured a bit here and there on the Out Of The Wood radio show, run by Pete Williams from the Book & Record Bar in West Norwood since 2016 up until the pandemic with the odd show occasionally since but nothing regular.
That’s about to change in 2024 as I’m ready for a new venture and concentrating on more new music than old. I don’t want to get stuck in a nostalgia loop so from Friday April 12th I will be starting a monthly 2 hour show called Electric Collage on the new online ROVR radio station. Each show will be a collection of what I’m listening to and playing out in my DJ sets, including exclusive edits I make for sets or my own amusement. ROVR has assembled a huge roster of DJs who will have 2 hour shows rolling 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week at the same time internationally. My show will be Friday 2pm-4pm no matter where you are in the world. The station can be listened to on a desktop or streamed from their phone app, it’s free, there are no ads, no presenters and no algorithms, just music. Each show will be track listed and archives will be accessible via the phone app. Download it here. (MAC) or (ANDROID)
This is something new, both as a station and for me and I’m excited to be among so many great names and to have a platform for a monthly dig and a chunk of music to signpost the times. I’m also looking forward to seeing how the station develops and what I can bring to it each month. Trevor Jackson has designed the look and the app is easy to use and navigate. The first show drops next week but I’ll continue this Mixcloud Select for another 10 weeks until we hit 200 and then leave it open for subscribers to access. I expect a few will stop their subscription and that’s fine, the work is done, the main mission was to digitise my archive and put it online, everything will still be accessible to those paying. Maybe a way down the road I’ll start making some available to all, right now I’m looking forward, not back. Which inevitably brings us to this week’s upload…
This is a set that I think DK and I did on 4 decks for some sort of Solid Steel summer special gig but I forget where it was – it wasn’t the boat party as that was the year before. You can hear sections that would later appear in our Now, Listen Again and the later Now, Look & Listen AV mixes and I have to say, we’re on fire in places. This is a pure dance set, packed with classics and acappellas all over the place, we did some great sets together in the decade we were DJ partners touring the world and saw some great things. This is a dry desk recording with no crowd noise but I can assure you they were making noise during this set – a proper festival set.
The rave era classics in the middle were DK’s idea and I credit him with reuniting my love of that era with this set as not too many of our crowd were looking back to that time in the mid 00’s. That three way mix of ‘Pacific State’ / ‘Din Daa Daa’ / ‘Devil Inside’ is quite the slow burn build with a drop to pay off. I love all the little musical connections – NERD into Jungle Bros into Todd Terry and the way the Stetsasonic acapella makes a reappearance only to be staggered into the Max Sedgley tune. The ‘Organ Donor’ slow down part sounds like it was done using a CDJ but the rest of this should be vinyl as I didn’t go over to Serato until early 2006. The Danny Tenaglia mix of The Orb’s ‘Little Fluffy Clouds’ was a big tune at the time and the end extension here with the Ambient mix and parts of ‘Earth’ is possibly an edit for radio as I can’t imagine us ending the set like this.
Tracklist:
Unknown – Solid Steel intro
Bob Dorough – Three Is the Magic Number
Double Dee & Steinski – Lesson 3
De La Soul – The Magic Number
Cozy Powell – Dance With the Devil
Stetsasonic – Talking All That jazz (clapappella)
DJ Format – You Hear That?
Ram Jam – Black Betty
Jonny Jones and the King Casuals – Purple Haze
Jungle Brothers – Beyond This World (accapella)
DJ Shadow – Right Thing (Z Trip Bonus Beat)
Primal Scream – Revenge of the Hammond Connection
Jimmy Bo Horne – Spank
Apathy – It Takes A Seven Nation Army…
NERD – She Wants To Move (Native Tongues remix)
Jungles Brothers – I’ll House You
Doug Lazy – Let It Roll (a cappella)
Royal House – Can You Party?
The Jacksons – Can You Feel It (Opening)
Nitro Deluxe – This Brutal House
Missy Elliot – Lose Control
Luke Vibert – Homewerk
808 State – Pacific State
George Kranz – Din Daa Daa (Dub version)
Max Sedgley – Devil inside
Stetsasonic – Talking All That jazz (clapappella)
DJ Shadow – Right Thing (Z Trip Get The Party Off mix)
DJ Shadow – Organ Donor (Extended Overhaul)
Area Code 615 – Stone Fox Chase
Cut Chemist – A Peek In Time
The Chemical Brothers – The Boxer
Jay Z – I Just Wanna Love U
Pierre Henry & Michel Colombier – Psyche Rock
Coldcut – More Beats
The Orb – Little Fluffy Clouds (Danny Tenaglia mix)
The Orb – Earth (Gaia) (intro)
The Orb – Little Fluffy Clouds (Ambient mix mk 1)
The first (that I’ve ever heard of) exhibition of zoetrope art – TURN ON – ended recently at the Place des Rotondes in Luxembourg and they have made this short film of the event, directed by Raoul Schmitz. Sculpture played at the opening and my 2013 zoetrope of Bonobo‘s ‘Cirrus’ using animations by Cyriak was featured alongside discs by Reuben Sutherland, Drew Tetz, Tess Martin, Iloobia and more.
A note to cultural spaces – the exhibition is now available for hire and can’t wait to go on tour! A presentation kit is being finalised for interested art and cultural centres. Email Marine Deravet at Rotondes if you are interested in hosting the event in your city or town. Photos below by Lynn Theisen (first 3) and Mike Zenari.
A Solid Steel set from nearly 26 years ago – wow, haven’t heard this one in ages. I think this was recorded in Coldcut’s Ahead Of Our Time studio at Clink St with PC on the desk at points adding FX and samples. Kicking off with the Ninth World jingle (read by Matt Black’s dad no less) and straight into jazz abstraction via Barre Philips on ECM. We were touring Europe a lot around the late 90s and finding cheap jazz record on labels like ECM was easy, they were everywhere and you could buy them virtually blind and guarantee that a record within a certain timeframe made by certain players would contain something good to sample or play out. Barre Philips, Eberhard Weber and John Abercrombie were names I would always look for. Stanley Clarke’s ‘Concerto for Jazz/Rock Orchestra’ came on my radar from the sample Shadow used at the end of the Headz version of ‘In/Flux’ – took a while to figure out who it was and what album (only just getting the internet) but found a copy in Montreal finally. Directions’ ‘Echoes’ gets another airing, that’s three so far I think, I was truly enamoured with Bundy K Brown’s approach to music (still am) and we would soon collaborate on what became the opening track of the Kaleidoscope album.
Part 2 aka Keith Hopewell’s first solo release was on DJ Vadim’s Jazz Fudge label and I put the sleeve together from drawings he sent me. This short track bridges into KRS 1’s mega anthem ‘Step Into A World’ which references Blondie’s ‘Rapture’ and The Mowhawks’ ‘The Champ’ so it would be rude not to slip that in after, right? Part 2’s back again with New Flesh 4 Old bandmate Toastie Taylor on vocals and then into another old favourite, the Human League’s ‘Being Boiled’ although I think I took my eye off the mix there. Water Melon end the first side with their take on Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Albatross’ from the Pussyfoot Fish Smells Like Cat compilation – I really loved Water Melon but so many of their records are only available in Japan and now cost loads to ship over. Weirdly there’s a Radio One jingle at the end of this set and then John Peel comes in, sounding like he’s starting his show – I’ve no idea of we did a mix for Radio 1 around this time but it’s possible and this was a short half hour-ish set so maybe. Anyone in the UK remember such a thing?
On to side 2 of the tape and Neotropic’s Taking of Pelham 123 and Dirty Harry-sampling ‘Apple Sauce’ blasts in, from her Mr Brubaker’s Strawberry Alarm Clock album – you wouldn’t get away with samples like that these days! Then it’s a couple of unknown DnB tracks (anyone?) and the brutal drums of Tom Jenkinson’s ‘Vogon & I’ from the Alt. Frequencies single on Worm Interface. This had a colour in cover and was designed by my good friend David Vallade who worked at Ambient Soho (which housed the Worm Interface label), some copies also came with colouring crayons glued to the sleeve. The madcap Sukia are here with a mix of ‘The Dream Machine’ from the original Nicklebag records release before it got licensed to MoWax. Keeping on the (ch)easy listening tip the ‘Independent Introduction’ to Fink’s first album sounds nothing like the acoustic singer/songwriter we know today, his first album being a full on trip hop mixed bag for Ntone before he changed tack and became the superstar he is today.
A quick blast of DJ Vadim’s vocal looping ‘The 5 Conquistadors’ and I can hear Kid Koala and A-Cyde in there for sure amongst the voices and I may even be in there myself as Vadim would record us constantly on tour and then pitch stuff up and down. A track I most definitely am on though is Squarepusher’s ‘Fat Controller’; listen to the bass solo breakdown in the middle with a blast from ‘Feelin’ James’ before it gets scratched into Trouble Funk’s ‘Pump Me Up’, that whole middle section is sampled from the jam Tom and I did on Solid Steel when he came in for his guest session. After a rocky attempt to mix in DJ Vadim’s ‘The Pimp Theme 126’ with Tom’s clattering beats I wisely pull it back and wait before finishing with this uncharacteristically uptempo breaks cut up which used to get plenty of play back in the day. And with that, we’re out in a swirl of vinyl dirt and delay.
Tracklist:
Coldcut – The Ninth World jingle
Barre Philips – Mountainscape 6
Stanley Clarke – Part II (Concerto for Jazz/Rock Orchestra)
Directions – Echoes (Continental Drift Version)
Part 2 – Rectangular Depression
KRS One – Step Into A World (Rapture’s Delight)
The Mohawks – The Champ
Part 2 – Automatic (feat. Toast Taylor)
Human League – Being Boiled
Water Melon – Albatross
Neotropic – Apple Sauce
Unknown – unknown
Unknown – unknown
Tom Jenkinson – Vogon & I
Sukia – The Dream Machine (Westside Freeride)
Fink – Independent Introduction
DJ Vadim – The 5 Conquistadors
Squarepusher – Fat Controller
DJ Vadim – The Pimp Theme 126
This hour is a bit of an unruly mess in places, a real hodge hodge of styles that, while mixing in tempo, certainly don’t all mix in key – Stuff & Nonsense indeed. I have to apologise for the mash up of ‘Hey Ya’ and ‘Pinball Number Count’ that kicks this off because, whilst it does kind of work with the odd time signature, it’s annoyingly out of tune, something I couldn’t hear at the time I made it. Much better is the Columbus remix of Alicia Key’s ‘You Don’t Know My Name’ using the Burning Spear track of the same name as a backing track. No idea who made it but it appeared on a 45 around this time and stayed in my record box for years. Zinc’s ‘Casa De La Musica’ is from his Faster album, love the way the off-beat pops over Alicia, and Toolshed’s take on Morricone’s theme from the Exorcist 3 was the B side of their only release on Toolshed Recordings. Loo & Placido were a drummer and bassist from different French bands (allegedly) who appeared for a couple of years in the mid-00s but amazingly still have an online presence at https://www.loo-placido.com/ – they were always a cut above a lot of the people doing mash ups I thought. ‘Work In Progress’ is from their first album – Mash Up The Tops – and adds a reggae skank to Beyonce’s hit from the Austin Powers film.
Zinga’s ‘Evil Eye’ seems to be their only release and the third and final one for OffDaWallMusic, I thought it had a catchy pop hook at the time and found some spoken word about ‘the evil eye’ and hypnotism to add to it. Skalpel’s ’1958’ got licensed to a yoghurt commercial back in the day I seem to remember and, whereas even 5 years before this would have been heresy, any notion of ‘selling out’ had long since evaporated within most of the electronic community by the mid 00’s. As the music industry started to go down the pan due to illegal downloads, any means of attracting extra revenue to shore up plummeting physical sales was a blessing. Skalpel, to me, were the last of the Ninja artists mining the older sounds of the original 90s version of the label, this couldn’t last as samples would become too problematic as the label grew. The original players on the ‘Are You Being Served?’ theme are still a mystery to me but DK and I were obsessed with it and ended up licensing the film version heard here for our Now, Listen Again mix a few years later. I’d forgotten I’d actually played the whole thing over the middle of Skalpel, thus giving it a kind of DnB makeover.
Squarepusher’s ’50 Cycles’ sees him exploring his own vocals, largely unprocessed and I think the Peter Cook dialogue in the middle comes from a promo for Godley & Creme’s ‘Consequences’ album but don’t quote me. Def Harmonic made four albums but never seemed to hit, not sure why as their brand of hip hop was melodic and intelligent. The Tiki Two mix an Ella Fitzgerald version of the old classic with some downtempo Latin breaks and I remember being given this 45 by one of the two guys responsible when he was in London from his homeland of Australia. Four Tet’s remix of Jef Gilson is taken from the Tribute To… 12” he shared with MATO that spearheaded a rediscovery of the French pianist and arranger. More French jazz from Troublemakers – spun from a one-sided 10” on Blue Note. And now more Four Tet, this time remixed by Jay Dee aka Dilla for his ‘Serious’ single and Jazi P3z’s ‘Petaco 2004’ slides in perfectly after it – at last a mix in tune at least. 8-bit video game FX mix with Latin rhythms as if they were made for each other. G Form’s ‘From The Block’ rather ruins the mood with a Northern acoustic take on Jennifer Lopez’s hit. It was taken from Cassette Boy vs DJ Rubbish’s mix album ‘Inside A Whale’s Cock Vol.1’ (I don’t think there was a follow up) and bizarrely I finally met one of the Cassette Boy duo last week as we were both giving a talk at Industry Week in Nottingham. Their talk turned into part stage invasion, part gig with a cut up of Alan Sugar which never made it to the internet that had me crying with laughter. Funny how things work out 20 years down the line.
Tracklist:
Flexus – Pinball Ya Ya
Alicia Keys – You Don’t Know My Name (Columbus remix)
Zinc – Casa De la Musica
Toolshed – Pazuzu
Loo & Placido – Work In Progress
Zinga – Evil Eye (Capp-O D mix)
Skalpel – 1958 (Skalpel remix)
Unknown – Are You Being Served (film version)
Squarepusher – 50 Cycles
Def Harmonic – Villain
Tiki Two – Caravan
Jef Gilson – Fable of Gutemberg (Four Tet remix)
Troublemakers – Every Day is an Extension of Yesterday
Four Tet – Serious (Jay Dee remix)
Javi P3z – Petaco 2004
G Form – From The Block