First 9 selections, I made over 60 different variations of these Op Art pieces one afternoon, currently sharing daily on Instagram
I’ll be in Brussels playing at this FREE party next Friday, celebrating the Soul Inn crew’s 1st anniversary. All 45s set from me on this one – more info here https://www.facebook.com/events/1559005617760336/
The Comet Is Coming celebrate the release of their debut album Channel The Spirits on The Leaf Label, King Shabaka, aka Shabaka Hutchings (also of Sons Of Kemet and Melt Yourself Down) drops his first mixtape with a quality selection of music personal to him.
“I’ve never done a mixtape before so when asked to do this I immediately though back to my favourite DJs and what their selections did for me. I love it when I hear massive leaps in genre during a set which seem to make sense despite all the odds and retain a trajectory of intensity. Immediately I think of Gaslamp Killer who I toured with last year and was able to see him do his thing up close, and Ntone Edjabe who is a DJ extraordinaire based in Cape Town. These are all tunes that have meant a lot to me at various points in my life so it’s interesting for me to see the narrative which connects them.”
This looks great, a new(ish) 2 hr documentary about a number of electronic music pioneers and companies, soundtracked by I Monster with guests into a big electronic concept album. Buy the film and album here
Old news by now but looks good
Czech this out (sorry, couldn’t resist) via Jonny Trunk’s fabulous weekly newsletter comes a trailer for a remastered mix of live action and animated collage from 1958 (!) Think Jules Verne meets Terry Gilliam.
The launch party for Jonny’s new book, ‘The Music Library’, last night was excellent with a bit of celeb-spotting going down (Jarvis, Matt Berry) and a storming reggae cover version set from Jerry Dammers. The book is an expansion of the original version he released 10 years ago, this time with twice as many covers and a nifty, if pricey, slipcased edition with a 10″ record. There is of course a reasonably priced version without either of those two as well, get them both here.
Huge gig at Motion in Bristol coming up at the end of the month, I’ll be doing an AV set alongside DJ Yoda, Wrong Tom w. the Ragga Twins, Asian Dub Foundation + more.
Here’s the link for tickets and more info
Size isn’t everything but… my third installment for The Vinyl Factory‘s Freaky Formats series is all about odd-sized records – check it out here.
Yes, you read that right, Stolid Seal, not Solid Steel unfortunately as this mix got squeezed out of the selection process due to an overflowing number of guest mixes piling up for the show. I asked Glyn and PK from The Dandelion Set to do a mix last year after the band had played at the Delaware Road event in Reading. To me this is prime SS material and he’s done a sterling job but alas, it wasn’t to be. But, by the miracle that is the internet, you can still hear it and see what you’re missing.
I’ve featured The Dandelion Set before, way back when their releases were confined to digital only, and I’m now pleased to learn that their debut album is coming out on a favourite label of mine, Buried Treasure. It also features the sleeve notes, lyrics & vocals of none other than Alan Moore (surely no introduction necessary?) among others. Inhabiting the worlds of folk, radiophonics, jazz, psychedelia, library music, soundtracks and spoken word, the album is packed with over 20 tracks and enough tricky time signatures to require some very deep listening. ‘A Thousand Strands’ is out April 22nd on CD, LP, cassette (yes!) and download from Buried Treasure. Beautiful cover too
DEEZER – Music Unleashed from CRCR on Vimeo.
Fantastic animation by CRCR using designs by McBess and a remixed ‘Wannamama’ by Pop Levi.
Throughout April I’ll be posting examples each day from an unseen series of Op Art pieces I made earlier this year under the Kosmischer Debris banner on my Instagram account, above is the first one.
The, by now, ubiquitous Ghost Box post when they release a new record (they’re not paying me, honest). Hintermass – a collaboration between Jon Brooks and Tim Felton – just came out on LP, CD and DL and lovely it is too. Next up is an album by Belbury Poly (at last!), Jim Jupp‘s recording alias which is coming in May. Download these two posters HERE.
The vinyl heads among you may want to jump sharpish over to the Drumetrics store and secure a copy of this gorgeous op art-covered, die-cut triangular picture disc and sleeve (300 copies only). If you don’t know about Drumetrics then you need to visit their site
New Shadow album campaign starting, check the track on his site djshadow.com
The First Book Of Jazz (1955) is the third of five books that Langston Hughes (1902-1967) wrote for the Franklin Watts First Books series. “When boys and girls FIRST start asking why?…what?…and how? FIRST BOOKS are the first books to read on any subject.”
Cliff Roberts (1929-1999) was a cartoonist and animator. His cartoons appeared in magazines such as The New Yorker and Playboy. He worked as an animator on Sesame Street, and wrote and drew the short-lived Sesame Street newspaper comic strip.
Image and text cribbed from Ariel S. Winter’s Flickr where he has the full book scanned. For more information see this blog post
Been a bit quiet on here of late, sorry for the lack of activity but there’s a lot going on behind the scenes, making some big changes this year. Just finished a fantastic graphic design project that I can show in full soon. Also I’ve been more active on Instagram this year than last so you can find quite a few things cropping up there daily.
The pieces above are some circular experiments with circuit boards (Circuit Mandalas), colour shift try-outs with recent collages and some digital trickery with an old photo collage I made in the late 90s of a 180 degree shot of a Tokyo street. In April I’m going to do a month’s worth of B&W Op Art designs I made one afternoon recently before launching into something a little different…
Sleeve way better than the music
One of the first ever rap records, we all know ‘Rapper’s Delight’, Fatback Band‘s ‘King Tim III’ and ‘Christmas Rapping’ but this is up there from 1979 as well.
German pressing of these two Pierre Henry classics
Some variations and tests for work in progress on a box set for the De:Tuned label in Belgium. More on my Instagram