So, I saw the film, it wasn’t perfect but it was a TON of fun and I loved it. Go see it, up there with the Episodes 4-6. Predictably there’s a ton of great related content arriving on the web, the Bad Lip-reading shorts above have been doing the rounds and are well worth watching.
I took part in a Beatport feature on Star Wars Super-fans alongside DJ Yoda, MK, Armin Van Buuren and more…
This guy built the largest Lego Imperial Star Destroyer ever…
Scarfolk even got in on the action…
Today being the UK premiere of Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, the only possible option for the Flexibition was the Autumn ’86 edition of the Star Wars Fan Club zine, Bantha Tracks, that came with a flexi disc inside it. Concentrating on the sound design of the movies by Sprocket Systems and detailing how they got that distinctive light sabre sound among other things, the flexi was the perfect medium for this little behind the scenes chat. The piece is excellent and, being sound designers, they’ve put the whole thing together beautifully. Instead of a dry, technical look at the world of foley we get an entertaining concrete collage with creative panning, tinkering rhythms and an aural bombardment of sounds and voices.
In fact it’s actually a bit over the top, I’ve listened to it a few times and still get distracted from the main narrative as there’s so much sonic detail happening. It’s also one of the cleanest, clearest sounding flexi’s I’ve ever heard, virtually no noise or crackle. Look at that lovely painting under the clear disc too and check the fan mail addresses for the main actors on the back. A copy of this is still not that hard to find for a decent price either.
Sculpture have made a Christmas record, just released last week in a limited edition of 160 (each record individually cut) by Hasenbart Records… (the people who did the great People Like Us Xmas record this time last year)
It’s called ‘Self Checkout Ego Death Westfield Stratford City’ and is a 1-sided lathe cut 8” zoetropic picture disc, square cardboard with full colour printing on both sides, stamped on the back, audio on front side.
Loving everything Sculpture, flexi disc and zoetropic, I had to have one, you can too, order here
I ran across this recently, a Pink Floyd tour program in the form of a comic. It was sold on their 1975 Dark Side Of The Moon tour and consists of 16 pages with colour cover and back where each band member gets their own story in a classic 70s boys comic kind of way. Roger Waters is a football hero, Nick Mason, the captain of a ship, Rick Wright, a rich playboy and Dave Gilmore, a daredevil biker.
There’s also the famous Ralph Steadman centre spread of the band (was this the first time it was used?), a personality file (where Wright and Waters quickly get bored and start giving joke answers), a quiz and song lyrics. It’s very much in the spirit of the 60s and 70s undergrounds and the alt. press of Oz, Ink or International Times including some un-PC depictions of women. It was put together by Hipgnosis and Nick Mason and featured cartoonists Paul Stubbs, Joe Patagno, Colin Elgie, Richard Evans and Dave Gale – none of which I think I’m familiar with. You can download a full set of scanned pages from here.
As we speed to the close of 2015 – and the projected end of the weekly Flexibition – I want to take this week’s (rather late) entry to showcase a whole heap of discs which haven’t made it so far but merit a mention. The three final entries in the series are specific to their dates and I’m crow-barring these latecomers, oddities and ones-that-didn’t-fit-in here.
At the beginning of the year I laid out a rough plan for the collection week by week and along the way some got pushed out as guests came through or new purchases were made. There’s no theme or connection to any of these discs but they warrant inclusion, mostly because of their oddity or rareness.
DX7 Sound Sensation demonstration disc (Yamaha)
Bought at a Norfolk Record Fair earlier this year, this double-sided disc is a mostly terrible succession of demo sounds from the ubiquitous 80s keyboard. Amazingly, someone has put both sides on YouTube as well.
Alan Howarth – Silver Shamrock TV jingle from Halloween III (Death Waltz Recording Company) – this came out in 2012 and was quickly snapped up by subscribers to the label, fetching a high price on the secondary market. Spencer from the label found a clutch of them recently and I was one of the lucky recipients.
Cliff Richard’s Personal Message To You included in ‘SERENADE’ magazine in 1960. I love this, it’s SO cheesy, a spoken work message from Sir Cliff on wafer-thin blue plastic (see bodged repair job of the split spindle hole).
Kraftwerk – Boing Boom Tschak – Russian bootleg flexi disc. There are nearly 100 of these included in the band’s Discogs entry and from what I can make out they are just random single tracks cut in Mono on up to three different coloured 5 1/2″ flexis. Each has custom-made artwork photocopied on paper, rarely anything to do with the band and the sound quality is terrible. There are also 6″ colour postcard records of random tracks that originate from Poland.
Sonopresse Pocket Disc – I know nothing about this but it’s a tiny 5″ disc, a French or Belgian promo for something. Any help with translation appreciated…
SAINHO NAMCHELAK ‘Themes of Tuvan* Folk (ethnic) Music in Jazz Versions (Variations)‘
Fragments from live concert “Jazz Today”. Comments by A. Petrova
*Tyva is republic of Russia
backed with
ROBERT PLANT (ex. Led Zeppelin):
1) Big Love
2) Watching You
Compositions from album ‘Manic Nirvana’
Inscription under the line on the inside:
Flexi discs from series ‘Krugozor’ (Outlook) are made by all-union studio record ‘Melodiya’ (Melody) – Krugozor was a musical magazine that ran from the 60s to the 90s, issued by Melodiya, Russia’s only official record label,.
A playable Happy Birthday card – there are several different designs featuring Happy Birthday songs which are still fairly easy to find in vintage card shops or stalls.
Finally, the ones that got away (or I just plain didn’t get round to picking them up yet)
Astralwerks‘ Music In 20/20, 20x flexi set
Domino Recordings’ Smuggler’s Way 5x flexi zine
Johnny Jewel Lost River CD / 6x picture flexi release (Italians Do It Better)
Last week I played at the opening of the ‘Cosmic Flush’ exhibition in London at the Magda Danysz Gallery. The contents of which celebrated the work and life of Rammellzee, the MC and artist who passed away in 2010. Instigated by the Gamma Proforma label, it was full of art from the new album and attended by a who’s who of the leftfield art scene. Pieces by Futura 2000, Kofie 1, She One, Will Barras, Dan Lish and Poesia sat with art from three of Ramm’s crew: Doze Green, Ian Kuali’i and one of Dr Zulu‘s Lego letter racers. There were also life-size cut-outs of Rammellzee in full battle gear by Will Barras with backgrounds by O.Two.
The exhibition will run until 22nd December. The gallery is open daily from 11am-7pm, closed Mondays.
You can buy the seven releases that make up the ‘Cosmic Flush’ album from Gamma’s online store.
During the run up to the exhibition opening The Quietus website premiered a piece I’d written about Ramm which you can read in full here. It featured a previously unseen image by Timothy Saccenti, made in collaboration with Rammellzee, for a photo session they did in 2005. Here’s another unpublished image from the same time and I’m incredibly grateful to Timothy for letting me use these great images for the piece.
At the opening I played an all-Rammellzee set including a new mix I made for Solid Steel celebrating his musical career. The object was to map an aural history of Rammellzee‘s recorded output, in roughly chronological order, to showcase his music, theories and wordplay for those who wondered what all the adulation and legendary status was about. Take a trip from the early 80s up to the present day, through Ramm’s intricate, confusing, yet always unique recording career from his old school origins through to his final masterpiece.
As an addition to The Quietus piece, for which I had way too many images, here’s an extended look at some of his releases over the years. Going back to the beginning, want to see Profile Records‘ original master tape of the ‘Beat Bop’ single? It was recently unearthed by Noah Uman and given a proper reissue after countless bootlegs over the years. Originals now go for triple figures, but here’s the no frills master tape box that was taken from Jean-Michel Basquiat‘s original reel.
Here’s the Slinky Gym School single he featured on in 1983
The 1985 Death Comet Crew 12″ on Beggars Banquet
The Gettovets album with Shock Dell and Delta II, produced by Material on 4th & Broadway in the late 80s
Whilst researching the mix I came across some beautiful sleeve artwork from the various Japanese-only albums and DVD releases in the 00s. Some of these were news to me but well worth tracking down.
The Looking Planet from Eric Law Anderson on Vimeo.
This is pretty special – “During the construction of the universe, a young member of the Cosmos Corps of Engineers decides to break some fundamental laws in the name of self-expression.”
The Flexibition is going to have to wait this week – it’s a huge one unfortunately – I’ve been busy doing other things, some of which will drop imminently. A last reminder that the ‘Cosmic Flush’ exhibition opens 6pm tomorrow evening at the Magda Danysz Gallery in London and if you want to go you have to RSVP here.
No idea who did it but more .gifs like this please. UPDATE: Thanks to the diarist for the tip off, seems this comes from the Darkpulse blog and here’s another in a similar vein.
Yes, 20 years ago today (although it was a Thursday back then) Ninja hosted their second party at the Blue Note in Hoxton Square, London and the first with the title ‘Stealth’ (the original party was a launch do for the ‘A Recipe For Disaster’ album). Great times ensued, pretty sure I met my future wife that night too…
Just revealed yesterday, a cover mock up for the ‘Cosmic Flush’ box set by Will Barras (we’d seen the silhouetted version of this on the T-shirt earlier this year) and cover artists Poesia and Kofie for the final two releases. Poesia is paired with Sam Sever on the remix and Kofie provides cover for a Psychopab version on the final of seven 12″s. Both can be pre-ordered over on the Gamma Proforma website.
The exhibition of all this art – including She One, Futura 2000, Delta, Doze Green and Ian Kuali’i – opens this Thursday at the Magda Danysz Gallery, 61 Charlotte Street, London. Yours truly will be playing an all-Rammellzee set with a mix for Solid Steel premiering on the Quietus the same day.
Very saddened to hear of the death of Mike Allen yesterday after years of suffering Alzheimer’s disease. Mike was a legend in Hip Hop radio in the UK who schooled many people during the mid 80s via his weekend shows on Capital Radio in London. Without him many of us who lived outside London and couldn’t pick up the pirate stations would have had no weekly access to new releases, never known about Groove Records, the famous import shop in Soho, and never gone to events like UK Fresh ’86 or Freestyle ’85. His Capital Rap Show (aka Allen’s Army on Maneuvers) ran from late 1984 to July 1987. During 1985 it ran on Friday, Saturday & Sunday but changed to Friday & Saturday during ’86 and ’87
I first heard pretty much every now classic Hip Hop artist, group or track on his shows between 1985-87 alongside interviews with Mantronix and the legendary Word of Mouth & DJ Cheese session. After ’87 he moved to LBC and continued his show on a Sunday under the banner of ‘Street Talk’ as well as hosting a late night talk radio format and later still joined Smooth Radio. There’s a great interview with him over on the DiscoScratch site. I can’t speak for anywhere else but the South East of England but before Westwood or Dave Pearce on Radio London there was Mike Allen, flying the flag for Hip Hop in the UK. I owe a large part of my Hip Hop education to this man. RIP “The Boss In London”
Just in time for Xmas here’s two new 45s from Ghost Box‘s ‘Other Voices’ series – one-offs from friends and like-minded souls of the label. Being a huge fan of Tim Gane‘s Cavern of Anti-Matter I was excited to see their name appear months ago as next up on the agenda. Their excellent debut album ‘Blood Drums’ is long gone (still looking for a copy if anyone is selling) but you can hear it via the Staalplaat bancamp page and they have a website at last with a new album on the way early next year.
The single doesn’t disappoint either with the A side unfolding into a near 6 minute sprawling electro-country-fied epic that, at one point, almost threatens to break into ‘Witchita Lineman’ (the second of the Other Voices series to do so). The B-side is even better and mines a sound familiar to many Stereolab fans, all motorik Krautrock groove with guitar and organ accompaniment. But what’s the point of trying to describe them (‘dancng about architecture’ etc…) when you can listen to clips below and make your own mind up?
ToiToiToi are completely new to me and a google search reveals that it’s the project of Sebastian Counts from Berlin. His 7″ is a mixture of lo-fi childlike tunes that sound like Brian Wilson having fun in his sandbox mixed with early Kraftwerk Autobahn-era overtones. ‘Odin’s Jungle’ on the single comes from a 2011 album that you can hear on his Bandcamp page. Order both singles HERE.
I gave a post over to Stephen Coates and his collection of Soviet ‘bone discs’ back in October but this is the perfect week to return to the subject matter. The second time round is to celebrate the release of his ‘X-Ray Audio’ book which comes with a free flexi for the first run (pictured above and below). The exhibition of the same name opened last weekend at The Horse Hospital and I already featured images from it earlier this week. The flexi contains three tracks including a Real Tuesday Weld original and you can get a book from Strange Attractor Press.
The book is a delight too, a thoroughly researched document of the phenomenon of bootlegging illegal music onto X-Rays, poetically etching the music onto the bodies of the public. It goes further and shows postcard discs and weird finds from the flexi genre which were used when X-Rays were in short supply. Highly recommended for any format fetishists, lovers of the arcane and the underground subcultures that thrive under repression.
I also have to plug my event this coming Saturday at the Horse Hospital – ‘A Night At The Flexibition’ – where I’ll be playing and talking about selections from my collection. Stephen will be doing the same and we’ll have Aleks Kolkowski, his X-Ray cutting engineer on hand too (also interviewed in the book). Come and see the exhibition at the same time.
The first 20 people through the door will receive a random flexi disc for their trouble in some special screen-printed sleeves I’ve had made from the poster design above.
They were printed by the lovely people at the Sonsoles Print Studio in Peckham over recycled 7″ sleeves. They run a great little studio near to where I live and have screenprinting courses as well as doing limited runs – highly recommended. There will also be four 10″ ‘Soviet Mystery Discs’ that I was given in Russia on my last visit, courtesy of Mr Armtone, I’ll be playing these and trying to find out more about them from Stephen and Aleks on the night. I never guessed that, when I started this weekly feature nearly a year ago, this would be one of the outcomes.
The second of John Doran‘s ‘Vinyl Staircase‘ pieces went up Monday on The Quietus. The first one was a riot and this treads a similar path plus it includes a little interview with yours truly on the subject of flexi discs.
On Saturday I visited the opening of the X-Ray Audio exhibition at the Horse Hospital in London for the launch of Stephen Coates‘ book of the same name and a series of events related to the subject of Soviet ‘Bone Music’.
One of these events will be my own ‘A Night At The Flexibition‘ event this Saturday the 5th of December where I’ll be chatting to Stephen about various discs from my collection (some pictured above for the Quietus piece). We’ll be playing selections and talking to Alex, the engineer who cuts audio onto X-Rays for Stephen in performances. It should be very informal and there will be a small quantity of random flexi discs free to the first 20 or so people through the door, pulled from my own stash. The X-Ray Audio exhibition will be viewable so you can kill two birds with one stone and maybe even pick up early copies of the excellent book with free facsimile flexi while they last.
17 more days… Above are apparently official posters in the style of the original film’s teasers.
Below is a selection of my favourites from Steven Martin Lear‘s WhyTheLongPlayFace Instagram account where he mashes up famous album covers with modern day films. These are all Star Wars of course but there are others (many!) and, unlike some I’ve seen around the web, Steven has some Photoshop skills and when he gets it right, he really hits the nail on the head. There’s some background on his creations on the My Geek Heart website.
Time machine. Pod rooms, Liquid Insects and Tales of Ephidrina (must dig that out again). Westside, Jumpin’ & Pumpin’, Virgin, EBV, FSOLDigital. A can of worms. Master tapes, promos, press releases and magazine reviews. Reaching for Discogs. More questions than answers. Just who was Philip Pin? What happened to the longform film, ‘Yage’? The first band to ever offer downloadable music? (yes, apparently they were)
Reading FSOL‘s scrapbook of their career made me sad rather than nostalgic for the music industry of old. For all its technological advancements, a lot of which the band spearheaded, we’re left with a shadow of the brave new world promised by the online digital revolution. In a week when Solid Steel‘s Vimeo account was terminated without warning over a single copyright claim, a time when an entire radio station’s Soundcloud account disappears, one artist sells more than the entire top 200 combined and independent labels are being told there’s a 14-16 week wait for pressing vinyl, it’s a sobering read.
There’s a quote from Radio 1’s then controller, Matthew Bannister, in one of the clippings, saying that “…FSOL typified the kind of forward-looking outfit the station wanted to embrace”, and, for a while, it did. Unfortunately, rejecting the lagered up anthems needed to become poster children for an electronic generation to forge a more cerebral path into the charts, it was only a matter of time before the bubbling Britpop and Big Beat bandwagons changed that.
The book’s also filled with quaint technological reminders of the time, mention of ADATs, Power Mac1800/80s, laser discs, images of Syquests and floppy discs and the web frequently mentioned as just ‘Internet’. There’s a noticeable drop off in the amount of press after ‘Dead Cities’ and you realise that, despite releasing well over two albums worth of material and countless mixes, the duo’s Amorphous Androgynous cosmic rebirth only really gained acclaim after their Oasis remix and first ‘Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble…’ mix CD. By that point in time the ‘Psych’ word was back on people’s lips and once again Gary and Brian earned their ‘Future Sound…’ tag from having plowed this furrow since an aborted 1997 compilation a full decade before the genre made its resurgence.
The ‘Life In Moments’ CD that accompanies the book is a treat too, offering a physical version of several tracks given away free as digital EPs with items purchased from the FSOLDigital webstore. The amazing ‘I Turn To Face The Sun’ is worth the price alone amongst the unreleased and alternate mixes. Buy it here
Talking of unreleased FSOL material, the previously announced soundtrack to the computer game Mushroom 11 has been expanded to include four new tracks and comes as a download with purchases of the game. If you want to get a copy try here and here (links courtesy of the Galaxial Pharmaceutical website).
And it doesn’t rain, it pours, The Amorphous Androgynous have a 14 minute Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble remix called ‘Murdered & Downer’ on The Kooks‘ remix album, Hello, What’s Your Name?, available from 4th December. It’s already on the web if you search hard enough…
*STOP PRESS!: There’s a Black Friday sale on at their webstore right now, lots discounted, go take a look…
Above is the flexi disc that comes free with the limited edition version of Stephen Coates‘ new book on Soviet Bone Music, ‘X-Ray Audio’. The book and exhibition launches this Saturday at the Horse Hospital in London showing discs, films and images that tell the story of how these strange artifacts came to be.
On Dec 5th at the same venue I’ll be in conversation with Stephen showcasing some of my flexi disc collection, playing selections and telling the stories behind them. First through the door will get a random flexi and Stephen will also bring some of his Soviet 78rpm discs too no doubt.