Slightly late as I had a crazy weekend but still relevant as the consumer chaos and pressing plant queues will testify. I canvassed opinion from various DJs, collectors, sellers and artists as to what their top reissues/represses would be come the next Record Store Day and presented them to The Vinyl Factory.
You can see and read our choices HERE
The latest Solid Steel show features DJ Mighty Atom‘s deconstruction of DJ Shadow‘s ‘Endtroducing’ album, now 20 years old, in hour 1 and my taster mix for the new De:tuned Records ‘Brainbox’ compilation in hour 2. I’m biased but that’s a great way to spend 2 hours this weekend IMO.
Mighty Atom’s mix follows Solid Steel’s tried and tested blueprint of finding the original sources used in heavily sampled classics (see Beastie Boys, De La Soul, Public Enemy, Beck and Nas of past shows) and adding spoken word snippets relating to the making of said album. He rises to the challenge admirably and this has to be one of my favourite mixes of the year.
My own mix takes a sample of tracks from the huge new 6xLP ‘Brainbox’ compilation, adds some past releases from the same label and hides some exclusives not due until next year in too. For fans of 90s era electronica from labels like Warp, R&S, Red Planet or Axis then this is for you – lots of familiar names, all brand new tracks.
My recent 4hr set from Spiritland – the new venue just behind Kings X station in London – is now online for your enjoyment. I certainly had a good time playing there and count it as one of my favourite gigs of 2016. The sound system is out of this world, the beer good, the company was great and I’ve even listened back to the full mix a couple of times and enjoyed it, something I rarely do with my own work. There’s no dancefloor and mixing and scratching is discouraged due to the audiophile nature of the set up there (vertically positioned rotary Bozak mixer). The speakers are the stars of the show as well as the rack-mounted kit behind the DJ booth. It’s free and they have an amazing line up of DJs on every night of the week.
I had such a good time last night at the Museum of Last Parties event at the Museum of London – improvising with turntables and FX alongside Jonny Trunk and Howlround‘s tape loops in the room that houses Thomas Heatherwick‘s Olympic Torch. Moon rock beanbags and video compilations of psychedelic space film clips set it off nicely – my favourite gig of the year so far.
We recorded 3 hours of the set so now have to go through it and see if any bares repetition / broadcasting. After the event we trooped over to the Lo & Behold event at the State 51 HQ in Shoreditch and caught Jon Tye and Pete Fowler‘s DJ sets. Sadly we’d missed The Pattern Forms and Grasscut plus a screening of the Delia Derbyshire soundtracked ‘Circle of Light’ film, supplied by Jonny. Speaking of film soundtracks, I was treated to a sneak preview of a film, ‘A Creak In Time’ that Howlround have soundtracked for their next (imminent) record, and it is beautiful, all macro/microscopic imagery and perfect for their eerie soundscapes. I’ll be featuring it here when it’s due for release for sure.
I’ve done a couple of short interviews recently; one for Jazzy Jasper which talks about the past, present and future and includes tips on record collecting. The other was for the Gretchen club blog from Berlin who just celebrated 5 years of existence and touches on cooking disasters.
(images above by Robert Crumb from American Splendor by Harvey Pekar)
A peek into my studio in this little trailer for the Funk & Beyond gig in Moscow on Oct 29th – great little trailer posted by Anatoly Ice who I’ll be dropped 45s with at his night at The Powerhouse.
A brand new mix – all 7″, all acid, this took a long time to get together, being that Pete Isaac and I have rinsed a lot of the classic acid cut to 45s over the years in our previous mixes. The search continues though and I’ve still to acquire my acid 45 holy grail of Bam Bam‘s ‘Where’s Your Child’... Thanks to Greg Belson as ever for running such a tight ship out of LA with the show, his selection is up first with mine at about the 30 min mark.
I just found this whilst going through the archive, a remix I did of Polish composer Kilar’s ‘Krzesany’ for the 2012 Sacrum Profanum event in a steel works in Krakow, Poland – never released. Has its moments… photo above of me performing it at the concert by Wojciech Wandzel, more info and photos here www.djfood.org/sacrum-profanum-2012-krakow-poland/
For my second featured mix on the 45 Live radio show, hosted by Greg Belson on Dublab, I’ve put together a second hour’s worth of Acid House 45s. My first was for Posthuman‘s radio show and Pete Isaac put together one for his last mix on the show too. It goes out this Friday at 8pm US PST or 4am UK GMT but I’ll post a link once it’s on Mixcloud.
Here’s my latest mix for Solid Steel – the third installment of my Future Shock series, largely culled from the performance I created for last month’s Videocrash night in London, it’s a mixture of old and new with an emphasis on the trippy analogue side. There’s a video version coming too…
A little off-the-cuff mix I did on Monday evening at the Market Place pub in Brixton for the Loose Lips Radio Show, was going to play a load of acid and then decided to go into outer space instead. Their Meat Transmission venue in Old Street was shut down just the week before so they quickly relocated to the back of the pub and we squeezed into a tiny DJ booth to do a Q&A before I took over to play to the rapidly-filling room of drinkers and diners. There’s a little teaser about a night I’m doing next year plus a couple of tracks that I picked that signpost my musical influences. The Loose Lips guys, Fred and Dan, are up first and then my bit starts around the 52 min mark onwards.
Really pleased to be part of the opening couple of months at new London venue, Spiritland, in Kings X – I’ll be playing on Oct 23rd and just look at that line up!
Above are some of the records I’ve pulled out for this Sunday’s live session of Out Of The Wood radio hosted by WNBC London from the Book & Record Bar in West Norwood. I’ll be on with Pete W. before Alex and George take over for their monthly afternoon Cakelab session. Pete and I will be playing selections from his recent digging finds in the French countryside along with some new pieces of recently acquired vinyl. You can listen live here and it will be uploaded to Mixcloud later. As usual, it’s FEAST weekend which means loads of food stall dotted around West Norwood, food, craft and vintage markets too, all for free and loads of music to soundtrack it all.
*UPDATE* – and here’s the mix (with very low mic. levels) and a photo by Pete of me playing, check his mix after mine, so many great tracks.
Screenshots from some of the videos I’ll be playing at Videocrash during my set tomorrow at Village Underground. No HD here, strictly lo-fi. The evening kicks off at 7.30 and finishes at midnight. Tickets here:
I play an El Paraiso Records special for the first hour on the Out Of The Wood show, followed by Pete W, with records featuring frogs, drugs, a blue lady and sunshine. Broadcast live from The Book & Record Bar in West Norwood, listen live every Sunday between 12-2pm on http://wnbc.london
My remix of Divine Styler‘s ‘Pandorum’ is the free mp3 this week on the Def Mask remixes page from Gamma Proforma – go grab it and all the others so far, more to follow …
That’s a pretty nice AV line up – tickets on sale now – new version of my rarely seen Future Shock AV show too.
Last night I played at the launch party for Funki Porcini‘s new album, ‘Conservative Apocalypse’, at the BFI (never a more apt title that in the last two weeks). He showed his rescore to the Russian film, ‘Chemi Bebia’ which was crazed and dark and hilarious in equal measure. You can now see the new short that goes with the album of the same name via the magic of YouTube too…
Lots of old faces came out for the night, it was like a small reunion of people from the last 20 years, back when Ninja Tune was in Clink Street, London Bridge. Graeme Ross took this photo of me with a strategically placed BFI notice.
You can now buy Funki’s new album as a rather nifty box set and he has a new website too
Lo, and did the hordes descend onto Rat Records in Camberwell like a plague of locusts and the music flowed freely, from the decks to the racks and into the bags of the hungry vinyl scavengers. Sometimes it didn’t even make it into the racks, being bagsied whilst still on the turntable by eagle-eared punters inquiring, ‘what’s this playing?’. Jonny Trunk and I played whilst Lucy and Pete (behind the camera below) served and a wonderful afternoon was had by all.
Rat has a policy of restocking their shelves with new stock every Saturday and several hundred discs make their way onto the floor each and every weekend for the regulars who are at the door at the 10.30 opening time. This past weekend they had an additional box of soundtracks, library and weird music to add to that, the difference being that no one knew what any of it was until Jonny or I played it so the music stood or fell on its own merits. A collection they’d got in recently was put aside specially for this purpose and most of what was played in the two and half hour set you can hear below was sold. I even added a clutch from my own collection to the box.
As the box emptied and more friends arrived at the shop it was decided that a drink was needed and the nearby Stormbird bar was chosen, partly because it’s the only place in London you can get a bottle of Pastelism, a beer brewed by Domino Records band, The Pastels. Much was consumed and many words were spoken of the crate-digging, vinyl-hunting nature alongside Tom Central (Keep Up!), PC (DJ Food), Graeme (Frenchbloke & Son) Ross, Zoe Lucky Cat Baxter and more. Robin the Fog and Hannah Brown from Resonance FM were also on hand to conduct an impromptu recording for their Near Mint show and the results can be heard below. The results of the alcohol consumption can also be heard as the show progresses too! It was great to see so many friends and play in my local record shop among like-minded punters and there are plans to do a rematch at Audio Gold in Crouch End soon. If any other record stores want to host this kind of event in the future then get in touch…
Beautiful typography on one of Adam James Seth-Ward‘s purchases.
