A quick selection of images sent to me my buyers over the Record Store Day weekend. Thanks to Cheeta Breaks, Ian Wilson, Mr Mumbles, RJ Sandford, SV Child, Tom Hamid and Trist Stephens.
DJ Food
This week on Solid Steel I put together the best of a set I made for the De:Tuned party in Antwerp the weekend before last with the I Love Acid crew. They asked for an old school Hip Hop and Hip House set (I think I probably own about one Hip House record so it’s more heavy on the electro to be honest). Anyway, it’s a trip back to the 80’s but with an added bonus for Solid Steel that the Antwerp crowd didn’t get. The first seven and a half minutes consists of selections from the first mixtape I ever made in 1987, extracted from an old TDK AD90 cassette and unheard by virtually anyone for 25 years.
Let me explain a little about the mix, it was made over many months in various sections once I traded in my first mixer (a Tandy model with no crossfader) and bought a Soundlab model – hence the name, ‘The Soundlab Mix’. At the time I had very few records, maybe less than 100, I had no parental collection to raid as they never had a record player and my younger brother had none either. So, I was forced to use what I could find alongside the few import 12″s I could afford and the limited UK releases of US Hip Hop that were available. People forget that a lot of early rap never got released in the UK in the first half of the 80’s, we were mostly forced to survive on Streetsounds Electro compilations and the few ‘hits’ that the Sugarhill, Tommy Boy and Def Jam labels produced until the rest of the industry caught up.
This meant that my early mixes have tracks from 7″ singles given away free with music papers, carboot soul and funk compilations and even a flexi disc I had found attached to a magazine in a paper recycling shed at school. As you will hear, the mix is massively influenced by Double Dee & Steinski‘s ‘Lessons’ series and Grandmaster Flash‘s ‘Adventures On The Wheels of Steel’. Kicking off with the Thunderbirds theme, the idea to mix well known soundtracks over beats seemed like a no-brainer but I’ve spared you the 007 and 2001 themes elsewhere on the tape. In the spirit of the aforementioned ‘Lessons’ I decided I needed an ‘old’ song to mix over some beats, similar to the ‘Hernando’s Hideaway’ section in Double Dee & Steinski’s masterpiece. For this, I used the flexi disc which happened to contain, ‘The Inquisition’ from Mel Brooks‘ ‘History of the World Part 1’ film, not very politically correct by any means, sorry, I had to use what I get my hands on.
Anyway, I wanted lots happening rather than having to mix live and change records so I would record a short section of two records, wait until one had finished and pause the tape on the beat. Rewinding to the best point, I’d cue up another record and jump back in at the appropriate point, sometimes for as little one line of dialogue. Neither of the decks were Technics 1200‘s and only one had a pitch control so each record had to be pitched to beat mix before the next section. Actually the ‘pitch’ control wasn’t anything of the sort, it was a tiny screw next to the tone arm that I found, if you inserted a small screw driver into it, you could fine tune the deck speed faster or slower. At times I would have to release the pause button and start scratching immediately so a lot of it is a little shoddy, also, occasionally the initial edit was sloppy so I had to rewind and do it all again until I got a clean join between the two separate recordings. It was a learning experience and I would record small sections with what I had and slowly build on it as and when I got new records so that the side filled up over the course of about a year, eventually ending with some chart acid and dance music in amongst the beats, rhymes and film snippets.
It’s Record Store Day again and Ninja Tune release a four disc vinyl repress of the EPs that made up my album, ‘The Search Engine’. These are straight represses of the original three EPs (One Man’s Weird…, The Shape of Things… and Magpies, Maps & Moons) plus the Amorphous Androgynous remix 12″ from last years’ RSD (on black vinyl this time though).
The first three 12″s have been out of print for some time now and contain extra tracks plus some different mixes to the CD album, with some tracks also being full length versions. If your bought these the first time round there’s nothing new musically here I’m afraid. The poster covers are replaced by an eight panel foldout sleeve though, with remixed artwork of which you can see more images here.
In the spirit of the title, and to add a little something for RSD, I’ve had ten unique pieces of artwork inserted randomly into the first 600 copies of the album. Six high quality prints of zoetropes that I made for the exhibitions last year and four unique collages as seen in this post. All are 12″x12″ in size, signed, stamped and protected by a transparent sleeve.
If any readers of this blog find one, please let me know, I will post a photo of you here with your find and it will be nice to see how far they go out into the world. Everyone going to a store has a chance to find one of the inserts, they’re completely random and could go out to whoever orders them at stores participating in RSD. Even if you manage to get a regular copy I’d appreciate photos and locations and will post the best ones like last year.
The Ninja Tune online shop will have another 400 or so copies for sale the Monday after RSD so don’t worry if you can’t get to a store.
Tomorrow sees a double whammy in Madrid where I’ve been invited to talk about my design work in general for a meeting at Café Molar. It starts around 7.30pm and should last for an hour with a Q&A session.
Later that night I’ll be playing a 2 hour AV DJ set at the Skills Club before heading back to the UK on Saturday for Record Store Day.
I’ll be in Madrid on Friday, playing at the Skillz Club and also giving a talk on graphic design an as yet unspecified place.
First rule of Dome Club? Everybody talks about Dome Club – go and check it out, an online video just doesn’t do this justice. I won’t be at the April shows but I might be at the May one (just eating popcorn probably).
On Record Store Day this year (April 20th) Ninja Tune will release a four disc vinyl repress of the EPs that made up my album ‘The Search Engine’. These are straight represses of the original three EPs (One Man’s Weird…, The Shape of Things… and Magpies, Maps & Moons) plus the Amorphous Androgynous remix 12″ from last years’ RSD (on black vinyl this time though).
The first three 12″s have been out of print for some time now and contain extra tracks and some different mixes to the CD album, with some tracks also being full length versions. If your bought these the first time round there’s nothing new here I’m afraid except the poster covers are replaced by an eight panel foldout sleeve, similar to the original limited edition ‘Paul’s Boutique’ LP.
Each disc has its own sleeve and the spine measures a tasty 13 mm in width, easy to find in the rack for sure.
In the spirit of the title and to add a little something for RSD I’ve had ten unique pieces of artwork inserted into random copies of the album. Six high quality prints of zoetropes that I made for the exhibitions last year and four unique collages as seen below.
All are 12″x12″ in size, signed, stamped and protected by a transparent sleeve. If any readers of this blog find one, please let me know, it will be nice to see how far they go out into the world. I’m sure the Ninja Tune online shop will have copies the Monday after RSD so don’t worry if you can’t get to a store, everyone has a chance to find one of the inserts, they’re completely random and could go out to whoever orders them, not just stores participating in RSD.
Starting next week at Dome Club, the UK’s first weekly place to see full dome content, is the first of four performances of ‘The Search Engine’. This is a 360 degree film for the full dome (or planetarium) environment.
It’s been seen before in London, Leicester and Montreal but this is a newer, revised version that lasts 50 minutes and presents an alternative version of the album with film, animation, photography and graphics.
The first show is April 4th, starting at 7pm at the Think Tank planetarium at Millennium Point, Birmingham. It will then be shown on the 25th, then May 16th and June 6th. Admission is £4 or £3 depending where you sit – the middle back half is usually the sweet spot for dome showings.
The club has weekly showings of all sorts of interesting, art-based full dome films and it’s really the sort of experience it’s hard to convey without actually going yourself. Here’s the little short about the Montreal version of this show that I did last summer.
Ticket available both online or at the door, go to: domeclub.co.uk > TICKETS > Dome Club -> 4th April (or whichever date you’re after).
Several prints have just hit the Scraffer.com site shop, all collaborations between myself and Henry Flint for ‘The Search Engine’ album and related EPs. ‘Sentinel’ (top left) and ‘Octopus’ (above) make their first appearance in the shop after being available in a tiny run for last year’s Pure Evil Gallery exhibition. Both are the same size as previous editions – 64.5cm x 47.1cm, come signed by Henry and myself and cost £60. Close up details in the gallery below.
‘Planets’ (top right) is a completely new print in a new size – 47.0cm x 34.7cm – again signed by both of us and at a wallet-friendly £35. All are printed to the very high standards of the Fine Art Trade Guild on 300gsm Somerset Photo Satin which is a 100% cotton paper. Scraffer also has copies of the ‘Cosmonaut’ print, a version of which featured on the cover to ‘The Search Engine’, at £50. The last copies of ‘Mad Man’, which was used on the ‘One Man’s Weird Is Another Man’s World’ EP sleeve, are also there, each one with a unique doodle from Henry in the speech bubble.
‘The Secret Life of A Machine’ print is now sold out unfortunately, as is the ‘Skullstronaut’ which was done for the Factory Road exhibition although this may get a reprint later in the year. For those still waiting for the 4 x 12″ repress of ‘The Search Engine’ EPs in fold out sleeve – it’s coming! The vinyl is pressed and the sleeves are being printed now after going through three different design changes to make the package better. It also may be with us sooner rather than later as the planned Record Store Day release might be vastly oversubscribed this year.
Starting this year at Birmingham’s Think Tank Science Museum is Dome Club, run by the Planetarium manager Mario Di Maggio. Named after a random remark I made to Mario after a 2 hour screening session (“the only rule of Dome Club is: Everyone must talk about Dome Club”) he’s gone ahead and set one up. His site has wisely used a different motto:
‘No-one can be told what Dome Club is. You have to see it for yourself’
This isn’t hyperbole as anyone who has been to a planetarium will tell you, you can’t put this on YouTube, it doesn’t work like that, instead of looking through the window you’re inside the room with a dome film.
Every Dome Club evening will begin with a variety of fulldome shorts, followed by one of three main performances:
• Chaos & Order – forty scientific visualisations set to superb original music in four movements
• Fractals! – the record-breaking fulldome spectacular by the Fractal Foundation (you may think fractals are old hat, you won’t think that once you’ve seen them shown on a dome)
• The Search Engine – the first fulldome music production by London’s DJ Food (*cough* – this won’t begin until April though)
They also have two special performances of Dark Side of the Moon scheduled for Thu 7th and Fri 8th March. Additionally, supporting the Birmingham Art Gallery exhibition Metropolis: Reflections on the Modern City (23 March – 23 June 2013), they will be screening tempus ruhr weekly at 5.30PM over that period. Dome Club ticket holders who arrive early can see tempus ruhr for free.
Tickets are now available for weekly Dome Club evenings – every Thursday – for all scheduled performances up to 20th June: They have allocated seating available with seats in the rear three rows (the sweet spot in any dome showing) costing £6.00 and the front three rows £5.00 (£1.50 and £1.00 for tempus ruhr).
It all happens at Thinktank Birmingham Science Museum, Millennium Point, Curzon St, B4 7XG, UK.
When I do a design project there’s usually a fair few versions of things that don’t make the cut, variations on ideas to see if something will work etc. For ‘The Search Engine’ I made a series of ‘film poster’ designs, some of which cropped up in other things like a short reel telling people the timetable at the Planetarium gig or animations for a video that didn’t happen. These are ‘negative’ versions of some of those designs where I particularly like the colours.
All four giclee prints I did with Henry Flint are now available in Orbital comics, 8 Great Newport Street, WC2H 7JA just off Charing Cross Rd. in London. They also have copies of the comic book / flexi disc / CD edition of ‘The Search Engine’ and Henry’s ‘Broadcast’ book along with a fine selection of comics, books, vintage toys and a small gallery space which is always interesting. Highly recommended.
It looks like there will be a fifth print soon too by way of a revitalised Scraffer.com, a smaller A3 size of ‘Planets’, an illustration that appeared on the ‘One Man’s Weird Is Another Man’s World’ EP. Talking of which, the 4 x 12″ repress package (the three EPs plus the Amorphous Androgynous remix 12″) is at the printers but it might be held over until Record Store Day in April now, I’m not sure. More info when I have it.
It’s been a bit quiet on the blog these last two weeks because I’ve been busy finishing the fulldome show for this weekend’s FulldomeUK2012 (tickets still available) and gigging in Tel Aviv, Berlin and Bucharest. There’s loads of stuff to come when I can find time to photograph and upload it all though. The studio is a mess, I can’t find anything without moving piles of crap, I need a day to sort stuff out but today won’t be it unfortunately.
Also this Sunday sees an appearance at The Regeneration Festival at the Tabernacle in London that runs for Saturday and Sunday and features Time & Space Machine, Wolf People, Bardo Light Show, talks and films on the psychedelic experience.
Besides that there’s all sorts of things going on behind the scenes as we prepare for 2013 and Solid Steel being 25 years old, starting with a new residency in Brighton at the Blind Tiger, starting this Friday with DK with support from 2econd Class Citizen and Banks.
Coming up: The 4xLP repress of ‘The Search Engine’ – yep, still not done, we went back and changed the cover from a heavy card gatefold to a quad foldout gatefold (remember the limited edition Paul’s Boutique LP? yes, like that), so I have to reconfigure the artwork this week.
Currently finishing a mix for Solid Steel that has a high proportion of music I was given in Israel, both old and new that is up there with the best of anything currently released on labels like Finders Keepers or Now Again (see the post of Markey Funk‘s ‘The Mystery of Mordy Laye & The Group Modular‘).
On Saturday I was lucky enough to get a ticket to the ‘Man Machine’ performance by Kraftwerk in Dusseldorf next January (thanks Tony Morley!) so I will be doing Kraftwerk Kover Kollection vol.8 to coincide with that early next year (the group are doing their 8 albums over 8 nights thing in their home town in case you didn’t hear, tickets sold out in less than 2 hours).
Seriously revised pricing scheme for those who just want talks, or just want a ‘Happening’.
Saturday 17th November
Daytime (talks only) £12 / Evening (‘Happening’ only) £15 / All day ticket £20
Sunday 18th November
Daytime (talks only) £12 / Evening (‘Happening’ only) £15 / All day ticket £20
Weekend Tickets
Saturday & Sunday daytimes (talks only) £20 / Saturday & Sunday evenings only £25 / FULL FESTIVAL TICKET £38
A different kind of festival that I will be appearing at this November – Regeneration: “An interactive weekend of exploring altered states of experience”. I’ll be doing an AV set broadly based on various forms of psychedelia early evening on Sunday 18th November, at The Tabernacle in London.
Others on the bill include Wolf People, Time & Space Machine, the Bardo Light Show, talks on psychedelics and screenings of various shorts including the BFI‘s collection, ‘Solar Flares Burn For You’. The event lasts over the whole weekend and more info and tickets can be found on their site.
DJ Food ‘The Search Engine’ live at SAT, Montreal from Solid Steel on Vimeo.
I’m pleased to announce that I’ll be bringing my revamped full dome show back to the UK this November and showing it (remixed yet further) at the third Fulldome UK festival at the National Space Centre, Leicester on November 16th.
Tickets can be bought here (my show is on the 17th) and a list of contributors is here – full schedule to be determined.
In other dome news, the Search Engine show at the SAT in Montreal has just had its run extended by another 2 weeks until the 26th of October.
My friend Duncan who runs the Clockwork Shorts site (some of the best film reviews out there, mixes too) sent me these photos of a custom Gelaskin he got made for his Nexus 7″ tablet – nice 
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More photos from the recent Sacrum Profanum concert in Poland – this time by the excellent photographer Bartosz Holoszkiewicz. These go right through from our arrival, rehearsal, backstage banter and make up (B&W) to the final performance (colour). There are even more over on Bart’s site but this is my pick of the bunch, also that’s Prof. Penderecki with Skalpel below.
Way back in March I was asked by Eddy Temple-Morris if I would be interested in putting together a short mix offering my take on the work of DJ Shadow. This was to form part of a marathon special on his XFM show celebrating Josh’s career and tying into a compilation of some sort which has since evolved into the ‘Reconstruction’ release and deluxe box set.
Anyone who knows me knows I’m a big Shadow fan so this was a thrilling opportunity and also a daunting task. The mix had to be between 17 and 20 minutes long according to Eddy, how on earth to fit so many great tracks into that length of time? No idea but best get down to it and see what develops. Going through my extensive collection threw up over 80 potential tracks, skits, remixes, co-productions and original samples which totaled over 6 hours of music if I remember correctly. How to do this so that it wouldn’t be just another Shadow mix? How to present the ubiquitous but essential ‘Organ Donor’ in an exciting way? Have a listen…
Well, I couldn’t get it down to to 17 minutes, or 20, but squeezed it all into 23 which Eddy graciously let me get away with. I decided to go for the essence of a lot of tracks rather than letting everything play out, trying to edit sympathetically to each track’s progressions so it wouldn’t seem too brutal. I used a lesser-known compilation track (from ‘Turntables On The Hudson’) called ‘Flashback’ as a theme to title the mix as it’s such a blur of sonic information sometimes that it seems like it might be just that. Having not listened back since I made it nearly 6 months ago I find it’s quite an exhilarating ride if a bit relentless, which I quite like but it you might have to be in the mood for it. The solution to ‘Organ Donor’, probably his most well known creation, was to put it at the end, the big bang after a big build, mixing in the original Giorgio Moroder ‘Tears’ sample that forms the main melody as well as a newer production to show that he’s still got it.
But after all that, I still had material left over, specifically large chunks of ambient sound beds that formed a big part of his earlier releases, which is something I love about his music and that stood out as both original and uncompromising at the time. I wanted to put these together as some sort of collage without the usual beats and vocals, maybe it could be used as a bed to talk over on the radio? It was all here, might as well see what could be done with it, I doubted anyone else would go down this route too. The result is the short but sweet ‘Trip Out’ mix…
I was thinking of the KLF‘s classic ‘Chill Out’ album here, hence the pastiche of the cover and the title – also an allusion to hallucination of course but also a knowing wink to the Trip Hop genre tag that has dogged Shadow since the start of his career. I actually think this concept could have been taken further with a bit more production to extend and rearrange sections but time constraints didn’t permit. Anyway, now I had over 30 minutes of mix for Eddy when he only wanted half that. Props to him that he played both and you can hear the whole thing, along with mixes by IRN MNKY, Bare Noize, Stereo:Type and Culprit One online at XFM for the next week. If you’re abroad and you need to enter a postcode to make it think you’re listening from the UK then try W1A 1AA.
It’s taken me a while to post these as I was collating a lot of photos from the concert in Poland last weekend. Here’s a selection of images from my own efforts plus a few that I gleaned from the web, some by photographers Andrzej Banas and Wojciech Wandzel
Copyright: 10th Sacrum Profanum Festival, Krakow, Poland
The event was Sacrum Profanum, the 10th time it has happened in Krakow, situated in a working steelworks which is usually a no go area for the city’s inhabitants. This time the focus was on four Polish composers – Penderecki, Gorecki, Kilar and Lutoslawski – and the reinterpretation of their works. I was invited, alongside The Kronos Quartet, DJ Vadim, King Cannibal and Grasscut, by the Polish duo Skalpel, to perform a work by Kilar called ‘Krzesany’ in front of over 2,000 people for the event.
The set up ran like this: The Kronos Quartet would perform a piece (or a section of) by one of the composers, then one of us would perform our remix, then Skalpel would perform their take on another piece by the same composer. Once the show began we were encouraged to leave very little time between each piece so as to present a seamless flow, save for applause at the end of each piece. The audience were incredible, absolute silence during the pieces, no talking, mobile phones etc. – you wouldn’t find that in the UK at an event like this.
Skalpel are huge in Poland and this also acted as their reunion concert as they have been working apart the last few years (the Igor Boxx album on Ninja Tune is a solo record by Igor Pudlo from the group). They got big cheers when they appeared and, even though I was unfamiliar with all the music in both its original or remixed form, theirs stood out as being quite excellent. But the highlight for me was Grasscut’s take on Lutoslawski, an incredible piece in 11/2 time which grew to epic proportions with the addition of drummer Aram Zarikian. Coupled with the multi-layered projection screens behind them and the fantastic lighting design the whole stage resembled a huge stained glass window with the sun streaming through at points. The visuals were a big part throughout, helping fill the cavenous space.
The Kronos Quartet played their first piece with their backs to the crowd, reading a huge rolling projection of the score as they plucked and tapped their instruments to create a concrete opener for the concert. After this the screen was lowered as DJ Vadim presented his take on Penderecki (who was actually in attendance too) and an ‘X’ shaped cluster of screens were revealed showing different notes and textures. The X was a feature of the festival graphics, being that it was their 10th anniversary, and two of the huge supporting structures within the factory had also been lit to form the giant letter. I had sent animations of my own although I couldn’t see them when I was performing but was delighted to see used in photos afterwards.
A truly incredible gig in a year that has already had its share of great moments and events. I was honoured to be asked to such a concert (Aphex Twin and Johnny Greenwood had played similar pieces the year before) and will remember it for a long time. All the music I heard was excellent and I hope this will be collected and released as an album at some point. It was all filmed for DVD and Blu-ray release at a later date as well. More gigs like this please!
