DJ Food

Pure Evil Gallery preparations – Mon/Tues/Wed

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What a week it’s been, after the planetarium shows on Thursday 19th, straight off to gigs in Amsterdam and Brighton on the Friday and Saturday and back home for a brief respite on Sunday. Monday 23rd saw the release of the album in Europe (Feb 7th in N. America) and final preparations for the show opening with Henry Flint‘s work at the Pure Evil Gallery in Shoreditch. I’d done a fair bit of framing over the Xmas period so some of the larger pictures were ready but there was still a lot of smaller pieces to finish and the show to hang. In addition to this I was playing at the Pepe Deluxe album launch party at the London Aquarium that night (see upcoming post for more). It was an early finish (mercifully for a Monday only 9pm) then it was back home to try and get some more done for the exhibition but I had to give up after half an hour as I was falling asleep.

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The first setback was on Tuesday morning when I picked up the huge front cover image from the framers and realised that it just wasn’t going to go in the car. That would have to wait another day while I worked out how to get it there. The rest of the day was spent at the gallery with the owner, Charley and his assistant Molly, working out where to put things, audio and video considerations and lighting.

When I returned that evening I still had a load of framing and mount cutting to do and ended up pulling an all-nighter to get it done. As I set off for another day at the gallery, after less than 3 hours sleep, I set the audio visual piece off rendering and figured it would be done by the time I got home. The problem of the huge picture was solved by hiring a cab driver I know with a Range Rover to deliver me and the last batch of pictures to the gallery, even then, the picture only just fitted inside. Second setback was upon arriving at the gallery I found it all locked up and no answer on any phone numbers I had. After waiting an hour in the car, dodging traffic wardens with the meter running, texting and calling everyone who I could think of with no joy, I phoned my agent whose office was down the road to ask if I could drop the pictures at his place.

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After doing that and a quick post-planetarium meeting to go over future options I went back to the gallery to find Molly and Charley there apologising profusely. Turns out Charley had to go to the American Embassy for a visa and had to leave his phone behind in the office, Molly had had a little too much to drink the night before and didn’t have my number but all was fine (although Charley got refused a visa, despite living there in the past). We’d lost the morning though and there was still a lot to painting to do where the walls had images in the past that needed covering up.

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Also there was the fact that all my pictures were sitting down the road but luckily Ninja had sent an intern up to help and we took three trips back and forth to ferry them all to their intended destination. By the end of the day we’d nearly got it all in place or had an idea where it was going. I got home to find that the AV file was still rendering and set about designing the title cards for each piece now that I knew exactly what was going in the show. Eventually the AV piece finished after 13 hours but had inexplicably only rendered the video, not the audio. Shit, I tried all sorts to embed the audio or re-export it but was so tired I was falling asleep at the machine (again).

 

Posted in Art, Comics, Design, DJ Food, Event, Openmind designs. | No Comments |

Japanese ‘Solid Psyche’ mix CD in the Ninjashop

There are limited quantities of the Japanese exclusive mix CD, ‘Solid Psyche’ available in the Ninjashop right now. I did this as a freebie for independent stores alongside the domestic CD version of ‘The Search Engine’ for Japan. The tracks are all taken from Ninja, Big Dada, Counter & Brainfeeder releases and Ninja have a limited amount for sale so don’t hang around.

You might also notice a little digital release called ‘The Good Food Guide’ in the link too. This is a 23 track retrospective compilation spanning the DJ Food canon from 1990-2001, sort of a catch up for people jumping on at the new album.

Posted in DJ Food, Mixes/Solid Steel, Music, Ninja Tune. | 1 Comment |

Henry Flint x Strictly Kev limited print #3

New print from Scraffer.com.

The third in our series of Henry Flint x Strictly Kev prints.

This time it’s a standalone image of the cosmonaut that features on the cover of the new album, ‘The Search Engine’.

Signed by both artists and printed on 300gsm Somerset Photo Satin cotton paper, the gicleé print measures 64.5cm x 47.1cm.

The edition is limited to 100 hand numbered prints, at £55, comes unframed and rolled in a sturdy cardboard tube and will ship sometime in February.

Two more prints will be available for pre-order only from the Pure Evil Gallery during the 3 week run of the exhibition which starts tomorrow.

Posted in Art, DJ Food, Openmind designs, Poster / flyer. | No Comments |

DJ Food on Radio Cinéola

As previously mentioned, I am featured in interview with Matt Johnson on a special ‘Deep Space’ edition of his Radio Cineola podcast. In 2010 Matt produced twelve podcasts, one a month, usually themed and sometimes featuring a guest – all revolving around new and old The The music. All the episodes can be found in the newly revamped shop on TheThe.com

Most of the selections were either unreleased work, demos or alternate mixes as well as cover version and collaborations. We met up in New York, just before the infamous police raid on the club we were about to play for the Ninja Tune 20th anniversary, to conduct part of the interview. Things being what they are with us slow workers, plans changed and thus, here is the lost in (deep) space episode of Radio Cinéola.

Ninja have put a radio edit of my album version of ‘GIANT’ up on their Soundcloud too.
DJ Food – ‘GIANT’ (Album Edit) feat. Matt Johnson by Ninja Tune

Posted in DJ Food, Radio. | 2 Comments |

A couple of reviews

Sometimes with a release, gig or event, there are reviews that stand out, where the person has delved a little deeper than the first impression or copied the press release. Here are two, one from someone who knows me (Inkymole – reviewing the planetarium album launch) and one from someone who doesn’t (Kris Needs via Data Transmission – reviewing the album). Also here are some photos by Emma Gutteridge of the foyer outside the planetarium during the launch, photography inside was difficult because of the darkness but I’ve just picked up film footage which I’ll be editing into a short next week.

With courtesy of the Royal Observatory Greenwich

Posted in DJ Food, Gigs, Music. | 3 Comments |

Build The Search Engine

The record for this so far is Anders with ‘about a minute’, can you beat that? The album is out today at long last, very happy to finally have that particular monkey off my back, just the exhibition to sort and hang for this Thursday and then it’s off to France for gigs, developing the dome show more and adapting the various elements to the regular DJ sets. You can buy a variety of formats of the album from here, it should also be available on iTunes, Amazon (it has explicit lyrics apparently), Bleep and through all the usual channels.

Posted in DJ Food, Oddities, Openmind designs. | 5 Comments |

Planetarium post-mortem

For those of you wondering what the Planetarium launch night was like, well, it was one of the proudest moments and most memorable gigs of my career so far. It all went so well, considering the awkward travel arrangements and the margins for error with the sets, that I couldn’t quite believe it. Whilst the shows were by no means perfect they were better than at the rehearsal a few days before and I could happily hold my head up and say it was all a great success. Ninja Tune did a great job organising the whole event, PC, DK and 2econd Class Citizen all played space-themed tracks in the foyer, there were drinks and bowls of flying saucer sweets and the people from the Royal Observatory did a great job too.

Outside was an astronomer with a telescope and you could actually see Jupiter and several of its moons, coupled with the stunning night time view over South East London and the great setting for the shows amongst the galleries of the observatory, it was just perfectly pitched. I’m not going to try and describe the shows because it’s kind of redundant and I wouldn’t be able to do it justice but the feedback was overwhelmingly positive afterwards so I was pretty relieved, considering I think I knew at least half the people at the gig! I have to say a big thank you to Ed Bloomer, the astronomer I worked with on the show, as it couldn’t have happened without him and he really pulled it out of the bag in as far as building the elements into a cohesive set.
Adrian Williams sent me the image above that he took before the show started, if you click the image you should be able to pull it about a bit too. It’s hard to convey the scale of what you’re seeing, imagine sitting in half a dome, with the screen 360 degrees around you, joining at the top – that image was stretched across it when you walked in (the red/pink was the lighting so that people could see where they were going). I’m waiting on both photos and film of the event so I’ll post more when I have it. Below, the amazing view that greeted everyone when they left the Planetarium (by Jonny Cuba)


 

Posted in DJ Food, Event. | No Comments |

“RADIO! – suckers (sometimes) play me”

I’ll be featuring on several radio shows and podcasts in the coming weeks – around midnight on the 19th, BBC 5 Live had a short post-planetarium piece too with Jamie Stangroom

Listen again here at about 46.00 minutes in.

Friday 20th I’m featuring on Solid Steel, talking to Dexter on the Ninja Tune podcast about the new album, artwork, collaborations and picking my top 5 records. I’ve heard the final cut of the show and it’s all seamlessly arranged by DK, a real labour of love. Solid Steel.net. iTunes podcast non iTunes

Monday 23rd should see a special space-themed podcast from Radio Cineola to relaunch the new TheThe.com. I’ll be talking to Matt Johnson via a satellite link up and previewing the ‘Deep Space’ version of our cover of his song, ‘GIANT’.

Next I’ll be talking to Ben Eshmade on the Arctic Circle Radio show on Resonance FM on Friday 27th at 9pm.

Arctic Circle Radio. Resonance 104.4FM. Friday 9pm to 11pm. It’s also on Chill FM (on digital) on Tuesdays at 10pm-midnight. It will be podcast a few days after the event as well. All ACR shows and mixes are available via jointhecircle.net/radio – Download the podcast here!

The Selector – again Friday 27th – The British Council/NME Radio will debut a 25 minute mix of UK-based artists with a 55 minute mix on their The Selector worldwide channel two weeks later. These mixes will feature exclusive new material including part of the Amorphous Androgynous remix of ‘The Illectrik Hoax’, plus unreleased tracks from 2econd Class Citizen and DJ Format‘s forthcoming albums.

On February 11th I’ll be dropping in to Jonny Trunk‘s OST show, again on Resonance, and playing space-themed records and nonsense, probably nerding out and talking all sorts of trainspotter stuff as I’m want to do whenever Jonny and I chat.

The OST Show. Resonance 104.4FM.
Saturday 4:30pm to 6:30pm.  Repeated Wednesday 3:00pm to 5:00pm. Listen again here

Posted in DJ Food, Radio. | No Comments |

Planetarium: important info for ticket holders

Well, the time is nearly upon us, the launch of ‘The Search Engine’ at the Planetarium in deepest South London. As this isn’t a regular gig and the margin for error is high, I’ve put together six main points for those who might not have properly read the transport and schedule info that came with the ticket. Timings are tight for the performances and there will be no admittance once a show has started and I’d hate for people to miss out by not reading the info properly.

Posted in DJ Food, Event, Openmind designs. | No Comments |

Postcard records have arrived!!!

The 2 minute postcard records I’ve made specially for the Pure Evil Gallery opening on Jan 26th have arrived :) They are a thing of great beauty and I couldn’t be happier with them. 30 copies only and they will retail for £8 each at the show with any left over available from me direct via this site.


The fidelity isn’t going to win any awards but it’s better than some recent postcard records I’ve acquired and the track is an exclusive ‘discovery’ version of ‘In Orbit Every Monday’, only available here. If you want to make your own there’s more info on where to get these beauties made, and other sizes and formats too. Contact Kenneth Winkler: www.vinylpostcards.com/ or on Facebook: www.facebook.com/Vinylpostcards

Posted in DJ Food, Music, Openmind designs, Records. | 3 Comments |

Secret Oranges blog ping pong

I have to big up my friend Steve Cook who took this amazing picture of me at home with (some of) my records. The picture has already been printed full page in a couple of mags and we set it up to make just such an impact (had to use a pretty extreme lens to get it all in). The reason I’m highlighting it again is that it gets printed but magazines rarely credit the photographer so I’m just showing off his work as a thank you. Steve is another one of those annoyingly talented people who can do everything from graphic design, photography, retouching, colouring, teaching and whip up a mean blog piece every once in a while (well every day actually).

He also runs several self-designed web sites of his work, my favourite being his latest one, Secret Oranges, that focuses on his collection of comic or comic-related ephemera. From the first time I featured it though, shortly after it had debuted online only 2 odd months ago, the hits have gone haywire on the site and it’s quickly built an avid fanbase, keen to see what’s in Steve’s cupboards. I thought I had a collection but his is ridiculous, not only obscure fanzines, magazine cuttings and original stats used to colour B&W artwork but also personal scribbles from the artists he’s worked with and amazing items rescued from the bins that would fetch hundreds on eBay these days.

He has several different regular features running as well like ‘Largin’ it’ where he blows up a comic panel so you can see all the fine detail and print process, ‘Mint.Fine.Good.Fair.Poor.Well Loved’ where he scans some of his oldest, most well-read comics with all the trademarks of time intact, and ‘Other People’s Cupboards’ where he highlights fellow collectors’ storage spaces, of which I’m no.3.

He’s also preparing a book of his photos from the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s clubbing and comic days and runs a section of his main site called Alternity where he blurs the boundaries of the present and the past with altered photographs. Also, also, also, he has the best ghost stories ever…

Posted in Comics, DJ Food, Photography. | No Comments |

Planetarium launch entry details & set timings

Here’s the view from the top of Greenwich Park outside the Royal Observatory Greenwich where we’ll be launching The Search Engine on Thursday 19th January.

For all those going it’s very important to note: The park is closed after 6 to pedestrians, you can drive in through the Blackheath Gate but not walk or ride bikes, there is free parking outside the Observatory. For those coming on foot you can get a free shuttle bus from St. Mary’s Gate (just up the street from the Cutty Sark) or a free coach from outside the Greenwich train station (15 minutes transfer time).

Everyone who has bought tickets from the Ninjashop should have received an email with full details to be printed out and bought along to exchange for a coloured wristband, each different for each performance time.

You must bring your e-ticket to get into the transport provided, and to enter the venue. Beyond the main show show we have many things lined up, such as DJ’s PC, DK and 2econd Class Citizen in the bar, a cafe serving food and drink, the astronomy galleries, and more. Coaches depart 45 minutes before each show (shuttles buses every 5-10 mins) so make the most of it  and get there early, there will be no late admissions in the Planetarium itself! The event will be held on the south site of the Royal Observatory (entrance shown above left) in the Peter Harrison Planetarium (middle). But please do check the document and get there in good time for your performance. The event is open from 7pm-11pm.

Timings on the night are:
1900        Doors open. Café, bar, galleries and foyer open
1900 – 2230    Telescope viewing on Upper Courtyard

1900 – 2030    DJ set – 2econd Class Citizen
1920        Planetarium doors open
1930-2015    Planetarium show 1

2020        Planetarium doors open
2030 – 2115    Planetarium show 2
2030 – 2145    DJ Set 2 – DK

2120        Planetarium doors open
2130 – 2215    Planetarium show 3
2145 – 2300    DJ set 3: – PC (Narrick Peparcett) :)

2230        Café and bar close, Telescope viewing ends
2300        Event ends. Last coach departure to Greenwich Station

More exact details on transport arrangements: Shuttle buses
From 18:50, free shuttle buses will be available on a first come first served basis, picking up every 5 – 10 minutes from the park entrance St Mary’s Gate (located at the end of King William Walk, Greenwich Town Centre. Google maps:).

The shuttle buses will transport people to the Royal Observatory and back to St Mary’s Gate throughout the evening, last departure from the Royal Observatory to St Mary’s Gates: 23.00
Coaches
The Museum is providing free coaches to and from Greenwich train station and the venue. The coaches will be positioned in the parking zone just as you exit the station (take Greenwich High Road exit). Coaches are white and marked “City Circle”. Please have your booking confirmation letter ready to be checked before getting onto the coach.
Departures from Greenwich Train Station are scheduled at 18.45, 19.45
and 20.45.
Please note these times are approximate and dependant on traffic; the estimated transfer time between the station and the venue is 15 minutes.

Posted in DJ Food, Event, Ninja Tune. | 2 Comments |

DJ Food & Henry Flint exhibition reminder

I know I’ve already published details of this a while back but it’s been announced to the press in general this week and already been blogged by Design Week, Secret Oranges and ECBT2000ad amongst others. Here’s the final flyer with opening times, myself and Henry will be there on the opening night to drink chat and sign things if you wish.

There will be free booze, kindly provided by Peroni, and you can order signed gicleé prints direct from Scraffer.com which will also be on display (third one to be announced next week) as well as pick up an ultra limited postcard record (if they arrive from Vienna in time).

 

Posted in Art, Comics, DJ Food, Event, Openmind designs. | 5 Comments |