DJ Food
I think this might be one of my favourite designs for my own music, this is the track list for the album believe it or not. I’ve really been into circular designs for the last few years and I had this idea ages ago and had to save it for my own stuff. Such a shame artwork for music is getting smaller and smaller and I keep doing hyper-detailed stuff like this. Would love to see this on a 12″ picture disc one day, colours might change though…
Another one, too light and grainy
This one didn’t make it, too messy, but still nice
The 64 Bar Challenge mix I did has finally gone up, 29 tracks in 52 minutes, the brief was for each track to be 110 beats per minute and last 64 bars. The series was originated on the Ninja Tune forum by Kovas and driven over 6 different challenges with entries from all over the world.
The quality was really high, largely leaning towards the electronic end of the spectrum, and with roughly 50/50 of the entrants being unsigned or never having released anything. Take a listen and see what you think and contact Kovas at [email protected] if there’s anything here you’d like to know more about, we’d both like to see some of this talent get a lot further. If you go to mixcloud you can see who did what as it scrolls through the mix.
Yes I can hardly believe it myself, I’ve wanted to have a flexi disc with my music on it for as long as I can remember and today they arrived. The fact that the last major manufacturer of flexis shut up shop in 2001 didn’t deter me from looking all these years and I finally found someone who had restarted the process late last year. David Read over at Vinyl Record Guru in Nanaimo, Canada is the man to speak to and they do a wide range of coloured inks, several different disc colours and both 33 and 45 rpm.
This little beauty will (somehow) be given away with a limited CD of my album sold via the Ninja Tune online shop later this year. More details when I have them (and better pictures too!) I’ve been planning to showcase my flexi disc collection for a while so I might do one a week starting next year in a ‘Flexi-stentialism’ section.
This is Will, I spent a fun two days with him shooting some press pictures, with me dressed in a full astronaut suit last month. I’m currently messing with the images and found this among the many hundreds he shot. You will have seen some of his work before as he has taken numerous images of Ninja acts over the years from Bonobo to Fink, to The Qemists to The Cinematic Orchestra, check out the ’20 years of Beats & Pieces’ book for his work. These days he’s rapidly making a name for himself with brands like Panasonic and Wrangler after his services, check his site here.
My third EP will be called ‘Magpies, Maps and Moons’, featuring 5 tracks with a vocal collaboration from JG Thirlwell and a musical one from 2econd Class Citizen. It will be out Oct/Nov, on 12″ and DL, not entirely sure the exact date yet, with the album to follow shortly afterwards.
Sometimes all the elements just fall into place with a gig and last night was one of those times. The perfect balance of great weather, people and food in a stunning location – Bastille, on top of the mountain in Grenoble, France. The quickest way to the top was by cable car and the five bubble cars that descended from the sky were like something out of a 60’s World Expo fair. Once on top of the mountain, our stage was perched on the edge of a courtyard with a stunning view of the city and surrounding countryside below, including Europe’s longest street which you can see carved into the landscape in a couple of shots here.
The gig was to be three hours long between DK and myself but we loved it so much we decided to play the warm up hour whilst people arrived by cable car as well. By midnight the place was packed with more people than expected but at 1.30am the promoters got a call from the city mayor. The music was too loud and the bass could be heard across the city so the sound had to be turned down, much to the annoyance of the crowd. 40 minutes later we ramped things up with some drum n bass and people started surging forward and pushing over barriers, a fight broke out after much moshing and we had to stop the music a couple of times. We decided to curtail the harshness of the music after requests from the promoters as there wasn’t enough security and it all ended well at 3am. It’s unlikely there will be another gig up there again after this and there was talk of us being banned from playing again :). Gig of the year so far for both of us though, thanks to everyone who came and made it so great and thanks to Alban, the promoter who put us up for it.
3rd EP artwork variation, inks by Henry Flint, colours by Openmind
More Henry Flint art for the album release, not sure how far this is finished yet.
Art by Henry Flint, colours by Strictly Kev, coming this Autumn…
in production now, not the 3rd EP, not the album, more info soon…
Spent the day at Soundmasters in Latima Road, West London, cutting my third EP before the album gets compiled. Kevin Metcalfe was again in control and Aaron Thomason aka 2econd Class Citizen came down to oversee the track we had collaborated on. It all went well until the Analogue to Digitial converters started playing up, causing a drop out as we were cutting the actual disc. I had to leave before the end but I’m assured it won’t be on the final cut. Here’s a few shots of the mastering room, the kit and cutting the disc.
This is the third of three EPs which will form the DJ Food album proper, this one totals about 27 minutes over 5 tracks. That means I have nearly 90 minutes of music to choose from for the album, some tracks from the EPs won’t make it, four from the previous two EPs have been reworked or remixed so will be in different states when it’s all finished. I’m mastering these four next week and then compiling a running order for the CD which will be all mixed, with the downloads as separate tracks.
It’s been a productive week for music, I finally finished the 3rd EP in the trilogy that will make up my album. Plus the cover version of The The’s GIANT featuring Matt Johnson on vocals that I’ve literally been working on for years. The keen-eyed among you will also have spotted that Matt’s friend and sometime musical collaborator, JG Thirlwell appears on one track too.
I have one more track that I’m reworking from a previous EP to finish for the album and then I have to sequence it all for the CD version and do artwork. Also next week I am remixing Loka for the first single from their second LP, due out this autumn on Ninja Tune. 2econd Class Citizen, whom I collaborated on this EP on one track, has also turned in a remix for this which is a nice touch.