A quick half hour from mid 2000 when we first started doing BBC London Live with Solid Steel, hence the title (despite pre-recording it in my studio in SE5). Kicking off with Taskforce from the amazing Voice of the Great Outdoors EP – still one of the defining releases of UK hip hop. Lots of space-themed samples overlaid including bits of Ren & Stimpy’s ‘Space Madness’ episode and then into Icarus’ UL-6 from their single on Output, each cover of which was ripped and torn or defaced in some way. I’d gone a bit overboard with the spoken word as it was an early show on the Beeb and I wanted to make a good impression. Funkstorung’s ‘Grammy Winners’ still sounds fresh 22 years later, featuring an MC called Triple H who appears to have done very little else.

Bowery Electric were a really interesting band who had excellent remixes and their ‘Freedom Fighter’ one is my favourite, made by the band themselves and featuring snatches of Kraftwerk, the combination of vocals, strings and beats just works for me. Cherrystones’ ‘Pressure Cooker’ appeared on the short-lived AP.E. Records, what a fertile time this was, all sorts kicking off. Off to LA for a few tracks with P.U.T.S., Jurassic 5’s incredible ‘Swing Set’ and a swing-based oldie from Fishbone. Nice little nod to the BBC’s Bush house in a sample over Jurassic too, I think the ‘horn master’ answer phone message before Fishbone is actually DJ Vadim playing silly buggers. Morgan put out an album and a number of singles on Source around 2000 but never quite hit. Divine Styler’s ‘Concept Design Deflon’ was from Mo Wax’s again short-lived Vecta label – so futuristic. My friend Tamsin leaves a message that she was going to see the new Star Wars at the very end – this was unfortunately to be The Phantom Menace and we know how that ended.

Tracklist:
Taskforce – Cosmic Gypsies
Icarus – UL-6
Funkstorung – Grammy Winners
Bowery Electric – Freedom Fighter (remix)
Cherrystones – Pressure Cooker (Blues In M.A.)
People Under The Stairs – Live at the Fishbucket
Jurassic 5 – Swing Set
Fishbone – In The Name of Swing
Morgan – Let Me Hear Your music
Divine Styler – Concept Design Deflon

Drunken shenanigans reigned last Friday night at The Book & Record Bar’s Stick It On night where we were all having so much fun no one noticed that it was approaching 2am and Michael, the shop’s owner, only has a license until 1. The monthly night takes place on the first Friday of the month after the shop closes and the idea is to bring your own records, put your name on the board and then play three tunes when your turn comes up. I ran out of records and started pulling stuff from the racks that I wanted to hear. Michael unearthed a huge box set of disco, soul and funk classics and proceeded to make us act like the drunken idiots we were.

Saturday was a site recce in the morning and then Stereolab at EartH in Dalston which was nice but we missed most of the supporting acts due to bad timing and trains not running. After a shaky start they rocked it.

Monday was a visit to Neil Rice out of town for tea, a demonstration of how polarising slides work, a trip up to his packed loft of light show equipment and a lot of chat. He had the Optikinetics FX Cassette featured on the cover of my book too. I came home full of inspiration… the rest of the week has been writing and battling a cold I must have picked up at some point during all that lot. Last night was going to be Warrington Runcorn Town Development Plan (or WRTDP to those too lazy to write it) and Pye Corner Audio at Corsica Studios but I felt too rough to attend. But, as the Mighty Boosh always say, “on with the show”…

The earliest track lists we have in a digital format thankfully reside with Marcus Maack of BTTB – Back To The Basics who maintained the PRS information when he was one of the first to license Solid Steel for German radio station FSK in the late 90s. As a result we have some track lists and sometimes DJ info from early 1997 through to the end of the decade by which time DK had arrived as show producer and things were better organised than us scribbling on huge sheets of paper at KISS FM in between mixes. There are still the usual mistakes and typos, gaps and unknowns but now we have Discogs, Shazam and the Internet to help fill in the blanks.

Using one of Marcus’ play lists I compiled the track order below for this mid 1997 show where I provided two sets in the second hour. Salena Godden aka Salena Saliva was the guest in the studio with Jon More and I and she periodically performed her poetry over passages in the mix. Kicking off with one of my favourite Kirk Degorgio tracks from his Celestial Soul album – an influence on my own track ‘…you’ from ‘Kaleidoscope’. Into this we have Faze Action’s ‘Plans & Designs’ (String Reprise) which still sounds majestic all these years later, I’m sure Simon Lee from the group used to work in a Soho record shop and I’d regularly buy records off him in the 90s. Next, Hardfloor prove that there’s more to them than just acid bangers with some excellent trip hop under their Dadamnphreaknoizphunk? moniker from Volume 2. I don’t know what I’m doing in the mix, it all seems a bit tentative with little drop-ins rather than things really getting going, maybe we were discussing when Salena was going to make an appearance and sorting the tracks out.

I don’t recall ever having this Denise Johnson single but the remix is excellent although I’ve not idea which one it is out of about eight possible contenders, must look for that in the collection. Next up is Salena’s first turn, a tale of walking amongst the wild flowers before things take an unexpected turn, over the Witchman remix of Bowery Electric’s ‘Without Stopping’. Later in the track she drops in with an ode to arse watching, I think I was always a bit weary of Salena as she was so sexually upfront with her material which was not common in 1997, or not in the circles I ran in anyway, but she was always lovely on tour with Coldcut. The Witchman mix rattles on with that submerged Amen sound he did so well before merging into Sukia’s ‘Dream Machine’ which seems completely at odds with the darkcore d’n’b underneath it. I loved Sukia, it was silly, cheesy sampledelia, produced by the Dust Brothers and later licensed to Mo Wax. I always put it in the same box as bands like Tipsy from that era. This track samples a hypnotist called Reveen who made many records on how to quit smoking, gain confidence, stop over-eating etc. I found some in Canada on tour and we deduced that the records were identical aside from the intro’s and outro’s relating to each subject matter.

Part 2 opens with the remix Kid Koala, Ollie Teeba and I did of Coldcut’s ‘More Beats & Pieces’ – collaged together from freeform jams we did at sound checks on tour around North America using specially cut dub plates of the B&P’s parts given to all remixers. It’s a bit of a mess but it was my first remix so go easy. I’m not sure where the spoken word skit comes from directly afterwards, probably one of Coldcut’s Word Treasure jingle compilations, but Kirk’s back was another As One track from Celestial Soul doing exactly what he does best with that soaring, melodic techno of his. I appear to be scratching some stuff over it which adds little to the mix. Out of the extended breakdown comes Hell Interface – a pseudonym of Boards of Canada – with their version of Colonel Abrahams’ ‘Trapped’ over a scratchy roller of a beat from one of the MASK compilation 12”s. Sliding awkwardly out of this is Faze Action’s ‘Plans & Designs’ proper with all its kettle drums and strings intact over the beat, very much in that Rob Dougan ‘Clubbed To Death’ tradition. Someone is playing all sorts of jingles over it with delays which makes me think that this set might have been recorded up at Ahead Of Our Time in Clink St. with Ali Tod on the mix. I think I’m playing some Kid Koala over the end of the track and it’s all a bit of a mess to be honest. Bizarrely we then dip into two random Ken Nordine tracks from the How Are Things In Your Town compilation on Blue Thumb. A very odd selection and collection of sounds.

Track list:
As One – Renaissance
Faze Action – Plans & Designs (String Reprise)
Hardfloor presents Dadamnphreaknoizphunk?- Chillin’ 6 Feet Deep
Denise Johnson – Inner Peace
Salena Saliva – unknown 1
Bowery Electric – Without Stopping (Witchman Mix)
Salena Saliva – unknown 2
Sukia – Dream Machine

Coldcut – Beans ‘n’ Pizzas (Strictly Kid Teeba version)
As One – We No Longer Understand
Hell Interface – Trapped
Faze Action – Plans & Designs
Kid Koala – Goodnight, Drive Safely
Ken Nordine – Outer Space
Ken Nordine – Manned Space Capsule

Exciting times this weekend when I visited the Spark House in Leyton for an AV gig with the Light Surgeons, Blanca Regina & Pierre Bouvier Patron, Generic Human, Julian Hand and Heena Song. The night was put on by Matekoi and featured an experimental set of modular soundtracks, film showings and DJ sets along with a few punters walking in unawares of what was going on. Wheels of Light got featured in the Observer on Sunday and online via the Guardian and we visited the Horror Show exhibition at Somerset House which was a mixed but fascinating bag. I’ve been doing even more promo and writing this week to promote the book as well as writing for Dust & Grooves 2 and swelling the ranks of my underground magazine collection. But enough of that, on to the mix!

Saxondale was a short-lived TV comedy starring Steve Coogan as an embittered ex-roadie with anger management issues who now runs a pest control business. DK was and is a huge Coogan fan so I put the quote about music from it into the end of the mix and we sometimes dropped the theme tune from the show – ‘House of the King’ by Focus – at gigs around the time it was airing. Scanning down the track list before listening to this it looks a bit like one of my live DJ sets around the time, book-ended with a few esoteric inclusions.

Kicking off with yet another entry for the Solid Steel intro competition (these kept us going for years) by S24 and then into a DJ Krush/DJ Shadow/Cut Chemist three-way, in fact Shadow pops up in different configurations all over this mix. Dualling with DJ Krush in a snatch from his Meiso LP on MoWax and then into ‘This Time’ from his own The Outsider album using a found reel to reel tape of an unknown vocal take to build an extraordinary pop song. Cut Chemist’s incredible ‘(My 1st) Big Break’ from his ‘The Audience Is Listening’ LP is one of my favourite things he’s done, from the wrong-footing polyrhythmic breakdown to the amazing 360 video (check it out). Sirconical was always an artist I hoped would release more material but he seemed to crop up more on mastering duties than writing on numerous Twisted Nerve or Finders Keepers releases. ‘Ziggonometry’ is from his only album and the heavy beats sync nicely with the following three tracks that all feature that Bangra-type rhythm so popular around that era. No idea who Blunt Laser was, the Thomilla track came on a neon green 10” promo and the Caveman on the Kelis remix wasn’t the UK hip hop crew from the early 90s but a Ross Orton and Steve Mackey collaboration.

Shadow’s back but this time remixed by Soulwax via a huge chunk of the B-52s, Danny Breaks’ ‘Duck Rock’ takes it back to the old school with the wobbly bass reminiscent of Scruff’s ‘Ug’and his own ‘The Jellyfish’. A snatch of the Mighty Boosh from the radio series bridges into the Nextmen who pump up the party with Dynamite MC. Next is a couplet I used to spin all the time; Cut Chemist’s remix of Shadow’s ‘Number Song’ into ‘Dark Lady’ – always works nicely, especially when pulling the bass line out and teasing it back in again with a replayed melody. But this is an early version where I hadn’t worked out the replay sequence yet or added in the ‘Bug Powder Dust’ dessert for afters. Urgh, Kanye, the less said the better, this was such a huge tune and the Hollertronix version was genuinely exciting at the time but it got overplayed very quickly. Ah, but saved by Zero db’s incredible ‘Bongos, Bleeps & Basslines’ – DK and I played the shit out of this for years in all kinds of combinations, still sounds incredible. I even went so far as to edit together a video made from a Len Lye animation that visually synced to each part for our first 4-deck AV sets.

Z-Trip’s block-rocking ‘Bus Stop’ beats work so well over it, taking it half time and then back again. Yes that’s Christine Aguilera, top tune with the original that it sampled afterwards, ‘Hippy Skippy Moon Strut’ by the Moon People, awkwardly stumbling out of it. We take a turn to Los Angeles for a couple of tunes from Paul Humphrey and his Cool Aid Chemists and The Dragons which preceded our use of the latter in the Solid Steel ‘Now, Listen Again’ mix the year after. I’m glad we didn’t include the embarrassing ‘D-J’ before the chorus in that (or did we? I forget) – RIP Daryl and Dennis Dragon. There’s the Saxondale music rant before Focus and the bit where he mentions ‘the Rascal’ refers to his pet name for his car, ‘oh! New shoes!?’. Recognise that bass line! ‘Yeeeaaah! That’s right!’, Galt McDermot’s ‘Aquarius’ from Hair slides in before Orriel Smith takes us out with ‘Winds of Space’. This would have been taken from the excellent ‘Fuzzy Felt Folk’ compilation by Jonny Trunk and Martin Green on Trunk Records, a highly recommended album of songs for children that bears repeated listens.

Track list:
S24 – Solid Steel intro
DJ Krush vs DJ Shadow – Duality
DJ Shadow – This Time (I’m Gonna Do It My Way)
Cut Chemist – (My 1st) Big Break
Sirconical – Ziggonometry
Zero 7 – You’re My Flame (Blunt Laser mix)
Thomilla – Freaky Girl (Geeky Boy mix)
Kelis – Bossy (Caveman mix)
DJ Shadow – 6 Days (Soulwax mix)
Danny Breaks – Duck Rock (instr)
The Nextmen feat. Dynamite MC – Spin It Round
DJ Shadow – The Number Song (Cut Chemist remix)
DJ Food – Dark Lady
Kanye West – Gold Digger
Hollertronix – Gold Digger (Diplo remix)
Zero db – Bongos, Bleeps & Basslines
Z-Trip – Bus Stop
Christina Aguilera – Ain’t No Other Man
The Moon People – Hippy Skippy Moon Strut
Paul Humphrey and his Cool Aid Chemists – Funky LA
The Dragons – Food For My Soul
Saxondale – Rant
Focus – House of The King
Galt McDermot – Aquarius
Orriel Smith – Winds of Space

Last weekend saw a long-delayed trip out of town to Leicester to get away from the city for a few days, seriously needed when you’ve been living next to a building site for the last 18 months. The Leicester Print Workshop were having their Xmas Bazaar so we dropped in and caught up with friends including Kid Acne, down from Sheffield for the day to hawk his wares. Then off to Nottingham to have a mooch about, saw my book in a shop for the first time and visited brand new record shop, Running Circle.

Monday I was in Birmingham picking up a turntable and sought shelter from the pounding rain in the new Diskery premises now that they’ve moved (well, nearly). The shop is one of the UK’s oldest record emporiums and has recently had to vacate the shop they’d been in for 50 years. Luckily they didn’t have to go far, just 2 minutes round the corner and they now have a large basement stacked to the rafters with 45s, the LPs and 12″s being upstairs.

Back to London for more writing and research on Tuesday, designing The Real Tuesday Weld‘s Xmas card and a couple of bits for De:tuned. My sons were asking about the Telepathic Fish parties I used to do and one of them is running rings around me on the iPad where I’m supposed to be teaching him how to paint with it. Loads more going on as ever but all in good time, let’s get to this week’s archive show…

Following on from last week’s part 1, here’s the rest of the set, kicking off with a snatch of People Like Us’ ‘Bran Mash and Crushed Beans’ that we’d steal a decade later for the intro to our Now, Listen Again live set. The jazzy drum n bass track that follows is one I remember but not by name, the lovely little ‘Shadow’s Creep’ refrain always brings a smile though. Sounds like I attempted to mix Squarepusher’s ‘Vic Acid’ in three times before nailing it, those rolling, stumbling beats took time to get right in the mix. Out into the Plug (Luke Vibert) remix of Meat Beat Manifesto’s ‘Asbestos Lead Asbestos’ which – I think – was only available on the US 12” of this release.

Three Wheels Out was a British ex-pat named Graham who was living in San Francisco when we first toured there in 1996 and we hung out with him as he showed us around Haight Street which was near where he had a place. As far as I know this was his only release under this name, an excellent, tempo-switching number, released on Pussyfoot and sampling the same drums we’d had for ‘Spiral’, always wrong-footed them in the clubs. The Herbaliser’s ‘Theme From Control Centre’ creeps into the mix and, from the sound of it, that could be Ollie Teeba or PC cutting up The Jungle Brothers’ ‘Beyond This World’ a cappella over it. We finish with the sublime ‘Nuane’ by Autechre from their Chiastic Slide LP which reminds me that I must dig it out again.

Track list:
People Like Us – Bran Mash and Crushed Beans
Unknown – Shadows Creep
Squarepusher – Vic Acid
Meat Beat Manifesto – Asbestos Lead Asbestos (Plug Remix)
Three Wheels Out – Rise Up Children
The Herbaliser – Theme From Control Centre
Jungle Brothers – Beyond This World (a cappella)
Autechre – Nuane

Another week, another book launch, with a film launch before it in the form of At Home With The Boyle Family by Stuart Heaney and Chris De Selincourt at Iklectik on Sunday. Telling the story of how the Boyle Family (Mark Boyle, Joan Hills and their children Sebastian and Georgia Boyle) developed liquid light shows at home before hooking up with Soft Machine, Pink Floyd and Hendrix and blowing people’s minds at the UFO Club. The film showing was augmented by a liquid and microscopic light show display to a live set by Jim Edgar Morgan’s soundtrack (album online here), a Q&A, food and a great closing set from Avsluta aka Lucie Stepankova. The ‘Lumini’ of the lighting world came out for it and a great day out was had in this fantastic but now threatened venue.

Tuesday was a double-header book launch at the Century Club on Shaftsbury Avenue with Dorothy Max Prior and Dave Barbarossa reading from their new books, both focussing on their adventures in a pre and post punk time frame from the 70s. I’ve read Dave’s book, Mud Sharks already and am now well into Max’s and cannot recommend them both enough. Covering a similar time to Jordan’s recent biography by Cathi Unsworth, her bio, 69 Exhibition Road from Strange Attractor, connects COUM Transmissions and seedy sex work with the punk and gay communities she straddled.

This week’s workload has seen me finish another sleeve for a forthcoming 12″ on De:tuned, license some photos I took at a hip hop gig in 1988 to a BBC3 documentary, begin research on a secret project and start writing for the second Dust & Grooves book, due out 2024. I also scored a great number of Oz and International Times magazines from a collector and then found even more Oz’s elsewhere at unbelievable prices (clue, it wasn’t eBay). Still haven’t found time to watch Andor and it’s nearly over, but anyway, onto this week’s upload.

This set was recorded up at the Ahead Of Our Time studio in Clink Street where the Ninja Tune office was located until the end of the century. The recording engineer, Ali Tod, would subtlety add FX and samples live during the mix as well as type things into the artificial speech app on the computer. The sets opens with Autechre’s amazing ‘Cipater’ from their Chiastic Slide album with its time signature shift midway and a spoken word section from the ‘Getting Through’ album recently procured from a Canadian tour. The down tempo shift slowly morphs into ‘Rettic AC’, a mass of static waves and the following track from the LP. I could have played the whole album, I think it’s still my favourite of theirs. That dissolves with delay and turntable speed manipulation into what Shazam now tells me was Leonard Bernstein’s ‘Cresendo e Diminuendo’ – all classical concrete-ish blurbs and parps – with a Martin Luther King speech we’d regularly use over the top.

A sizeable chunk of the middle of the mix is taken up with a track from Siah & Yeshua dapoED’s debut on Fondle ‘Em Records (the Bobbito Garcia-run label that MF Doom debuted on). Given that ‘A Day Like No Other’ is a multi-part, tempo-changing 11 minute collage of beats and rhymes, it’s no surprise. I then slice into a DJ Vadim track (under his Andre Gurov alias), ‘Organized Babbitry’ on his Jazz Fudge label. Not recognising the track and Shazam being no use here, I turned to my record collection thinking it may be from his Ninja debut LP, U.S.S.R. Repertoire, but no. The Jazz Fudge section yielded the goods but I was dismayed to find a huge crack and piece missing from my only copy (I designed the artwork as well so pride myself in having mint copies in my archive).

More spoken word from the Getting Through album interrupts before a breakdown into The Silhouettes’ slinky, flute-led ‘Lunar Invasion’. I’ve never managed to get an original of this (this was played from a late 90’s bootleg) as it was too expensive but it’s an amazing, multi-faceted track that suddenly takes off completely unexpectedly from a slow strip tease into a frenzied funk freak out and back again. For some unknown reason I thought it was a good idea to add in David Rose’s version of ‘The Stripper’ for a few bars to heighten the mood before it takes off again, absolute monster of a track. Out of this comes some crazed crowd-pleasing funk mash up of which I’m struggling to identify, quickly descending into a further snatch of Bernstein before abruptly ending with a ‘Strictly Kev on the mix’ from the computer. Time was up it seemed. Part 2 next week…

Thanks to the ever-helpful, all knowing Mr Armtone for helping me complete this set as my original tape only had half of it. I’ve tried to re-EQ the two halves to match in some way, see if you can spot the join.

PS: the ‘+ ambient set?’ on the tape is an excellent session from the same show, presumably by Coldcut, possibly Matt Black, which I’ll send to them for their Mixcloud sometime.

Track list:
Autechre – Cipater
Autechre – Rettic AC
Leonard Bernstein & New York Philharmonic – Cresendo e Diminuendo
Siah & Yeshua dapoED – A Day Like Any Other
Andre Gurov – Organised Babbitry
Unknown – Getting Through: A Guide To Better Understanding The Hard of Hearing
The Silhouettes – Lunar Invasion
David Rose – The Stripper
Unknown – unknown

Heading back to mid 1995 this week for a fine selection of trip hop, drum (drill?) n bass, retro lounge, ambience and more. I realised that the ’96 / ’97 uploads have been thin on the ground and have spent some time digitising cassettes as well as doing some general housekeeping on the 125 previous uploads. This takes a lot longer than the CDs as all the track lists have to be done by ear as very little exists pre-’97. I’m probably about half way through the tapes and 3/4s through the CDrs by now, still a way to go. Finding some gems though.

I wish I knew what the first track in this set was, a jumble of spoken word about possession, Satan, burning records etc. Perfect for one of my religious mixes, if anyone knows, please leave a comment. Wagon Christ’s superb remix of Moloko’s ‘Lotus Eater’ is taken from the Further Self Evident Truths 3 compilation on Rising High, a fantastic comp with barely a bad track on it. Just love the creeping intro on this, the strings, chopped up beats and hand claps, just amazing. The Gentle People were amazing too, such a curveball for RePhLeX, those soaring strings… ‘Emotion Heater’ isn’t quite up to their debut, ‘Journey’, but has aged very well.

Conrad Schnitzler swoops in with ‘Electric Garden’ from his Con LP, a track that Mixmaster Morris hipped me to a few years before, sounding as fresh now as back then and it’s 45 years old next year! ‘Squarepusher Theme’ barges into proceedings, doing what only Tom Jenkinson can do in a frantic five minutes before we exhale for The Orb’s Peel Session version of ‘O.O.B.E.’ Odd that I put Squarepusher between Conrad and The Orb, these days common sense would tell me not to but I suppose it does mix in time. Ethik’s ‘Moral Sculpture’ is one of those tracks I instantly know but can never remember the name of and comes from a great 1993 album, ‘Music For Stock Exchange’ – reissued a couple of years back on Kompakt.

It’s nice to know that I was playing Andy Votel right from the beginning, his left field, wonky take on sample collage has always appealed. ‘Spooky Driver’ comes from his debut 12” on Grand Central – then just billed as VOTEL. Careering out this is JG Thirlwell at the wheel of a sonic juggernaut under his Steroid Maximus moniker from the ‘Gondwanaland’ album. His cover of Raymond Scott’s ‘Powerhouse’ has all the industrial (sorry, Jim) bombast you’d expect from the master of disaster. I remember Jon More rolling his eyes at this one as some of my more over the top choices weren’t always to his taste (‘it’s an un-easy listening sound’). In hindsight he could probably hear all the late night listeners switching off or over. The sudden end wrong-footed me (it was only on CD) and we get a snatch of the next track, ‘Homeo’ before submerging into Funki Porcini’s gorgeous ‘Going Down’ from his second album for Ninja Tune, ‘Love, Pussycats & Carwrecks’. Calm is restored as we ‘whinge on into the night’ as Jonathan puts it.

Track list:
Unknown – Possessed intro
Moloko – Lotus Eater (Wagon Christ remix)
The Gentle People – Emotion Heater (Instrumental Mix Parts I,II,III)
Conrad Schnitzler – Electric Garden
Squarepusher – Squarepusher Theme
The Orb – O.O.B.E. (John Peel Session)
Ethik – Moral Sculpture
Andy Votel – Spooky Driver
Steroid Maximus – Powerhouse!
Steroid Maximus – Homeo
Funki Porcini – Going Down

This was one of those shows where I put together a mix largely from the contents of my record buying trips whilst abroad in North America plus some current new releases. I can’t quite believe I used to go a couple of times a year at one point, each time coming back laden with music new and old. I don’t think I’ve been back for over a decade now and I really miss it, one day I’ll get back out there.

We kick off with Ramsey Lewis (RIP) and the break-tastic ‘Do Whatever Sets You Free’, chopped up nicely by Natural Self once I seem to remember… Eddie Harris slinks in with a nasty beat and a fuzzed up horn, plenty of sample action here and I think this is the source for a bit of Shadow’s ‘In/flux’. I’m not sure if the DJ Zinc track quite works out of old Eddie, sure it’s in time but not quite in tune or swing, that’s quite a change of pace. I had a white label at the time but now know that the track is called ‘Tonka’. Then into The Human League (!) mixing by bpm, not feel, I like the way Phil Oakey calls everyone ‘big heads’ at the start. This was from the Richard X released ‘Golden Hour of the Future’ album of early Human League recordings.

I like what Push Button does with the Anti-Pop vocal of ‘Ghostlawns’, putting it on a different beat of the bar and slowing the tempo to half time. But into The Banana Splits? What was I thinking? This the most uneven mix of all time, just because it’s IN time kids, doesn’t mean it should go next to that similarly tempo-ed tune. Doesn’t sound quite like Fleegle, Bingo, Drooper and Snorky though does it? The Incredible Shrinking Man was an alias of Shawn Lee who apparently is also singing on this cover of ‘Wichita Lineman’ as well as playing almost everything else too. Killer version on a 7” on Ape City who only put out three releases.

Sixtoo I hooked up with on tour and ‘Duration’ was his long-digesting masterpiece, featured here in an excerpt, maybe he was living in Montreal by this time or maybe that was after he signed to Ninja Tune, it was around this time anyway. The ‘stop scratching’ vocal sample is actually from a 7” comedy record about a dog, the cover folds out three times into a dog shape, I think it’s a Fred Basset tie-in maybe. Stan Kenton covers ‘Hair’ with his take on ‘Coloured Spade’, I’d go on to collect many versions of the musical over the years and have lost count how many I have now. The New Seekers’ ‘It’s The Real Thing’ – do the Coke advert from a promo 7”. Pugh’s ‘Love Love Love’ I’m sure we all recognise the opening bars of? This was the opening track of Cherrystones’ then current ‘Rocks’ compilation and also the opener of Pugh Rogefeldt’s debut LP.

From Swedish psych rock to Brit hip hop and out into Yo La Tengo covering Sun Ra – edited for radio. This should be called the dis-jointed mix, veering all over the place, it made sense to me at the time. The Free Association were a psychedelic outfit led by David Holmes who made one great album and a clutch of singles and seemed to be the point after which he jumped into soundtrack work. Plenty of sampling going on and all the better for it. Still veering all over the place the Dsico rework of Nelly’s ‘It’s Getting Hot In Herre’ was further twisted out by my occasional Flexus guise for a particularly sweaty party on the hottest day of the year in the old basement under the newsagent that used to house the Bastard night. I think it was a Kinky Voodoo event hosted by my friend John Power and during this song I threw out tons of ice poles for the audience from a cooler I’d bought with me.

I don’t remember the track after this featuring a female rap over ‘Superbad’, but Dsico was putting out loads of mash ups at this time. Another switch, down into dub with Tino, a Ben Stokes and friends alias, from the Hallowe’en Dub album which seems relevant this week. We finish with ‘Acetate Prophets’, the DJ track from the end of Jurassic 5’s third LP. After ‘Lesson 6’ on the first and ‘Swing Set’ on the second we get a complex eastern-themed set of breaks and samples which I wish Cut and Nu-mark would do more of.

Track list:
Ramsey Lewis – Do Whatever Sets You free
Eddie Harris – Carry On Brother
DJ Zinc – Tonka
The Human League – Dance Like A Star
Ant-Pop Consortium – Ghostlawns (Push Button Objects mix)
The Banana Splits – Doin’ The Banana Split
The Incredible Shrinking Man – Wichita Lineman
Sixtoo – Duration (excerpt)
Stan Kenton – Coloured Spade
The New Seekers – It’s The Real Thing
Pugh – Love Love Love
Die & Skitz feat Rodney P/Ms Dynamite/Tali/Mixologists – It’s On
Yo La Tengo – Nuclear War
The Free Association – Don’t Rhyme No Mo
Nelly/Dsico vs FLEXUS – It’s Getting Hot Hot Hot In Herre
Dsico – Super Hiding
Tino – Living Dead Dub
Jurassic 5 – Acetate Prophets

A follow up to last week’s upload with a set full of bits and pieces floating around at this point in time, most of it contemporary with some oldies to finish. The recording at the start is DK from my answerphone, he’s a huge World’s Famous Supreme Team and I’d peppered the set with bits of a recording of an old WHBI show I’d found. A full length version of 2 Tall’s entry into the Solid Steel intro competition kicks things off before Diplo’s premiere release, the amazing ‘Epistomology Suite’ enters. I remember how exciting this was to hear at the time, we felt Big Dada had discovered the new DJ Shadow and this was his ‘Entropy’. It didn’t quite work out like that but his debut LP, ‘Florida’, is still a classic debut. Smoove switches things up with a swinging double time soul banger featuring Jess Roberts, I used to play this out for years. Firstborn’s Northern Soul-esque stomper, ‘The Mood Club (Part 2)’ is taken from the 7” and features a great tempo switch down.

Señor Coconut remixes Stephen Coates’ The Real Tuesday Weld and Madlib tackles The Free Design with a Nostalgia 77 track sandwiched in-between. Earl Zinger cuts up the Pink Elephants on Parade theme tune before Black Lodge (RIP) puts his twist on it and then Sun Ra and his Arkestra cover it from the Disney compilation, Stay Awake. Def Tex’s slamming, bleeping ‘Freaks’ ruins the mood somewhat as does the frantic mix into Awkward’s excellent break-fest ‘Plug Me In’, must dig that out again. Ivory blazes a trail all over the shop before Steinski gets old school with the cuts from his split 12” on Stones Throw with J.Rocc. Dr Rubberfunk gets the treatment from Fort Knox Five before Four Tet gets made over by Icarus – I seemed to like the remixes over the originals half the time. This latter remix starts like some lost Terry Riley piece before the drums steam in, must revisit!.

This end section was sonically themed: I thought the vocal harmonies of Air’s ‘Run’ were a clear reference to 10cc’s ‘I’m Not In Love’ so found the original and a Godley & Creme version. I’ve always thought there was an obvious sonic fingerprint shared with 10cc’s I’m Not In Love’ and the Art of Noise’s ‘Moments in Love’, a theory strengthened by the fact that AON’s JJ Jeczalik collaged the 10cc/Godley & Creme History Mix Vol.1 LP together and then Lol Creme joined the AON in the 00’s. You could further add G&C’s Trevor Horn-produced ‘Cry’ to the equation, forgive the tuning, it’s way out. A further link to the AON/Trevor Horn axis comes in the form of Hibs’ excellent fan mix of Frankie’s ‘Two Tribes’ which could have been a lost mix from the 80’s. Hibs – aka Jeff Knowler to his friends – engineered my recording of Paul Morley for the Raiding The 20th Century mix and then went on to mix most of my work since.

2 Tall – Solid Steel intro (full version)
Diplo – Epistomology Suite
Smoove feat. Jess Roberts – Coming Back
Firstborn – The Mood Club (Part 2)
(The Real) Tuesday Weld – Ugly & The Beautiful (Senor Coconut remix)
Nostalgia 77 – Sad Thing
The Free Design – Where Do I Go (Madlib remix)
Earl Zinger – Heavy Hitter
Black Lodge – untitled
Sun Ra & His Arkestra – Pink Elephants On Parade
Def Tex – Freaks
Awkward – Plug Me In
Ivory – Blaze A Trail
Steinski – Ain’t No Thing
Dr Rubberfunk – The Owner (Fort Knox Five remix)
Four Tet – My Angel Rocks Back and Forth (Icarus remix)
Air – Run
Godley & Crème – I’m Not In Love
10cc – I’m Not In Love
Art of Noise – Moments In Love
Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Two Tribes (Hibs’ Reagan Says No More mix)
World’s Famous Supreme Team – outro

A random delve into the archive this week from a year we’ve not covered too often recently, 2004. Kicking off with a rather tranced up version of the Solid Steel theme by Redroof we start the show proper with Waxfactor’s (aka Pete Sasqwax) ’Reggaenomics’ from his lost classic LP ‘Sci-Fu’ which has just been re-released by coincidence. I’d forgotten about BJ Cole and Luke Vibert’s ‘Surf Acid Hoedown’, what an acid monster, crazy 303 patterns and time changes. One of the first (that I heard) versions of The White Stripes’ classic ‘Seven Nation Army’ was by Brighton’s finest, Nostalgia 77 (Ben Lamdin) and Alice Russell, then starting to make a name for herself as a premier soul vocalist. Dynamite MC’s ‘Bubble’ sounds exactly like that, with early grime licks meeting the sort of production coming out of DJ Zinc’s Bingo Beats label around that time.

The Council Flats of Kingsbury is some kind of dirty fuzzed out beats before that kind of thing was the fashion over on the West Coast, this was from a split white vinyl 7” with LJ Kruzer on the flip on Uncharted Audio. Prince Po featuring MF Doom – ‘Special Distortion’ was from the Danger Mouse-produced, Lex-released LP The Slickness, Lex were really on a role at this point. Bristol’s Boca 45 steams in with ‘Air Drums’ from his second release on High Noon Music. Blend Crafters was a one-off thing Jurassic 5’s DJ Nu-mark did with Pomo which saw one LP and a handful of singles around in 2004 which is followed by the aptly-named ‘Genuine’ by Sharon Jones (RIP) and the Dap Kings. Has a new funk tune ever sounded so authentically 60’s? At that point it was one of the first that hit that sweet spot.

J Star’s take on Erick Sermon’s ‘Music’ was one of his first reggae make overs and it’s another Luke Vibert tune, under his Wagon Christ nom de plume with a track from his second Ninja Tune LP, ‘Sorry I Make You Lush’. Rhymefest’s ‘Jackin’ (it got ugly)’ single, chock full of classic rock samples, was something of a breath of fresh air at this point, stealing indiscriminately from all over the map. Diplo’s Hollertronix had come late to the mash up party but were putting out some (mad) decent examples in the states with this Clash meets Missy Elliot example being one of the best. Deisler’s first six track release for Tru Thoughts yielded the latin-infused ‘Xibaba’. I Monster come on like the mutant cousin of a glam-stomping ELO with Hey Mrs’ before an ill-advised segue into my favourite Supergrass track, the Talking Heads-aping ‘Kiss of Life’. If they didn’t go into the studio with the exact intention to ape the Eno-produced era of the Heads then I won’t believe it, they even got Tom Tom Club to do a remix for god’s sake. Interesting that Gaza’s brother, Rob Coombes in credited as primary writer on it. Party Ben’s hip house take on the Beastie’s ‘Ch-Ch-Check it Out’ is fun but hasn’t aged well, would probably work on the dance floor but in the mix here it’s a bit full on as a final track.

Track list:
Redroof – Solid Steel intro
Waxfactor – Reggaenomics
BJ Cole & Luke Vibert – Surf Acid Hoedown
Nostalgia 77 feat Alice Russell – Seven Nation Army
Dynamite MC – Bubble
Heiroglyphics – Love Flowin’
The Council Flats of Kingsbury – Dirty Floor
Prince Po feat MF Doom – Special Distortion
Boca 45 – Air Drums
Blend Crafters – Lola
Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings – Genuine
Jstar – Music
Wagon Christ – The Funnies
Rhymefest – Jackin’ (it got ugly)
Hollertronix – Untitled
Deisler – Xibaba
I Monster – Hey Mrs (Glamour Puss remix)
Supergrass – Kiss of Life (Tom Tom Club mix)
Party Ben – Ch Ch Check it Out Old Skool

A quick one this week as I’m pushed for time. A half hour from late 2003 which was originally coupled with some left field Xmas songs. This set is a bit disjointed, lots of bits and pieces that I wanted to play but didn’t fit together too well – hence the name of the mix. A mash up of Beyonce that hasn’t aged well kicks things off before Hey Ya, which I’m sure you’ve heard too many times but it was new at the time, please skip if you need to. The mix gets interesting after this with 808 State’s ‘Ancodia’, remixed on the Extended Pleasure of Dance EP 12” with an obvious but satisfying blend into Richard X’s ‘You Used To’ after. Love that transition.

Steinski’s frenetic remix of Melle Mel’s ‘Freestyle’ follows and I think that’s Cut Chemist on the decks. The insane Captain Funkaho crashes in and all over the place with his Dick Hyman-sampled ‘Capt. Chaos’ before we drift into the original – ‘The Moog & Me’. We play out with Boards of Canada’s sublime remix of cLOUDDEAD’s ‘Dead Dogs Two’ which is about as good as it gets.

Track list:
Cropstar – Crazy Prado
Outkast – Hey Ya
808 State – Ancodia (Taters Deep Nit Funky Beat mix)
Richard X – You Used To
Melle Mel – Freestyle (Steinski remix)
Captain Funkaho – Capt. Chaos
Dick Hyman – The Moog & Me
cLOUDDEAD – Dead Dogs Two (Boards of Canada remix)

A short, mellow set from 19 years ago – Johnny Cash’s ‘One Piece At A Time’ is one of the first songs I remember hearing as a child. My dad was/is a mechanic so this song always appealed to him and he explained that it was about a guy building a car out of bits and pieces of parts he’d stolen from the factory he worked at. He would do a similar thing with all manner of bike parts (not stolen!) over a 14 year period when he built his own custom bike later on in life. The track is book-ended by excerpts from the ‘Live At Folsom Prison’ album. Lunz’s ‘Wobbly Flu Twilight’ is a dark and delicate piano piece and then a Blackalicious track produced by DJ Shadow called ‘Changes’ appears, introduced by a short John Rydgren interview from a series called ‘Scenes’. In the interview the artist (who I’m not sure the identity of) talks about changes that he made on the new record and how the record label weren’t happy with it.

This is one thing I always tried to do with spoken word inserts, make the subject matter somehow reference the track it was placed with or over, it wasn’t always possible but when it works it’s lovely. The track was taken from an original beat tape of DJ Shadow’s I was in possession of at the time and I later found out it appeared on the Japanese version of the ‘Melodica’ album (credited to UNKLE) but I’ve never found a copy to check if it’s the same. Keeping on the Shadow theme, I had recently discovered one of the samples from one of my favourite tracks of his, ‘Changeling’ from Endtroducing, in the form of ‘Imagination Flight’ by the Chaffey College Jazz Ensemble, a private press LP with various composers, Charles Argersinger being the writer of the title track.

‘This River’ by Colder, on Trevor Jackson’s Output label has a beautiful, dark piano motif I could listen to all day and Colleen’s ‘Babies’ floats in like a saccharine lullaby. Ken Nordine narrates ‘Little Boy Blue’ from Billy Vaughn & his Orchestra’s 1956 release on Dot, one of his first appearances on vinyl. There’s more of Johnny Cash’s dialogue to the crowd from the Folsom Prison album over the start of Super Numeri’s ‘Coastel Bird Scene part 1’, at the time a new signing to Ninja Tune who would make two albums and singles before various members split into Loka, Snap Ant and Pop Levi. What I didn’t know at the time was that James Morgan aka Snap Ant, had also previously released a 12” on Ntone under the name Ominium which is presumably how Super Numeri came to be on the label. The originally mis-titled Eternals’ ‘Zero Gravity’ is the opening track from the Astropioneers OST of which I have absolutely no recollection of owning but it’s a lovely way to end a fairly sedate set.

Track list:
Johnny Cash – One Piece At A Time
Lunz – Wobbly Flu Twilight
Blackalicous – Changes
Chaffey College Jazz Ensemble – Imagination Flight
Colder – This River
Colleen – Babies
Ken Nordine – Little Boy Blue
Super Numeri – Coastal Bird Scene part 1
The Eternals – Zero Gravity

Opening with Pedro Chamorra’s entry to the Solid Steel intro competition (we got so many good entries it was hard to pick a winner and I used loads of runner up tracks as intros) and we’re off on an hour journey through time and space, punctuated by excerpts from series 1 of the Mighty Boosh. The first series is still my favourite with Howard and Vince’s riffs on music (jazz vs electro) always a joy to hear.
The Kleptones kick the mix off with an odd collage based on Queen samples from their A Night At The Hip Hopera cut up mix, most of their stuff is still online for free at https://www.kleptones.com/. Soulwax’s incredible mix of LCD’s ‘Daft Punk Is Playing At My House’ builds and builds and was one of those rare things, a remix that improves on the original. Kevin Mark Trail’s track was probably a promo 12” with MJ Cole remixes as was the Bluefoot Project Away team mix, coming from a compilation 12” entitled Interesting Flavours on Chocolate Fireguard Records.

Ms. Thing’s ‘Love Guide’ was the Switch-produced cut from the Two Cultures Clash compilation and predates the sort of material he would go on to make with Diplo as Major Lazer. Vincent made one EP in 2004 and two tracks from it are on this mix, the duo of Phil Donkin (bass) and Simon Vincent (piano) formed the group and the broken beat jazz of the Sentinel EP was the result. More broken beats from the Sun Ra cover of Likwid Continual Space Motion Ope-ra, a collaboration between IG Culture and Bembe Segue on a 25 minute version of the classic ‘Space Is The Place’. Two producers who have since become good friends and collaborators team up next as Johnny Trunk remixes Stephen Coates’ The Real Tuesday Weld’s classic ‘Bathtime In Clerkenwell’ into a reggae skank.

Meanwhile back at Ninja Tune the label was signing new acts and one – Loka – remixes the other – Blockhead – in fine fashion on his ‘Sunday Seance’. I always liked Loka, they were exactly what I was after at that point and their first album is a hidden classic. I don’t remember where the Def Harmonic track came from, I can’t recall owning one of their records but maybe it was on a comp? Max Sedgley’s follow up to his massive ‘Happy’ single was almost as big and then it’s the second Vincent cut, bringing jazz to the funk – should have waited with that earlier Mighty Boosh sample. Finishing with a remix from Herbert in which I get busy on the loop pedal at the end we wind things down with Atom TM’s glitchy take on Emiliana Torrini’s ‘Sunny Road’.

Tracklist:
Pedro Chamorra – Solid Steel spot
Kleptones – Precession
LCD Soundsystem – Daft Punk Is Playing… (Soulwax remix)
Kevin Mark Trail – D Thames (MJ Cole Dub)
The Bluefoot Project – Little Miss Selfish (Away Team mix)
Ms. Thing – Love Guide
Vincent – Gift
Likwid Continual Space Motion Ope-ra – Space Is The Place (Prelude…)
The Real Tuesday Weld – Bathtime In Clerkenwell (Jonny Trunk mix)
Blockhead – Sunday Séance (Loka remix)
Def Harmonic – The Deep
Max Sedgley – Devil Inside
Vincent – Sentinel
Brazillian Girls – Lazy Lover (Herberts Busy Lover mix)
Emiliana Torrini – Sunny Road (Atom TM’s Future Folk mix)