I’m ending on an epic – after more than four years, 199 uploads and seven exclusive mixes – a three hour Solid Steel with Matt, Jon and myself from October 1994. As the show aired between 1am-3am on a Saturday night/Sunday morning and the traditional time of putting the clocks back is 2am – smack bang in the middle of the show – we get an extra hour. For this reason, this mix was referred to as a Spacetime mix, due to the fact that we time travelled during it and thus needed several tapes to fit it on. I’ve got nearly two and half hours, some of which would have been taken up by adverts and some may have been missed with tape turnovers but let’s just say the remainder has disappeared into the space time continuum.

I’ve also slaved over this track list between Shazam, Matt & Jon’s incomplete track backs in the recording and my own fading memory. I’ve nearly got it but not quite. The fourth tune at the 15 min mark was really annoying me as I know it, Jon says it’s ‘Todd Terry – Bad Boys’ but there’s no such track that I can find. UK original Todd Terry licensee Champion had an offshoot called Bad Boys Records in the early 90s so I checked there but it’s none of those releases. Turns out it was his Hardhouse alias with the dub of the B side ’11:55’, subtitled ‘Bee Boys Dub’. When we were (hand) writing down the track lists on the PRS sheets for Kiss we’d sometimes not know exactly what had been played in what order, were cribbing through a pile of discarded records, some of which were white label promos and just had to guess. Then sometimes we couldn’t read each other’s hand writing or ran out of time to go through the list, with Matt’s favourite get-out clause being, ‘and other mystery beats’. All in all it created confusion and no doubt frustration for those who wanted to track down the songs but had no access to any form of internet database like Discogs.

My section is roughly in the middle with Matt and Jon either side, I’ve left them in for this one as it’s the only three hour show I’ve got in the archive and it’s the last of this run. I think the Art of Noise is my entry point with maybe the Attica Blues as the exit – no idea on the female led ‘dabba daaah’ tune after it or the Hendrix-sampling trip hop track after that which is, again, naggingly familiar. I’d got the white vinyl FSOL ‘Smokin’ Japanese Babe’ 12” shortly before this show and was so taken with it I played both sides in full alongside a bit of old school electro. I’m not going to go through every track as I’m writing this Thursday night but I hope you enjoy this nearly two and a half hour ‘rub’ to end this epic archive project. When all is said and done, the left over tapes are minimal; a one and half hour Sphinx mix from the end of 1994 (we did a lot in that year!) a few personal mixes that I did for friends that never aired on Solid Steel and a live recording of PC and I in Bristol in 1997 which is mostly Patrick leading. I’ll send that one to him and maybe he’ll put it up, the others I may put up for free later but for now I need a break from the weekly uploads.

If you still want access to all these uploads you’ll have to subscribe but I anticipate a drop off in numbers which is fine, the work is done and I thank everyone who contributed along the way, especially those who have been here from the start (are there any?). I’ll let someone else do the math but there’s quite a few hours worth up here now and these are just up until 2007/8, not the years after which should be a bit more readily available in general via solid steel.net, Mixcloud, Soundcloud and various other places. I’ll be concentrating on my new monthly radio show on ROVR – the Electrik Collage – the third of which dropped last Friday – listen back here. It’ll be good to be looking forward and playing new music – like we did on Solid Steel – rather than getting stuck in the nostalgia trap, nice as it can be. I’m keen to make the shows that soundtrack these times that I’ll hopefully enjoy listening back to in 20 years time.

Track list:
The Sex Pistols – Anarchy In The UK
Beastie Boys – Fight For Your Right To Party
The Aloof – Society
Hardhouse – 11:55 (Bee Boys Dub)
The Transplant – Afrocentric (Come Together)
Bedouin Ascent – Internal Bleeding
Acacia – Cord
Hydra – Song For a Fish
Spacetime Continuum – Ping Pong
LFO – Tied Up
Mephisto Odyssey – Dream of The Black Dahlia (Keyboard mix)
Art of Noise – Opus 4
The Firesign Theatre – Everything You Know Is Wrong
Far Out Son Of Lung – Ramblings of a Madman
Far Out Son Of Lung – Zeebox
Vapourspace – Gravitational Arch of 10
The 7th Plain – Think City
The Octagon Man – The Demented Spirit
Hashim – Al-Naayfisch (The Soul)
La Funk Mob – Motor Bass Gets Phunked Up (Electrofunk mix)
Herbie Hancock – Rockit
Arthur Baker – Breaker’s Revenge (Extended Vocal version)
Unknown – unknown ambient
Autechre – Montreal
Silence – Omid/Hope
Massive Attack – Euro Child
Inky Blacknuss – Desolator
Far Out Son Of Lung – Are They Fighting Us
Far Out Son Of Lung – Smokin’ Japanese Babe
Attica Blues – Contemplating Jazz
Unknown – female vocal
Unknown – unknown trip hop
Single Cell Orchestra – Call Me
The Auteurs va Mu-Ziq – Lenny Valentino (Mu-Ziq #3) (on 45rpm)
Spring Heel Jack – The Sea Lettuce
Yellow Magic Orchestra – Tong Poo (The Orb remix)
Freak Power – unknown

As I’ve said before in these missives, a Solid Sphinx was an ad-free, minimal chat mix for two hours. The upside being that both we and the listeners could dive in and really immerse ourselves into the music without interruption between 1-3am. The downside is now evident when listening back and trying to identify the songs contained within as there were no track backs to let people know what was played. The old memory is unreliable three decades later and Shazam can’t identify everything you throw at it and so the track list for this upload is far from complete. Once again I implore anyone with a better recall to fill in the blanks here as I’m struggling although a couple are annoyingly familiar.

This show was at the tale end of 1994 and, to my trained ear, features all four of us in the original two hour rub. Kickstarted by PC, then I, Matt and finally Jon each took approx 30 minutes to mix and match whatever we had been feeling that week. This is just my section and I will forewarn you, it gets pretty nasty in places, certainly not a chill out half hour, you can almost feel the testosterone dripping from the speakers. Unknown DnB track 1 – no idea – in fact it may not even have come from my box, the lines are blurred as to where and when each of us end and begin but the second track, Caustic Visions, is definitely me. One of the group – I think his name was Tim possibly? – visited Ambient Soho one day brandishing their new single (actually Caustic Visions 2) and a brace of very well-designed promo posters. I was immediately taken with them and the disc was a fresh-sounding mix of acid, Gabber and industrial noise with a clear nod to Aphex Twin in both style and title (Caustic Window being one of his aliases). Always looking for the latest thing, I jumped on it and kept in touch, collecting several of their other releases, some of which were on Industrial Strength, the US hardcore techno label run by Lenny Dee. At one point I was convinced that Gabber would be the next thing to blow up but it never really caught on in the UK to the extent it did in Europe.

Anyway, I really liked what CV did and kept an eye on them for the few years that they were active as they always seemed to be occupying their own corner of the techno world. Three unidentifiable tracks follow; a rattle-y Amen-led DnB breakfest that seems to pre-figure Plug and Squarepusher with those rapid-fire machine gun edits and another that stops and starts like a scratch DJ who can’t keep their finger off the turntable stop button. Bridging the two is a wall of looping 8-bit noise that was also by Caustic Visions but the two DnB tracks show off my love of highly-detailed drum cut up programming before DJ Crystl’s classic ‘Let It Roll’ arrives to calm the waters somewhat. Crystl was originally the DJ with UK rap group The Brotherhood under the name of DJ Pump Action but left to pursue a DnB career before they achieved commercial success. ‘Let It Roll’ was a fresh sound at the time, even though the genre was still in its infancy. Racing in at what almost seems like double time is another unknown tune, and I’m barely keeping it in time at points before the actual track breaks down itself and shudders to a stop.

Mark Van Hoen’s Locust project was a big favourite back then, he didn’t and still doesn’t sound like anyone else and there were a lot of Aphex copyists around in the early 90s. You stood out by being original and having your own sound. With his spindly IDM and Designers Republic-designed sleeves he should have been on Warp by all accounts but wound up on the next best thing, R&S. I’d forgotten the next classic; this got a LOT of play at the time, a Sabres of Paradise remix of the Wolfgang Press of all people! They did two of which this was the second and I’m mixing the extended percussion breakdown of ‘Trans Europe Express’ over the middle of it for some time. The last track was a frustrating head scratcher until I ran across it by complete chance whilst researching something else just yesterday. Coming on like a slower version of Soul Coughing’s ‘Super Bon Bon’ (the Propellerheads remix – they must have used the same break) – it was local group Camberwell Butterflies with a track entitled ‘Gloop’ from their sole release on The Chill Out Label.

Next week is upload 200 and I’ve still not decided what it will be… with that I bring this round of Mixcloud Select weekly uploads to an end after 4+ years of almost weekly activity. The CDrs are done, as are the DATs and there are just a handful of tapes left. My third show for ROVR radio debut’s today at 2pm worldwide with two hours of new music and a sprinkling of oldies or obscurities. Tune in at 2pm wherever you are in the world

Track list:
Unknown DnB 1 – unknown
Caustic Visions – Contortion
Unknown DnB 2 – unknown
Caustic Visions – Virex
Unknown DnB 3 – unknown
DJ Crystl – Let It Roll
Unknown – Unknown
Locust – Good God
The Wolfgang Press – 11 Years (Sabres Main Mix 2)
Kraftwerk – Trans Europe Express
Camberwell Butterflies – Gloop

As described in earlier posts, a Solid Sphinx was an occasional Solid Steel show – usually live – with no ads and very little talking. It might have been that there were no ads booked in that week, no ‘reads’ (KISS-affiliated announcements to be made during the show) or just that there were only a few ads lined up and we conveniently forgot to air them. Either way, it was heads down and concentrate on the mix for two hours rather than have an eye on the clock for the next ad break.

What we have here are some edited parts of a 2 hour Sphinx where I was in control, I think Matt started the show off with a 30 minute mix, then me, then PC finished up, I don’t think Jon was around for this one. It’s marked as live on the tape which means we probably did it Saturday night directly to air whereas we usually pre-recorded it on a Friday night around 9pm if memory serves. I’ve snipped out some bits here and there just to make it a bit more digestible but you get the flavour – trip hop, electro, old school hip hop and spoken word interludes. I had acquired a copy of the Firesign Theatre’s Everything You Know is Wrong album and eagerly added some passages in here and there to add to the usual Coldcut Word Treasure jingles. We kick off with the end of Matt’s mix, some early jungle, and I come in with a Digidub tune that was a regular spin back in the day.

Cue Coldcut’s ‘More Beats’ on 45rpm then switched down to 33 for a tempo change before the underrated and overshadowed (by UNKLE on the A side) Howie B vs Major Force ‘Martian Economics’ – a fab slice or early trip hop if ever there was one. I loved that 12”, to me it embodied everything I wanted from ‘trip hop’ – dusty drums, weird electronics, samples and spoken world with a sci-fi touch. M.S.P. stood for Manic Street Preachers and the track ‘Faster’ was taken from a ‘promo’ 12” named Done & Dusted, featuring versions of MSP tracks made over by The Dust Brothers before they had to change their name to the Chemical variety of siblings. This was early big beat colliding with rock – as the Chems would perfect later, more electro than trip hop but still coming from similar sources, very exciting at the time – no idea if I still have it in the collection.

Kraftwerk cycle into the mix with ‘Tour de France’ – never ages – before an ambient breakdown I can’t identify and a clip of Matt Black’s dad reading a text called ‘The Ninth World’. There was an ad break here, or the tape ended but we proceed with Air Liquide’s ‘ The Increased Difficulty of Concentration’ and into Two Sandwiches Short of a Lunchbox which was Andrea Parker and David Morley on the Apollo label, an ambient subsidiary of R&S records. Weirdly I’ve just designed an LP sleeve for David for De:tuned records, how odd the way things circle back? The Dust Brothers are back with ‘Dust Up Beats’ from their My Mercury Mouth EP, I was obviously smitten and hoovering up everything I could find by them (which was probably less than 5 releases at the time including remixes). We slip into a couple of old hip hop classics, evidently played directly from Street Sounds Electro 4 by the sound of it as the two mix into each other exactly the same. I still think D.St’s mix of Herbie Hancock is one of the greatest mega mixes of all time, he obviously had access to the studio tapes and a proper studio to do it in but it’s a superb creation.

A brief blast of the Firesign Theatre before a track I’d forgotten all about, GTO’s ‘Dub Killer’ from their Data Trax vol.1 12” – a great example of odd little B side experiments that would turn up on dance singles around this time, very Renegade Soundwave / trip hop-sounding. Autechre’s ‘Teartear’ from Amber is up next, a track I still play out occasionally with its tempo switch down. Sheila Chandra was a big element of my ambient sets a couple of years earlier after I found a clutch of her LPs in Cheapo Cheapo’s in Soho. Her ‘Mecca’ track from the Roots & Wings album is a bit out of tune here but mercifully not for long. Tori Amos’s ‘God’ appeared in a variety of mixes including three from Carl Craig but my favourite was by The Joy – possibly their only remix work aside for one for D:REAM – and a 12 minute+ epic. Looking them up I found they were fond of long tracks with two mixes of their debut, ‘Shine’, clocking in at 27 minutes each(!). Denise Johnson was part of the group and they did work with her later, it’s very much in that post-ambient / baggy / Screamadelica / long Sabres of Paradise remix mode that was the thing around then.

Only one more entry until we hit the magic 200 mark and this series comes to an end. I probably have less than 10 tapes left and not all of them are going to be uploaded as I don’t want to go over the 200 mark at the moment. I also have drawers full of encoded cassettes I don’t want/need now so if anyone wants to make me an offer to take custody of them then feel free. I’m trying to clear things out that have been with me for decades that I don’t need.

Track list:
Coldcut – Solid Steel intro
L.S. Diezel & Launch Dat – Rougher Than A Lion
Coldcut – More Beats (on 45/33 rpm)
Howie B Vs. Major Force E.M.S. Orchestra – Martian Economics (Unified Plant Theory)
M.S.P. – Faster (7-11 Dub)
Kraftwerk – Tour de France
Matt’s Dad – The Ninth World
Air Liquide – The Increased Difficulty of Concentration
Two Sandwiches Short of a Lunchbox – Too Good To be Strange
The Dust Brothers – Dust-Up-Beats
Pumpkin & The Profile All-Stars – Here Comes That Beat!
Herbie Hancock – Megamix
The Firesign Theatre – Everything You Know Is Wrong!
GTO – Dub Killer
Autechre – Teartear
Sheila Chandra – Mecca
Tori Amos – God (The Dharma Kaya mix)

A typical club set from around the early ’00s with a mash up of DnB, acappellas, hip hop and other beats, recorded live whilst on tour in New Zealand at the end of 2003. The recording is fairly compressed as it must be a feed from the desk and we drop in probably for the latter half of the set as it’s in full flow and I’ve reached the drum and bass section. I probably had two decks and a Numark CDJ for this and several classic mixes are in there including PC’s ‘Mirror In The Bathroom/Square Off’ combination from Now, Listen, DJ Zinc/Rodney P, Nas/DJ Shadow and Beastie Boys/Lisa Maffia which were all staples of the set around this time. There’s a live take on the Obie Trice beat cut up featured on a previous mix upload and I float a bit of Shirley Bassey’s ‘Light My Fire’ over Un-Cut’s ‘Midnight’ track who sample the strings from her version. Anyway, I won’t pontificate on the contents but there’s lot of obvious stuff in here including 3 DJ Food tracks which is a rarity for me.

We’re heading towards upload 200 and I’ve still decided what I’m going to do for it but thanks to everyone who’s stuck with this for the last four years. We’re nearly there, virtually everything worth hearing is encoded and uploaded now and it’s going to be good to move on from this and concentrate on my new monthly show on ROVR radio where I’m trying to concentrate on new music if possible (or new to me). The next show is June 7th but you can listen back to the first two episodes via the phone app which gives you access to the archive.

Tracklist:
2 Tall – Luminous Thongs Solid Steel intro
Krust & Die present – Movin’ Fast
Nextmen vs Cyantific feat. Dynamite MC – High Score
Un-Cut – Midnight (Mist 2003 remix)
Pharoah Monch – Got You (DnB remix)
DJ Zinc – Reach Out (remix)
Rodney P – Riddim Killa
The Beat – Mirror In the Bathroom
Mask – Square Off
DJ Food – Scratch Yer Hed (Squarepusher remix)
DJ Food – Mr Scruff Megamix
DJ Shadow – Right Thing (Z Trip Party mix)
Nas – I Can (acappella)
DJ Food – Dark Lady
Quantic Soul Orchestra – Pushin’ On (acapella)
Diverse, RJD2, Lyrics Born – Explosive
Prince – Sign O The Times (Rootz n Workz remix)
Return of the Returner – Throwdown No.1
Obie Trice – Got Some Teeth (acappella)
Phill Most Chill – On Tempo Jack
Beastie Boys – 33% God
Lisa Maffia – All Over (acapella)
Dsico – Bille Jean Dub
Derrick Largo & Trinity – Don’t Stop ’til You Get Enough

That’s My Boy! was a trilogy of tapes I made when I lived in a house share in East Dulwich that were given out to friends and neighbours at the time around 30 years ago as my DJ career was just starting with Coldcut and Ninja Tune. There were three volumes of which this is the second and I was showcasing the tracks of the day whilst trying to find my style as the times shifted out of the ambient scene I had been playing in for the last few years. The first strands of what would become known as trip hop were mutating out of the hip hop, indie dance and acid jazz scenes and it was a fertile time for electronic music with Warp leading the pack with their Artificial Intelligence series. You can still hear the tendrils of the German kosmischer scene overlaid in places as well as the collaged soundscapes of the Orb and others of their ilk but this volume definitely ups the funk factor with cuts from the Beastie Boys’ then current Ill Communication album, the Ballistic Brothers vs the Eccentric Afros EPs and early Mo Wax and Ninja Tune releases.

I can still remember the excitement of these times, the rush to find the early MoWax 12″s, the Beasties playing in London and doing the instore at Rough Trade in Covent Garden. Ninja signing new artists like The Herbaliser and doing my first artwork for them including redesigning the logo and 9 Lazy 9’s second album cover. Warp and R&S putting out great records every month and doing Telepathic Fish parties around London and even abroad in Amsterdam with Matt Black, Mixmaster Morris and electronic acts of the day like Autechre, Higher Intelligence Agency and Pentatonik. Working at Ambient Soho at the weekends with Rockit and helping out with the graphic design on my first Apple Mac (shared with David Vallade), an LC475. First DJ gigs around the UK with Coldcut, seeing new cities for the first time like Bristol, Leeds and Manchester. Clubs like Megatripolis on a Thursday and squat parties like Tribal Energy at the weekends plus festivals in parks around London. In my mind it’s always sunny although that’s technically impossible in the UK. There was definitely something in the air, the music was shifting and my hip hop knowledge from my first 80s forays into DJing was informing my tastes. Despite the late 80s tip into gangsterism which had soured some of the genre for me, I was still listening to hip hop via Max & Dave’s show on KISS FM alongside Coldcut, Colin Dale and Colin Faver’s more electronic-based shows and finding more interesting material coming out of the west coast.

This mix was probably done live on three decks and a basic CD player – the two Technics were used to mix beats and another old Panasonic belt drive deck for adding ambience with the CD reserved for more ambience of the occasional spoken word segment. The 4-channel mixer had a basic at best ‘echo’ function but this is mostly kept at bay as it was awful. You’ll hear bits of Sheila Chandra, Orbital, The Woodentops, Pulsation, Blue Pearl and more over these tracks as I was always layering and keeping to the chilled end of the beats. This was also the first time I’d used a Ken Nordine track, having been turned on to him by Mixmaster Morris the year before and then hunted down the Rhino Records compilation of Word Jazz they’d issued. There’s not too much you could call dance floor here, more of a head nodder for the smokers, something that would change on vol. 3 I seem to recall.

Side B Track list:
Beastie Boys – Shambala
Ballistic Brothers vs the Eccentric Afros – Save The Children
Beastie Boys – Bodhisattva Vow
DJ Toolz – Rusty Goes Ga Ga
DJ Toolz – Readybrek
La Funk Mob – La Doctoresse
R.P.M. – 2000
Ballistic Brothers vs the Eccentric Afros – Anti-Gun Movement
Paul Weller – Kosmos (Lynch Mob Bonus Beats)
DJ Toolz – Electric Junk
The Radha Krona Temple – Baja Hure Mana
Beastie Boys – Transitions

That’s My Boy! was a trilogy of tapes I made whilst living in a house share in East Dulwich, they were given out to friends and neighbours around 30 years ago as my DJ career was just starting with Coldcut and Ninja Tune. Weirdly my old friend Jem Panufnik sent me a photo of his copy of this tape he’d found just a week after I’d digitised it (see below). There were three volumes of which this is the second and I was showcasing the tracks of the day whilst trying to find my style as the times shifted out of the ambient scene I had been playing in for the last few years. The first strands of what would become known as trip hop were mutating out of the hip hop, indie dance and acid jazz scenes and it was a fertile time for electronic music with Warp leading the pack with their Artificial Intelligence series. You can still hear the tendrils of the German kosmischer scene overlaid in places as well as the collaged soundscapes of the Orb and others of their ilk but this volume definitely ups the funk factor with cuts from the Beastie Boys’ then current Ill Communication album, the Ballistic Brothers vs the Eccentric Afros EPs and early Mo Wax and Ninja Tune releases.

There was definitely something in the air, the music was shifting and my hip hop knowledge from my first 80s forays into DJing was informing my tastes. Despite the late 80s tip into gangsterism which had soured some of the genre for me, I was still listening to hip hop via Max & Dave’s show on KISS FM alongside Coldcut, Colin Dale and Colin Faver’s more electronic-based shows and finding more interesting material coming out of the west coast. Even recently I’ve been finding hidden gems from the early 90s that never got past the promo stage or had limited releases but slipped between the cracks as they maybe didn’t hit the flavour of the day. The Prince Paul-produced Resident Alien album, Justin Warfield’s unreleased ‘Return To Planet 9’ and the recent reissue of Hard 2 Obtain’s ‘Ism & Blues’ all fit the early 90s overlooked rap bracket and are well worth tracking down.

This mix was probably done live on three decks and a basic CD player – the two Technics were used to mix beats and another old Panasonic belt drive deck for adding ambience with the CD reserved for more ambience of the occasional spoken word segment. The 4-channel mixer had a basic at best ‘echo’ function but this is mostly kept at bay as it was awful. You’ll hear bits of Sheila Chandra, Orbital, The Woodentops, Pulsation, Blue Pearl and more over these tracks as I was always layering and keeping to the chilled end of the beats. This was also the first time I’d used a Ken Nordine track, having been turned on to him by Mixmaster Morris the year before and then hunted down the Rhino Records compilation of Word Jazz they’d issued. There’s not too much you could call dance floor here, more of a head nodder for the smokers, something that would change on vol. 3 I seem to recall. Side B next week…

Side A Track list:
Material – Mantra (Praying Mantra mix)
La Funk Mob – Motor Bass Get Phunked Up
Saint Etienne – Like A Motorway (The Dust Brothers remix)
Unknown – unknown
DJ Toolz – Intercontinental
Beastie Boys – B-Boys Makin’ With The Freak Freak
Cypress Hill – Scooby Doo
Sheila Chandra – One
Unknown – unknown
Saint Etienne – Your Head My Voice (Voix Revirement)
The Woodentops – You Make Me Feel (Late Night Mix)
Ken Nordine – What Time Is It?

My second monthly Electrik Collage radio show debuts this afternoon: May 10th at 2pm wherever you are in the world on ROVR radio, download the app to get archive access. APPLE or ANDROID

As it’s my birthday weekend this week I thought I’d save this one until (nearly) last. Either recorded or broadcast on my birthday 21 years ago (it’s not unusual for me to work on a birthday) it’s one of the bumper crop of mixes I recorded for Solid Steel in 2003, probably my most prolific year on the show. The Glitter Band stomp of The Timelords’ ‘Doctorin’ The Tardis’ was a no-brainer to put with Goldfrapp’s ‘Train’ so I started off with a mash up of the two by Lionel Vinyl before progressing into the original and then Ewan Pearson’s straighter 6/8 and 4/4 mixes which still manage to be funky. RSL’s ‘Wesley Music’ was such a jam, huge tune back in the day, I once played it at a party some years later and a woman started screaming when she heard the opening bars, we thought she was in trouble but she actually just loved it so much! Linda Lewis’ ‘I Keep A Wish’ came out on Riz Maslen Council Folk label, was an acoustic ballad which serves as a near acappella here and I’m doing something with it with the Numark CDJ FX I used at the time by the sounds of it.

The Nextmen make over Reno’s ‘Rock n Roll’ and do a nice pitch up trick from downtempo to UK Garage beats before The Baker Brothers who had a nice run of funk 45s on their own ARSE label around this time of which this was the third I think. This slides smoothly into The Cinematic Orchestra’s ‘Man With The Music Camera’ which was possibly preceding the album at this point. The script flips quickly into the Geezers of Nazareth, a weird little 7” which is listed as a mini-album on Discogs, containing seven tracks and apparently soundtracking the short film, ‘Pole’. I was never much of a Blur fan but their track ‘Out Of Time’ really resonated and later named Miranda Sawyer’s book about middle age which I can recommend once you get there. The spoken word about Marrakech I overlaid was because they used the Marrakech String Orchestra or something for the backing.

Quite a change of mood and pace next with Kid 606’s remix of Amon Tobin’s ‘Verbal’ and then a sequence I would use often in my DJ sets around this time with Z-Trip’s mix of DJ Shadow / The D.O.C. / Nas all blended into a party-rocking mess. Actually a lot of this second half is something I would work into DJ sets in a myriad of variations over the 00’s, that Z-Trip mix was so useful as a mix tool. I think the Quantic Soul Orchestra mix of Sunshine Anderson’s ‘Heard It All Before’ was from one of the Tru Thoughts Rebtuz 12”s that were possibly not exactly legit but would arrive in the promo post of the day, this was from the first apparently. Frenchbloke & Son’s ‘Sound of da S-Club’ is one of THE best mash ups of the day – wrong-foots everyone when they first hear it but is so stupidly obvious you have to give it to them. For some reason I decided to add a bit of Neil Sedaka into the middle as the band were possibly breaking up at the time, pop showbiz gossip in the middle of a Solid Steel mix!

I used to do the Lisa Maffia/Lil Kim mix all the time, it required a pretty swift change of the record to get the acappella in on time and then switch from the instrumental to vocal version. Mr Guder was a funk combo with Dr Rubberfunk on drums who released a couple of 45s with breaks medleys – vol.1 and 3 but no vol.2. I recently asked the good Dr what happened to vol.2, did it come out and I miss it? Apparently not, they never finished it but he still has the tapes as well as sessions for vol.4 and 5! They sound pretty good too and he’s getting to finishing them soon… The Roots’ ‘Thought @ Work’ is one of those great pieces that can legitimately be filed under ‘old school hip hop’ despite being made in 2002 without violating the trades descriptions act. The band perfectly reimagine the old Bronx park breakbeat jams and I get busy with a copy of ‘Apache’ over the top, doubling up snares before running into Grandmaster Flash’s ‘rock steady’ cut up of the same for his Strut compilation. Another dose of the Quantic Soul Orchestra comes in the form of a vocal retake of their classic ’Super 8’ track and an Ochre edit-heavy mix of Justin Timberlake’s ‘Like I Love You’ plays us out. I’m constantly surprised at how much work I put into some of these mixes, lacing much of it with relevant spoken word clips sourced from Megatrip’s Soundbank CDs – that’s what happens before you have kids!

Track list:
Lionel Vinyl – Doctorin’ The Train
Goldfrapp – Train (original)
Goldfrapp – Train (Ewan Pearson 6/8 & 4/4 mixes)
RSL – Wesley Music
Linda Lewis – I Keep A Wish (Re-edit)
Reno – Rock ‘n’ Roll (The Nextmen – The Mines mix)
Baker Brothers – Aargh, Aargh, Aargh
The Cinematic Orchestra – Man With The Movie Camera
Geezers of Nazareth – Introducing the Pole
Blur – Out of Time
Amon Tobin – Verbal (Kid 606 remix)
DJ Shadow – Right Thing (Z-Trip Get The Party Off mix pts 1 & 2)
The D.O.C. – Portrait of a Masterpiece
DJ Shadow – Right Thing (Z-Trip Get The Party Off mix pt 3+bonus beats)
Nas – I Can (acappella)
Sunshine Anderson – Heard It All Before (Quantic Soul Orchestra mix)
Frenchbloke and Son – Sound of da S Club
Neil Sedaka – Breaking Up is Hard to Do
Lisa Maffia – All Over (acappella)
Lil’ Kim – The Jump Off (instrumental/Vocal)
Mr Guder – Mr Guder Breaks 3
The Roots – Thought @ Work
Incredible Bongo Band – Apache (Grandmaster Flash Rock Steady mix)
Quantic Soul Orchestra – Walking Through Tomorrow (Super 8 Pt 3)
Justin Timberlake – Like I Love You (Ochre mix)

A classic smorgasbord of then-current releases and retro oddities laced with spoken word in the best Solid Steel style, opening with Dani Siciliano’s ‘Walk The Line’, co-produced with Matthew Herbert (we had her take on Nirvana’s ‘Come As You Are’ from the same EP a few uploads ago). I can’t remember where the dialogue about drum machines and drummers was from or which band was doing the talking but it’s verging on Spinal Tap territory. Ricci Rucker was definitely one of the leading abstract turntablists around this time as his disjointed ‘Dirt’ shows, not one for the party rocking crowd. Unlike Yasuharu Konishi’s Lesson-like breaks cut up, ‘A Tribute to Simon Harris’ which came from a flexi disc – possibly from Relax magazine in Japan.

The tempo is all over the place and that was the common thread behind DJ Zinc’s album, Faster, the title track of which follows, steadily gaining speed as did each subsequent track on his LP. Zinc was always one of the most forward-thinking of the drum n bass producers, able to turn his hand to a myriad of styles. Again, I’m not sure the origin of the spoken word I’ve garnished the beats with but it sounds pretty cosmic. Mordant Music’s ‘Dark Side of the Autobahn’ mash up slips into the mix and I always wondered how he’d done this as he appears to have stems to a number of the elements, either that or there’s some very canny EQ-ing going on. Digital Midgets’ debut EP also heralded the Lost Idol remix of the title track by label-mate James Dean who is still going from strength to strength under the moniker.

‘Shining Pain’ is a fine bit of 90’s trip hop from 2003 ‘presented’ by St. Germain on the Warner Jazz label, Soel was a frequent collaborator with him and a trumpeter to boot. A slight change of pace from smooth jazz to electronic hip hop via Prefuse 73’s remix of Beans’ ‘Mutescreamer’ next before a slightly out of tune mix into Quantic’s excellent ‘Compartiment Tueurs’ remix from the incredible Cinemix album which saw a raft of producers remixing rare French soundtrack cuts by Morricone, Roubaix and Vannier/Gainsbourg. Compiled by old friend Fred Elalouf aka DJ Oof, this was rich with more hits than misses, something these projects can sometimes suffer from and it can still be had very cheaply for a triple vinyl LP. A super-rare John Rydgren flexi disc follows – possibly grabbed from the online 365 Days project curated by Otis Fodder on WFMU as I definitely don’t have a copy.

Moving on we get a Prop track remixed by Mice Parade that comes on like a Steve Reich piece before the Diverse/RJD2/Lyric Born rap banger that is ‘Explosive’ – on Chocolate Industries who were definitely putting out some of the most interested rap of the era. Some ropey scratching from me of Sly & Robbie’s ‘Boops’ instrumental provided the intro to the CJ Scratch version so I could float the a cappella of FYA’s cover – which works for the most part but it’s a bit busy with all the samples underneath. Then it’s rap throwdown time again as I cut up two copies of The Returner’s ‘Throwdown No.1’ under Obie Trice’s ‘Got Some Teeth’ a cappella. Immediately this trio is over Missy’s ‘Pass That Dutch’ a cappella is in with Keno 1 (aka Natural Self) and The Hermit’s ‘Heavy Heavy’ – must dig that 45 out again, so tough. The second half morphs into Luke Vibert’s ‘Yoseph’ for a bit of light acid and an odd tempo change into Diplo’s Big Dada debut ‘Epistimology Suite’ and the drum machine evangelists are back. Forss’ micro-edited ‘Flickermood’ from his Soulhack debut LP plays us out with a moment of calm, like a jazzier Akufen and with that, we’re done – phew!

Tracklist:
Dani Siciliano – Walk The Line (Dani’s original mix)
Ricci Rucker – Dirt
Yasuharu Konishi – A Tribute To Simon Harris
Zinc – Faster
Dark Side of The Autobahn – Dark Side of The Autobahn
Digital Midgets – We Always Have Been (Lost Idol mix)
Soel – Shining Pain
Beans – Mutescreamer (Prefuse 73 remix)
Quantic – Compartiment Tueurs
John Rydgren – Unknown
Mice Parade/Prop – Remora (Free From The Shark remix)
Diverse feat. RJD2 & Lyrics Born – Explosive
Sly & Robbie – Boops (instrumental – CJ Scratch)
FYA – Boops (Acappella)
Return of the Returner – Throwdown No.1
Obie Trice – Got Some Teeth (Acappella)
Keno 1 & The Hermit – Heavy Heavy
Missy Elliot – Pass That Dutch (Acappella)
Luke Vibert – Yoseph
Diplodocus – Epistimology Suite (Don’t Fall/Like Cats)
Forss – Flickermood

*Apologies – I’ve been away on holiday and thought I’d posted this on Thursday night last week

An Alien Sphinx or sometimes Solid Sphinx was a 2 hour, ad-free show where we dispensed with any chat and just went heads down into the mix. I’m not sure why there were no ads (maybe advertising was lacking that week and you’d get less coverage at 1am in the morning?) but this seemed to happen a couple of times a year at KISS FM. Here’s my section from a 2 hour ‘rub’ as Matt would call it, where the four of us were present in the studio; Matt going first, then me, PC and Jon last I think – I can usually tell by the song selections or playing style. While one of us was playing the others would be slurping spoken word or ambient sounds over the top to pad out the mix, hence the busy nature of the sound field.

Kraftwerk spring out of the end of Air Liquide from Matt’s set to being mine and then into Coldcut’s own ‘Beats & Pieces’ B-side, ‘More Beats’ which gets a speed switch half way to up the tempo. Motorbass’ Ritchie Hawtin/Plastikman slow-burn remix slides in before the second Kraftwerk outing of ‘Home Computer’ which then has its own tempo switch in the second half. Drome’s ‘Hoax! What Did You Got?’ from the slept on Ninja album is riding that early drum and bass sound but with classical Indian overtones. Actually this was released on Ninja TONE, but confusion made the label retitle it Ntone – a sub-label for more electronic fair. Bedouin Ascent’s astonishing ‘Manganese In Deep Violet III’ from the Pavillion of the New Spirit EP is somehow mixed in by the skin of its teeth, one of the hardest tracks to mix ever. There’s a snatch of an unknown ambient dub cut, some War of the Worlds dialogue and then we finish with Mantonix’ ‘Get Stupid Pt.3’ which samples Art of Noise and Billy Cobham’s ‘Spectrum’ three years before Massive Attack would make it their own on ‘Safe From Harm’.

Track list:
Kraftwerk – Boing Boom Tschak
Coldcut – More Beats
La Funk Mob -Motor Bass Get Phunked Up (Electrofunk remix)
Kraftwerk – Home Computer
Drone – Hoax! What Did You Got?
Bedouin Ascent – Manganese In Deep Violet III
Unknown – unknown
Mantronix – Get Stupid (Pt.III)

My first monthly Electrik Collage radio show from April 12th is also now archived on ROVR radio, download the app to get archive access. APPLE or ANDROID

Show #1 April 2024 track list:

Coast Contra – Breathe + Stop Freestyle (DJ Food Edit)
Valentine Unlimited Orchestra – Take You Back
Resident Alien – It’s The Resident Alien
Your Old Droog & MF DOOM – Dropout Boogie
Resident Alien – Are You Ready
Tuff Crew – Soul Food
Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul – Ceci n’est pas un cliché
Edan – Real Bad Promo
Itsu Uno – Noise of the B-Boy
DJ Format – Beyond Disco
Edrix Puzzle – Lapetus
Jlin – Nyakinyua Rise
Rei Mitsui – Rekodoten Disuko
ScanOne – Serious Rhythm
Rei Mitsui – Kotozuke/Owaru
Clesse – Gehm
Raj Pannu – Elements
Beans – Pendulum
The Stone Roses – Begging You (Lakota Mix DJ Food Edit)
Emperors New Clothes – Boogie Electric
Planet Battagon – Endeavour Tugg Luke
Raj Pannu – The Heat
Prefuse 73 – Forever Chase (Scene One)
Patrick Carpenter – 27 Degrees of Sagittarius
Markey Funk – Five Minutes
Nevermen – Treat ‘Em Right (Boards Of Canada Remix – Instrumental + chorus re-edit)
The Luvmenauts – ’71 Shuttle
DJ Fingers – Pelham

A short half hour this week consisting of cover versions or mash ups. Opening with two versions of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ by The Bad Plus and Tori Amos – superimposed over each other with a splash of the original at the end. The Evolution Control Committee take a brief walk on the moon with a cluster of pitch-shifted Beach Boys’ harmonies before we get another Nirvana take, this time from Dani Siciliano in a jazz style, it seems the Seattle trio’s music lends itself to the genre nicely. I’ve always thought Pendulum’s ‘Another Planet’ could be done in a firey jazz style with a Coltrane sax blast replacing the synths but that’s one for another time.

Vicki Bennet aka People Like Us stretches and splices The Carpenters into oblivion on ‘When I Was Young’ while the Roy Merriweather Trio take on the tune which most Brits will know as the theme to Film (insert year here) with Barry Norman. It’s actually ‘I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free’ from the Jesus Christ Superstar Goes Jazz album which annoyingly doesn’t have a version of ‘Heaven On Their Minds’ but does include ‘McArthur Park’ (!?). The Quantic Soul Orchestra’s ‘Hold It Down’ (featuring an early vocal from Alice Russell) is an original and then we’re into the home stretch with Max Tundra’s take on Wings’ ‘Coming Up’ and Frenchbloke & Son’s mash up of the same with Destiny’s Child’s ‘Say My Name’ which both up the electro quota and bounce to the finish line. The final skit comes from one of Si Begg’s Noodles comps where a phone prankster plays Arnold Schwarzenegger samples down the line to a hapless employee. A short and slightly silly half an hour that I enjoyed revisiting even if it’s not a classic.

My first monthly Electrik Collage radio show drops today April 12th on ROVR radio at 2-4pm wherever you are in the world. Tune in live here https://rovr.live/#/ or download the phone app to get archive access.

Track list:
The Bad Plus – Smells Like Teen Spirit
Tori Amos – Smells Like Teen Spirit
Evolution Control Committee – Walk on the Moon
Dani Siciliano – Come As You Are
People Like Us – When I Was Young
Roy Meriwether Trio – I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free
The Quantic Soul Orchestra – Hold It Down
Max Tundra – Coming Up
Frenchbloke & Son – My Name Keeps On Coming Up

This hour is a bit of an unruly mess in places, a real hodge hodge of styles that, while mixing in tempo, certainly don’t all mix in key – Stuff & Nonsense indeed. I have to apologise for the mash up of ‘Hey Ya’ and ‘Pinball Number Count’ that kicks this off because, whilst it does kind of work with the odd time signature, it’s annoyingly out of tune, something I couldn’t hear at the time I made it. Much better is the Columbus remix of Alicia Key’s ‘You Don’t Know My Name’ using the Burning Spear track of the same name as a backing track. No idea who made it but it appeared on a 45 around this time and stayed in my record box for years. Zinc’s ‘Casa De La Musica’ is from his Faster album, love the way the off-beat pops over Alicia, and Toolshed’s take on Morricone’s theme from the Exorcist 3 was the B side of their only release on Toolshed Recordings. Loo & Placido were a drummer and bassist from different French bands (allegedly) who appeared for a couple of years in the mid-00s but amazingly still have an online presence at https://www.loo-placido.com/ – they were always a cut above a lot of the people doing mash ups I thought. ‘Work In Progress’ is from their first album – Mash Up The Tops – and adds a reggae skank to Beyonce’s hit from the Austin Powers film.

Zinga’s ‘Evil Eye’ seems to be their only release and the third and final one for OffDaWallMusic, I thought it had a catchy pop hook at the time and found some spoken word about ‘the evil eye’ and hypnotism to add to it. Skalpel’s ’1958’ got licensed to a yoghurt commercial back in the day I seem to remember and, whereas even 5 years before this would have been heresy, any notion of ‘selling out’ had long since evaporated within most of the electronic community by the mid 00’s. As the music industry started to go down the pan due to illegal downloads, any means of attracting extra revenue to shore up plummeting physical sales was a blessing. Skalpel, to me, were the last of the Ninja artists mining the older sounds of the original 90s version of the label, this couldn’t last as samples would become too problematic as the label grew. The original players on the ‘Are You Being Served?’ theme are still a mystery to me but DK and I were obsessed with it and ended up licensing the film version heard here for our Now, Listen Again mix a few years later. I’d forgotten I’d actually played the whole thing over the middle of Skalpel, thus giving it a kind of DnB makeover.

Squarepusher’s ’50 Cycles’ sees him exploring his own vocals, largely unprocessed and I think the Peter Cook dialogue in the middle comes from a promo for Godley & Creme’s ‘Consequences’ album but don’t quote me. Def Harmonic made four albums but never seemed to hit, not sure why as their brand of hip hop was melodic and intelligent. The Tiki Two mix an Ella Fitzgerald version of the old classic with some downtempo Latin breaks and I remember being given this 45 by one of the two guys responsible when he was in London from his homeland of Australia. Four Tet’s remix of Jef Gilson is taken from the Tribute To… 12” he shared with MATO that spearheaded a rediscovery of the French pianist and arranger. More French jazz from Troublemakers – spun from a one-sided 10” on Blue Note. And now more Four Tet, this time remixed by Jay Dee aka Dilla for his ‘Serious’ single and Jazi P3z’s ‘Petaco 2004’ slides in perfectly after it – at last a mix in tune at least. 8-bit video game FX mix with Latin rhythms as if they were made for each other. G Form’s ‘From The Block’ rather ruins the mood with a Northern acoustic take on Jennifer Lopez’s hit. It was taken from Cassette Boy vs DJ Rubbish’s mix album ‘Inside A Whale’s Cock Vol.1’ (I don’t think there was a follow up) and bizarrely I finally met one of the Cassette Boy duo last week as we were both giving a talk at Industry Week in Nottingham. Their talk turned into part stage invasion, part gig with a cut up of Alan Sugar which never made it to the internet that had me crying with laughter. Funny how things work out 20 years down the line.

Tracklist:
Flexus – Pinball Ya Ya
Alicia Keys – You Don’t Know My Name (Columbus remix)
Zinc – Casa De la Musica
Toolshed – Pazuzu
Loo & Placido – Work In Progress
Zinga – Evil Eye (Capp-O D mix)
Skalpel – 1958 (Skalpel remix)
Unknown – Are You Being Served (film version)
Squarepusher – 50 Cycles
Def Harmonic – Villain
Tiki Two – Caravan
Jef Gilson – Fable of Gutemberg (Four Tet remix)
Troublemakers – Every Day is an Extension of Yesterday
Four Tet – Serious (Jay Dee remix)
Javi P3z – Petaco 2004
G Form – From The Block

Banging in with Doubleclick’s entry to the Solid Steel intro competition – we had so many entries – he went on to work with Amon Tobin later on in the early incarnation of Two Fingers. San Diego’s DJ Riko’s P Funked-Up remix of LCD Soundsystem’s ‘Daft Punk Is…’ is a brilliant execution of the idea with extra female vocals to push the point home. Riko was a late-comer to the mash up craze but definitely did some memorable entries, probably best known for his ‘Whistler’s Delight’ release. Phil N’ Dog’s ‘Phat Pants’, best known for their huge ‘Doctor Pressure’ mash up, they follow it up by taking Leftfield’s ‘Phat Planet’ and Orbital’s ‘Acid Pants’ where Sparks’ Russel Mael intones “when the love track starts then the fun starts” over and over. It’s a banger but I don’t know if it came out, Phil – who today still drives his replica American police car, painted to resemble the KLF’s Ford Timelord – probably gave me a CDr with this on it. *Phil remembers: “I think I gave you the CD at Cargo if I remember correctly. No it never really came out as such. Eddy used to play it on XFM and Annie Mac on Radio 1, both from CDR’s I gave them but no vinyl pressings or anything more official were made.” Freddy Fresh comes with the first of three tracks from his Accidentally Classic album, did you know Freddy has made 26 albums over a 32 years career so far?

Another LCD mash-up pits their ‘Disco Infiltrator’ against the Star Wars Cantina Band – I’d forgotten this one, should have dug it out when I did the SW Secret Cinema. DJ Godzilla was responsible but I can’t find any release so this was probably an online download during those Wild West years of file-sharing. More Freddy Fresh with the B12-ish electro of ‘Random’ and then something that rung no bells until I googled it – Mikrosopht ‘Here Today’. Originating from a British online mash-up compilation ‘Hippocamp Ruins Pet Sounds’ which appeared at Hippocamp.net, this ambient patchwork of Beach Boys vocals and voices floats through the ether as an extraordinary example of this kind of audio collage. A similar approach was taken years later by Atticus Ross on the soundtrack for the Brian Wilson biopic, Love & Mercy. It’s the perfect bed for the extremely long build for the next track which takes up the middle section of the mix.

Autechre’s remix of Seefeel’s ‘Spangle’ from the mid 90’s was a classic in my mind the minute I heard it, despite not being released at the time for reasons unknown. I’d tried to get it on our Blech mix in some shape or form but Warp wouldn’t let us have it so I was pleased when Mark Clifford later independently released all 12.15 mins of it on his Polyfusia Records. It’s the ultimate slow burn builder from Sean and Rob and Warp later digitally released it in 2021. The next track by Hood definitely had me scratching my head – no recollection at all – but apparently they were a UK-based post rock band from Leeds, signed to Domino for the first half of the 00’s before going on hiatus. ‘Over The Land Over The Sea’ appeared on one of their last singles and pre-empts the final Freddy Fresh track of the set, the sparse electro of ‘I Go Around the World’. I don’t remember him being this electronic but he’s been all over the map in his career so it should come as no surprise. The final track comes from Bola’s fourth LP, ‘Gnayse’ (Bola-Gnayse – geddit?), the sublimely laid back sounds of Darrell Fitton on Skam overlaid with a bit of Blade Runner dialogue.

Track list:
Doubleclick – Solid Steel intro
DJ Riko – P Funk is Playing In My House
Phil ‘n’ Dog – Phat Pants
Freddy Fresh – Do You Hear It?
DJ Godzilla – Cantina Inflitrator
Freddy Fresh – Random
Mikrosopht – Here Today
Seefeel – Spangle (Autechre remix)
Hood – Over The Land Over The Sea
Freddy Fresh – I Go Around The World
Bola – Effanajor

Opening with a phone message from DK asking me to whip up a mix as he was stuck in Mexico we have a round up of stragglers from 20002. DK always seemed to be jet-setting around the globe back in the day, he’d go off for a few weeks here and there on ‘business’ and then be back only to jet off on tour again. Anyway, opening with one of two comedy skits based on Ja Rule’s then ubiquitous features on pop or rap records by an unknown comedian, these were probably downloaded from the web in those heady early days when the entire world of music seemed to be up for grabs on the feeblest of internet connections. A web search reveals that they were made by someone named David Brody for radio station Z100 NY and apparently later turned up on a 50 Cent mixtape without permission. ‘White Love’ was probably my best mash up and one I regularly played out for years to general approval from the dance floor – a ‘White Lines’ / ‘Like I Love You’ combo that just works, here in an extended form. The Splinter Group was another appearance by DK alongside old Ninja mucker Dean Smith in a one-off single that was an off-shoot from another project (splinter-geddit?).

Freeform’s ‘The Hallaboink’ was the b-side of a 7” on Skam and another Mancunian connection, Andy Votel, follows with his ‘Komedahead’ single which still gets an airing sometimes. More mash-ups with Frenchbloke and Son’s Kraftwerk/Right Said Fred collision that really shouldn’t work but does something neither could do in isolation – hence it joining the ranks of the very best of the genre. I had to look up where Luke Vibert’s ‘Feel Real Mad’ came from because it doesn’t appear on any album from that time, debuting at it did on the first Law & Auder release; a 3-track 12” also featuring Muslimgauze and Bedouin Ascent called ‘High Density 01’. Law & Auder was an interesting label that kind of caught the fall out from the demise of Rising High records for a bit, continuing to put out interesting compilations of leftfield electronic music including what must be one of the first all-female comps in 2011 which in itself was compiled 10 years before.

A prime bit of electro breakbeat from Polar next on the Certificate 18 label, straying away from DnB into other territories and then the Kid Koala-esque cut-up of Jack Planck with a mix which was in time but shouldn’t have been attempted with the swing it had on it. This was another alias of Jackknife Lee that appeared on an odd 7” on Rodeo Meat who released all sorts of oddities before being picked up by One Little Indian for a full album later on. A left turn into screeching organ funk with the Apparat Organ Quartet on David Holmes’ short-lived 13 Amp label with a car crash end mix as the former track wigs out just in time for the beat from Chief Xcel to drop. Xcel’s track mixes ‘Dear Prudence’ strings with a political message and played out the ‘Constant Elevation’ compilation on Astralwerks and here slides simply into ‘Charlie’s Theme’ from Jimi Entley Sound – an Adrian Utley / Geoff Barrow collaboration with a cover of ‘Apache’ on the flip. This now goes for silly money, hope I still have my copy.

Ja Rule is back! The second skit of Ja Ruling the cover version market mixes over the uptempo section of the former track before morphing into the frantic Busdriver ‘Imaginary Places’ where I get very scratch-happy, sorry about that. Seriously though, this track (without my scratching) is amazing, although the origin of the flute sample is alluding me right now. If only more rap was as forward-thinking as this – I was very happy to see him signed to Big Dada for three albums later on. John Kennedy’s superb remix of Aim’s ‘The Girl Who Fell Through The Ice’ is a bit of a lost classic although it doesn’t help that I’m mixing out-of-tune horns over the end of it from Jadell’s ‘To Morning’. My ear for tuning definitely wasn’t what it is now back then, there’s some wince-making moments on some of these mixes, of course, a lot of it was on the fly so sometimes you didn’t know until it was too late. Proper good soundtrack business from Jadell here with a bit of Burroughs slung over the top, this was one of the last things he did it seems, not seen him for years now.

Apologies for the rough mix into the Roots Manuva remix of The Free Association, that really was wonky but I used to love these dubs Rodney did, loose as you like, nice tempo switch up in the middle there too. Mr. Guder (featuring Dr. Rubberfunk on drums) crash in with a raw version of Herbie’s ‘Chameleon’ from Super Guder Breaks vol.1. Otto Von Schirach released a lot of his early material on Schematic out of Miami but this little number comes from a pink 7” on Imputor? (yes the ? is part of the label name) from Seattle, check their label profile on Discogs for a mission statement https://www.discogs.com/label/3497-Imputor?sort=year&sort_order=asc
Mr Dan (aka Dan Carey) plays us out with the excellent ‘Together’ which shows off his pop credentials despite being a electronic beat-fest – he’d be co-writing and producing Kylie’s ‘Slow’ that same year – and we end with another phone message from DK.

Track list:
Unknown – Ja Rule Diss
Flexus – White Love
The Splinter Group – Meaning of Life
Freeform – The Hallaboink
Andy Votel – Komedahead
Frenchbloke & Son – I’m Too Sexy to Be a Model
Luke Vibert – Feel Real Mad
Polar – Lectric
Jack Planck – 1974 Square Dance Documentary In Sound
Apparat Organ Quartet – Romantika (Live)
Chief Xcel – Multitude
Jimi Entley Sound – Charlie’s Theme
Unknown – Ja Rule Diss 2
Busdriver – Imaginary Places
Aim – The Girl Who Fell Through The Ice (John Kennedy remix)
Jadell – To Morning
The Free Association – (I Wish I Had A) Wooden Heart (Roots Manuva remix/Dub)
Mr. Guder – Chameleon
Otto Von Schirach & Sindri – Sduisant Lollipop
Mr Dan – Together

The second half of a tape from a show shared with Julia aka the Black Bitch, an excellent techno and electronic DJ who featured on Solid Steel a few times during the 90s. This is just my set, a busy half hour that jumps all over the place stylistically and kicks off with Scotland’s DJ Krash Slaughta featuring II Tone Committee and Killa Instinct. A dynamite slice up uptempo hip hop at a time when the faster Britcore styles had largely faded from the scene. Turntablist Krash Slaughta was a DMC finalist and absolutely slays on the cuts before Brian Eno’s ‘Fractal Zoom’ attempts to enter the mix but I obviously thought better of it during the manic cut-fest and opted for the more minimal St. Germain with ‘Sentimental Mood’ from the Boulevard series of 12”s. These three singles on F Communications were huge at the time, combining jazz with a heavily swung minimal house groove and still hold up.

Kushti’s UR Allstars was the second release on the short-living Octopus label and brings back lots of happy memories, there’s also a snatch of a DJ Toolz track in there too which I can’t identify. Toolz was an alias of Jazzy Jason, also part of the legendary Blapps posse, London Funk Allstars and Mad Doctor X, the four volumes he released on Ninja Tune in the early 90s were akin to the DJ Food Jazz Brakes both in style and sleeve design. Alpha Proxima’s immense ‘459 – / z’ is sadly truncated in this recording because the tape ended and had to be turned over so some is missing. The track resumes just as Autechre’s excellent remix of Scorn’s ‘Falling’ enters – another one of their classic mid 90s remixes that’s worth tracking down.

Sounds of Life was a collaboration between Photek and Source Direct’s Jim Baker and we hear their ‘Release The Bells’ here mixed in on 33rpm rather than its intended 45, I used to like a lot of my DnB on the wrong speed back then. Some Christian Marclay plunderphonics interjects far too soon and we’re treated to turntablism from the avant garde side of the tracks long before the word had been invented, this live improvisation dating from the 80s. DJ Krush’s ‘A Whim’ plays us out, a single from his Strictly Turntablized album which also birthed an excellent Alex Reece remix on 12” and two mixes by Roni Size and DJ Krust on 10” as I recall.

Track list:
DJ Krash Slaughta – Broken Needles Blown Mics
St.Germain – Sentimental Mood
Kushti – UR Allstars
DJ Tools 4 – ?
Alpha Proxima – 459 – / z
Scorn – Falling (Autechre FR 13 mix)
Sounds of Life – Release The Bells
Christian Marclay – Pandora’s Box
DJ Krush – A Whim

A dark but beautiful selection from a show I shared mix duty on with Riz Maslen aka Neotropic. My tape dates it as 30/01/98 but my online reference from Marcus Maack’s BTTB database says 04/01/1998. Whatever, it was sometime in January 1998 and this was recorded in the Ahead of Our Time studio in Clink St. most likely with engineer Ali Tod at the controls and my flanger pedal in the mix by the sounds of things.

Starting with the classic monologue about Cymatic frequencies that Coldcut used so often in shows we drift into an almost Steve Reich-ian minimalist piece from A Reminiscent Drive whose back catalogue contains a wealth of such treasures. Opiate’s ‘Small Talk Whirl’ is from his debut 12” on April Records which I can’t remember ever owning but that’s old age for you. Track 8 from the CD of Aphex Twin’s Analogue Bubblebath 3 is up next, a classic I was still dropping in my Selected Aphex Works mixes some years back.
Small Fish With Spine was/is an alias of Riz’s and she’d just released her Ultimate Sushi album on Oxygen Music Works (which I’d designed the cover for too). Not sure what I was thinking playing her new record before her, bad DJ etiquette but I was young and foolish back then. ‘Korona’ comes from the uber-rare MASK 100 12”, a very early Boards of Canada track from 1996, pre-Warp when they were still on Skam and largely unknown. Funny how you can just search for it now and it’s on YouTube, back then it was rare as hen’s teeth. There’s a snatch of Andy Partridge & Harold Budd’s ‘Mantle of Peacock Bones’ with some unidentified spoken word over the top and then Mike Paradinas finishes the first set with ‘Hi-q’ of which I can find hide nor hair of on Discogs.

The second half opens with some abstract ambience and another unknown spoken word piece, presumably from Coldcut’s might Word Treasure CD library. As One’s gorgeous ’Soliel Levant’ from his debut Reflection album slides in before the Ramsey Lewis’ Charles Stepney-produced cover of ‘Dear Prudence’ chugs through with its oddball electronic intro. Exquisite Corpse were connected to the Psychic Warriors Ov Gaia and produced what I’d call trance music in the most literal definition, the sort of tribal rhythms you could perform rituals to long into the night. ‘Cantadora’ bangs hard and comes from their 1993 album Inner Light and while I’m talking definitions; Water Melon and their comrades, Major Force are about as close to ‘trip hop’ in my mind as you could get. Their amazing Out Of Body Experience EP hosts two cuts that feature in this half hour. Harder to find outside of Japan but well worth tracking down. Another from Riz’s LP in the form of ‘Foul Play’ that more than liberally samples from Lalo Schifin’s Dirty Harry/Magnum Force soundtracks before the Prunes’ makeover of DJ Vadim’s ‘Conquest of the Irrational’ single on Ninja Tune. Finishing with another Water Melon track from the aforementioned O.O.B.E. EP and we’re out – I really enjoyed rediscovering this one, I’d probably not heard it since it was recorded over 26 years ago.

Track list:
Solid Steel jingle – The film you are about to see…
A Reminiscent Drive – Everything Is As I Am
Opiate – Small Talk Whirl
Aphex Twin – Analogue Bubblebath 3 track 8
Small Fish With Spine – In Your Own Bubble
Boards of Canada – Korona
Small Fish With Spine – Fung Koo
Andy Partridge / Harold Budd – Mantle of Peacock Bones
Mike Paradinas – Hi-q

Unknown – Unknown
As One – Soliel Levant
Ramsey Lewis – Dear Prudence
Exquisite Corpse – Cantadora
Water Melon – Moon Shaker
Small Fish With Spine – Foul Play
DJ Vadim – Conquest of the Irrational (Prunes mix)
Water Melon – Slow Boat to Mars

Mid May of 1995 was another smorgasbord of eclecticism with drum n bass making in-roads onto the show playlists. After the show’s intro and a snatch from Negativland’s plunderphonic ‘The Perfect Cut’ LP we get what may be the first outing of the Wagon Christ remix of 2 Player’s ‘Extreme Possibilities’. It’s hard to convey how exciting it was to first hear this remix, possibly Luke’s premiere public foray into DnB and a now classic milestone in the Ninja Tune catalogue. That he put this much work into such a mix is incredible and for a relatively new band consisting of Jon Tye (aka MLO/Lo Recordings) and a little-known composer named Daniel Pemberton. Daniel is now a world famous soundtrack composer of course, working on films for Marvel and Ridley Scott among others, but back then he was still at school and would come to our Stealth nights at The Blue Note before going home to study for his exams. He didn’t waste any time making inroads into the studio either, hooking up with Jon on various Lo Recordings and Ntone releases, recording with the Future Sound of London and releasing his first album on Pete Namlook’s Fax label, for which I did the artwork.

More DnB clatters in next from Sounds of Life which was Rupert (Photek) Parkes and Jim from Source Direct collaborating and taking a big chunk of FSOL’s Lifeforms by the sound of it. Spacepimp’s only outing on Clear pits a 70s car chase synth bass line against a DnB rhythm too, everyone was having a go at this ‘new’ style around this time as it emerged from its jungle origins although Spacepimp was an Acen alias so it wasn’t too much of a stretch. After an ad break there’s a swirling ambience I can’t place before the legendary Jello Biafra monologue that we used on the Coldcut Journeys By DJ mix later that year which then led on to Matt and Jon hooking up with the ex-Dead Kennedy frontman to record ‘Every Home A Prison’. Alec Empire’s debut album, Generation Star Wars kicked off with the excellent ‘Lash the 90ties’, the elongated ambient intro suddenly crashing into Aphex-ish distorted beats. Mike Ink’s ‘Rosenkranz’ came from one of the early Sahko releases and this jaunty, marching track is in stark contrast to his then usual 150bpm driving acid techno.

G-Man was Gez Varley from LFO on his first solo outing via the Swim label and this absolutely banging piece of techno is such a joy to hear, despite my fumbled mix with Mike Ink at one point. I must have visited Vienna recently because Elin’s ‘Mondlandung’ is featured and I remember Pita aka Peter Rehberg (RIP) giving me copies of the first few Mego releases when we played there of which this was the second. Soon after comes the masterful Autechre remix of Beaumont Hannant’s Psi-Onyx – all 9 minutes + of it with Ae on peak form – ah the memories… Flanging in over the end beats is a track from Caustic Visions, a group who originally debuted on Industrial Strength with nosebleed acid techno before releasing steadily more experimental fair on their own label, influenced by Aphex Twin and beyond. ‘Corner of a Sphere’ comes from their fourth self-released EP and is well worth investigating if you see a copy and enjoy forward-thinking electronica. ‘Lunatic Jam’ by Germany’s Fauna Flash takes a large chunk of DJ Food’s ‘Dark Blood’ and builds a soulful track around it, from their debut 12” on Compost. We get a snatch of the Jedi Knights’ remix of ‘Antacid’ and then it appears the tape switches to Aphex’s ‘Ventolin’ except it may be from one of my own mixes that I’d taped over as the presence of my old flange pedal in the mix is a telling sign of the era.

Track list:
Solid Steel – intro jingle
Negativland – The Perfect Cut
2 Player – Extreme Possibilities (Wagon Christ mix)
Sounds of Life – Intellect
Spacepimp – Space Chase
Unknown – Unknown
Jello Biafra – A Message From Our Sponsor
Alec Empire – Lash the 90ties
Mike Ink – Rosenkranz
G-Man – Legion
Elin – Mondlandung
Beaumont Hannant – Psi-Onyx (Psix Million Dollar Myx Oscar Goldman’s Bonus)
Caustic Visions – Corner of a Sphere
Fauna Flash – Lunatic Jam
Link & E621 – Antacid (Jedi Knights remix)
Aphex Twin – Ventolin (Deep Gong mix)