Out today, another banger from Soundsci – this time concentrating on Oxygen. ‘1-4-9′ is under two minutes and comes with an instrumental to match on the same side, surely a first for a 45? This is the second in a trilogy of 45s from the crew before they drop their LP, ‘Walk The Earth’ and features a great cover from Paul ‘Sub2’ Trewin who also did all the character designs for the 45 Live roster earlier this year. Buy it here before it goes
Ted Coconis – love this cover art, he didn’t do many record covers but the ones he did are beautiful.
Earlier this year I was asked by the organisation ‘Give Crohn’s A Slap From Me’ if I would provide them with a mix as their remit is to help raise awareness of the disease through art, music and design. For their hospital radio slot they’ve already had the likes of DJ Vadim provide one and I wanted to do something a little different that would, potentially, bring more people to the site than your standard mix selection.
I always wanted to do a follow up to the ‘Selected Aphex Works 1’ mix I did early in 2015 for Solid Steel, an 86 minute collection of my pick of the bunch of tracks uploaded to Richard D. James‘ User48736353001 Soundcloud account during the early months of that year. The plan is to hopefully get some of the near 100,000 people who listened to the first mix to come to the Crohn’s site for more so, beginning from the place where the first left off, here’s a second volume, culled from tunes uploaded after the first mix was finished.
Up until mid February 2015 there were around 160 tunes to choose from but, as I was completing the first mix, there were still more tracks being uploaded. At various times after the transmission date on Solid Steel of Feb 24th around 90 more were uploaded with the final total being an estimated 275 tracks before they were deleted. There were more than enough to make another mix and there could easily be a third from all the songs that wouldn’t fit or didn’t make the grade the first time round. There are albums worth of material as good as any official Aphex release in the Soundcloud uploads, which I view as one of the most important ‘releases’ of 2015.
On the subject of Aphex, I recently found this poster below, designed in my third year at Camberwell College of Art in 1993. I’d recently discovered his music via Colin Dale‘s Outer Limits show on KISS FM and took inspiration from his music to make my own designs for releases – this one being ‘Xylem Tube’ on R&S. The original design was supposed to be portrait but I prefer it landscape now with the benefit of hindsight.
I did some pack shots of the new Belbury Poly LP for Jim Jupp at Ghost Box. The multi-coloured cover art and Rainbow-esque inner sleeve does the music justice; a seemingly random collection of tunes emanating from approximately 1974. Autobahn-era Kraftwerk meets Glitter Band glam stomp meets folk-tinged vocals and sunshine Sesame Street ‘ba-ba-bum’ singalong harmonies. New Ways Out is a perfect title for this release in many ways, it’s his most curious and varied work to date and – much the same as The Soundcarriers and Hintermass releases – pushes out of the usual territory you’d expect from the label. Be prepared to be taken in new directions on 10 track vinyl and 11 track CD, up for pre-order on the Ghost Box shop now.
Also coming soon is Other Voices 08 featuring two tracks from Beautify Junkyards on June 10th…
Juice Aleem has signed to Gamma Proforma, a move so fitting it’s a wonder he wasn’t affiliated with the label before (he did use to be in a group called Gamma after all). The first single is called ‘Warriors’ and you can download it free and pre-order his forthcoming album, ‘Voodu Starchild’, too over here.
“Three legendary synth musicians compete in a cosmic battle for synth dominance, in this recently-unearthed concert from 1986.” From Adult Swim, I defy you to show me anything as funny as this today
Bit late on posting these as it’s been on for a few weeks but I thought I’d let RSD die down a bit and there’s still time to view the Secret 7″ entries before buying day. As every year, I went along to see what was being cooked up on the custom 45 front. This year they reside in the Sonos building in Shoreditch and the sleeves are displayed until May 1st. On May 2nd they are all up for grabs at £50 each which, this year, goes to Amnesty International UK. There are 700 this year and, if you go, make sure you check upstairs as I nearly missed that half.
I totally forgot to post this last weekend as I was away. After their storming gig in London in February I asked Tim Gane from COAM if he’d be up for a Solid Steel mix for us. Not only did he say yes but he delivered two exclusive hour long mixes titled ‘Whiteout Mix’ and ‘Blackout mix’ that parallel each other with some of the same artists appearing on both hours. As a result we gave the whole of last week’s show over to him.
“An abstracted trawl through some prized recordings. Music can be like a fever dream with no rational interpretations possible and all these tracks have given me that rush. Over the years they have shown me the door and window to another kind of sound and new forms of composition and an endless collage of possibility.Totally shocking listening to these tracks again and putting the mix together. I have included one of my own mess about loops from about 8 or 9 years ago.”
Psychedelic stoner rock from Dead Sea Apes with a gorgeous cover by Luke Insect on Sunrise Ocean Bender and Cardinal Fuzz. More info, sound and buy options here
Zyprazol 7″ animation picture disc by Sculpture from Sculpture on Vimeo.
As usual with Sculpture, they just knock things out the park again with this new single/video. More ideas in one second of music and video that most songs in the top 40. Pre-order here.
The Comet Is Coming celebrate the release of their debut album Channel The Spirits on The Leaf Label, King Shabaka, aka Shabaka Hutchings (also of Sons Of Kemet and Melt Yourself Down) drops his first mixtape with a quality selection of music personal to him.
“I’ve never done a mixtape before so when asked to do this I immediately though back to my favourite DJs and what their selections did for me. I love it when I hear massive leaps in genre during a set which seem to make sense despite all the odds and retain a trajectory of intensity. Immediately I think of Gaslamp Killer who I toured with last year and was able to see him do his thing up close, and Ntone Edjabe who is a DJ extraordinaire based in Cape Town. These are all tunes that have meant a lot to me at various points in my life so it’s interesting for me to see the narrative which connects them.”
This looks great, a new(ish) 2 hr documentary about a number of electronic music pioneers and companies, soundtracked by I Monster with guests into a big electronic concept album. Buy the film and album here
Czech this out (sorry, couldn’t resist) via Jonny Trunk’s fabulous weekly newsletter comes a trailer for a remastered mix of live action and animated collage from 1958 (!) Think Jules Verne meets Terry Gilliam.
The launch party for Jonny’s new book, ‘The Music Library’, last night was excellent with a bit of celeb-spotting going down (Jarvis, Matt Berry) and a storming reggae cover version set from Jerry Dammers. The book is an expansion of the original version he released 10 years ago, this time with twice as many covers and a nifty, if pricey, slipcased edition with a 10″ record. There is of course a reasonably priced version without either of those two as well, get them both here.
Yes, you read that right, Stolid Seal, not Solid Steel unfortunately as this mix got squeezed out of the selection process due to an overflowing number of guest mixes piling up for the show. I asked Glyn and PK from The Dandelion Set to do a mix last year after the band had played at the Delaware Road event in Reading. To me this is prime SS material and he’s done a sterling job but alas, it wasn’t to be. But, by the miracle that is the internet, you can still hear it and see what you’re missing.
I’ve featured The Dandelion Set before, way back when their releases were confined to digital only, and I’m now pleased to learn that their debut album is coming out on a favourite label of mine, Buried Treasure. It also features the sleeve notes, lyrics & vocals of none other than Alan Moore (surely no introduction necessary?) among others. Inhabiting the worlds of folk, radiophonics, jazz, psychedelia, library music, soundtracks and spoken word, the album is packed with over 20 tracks and enough tricky time signatures to require some very deep listening. ‘A Thousand Strands’ is out April 22nd on CD, LP, cassette (yes!) and download from Buried Treasure. Beautiful cover too
DEEZER – Music Unleashed from CRCR on Vimeo.
Fantastic animation by CRCR using designs by McBess and a remixed ‘Wannamama’ by Pop Levi.
The, by now, ubiquitous Ghost Box post when they release a new record (they’re not paying me, honest). Hintermass – a collaboration between Jon Brooks and Tim Felton – just came out on LP, CD and DL and lovely it is too. Next up is an album by Belbury Poly (at last!), Jim Jupp‘s recording alias which is coming in May. Download these two posters HERE.
The vinyl heads among you may want to jump sharpish over to the Drumetrics store and secure a copy of this gorgeous op art-covered, die-cut triangular picture disc and sleeve (300 copies only). If you don’t know about Drumetrics then you need to visit their site
New Shadow album campaign starting, check the track on his site djshadow.com
The First Book Of Jazz (1955) is the third of five books that Langston Hughes (1902-1967) wrote for the Franklin Watts First Books series. “When boys and girls FIRST start asking why?…what?…and how? FIRST BOOKS are the first books to read on any subject.”
Cliff Roberts (1929-1999) was a cartoonist and animator. His cartoons appeared in magazines such as The New Yorker and Playboy. He worked as an animator on Sesame Street, and wrote and drew the short-lived Sesame Street newspaper comic strip.
Image and text cribbed from Ariel S. Winter’s Flickr where he has the full book scanned. For more information see this blog post
