Records

Howlround ‘A Creak In Time’ LP and film


I’ve been looking forward to this since I had a sneak peak about a month ago, the new Howlround album is also the soundtrack to a film called ‘A Creak in Time’. Two years in the making, “A Creak In Time is a film directed by Steven McInerney exploring the interrelation of the macrocosm and microcosm navigating its journey through time in two parts. The soundtrack has been composed entirely from creaking objects and manipulated on magnetic tape machines.”
The film is “…Taken from source material discovered in London, Yosemite and the Mojave desert, these sounds, through simple manipulation, gradually cast off their moorings and head into space, leaving their original identities far behind and chiming perfectly with the film’s recurring themes of transformation and altered perception, switching scale in a heartbeat from microscopic topography to the vast distances of the cosmos. Shot entirely on 16mm film with a musique concréte soundtrack, it’s both science and fiction and marks a dramatic new direction for all involved”.

Howlround CreakLP
Available to pre-order on McInerney‘s audio-visual Psyché Tropes label now, the LP comes with a download and link to an online stream of the full film. You can order it here or, if you want to see it and hear Howlround live they’re playing a launch party in London on Dec 10th at Iklectik as part of Pascal Savy‘s two day residence. The night after they’ll be doing a more traditional tape loop set at the Brunel Museum as part of the Film Sound Performance weekend – more info and tickets here (no tickets on the door).

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The Diskery, Birmingham

Diskery outside
Last weekend I played at The Dark Horse in Moseley, Birmingham and a fine gig it was too. The day after, Thomas, the promoter, and DJ Cro took me to The Diskery, supposedly the oldest record shop in the UK. It’s the kind you only run across occasionally these days, seemingly held together by the records pinned to every surface. Stuck in a time warp, a perfectly preserved example of your classic secondhand record shop of old, despite the Record Store Day banner in the window. There were so many records in every nook and cranny, on several floors, that I barely scratched the surface whilst I was there. We were offered tea almost immediately on entry and the two hours I had before my train yielded some great 45s, some of which are below. Definitely one of my favourite record shops in the UK and I want to go back and spend the whole day in there…

Diskery est1952 Diskery ceilingDiskery insideDiskery shelvesDiskery dolls Diskery stickersDiskery FCJuddDiskery Action Man Diskery happytime Diskery Huegel Paris Diskery JingleDiskery ListenMoveDanceDiskery Rhythm Diskery SparkyDiskery 3 blind mice
More about this flexi disc in a future post…

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The Karminsky Experience Inc. Beat LP launch

Karminsky LPs
Thursday evening last week saw the release of this fab record; ‘Beat!’ by The Karminsky Experience Inc. and they had a party above a pub in the middle of Soho to celebrate. It was small, hot, packed and great. I hadn’t seen them for years so it was nice to catch up and the music was spot on. I even danced a bit, which is very rare for me. The album is out now, packed full of beautifully cinematic / library / funky / exotic sounds and anyone who opens a side with snatches of John Rydgren closely followed by Ken Nordine is alright with me. You can buy it on vinyl, cassette and DL here.

Karminsky bagKarminsky Exp Karminsky OptiKarminsky tape

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The vinyl reissues we actually want this Black Friday

8Slightly late as I had a crazy weekend but still relevant as the consumer chaos and pressing plant queues will testify. I canvassed opinion from various DJs, collectors, sellers and artists as to what their top reissues/represses would be come the next Record Store Day and presented them to The Vinyl Factory.

You can see and read our choices HERE

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De:tuned Brainbox compilation artwork

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As you’ll be aware if you read this blog, I’ve designed the artwork for the new 6xLP ‘Brainbox’ compilation from Belgian label, De:Tuned. This was somewhat of a dream job in every sense as not only did I have multiple surfaces to play with but the design brief was an ideal one from the start. Ruben Boons, label manager, came to me over a year ago wanting something that jumped off from my work with Amon Tobin around the ‘Out From Out Where’ album sleeves which is one of my personal favourite designs and was exactly where my head was at this particular time. Using similar methods of assembly and composition I created a main image that everyone was happy with (which became the cover) and then remixed it mulitple times to form images for the rest of the compilation. Everything you see here stems from at least part of the cover image.

From the off it seemed that Ruben and I was on exactly the same page and any suggestions he made always bettered the designs and, as I’d been given pretty much free reign over what to produce, this made the whole process even more enjoyable. There’s nothing worse that presenting a client with multiple variations of a job and them picking the weakest one. From experience I try never to send any examples of prospective designs on a job that I ultimately wouldn’t be happy to see in print but there are always favourites. No such worries on this job, it was bliss from beginning to end and I couldn’t be happier with the final result. There are only 300 box sets out there (I know mine says 304 below, that’s part of a small overun for the artists involved) and each comes with a download code for those who like their music digital – there is no CD though, another godsend as one of the most boring parts of a job like this is reformatting a design down to a small version for a CD.

You can hear excerpts from it and more above in this Solid Steel mix I made and buy it from the many links below:
Juno: bit.ly/2eD3NzG Bleep: bit.ly/2dsrXzY Hardwax: bit.ly/2f51Tdr Rushhour: bit.ly/2eN9dsN
Norman: bit.ly/2errQmc Japhy: bit.ly/2eaHxOU Decks: bit.ly/2emIWni Deejay.de: bit.ly/2eN2VwO

NB: Each disc was given a subtitle as well as a number, referring to different parts of the brain: Frontal, Cerebellum, Parietal etc. also, the last image below is of a sticker that comes with the box.

BBnumberBBbottom BBinners3 BBbox+innersBBinners2 BBinnerstext BBinner6 BBinner4Bblabel2BBinner1BBinner7 BBlabel1 BBinner5BBinner5.2BBinner2 BBsticker

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FourFromFoodFridays 10

FourFromFoodFridays10Four From Food Fridays – a weekly look at four records that have been doing it for me. They can be new or old, any style so long as it’s been getting some rotation in the studio. From top left:
Heldon.6 – Interface (Superior Viaduct) LP
Grupo De Experimentacion Sonora Del ICAIC – S/T (Areito) LP
Howlround – Tales From The Black Tangle (The Fog Signals) LP
Cavern of Anti-Matter – I’m The Unknown (Duophonic) 12″

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DJ Food at Spiritland Oct 2016

Spiritland records
My recent 4hr set from Spiritland – the new venue just behind Kings X station in London – is now online for your enjoyment. I certainly had a good time playing there and count it as one of my favourite gigs of 2016. The sound system is out of this world, the beer good, the company was great and I’ve even listened back to the full mix a couple of times and enjoyed it, something I rarely do with my own work. There’s no dancefloor and mixing and scratching is discouraged due to the audiophile nature of the set up there (vertically positioned rotary Bozak mixer). The speakers are the stars of the show as well as the rack-mounted kit behind the DJ booth. It’s free and they have an amazing line up of DJs on every night of the week.


Spiritland speakers Spiritland mixer
Spiritland board

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DJ Food Russian excursion

SB6

I’ve been so busy of late I’ve not had the time to update the blog. Last weekend I traveled to Russia for a couple of gigs and visited a huge basement record shop in Moscow called Sound Barrier. It was so huge and stuffed with records that I was overwhelmed after two hours in there although that could have been from the heating blasting out and the crazy high prices on the records.

SBoutsideSB5 SB4

Whenever I travel I try to buy local records from where I am and luckily the Russian discs I bought were cheap. I found many issues of Krugazor, the 7″-sized magazine with several flexi discs in each issue and some beautiful covers. I’ll feature them more in a separate Flexibition post but here are some shots of the shop and some other finds. SBKrug3 SBKrug2 SBKrug1 SBAlice SB3 SB2 SBGroupo SB1 SBOrg SBcorridor

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Howlround vs DJ Food at the Museum of London

MOLTorchpurple
I had such a good time last night at the Museum of Last Parties event at the Museum of London – improvising with turntables and FX alongside Jonny Trunk and Howlround‘s tape loops in the room that houses Thomas Heatherwick‘s Olympic Torch. Moon rock beanbags and video compilations of psychedelic space film clips set it off nicely – my favourite gig of the year so far.

MOLStemsTapemachineMOLHowlroundDJFoodsetupMOLChrisJonnyRobin
MOLTapePlayers
We recorded 3 hours of the set so now have to go through it and see if any bares repetition / broadcasting. After the event we trooped over to the Lo & Behold event at the State 51 HQ in Shoreditch and caught Jon Tye and Pete Fowler‘s DJ sets. Sadly we’d missed The Pattern Forms and Grasscut plus a screening of the Delia Derbyshire soundtracked ‘Circle of Light’ film, supplied by Jonny. Speaking of film soundtracks, I was treated to a sneak preview of a film, ‘A Creak In Time’ that Howlround have soundtracked for their next (imminent) record, and it is beautiful, all macro/microscopic imagery and perfect for their eerie soundscapes. I’ll be featuring it here when it’s due for release for sure.

MOLRoomMOLBeanbags2 MOL_ScreensbeanbagsMOLBeanbags MOL_Howlround MOLTorchStemsMOLRobintapeMOLChrisJonnyRobinKev

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FourFromFoodFridays 9

FourFromFoodFridays9Four From Food Fridays – a weekly look at four music releases / mixes that have been doing it for me. They can be new or old, any style so long as it’s been getting some rotation in the studio. From top left:
Various Artists – Brainbox 6xLP (De:tuned) (DJ Food promo mix coming soon)
Startled Insects – Lifepulse LP (Sense)
Various Artists – Plastic Dance mix by Doug Shipton (Vinyl Factory) forthcoming LP on Finders Keepers/Cache Cache
Edward Artemeiv – Moods LP (Melody)

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De:tuned ‘Brainbox’ compilation preview and pre-order

Detunedteaser
You can now pre-order and listen to parts of all the tracks for the forthcoming ‘Brainbox’ compilation that I have provided the artwork for on De:tuned records from Belgium. The line up is immense and all the tracks are exclusive, this has taken a long time and a lot of care to put together. The box consists of 6 vinyl LPs, each in full colour inner sleeves with unique artwork and is limited to 300 copies. There is a digital DL version too but no CD, the box set also comes with a DL code and a sticker. The line up reads like a who’s who of 90s electronica: Plaid, As One, FSOL, Scanner, Meat Beat Manifesto, Speedy J, MuZiq, B12, Mike Dred, David Morley, Christian Vogel… and the quality of the content is very high. Pre-order here

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Black Friday releases

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Now that Black Friday (25th Nov) seems to be ‘a thing’ in this country we have what’s become known as ‘Record Store Day 2’ creeping in just before the Xmas rush with yet another date to cram the pressing plants as the vinyl reissues keep flowing. The list got released this week and I’m very pleased to see these two on it.
Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner and Richard Alpert‘s hard-to-find-cheap outing ‘The Psychedelic Experience’, originally on Broadside Records and later, Folkways, and chock full of spoken word that has been plundered by many over the years in sampled form. Pressed on magenta splatter vinyl apparently.

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A great-looking reissue of an underrated but utterly essential hip hop classic is the Jungle Brothers‘ ‘Done By The Forces Of Nature’ from Get On Down. Originally released in 1989 and featuring a post ‘3 Feet…’ De La Soul, Queen Latifah, Monie Love, Q-Tip and DJ Towa Tei (just before he found worldwide fame with Deee-lite), this is the whole crew at the height of their powers and possibly the moment that the Native Tongues posse were most united. It’s a sample smorgasbord too from a time when you could still ransack the past for the finest funk, jazz and afro beats imaginable. For me, this is up there with De La Soul, Beastie Boys and Public Enemy as one of the finest rap albums of all time. Originally pressed on a weedy single disc, it always suffered from poor sound quality and a new double vinyl edition has been a long-standing want within the hip hop community.

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Alex Bartsch – Covers book kickstarter

COVERS – a book by ALEX BARTSCH from Alex Bartsch on Vimeo.
Sometimes someone comes up with an idea so simple it has ‘surefire hit’ written all over it. Here’s one coming now; photographer Alex Bartsch is taking the sleeveface craze to the next logical stage (‘sleevescape’ anyone?) by matching architectural aspects of London with record covers that feature them. Specifically it seems, reggae records, and the results so far are excellent. A Kickstarter for a book of the photos has just launched, you can pledge here and there’s an exhibition in the planning. Follow Alex on Instagram too buk-in-hamm+V.2 Rain Musical+Doctor_0024171+copy

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The Pattern Forms LP out today

Out today on LP, CD and DL – The Pattern Forms is a new Ghost Box supergroup formed of the mysterious, media-shy, man-who-can-do-no-wrong Jon Brooks and vocalists Ed Macfarlane and Edd Gibson of Friendly Fires. The album is gorgeous, full of beautiful, yearning songs of love and loss, perfect autumnal audio occasionally lifted by electro/disco stylings, it shouldn’t work but it does. I wasn’t sure at first, after the dark electronica of Pye Corner Audio‘s ‘Stasis’, it seemed quite a whimsical release, but the more I listen the more the songs seep into me and it may be one of the most accessible GB releases yet. Order here

Artwork comes from the ever-excellent Julian House as well as the teaser promo film above and there’s a Rough Trade exclusive version of the LP with an alternate cover and translucent green vinyl. The band will be playing tonight from 6pm at Rough Trade East off Brick Lane in London to launch the record and Julian will be DJing too. Check the special library records mix they knocked up the other week too for Radio Belbury.

Peel-Away-CDandLP-small-450x450Peel Away - Poster

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Vanishing Twin

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I’m loving this new album by Vanishing Twin, a new group spawned from members of Orlando, Zomgamin, Neon Neon and more and produced by Malcolm Catto. Taking off where The Soundcarriers left off on their last album for Ghost Box and drawing immediate comparisons to Broadcast and Stereolab‘s blend of pop meets radiophonica they create an otherworldly mix of tunes, tones and textures on the album, ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’.

Check the video and band photo below too, thank god we still have people willing to put as much effort into presenting themselves as they do writing music, there’s only so many bored / earnest producers standing against brick walls or sitting in studios that one can take. The album is available on Soundway Records, there’s LP, CD and DL but the regular black vinyl is sold out, only the green version is left. There’s even a gorgeous screenprinted poster of the artwork too! (no credit for the designer on the album though?)

VTbandVTlabel VT inner VT inner2

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