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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A section of a Solid Steel from 28 years ago today(!) that popped out at me when looking through the archive. Matt Black and Jonathan More were also in the studio and I’d wager PC was there too as the four of us would often troop up to the KISS studios on a Friday night to pre-record the Saturday night.
Both Matt and Jon would take turns on the mic and the decks with Patrick and I mixing and writing up the PRS sheets of what was played.
Mixing out of something possibly played by PC, I kick off with an often played S’Xpress ‘track’ – ‘Coma’ from a free 45 given away with Record Mirror – that consists largely of heavy respirated breathing and sonar pings. This always served as a good bridge between sets and styles and I used it a lot in my ambient sets a few years earlier. Running into Pat Metheny’s gorgeous rendering of Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint (most likely found via The Orb’s ‘Little Fluffy Clouds’ sampling) and some unidentified ambience (possibly Spacetime Continuum) before DJ Food’s ‘Cosmic Jam’ unsteadily enters the mix.

An overdub of Reich’s ‘Come Out’ interjects and there seems to be up to four sources going here – possibly two decks and two CDs. Mantronix’s ‘Mega-Mix (’88)’ is an often overlooked trip hop precursor, this sounded like the future of hip hop 1988. Justin Warfield was looking back to 1968 to move hip hop forward in the early 90s with his classic ‘My Field Trip To Planet 9’ album and Tim Simenon wisely grabbed him to front the huge ‘Bug Powder Dust’ single from his third Bomb The Bass LP. The Dust Brothers (pre-Chemical) gave it their big beat worker before the term was even coined, nicely cutting up the bass line lifted from ‘Dark Lady’ which in itself was lifted from…

Opening the next section is the famous ‘Closing of Places of Entertainment’ speech that Coldcut often played on the show – segueing into Autechre ‘Flutter’, their protest at the Criminal Justice Bill which stated that any gatherings with repetitive beats could be shut down and prosecuted. They decided to produce a track without repetitive beats, played here on my preference of 33rpm. I was heartened to hear a dedication from Matt for my old flatmate Chantal (Passamonte) who was leaving London for Sheffield at this time to go and work for Warp. Some Ninja business in the form of Up, Bustle & Out’s ‘Nightwalk’ from their debut LP (not ‘Lazy Daze’ as is read out later) into La Funk Mob’s ‘Motorbass Gets Phunked Up’, Ritchie Hawtin’s remix which seems to be jumping all over the place. Slamming straight into this is the no-compromise of Bedouin Ascent’s amazing ‘Internal Bleeding’ and then we’re rocking out with La Funk Mob’s ‘357 Magnum Force’ again from Mo Wax’s original golden run. Orbital’s ‘Sad but True’, my favourite track from their patchy third LP (after the peerless first two albums admittedly) brings the electro funk. The final track is Mu-Ziq’s aptly-titled, ‘Metal Thing #3’, I had a habit of upping the ante with my music choices until things were really quite brutal and it would take one of the others to bring things down a notch, in this case with a reggae set from Jon after the jingle at the end of this set.

S’Xpress – Coma
Pat Metheny – Electric Counterpoint I -Fast
DJ Food – Cosmic Jam
Steve Reich – Come Out
Spacetime Continuum – unknown
Mantronix – Mega-Mix ’88
Bomb The Bass – Bug Powder Dust (Dust Brothers remix)
Autechre – Flutter
Up, Bustle & Out – Nightwalk
La Funk Mob – Motorbass Gets Phunked Up (Electro Funk remix)
Bedouin Ascent – Internal Bleeding
La Funk Mob – 357 Magnum Force
Orbital – Sad But True
Mu-Ziq – Metal Thing #3

I’m fairly sure that this was the first kind of psychedelic mix that I did, largely made up of records bought whilst on tour in North America with Kid Koala and Amon Tobin during the Spring of 2000. It kicks off with something from the Blast First compilation Nothing Short of Total War (Rock Music Report) and then into some whispering piano talk from The Mothers of Invention. John Simon’s ‘Painting For Freakout’ precedes The Electric Flag’s incredible 10 minute … uh, ‘Freakout’ on the All You Can Eat soundtrack which is a fine record in the tradition of the Monkees’ Head and parts of this mix would end up in my rescore for that film later. Rod McKuen jumps on the hippy bandwagon with his soothing tones from the Takes A San Francisco Hippy Trip album with ‘Of Girls’ – warning the cover is more psychedelic than the record. The Three Ring Circus made one single and an album with a clown through a kaleidoscope on the cover which which was enough for me to check it out. Goblin’s ‘Blind Concert’ is from their classic Suspiria soundtrack and the Two Daughters track is from a Cherry Red comp from the early 80s, Perspectives and Distortion, which has all manner of interesting post punk, new wave experimentation on it including an early solo Matt Johnson track.

The Monkees’ ‘Opening Ceremony’ montage from Head makes an appearance, in the middle of the mix, before we segue into a bit of Barry Gray’s ‘Breakaway’ from the Space 1999 soundtrack, as sampled a few years previously by Tipsy for their ‘Space Golf’ tune. Susan & The Children’s Chorus was a Sesame Street spin off record, not actually on Sesame Workshop, the label of the TV show. I was already collecting funky Sesame St material around this time before approaching the company to license their Pinball Number Count and later put together a compilation. I dived into Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention pretty hard in the early 00’s, spurred on by his music concrete tape collages and Cal Schenkel’s amazing cover art. The Landlords’ ‘The Landlord’ is from the soundtrack to The Landlord – who’d have thought? This was basically an Al Kooper pseudonym and the OST has a few nice bits and pieces on it as well as a great cover.

Along with Zappa I was hoovering up David Axelrod productions including the more far out Cannonball Adderly ones and it took a little while to track down Soul Zodiac where Rick Holmes narrates the 12 signs over spacey jazz. A fairly pedestrian cover of ‘The Sound of Silence’ follows, the amount of cheap easy listening albums with vaguely funky versions of old standards was mind boggling back then. The Beatle’ ‘Jessie’s Dream’ – should probably be Aunt Jessies Dream I think and is from their Magical Mystery Tour film, it probably came from a bootleg of psyche-era stuff I was into along with all the Beach Boys Smile sessions I could find. ‘Bendix 2: The Tomorrow People’ comes from one of the greatest compilations of all time, Raymond Scott’s Manhattan Research Inc. on Basta which was newly released at the time and caught the ear of a certain J Dilla. We play out with the title track from probably the UK’s nearest equivalent to Scott, Joe Meek from his freaky space travel epic I Hear A New World, probably also a bootleg from around that time.

UPDATE: I found a second copy of this tape and it was subtitled ‘US Vinyl Excavations Pt.1’ so here is the missing part, I’ve updated the title to reflect that.

The Mothers of Invention – Are You Hung Up?
John Simon – Painting For Freakout
Rod McKuen – Of Girls
Three Ring Circus – Fantastic Voyage
Goblin – Blind Concert
Two Daughters – Return Call/We Are
The Monkees – Opening Ceremony
Barry Gray – Breakaway
Susan & The Children’s Chorus – The Counting Song
The Mothers of Invention – Flower Punk
The Landlords – The Landlord
Cannonball Adderly – Cancer
Groovin’ Strings and Things – The Sound of Silence
The Beatles – Jessie’s Dream
Raymond Scott – Bendix 2: The Tomorrow People
Joe Meek & The Blue Men – I Hear A New World

A quick round up of what can now be seen as a golden age for UK and US independent hip hop from the middle of 2000. This is the first half of an hour long mix that concludes with a psychedelic mix (next week).
Def Tex on the Ninja-affiliated Son Records from their Synchronise EP – hugely underrated IMO, early PUTS from their second album and Jurassic 5 making their second album comeback with lead single, Quality Control. One Cut – straight outta Bristol from a 12” that now goes for an eye-watering price due to its Banksy cover then Mark B & Blade with a crazed cut up instrumental of their ‘Ya Don’t See The Signs’ 12”. Styles of Beyond were from the US and made a ton of singles, this one was actually from 1998 and The Nextmen’s DJ cut from their debut LP, ‘Amongst The Madness’.
‘The Last Tune’ from Task Force’s amazing Voice of the Great Outdoors single samples a snatch of ‘Caravan’ from some easy listening LP I can’t remember now – check the whole 12” if you can. Advertising The Invisible were Brad from The Nextmen and Cept 148 and I totally recognise that bass sound but can’t place it. Yes that is a Morcheeba track but it’s a banger featuring Biz Markie and we finish with a classic from the Jungle Brothers although it’s the remix version.

Track list:
Def Tex – Written Response
People Under The Stairs – Code Check
Jurassic 5 – Quality Control
One Cut – Underground Terror Tactics
Mark B & Blade – Ya Don’t See The Signs
Styles of Beyond – Spies Like Us
The Nextmen – We Originate
Task Force – The Last Tune
Advertising The Invisible – Making Heads Turn
Morcheeba – In The Hands of the Gods
Jungle Brothers – J Beez Comin’ Through (remix)

Part 2 of the Version Aversion mix kicks off with another ‘dictionaroake’ cover, of Ken Nordine’s ‘Flesh’ of all things! Go here for more of an explanation of this strange medium: http://www.dictionaraoke.com/ I’d always loved ‘The Man With The Golden Arm’ theme, hearing the Jet Harris version on a tape my dad had when I was a kid. What happens if you take three different versions and synch them up to play simultaneously, cutting back and forth frequently? Listen and find out. This strings and drums version of ’Strawberry Fields Forever’ was possibly taken from one of the Anthology compilations, chock full of interesting Beatles outtakes.

The Roy Meriwether Trio take on the Nina Simone’s ‘I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free’ and then we get another excerpt from the Langley Schools Music Project album, this time with excerpts of a radio documentary interspersed telling the story of how it came to be. Bowie’s ’Space Oddity’ gets the treatment and again, the eerie oddness of not quite trained voices with strange arrangements gives it a unique quality. Monk Higgins provides Gang Starr with a sample on ‘Little Green Apples’ from his ‘Extra Soul Perception’ LP and ‘Brother’ John Rydgren pervs out over ‘Music To Watch Girls By’. Finally, a remix rather than a cover, Bill Laswell does the impossible and takes electric Miles Davis and makes something decent out of it from the Panthalassa remix project. This 1998 album is worth tracking down, Laswell gets given the masters to run riot with in the studio and creates four extended soundscapes, each ranging around the 15 minute mark from music written 1969-74. It’s respectful as he doesn’t attempt to contemporize the sounds, instead extended and dubbing them out into Orb-like epics, an hour of fusion-era Miles, reimagined 25 years later by a master.

Track list:
Ken Nordine – Flesh
Billy May & His Orchestra – The Man With The Golden Arm
Jet Harris – The Man With The Golden Arm
Jack Nitzche – The Man With The Golden Arm
The Beatles – Strawberry Fields Forever (Take 7)
Roy Meriwether Trio – Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free
Langley Schools Music Project – Space Oddity
Monk Higgins – Little Green Apples
John Rydgren – Music to Watch Girls By
Miles Davis – Rated X /Billy Preston (Bill Laswell reconstruction)

The first of two ‘Version Aversion’ mixes – various covers in all sorts of styles – I love a good cover version, one that takes the original and does something weird with it ideally. The opening ‘Girl From Ipanema’ is a good example – this kind of cover was called ‘dictionaraoke’ – using computer-generated words to voice a cover version. There were a spate of them on the web around this time and I have a feeling it’s connected to Negativland by the mentions on this website http://www.dictionaraoke.com/ . Having just had the beginnings of the mash up craze (which was still gaining momentum) and being perpetually on the look out for the latest thing, I was convinced this was the answer. Instead it was a fun novelty that got old quite fast.

The Lenny Constanza version of Kylie’s ‘Can’t Get You Out Of My Head’ I have a vague memory might have something to do with Rob Galliano. The only mention of it on Discogs is on a compilation called The Selector from Hungary but I’m sure I have it on a 7” somewhere.
Julius Brockington’s version of ‘Rock Steady’ gets mixed with a bit of Aretha’s original, not always successfully but there’s some nice scratching in there. Johnny Hammond smooths out Carole King’s ‘It’s Too Late’ into an easy organ instrumental before Breakestra cover The Vibrettes’ ‘Humpty Dump’ in convincing analogue style. Mixing Digital Underground’s ‘The Humpty Dance’ over the top at rapid speed may not have been a good idea but it occasionally works. Christ, an Elbow track! This cheeky rinky dink cover of Destiny’s Child was from something on Twisted Nerve, possibly the Jukebox series of 7”s that yielded all sorts of oddities.

The Langley Schools Music Project was one of those records that just appeared and everyone was talking about it. The first of the privat press ’school music’ recordings I remember being reissued and their take on The Carpenters’ eerie but evergreen, ’Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft’ is so epic it has to qualify as one of the greatest covers ever. Little Miss Trintron was another Twisted Nerve oddity who produced one single and a couple of compilation appearances before disappearing leaving this 8-bit version of The Eagles’ ‘Hotel California’ for us to mull over. Again, placing the original vocal over parts of it at a greatly reduced speed wasn’t maybe the best idea in the world. With all these little mixes where they’re mainly unmixed selections I was trying to tart them up and give value for money by overdubbing spoken word and extras on top, usually using a computer by this stage.

No mix next week as I’m on holiday but there will be the second part of this set once I return.

Track list:
Mittelschmerz – Girl From Ipanema
Lenny Constanza – Can’t Get You Out Of My Bed
Julius Brockington – Rock Steady
Johnny Hammond – It’s Too Late
Breakestra – Humpty Dump
Digital Underground – The Humpty Dance
Elbow – Independent Woman
Langley Schools Music Project – Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft
Little Miss Trinitron – Hotel California