Check that line up! Next Saturday – Dec 5th – new and old Blech set, one time only
Christian Tjaben does a bi-weekly radio show on byte.fm out of Hamburg. Today at 4pm GMT (5pm local German time) his programme looks at almost 20 years of dj food sounds including music from the new EP.
Tune in here
Last weeks’ Solid Steel mix – the Kraftwerk Kover Kollection vol.6 – now up on Soundcloud. 1 hour of songs covering, sampling or influenced by the other Fab Four. The full 6 volumes + artwork and track lists are up for the download at BosBos.net too!
This has got to be a dream. No one makes better toys vs the best weekly sci-fi comic in the galaxy. I think I might be very poor over the next few years.
Absolutely my last Kraftwerk post for a while (I promise). Because ‘The Catalogue‘ is released today, here’s a couple of YouTuber’s attempting to play one of my favorite tracks – Pocket Calculator – on the original instruments used. Mattel Bee Gees Rhythm Machine? I want one!
Another Kraftwerk post (I’ll have to give them their own category) and time for the sixth installment of my Kraftwerk Kover Kollection to coincide with the final release of the remastered Catalogue box set on Monday.
It’s up for a week, streaming via the Solid Steel site and I’ll be making it available via Soundcloud when the next show replaces it.
For those unfamiliar, I do these hour long mixes every year or so featuring cover versions, sample-heavy tracks or songs that obviously owe a debt to the Dusseldorf quartet. I had the idea to string these sources together several years ago and the more I dug, the more I found, the amount of material out there is mind boggling. Not so strange for such an influential band who rarely release new material, I suppose fans have to fill the gap somehow. For anyone wanting to play catch-up, the first 4 are available here with full artwork and track listings and I’ll be putting 5 up with 6 next week too.
At a festival in Warsaw the other week, DK and I had the pleasure of seeing ex-Kraftwerk member Karl Bartos play. I was surprised at how much of the set was old material mixed with his solo stuff. His stage show pales compared to his former bands’ but he had full visuals and 5.1 sound all mixed live and hearing a new take on classic tracks was well worth the time we took to check him out.
Ran across this whilst looking for something else – genius. Finally getting round to doing the Kraftwerk Kover Kollection volume 6 this week to tie in with the release of The Catalogue.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation recently ran a documentary on copyright law in their Background Briefing slot on Sunday nights. They used some clips from my Raiding The 20th Century mix as well as Steinski, Lawrence Lessig, Dangermouse‘s Grey Album, Girl Talk, Good Copy, Bad Copy etc.
You can listen or download it here for a limited time
Here are 3 tracks from my next EP, streamable via Soundcloud – there 5 tracks in all with a further 3 remixes on the download. Sentinel is a collaboration with DK and GIANT is a cover of The The without the vocal which will be added to a remixed version on the album. If you want to buy it and click the link it will take you to iTunes but the EP isn’t out until Dec 14th now so you’ll have a bit of a wait…
DJ Food – ‘The Shape of Things That Hum’ (Promo) by Ninja Tune
Ashley Wood is one of my favourite artists, he is ridiculously prolific, can draw and paint like a demon and designs very unique robots. They manage to look both futuristic and retro and they’re always battered, scratched, rusty and dirty. Not only does he draw and paint them but his company 3A makes them a reality in various different scales (1/6, 1/12 and a forthcoming 1/32 scale series’).
His Bramble bot in 1/12 finally arrived the other week, well actually three did – Merc, Medic and Deep Powder variants, all perfect miniatures of the existing 1/6 scale Bramble. The detail is unbelievable and each is articulated in a multitude of places. I’ve ordered a set of Berties in 1/12 too which should be ready for Xmas. All these sets sell really fast and are then made to order although some are starting to make their way into retail chains as well as being flipped on eBay.
No one makes better robots, 3A are slowly revolutionising the way toys are made, designed, packaged and painted.
Got this last week, hard to take a photo but it’s spot varnish on black again, highlighting Henry Flint‘s line work
I know it’s a bit late but I wanted to share these two pumpkins I carved for the kids’ party.
Got back from Bristol Solid Steel where DK and I played with Hexstatic, King Cannibal, DJ Cheeba and Moneyshot as well as D.O.P. of course. The others all rocked it but we fell foul of some technical problems and just plain sloppy mixing in the middle of the set. We’d spent a week making up quite a complex video piece that we’d never tried before and it was a seat of our pants execution.
Saturday night was the Big Chill House alongside Cheebs again (who rocked it amazingly both nights) and Altern8 who sounded excellent up until I left. The city was full of freaks and ghouls, zombies being the big favourite it seems.
Adding to the post below and, on the eve of Dylan ‘King Cannibal’ Richards‘ first full length release:
Both Dylan and I were pretty gutted when Ninja said they weren’t going to do a last 12″ single from the album (not a physical one anyway) as we wouldn’t see the cover image any bigger than CD sized. All that effort and work, lost on a format little bigger than a coaster! I’ve taken the step to have them available as a series of desktops and a high quality jpeg of the cover, twice the size of an LP sleeve, at a resolution that you could make a poster from on the Downloads page.
Let The Night Roar is out now on Ninja Tune
Various King Cannibal desktop wallpapers in progress. There’ll be a big post about the artwork soon as the album drops on Monday and hopefully a big pdf file of the cover will be available to you all so that you’ll be able to see it in all it’s pervy, fetishistic glory.
I’ve been having a reacquainted love affair this year with all things analogue, seventies and sci-fi. It seems to happen every few years and all I want to look at are curved edges, computer fonts, muted tones and airbrushed images from the days before computers made everything virtual. I’ve been doing a T- shirt design based on the Moog and whilst doing some research I stumbled upon this site.
Someone has scanned several issues of a synth mag from the mid seventies called Synapse. It contains interviews with people like Eno, Zappa, Kraftwerk, Herbie Hancock, George Duke, Bob Moog, Pat Gleeson and a whole lot more. In amongst all this are reviews, how-to’s and loads of ads for what are now vintage synths.
The Kraftwerk interview is great, at one point they talk about a comic they’ve made where small plug-in systems try try to make contact with all these inputs and outputs, coming together to make a group. They talk about doing a book where they present more of their work to people in ways it can’t be shown on record. Shame it didn’t materialise.
What has materialised at long last though is the fabled reissues of their albums from 1974 -2003 – known to fans as ‘the catalogue’ – and originally meant for release in 2004. Some promo copies even slipped out but then nothing, now they are finally available via Mute in the UK. Now that’s one set of remasters I’ve been looking forward to whilst everyone else bangs on about the other Fab Four.
Here’s the front cover for the next DJ Food EP – ‘The Shape Of Things That Hum’ – released Nov 30th. The 12″ sleeve will again be a poster cover featuring work by the ever brilliant Henry Flint (currently drawing Shakara in 2000ad) with colours by yours truly. Here’s a little bit of the back cover too.
Following on from the last post, I never tire of listening to Boards of Canada and Skywave Systems recently posted an excellent mix of their work. It’s very well put together with some rareties, as well as original sample sources, in amongst the tunes that will delight even the most hardcore BOC fans.
Nice artwork on the site too…
