The Life of Barney Bubbles podcast

IMG_6460 I’ve highlighted The Bureau of Lost Culture podcasts before and in the latest instalment Stephen Coates interviews writer and biographer Paul Gorman about the life of designer Barney Bubbles. Paul wrote the definitive (and only) book about Barney’s work, Reasons To Be Cheerful and recounts his fascinating but ultimately tragic story.

Paul has also recently set up a Barney Bubbles Estate Instagram account where he’s posting examples and rarities from his collection. Even if you’re not familiar with his name, you may well be familiar with his work.
There have recently been a slew of great interviews from The Bureau, focussing on Hawkwind, the history of Goth, Biba, groupies, The UFO club and more. The easiest way to listen to them is via their Soundcloud page

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Ambient mix for the Soundwave podcast

Soundwave 22
Joseph Aleo runs a music podcast called Soundwave and recently asked me to contribute a mix – I turned in an hour’s worth of new ambient music that’s been floating my boat recently including an exclusive track from the forthcoming New Obsolescents LP I made with Howlround. The mix also includes Robert Fripp, Jon Brooks, Steve Hauschildt, Celestial Mechanic, Clocolan, Deepchord, LF58, Squarepusher and BUNKR.
Listen here Soundwave : 22

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A tribute to Russell Mears aka Rusty Spray

Wandham Stringers

This weekend an old friend passed away, someone who inspired me a great deal artistically back in the day. Please indulge me whilst I go back on a trip to the mid 80s and reminisce over writing in aerosol paint in the small town of Reigate in Surrey where I grew up.
Russell Mears was the first person I know of who did a piece of graffiti in Reigate. A Beat Street-inspired piece complete with train, ‘Zulu’ and Smurf character appeared one day in ’84 / ’85 on the abandoned Wandam Stringer building near the station. It was signed ‘Rusty Spray’ and it set a lot of tongues wagging and wheels in motion.

Wadham close

Soon after, a second piece was added in the same style, this time with head-spinning breakdancer, boom box, tombstones and the word, ‘Fresh’. It now spread across the whole wall and the words ‘Rusty again!’ taunted us that he’d struck twice. I had only just got into graffiti and not painted my first piece or even seen a copy of Subway Art yet (the equivalent of the Bible for UK writers at the time). I, probably like Rusty, was getting my graffiti inspiration from films like Beat Street and record covers like The Rock Steady Crew’s Uprock or Malcom McLaren‘s Duck Rock. Soon after, more pieces appeared around town bearing his name, ‘NTF’ (Night Time Flyers I think) and ‘Rebel’, both with variations on the same character cribbed from Subway Art. He got caught for the latter but I can’t remember what punishment was dealt out.

NTF + CopRebel + Cop

It being such a small community, word got around and we soon ran into each other. He was a few years older and possibly in art college at this time, whilst my crew and I were still in school. Even though he was older he never seemed to look down on us and was always humble about his work which was astonishing to see in his piece book. By this time he was light years ahead of us in terms of style and technique – plus he’d seen the Chrome Angelz (see ‘Chrome’ piece copy here that he gave to me) and his style had made a quantum leap forward. I think we all had to raise our game once we’d seen Russell’s work (how I’d LOVE to see his 80s piece book again).

Chrome

Rusty Spray tags
ExE + Duck SantaEXE

Two memories spring from these photos: we (the crew I was part of – TWB) had arranged to battle Russ and his crew – Executive Artists which included Chris Burrell and possibly others I can’t remember. We decided to get the jump on them and spend all Saturday night in the spot the battle was supposed to take place in, the disused swimming baths in Reigate. We’d paint a burner across the whole end of the baths – a bite of Kaze II’s digital style with two characters, (see below) – and when they walked in on Sunday morning we’d be there already – ‘tadaaaah!’.
Downside, the wall we painted on was a knobbly blue colour, the paint dripped, it was dark and cold as hell and we were shitting ourselves half the time at any noise we heard. As it turned out, Russ and crew turned up, went into a side room, found a nice white wall, did a quick ‘Rus’ piece and handed us our arses.

DigitalDig 3Rus 2Rus

After this we were cool with him and became friends, we met other local like-minded artists and DJs like Peter Myers (seen below here on the ground with fellow EA member Chris Burrell – Russ is on the right), Tim ‘DJ Stubble’ and Jim Davis.

ChysaChysa + crew

Chysa big

Russ, Chris and Richard Lomath had painted a whole room in the Reigate Parish First School caretaker’s cottage (Chris’ dad was the caretaker at the school), almost choking themselves on the fumes. It was something we could only hope our parents would one day let us do (mine never did but we painted friend’s bedrooms over the years). This no doubt helped hone their skills with a spray can, note the difference in the style of lettering from ‘RPR’ (Rebel Pro Rockers) to the ‘Chris’ piece from the others, a big stylistic jump.

BreakinMad Cop Cobalt 60 RPR Hulk NTFChrisAndy Capp

Super Chip in progress

A year or so later, we got commissioned to paint the shutters of the local chip shop on the estate that crew member Ricky Groombridge lived on. We decided to get Russ in to help us out as (I think) we weren’t confident on our lettering skills to do a good job. He graciously agreed and designed the Super Chip piece and we painted it on a Sunday with what seemed like half the estate watching and the police turning up at one point.

Super Chip 1Super Chip 2Super Chip 3Super Chip 4Super Chip 5

It was a thrill to paint with him – the Super Chip piece seen in progress here sees Russ in the pink, Ricky in green, David Jarvis in pale yellow and me with graffiti jacket over Nike windcheater. Russell was a master at lettering, colours, outlines, having a couple of years on us young pups and he made us all look better. We’d never seen anything like this style before, readable but with huge areas to put colour and effects in.

Chique Rusty

I remember going to his house one time and he let me use his airbrush – something no one else I knew had – to colour backgrounds on a piece I was working on in a new book. His parents had let him spray a whole wall of his bedroom (the ‘Chique / Rusty Spray’ piece above) which was mighty impressive. We last spoke a couple of years ago when he sent me a shot of one of my tags, still visible over 30 years later in Reigate.

Dvice tag

I dug into the deepest recesses of the archive to find these images because Russ’s art affected and inspired so many of us when images and info were scant. He led the way in showing us that you could take this foreign, urban artform and try your hand at it. Great times and memories, never forgotten. Rest In Peace Russell aka Rusty Spray.

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Mixcloud Select 20: Strictly’s Dark Star set Pt.2 – The Bomb 14/09/97

20 DAT box
More space age shenanigans with part 2 of the Dark Star set with an odd mix of (then) current electronica and old moog-y bits plus a trio of Stereolab side-project cuts from the Turn On album sitting somewhere in the middle. This was the period where the band were really getting interesting, leaving their indie guitar roots behind and embracing krautrock and electronica more and I was hoovering up everything they touched. They appear again in a remix capacity on the Microstoria track and early Air crops up (the French version). Another track from George Harrison’s Electronic Sound LP appears and there’s a huge chunk of the bomb scene from Dark Star to finish.

Part 2 – The Bomb
Turn On – Ru Tenone
The Electronic Concept Orchestra – Rock Me
Mr Mahoney – Harmonica Storm
Microstoria – Microlab: Endless Summer (Stereolab remix)
Air – Le Soleil est Pres de Moi
Lalo Schifrin – Commando Opus
Turn On – Delimiting
Turn On – Glangerous
Autechre – Krib
George Harrison – Under The Mersey Wall
excerpt from Dark star – Bomb Speech
Dick Hyman – Moon Gas

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BT Sport Champions League zoetrope commission


I was commissioned by BT Sport to make a zoetrope for use in a video for the Champions League football final on August 23rd. The video is for a new song from Doves‘ forthcoming album and the zoetrope would be intercut with footage of them performing in front of an old carousel with footage from clips on the discs zooming into full frame. I worked closely with Creative Lead Andrew Maddox to pull together clips and make sure the discs best represented what they needed (I know absolutely nothing about football!).


During the August heatwave weekend I literally sweated over a hot computer and emerged Monday morning with not one but four zoetropes from the footage they’d given me. These were then refined over the next two days and then printed 12″ size before being stuck down to vinyl discs and filmed on a turntable with digital versions animated in After Effects. Sadly they didn’t make the final cut in the end. Gutting, but here they are for you anyway.

I think I’m cursed with zoetropes this year. Despite being asked to do more than ever, the lot I did back in January for an unnamed artist went unused after he wouldn’t pay me. A second (very exciting) one should be happening but stalled when lockdown hit, a third design for Pendulum was passed over as they decided to go with their original design and now this. Two that I did for the group Peninsula‘s album got stalled by the Covid shutdown but are now happening thankfully.


BT Sport did a great job on the final video though

Here are the discs before they spin and animate

BT Zoetrope 4 for print BT Zoetrope 2 for print BT Zoetrope 3 for print BT Zoetrope 1 for print

 

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Mixcloud Select 19: Strictly’s Dark Star set Pt.1 – 14/09/1997

20 DAT tapeThis is part 1 of two mixes, The Sphere and The Bomb – both share excerpts of spoken word from Dark Star and John Williams’ ‘The Conversation’ from Close Encounters of the Third Kind joins them. The original name on the box was ‘Strictly’s Dark Star sci-fi sex-up‘ – not sure what that was about. The Bomb follows next week…

I think my obsession with 70s sci-fi started around this time, we’d caned the Dark Star original soundtrack on the Blech cassette mix for Warp and there was so much mileage still left in it. Jack Dangers had, of course, got there first and peppered parts of it throughout the excellent Meat Beat Manifesto album, Satyricon as well as sampling a small flute and and strings loop from somewhere on the track ‘Placebo’.20 DAT box

This is where I first heard the riff from Dudley Moore’s ‘The Millionaire’ from the soundtrack to the film, Bedazzled. Ollie Teeba was a huge fan and identified it from the short skit and then the hunt was on for a decent copy of the LP, rare by any standard in the 90s. I eventually found one a year later in the Cinema branch of the Music & Video Exchange in Notting Hill and paid a lot of money for it (some of it was in vouchers actually). Anyway, it was one of the few records I’ve shelled out big money for but I then sampled it on ‘Nocturne’ on the Kaleidoscope album and it’s proved quite popular over the years.

There’s some distortion on this recording, mainly on the Si Begg and 2 Player tracks which were overloaded on the recording. I’ve tried to smooth this over as best I can with the tools now available, this would have been one of the first shows I recorded at home with a portable DAT player. Before this we would record at KISSFM or at Ahead of our Time studios in Clink Street, the home of Ninja Tune up until 2000.

It looks like I used the end of the tape to record a soundcheck of myself, Kid Koala and Ollie Teeba jamming on 4 decks in Vancouver on tour which was later used in part on my remix of Coldcut‘s ‘More Beats & Pieces’. 1997 was super busy with recording and touring and I was asked by Jon & Matt to remix the track just before I went off on tour. Knowing I’d be sharing stages with other great scratch DJs I bought along copies of the DJ record of parts that had been made to give to remixers and we recorded various soundchecks and also did a session at Kid Koala’s flat at the end of the tour as well.

Track list:
Neil Norman – Dark Star
Kirsty Hawkshaw – Sci-Clone (Raw Dog mix)
Spiritualized – C Phase
George Harrison – No Time Or Space
Si Begg – Sing Circle System
Turn On – Electrocation of Fire Ants
excerpt from Dark Star – Listening Pleasure
Meat Beat Manifesto – Placebo
Beck – Strange Invitation
2 Player & DJ Vadim – White Painted Roads
John Williams – The Conversation (from Close Encounters of the Third Kind)

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Celestial Mechanic – Citizen Void album

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Released today is a new album of music I’ve been working on over the past few months – ‘Citizen Void’ by Celestial Mechanic. The music is a companion to the debut novel by designer, illustrator and typographer, Rian Hughes, ‘XX – A Novel, Graphic’. The book is released in hardback in the UK today (later this year in the US) by Picador and, as you can see from these photos, it’s a huge, beautifully-designed monster at nearly 1,000 pages.

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This is no ordinary novel, as with everything Rian does, the devil is in the detail and the book is a beautifully designed object in itself, both inside and out. This is also not a graphic novel or a straight prose sci-fi tale as you can see from some of the spreads below. Synopsis from the Picador press release:

‘At Jodrell Bank a mysterious signal of extraterrestrial origin has been detected. Artificial Intelligence expert Jack Fenwick thinks he can decode it. But when he and his associates at Hoxton tech startup Intelligencia find a way to step into the alien realm the signal encodes, they discover that it’s already occupied – by ghostly entities that may come from our own past.

Have these ‘DMEn’ (Digital Memetic Entities) been created by persons unknown for just such an eventuality? Are they our first line of defence in a coming war, not for territory, but for our minds?

XX presents a compelling vision of humanity’s unique place in the universe, and of what might happen in the wake of the biggest scientific discovery in human history.

As compelling as it is visually striking, Rian Hughes’ first novel incorporates NASA transcripts, newspaper and magazine articles, fictitious Wikipedia pages, undeciphered alphabets, and ‘Ascension’, a forgotten novelette by 1960s counterculture guru Herschel Teague that mysteriously foreshadows events.

Wrapping stories within stories, Rian Hughes’ XX unleashes the full narrative potential of graphic design. Drawing on Dada, punk and the modernist movements of the twentieth century, it ask us who we think we are – and where we may be headed next.’

XX spread2 XX spread3 XX spread4 XX spread5 XX spread6 XX spread7 XX spread8 XX spread9

Even if you’re unfamiliar with Rian and his work, there’s a good chance you’ll have seen it at some point over the last 35 years. He wears many hats, from writing and illustrating comics for 2000AD, Escape, and the much-heralded return of Dan Dare for the short-lived Revolver in the early 90s to designing logos for virtually any character and publisher who’s anyone in the comics world. His branding for the Forbidden Planet franchise is still in place over two decades later, he’s authored books about 20th century advertising, the sci-fi artist Chris Foss and published collections of his comic work and burlesque life drawings. He’s also an accomplished typographer having designed hundreds since the 90s, first with the FontFont house and now for his Device Fonts imprint.

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Above are just some of the covers of the book within the book, Herschel Teague‘s ‘Ascension’, which features a certain Celestial Mechanic as its central character.

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So why have I written an album of music to go with a sci-fi novel?

Part of the book features a cover design and review of an album by a fictitious group, Celestial Mechanic, for their album ‘Citizen Void’, created by taking an alien signal from space and working it into musical forms.

Rian commissioned me, along with his sister, classically-trained pianist Saron Hughes, to make this album and it may well be the first album written after the review.

The basis for much of the material was Saron’s solo piano experiments which I then took and reworked, masses of NASA recordings from space, some of which went through generative sound apps that spat them out in a myriad of ways. Tape experiments left over from the forthcoming album by The New Obsolescents that I made with Howlround were also pillaged as were pages from Rian’s book which I fed into an image to sound app to generate original samples. The family connections are strong on this project with Saron’s husband, Pete Harris featuring on guitar on one track and her and Rian’s late father, Alan Hughes reading his poem, ‘The Silent Voice’ throughout. One of my sons even provides treated guitar effects on one track.

As anyone who knows me will appreciate, this is a bit of a dream project – music, sci-fi, design, typography, comics – multiple boxes ticked. Working with Rian and collaborating with Saron has been extremely rewarding and we’ve all learnt lots from the experience so far. It’s also nice to sit back and let someone else handle all the design side for a change and not have to do a thing, knowing that the person in charge is more than capable, with years more experience and their own unique vision.

Screenshot 2020-07-06 at 12.47.20

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You can hear it by using the QR code in the book or above (the card above is from a promo copy of the book) or this link to take you to the Bandcamp page. It was always the intention to have two ‘sides’ to the album with the 20 minute epic, ‘The Signal’ taking up the second half, as per the review in the book. The first side is intended to be listened to merged together and this will be included as a bonus download when you purchase the album from Bandcamp.

There isn’t a physical version at the moment, there may never be, the nature of the way the album came to exist in the book and the zeros and ones of the cover design dictated that it should be digital in form. So the book is the nearest thing you’ll get if you want to buy a copy to put on the shelf and it’s an amazing novel, there’s nothing else like it out there that I know of.

No, there won’t be a vinyl or CD version at the moment, maybe if a label expresses an interest but Bandcamp is the only way to get it right now.

No you don’t get the album for free if you buy the book, likewise the book if you buy the album. They are separate entities but are linked and part of the same release.

Rian will be doing an online Q&A with Grant Morrison via the Forbidden Planet site today, Admission to this event comes FREE with every copy of XX (signed hardcover), which also comes with an exclusive signed art card PLUS an exclusive enamel pin for the first 100 customers – order your copy here. A code to access the talk will be mailed on Wednesday 19th August to all Forbidden Planet customers who have purchased a signed copy of XX.

Look for reviews and interviews appearing all over the place too. There are things still in the pipeline for the US release later this year and talk of an audio book, so who knows what will appear between now and then.

EfnabeLWsAU_lLl

 

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Mixcloud Select 18: US Vinyl Excavations Pt. 3 Strictly’s Dial-A-Dirty-Joke

A Pause in the Disaster LP
Track notes:
Continuing the selection of music I found in the US in 2000, no new music here. You can hear a snatch of something we later used in the intro for the first Solid Steel Now, Listen mix in 2001, the little string motif that starts Rod McKuen’s ‘The Mud Kids’. I adore this song, the whole nostalgia-fest feel of it, I added in Marshall McLuhan commenting on Batman in the mid section as it just worked so well, also the long sustained note of the last horn over the Charlie Byrd song, there’s so much detail in some of these mixes that I’d forgotten.

The Dial-a-Dirty-Joke sketches that give the mix its name is a recurring riff from the album ‘A Pause In The Disaster – The Satire of the Conception Corporation’, something I bought on tour with Dynamic Syncopation and that sketch turned into a running joke throughout the tour. Whenever there was a pause in the conversation one of us would start up, “A chicken, is standing on a corner…”. The vamp of The Cannonball Adderly Quintet’s ‘Book-Ends’ is one of my favourites from his catalogue and it was written by David Axelrod who produced a number of his albums in the 70s. Not sure if needed my added echoes though!

18 PRS sheet

The ‘Kevin is rocking’ it’ message over the Buddy Rich & Alla Rakha track is from Seven of Chocolate Industries who was after my track for the comp of graffiti-inspired songs. The female messages are from T-Love, the LA rapper who I went on to design the album cover for after she moved to the UK for a bit at the end of the 90s. She lived downstairs from me for a couple of years in an old converted mental asylum in Camberwell where my half of Kaleidoscope was recorded and mixed and the ‘project’ she was enthusing about was that album, newly released.

Track list:
intro – Plan 9 from outer space
Rod McKuen – The Mud Kids
Charlie Byrd – I Don’t Have To Take It
Roland Shaw & Orchestra – Diamonds Are Forever (reprise)
Cannonball Adderly Quintet – Book-Ends
Quincy Jones – Threadbare
Yussef Lateef – Technological Homosapien
Beaver & Krause – Walkin’
Buddy Rich & Alla Rakha – Rangeela
Quincy Jones -Threadbare
The Beatles – What’s The New Mary Jane
outro – plan 9 from outer space

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Mixcloud Select 17: US Vinyl Excavations Pt.2 – Magoo’s Hi-Fi

18 CD Back at the start of 2000, PC and I went to the US and Canada to do some gigs and a load of press for the Kaleidoscope LP which was due out in April – imagine that, flying to America to meet journalists face to face for interviews in magazines!. While we were there we bought a lot of records as you do. On returning, we of course played lots of them on Solid Steel. I made three ‘U.S. Vinyl Excavations’ mixes although I’m not sure where part 1 is right now, I think it’s on DAT somewhere as I switched over to using CDRs to archive in 2000 after trying DAT for a bit and cassettes before that.

18 PRS sheet
There’s way too much echo on this (a common trait for me back then) and the set is a mix of breaks, cover versions, soundtracks, easy listening, jazz, spoken word and future sample fodder. It was also the first time I delved into the psyche rock genre, buying Mothers of Invention, Rare Earth and the like. The Yussef Lateef I’d been hunting for a while after hearing it sampled on a Meat Beat Manifesto LP. On tour with Kid Koala and his then sidekick, P-Love, we returned from a digging session and were showing the spoils and he’d scored a copy. I’m not sure whether I swapped it with him or managed to get a copy later but I seem to remember that this was the one he found. The record shopping was so good back then, visiting cities across the States and Canada you’d have a mental wants list of stuff and could pick up virtually whole discographies in one two week period.

Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Quincy Jones, Yussef Lateef, Billy Cobham, George Duke, Zappa, Blue Note and Command records, they were everywhere and cheap. I also bought a lot of music that would later crop up in my rescore of The Monkees’ film, ‘Head’, some of which you can hear in these sets. The first mix is themed around a comedy stereo test record with Mr Magoo which crops up throughout and there are a clutch of personal answerphone messages near the end which I used to record and re-use back in the day. Part 3 next week and I’ll try and find part 1…

Part 2 – Magoos Hi-Fi – 07/08/2000
Track list:
Richard Rodney Bennett – Love Scene
Memphis Underground – Eleanor Rigby
Susan with the Children’s Chorus – ABC song
A Special TV Record – Wild Drums
Quincy Jones – Hangin’ Paper
Jimmy Castor Bunch – Creation (prologue)
Mothers of Invention – King Kong Pts 1,2 & 3
John Simon – Beach Music
Yussef Lateef – Sister Mamie
Jerry Garcia – Spider Gawd
Al Hirt & Hugo Montenegro – After Mass On Sunday
The Groovin’ Strings and Things – The Fool On The Hill

interspersed with selections from Mr Magoo’s ‘Magoo in Hi Fi’ – RCA Victor

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Bandcamp Friday Recommends August 2020

It’s that time again, the now monthly day when Bandcamp waive their fees and give 100% of the profits to artists and labels so there’s never been a better time to support the artists you love. Here’s what I’ll be attempting to buy but those lathe cuts go so fast and I’m not one of those people who camp outside record shops, much less someone who repeatedly hits the ‘refresh’ button, waiting for a sale to go live.

DHS LP New Dimensional Holophonic Sound LP!!!!  Seeing Is Believing

Planet Battagon LP

Planet Battagon LP! – also check out the new On The Corner Records comp Door To The Cosmos

Seidler 7Limited Jeffrey Siedler – Maximer Compiler / Whyme Lines 7″ lathe cut inc.12 page booklet of video synthesis graphics, badge + sticker * Already sold out but check Buried Treasure for the full album and all sorts of other goodies – recommend The Dandelion Set and Zyklus albums.
LV Rave Hop
Luke Vibert‘s final in his recent trilogy – Rave Hop, trip hop is back, now with added rave! Also check his Modern Rave and Amen Andrews albums, also both on Hypercolour.

Loose Cap lathe50 copies lathe cut by Loose Capacitor be quick!

Miracle PondTwo new Miracle Pond releases debut today…

AI-20
A new Astral Industries release, AI-20, drops at some point today… artist as yet unknown New Waveform Transmitter!
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Idris Ackamor LP
Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids – Shaman! on Strut

YM MMBoth the Yellow Machines and Modified Magic labels have 25% off sales this Friday – use the code: FRIDAY at checkout if you like your retro jungle (MM) and intelligent electronica (YM), why these labels aren’t more talked about is beyond me.

See Thu Hands
See Thru Hands – Connectivity + remixes (check the single and the Massey mix for some Talking Heads/LCD Soundsystem vibes)

PCA Acid
Pye Corner Audio – Magnetic Acid – minimal acid experiments from the head technician at any price you want to pay.

Scanner W+W
Scanner – Warp & Weft – new FREE album from Robin Rimbaud

GLK LPThe Gaslamp KIller – Heart Math – new album for GLK on double 10″ coloured vinyl

ARSoc LPAquasonic Research Society – Soft cues for deep ocean travels – library style collection from Markey Funk and friends on pre-order on the fledgling SOM label.

Honourable mentions for:
RN Elements
Richard Norris – his Group Mind ‘Music For Healing’ 20 minute tracks are lovely and his new Elements album is great too from what I’ve heard so far.

Posthuman MCA
Posthuman / I Love Acid – always worth checking for new acid and Balkan Vinyl who have been putting out weekly Wednesday releases from various artists

Art Rarities
Kirk DeGiorgio – AsOne / Nuron – plenty of his old albums now available direct from the man himself as well as a 41 track ART Rarities comp exclusive to Bandcamp.

JG Thirlwell CD
JG Thirlwell – A new digital version of his 90s album Null/Void album has just gone online, also check his collaboration with Simon Steensland ‘Oscillospira’ that I recommended last month, it’s one of my favourites this year so far.

You can see previous purchases and recommends if you follow my Bandcamp profile https://bandcamp.com/strictlykev

Fripp MFQM

and lastly – he’s not on Bandcamp but he’s on iTunes and Am*z*n (if you must) –
Robert Fripp’s ‘Music For Quiet Moments’ weekly ambient Frippertronics uploads are some of my favourite releases this year. I’m not sure why it says Albums there because they’re all single tracks but they range from 4 mins to nearly half an hour in length, all for £1 or £2 each. I recommend #4, 7, 11 and 13.

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Jeffrey Lewis’ Fuff comics

Fuff 7Being a fan and collector of underground comics as well some of the indie stuff out there I was intrigued to find a copy of something called Fuff #7 by Jeffrey Lewis in a charity shop recently. I recognised his name on the cover because a friend had played me his excellent ode to vinyl ‘I caught the disease for LPs’ a while back and my partner has seen him a bunch of times at the Windmill in Brixton over the years. Halfway through the issue he splits the page in half and the story runs to the back page, flips upside down and then runs back into the comic to circle back on itself above the pages preceding it. I like artists who play with the format and the strip deals in time travel with the characters journeying back in time from a future issue with their dialogue reversed into the bargain.

Anyway, I loved it and looked online for more, Jeff has back issues on his website but he’s in the US and the postage on those things to the UK is crazy, but I lucked out as a British seller on eBay was selling issues 1-6 – what are the chances? The tone of the strips is summed up on the cover of issue 7 – ‘Travelogues, Biography, Fiction, Whimsy’ – semi autobiographical in a kind of Robert Crumb / Harvey Pekar American Splendor style, mostly dealing with his tour diaries, tales his dad told him and surreal oddball characters.

Fuff 1-6

So I’m totally loving the first seven issues and I have to get the set because I’m a completist like that and I’m feeling bad about not ordering from Jeff and putting some money in his pocket during this pandemic so I ordered issues 8-12 direct and he sent a little drawing along with them too :). The comics just got better and better, the European tour diary was a great insight to an independent musician on the road, his self-confessional sex therapy sessions with Dr. Afting Table M.D. are a brave move and a tale of his dad’s acid trip in the woods in issue #11 was the best yet. Finally, issue 12 deals in a cosmic tale with God featuring character cameos from previous issues that just upped the ante even further into a mind-blowing critique of today’s all-knowing, opinion-orientated world.

Fuff 8-12

The sad thing about the timing for issue 12 was that Jeff released it at the beginning of the year with a view to selling copies on tour in the Spring. Of course that’s not happening for the foreseeable future so, like most artists, he’s had a major part of his income cut off. What I’m trying to say here is simply check out Jeff’s comics if you can as they’re great if you enjoy that kind of material and he could do with the support. He even does a bundle with the first 11 issues including the harder to find #0 which reprints micro comics he drew as flyers in the 90s. And of course check out his music while you’re there.

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New 45 Live mix – Aug 6th PST on Dublab

DJ Food 45 Live Mix 2020 web
It’s that time again, my now annual guest mix for the 45 Live radio show hosted by DJ Greg Belson on Dublab premieres on Aug 6th PST which will be early in the morning of Aug 7th in the UK. This mix is a trip through the incredibly fertile years during and after the second summer of love and the fallout from acid house. The fast-moving dance scene is splintering with influences cross-pollinating into indie, hip hop and techno. Early signposts to rave and hardcore can be heard and Mr Fingers‘ evergreen ‘Can You Feel It’ seems like it comes from a different time.

It comes with a touch of sadness too, just as I’d finished the mix and after I’d taken this shot of the records used, I heard the sad news that Denise Johnson had died. A vocalist for A Certain Ratio, New Order and Primal Scream at various points among many more, this was the era where she came to public prominence for perhaps her most well known feature on ‘Don’t Fight It (Feel It)’ from the latter’s ‘Screamadelica‘. I quickly reworked the intro of the mix to include this classic which sits perfectly in the set as it was a staple of the turn of the decade club scene. RIP Denise.

PS Spot the one track from 2020…

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DJ Food – Words With The Voda – Solid Steel 06/10/2003

17 CD

Track notes:
I was intrigued to pull this set out because I don’t remember much about it, especially the Henry Rollins track at the end, so curiosity got the better of me. Around 2002/3/4 I was pretty productive on the Solid Steel front and probably put more hours into some of these mixes than at any other time. This was pre-being a parent so the hours were there and this is what I’d call a proper mixed bag style wise, veering from break-led cut ups to electronica and 80s synth pop as the mash up era continued with Richard X now in the charts.
Lots of the usual suspects on the list of labels played, Stones Throw, Output, Twisted Nerve, Skam and of course Ninja who were still on a creative roll after the tenth birthday three years before even through the record industry was slowly falling apart around our ears due to downloading.

‘Words With The Voda’ in the title refers to a sample about a computer that’s used throughout the mix although I can’t remember where I got it from. But John ‘Voda’ (actual name John Moore – not the Jon More from Coldcut) was the name of the guy who mastered a lot of Ninja Tune’s records over the years. He started off in a little studio in the Canary Wharf building that also housed Ninja, Hex/Hexstatic, artist Shiv and the Hydrogen Jukebox label and slowly progressed to the whole of the top floor. When we moved out of London Bridge at the turn of the century he moved into the middle of Soho and had a full mastering and repro operation going and I remember going there to master the ‘C Is For Cookie’ and ‘Pinball Number Count’ release. A quick google reveals virtually nothing of his current whereabouts – anyone know what happened to him?17 PRS sheet

There’s some buried treasure on here for sure – Alex Attias’ version of Sun Ra’s ‘Nuclear War’ (with my reversed expletives for radio), Mu’s ‘Chair Girl’, Goldfrapp’s remix of Marilyn Manson… Ah yeah and I remember that Rollins sketch now, it’s worth the wait, “evil woman, look out!”

Track list:
Kid Koala – Skanky Panky
Bonobo – Pick Up (Four Tet remix)
Charles Mintz – Give A Man A Break
J Rocc – Junkies  Pick
Mu – Chair Girl
Luke Vibert – Propertronics
J Rocc – Junkies  Pick
Alex Attias presents Mustang – Nuclear War
Akufen – Hawian Wodka Party 1
Secondo – It’s Ok, I’ve Overstood
dncn – bwdm remix
The League Unlimited Orchestra – Things That Dreams Are Made Of
Richard X feat. Kelis – Finest Dreams
Marilyn Manson – This Is The New Shit (Goldfrapp Remix)
Forss – Jazz For Nerds
Quinoline Yellow – mystery track
Henry Rollins – Breaking Up

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Floating on my desktop

Vibrations poster

I’m very aware that all I seem to post at the moment is a succession of mixes but there’s actually lots going on that I can’t show yet including two album’s worth of new material and several graphic projects which are creeping along through the manufacturing channels for full reveals soon. The images featured here have been on my desktop or phone for some time, sourced from the web and took my fancy for various inspirational reasons. Above is an original poster that was posted on the Psychedelic Light Show Preservation Society group on Facebook.

Below are two photos of Julio Le Parc reflective sculptures, a typographic detail from The White Noise album back cover and something Ameet Hindocha posted on his Instagram the other week, he’s always doing interesting stuff including incredibly complex folding patterns recently.

There’s a King Kong, All Jazz African Opera LP cover that I spotted in The Book & Record Bar the other week and finally an old poster by Build (aka Michael C. Place) that I pulled out of storage recently.

Julio Le Parc 1
j5c White Noise textAmeet circle
King Kong LP Peace & Love Build poster

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Mixcloud Select 16: DJ Food – Solid Steel Twisted Nerve mix 15/01/01

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Some things never change, nearly 20 years on I’m still playing Luke Vibert, Boards of Canada and loving Ken Nordine and Sesame Street spoken word. But some things most definitely do, Chocolate Weasel only made one record for Ninja Tune, Photek never quite scaled these heights again and the Twisted Nerve label morphed into the wondrous reissue venture, Finders Keepers. This set is from a run where Solid Steel had moved to Radio LDN at Bush House (as explained in previous posts), each time you arrived you had to sign in and get a stamped sticker and wear it so that security knew you were OK.

16 Bush House sticker

The first half of this set is full of tricky time signatures from the off, the wrong-footing Ski Oakenfull track, the Chocolate Weasel tune which I still can’t work out the time signature of, the switch from the 120bpm of Luke Vibert to the 80 of Boards and then 160 on Photek. Then our ‘Looking Glass’ track mixed at 160bpm instead of 120, it shouldn’t work and it doesn’t really but it’ll make you hear it in a different way and sometimes that’s what DJing is about. Future Ninja signing (MC) Sixtoo crops up on the end of part 1 guesting on Aquasky‘s ‘Shamen’, I remember pushing for Ninja to sign him around this time and he made a couple of excellent records for the label in the 00’s.

16 PRS sheet

The second half presents a mix of the then relatively new Twisted Nerve label and surrounding artists, a love that still endures nearly 20 years later and a catalogue that’s still fascinating. You couldn’t have a much starker contrast between the two halves if you tried. Even though there’s no distortion I was quite surprised to see a lot of brick wall compression going on in the mix, not sure what I was putting it through when recording or mixing down but there’s a lot of rectangular blocks with no dynamics in the original recording. We live and we learn don’t we?

Track list:
Part 1
Ski Oakenfull – Fifths (Jazzanova 6 Sickht mix)
Chocolate Weasel – Music For Body Lockers
Luke Vibert – Chris Chana
Boards of Canada – Zoetrope
Photek – Seven Samurai
DJ Food – Looking Glass
Aquasky feat MC Sixtoo – Shamen

Part 2
D.O.T. – Say Your Prayers
Andy Votel – Diode
Cherrystones – We Three Kings
Sirconical – Pumpfarm
Mum & Dad – Swinchiard
Alfie – James’ Dream Pt 2
Jane Weaver vs Doves – Seven Day Smile
Dakota Oak – J Saw The Figure Five
Andy Votel – Spooky Driver
Pedro – Abacus
Sirconical – Moondance

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Mixcloud Select 15: Openmind – Wizard of Oz – Coldcut Solid Steel 04/03/94

15 CD imageTrack notes:

What an embarrassment of riches this mix holds, a very special time musically as you will hear over the course of the hour. I’m fairly certain that this was probably my third ever appearance on Solid Steel, still as part of Openmind and not yet DJ Food. You can hear the chill out scene still going strong, but the beginnings of trip hop emerging and the Artificial Intelligence era of techno in full swing. Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works II must have just come out as he gets a huge six tracks played, Autechre get two, Global Communication also weave in and out with Locust and Drome. Tricky, Justin Warfield and the Beastie Boys signpost the tripper end of hip hop gaining momentum.

I think we recorded this live on air on a Saturday night at KISS FM, it was myself and Mario Aguera from Telepathic Fish (who did the second hour after I did the first) and Matt Black from Coldcut on the mic and various samples. We were still new to the radio studio and it was nerve wracking knowing that we were live on air with Matt watching and listening. A couple of my mixes are a bit wonky to say the least and I remember Matt would always shout ‘escape!’ if he thought a mix was going out too wildly, still makes me smile when I think of it. I decided to weave bits of the soundtrack from The Wizard of Oz in and out of the mix to give it some continuity, hence the mix title.

Track list:
Coldcut – Strange music jingle
Edgar Frose – Ngc 891
Wizard of Oz – intro
Beastie Boys – Namaste
Chapterhouse – Blood Music: Pentamerous Metamorphosis – Beta Phase (Global Communication retranslation)
Tricky – Aftermath
Chapterhouse – Blood Music: Pentamerous Metamorphosis – Beta Phase (Global Communication retranslation)
Justin Warfield – Tequila Flats (inc Hidden Material, Ghosts of Laurel Canyon)
Autechre – Lowride
Aphex Twin – Untitled from Ambient Works II
Justin Warfield – B-Boys On Acid
Aphex Twin – Untitled from Ambient Works II
Wizard of Oz + Whale noises
Aphex Twin – Untitled from Ambient Works II
Drome – Age of Affordable Retina
Steve Hillage – Rainbow Dome Musick
Reload – The Biosphere (Global Communication Remix)
Insides – Skinned Clean
Wizard of Oz – Tin Man
Aphex Twin – Untitled from Ambient Works II
Locust – Lust
Autechre – Basscadet
Aphex Twin – Untitled from Ambient Works II
Wizard of Oz  – outro

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Almost Jazz Funk & Soul Festival online event

Almost_Announcement
Birmingham’s Mostly Jazz Funk & Soul Festival, like so many others, is under threat and they are putting on a fundraiser online and a virtual event to raise funds to keep the wolves from the door. I played last year and it was one of my favourite gigs of the summer. Tune in for a special audio visual mix by myself and DK based on our Now, Listen Again mix sets and if you can please consider donating to this good cause.
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Mixcloud Select 14: Steinski vs Strictly Sevens for Solid Steel 12/08/2005

fullsizeoutput_191fTrack notes:
Steinski was coming to the UK, cut up collagist and all-round nice guy legend that he is. We’d known each other since 1998 when we played together in Brighton for a night Krafty Kuts had put on and had kept in touch ever since. He was visiting the UK for a holiday with his wife and we asked if he would play unannounced at our monthly Solid Steel night in London to which he agreed.
The night had a policy of never announcing who the guests were, it was DK and myself as residents and you paid £3 on the door and found out who was on the bill when you got downstairs to the basement where the club was. This meant that people genuinely wanted to be there and felt part of something when they could say they saw Four Tet or Diplo or Luke Vibert the night before in a sweaty basement in central London for less than a fiver.

So Stein comes over and hangs out and has made two special mixes for the night too, which he gracefully let us play on Solid Steel a few weeks later. Not only that, I’d bought a box of 45s on eBay a few months before but the seller only shipped them within the US. I got them sent to Steve’s place in New York and he bought them over. There were a couple a quite rare Christian spoken word 7”s in the box, one including John Rydgren but there was plenty of other good stuff too. This mix is made up of the contents of the box plus a few random flexi discs I also added to the mix. Add in Steinski’s two mini mixes and you have an hour of very random beats, bits and bobs.

There’s a lot of drug messages in this as several of the records were about that. The Fenella Fielding flexi disc is a classic and Jonny Trunk swears that she farts at one point in it. The Kenny Everett and Michael Aspel disc, ’On Love’ is very strange, Kenny seems pissed or high, Michael makes an inappropriate confession about his daughter and Kenny confesses to unrequited love with someone called Henry which, given that this was made way before he was out of the closet, is another one for the list of now obvious clues he dropped throughout his broadcasting career.

Track list:
Steinski – Ruby Lo mix 1
Dr Donald B. Louria – Is Marijuana really habit forming?
Rhythm Heritage – Theme From Rocky
Dr Donald B. Louria – Does LSD Increase creativity?
Marc Hamilton – Tapis Magique
Everyday People – I Like What I Like
Guitar Self instructor For the Very Beginner
The Cousins – The Robot (Madison Twist)
John Rydgren – The Butterfly
Steinski – Ruby Lo mix 2
Doobie Brothers – Listen To The Music
Grand Funk – Destitute and Losin’
Cliff Richard – A Personal Message To You
Kenny Everett & Michael Aspel – On Love
Love Unlimited Orchestra – Sweets Moments
Fenella Fielding – Limber Up with…
Elton John – Bennie & The Jets
Dr Donald B. Louria – Are people using other potent hallucinatory drugs?
John Rydgren – The Lord Is My Shepherd
Dr Donald B. Louria – Is Marijuana really dangerous?
John Gibbs & the US Steel Orchestra – Steel Funk
Jerry Samuels – Who Are You To Tell Me Not To Smoke Marijuana?
Kenny Everett & Michael Aspel – On Love

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