Fishure
Daniel Barassi in LA has performed a miracle with a couple of old toy Fisher Price turntables… – rechristened the Fishure-Price check his site for more. This is strictly a labour of love, he’s not in the market to mod your kid’s toys 
Love this poster by Andy Votel for Gruff Rhys‘ live shows next year.
I visited the new Design Museum off High Street Kensington at the weekend and the permanent collection was full of lovely bits and pieces, including a new film by The Light Surgeons. Perhaps it was because it was teeming with people but the gallery spaces seemed very small and cramped next to the yawning atrium and the cafe was hidden round a corner, almost embarrassed to be seen but packed nevertheless. People were being told to queue as they ascended up the levels to the top floor but we just got in the lift and bypassed all this. An oddly disfunctional design of a space for a Design Museum.
I’ve been meaning to post about Matt Saunders‘ new(ish) Patterned Air Recordings imprint for a while now but work is taking over at the moment. Suffice to say that after The Assembled Minds’ debut release late last year he’s just released the second and third in the catalogue back to back. CukoO and Running On Air couldn’t be further apart stylistically but they make sense when tied together in the elaborate CD packaging that Matt assembles for each release. 
Taking up the baton from labels like The Folklore Tapes or A Year In The Country, each pouch contains multiple items that enhance the release in some way, hand printed, stamped, signed, numbered and then tied with a leather strip. They’re a nightmare to store and get into but there’s nothing out there quite like them and the label mission statement on their website reads like a ‘Hauntology 101’. “We are a record label interested in weird things. We like analogue synths, reel-to-reel machines, Radiophonics, music for children, music for falling to sleep by, early electronic experiments, folkloric eeriness, seances, electronic voice phenomenon, old techno, deteriorated music — in a nutshell, soundtracks to get us off this mundane plain and onto an elevated, if creepy, state of euphoria”.
I’ll buy that for a dollar but there’s more at work here than that – the music is just as unique as the packaging, sitting somewhere between earthy folk, spine-chilling electronica and the kind of melodic, stately British nostalgia found in Grasscut‘s records. Labels like this are always fun at the beginning because they’re full of ideas, idealism, experiments and no musical formula in place. These are all still available from the label’s Bandcamp page.
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.
Slightly 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
Four From Food Fridays – a weekly look at four things 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:
Barry Adamson – Know Where To Run (Central Control International) LP
DJ Mighty Atom deconstructs DJ Shadow’s ‘Endtroducing’ (Solid Steel)
Sculpture – Form Foam (Ana Ott) 12″ picture disc
Carl Matthews – East/West (Mirage) Cassette
It’s that time of year again, check these lovely images for some of the contents of the new SW Lego calendar – miniature building at it’s best.
“The 2016 edition of the LEGO Star Wars advent calendar features a theme focused around the ice planet, Hoth. Most of the builds and figures center around the integral battle at the Echo Base which kicks off The Empire Strikes Back. Snowtroopers and Hoth Rebel Troopers, along with select weapons and vehicles, are among the more prominent figures included, with another wintery-themed pieces such as a sleigh and exclusive white Chewbacca minifigure. The set is rounded it with pieces from Attack of the Clones and a couple from Return of the Jedi, including the Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker from Return of the Jedi, only the second time this character has been featured in a LEGO Star Wars advent calendar.”
More info and photos of the calendar contents here: (German language)
Earlier this year I reconnected with an old friend from the early Ninja Tune days, Shane Solanki, a writer and poet who was responsible for the original Ninja press releases and the lexicon inside the original Ninja Skinz packets. These freeform, punning, cut and paste definitions, profiles and prose helped define part of the aesthetic and thinking behind the label in the early years and gave voice to Coldcut and co.’s ideals. He’s currently constructing a hugely ambitious project involving a stage play, an album and a graphic novel based on a story he’s written called ‘Songs of Immigrants and Experience’.
I helped him visualize certain scenes for the play and put together a rough version of an extract from the novel to help present the complicated project to prospective publishers. Below you can see examples of the A4 handout at the last performance and shots from the show with some of the scenes as backdrops. For more info go to Lastmangoinparis.net
I saw these Harley Quinn variant covers the other day and they jumped off the shelf, good to see Bill still has it and draws like no one else.
q 
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.
The latest Solid Steel show features DJ Mighty Atom‘s deconstruction of DJ Shadow‘s ‘Endtroducing’ album, now 20 years old, in hour 1 and my taster mix for the new De:tuned Records ‘Brainbox’ compilation in hour 2. I’m biased but that’s a great way to spend 2 hours this weekend IMO.
Mighty Atom’s mix follows Solid Steel’s tried and tested blueprint of finding the original sources used in heavily sampled classics (see Beastie Boys, De La Soul, Public Enemy, Beck and Nas of past shows) and adding spoken word snippets relating to the making of said album. He rises to the challenge admirably and this has to be one of my favourite mixes of the year.
My own mix takes a sample of tracks from the huge new 6xLP ‘Brainbox’ compilation, adds some past releases from the same label and hides some exclusives not due until next year in too. For fans of 90s era electronica from labels like Warp, R&S, Red Planet or Axis then this is for you – lots of familiar names, all brand new tracks.
It seems anniversaries are everywhere these days, this week alone sees three decades since the release of both The The‘s ‘Infected’ LP and the Beastie Boys‘ ‘Licensed To Ill’ album. DJ Bobafatt has put together a little sample mix of the latter complete with original samples and interview snippets to mark the occasion.
Whilst never my favourite Beasties album, I was a fan and saw them on the Raising Hell tour opening for Whodini, LL Cool J and Run DMC in ’86 as well as the Licensed to Ill tour in ’87.
Looking through old sketch books this morning in search of something else I ran across this, done May ’87 during ‘Beastie Mania’. D-Vice was my first graffiti tag at the time and 3DGrafX was our crew (it was the 80s).
Four From Food Fridays – a weekly look at four things 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:
JG Thirlwell vs Tim Ritchie on Triple J interview – (DJ Food Mixcloud)
The OST Show – The Pattern Forms library music special (Resonance FM)
DJ Bobafatt – Beastie Boys Licensed to Ill 30th anniversary mix (first aired on The Huey Morgan Show, BBC 6 Music)
Queen – Flash Gordon Original Soundtrack LP (EMI)
I recently contributed a track suggestion to Robert Lamb‘s How Stuff Works site on the subject of relaxing music in these troubled times. I chose Steve Hillage‘s ‘Rainbow Dome Musick’ as my current choice and even managed to find the poster for the original Mind – Body – Spirit festival that it was recorded for in 1979. Have a read and see what others are recommending too.
This 30 year old, one hour radio interview with JG Thirlwell (aka Foetus / Steroid Maximus / Wiseblood / Clint Ruin and more) was recently was found on cassette & re-mastered by my good friend DJHDD in Sydney.
A fan-based tribute to all three Aussie artists, it serves as the beginning of an archive of lost Antipodean radio-phonic works. JG, himself a native Australian who had just settled in NYC after a period living in London, is interviewed by Tim Ritchie whose rep and standing in DJ lore at radio station Triple J cannot be understated.
DJ HDD gives some context: “Tim Ritchie’ (Australia’s version of John Peel) has been on air for over 30 years, after blagging his way onto Sydney’s Double J airwaves, as a cheeky schoolboy, in the late 70’s. He went on to be the leading force of new music for the national upgrade to Triple J. Introducing an Aussie audience to the weird, wonderful & strange style of the avant garde mash of rock, reggae, dub & industrial dance via his successful ABC National Radio Show, Sound Quality. More than a radio announcer, Tim has been a major DJ in Sydney, including Mardi Gras, Sleaze & numerous clubs, for a good 30 years. Triple J posted him to New York in the 80’s to discover Hip Hop & this interview with Jim Thirlwell is from that time in 1986.”
JGT had just released his album, ‘Nail’, widely thought to be the high water mark of his 80s set of recordings, was visited in NYC by Ritchie and, aside from the three decade-old historical curiosity unearthing such an interview provides, what’s so special about this is the format that it takes. From start to finish the whole piece is a radiophonic collage in itself, sliced and diced to within an inch of its life by Triple J’s wizard of studio engineering John Jacobs (aka Garry Litter), himself a Foetus fan.
To say he goes to town on it is an understatement, vocals are stretched, distorted, stuttered and effected, music is cut, looped, reversed and interjected with spoken word to form a new kind of interview format. Clearly influenced by what acts like Foetus, Sigue Sigue Sputnik and Art of Noise where doing with samplers but only access to basic equipment, the nearest thing I can think of to compare it would be Negativland‘s ‘A Perfect’ Cut’ or some of The Future Sound of London‘s early Test Transmission radio shows – neither of which would be realised for some years at this point.
DJHDD: Tim was never satisfied with the standard 15 questions style, indeed this interview shows the irreverent spontaneity of both Tim’s & Jim’s larrikinism & disdain for the natural order of radio-phonics. Produced by Triple J’s wizard of studio engineering John Jacobs (aka Garry Litter) who used a William Burroughs style, cut & paste stream of consciousness, sampling Jim over his own works. We asked John about how he put it together –
John Jacobs: “It was one of my first radio features as a producer after graduating as an ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) Sound engineer”, remembers John. “I think my work has always benefited from not having been actually trained as a producer. In retrospect I can hear the youthful obsession and earnest overstatement as well as the free wheeling experimental-ism”.
SK: How did you do all the edits? Not with tape surely? Did you have a sampler?
JJ: “The main voice and music edits were made cutting analog tape. We had access to an Akai S700 sampler (operated by Athol Spraggs) oh the joys of Maxell Quickdisks We also used a Lexicon Super Prime Time for looping and stutter edits. Other gear; Reverb: Lexicon 224, Phaser: MXR rack, Compressor: UREI 7110, Synth: EMS Synthi AKS, Mixer: Studer A779. There was no fixed multi tracking, the mixes were assembled in short sections with multiple reel to reels mixed down and cut together.”
SK: Did you get voice-over artists to record the lyric inserts?
JJ: “The lyrics were voiced by co-workers. This was all pretty standard radio-phonic feature method and tech. of the time.”
SK: It’s done with such love and attention to detail and the work that’s gone into it is incredible for the time it was made, it’s like a new kind of interview format. Did you do this kind of thing for other interviews?
JJ: “I have made other mixed genre radio experiments. We went on to do a late night series for JJJ called The Works and I also produced The Night Air for Radio National 2002-12″
SK: When I sent this to Jim Thirlwell he wasn’t keen to listen to a 30 year younger version of himself but gave his blessing for us to air it as fans, how do you view it in hindsight?
JJ: “Listening to a thirty years younger version of yourself can make you wince and smile in surprise at the same time. I guess that’s what Jim felt too. I do know that right after it was made he told Tim that he loved it… I would be right chuffed to have my real name associated with it, Garry Litter was just a fun spur of the moment pseudonym.”
Lovely sleeve for the excellent new The Comet Is Coming single, ‘Final Eclipse’ on Leaf.
If you walk into chocolatier Cocoa Amore‘s Leicester-based shop this month you’ll be treated to a bespoke playlist, compiled by myself to accompany your trawl through the tasty treats they produce. But if you’re nowhere near Leicester this month but want to hear sounds to shop for choc until you drop then you can tune in here. Thanks to my friends Sarah & Leigh Inkymole for sorting this out.