Sorry this is a bit late, Mixcloud seemingly deleted the original upload that I made last week. I also just noticed that I missed MS172 – which is all ready to go but will have to wait until next year as I have a Xmas mix for next week.

I’m not sure why this is called a ‘Tour Mix’, it’s not a live set for sure but I could have conceivably made it on the laptop on tour – maybe I was out with DK promoting our ’Now, Listen Again’ mix CD, I’d have to check dates. Anyway – Zero db tackle Sun Ra for the opening and I think this only came out on their own Reconstruction compilation of remixes rather than on any official Sun Ra release. John Cale then trades places with James Murphy for his LCD Soundsystem cover, which sounds a bit strained and painful in hindsight now. Next up is the first of three Mr76ix tracks from his 3 (Minority of 1) album on Skam with a magnificent tempo switch down into Def Tex’s ‘Bomber’ – what a bassline! Def Tex were great, always inventive hip hop and this was from their second album on Son Records.

Battles seemed to explode out of nowhere but they’d already made three singles before signing to the label and ‘Race:In’ came from their debut LP, Mirrored. Kidkanevil’s ‘5th Gear’ features Latyrx’s Lateef The Truthspeaker in a horny flute ode to getting down to it with a subtlety rarely present in rap. But here’s another with Pharaoh Monch expertly remixed by Optima Espacio into some sort of slow build electro gospel banger. There’s a guitar solo over a breakdown FFS! Keeping on the love-tip; an overlooked DJ Shadow B side from his Outsider album era sees him mining a psych funk angle on ‘Love, Love’. This was only on the CD single and later download of the ‘This Time’ single, no idea why it didn’t make the album and the non-LP cuts and remixes were frequently better than some of the material on that record IMO.

Oh Pepe Deluxe, how I loved (and still do love) their Spare Time Machine album, two tracks here sum it up – tightly constructed, immaculately produced sunshine psychedelia. They really string out the intro to ‘Apple Thief’ but when it kicks in it’s well worth the wait. ‘Go For Blue’ also inspired a colour-based mix of songs shortly after this including ‘Purple Rain’, ‘Mellow Yellow’ and ‘Mr Blue Sky’ but that’s already on the web. I’m wondering where I heard Candie Payne’s track from as I don’t remember buying it, maybe a promo or a compilation – whatever, she’s got that 60s doom pop sound nailed. Mr76ix sounds like he’s been listening to the last track on Selected Ambient Works II and put some rave beats to it and Battles are back again with the epic ‘Atlas’ – remember that great video of them in the mirrored box? Mr76ix plays out over the breakdown of this with a beautiful beat-less piece called ‘Romanticism’ before we’re back into that drawn out guitar trade off that builds into the final section.

Track list:
Sun Ra – Satellites Are Spinning (Zero db remix)
LCD Soundsystem – All My Friends (John Cale version)
Mr76ix – H.A.A.R.P.
Def Tex – Bomber
Battles – Race:In
Kidkanevil – 5th Gear feat. Lateef The Truthspeaker
Pharoah Monch – Body Baby (Optimo Espacio mix)
DJ Shadow – Love, Love
Pepe Deluxe – Apple Thief
Pepe Deluxe – Go For Blue
Candie Payne – I Wish I Could Have Loved You More
Mr76ix – Spirit of Man
Battles – Atlas
Mr76ix – Romanticism

Nineteen years ago today this show aired on Solid Steel and served as a round up of a current crop of music that had come my way over the previous months. There’s a large rap quota in this hour-long set, mostly from the independent sector and what you could call ‘backpack rap’ (although I wouldn’t). A particularly trippy Solid Steel jingle opens the show by Pedro Chamorra and I have no idea who Levi is/was or where the track featuring BC and Saul Williams came from, nothing’s coming up on Discogs. Diplo’s ‘Big Lost’ is from his debut Florida LP and is still a classic, DK and I were such a fan of this record and props to Big Dada for spotting his talent early on. Not sure if the northern chaps chatting about record collecting over the top are Mark and Lard from 6 Music (or were they on XFM back then?). Natural Self was putting out 45s in the early 00’s on Tru Thoughts and here remixes The Limp Twins (Will ‘Quantic’ Holland and Russell Porter) from the Shapes Yellow TT comp. More Brighton-based music next from the Catskills label with a track from Infinite Potential’s debut 12”, As The Record Revolves – some very tight scratching on that.

The Perceptionists were a US group including Mr Lif and Akrobatik and ’Medical Aid’ was one half of a split debut 12” with another group, 4th Pyramid on Definitive Jux. Mark Rae’s ‘Reach Out To Me’ was from his third album, Into The Depths, with vocals by Veba – should have been a big hit. Busdriver’s first album for Big Dada contained the ‘Kev’s Blistering Computer…’ track and I just found out that he did a third for the label in 2014 that completely passed me by somehow. I loved Busdriver most of all of that Mush crowd, full of personality and an incredible flow, love how the DJ D-Styles cuts up the little blip noise from Herbie Hancock’s ‘Rockit’ for the chorus here too. In the liner notes Busdriver is credited with ‘Vocal Tension & Lyrical Release’, D-Styles with ’Turntable Blasphemy’ and producer Daddy Kev with ‘Strange Rhythmic Noise’. Diverse with Vast Aire came from the Chocolate Industries label as they moved into hip hop territory, with production by RJD2, another artist – like Diplo – who was adjacent to DJ Shadow in the production stakes around this time.

Back over to the UK for Bristol’s Hundred Strong which was the brainchild of Ben from the Purple Penguin record shop, always a destination when we hit the city in the 90s. I used to get sent M.Craft promos in the 00s and I always REALLY loved a couple of tracks on them, I really should investigate his back catalogue a bit more, seems this was from his debut single on 679 Recordings. I don’t recall this Massive Attack song at all, it sounds more like a Barry Adamson take on The Man With The Golden Gun than the band’s usual material. Seems it was from a soundtrack they did to a film called Danny The Dog which can be had extremely cheaply on Discogs although it looks like it was done by 3D alone without Daddy G from the credits.

Quannum released a double A-sided single for their US tour in 2004 and this is the Shadow-produced cut, all drum machines and synths rather than samples and points the way to his work later on. Blade’s ‘Scream’ came from his ‘Pop Idol’ single and is that Mr Thing on the cuts? DFA’s Juan MacLean work over Air in fine electro ‘drug chug’ style before the term was even coined. Sounds like I was caning outer space samples from Megatrip’s Soundbank CDs over the top too. 4 Hero go all Beatles-y with the mellotron on their remix of Chunking’s ‘Making Music’ (another Brighton band!) and then it’s back to the Anitcon crew with Sixtoo from his Ninja Tune 10” ‘BodyAche Summer’ EP – yet another producer up there with Shadow but moving in his own directions. In between this and Max & Harvey’s ‘Untitled Dialogue’ (another 10” on Ninja) I use a piece of speech about seeing sound that I would later fashion into a track on my Search Engine album. One half of Max & Harvey (named after the duo’s dogs I think I was once told) was Paul Frankland aka Woob and also Journeyman – they only released one single on Ninja but all their other releases are available on their Bandcamp and are excellent.
https://maxandharvey.bandcamp.com/music

Track list:
Pedro Chamorra – Solid Steel intro
Levi feat. BC & Saul Williams – Resource : Life
Diplo – Big Lost
The Limp Twins – A Day in The Life Of Mr. Jones (Natural Self mix)
Infinite Potential – Can You Dig That?
The Perceptionists – Medical Aid
Mark Rae – Reach Out To Me
Busdriver – Kev’s Blistering Computer Tan And Driver’s Rapper’s Rapper Moniker
Diverse feat. Vast Aire – Big Game
Hundred Strong feat. Joseph Malik – All Ain’t The Same
M.Craft – On The 389
Massive Attack – One Thought At A Time
Quannum – Put Yer Back Into It
Blade – Scream
Air – Surfing On a Rocket (Juan MacLean remix)
Chungking – Making Music (4 Hero remix instr.)
Sixtoo – Waiting For Anything
Max & Harvey – Untitled Dialogue

Summer 2003 and I’ve no idea what the opening use of Pinocchio’s clock sequence was intended to convey but lots of the food-related spoken word overlaid came from Megatrip’s excellent sample collection that he’d send to us via CDr. John Book’s ‘eBay Trauma Centre’ comes from the first Tru Thoughts compilation ‘Shapes One’ and is – I think – the only track released under his own name so far, his band Crut however, have released plenty. I’d just discovered Mr. Bungle’s amazing ‘California’ album via old school friend Steven Baker (RIP) and still hold it in high regard as their masterwork to this day – I seriously recommend it as an example of incredible song writing collage and masterful playing, I mean come on, Dave Lombardo plays drums and a song called ‘None of them knew they were robots’ has to be good, right?. Not being a Streets fan I used the instrumental, non-Mike Skinner vocal version of Grafiti vs The Bug’s only single and filled in some of the vocals with spoken word snippets from Megatrip’s aforementioned Soundbank collection. I’d only just discovered Akufen’s My Way LP from the previous year and absolutely caned it around this time, still a peerless release that will forever be associated with painting a picture for my Dad’s 60th birthday where I listened to it on repeat.

Amalgamation of Sounds, always good value, LFO’s ‘Freak’ absolutely killer tune, RIP Mark Bell, caned that Five Deez ‘Funky’ a cappella for years over all sorts of tracks in clubs with DK. Hey, this mix is pretty slamming now, oh here comes DJ Zinc with Dynamite MC to tear the roof off with ‘People 4’, one of his most creative tunes of the era, a beats/rap match made in heaven. Big tempo switch up and then Reprazent homies Krust and Die cut in with a further switch up from 33 to 45rpm – this section is reminiscent of my club sets at the time, fast-moving shifts through different styles and we’re into the Nextmen and Cyantific’s computer game-flavoured ‘High Scores’ before sliding into another DnB cut that Spotify tells me is ‘Future Sonic’ by Tele Music but I have no memory of. Dipping out of the club and back into radio land with another Mr Bungle cut, ‘The Air Conditioned Nightmare’. This is another example of the band’s seamless collage style, mixing examples of different artists and musical styles into one song and making it work. I swear I once heard a live set from them where they sounded like they were tuning through a radio dial and switching music styles every few bars.

The mix into Jackson’s ‘Utopia’ isn’t too smooth but this track is similar to Akufen’s in that it takes tiny snatches of voice and re-edits them into a patchwork melody, the female vocal was a recording of his mother apparently and this was played from the original French release before he got picked up by Warp. I really should have taken it out of the mix faster rather than leave it under the Matthew Herbert Big Band, it’s painful. I loved this record (Goodbye Swingtime) and Matt’s move away from his earlier experiments for a full live band experience. Seeing them at The Big Chill one year blew me away – always inspirational. Four Tet needs no introduction of course but back in 2003 he was still building his rep with this single from his third album, Rounds. Next up, the Returner is a lesser-used alias of Mark Pritchard, creating a fine DJ tool in his ‘Throwdown No.1’ of which I proceed to cut up two copies before editing into Loon’s Schoolly D-quoting, Kelis-featuring ‘How Do You Want That’. This was a Neptunes-esque production despite not being by them and shows how much they’d influenced contemporary hip hop by this point. We finish up with Schoolly’s classic ‘Saturday Night’ because, why not? Live two copy cut ups from DJ Code Money, you can even hear the records jump and wobble in places, pure hip hop and swearing on record way before NWA made it hip. I think the final spoken word coda may have been from John Cage although it sounds like someone impersonating him rather than his actual voice.

Track list:
Pinnochio – Clock Sequence
John Book – eBay Trauma Centre
Mr Bungle – None of Them Knew They Were Robots
Grafiti vs The Bug – What IS The Problem?
Akufen – Late Night Munchies
Amalgamation of Sounds – Sharm
LFO – Freak
Five Deez – Funky (a cappella)
DJ Zinc feat. Dynamite MC – People 4
Krust & Die – Movin’ Fast
The Nextmen feat. Cyantific – High Score
Tele Music – Future Sonic
Mr Bungle – The Air Conditioned Nightmare
Jackson – Utopia
The Matthew Herbert Big Band – Misprints
Four Tet – As Serious As Your Life
The Returner – Throwdown No.1
Loon feat. Kelis – How Do You Want That
Schoolly D – Saturday Night