Mini CDs #12: V/Vm’s Help Aphex Twin & Whine and Missing Toe

April 6, 2021April 6, 2021

With a mix of the last two mini CD entries we have James Kirby aka V/Vm‘s (piss)take on Aphex Twin and a Xmas compilation featuring the Boards of Canada alias Hell Interface. In much the same way that V/Vm has lovingly parodied previous artists like Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Chris De Burgh, Posh Spice and others, Richard D James gets the treatment with no fucks given across two mini CDs mimicking the red and blue of the old Universal Indicator series on RePhleX. You get a sense that Kirby was maybe taking the piss but as a fan as some of the tracks are quite decent. These are first pressings, later ones came in brown, green or reversed red/blue for each volume, some of the contents are also on a vinyl LP titled ‘Help Aphex Twin 3.0’ with some new material and ‘Help Aphex Twin 4.0’ is a regular CD version with even more new tracks. The Xmas compilation features a disturbingly pitch-bent take on ‘Silent Night’ from Hell Interface as well as Christmas song mash ups, animal noises and general twisting of well known songs into new forms. There’s a 7″ of this as well.

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Mini CDs #11: Gavin Bryars – Raising the Titanic (Aphex Twin remix)

March 31, 2021

This miniature beauty was included in a 1995 Japanese edition of Bryars‘ ‘The Sinking of the Titanic’, also available on regular CD and promo 12″ in the US as well as turning up on the ’26 Mixes For Cash’ compilation. There are various versions of the mix either known as ‘Big Drum mix’, ‘edit’ or just ‘mix’ and all sound identical to my ears apart from the length. This CD only contains one version despite the title and I appear to have lost or sold the original edition of the album that it came with.

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Aphex Twin advert at Elephant & Castle station

August 10, 2018August 10, 2018

This is last week’s news now but I finally found myself in Elephant & Castle underground station this week and went in search of the Aphex Twin adverts that had appeared the previous Monday. Nestling in a corridor near the lifts below the shopping centre end of the station are the two op-art-esque logos, seemingly tiled into the wall although closer inspection reveals a carefully designed paste on advert like any other, just with special attention made to the scale of the tiles being rendered.

It really is a great example of advertising assimilated into its environment and having all the more impact for it, it’s beautifully done, even if whoever pasted it up couldn’t quite be bothered to line the tiles up on the right hand side (see above). Other, similar designs also started popping up in other countries too, follow #3 aka Paul Nicholson, the original logo designer, for pictures and locations.

By now we know that this was advance warning of a new release, the ‘Collapse’ EP, scheduled for release on Warp mid September on vinyl, CD, cassette and limited foil-covered 12″ which intrigues me the most because the French company who used to produce those foil sheets you sometimes see on old record sleeves went out of business about a decade ago. Someone must have found a way to make them again and it’s a custom Aphex logo design rather than a pattern, very interesting…

Anyway – there’s a new video by Weirdcore that references the design above and the various formats can be pre-ordered here. (Beware – really awful website design alert – probably intentional)

With odd timing I’m pulling my Selected Aphex Works AV set out of retirement this weekend for an outing at the Space Theatre in Bangor, N. Ireland so I’m including the new video in the mix and then also playing a bonus club set at The Hop House nearby afterwards.

Posted in Design, Film, Music, Poster / flyer. | No Comments » | Tags: Aphex Twin, Collapse EP, Elephant & Castle

Selected Aphex Works 1 & 2 mixes

February 13, 2017February 13, 2017

Seeing as it’s 25 years since Aphex Twin’s ‘Selected Ambient Works 1’ was released and exactly 2 years to the day that my first ‘Selected Aphex Works’ mix was aired on Solid Steel, I thought I’d repost both the first mix and the lesser heard follow up I created for GCASFM.com about a year later. Due to multiple requests in the comments I’ve put up a very limited download of the 2nd mix here and in the Mixcloud comments.
There’s still enough for at least a third volume from the enormous Soundcloud upload he made back in 2015 but if you’re fiending for more then I’ll be premiering a special AFX AV set at Archspace in London on Feb 25th.

Posted in DJ Food, Gigs, Mixes/Solid Steel, Music. | 6 Comments » |

Selected Aphex Works 2 mix

May 14, 2016May 14, 2016

Earlier this year I was asked by the organisation ‘Give Crohn’s A Slap From Me’ if I would provide them with a mix as their remit is to help raise awareness of the disease through art, music and design. For their hospital radio slot they’ve already had the likes of DJ Vadim provide one and I wanted to do something a little different that would, potentially, bring more people to the site than your standard mix selection.

I always wanted to do a follow up to the ‘Selected Aphex Works 1’ mix I did early in 2015 for Solid Steel, an 86 minute collection of my pick of the bunch of tracks uploaded to Richard D. James‘ User48736353001 Soundcloud account during the early months of that year. The plan is to hopefully get some of the near 100,000 people who listened to the first mix to come to the Crohn’s site for more so, beginning from the place where the first left off, here’s a second volume, culled from tunes uploaded after the first mix was finished.

Up until mid February 2015 there were around 160 tunes to choose from but, as I was completing the first mix, there were still more tracks being uploaded. At various times after the transmission date on Solid Steel of Feb 24th around 90 more were uploaded with the final total being an estimated 275 tracks before they were deleted. There were more than enough to make another mix and there could easily be a third from all the songs that wouldn’t fit or didn’t make the grade the first time round. There are albums worth of material as good as any official Aphex release in the Soundcloud uploads, which I view as one of the most important ‘releases’ of 2015.

On the subject of Aphex, I recently found this poster below, designed in my third year at Camberwell College of Art in 1993. I’d recently discovered his music via Colin Dale‘s Outer Limits show on KISS FM and took inspiration from his music to make my own designs for releases – this one being ‘Xylem Tube’ on R&S. The original design was supposed to be portrait but I prefer it landscape now with the benefit of hindsight.

Posted in DJ Food, Mixes / Podcast, Music. | No Comments » | Tags: Aphex Twin, Crohns disease, Soundcloud, user48736353001

Selected Aphex Works mix for Solid Steel

February 13, 2015February 14, 2015

Few can’t have heard that earlier this month user48736353001 started uploading copious amounts of old tracks to their Soundcloud account claiming that they were a fan of Richard D James aka Aphex Twin and had made lots of tracks in his style. Very quickly speculation spread that this was actually Richard and these tracks were selections from his mythical archive or thousands of unreleased tunes, some dating back from before he broke through in the early 90’s. As more and more tracks appeared and comments started appearing from the user it became apparent that this was indeed the real deal and Xmas had either been delayed by a month or arrived ridiculously early.

I was suspicious at first but when a track named ‘8 Utopia’ was uploaded I knew that even if the person uploading and commenting wasn’t Aphex then the music was. Way back in the mid 90’s I was made a ‘best of’ tape of unreleased work by a friend of Richard’s on the condition that I kept the content to myself. As you can see from the track list above, the compiler wasn’t 100% sure on a lot of the titles but the track that starts side 2, ‘The one that makes you shiver’, was the same as ‘8 Utopia’, albeit in far worse quality. As more tracks were uploaded I started recognising more tunes with even a couple of titles matching. A total of 5 out of the 17 tracks from the tape appeared, with another 7 having been heard on RDJ-related records elsewhere since the tape was made, leaving me no doubt that this was Aphex. Here’s how the original tape titles match up (and bear in mind that the cassette titles could be wrong in the first place):

i. ‘AFX vs UZiq’ = not uploaded to Soundcloud
ii. ‘-?-‘ (’94) = track 11 from the Joyrex tape that was uploaded a few years ago, although at a faster speed
iii. ‘Untitled Jungle tune’ = track 10 from the Joyrex tape that was uploaded a few years ago, although faster
iv. ‘Epic Breakbeat’ = not uploaded to Soundcloud
v. ‘Mantra’ = the track known as ‘Humanoid Must Not Escape’ from the Caustic Window ‘Joyrex J9’ picture disc (303 side), you can hear a sampled voice say what sounds like ‘Mantra’.

After ‘Mantra’ comes a short 30 second piece of electronic glitching with the sample, “I had to kill Bob Morgan because he made a mistake”, the same as on the ‘Bob Morgan’ track included in the uploads.

vi. ‘AFX vs. Uziq’ = ‘Giant Deflating Football’ from the Mike & Rich album on Rephlex
vii. ‘unreleased Ventolin’ = ‘phlangebeat’ although a lot slower on the tape
viii. ‘Bradley Styder’ = the first track from ‘Bradley’s Robot’ from the Strider B. 12″ on Rephlex
+ scanning by R.James = ‘Phone Pranks’ (Part 1 & 2) from the original Caustic Window LP that was finally released via a Kickstarter by WATMM.

i. ‘The one that makes you shiver’ = ‘8 Utopia’
ii. ‘-?-‘ (’93) = not uploaded to Soundcloud
iii. ‘GAK track’ = ‘d15-10 dulcimer dub’
iv. ‘—- ” —–‘ = ‘Untitled’, track 5 from the officially unreleased ‘Analogue Bubblebath 5’ EP
v. ‘-?-‘ (’91/92) = not uploaded to Soundcloud
vi. ‘Dance To The Beat’ = ‘dance2thebeat’ although the tape version is speeded up noticeably so that it clocks in at under 4 minutes.
vii. ‘Fresher + Cleaner’ (The Best Aphex Track Ever!) = ‘Fresher + Cleaner’ minus the intro hi hats
viii. ‘AFX vs Wagon Christ’ (Hissy Mix) = not uploaded to Soundcloud

Looking at some of the dates on the titles – mid to late 80’s – I’m slightly dubious as this would mean RDJ was making fully-formed gabba Techno at the same time as the Detroit pioneers were weaving their magic. Anyway, back to the present day and, eventually, 155 tracks appeared and, after making my way through them all, I pulled out 40 favourites for a mix. These were further whittled down to 31 with the addition of interview snippets from Radio 3‘s Mixing It show and John Peel‘s Sounds of the Suburbs TV program, and the whole thing clocks in at 86 minutes.

My Top 10 AFX Soundcloud tracks in no particular order:

Red Calx / Red Calx [slo]
Make A Baby
Luke Vibert – Spiral Staircase [afx remix]
Fork Rave
Moodular Acid
Th1 / th1[slo]
Heliosphan live
afx 126b
Utopia
Moodular Acid

Posted in DJ Food, Mixes/Solid Steel, Radio. | 15 Comments » | Tags: Aphex Twin, DJ Food, Record Collector, Solid Steel

New Aphex and FSOL albums

August 19, 2014November 14, 2014

photo by Edwin Wong
Not one but two electronica bombshells were dropped this week – first the Aphex Twin blimp and stencils then the announcement yesterday of a new album. You can pre-order the album here including being entered into a raffle to purchase a £250 (!) limited edition vinyl version and read the press release which looks like it’s been google-translated from Japanese.

Over on Facebook, Gaz from Future Sound Of London has finally been giving some previews of Environment 5 – the long-awaited next installment of their Environments series, the low-key soundscape set that they’ve been releasing for the past few years. This time though it seems as if this is THE new Future Sound of London album as the tracks are all said to have been written this year instead of from their archive. This will also be available on vinyl as well as CD and Download and note that it’s ‘Environment’ instead of the plural. Now all we need is a new Kraftwerk album…

Posted in Music. | 2 Comments » |

Mixcloud Select 183: Strictly Session – Coldcut 30/01/98

February 16, 2024

MS183 tape A dark but beautiful selection from a show I shared mix duty on with Riz Maslen aka Neotropic. My tape dates it as 30/01/98 but my online reference from Marcus Maack’s BTTB database says 04/01/1998. Whatever, it was sometime in January 1998 and this was recorded in the Ahead of Our Time studio in Clink St. most likely with engineer Ali Tod at the controls and my flanger pedal in the mix by the sounds of things.

Starting with the classic monologue about Cymatic frequencies that Coldcut used so often in shows we drift into an almost Steve Reich-ian minimalist piece from A Reminiscent Drive whose back catalogue contains a wealth of such treasures. Opiate’s ‘Small Talk Whirl’ is from his debut 12” on April Records which I can’t remember ever owning but that’s old age for you. Track 8 from the CD of Aphex Twin’s Analogue Bubblebath 3 is up next, a classic I was still dropping in my Selected Aphex Works mixes some years back.
Small Fish With Spine was/is an alias of Riz’s and she’d just released her Ultimate Sushi album on Oxygen Music Works (which I’d designed the cover for too). Not sure what I was thinking playing her new record before her, bad DJ etiquette but I was young and foolish back then. ‘Korona’ comes from the uber-rare MASK 100 12”, a very early Boards of Canada track from 1996, pre-Warp when they were still on Skam and largely unknown. Funny how you can just search for it now and it’s on YouTube, back then it was rare as hen’s teeth. There’s a snatch of Andy Partridge & Harold Budd’s ‘Mantle of Peacock Bones’ with some unidentified spoken word over the top and then Mike Paradinas finishes the first set with ‘Hi-q’ of which I can find hide nor hair of on Discogs.

The second half opens with some abstract ambience and another unknown spoken word piece, presumably from Coldcut’s might Word Treasure CD library. As One’s gorgeous ’Soliel Levant’ from his debut Reflection album slides in before the Ramsey Lewis’ Charles Stepney-produced cover of ‘Dear Prudence’ chugs through with its oddball electronic intro. Exquisite Corpse were connected to the Psychic Warriors Ov Gaia and produced what I’d call trance music in the most literal definition, the sort of tribal rhythms you could perform rituals to long into the night. ‘Cantadora’ bangs hard and comes from their 1993 album Inner Light and while I’m talking definitions; Water Melon and their comrades, Major Force are about as close to ‘trip hop’ in my mind as you could get. Their amazing Out Of Body Experience EP hosts two cuts that feature in this half hour. Harder to find outside of Japan but well worth tracking down. Another from Riz’s LP in the form of ‘Foul Play’ that more than liberally samples from Lalo Schifin’s Dirty Harry/Magnum Force soundtracks before the Prunes’ makeover of DJ Vadim’s ‘Conquest of the Irrational’ single on Ninja Tune. Finishing with another Water Melon track from the aforementioned O.O.B.E. EP and we’re out – I really enjoyed rediscovering this one, I’d probably not heard it since it was recorded over 26 years ago.

Track list:
Solid Steel jingle – The film you are about to see…
A Reminiscent Drive – Everything Is As I Am
Opiate – Small Talk Whirl
Aphex Twin – Analogue Bubblebath 3 track 8
Small Fish With Spine – In Your Own Bubble
Boards of Canada – Korona
Small Fish With Spine – Fung Koo
Andy Partridge / Harold Budd – Mantle of Peacock Bones
Mike Paradinas – Hi-q

Unknown – Unknown
As One – Soliel Levant
Ramsey Lewis – Dear Prudence
Exquisite Corpse – Cantadora
Water Melon – Moon Shaker
Small Fish With Spine – Foul Play
DJ Vadim – Conquest of the Irrational (Prunes mix)
Water Melon – Slow Boat to Mars

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Mixcloud Select 182: OMMixxx – Solid Steel 06/05/1995

February 9, 2024

MS182 tape
Mid May of 1995 was another smorgasbord of eclecticism with drum n bass making in-roads onto the show playlists. After the show’s intro and a snatch from Negativland’s plunderphonic ‘The Perfect Cut’ LP we get what may be the first outing of the Wagon Christ remix of 2 Player’s ‘Extreme Possibilities’. It’s hard to convey how exciting it was to first hear this remix, possibly Luke’s premiere public foray into DnB and a now classic milestone in the Ninja Tune catalogue. That he put this much work into such a mix is incredible and for a relatively new band consisting of Jon Tye (aka MLO/Lo Recordings) and a little-known composer named Daniel Pemberton. Daniel is now a world famous soundtrack composer of course, working on films for Marvel and Ridley Scott among others, but back then he was still at school and would come to our Stealth nights at The Blue Note before going home to study for his exams. He didn’t waste any time making inroads into the studio either, hooking up with Jon on various Lo Recordings and Ntone releases, recording with the Future Sound of London and releasing his first album on Pete Namlook’s Fax label, for which I did the artwork.

More DnB clatters in next from Sounds of Life which was Rupert (Photek) Parkes and Jim from Source Direct collaborating and taking a big chunk of FSOL’s Lifeforms by the sound of it. Spacepimp’s only outing on Clear pits a 70s car chase synth bass line against a DnB rhythm too, everyone was having a go at this ‘new’ style around this time as it emerged from its jungle origins although Spacepimp was an Acen alias so it wasn’t too much of a stretch. After an ad break there’s a swirling ambience I can’t place before the legendary Jello Biafra monologue that we used on the Coldcut Journeys By DJ mix later that year which then led on to Matt and Jon hooking up with the ex-Dead Kennedy frontman to record ‘Every Home A Prison’. Alec Empire’s debut album, Generation Star Wars kicked off with the excellent ‘Lash the 90ties’, the elongated ambient intro suddenly crashing into Aphex-ish distorted beats. Mike Ink’s ‘Rosenkranz’ came from one of the early Sahko releases and this jaunty, marching track is in stark contrast to his then usual 150bpm driving acid techno.

G-Man was Gez Varley from LFO on his first solo outing via the Swim label and this absolutely banging piece of techno is such a joy to hear, despite my fumbled mix with Mike Ink at one point. I must have visited Vienna recently because Elin’s ‘Mondlandung’ is featured and I remember Pita aka Peter Rehberg (RIP) giving me copies of the first few Mego releases when we played there of which this was the second. Soon after comes the masterful Autechre remix of Beaumont Hannant’s Psi-Onyx – all 9 minutes + of it with Ae on peak form – ah the memories… Flanging in over the end beats is a track from Caustic Visions, a group who originally debuted on Industrial Strength with nosebleed acid techno before releasing steadily more experimental fair on their own label, influenced by Aphex Twin and beyond. ‘Corner of a Sphere’ comes from their fourth self-released EP and is well worth investigating if you see a copy and enjoy forward-thinking electronica. ‘Lunatic Jam’ by Germany’s Fauna Flash takes a large chunk of DJ Food’s ‘Dark Blood’ and builds a soulful track around it, from their debut 12” on Compost. We get a snatch of the Jedi Knights’ remix of ‘Antacid’ and then it appears the tape switches to Aphex’s ‘Ventolin’ except it may be from one of my own mixes that I’d taped over as the presence of my old flange pedal in the mix is a telling sign of the era.

Track list:
Solid Steel – intro jingle
Negativland – The Perfect Cut
2 Player – Extreme Possibilities (Wagon Christ mix)
Sounds of Life – Intellect
Spacepimp – Space Chase
Unknown – Unknown
Jello Biafra – A Message From Our Sponsor
Alec Empire – Lash the 90ties
Mike Ink – Rosenkranz
G-Man – Legion
Elin – Mondlandung
Beaumont Hannant – Psi-Onyx (Psix Million Dollar Myx Oscar Goldman’s Bonus)
Caustic Visions – Corner of a Sphere
Fauna Flash – Lunatic Jam
Link & E621 – Antacid (Jedi Knights remix)
Aphex Twin – Ventolin (Deep Gong mix)

Posted in DJ Food, Mixcloud Select, Mixes/Solid Steel, Music, Radio, Solid Steel. | No Comments » | Tags: Mixcloud Select

Mixcloud Select 181: Openmind 26/02/1995

February 2, 2024

MS181 tape
What a time for music, early 1995 and not only did we have the hugely anticipated new single from DJ Shadow but also Aphex Twin’s Ventolin EP and Fatboy Slim’s debut single when he was still in downtempo mode with ‘The Weekend Starts Here’. After ‘In/Flux’ blew up, not only for Shadow but by putting MoWax into a higher orbit, everyone was waiting for new music from Josh Davis and he delivered big time with a four part 30 minute single called ’What Does Your Soul Look Like’. The first half of the show covers three of the parts, available on a set of three blue vinyl 10” promos inside sleeves that joined together. Interspersed between them is the Fatboy with the Weekend Bonus Beats version of his single and Death’s sole release (aka Thomas Heckmann) on Trope, a modular bleep-fest called ‘Electronic Realisations Chapter 4’. Following ‘What Does Your Soul Look Like Part 4’ come three ‘Ventolin’ mixes from Aphex, the second, the Deep Gong mix, is by Wagon Christ and a snatch of the London Funk Allstars’ ‘Listen To The Beat’ appears before the tape runs out.

Track list:
DJ Shadow – What Does Your Soul Look Like Part 1
Faboy Slim – The Weekend Starts Here
DJ Shadow – What Does Your Soul Look Like Part 3
Death – Electronic Realisations Chapter 4
DJ Shadow – What Does Your Soul Look Like Part 4
Aphex Twin – Ventolin (Crowsmengegus Mix)
Aphex Twin – Ventolin (Deep Gong Mix)
Aphex Twin – Ventolin (Marazanvose Mix)

Posted in DJ Food, Mixcloud Select, Mixes/Solid Steel, Music, Radio, Solid Steel. | No Comments » | Tags: Mixcloud Select

Mixcloud Select 157: Solid Sloth Pt.1+2 (Strictly Kev) 23/06/1996

July 21, 2023

MS157 Solid Sloth 1+2 23:06:1996
These track lists get harder and harder the further we go back, Discogs and Shazam are called on more and more as the memory gives up and the gaps in the record collection once filled with these tunes appear empty. Back in mid-’96 PC did a show he christened Solid Wood (available on the 20 years of Solid Steel DVD I believe) and a week later we christened this one ‘Solid Sloth’ – not sure exactly why. After a custom Solid Steel intro I’d forgotten that appears to be made from our Journeys By DJ scratches and a DJ Food off-cut we jump into an amazing sound collage of which I have no recall at all. The original DAT this was taken from was seriously messed up and I had to cut all manner of glitches out, not that it’s that apparent in the tornado of sound we’re dropped into. The old Decca LP with the ‘This Is A Journey Into Sound’ sample appears over the top before we’re into Spacer’s ‘Contrazoom’. This was the first time I remember hearing Alison Goldfrapp’s amazing vocals, coming on like Shirley Bassey over a Bond theme mixed with drum n bass, incredible. This mix is littered with a league of producers putting their take on DnB which had, by mid ’96, well and truly made its mark on the electronic music landscape outside of its origins.

Luke Vibert, an early adopter with several Plug EPs under his belt, takes the easy vocals and horns of the Mike Flowers Pops and blends them into a smooth cheese before Amon Tobin carves up the terrain with the frantic ‘Cruzer’ in his original Cujo guise shortly before signing to Ninja Tune under his own name. DJ Shadow’s hard to find Legitimate Mix of Zimbabwe Legit’s ‘Doin’ Damage’ was finally widely available via the Mo Wax Headz compilation so this got an airing along with a suitably downtempo War cut, ‘Four Cornered Room’ which I later found out used to get airplay from Alex Paterson at Land of Oz. Mo Wax was truly in its golden age at this point, every release a winner with multiple remixes across singles from some of the best names covering all genres. DJ Krush’s collaboration with CL Smooth gets a going over by Attica Blues and then I mix in something sampling his and Shadow’s beat from their ‘Duality’ collab, except it features a beautiful synth line over the top. The identity of this escapes me but it smacks of someone like Stasis or As One although I don’t think they’d be that blatant with the beat-swiping. If anyone recognises it then please leave a comment.

A brief hip hop interlude in the form of Erule’s ’Synopsis’ reminds me that I’ve literally just trading this single with a bunch of others for a stack load of comics via a US connection so it’s going back overseas to where I first picked it up. Aphex gives his own unique take on DnB with a mix of his ‘Girl Boy’ single and then we run into a couple of unknowns. I’ve racked my brains (and other’s) to identify this next track, scoured the shelves and Discogs but to no avail, at first it sounds like Squarepusher but it’s a bit too straight for him. Then I thought Danny Breaks/Droppin’ Science but no, too heavy/tricksy in the drum programming – I’m now convinced it’s T-Power in some form or other but I’m damned if I can pin it – please put me out of my misery. The next track is the same, I thought maybe early Hospital Records but no, drawing a blank here too as is Shazam. Mo’ Mo Wax business with the DJ Crystl remix of Dr Octagon’s ‘Blue Flowers’ before the madness of Squarepusher’s complete write-off of Funki Porcini’s ‘Carwreck’ rounds the hour out as PC scratches in his first record for the next set.

Track list:
DJ Food – Solid Steel intro
Unknown – Journey Into Sound
Spacer – Contrazoom feat. Alison Goldfrapp
Luke Vibert & The Mike Flowers Pops – Mfp Chunks
Cujo – Cruzer
Zimbabwe Legit – Doin’ Damage (Shadow’s Legitimate Mix)
War – Four Cornered Room
DJ Krush – Only The Strong Survive feat. CL Smooth (7th Samurai mix by Attica Blues)
Unknown – (Stasis? AsOne?)
Erule – Synopsis
Aphex Twin – Girl Boy (£18 Snarerush Mix)
Unknown – Unknown (T-Power ?)
Unknown – Unknown
Dr Octagon – Blue Flowers (The Flower Bed Mix 2 by DJ Crystl)
Funki Porcini – Carwreck (Squarepusher Mix)

Posted in DJ Food, Mixcloud Select, Mixes/Solid Steel, Music, Radio. | No Comments » | Tags: Mixcloud Select

Mixcloud Select 133: Openmind vs Coldcut live at 102 Central Pt.1 19/08/1994

January 6, 2023January 7, 2023

MS133 Openmind vs Coldcut live at 102 Central Pt.1 19:08:1994

Happy New Year for 2023! I hope it was fun for you all, sorry this is late today, I’ve been deep in design and gig mode, opening for The Art of Noise two nights in a row at the Jazz Cafe. On with the show I promised in the last entry.
Matt Black rang up one day in the summer of 1994, there was a problem. KISS FM had been booked out, both studios, for the Friday pre-record so he needed somewhere else to record the show that week. I’m not sure if Jon More was around, maybe away DJing with PC? I’m also not sure the exact turn of events aside from KISS wasn’t available but could he come over and do the show at mine? Wow, this was a turn up for the books, I’d only been a guest on the show for just over a year, had a handful or more under my belt and was becoming part of the crew due to now providing artwork for the label as well as the odd gig away with Coldcut. OK, come over to East Dulwich and set up in my bedroom and record Solid Steel, why don’t you? Holy shit!

Kev decks 1994 web

At the time I shared a house with Chantal Passamonte (Mira Calix further down the line), David Vallade and Mario Aguera and we had hosted the original Telepathic Fish party in the three story house above a chemists on Goose Green which we’d dubbed 102 Central. Mario had by now started working with Hex as a computer programmer and David and Chantal were working in Ambient Soho, the record shop in Berwick St, Soho, while I was up the road at Books Etc. on Oxford Street. At the time I had three decks set up in my room, a couple of Technics and something else I forget, not sure what the mixer was but it was the same one on the cover of the Funkjazztical Tricknology compilation. I also had a keyboard, a drum machine, CD player and an odd flanger guitar pedal hooked up – see the blurry photo for reference. Matt came down and we took turns playing into a portable DAT player he’d bought along I think. Can’t remember what we used for a mic but it was probably a pair of headphones plugged into the mic. input hence the terrible sound quality. I think the Coldcut jingles were flown in off cassette and this recording was probably taken from the radio broadcast as it has the KISS news jingle added onto the end, probably live by the sound engineer.

Starting off with a then holy trinity of electronica pioneers Autechre, MuZiq and Caustic Windown (Aphex Twin) tells you we’re in the golden age of Artificial Intelligence era electronica. AI only took another 30 years to become part of everyday life. None of the tracks here have aged badly either, I still play the Aphex track out sometimes too. Following ‘On The Romance Tip’ (where did that title originate? It’s not on the record anywhere) there’s an elongated trance-ish acid thing that makes me think it might be European. Shazam gives me nothing and the ears don’t recognise it at all – anyone? Starts about 11 mins in and bubbles away for another four minutes until Global Communication’s ‘Sublime Creation’ races in on 45 instead of 33, sounding not far off Acen’s ‘Trip To The Moon’ in places.

Cut for an ad break and more Glob Comm with the opening track to their classic 76’14 album, ‘4’02’ with the opening of The Orb’s remix of Material’s ‘Praying Mantra’ slurped over, a common DJ tool of mine. Another was the phasing, filtered and panning intro to Mergener / Weisser’s ‘Sunbeam’ from a New Age Music comp on Klaus Schulze’s Innovative Communication label that Mixmaster Morris had hipped me to, I think I found this in Beanos or somewhere along Berwick St. on my lunch break one day in Soho. This can be heard bridging ‘4’02’ and Kraftwerk’s ‘The Man Machine’ classic, which needs no introduction. Out of the other Fab Four into Coldcut’s own ‘Eine Kleine Hed Musik’ – fresh on vinyl from the extra disc that accompanied the Ninja Tune vinyl version of the album and first heard opening the original Coldcut meets The Orb radio show on New Year’s Eve 1991/92. Which brings us full circle, 31 years later… exit Matt Black stating, ‘Openmind in the house, or rather I’m in Openmind’s house!’

Track list:
Autechre – Lost
MuZiq – Nettles & Pralines
Caustic Window – On The Romance Tip
Unknown – unknown
Global Communication – Sublime Creation (on 45)
Global Communication – 4’02
Kraftwerk – The Man Machine
Coldcut – Eine Kleine Hed Musik

Posted in DJ Food, Mixcloud Select, Mixes/Solid Steel, Music, Radio. | No Comments » | Tags: Mixcloud Select

Brian Eno – The Lighthouse, what’s on it?

July 30, 2022March 1, 2024

I’ve been compiling this, off and on, all year, while listening to the 340+ unreleased tracks on Brian Eno‘s Sonos HD radio station, The Lighthouse. If I had the phone nearby I’d check what’s playing, make a note of the track number and year and write a short description. I was intrigued to see how often tracks repeated (not very often), how long it would take me to hear all of them (over 6 months) and what the ratio of good to average to bad was. It became quite addictive as I’d fill in more each day, a bit like collecting cards in a numbered sequence, filling in the blanks each day. Of course as time went on I’d hear more repetitions and less new tracks so filling in a new entry was like finding another piece of the puzzle. After a while I began to give them star ratings from 1 to 5; 5 being amazing, as good or better than anything he’d ever released, 4 great, 3 good, 2 so-so, 1 skippable.

For those interested, the highest number I’ve heard has been #349 (all the tracks are titled by number and year), the oldest was from 1989, newest from 2021. There were occasional different versions of previously released tracks from Nerve Net and Drawn From Life and many that had similar undertones to albums like Apollo or Ambient 4. The shortest was around a minute and 30 seconds, the longest approximately 24 minutes at a guess (there are no times on any of the tracks). If a title has been given to a piece in one of the two Lighthouse interviews it’s included in brackets. Where there’s no entry, I’ve not yet heard that track on the stream.
If albums on average have 10-15 tracks then that’s over 30 albums worth, or maybe The Lighthouse IS an album? It’s like being let into a secret vault every time you tune in, catching glimpses of precious (and sometimes not so precious) gems as the algorithm cycles through the selection. Similar to Aphex Twin‘s Soundcloud dump a few years back, this is the archive mother lode from one of my favourite artists.
UPDATE: at least another 75 tracks added since Sept 2023 – have heard #424 and counting and some tracks are from 2023, the longest one is over 24 minutes(!)… I noticed that at least two tracks from the Top Boy soundtrack that Eno released in September feature on The Lighthouse, I will mark them when I find them.

Track list: (UPDATED 23/12/23)
001 (2018) Algorithmic rhythm system groove w. male vocal ** (5.01)
002 (2018) Almost an ‘I Zimbra’ remix, Give it up and turn it loose bassline & female vocal – (title: Funk Groove Reduced) ***** (3.23)
003 (2018) Wooah yay, slow vocal sway ** (4.23)
004 (2019) Night drive passing cars, sudden end *** (3.28)
005 (2010) Slow beats glissando echo *** (4.54)
006 (2021) Dark low rumble bass pad, winding in and out *** (3.36)
007 (2019) Short solo keyboard lament ** (2.29) 008 (2019) Gated choir crawl abruptly stopping ** (2.41) 009 (2019) Stunning beauty but so short ***** (1.45)
010 (2019) Hovering guitar noodle *** (2.29)
011 (2018) Dark laidback plod with lead electric guitar *** (3.35)
012 (2011) Low sub bass ambience, v. short **** (2.15)  013 (2018) Computer controlled upbeat rhythm w. languid melody/‘lonely time’ vocal **** (4.31)
014 (2018) Uptempo sequencer tightness ** (4.37) 015 (2018) Gated voice over insistent machine rhythm ** (4.55) 016 (2018) Eno brings the machine funk w. female vocals ** (4.02)
017 (2018) Excellent fast paced rhythm w. drums and skronk piano **** (3.43)
018 (2021) Dark piano tension **** (9.59)
019 (2020) Super calm deep drift **** (3.27) 020 (2020) Hovering quiet piano *** (6.28)
021
022 (2018) Dinky keyboard workout ** (2.20) 023 (2018) Mid tempo funky wah wah w. distorted vocal sample, deep bass kicks ** (4.42) 024 (2021) Rapid Edits on machine funk *** (3.28)
025 (2018) Spiky funk excellence – love this one ***** (3.36)
026 (2021) Cheeky little number, almost reggae ** (3.44) 027 (2021) Beautiful space drift w. violin and electronics ****
028 (2015) Jaunty vocal funk w ping ponging electronics *** (4.14)
029 (2015) Twangy offbeat vocal country song ** (3.36)
030 (2017) Climbing sinister piano ** (2.59)
031 (2017) Airy piano drift / Slow hovering w. minor key piano ** (3.24)
032 (2017) Short wistful ambient *** (1.56) 033 (2015) Fast double time picking pattern *** (7.41) 034 (2017) Marimba with splashy snare ** (4.48)
035 (2009) Sweet high synth modulations descending *** (4.04) 036 (2009) Solo cautious piano / Wandering solo piano w. birds ** (4.31)
037 (2009) Aphex-ish Wandering piano and occasional wordless vocal delay interjections **** (4.13)
038 (2009) Moody Warszaw-ish Solo piano patterns (title: Eagleman 22)** (4.04) 039 (2009) Hesitant solo keys ** (2.48)
040 (2021) Slow, sustained, quiet decaying strings *** (5.05)
041 (2019) Slowly unfurling tones *** (5.02)
042 (2015) Any man… Dead Can Dance-ish medieval vocal *** (5.08)
043 (2015) Suspended vocal tones w. odd jungle interlude *** (6.20)
044 045 (2018) Solo soaring/searing string section *** (7.57)
046 (2011) v short Sinister gongs **** (2.18) 047 (2018) Jaunty bass synth riff * (4.03)
048 (2019) Bass plod and positive chords *** (6.04)
049 (2019) Short ringing, decaying loops **** (3.29)
050 (2020) Bright twang guitar and mysterious mood *** (3.48) 051 (2020) Plod bass dreamy underwater w. descending piano **** (2.15)
052 053 (2019) Floaty synths, buoyant melody, bit new age-y * (4.08)
054 (2020) Yawning expanse Fripp-like guitar w. shimmering bottom end rumble **** (5.55)
055 (2017) Chirrups and thunks, fading ** (2.39) 056 (2019) Thumping climber with whistling * (4.19)
057 (2019) Epic throbbing string soundtrack *** (5.53)
058 (2019) Sweet solo synth Shimmering *** (3.25)
059 (2019) Rushing and rising washes of bright synth *** (3.11)
060 (2020) Squalling funky guitar over bouncy rhythm ** (3.29) 061 (2011) Slow acoustic lament ** (5.01)
062 (2018) Synth strings, earnest, church- like ** (3.30) 063 (2020) Sawing cello and pitch bent strings * (3.05) 064 (2020) Underwater electronics **
065 (2020) Lightly gated church organ w. bubbling bright top end ** (2.46) 066 (2020) Dark shifts / Alien beasts viewed from afar *** (2.52)
067 (2020) Gently bubbling sorrowful surges **** (4.42)
068 (2020) Swamp ambient w. industrial overtones and buzzing malfunctioning electronics ** (4.22) 069 (2920) Industrial alarm warning with flourishes ** (3.45) 070 (2002) Twanging country vocal tune (3.50) 070 (2021) High pitched solo synth ** (3.50)
071 (2015) Bright, plucked machine guitar and drums, almost hi-life *** (3.29)
072 (2001) Creepy keys electric mood *** (8.42) 073 (2002) Expansive Bass exploration / winding drone ** (5.06)
074 (2002) Abstract audio synthesis / mysterious world *** (12.15) 075 (2002) Squalling fast funk w. synth brass *** (3.04)
076 (2002) Female spoken word (spots) over languid keys and deep bass **** (3.18) 077 (2002) He doesn’t want to be found, fast vocal song *** (3.13)
078 (2002) Jaunty sky saw Fripp guitar ** (3.17) 079 (2009) Rolling vistas ambient *** (6.34) 080 (2002) Frankly awful vocal country * (4.59) 081 (2002) Meandering country twang w. mournful bass *** (3.41) 082 (2002) Gentle vocoder vocal and electric guitar ** (5.09)
083 (2002) Bright keyboard ditty * (2.13) 084 (2002) Twangy guitar and bass idea ** (2.13)
085 (2002) Bouncy pop instrumental ** (4.43) 086 (2021) Low Humming w. signal bleeps ** (4.35)
087 (2021) Ambient lullaby humming w soaring strings *** (7.07)
088 (2021) Electro thrumming with yawning sawtooth surges *** (4.43)
089 (2021) Quiet keyboard figures ** (2.57)
090 (2021) Deep sea dive **** (5.22)
091 (2021) Springy bleeps and whirring w. heavy beat ** (2.28)
092 (2021) Low night time creeper ** (3.29)
093 (2021) Complex bass bounce, machine beat with skittering high synth **
094 (2021) Heavy Fairlight beat, Indian scales and time stretch *** (3.27)
095 (2021) Gravelly spring beat w. odd bass figure ** (2.43)
096 (2018) Fast funky drum, guitar & horn flourishes w. keyboard escapades **** (4.01)
097
098 (2021) Air snares skittering w. bells and industrial kettle drum ** (4.26)
099
100 (2001) Questing solo keys *** (3.46)

101 (2002) Gorgeous soaring sad keys **** (4.05)
102 (2002) Tentative keys in reverb soup, short ** (2.52)
103 (2003) Juddering gated bass beat with glissando guitar ** (3.41)
104 (2004) Gnarly distorting bass w bouncing pings **** (3.33)
105 (2004) Vocal guitar dirge * (4.04) 106 (2004) Swinging Eno vocal song with yearning guitar ** (4.03) (title: All The Bloody Fighters)
107 (1997) Lilting loop *** (4.24)
108 (1997) Short mysterious piece ** (2.32) 109 (1998) Upbeat xylophone ditty, great chorus *** (1998)
110 (1998) Building chord sketch for pop song ** (4.57)
111
112 (1998) Wobbling experiments – quite Aphex-ish ** (5.52) 113 (2021) Twinkling synths short ** (2.22)
114 (2015) Bubbling bright synth motifs occasionally coalescing into brief rhythms *** (2.31)
115 (2021) Beautiful soft focus morning ***** (6.11)
116 (2021) Classic Eno ambient drift voices **** (5.39) 117 (2021) Synthetic melodic runs almost identical to Funki Porcini’s ‘6 Minutes To Manchester’ *** (2.05) 118 (2021) Minimal suspense, fading *** (5.15) 119 (2011) Excellent Fast breakbeat cut up ***** (2.37) 120 (2020) Understated deep piano pads *** (2.54)
121 (2020) Gorgeous ambient drift ***** (6.08)
122 (2000) Vocal choir jolly ditty Slow That Bell ** (4.30)  123 (2000) Vocal song Run Out of Time ** (5.33) 124 (2000) Short strummy vocal song * (2.05) 125 (1998) Euphoric synth melodies ** (6.44) 126 (1998) Short eerie Eastern synth figure ** (1.33)
127 (1998) Ticking filtered sinister apprehension w. disturbances breaking through **** (5.56)
128 (1998) High pitched atonal crystalline rhythm pattern ** (2.28)
129 (1998) Church organ plays sea shanty * (2.08)
130 (1998) Odd little bass mood *** (3.04)
131 (2015) Japanese percussion & horns *** (2.46) 132 (2015) Mysterious mechanical groove **** (2.42)
133 (2015) Industrial trip hop beats + phased, gated noise – excellent **** (3.15)
134 (2015) Bright airy synth , fast beats *** (3.00)
135
136 (1998) Stumbling solo piano ** (3.26) 137 (1997) Jolly but slightly annoying descending melody * (4.23)
138 (1997) Cheeky electronic rhythm w DAT glitch fx ** (2.31)
139 (1997) Apollo-esque ambience ***** (11.08)
140 (2020) Soft reverb piano, contemplative *** (4.30) 141 (2011) Super lush ***** (6.51)
142 (1998) Distant tinkly reverb piano *** (10.40) 143 (1998) Apollo-ish drift, beautiful as only Eno can do ***** (11.34) 144 (2000) Dreary vocal pop with Bontempi organ * (3.48)
145 (2002) Minimal Darkness tubular echoes *** (10.29) 146 (2002) Lush strings pulling in and out of focus **** (7.12)
147 (1997) Slowly see-sawing drone *** (4.01) 148 (1998) Downbeat moody chugger ** (5.32)
149 (1998) Version of ‘Blissed’ from The Drop, Piano, bongos and insistent chink **** (4.23)
150 (1998) Climbing starlight filtered melody, glistening, twinkling *** (3.53)
151 (1998) Electronic bird screeches ** (3.47)
152 (1998) Aimless keyboard doodle * (2.30) 153 (1998) Stilted electric piano solo ** (2.48)
154 (1998) Icy high keys ** (3.44)
155 (1998) Hesitant flute-esque keyboard exploration * (2.25)
156 (1994) Scary Deep space choir *** (6.27)  157 (1994) African drums and metallic solo ** (4.15)
158
159 (2009) Solemn/sweet notes suspended *** (5.22)
160 (1991) Unreleased version of Fractal Zoom with distortion ***** (2.02)
161 (1991) Indian Violin and tablas ???? 161 (2011) Slow, soft drifting pads **** (5.39)
162 (1991) Sneaky Bar jazz ** (4.02)
163 (1991) Sneaky Bar jazz II ** (3.57) 164 (1991) Eno vocal w. acoustic guitar, slap bass and keys – funky breakdown * (4.55)
165 (1991) Hey nonny nonny, Indian strings, London Bridge is falling down. * (3.49)
166 (1990) Ambient 4-ish – one of the best here ***** (12.02) 167 (2010) Slight sustained solo synth figure, hovering * (9.01)
168 (2019) Long decay piano & strings, slow sparse *** (9.26)
169 (1998) Purring undulating loop surges building to harsher noise *** 12.05) 170 (1989) Gentle Amazon forest ambience with birds, insects, building dread drone and bells **** (11.50)
171 (1995) Unbelievably beautiful dark ambience, celestial drift ***** (9.48)
172
173 (2017) Uplifting full band cut ***** (3.02)
174 (1994) Generative Xylophone noodle jazz * (3.39) 175 (1994) Insistent chugging machine rhythm w. whipping – long! *** (17.47)
176 (1994) Industrial hum / Stomping trip hip beat w. shimmering synths – long! **** (11.47)
177 (1994) Squeezebox & woodblock ** (4.22)
178 (1994) Percussive eastern rhythms ** (4.52) 179 (1994) Vocal harmonies and solemn keyboard * (1.50)
180 (1994) Eighties ambience with slithering background menace *** (2.18) 181 (1994) Menacing loop w. sudden random jazz piano *** (9.11) 182 (1991) Late night wander **** (3.14) 183 (1991) Nerve Net era snaking bass funk *** (4.47) 184 (1991) Off kilter bass mood *** (4.53)
185 (1991) Another Green World-like guitar and piano journey *** (2.46)
186 (1991) Atonal melody meander – Aphex before Aphex *** (3.39)
187 (1991) Sprightly, frantic urgent twiddling eastern melodies *** (2.51)
188 (1991) Godlike genius ambient ***** (5.34) 189 (1991) Slap bass and organ groove, Fractal Zoom-like drums ** (3.14)
190 (1991) Deep broody ambience / ‘The Electrician’-like dread **** (4.27)
191 (1991) Deeper broody ambience / Distant suspense, deep bass tones **** (5.56)
192 (1994) Short, sparse, hesitant bongs * (2.07)
193 (1994) Light, bobbling, slightly creepy ambience **** (6.05)
194 (1994) Low strings, acoustic, background female choir harmonies *** (4.29)
195 (1994) Low hovering cello *** (6.07)
196 (1994) Low whirring menacing drones and strings *** (3.56)
197 (1994) Low synth bass w high weirdo keys * (2.43)
198 (1994) Military tattoo drums w. metal banging and airy keys * (3.52)
199 (1994) Waves of voices, rushing, percolating noise, chiming bell, industrial thud *** (9.35)
200 (1989) Marsh-like Ambient 4 whistling birds ***** (14.55)

201 (1991) Organ-led vocal song *** (3.23) 202 (2005) Sombre string synths soaring and diving *** (3.29)
203 (1995) Hysterical piano and modulating sub bass machine jazz *** (3.36)
204 (1995) Watery submerged piano cascade reverb *** (8.06) an alternative version of ‘A Long Way Down’ from ‘Another Day on Earth’
205 (2001) Short filtered rising falling drum ** (2.55)
206 (2018) Live drums w. menace *** (4.09) 207 (2020) Cautious keys, building, dropping *** (5.25)
208 (2021) Fast bleep-y keyboard algorithm composition, sounds like early LFO or Autechre *** (3.54)
209 (2021) Gorgeous ambient drift / Distant reverb flutes, this one is lush – long too ***** (7.47)
210 (2020) Soft focus waves ebbing and flowing **** (4.57)
211 (2021) Solo piano algorithms & building strings *** (2.49)
212 (2021) Violin top note ambience, soft low and slow **** (12.53) 213 (2018) Euphoric ambient pads *** (3.21)
214 (1991) Eastern keyboard figures * (5.04) 215 (1991) Wailing vocal ballad with piano ** (5.33)
216 (1991) Off-kilter creep jazz bass riff w. soaring synth guitar solo and random piano * (4.46) 217 (1991) Fractal Zoom-ish upbeat funk w. squalling synths, metallic drums **** (5.35)
218 (1991) Vocal version of another song with different backing ** possibly 215 (5.18) 219 (1991) Dark ocean seabed *** (8.26)
220 (1991) Duplicate of another track here (163 Sneaky Bar Jazz II) eastern keyboard melody on fast tapping rhythm ** (3.57)
221 (1991) Arabic jam *** (2.52)
222 (2019) Ambient version of faster break number, excellent slow swoop **** (3.56)
223 (2021) Guitar and piano meander * (3.31)
224 (1994) Scary swirling **** (11.18)
225 (1991) High pitched ambience – beautiful and long ***** (12.25)
226 (2001) Singing bowls *** (3.25)
227 (2001) Choir singing bowls ***** (6.13) 228 (1995) Creeping ambience *** (3.26)
229 (1991) Deep ambient, winding drone w. distant movements **** (5.54)
230 (1994) Urgent snappy machine rhythm w. bubbling xylophone menace **** (4.23) 231 (1991) Stately synth bombast – same track as 232 despite year difference * (4.28)
232 (1994) Solemn synths – same track as 231 despite year difference * (4.28) 233 (2020) Spatial drift w. skittish surging signals *** (8.14)
234 (2020) Low droning cello ** (7.28)
235 (2020) Fading mournfulness / Low slow strings sweeps *** (4.44) 236 (2000) Offbeat machine funk and twisting bass **** (3.49) 237 (2000) Ominous drone ** (5.40)
238 (2000) Trampolines no beat with fast violin, short * (1.56)
239 (1996) Sombre strings ** (4.35)
240 (2000) Late night radio hiss, bobbing tempo and interference building to gorgeousness **** (5.11)
241 (2020) Insistent percussion over mysterious drone *** (2.28)
242 (1995) Digital horns over tepid rhythm – more sneaky bar jazz? * (4.16)
243 (1996) Whirring ambience *** (5.09)
244 (1996) Plinky Piano / Duelling solo pianos * (3.00)
245 (2021) Twangy guitar and backwards tape loops ** (4.05) 246 (2000) Early version of ‘Bloom’ from Drawn From Life **** (4.28) 247 (2021) Solo piano repeat figures *** (4.40)
248 (2020) Buzzing gated rhythm surging, ping pong highlights *** (2.13)
249 (2000) Dark fuzzy menace – Electrician-like ** (5.39)
250 (1994) Fast throbbing industrial engine rhythm w. floating electronics – long jam *** (12.12)
251 (2020) Desolate windy tundra **** (5.03)
252 (2020) Short slight tension, bright, Vangelis-like *** (4.11)
253 (2000) Ghostly vocoder ambience / Synthetic vocal poem with eerie accompaniment *** (5.01)
254 (2000) Acoustic light *** (2.51)
255 (2021) Distant girl reverb ambient *** (3.36) 256 (2021) Warm bass, high shimmering tones, hovering **** (7.29)
257 (1996) Fast percussion + bass, pursuit *** (7.40) 258 (1996) Lilting late night keys **** (3.14)
259 (2021) Double-timed bass with half time percussion and keyboard flourishes *** (5.10)
260 (1994) Insistent bobbing rhythm with synth washes and exploratory keys ** (3.32)
261 (1991) Gorgeous ambient, one of the best on here ***** (18.06) 262 (1998) Short bass groove with sinister keys *** (3.39)
263 (2009) Beautiful rising/falling synth chords w. muted kick drum **** (5.23)
264 (1994) Ominous background riff w. new bulletins and football match *** (2.26)
265 (2000) Two dogs in the night – excellent female spoken voice dark bass groove ***** (4.13) 266 (2019) Undulating pulsing techno *** (3.55)
267
268 (1996) Banging techno w. very bad scratching down to downtempo trip hop w. Miles David trumpet – very un-Eno **** (2.50)
269 (2000) Odd meandering wordless vocal w. sprightly melodic keys **** (7.41)
270
271 (2021) Downtempo doom-y band groove w. synth horns and percussion *** (3.14)
272 (2021) Ringing chime triplets ** (1.57)
273 (2018) Speedy skittering techno jazz w. organ solo and distorted vocal ***** (3.39)
274 (2018) Hiiiieeee!!!! *** (3.53)
275 (2018) Solo tremolo guitar ** (4.35) 276 (2020) Minimal plucked bleeps * (2.11)
277 (2010) Beautiful sparse chime keys – gorgeous **** (5.43)
278 (2021) More machine funk, algorithmic edits and high pitched top notes *** (2.44) 279 (2010) Lilting piano and odd strings – (title: Ross & Cromarty) ** (3.32)
280 (2021) Soft xylophone type melodies ** (2.05)
281 (2020) Grinding bass groove **** (4.03) 282 (2020) Murky reverb keys** (3.35)
283 (2020) Creepy pings, oriental tones *** (2.10)
284 (2018) Fast throbbing helicopter drumming *** (3.15) 285 (2006) Banging trip hop beats and breaks **** (3.04) 286 (2021) Off kilter machine funk *** (3.40)
287 (2019) Fractured transmissions breaking through, rumbling, becoming clearer ** (6.34)
288
289 (2018) Drum machine edits & wah wah funk **** (2.14)
290 (2103) Dark ambient kick short *** (3.30)
291 (2017) Bell-like tones **** (8.47)
292 (2017) Mournful woodwind ambience *** (15.17)
293 (2013) Live band jam, wandering guitar plucks, squealing solos, Drawn From Life-ish ** (8.34)
294 (2021) Bass synth noodle & stabs * (3.35)
295 (2011) Filtered fast breakbeat, throbbing bass and mysterious keys, DnB tempo *** (2.38) 296 (2016) Mid tempo bobbing gated pad / Gently bobbing keyboard instrumental ** (296) 297 (2019) Excellent moody downtempo beats and electronics ***** (4.50)
298 (2020) Arabian Eno vocal, uptempo live drums **** (4.05)
299 (1997) Epic choir and State of Independence vibe / pitched vocals **** (4.20)
300 (2019) Sweet descending reverb motif, building *** (4.57)

301
302 (2018) Meandering lightness & bass drops – long and beautiful! ***** (21.34)
303 (2004) Chugging rhythm w. wordless auto tuned vocal song idea, euphoric keys, short then fade*** (3.15)
304 (2009) Double time kick drum progression under triumphant organ melody ** (2.43)
305 (2005) Vocal song about eyes w. electric guitar and organ accompaniment ** (3.27) 306 (2004) Piano decays + ticking, short spoken word ‘almost like now’ *** (3.12)
307 (2004) Solo Eno vocal and piano *** (1.48) 308 (2006) Brian sounds miserable vocal song * (4.26)
309 (1996) Choir in space- short *** (2.15)
310 (2000) Beautiful undulating ambience, sunny warmth **** (9.58)
311 (2000) Slightly atonal glimmering crystal synths and washes ** (6.12)
312 (2000) Terry Riley-esque organ figures *** (4.05)
313 (2000) Drums w. echo & keys jam * (10.27) 314 (2000) Version of ‘Persis’ from Drawn From Life. Plodding beat and strings ***** (5.17)
315 (1999) Stark drum break reverb w. distorted electric bass *** (4.04)
316 (1999) Offbeat dark jazz rhythm w. surging monster sounds **** (5.23) 317 (1999) Shimmering crystal ambience **** (5.43)
318 (1999) So so-lo synth melody ** (6.59)
319 (2000) Frippertronic-like interweaving ambience **** (4.12)
320 (1999) Soaring & dive bombing ambience ***** (7.23)
321 (1999) Downtempo beats and drill bass ** (8.01)
322 (1999) Downtempo gated bass, drum machine and 80s-ish synth song arrangement ** (4.30)
323 (1999) Vocoder version of ‘Two Voices’ from Drawn From Life ***** (4.35)
324 325 (2019) Sweet ethereal melodies, Xmas-y ** (3.09) 326 (2021) Short Beautiful solo piano **** (2.08) 327 (2014) Female vocal experiments bird-like calls **** (6.52) 328 (2020) Squelchy fast machine funk ** (4.11)
329 (2000) Building Kinetic machine rhythms *** (8.06)
330 (2012) Neon Lights-ish pleasant synth and drum machine song ** (4.48)
331 (1999) Solo Arabian synth melody noodle * (2.41) 332 (2021) Abrasive chime reverb drone w. undulating high notes **** (8.57)
333 (1999) Short church organ figure ** (1.20)
334 (2021) Very fast drum machine percussion and wailing eastern synth w. micro edits *** (3.21)
335 (2019) Uplifting synth in 6/8 time *** (4.03)
336 (1999) Insistent throbbing foreboding click rhythm, snaking melody **** (9.10)
337 (2020) Odd, weird, slow, disjointed ** (3.11)
338 (1999) Oh this is really good! Beautiful soaring ambience ***** (6.29)
339 (2004) Eno vocal harmonies meets odd pop w. edited screech guitar and wayward piano ** (3.44)
340 (2021) Insistent strumming w. airy pads – short! *** (3.29)
341 (1999) Uptempo tribal drums, wah guitar, percussion and stereo electronics FX – funk jam **** (2.41)
342 (2021) Euphoric synth stomp ** (3.16)
343 (1999) Shimmering high pitched crystals **** (14.29)
344 (2013) Winding acoustic and piano shimmer ** (7.48)
345 (1999) Funeral procession solo keys** (2.17)
346 (2020) Galloping almost acid techno fading into ambience *** (2.09)
347 (1999) Crystals dropping – stunning ***** (2.58)
348 (2005) Upbeat vocal pop ditty, down down ** (5.21)
349 (1999) Excellent moody throbbing 6/8 beat & bass, War of the Worlds-ish synth motif ***** (5.33)
350 (2004) Rhodes-y solo ambience ** (4.58)
351 (1996) Mid tempo funk bass/guitar w. meandering keyboard + female instructional vocal ** (4.48)
352 (2000) Woozy high keyboard figures *** (3.33)
353 (1996) Sustained voice and keyboard drift meld *** (6.42)
354 (1996) Short stark piano piece ** (1.58)
355 (2021) Electronic autechre-ish mood ** (3.58)
356 (2004) Jangly acoustic vocal song, “I saw you there” ** (3.34)
357 (2019) Synth bass and glitched, loping beats ** (2.00)
358 (1996) Fast guitar funk w. keyboard solos and robotic drums *** (3.32)
359 (1994) Organ workout, short * (2.09)
360 (2000) Gorgeous ambient lushness ***** (7.28)
361 (2000) Bass synth exploratory w. delays ** (3.29)
362 (1996) Pitch-bent high synth solo, George Duke-esque * (3.52)
363 (1999) Bright, positive vocal pop tune * (6.42)
364 (2000) Undulating high pitched keyboard solo figures ** (2.06)
365 (2019) Slowly surging keyboard collage *** (3.10)
366 (2000) Gentle suspense, singing bowls tapping, builds to dark mood *** (7.57)
367 (2020) Plodding slow loop w sax/cow moo ** (3.42)
368 (2020) Mournful suspense *** (6.13)
369 (2020) Slow, sombre, languid guitar and keys ** (4.28)
370 (2020) Edited tabla workout with bass zooms and insistent piano *** (4.12)
371 (2021) Slow, meandering, open plains drift w. Skittish high pitched vocal **** (4.36)
372 (2020) Subdued mood movement ** (4.20)
373 (2020) Slow, mournful organ piece w. sparse beats ** (3.19)
374 (2021) Piano and Oboe-ish tension ** (3.22)
375 (2005) Country Eno song * (4.01)
376 (2005) Reverb-y downtempo song, swing hi-hats, ‘it’s no’ vocal *** (2.44)
377 (2006) Space radio signals, sparse w. huge swells *** (3.47)
378 (1994) TFF Shout-esque beat with wobbly top line ** (5.54)
379 (2000) Spooky climbing keys w reverb *** (5.16)
380 (2000) Sleep, sleep, vocal song idea ** (2.57)
381 (1999) Muted guitar squall and distant vocal repeats ** (2.10)
382 (2021) Gated epic chords ** (4.49)
383 (1999) Swirling atmospherics, ominous tension ** (3.00)
384 (1999) Muted Jazz drums w filtered atoms loop delays ** (5.06)
385 (1994) Gorgeous synth ambience **** (3.25)
386 (1996) Nerve Net-ish dark insistent groove with tapping and huge shifts *** (8.22)
387 (2021) High pitched dark ambience, Eno cyber vocal ‘In the last world’ **** (3.52)
388 (2021) Intrepid gongs **** (3.40)
389 (2020) Minimal shifting bass ambience w. panning high notes *** (4.08)
390 (2020) Urgent passing data surges in the night ** (2.49)
391 (2020) Soft beats and underlying static with minimal melodic flourishes ** (2.48)
392 (2013) Winding feedback screech pad and sombre ambience ** (2.24)
393 (2019) Solo keyboard melody idea *** (1.56)
394 (2017) Ticking beats and Kraftwerk-ish vocoder voice *** (2.29)
395 (2018) Inside a huge metallic tunnel ** (4.03)
396 (2020) Soft spooky-voiced wailing lament * (7.11)
397 (2019) Gated, almost Silent Night melody ** (3.28)
398 (1994) Fast machine rhythm, industrial w. fluctuating blobs and high synth lines, Long jam! *** (14.42)
399 (2011) Gorgeous drifting ambience with gaps, stereo panning – lush and very long ***** (24.20)

400 (2023) Long decay generative piano figures *** (13.33)
401 (2021) Fast sci-fi beats and urgent synths with micro edits **** (3.22)
402 (2022) Very odd, almost tribal electronica with decays *** (2.54)
403 (2023) Creeping suspense *** (4.44)
404 (2019) More amorphous gorgeous ambience ***** (5.04)
405 (2023) Stunning, how does he do it? ***** (5.09)
406 (2017) High female vocals ambience + reverb *** (3.03)
407 (2019) Cocteau’s-like guitar shoe gaze *** (3.38)
408 (2018) Pitched down Laraaji-like acoustic plucking with strings *** (7.30)
409 (2023) Wordless male and female voices swirling about the ether with crows. Soft far away tocking ** (4.51)
410 (2023) Quivering wordless ghostly voice + piano * (2.35)
411 (2019) Jaunty bright synth piece ** (3.09)
412 (2023) Percussion and electronics joined by male voices *** (2.44)
413 (2023) Lantern organ wurlitzer with faraway explosions ** (3.12)
414 (2023) Throbbing hum with choir-like synth voices ** (4.24)
415 (2023) Deep moody ambience with ticking ** (3.47)
416 (2023) Beautiful ambience, rising and falling, wordless high vocals, end of your life credits stuff, possibly related to 415 in places *** (6.39)
417 (2023) Otherworldly, mysterious deep space – gorgeous **** (3.27)
418 (2023) Fast jazz jungle jam with recorded documentary voice background and ominous sax *** (4.39)
419 (2023) Slow, deep bass synth and percussive rocking ** (4.11)
420 (2019) Epic Ship-like ambience with Eno singing *** *clicks (7.32)
421 (2023) Meandering medieval drone * (5.52)
422 (2023) Theme to a deep sea dive, inside the diving suit *** (7.56)
423 (2020) Solo organ piece, dips between funeral and euphoria *clicks ** (4.11)
424 (2023) Slow techno beat with bright overtones and female choir *** (3.43)

UPDATE 2024: There are at least 25 new tracks from 2023 and 2022 added as of Feb 2024 bringing the total up to 449. #429 will also be available on the forthcoming Eno documentary soundtrack album.

425 (2023) (3.27)
426 (2022) (3.21)
427 (2023) (5.34)
428 (2023) (4.46)
429 (202?) (5.43)
430 (2023) (2.13)
431 (2023) (1.20)
432 (2023) (2.24)
433 (2023) (4.51)
434 (2023) (3.29)
435 (2023) Thin synth with moody bass and washed-out female vocals. (6.26)
436 (2023) (5.35)
437 (2023) (4.39)
438 (2023) (9.22)
439 (2023) (1.16)
440 (2023) (3.43)
441 (2023) Muffled vocal sounds with minimal, hesitant beat (3.48)
442 (2022) (4.15)
443 (2022) (4.54)
444 (2023) Electronic birds with drifty ambient strings and light (8.59)
445 (2023) (5.00)
446 (2023) (2.31)
447 (2023) Solemn but beautiful piano ambience with long decay *** (6.54)
448 (2023) (4.16)
449 (2023) Airy, low atmospherics, building and fading with sinister shimmer (3.56)

Posted in Music, Radio. | 29 Comments » | Tags: Brian Eno, The Lighthouse

Mixcloud Select 109 – Coldcut & Openmind in for Andrew Weatherall – 25/08/1994 2nd hour

July 1, 2022

Andrew Weatherall once had a late night, weekday show on KISS FM back in the 90’s, running – I think – between 1993 and 1994. Coldcut were asked to sit in for him a few times and I got to play one of these during August 1994. I can’t remember if we did it live, I doubt it being that it was 1-4am on a Wednesday night, we probably pre-recorded it.

This particular set is Matt Black and myself using multiple decks and CD players, I think I even bought a cassette in to play one particular piece from and it’s a good example of Solid Steel from around that time, quite ambient, downtempo with an uptempo electronic ending. Of the three hours, Matt did the first, I did the 2nd and most if not all of the 3rd, it’s hard to tell until I have a full track list.

Kicking off with Ken Nordine, then a recent find on a Rhino best of CD via Mixmaster Morris who introduced me to him in 1993 and blew my mind. The Orb we all know, hard to believe it’s 30 years this summer that this came out on the UFOrb album. Early Ninja beats from Up, Bustle & Out into Sounds From The Ground – a lesser heralded act from around this time which included Elliot Morgan Jones who was also Path who appear later. One of the first vinyl design jobs I ever did was for him under the Path alias on his own Sound Information label – lovely guy.

There’s been a lot of talk on the internet about trip hop this week and here are a brace of beats from older 80s cuts by the likes of Depth Charge and Tackhead with a couple of tracks from Aphex’s then newly-released Selected Ambient Works II and the Psychic Warriors of Gaia sandwiched in between. A brief dash of the Orb’s mix of KLF’s 3AM and another snatch of Ken from the Sound Museum, one of my absolute favourites by the man.

Things get multi-layered from here and I can’t identify all the tracks going on as many of them bleed into one another or run in the background, ducking and diving in and out of the mix. Steve Hillage’s ‘Rainbow Dome Musick’ is one of them and must play for at least 10 minutes or more. Global Communication’s ‘9.25’ I can definitely hear, the Path vs Spacehead is another and Tounesol’s ‘Holy Cow’ but there’s lots more going on in there. Once we reach Hillage there’s a slow build into quite a raucous section of pounding acid techno with a Beaumont Hannant track from the vinyl version of his Texturology album that I can’t find the name of. Out of this comes one of my favourite UK acid tracks – Sulphuric’s ‘Acid Chamber’ on Infonet – a sole release under this name being the work of Pete (The Hypnotist/MLO and may more) Smith and Kris Needs and it’s incredible. Hillage is still in the mix and then we get another Aphex track to play out, the pounding but mysterious ‘D-Scape’ from his ‘On’ release.

Tracklist:
Ken Nordine – The Sound Museum
The Orb – O.O.B.E.
Up, Bustle & Out – Lazy Daze
Sounds From The Ground – Triangle
Depth Charge – Bounty Killers (Measly 1000 Bucks version)
Aphex Twin – Untitled (Flute SAW II)
P.W.O.G – Linkage
Aphex Twin – Untitled (Industrial Beats SAW II)
Tackhead – What’s My Mission Now?
KLF – 3AM (Blue Danube Orbital)
Ken Nordine – The Sound Museum
Global Communiation – 9.25
Unknown – Unknown
Path vs Spacehead – Neptune
Tounesol – Holy Cow
Steve Hillage – Rainbow Dome Musick
Beaumont Hannant – unknown
Sulphuric – Acid Chamber
Aphex Twin – D-Scape

Posted in DJ Food, Mixcloud Select, Mixes/Solid Steel, Music, Radio. | 1 Comment » | Tags: Andrew Weatherall, Mixcloud Select

Mixcloud Select 96: Kinky Voodoo Hardcore Mix 27/03/2003

March 18, 2022

Warning – this mix gets a bit full on in places!
Spectrum / Kinky Voodoo was a night put on by John Power as I recall, initially below the newsagent off Tottenham Court Road that originally hosted the mash up night, Bastard. This set was made for Graeme Ross’s 30th birthday party – a big excuse for a nostalgic rave up and this was 20 years ago so it was very early days for the rave revival. I was asked to play and pulled out a bunch of classics from the late 80s and early 90s – 20 years later I’m still playing some of these too!
I snuck Ministry in there just for the hell of it as it was a great crowd up for anything, the intro was put together specially for the night and refused in the mix for radio. The flyer was a knowing homage to the old Spectrum nights at Heaven which helped kick off the acid house craze in ’88. This is a studio recording of some of the mix I did for that night, complete with spoken word overdubs. As you can hear, it degenerated into utter silliness and during John’s set he was so drunk his trousers started falling down (see photo evidence below).

Tracklist:
DJ Food/A Guy Called Gerald – Kinky intro/Voodoo Ray
KLF – What Time Is Love?
808 State – Cobra Bora
Bam Bam – Where’s Your Child?
Stakker – Stakker Humanoid
Ministry – Jesus Built My Hotrod
Orbital – Speed Freak (Moby remix)
The Scientist – The Bee (Honey Combed remix)
Hypnotist – House Is Mine
Smart Systems – The Tingler (remix)
Eygptian Empire – The Horn Track
The Prodigy – Out Of Space (remix)
Aphex twin – Digeridoo
Acen – Trip II The Moon pt 2
dsico – This is Missy Country

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Mixcloud Select: Solid Steel – BoC megamix 11/02/2002

February 25, 2022

Seeing as it was 20 years since Boards of Canada’s Geogaddi was released last week I thought I’d pull out a show from back in early Feb 2002 where I mixed up a pre-release copy of the album that Warp had given me a few days before release. As far as I know there weren’t any CD promos sent out to journalists, there was a listening party at the Union Chapel which I went to, and there was the blue vinyl ‘Alpha & Omega’ 12” but the first most of us heard of the album was when we bought it. Having connections with Warp I persuaded them to give me a copy a couple of days early so I could absorb it and get a mix down in time for the show and the results you hear are from just a few complete listens.

But first! Osymyso’s genre-defining ‘Intro-Inspection’ kicks off the show and I believe that this is an early version of Part One that he played on Eddy Temple-Morris and James Hyman’s show, The Remix on XFM. The only place to get this at this point was via a rip of the show on the web, probably from the Boom Selection website that served as a place to find all the latest mash ups. By this point Osy (aka Mark Nicholson), The Freelance Hellraiser and Jonny and Mike from Cartel Communique had started a monthly night in the basement of a newsagent just off Tottenham Court Road in London’s west end. Originally known as King of the Boots it soon morphed into Bastard (named after Bastard Pop, the name given to mash ups by the press) and I can honestly say that it was some of the most fun I ever had clubbing. Osy’s mix does exactly what it says on the tin, a selection of over 100 intros to famous songs mashed up into one long mega mix, inspired by watching the reactions to clubbers on hearing the first bars of each new song at a party. Reasoning that one track consisting of multiple intros would elicit prolonged ecstatic reactions in the crowd he set about compiling his magnum opus (that is, until we hear his fabled second album).

Coldcut and Steinski’s remix of Boom Boom Satellites’ Chuck D-featuring ‘Your Reality’s A Fantasy’ is full of hard-panning excitement, a total banger with multiple breaks and breakdowns at a breakneck speed. It’s a full on start to the show and rarely lets up for the first 13 minutes, making the Quantic Soul Orchestra seem quaint in comparison. Ramping things down another notch, Koushik’s fuzzed out ’Only Dreaming’ wanders into view before drifting into the aforementioned Boards of Canada mini mix for the next 19 minutes. I’ve not listed all the tracks in this as it will give Mixcloud’s tracklister a hernia and mean some people might not be able to hear it due to multiple artists in one set. Suffice to say I got at least ten in there as well as snippets of others and a little reminder of the debut album for the intro. This was all done from vinyl with an FX pedal and then edited and overlaid in Cubase, probably took the best part of a day to do just this section alone.

BoC tracks are notorious for using weird tunings and nearly everything they do is out of tune with everything else so very hard to mix without it sounding a bit discordant. I picked up on several backwards passages on the record and reversed them again to add into the mix – the devil is in the details as they say. There’s some very weird off beat panning going on in ‘Alpha & Omega’ where I had two copies playing a beat apart with the delay feeding one side and returning on the other so you get odd ping-ponging in the left and right channels – complete accident but sounds great. I love this album so much, it’s one of the greats and, although the debut is a classic, I can never decide between this and Tomorrow’s Harvest – both dark, dystopian records. Finding ways to condense the tracks without seeming to edit too heavily and then transitioning to new tempos was a challenge but because I wasn’t so au fait with it maybe that helped.

We’re bought back into the real world by Edan with ‘Just Listen’ from the ‘Lexoleum-tile 2’ EP on Lex Records, a fun cut up instrumental as only he can do. A brief telephone message from Ollie Teeba about what I cannot fathom introduces one of my favourite mash ups of the era – Jonny Kawasaki’s ‘My Child Is Bootylicious’. This terrifying vision of Destiny’s Child as if rendered by Aphex Twin post-‘Windowlicker’ and then pitched down to a slow grind was just one of the kinds of avenues the mash up could have gone down if there had been a few more tech-savvy producers putting two and two together. This is more in the Kid 606, Flashbulb vein of cut up; noisy, full of machine gun edits and stretching the subject matter to its very limits – all the more exciting for it too. I thought it appropriate to follow with Squarepusher’s latest promo, untitled at the time it emerged on the subsequent album as ‘Do You Know Squarepusher?’. Switching from 45rpm to 33 near the end takes the tempo down to a less manic level whereby 4 Hero gingerly entires the fray with beats in time but not exactly in the same pocket as Tom Jenkinson’s frantic cut ups. There’s a little of Jammin’s ‘Hold On’ to pad out the ending (Hold It Down into Hold On-geddit?) and then a snatch of next week’s mix at the very end…

Part 2 next week!

Track list:
Osymyso – Intro-Inspection (early version)
Boom Boom Satellites – Your Reality’s A Fantasy (Coldcut vs Steinski Going Under mix)
Quantic Soul Orchestra – Assassin (Part one)
Koushik – Only Dreaming
Boards Of Canada – Sometime In The Future – Geogaddi minimix
Edan – Just Listen
Johnny Kawasaki – My Child Is Bootylicious
Squarepusher – Do You Know Squarepusher?
4 Hero – Hold It Down (Bugz in the Attic remix)
Jammin – Hold On

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Mixcloud Select 92: Strictly Session on Coldcut Solid Steel 30/12/1995

February 11, 2022

At the request of Mr Armtone I’ve encoded an old tape from 1995/6 for the next two weeks that shows the breadth of music flowing out in this golden age. Kicking off with what is IMO one of Aphex Twin’s best remixes, Nobukazu Takemura’s (aka Child’s View) ‘Let Me Fish Loose’ – love those strings at the end. A snatch of something by LFO (We R Are? – might actually be Autechre?) comes in over the intro to Ollano‘s – La Couleur – a minor trip hop classic from French label, Artefact – I’d forgotten this but instantly remembered the Real Roxanne sample. The Wagon Christ remix of ‘Turtle Soup’ rather clumsily flops into the mix and this would have been when we got the first test pressings for the Refried Food album so it was hot on the box. What sounds like a posse cut scratch track follows which is actually the work of one DJ, ‘Ghetto On The Cut’ from the first Return of the DJ album.

The Shy FX mix of T-Power’s ‘Amber’ follows with what sounds like DJ Food’s ‘Dub Lion’ over the top at 45 or it could be a jungle tune sampling it, I’m not sure. More DJ Food – not sure I’ve ever played so much – in the form of what could have been the debut spin of Squarepusher’s mighty remix of ‘Scratch Yer Head’ from the forthcoming Refried Food remix album. There’s a bit of time-filling after Jon More’s track run down with Clatterbox’s ‘Sann Sann’ and I’ve left a bit of the news in with a couple of interesting items before the intro jingle for Manassah’s show for an extra bit of nostalgia.

Track list:
Nobukazu Takemura – Let My Fish Loose (Aphex Twin remix)
LFO – We R Are
Ollano – La Couleur
DJ Food – Turtle Soup (Wagon Christ mix)
DJ Ghetto – Ghetto On The Cut
T-Power – Amber (Shy FX remix)
DJ Food – Dub Lion (on 45?)
DJ Food – Scratch Yer Head (Squarepusher mix)
Clatterbox – Sann Sann

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Mixcloud Select 70 – Strictly’s Childhood Faves 30/11/00

August 27, 2021

This is an odd one because the first 10 minutes or so is an involved multi-layered affair with 2 or 3 tracks overlaid simultaneously in a way that would be virtually impossible with turntables. I can only assume that this section was an early idea for the first Solid Steel mix CD, Now, Listen.
The Aphex Twin/ DJ Food combo is frustratingly slightly out of time at the start and the tuning is a bit off too. Neotropic’s ‘Beached’ is in there and the only track to make it to the aforementioned mix CD and works well with Aphex and the Orb remix of Material ‘Mantra’ although it’s a long, laboured mix and wouldn’t have stood up on the CD. Cornershop’s ‘Easy Winners’ part 1 is such a killer beat, I remember Kid Koala in particular used to cut two copies of this up. It doesn’t quite work with the sombre tone of Neotropic in the background but Mantra rumbles along nicely in there.
After this section we get into some contemporary releases of the day with Andy Votel’s ‘November’ from his and Cherrystones’ excellent 10” EP ‘The Amazing Transplant’. A tempo switch mid-track see the unlikely addition of Hijack’s ‘The Badman Is Robbin’ but one I’m sure Andy would appreciate as it bridges the Cherrystones track from the same EP and they compliment each other for a while. A track from the lone Papa Blue EP on PUU features, still a lost classic and so beautiful and this is another 3 tracks at once mix which makes me think there may have been some computer overdubs going on. Back into another Votel/Cherrystones track and then the mallet instruments continue with Syd Dale’s excellent theme to Screen Test, ‘Marching There & Back’ on Trunk. Incidentally there’s a fabulous compilation album just out celebrating 25 years of the label which is pretty essential if you’re a fan of all things Trunk-related.
Continuing the wacky theme tunes that no doubt gave this mix its name we have an odd 7” on Acupuncture from around this time by Black Lodge that chopped up the ‘Pink Elephants On Parade’ song from Pinocchio to good effect. I think this was the first release on the label and was associated with a shop of the same name, Black Lodge went on to release material in the dying days on Mo Wax. The final track is 9 Lazy 9’s ‘Brothers of the Red’ overlaid with a fictitious listings read by an unknown narrator from Chris Morris’ Blue Jam album and still stands up although who could have predicted that Cerys from Catatonia would end up as a DJ?

Track list:
Aphex Twin – Untitled
DJ Food – The Sky At Night
Material – Mantra (Preying Mantra Orb remix)
Neotropic – Beached
Cornershop – Easy Winners part1
Andy Votel – November
Hijack – The Badman is Robbin’
Cherrystones – A Pattern Emerges
Papa Blue – Luna En La Pampa
Andy Votel + Cherrystones – A Pattern Emerges
Syd Dale – Marching There & Back (Screen Test Theme)
Black Lodge – Pink Elephants On Parade
Chris Morris – Club News (9 Lazy 9 – Brothers of the Red)

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Mixcloud Select 66: Darkside! 18/08/2003

July 23, 2021July 23, 2021

Watch your bass bins because we’re about to go Darkside! I was definitely channelling the heavier side of my music tastes on this one, sometimes you need some good old fashioned nastiness to get the accounts done. Amen Andrews – a rave/jungle hybrid from Luke Vibert – kicks things off and Killing Joke’s excellent Seeing Red awkwardly tries to mix out of it. Jagz Kooner did an amazing remix of this track which is even more brutal. The P Brothers are well known for some of the heaviest production in hip hop and here they put Dick Hyman’s cover of Give It Up & Turn It Loose through a barrage of gunshots. Then things crank up a gear with Amon Tobin and Jeff Waye’s retooling of Slayer’s Angel of Death, complete with Satanic messages overdubbed, I think I might have been putting this through my old CDJ FX unit too – like I said, brutal.

Love Marilyn Manson, although this was from probably his last great record – Broadcast need no introduction, neither does The Bug, remixed by Aphex Twin no less. Evil Twin was one of those mash up artists who came and went in the blink of an eye, I checked Discogs and the only mentions of him are in mixes of mine. Here heard replaying Justin Timberlake to the tune of Kraftwerk’s Trans Europe Express. Poj Masta stuck around a bit longer, a young guy on the mash up scene who had some serious production chops, I wonder what he’s doing now? He cuts Girls Aloud’s debut Sound of the Underground to bits although it’s strictly mp3 quality. The Evolution Control Committee are arguably one of the groups responsible for kicking off the mash up movement with their 1996 Whipped Cream Mixes 7” which got a repress in 1999. Here they cut together the title lyric from dozens of songs, which I’m sure was as much a statement from me about the contents of this mix as it was from them.

The date on the CD isn’t one that corresponds with a Solid Steel show, there was one I featured on on the 18th that seems most likely so I could have mislabeled the disc. The PRS sheet says 25/08/2003 for this mix but I don’t feature on that week on the solidsteel.net site.
*UPDATE – Anton tells me it was the 18th – the Solid Steel oracle has spoken!

Amen Andrews – Fear
Killing Joke – Seeing Red
The P Brothers feat Mr 45 – Showstopper Pt2
Player – Angel of Theft
Marilyn Manson – Doll Dagga Buzz Buzz Ziggety Zag
Broadcast – Violent Playground
The Bug feat Daddy Freddy – Run The Place Red (AFX mix)
Evil Twin – The Lady & The Lake
Girls Aloud – S.O.T.U (Poj Masta mix)
Evolution Control Committee – I Don’t Care

Posted in DJ Food, Mixcloud Select, Mixes/Solid Steel, Music, Radio. | 1 Comment » | Tags: Mixcloud Select

Mixcloud Select 65: The Openmind Collective debut on Coldcut Solid Steel 11/07/1993

July 16, 2021July 16, 2021

28 years ago last week I was heading back into London from my Dad’s 50th birthday party to the Holloway Road to meet Matt Black at KISS FM. This was the first time I ever appeared on Solid Steel, alongside old DJ partner Mario Aguera as part of the Openmind collective. Mixed totally live on air on 3 decks and a CD player (the old rack mounted ones) with a few Coldcut jingles being thrown in off of 8 track-style carts by Matt (Jon wasn’t in the studio for this session).

I’ll never forget it, the nervous countdown to 1am in the quiet studio, both of us shitting ourselves as we were going to be live on the radio for the first time and it was on Solid Steel! The news ending and Matt triggered the intro jingle, and we were off with the luxury of 3 turntables layer up the mix with. It was a seminal moment in my DJ career and I’m eternally grateful to Matt for inviting us on and giving us a chance as it was like getting a foot in the door or the first rung of the ladder. If I’d never done another Solid Steel again I’d have been happy but of course he asked us back again and again.

Looking at the track list I’m pleased that it all still stands up and a few long-term staples were in there; Kraftwerk, Aphex, ZTT, Jungle Brothers and The Irresistible Force. The mix is mostly tight, the odd stumble here and there but no disasters – not bad for a first go live on 3 decks although there was way too much George Carlin in the mix.

Mario took over after the Barbarella track, we shared a house at the time and pooled our records when playing out as I was only just out of college and he had a full-time job so could afford to buy more new records than me. Along with Chantal Passamonte (now Mira Calix) and David Vallade, a fellow graphic designer who has done covers for Clear, Reflective, Worm Interface, Ninja Tune and many more, we did the Telepathic Fish chill out parties. One day I’ll get a little site together with all the mixes, photos, magazines and flyers I have stored up from those years…

Thanks to Steve Norgate many years ago for the superior audio and track listing as the quality is superior to my own D90 cassette and I doubt a DAT recording of this exists.

Track list:
Sequential – The Mission (Live From the Outer Zone
Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Welcome to The Pleasure Dome 12″ intro (on 33rpm)
Sexy Selector – Original Rockers
St Etienne – Your Head My Voice (Voix Revirement by Aphex Twin)
Jungle Brothers – Ultimatum Jungle Beats + unknown African chanting
LS Diesel & Launch DAT – Rougher Than A Lion
Psychic Warriors of Gaia – Maenad (The Valley) + Hear This! spoken word
Kraftwerk – Home Computer
Seefeel – Minky Starshine
Nightmares On Wax – Nights Interlude + George Carlin – God
No-Man – Heaven Taste
21st Century Aura – Disorientation
DJ Spike – Outer Land (part one)
Grace Jones – The Crossing (Ohh The Action…)
Kraftwerk – Morgenspaziergang
Dreamfish – School Of Fish
Barbarella – Barbarella (Irresistible Force Mix) + George Carlin – Nursery Rhymes

Posted in DJ Food, Mixcloud Select, Mixes/Solid Steel, Music, Radio, Solid Steel. | No Comments » | Tags: Mixcloud Select

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Mixcloud Select 133: Openmind vs Coldcut live at 102 Central Pt.1 19/08/1994

Brian Eno – The Lighthouse, what’s on it?

Mixcloud Select 109 – Coldcut & Openmind in for Andrew Weatherall – 25/08/1994 2nd hour

Mixcloud Select 96: Kinky Voodoo Hardcore Mix 27/03/2003

Mixcloud Select: Solid Steel – BoC megamix 11/02/2002

Mixcloud Select 92: Strictly Session on Coldcut Solid Steel 30/12/1995

Mixcloud Select 70 – Strictly’s Childhood Faves 30/11/00

Mixcloud Select 66: Darkside! 18/08/2003

Mixcloud Select 65: The Openmind Collective debut on Coldcut Solid Steel 11/07/1993