Design

Graphic Means trailer

Graphic Means (Official Trailer) from Briar Levit on Vimeo.

Graphic Means is a film about graphic design processes through history from hot metal, PMT to the desktop publishing revolution of the 90s and beyond. Funded by a Kickstarter in 2014, director Briar Levit has pulled together 25 interviews with many leading figures in the field and is now in post-production with the aim of an Autumn 2016 release. You can find out more at the Graphic Means website, pre-order the DVD and buy a calendar and badges to help fund the film to the finish line.

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Flexibition 2016: Pop-Out Humpty Dumpty ‘slotty’ by Cliff Richards

Humptycover
Found the other day in the middle of the West End, was only looking wistfully at one on eBay the other week. Inside the cover, the contents are beautifully preserved with the slotty having never been assembled. The version of Humpty Dumpty on the flexi, by Roger Hyslop, actually breaks into an uptempo funky arrangement halfway through! There are two more slottys in the range but this is by far my favourite.

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Sisters of Transistors

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This Sisters of Transistors LP had passed me by when it was released in 2009 although I remember hearing a remix of one of the tracks by Hot Chip that really floated my boat. It was a project featuring Graham Massey and four female organists if the sleeve notes be believed and there a fair few of them, weaving a tale of lost music and organ quartets that goes back to the second world war. It comes encased in a white plastic sleeve with sealing sticker and silver logo screened on the front. The design is by ehquestionmark who you might know from all the amazing work he’s done for the Skam and Lex labels and the attention to detail, as with all his work, is second to none.

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Inside we have a sleeve with a front cover like some vintage classical performance document and a back showing a the band setup with Graham at the center and the four organists circling him in a sea of swirling wires. The real treat is the large insert which comes with it though, loose leaves with punched out ring binder holes, library stamps and the cheesiest set of band photos ever. Straight out of some 70s accountancy firm or teachers end of year book, the players – all given aliases – couldn’t be more convincing with muted green/brown tones and outfits and hair to match.

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The music is a real mix, almost uncategorisable, of course organs feature heavily but it’s more complicated than that. There’s distorted grooves, fuzz, female chants and harmonies, lots of live drums and the whole thing has the air of a mass or seance about it. The pieces are all reputedly from different eras of the 20th century so styles flip constantly. All in all I think this will become one of those overlooked curios, collected and coveted by those in the know in the future. You can buy it digitally from iTunes as the label seems to have no obvious shop, or Discogs is a good bet for physical copies. See the covers being assembled in the video below, including the special undies randomly inserted into some copies

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Alice In Wonderland exhibition design

AIWL_Logo
Went to the British Library yesterday to see the Alice In Wonderland exhibition, a collection of many vintage books illustrated by various artists over the last 150 years as well as puzzles, cards, posters and ephemera featuring the characters. Also present were some of Lewis Carroll‘s original notebooks, letters and photos plus printing blocks of John Tenniel‘s original illustrations, used for the first edition.
Interesting as all that was though, it was the design of the exhibition that wowed the most, with playful typography riffing off quotes from the book and that fantastic logo hanging from a balcony on a giant tag. I would have got more of it if there hadn’t be an over-zealous security guard warning people from taking photos. Nevertheless, it’s free as it’s in the foyer and it’s worth your time if you’re in the Kings Cross area plus there’s a pop up shop separate from the main one with about 20 different Alice book versions, loads of merchandise and the swirly floor seen in the last photo.

AIWL_Tag AIWL_Who AIWL_GoAIWL_ISaid AIWL_Mirror AIWL_Grin AIWL_Explain AIWL_Floor

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Kosmischer Debris x9.4

KDx9.4

Some of the recent Kosmischer Debris experiments from my Instagram – not sure about these, there are a couple of interesting ones but nothing I’m super happy with. These images are all generated from one piece, collaged elements of the Musée des Confluences that I took in Lyon last year. I want to see how far I can push them before they look like visual soup. The lower right one is pretty much there I’d say.

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Freaky Formats #2: Op Art sleeves

Jaga Jazzist 'Oban' frontweb

The second of my ‘Freaky Formats’ features just went up on The Vinyl Factory site. This second installment focuses on Op Art sleeves which speak for themselves really. Check it out and there’s a link to the first one about 3D covers too, there are more in the pipeline so look for them roughly monthly…

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Markey Funk ‘Instinct’ LP

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A cross-over album from the end of 2015, delayed until 2016 – these records always get lost in the Xmas rush and so I’m secretly glad that the original release date of mid December was pushed back to the new year for Markey Funk‘s second solo album, ‘Instinct: A Study In Tension, Fear and Anxiety’. A dark, brooding imaginary soundtrack of a record full of swirling synths, ghostly voices and taut, brittle beats. Out now on LP and DL via his Bandcamp page (there’s also an LP/CD bundle that includes his rare first album (Forgot the Word) too). You can preview the album in full and also find several of his other releases there. An early package that came with a screen print of Asfe‘s excellent cover image has long sold out and we have a Solid Steel mix from him being lined up soon…MarkeyFunkInstinctLPback  MarkeyFunkInstinctLPdetailMarkeyFunkInstinctPrint

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Jodorowsky’s Dune LP packaging

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One of my favourite releases of 2015 and one I’ve been meaning to photograph for ages, the pre-order version of Kurt Stenzel’s ‘Jodoroowsky’s Dune’ soundtrack. Everything about this release is top notch, the design (by Signalstarr), the quality of the sleeve, the obi strip and insert with sleeve notes. The coloured vinyl is stunning, one of the best examples of its use I’ve seen and the music – which let’s not forget is the reason to buy such an item – is excellent too. One point deducted on an otherwise 10/10 release though, there was no 27″ x 40″ folded film poster as promised on the pre-order and sticker – did anyone else get one or was it just me?. I’ve mailed Light In The Attic about this and they’ve promised to send one though which will complete this as one of the best record packages released last year. * See below for update
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*UPDATE* – and here’s the poster, newly arrived from those lovely people at Light In The Attic – it’s huge and makes this my favourite piece of music, design and packaging of 2015.

Dune poster

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Highlights of 2015

2015 Albums
They say that creativity flourishes under oppression and bleak times and it’s been a great year for music so there must be a grain of truth there. In an effort to glean something positive to remember 2015 by in light of all the injustice and hate out there in the world, here are some of my favourite things, in no order whatsoever.

There were several amazing music releases that went far beyond the normal album format – the main one being Aphex Twin‘s incredible Soundcloud dump of archive tracks which continue to drip out and now number over 200 tracks even if he has taken a lot of them down now. If there’s a ‘release’ of the year then that wins hands down although I’m still trying to process it all and tried to compile a selection of the cream in this mix for Solid Steel but bear in mind that that was when he’d only released half of it so by it’s no means definitive.
The other mega-release that deserves special mention is Rammellzee‘s ‘Cosmic Flush’ magnum opus that’s still in the process of materializing in a physical format. Released across seven 12″s with one track + remix + instrumentals + art print each, to be collected in a limited box with booklet around Spring 2016, it’s taken a huge effort by the Gamma Proforma label to bring to fruition seven years after the record’s completion and five years after Rammellzee’s death. It’s been a vintage year for independent Hip Hop too with great albums by Divine Styler, Ollie Teeba, Memory Man and The Fabreeze Brothers.
It’s nice to see the Leaf label celebrating 20 years of existence and still as vital as ever with Melt Yourself Down, Polar Bear, Radioland and new signing The Comet Is Coming all releasing excellent records this year. One last mention must go to the album at the top of the list below that crept out under everyone’s noses on Record Store Day and has slowly been gathering attention through word of mouth in the last eight months. So much so that it won the Dead Albatross Music Prize – an alternative to the Mercury award set up by independent Norman Records to nominate records that would otherwise be passed over at such things. If you only listen to one album from the list below, make it the Annabel (lee) one.

Albums:
Annabel (lee) – By The Sea & Other Solitary Places (If Music/Ninja Tune)
Rammellzee – Cosmic Flush (Gamma Proforma)
Divine Styler – Def Mask (Gamma Proforma) (technically 2014)
Memory Man – Broadcast One (Chopped Herring)
Eagles of Death Metal – Zipper Down
Jane Weaver – The Amber Light (Bird)
Cavern Of Anti-Matter – Blood Music (Grautag Records) (technically 2013)
The The – Hyena (Death Waltz)
The Fabreeze Brothers – S/T (AE Productions)
Markey Funk – Instinct (Audio Montage) (released fully in Jan 2016)
Aphex Twin – Soundcloud Archive dump
Amon Tobin – Dark Jovian EP (Ninja Tune)
Radioland – Radio-Activity Revisited (Leaf)
Ollie Teeba – Short Order (World Expo)
Kurt Stenzel – Jodorowsky’s Dune (Light In The Attic)
Various Artists – The Delaware Road (Buried Treasure)
Floating Points – Elaenia (Pluto)
Morgan Delt – S/T (Trouble In Mind) (technically 2014)
Gaz Coombes – Matador (Universal)
Black Devil – Disco Club (Lo Recordings)
Bruce Ditmas – Yellow Dust (Finders Keepers)
Rodinia – Drumside / Dreamside (Now Again)
Various Artists – In A Moment (Ghost Box)
Jaga Jazzist – Starfire (Ninja Tune)

Tracks:
a few of these are from a few years ago but new to me…
Noel Gallagher – The Right Stuff (Sour Mash)
Graeme Miller & Steve Shill – Moomins Theme (Finders Keepers)
The The – Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven But Nobody Wants To Die) (Cineola)
The Comet Is Coming – Neon Baby (Leaf)
Reso – Richochet (Hospital)
Black Channels – Oracles (Death Waltz Originals)
Paul Rutherford – Get Real (Hardcore) (1989)
Beck – Dreams (Capitol)
Band of Skulls – Hootchie Cootchie (Ignition Records) (2014)
Pond – Zond (EMI)
Ash Grunwald – Walking (2011 but via the Amorphous Androgynous ‘Wizards of Oz’ 2015 RSD comp)
Olivier Libaux – No One Knows (feat. Inara George) (2013)
Alan Copeland – Mission Impossible/Norwegian Wood (ABC) (1968!)

Packaging 2015

Design / packaging / covers:
so many incredibly high quality creations, a oglden age for record sleeve packaging and design…
Science Fiction Dancehall Classics compilation (Trevor Jackson) (On-U Sound)
The The – Hyena (Cineola / Death Waltz/Mondo)
Kurt Stenzel – Jodorowsky’s Dune (Signal Starr) (Light In The Attic)
Jaga Jazzist – Starfire (Ninja Tune)
Tame Impala – Currents (Robert Beatty)
The ‘Beat Bop’ record case (Jean-Michel Basquiat)
Grasscut – Everyone Was A Bird (Lo Recordings)

Artists2015

Artists:
Dan Lish
Kim Jung Gi
Signal Starr
Oddly Head
Ameet Hindocha
Reuben Sutherland
Stan & Vince
Jonathan Edwards
Laurie Lipton
Larry Carlson

Books2015

Books / Comics:
Augustine Kofie – Keep Drafting (ZERO+ Publishing)
Stephen Coates – X-Ray Audio (Strange Attractor Press)
Roger Perry – The Writing On The Wall (Plain Crisp Books Ltd)
Hanson, Godtland & Krassner – Psychedelic Sex (Taschen)
Island – Various (Image)
Sandman: Overture – Gaiman/Williams (Vertigo)
Ody-C – Fraction/Ward (Image)
8-House – Various (Image)
B.P.R.D: Hell On Earth – Various (Dark Horse)
Punks: The Comic – Fialkov/Chamberlain (Image)
Judge Dredd: Enceladus – New Life – Williams / Flint (2000AD)

Format expo

Exhibitions:
Peter Kennard at the Imperial War Museum
Charles & Ray Eames at the Barbican
Cosmonauts at the Science Museum
X-Ray Audio at the Horse Hospital
Trevor Jackson / Format at the Vinyl Factory space
Zulu Nation 42nd Anniversary at House of Vans

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Film / TV: (I really didn’t watch much this year)
Mad Max: Fury Road
Star Wars : The Force Awakens
Love & Mercy
Dune The Complete Saga (Fan edit)
‘Colossus: The Forbin Project’
Rick & Morty

Secret Cinema X-Wing

Moments:
The X-Wing Fighter flying overhead during Star Wars Secret Cinema
The Frankie Goes To Hollywood box set getting nominated for an AIM award for best box set design
Interviewing Edwin Pouncey aka Savage Pencil for a forthcoming book
Getting to wear a full Stormtrooper suit whilst DJing during Star Wars Secret Cinema
DJ Shadow & Cut Chemist – Renegades of Rhythm show at Koko
Writing a piece and creating a mix about Rammellzee for the Quietus
The moving sale finds at Lambiek in Amsterdam
Crazy scenes at the Southbank for the Big Fish Little Fish free Sunday session

BFLF Southbank

Heroes:
Ben Coghill (again) for being the best agent in the business
The NHS – for saving my mum’s life and generally being incredible
Joshu Docherty – for recommending me for Star Wars Secret Cinema
Jeremy Corbyn – for giving hope that there can be an alternative
Sarah Coleman & Leigh Adams – for releasing their first film, making unique and
interesting things and generally being great people
Pete Williams – for getting the keys to the basement
Shindig! magazine – for overcoming the odds and turning a bad situation to their advantage
Pete Isaac & Scott Boca 45 for getting the whole 45 Live crew together and building an international collective
Everyone who gave their time and dug through their collections to contribute to the weekly Flexibition posts on the site: Jonny Trunk, Pete Isaac, Jon Brooks, Markey Funk & Ofer Tal, Stephen Coates, Jon More, John Stapleton, Steve Cook, Anton Armtone, Sarah & Leigh, Spencer Hickman.

RIP:
Mike Allen (Legendary Hip Hop DJ), Lemmy, Demis Roussos, The Pizz, Don Joyce (Negativland), Shusei Nagaoka, Kája Saudek, Errol Brown (Hot Chocolate), Daevid Allen (Gong), Leonard Nimoy, Brett Ewins, Noriyoshi Ohrai, Rod McKuen, Edgar Froese (Tangerine Dream), Mark B.

Looking forward to:
Transmission shop opening in Margate
David Bowie – Black Star LP
Mute 40 book
The Black Channels LP
The Allergies – Rock Rock feat. Andy Cat (Ugly Duckling)
Prophet: Earth War

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Researching the Ramm.Ell.Zee

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Last week I played at the opening of the ‘Cosmic Flush’ exhibition in London at the Magda Danysz Gallery. The contents of which celebrated the work and life of Rammellzee, the MC and artist who passed away in 2010. Instigated by the Gamma Proforma label, it was full of art from the new album and attended by a who’s who of the leftfield art scene. Pieces by Futura 2000, Kofie 1, She One, Will Barras, Dan Lish and Poesia sat with art from three of Ramm’s crew: Doze Green, Ian Kuali’i and one of Dr Zulu‘s Lego letter racers. There were also life-size cut-outs of Rammellzee in full battle gear by Will Barras with backgrounds by O.Two.

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The exhibition will run until 22nd December. The gallery is open daily from 11am-7pm, closed Mondays.
You can buy the seven releases that make up the ‘Cosmic Flush’ album from Gamma’s online store.

During the run up to the exhibition opening The Quietus website premiered a piece I’d written about Ramm which you can read in full here. It featured a previously unseen image by Timothy Saccenti, made in collaboration with Rammellzee, for a photo session they did in 2005. Here’s another unpublished image from the same time and I’m incredibly grateful to Timothy for letting me use these great images for the piece.

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At the opening I played an all-Rammellzee set including a new mix I made for Solid Steel celebrating his musical career. The object was to map an aural history of Rammellzee‘s recorded output, in roughly chronological order, to showcase his music, theories and wordplay for those who wondered what all the adulation and legendary status was about. Take a trip from the early 80s up to the present day, through Ramm’s intricate, confusing, yet always unique recording career from his old school origins through to his final masterpiece.

As an addition to The Quietus piece, for which I had way too many images, here’s an extended look at some of his releases over the years. Going back to the beginning, want to see Profile Records‘ original master tape of the ‘Beat Bop’ single? It was recently unearthed by Noah Uman and given a proper reissue after countless bootlegs over the years. Originals now go for triple figures, but here’s the no frills master tape box that was taken from Jean-Michel Basquiat‘s original reel.
Beat Bop Master tape frontBeat Bop Master tape back

Here’s the Slinky Gym School single he featured on in 1983

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The 1985 Death Comet Crew 12″ on Beggars Banquet 

Ramm DCCfrontRamm DCCbackThe Gettovets album with Shock Dell and Delta II, produced by Material on 4th & Broadway in the late 80s
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Whilst researching the mix I came across some beautiful sleeve artwork from the various Japanese-only albums and DVD releases in the 00s. Some of these were news to me but well worth tracking down.
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Freaky Formats at the Vinyl Factory: 3D sleeves

Various 'A Psyche For Sore Eyes' webI’m pleased to announce that I’ve collaborated with the good people at The Vinyl Factory for a monthly look through the weirder reaches of my record collection. After the short film on flexi discs they made this summer we’ve got together to produce an irregular look at the weird & wonderful world on vinyl and the myriad forms of pressings and packaging it can come in, dug directly from my collection. The first post just went live and focuses on 3D sleeves, photographer Michael Wilkin shot the sleeves.

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The Art of Curation at ADE in Amsterdam with Mixcloud

RecordPalaceOpArt A couple of weeks ago I was in Amsterdam, taking part in discussions about ‘The Art of Curation’ with Mixcloud co-founder Nikhil Shah. The chat was hosted by the electronics company Sonos as part of the annual ADE music conference that takes place there, the biggest in Europe. I chose five tracks that linked with the subjects of Music, Art, Sci-Fi, Comics & Design which largely tie into the things I collect and post about on this site. This is the part where the blog eats itself as I blog about myself talking about blogging and readers will hear some familiar names and sounds during the interview.

Raze7frontThe trip was a fruitful one in terms of digging for new things in my time off and I went with a mission for 45s, underground comics and sci-fi paperbacks. Things got off to a poor start with my first stop at Record Palace (Op Art -themed wall display at the top) which is on the outer rim of the centre of the city. I’ve shopped there a few times and it’s always yielded treasures but this time it wasn’t to be. Of the two 7″s I bought (a substandard late 80s Dickie Goodman break-in record and Raze‘s ‘Break 4 Love’) when I returned home to play them I discovered that the disc inside the Raze cover was in fact a Thompson Twins single. My fault for not checking the disc but they were only 50c and there was a strict ‘no playing’ rule on records from the cheap bins. The only good thing about it was the Trevor Jackson-designed cover which, when you look at the ‘dancing’ figures, is actually quite dirty.

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From here I visited Lambiek a few roads away, the oldest comic shop in the world if their website is to be believed and, on the strength of their stock, I can believe it. The shop is about to move to a new premises and their usual gallery space was now a large dumping ground for what looks like all manner of random stock. Very little of it was priced apart from the odd penciled number on an inside cover and many of the piles can contain anything, very little order exists as you can see below.

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But there was some gold there and I soon had a little pile building, the owner unable to direct me to the undergrounds as everything was mixed up due to the impending move. They closed at 5pm and at approximately 4.45 I glanced under a shelf and saw a box that looked like it was exactly what I was looking for. Going through it my suspicions were confirmed and I started pulling out handfuls of British and American underground and independent press comix as fast as I could, some in not-so-good condition but still a lot that you only find on eBay these days.Oz39
This copy of Oz magazine was nestling in the box, looking like a Robert Crumb comic, copies usually go for £10-20 and up.ImagineFoss SubvertComicsx3
These three Subvert comics by Spain were a bit water-damaged but I’d never seen copies before aside from being reprinted in other mags.Skull_TwoFistedZombies MotherOats1&3
No.s 1 and 3 of Mother Oats Comix by the late, great Dave Sheridan.
StarReach_Monolith RadicalRock
They had five copies of this Radical Rock comic, all badly water-damaged but readable. You can easily find these for about $5 on eBay, but the postage triples the price as they’re always from the States.
BizarreSex_Tasty
I wasn’t going to leave a comic behind with a cover like the Bizarre Sex one, the issue of Tasty has some really nice abstract acid trip visuals inside although the cover isn’t up to much.
Mod#1 Cazco_NIMFKE
That Dutch NIMFKE comic on the right is probably one of the filthiest things I’ve ever seen in comic form.
CrackedMadStarWars SickThere was more but here’s a lot of it. I’d been tempering my choices, thinking that this was adding up to quite a bundle but some of this stuff just doesn’t come around in Europe that often, even in this condition. Upon taking them to the counter I couldn’t quite believe my luck when the assistant proceeded to charge me one Euro for each comic with only two for some slightly over-sized books like Imagine and Heavy Metal. Digs like that don’t happen every day.

On then, with a spring in my step, to a couple more comic shops further north near Centraal station. On my way I passed a shop with a big sign outside, ‘Used Books, English Language’, and took a quick peek to see what it was like. Once inside I inquired if they had any vintage sci-fi paperbacks and the guy at the counter pointed to eight large apple boxes stacked in the aisle. “Four for ten Euros“, he quipped, “How long until you close?”, “20 minutes!”. I probably got through about two thirds of them, given that they were two rows deep inside but it was worth it.
RPowersAmsterdamSci-FiAmsterdam

Lambiek

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