Here’s the ‘Skullstronaut’ print, specially made for Friday’s exhibition opening at the Factory Road Gallery, Hinckley, Leicestershire. Taken from the cover of the recent DJ Food vs The Amorphous Androgynous 12″ single and measuring a hefty 55cm x 55cm this giclée print on Somerset Rag paper will set you back just £25 at the show. It’s an edition of 25 and will be signed by myself, any unsold stock will be on the Factory Road shop once the exhibition has finished.
DJ Food
Only 3 days to go until the DJ Food & Henry Flint show reopens, revitalised at the Factory Road Gallery in Hinckley. I sent a last load of sleeves, posters, flyers and other assorted memorabilia off for it today and there will be more of Henry’s old 2000ad artwork than we had in London, different pages too – all from my personal collection.
Also on sale there will be these space-themed chocolate bars in requisite silver foil packaging featuring the ‘skullstronaut’. There’ll be more exclusive merch on sale but I’ll post about that later. Sarah and Leigh, who run the gallery from their home, really take care and go to extra lengths to make bespoke items for their shows so that each one is a unique experience. I’m so pleased to be doing something with them after knowing them for over 15 years.
The reason some of the posts this week have been coming from Montreal is that I’ve been spending a week there working with people at the SATsosphere in the downtown area. They’ve been giving me lessons and advice on creating content for their dome, where I will be presenting a newly remixed version of The Search Engine planetarium show I did in London for them in July. Getting your head around the software is mind-boggling and forget 5.1 sound, theirs is 25.4 (!) Here are a few shots – you can’t get much of an idea of what the dome stuff will look like because it’s such an expanse and there’s no way to get it all in the frame.
On June 1st I’ll be traveling up to my friends’ Sarah and Leigh‘s place in Hinckley, Leicestershire for the opening of a rejigged version of the DJ Food & Henry Flint exhibition that we held at the Pure Evil Gallery in January.
Their Factory Road Gallery will host a lot of the posters and original art and there will be local ale, special food and prints, CDs and books for sale. More details here.
There will be special limited editions available at the show, a 20 copy giclée print of the recent 12″ cover, printed tea towels (!) and chocolate bars in silver space-type wrapping. There will also be food on the opening night, local ale and I’ll be around to answer any questions.
Here’s something I did last month in conjunction with Carling Zest, a new drink being promoted this summer. The idea was to take three producers, myself, DJ Yoda and Jaguar Skills, and give everyone sights and sounds of summer to incorporate into a track that had the feeling of summer to it. I called mine ‘Sunspot’, after one of my favourite Vaughn Bodé strips, and used some of my home made phenakistoscopes as elements for the video in conjunction with the footage Carling supplied.
[youtube width=”640″ height=”375″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_8Nx1TmC1o&feature=relmfu[/youtube]
I was left to my own devices and incorporated a lot of my own melodies into the track, using their bee sounds and lots of percussive elements to form the basic beat of the piece. Making a track that evokes a ‘summer’ feeling is a lot harder than making something dark and moody, especially without stepping into cheesy territory but I’m really pleased with the outcome.
During the process I was filmed going through samples in my studio and generally talking about records I thought bought out the summer feeling in me. This quickly degenerated into what seemed like a massive advert for Boards of Canada‘s back catalogue 
with other shouts to the Orb (Little Fluffy Clouds) and The The (This Is The Day). The film crew, who were great fun to work with, shot for a whole day and then crammed it all into 2 minutes, so, if the editing seems a little fragmented here and there, you’ll know why. Big thank you to Ash for getting the shots and Tom for doing a great job on helping me with the last touches on the video edit.
[youtube width=”640″ height=”375″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQFCJtD7S1w&feature=relmfu[/youtube]
Wish they hadn’t put that ice cream bit in Spot the ‘Rave Wars’ 7″s and 3A robots everywhere There’ll be an online competition to remix this track and win tickets to the V festival and other goodies coming up on May 23rd so I’ll post about that when it’s online.
A quick update on things on the DJ Food front these coming months…
Aside from the usual round of DJ gigs and festival appearances >>> over there on the right hand side column >>>, I’m going to Montreal in less than 2 weeks to research and train at the SAT Dome on the best ways to make full dome content for my planetarium show. This will be followed by a performance over several nights in Montreal mid July. This will be a remixed, updated version of the show I did at the London Planetarium and I’ll be bringing it back to the UK for the winter months before the year is out too.
On the music front, I’ve just finished a mix for 2econd Class Citizen‘s album, a couple of mixes for a DJ Shadow project premiering this summer (not the MPC archive one), there’s a 3 DJ tag team mix on the agenda for a July release and an AV project in conjunction with Carling that will go online at the end of May. The response to the Amorphous Androgynous remix release for Record Store Day has been fantastic, thanks to all who bought copies and sent pictures, the repress should be in next week so all those waiting for copies should get them.
Design-wise I’ve just started work on The Herbaliser‘s 7th studio album artwork which I’m really excited about, there’s also talk of a remix if I can fit it into the schedule. I’ve also just been asked to chair a discussion between two 80’s sleeve design heroes of mine which will be quite mind-blowing if it actually happens. I’ll also soon be announcing a second round of the exhibition of mine and Henry Flint‘s artwork for ‘The Search Engine’ which will be taking place in the UK within the month.
May I present for your delectation: a personally mixed, sliced and diced preview of 2econd Class Citizen‘s forthcoming album – ‘The Small Minority’.
I’ve been lucky enough to hear it in progress over the last 2 years and it’s changed and developed to a point where it really all holds together as a complete album rather than a collection of separate tracks.
This is definitely up there alongside DJ Format and Pepe Deluxé as one of my albums of 2012 already. It will get compared to DJ Shadow‘s older work but the folk stylings and Aaron’s violin playing set it apart. If you enjoyed 2009’s ‘A World Without’ album – available to listen to in full here – then this is the logical progression.
This mix is available to download from Bandcamp but it’s only streaming via Soundcloud at the moment. It was a real labour of love and I think I managed to get elements from all the tracks in there at some point including a remix of the single ‘Outside Your Doorway’ – see if you can untangle it all when you listen to the LP.
The full album is available on Equinox Records on May 25th, on CD and double vinyl with a gatefold sleeve plus digital download (Juno will have it a week early). The artwork you can see below is by label boss Gunter Stoppel, the man responsible for the overall look of the label as well as the day to day running of it.
Last night I did a Record Store Day round up on Solid Steel on Strongroom Alive radio, you can listen again here
or, if you prefer less chat, catch the non-vocal version with no RSD section here later on today.
I thought I’d put up some pictures of the releases I was chatting about so here you go. Wicker Man 7″ photos nicked from Stuart Ford‘s blog. More on the Vinylmania film here.
OK – due to high demand, a database cock up at Ninja Tune – meaning that the record looked like it was in stock when it wasn’t – and people putting them on eBay for silly money, Ninja are repressing another 500 copies of my 12″ – ON MULTI-COLOURED MARBLED VINYL.
The people who ordered it from the Ninjashop will get one, no black vinyl copies are being pressed, so if you are one of the ones who asked for a black vinyl copy you will get coloured.
This will be the last pressing on coloured vinyl though. It will be the same (or as near as can be) as the RSD one, once orders are fulfilled the rest of the pressing will go up on the Ninja shop.
This will take approx. 2 weeks, sorry for any cock ups, and thanks for your patience. If you still want a refund then contact the Ninja shop, otherwise hold tight and they will contact you when this is all sorted.
Photo above taken from Carl Schalck‘s Facebook page.
Well, it’s out, as of Saturday, the new single is available in the shops, online and no doubt on eBay at an inflated price. Record Store Day was very exciting for me this year as I was lucky enough to be participating with Ninja Tune releasing this remix by The Amorphous Androgynous on multi-coloured vinyl. It’s not just for RSD though, you can buy it from the Ninjashop or FSOLDigital and all good record stores that reorder stock, Ninja will be repressing it too in the next week or so although that may be on a different colour vinyl. Please don’t pay crazy prices on eBay or Discogs like some of these flippers are asking, this is not a one time only limited edition, it should be available as long as there is demand. Remember also that there is a download available too with extra radio edits and an exclusive 2econd Class Citizen remix not on the 12″.
First thing on Saturday I asked people to tweet pictures of their purchases and I’ve featured the best here. That’s Frederic Toye below, waving a copy outside Music Mania in Ghent, Belgium and I had photos from all over Europe as well as one from the US as well.
Thanks to Alex Koenig, Cheetahbreaks, Dan Doughty, DJ Hombre, Dobshizzle and his united colours of RSD, Frederic, Hang The DJ, Kidavenger, Lemonmeringuesy, Lukestereo, Phil Clarkson, pipeandslippers and Toby Whitebread for posting these and making my day. This is my absolute favourite of the bunch though, sent by David Gorrod, with a little help from Arthur.
Here’s the link to the release page for the DJ Food vs The Amorphous Androgynous 12″ remix of ‘The Illectrik Hoax’ for Record Store Day 2012. There won’t be any ‘buy’ links until Monday because it’s against RSD rules to advertise a release with a pre-order option before the day. The ‘Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble’ mix is 17 minutes long and comprises 3 ‘tracks’:
DJ Food – ‘The Illectrik Hoax’ feat. Natural Self (The Amorphous Androgynous Remix)
DJ Food & The Amorphous Androgynous – ‘Don’t Pray, Don’t Bother (We’re Evil)’
DJ Food & The Amorphous Androgynous – ‘The Electric Images (In My Mind Never Die)’
Phew – pretty complicated huh? I’m going to be making tracks with one word titles from now on… There are now 1500 copies on multi-coloured, marbled vinyl, pressed at MPO in France, and the three tracks are split across two sides, cut at 45rpm.
There’s also a 4-track download too with the full 17 minute Amorphous Androgynous mix plus radio edits of ‘The Electric Images (In My Mind Never Die)’ featuring Natural Self and ‘GIANT’ featuring Matt Johnson. Exclusive to the download is the remix by 2econd Class Citizen of ‘The Illectrik Hoax’ as premiered at the Planetarium shows in January.
To say I’m pleased with this release is an understatement, everything about it, from the remixes to the artwork to the actual vinyl discs, I’m 100% happy with. For it to be part of Record Store Day too makes it even better. Don’t worry if you can’t/don’t get one on RSD, Ninja will have 70 copies in the Ninja shop for sale on Monday 23rd and they plan to keep it in print as long as there is demand.
I’m playing at Rat Records in Camberwell between 12-2pm this Saturday for Record Store Day, alongside Andy Smith and others. This is my local record shop, selling used vinyl and CDs and they have a regular weekly turnover of goodies at affordable prices. Even though they won’t be stacked to the gills with all the other RSD releases I’ve got a box of my DJ Food vs The Amorphous Androgynous 12″s to sell there, possibly even some limited copies of ‘The Search Engine’ with the flexi disc too.
So, if you can’t make it into town or don’t want to battle the masses for the 1 copy of the release that the shop decided to order and just want to browse in a fully stocked used store, listening to great music, then come on down. The nearest tubes are Oval or Elephant & Castle and then it’s a bus to Camberwell Green and you can see it from the main crossroads.
When we commissioned The Amorphous Androgynous to remix ‘The Illectrik Hoax’ little did we know what we had let ourselves in for. Not only did they produce a 17 minute, 3 part remix, a 30 minute mix for Solid Steel (airing this Thursday night on Strongroom Alive) and another ‘basement jam’ work in progress mix, but also – this priceless artifact accompanied the remix when it was delivered.
Several people have been asking about a DJ Food release entitled ‘Post Mash Analysis’, but I’m sorry to say, it’s a reference to this text, which we sent out as part of the press release, and some shops have listed as the title. The remix 12″ and download will be available this coming Saturday, April 21st, as part of Record Store Day, and afterwards via the Ninjashop and FSOLDigital online stores. The release page on the Ninja site is taking a bit longer than expected, partly because the titles are too long for the site to cope with (arf) and we’re still trying to find out the position on posting pre-order info before the actual day with RSD, only 5 days to go now though.
It’s with great regret that the dates at The Reading Rooms in Dundee and Chambre 69 in Glasgow that I was to undertake with DK have been postponed. This is due to a run of bad luck the gig organiser has experienced recently and the dates will hopefully be rescheduled soon. Hopefully any ticket purchasers can contact the venue and get their money back.
In the in-box today: a 30 minute ‘Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble’ mix for Solid Steel by The Amorphous Androgynous including a reworking of a Gil Scott Heron track. This will be broadcast live on Solid Steel on April 19th via Strongroom Alive and then out on the web the day after via the usual Solid Steel channels. On the 19th there will be a chance to win a copy of one of these beauties too so tune in: 7-9pm. Also in the mail was an unreleased ‘basement jam’ version of ‘The Illectrik Hoax’, an abandoned version of the remix before they went in the direction you’ll hear on this disc. 
I did a rather long and in depth interview with Elinros from Contemporary Talks the other week about pretty much everything really, music and design of course but we also ventured into motives, methods of creation, my childhood and how things ended up the way they did.
If you want to know what a Telepathic Fish is, if I’ve ever touched a sound or what I consider my best work then head over here, maybe have more than 5 minutes to spare though.
Mine and Yppah‘s mix from last night’s Solid Steel – without chat, you can listen to me and Jon fluff our lines over on StrongroomAlive if you want. Yppah’s mix contains tracks all released in 1981, and, coincidentally, ends with Kraftwerk’s ‘Computer World’ before we get a taste of half of the Kraftwerk Kover Kollection vol.7 which debuts here tomorrow in full.
There will be a preview of some of KKK7 tonight on Solid Steel between 7-9pm (GMT) on Strongroom Alive. I’ll be joining Jon More from Coldcut and we’ll have a mix from Yppah focussing on the vintage music year of 1981 – his new album title – and a competition to win a copy too.
I’ve been told that Ninja have pressed another 500 copies of this 12″ because demand has been high already. That makes 1500 copies for Record Store Day on multi-coloured vinyl and they have reserved 200 copies for the Ninjashop. I’ll post the link to buy or pre-order when it’s up.