The album is out in Japan, as of Dec 3rd actually, the reason for an early release is to do with trying to encourage people to buy domestic products rather than imports (which aren’t as expensive in comparison to over here). It’s formatted for a jewel case and some of the artwork is different as well as the inclusion of two bonus tracks – ‘Beast of Prey’ (an instrumental of ‘Prey’) and ‘All Covered in Darkness pt.2′. The latter track is a new version and this will be the only place to get either of these on a physical release, with ‘Beast of Prey’ unavailable anywhere else.

.
The great tradition of ‘bonus tracks for Japan’ is another incentive for people to buy western product in the east and copies usually make their way back west at hugely inflated prices. I checked Tower and HMV in Japan and both had the CD for sale, also someone tipped me off that Google Chrome will translate the pages into any language of your choice if you use that browser. Selected independent stores should have a free ‘Solid Psyche’ mix CD bundled with the album as another incentive to buy which I’ve tinkered with and added to from the mix I did late last year for Solid Steel.

Last week we hid 5 different parts of ‘Magpie Music’, the track I did with 2econd Class Citizen, around the web on different sites and encouraged people to find them with their search engines.

Thanks to all the sites who took part – Clash music, Seeks music, ireallylovemusic and Future sequence and please have a look round them as they are all worthwhile places for new music. Here are those segments now, a few had trouble with Friday’s download but they got there in the end.

Part 1 “Finders Keepers”

Part 2 “They Turned Their Faces Down”

Part 3 “A Positive No”

Part 4 “Eye of the Needle”

Part 5 “No More Stars”

Finally, the DJ Food album – ‘The Search Engine’ – is available to pre-order in the Ninja Tune shop. It comes in many forms so pay attention:

• Regular 12 track album CD – gatefold card cover and 20 pg booklet

• Ltd 48 pg comic-sized booklet full of artwork, photos, lyrics and more + 12 track album CD in card wallet + 7″ flexi disc of a bonus track not on the album

The limited package with the flexi disc is at an early bird price of just £12 at the Ninjashop at the moment but you’ll have to be quick.

• Regular 12 track album – mp3 download + pdf booklet

• Regular 12 track album – WAV download + pdf booklet

• Expanded & Extended 17 track album – 24 bit WAV download + pdf booklet

This version adds 5 tracks that were on the previous 3 vinyl EPs but didn’t make the cut for the CD album ‘proper’ + has full versions of tracks that were edited down for the regular version, up to 4 minutes more on one track. Some versions are only available on this edition as I remixed several older tracks for the album but edited them down for the final selection – this is your chance to be a completist.

For all those wondering where the vinyl is? Well, the three EPs released so far make up a version of the album (albeit an alternate universe one) and all come with nice poster covers and inner sleeves so, if you bought these then, you already have the album of sorts. That being said, there are different mixes, edits and the vocal version of GIANT on the CD and digital versions which aren’t yet on wax. We have ideas about that but I don’t want to jump the gun without things being set in stone. Ninja should be repressing some quantities of the earlier EPs so we’ll see what happens, don’t write a new vinyl version off just yet.