The Allergies are back, there’s an album on the horizon, but first this single and it’s incredible video. All make from paper and animated by the Seen Film studio.
The single is out on 7″ and download from Jalapeno Records.
Year: 2012
I was thrilled to be asked to remix ‘Global Eyes’ on the exclusive 10″ with the deluxe box set of
The The‘s Comeback Special live set. See and hear the full show plus loads of extras.
Due out this October – pre-order now live plus there’s a special screening at The Troxy, the venue for the third London night back 3 years ago.
A telling peek back at the end of the 90s when the musical roller coaster of the decade was winding down after the relentless innovation of multiple genres. I remember finding it harder to find music that excited me around the last couple of years of the decade, not that there wasn’t good stuff out there but the sheer flood of great music released throughout the 90s every year as new scenes exploded was sometimes overwhelming. The post-rock scene is in evidence here with Isotope 217, Fridge and Rothko as well as trip hop/hip hop from Dynamic Syncopation, Major Force and Jadell. Four Tet and Add N To X point to an analogue electronica in thrall to Krautrock and Plaid and Anjali kick things off with a beautiful downbeat pair of tracks which set the mood for the mix title.
Track list:
Plaid – Ralome
Anjali – Astra
Isotope 217 – Hodah
Dynamic Syncopation – Ground Zero (acappella)
Fridge – Fbad Ischl
Major Force – ?
Archive – The Way You Love Me (Super Collider remix)
Rothko – Rivers Become Oceans
Four Tet – Glasshead
Add N to X – This Is The Flex (Lo Fi mix)
Jadell – Come & Get Some
Oh just get this, it’s so good, a whole album of drums by Michael Cavanagh, drummer for King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. Comics legend Glenn Fabry even did the front cover!
Perusing the Wisconsin Historical Society G.I. Press Collection I came across a stash of East Village Other papers, all scanned in high res, (much higher than here) and started going through them. Here’s a selection of things that caught my eye from the covers and back pages.
Possibly Susan Morris‘ work above?
Is that an early Spain Rodriguez inking the figure above? The clouds don’t look like his work but the darker ink work does
Another bit of sleeve design I did last summer emerges from the vinyl log jam. I was asked by Clocolan to illustrate the cover of his 3rd album (second for Castles in Space), ‘This Will End In Love’. Out Aug 6th in pink Nebula vinyl and red or blackberry purple cassette housed in a rave tape case.
No pre order on this but the label has them in hand I’m told so look out for it in a month’s time, I’ll be posting a process video of the cover then too. In the mean time you can get his previous album and single here.
Sure, Star Wars packaging has been done before, not least by I Love Acid for their Rave Wars 7″s (including original figure sealed to each cover). But this new 45 from Krash Slaughta featuring Phill Most Chill has nailed it and stuck a 7″ to the cover of a 12″ sleeve. Love the Snowspeeder spiral detail on the label. There are even some still left on his website!
Also on the retro Star Wars tip – now that The Mandalorian has at least restored some of the old school faith in the franchise – modern and retro Mandos.
People are receiving their copies of Celestial Mechanic – ‘Citizen Void’ LP on Utter.
Due to reasons too dull to go into here there’s no DL with the vinyl but,, if you post a photo of your copy on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram and tag us in, I’ll send you a code.
Music by Saron Hughes, Howlround, Peter Harris and myself – a soundtrack to the Rian Hughes‘ novel, ‘XX‘
(paperback released August by Picador Books)
Yellow vinyl LP + 7″ + print + info sheet Buy now
If you’ve been enjoying the ASCII animations we’ve been posting with the Celestial Mechanic posts then you can make your own with Andreas Gysin‘s online app
The day is fast approaching, a gig is on the horizon! Going back to back with Ollie Teeba of The Herbaliser in support of Norman Jay, Crazy P and David Rodigan, I’ll be down in Brighton on Sunday, August 1st at Carnivalesque – tickets here.
In this second part of Middle Earth flyers collected from the International Times archive we get to the point where the club moved from their original Covent Garden home to The New Roundhouse in Chalk Farm after numerous raids by the police. At the top we see the Magical Mystery Tour event still advertised on Aug 24th/25th 1968 (see previous post) but by the next issue (two weeks later) it was replaced by a regular gig featuring Traffic, Family and Free but with a large ‘& then’ before announcing The Doors and Jefferson Airplane gig. There’s a uniformity to these ads previously unseen at the old venue, broken by the tall thin ad above right and the circular orange one below which advertises a programme of classical music by the Middle Earth Symphony Orchestra!
Problems with The Roundhouse meant that the club was forced to move again by early 1969, the nearly blank advert above appearing mid February in IT. Following a message in the next issue stating they’d moved to the Royalty Cinema in Notting Hill Gate, a month’s worth of gigs were later listed through March into April. After that things appeared to dry up until a series of tiny ads appeared in September, one a week, stating, ‘Middle Earth is alive and well…’ ‘and coming soon’, ‘is The Power of The Picts’. Then in November, a full page ad announced the rebirth of the night as a record label with a management address in Soho Square. It lasted for two years, releasing five singles and five albums in that time, there’s a short history of it here.
There’s a documentary about Del Close coming this month to Apple TV, which combines comedy and comics and looks fantastic. Diggers will know Close’s name from the John Brent & Del Close classic ‘How To Speak Hip’ (sampled by me and plenty of others) as well as ‘The Do-It-Yourself Psychoanalyst’s Kit’ (plundered for a whole album by Prince Paul). Close was, by all accounts, an unhinged madman/genius who hung out with The Merry Pranksters in the 60s and taught all the future comedy greats in the 70’s and 80’s. There’s not been much written about him aside from a couple of biographies and he’s probably best known for his involvement in Saturday Night Live. Check the trailer and hunt down those records and copies of the Wasteland comics.
Robin Rimbaud aka Scanner joined us on Solid Steel at the beginning of 1995, Robin and I taking it in turns to do two sets each with Matt Black on the mic and jingles. This is all I have of my two sets combined.
The opening spoken word piece is from the 25th anniversary of LSD album on Source Records, Autechre’s ‘Vletrmx’ is hidden as the last track on their Garbage EP, an ambient classic from the mid 90s. The Human League track is the long version, on the B side of the ‘Girls & Boys’ single (I think) not the version on Reproduction, one where they got close to Kraftwerk. Going from ambience to trip hop with Plaid’s mix of UNKLE and very early Wall of Sound from Mekon’s Phatty’s Lunch Box debut. A snatch of Spiritualized’s Phase Tones album before an unknown breaks tune – anyone recognise it? Wagon Christ from his Throbbing Pouch album, bit more Mekon and then another ambient staple, Sheila Chandra’s ‘Mecca’ before an ad break and a return to something faster.
The DnB track that opens this section I cannot recall for the life of me, anyone know? Spotify has nothing despite a pretty upfront vocal. I like the fact that I was mixing super fast acid into drum n bass 25 years ago and the Air Liquide tune here is almost gabba in style. The track that comes next is a mystery though, possibly from one of the Caustic Visions 12” of the mid 90s though except I can’t find my copies to check and Discogs has no previews. Playing us out in ‘Pillar’ by Locust, a Mark Van Hoen alias on R&S who made some excellent records but seems to have disappeared from electronic music history since.
Track list:
R.H. – Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
Autechre – VLetrmx
Unknown – Bleeps
The Human League – Toyota City (long version)
Scorn – Slumber
UNKLE – Sassafrass (Plaid remix)
Mekon – Last Breath
Spiritualized – Phase Tones
Unknown – unknown
Wagon Christ – Free Bass
Mekon – Phatty’s Lunch Box
Shelia Chandra – Mecca
Unknown jungle track
Air Liquide – Unser Elektronischer Mikrokosmos
Unknown – unknown
Locust – Pillar
Finally released on vinyl today on Utter – Celestial Mechanic – ‘Citizen Void’ LP – a soundtrack to the
Rian Hughes novel, ‘XX’ published by Picador Books (paperback released Aug 9th)
Music by Celestial Mechanic – a collaboration between DJ Food, Saron Hughes, Robin The Fog (Howlround) & Peter Harris
Yellow vinyl LP + 7″ + print + info sheet – designed by Rian Hughes with silver spot print and inner sleeve – this is limited so don’t sleep as it will be out in shops too.
Pre-order https://bit.ly/3y5C7eK
Animation generated at ASCII Playground
*un-mute for sound!
Finally released on vinyl tomorrow on Utter – Celestial Mechanic – ‘Citizen Void’ LP – a soundtrack to the
Rian Hughes novel, ‘XX’ published by Picador Books (paperback released Aug 9th)
Music by Celestial Mechanic – a collaboration between DJ Food, Saron Hughes, Robin The Fog (Howlround) & Peter Harris
Yellow vinyl LP + 7″ + print + info sheet – designed by Rian Hughes with silver spot print and inner sleeve – this is limited so don’t sleep as it will be out in shops too.
Pre-order https://bit.ly/3y5C7eK
Animation generated at ASCII Playground
*un-mute for sound!
Finally released on vinyl this Friday on Utter – Celestial Mechanic – ‘Citizen Void’ LP – a soundtrack to the
Rian Hughes novel, ‘XX’ published by Picador Books (paperback released Aug 9th)
Music by Celestial Mechanic – a collaboration between DJ Food, Saron Hughes, Robin The Fog (Howlround) & Peter Harris
Yellow vinyl LP + 7″ + print + info sheet – designed by Rian Hughes with silver spot print and inner sleeve – this is limited so don’t sleep as it will be out in shops too.
Pre-order https://bit.ly/3y5C7eK
Animation generated at ASCII Playground
*un-mute for sound!
Finally released on vinyl this Friday on Utter – Celestial Mechanic – ‘Citizen Void’ LP – a soundtrack to the
Rian Hughes novel, ‘XX’ published by Picador Books (paperback released Aug 9th)
Music by Celestial Mechanic – a collaboration between DJ Food, Saron Hughes, Robin The Fog (Howlround) & Peter Harris
Yellow vinyl LP + 7″ + print + info sheet – designed by Rian Hughes with silver spot print and inner sleeve – this is limited so don’t sleep as it will be out in shops too.
Pre-order https://bit.ly/3y5C7eK
Animation generated at ASCII Playground
*un-mute for sound!
A chance discovery of a issue of Jeffery Lewis‘ comic, Fuff, led me to picking up all 13 issues and No.1 comes with a 3″ CD taped to the inside cover. A medley covering the History of Punk on the Lower East Side 1950-1975, sung by Jeffrey and a Detective Story in Rhyme that works with a page of the comic make up the content and I can’t recommend his comics highly enough. Most are still available for $3-5.00 from his website.
On last week’s Pirate TV show, Coldcut‘s Matt Black in his Altered Fist guise live-remixed mine & DK‘s track, Sentinel (from The Search Engine LP) using JAMM Pro software. Every Wednesday night around 9pm (GMT) Matt hosts a 2 hr show of music, visuals, chat and news via Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/coldcutofficial
I was sent a link to the Wisconsin Historical Society G.I. Press Collection online which is a treasure trove of alternative and free press publications surrounding the US military 1964-1977. One of the best finds was a monthly paper called the Grunt Free Press, full of counterculture news and graphics from the hippy years including colour double page spread posters in the psychedelic style. Here are some of my favourite details.
An early ’95 set for Solid Steel with Jon More and PC, lots of trip hop, hip hop, acid and a bit of drum & bass on the wrong speed. Coming out hard and heavy with RSW and FSOL and a couple of Wagon Christ tracks from one of my favourite eras of Luke’s work, the Throbbing Pouch album and satellite singles. Hustlers of Culture were a short-lived act on early Wall of Sound, Mantronix everyone knows, Art of Noise make an unexpected entry, slightly derailed by Jon having to read the KISS competition. This was the bane of the show, having to do ads was bad enough but there would be promo spots to read out sometimes that DJs were obliged to do to be on message for the station.
Back to the music, Ninja business from 9 Lazy 9 with a remix from Marden Hill who were a Mo Wax affiliate which was a big deal at the time. 4E’s Temple Traxx was a staple of my record box for years as it grooves along at hip hop tempo with acid squiggles, it was a side project of Khan as in Khan & Walker and he made several releases around the mid 90s. Andy Weatherall’s incredible dubbed-out remix for Galliano was another monster cut that was always on hand of which Studio Pressure aka Photek slides out of, on 33rpm instead of 45. A short snatch of Tusken Raiders aka Mike Paradinas aka Muziq plays us out to the news.
Track list:
Renegade Soundwave – Blast ’Em Out
Future Sound of London – Snake Hips
Wagon Christ – Yeah
Wagon Christ – How You Really Feel
Hustlers of Culture – Herbs & Spices
Mantronix – King of the Beats
Art of Noise – Close Up
9 Lazy 9 – Train (Marden Hill remix)
Jungle Brothers – Jungle Beats
4E – Temple Traxx
Galliano – Skunk Funk (Cabin Fever mix)
Studio Pressure – Touching Down… Planet Photek
Tusken Raiders – Gaderffi Stick