Songs To Enlighten mix for the Tales To Enlighten Kickstarter

April 16, 2021April 18, 2021

Earlier this year I put together this mix for Megatrip as a sweetener to accompany the ‘Tales To Enlighten’ Kickstarter that began on April 1st. It’s the second of three sets made to add some more online content to push the fundraiser along during the month. We didn’t need it as the book was funded in 6 hours and continues to gain ground, currently at four times its target! Regardless, not wanting to let a good mix go to waste Matt is pushing ahead with them anyway with Bobby Corridor’s Trip Hop Faster mix debuting last week and mine this.

Given the heavy religious content of the book I decided to do a second mix of religious rock and spiritual spoken word. Following on from the first one, Songs Of Praise – which featured on Shane Quentin‘s Garden of Earthly Delights radio show last year – here’s Songs To Enlighten, more of the same with spoken sample contributions from Megatrip’s Soundbank library. It’s an hour long romp through rock operas and church run label releases by obscure bands spreading the good word and has been a joy to put together. Go here for the full lowdown including a download of the mix.

If you’re not familiar with the Kickstarter and enjoy blasphemous anarchy, psychedelic mayhem and a load of great art then take a look as there’s still two weeks left to go even though the project is funded. This won’t be sold in book shops, it’s ready to print and a second volume is also at an advanced stage.

Posted in Comics, DJ Food, Mixes/Solid Steel, Music. | No Comments | Tags: Songs To Enlighten, Tales To Enlighten

Mixcloud Select 52: Openmind on Solid Steel 26/09/1993

April 16, 2021July 15, 2021

52 uploads – just over a year since this subscription started (I missed at least 1 week I think) and over hundred subscribers – thanks to everyone for the support, the newcomers just joining and the hardcore for sticking with it. There’s still plenty more to get through, in fact the amount is hard to navigate sometimes. Not only the audio but the visual too as I’ve been going through my artwork archives and digitizing lots of material like flyers, postcards, stickers, badges, posters and associated ephemera, mainly to do with Ninja Tune and my design work under the Openmind alias.

Part of this is to create an online visual archive which you can see the first few uploads of here https://www.instagram.com/openmindesign/
Please give us a follow if you want to see rare and classic Ninja Tune and Openmind items from over the last 25+ years as well as contemporary design work I’m doing. There will be lots of rarely seen promo items I’ve hoarded but what’s the point of having these things unless you share them, right? Much like the audio archive it will take years to go through all this stuff so bear with me but I will eventually be selling some of the items I have multiple copies of via my openmindesign site. Anyway, on to this week’s show…

*UPDATE: It’s been pointed out to me by super Solid Steel collector Anton Kibeshev, that this set was actually from 1993, not 1994!
Another early Openmind guest mix from myself – actually the second appearance – partnered with Mario Aguera on the first hour of this show while Matt Black held down the mic and jingles, seen here in the KISS studio from a later session around 1994/5 that I found this week. Ambient is still very much the order of the day but supplemented with dubbed-out beats, electronica and even a bit of pop. Matt mentions a Telepathic Fish gig we were doing around this time and I think this was the one we did at the Cool Tan in Brixton which David Toop later reviewed for some publication around the time. This was recorded up at KISS FM, live on a Saturday night with the two of us getting a cab back south of the river to the flat we shared in East Dulwich at the time.

Kicking off with two copies of the intro to Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s ‘Warriors of the Wasteland (Return)’ mix faded back and forth we then go into the Cocteau Twins and Harold Budd’s collaboration – this one-off album is seriously worth tracking down. This was overlaid with S’Xpress’s ‘Coma’ (essentially ventilator breathing and sonar pings) which was only available on a 7” given away with Record Mirror magazine in the UK and was a stable of ambient sets of mine at the time. Steve Wilson’s first band, No-Man make an appearance with a Twin Peaks sample before one of the more out there KLF mixes of ‘What Time Is Love’ which comes on like a mini version of ‘Chill Out’.

It seems to be indie / electronic ping pong here with Jesus Jones remixed by Aphex Twin, This Mortal Coil next to B12 – I had a big thing for 80s 4AD at this point in time and was mining some of their back catalogue for a slightly different take on the ambient genre. The Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance and This Mortal Coil were always good for this, the Future Sound of London seemed to think so too, sampling DCD and working with Liz Fraser. Nice to hear Spacetime Continuum’s debut, ‘Fluresence’ again, an ambient classic gifted to me by Mixmaster Morris and recently compiled on the excellent ‘Virtual Dreams: Ambient Exploration In The House & Techno Age 1993-1997’ compilation by Music From Memory.

The second half of the mix gets dubbier with the very end of a Moody Boys track serving as an intro to the Eurythmics from the 91/2 Weeks soundtrack. ‘Free’ (which would later appear on Coldcut’s ‘Journeys By DJ’) kicks off a trip-hop-ish section with Depth Charge woven in and out of Material’s ‘Mantra’ whilst parts of the Orb’s remix of same track surface before Dub Syndicate’s excellent ‘What Happened?’. This is on a 10” with another brilliant track on the flip that samples the soundtrack to Peter Whitehead’s ‘Tonight, Let’s All Make Love In London’. More Moody Boys in the form of ‘Pumpin Dumpin’ and then into one of my favourite Plaid tracks and a highlight of the mix where it really feels like it’s rocking. I have no idea what the bassy rim shot break is near the end, I thought it might be more Moody Boys or from some breakbeat album but nothing springs to mind, please refresh my memory if you recognise it. I play out with Minnie Riperton’s classic ‘Lovin’ You’, an obvious reference to the Orb using it on ‘An Ever Growing Pulsating Brain…’ before Matt hits the news jingle too early, live radio eh?

This whole mix evokes great times, music free-floating and experimental, making connections in the music industry and early days working with Ninja Tune as well as my flatmates under the Openmind name with our Telepathic Fish events. As well as that, having left college and started working I finally had some disposable income to spend on records and the hunt for knowledge about artists and genres was constant (still is).

Track list:
Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Watching The Wildlife (return)
Budd, Fraser, Guthrie, Raymond – Memory Gongs
S’Xpress – Coma
No-Man – Reich
The KLF – What Time Is Love (Virtual Reality Mix)
Jesus Jones – Zeroes & Ones (Aphex Twin Construction #2)
David Sylvian – Answered Prayers
This Mortal Coil – Firebrothers
B12 – Soundtrack To Space
Spacetime Continuum – Fluresence
The Moody Boys – Lion Dance
Eurythmics – This City Never Sleeps
The Moody Boys – Free
Depth Charge – Depth Charge
Material – Mantra (Doors of Perception mix)
Depth Charge – Depth Charge
Dub Syndicate – What Happened?
The Moody Boys – Pumpin’ Dumpin’
Plaid – Yamemm
Unknown – unknown
Minnie Riperton – Lovin’ You

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

Big Mouth podcast – 10th April

April 10, 2021April 10, 2021

I was asked back as a guest reviewer on Andrew Harrison and Sian Pattenden‘s excellent Big Mouth podcast this week. If you want to hear me getting tongue-tied and being largely less eloquent then Andrew, Sian and other guest Michael Hann, then hit the link. The film, Nomadland, TV series, Wellington Paranormal and new albums from Raf Rundell and Matthew E. White all get reviewed.

Posted in DJ Food, Film, Mixes / Podcast, Music. | No Comments | Tags: Big Mouth

Mixcloud Select 51: Strictly Kev – War Is Stupid 07/04/2003

April 9, 2021April 9, 2021

Going back in time 18 years ago this week, I’ve dug out the second of the two anti-war mixes I did around the time of the Iraq war kicking off. There were plenty of songs to choose from as you can imagine and I remember performing a version of this live at the Autechre ATP, arriving super late, just as I was due to go on and setting up on stage with 2 decks and a CDJ and tearing through this in a burst of adrenalin.

There’s a lot of angry music here as you would expect although not without its more poignant moments like the end trio of The Disposable Heroes, Roberta Flack and Timmy Thomas. A strong start with two copies of Time Zone’s classic ‘World Destruction’ sees multiple mixes cut back and forth with additional spoken word and a nice little slow down trick from 45 to 33 into Zack De La Rocha and DJ Shadow’s ‘March of Death’ (was this ever properly released?). There were a lot of spoken word cut ups criticizing or making fun of world leaders appearing on the web around this time as uploading audio became the norm although I think this is still pre-YouTube. A highlight for me is the Tackhead / S’Express section with Jello Biafra hollering over the top, stacking tracks up only to knock them down again. Sadly the world is no better off, there were no WMDs, the Chilcot Report deemed the war unnecessary and over 150,000 people died – beyond stupid.

Track list:
Time Zone – World Destruction (original/industrial remix)
Zack De La Rocha/DJ Shadow – March of Death
Trouble Funk – Drop The Bomb
Organised Konfusion – Prisoners of War
Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy – Satanic Reverses
The The – Sweet Bird of Truth
Kurtis Blow – America (Dub/Original)
Coldcut feat. Sweet Toothed Sonny – Acid Drops (Bomb The Mix)
Unknown – The Duke of Hazzards
Bill Hicks – The War
The The – Heartland
IDC – Safe From Us
Saul Williams – Made You Look (freestyle)
Organised Konfusion – Drop Bombs
Tackhead – Mind At The End of the Tether
S’Express – Coma 2 (AM/OK)
Jello Biafra – Die For Oil Sucker
Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy – Winter of the Long Hot Summer
Roberta Flack – Compared To What
Timmy Thomas – Why Can’t We Live Together?
The KLF – America No More
Whingy Manone – Stop The War

Posted in DJ Food, Mixcloud Select, Mixes/Solid Steel, Radio. | 3 Comments | Tags: Mixcloud Select

Mixcloud Select 50: Coldcut Solid Steel 13/05/1995 JDJ warm up

April 2, 2021April 2, 2021

If there’s one mix that I’ve found that’s the genesis of my main contributions to the Coldcut Journey’s By DJ mix then it’s this one. This was my set from a Solid Steel show, recorded at the Ahead Of Our Time studios inside Ninja Tune HQ at Clink St, London and fans of the JDJ mix will recognise many of the tracks here. There’s no finesse of the finished mix and several inclusions that didn’t make the final version (I seem to remember Public Enemy was refused) but here are some of the building blocks. Apologies for the quality, this was recorded from the radio broadcast so it’s a little ‘fluffy’ around the top end, just on the edge of distortion.

The Sabres of Paradise mix of Red Snapper was a huge tune at the time, here not yet embellished with the Dr Who theme by PC’s hand – always a supremely melodic mixer, listening for musicality over the adrenalin rush of a heavy drop. I first heard The Octagon Man being played by Rob Hall of Gescom in The Sound Shaft at Heaven for one of the Thursday night Megatripolis sessions we would sometimes play at. I knew J Saul Kane’s Depth Charge moniker but this weird electro/techno hybrid full of crazy machine gun drum programming. I found a copy as soon as I could.

The Jedi Knights were kicking off the Clear label’s mission to reinstate electro into clubland with their superb ‘Noddy Holder’ and covered several musical bases in the process. When in doubt, pull out Bam Bam’s ‘Where’s Your Child?’, I seem to have played this a lot more than I remember across sets over the years but then it is one of the greatest acid tracks of all time. Keeping with acid of a (then) modern nature is Ritchie Hawtin’s Plastikman with Coldcut’s ‘More Beats’ on 45 mixed over the top.

Depth Charge proper comes after, we really wanted this to kick off the mix but it was refused so we cheekily took the beginning spoken word only, figuring it was a sample anyway. The PE mix into it is pretty shoddy and also the 2 Player remix out of that – still learning about the different swing of beats in the mix, just because they’re the same tempo doesn’t mean they’ll slot together cleanly. The Wagon Christ remix was a no-brainer because we were all so excited about it and being on Ninja it was a dead cert, obviously it turned up elsewhere in the final mix.

Vapour Space was/is a great tune but was used as a bridge here for a tempo change to Autechre and friends under their Gescom guise. ‘Mag’ (sampling Ultra Magnetic MC’s) is still such a killer tune with that huge breakdown. I’m glad we didn’t go into the Chemical Brothers in the final mix as it changes the tone quite a lot, it would sound great in a club though. You can hear the sample, ‘This Is just the beginning, we’re just getting started’ at one point which was later used to finish the ‘Now, Listen’ Solid Steel mix, flown in from one of Coldcut’s ‘Word Treasure’ compilations of spoken word made for the radio shows. After a word from Lord Buckley from the same CD it’s PC’s turn to step up and he performs his Junior Reid/Truper mix before the tape ends, sadly I don’t have the rest of the show.

Coldcut’s brief for the mix was always that we just do what we do on the radio show but the best we’ve ever done it. To those who tuned in every week the released mix wasn’t maybe anything new but to many it seemed to be a revelation that this many different styles could be so easily mixed together on one disc.

Red Snapper – Hot Flush (Sabres of Paradise remix)
The Octagon Man – The Demented Spirit (Okugai Eigakan)
Jedi Knights – Noddy Holder
Bam Bam – Where’s Your Child?
Plastikman – Fuk
Coldcut – More Beats
Depth Charge – Depth Charge (Han Do Jin)
Public Enemy – Mi Uzi Weighs A Ton
2 Player – Extreme Possibilities (Wagon Christ remix)
Vapour Space – Gravitational Arch of 10
Gescom – Mag
Chemical Brothers – Leave Home
Lord Buckley – The Bugbird (The Raven)
Junior Reid – One Blood
The Truper – Street BeatsVol.2

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Mixcloud Select 49: Openmind mix 21/05/1995 + 23/06/1995

March 26, 2021March 26, 2021

If there’s one mix that I’ve dug up so far that encapsulates the moment and excitement of the Ninja Tune label finally coming into its own and starting to release what are now considered classics of the era then it’s this mix. From early 1995 this Solid Steel set showcases track after track from the label that bring the memories flooding back, lots of these would have been played from white labels and I would have been designing the artwork for them at the same time, playing our first gigs and tours around the UK and Europe. There was also the work on the DJ Food ‘A Recipe For Disaster’ album and Coldcut’s Journeys By DJ mix (more of that next week), the first Ninja Cuts compilation and, later on, the first Stealth nights at the Blue Note.

1995 was a vintage year, I’d quit my day job at a book shop on Oxford St, was still working some weekends in the record shop Ambient Soho on Berwick St. in between gigs away with Coldcut, PC and The Herbaliser and was designing whatever Ninja Tune could throw at me. Solid Steel shows were usually pre-recorded Friday evenings at KISS FM on the Holloway Road or in Coldcut’s newly constructed Ahead of our Time studio in Clink St. This mix was the former and you can hear Matt on the mic at one point saying ‘Ninja Tune blowing up in ’95’ as there was a sense of excitement and direction at the label with lots of new signings and singles from The Herbs, Funki Porcini, London Funk Allstars, Up, Bustle & Out, Neotropic and Food of course.

Coupled with the label’s new visual identity, lexicon (see the Ninja Skinz inside notes) and the sense of purpose around the groups all working on debut albums, it made for a friendly but competitive environment. A small trickle of press interest had happened following Mo Wax’s emergence as the forerunner of the trip hop sound plus new labels like Wall of Sound and Skint were starting. The mix kicks off with a truncated beginning unfortunately as we’re into the latter half of The Herbaliser’s original version of ‘Repetitive Loop’ before plunging into the Autechre mix of DJ Food’s ‘Sexy Bits’ (basically the samples at the end of the Jazz Brakes albums).

The electronic side of things was also in fine form with three mixes from Autechre in this set alone, Disjecta (Seefeel’s Mark Clifford) and more than I can’t identify from ailing memory or Shazam, if anyone can fill in the gaps please let me know. I’m surprised to hear a snatch of Terry Riley’s ‘In C’ at the end here as I didn’t think I bought a copy until later than this but it was probably from a compilation from around this time.

I have three dates for mixes on this tape and it’s likely that this mix is actually two sets from different dates, as the other side of the tape is definitely one set. At around the 14 minute mark, after the Beastie Boys, there was definitely an advert break because I remember it. After this, the mix may well be from another session, possibly at the AOOT studio. The dates I have are 13/05/1995 + 21/01/95 + 23/06/1995 but my good friend, Solid Steel collector and historian Anton Kibeshev tells me that I’ve mistakenly labelled one part and it should be 21/05/95. I’m going to peg the first half of this mix as 21/05/95, then 23/06/1995 as the second. Next week – for the 50th upload – will be 13/05/1995 which is where the JDJ mix comes in…

Track list:
The Herbaliser – Repetitive Loop
DJ Food – Sexy Bits (Ae9V mix)
Heights of Abraham – 700 Channels
DJ Vadim – Live From Paris
Beastie Boys – Something’s Got To Give (live)
The Herbaliser – Scratchy Noise
Simon Harris – 95 bpm breakbeat
Akasha – Mescalin
Up, Bustle & Out – Revolutionary Woman of the Windmill (La Bandolera Del Molino)
Depth Charge – Five Deadly Venoms
Unknown – unknown
Scorn – Falling (Autechre FR 13 mix)
Disjecta – Vistic
Autechre – VLetr mx
Unknown – unknown
Terry Riley – In C

Posted in DJ Food, Mixcloud Select, Mixes/Solid Steel, Music, Radio. | Comments Off | Tags: Mixcloud Select

Mixcloud Select 48: DJ Food – Warp 100 mix 05/07/1998

March 19, 2021

During the summer of 1998 Warp Records put out their 100th release, a compilation of new tracks from all artists entitled ‘We Are Reasonable People’, which also celebrated their 9th anniversary. I put together a mix of all the tracks on Solid Steel although don’t be expecting a Blech pt.3 as this definitely isn’t as involved as that. I think I had to do it as the vinyl sides let me over the 3 discs, pairing up tracks from different sides plus a copy of the 4 track promo 12”. (I may have had double copies actually listening to the N.O.W. section)

As it says on the DAT cover, it’s pretty pedestrian in the way it’s put together although (my mix that is, not the contents). There’s a very odd mix of the Mark Bell track out of Jimi Tenor – how to get a banging techno tune into a slow lounge number? Put it on 45 so it’s double time, mix together then turn down to 33. Sometimes you’re better off leaving a gap but I was young and determined to find a way to mix EVERYTHING together. If you just want to listen to the comp without too much interference then this is one way to do it. Just look at that line up! All tracks were exclusive to this comp at the time and several still aren’t available anywhere else.

Part 1
Plaid – Ilasas
Squarepusher / AFX – Freeman Hardy & Willis
Red Snapper – 4 Dead Monks
Broadcast – Hammer Without A Master
Plone – Plaything
Nightmares On Wax – Fishtail Parker
Part 2
Boards Of Canada – Orange Romeda
Jimi Tenor – Wear My Bikini
Mark Bell – A Salute To Those People Who Say Fuck You
Mira Calx – Umchunga Locks
Two Lone Swordsman – Circulation
Autechre – Stop Look Listen

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

Mixcloud Select 47: Hip Hop ABCs/ TV is the new religion 01/04/2002

March 12, 2021

Going back almost 19 years to April Fool’s Day 2002 and a thing titled ‘Hip Hop ABC / TV is the new religion’ this week although the date on the CD and tracklist here is most likely when it was recorded rather than transmitted. Opening with DJ Shadow’s excellent ‘Mashin’ On The Motorway’ (with edited swearing for the radio) from ‘The Private Press’ LP, an album that suffered from far too many comparisons to ‘Endtroducing’ at the time despite being amazing. Given that the album came out in June 2002, it’s early to be playing this track but I do remember versions leaked online around this time.

There’s a lot of Sesame Street spoken word throughout this mix as I was in the middle of a big Children’s Television Workshop collecting phase, compiling material for the later ‘D Is For Dig’ mix – I have to say the segue from Grover into KRS-1 is quite inspired. The first half of this mix is heavy on current hip hop of the time erring towards the independent side of things with both UK and US talent featured. I always wondered if Black Twang were hoping for some kind of football TV syndication with ‘Kik Off’ but maybe not with those lyrics. How good is that Zeb Roc Ski track featuring Blade? Big Two Hundred was an alias of Andrew Meecham aka The Emperor Machine, Bizarre Inc. Chicken Lips and more who made one album for DC Recordings, very much in the Liquid Liquid post punk style.

Halfway we switch to a mixture of funky rock and religious spoken word from Jonny Trunk & Martin Green’s excellent ‘Resurrection’ compilation, a record that sparked an interest in religious records that I’m still exploring today. The end breakdown of Mountain’s ‘Nantucket Sleighride’ was of course the theme to LWT’s ‘Weekend World’ news programme during the 70s and 80s and brings us into the TV themes, covers and library cues section with a heavy bias on old BBC shows. The secret of library music had been out since the late 90s and many labels were reissuing fantastic comps of all the big hitters, there was a nostalgia for our 70s youth being stirred up that would eventually manifest itself into the hauntology genre with labels like Trunk helping fuel the fire.

Another thing fanning those flames were sections of the mash up community fusing old TV themes to new pop acappellas for laughs, hence the ‘Dad n Bass’ extract featured here which I must have found on the web somewhere. This scene was just starting to get into gear and I always thought the best mash ups were the ones that made you laugh at the ridiculousness of their pairing. This one is just that, if anyone knows who did it then please let me know. The daddies, Coldcut, close the show with an example from the late 80s of just this, showing they were, as ever, ahead of their time. This recording seems to be from a Capital Radio broadcast with Mick Brown and the mix was later featured on the July ’88 DMC mix album which was the only place you could find it until the Cold-Cut-Outs compilation.

DJ Shadow – Mashin’ On The Motorway
Kela – Crop Circles
Antipop Consortium – Tuff Gong
Cannibal Ox – The F Word (RJD2 remix)
KRS-1 – Get Yourself Up
Edan – Mic Manipulator
Blak Twang – Kik Off
Sir Beans OBE – How Would You Put This
Zeb Roc Ski feat Blade – On The Run (Junk’s UK remix)
Big Two Hundred – Replaceable Head
unknown – The Sun Worshippers Speak
Roger Limb – Alien in the Family
Ted Taylor Organisation – He Who Would Valiant Be
Neil Merryweather – Eight Miles High
Mountain – Nuntucket Sleighride
Ronnie Hazelhurst – The Two Ronnies Theme
Heavy Action – Superstars
Martin Cook & Richard Denton – Tomorrow’s World
Dudley Simpson – The Tomorrow People
unknown – Dad ‘n’ Bass
Coldcut – Off To Work

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Mixcloud Select 45: Strictly Solid Steel Pt.2 19/10/97

March 5, 2021

Here’s the second of two parts from late 1997. I don’t think I’ve heard this since it was broadcast, pretty sure this is taped from the radio broadcast as it has that lovely KISS FM compression across it and part of an ad at the end. This was my second set from the first hour of the show with PC providing the second hour.

A Reminiscent Drive made some lovely ambient / classical records on F Comm, more Plaid, Stereolab from career high ‘Dots & Loops’, oh how spoilt were we back then. No idea why I thought MC Shan would work after them but it just about does, crazy to think there’s now a documentary about this song. Wonderful Quincy Jones from his ‘Guala Matari’ LP into a way more funky, out there Hot Butter album cut than I remember, must dig that out again, it’s not all about ‘Popcorn’. Ending with Billy Cobham and ‘Storm’, part of a 4 section ‘sound portrait’ called ’Spanish Moss’ from ‘Crosswinds’, one of his increasingly electronic 70s LPs.

Track list:
A Reminiscent Drive – Footprints
Plaid – Rakimou
Stereolab – Refractions in the Plastic Pulse
MC Shan – The Bridge
Quincy Jones – Hummin’
Hot Butter – Space Walk
Billy Cobham – Storm

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Under The Covers 001: Sleevenote interview

March 4, 2021March 4, 2021

I did a very enjoyable interview with Tom Vek from Sleevenote about design for music past and present with an emphasis on my work for Ninja Tune and how things have changed in the digital age. It’s the first in what will be a series of interviews with designers and features an example of how the Sleevenote site is digitising LP artwork for the streaming generation to preserve the art of the sleeve in the age of the thumbnail.

Read the interview here and have a look at Sleevenote too, you can browse cover art and play tracks by clicking the interactive sleeves which are linked to Spotify and Apple Music, work on desktop or mobile.

Posted in Apps, Design, DJ Food, Ninja Tune, Openmind designs. | No Comments | Tags: Ninja Tune, Slevenote

Food For Thought – 10 Food related records

March 1, 2021

I was asked to make a list of food-related records for something back in 2009, I forget what, again, all archived on a CDR I recently found, here again just for the hell of it.

The Dragons – Food For My Soul (Ninja Tune)
This has to be top of my list because of the title, the message and the association with The Dragons that blossomed with it. If it wasn’t for licensing this track for the ‘Now, Listen Again’ mix CD then their unreleased ‘B.F.I.’ LP wouldn’t have come to light.

10cc – Life Is A Minestrone (Mercury)
Until Godley & Creme left 10cc could do little wrong when it came to singles and this is one of the classics. Honourable mention should go to the duo’s later ‘Snack Attack’ from the ‘Ismism’ LP which has to be one of the greats.

Gong – Camembert Electrique (Virgin)
Maybe not their best album but great nevertheless, as well as the title it contains the track ‘Wet Cheese Delerium’.

Cookie Monster & The Girls – C Is For Cookie / If I Knew You Were Coming I’d Have Baked A Cake (Sesame Workshop/Ninja Tune)
Cookie Monster tracks are rarely about anything but food, the former was released in disco mix form by NInja, backed with my re-edit of the classic ‘Pinball Number Count’.

Pepé Deluxe – Apple Thief / Salami Fever (Catskills)
Can’t decide between the two of these. ‘Apple Thief’ is from my album of 2007 – ‘Spare Time Machine’ – and is pure psyche pop beauty. ‘Salami Fever’ has been a staple of my DJ sets for many a year and is a collision of rock guitars, scratches and distorted vocoder that I never tire of.

The Beach Boys – Vegetables (Capitol)
From the Smile / Smiley Smile sessions, featuring Paul McCartney on carrot (!) Has to be on the list just to get Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys on there.

Beastie Boys – Egg Man (Capitol)
Only a tenuous link with Food but Paul’s Boutique is one of my favourite records and mixing the themes from ‘Psycho’ with ‘Jaws’ just wouldn’t happen legally on a record any more. Also for the epic ‘B-Boy Bouillabaisse’ and they mention the next record too.

Hot Butter – Popcorn (Musicor Records)
Two food stuffs for the price of one, this evergreen novelty hit has been covered by quite a few including Aphex Twin and has to be on here to represent the Moog.

Frank Zappa – Lumpy Gravy (Bizarre)
The entire album – one of my favourite Zappa albums from his early days with the Mothers, pure madness on vinyl.

Various – You Are What You Eat OST (Columbia)
This is the soundtrack to a little known film which is full of all sorts of gems although only the title is about food. My favourite track is ‘Freakout’ by the Electric Flag and John Simon, a 10 minute jam of unparalleled insanity – you know when people describe things as ‘psychedelic’ and then you listen to them and it just sounds like some badly recorded garage band? – this track actually warrants using the P word.

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Mixcloud Select 45: Strictly Solid Steel Pt.1 19/10/97

February 26, 2021February 26, 2021

*The date on the post is correct going by other sources, the date on the tape above is wrong, no idea why.

A shorter mix this week after last week’s hour+ special. Here’s the first of two parts from late 1997. I don’t think I’ve heard this since it was broadcast, pretty sure this is taped from the radio broadcast as it has that lovely KISS FM compression across it and part of an ad was at the end. This was my first set from the first hour of the show with PC providing the second hour.

Kicking off with Skylab, the great Mat Ducasse / Major Force West collaboration from a clear 7” on Eye Q Records – I loved everything Mat did with his Skylab project and told him so when we met later in life. He said he was inspired by listening to Solid Steel so the circle was complete, everything is getting a reissue now so no excuse if you missed it first time round. The #1 LP and ‘Oh! Skylab’ EP are essential and this track comes from the #2 LP era https://skylab.bandcamp.com/

Brandi Ifgray made the ‘Le Mutant’ LP on Puu, an offshoot of Finnish label Sahko Recordings, home of Jimi Tenor, Metri, Pansonic and more. The next three tracks I barely remember but Plaid’s ‘Not For Threes’ LP was obviously new around this time. I always felt Laika could have gone the same way as Broadcast as this is from a pretty experimental 12” with Cabbage Boy (Si Begg) and Luke Vibert among the featured remixers.

Juryman (Ian Simmonds) and Spacer (Luke Gordon) were always excellent both recording together or apart and this comes from the one collaborative LP they made. That V/Vm track? I think it may have been from the Skam Records ‘0161′ compilation? New Flesh on Big Dada, early on when Part 2 still rapped and they hadn’t dropped the ‘4 Old’ from their name, really bold UK hip hop, full of ideas.

Part 2 next week!

Track list:
Skylab – Bite This!
Brandi Ifgray – Bumble Bee
Plaid – Extork
Laika – Shut Off/Curl Up (Cabbage Boy remix)
Juryman vs Spacer – Personnel Wanted
V/Vm – Asymetric
New Flesh 4 Old – Electronic Bombardment

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Mixcloud Select Exclusive 01: Lynch Party Mix 2

February 19, 2021February 19, 2021

In my first exclusive new mix for subscribers I’ve chosen to make something that’s been on the ‘to-do’ list for an astonishing 10 years (!) Back in June of 2011 I made an hour long mix for Solid Steel entitled Lynch Party Mix from some of the remixes of Brendan Lynch and Martin ‘Max’ Heyes aka the Lynchmob. Working together and sometimes going by Lynch Mob (but never to be confused with the rap group of the same name) they made some of the most psychedelic, dubbed out remixes and productions of the 90s. You can find that here in the second hour.

Working primarily with Paul Weller after stints around the Acid Jazz/Talkin’ Loud camps in the late 80’s/early 90s, Lynch oversaw Weller’s return to the limelight as a solo artist, working with him on the final Style Council LP, ‘Modernism’, which initially didn’t see the light of day due to record label indifference.

With Lynch as producer and Heyes as engineer they worked on Weller’s 90’s run of albums, the self-titled debut, ‘Wild Wood’, ‘Stanley Road’, ‘Heavy Soul’ and ‘Heliocentric’ plus all points in between, Lynch even co-writing on songs like The Changingman, Sunflower and Wild Wood. Where they really excelled though was in deconstructing the songs for B sides, stretching them out and using all manner of sonic tricks to twist them inside out.

The Lynch Mob Bonus Beats mix of ‘Kosmos’ is an early example and was perfectly in tune with the then current trip hop movement. Taking that style and using it on Primal Scream’s trilogy of albums, ‘XTRMNTR’, ‘Vanishing Point’ and ‘Evil Heat’ was the next step and they also worked on several of the remixes under the band’s name for the likes of Asian Dub Foundation and Massive Attack. Remixes as the Lynchmob followed for Air, ADF, Dr John, Oasis and Ocean Colour Scene with Heyes also working on a couple of tracks with Weller drummer Steve White and ex-Councillor Mick Talbot.

If the Lynch Party Mix covered the more downtempo, dubby side of their output then part 2 picks up where that left off and slowly builds in tempo to a galloping blues rock crescendo. It includes a 6 minute megamix of various versions of the aforementioned ‘Mathur’ as well as two remixes of Weller’s ‘Brushed’ only issued as a promo. The ‘Lynch Mob Bonus Beats’ and ‘Acid Dub’ mixes came from an acetate obtained from someone who worked in the industry at the time. I love the freeform nature of all these mixes, they’re full of backwards guitars, reverb-heavy drop outs and copious amounts of delay, even if it can get a bit full on at points. I can only imagine they achieved this by doing live mixes on the desk and then editing down the results to get a modern psychedelic sound without resorting to cliché. Also it’s HEAVY, they get a big, chunky sound that recalls some sort of acid trip where the music warps and moves in and out of your headspace.

*A word about the mix – there’s some extreme panning, feedback and distortion going on throughout, this is part of the original recordings and intentional, just be careful on the volume.

I’ve used dialogue from a drug information film called The Mindbenders throughout the mix to give it a running theme, it seemed appropriate and this concludes the Lynchmob mixes. I always intended to do two as I had plenty of material for them and it feels good to finally get this one down. There will periodically be more exclusives as I go through my list of themed mix ideas and tick them off, I can’t say when but this gives me a good excuse to finally get round to doing them.

Track list:
Paul Weller – Sunflower (Lynch Mob Dub)
Primal Scream – If They Move, Kill ‘Em (12” Disco Mix edit)
Asian Dub Foundation – Free Satpal Ram (Primal Scream & Brendan Lynch Mix – DJ Food Edit)
Ocean Colour Scene – Falling To The Floor / 100 Mile City
Ocean Colour Scene – July (Forza Moderna Mix)
Indian Vibes – Mathur (Discovery of India mix / Adbhuta / Extended mix / Lynch Mob beats DJ Food re-edit)
Paul Weller – So You Want to Be A Dancer
Talbot / White – Off the Beaten Track (4-1 Dub mix)
Paul Weller – Brushed (Lynch Mob Acid Dub / Lynch Mob Bonus Beats DJ Food edit) (acetate)
Primal Scream – Burning Wheel (DJ Food edit)
Ocean Colour Scene – Flood Tide Rising
Deus – Sun Ra (Lynchmob Dub)
Paul Weller – From The Floorboards Up (Lynch Mob Instrumental Remix)

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

Mixcloud Select Exclusive Mixes

February 18, 2021February 18, 2021

I’ve decided to start doing occasional exclusive mixes this year for subscribers to my Mixcloud Select channel, ticking off that to-do list of themed mixes I’ve been meaning to do forever but never got round to. We’re currently at 99 subscribers and once we hit 100 I’ll post the first of these – a follow up to the 2011 Lynch Party Mix that featured various remixes and productions by Brendan Lynch & Max Heyes aka the Lynchmob.
That means a lot of tripped out 90’s era Paul Weller, Primal Scream, Asian Dub Foundation, Ocean Colour Scene.. no, wait! come back! – these guys made them sound so good and it includes a couple of unreleased Weller remixes too.
For £3 a month you get a weekly archive Solid Steel mix or similar from my archives dating back to the early 90s, full track list, detailed notes and stories from the era. Future exclusives will include an Eno remix collection, the infamous unreleased Sesame Street ‘D Is For Dig’ compilation remastered and at least 2 more Kraftwerk Kover Kollections.
All brand new mixes will be exclusive for at least a year before being made public. Hit the purple button to subscribe, Friday 10.30am GMT is usually the drop time so, if one more person subscribes by then, the first exclusive goes up.

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

DJ Food Discogs data links visualised

February 18, 2021February 18, 2021

My friend Stuart has been using Maltego OSINT software to visualise links in Discogs and did one on my aliases. Each square is a different release or associated link. Right click and open in a new tab to zoom in. Thanks Stuart!

And below is Ninja Tune and associated labels – incredible!

Posted in DJ Food, Ninja Tune, Openmind designs. | No Comments | Tags: Maltego

The New Obsolescents LP cover process 2 – Cover assembly

February 14, 2021

For the first part of this process and a little back story, see Part 1…

Once Jonas Ranson at paperHAUS had screen printed each panel during the summer of 2020 it was down to me to assemble them. Each sheet was 18″ x 18″, sadly not large enough to fold round into a full LP sleeve, so each panel had to be trimmed to a 12” x 12” size and painstakingly glued to each already printed sleeve – 300 of them.

I’d specified that the designs be printed dead centre of each pattern to take advantage of the symmetrical nature of the cover graphic so there were lots of offcuts (which will be used somehow on future projects).

This was all done sometime during the Autumn of 2020 in my studio while we waited for the vinyl to come back from the pressing plant. The original plan had been for Colin at Castles in Space and I to then rent a bigger space for a day and glue the foil panels to each sleeve but I quickly realised that this just wasn’t going to be possible in such a short time. The next lockdown put a stop to any thoughts of that anyway.

Eventually the vinyl turned up and Colin arrived one evening with 17 boxes of covers in the back of his car and, in a socially distanced handover, I hauled them up to my studio.

Just after the Xmas period, during the 3rd lockdown, I began the extremely long task of gluing a panel to each sleeve, padding every cover out with a card square then laying them between newsprint sheets to avoid anything sticking while drying. The glue would start to curl the card within about a minute as it dried and started to contract so it was imperative to press them flat under weights.

I could average two boxes of 17 a day in two shifts by the end; one box first thing in the morning then leave to dry. Once stuck they were inspected for marks, sleeved in PVC outers and then boxed. Clean the area, do another box before bed and leave to dry in a stack overnight. By the end I could do one box in under 50 minutes, below is the last box on the 8th or 9th day.

As a nod to the site of the original performance recordings at the Museum of London, with moon rock bean bags and a space travel theme, we decided on a silver and black hybrid moon surface effect for the vinyl. The whole process of making the sleeves probably took longer than the whole album but I couldn’t be happier with the results, I doubt it’ll see a repress in this state as I’m told the foil stocks are virtually gone now but it was worth it.

Hyperspace

Spiral

Starburst

Cross

Swirls

Posted in Design, DJ Food, Music, Openmind designs, Records. | 2 Comments | Tags: Castles In Space, Howlround, The New Obsolescents

Mixcloud Select 44: Openmind Solid Steel mix 21/01/95

February 12, 2021

I’ve been asked for more mixes from 1995 so here’s one from the start of that year that I barely remember, it’s from a show featuring PC and I, possibly Jon More also did a mix too as he’s on the mic at one point but I only have Patrick’s and my mixes. I’m not too sure where this was recorded as there are additional FX in the mix that suggest it was a studio mix outside of KISS FM and we were using Coldcut’s old studio DJ mixer with inbuilt sampler that could pitch shift samples and loops via a trigger button. You can hear me getting way too excited with it at certain points. I can’t remember if Ninja Tune was situated in Clink Street at this point but there was a point where we were doing some work out of Jon’s home studio in Herne Hill as I remember working on bits for ‘A Recipe For Disaster’ there and this may have been one of those sessions. Or it may have been in the Clink St studio as I’m sure we recorded the DJ magazine mix there and that came out late 1994 I think?

Anyway – details, how much of it really matters? There are some great tracks here that I’d forgotten and the front half is loaded with hip hop beats and scratches whilst the second half is more acid, electronic and slowed down jungle beats. There’s at least one mix that is in time but the wrong part of the bar which wrong foots you a bit from the flow of things, I would do this sometimes, get lost in rhythms and lose where the 1 was.

We kick off with a white label promo mailed out at the time with just ‘Lynch Mob Beats’ stamped on it featuring a tripped out psych guitar and FX jam that I loved and realised was the work of Brendan Lynch who went on to produce and mix for Paul Weller and Primal Scream as well as the classic Indian Vibes track, ‘Mathar‘. This was your typical major label trying to get one over on the dance DJs trick of having a white label with no info so as not to prejudice opinion. It was Lynch working over Weller as he would do repeatedly to excellent effect and I couldn’t have cared less who the original artist was but you have to remember that Weller was at a career low in the early 90s and ‘Wild Wood’ was the album that bought him back after years of critical bashing with The Style Council and his early solo work. To me, Lynch is one of the unsung producers of the early to mid 90s who had a unique sound and completely psychedelic production techniques that few else came close to. I’d love to know how he did his mixes, I’m presuming they were free form jams that were edited down later but he dubs a mix up like no other. I put a load of his mixes together 10 years back under the name Lynch Party Mix and there’s enough for a part 2 lurking on the hard drive (I must do that, maybe a subscribers exclusive).

The first of two tracks from the freshly-minted Clear label turns up in the form of Mike Paradinas’ Tusken Raiders ‘Beatnik #3’ and then into Gunshot and a trio of Jazzy Jeff scratch tracks where I get way too excited with the sampler. Jon had hipped me to Trouble Funk’s ‘The Beat’ so I threw that in and then into a couple of Fax label tracks after the break. You can already hear that the ambient content of the early Openmind mixes on Solid Steel are diminishing to be replaced by more trip-hoppy beats and early strains of drum n bass with the electronic content still there via artists like Plastikman, Autechre and Air Liquide. Jon refers to me as ‘Telepathic Kev’ so maybe the Strictly part hadn’t stuck yet. I was still very much finding my feet in the Ninja camp at this point but ’95 would be the year when I really consolidated that position with the design and DJing as well as studio work as I’d left my full time job in a book shop and just worked at weekends at Ambient Soho records.

If anyone can identify the track after DJ Crystl I’d be grateful as it’s alluding me, there aren’t many track lists surviving for most Solid Steel mixes pre-’98 so I have to make these from a combination of memory, Discogs and Shazam and the latter isn’t coming up with anything. It doesn’t help that I’m playing it on the wrong speed either as we used to do with early drum n bass like Photek, Crystl, Smokin’ Drum Recordings and such. Bit of a throwback to the late 80s with Bam Bam and Bomb The Bass, nothing changes there and then playing out with Jedi Knights on Clear which sadly stops abruptly as the tape runs out.

Track list:
Paul Weller – Whirlpool’s End (Lynch Mob Beats)
Tusken Raiders – Beatnik #3
Gunshot – Colour Code
Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince – A Touch Of Jazz
Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince – Hip Hop Dancer’s Theme
Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince – A Touch Of Jazz
Trouble Funk – The Beat
Plastikman – Lasttrak
Air Liquide – Combat Zone
Pulsation – Pulsar
Ongaku – Mihon
Autechre – Bronchusevenmx
DJ Crystl – Let It Roll
Unknown – Babylon
Bam Bam – Where’s Your Child?
Bomb The Bass – Beat Dat (Freestyle scratch mix)
Jedi Knights – Intergalactic Funk Transmission

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The New Obsolescents LP cover process 1 – Screenprinting

February 12, 2021February 14, 2021

Seeing as The New Obsolescents album is up for pre order today I thought I’d break down how we made the cover as it was quite an involved job using obsolete materials and analogue processes without the aid of automation. Part of the concept behind the group name is referencing the use of largely obsolete practices and equipment and I thought I’d carry this on with the artwork. This post is about the printing and there’s another about the assembly here.

I met Jonas Ranson a couple of years back when I got him to print a poster for the De:tuned 10th anniversary exclusive via Bleep (I think they even have some left). It was a complex 6 colour job and I was impressed with how diligently he worked to get it as good as possible using tests to determine the best results and revising screens with me after we both agree the first tests didn’t look right. So the sleeves for The New Obsolescents LP cover required a similar touch as this was printing onto delicate foil covered card that marked if you ran a fingernail across it.

To rewind slightly, since discovering the Philips 21st Century Prospective series of French musique concrete LPs on tour in Europe the 90s I’d been fantasizing about one day making a record with a Héliophore patterned silver foil cover. The patterns etched in the covers are achieved by minute differences in the angles of the foil coating which then reflect the light and appear to animate when moved. These legendary and increasingly expensive LPs contain critical works from an international array of leading artists in the tape and electro acoustic field, spearheaded by Pierre Henry who also released many of his own works on the label.

Tracking down the company who made the original Philips covers in France led to a dead end many years ago as they had long ceased to exist so I gave up hope. Unknown to me a British company had managed to replicate the process under the name Dufex in the UK. Sadly they’d also wound up business in 2019 but via a chance encounter on a separate project I managed to find the final stocks of card from the business at a lighting company so I filed that away for future use.

Once The New Obsolescents’ album was in the bag we started to think about artwork and I knew that this collision of tape loops and turntablism was the perfect record to sleeve in foil as a homage to the Philips series. Those familiar with the originals would immediately make the visual connection and it would set the tone for the sounds contained inside as the group name would be unfamiliar to most. When we sent the album out to record labels it included a mock up of the cover art with foil and that was part of the package we wanted to produce. Colin Morrison at Castles in Space was fully on board with the sleeve idea from the beginning and it’s a testament to his belief in the project that he was prepared to trust me with the whole process despite the considerable extra costs.

Ordering 300 sheets in five different designs, I gave them to Jonas at paperHAUS who carefully but expertly screen printed each panel with the cover design, making sure not to scratch the extremely delicate foil. I specified that the designs be printed dead centre to take advantage of the symmetrical nature of the cover graphic and asked Jonas to document the process as I wasn’t allowed in the studio due to lockdown restrictions at the time. Many thanks to Jonas, these are his beautiful photos of the job and you can contact him and see his work at www.jonasranson.com/paperhouse

Posted in Design, DJ Food, Openmind designs, Photography, Records. | No Comments | Tags: Jonas Ranson, PaperHAUS, screenprinting, The New Obsolescents

Announcing: The Superceded Sounds of… The New Obsolescents

February 1, 2021February 1, 2021

Presented for your delectation, a brand new deep space travelogue from the collective minds of DJ Food and Howlround. A new collaborative group release that I’m part of…

The Superceded Sounds of… The New Obsolescents

Format: 12” Coloured Vinyl LP in Screen Printed Foil Board Sleeve. Hand Assembled by DJ Food

Cat No: CiS069

Released: 26th February, 2021 – Pre-order Feb 12th (I’ll post the link when it’s live)

Genre: Electronic / Turntables / Tape Music / Psychedelic / Ambient / Experimental

This album began life four years ago when the trio of Strictly Kev, Robin The Fog and Chris Weaver were tasked by Jonny Trunk with providing an all-night immersive soundtrack for the mammoth ‘Museum Of Last Parties’ extravaganza in the Museum of London’s Torch Room. Setting up their vintage reel to reel tape machines, turntables and various FX units in the very shadow of the torch that became the icon of the 2012 Olympics, the trio set about creating a soundtrack worthy of champions.

Strange new worlds conjured from obsolete media, a vision of the future constructed live using nothing but vintage analogue technology and a sense of adventure.

With a constant stream of revellers stopping by to lounge on moon-shaped cushions and enjoy this interstellar soundtrack being woven right before their ears, the trio amassed almost four hours of improvised oddities that night. It wasn’t until the spring of 2020 when they suddenly each found themselves at home with all plans cancelled and a LOT of spare time that the tapes were resurrected and the album started to take shape.

The album is presented in an extraordinary sleeve, hand assembled by Strictly Kev, who explains, “Since discovering the Philips 21st Century Prospective series of French musique concrete LPs on tour in European the 90s I’ve been fantasising about one day making a record with a Héliophore patterned silver foil cover. The patterns etched in the covers are achieved by minute differences in the angles of the foil coating which then reflects the light and appears to animate when moved. These legendary and increasingly expensive LPs contained critical works from an international array of leading artists in the tape and electro acoustic field, spearheaded by Pierre Henry who also released many of his own works on the label.

Tracking down the company who made the original Philips covers in France led to a dead end as they had long ceased to exist so I gave up hope. Unknown to me a British company had managed to replicate the process under the name Dufex in the UK. Sadly they’d also wound up business in 2019 but via a chance encounter on a separate project I managed to find the final stocks of card from the business at a lighting company.

Colin at Castles in Space was fully on board with the sleeve idea from the beginning and it’s a testament to his belief in the project that he was prepared to trust me with the whole process despite the considerable extra costs. Procuring 300 sheets in five different designs, I gave them to Jonas Ranson at paperHAUS who carefully but expertly screen printed each panel with the cover design. Each sheet was then cut to a 12”x12” size and painstakingly glued to each sleeve, pressed while drying and sleeved in PVC outers, making sure not to scratch the foil which is extremely delicate.

As a nod to the site of the original performance recordings at the Museum of London, with moon rock bean bags and a space travel theme, we decided on a silver and black hybrid moon surface effect for the vinyl. The whole process of making the sleeves probably took longer than the whole album but I couldn’t be happier with the results, it was worth it.”

Kev has tagged the five variants of the foil board sleeves as “Spiral’, “Starburst’, “Cross’, “Swirls’ and “Hyperspace”!

This extraordinary and unique album is available to pre-order directly from Castles in Space from 12th February for a full release on 26th February.

Posted in Design, DJ Food, Music, Records. | 1 Comment | Tags: Castles In Space, Howlround, The New Obsolescents

Mixcloud Select 40: Strictly’s 2 hr Rub 10/08/97 Part 3

January 15, 2021January 26, 2021

I don’t remember half the tracks on this mix save for the Journeyman, Coldcut and Attica Blues tunes. Journeyman’s ‘Rusty Beats’ is SO heavy, I think that was from his second album on Ntone, I have no idea who 2nd Gen is so had to look it up, it was from an EP on Flo (Flo 001 no less) called ‘Noise Sculptures’, seems he signed to Novamute the next year. The Override track came out on Ntone and was an alias of Tom ‘Klute’ Withers and you can hear that Photek / Bukem influence. I have Aquasky ‘Opaque’ down as the track midway through the mix, maybe something from the LP ‘Orange Dust’ that I may have had a promo of with no titles. The Animals on Wheels track is hard as nails too, this was from a 10” EP on the iLL label.

How scary / familiar does the Jello Biafra rant over Coldcut sound now? Who knew 23 years ago? Jello’s inclusion of course comes from the spoken word extract we used on the Coldcut Journey’s By DJ mix a couple of years before. Matt & Jon thought it would be good to remake it with Jello for real and one day he arrived at Ninja HQ in London Bridge. I was in upstairs with Jon Voda, in the mastering suite on his floor, working on the Coldcut/Grandmaster Flash collaboration track I think and Jello appeared at the door as he was to use the vocal booth to record his part. Jon introduced me, ’this is Strictly Kev, from DJ Food’. ‘From DJ Food or IS DJ Food?’ boomed Jello in his distinctive west coast drawl. And that’s my meeting Jello Biafra story…

Part 4 next week….

Track list:
Journeyman – Rusty Beats
2nd Gen – Statutory Angels
Override – Hungry
Aquasky – Orange Dust
Animals on Wheels – F.Y.A.
Coldcut – Every Home A Prison
Attica Blues – Enter

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