My friend Duncan who runs the Clockwork Shorts site (some of the best film reviews out there, mixes too) sent me these photos of a custom Gelaskin he got made for his Nexus 7″ tablet – nice 
DJ Food
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More photos from the recent Sacrum Profanum concert in Poland – this time by the excellent photographer Bartosz Holoszkiewicz. These go right through from our arrival, rehearsal, backstage banter and make up (B&W) to the final performance (colour). There are even more over on Bart’s site but this is my pick of the bunch, also that’s Prof. Penderecki with Skalpel below.
Way back in March I was asked by Eddy Temple-Morris if I would be interested in putting together a short mix offering my take on the work of DJ Shadow. This was to form part of a marathon special on his XFM show celebrating Josh’s career and tying into a compilation of some sort which has since evolved into the ‘Reconstruction’ release and deluxe box set.
Anyone who knows me knows I’m a big Shadow fan so this was a thrilling opportunity and also a daunting task. The mix had to be between 17 and 20 minutes long according to Eddy, how on earth to fit so many great tracks into that length of time? No idea but best get down to it and see what develops. Going through my extensive collection threw up over 80 potential tracks, skits, remixes, co-productions and original samples which totaled over 6 hours of music if I remember correctly. How to do this so that it wouldn’t be just another Shadow mix? How to present the ubiquitous but essential ‘Organ Donor’ in an exciting way? Have a listen…
Well, I couldn’t get it down to to 17 minutes, or 20, but squeezed it all into 23 which Eddy graciously let me get away with. I decided to go for the essence of a lot of tracks rather than letting everything play out, trying to edit sympathetically to each track’s progressions so it wouldn’t seem too brutal. I used a lesser-known compilation track (from ‘Turntables On The Hudson’) called ‘Flashback’ as a theme to title the mix as it’s such a blur of sonic information sometimes that it seems like it might be just that. Having not listened back since I made it nearly 6 months ago I find it’s quite an exhilarating ride if a bit relentless, which I quite like but it you might have to be in the mood for it. The solution to ‘Organ Donor’, probably his most well known creation, was to put it at the end, the big bang after a big build, mixing in the original Giorgio Moroder ‘Tears’ sample that forms the main melody as well as a newer production to show that he’s still got it.
But after all that, I still had material left over, specifically large chunks of ambient sound beds that formed a big part of his earlier releases, which is something I love about his music and that stood out as both original and uncompromising at the time. I wanted to put these together as some sort of collage without the usual beats and vocals, maybe it could be used as a bed to talk over on the radio? It was all here, might as well see what could be done with it, I doubted anyone else would go down this route too. The result is the short but sweet ‘Trip Out’ mix…
I was thinking of the KLF‘s classic ‘Chill Out’ album here, hence the pastiche of the cover and the title – also an allusion to hallucination of course but also a knowing wink to the Trip Hop genre tag that has dogged Shadow since the start of his career. I actually think this concept could have been taken further with a bit more production to extend and rearrange sections but time constraints didn’t permit. Anyway, now I had over 30 minutes of mix for Eddy when he only wanted half that. Props to him that he played both and you can hear the whole thing, along with mixes by IRN MNKY, Bare Noize, Stereo:Type and Culprit One online at XFM for the next week. If you’re abroad and you need to enter a postcode to make it think you’re listening from the UK then try W1A 1AA.
It’s taken me a while to post these as I was collating a lot of photos from the concert in Poland last weekend. Here’s a selection of images from my own efforts plus a few that I gleaned from the web, some by photographers Andrzej Banas and Wojciech Wandzel
Copyright: 10th Sacrum Profanum Festival, Krakow, Poland
The event was Sacrum Profanum, the 10th time it has happened in Krakow, situated in a working steelworks which is usually a no go area for the city’s inhabitants. This time the focus was on four Polish composers – Penderecki, Gorecki, Kilar and Lutoslawski – and the reinterpretation of their works. I was invited, alongside The Kronos Quartet, DJ Vadim, King Cannibal and Grasscut, by the Polish duo Skalpel, to perform a work by Kilar called ‘Krzesany’ in front of over 2,000 people for the event.
The set up ran like this: The Kronos Quartet would perform a piece (or a section of) by one of the composers, then one of us would perform our remix, then Skalpel would perform their take on another piece by the same composer. Once the show began we were encouraged to leave very little time between each piece so as to present a seamless flow, save for applause at the end of each piece. The audience were incredible, absolute silence during the pieces, no talking, mobile phones etc. – you wouldn’t find that in the UK at an event like this.
Skalpel are huge in Poland and this also acted as their reunion concert as they have been working apart the last few years (the Igor Boxx album on Ninja Tune is a solo record by Igor Pudlo from the group). They got big cheers when they appeared and, even though I was unfamiliar with all the music in both its original or remixed form, theirs stood out as being quite excellent. But the highlight for me was Grasscut’s take on Lutoslawski, an incredible piece in 11/2 time which grew to epic proportions with the addition of drummer Aram Zarikian. Coupled with the multi-layered projection screens behind them and the fantastic lighting design the whole stage resembled a huge stained glass window with the sun streaming through at points. The visuals were a big part throughout, helping fill the cavenous space.
The Kronos Quartet played their first piece with their backs to the crowd, reading a huge rolling projection of the score as they plucked and tapped their instruments to create a concrete opener for the concert. After this the screen was lowered as DJ Vadim presented his take on Penderecki (who was actually in attendance too) and an ‘X’ shaped cluster of screens were revealed showing different notes and textures. The X was a feature of the festival graphics, being that it was their 10th anniversary, and two of the huge supporting structures within the factory had also been lit to form the giant letter. I had sent animations of my own although I couldn’t see them when I was performing but was delighted to see used in photos afterwards.
A truly incredible gig in a year that has already had its share of great moments and events. I was honoured to be asked to such a concert (Aphex Twin and Johnny Greenwood had played similar pieces the year before) and will remember it for a long time. All the music I heard was excellent and I hope this will be collected and released as an album at some point. It was all filmed for DVD and Blu-ray release at a later date as well. More gigs like this please!
I’m currently in Krakow preparing for this gig which promises to be a highlight of the year as performances go. This is an annual festival, highlighting and celebrating Polish composers be presenting their works in new and different ways.
The composers celebrated this year are Krzysztof Penderecki, Henryk Mikolaj Gorecki and Wojciech Kilar and the Kronos Quartet will play versions of their original compositions tonight before myself, DJ Vadim, Skalpel, Grasscut and King Cannibal present out reinterpretations. I have taken on Kilar’s ‘Krzesany’ and turned in a 13 minute piece of strings, electronics and drums.
Tomorrow night Kronos will perform with Sigur Ros and it all takes place inside a huge steelworks that an house 3,000 people and is usually off limits to the public. I’ve heard some of the new versions as rehearsals and they sound incredible, I can’t wait to hear them in front of a large crowd tonight. Below is a shot of Kronos practicing yesterday inside the venue.
I’m very pleased to announce that my full dome show ‘The Search Engine’ will be returning to the SAT in Montreal for another run between 18th Sept and 12th Oct (that’s next week!).
For those who didn’t get to make the 5 day run in July there’s another chance to see it in one of 16 showings Tuesdays – Fridays.
I won’t actually be at these performances but before I left in July we programmed the whole piece to be automated in that certain sounds will follow random patterns around the dome the same as if I was controlling them.
Full details of dates, times, ticket prices etc. are on the Facebook event page. Or a direct link to tickets for each event is here. I’m told that Friday 21st might have two showings and some sort of Ninja Tune after party in the Foodlab space (good name), more info when I get that.
A quick reminder of what’s in store in the form of this little promo video I shot there last time.
DJ Food ‘The Search Engine’ live at SAT, Montreal from Solid Steel on Vimeo.
A great big THANK YOU to everyone who’s listened to the remake of The Beastie Boys‘ ‘Paul’s Boutique’ album that Cheeba, Moneyshot and I debuted 10 days ago. It’s been blogged and linked to from all over the world by magazines like Urb, Fact and Spin plus sites like EgoTrip, Comic Book Resource and Dangerous Minds, and this weekend the LA Times ran a news piece on it.
On Friday we broke the record for the most listens to one mix ever on our Solid Steel show (33,000 for Bonobo) and are currently heading towards the 40,000 listens mark on the Ninja Tune/Solid Steel Soundcloud. Sadly we received the news that Strongroom Alive – the radio station that hosts us in London every Thursday – was no more last week but their memory lives on in the live version currently on Mixcloud which has garnered another 10,000 plays.
Big thanks to Erik Batternberg who sent me the LA Times photo and for all of you who blogged it, shared it, retweeted it, let us know your thoughts and hipped us to others who have done the same.
Now that the mix has had it’s week on Solid Steel I’ve uploaded it to my own Soundcloud and you can access it quickly via the image on the right or the download page. We are all blown away with the reception this has received and will be working on something special as a follow up for next year.
3 years in the making, 3 DJs working with over 150 tracks to recreate one of the seminal sampling albums of all time, at last Cheeba, Moneyshot and I can reveal ‘Caught In The Middle Of A 3-Way Mix’. Our tribute to the classic Beastie Boys album ‘Paul’s Boutique’ remixed and re-imagined from all the original samples plus a cappellas, period interviews and the Beasties’ own audio commentary from the reissued release.
Add to this a custom illustration from Paul’s Boutique super-fan and all-round great guy Jim Mahfood, taking time out from recent art duties on Tank Girl, and you have an alternate version of the album. The mix was over half way finished when we heard the tragic news of Adam Yauch‘s passing this May so this is also our nod to his memory, RIP MCA.
Big respect to Cheeba and Moneyshot for all their hard work and for the latter for inspiring the project with his classic mix of their ‘Check Your Head’ three years ago. Obviously massive respect goes out to The Beasties, The Dust Brothers, Mario C. and all involved in the making of the original album.
The mix debuted on Solid Steel via Strongroom Alive and above is the whole show with commentary and additional mix action from Coldcut and PC and the one below without chat and a download option.
Also here’s the full tracklist:
Caught In The Middle of A 3-Way Mix – a tribute to The Beastie Boys‘ ‘Paul’s Boutique’ album
DJ Cheeba section:
To All The Girls:
Mike D – Pauls Boutique Audio Commentary (Dialogue) – YouTube Rip
Idris Mohammed – Loran’s Dance – Kudu
Beastie Boys – Triple Trouble (a cappella) – Capitol Records
Beastie Boys – Paul Revere – (DIY a cappella)
Fatboy Slim – The Weekend Starts Here – Skint Records
Beastie Boys – 3 MCs and 1 DJ (a cappella) – Capitol Records
LL Cool J – Rock The Bells – Def Jam Recordings
Beastie Boys – Ch Ch Ch Check It Out (a cappella) – Capitol Records
Beastie Boys – Shake Your Rump (a cappella) – Capitol Records
David Berman – Pauls Boutique Release Party (Dialogue) – YouTube Rip
Shake Your Rump:
Alphonze Mouzon – Funky Snakefoot – Blue Note
Beastie Boys – Shake Your Rump (a cappella) – Capitol Records
Rose Royce – 6 O’Clock DJ (Let’s Rock) – MCA Records
Rose Royce – Born To Love You – MCA Records
John King – The History of The Dust Brothers (Dialogue) – YouTube Rip
Mike D – Pauls Boutique Release Party (Dialogue) – YouTube Rip
Diana Ross & The Supremes – No Matter What Sign You Are – Tamla Motown
The Sugar Hill Gang – 8th Wonder – Sugar Hill Records
Rose Royce – Daddy Rich – MCA Records
Alan Moorhouse – Soul Skimmer – KPM Music
Afrika Bambaataa & James Brown – Unity Part 2 (a cappella) – Polydor
Funky 4+1 – That’s The Joint – Sugar Hill Records
Bob Marley & The Wailers – Could You Be Loved – Island Records
Rose Royce – Yo Yo – MCA Records
Mike D – Pauls Boutique Release Party (Dialogue) – YouTube Rip
Black Oak Arkansas – Hot and Nasty – ATCO Records
Paul Humphrey – Super Mellow – Inner City Records
Harvey Scales – Dancing Room Only – Casablanca Records
Ronnie Laws – Tell me Something Good – Blue Note
Johnny Ryall:
Kurtis Blow – AJ Skratch – Mercury
Paul McCartney – Momma Miss America – Apple Records
Beastie Boys – Johnny Ryall (a cappella) – Capitol Records
Jean Knight – Mr Big Stuff – Stax
Chris Stein – Military Breakbeat – 360 Records
Pink Floyd – One Of These Days – Harvest
Donny Hathaway – Magnificent Sanctuary Band – ATCO Records
MCA – Pauls Boutique Audio Commentary (Dialogue) – YouTube Rip
David Bromberg – Sharon – Columbia
LL Cool J – Discusses the Beastie Boys (Dialogue) – YouTube Rip
Mike D – Pauls Boutique Release Party (Dialogue) – YouTube Rip
Egg Man:
Lightnin’ Rod – Sport – United Artists Records
WYFF News – Which Came First…? (Dialogue) – YouTube Rip
Beastie Boys – Egg Man – (DIY a cappella)
Curtis Mayfield – Superfly – Buddah Records
Tower of Power – Drop It In The Slot – Warner Bros. Records
Elvis Costello – Pump it Up – Radar Records
John Williams – The Theme From Jaws – MCA Records
Public Enemy – You’re Gonna Get Yours – Def Jam Recordings
Bernard Herrmann – Suite For Strings – Sony Classical
Mike D & MCA – Pauls Boutique Audio Commentary (Dialogue) – YouTube Rip
Sly and The Family Stone – Dance To The Music – Epic
The Commodores – I’m Ready – Tamla Motown
Public Enemy – Bring The Noise – Def Jam Recordings
High Plains Drifter:
Interview with The Eagles introduction (Dialogue) – YouTube Rip
The Eagles – Those Shoes – Asylum Records
The Fatback Band – Put Your Love (In My Tender Care) – Polydor
DJ Moneyshot Outro
DJ Moneyshot section:
DJ Moneyshot – “Can’t Stand DJ Cheeba Intro” – mp3
Sounds Of Science:
The Beatles – The End – Apple Records
Beastie Boys – Sounds of Science (DIY a cappella) – Capitol Records
James Brown – Get Up, Get Into It, Get Involved – Polydor
Paul’s Boutique – Audio Commentary – Capitol Records
Beastie Boys – Sounds of Science – Capitol Records
The Beatles – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise) – Capitol Records
BDP – My Philosophy – Jive
The Beatles – When I’m 64 – Capitol Records
Issac Hayes – Walk From Regio’s – Polydor
3 Minute Rule:
Paul’s Boutique – Audio Commentary – Capitol Records
Beastie Boys – 3 Minute Rule – Capitol Records
Fancy – Feel Good – Big Tree Records
Sly & The Family Stone – Brave And Strong – Epic
Beastie Boys – 3 Minute Rule (DIY a cappella) – Capitol Records
Sly & The Family Stone – Poet – Epic
Loggins & Messina – Your Mama Don’t Dance – CBS
Hey Ladies:
Kool & The Gang – Jungle Boogie – De-Lite Records
Disco Dave & The Force Of the Five MC’s – High Powered Rap – Mixmaster Mike and Disco Dave Records
Afrika Bambaataa – Jazzy Sensation – Tommy Boy Music
Jeanette Lady Day – Come Let Me Love You – Prelude Records
Beastie Boys – Hey Ladies (a cappella) – Capitol Records
Cameo – Shake Your Pants – Chocolate City
The Bar-Kays – Holy Ghost – Stax
Kurtis Blow – Party Time – Mercury
Zapp – Dancefloor – Warner Bros. Records
James Brown – Funky President – Polydor
The P-Funk Allstars – Pumpin’ It Up – Epic
The Commodores – Machine Gun – Motown
The Sweet – Ballroom Blitz – Capitol Records
5 Piece Chicken Dinner:
Eric Weissberg & Steve Mandell – Shuckin’ The Corn – Warner Bros. Records
DJ Moneyshot – Rinse Out Jungle ish – mp3
Looking Down The Barrel Of A Gun:
Tougher Than Leather dialogue sample – New Line Cinema
Ocean – Put Your Hand In The Hand – Kama Sutra
Paul’s Boutique – Audio Commentary – Capitol Records (dialogue)
Beastie Boys – Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun (a cappella) – Capitol Records
Pink Floyd – Time – Harvest
Mountain – Mississippi Queen – Stateside
Incredible Bongo Band – Last Bongo In Belgium – Pride
Beastie Boys – Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun – Capitol Records
YouTube Audio – MTV 1998 Beastie Boys Biography – MTV (dialogue)
DJ Food section:
Car Thief:
Funk Factory – Rien Ne Va Plus (ATCO Records)
Boogie Down Productions – The Bridge Is Over (Instr.) (B-Boy Records)
Trouble Funk – Drop The Bomb (Jamtu Records)
Beastie Boys – Car Thief (a cappella) (Capitol)
The Jackson 5 – I’ll Bet You (Motown)
Max Yasgur – Speech at Woodstock (dialogue)
Donovan – Hurdy Gurdy Man (Pye Records)
Led Zeppelin – Moby Dick (Atlantic)
What Comes Around:
Gene Harris – Put On Train (Blue Note)
Alice Cooper – It’s Hot Tonight (Warner Bros. Records)
Shadrach:
Sly & The Family Stone – Loose Booty (Epic)
Funky 4+1 – That’s The Joint (Sugar Hill Records)
Rose Royce – Do Your Dance (Whitfield Records)
The Riddler – Batman TV soundtrack (dialogue)
The Sugar Hill Gang – Sugar Gill Groove (Sugar Hill Records)
Trouble Funk – Say What? (D.E.T.T. Records)
Ballin’ Jack – Never Let ‘Em Say (Columbia)
The Fatback Band – King Tim III (Personality Jock) (Spring Records)
James Brown – Funky Drummer (King Records/Polydor)
Ask For Janice:
Paul’s Boutique radio ad (cassette) (dialogue)
B-Boy Bouillabaisse –
59 Christie Street:
Burundi Black – Burundi Black (Barclay)
Jimi Hendrix Experience – Are You Experienced? (Polydor)
Run DMC – Here We Go (Live At The Funhouse) (Profile)
Cerrone – Rocket In The Pocket (Live) (CBS)
Malcolm McLaren & The World Famous Supreme Team – Buffalo Gals (Charisma)
Boogie Down Productions – My Philosophy (Jive) Fab 5 Freddy – Change Le Beat (Celluloid)
Stop That Train:
Southside Movement – Save The World (20th Century Records)
Beastie Boys – Stop That Train (a cappella) (Capitol)
Scotty – Draw Your Brakes (Trojan Records)
A Year And A Day:
Tower Of Power – Ebony Jam (Warner Bros. Records)
The Isley Brothers – That Lady (Epic)
Led Zeppelin – When The Levee Breaks (on 45 rpm) (Atlantic)
Disco Dave & the Force of the Five MC’s – High Powered Rap (Mixmaster Mike and Disco Dave Records)
Hello Brooklyn:
Led Zeppelin – When The Levee Breaks (on 33rpm) (Atlantic)
Beastie Boys – Hello Brooklyn (demo version)
Johnny Cash – Folsom Prison Blues (CBS/Columbia)
Dropping Names:
The Meters – Hey Pocky A Way (Reprise Records)
Stephen King’s It / Andy Griffiths show – He thrusts his fists… (dialogue)
The Sweet – Into the Night (RCA Victor)
The Crusaders – The Well’s Gone Dry (Blue Thumb / ABC Records)
Bob Marley interview with the BBC (dialogue)
Lay It On Me:
Kool & The Gang – Let The Music Take Your Mind (De-lite)
Jim James – No Sleep ‘Til Brooklyn lyrics (dialogue)
Mike On The Mic:
Love Bug Starski – Starski, Live At The Disco Fever (Fever Records)
A.W.O.L.:
Chic – Good Times (Atlantic)
Beastie Boys – A.W.O.L. (Capitol)
Trouble Funk – Good To Go (4th & Broadway)
Idris Muhammed – Loran’s Dance (Kudu)
Rise – MCA tribute (dialogue)
Beastie Boys – Sureshot (a cappella) (Capitol/Grand Royal)
Rakim – Dedication (mp3) (dialogue)
So many Food-related things to look forward to this Autumn / Winter:
‘Caught In The Middle of a 3-Way Mix‘ – a tribute to the Beastie Boys’ ‘Paul’s Boutique’ album in mix form by DJ’s Cheeba, Moneyshot and Food with artwork by Jim Mahfood tomorrow night on Solid Steel via Strongroom Alive.
Debut of my remix of Kilah’s ‘Krzesany’ at the Sacrum Profanum festival, Poland on Sept 15th
A night of DJ Shadow mixes on XFM to support the ‘Reconstructed‘ comp with two by yours truly on Sept 21st
‘The Search Engine’ quadruple vinyl gatefold repress edition and return to the SAT in Montreal this Sept/Oct
A John Rydgren compilation on Omni Recording Corporation curated by David Thrussell with audio and images supplied from my archive.
‘The Search Engine’ fulldome performance at the Leicester Space Centre, UK on November 16th
As readers may know, I’m a fan of Henry Flint‘s art, kind of obvious since I got him to provide visuals for all my recent releases. One of his finest comic book creations – along with writer Robbie Morrison – is the alien Shakara, a lone assassin, seeking revenge for the destruction of his race. This ran for five series’ in the UK comic anthology 2000ad and finished last year with an epic finale that I won’t spoil here.
This final series is now collected (along with the 4th series) in a graphic novel priced £14.99 – or even cheaper if you get it from Forbidden Planet! The first 3 chapters are also available at the bargain price of £12.99 here. For anyone who enjoyed Kevin O’Neill‘s Nemesis the Warlock or Simon Bisley‘s take on the ABC Warriors books, this is on par with those classics – stunning visuals and plot set pieces to blow your mind.
I’ve also been reminded that Factory Road still have a small quantity of the 2 colour screen printed tea towels that they made for our recent exhibition, sporting Henry’s line drawing for my album cover. Check them out on their shop.
I’ve got some big gigs coming up in the next few months, see the above film for something very special at the Sacrum Profanum festival in Krakow on Sept 15th alongside other Ninja artists past and present, Grasscut, King Cannibal, Skalpel and DJ Vadim. I’ll be remixing a piece by Polish composer Wojciech Kilar and presenting that live, very excited about this one as it will look and sound amazing. The big gig in October is at the Forum – the first time I’ve ever played there – alongside Belleruche, DJ Cam, Chris Read and headliners The Herbaliser who will be using it as the release party for their album, ‘There Were Seven’.
Before both of those though I can finally reveal a very special project that I’ve had in the pipeline for several years now that has finally come to fruition. DJ Cheeba, DJ Moneyshot and myself had the idea of collaborating on a version of the Beastie Boys‘ ‘Paul’s Boutique’ album shortly after Moneyshot aired his mix of their ‘Check Your Head’ made entirely from the original sample sources. It was one of my favourite mixes that year (or any year) and we decided we should get together to try and tackle ‘Paul’s Boutique’ as it was a far bigger task being that it has at least twice as many samples.
The result is ‘Caught In The Middle Of A 3-Way Mix’ – a tribute to The Beastie Boys’ ‘Paul’s Boutique’ album, and it will make its debut on Solid Steel on August 30th. Each of us have taken a third of the album each to work on and combined our efforts into a mix that lasts just over an hour, if you’re a fan of the record then be prepared to hear it in a new way. Aside from the original sample sources we’ve included commentary from the Beasties, vintage interviews, demo versions and much more, if you thought the original was multi-layered then this adds even more.
The mix was over half way completed when we heard the tragic news of MCA‘s death in May so the impetus to finish it was instantly doubled and new meaning given to the project. It goes without saying that this is also a tribute to Adam Yauch and the legacy he left behind and we hope it will be embraced by Beastie fans around the globe when it drops, we’re just putting the finishing touches to it this weekend.
DJ Food ‘The Search Engine’ live at SAT, Montreal from Solid Steel on Vimeo.
This is what I got up to in Montreal recently. Many, many thanks to Anne-Marie Bergeron who put this together at very short notice. If anyone seeing this works at a dome or planetarium, anywhere in the world, and are interested in hosting it in the future then please get in touch. I realise not every dome has a surround system or space to lay on the floor, it doesn’t have to, I will happily work with you to tailor the show to your needs. Contact details are up on the right there…
As it always does, the day of the show came and went in a blur. By 7pm on July 19th we actually had everything in place, there was no last minute rushing around or ‘that will have to do’ decisions. The only thing I was worried about was doing a short introduction in front of the assembled press, I’ve never been comfortable being center stage, even less when speaking through a mic. By the time the first show kicked off there was little to do but sit down and play, or even lie down and shift sound around as much or as little as it needed for the 50 minute show.
I should have done this years ago, I get to lie down with the audience and just play with the sound, no one is looking at me up on a stage, they’re concentrating on the dome and I can watch it too whereas most projections are usually behind me when I DJ.
Sébastien Roy – the SAT‘s photographer – took an amazing set of photos that really capture the scale as well as working well with the low light levels (see above and below galleries).
Sam from Vinyl Junkies made this video clip compilation. That’s his 6 year old daughter at one point at her first ever gig, she loved it. I also did an interview with him the day after about the shows which will be online soon.
[youtube width=”640″ height=”390″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIP1mAHZdOw&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]
Thursday, post show comment: Thanks so much to everyone who came out last night, it was such a thrill to finally see it up on the dome. So happy to be hosted by the SAT in one of my favourite cities in the world, everyone who helped on this has been amazing, especially Olivier Rhéaume who helped me mix the sound all week. Looking forward to coming back for the Friday night crowd. Tickets have been selling so well that a Saturday show was announced too.
Here’s a review (in french) by Olash Bacon and a nicely put together set of pictures by Jü|Graphee
Friday, post show comment: Just back, another two down, we tweaked the sound during the day and it’s now sounding a lot better, less top end in places, the spoken word stuff cuts through a lot better too. One more show for Saturday at 8pm, tickets still left but selling fast, a lot who came tonight couldn’t get in and bought for tomorrow instead. I met so many cool people tonight and the posters are selling really well too.
[singlepic id=4017 w=640 h=480 float=left]
Also, more fantastic photos: this time by Susan Moss
I should take this opportunity to thank everyone who helped me, especially people who supplied some of the footage and gave invaluable advice before I even got to Montreal. Jan Zehn and Stefan Berke from Germany for their CymaSonics sequences, very happy to have their input. Paul Bourke, something of a legend in dome projection, and the sequences he sent, very generously at the last minute. Thomas English for the Red Epic footage, again donated very kindly. Phil Mayer and Ben Stern at Fulldome UK for advice and who will be staging the next version of this show in Leicester this coming November. Also Mario Di Maggio from Thinktank‘s Digital Planetarium in Birmingham for a special preview show which opened my eyes to several possibilities.
At the SAT it’s thanks to LP, Dominic (it was a boy!), Olivier, Guillaume and Alex that it all went smoothly. Evelyn at Evenko for helping stage it, Jeff Waye and Danna Takako Hawley at Ninja Tune N. America for setting it up and doing all the nitty gritty stuff. Finally a big man hug to Pat Hamou (that’s him below) who initially suggested it, helped out and designed the poster to boot – thanks all. I hope to make it back soon with a better show, each one is a learning process and there’s still work to do and plenty more domes to visit.
Some of this content appeared on the Facebook page for the event as this was the most direct way to explain what was happening to the people who were going, so apologies for any repetition.
Pre-gig article by Lucinda Catchlove for CBC Music on what it’s about and what I intend to do.
Now some background on the process of getting it to the screen:
July 9th: Currently rendering footage from both After Effects and Final Cut Pro as well as preparing images in Photoshop. To show films ‘full dome’ (ie covering the whole surface of a dome) you need to have an image between 3000 and 4000 pixels square. Only Red cameras can shoot over the 4k image size but this is only on the long side, and the raw footage for one frame this size is 36MB. As a result most full dome films are animations and I’m attempting to make a 50 minute sequence to go with my mix of the album.
July 12th: Another late night, nearly ready to put the whole thing into the final arrangement. Most of the animation is done in After Effects but AE isn’t too great for synching visuals and sound together, especially a 50 minute sequence. So image sequences are loaded into Final Cut Pro for an easier handle on editing to a timeline although low res versions are made because of the huge file sizes needed for a dome and not a regular projection screen.
Once everything is in it’s correct place an XML file of the session is exported BACK to AE so that a plug in that simulates a 3D dome environment can be added in various different ways to sections. More on that later, that’s the really tricky part where you go from thinking in 2D to 3D and start placing things in space…
Trying to render FX on 2700×2700 pixel footage from a R3D Epic camera inside a 3600×3600 pixel video sequence. “Computer says no…”
July 9th: Animating images is largely done in After Effects then rendered to Image sequences of huge jpegs at 30 fps (frames per second). That’s 30 jpegs per second x how ever many seconds in a sequence. I’m making a 50 minute + show: 30 x 60 x 50 = over 90,000 images. Here’s one below…
I’ve already broken the whole soundtrack down into ‘stems’ (each instrument or part isolated onto a separate track) and this has been sent to the SAT where they are busy making ‘sound maps’ for each song in the mix. With over 150 speakers inside the dome we can place each sound from each track wherever we want. Even better, once the show has begun I should be able to move sounds around the dome manually as it plays using a program on an iPad.
So if you wonder what I’m doing if you come along, I’m not surfing the web or checking email, I’ll be moving sounds around to mess your head up. The song I’m most excited about for this is ‘A Trick Of The Ear’ – this track was actually written with the intention of each part panning around a sphere. Besides various polyrhythms working in tandem throughout the track, I wanted it to feel like you were inside a gyroscope when you listened to it. Hopefully we’ll get somewhere near that next week.
Friday 13th: Last day putting the finishing touches where I can before bouncing it all over to After Effects and applying the full dome plug in to certain sections. Off to Belgium today for a gig too so going to leave stuff rendering no doubt but some will have to be done at the SAT next week.
Monday 16th: Well, I’m in Montreal, about to head down to the SAT and plug everything in, still need to do work on parts today before we push the ‘render’ button. Had to pull an all-nighter Saturday in order to make sure everything copied over to 3 external hard drives. Today should be a pivotal day in getting this from my machines into the SAT. For anyone thinking of getting into dome projection in the future, I’d say… think very carefully. But if you’re determined you’ll need a very fast machine / graphics card, huge amounts of hard disc space and lots of time on your hands…
It’s 9.40pm and I’m still at the SAT, today has been trying to say the least. The Mac to PC file exchange got off to a flying start when trying to copy 300GB to their servers was going to take 9 hours. Luckily they have a Mac Drive program now which enables them to read drives formatted in HFS+ (Mac read/writable) and we needed the time to finish fine tuning the show.
Dominic, who is helping me with all the visual side is about to be a new dad, I mean imminently, not any day, but any hour or minute. He was giving me tips by mobile whilst at the hospital The initial render time direct from my drive for the 50 minute piece was over 30 hours so we’ve stop that and are now copying the files needed to the server for a multi-machine render tomorrow. Here’s a shot of the mini dome that they have in their computer lab and the bar and terrace on the second floor outside the dome.
On the audio side we have 164 separate tracks to sort out and bounce to a manageable amount before ‘spatializing’ them into different parts of the dome for each song. This will create song maps unique to each track and enable me to move certain parts around at will. For everyone back in the UK, the sun was out this morning and I’m in shorts and a T-shirt. But lo and behold, what happened this afternoon? It pissed down, exactly like London, I couldn’t quite believe it.
Oh yeah, I forgot to say, at one point the master drive I’d bought as back up with EVERYTHING on it wouldn’t show up on my laptop after being pulled out of the SAT server. ‘The drive could not be found, would you like to reinitialise it?’ Luckily Disc Utilities saved the day.
Tuesday 17th: Day 2 in Montreal: Woke up to rain at 5.45am – WTF? I’m beginning to think I brought the bad weather with me from the UK. Monday was full on, got home around midnight with ‘homework’ on the audio to do. Couldn’t face it so got up super early this morning to get a few hours in before heading out.
Dominic was here (still no baby arrived) and set the visuals up on 6 machines to render, he thinks it will be done by tomorrow morning when it then has to be re-rendered for the various projectors in the dome. Making sound maps and spatializing all the tracks this afternoon hopefully – I need some lunch.
Wednesday 18th: Mixing, mixing mixing, all day and into the night with Olivier Rhéaume… The downstairs floor of the SAT is open plan and there’s been a full orchestra ‘practicing’ most of the week. Insanely good players, completely perfect to my ears, we’re working on the 2nd floor and hearing Holst‘s piece ‘Mars’ from The Planets suite wafting up the stairwell was amazing. Apprarently we really pissed them off with the volume we were mixing at unfortunately. Had a midday break to go and record a mix for CBC (see last post) and do an interview for La Devoir paper then dinner and back to the mix until 11pm.
Thursday 19th: Show day – last minute emergency, some donut (me) left a reference film in place of the last sequence. When we watched the whole thing through we got to the end and it looked like someone had used an animated gif in place of a hi res image sequence, not a good way to end the show. Currently re-rendering from the proper source files…
Only a week to go until the full dome shows at the SATosphere in Montreal and here’s a poster that Pat Hamou has worked up to be sold at the venue. These will be printed in metallics, can’t wait to see that!
*UPDATE: you can now purchase the remaining posters here from Pat via Etsy.
There’s still work to do before I press the final render button but here are some screen shots I’ve been posting on Facebook.
When I did the interview on design for music in the digital age for Gilles Peterson‘s Worldwide + magazine I submitted a lot of extra images that weren’t able to be used for space reasons. I thought I’d put them up here as I love them all and they illustrate some of the people I talk about who didn’t get featured visually.
The mag is now available on iTunes to download for the iPad.
Top to bottom, left to right:
Julian House / Ghost Box label,
The Designers Republic / Emigre magazine cover,
Michael C. Place / Build poster,
Vaughn Oliver & Chris Bigg – V23 / Lonely Is An Eyesore deluxe LP,
Pete Fowler / The Magic Numbers LP,
Mr Krum / The Simonsound mp3.
In the last week I’ve played in the grounds of three castles – well, two were Forts actually – in Italy, France and the UK. Salerno was the first, actually playing on a rooftop terrace overlooking the sea on the Italian coast (above). Secondly the Nuit Carrées festival in Antibes, France, playing on a stage by a small amphitheatre next to the Fort Carré (below). The sound at this festival was unbelievably clear, most probably due to the acoustics of the amphitheatre and the fort was lit up as a backdrop.
Finally, last night, I played at the Kelburn Garden Party in Scotland on a stage overlooking Kelburn Castle, an incredible site being that two sides are completely covered in art from Brazilian artists Os Gemeos and Nina & Nunca. It is quite a sight to behold, Sau Paulo street art meets Scottish heritage, and was completed in 2007, a year before the same artists covered parts of the Tate Modern in London. Sadly it seems that the render on the castle is being affected by the paint, which is causing it to crumble, so the mural will be lost soon much to the dismay of the owner Patrick Boyle, The 10th Earl of Glasgow.
Apparently parts of the castle are haunted, Tara, one of the organisers who picked me up from the airport, told me she’d been woken the night before by the feeling of being cuddled in bed by something unknown. When he told it to go away she’d been scratched three times on the back of her head and other guests had reportedly had their ribs squeezed and bum pinched whilst staying in the same room. Another time a handbag had flown across the room and hit her on the head and it’s widely believed that the ghost is a mischievous female who was a guest at the castle at one time and liked it so much that she didn’t want to leave. Supposedly there is some kind of vortex in one corner of the room through which spirits can come and go and the temperature is noticeably lower in that part.
Talking of vortex’s, to add to the incredible scenery surrounding Kelburn and nearby town Largs, out between two islands just off the west coast is one of the world’s largest whirlpools. Called The Corryvreckan Whirlpool, it is formed around a single rock jutting up from the seabed, several small whirlpools exist, occasionally widening to form one giant vortex which has been deemed unnavigable.
The grounds of the castle are something to behold, recent winds have caused several huge trees to crash down, one of them taking out a bridge across a stream just a week before. Plans to project my AV set onto the castle were unfortunately scuppered when it appeared that my technical rider hadn’t made its way to the right people and the right cables weren’t available. After my set I got a cab to the hotel in the next town, only to find that everything was locked up and I had no key (we hadn’t checked in, going straight from the airport to the festival). Fortunately a couple with a key arrived shortly afterwards and let me in and I managed to find an unlocked single room to crash in.
‘The Search Engine’ album in an immersive 210 degree fulldome environment with 157 speaker surround sound mix. Presented over 2 nights, 4 shows, Tickets here
Late last year I wrote an extensive piece in response to an interview by Miguel Angel Rolland for Gilles Peterson‘s Worldwide Festival magazine about design for music in the digital age. It’s finally been published over on Issu and it’s 16 pages long (!) You can order a print copy or just download a digital version and physical copies should be available at the festival this summer. Not sure why they didn’t credit Miguel or photographer Steve Cook for the studio shot either but I’m very pleased to have been given the chance to air my views.
Kid Koala previews his new 12bit Blues album (I’ve heard it, it’s another step up) and I provide support with support from another Ninja act who I can’t name yet. Tickets can be bought here