New record, new website and new radio show

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It’s here, you wait for ages and then three come along at once. Yes I finally got round to releasing another record and it’s out today, a 30 minute EP on Ninja Tune called ‘One Man’s Weird Is Another Man’s World’. It features the vocal talents of Natural Self (yes, I said vocal) on lead track ‘The Illectrik Hoax’ and the nifty drums of Dr. Rubberfunk alongside the sampled vocals of Ken Nordine and The Dragons on ‘All Covered In Darkness’. Bundy K Brown is behind the board for ‘A Trick of the Ear’ and an old collaboration with PC makes it’s first appearance in the form of ‘extract from Stolen Moments’. 2000ad artist Henry Flint graciously provided drawings for the cover art to make it something worth having and holding when it folds out to an A2 sized poster. It’s available in the form of a 5 track 12″ with poster cover and download code or a 6 track mp3 bundle.

You can hear selections from it on my Soundcloud and buy it from  iTunesDJ Download /   Play.comSpotifywe7Ninja shop HMV Digital Bleep / Tune Tribe 7 Digital / Juno / Boomkat
There’s an interview in the new Clash Music magazine including a free mp3 and a very nice review by Mark E on Ireallylovemusic

Not only is there a new record but the near mythical DJ Food site is finally ready, choc full of stuff from my Openmind alter ego design work past and present and a full DJ Food discography stretching back nearly 20 years. If you want to know anything about the records connected to this moniker over the years then it will be there along with gig dates, blogs, playlists and more. The site is divided into 4 sections: Diary, Design, Discography and Downloads and you can subscribe to the blog without going through myspace at last. It’s still a work in progress as there is so much to present, especially on the design side of things as most entries provide stories, alternate artwork and release info. A big thanks to Dean at Safe As Milk for all his hard work on making it what it is.

And finally, it’s a Solid Steel takeover this week with an hour long mix from myself based on the EP with tracks from all the contributors, some original sample sources and various things I that inspired the making of it. The second hour is a fantastic mix from The Broken Keys – aka Natural Self and Nostalgia 77 – called ‘Engine Oil and Elbow Grease’, stuffed to the brim with old funk, rock breaks and psyche. You can listen here.

DJ Food CD promo

Pretty difficult to get a good shot of this, it’s a clear varnish on a black background, a trick I’ve done a few times before with my own releases. CD promos came in last Thursday and the vinyl is due today – *excited*

DJ Food CD promo on body varnishAnd here’s a teaser poster for the forthcoming King Cannibal LP I knocked up last night…  thanks to grohs for pointing out the cut-asses double entendre, it will be changed on the final poster.

Let The NIght Roar teaser poster

New Artwork and…Music!

Been busy doing all sorts of things and not had time to post much but I did a short interview with the Keep Up! guys a month or so ago and it’s on their site right now. It’s about the making of the King Cannibal 12″ cover which is just out and available to buy here. The Keep Up! interview is here
KC : Food12sOn the subject of my own release, i’ve posted the artwork on my Flickr page and the release is now July 6th I’m told, by which time I should be well into the second EP for delivery a month later.

I’m currently finishing artwork for The Herbaliser‘s ‘Session 1’ (reissue) and ‘Session 2‘ (all new live recordings of Herbs classics) and starting King Cannibal‘s LP art

If I knew you were coming I’d have baked a cake…

Special delivery at Twisted Pepper…and they did. I just played my first AV set in Ireland at Twisted Pepper in Dublin and local DJ Kormac and crew organised a special DJ Food cake for me. Props to him as he played a great set and passed on a mix for a forthcoming Solid Steel show. Also thanks to Mark Cantwell of ItIsOn, who is nearing completion on his ongoing Raiding the 20th Century, film for the photos.

It’s been an exhilarating and frustrating couple of weeks recently. I’d been having mysterious computer problems, random freezes, beach balls of doom and general start up problems with my main Mac Pro machine. I just managed to finish the artwork to my EP when it really went into meltdown and I spent days trying to find the source of the problem. Finally a random forum post pointed to a faulty batch of video cards shipped with my generation of Macs. Apple – to give them credit – agreed to replace the card without question or cost and the machine was shipped off to the nearest workshop for a week.

At the same time I got the proofs back to much ooh-ing and aaah-ing (see last post) and the mythical DJ Food website is under reconstruction (this is mk 2 – mk 1 in all it’s guises is officially laid to rest). I’m pretty confident that this incarnation will be operational within a couple of months minimum although it’s got a hell of a lot of content for me to upload.

I’ve spent the past week messing about in various situations with photographer Martin LeSanto-Smith trying to get some interesting press shots out of my horrendously unphotogenic form. We’ve got some pretty nice stuff but there’s still a lot of Photoshop work to be done on some so you’re spared for the moment. Got some pretty interesting shots by pointing two MacBook Pros at each other, ichatting via the video link and generating video feedback from the inbuilt cameras. Not sure if Ninja will go for them but I think they’re the best of the bunch so they’ll end up somewhere.

Promos of the EP should be going out this week to press, I’m in the middle of artwork for The Herbaliser’s ‘Session 1 & 2’ release(s) for !K7 and about to start the King Cannibal LP art which will possibly be the weirdest thing I’ve ever done. As soon as that’s finished work resumes on the next Food EP…

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New DJ Food EP on the way

Yes, I know, I can’t quite believe I’m typing that either. Yesterday it was issue 3 of Alan Moore‘s ‘Big Numbers’ and today news of a new DJ Food record, whatever next?

Today I cut the first of three 12″ EPs which will make up the bulk of an album early next year, the first one is called ‘One Man’s Weird Is Another Man’s World’ and is out late May/early June on vinyl and download.

The vinyl will have 5 tracks with a playing time of just over 30 minutes and the download package will have a remix by Bundy K Brown that won’t be available on the vinyl or album when it drops. There will possibly also be an extra instrumental and a cappella of one of the tracks too + a digital booklet to go with it.

More details soon but here’s a sneak peek at part of the artwork, done by one of my favourite comic artists, Henry Flint.

Videocrash 2

Videocrash2.1Well, the second Videocrash was on Saturday night at Koko in London with a line up of Hexstatic, Bomb The Bass, Cheeba, Octavcat and yours truly amongst others and it was a blast if a little bit of a shorter one than before. Seven acts on a bill, including two bands with drummers, is a bit much to cram into 8 hours which was cut down to 7 when the soundchecks overran.

Videocrash2.2Most sets were cut including ours and new Solid Steel member Cheeba‘s. Poor guy had travelled down from Bristol to soundcheck a full 12 hours before his set – he only had an hour and had the graveyard shift from 3 until 4am – only to get 30 minutes before closing time.

Videocrash2.3DK and I slashed nearly half of our set and added some new bits in we’d been working on the past week which worked pretty well. All photos here were taken by the inimitable Martin Le Santo (thanks again mate)

Videocrash2.4Now, back to the records…

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