It’s rare these days to see something that is so new that there’s little else like it. Xander Steenbrugge‘s video for Max Cooper‘s ‘Exotic Contents’ must be one of the first of its kind. Using AI tech that converts words to images (try Night Cafe Studio if you’ve not seen it yet) this is still mind-boggingly good and how he’s got it to sync with the music as well just seals it for me. AI imaging especially has trouble with faces and words, contorting them into abstractions and this is its charm, I expect we’re going to see more and more of this kind of thing. I’ve been using it recently myself for various design projects and had some incredible results but they very much depend on the parameters and prompts you give the AI.
Film
Last year I had the pleasure of being asked by Matt Johnson to remix The The‘s ‘Global Eyes’ for the Comeback Special box set. The remix features on an exclusive 10″ that comes with the deluxe book and CD/DVD set and isn’t featured anywhere else. Now you can hear it as well as see a special video made by Vicki Bennett aka People Like Us who did the visuals for the tour while I opened up in the support slot. Matt likes to keep things ‘in the family’ as he calls it and it’s great to see Vicki’s take on my take of the song that opened the concert.
Anyone unfamiliar with Vicki’s work should check out her many albums and watch for her surround screen & sound films like Gone, Gone Beyond if they’re playing near you. She’s one of the great cut and paste artists of our time with a career that spans three decades now.
For the full Comeback Special gig on vinyl, CD and DVD/Blu Ray plus sumptuous photo book with 10″, extra interview discs and much more merch, head to https://thethe.tmstor.es/
Work has also progressed on my Cineolascape mix too, a version of my opening sets for The The back in 2018. Matt and I were in his studio before Christmas going through it with a fine-tooth comb, editing, refining and adding parts. It’s awaiting a proper mixdown in which Matt wants to ‘spatialize’ elements for a proper headphone experience. Watch this space…
I was really taken with Jeff Pitcher‘s images of Crawley, recently published on his Facebook page, where he has tried to capture the remaining details of the original town. Whilst looking through the 300+ images I was playing a record of Tibetan Bells that I’d just bought. The mix of the two gave the images an eerie atmosphere and I thought I’d put them together for the hell of it.
I grew up near Crawley and have fond memories of visiting it in the 80’s and remember the odd spot here so his photos resonate with me. Jeff is obsessively documenting the vanishing detail of Crawley; the ‘no ball games’ signs, the elegant, 1950s stairs, the final few original doors, handles and shopfronts. The last details of this baby boomer Utopia are fading, being quietly lost, and succumbing to decay and nature.
From his FB page: Crawley was one of eight new towns built in an 20-30 mile radius of London in a plan that began in the 1940s. Each promised an infrastructure designed for cleaner living, employment, and houses rather than high-rises. Londoners poured from the over-crowded, war-scarred capital into what they saw as a brighter future.
As social housing was sold off by the Conservative government of the 1980s, so the new town dream slowly faded. Original shop frontages were replaced with loud signs and corporate logos, and libraries and police stations left to moulder. But it was the small details that went with the least noise. Previously uniform, wood-and-glass doors and Crittall windows were replaced with plastic versions, tiles torn away or concreted over, fences torn up to create parking spaces, staircases ripped out, and the simplicity of the new town was lost in a jumble of UPVC porches, double glazing and extensions.
Jeff is starting a new photography project and would like to track down Crawley residents who’ve lived in the same council/commission house since they moved here. Here’s the thing, you’ll need to have a picture of you outside that house taken in the early years of you living in the town – whether that was in the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s or beyond. He’d love to take pictures of you outside your house now, and speak to you about how the area’s changed in the intervening years. Do you fit the bill? Know someone who does? Please get in touch via email [email protected]
For the last 6 months I’ve been editing the weekly 2 hr Pirate TV audio visual shows that Coldcut‘s Matt Black has been doing with his wife, Dinaz and assorted guests like Mixmaster Morris on Twitch.
Along the way I’ve been setting aside little moments from the sublime to the ridiculous, all in good spirit, mainly because they made me laugh or were special.
Here’s a compilation of those moments while Pirate TV takes a break for a bit, many of the show highlight edits I’ve been making are available to view on Coldcut’s YouTube channel too.
My friend Julian Hand has now completed his trilogy of 360 videos for The Oscillation – truly tripped out, you can pan around them in YouTube, wish I’d known him and had his expertise when I was doing my Search Engine dome shows 10 years back.
After ending on a bummer in the final hours of 2020 as MF Doom‘s death emerged on social media, we awoke to the news on January 1st of The KLF re-entering the music industry via Spotify and YouTube with remastered material in the form of the first of five compilations. By Jan 6th though any hopes of a better year were dashed, despite the historic swing for the Democrats in the Senate and Congress, with the scenes at Capitol Hill and 1k daily deaths reported in the UK. No surprises on Trump‘s acquittal after the second impeachment hearing in February either.
Surprise of the year was that the UK’s vaccination programme rolled out fast and with few hitches – amazing what can happen when you don’t pump billions into untested private companies and instead let a trusted national institution handle it. I won’t go on, it was pretty much downhill from there and some of those promised KLF albums are still yet to emerge.
Anyway, as is usual on Dec 31st, here are some favourites from the last 12 months in no particular order. There’s been an avalanche of amazing music and art again this year, some coming out of the lockdown months, let’s hope it continues and the virus eases up in 2022. Please check out and support these artists if you like their work, Bandcamp is an excellent way to put a large chunk of money straight in musicians and label’s pockets and buying a print, T-shirt or piece of merch at a gig really helps too. Even a share or piece of positive feedback on someone’s post can give them a boost to know that people are watching or listening out there and they’re not shouting into the void.
Music:
Concretism – The Concretism Archive Vol.1 LP (CiS Subs Library)
Steve Roach – Tomorrow LP (Behind The Sky)
Snow Palms – Land Waves LP (Village Green)
Jane Weaver – Flock LP (Fire Records)
Stereolab – Switched On vol.4 LP (Warp/Duophonic)
Robert Fripp – Music for Quiet Moments (DGM)
DJ Format – Devil’s Workshop LP
Trevor Jackson – Underdog 1993-1998 radio mix (NTS)
The Hauntologists – Tales From The Scary Magic Field 7″ (Bandcamp)
Various Artists – BLE-EP 12″ (Yellow Machines)
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Butterfly 3000 LP (Flightless)
CAVS – CAVS 12″ (PHC)
Various Artists – Infected Machinery EP 12″ (Downfall Recordings)
The Nevermen – Treat ‘Em Right (Boards of Canada remix) DL (Lex)
Vanishing Twin – Ookii Gekkou LP (Fire Records)
Jay Glass Dubs – Jungle Shuffle 12″ (The Wormhole)
Brian Eno – The Lighthouse (Sonos HD)
Regal Worm – The Hideous Goblink LP (Quatermass)
Ternion Sound – Dovetail (Kursa remix) 12″ (Next Level)
Podcasts:
Chris Atkins – A Bit of a Stretch (Apple podcasts)
The Alexei Sayle Podcast
Martyn Ware – Electronically Yours
Ed Piskor / Jim Rugg – Cartoonist Kayfabe (YouTube)
Stephen Coates – The Bureau of Lost Culture
We Buy Records (Apple podcasts)
Matt Black – Pirate TV (Twitch/FB/YouTube)
The Bunker/Culture Bunker (Acast)
The Adam Buxton Podcast (Acast)
Gigs / Events:
Vanishing Twin – Pensiero Magico live stream Jan 20th
Alice In Wonderland @ The V&A Museum, London
Savage Pencil @ OrbitalSpace, London
Eno @ Paul Stolper Gallery, London
The Light Surgeons ‘Atemporal’ @ Iklectik, London
Funki Porcini @ Common Ground, Coventry
The The’s Comeback Special premier @ Troxy Cinema, London
Jonny Trunk’s Groovy Record Fayre @ Mildmay Club, London
Vanishing Twin @ Kings Place, London
Levitation Festival, @ Flowergate Hall, Whitby
People Like Us – Gone, Gone Beyond @The Pit Theatre, Barbican, London
Pye Corner Audio @ State 51, London
Anicka Yi – Aerobes @ Tate Modern, London
Design / Packaging:
Hattie Cooke – The Sleepers LP (Spun Out of Control) by Eric Adrian Lee
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – live bootlegs series LP (Fuzz Club)
Krashslaughter feat. Phil Most Chill – Rebel Base 7″
Sync 24 – Inside The Microbeat LP (Cultivated Electronics) by Will Barras
Une – Spomenik LP (Spun Out Of Control) by Eric Adrian Lee
Cos – Mix LP (Finders Keepers) by Andy Votel
Castles In Space Subscription Library series LPs (Castles In Space) by Nick Taylor + more
The Third Man Records shop in Soho, London
Pepe Deluxe – The Phantom Cabinet vol.1 LP (Catskills) by Vilunki/James Spectrum
Thundercat – The Golden Age of Apocalypse 10th anniversary edition (Brainfeeder)
The Zen Delay (Ninja Tune / Erica Synths)
Roger Webb – Shadows of Fear 7″ (Trunk) by Julian House
Kingston University Stylophone Orchestra – Stylophonika (Spun Out Of Control) by Eric Adrian Lee
Brian Eno’s turntable
Books / Magazines / Comics:
Rain Like Hammers – Brandon Graham (Image)
Breaking Open The Head – Daniel Pinchbeck
Bedroom Beats & B-Sides – Laurent Fintoni (Velocity Press)
Decorum – Jonathan Hickman & Mike Huddleston (Image)
Ultramega – James Harren (Skybound/Image)
Anatomie Narrative – Samplerman
The Black Locomotive – Rian Hughes (Picador)
Cruisin’ with the Hound – Spain Rodriguez (Fantagraphics)
Kane & Able – Shaky Kane & Krent Able (Image)
Tales To Enlighten – Matt King & James Edward Clark (Kickstarter)
The Out – Dan Abnett & Mark Harrison (2000AD)
Electronic Sound magazine
99 Balls Pond Road – Julie Drower (Scrudge Books)
Artists:
Savant
RX Skulls
Pablo Fiasco
Donk
ZombieSqueegee
Karoline Rerrie
.EPOD
FiftySevenDesign
Minty
Stinkfish
Perspicereartist
Tamar Cohen
Hoxxoh
Lovepusher
Artyom Trakhanov
Prentler
Soda
Smitheone
Raymond Lemstra
Film /TV:
Bathtubs Over Broadway (Netflix)
Wandavision (Disney+)
Dead Pixels (Ch 4)
Grayson’s Art Club (Ch 4)
Sisters With Transistors – Lisa Rovener (BFI)
Loki (Disney+)
What We Do In The Shadows Season 3 (BBC2)
Martha: A Picture Story (Projector Films)
Records – Alan Zweig (TVO)
Big Mouth (Adult Swim)
The Book of Boba Fett (Disney+)
Another year over and what have I done?
A second mix of religious rock for Megatrip‘s ‘Tales To Enlighten’ comic kickstarter
Stuck 300 foil covers to 300 LP sleeves for The New Obsolescents album on Castles In Space which ended up selling out in 25 minutes and went for a repress.
Finally finished the design and packaging for The Real Tuesday Weld‘s ‘Blood’ and ‘Tape Dust Memories’ releases, the first in a trilogy as Stephen Coates winds up his recording project.
Released the Celestial Mechanic LP on Utter with music by Saron Hughes and myself and design by Rian Hughes
Appeared on the Big Mouth, We Buy Records, Sleevenote‘s Under The Covers, KTMusic Online and Bureau of Lost Culture podcasts, had guest mixes featured on the Jonny Cuba & Friends and 45 Live shows
Released the Kaleidoscope/Companion reissue 4xLP on Ninja Tune subsidiary Ahead Of Our Time
Designed the Lo Recordings’ 100th edition library album for a limited edition lathe cut LP
Started the Openmindesign Instagram account for current designs and archive ephemera
Continued the DJ Food Mixcloud Select weekly upload series
Saw designs for Steven Rutter, Amon Tobin, Clocolan and Humanoid released on De:tuned, Ninja Tune, FSOL Digital and Castles In Space
Written the forward for a book about light show picture wheels for Four Corners Books
Remixed The The’s ‘Global Eyes’ for The Comeback Special live box set
Designed a Janko Nilovic & Yeti On the Pads 7″ sleeve
Collaborated with Imeus Designs on a second book of Forgotten Graphics Command LP sleeves
Edited hours worth of Pirate TV audio visual broadcasts for Matt Black
Remodelled my Quadraphon turntable for live performance
Oversaw the repressed New Obsolescents LP with screen printed black prism board
Contributed the singles column to MU magazine each issue
Designed a Hey Duggee zoetrope LP for the BBC
Designed a 25th anniversary Stealth T-shirt for 1 of 100
Mixed a preview CD of Touched Music‘s ‘Project OO’ – ‘DJ Food’s Oona Selecta’
Designed a 3rd fold out Xmas card, ‘Solstice Songs‘ for The Real Tuesday Weld
Finished my Cineolascape mix for The The, due for release in 2022
RIP: Phil Spector, Larry King, Ricky Powell, Double K (PUTS), S. Clay Wilson, Chick Corea, Victor G. Ambrus, Frank Thorne, Lou Ottens, Orbital Comics, Malcolm Cecil, Shock G, James Prigoff, Captain Rock, Ken Garland, Eric Carle, Gift of Gab, Peter Zinovieff, Jon Hassell, Peter Rehberg, Chuck Close, Charlie Watts, Lee Scratch Perry, Sir Clive Sinclair, Richard H. Kirk, Alan Hawkshaw, Orbital Comics, Lionel Blair, Andrew Barker, Mick Rock, Alvin Lucier, Robbie Shakespear, Chris Achilleos, Michael Nesmith, Richard Rogers, Desmond Tutu, Janice Long,
New Year’s resolution: Use less black in my work
Looking forward to:
The return of Saga comic
The Soundcarriers‘ new album, ‘Wilds’
King Gizzard remix album
A mixer to complete my Quadraphon set up
Collaborations…
I designed a zoetrope for the recently released Hey Duggee Greatest Woofs LP picture disc! It was a lot of fun and you can see it in action using a third party stroboscope app. I recommend StroboScope myself, available on the app store.
Oh yeah, roll on Dec 29th
Last week I did a long interview with Thomas and Kaden from KTMusicOnline in the US, talking about all sorts from origins, design, Ninja Tune, Eno, Bono and even parenting. It was a great chat, actually our second as we did it last month and their recording failed, and the hour flew by. I warn you, I can really bang on about stuff…
I saw The Light Surgeons last night (still amazing) and had been sent a link to a documentary about Newcastle raves when I got home that included this screen shot. It’s called ‘The Kick, The Snare, The Hat & A Clap’
Julian Hand has done visuals for The Oscillation for years, mostly via projections, oil light shows and promo videos. He’s upped the ante for their new video and shot it in 360 for VR and you can watch it inside a headset from all angles. Those without a headset can pan around using the arrows at the top of the screen too.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, ever-restless and unable to tour as much as they normally would, are making videos for each of the tracks from their latest album – Butterfly 3000 – in sequence, at an average of one every two weeks. They’re a mixture of animation and live action shorts which flow from one to another. They’re currently up to track 6 with four more to go, I can highly recommend ‘Interior People’ as the animation is a great mix of 70s Moebius/Heavy Metal era sci-fi and the track is one of my top tunes of the year. Keep up with them on their YouTube channel
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard are halfway through making a video for every track on their latest album, Butterfly 3000. I’ve been waiting for this one, my favourite track on the LP, ‘Interior People’, and they’ve picked a Metal Hurlant / Time Eaters / Moebius angle with the visual style. Animated by Melbourne company, Showoffilms.
The Allergies are back, there’s an album on the horizon, but first this single and it’s incredible video. All make from paper and animated by the Seen Film studio.
The single is out on 7″ and download from Jalapeno Records.
I was thrilled to be asked to remix ‘Global Eyes’ on the exclusive 10″ with the deluxe box set of
The The‘s Comeback Special live set. See and hear the full show plus loads of extras.
Due out this October – pre-order now live plus there’s a special screening at The Troxy, the venue for the third London night back 3 years ago.
There’s a documentary about Del Close coming this month to Apple TV, which combines comedy and comics and looks fantastic. Diggers will know Close’s name from the John Brent & Del Close classic ‘How To Speak Hip’ (sampled by me and plenty of others) as well as ‘The Do-It-Yourself Psychoanalyst’s Kit’ (plundered for a whole album by Prince Paul). Close was, by all accounts, an unhinged madman/genius who hung out with The Merry Pranksters in the 60s and taught all the future comedy greats in the 70’s and 80’s. There’s not been much written about him aside from a couple of biographies and he’s probably best known for his involvement in Saturday Night Live. Check the trailer and hunt down those records and copies of the Wasteland comics.
Finally released on vinyl today on Utter – Celestial Mechanic – ‘Citizen Void’ LP – a soundtrack to the
Rian Hughes novel, ‘XX’ published by Picador Books (paperback released Aug 9th)
Music by Celestial Mechanic – a collaboration between DJ Food, Saron Hughes, Robin The Fog (Howlround) & Peter Harris
Yellow vinyl LP + 7″ + print + info sheet – designed by Rian Hughes with silver spot print and inner sleeve – this is limited so don’t sleep as it will be out in shops too.
Pre-order https://bit.ly/3y5C7eK
Animation generated at ASCII Playground
*un-mute for sound!
Finally released on vinyl tomorrow on Utter – Celestial Mechanic – ‘Citizen Void’ LP – a soundtrack to the
Rian Hughes novel, ‘XX’ published by Picador Books (paperback released Aug 9th)
Music by Celestial Mechanic – a collaboration between DJ Food, Saron Hughes, Robin The Fog (Howlround) & Peter Harris
Yellow vinyl LP + 7″ + print + info sheet – designed by Rian Hughes with silver spot print and inner sleeve – this is limited so don’t sleep as it will be out in shops too.
Pre-order https://bit.ly/3y5C7eK
Animation generated at ASCII Playground
*un-mute for sound!
Finally released on vinyl this Friday on Utter – Celestial Mechanic – ‘Citizen Void’ LP – a soundtrack to the
Rian Hughes novel, ‘XX’ published by Picador Books (paperback released Aug 9th)
Music by Celestial Mechanic – a collaboration between DJ Food, Saron Hughes, Robin The Fog (Howlround) & Peter Harris
Yellow vinyl LP + 7″ + print + info sheet – designed by Rian Hughes with silver spot print and inner sleeve – this is limited so don’t sleep as it will be out in shops too.
Pre-order https://bit.ly/3y5C7eK
Animation generated at ASCII Playground
*un-mute for sound!
