Mixes/Solid Steel

30 Years of Acid mix by Posthuman on Solid Steel

This week’s Solid Steel has a particular Acid taste with two distinct flavours. In the first hour Posthuman give us a very special look through 30 years of music made with the Roland TB303 from 1984-2014 assigning one track a year to give just one particular history of the machine. The choices had to be harsh and lots of obvious tracks were missed but you get a year by year progression ending with Posthuman themselves.

Talking of endings, their seven year-old night, ‘I Love Acid’, will breath its last on April 12th, the day after this mix debuts and this is a fitting way to celebrate the end of an era.
Amongst the line up is a certain Luke Vibert whose track of the same name titled the night in the first place. In a beautiful piece of synchronicity we have Lexis from Music Is My Sanctuary with an hour-long retrospective look at Luke’s career in many of his different guises after 20 years of official releases.

and in another little bit of Acid-related news I found this first review for the Roland TB 303 in a 1982 issue of Sounds this week, even back then with only two years left until production would cease, it received a glowing review.

Posted in Found in Sounds, Mixes/Solid Steel, Solid Steel. | 2 Comments |

10 tracks whilst studying at Camberwell College of Art

Arts London Music Magazine asked me to name 10 influential tracks to kick off their Rewind series. These are specifically songs that took me through my three year BA degree course at Camberwell College of Art in London during the years 1990-93. I wrote a little piece about each including design inspirations as well as a couple of old pieces of college work that I did in response to music-related briefs whilst on the course, unseen for 21 years pieces. To cap it all off I gave them a mix I made for a college reunion in 2012 that features many of the songs plus plenty more and runs for nearly 2 hours. Full track list and info in the link above.

ALM Mix 01: DJ FOOD – Citrus ’12 by Arts_London_Music_Magazine on Mixcloud

Below are some more detailed shots of the ‘Little Fluffy Clouds’ piece I made. It takes the Ricki Lee Jones interview that’s heavily sampled on the track and twists it typographically using hot metal and wood block printing on tissue paper (in itself a very difficult thing to achieve without ripping the paper). That was then mounted on clear acetate and meant to be hung away from the wall so that light could pass through it to reflect the cloud-like nature of the piece (student thinking huh?).

Posted in Art, Design, DJ Food, Mixes/Solid Steel, Music. | No Comments |

3-Way Mix interview and mix on Hardcore Classic, Sydney

On the last full day of the Australia 3-Way Mix tour we met up with Tom, Raine and the guys from Hardcore Classic, a Hip Hop show that goes out on the 2SER station in Sydney. We were quizzed for over an hour and played a short section of the live 3-Way Mix version before escaping the air condition-less studio and enjoying some down time. The interview starts at the 1hr 21 min mark and the mix follows it.

Hardcore Classic – Feb 28th 2014 (ft DJ Food, DJ Cheeba, DJ Moneyshot, Broken Thought Theory & Dboe) by Hardcore Classic on Mixcloud

At the end of the month we set out for 3 dates in France with DJ Format in support, should be fun!

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The ‘3-Way Mix’ Oz mini tour recap

We got back from Australia at 5am on Wednesday morning after what seemed like days of flying in cramped seats but it was worth it. The first mini tour of the Paul’s Boutique 3-Way Mix went well and I’ll throw out some highlights here rather than going into a prolonged tour diary.

Playing the Perth Festival outside and finishing before 10pm then going out into the crowd to chat and give away our rider.

Landing in Melbourne to a torrential rainstorm, worse than back in the UK but being taken around by tour manager Joel to see local graffiti spots and ERT, shop sporting a tattoo parlour, recordstore, clothing, posters and spices.

Seeing old friends at the Melbourne show and rocking it despite the show being advertised as ‘Beastie Boys (USA) Paul’s Boutique feat. DJ Food, Cheeba, Moneyshot‘ (grrrrr). Finding out about ‘Vaporwave’, ‘Sea Punk’ and ‘Business Funk’ via a radio show on Melbourne radio.

Recording an impromptu mix of originals from ‘Shake Your Rump’ and ‘Hey Ladies’ for Jack Shit‘s show on FBI radio – you can listen back to it here.

Playing our best show in Sydney in front of more friends but ducking out of the proposed after party with Grandmaster Flash as it became a roadblock.

Taking the ferry to Manly to hang out with Moneyshot’s girlfriend’s ex-pat mates who served up the best BBQ.

Meeting up with DJ Hickory Dickory Dock who took me round various Sydney record spots, ending up at the excellent Revolve store near Newtown.

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so80s ZTT editon by Blank and Jones

Forthcoming mix set by Blank & Jones for the So Eighties series where they’ve been given access to the master tapes for some of ZTT’s classics. Here’s the cover, which was made with a little help from my image archive, and a short video of them in the studio going through the process, they’re keeping the mixes in a classic sense rather than trying to update the sound into todays styles.

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3-Way Minimix for InnoFADER in Bristol


Cheeba, Moneyshot and I were filmed by the Scratch Pro Audio crew for the InnoFADER sessions on a boat in Bristol a couple of weeks ago. We performed a short routine culled from part of the ‘3-Way Mix’, the reconstruction of ‘Paul’s Boutique’ we’re touring this year.

The Scratch Pro Audio crew sell and distribute specialist DJ products and very kindly hooked us up with InnoFADER cross faders for our mixers and Dr Suzuki Slipmats. Along with the Rane 62 mixers, Serato DJ software & control records and Magma DJ bags, we’re very lucky to be using some of the best gear out there. Thanks guys!

All together now, “I’m on a boat motherfu…”

Posted in DJ Food, Film, Mixes/Solid Steel. | 3 Comments |

3-Way Mix Tour poster graphics

DJ Cheeba, DJ Moneyshot and I are touring the ‘3-Way Mix’ this year. That being a 4 deck, 3 DJ reconstruction of the Beastie Boys’ ‘Paul’s Boutique‘ album made from all the original tracks that they, and the Dust Brothers, sampled + more.
Here’s the first round of tour dates (more to come) with a graphic I made featuring all the sources they sampled, can you spot the Beasties? I made several versions + several Facebook timeline headers. Click for large versions.


3 Way Mix logo ROUNDx2 web

Posted in Design, DJ Food, Gigs, Mixes/Solid Steel, Openmind designs, Poster / flyer. | 1 Comment |

‘3-Way Mix’ trailer with Cheeba, Moneyshot & myself

DJ Cheeba, DJ Moneyshot & DJ Food – ‘3-Way Mix’ trailer from Solid Steel on Vimeo.

Here’s a little short I just edited to promote the ‘3-Way Mix’ tour DJ’s Cheeba, Moneyshot and I are doing at the moment. It was shot by Jim Alexander at Solid Steel‘s 25th anniversary party at Fire in London last December. We’re still taking bookings so, if you want to see this in your town or city then check the details at the end.

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‘Raiding the 20th Century’ is 10 years old

It’s been bought to my attention that the original version of my ‘Raiding The 20th Century’ mix is now 10 years old. Originally a 40 minute guest mix on Eddy Temple-Morris‘ XFM radio show, The Remix, it was my attempt to construct a rough history of ‘cut up’ music in the midst of the mashup up/bastard pop craze. Taking in Music Concrete, avant garde tape composition, radiophonic tape experiments, megamixes, edit kings, scratching, early sampling and of course mash ups, it was one of the most densely mixed and edited things I’ve ever done. When it debuted it was put up on the Ninja Tune site at the time and quickly went a bit viral, causing the server to melt down and the site to grind to a halt by the next morning. More info here and here.

Posted in DJ Food, Event, Mixes/Solid Steel. | 8 Comments |

New Food mix + Markey Funk Trish Keenan tribute

Solid Steel this week features an exclusive hour of Kid Koala live in Victoria, Canada. The second hour brings a mix from yours truly coupled with a tribute to Trish Keenan and the music of Broadcast by Markey Funk.

It’s now three years this week since Trish passed away and last year Markey put together a new soundtrack to the 1966 Jonathan Miller TV version of Alice In Wonderland made entirely from the music of Broadcast. We feature half an hour of that mix but it’s best watched with the film in full which you can see here or here.

My mix kicks things off though and takes the distorted drums and fuzzy electronics route with a detour into James Murphy‘s recent David Bowie remix in the middle.

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Exclusive new mix by Chop on Solid Steel


Very pleased to have commissioned this mix from Chop for the latest installment of Solid Steel and it’s something slightly different from him too. Here’s what he said about it;
“I’ve been listening to quite a lot of French, Japanese and electronic library music of late. This mix for me has been about discovering and re-discovering some fantastic artists/music from around the globe.  Whether its the eccentric French sounds of Marc Moulin‘s – Telex, mutations from YMO genius Haruomi Hosono or the influential proto-electronica of Manuel Gottsching I think there’s something here for everyone from diggers to digesters of great music.”
His last album, ‘Illuminate’, came out in August 2013 on Now Again and is available here

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Big Fish Little Fish party mix

I did a mix for Big Fish Little Fish – the party for parents and kids with a more discerning taste in music.

It’s straight up club classics with no messing about pretending to be cutting edge, classic Hip Hop, Rave and Disco all features plus there’s also a healthy dose of humour in there too.

Bestival have hosted it on their Bestimix site as well as part of their online advent calendar. I can’t embed it unfortunately but you can listen HERE.

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DJ Food Solid Steel mix set

DK and I have created a set on Soundcloud where you can directly access all my Solid Steel mixes with one click. With the archive on Soundcloud now several years deep and also being that it is part of the overall Ninja Tune account, it’s increasingly hard to find things easily. Now you can with one click. If I’ve had a mix on the show it should be here, whether a solo mix, part of a collaboration or sharing an hour with another DJ.

So, if you wanted to check the Beastie Boys ‘Paul’s Boutique’ reconstruction I did with Cheeba and Moneyshot, it’s here. Likewise the ‘Free Comic Book Day’ mix, ‘O Is For Orange’ or ‘In:Motion’ mixes and many more. I give most of my mixes titles, one day I should go through and make an inventory of the lot…

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Solid Steel: Amorphous Androgynous + Stephen Mallinder

This weeks Solid Steel features not one but two guest mixes plus a 30 minute set from yours truly. Kicking things off we welcome The Amorphous Androgynous back with a half hour culled from their new 2xCD release of ‘psychesploitation’, ‘The Cartel’. They showcase some of their new tracks in a funky 70’s cop soundtracks/ fuzzed up Blacksploitation style – it’s the sound of Get Carter‘s swinging London and the sleazy San Francisco of Dirty Harry. Both volumes are available now from their online store and a third volume will feature a remix from me at some point in 2014.

From here we drift into a darker, more synthetic sci-fi soundscape with eight esoteric tracks I picked that play on the spacier side. Tracks from compilations; ‘The Sound of Belgium’, ‘Music Sans Frontiers’ and ‘Space Oddities’ feature as does music from the new Richard Norris/Luke Insect collaboration Dark Seed. This is the first part of a mix called ‘Night Music’, a selection of new acquisitions that I’ve been enjoying after dark recently.

In the second hour we have a real coup, Stephen Mallinder – ex of Cabaret Voltaire and a long-standing solo artist in his own right – has put together an hour of:

“Peers, associates, co-conspirators, influences and baton-carriers. Starting with early head-turners This Heat (1978) and filtered  through the mix claps from composer Steve Reich (1972) onto post-punkers 23 Skidoo who I’d gigged and recorded with.
A couple of FSOL tracks – covert Cabs somewhere in there and back up north to Sheffield’s first real label WARP – the original Forgemasters reworked by bleepers Unique 3, The Black Dog posse and sonic provocateurs supreme, Autechre. An offering from my own Cabaret Voltaire – a rework of ‘Yashar’ with the original ’70 billion people’ sample.
Keith le Blanc and co – Major Malfunction, classic tough electro, there’s a whole history from Sugarhill to Tackhead in there. And rounded  off with our one-time co-conspiritor On-U’s Adrian Sherwood‘s mix of metal-machiners Einstürzende Neubauten, complete with sniff sample.

All spiced with some period spoken word courtesy of Malcolm X, Mr Burroughs and JG Ballard stories and lovingly mixed by hand.”

It’s an excellent selection and there’s also a timely Cabaret Voltaire box set just out covering the years ’83-’85.

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Format & Phill ‘UK vs Philly’ + Mr Armtone SS25 mixes

A very special pair of exclusive mixes on Solid Steel this week (isn’t there every week?) or should that be three mixes?

First up we have DJ Format AND Phill Most Chill, hot off the release of their new album, ‘The Foremost’, they’ve put together a 30 minute mix each, representing their home turfs of the UK and Philadelphia respectively and in Matt’s own words:
“Instead of doing yet another promo mix that incorporates a song or two from our new album, I thought it would be fun for me & Phill to each do a 30 minute mix of Hip Hop from our respective areas. I’m from Southampton, and since that’s not a very big place I thought it would be more fitting to play some of my favourite old UK Hip Hop records. Philadelphia always had a healthy Hip Hop scene that boasted famous artists such as DJ Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince, Cash Money & Marvelous and Steady B just to name a few. Phill wanted to showcase some of the more obscure/random Rap records from Philly that he loves.”

You can hear and buy the album HERE and HERE – I know this is the third post about it in as many weeks but it really is great.

Next up is Solid Steel’s Russian agent, Mr Armtone, back with the follow up to his ‘Time Machine’ video mix from last year (how does he do it?). Firmly club-based in style and with a very high standard of visuals and on-screen blends (no YouTube rips here) he brings a 80 minute AV set to add to the quality collection we’re slowly building on our Vimeo page.

Mr. Armtone – Time Machine II from Solid Steel on Vimeo.

Posted in Film, Mixes/Solid Steel, Solid Steel. | 1 Comment |

3 Way Mix practice session

I just spent Sunday in Bristol continuing rehearsal work on the 3-Way Mix that DJs Cheeba, Moneyshot and I will be premiering in Paris on Nov 16th at the Solid Steel 25th anniversary gig at La Bellevilloise. This is a 90 minute version of last years ‘Caught in The Middle of a 3-Way Mix’ tribute to The Beastie Boys‘ ‘Paul’s Boutique’ album, made from all the original samples, acappellas and more.

We’ll also be performing it at the London Solid Steel gig at Fire on Dec 6th and taking it to Australia in February next year. Anyone wishing to book us please contact Ben Coghill at Elastic Artists.

Posted in DJ Food, Gigs, Mixes/Solid Steel. | 2 Comments |

Fulldome mix on Solipsistic Nation no.308

The soundtrack mix to my fulldome version of The Search Engine has just gone up as part of the latest podcast on Solipsistic Nation. Alongside a short interview you can hear an altered, slightly more ambient version of the album with remixed versions and edits of a lot of the tracks.

This is the version that plays at the dome shows and includes the ‘Deep Space’ version of ‘GIANT’ remixed for Matt Johnson‘s as yet unreleased Lazarus compilation ‘The Others’. You can listen to the podcast here or download it directly here.

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