New Music in 2018

All of a sudden there seems to be a ton of albums imminent for the new year that I’m very interested in…

Meat Beat Manifesto return after years away with a double entitled ‘Impossible Star’

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Cavern of Anti-Matter just announced an album for March, ‘Hormone Lemonade’

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Cut Chemist has finally got round to finishing ‘Die Cut’ after years of bits and pieces dribbling out

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Jon Brooks has a new Library-sounding release on Café Kaput, ‘Applied Music Vol.2 – Plastics Today’ – available Jan 19th from his Bandcamp page.

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Trevor Jackson has been chucking records out in themed chunks on his Pre- label, exhuming his archive of unreleased material before starting a new label, Post.

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Beautify Junkyards release their next record on Ghost Box in March, no pre-order link as of writing but The digital single, ‘Aquarius’, taken from the album is out today

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Nicklas Sørensen‘s ‘Solo 2’ is up for pre-order on El Paraiso Records website as are new Mythic Sunship and Causa Sui LPs.epr045-front

Chris Carter has a new album coming out on Mute, his first in 17 years, ‘Chris Carter’s Chemistry Lessons vol.1’

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Of course, dare I say it? The 5th LP from King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – ‘Gumboot Soup’ is – despite all expectations – actually really good. More of an off cuts compilation of tracks that didn’t fit on the other four albums, stylistically it’s all over the place but it has some absolute killers on it.

Gumboot soup

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Diggers Dozen Most Loved 2017

I’m very proud to say that my set for the Soundsci launch party that Diggers Dozen put on last year won their most loved poll for 2017! “12 records each. Only 2 turntables play. No compilation. No bootleg. Always original vinyl.” is the DD ethos and that particular night saw myself guesting with Mr Thing, Ollie Teeba, Jonny Cuba, Jonny Trunk and Maxwell Pastor – who runs the nights. Listen to the selection above, I’d pulled out a particularly odd Library set, I think there’s at least one bit of dead air (because I was chatting) and at points, if you strain hard enough, you can hear that chatter through the head of the needle in the quiet parts..

2017: WTF was going on?

DJ Food Bill brief

The above photo was my brief from Bill Drummond for the set I was to play at the JAM‘s Welcome To The Dark Ages event in Liverpool. I stuck it above my mixer as I was preparing the set, it’s something to keep in mind as we go forward into 2018. I spent most of the year in limbo, waiting in a chain for a property to come through. When it finally did in mid September, I pretty much ate, drank and slept it in between jobs as it needed a lot of work doing, hence no posts for the past two odd months. I’m in now and can see the wood for the trees but it did mean I largely dipped out of social media for the latter quarter of the year (probably not a bad thing).

Seeing as 2016 was such a shitter, in 2017 I wrote down all the good things that happened as the year progressed:

Events 2017

Got implicated in the KLF/JAMMs/K2 comeback media scrum because of an innocent quote in my 2016 round up
Started Further with Pete Williams – a multimedia music & projection night playing non-dancefloor sounds with analogue-based visuals plus food and a record stall – and founded a studio/ HQ in S. London
Pete Isaac (45 Live) found me a perfect copy of a long time wants list staple, Bam Bam’s ‘Where’s Your Child’ on 7″ for free
Got asked to play as Further at The Orb‘s ambient evening at the Royal Festival Hall in April and lit up the 5th floor balcony with 20 projectors
Mixed a Death Waltz Originals CD which was given away free at Halloween with Mondo/DW orders
Appeared on the Big Mouth podcast and played at the opening of Orbital Comics‘ exhibition, both celebrating 40 years of 2000AD
Found a set of Thomas ‘Eclipse’ plates, cups and saucers for a bargain price from an eBay seller
Pete managed to find a broken 6k projector for free and fixed it for £50
My kids got into the secondary school we wanted them to go to and aced it in their first term
The first Further event at the Portico Gallery was sold out and a great success with Ghost Box and Howlround as guests
Played the first Big Fish Little Fish in Athens which promptly sold out
Played three different street food festivals in the summer, love those sort of gigs, more please
Found a huge Barbara Brown dinner service in the charity for £15 – find of the year
Played at The Delaware Road performance in July inside a nuclear bunker with a host of electronic artists – a very special night

Further 2017

Asked to play the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu happening in Liverpool, which turned out to be one of the events of the year – who’d have thought it? A career highlight that saw me playing many of the tracks they’d sampled in their career alongside acid house classics and ending at 3am with a version of ‘In The Ghetto’.
Further went to Spiritland and we supported The Heliocentrics as part of the SYNthesis festival, both very special occasions even though we worked our balls off to set them up
The return of The The in musical, film and live capacity
Scoring a long time wants list LP – Yves Hayat‘s ‘Conversations Between The East & The West’ – direct from the archive of the composer himself and meeting him in London to receive the record.
Blade Runner 2049 was actually amazing and a worthy follow up to the original
The second major Further gig at the Portico Gallery featured Simon James playing a Buchla set to bespoke visuals we made and Sculpture slaying the place with their AV act.
Asked to support the Art of Noise at the British Library next March
Further featured twice in Electronic Sound magazine and I had an opening spread printed of my end of night image of the funeral pyre from the JAMs event in Liverpool
Taking my boys to the Colourscape on Clapham Common
Finally moved in and moved on
Asked to play a very special run of shows in 2018 that I’ll reveal soon…

Music 2017

Music:
OK, so 2017 was the year of the Lizard for me, I listened to more hours of King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s music than any other band, but considering they released 5 albums this year alone it ‘s not surprising. Each album was different and they steadily got better with each release as the year progressed (disclaimer: I can’t speak for album no. 5 ‘Gumboot Soup’ as it came out today but ‘Polygondwanaland is probably my album of the year)
Brian Eno – Reflection (Warp)
Cavern of Anti-Matter – Blood Drums (reissue) (Duophonic)
Clocolan – Nothing Left To Abandon (Enpeg)
Run The Jewels – RTJ3 (Mass Appeal)
Revbjelde – Revbjelde (Buried Treasure)
Thundercat – Them Changes (Brainfeeder)
Jamiroquai – Automaton (the single)
The Dandelion Set – A Thousand Strands (Buried Treasure) (technically 2016 but copies got held up by distribution and it was more widely available in 2017)
The Heliocentrics – A World Of Masks (Soundway)
The Heliocentrics – The Sunshine Makers (Soundway)
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Flying Microtonal Banana (and still playing the hell out of Nonagon Infinity and It’s In My Mind Fuzz)
Klaus Weiss – Time Signals (reissue) (Trunk)
Vanishing Twin – Dream By Numbers EP (Soundway)
The Allergies – Entitled To That (Jalapeno)
Jane Weaver – Modern Kosmology (Fire Records)
Ulrich Schnauss & Jonas Munk – Passage (Azure Vista Records)
Ilia Gorovitz – Turmoil/Simmering With No End (Rassh Records)
John Brooks – Un Autre Directions (Clay Pipe Music)
King Gizzard & The Wizard Lizard – Murder of the Universe (Flightless)
Markey Funk – Witch Doctor / The Brew (Delights)
Nevermen – Mr Minute (Boards of Canada remix) (Lex)
The The – Radio Cineola Trilogy (Lazarus)
Hans Zimmer & Benjamin Wallfisch – Blade Runner 2049 OST
King Gizzard & The Wizard Lizard – Sketches of Brunswick East (Flightless)
King Gizzard & The Wizard Lizard – Polygondwanaland (Flightless)

Exhibitions 2017

Exhibitions:
Future Shock – 40 Years of 2000AD – Cartoon Museum (London) / Paolozzi at the Whitechapel Gallery (London), Will Barras at Sector 25 (London) / Barbara Brown and Lucienne Day at the Whitworth Gallery (Manchester) / Franco Grignani at Estorick Collection of Italian Art (London), We Are Watching: Oz Magazine – Chelsea Art Space (London) / Delta – Mima Museums (Brussels) / Pink Floyd: Their Mortal Remains at the V&A (London), British Underground Press of the 60s at the A22 Gallery (London) / Can Graphic Design Save Your Life? – Wellcome Collection (London) / Snub 23 at the Boz Boz Gallery (Brighton)

Books / Comics:
Out Of Time – Miranda Sawyer / Ian Helliwell – Tape Leaders (Sound On Sound) Book + CD / British Underground Press of the 60s (Rocket 88) / The Process Is The Inspiration – House Industries / B.P.R.D.: Hell On Earth (Dark Horse) / Barbarella (Dynamite) / Swifty – FunkyTypo Graphix (Gamma Proforma) / Boris Tellegen – 86/97 – a black book (A Paper Book) / Batman: White Knight (DC)

RIP: Jaki Liebezeit, David Axelrod, Alan Aldridge, Dick Bruna, Clyde Stubblefield, Larry Coryell, Toshio Nakanishi, Chuck Berry, Skip Williamson, Jay Lynch, Mika Vainio, Adam West, Brian Cant, Pierre Henry, Anne-Marie Bergeron, Glen Campbell, Bruce Forsyth, Holger Czukay, Virgil Howe, Sean Hughes, Christine Keeler, Keith Chegwin, Dennis Dragon, Jim Baikie

Further is getting closer

Not long now until the final Further of the year on Nov 18th at the Portico Gallery, West Norwood, London – here’s a trailer and some little excerpts from shorts we’ve made for Simon James‘ Buchla performance.

Come down from 7.30-midnight for food, drink, a record stall and lots of leftfield music and visuals – Tickets here

You should definitely check out Sculpture‘s amazing site too as it’s full of stuff like this

and this

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Crumbling Castle

How do they do it? They must just live and breath music. This is from King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard‘s 4th album THIS YEAR (!) (they’ve said they’ll release 5). Not content with releasing ‘Flying Microtonal Banana’ containing the instant classic, ‘Rattlesnake’ they then released ‘Murder of the Universe’ with the astonishing prog-rock ‘Altered Beast’ and all sorts of references to existing King Giz records. Then just a couple of months back they collaborated with Mild High Club on ‘Sketches of Brunswick East’ which showcased a mellower jazz vibe and now this, apparently from an album called PollyWollyGonnaWannaDoodleAllDayLand  EDIT: (never believe YouTube comments)Polygonawanaland’. None of this is simple music, the time signatures are all over the place and it’s played ridiculously tight, if they don’t go down as this generation’s Hawkwind or Zeppelin it’ll be a crime. No idea when this one’s out but check out the previous album if nothing else as it’s been on repeat when I can get near a record player.

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DJ Food vs Death Waltz Originals mix CD

DWOvsDJFoodCDHi there, sorry for the lack of posts recently, the home renovation continues as does the 2 week (!) half term my kids have been bestowed with and many other things like preparation for the next Further at the Portico Gallery on Nov 18th. The mix that I made of material both released and unreleased from the Death Waltz Originals label run by Spencer Hickman has materialised as a free CD available with all orders of Death Waltz or Mondo releases while stocks last. It should also be available at selected independent record shops too and you can also listen to it here via Soundcloud. The spoken word throughout is from a private tape where my friend Steve Cook is interviewed by John Tomlinson about experiences he and his family experienced growing up in a haunted house.

Further at the Portico Gallery – Nov 18th

Further Portico 2.5 Poster A3 portraitThe next Further at The Portico Gallery is on Sat Nov 18th. Pete Williams and I are very excited to be joined by Sculpture for one of their incredible live AV sets and Simon James (Simonsound / Black Channels /Akiha Den Den) will be performing a live set from his Buchla easel system. Early bird tickets on sale now

We’ll also have the Book & Record Bar stall with releases from both acts and a hand-picked selection to compliment plus delicious food and plenty of seating. See below for what to expect on the night.
Sculpture

Simon James

The last Further at the Portico Gallery

Further & The Heliocentrics at the SYNthesis festival

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Pete Williams and myself set up our Further environment in support of The Heliocentrics at the Synthesis festival at Stanley Halls in South Norwood at the end of September. The group were utterly spellbinding with their vocalist tying everything together with an incredible vocal range somewhere between Roisin Murphy and Shirley Bassey. They played for two hours with visuals by Innerstrings and for a Thursday evening in deepest South London (nearly Croydon if we’re honest) it was pretty mind blowing.


Following dates featured DJ Krush, Andrea Parker, Juice Aleem, Beak and more in a hugely ambitious three day event – all the brainchild of Rob Swain, owner of the Gamma Proforma label and the local Sector 25 bar/gallery. If you check out the streets of South Norwood now you’ll see all sorts of new murals and paintings adorning walls and hoardings by international artists like Mode 2, Delta, Kofie 1, SheOne, O-Two, Will Barras and more.

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The Colourscape on Clapham Common

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Back in 1999 I went to Colourscape on Clapham Common and took a ton of photos, some of which ended up on the cover of the ‘Kaleidoscope’ album. 18 years later, with my two children in tow, I revisited it and was as wowed as I was nearly two decades before. If you get the chance, it’s a beautiful environment to wander around in for an hour, there’s contemporary classical music in the centre chamber and these photos don’t do it justice because it’s impossible to photograph and sends camera phones into convulsions. For more info where Colourscape is going to be next ,check them out on Facebook.

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FourFromFoodFriday #17.36

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Four From Food Fridays – a weekly look at four things I’ve been loving in the last seven days. Old or new, whatever’s been on in the studio. From top left:

Blackash – Black Witch EP (Swordfish Records) 12″ – Freaky psych rock with meditational ambient tracks straight out of Birmingham

The Belbury Circle – Outward Journeys (Ghost Box) LP – Jim Jupp and Jon Brooks join forces with John Foxx again to whip up an album of early 80s inspired tracks.

Misha Panfilov – Kallaste Elektrooniline Muusika (aina lomala) 7″ – Superb hauntological / radiophonic / electronic 45 from prolific Estonian producer Panfilov

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard live session in the KEXP studio (YouTube) – I have to watch this about once a week, such fantastic timing and musicianship

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Pink Floyd at the V&A Museum

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It’s taken me an age to post these because life is currently getting in the way in the form of moving and renovating a new home. The Pink Floyd exhibition, ‘Their Mortal Remains’ at the V&A Museum, is very much worth seeing even if, like me, Pink Floyd don’t mean much to you. I swore off them for a long while due to ‘Another Brick In The Wall Pt.2’ being no.1 for so many weeks as a child and finding myself utterly sick of it.

But the fickleness of youth only lasts so long and I found myself gradually checking back through their back catalogue, picking up the odd cheap LP here and there and finally realising why everyone raves about ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’. This exhibition highlights exactly what a forward-thinking, visually aware band they were, adapting as their fame and venue sizes increased, their sleeve concepts becoming ever more outlandish as budgets made pre-photoshop surrealist montage possible. The amount of artwork and props present attest to a group with a very strong concept behind each album, courtesy of the Hipgnosis team of course.

Starting at the beginning and travelling chronologically through their career we enter a time tunnel and emerge inside a version of the UFO club circa ’67 complete with pulsating liquid light ceiling, psychedelic poster gallery and films. Rooms concentrating of Syd Barratt, Wish You Were Here, Dark Side of the Moon and more eventually give way to a stunning display of Animals and The Wall-era stage props and art. The 80s side of things were less my bag but the concepts were now reaching gigantic proportion and are impressive as last bastions of the sort of excess that just doesn’t happen any more now that we can do all these things digitally. The final room with a surround performance of their reunion at Live8 was very moving and a perfect way to end this retrospective. Go and see if before it ends on October 15th!

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Pierre Henry, Montreux Jazz festival, Switzerland 1998

Pierre Henry Montreux Jazz festival 1998

I finally found my Pierre Henry photos. Back in 1998 I was playing with various assorted Ninjas at the Montreux Jazz festival in Switzerland. Pierre Henry was also on the bill so we went along but were late and had to sit near the back as they were the only seats left.
Pierre came out and was introduced but there was nothing on stage, just black curtains. He promptly strode to the back of the room and played the gig from the mixing desk just behind us.
The gig was both terrifying and sublime- at one point i was so relaxed I think I nodded off. Right at the end, as he was receiving a huge round of applause, I turned round and snapped these two shots of him.
RIP Pierre Henry

FourFromFoodFridays #17.35

FourFromFoodFridays 17.35Four From Food Fridays – a weekly look at four things I’ve been loving in the last seven days. Old or new, whatever’s been on in the studio. From top left:

Clocolan – Nothing Left To Abandon (BauSatz) 2xLP – Timely reissue of Clocolan’s debut album from January – then digital only – on two blue vinyl discs with extra tracks

Andy Votel’s Typewriter Jazz (Worldwide FM) Radio – Guesting on Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide radio station, Andy plays songs that feature the original journalist’s analogue keyboard of choice as musical instrument.

Annabel (lee) – The Cleansing (Youngbloods) LP – The follow up to their timeless debut, ‘By the Sea… and Other Solitary Places’, this is just as good, out today!

Yves Hayat – Conversation Between the East and the West (Timing) LP – Finally found a copy of this at a decent price, from the man himself, it’s not all on the web but you can sample some of its delights. Someone reissue this please.

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Further goes to Spiritland

With great pride and a lot of effort Pete Williams and I played one of our Further sets last Sunday evening at Spiritland, complete with multiple projections. Thanks to everyone who came by despite the bad weather. We had a great time and are in talks to bring it back there. You can hear our 4 hour set below and sample some of the projections we discreetly added to the sumptuous surroundings.

The next Further excursion is in 9 days at the SYNthesis festival in South Norwood, we’ll be playing either side of The Heliocentrics at Stanley Halls preceded by an afternoon of street art painting, food stalls and a talk by designer, Swifty at 6pm.
Tickets here

(Video nicked from Spiritland’s Instagram, photos © Martin LeSanto-Smith)

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Electronic Sound issue 33

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The latest issue of Electronic Sound magazine is a cracker, a huge interview with Gary Numan, an appraisal of Trevor Key’s artwork and an opening page by me, showing the final Rite of Mu with The JAMs that happened in Liverpool recently. You can also get a great remix of Numan’s ‘My Name Is Ruin’ by Meat Beat Manifesto on 7″ if you buy the bundle direct from their website.

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FourFromFoodFridays #17.34

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Four From Food Fridays – a weekly look at four things I’ve been loving in the last seven days. Old or new, whatever’s been on in the studio. From top left:

Quaeschning & Schnauss – Synthwaves (Azure Vista Recordings) LP – Very Tangerine Dream-flavoured synth errrr… waves in this 3rd release from the new ambient off-shoot of El Paraiso.

Gary Numan – My Name Is Ruin (Meat Beat Manifesto Poison remix) (Electronic Sound) 7″ – Only available as a special bundle online with the latest issue of Electronic Sound magazine – the beaty B side is a thing of beauty.

David Sylvian – Camphor (Virgin) CD – Inspired by revisiting Sylvian and Czukay’s work after Holger’s recent death I dug this out, a compilation of David’s ambient work with remixes of ‘Plight & Premonition’ on the second disc.

Rodinia – Ex Anima (Now Again) CD/LP – J.J.Whitefield is back with a follow up to last year’s ‘Drumscape/Dreamscape’ with more in the ambient/krautrock vein.

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RIP Virgil Howe

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I was stunned to learn of the sudden death of Virgil Howe today, a lovely, funny, mega-talented man who I had the pleasure to know for a few years. As a drummer he could straddle the funk, rock and psychedelic genres with ease and was also a mean keyboardist and producer in his own right. Anyone who followed him on Facebook was regaled weekly with anecdotes of his DJing adventures and battles with punters who didn’t want their envelopes pushed in the direction that ‘The Verge’ wanted to go.

His Sunday Hidden Level radio show on Soho Radio was always a smogasbord of funk, soul, rock, psych and everything in between and I’m very proud to have been a guest way back when. I only knew him for a while and can’t say I knew him well but we had loads in common the few times we did meet and I send my condolences out to his family for this awful loss. I feel so gutted for the members of Little Barrie too, on the cusp of a tour, a new album out and finally making it after all these years – I hope they find a way to get over this and carry on but Virgil’s drum stool won’t be an easy one to fill.

From his solo work (the Drums Series on Breakin’ Bread featuring other drummers like Malcolm Catto and Shawn Lee) to his material with The Killer Meters, The Amorphous Androgynous, The Dirty Feel to Little Barrie he was a versatile powerhouse of a drummer. He played drums on one of the greatest remixes ever, ‘The Amorphous Androgynous Exploding Psychedelic Bubble Mix’ of Oasis’ ‘Falling Down’ and recorded a ton of drums for me to use on my next record, which I still have – waiting to be chopped up and sampled – something that will take on a different meaning when I finally use them.
He was also a total dude, not in a corny way either, he just oozed warmth and cool. RIP Virgil Howe

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FourFromFoodFridays #17.33

FourFromFoodFridays 17.33Four From Food Fridays – a weekly look at four things I’ve been loving in the last seven days. Old or new, whatever’s been on in the studio. From top left:

David Sylvian & Holger Czukay – Plight & Premonition (Virgin) – One of my favourite ambient albums ever, RIP Holger

Acidalius – Acidalius (Acid Waxa) Cassette – Fantastic modern acid from 2014 on Newcastle label Acid Waxa

Videodrones – Nattens Haevn (El Paraiso) LP – Second album of 80s-inspired synth workouts from the Danish duo.

Various – DJ Food at Emotion Wave (Mixcloud) Mix – Live improv on two turntables, sampler and FX, an alternate ‘Chill Out’ if you will

Further at the Synthesis Festival and Spiritland

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Myself and Pete Williams have two Further gigs this month – firstly at Spiritland to celebrate their first birthday this week. On Sunday 10th we’ll be taking over in the evening – it’s a very limited ticketed affair but will be a perfect setting for what we want to do.

On Thursday Sept 28th we head to Stanley Halls in Norwood Junction to be a part of the Synthesis festival, a three-day happening of music, street art and food. We’ll be sharing the bill with the Heliocentrics so it should be a suitably lysergic evening.
The festival is run by Rob Swain, head guy at the Gamma Proforma label and just look at the line up. DJ Krush, Beak>, Delta, Mode2, Swifty, sheOne, O.Two, Will Barras, Mr Jago, Augustine Kofie, Howie B, Andrea Parker, Heliocentrics, Juice Aleem, DJ Food, Ofeliadorme and more TBA!

Tickets available here

Further at Spiritland