Be quick! Order ‘Form Foam’ here – only 50 22 left!
Music
Lovely sleeve for the excellent new The Comet Is Coming single, ‘Final Eclipse’ on Leaf.
If you walk into chocolatier Cocoa Amore‘s Leicester-based shop this month you’ll be treated to a bespoke playlist, compiled by myself to accompany your trawl through the tasty treats they produce. But if you’re nowhere near Leicester this month but want to hear sounds to shop for choc until you drop then you can tune in here. Thanks to my friends Sarah & Leigh Inkymole for sorting this out.
Four From Food Fridays – a weekly look at four records that have been doing it for me. They can be new or old, any style so long as it’s been getting some rotation in the studio. From top left:
Heldon.6 – Interface (Superior Viaduct) LP
Grupo De Experimentacion Sonora Del ICAIC – S/T (Areito) LP
Howlround – Tales From The Black Tangle (The Fog Signals) LP
Cavern of Anti-Matter – I’m The Unknown (Duophonic) 12″
Finally, years after its initial announcement and nearly 18 months since the 7″ for Record Store Day, the pre-order for the full Moomins album on Finders Keepers is here.
Also – the label will be at the Jaarbeurs record fair in Utrecht this weekend, wish I was going too
My recent 4hr set from Spiritland – the new venue just behind Kings X station in London – is now online for your enjoyment. I certainly had a good time playing there and count it as one of my favourite gigs of 2016. The sound system is out of this world, the beer good, the company was great and I’ve even listened back to the full mix a couple of times and enjoyed it, something I rarely do with my own work. There’s no dancefloor and mixing and scratching is discouraged due to the audiophile nature of the set up there (vertically positioned rotary Bozak mixer). The speakers are the stars of the show as well as the rack-mounted kit behind the DJ booth. It’s free and they have an amazing line up of DJs on every night of the week.
Love this Clipping. fan poster by berfie, if I had spare time I’d be cobbling a fan film together from sci-fi film clips to visualise the album.
I’ve been so busy of late I’ve not had the time to update the blog. Last weekend I traveled to Russia for a couple of gigs and visited a huge basement record shop in Moscow called Sound Barrier. It was so huge and stuffed with records that I was overwhelmed after two hours in there although that could have been from the heating blasting out and the crazy high prices on the records.
Whenever I travel I try to buy local records from where I am and luckily the Russian discs I bought were cheap. I found many issues of Krugazor, the 7″-sized magazine with several flexi discs in each issue and some beautiful covers. I’ll feature them more in a separate Flexibition post but here are some shots of the shop and some other finds. 
RIP Jean Jacques Perrey – a true pioneer and a man not afraid to keep the comedic in electronic music – here’s an archive interview Coldcut did with JJP back in 1997 for Solid Steel.
“Coldcut meet Jean Jacques Perry. This occurred in early 1997, at their Spacelab studio in the old Ninja HQ in Clink St. (now luxury flats with a Starbucks underneath). E.V.A. was enjoying a huge revival as the soundtrack to a Lucozade commercial and Moog, Easy Listening and Music Concréte were all back in vogue. Jean Jacques was
promoting the reissue of the track and playing his first gigs for years. Matt Black had recently acquired three huge Korg PS3300’s, was deep into his analogue kit and instantly struck up a rapport (Richard James would later buy one of the Korgs from him when studio space grew tight).”
I had such a good time last night at the Museum of Last Parties event at the Museum of London – improvising with turntables and FX alongside Jonny Trunk and Howlround‘s tape loops in the room that houses Thomas Heatherwick‘s Olympic Torch. Moon rock beanbags and video compilations of psychedelic space film clips set it off nicely – my favourite gig of the year so far.
We recorded 3 hours of the set so now have to go through it and see if any bares repetition / broadcasting. After the event we trooped over to the Lo & Behold event at the State 51 HQ in Shoreditch and caught Jon Tye and Pete Fowler‘s DJ sets. Sadly we’d missed The Pattern Forms and Grasscut plus a screening of the Delia Derbyshire soundtracked ‘Circle of Light’ film, supplied by Jonny. Speaking of film soundtracks, I was treated to a sneak preview of a film, ‘A Creak In Time’ that Howlround have soundtracked for their next (imminent) record, and it is beautiful, all macro/microscopic imagery and perfect for their eerie soundscapes. I’ll be featuring it here when it’s due for release for sure.
Four From Food Fridays – a weekly look at four music releases / mixes that have been doing it for me. They can be new or old, any style so long as it’s been getting some rotation in the studio. From top left:
Various Artists – Brainbox 6xLP (De:tuned) (DJ Food promo mix coming soon)
Startled Insects – Lifepulse LP (Sense)
Various Artists – Plastic Dance mix by Doug Shipton (Vinyl Factory) forthcoming LP on Finders Keepers/Cache Cache
Edward Artemeiv – Moods LP (Melody)
You can now pre-order and listen to parts of all the tracks for the forthcoming ‘Brainbox’ compilation that I have provided the artwork for on De:tuned records from Belgium. The line up is immense and all the tracks are exclusive, this has taken a long time and a lot of care to put together. The box consists of 6 vinyl LPs, each in full colour inner sleeves with unique artwork and is limited to 300 copies. There is a digital DL version too but no CD, the box set also comes with a DL code and a sticker. The line up reads like a who’s who of 90s electronica: Plaid, As One, FSOL, Scanner, Meat Beat Manifesto, Speedy J, MuZiq, B12, Mike Dred, David Morley, Christian Vogel… and the quality of the content is very high. Pre-order here
Four From Food Fridays – a weekly look at four music releases podcasts / radio shows / mixes that have been doing it for me. They can be new or old, any style so long as it’s been getting some rotation in the studio. From top left:
Markey Funk – Where My Head Is At This Time Pt 1: Hauntology (Mixcloud)
Near Mint – Ben Soundhog Pt 1 (11th Oct) + Pt 2 (18th Oct) (Resonance FM/Mixcloud)
Bigmouth – Episode 25 / 26 (audioboom)
Akiha Den Den – Episode 4 (Soundcloud)
Now that Black Friday (25th Nov) seems to be ‘a thing’ in this country we have what’s become known as ‘Record Store Day 2’ creeping in just before the Xmas rush with yet another date to cram the pressing plants as the vinyl reissues keep flowing. The list got released this week and I’m very pleased to see these two on it.
Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner and Richard Alpert‘s hard-to-find-cheap outing ‘The Psychedelic Experience’, originally on Broadside Records and later, Folkways, and chock full of spoken word that has been plundered by many over the years in sampled form. Pressed on magenta splatter vinyl apparently.
A great-looking reissue of an underrated but utterly essential hip hop classic is the Jungle Brothers‘ ‘Done By The Forces Of Nature’ from Get On Down. Originally released in 1989 and featuring a post ‘3 Feet…’ De La Soul, Queen Latifah, Monie Love, Q-Tip and DJ Towa Tei (just before he found worldwide fame with Deee-lite), this is the whole crew at the height of their powers and possibly the moment that the Native Tongues posse were most united. It’s a sample smorgasbord too from a time when you could still ransack the past for the finest funk, jazz and afro beats imaginable. For me, this is up there with De La Soul, Beastie Boys and Public Enemy as one of the finest rap albums of all time. Originally pressed on a weedy single disc, it always suffered from poor sound quality and a new double vinyl edition has been a long-standing want within the hip hop community.
This looks promising – the first new Karminsky Experience record in as long as I can remember – out Nov…
COVERS – a book by ALEX BARTSCH from Alex Bartsch on Vimeo.
Sometimes someone comes up with an idea so simple it has ‘surefire hit’ written all over it. Here’s one coming now; photographer Alex Bartsch is taking the sleeveface craze to the next logical stage (‘sleevescape’ anyone?) by matching architectural aspects of London with record covers that feature them. Specifically it seems, reggae records, and the results so far are excellent. A Kickstarter for a book of the photos has just launched, you can pledge here and there’s an exhibition in the planning. Follow Alex on Instagram too 
Out today on LP, CD and DL – The Pattern Forms is a new Ghost Box supergroup formed of the mysterious, media-shy, man-who-can-do-no-wrong Jon Brooks and vocalists Ed Macfarlane and Edd Gibson of Friendly Fires. The album is gorgeous, full of beautiful, yearning songs of love and loss, perfect autumnal audio occasionally lifted by electro/disco stylings, it shouldn’t work but it does. I wasn’t sure at first, after the dark electronica of Pye Corner Audio‘s ‘Stasis’, it seemed quite a whimsical release, but the more I listen the more the songs seep into me and it may be one of the most accessible GB releases yet. Order here
Artwork comes from the ever-excellent Julian House as well as the teaser promo film above and there’s a Rough Trade exclusive version of the LP with an alternate cover and translucent green vinyl. The band will be playing tonight from 6pm at Rough Trade East off Brick Lane in London to launch the record and Julian will be DJing too. Check the special library records mix they knocked up the other week too for Radio Belbury.
I’m loving this new album by Vanishing Twin, a new group spawned from members of Orlando, Zomgamin, Neon Neon and more and produced by Malcolm Catto. Taking off where The Soundcarriers left off on their last album for Ghost Box and drawing immediate comparisons to Broadcast and Stereolab‘s blend of pop meets radiophonica they create an otherworldly mix of tunes, tones and textures on the album, ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’.
Check the video and band photo below too, thank god we still have people willing to put as much effort into presenting themselves as they do writing music, there’s only so many bored / earnest producers standing against brick walls or sitting in studios that one can take. The album is available on Soundway Records, there’s LP, CD and DL but the regular black vinyl is sold out, only the green version is left. There’s even a gorgeous screenprinted poster of the artwork too! (no credit for the designer on the album though?)
I’ve done a couple of short interviews recently; one for Jazzy Jasper which talks about the past, present and future and includes tips on record collecting. The other was for the Gretchen club blog from Berlin who just celebrated 5 years of existence and touches on cooking disasters.
(images above by Robert Crumb from American Splendor by Harvey Pekar)