Music

Soundsci Wordplay magazine takeover

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All week Wordplay Magazine have been hosting a takeover by Soundsci who take you through the various elements of how they work as an international crew. Short films and interviews form the basis of the daily pieces leading up to the release of their new album, ‘Walk The Earth’ on Monday.

Part 1: Digging With Oxygen

Part 2: No Sleep Nigel interview – fascinating article with the legendary mixer

Part 3: Connecting the Dots with Audyessey

Part 4: Interview with Darrell Krum – the art of Soundsci, the World Expo label and many more.

Part 5: In the studio with Ollie Teeba and Jonny Cuba

Also out today is the second single, ‘Write On’ / ‘Changing The Gods’, on a limited 45 – available here

Part 6: Rhyming with Audessey

AND FINALLY!!! Here’s the album to buy SOUNDSCI BANDCAMP – it’s digital only for now, aside from the 45s but there’s talk of a vinyl edition although that’s a way off yet

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Rat Records instore Soundtrack set w. Jonny Trunk

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Lo, and did the hordes descend onto Rat Records in Camberwell like a plague of locusts and the music flowed freely, from the decks to the racks and into the bags of the hungry vinyl scavengers. Sometimes it didn’t even make it into the racks, being bagsied whilst still on the turntable by eagle-eared punters inquiring, ‘what’s this playing?’. Jonny Trunk and I played whilst Lucy and Pete (behind the camera below) served and a wonderful afternoon was had by all.
Rat has a policy of restocking their shelves with new stock every Saturday and several hundred discs make their way onto the floor each and every weekend for the regulars who are at the door at the 10.30 opening time. This past weekend they had an additional box of soundtracks, library and weird music to add to that, the difference being that no one knew what any of it was until Jonny or I played it so the music stood or fell on its own merits. A collection they’d got in recently was put aside specially for this purpose and most of what was played in the two and half hour set you can hear below was sold. I even added a clutch from my own collection to the box.

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As the box emptied and more friends arrived at the shop it was decided that a drink was needed and the nearby Stormbird bar was chosen, partly because it’s the only place in London you can get a bottle of Pastelism, a beer brewed by Domino Records band, The Pastels. Much was consumed and many words were spoken of the crate-digging, vinyl-hunting nature alongside Tom Central (Keep Up!), PC (DJ Food), Graeme (Frenchbloke & Son) Ross, Zoe Lucky Cat Baxter and more. Robin the Fog and Hannah Brown from Resonance FM were also on hand to conduct an impromptu recording for their Near Mint show and the results can be heard below. The results of the alcohol consumption can also be heard as the show progresses too! It was great to see so many friends and play in my local record shop among like-minded punters and there are plans to do a rematch at Audio Gold in Crouch End soon. If any other record stores want to host this kind of event in the future then get in touch…

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Beautiful typography on one of Adam James Seth-Ward‘s purchases.

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El Paraiso Records

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I’m totally in love with this Danish label, run by two guys, Jakob Skott and Jonas Munk, El Paraiso Records.
If you want modern psychedelic rock then try Monarch, Causa Sui, Mythic Sunship, Papir or Landing, for percussion-heavy jazz with electronic krautrock overtones try Jakob Skott, for guitar-led workouts try Nicklas Sorenson and for cosmic synth minimalism then Jonas Munk is your man

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Kosmischer Laufer 3 track sampler for free

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I can’t recommend these highly enough, and all for free until the 26th!
Available 23rd-26th June 2016 to mark the Kosmischer Läufer Exhibition at Leith Late Arts Festival.
This three track sampler contains one song from each of the first three volumes of Kosmischer Läufer. The music was recorded by Martin Zeichnete in secret for the East German Olympic Programme in the 70’s and 80’s.
‘Zeit zum Laufen 172’ is a warmup track originally released on Kosmischer Läufer Volume Two.
‘Die lange Gerade’ is a edited version of running track originally released on Kosmischer Läufer Volume One.
‘Für Seelenbinder’ is a warmdown track originally released on Kosmischer Läufer Volume Three.The full albums are available at Bandcamp and on all digital platforms.
Find out more about Martin Zeichnete and his work at kosmischerlaufer.com

Zeit zum Laufen!

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Coming this Friday to Solid Steel…

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Last week, DJ‘s Cheeba & Moneyshot finished their deconstruction of Beck’s album, ‘Odelay’, which celebrated it’s 20th anniversary on June 18th. As he plays Glastonbury this coming weekend, Solid Steel will premiere the mix on Friday 24th, entitled, ‘Yo! Delay’. A long time in the making, it’s over an hour of the LP broken down into samples, interview snippets, scratch routines and more, in the same way our ‘Caught In The Middle of a Three-Way Mix’ did with the Beastie Boys’ ‘Paul’s Boutique’ a few years back.

Lucky enough to hear it before the public, I stuck it on and we had a message session via Facebook, below are some of my (edited) comments as I listened for the first time…

you get a Devil’s Haircut acappella?
is that the Stones with the guitar riff?
mad JB cover there
I reckon Beck might thank you for not putting the track list out there
This is great guys
oh that New Pollution sax break is great
Oh Lee Michaels! – you have that album? Killer
I hope you got Mantronix into Where It’s At?
There she blows!
hairs on the back of the neck moment
Anyone ever do a porno with whales called ‘There she blows’ Roy?
ah this is f**king great guys, I’m grinning
This extended freakout bit with samples and spoken cuts is redefining the mix guys – insane
oh! Dick Hyman!
f**k guys, mix of the year so far
A few people are going to have their dreams shattered though – “I thought Beck wrote that!”
make a little commentary to go with it, the first real time mix commentary – you could break down what you did?
Well, guys – mix of the year so far, you nailed it, didn’t want it to end – well done

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The Force Awakens holographic vinyl release

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Several boxes were ticked last Monday night when I was invited to Abbey Road Studios in North London to feature on a panel to talk about Star Wars and its influence on music over the last near 40 years. It was part of the launch of a new vinyl edition of the soundtrack to Star Wars: The Force Awakens, complete with holographic Tie Fighters and Millennium Falcons etched into the surface of the two discs by Tristan Duke.

Abbey Rd StormtrooperJournalist Andrew Harrison (Your Empire Needs You T-shirt) chaired a small panel of myself, Tristan Duke (peeking over my shoulder) – the man responsible for the holograms, and Alex Milas (centre back, editor of Metal Hammer magazine and life-long SW fan). After plenty of nerdy fan banter two First Order Storm Troopers strode in to deliver the LP to Tristan who then played it as it was projected onto the screen above. Food was served, vinyl was cooed over, photos were taken with Storm Troopers and much was discussed of a fanboy nature.

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A few days later I took on trying to capture the holograms from my vinyl copy at home. This was easily achieved with just direct sunlight or you can use a torch or lamp in dark conditions. This is what the hologram looks like in normal light (above) and this is what it looks like when having direct light pointed at it (below)

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TFALP_embossThe LP sleeve is printed on thick mirror board card which makes the star field sparkle when light hits it and the cover logo is embossed. It’s a beautiful package that Disney/Universal have really gone the extra length to get looking and feeling special. There’s also a 16 page 12″-sized booklet with a forward by JJ Abrams and stills from the film.
It’s released worldwide on Friday, June 17th.

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On the panel I remarked on how the new release is so like the original OST in layout – minimal and tasteful. That made be want to dig out my 1977 copy, check the poster and gatefold. I’d forgotten how big the poster was!SWvsTFALP_ SWLP +poster SWposter

How many Millennium Falcons? Early John Berkey concept painting when the Falcon was a rebel fighter – there’s a fascinating glimpse at more Star Wars Berkey prelim paintings on his siteSWgatefoldSWLPback

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Jonny Trunk / DJ Food hook ups

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Two dates for your diaries: June 25th I’ll be DJing with Jonny Trunk at Camberwell’s finest used record emporium, Rat Records. They recently bought in a really good selection of soundtrack, electronic, library and weird records which we’ll be playing selections from before adding them to the racks for punters to buy. Let US try, before YOU buy.

But before that  – this Saturday to be precise – I’ll be sitting in for Jonny on his OST radio show on Resonance 104.4 FM from 4.30-6.40pm. There’ll be a theme to the show and I’ll have special guest Jonny Cuba from Soundsci talking about library digs and soundtrack finds. Listen here this weekend

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Basement Finds #17: 12s, 10s, 7s & LPs

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The front and back covers of two amazing religious spoken word records – love the double entendre.
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Below: Four Music De Wolfe 10″ library records, the ‘Electroshake’ is particularly good, there’s a vol.2 as well…BF_Electroshake BF_YoungFriends BF_BeatGroup BF_MDeW BF_Butterfly

45 finds – the Public Enemy includes the instrumental on the flip

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A fun little flexi disc from Fermaley Flame – nice electronics at the beginning and end

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Lastly – a beautiful Robert Crumb sleeve from 1974

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New Sculpture video for the Splice Festival

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“Untitled” by Sculpture from The Wire Magazine on Vimeo.

More ideas in 8 minutes than some people have in an entire career…

Sculpture will be appearing at the first of 3 nights under the banner of Splice in London next weekend 3rd-5th of June along with many audio-visual acts like The Light Surgeons, DJ Cheeba, Addictive TV, Pete Elastic Eye, Cassetteboy, D-Fuse, Blinkinlab, Matt Black, Plaid, Joe Catchpole, Mixmaster Morris, Matt Sharp, Mark Pilkington and many more.

Splice Festival 2016 from Splice Festival on Vimeo.

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Dennis Corrigan artwork

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I’ve always been fascinated by this cover art, the artist is simply listed as ‘Corrigan’. On the back of the Castor LP it has a passage about the cover, possibly written by Corrigan (?):
“The illustration depicts Jimmy Castor in a double role: as a Gemini and Cancer personality. Gemini’s aspects are described as egocentric, intellectual and airy. Castor’s egocentric aspect is affirmed by his unconcealed face; his intellect is symbolized by the tube running from a fitting on his temple to a fitting in the musical tree. His mind drives his music. A second tube runs on to a small cluster of clouds hovering near Castor’s head, symbolizing his airy and mutable nature. Castor’s Cancer aspects are symbolized on the right by the slum tenement which rises out of wasteland. Castor is directly above a large opening in a wall containing his heart; this serves to stress Cancer’s intuitive qualities. Castor’s face is partially concealed to correspond to the introverted nature of Cancer personalities. The tube which runs from his heart is attached to an armored egg; spilling out of the egg are three elements associated with Cancer: the moon, water and food. The prehistoric, “Troglodyte”-like figures are the end products of the intellectual, emotional and astrological input of Castor from above.”

After a bit of help from fellow facebook-ers, it seems the man responsible was Dennis Corrigan, a surrealist American illustrator who only has one other record sleeve listed on Discogs (The New York Rock & Rock Ensemble, front and back covers below).

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Still with us and now teaching at Marywood University in Pennsylvania, he has work in various art institute collections and illustrated for the likes of The New York Times, Random House, Pan American Airways and more. He’s had several books of his work published, ‘The Amusement Park’ from 1982 and ‘True Love Knows No Boundaries’ from just last year. You can find more about his weird world at his website, Dennis Corrigan Artist.

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Oxygen aka MC Just Divine – new 45

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Out today, another banger from Soundsci – this time concentrating on Oxygen. ‘1-4-9′ is under two minutes and comes with an instrumental to match on the same side, surely a first for a 45? This is the second in a trilogy of 45s from the crew before they drop their LP, ‘Walk The Earth’ and features a great cover from Paul ‘Sub2’ Trewin who also did all the character designs for the 45 Live roster earlier this year. Buy it here before it goes

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Selected Aphex Works 2 mix

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Earlier this year I was asked by the organisation ‘Give Crohn’s A Slap From Me’ if I would provide them with a mix as their remit is to help raise awareness of the disease through art, music and design. For their hospital radio slot they’ve already had the likes of DJ Vadim provide one and I wanted to do something a little different that would, potentially, bring more people to the site than your standard mix selection.

I always wanted to do a follow up to the ‘Selected Aphex Works 1’ mix I did early in 2015 for Solid Steel, an 86 minute collection of my pick of the bunch of tracks uploaded to Richard D. James‘ User48736353001 Soundcloud account during the early months of that year. The plan is to hopefully get some of the near 100,000 people who listened to the first mix to come to the Crohn’s site for more so, beginning from the place where the first left off, here’s a second volume, culled from tunes uploaded after the first mix was finished.

Up until mid February 2015 there were around 160 tunes to choose from but, as I was completing the first mix, there were still more tracks being uploaded. At various times after the transmission date on Solid Steel of Feb 24th around 90 more were uploaded with the final total being an estimated 275 tracks before they were deleted. There were more than enough to make another mix and there could easily be a third from all the songs that wouldn’t fit or didn’t make the grade the first time round. There are albums worth of material as good as any official Aphex release in the Soundcloud uploads, which I view as one of the most important ‘releases’ of 2015.

On the subject of Aphex, I recently found this poster below, designed in my third year at Camberwell College of Art in 1993. I’d recently discovered his music via Colin Dale‘s Outer Limits show on KISS FM and took inspiration from his music to make my own designs for releases – this one being ‘Xylem Tube’ on R&S. The original design was supposed to be portrait but I prefer it landscape now with the benefit of hindsight.

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The Belbury Poly – New Ways Out LP

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I did some pack shots of the new Belbury Poly LP for Jim Jupp at Ghost Box. The multi-coloured cover art and Rainbow-esque inner sleeve does the music justice; a seemingly random collection of tunes emanating from approximately 1974. Autobahn-era Kraftwerk meets Glitter Band glam stomp meets folk-tinged vocals and sunshine Sesame Street ‘ba-ba-bum’ singalong harmonies. New Ways Out is a perfect title for this release in many ways, it’s his most curious and varied work to date and – much the same as The Soundcarriers and Hintermass releases – pushes out of the usual territory you’d expect from the label. Be prepared to be taken in new directions on 10 track vinyl and 11 track CD, up for pre-order on the Ghost Box shop now.

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Also coming soon is Other Voices 08 featuring two tracks from Beautify Junkyards on June 10th…GBX718 cover 2000

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