Music

Madlib Medicine Show download comp on Rappcats

Over on the Rappcats site there’s an 8 track Madlib album to download for free, compiled from his ‘Medicine Show’ albums 1-12. He’s about to embark on an Asian tour (he dropped off one of his 13 CD ‘Bricks‘ in Tokyo today) and here’s the fantastic cover art for the compilation, ‘Pill Jar’.

The tour starts this Friday and takes in these dates:

Feb. 15: Tokyo with Egon at Sound Museum Vision
Feb. 16: Nagoya at Mago “Audi”
Feb. 17: Osaka at Grand Café
Feb. 21: Beijing at Yugongyishan, Beijing, Dongcheng district, Zhang Zizhong Road 3-2.
Feb. 22: Chengdu at Chengdu East Telecast Hall, East Music park, Jianshezhi Road, Chenghua District.
Feb. 23: Shanghai at The Shelter, 5 Yongfu Road.

Posted in Art, Music. | No Comments |

Kraftweek 6 – ‘Computer World’ for Clash Magazine

The piece below was written for Clash Magazine who are running articles during the London concerts Kraftwerk are playing at the Tate Modern. I was among several other artists asked to choose my favourite album of theirs and write about it.

Kraftwerk appeared in my life at the beginning of 1982* when ‘The Model’ scored a freak No.1 in the UK during the post-Xmas lull. In the middle of your Gary Numans, Human Leagues and other assorted synth pop of the day were a new band, from Germany this time. Magazines articles featured the four piece with tales of building their own instruments, mannequins on stage and turning calculators into synths. The local record shop also suddenly confronted my 11 year old self with a variety of different back catalogue LPs from this ‘new’ group, re-released to cash in on the sudden interest.

With only limited paper round funds I had to choose which one to buy first and the fluorescent yellow of ‘Computer World’ won the day (on cassette no less, with an equally acid yellow tape inside the case). It couldn’t have been a better choice because whilst ‘The Man Machine’ and ‘Trans Europe Express’ give it a run for its money it’s a scientific fact that there are no duff tracks on CW. It’s an album which starts strong with the urgent intro to ‘Computer World’ and, incredibly, retains that strength and momentum to the dying notes of ‘It’s More Fun To Compute’.

‘Pocket Calculator’ is one of my favourite songs they’ve ever written with the oft-sampled bubbling arpeggios of ‘Home Computer’ coming a close second (alongside its sudden jump-cut to a faster tempo midway). Even the sudden return of ‘Computer World 2’ out of ‘Numbers’ isn’t a cop out, rather it reinforces the overall concept and softens the impact of the melody-less countathon before it. My brother and I used to listen to the eerie blizzard of whispered voices that end side 1 and try to discern what they were saying. To this day I swear there’s a little phrase in there that repeats, “don’t say it so quick”, every so often.

That the group dispensed with minimal verse/chorus/verse/choruses quickly before taking off on an extended ‘jam’, adding layers of melody in strict eight bar measures, was something that was new to me. Having only ‘got’ pop music about two years before, I was unused to songs extending much over the three minute mark – remember this is 1982, the 12″ was still a new format and the idea of extended remixes still largely an underground club thing (and I was only 11!). Here were tracks of 5, 6 and 7 minutes in length, some blending into each other, all sounding like they were played with the precision of a factory car assembly line rather than human beings.

The sounds were gentle too, aside from the stuttering crush of the beat to ‘Numbers’ and the subtle menace of the melody in ‘It’s More Fun To Compute’, the album was most definitely not Rock in any way. Depeche Mode‘s debut, ‘Speak & Spell’ – released the same year as ‘Computer World’ and named after the children’s toy that Kraftwerk utilised on the title track, was about the nearest thing I’d heard to their softly spoken style. Later in ’82 The Human League would release their largely vocal-less League Unlimited Orchestra remix album, ‘Love & Dancing’, and by then I was completely hooked on this kind of synth pop or new wave as it became known. If I had a time machine the first destination on the dial would be one of their gigs supporting this album back in ’81. The classic line up of Ralf, Florian, Karl and Wolfgang, performing their masterpiece, even coming to the front of the stage for ‘Pocket Calculator’, the closest they would ever come to their fans before withdrawing into their own computer world.

*I was actually aware of ‘Autobahn’ in the mid 70’s via a compilation tape my dad made from the Top 40 countdown each Sunday, the track scared me whenever it appeared but I wouldn’t put two and two together until later.

Posted in Kraftwerk, Music. | 2 Comments |

Classic Pop magazine – 4 pg XLZTT design article

Just out is issue 3 of Classic Pop magazine with a 4 page article I co-wrote with editor Ian Peel about the 80’s music design work of the XL design studio. You don’t hear much about them but they’re a big passion of mine because they largely defined the look of the Zang Tuum Tumb label from 1983 through to the end of the decade, greatly influencing myself in the process.

Whereas some had Saul Bass, Hipgnosis, Peter Saville or Vaughn Oliver, I had XL who, in conjunction with press officer Paul Morley and another group, The London Design Partnership, created the look of my favourite record label of the 80’s. They did many other sleeves for pop acts on other labels as well but the combination of their work with design briefs from Morley (collectively XLZTT) really stands out from the pack and it’s this that we focus on.

Posted in Design, Magazines, Music. | No Comments |

John Rydgren anthology now out on Omni Rec. Corp.

I am SO pleased with how this came out, The Omni Recording Corporation‘s reissue / compilation of John Rydgren‘s best material. Over 2 CDs you get more than four album’s worth of material (one of them a double too), hundreds of pounds worth of some of the rarest spoken word records for around $25.

Imagine a super-hip disc jockey priest with a baritone deeper than a well, caught in the middle of the swinging sixties, keeping the faith whilst also being down with the kids. Rydgren embraced rock n roll rather than damned it as the devil’s music and his observations on the sex, drugs and hippy movement he saw around him were shot through with an eye on the bigger picture.

Tracks are mostly short and to the point, from one minute to three on average so you can dip in wherever you like (one concentrated listen may be a little too much). But there’s also the side long sermon-like ‘Cantata Of New Life’ which is quite a trip.

The whole package has been immaculately put together by David Thrussell with materials from my collection (those label, cover and photo images are all largely scanned from my records and books). It joins the short list of reissues I’ve worked on over the years from Sesame Street‘s ‘Pinball Number Count’, to The Dragons‘ ‘B.F.I.’ LP to Double Dee & Steinski‘s unfinished ‘Lesson 4’.

Check out one of his most celebrated pieces, ‘Hippie Version of Creation’

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Themes For Great Cities

After visiting Dusseldorf last month and being introduced to the Themes For Great Cities vinyl-only label from the city I can’t get enough of certain releases from them. Wolf Muller produces the kind of afro-centric beat driven electronica I’m sure exists but never seem to find. His ‘Lagerfeuer Tanz EP’ is a fantastic 4 track trip into an undiscovered land where shamanic drum rituals have been picking up broadcasts of minimal techno mixtapes and weaving them into their own groove.

The multi-artist ‘Mogul 2’ 12″ has a motorik mix of retro electronica courtesy of four different bands and comes in a striking Neu! 2-homaging sleeve. A mysterious 10″ under the title ‘Edits Des Amateurs’ features three rhythm tracks oozing pure funk but never much deviating from their mission to stay in the pocket until they reach their destination.

The sleeves are screen-printed and stamped in collaboration with the local Slowboy record store, which has one of the finest collections of music old and new I’ve ever seen. Check out some of the releases below and visit their Soundcloud for more.


Posted in Music, Records. | 2 Comments |

Terminal Radio Transmission: FSOL 2 hr tribute mixes

A new mix series called Terminal Radio has just launched by fans and musicians from the FSOL online message boards. Members from around the globe were asked to make a 15 minute mix each and eight of these were collected and mixed together into a 2 hour trip.

Each volume will feature eight more alternate universes converging into one super quadaural meta-brain: (says Craig who has organised all this). If you’re a fan of the Future Sound of London there’s a lot here that will be right up you’re street.

Transmission 1:

Transmission 2:

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

John Rydgren on the Omni Recording Corporation

Earlier this year I was contacted by David Thrussel who runs the Omni Recording Corporation label in Australia. He was interested in reissuing John Rydgren recordings and – knowing that I had a pretty decent collection – needed someone who knew the material. He also needed imagery and good quality scans of cover art, which I provided from the LPs I had and the super-rare book Rydgren published, ‘Tomorrow Is A Handful of Together Yesterdays’ .

Finally after months of additional research, liner note editing and remastering in NYC being halted by Hurricane Sandy – the 2CD 64 track reissue of the bulk of John’s best work is here.

For anyone familiar with Rydgren’s work, ‘Silhouette Segments’ is the album to get, originally a double LP sent only to radio stations but later edited down and bootlegged as a single record, it is restored and remastered in full here on the first CD. The two other LPs on many collector’s wants lists are ‘World of Youth’ and ‘Cantata For New Life’ – both feature here in their entirety too and, whilst not as ‘hip’ as ‘Silhouette…’, they are full of great material.

Even rarer, so much so that it’s virtually unknown, is an album titled, ‘They Say’, full of 20 Silhouette Segments for radio broadcast and, along with the two former albums, never reissued or bootlegged before. The release comes with a booklet packed with photos, cover scans and liner notes from collectors and those who worked with ‘Brother John’ before he passed away.

I’m very pleased to be rounding out the year having had a hand in this release. Check out some of the other reissues via Omni or the vinyl counterpart, Roundtable.

Posted in Music. | 4 Comments |

Skeewiff – Pinball Number Count (Combo Breaker remix)

I only just heard this, a great remix of Walt Kramer‘s ‘Pinball Number Count’ by Skeewiff. With all the 12/12/12 malarky yesterday someone posted it on my Facebook page and it’s excellent. Hop over to Skeewiff’s YouTube Channel and check it out along with many of their other releases. They do a great line in cover versions as well as their own tracks, I’ve ended many a night with their version of ‘Soul Bossanova’.

Several others have also done 3D animated versions and put them on YouTube



This one has ADD with the pitch control


and of course, there’s the Family Guy version. If you still need more after this there are some hilarious versions from foreign Sesame Street episodes with dubbed counting in different languages on YouTube.

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Smithsonian Folkways Recordings

Did you know that almost the entire Folkways label is available online to order and nearly every one of over 2,000 releases isn’t ever supposed to be out of print?

When the label was acquired by the Smithsonian Institute one of the wishes of founder, Moses Asch, was that virtually all of the catalogue was to be kept in print.

You can currently order any release on their site as a custom CD, a download or even a cassette! No vinyl as that just wouldn’t be practical but there’s eBay, Discogs and used stores for that. This is just a handful of my favourite sleeves from nearly 100 pages of releases.

There’s also a nice little feature on Ronald Clyne who designed over 500 of the sleeves and is widely recognised as the originator of the Folkways house style. Unit Editions did a beautiful newspaper-style release about his work a few years back which is now sadly sold out.

Posted in Music. | 1 Comment |

Ed Piskor’s Hip Hop Family Tree comics

This is so well done, the unfolding history of Hip Hop, drawn by Ed Piskor in the style of old 70’s underground comics by Crumb or Pekar. Starting in 1975 and continuing on into the 80’s Ed has been putting chapters on Boing Boing and they will be collected next year in print form. Love the yellowed paper, faded ink and retro vibe of it all, I wonder if he’ll change style as he moves along to mirror the historical changes in art?

Posted in Comics, Music. | 2 Comments |

A graphic tribute to Pete Namlook and Fax records

I can’t begin to pretend I’ve heard even a couple of dozen releases on Pete Namlook‘s Fax +49-69/450464 label (to give it its full title). But those that I did hear, and own, have stuck with me. Releases like Air (not the french duo who came later), Alien Community, Silence, Dark Side of the Moog, Sequential, Sea Biscuit and Dreamfish are all part of the ambient resurgence of the early to mid 90’s. Dreamfish was the moniker of Pete Namlook’s collaboration with Mixmaster Morris, who was a huge champion of the label and got some of it licensed to the Rising High label in the UK.

Namlook (Kuhlmann backwards, see what he did there?) was releasing an album a week at one point, starting off at around 500 copies on CD and progressing to 1-2000 at one point. He had a bewildering array of colour coded releases on various sub-labels, at least half of which he either recorded solo or collaborated on. The poster above is only a select number of titles, probably ranging somewhere from the early to late 90’s and doesn’t include any vinyl from the same time. Constant collaborators like Bill Laswell, Klaus Schulze, Ritchie Hawtin, Dr Atmo, Atom Heart, David Moufang and Charles Uzzel-Edwards (aka Pure Evil) are just some of the names you can find in the credits on the many releases from Fax.

I’d been thinking of doing a poster like this for some time, just to see what it would look like to put a ton of the earlier Fax releases together. Unfortunately it took the early demise of the label’s founder and driving force to make it happen. At one time you could spot a Fax record a mile off by the circular design, the Bauhaus font and an image that usually had early Photoshop filter experiments :) When out-sourcing design work to other people (in the case of Daniel Pemberton‘s ‘Bedroom’ album that I laid out) there were strict instructions and templates that had to be adhered to, everything had to fit into the label look. These instructions arrived by fax of course…

R.I.P. Peter Kuhlmann / Pete Namlook.

Download a high-res version of the poster HERE

Posted in Design, Music. | 20 Comments |

Jim Mahfood ‘Ask For Janice’ Paul’s Boutique mag

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A new remix edition of Jim Mahfood’s classic, out of print 2007 mini-comic all about the ‘Paul’s Boutique’ album has just been released (see cover of the original version, left). For serious music heads and comic book fans alike, the man who did the illustration for our ‘Caught In The Middle Of A 3 Way Mix’ has updated his ode to the Beastie’s classic LP.

Each track is dissected with lyrics, samples and making-of facts alongside illustrations referencing the subject matter. It’s a beautiful tribute to the album, which Jim has said he listens to at least once every week, and made him the first choice for an image when we were compiling our mix.

The new version features a brand new wrap-around cover, new inside front and inside back cover art, 32 pages, black ink printed on light yellow paper. Signed and numbered by Jim. Also available, the new ‘Paul’s Boutique’ Limited Edition Giclee Print and the ASK FOR JANICE Funk Pack. Dig it! Available here…

Posted in Comics, Music. | No Comments |

Pepe Deluxé – Queen of the Wave Deluxe version

When Pepe Deluxé do anything they don’t do it by halves, in fact they go the whole nine yards and then add a load more into the mix for good measure. What emerges is music and imagery so multi-layered it requires repeat listens to pierce the surface and process the motherlode of information contained within.

One of the reasons I love Pepe is because there is genuinely no one like them, they are a one-off and a band seemingly working in and across separate time zones whose records sound so out of place you wonder if they’ll ever even find reappraisal 20 years down the line. This isn’t a criticism, it’s to be admired that a band can strike out so single-mindedly whilst ignoring any current forms of music that are deemed ‘hip’ and ‘cool’. In fact it’s testament to Pepe and Catskills for leaving off the many remixes they’ve had over the last releases as, with the exception of Husky Rescue‘s cover of ‘Supersonic’, none of them came close to Pepe’s vision and sounded like they were trying to force the band into a modern day setting (sorry guys, just my opinion).

The new Deluxe version of their ‘Queen of the Wave’ album is no different, in fact it ups the ante considerably and throws everything AND the kitchen sink at you over 2 CDs, a DVD and a 64 page booklet inside a hard backed book. The original album is present but the ‘Esoteric Pop Opera In Three Parts’ has suddenly expanded to three discs, the second with versions, new and unused tracks and an easy-listening style EP of selected songs. The DVD includes videos for singles both new and old as well as stems for budding remixers. Everything about it says EPIC, the original album is one in itself but bolstered by the 2nd disc, DVD and a book that has crammed enough material for 100 pages into 64 then the deal is sealed.

No space is left un-filled and we learn everything from recording history to how they shot the video for ‘Night & Day’ with real magic tricks and all. The book shouldn’t work, it breaks so many rules of what good design is with up to 10 different fonts competing for space on any one page and a layout that’s more scrapbook than grid. Yet it does work and adds to the music is so many ways, placing the album visually between steampunk and psychedelia with nods to Tiki and Analogue electronics from the golden age. One minute you think you’re looking at an issue of Practical Electronics then it’s a poster in the style of a traveling circus or a Richard Hamilton-esque collage.


Anyway, enough of me blathering on, check the video below as it’s another brilliant Pepe production with the classic ‘Virtual Chicken Little Funk Operator’ set to become legendary. You can BUY the deluxe package from Catskills HERE.

Posted in Books, Design, Music, Packaging. | 1 Comment |

Love, love, love!

It’s been a bit quiet on the blog these last two weeks because I’ve been busy finishing the fulldome show for this weekend’s FulldomeUK2012 (tickets still available) and gigging in Tel Aviv, Berlin and Bucharest. There’s loads of stuff to come when I can find time to photograph and upload it all though. The studio is a mess, I can’t find anything without moving piles of crap, I need a day to sort stuff out but today won’t be it unfortunately.

Also this Sunday sees an appearance at The Regeneration Festival at the Tabernacle in London that runs for Saturday and Sunday and features Time & Space Machine, Wolf People, Bardo Light Show, talks and films on the psychedelic experience.
Besides that there’s all sorts of things going on behind the scenes as we prepare for 2013 and Solid Steel being 25 years old, starting with a new residency in Brighton at the Blind Tiger, starting this Friday with DK with support from 2econd Class Citizen and Banks.

Coming up: The 4xLP repress of ‘The Search Engine’ – yep, still not done, we went back and changed the cover from a heavy card gatefold to a quad foldout gatefold (remember the limited edition Paul’s Boutique LP? yes, like that), so I have to reconfigure the artwork this week.

Currently finishing a mix for Solid Steel that has a high proportion of music I was given in Israel, both old and new that is up there with the best of anything currently released on labels like Finders Keepers or Now Again (see the post of Markey Funk‘s ‘The Mystery of Mordy Laye & The Group Modular‘).
On Saturday I was lucky enough to get a ticket to the ‘Man Machine’ performance by Kraftwerk in Dusseldorf next January (thanks Tony Morley!) so I will be doing Kraftwerk Kover Kollection vol.8 to coincide with that early next year (the group are doing their 8 albums over 8 nights thing in their home town in case you didn’t hear, tickets sold out in less than 2 hours).

Posted in DJ Food, Gigs, Music. | 1 Comment |

Beta Hector – Trust Me (The Simonsound Remix)


Wow, this is right up my street. A video collage for The Simonsound remix of Beta Hector‘s ‘Trust Me‘, featuring clips from Psychomania, Mala Morska Vila mixed with oil projections performed on overhead projector. The original song, featuring Rosi Lalor on vocals, is re-imagined by The Simonsound as mythical adventure story, told using analogue synthesisers, Optigan orchestra, home made percussion, pre recorded flute replayed and performed on reel to reel tape machine, and a scattering of voices plucked from the ether.

Available as a free download from Tru Thoughts Records

Posted in Film, Music. | No Comments |

The Mystery of Mordy Laye & the Group Modular

I’ve just come back from Tel Aviv and while I was there I met Markey Funk, whose ‘Go Ask Alice’ image and mix I posted by complete coincidence earlier this week. He gave me a load of records including his latest album ‘The Mystery of Mordy Laye’ as well as a DVD with 3D glasses.

If you love radiophonic / moog / library / space beats then this is the album for you. The nearest I can pitch it is The Simonsound LP by DJ Format & Simon James on First Word last year. I definitely recommend this record, check out the album and the intriguing back story on their bandcamp page. On the same label, Audio Montage – also the home to The Apples – are a number of 45’s of old and new psyche, funk, surf, sitar material and the same goes for the Fortuna label which is only 2 releases old.

Posted in Music, Records. | 1 Comment |

Raj Pannu – The Old Grey Whistle Twist

I’d love to embed this video but The Space site doesn’t let you unfortunately. Instead, if you click the image you can watch Raj Pannu‘s excellent 18 minute cut up of vintage Old Grey Whistle Test footage. You may know of Raj as the AV tour DJ with Coldcut or maybe witnessed one of his amazing solo DJ sets over the years in clubs all over the world. Either way, this is worth 20 minutes of your time.

Posted in Film, Music. | 1 Comment |