Openmind designs

Items created by by design alter-ego, Openmind

Christmas Collector Countdown 2023 #21: The Clerkenwelll Kid – Junkshop Melodies CD

JM lot2 A daily post throughout December of records, CDs, books, comics or other ephemera that I’ve bought or been given recently from independent artists, labels or publishers who would welcome your support.

#21. The Clerkenwell Kid – Junkshop Melodies CD
A solo album from The Clerkenwell finally, another Stephen Coates alias and a final design credit for 2023 for me. Housed in a printed tin, with CD, colour insert, TRTW badge, Clerkenwell Kid card and what is that array of mini cards fanned out at the bottom? Not actually out until January but keep an eye on The Real Tuesday Weld Bandcamp page in the new year.

https://therealtuesdayweld.bandcamp.com/

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Christmas Collector Countdown 2023 #5: The Real Tuesday Weld – Winter Warmers

WW tin lid CD card web
A daily post throughout December of records, CDs, books, comics or other ephemera that I’ve bought or been given recently from independent artists, labels or publishers who would welcome your support. 


WW tin lid 1 web
#6. The Real Tuesday Weld – Winter Warmers 3” CD
As is the custom, each December brings a 3” CD release from Stephen Coates aka The Real Tuesday Weld. This is a companion to the soon-to-be-released Camberwell Kid album and the fifth Xmas CD I’ve designed for him.
https://therealtuesdayweld.bandcamp.com/album/winter-warmers

https://therealtuesdayweld.bandcamp.com/

WW cards web

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Wonders of the Underwater World covers

Jonny Cuba WOTUW
I want to start a post to document photos of the Jezz Woodroffe covers I see that have been decorated with the sticker sheet provided inside. This fantastic electronic synth soundtrack is available now on Trunk Reords and only the first pressing will have the stickers so if you want a copy get it here before they’re gone.
The above cover is by Johnny Cuba (he promises to do the back soon) and the couple below are by Jason Applin.

Jason Applin back
Jason Applin front
SusansLegPolicy goes for the minimal details below and we finish off with animated Jonny Trunk‘s film…

SusansLegPolicy back 2
SusansLegPolicy back
SusansLegPolicy front


Jonny sent me this stunner from Darren Hall that has a little story to go with it;
“I fought my record nerd urge to keep my copy pristine, and i won, so i gave it to my 11 year old to apply the stickers. He tells me there is a story. The two lower divers are being menaced by pointy toothed sharks so a third diver is coming to their rescue. Meanwhile two other divers, evidently not arsed at all about the perilous situation of their colleagues, are filming some cool fish”.

Darren Hall cover
This just in from Davidboyt84… nice use of fish wrapping round to the back cover there

Davidboyt84
Simon Bowker Heighes has gone a step further and saved sharks for the labels as well as having divers explore the Jezz Woodroffe logo and some nice fish pairing up on the back cover.

SBH A
SBH B
SBH cover
SBH back
This just in from Jolyon Green

Jolyon Green cover

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New Infinite Illectrik release – Locked Loop Group and more

ii015 cover web2
Out today – ii15 – Locked Loop Group – Phonomontages #15.1-4 – a mini album of four techno-centric Quadraphon turntable workouts on the heavier side of things. Of course it’s also Bandcamp Friday today which is when 100% of the revenue for all releases bought goes to the artists and labels on the platform.

These are nearly the last of the sessions that I recorded earlier this year in preparation for the Ramsgate Music Hall gig (which has just celebrated 10 years as a venue!). I’m hoping to get one more release out by the end of the year and there are some other pieces I’m saving for a label compilation that may come in cassette form in the new year which will tie up this phase of my label, Infinite Illectrik. There are a few more pieces floating around though; one will be coming out on a compilation early next year, another two will be part of a physical release on a new label at some point in 2024 too, more on that when I’ve finished the design. The Quadraphon is getting a companion soon which may change the whole set up and I also want to work on the hole in the catalogue, ii03, which still isn’t underway and is a very different beast.

Also just out: part 2 of James In Real Life‘s ‘Duplokit’ build series


His Duplokit Infinite Illectrik release: https://duplokit.bandcamp.com/album/phonocollage-131-132
Support him on Patreon for more videos and exclusive audio: www.patreon.com/JamesInRealLife

Dropping soon: video footage of Graham Dunning and I at Iklectik earlier this year for Fog Fest.
You may have heard the news but it seems the venue’s numbered days may be even shorter than anticipated. The whole of the Waterloo Paradise complex that houses the venue and several other businesses and art studios now faces eviction before Xmas when they were previously told there would be none until the proposed development deal was finalised and demolition due to begin. Due to their campaign to fight the site being levelled to make way for office buildings they now believe that the eviction notice has been accelerated to remove any resistence from the land despite demolition proceedings being way off into the future. Please read their latest statement here and help spread the word.

Graham and I play at the NEXT Festival on modified turntables on Nov 29th in Bratislava, Slovakia.

Design work has been relentless since September (I’m not complaining) with multiple zoetropes in the works, an album for The Real Tuesday Weld under a new alias, work for De:tuned that should be announced in December and work for Castles In Space. This is alongside writing assignments for the second Dust & Grooves book, my weekly Mixcloud Select uploads and research for another book.

Delights OOTW
This Sunday sees a Delights special radio show for Out Of The Wood at the Book & Record Bar in West Norwood alongside Paul Osbourne (Project Gemini) and Hannah Brown with special guest Markey Funk beaming in live from Jerusalem. Sadly because of the war in Israel he won’t be able to make it to the UK for a long projected trip and several gigs but this is as near as we can get, huge thanks to Pete Williams for sorting the technicals out. The show is an all 45 set from the four of us and you can listen back to all four sets here

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Jezz Woodroffe – Wonders of the Underwater World

IMG_6740This one’s been in the pipeline a while now but finally its time has come. Jonny Trunk asked me to repackage the cover to Jezz Woodroffe‘s 1981 album, ‘Wonders of the Underwater World’ over a year ago now but to turn it into a seascape that stickers could be used on to make your own scenario in the style of those old rub down tranfer books from the 70s. He looked for the old Letraset style transfer-makers but to no avail so we plumped for a transparent sticker sheet holding all manner of fish, divers and a SP-350 Denise mini sub as featured in the Jacques Cousteau documentaries.

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Elements of the seabed were generated using AI (well over a year ago now) and then collaged together for the cover and labels. We chose to keep the original typography as it’s so of its time and the insert with the album notes apes the wavey countours of the original back cover. The album is a synth-heavy soundtrack to a documentary about the Truk Lagoon, an infamous battleground which is now home to numerous sunken military vehicles; planes, tanks and boats which are slowly rotting on the sea bed.
You can order it right here and now
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KLF 23 Seconds To Eternity DVD

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KLF and Justified Ancients of Mu Mu watchers will have been excited by the news a few weeks back that not only had Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty delivered their entire recorded output to the British Library, warts and all, for the public to trawl through at will but they also announced a DVD of most of their film and video work which will be released in November. This is exciting enough but I was tickled to see the cover of the DVD featuring their classic ‘T Speaker’ on fire at night which bore more than a passing resemblance to a couple of the fake KLF posters I made back in 2003 to accompany Mr Trick‘s and my mix, ‘The Sound of Mu(sic)’. I messaged Jimmy and he confirmed that it was the inspiration which is mighty fine by me :). With the transferral of the KLF Re-enactment Society to the hands of fans (an online repository for any KLF-related homages or fan made artifacts) could this be the first case of a re-re-enactment instigated by the band I was spoofing?

FILM-POSTER-1-web
FILM-POSTER-5-720x1010

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Donna Summer zoetrope


It’s not every day that you get a text message saying that ‘Donna Summer‘s estate has approved your design’ but that’s what happened a few months back after I designed a zoetrope for the reissue of her ‘Another Place And Time’ album. I even shot and edited this little promo video, yep those are my hands and turntable. The album’s out today on picture disc with die-cut front cover – order here
Use the third party app StroboScopeApp to view it through an iPhone https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/stroboscopeapp/id1260603638

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June Infinite Illectrik release – The Infinity Curve

ii10 cover web
This month’s Infinite Illectrik release is two polyrhythmic percussion phonomontages by The Infinity Curve, one of several aliases for my Quadraphon turntable experiments. Recorded earlier this year and utilising an array of locked grooves from the drummer Julian Sartorius’ locked groove record, these are some of my favourite recordings so far and point in a direction I’d like to continue in.

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Humanoid – Sweet Acid Sound 12″

Humanoid cover
New artwork I created for the latest 4 track 12″ from Humanoid – out this Friday June 2nd on De:tuned records on black or red marbled vinyl and DL. A great slice of acid with a reworking of an old 808 State classic thrown in too.

Always a pleasure to work for this label and to get to design for artists and releases of this calibre is a dream. Just wrapping up another 12″ design for later in the year today.

Order here: https://detunedrecords.bandcamp.com/album/sweet-acid-sound

Humanoid back
Humanoid 303
Humanoid back red
Humanoid front red
Humanoid label A
Humanoid label B
Humanoid logo
Humanoid sticker

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New Infinite Iklectik releases

ii09 cover web
On May 1st 2020, in the midst of the first lockdown, I quietly started my online label, Infinite Iklectik. Like most people at the time, I was housebound and in the midst of a mass of creative activity now that all the hours of the day were mine. I was also about to turn 50 and thought it would be good to have my own label online by the time I turned half a century. The reason for creating a label of my own? I’d built the first version of the four-armed Quadraphon turntable the summer before and been recording all sorts of material on it to test it out.

Quadraphon Mk1

Created through simultaneously playing vinyl records with multiple locked grooves (infinitely looping single grooves) with four needles and then patching the individual channels through an FX pedal to build and alter rhythmic tracks, there was hours of audio to go through. Having time on my hands I’d slowly been editing down the jams to their highlights, careful to keep track of which records I’d used for each one. Now was the time to give them a home and Bandcamp was the most obvious place to easily host files that I had no intention of releasing in a physical format but wanted to see the light. Being that this material is very different to the music I release as DJ Food – and also the fact that I’m signed to Ninja Tune under that name – I elected to create a series of pseudonyms with a nod to the turntable more than anything to play the part of the various groups that would be signed to my label. It’s fun to play label manager, artist, designer, A&R and PR agent all on your own, I could do anything I liked without having to refer to others to sign anything off, guess I am a control freak sometimes.
ii Bandcamp
I uploaded seven releases on May 1st and a further Four Tet remix a month later and then nothing… Other work got in the way (not least three albums under the DJ Food, Celestial Mechanic and The New Obsolecents monikers) plus artwork duties and further improvements to the Quadraphon which would take another two years to complete. With a gig earlier this year at the Ramsgate Music Hall I started rehearsing and recording in earnest, again amassing a huge array of material, you can record albums worth in a matter of days with this thing. Anyway, to cut a long story short, three years on from the initial label debut I’ve readied a batch of releases which will be released monthly, the first being this Friday, May 5th, which is coincidentally my birthday.

Forthcoming releases:

ii coming soon 2

The keen-eyed will notice a new name on the list; jamesinreallife is from New Zealand and has unknowingly been working along the same lines as me with his own device for years too. I hadn’t intended to release anything but my own music on II but when he sent me some of his first recordings it was too good to ignore. More about him in time, his release is a way off yet and there’s much to discuss there. Anyway, here’s a short clip of the Ramsgate gig where I’m remixing the locked groove side of Four Tet’s ‘Sixteen Oceans’ LP live. I’ve been posting more clips on my Instagram and YouTube channels too.

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Ninja business

TCO MWTMC 20th
The Cinematic Orchestra are reissuing Man With A Movie Camera, their third album, in a 20th anniversary re-pressing this autumn along with a run of dates in Europe. The album will be issued in a foiled, embossed AND debossed tip-on cover with new sleeve notes and ashen and pewter grey vinyl. Below is a mock up of what it should look like (not made by me but my original artwork will be largely unchanged I’m told). More details here

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Also this Friday a new Ninja Tune presents Solid Steel page will arrive on Apple Music with a collection of mixes selected from the now defunct radio show by the label. One of mine will be included I’m told and this has come about because of recent changes whereby mixes are now able to be monetised on the platform whereby each artist played is accounted to so that mix sessions like this and the CD series will be able to be made available for streaming.

In non-Ninja business I have a release going up on May 5th on my own Infinite Illectrik label too via Bandcamp, this will kick off a string of monthly releases of my Quadraphon turntable experiments which will lead up to the end of the year. See a full post about that tomorrow.

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Openmind artwork dump

UNE CD front
It’s Bandcamp Friday today which means that 100% of the revenue goes to the artist or label if you buy music (physical or digital) from the Bandcamp site. Several releases that I designed artwork for are out today or up for pre-order. Check them out below.

Une – ‘Whirl’ CD on Spun Out Of Control
UNE CD inside
Paul ‘Damage’ Bailey – Subsurface’ 12″ on De:tuned
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Up For Pre-order:
AsOne – ‘AsOne2’ LP on De:tuned
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Humanoid – ‘Sweet Acid Sound’ 12″ on De:tuned
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Also recently released:
The Home Current with Peter Wix – ‘Controlled Sparks’ CD on Spun Out Of Control
Home Current CD

AsOne – The Unveiling 12″ on De:tuned
DE038LTD-Cover-mockup Coloured Vinyl

The Real Tuesday Weld – ‘Blood’ CD edition on Antique Beat
Blood CD expanded again

And if you want to support my music then there’s plenty to go round:
DJ Food page on Ninja Tune
https://djfood.bandcamp.com/
The Celestial Mechanic album I created with Saron Hughes to soundtrack Rian Hughes’ book, ‘XX’ on Utter
https://celestialmechanic.bandcamp.com/album/citizen-void
Infinite Illectrik – my digital-only label for Quadraphon turntable experiments (new music coming soon!)
https://infiniteillectrik.bandcamp.com/music
The New Obsolescents – my collaboration with Howlround on Castles In Space
https://thenewobsolecents-cis.bandcamp.com/album/the-superceded-sounds-of

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2022

The main thing I’ve been doing this year is learning new software, lots involving AI algorithms that still seem like some kind of strange magic.


It started last year with the Moises software that can split stereo sound files into individual stems which opens up all sorts of possibilities and continued with NightCafe Creator where you can create incredible images from inputting a line of descriptive text. This has yielded a huge bank of images to draw from, some that have already become record sleeve illustrations (I just didn’t tell anyone). It’s all old hat now because AI art is everywhere on the web with thousands of images flooding our feeds on a daily basis but when I first wrote these words in early 2022 it was extremely addictive, if at an infant stage in its development. Just in the last six months alone AI has taken huge leaps in definition and feels like a giant shift in the art of image-making even if still has trouble with hands, it’s certainly divided people’s opinions.
Another AI app is the Topaz suite of image enhancers, the foremost being Gigapixel AI, the best image enhancer / upscaler I’ve ever seen, this has become part of my daily usage now alongside Photoshop and Indesign as a necessary tool to clean up images along with its Denoiser and Sharpener sister apps.
I (finally) got myself an iPad so that I could learn Procreate and again, a whole new world opens up with the possibilities this incredible app gives you. I never could justify getting a tablet, but seeing one of my sons drawing on his, wanting to go digital with some of my comic-buying and having a decent surface to learn Ninja Jamm on made it a necessary piece of kit. Learning to paint on it with one of my sons was among one of my favourite moments this year.
In the analogue world another revelation was a record cutting process pioneered by Ben Soundhog at Plastidisc where software that can convert an image into a waveform then cuts that image as a playable disc. The possibilities are endless and you can make a record without even playing one note.

QMk3 set up
My own experiments with the refining of my Quadraphon turntable have made for a sleeker, more portable and adaptable design along with the fantastic 4 channel Omnitronic TRM-402 mixer and the Ninja Tune/Erica Synths Zen Delay FX unit. I can make analogue tracks via one deck on the fly and jamming with this set up can yield hours of material, a refreshing new way to make music. Also becoming an author on good old fashioned paper felt pretty good too, I think I might have the book bug now. I hope you all have a Happy New Year and a riproaring 2023…

Music 2022v2

Music:
Clocolan – Empathy Alpha LP (Redpan)
Brian Eno – The Lighthouse (Sonos HD)
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Omnium Gatherum LP (Flightless)
Twilight Sequence – Trees in General: and the Larch 12″ (Castles In Space)
WTCHCRFT – Drugs Here 12″ (Balkan Vinyl)
Ghost Power – Ghost Power LP (Duophonic Super 45s)
Dexorcist – Night Watch 12″ (Yellow Machines)
Project Gemini – The Children Of Scorpio LP (Mr Bongo/Garden’s End)
Regal Worm – Worm! LP (Quatermass)
The Advisory Circle – Full Circle LP (Ghost Box)
Fenella – The Metallic Index (Fire Records)
S’Express & Daddy Squad – Music 4 The Mind DL

Podcasts:
The Bureau of Lost Culture (Soho Radio)
Cartoonist Kayfabe (YouTube)
We Buy Records (We Made This)
The Jonny Trunk Podcast (Patreon)
Oh God, What Now? (Podmasters Prod.)
The Tone Generation – Ian Helliwell
Peel Acres – Tom Ravenscroft (BBC Sounds)
The Bunker (Podmasters Prod.)

Events 2022

Gigs / Events:
Lux @ 180 Strand, London
Victor Vasarely – Universe exhibition @ Selfridges, London
Premier of Who Killed The KLF? @ Leake St, London
The Orb play U.F.Orb @ The Fox & Firkin, London
Bring The Paint festival, Leicester
Staying in a restored Futuro House, Somerset
Fogfest @ Iklectik, London
Glissando Guitar Orchestra @ Club-85, Hitchin
Funki Porcini’s Lasarium @ Iklectik, London
Wheels of Light launch event @ Raven Row, London
The Trunk Groovy Record Fayre @ Mildmay Club, London
At Home With The Boyle Family film launch @ Iklectik, London
Magnetic Flow exhibition, @ LaVallée, Brussels

Design 2022

Design / Packaging:
Night Cafe / Midjourney – the most fun/frustrating web AI creation tools
Jed St. Christopher – The Further Diffusion of Useful Knowledge 10″ lathe cut (Buried Treasure) by Nick Taylor
Twilight Sequence – Trees in General: and the Larch 12″ (Castles In Space) by Zeke Clough
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Ominium Gatherum LP by Jason Galea
Sculpture – Malculus / Photo Synth 7″ + zoetrope pack by Rueben Sutherland
The Advisory Circle – Full Circle LP (Ghost Box) by Julian House
Clay Pipe Mini Pipe 3″ CD series by Francis Castle
Monochrome Echo – The City & The Stars LP (Castles In Space) by Nick Taylor
Drumetrics – Phuzzle 10″

Artists incorporating AI into their work:
Ko_Computer
Douggy Pledger
Alex Klim
Will Toulan
Scott Wetterschneider
Stuart Smith
Steve Scott (image below by Steve Scott)

Steve Scott

Books comics 2022

Books / Magazines / Comics:
Grrrl Scouts – Jim Mahfood (Image)
99 Balls Pond Road – Jill Drower (Scrudge Books) – now reprinted in text-only paperback and retitled ‘The Exploding Galaxy: Performance Art, LSD and Bent Coppers in the Sixties Counterculture’ – an absolute must for 60s counter culture historians
Radio Spaceman – Mike Mignola & Greg Hinkle (Dark Horse)
Mental Hygiene – Kate Gibb
A-Z of Record Shop Bags – Jonny Trunk (Fuel)
Mud Sharks – Dave Barbarossa
Good Pop, Bad Pop – Jarvis Cocker (Vintage)
House Music – Andy Votel (The Modernist)
Judge Dredd – Brian Bolland (Apex Edition)
Contemporary Collage magazine (digital)
Defying Gravity – Jordan Mooney w. Cathi Unsworth
The Delaware Road deluxe edition – Alan Gubby, Dolly Dolly (Buried Treasure)
69 Exhibition Road – Dorothy Max Prior (Strange Attractor)
Judge Dredd – Mike McMahon (Apex Edition)
It’s Lonely At The Centre Of The Universe – Zoe Thorogood (Image Comics)
The Black Locomotive – Rian Hughes (Picador)

Film /TV:
The Book of Boba Fett (Disney+)
Get Back (Disney+)
Who Killed The KLF?
Pistol (Disney+)
The Boys (Amazon Prime)
In The Court of the Crimson King (Toby Aimes)

2022 Efforts2

Another year over and what have I done?
Finished The Real Tuesday Weld’s ‘Dreams’ LP/CD and ‘Late Night Reveries’ cassette artwork
Appeared on the Bureau of Lost Culture podcast, 45 Live show, mixed an episode of new online show, Genius & Soul (still not broadcast)
Re-designed an old classic logo for The Herbsmen
Adapted The Designers Republic’s Humanoid artwork for a FSOLDigital CD release
Designed Hawksmoor’s ‘Head Coach’ CD for Spun Out Of Control
Recorded with Dave Barbarossa for a future music project
Finished and published the Wheels of Light book for Four Corners Books with press coverage from The Quietus, Shindig!, The Observer, Velocity Books, Moonbuilding, Electronic Sound, Creative Review and more.
Had a track featured on the Diary of a Madman compilation on Bibliotapes in aid of Ukrainian Red Cross
Refined my Quadraphon turntable into a Mk.3 version
Got featured in the 2000AD Summer Special, music edition, talking about my love of the comic
Made a record by etching a playable image into a disc
Compiled, remixed and edited 30 years worth of games footage for DICE’s anniversary, making an 11 minute version then condensing it into 90 seconds.
Redesigned The Cinematic Orchestra’s ‘Every Day’ LP for the 20th anniversary edition from original design concepts
Designed Stasis, AsOne, Paul ‘Damage’ Bailey and Humanoid 12″s and reinterpreted Mike Dred’s ‘OverMind’ LP art for De:tuned
Also designed the AsOne2 LP for De:tuned
Had a collage featured in Contemporary Collage magazine
Mixed a new religious-themed set for the Tales To Enlighten 2 Kickstarter
Reformatted Dave Barbarossa’s Mud Sharks book for publication.
Interviewed Zoe Lucky Cat Baxter, Andy Votel, Alex Paterson and DJ Format for Dust & Grooves book 2.
Designed The Real Tuesday Weld’s 3″ CD Xmas card.

RIP:
Sidney Poitier, James Mtume, Meatloaf, Barry Cryer, Ian Kennedy, Douglas Trumbull, Bamber Gascoigne, Betty Davis, Jan Pieńkowski, Philip Jeck, Chantal Passamonte, Garry Leach, June Brown, Jordan, David McKee, Klaus Schulze, Neal Adams, George Perez, Vangelis, Rat Records, Alan Grant, Bob Rafelson, Bernard Cribbens, Olivia Newton-John, Lamont Dozier, Raymond Briggs, Queen Elizabeth II, William Klein, Jean-Luc Godard, Ramsey Lewis, Pharoah Sanders, Kim Jung Gi, Robbie Coltrane, Joyce Sims, Keith Levene, Nik Turner, Wilco Johnson, Tom Philips, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, Manuel Gottsching, Terry Hall, Martin Duffy, Mike Hodges, Pelé, Vivienne Westwood, Anita Pointer.

Looking forward to:
The Out in 2000AD
Supporting the Art of Noise at the Jazz Cafe on Jan 4th/5th
Conform to Deform – The Weird & Wonderful World of Some Bizarre – Wesley Doyle (Jawbone Press)
The The – 1$ One Vote 7″ (Lazarus)
The conclusion of The Real Tuesday Weld’s Swan Songs trilogy?…
Tales To Enlighten: The New Testament
The Kevin O’Neill Apex Edition (Rebellion)
The return of Rave Wars
Spider-Man – Across The Spider-Verse

The Out 2023

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Mini CDs #29: The Real Tuesday Weld – Mid Winter Melodies

TRTW MWM deck

This always comes round so quickly, for the last four years I’ve designed the 3″ Xmas card for Stephen Coates‘ project The Real Tuesday Weld. The previous years have seen a complicated fold out origami cover which sometimes sent us insane but this year we’ve let you do the folding with this build-it-yourself Antique Beat Stereogram and vinyl effect 3″ CD. The five tracks on it are new or exclusive and point the way towards the final release in the Swan Songs trilogy, Bone, which will hopefully appear next year to accompany Blood and Dreams as the curtain falls on Stephen’s two decade long alias. You can find Mid Winter Melodies here

TRTW MWM cardTRTW MWM card back
TRTW MWM CD
TRTW MWM makingTRTW MWM deck back
TRTW MWM deck made
TRTW MWM platter side
TRTW MWM platter

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Bandcamp Friday Openmind artwork selection

Yeti Janko cover
It seems it doesn’t rain, it pours, suddenly several releases I’ve done the sleeve design for are all on sale or pre-order this week. Above and below is Janko Nilovic and Yeti on the Pads 7″ I did during one of the Covid lockdowns using a collage from around 10 years ago as the front cover, this has taken years to come to fruition.
Buy hereYeti Janko back
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Next is a very new design that I’ve only just signed off for print, The Real Tuesday Weld‘s annual 3″ CD Xmas card is a buildable stereogram with mini vinyl effect 5 track CD. Order here There’ll be more from them next week…
MWM card
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DE038LTD-Cover-mockup Coloured Vinyl
At last Kirk Degorgio‘s ‘The Unveiling’ 12″ is revealed, this comes in black and black vinyl variants from those lovely De:tuned people. Take your pick here

DE038-Cover-mockup Black
TCO Every Day 20th front inside And, as previously mentioned, The Cinematic Orchestra‘s 20th anniversary edition of their ‘Every Day’ album went on sale yesterday, remade and revised from an original graphic concept I had when first designing the artwork in 2002. Pre-Order now

TCO Every Day 20th front
TCO Every Day 20th back

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The Cinematic Orchestra – Every Day (20th Anniversary Edition)


Finally I can talk about this, it’s been in the planning since the summer and now it’s announced. A 3xLP reissue of The Cinematic Orchestra‘s ‘Every Day’ album with extras, revised artwork and a gatefold sleeve. I was asked by Jason Swinscoe to remake the album art from the original files but go back to an early concept (actually the first version) that I’d submitted in 2002.

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I was happy to do this as I’d never been entirely happy with how the original artwork finally turned out so this was a chance to have a second go and I am really happy with how it’s turned out. Pre-order yours here also here for Bandcamp Friday

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Hawksmoor’s ‘Head Coach’ CD designs


A new release for Hawksmoor on the Spun Out Of Control label that I had the pleasure to design recently. Their first CD, it comes in a 4 panel digipak with a 12 pg booklet. The 11 track album centres around the alignment of the town of Milton Keynes with the summer solstice.
Pre-order up now Bandcamp
Pictured above are work in progress images including mood boards at various stages of the design of the album. A few of these I like as much as the finished version so I thought I’d share them here.

Hawksmoor SOOC CD1 cover

Initial picture research and ideas started in February, based around the new town of Milton Keynes and the architectural team altering the position of the town by a few degrees so that the main boulevards would align with the summer solstice sunset (all true).

Head Coach inside

Photography of local landmarks, maps, logos and road signage were all considered for a retro 70s look. If you search online there’s some amazing concept artwork dating back to the town’s initial conception. The light pyramid on the cover was a strong image that had to feature prominently, the roundabouts and maze too.

First layouts arrived mid Feb but a rethink was needed, a heavy workload elsewhere meant it was mid March before we started to get the initial look we ended up with. At each step I worked with James Hawksmoor and Gavin for SOOC to refine the designs to their taste. By April we’d nailed it aside from the fine detail but a trip to MK to photograph content for the booklet (not shown here) was needed to which Gavin gamely stepped up.

Head Coach back cover

More tinkering through a busy May and into June to refine the last details and it was done. Thankfully it will take weeks rather than months to manufacture due to it being the label’s first CD.

SOOC booklet pg 1

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Work in progress

IMG_5384
Way too much going on at the moment, loads of graphic design jobs ongoing, off to print or at the pressing plant. A few other bits ready to start, music simmering in the background and all sorts of things on the horizon. Not many gigs until the summer but that’s fine at the moment. Here are some things I’ve put my hand to recently, the image below is a Designers Republic design that I’ve been reformatting.

IMG_5386 IMG_5387 IMG_5388 IMG_5390 IMG_5391 IMG_5392

Below; I’ve been working on upgrading my Quadraphon turntable for a gig on March 10th at BSMT Space in Dalston where I’ll be soundtracking the private view of .EPOD‘s first solo exhibition.
RSVP [email protected] for free entry on the night – 6pm to 9pm

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EPOD BSMT flyer

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Mixcloud Select 86: DJ Food at Stealth – The Blue Note, Dec 7th 1995 – Part 2

Stealth tape 2 Dec 7th 1 Here’s part 2, DJ Food – PC and myself – on 4 decks at The Blue Note, Dec 7th, 1995 – a more drum n bass led set coming out of some Ninja business from Up, Bustle & Out and The Herbaliser. It’s possible, listening back, that these first two tracks aren’t PC and I but the end of either The Herbaliser or Coldcut’s DJ set and we start with the breakdown sample of Dirty Harry from the end of The Real Killer Pt.2. There are also sudden stops or breaks in the recordings where tapes must have run out and by the time they’re changed the music has moved on so I’ve crossfaded a couple of bits so there are no sudden stops or jump edits. The levels on a lot of it were up and down so I’ve done my best to make volumes a bit more consistent across the mix.

This is available as part of my Mixcloud Select subscription – £3 a month gets you an archive mix a week every Friday morning with tracklist and notes – you can sign up here and leave any time

At a couple of points there’s what seems to be a theremin being played over the top of the set, I’d completely forgotten about this but it lit a dim recollection of someone doing something like this, not Patrick or I though I hasten to add. The mix is rough and ready, straight from the central mixer we were both plugged into with no crowd noise sadly so it’s a little dry. Every rough mix, distorted level and jumping record can be heard but you get the sense that this is very live, improvised on the spot with vinyl and the occasional spoken word overlaid from CD. For some context, this is very early days of this kind of music being played in a main room of a club, not the back room/chill out, on a four deck set up with DJs facing each other on a club stage in London. There are a lot of unknown tunes in these sets, some PC’s and some mine, lesser known break beats and DnB tunes that Spotify can’t recognise and the old braincells won’t remember, I’m hoping people can spot some and fill in the blanks.
Stealth tape 2 Dec 7th 2
There was an odd jump at the end of this tape, from DnB to a sudden 130 tempo, the DAT must have either stopped or ended and there was a sudden change at Bushflange. We probably did the 45-33rpm trick and turned the deck off for a second so the tempo ran down and landed at a more techno pace then mixed into that at the slower speed. Bushflange have come up numerous times during these mix excavations and their tracks were always solid, strange that they weren’t remembered in the scheme of things. Owners of the Sunday At Bundy’s mix tape will probably recognise a couple of sections from this set as they were featured on that tape back in 1996.
Below is the original print file layout for the flyer, this was printed on gold card so the purple came out more a burnt umber brown as you can see by the tape inlay above that I made from a flyer.
blue note flyer 7th - AI55 web

Stealth T shirt crop
Remember, if you want a 1 of 100 commemorative Stealth T shirt then I think there are some left, follow this link, choose you colour, size and T shirt number from the ones left and place an order, once the 100 are sold there won’t be any more.
https://weare1of100.co.uk/limited-edition/dj-food-openmind/
Stealth ecru 242 sqStealth black white2 sq

Track list:
Up, Bustle & Out – Revolutionary Woman Of The Windmill
The Herbaliser – The Real Killer Pt.2 (Rooftop Prowler)
Larceny – Who Are You? (Aquasky mix)
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown (acappella on 33rpm)
Alex Reece & Wax Doctor – Detroit
DJ Vadim – Call Me
Photek – The Rain
The Pharcyde – Passin’ Me By (acappella)
Unknown
The Shamen – Transamazonia (LTJ Bukem mix)
Unknown
Incognito – Still A Friend Of Mine
Squarepusher – Male Pill 5
Dream Warriors – My Definition Of A Boombastic Jazz Style (acappella)
Fatboy Slim – Weekend Bonus Beats
Rae – Free Rolling
KRS One – Uh Oh
Cypress Hill – Scooby Doo
Unknown
Unknown
Bushflange – Cloud Cover
Plastikman – Helikopter
DJ Shadow – In/Flux
Colourbox – Baby I Love You So

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Mini CDs #28: The Real Tuesday Weld Xmas 2021 CD – Solstice Songs

TRTW Xmas 2021
For the third year running I’ve designed The Real Tuesday Weld‘s traditional 3″ CD Xmas card. We’ve returned to the fold out cover again but this will be the last of the trilogy. Folding so many by hand has proved too much for the Antique Beat worker elves this year and they’ve vowed never again. Not only is the new, 5 track, Solstice Songs CD available (above), but there will be a few sets of three including the 2019 and 2020 Xmas CDs available too.
TRTW 3xXmas back TRTW 3xXmas discs TRTW 3xXmas front

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