The selection of tracks I mixed together for the recent 6 mix show on 6 Music, hosted by Coldcut is now up on the new Ninja Tune XX Soundcloud page. No jingles or chat, direct from the source, my favourites from the recent XX box set. Check the XX page for more mixes including Eskmo and DJ Kentaro.
Radio
Coldcut host a 2 hour show celebrating the 20th anniversary of the label this Sunday on 6 Music’s 6 Mix show . Special mixes have been compiled by myself, Mr Scruff, Daedelus and Toddla T (doing a Roots Manuva special) showcasing tracks from the new XX compilations and Ninja classics. It starts at 8pm and will be available on the BBC’s Listen Again feature for a week afterwards.
3 years back I recorded a robot-themed mix for Solid Steel to coincide with the imminent release of the first Transformers film. I’d been meaning to do this for some time but this gave me the impetus and I crafted a little Transformers intro from various samples or tracks that sampled the robots in disguise. After that it’s mainly material from the 60’s and 70’s with that novelty look at robotics pre-Star Wars, what some would call ‘the golden age’.
I love this stuff, real oddity bin stuff, plenty of madcap psyche, dance craze records, vocoders and even a country ode to an electronic brain. A friend recently asked me to dig it out so here it is again.
I first heard of Moon Wiring Club through Jim Jupp’s Belbury Parish blog associated with the Ghost Box label and then later they cropped up on Jonny Trunk’s Original Soundtrack radio show with a very entertaining hour long interview. Their website is a joy to behold and contains all manner of info and pictorial lushness associated with the project. I snapped up the three CDs already released and entered into a correspondence with ‘the Club’ with a view to securing an exclusive Solid Steel mix.
And here it is, entitled ‘Confectioners Radiogram for Home Entertainment’, coupled this week with my own ‘Time For Tea’ mix (For Tea – 40 – geddit?) which also features copious lashings of their tracks as well as a trio from the Simonsound who will be guests on next weeks show. But more of that next week.
Solid Steel Radio Show 7/5/2010 Part 1 + 2 – Strictly Kev by Ninja Tune
Solid Steel Radio Show 7/5/2010 Part 3 + 4 – Moon Wiring Club by Ninja Tune
Here’s Blech 20.2 – actually recorded last December shortly after the Warp 20th gig in London. I’m playing I Love Acid at Ginglik this Saturday and doing a reprise of the set – all classic Warp material.
DK and I just hit 10,000 views of our ‘Now, Look & Listen’ AV mix on Vimeo after only 2 months. We’re pretty pleased considering it’s 78 minutes long! 
Thanks everyone who took the time to view even a part of it
In case you missed it:
DJ Food & DK present – Now, Look & Listen from Solid Steel on Vimeo.
More Volts: The Funky Eno by DJ Food
We’ve finally knocked the streaming problems that have plagued the Solid Steel site on the head and embedded file playable from Soundcloud directly into the page.
I’ve also got a mix up in the second hour this week called ‘More Volts: The Funky Eno’ – an hour long trip through the funked-up side of Brian’s output since the 70’s. Expect David Bryne, nonsense verse, Talking Heads, The Grid and a whole lot of slap bass.
A Shape Of Things Reader by DJ Food
I’ve just uploaded last weeks’ Solid Steel mix to Soundcloud – it’s a trip, it’s got a funky beat, and I can… oh, wait, that’s not right, (although it does include an old Beastie Boys track). As with the last ‘reader’ that accompanied the first EP, it showcases the tracks from the new record alongside, influences I was listening to at the time, the odd sample I used in it’s original form and also some of my favourite tracks from the tail end of 2009.
• Tracklistng:
The Simonsound – Tour De Mars (Project Blue Book)
John Murtaugh – Slinky (Unknown)
Anti Pop Consortium – The Solution (Big Dada)
DJ Food & DK – Sentinel (Shadow Guard) (Ninja Tune)
2econd Class Citizen – A World Without (Equinox)
The Slew – Robbing Banks, Doing Time (Ninja Tune)
Dudley Moore Trio – GPO Tower (Decca)
DJ Food – Brother John (Ninja Tune)
Alan Parker – The Free Life (a) (Whr)
The The – Tender Mercy (Lazarus)
DJ Food – Extract From Stolen Moments Too (Ninja Tune)
Beastie Boys – Do It (Grand Royal)
Anti Pop Consortium – Capricorn One (Big Dada)
King Cannibal – A Shining Force (Ninja Tune)
DJ Food – All Covered In Darkness (Mr P Beats/Vocal Remix) (Ninja Tune)
Deckard – Dignity Of Men (Equinox)
DJ Food – Giant (instrumental) (Ninja Tune)
Juice Aleem – Higher Higher (Big Dada)
The Slew – Battle Of Heaven & Hell (Ninja Tune)
DJ Food – Sentinel (Lunar Defence) (Ninja Tune)
Mulatu Astatke & The Heliocentrics – Anglo Ethio Suite (Strut)
DJ Food – All Covered In Darkness (Mr P In 3 Remix) (Ninja Tune)
Imogen Heap – Just For Now (Deep Design Just For Later remix) (Mp3)
Skylab – ? Pt.3 (Eye Q)
We’ve added Solid Steel to the Ninja Tune Soundcloud page as a separate set – now you can check it, post comments and even download at your convenience.
Check this link for the first one which is the audio from myself and DK’s Now, Look & Listen AV mix from before Xmas, you can even watch the video too if you click the button below the waveform.
I don’t usually do this kind of thing because it’s largely meaningless but a friend asked me to round up some favourites for the year so here they are. I have to say I’ve been very uninspired by a lot of new music in general this year hence the fact that a lot of this is retro sounding or backward looking and this list is by no means definitive, I’ll probably think of a load more tomorrow.
10 favourite new records for the year 2009 (in no particular order)
Oasis – Falling Down (Amorphous Androgynous – A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding In Your Mind Remix) 12″ (Big Brother)
The Slew – 100% LP (Ninja Tune)
Mr Chop – Lightworlds EP (Now Again)
The Simonsound – Reversed Engineering LP (CDR)
Antipop Consortium – Flourescent Black LP (Big Dada)
2econd Class Citizen – A World Without LP (Equinox)
Proof of Concept – X As In Box (reprise)
King Cannibal – Let The Night Roar LP (Ninja Tune)
Juice Aleem – Jerusalaam Come LP (Big Dada)
6 reissues / compilations of the year 2009:
Amorphous Androgynous – A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding In Your Mind Vol.2 CD (Platipus)
The Beastie Boys – Audio commentaries for Paul’s Boutique, Check Your Head, Ill Communication and Hello Nasty mp3 (Grand Royal)
Studio G – G Spots LP (Trunk)
John Hill – 6 Moons of Jupiter LP (Finders Keepers)
Foetus – Limb CD/DVD (Ectopic Ent.)
10 favourite DJ Mixes for the year 2009:
DJ Moneyshot – Beastie beats – Check Your Head sources
DJ Moneyshot – Rotten to the Core ’77 – John Lydon’s Capital Radio show recreated
DJ Cheeba – Solid Steel radio part 3
The Simonsound – Have You Heard?
Skywave Systems – A Boards of Canada mix
Grohs – Plundering Zizek
Lazy – Mind The Gap (KLF soundscape)
Zoon van Snook – Solid Steel mix April 09
The Broken Keys – Engine Oil & Elbow Grease mix
Passing Time with Lazy Pt.2 (Orb megamix)
Coming to Solid Steel next week – Part 1 of 2
Christian Tjaben does a bi-weekly radio show on byte.fm out of Hamburg. Today at 4pm GMT (5pm local German time) his programme looks at almost 20 years of dj food sounds including music from the new EP.
Tune in here
Last weeks’ Solid Steel mix – the Kraftwerk Kover Kollection vol.6 – now up on Soundcloud. 1 hour of songs covering, sampling or influenced by the other Fab Four. The full 6 volumes + artwork and track lists are up for the download at BosBos.net too!
Another Kraftwerk post (I’ll have to give them their own category) and time for the sixth installment of my Kraftwerk Kover Kollection to coincide with the final release of the remastered Catalogue box set on Monday.
It’s up for a week, streaming via the Solid Steel site and I’ll be making it available via Soundcloud when the next show replaces it.
For those unfamiliar, I do these hour long mixes every year or so featuring cover versions, sample-heavy tracks or songs that obviously owe a debt to the Dusseldorf quartet. I had the idea to string these sources together several years ago and the more I dug, the more I found, the amount of material out there is mind boggling. Not so strange for such an influential band who rarely release new material, I suppose fans have to fill the gap somehow. For anyone wanting to play catch-up, the first 4 are available here with full artwork and track listings and I’ll be putting 5 up with 6 next week too.
At a festival in Warsaw the other week, DK and I had the pleasure of seeing ex-Kraftwerk member Karl Bartos play. I was surprised at how much of the set was old material mixed with his solo stuff. His stage show pales compared to his former bands’ but he had full visuals and 5.1 sound all mixed live and hearing a new take on classic tracks was well worth the time we took to check him out.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation recently ran a documentary on copyright law in their Background Briefing slot on Sunday nights. They used some clips from my Raiding The 20th Century mix as well as Steinski, Lawrence Lessig, Dangermouse‘s Grey Album, Girl Talk, Good Copy, Bad Copy etc.
You can listen or download it here for a limited time
Last Friday we made No.2 and No.8 with the Ninja Tune and Solid Steel podcast respectively on the iTunes Music chart – whoohoo! Well done to DK and guests who put together the show with so much effort
A Weird World Reader by strictly
A trip through the new DJ Food EP ‘One Man’s Weird Is Another Man’s World’ featuring tracks, samples and influences that make it what it is.
A trip through the new DJ Food EP ‘One Man’s Weird Is Another Man’s World’ featuring tracks, samples and influences that make it what it is.
- Tracklist:
DJ Food feat Natural Self – The Illectrik Hoax (Ninja Tune)
Rare Bird – Hammerhead (ABC / Dunhill)
The Black Keys – Have Love Will Travel (Alive)
The Broken Keys – Razorblade (Tru Thoughts)
Mr Chop – The Infinity Machine (Now Again)
Oasis – Falling Down (Amorphous Androgynous Exploding Bubble remix) (Big Brother)
DJ Food – extract from Stolen Moments (Ninja Tune)
The Dragons – Soul Teacher (Rural Records)
Ken Nordine – Manned Satellite (Dot)
DJ Food – All Covered In Darkness (Ninja Tune)
The The – Giant (Some Bizarre)
Keno-1 and the Hermit – Heavy Heavy (Breakin Bread)
Grace Jones – Corporate Cannibal (Wall of Sound)
DJ Food – Tricky Little Ears (The Cheech Wizard Pays Respect To All Living Creatures Who Inhabit Dark Places remix by Bundy K Brown) (Ninja Tune)
DJ Food – A Trick of The Ear (Ninja Tune)
Grace Jones – Hurricane (Wall of Sound)
Bundy K Brown – Soldier of Fortune (Thrill Jockey)
Dr Rubberfunk – Sunset Breakdown (GPR)
Paul Weller – Sunflower (Lynch Mob dub) (Go Discs)
DJ Food – All Covered In Darkness Pt 2 (Ninja Tune)
DJ Food – Colours Beyond Colours (Ninja Tune)
It’s here, you wait for ages and then three come along at once. Yes I finally got round to releasing another record and it’s out today, a 30 minute EP on Ninja Tune called ‘One Man’s Weird Is Another Man’s World’. It features the vocal talents of Natural Self (yes, I said vocal) on lead track ‘The Illectrik Hoax’ and the nifty drums of Dr. Rubberfunk alongside the sampled vocals of Ken Nordine and The Dragons on ‘All Covered In Darkness’. Bundy K Brown is behind the board for ‘A Trick of the Ear’ and an old collaboration with PC makes it’s first appearance in the form of ‘extract from Stolen Moments’. 2000ad artist Henry Flint graciously provided drawings for the cover art to make it something worth having and holding when it folds out to an A2 sized poster. It’s available in the form of a 5 track 12″ with poster cover and download code or a 6 track mp3 bundle.
You can hear selections from it on my Soundcloud and buy it from iTunes / DJ Download / Play.com / Spotify / we7 / Ninja shop / HMV Digital / Bleep / Tune Tribe / 7 Digital / Juno / Boomkat
There’s an interview in the new Clash Music magazine including a free mp3 and a very nice review by Mark E on Ireallylovemusic
Not only is there a new record but the near mythical DJ Food site is finally ready, choc full of stuff from my Openmind alter ego design work past and present and a full DJ Food discography stretching back nearly 20 years. If you want to know anything about the records connected to this moniker over the years then it will be there along with gig dates, blogs, playlists and more. The site is divided into 4 sections: Diary, Design, Discography and Downloads and you can subscribe to the blog without going through myspace at last. It’s still a work in progress as there is so much to present, especially on the design side of things as most entries provide stories, alternate artwork and release info. A big thanks to Dean at Safe As Milk for all his hard work on making it what it is.
And finally, it’s a Solid Steel takeover this week with an hour long mix from myself based on the EP with tracks from all the contributors, some original sample sources and various things I that inspired the making of it. The second hour is a fantastic mix from The Broken Keys – aka Natural Self and Nostalgia 77 – called ‘Engine Oil and Elbow Grease’, stuffed to the brim with old funk, rock breaks and psyche. You can listen here.