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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Floating Points – Birth4000 single

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I was struck by the cover art to Floating Points‘ new single, ‘Birth4000’ the other week as it resembles the liquid light shows I so love. On further investigation, it seems that’s not far off as the artist, Akiko Nakayama, projects her ‘Alive Painting’ onto huge canvases from microscopic sizes. Her website is well worth some investigation and she made a video for the single which you can see below as well as a billboard that Ninja Tune showed off somewhere in London recently.

FP billboard

Upside Down Records

Philippe UpSideDown
There’s a new record shop coming to South East London and I couldn’t be happier as it’s run by my good friend Philippe of Rat Records fame. Currently nearing completion in Deptford, Upside Down Records will be part of a new building devoted to artist studio spaces and should be open by Xmas this year.

USD logo and sign
In the meantime Philippe is amassing stock for the shop so, if you’re looking to offload that vinyl collection then now’s the time to sell as Philippe is on a buying mission around the South East of the country, contact him via his website or Facebook page, give him a follow on Instagram to see latest buying trips and sign up to his mailing list for first dibs on what’s coming.

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Mixcloud Select 166: Strictly Session Coldcut 08/07/1995

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Summer 1995 was a busy time, Ninja Tune had released their first compilation, Ninja Cuts: Funkjazztical Tricknology in March which had bought in the first big flush of attention for the label and we were working on the Coldcut Journeys By DJ mix and the next DJ Food album, A Recipe For Disaster. We were still a few months away from the LP launch party at the Blue Note that would give birth to the infamous Stealth night but things were flowering for the label and its slowly expanding roster of artists like The Herbaliser, 9 Lazy 9, The London Funk Allstars, Up, Bustle & Out and Funki Porcini. Another label that was hitting a purple patch was Rising High who were diversifying out of the hardcore that had made their name with artists like Wagon Christ, Bedouin Ascent, Plug and Witchman. The opening track here is by Luke Vibert and comes from the label’s Further Self Evident Truths 2 compilation, a beautiful example of his Throbbing Pouch era trip hop and newly discovery love of drum n bass under his Plug alias.

Joe Nation released a sole 12” on the Chill Out Label and the group consisted of a certain Jonathan Moore – note the spelling of the surname – not the Jonathan More of Coldcut but someone who would go on to play a crucial role in the Ninja Tune label for some years to come. I think I’ve written about Jonathan before, largely under his Voda alias, he occupied a small studio in the same building as Ninja Tune in the 90s and later moved up to occupy the whole of the top floor of the building. He mastered recordings for a living as well as occasionally making music and he was in high demand as both the label and others around the area grew. You can see his Voda label and credit on many Ninja and Ntone releases of the time. He worked as an engineer on Mixmaster Morris’ third album, Coldcut’s records and also engineered the collaboration Coldcut and I did with Grandmaster Flash. I really liked him and, as his empire grew, he eventually moved out and had a large studio up in Soho, mastering, editing and duplicating for all and sundry. The last job I remember doing with him was the remastering for the Cookie Monster/Pinball Number Count 12” that the label released as well as cutting a video for it at his place which would place it around 2003 I think. I looked him up and and he now lives in Bristol and runs a TV subtitling service, I hope he’s well.

More DnB with Danny Breaks from an early Droppin’ Science release, remixed by Origin Unknown, I was still working part time in Ambient Soho around this time and would grab these releases when they came in. Others I would grab were anything on the Pharma label out of Germany, usually on coloured vinyl and a mixture of downtempo acid and electro from the Air Liquide/Jammin’ Unit/Cem Oral/Khan collective with a million aliases. The two tracks here from Kerosene and Zulutronic were from the label’s first two releases and the label would be active for the next five years releasing a mixture of dubbed out acid beats and bleeps. Now, a slight diversion but bear with me, it is relevant to what comes next.

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A funny thing happened to me the other day as I was walking down the back streets of Peckham, looking at stickers on lamp posts and eyeing up a particularly decorated one that D’Face had stuck about ten different designs on. A man walking his dog passed by and suddenly asked if I was Kev? Yes, I replied, not sure if someone had played a trick on me and stuck a label on my back. Turns out he follows me on Instagram and had seen I lived locally, posted a lot of street art bits and also had a connection to Leicester. We got chatting and he revealed that not only did he come from there but also made music and that I had once reviewed one of his releases favourably for Muzik magazine in the 90’s. After more chat it transpired that he was one half of the Headphonauts – a group who released two singles in the mid 90s and then disappeared (as far as I knew) and that no one else I’ve ever talked to even remembers – how random is that!? Anyway, this opened the floodgates and it turns out Ali Gibbs (for it was he) moved to London and started making music solo under the name Nebraska, recording for various labels and running his own, Friends & Relations. We met up again a week or so later and he furnished me with a lovely pile of his back catalogue which included a release by Rex Mitsui, ‘Heddohõn Shõ Ryokõ’ which is the missing link between the Headphonauts’ work and his solo Nebraska releases. Thank you Ali, I now have closure not only on the NT album (read last week’s entry) but also of what happened to the Headphonauts, plus I made a new friend. Isn’t life weird sometimes?
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Back to the tunes, some upfront pressure from an unknown called DJ Food – taken from a 12” promo for a Ninja label showcase in Koln I think – mixes out of the aforementioned Headphonauts’ track ‘Adverse Pt.3’. We get a snatch of the Wagon Christ remix of Witchman’s ‘Red Demon Loco’ (not ‘Watchman’ as Matt Black reads later) and what I love about this is that Luke time-stretches the already slow beat to half time and then stretches it again to half of that, complete with all the sonic aberrations that the technology of the day gave the sound. This just leaves the gate open for a good run of Gescom’s electro-fied ‘Pulz’ from their 12” release on Clear, another sleeve that I helped assemble from a mass of tags Rob and Sean provided of local Manchester writers, like I said, it was a busy year.

PS: For those wondering about the 4/11/95 date on the tape, it was about 10 minutes of As One, B12, Black Dog-esque tracks from another mix, nothing to write home about mix-wise so I’ve not included it. Back with more 1995 beats next week…

Track list:
Wagon Christ – Wet Leg
Joe Nation – Zvona (45-8 Mix)
Danny Breaks – Firin’ Line (Origin Unknown remix)
Kerosene – Nurse City
Zulutronic – Sodotronic
Headphonauts – Adverse Pt.3
DJ Food – Spiral
Witchman – Red Demon Loco (Wagon Christ remix)
Gescom – Pulz

Duplokit on Infinite Illectrik

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When I set up my digital label, Infinite Illectrik, in 2020 it was with the intent that I would just use it as a platform for my own modified turntable recordings and other experiments (but that’s for later). I had no intention of it becoming a label to put out other people’s work but primarily as a personal playground both sonically and graphically, but as they say, ‘the best laid plans…’. With this month’s release I’m pleased to present the first experimental turntable work from James Meharry aka James In Real Life aka Duplokit.

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James contacted me earlier this year from his home town in Christchurch, New Zealand after seeing my Quadraphon online as he was working along similar lines, albeit with a different, custom-built set up. Whereas my Quadraophon has one turntable with four tone arms, he is working with two decks, each with an extra tone arm – which solves the problem of changing records that I have at least. We’re both using rotary mixers with outboard FX, using locked groove records as our palette and have been building / refining our set ups in virtual tandem for several years with the end goal of a performance-based turntablism/DJ set based on experimental rhythm or soundscape building.

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What James also has under his belt is a lathe to cut his own records and the technical knowledge to design his own parts, modifying his turntables to do some outrageous things. He sent a photo of his creation (now christened Duplokit) and I asked if I could hear some of what he’s been doing. What he sent immediately impressed as it’s similar to what I’m attempting yet different and we started a dialogue, exchanging info and I asked if he would be up for me releasing it on my label.

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What has transpired since is that James has gone into new realms with the machine, adding ‘warp drives’ to each deck and is currently building further innovations for later that will mean he can do more than any regular turntable can with his set up. With this release, he’s starting a Patreon and will be doing regular YouTube episodes for members, taking you through each step of his build process, building to his own James In Real Life releases as the Duplokit develops. I’m pleased to showcase a couple of his earliest experiments on Infinite Illectrik today, give him a listen, a follow, even sign up to his Patreon if you’re curious as to what it’s all about and want to drill down into how he’s made the monster used to create these tracks. I think what he’s doing is something quite unique in the field of both custom-built equipment and also the advancement of turntablism into new areas.

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Subscribe to follow and support James on his journey.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/JamesInRealLife
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBxkXMFwtF_wfmLRsQXugiQ
Bandcamp: https://jamesinreallife.bandcamp.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jamesinreallifeofficial

New 45 Live mix tonight on Dublab and more

DJ Food 45 Live Mix 10th 2023 v2 web
My now annual 45 Live mix has come around again, a set made entirely of 7″ records of any persuasion. The crew has been running for nearly a decade now, originated by Boca 45 and Pete Isaac to celebrate the 45 format. As usual I’ve been stockpiling dance singles from the late 80s and early 90s and this year’s offering is heavy with Hip House, a genre that shone brightly for around a year in 1989 having notable releases in both the UK and US with us Brits arguably being the first to get a track out with The Beatmasters featuring the Cookie Crew in 1987.

That doesn’t feature here but there’s plenty of UK action to balance things out including a bit of Skacid (Ska + Acid) and even a bit of Bleep. As usual Greg Belson will be holding things down Stateside as the host of the show (which hits episode 200 next year) and my mix will feature at some point in the middle of the show. You can tune in live at 4am GMT (Aug 5th UK time) as the show goes out 8pm-10pm PST on the west coast tonight. https://www.dublab.com/shows/45-live-radio-show
UPDATE: Here’s the show

PS: No Mixcloud Select upload this week because of this mix, back on it with more 90s tapes next week.

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Of course Aug 5th is a big one as it’s the first iteration of a new book and zine fair, initiated by Velocity Press in the same spirit as the indie label market. I’ll be popping my head in as Four Corners Books have a stall and it will be good to support. Then I’ll be heading straight to Iklectik to set up for the second annual Fog Fest party, hosted by Robin The Fog (shhhhh… it’s his birthday, bring cake). I’ll be taking part in a modified turntable soundclash with Graham Dunning alongside visuals from PuttyRubber and Leon Trimble and from the rehearsals we had the other week it should be a lot of fun (see below). Also on the bill are Robin in his Howlround guise, Steve Davis DJing and live sets from Lauren Sarah Hayes, Nad Spiro and tpwiikatj. Here’s a snippet from our rehearsal the other week

FogFest 2 Poster v1 - web
I almost forgot, today is the return of Bandcamp Friday and the monthly Infinite Illectrik release is out – for ii012 it’s the (re)turn of the Electrostatic Headshell Assembly with a 3 track techno/electro set recorded earlier this year. There’s more to come before the year is out including some new names to the label and possibly even a physical release to round the year out.


ii012 cover 2 web

Also – more Food-related collaborations if you want to support digitally today or any other day:
https://djfood.bandcamp.com/
https://celestialmechanic.bandcamp.com/
https://thenewobsolecents-cis.bandcamp.com/album/the-superceded-sounds-of

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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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

Birthdays and mixes

Obey
Sorry, no upload today as I’ve been crazily trying to catch up with work after a birthday weekend that morphed into a bank holiday and I’m also finishing two special new mixes that will debut on Monday.
As it was my birthday last Friday we went to see the Beyond The Streets exhibition before it closed at the Saatchi (2nd time for me) and ate the most amazing cream pastry thing from the small kiosk next to Sloan Sq station.

Cream
The evening was the Book & Record Bar‘s Stick It On night where you arrive with records of your choice, chalk your name on the board and wait your turn to play three in a row – and repeat with alcohol. Lots of friends turned up and we left at 1am.

Martin SIO
Saturday there was something going on in town, I forget what, so we steered clear and checked out the new record shop in Crystal Palace – Vinyl. Packed with treats – quite literally as all the usual bins from outside were inside due to the terrible weather. Found some decent bits but need to go back for a deeper dig…

Dom and Deb
Sunday, up early for the Peckham carboot then on for lunch on the main high street and drinks at the CLF Art Lounge, a rooftop bar by the station I had no idea existed but felt tropical due to the open air insulation. Dom Servini was playing all afternoon and we met up with Deb Grant and friends before she went off to Manchester to start her new career as an official 6 Music DJ. Then rushed to Iklectic in Waterloo to see Sculpture do one of their usual incredible live sets, bagging an A0 poster along the way.

Sculpture at Iklectik
Monday we wandered down to Brixton to the Chip Shop (with the emphasis on Hip Hop) to hear Andy Higgs and Graeme Parker play with special guest Nik Weston from Mukatsuku records, with the extra treat of Zoe ‘Lucky Cat’ Baxter turning up unannounced.

TNObs LPs
Back to work Tuesday, assembling over 20 unique test cover versions of The New Obsolescents‘ LP cover for a future thing but then off to Iklectik again in the evening to witness Paul Cousins play live for the launch of his new album on Castles In Space.

Paul Cousins
My friend Joe Whyte was playing pedal steel guitar alongside him for several numbers and the whole thing was sublime despite the horrible weather outside. Saw even more friends and wobbled back home with a pile of new vinyl from Colin and the latest issue of Moonbuilding mag.

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Back to the mix(es) – coming Monday for a very important birthday…

Posted in Gigs, Music, Records. | No Comments |

Oddities: Desktop Image dump

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Wheeling around the internet (as I do) you pick up all sorts of interesting things, here are some that have been cluttering up the desktop with nowhere to go this month. Above is a promo badge – or button as they call them in the States – for the opening of The Kaleidoscope club in 1967, apparently the Grateful Dead played – taken from a RockPosters.com post.

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The cover of the Sexedelic LP, most of which became one half of the Vampyros Lesbos Psychedelic Dance Party compilation on Crippled Dick Hot Wax. Despite owning said comp since the 90s I’d never seen this cover.

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International Times newsagents poster, sent to me by Drew Mulholland

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Robert Williams illustrated header card for a bag of weed! Not sure the year but looks 70s.

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Gorgeous box design for a Philips projector lens.

Alex Nino Star Reach #6
Original art for an Alex Nino spread from Star Reach magazine no.6 from Heritage Auctions

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Beautiful Odyssey computer box design plus computer inside, look at those huge chips! Seen on Facebook Marketplace.

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New Warrington Runcorn New Town Development Plan LP cover – possibly by Nick Taylor? Out next week…

State 51 Singularity series

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Gorgeous designs by Louise Mason for the State 51 Singularity series of lathe cuts, made in conjunction with The Quietus website. Patrons on the highest tier of The Quietus’ subscription service get regular digital releases from various bands championed by the website and these are starting to be made available as limited lathe cut singles via State 51. Each edition (of 50) comes in an embossed box with hand-finished details and features a 20 minute disc of exclusive music from each artist.

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Talking of The Quietus, they desperately need more subscribers to survive so if you want to support good, independent journalism you can sign up to three different options with the site, each of which unlocks more content. Subscribe here.

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

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

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

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

The Delaware Road omnibus edition


The Delaware Road deluxe edition unwrapping, the omnibus edition is out today via Buried Treasure and neatly brings together years worth of work and research by Alan Gubby, aided by poet Dolly Dolly, designer Nick Taylor and illustrator Jarrod Gosling. Originally conceived as a documentary film by Alan 15 years ago then rewritten as a fictional account of the Radiophonic Workshop’s perhaps two most famous practitioners, Delia Derbyshire and John Baker, the Delaware project then expanded into a compilation album and live performance.

DR packageDR cover
I went to the first incarnation in Reading back in 2015, you can read about that here. For the second, more ambitious outing at the disused Nuclear Bunker at Kelvedon Hatch in Essex, I was on the bill – more about that here. The third incarnation then morphed into a mini festival in a Salisbury Plain army base which nearly didn’t happen but was an incredible collection of performers and people the likes of which haven’t been seen since, see photos from that here.

DR seal
DR postcards
A six part comic series that followed – illustrating the whole story as originally envisaged – and now the whole project has been collected into a smart omnibus edition with notes, photos, preliminary designs and more, all wrapped in a beautiful cover that brings to mind the Festival of Britain. Out today, I think the limited deluxe edition with 4″ lathe cut disc has now sold out but this book tells the whole story, both fictional and then from the inside, of this most amazing series of events.
Order it here, right now, plus it’s Bandcamp Friday so more of it goes to the artist and label.

DR contents
DR insides

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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Quadraphon sighting

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The Ramsgate Music Hall have taken the chance to book me a headline set featuring the Quadraphon deck next February. I’ll be flying solo with this most experimental of turntables for the first time, four tone arms and a lot of locked groove records, this won’t be your usual DJ Food dancefloor set.
Tickets available here

Video from my recent support slot at Iklectik by Robin Reynolds