DJ Food in Record Collector magazine

After months of ‘will it be in this issue?’, I’m finally in the Christmas issue of Record Collector magazine (with Led Zeppelin on the cover), in ‘The Collector’ article and it was worth the wait. For the first time I can remember they’ve gone from the usual two pages to three to accommodate the ‘Wall of Sound’ photograph Steve Cook took specially (full image above).

I’m so pleased with this and I get a chance to show off some prize pieces from my collection. Several items mentioned aren’t shown because of space but I’ll be posting some of them in the ‘Originals’ posts on this site all week.

DJ Food feat. JG Thirlwell preview

Full preview of ‘Prey’, the track I did with JG Thirlwell aka Foetus / Steroid Maximus / Manorexia / Clint Ruin / Wiseblood etc. etc. on my new EP. To say I’m happy with this is an understatement, it was a huge honour to get JG’s contribution after being a fan of his for over two decades.

DJ Food – ‘Prey’ feat. J.G. Thirlwell by Ninja Tune

In 2002 I remixed his track ‘Suspect’ from the album ‘Flow’ (still one of his best) for the compilation ‘Blow’. Instead of payment I asked for either a remix or a guest vocal on a future project and it took nine years to call in the favour. JG came to the UK in March this year and we agreed to meet up at Matt Johnson‘s place as I had tracks for both of them. I spent a hugely enjoyable morning chatting with them over tea, talking about everything from the state of the music business to The Monkees.

This was one of those tracks that came together incredibly fast and, upon delivery of the vocal, I had to make very few changes to anything, just a slight rearrangement of a vocal here and there. An instrumental, retitled ‘Beast of Prey’, will be available as a bonus on the Japanese CD of ‘The Search Engine’ in December.

‘Magpies, Maps & Moons’ poster cover

The third 12″ EP and download, are out today at the Ninja shop and all other good retailers. You get a 5 track EP, full colour inner sleeve and wrapround A2 sized poster with it (see above).

The album, ‘The Search Engine’ – as I’ve already posted, is also up for pre-order now at the Ninja shop in a multitude of formats, not least the limited version with art book and flexi disc for a cheap early price.

Lots of exciting news to announce soon too…

Postcard Records

I recently came across a couple of new postcard records, people are suddenly reviving old vinyl pressing techniques the likes of which I never thought I’d see again. The first one was by The Stepkids, a massive favourite of mine after only one album, on the excellent Stones Throw label, and came free with online orders of the new record. It’s a short exclusive track called ‘Bitter Bug’ and the grooves are cut right into the cardboard so the sound quality is not far short of dirt (but that’s not the point, it looks great).

The second one I chanced upon on Facebook and is the creation of Markus Oberndorfer as part of an art project called Lenscape#02 for which he created 33 copies. I was lucky enough to secure the last copy and the difference between this and the Stepkids one is that the grooves are cut into a transparent slice of plastic and the postcard is fixed to this.

I have several records like these and most get filed along with the flexi discs I collect as they are usually 5 or 7 inches in size and square. These postcards are, well, postcard sized and have the space to write a name and address on the back.

Posted in Design, Oddities, Records. | 1 Comment |

‘Magpies…’ inner sleeve close up


The incredible line work of Henry Flint from the inner sleeve of the ‘Magpies, Maps & Moons’ vinyl.

The 12″ EP and download, out Nov 7th, is available to preview and pre-order at the Ninja shop.

Henry’s book of ‘doodles’, ‘Broadcast’ is supposed to be released today but is still on pre-order at Amazon.

The Magpie Music mp3 treasure hunt continues today with the second mp3 available on a certain site, use your search engine to find it.

The first segment, ‘Finders Keepers’ was here, pretty close to home, the second won’t be so easy.

 

Equinox Records

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Equinox Records out of Berlin have been around for a while and they currently have a sale on in their shop so I recently hoovered up some bits I fancied. The packaging and design aesthetic of the label is very strong, being overseen by the label head Gunter Stoppel aka DJ Scientist. There is a look of unbleached card, circular designs, B&W inner sleeve photography and a multitude of formats including colour and clear vinyl, 5″ and postcard records, cassettes and other oddities. It’s a varied roster, mainly concentrating on instrumental beats and electronica with a heavy leaning toward Hip Hop and sampling. Of course I would be first to recommend 2econd Class Citizen but the new David Vangel album is excellent as are releases by Davinci and Deckard amongst others.

Magma DJ bags

I can’t say enough good things about the bags and DJ equipment that German company Magma makes. DK and I have been using them for a while now and they have the suss to tailor some of their kit to exactly fit the airline baggage size restrictions which mean we can take these onboard when we fly because they fit in overhead lockers. Check out their new catalogue, they pretty much have a bag for every need and they are all customisable with pull out compartments. They also make laptop stands, covers and sleeves, headphone and needle bags and more.

DJ Shadow – The Less You Know, The Better

Today sees the release of DJ Shadow‘s new album, ‘The Less You Know, The Better’, in case you hadn’t seen all the press and publicity recently. He’s taken a fair bit of knocking these last few years, since ‘The Outsider’ rode into town and divided opinion, with the majority, unfortunately, not in its favour. It had its moments, others were tucked away on B-sides and extras on special editions too, but the mix of Hyphy Hip Hop and indie rock with too few of his usual beat workouts led to a very uneven record that would have worked better as a series of themed EPs in my opinion.

It’s a favourite pastime to build ’em up and knock ’em down in this country, and being a Shadow fan was almost a dirty word for a bit. His involvement in the DJ Hero game probably didn’t help that situation but the appearance of limited handmade records, a series of archive tape compilations via his site and then the Shadowsphere has helped rebuild his profile ready for the new release.

The new record has some great material on it and is a return to form whilst still taking steps outside his comfort zone. ‘Border Crossing’ and ‘I Gotta Rokk’ are as strong as any of his more guitar-led material like ‘The Number Song’ and ‘High Noon’ and ‘I’ve Been Trying’ is an update on tracks like ‘6 Day War’ and ‘This Time’, using a sampled vocal entirely as the voice of the song, a trick he seems to repeat a few times here. One of the highlights of the album is ‘Redeemed’, a female vocal-led number that, on first listen, didn’t do much for me but just gets inside your head. For those that love the Shadow of heavy breaks, spoken word and scratches, there’s plenty of that and we get possibly the first RnB pop ballad(!) in ‘Scale It Back’. The howling Beat poetry in ‘Give Me Back The Nights’ doesn’t quite work for me and, again mystifyingly, several bonus tracks are more worthy of album inclusion in ‘Come On Riding’ and ‘Let’s Get It’. I’d like to know how many get involved in compiling the running order for his records these days as album sequencing is an art in itself.

It’s a shame the UK media has wanted to focus on ‘Endtroducing’ so much in the press surrounding the new album rather than let it stand on its own merits but it has produced a couple of very worthwhile radio shows which you can hear below courtesy of the ever faithful Joost over at Solesides.com. Coupled with his live show, which I saw a few weeks ago, and the self-depreciating artwork by Tony Papesh, it’s a great return to form.

DJ Shadow – THE MUSIC THAT INSPIRED… by Solesides on Mixcloud

Posted in Art, Music, Records. | 2 Comments |