Solid Steel

Sabotage comic and the ‘3-Way Mix’ hits 100k plays

Sadly on Sunday it was two years since MCA passed away and there was a weekend long celebration in Brooklyn to remember the man and the music he made with the Beasties. With another, happier, anniversary also approaching – 25 years since the release of ‘Paul’s Boutique’ – there is a fair bit of Beastie-related activity on the horizon.

Above and below you can see a comic created by Derek Langille illustrating the song ‘Sabotage’ – this was done nearly two years ago now and takes a similar old school comic style to Ed Piskor‘s excellent on-going ‘Hip Hop Family Tree‘.



A couple of fans in Italy (SM&A Prod.) are preparing a ‘visual companion’ to the album, to debut online on July 25th (see new trailer above) and Filter magazine are running a special on it in an upcoming issue.

The 3-Way Mix should be getting a feature somewhere in that issue and I was interviewed recently for an updated version of Dan LeRoy‘s 33 1/3 book about the making of the album.

Also over the weekend the deconstructed mix of the album that I made with DJ Cheeba and DJ Moneyshot finally hit 100,000 plays on Soundcloud – this is a big milestone for us so thanks to all for listening.

Posted in Art, Comics, DJ Food, Mixes/Solid Steel, Solid Steel. | 3 Comments |

30 Years of Acid mix by Posthuman on Solid Steel

This week’s Solid Steel has a particular Acid taste with two distinct flavours. In the first hour Posthuman give us a very special look through 30 years of music made with the Roland TB303 from 1984-2014 assigning one track a year to give just one particular history of the machine. The choices had to be harsh and lots of obvious tracks were missed but you get a year by year progression ending with Posthuman themselves.

Talking of endings, their seven year-old night, ‘I Love Acid’, will breath its last on April 12th, the day after this mix debuts and this is a fitting way to celebrate the end of an era.
Amongst the line up is a certain Luke Vibert whose track of the same name titled the night in the first place. In a beautiful piece of synchronicity we have Lexis from Music Is My Sanctuary with an hour-long retrospective look at Luke’s career in many of his different guises after 20 years of official releases.

and in another little bit of Acid-related news I found this first review for the Roland TB 303 in a 1982 issue of Sounds this week, even back then with only two years left until production would cease, it received a glowing review.

Posted in Found in Sounds, Mixes/Solid Steel, Solid Steel. | 2 Comments |

New Food mix + Markey Funk Trish Keenan tribute

Solid Steel this week features an exclusive hour of Kid Koala live in Victoria, Canada. The second hour brings a mix from yours truly coupled with a tribute to Trish Keenan and the music of Broadcast by Markey Funk.

It’s now three years this week since Trish passed away and last year Markey put together a new soundtrack to the 1966 Jonathan Miller TV version of Alice In Wonderland made entirely from the music of Broadcast. We feature half an hour of that mix but it’s best watched with the film in full which you can see here or here.

My mix kicks things off though and takes the distorted drums and fuzzy electronics route with a detour into James Murphy‘s recent David Bowie remix in the middle.

Posted in DJ Food, Mixes/Solid Steel, Solid Steel. | No Comments |

Exclusive new mix by Chop on Solid Steel


Very pleased to have commissioned this mix from Chop for the latest installment of Solid Steel and it’s something slightly different from him too. Here’s what he said about it;
“I’ve been listening to quite a lot of French, Japanese and electronic library music of late. This mix for me has been about discovering and re-discovering some fantastic artists/music from around the globe.  Whether its the eccentric French sounds of Marc Moulin‘s – Telex, mutations from YMO genius Haruomi Hosono or the influential proto-electronica of Manuel Gottsching I think there’s something here for everyone from diggers to digesters of great music.”
His last album, ‘Illuminate’, came out in August 2013 on Now Again and is available here

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DJ Food Solid Steel mix set

DK and I have created a set on Soundcloud where you can directly access all my Solid Steel mixes with one click. With the archive on Soundcloud now several years deep and also being that it is part of the overall Ninja Tune account, it’s increasingly hard to find things easily. Now you can with one click. If I’ve had a mix on the show it should be here, whether a solo mix, part of a collaboration or sharing an hour with another DJ.

So, if you wanted to check the Beastie Boys ‘Paul’s Boutique’ reconstruction I did with Cheeba and Moneyshot, it’s here. Likewise the ‘Free Comic Book Day’ mix, ‘O Is For Orange’ or ‘In:Motion’ mixes and many more. I give most of my mixes titles, one day I should go through and make an inventory of the lot…

Posted in DJ Food, Mixes/Solid Steel, Solid Steel. | No Comments |

Solid Steel 25 – post gig round up

What to say about last Friday’s Solid Steel 25th anniversary at Fire in London? It was amazing, exhausting, exhilarating and unique at different times. I personally had a great night and haven’t danced so much in years (mainly to Robin Hexstatic‘s amazing Acid set in the Light Box).

I heard fantastic music in all three rooms, it’s just a pity I couldn’t actually be in all of them all night. DK, PC and I surprised people by doing an unannounced version of the ‘Now, Listen’ mix CD from 2001 – unrehearsed and mainly mapped out at sound check. Cheeba, Moneyshot and I managed to just about pull off the Paul’s Boutique 3-Way mix and PC stepped up afterwards with a rousing Nelson Mandela speech (RIP) and straight into Ritchie Havens’‘s ‘Going Back To My Roots’.


Here are some photos of the night by Beth aka Daddy’s Got Sweets and there are more over on Resident Advisor. (Coldcut meets The Orb flight deck, Matt Black and Alex Paterson and 3-Way Mix kit photos by Cheeba and I)


There’s a fantastic review of the night here by Raya Raycheva and Joe Muggs did a huge 5 page history of the show with myself, Coldcut, DK and Ninja label boss Peter Quicke for FACT.

I did an interview about the show with The Ransom Note last week, you can read it here and I also wrote a piece about the show and my favourite mix – Coldcut meets The Orb – for The Quietus.

 

Earlier in the evening, at the pre-gig dinner, DK and I were presented, completely by surprise, with a tongue-in-cheek framed disc by Coldcut, recognising our ‘broadest beats, masterful mixing and unerring dedication’ to the show over the years :)

Posted in DJ Food, Event, Solid Steel. | No Comments |

Solid Steel piece for The Quietus

I wrote a piece about 25 years of Solid Steel for The Quietus, highlighting one of my favourite mixes – the original Coldcut meets The Orb from 1991.

Only one week until the big London show where they meet for a third time alongside Four Tet, Mr Scruff, Actress, Trevor Jackson, Illum Sphere, DK, PC, Hexstatic, James Mountain and myself, Cheeba and Moneyshot doing our Paul’s Boutique routine.

The Hydra (who are promoting the event) have a competition over on Facebook to win tickets, goodies and a £100 bar tab if you share the flyer from their page.

 

Posted in DJ Food, Solid Steel. | 2 Comments |

Solid Steel: Amorphous Androgynous + Stephen Mallinder

This weeks Solid Steel features not one but two guest mixes plus a 30 minute set from yours truly. Kicking things off we welcome The Amorphous Androgynous back with a half hour culled from their new 2xCD release of ‘psychesploitation’, ‘The Cartel’. They showcase some of their new tracks in a funky 70’s cop soundtracks/ fuzzed up Blacksploitation style – it’s the sound of Get Carter‘s swinging London and the sleazy San Francisco of Dirty Harry. Both volumes are available now from their online store and a third volume will feature a remix from me at some point in 2014.

From here we drift into a darker, more synthetic sci-fi soundscape with eight esoteric tracks I picked that play on the spacier side. Tracks from compilations; ‘The Sound of Belgium’, ‘Music Sans Frontiers’ and ‘Space Oddities’ feature as does music from the new Richard Norris/Luke Insect collaboration Dark Seed. This is the first part of a mix called ‘Night Music’, a selection of new acquisitions that I’ve been enjoying after dark recently.

In the second hour we have a real coup, Stephen Mallinder – ex of Cabaret Voltaire and a long-standing solo artist in his own right – has put together an hour of:

“Peers, associates, co-conspirators, influences and baton-carriers. Starting with early head-turners This Heat (1978) and filtered  through the mix claps from composer Steve Reich (1972) onto post-punkers 23 Skidoo who I’d gigged and recorded with.
A couple of FSOL tracks – covert Cabs somewhere in there and back up north to Sheffield’s first real label WARP – the original Forgemasters reworked by bleepers Unique 3, The Black Dog posse and sonic provocateurs supreme, Autechre. An offering from my own Cabaret Voltaire – a rework of ‘Yashar’ with the original ’70 billion people’ sample.
Keith le Blanc and co – Major Malfunction, classic tough electro, there’s a whole history from Sugarhill to Tackhead in there. And rounded  off with our one-time co-conspiritor On-U’s Adrian Sherwood‘s mix of metal-machiners Einstürzende Neubauten, complete with sniff sample.

All spiced with some period spoken word courtesy of Malcolm X, Mr Burroughs and JG Ballard stories and lovingly mixed by hand.”

It’s an excellent selection and there’s also a timely Cabaret Voltaire box set just out covering the years ’83-’85.

Posted in DJ Food, Mixes/Solid Steel, Solid Steel. | No Comments |

Format & Phill ‘UK vs Philly’ + Mr Armtone SS25 mixes

A very special pair of exclusive mixes on Solid Steel this week (isn’t there every week?) or should that be three mixes?

First up we have DJ Format AND Phill Most Chill, hot off the release of their new album, ‘The Foremost’, they’ve put together a 30 minute mix each, representing their home turfs of the UK and Philadelphia respectively and in Matt’s own words:
“Instead of doing yet another promo mix that incorporates a song or two from our new album, I thought it would be fun for me & Phill to each do a 30 minute mix of Hip Hop from our respective areas. I’m from Southampton, and since that’s not a very big place I thought it would be more fitting to play some of my favourite old UK Hip Hop records. Philadelphia always had a healthy Hip Hop scene that boasted famous artists such as DJ Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince, Cash Money & Marvelous and Steady B just to name a few. Phill wanted to showcase some of the more obscure/random Rap records from Philly that he loves.”

You can hear and buy the album HERE and HERE – I know this is the third post about it in as many weeks but it really is great.

Next up is Solid Steel’s Russian agent, Mr Armtone, back with the follow up to his ‘Time Machine’ video mix from last year (how does he do it?). Firmly club-based in style and with a very high standard of visuals and on-screen blends (no YouTube rips here) he brings a 80 minute AV set to add to the quality collection we’re slowly building on our Vimeo page.

Mr. Armtone – Time Machine II from Solid Steel on Vimeo.

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

Four Tet 2 hour Solid Steel takeover

It’s never been done before but Kieran Hebden aka Four Tet has been granted a 2 hour mix for this week’s Solid Steel ahead of his appearance at Solid Steel 25 at Fire in London on Dec 6th.

This mix is made from exclusive DJ edits either by Kieran or by fellow DJs like Daphni or Floating Points, very few of these will ever see the light of day legally and are made for club sets rather than release.

Kieran will be headlining the main room for our 25th anniversary show in London, tickets can be bought here.

Posted in Mixes/Solid Steel, Solid Steel. | No Comments |

Solid Steel 25: new website and extra London guests

The Solid Steel website has had a makeover to include a 25th guest mix playlist and the ability to step back in time to older playlists and mixes. We’ve also just announced two extra guests for the London party at Fire on December 6th.

Not only will Mr Scruff be joining Illum Sphere for a 4 hour back to back vinyl session but we’ll have Four Tet headlining the main room! Very excited to add both of these excellent DJs to the line up, Scruff recorded his own Solid Steel mix nearly 10 years ago and Kieran was our first guest at the London residency of our club night in 2004. Get tickets here...

Four Tet will also be taking over the whole show this Friday Nov 1st – something no guest has ever done before – for a 2 hour mix of exclusive DJ edits.

Posted in Gigs, Openmind designs, Poster / flyer, Solid Steel. | 1 Comment |