Various Artists ‘The Death of Output’ Pts.1-3

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  • Late in 2006 Trevor Jackson's Output label, just shy of 100 releases, shut up shop and ceased trading in a whirl of rumour and speculation. I had been an avid fan of the label and collected virtually every release in all their different formats in the 10 years it had been active. As a tribute to the passing of one of the greats I put together a selection of my favourite moments from the back catalogue which ended up turning into a three hour marathon that was broadcast over the course of a couple of months on the radio show.

    To also pay homage to the hand screened promo 12" put out with over half the releases I made a limited set of CDs with printed discs that joined up with the outer cover to form the title of each mix.

  • There are only five sets of these with Trevor Jackson and Kieran Hebden of Fridge/Four Tet both having a set as well as Mark E from Ireallylovemusic

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RELEASED: Apr 2007
FORMAT: 3xCD
LABEL: n/a
CAT NO.: n/a
MIXER: Strictly Kev
SPOTTERS DELIGHT: All handmade
EXTRA ZEN: Output Recordings Ireallylovemusic interview / LISTEN

DJ Food & DK ‘Solid Steel presents Now, Listen Again!’

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RELEASED: Apr 2007
FORMAT: CD / CD promo / edited CD promo / 7" / Ltd 2x7" promo / Serato Whitelabel.net DL
LABEL: NINJA TUNE
CAT NO.: ZENCD123 / ZENCD123P / ZEN7123P / ZEN7123PR
PRODUCERS: DK, Strictly Kev
SPOTTERS DELIGHT: Hidden track at the start of the finished CD, you have to press play and hold down reverse to get to it. The original promo CDs had a different track at one point which was removed at the 11th hour due to licensing issues. 50 numbered copies of the limited double 7" came with a 7" Serato controller record. The 3 track download version was the first official release on Serato's Whitelabel.net promo site.
EXTRA ZEN: ninjatune.net page / BUY / Serato Whitelabel.net page

Various Artists ‘Kraftwerk Kover Kollection’ vols.1-8

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  • Occasionally on the Solid Steel radio show I present another part of an ongoing series I call the Kraftwerk Kover Kollection. Each mix is an hour long collection of cover versions, tributes and songs that heavily sample the German four piece.

    After the luke-warm reception of the 'Electric Cafe' album in 1986 it was another 14 years before they released anything new and even then Expo 2000' sounded like a rework of 'Musique Non-Stop' ('The Mix' doesn't really count in my book). During these years Electro, Hip Hop, House, Techno and Ambient happened amongst other things, all of which owed some form of debt to Kraftwerk. Such is their influence and appeal that, over the years, albums of cover versions have appeared in place of any new Kling Klang product to fill the public's need for more perfect 'robot pop' as Ralf Hutter once called it. As well as these, many high profile bands have added a song here or there to albums in tribute or interpolated Kraftwerk's melodies into their own compositions (ie: Coldplay's 'Talk' single).

  • When I started seriously researching these cover versions, I couldn’t quite believe how many there were and how diverse the bands were who were doing them. I’ve now completed my 8th Kover Kollection mix, each with an average of 35 tracks in it, that’s 280 covers and they’re just the good / weird ones that I liked enough to use. For every eastern European rendition on woodblocks there are five pumping euro trance versions that sound horrible. What I try to do is filter the best of these and find the weirdest, most leftfield covers because Kraftwerk’s songs are so simple that it seems they can be transposed into nearly any style you can think of. Balanese, gamelan, country, death metal, classical, rockabilly, even played by an orchestra of instruments made entirely of vegetables (see part 2 for this one). There seems to be no end to their influence over today’s music makers.

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RELEASED: 2004/5/6/8/9/12/13
FORMAT: CDR / DL
LABEL: n/a
CAT NO.: n/a
MIXER: Strictly Kev
GUESTS: Generous help from Graeme Ross, Ed DMX and many more with sourcing tracks
SPOTTERS DELIGHT: Some handmade copies exist of the first 6 mixes
EXTRA ZEN: LISTEN TO ALL MIXES

For those who missed them - go to my downloads page or the link above

Dates the KKK shows aired are:
Part 1: 16/04/04
Part 2: 16/08/04
Part 3: 17/01/05
Part 4: 04/08/06
Part 5: 11/01/08
Part 6: 13/11/09
Part 7: 31/03/12
Part 8: 08/02/13

Various Artists ‘HEAD’ (DJ Food Re-score)

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  • DVD with alternate soundtrack / slideshow. Originally commissioned for a Cinetrip gig in Budapest in 2001, this re-imagined soundtrack for the Monkees' career-ruining film 'Head', mutated into a full blown project over the next 4 years.

    Originally performed live on 3 turntables to the showing of the film, the score evolved with each performance until a perfect mix of tracks could be found for each scene. Finally, at the end of 2004 a finished version was recorded and synched to the film for this limited promo DVD housed in a mirrorboard cover, mimicking the original vinyl release.

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RELEASED: July 2005
FORMAT: DVD
LABEL: n/a
CAT NO.: n/a
MIXER: Strictly Kev
SPOTTERS DELIGHT: Each DVD includes one of 8 random flyers for the Dublin Head performance
EXTRA ZEN: WATCH

DJ Food ‘Raiding the 20th Century’ (Words & Music Expansion)

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  • On January 18th 2004, Strictly Kev premiered the original 'Raiding The 20th Century' on XFM's 'The Remix' show in London. It was a 40 minute attempt to catalogue the history of cut up music - be it avant garde tape manipulation, turntable megamixes or bastard pop mash ups. It rapidly spread throughout the web and managed to cause a full scale server crash on Boomselection.info and ninjatune.net when they hosted it due to the volume of net traffic.

    Shortly afterwards he read Paul Morley's recently published book 'Words & Music' and was amazed that certain chapters mirrored parts of his mix. Apart from the fact that the title, 'Raiding the 20th Century' was coined by Morley 20 years before for a future Art of Noise project, he also featured Alvin Lucier, who - purely by chance - was sampled on the opening track of the mix.

    Kev decided to expand his idea to make the definitive document on cut up music including many other parts, omitted by the constraints of the original radio session. After months of further research he tracked Morley down and they recorded passages from 'Words & Music' specially for this mix in an attempt tomarry the two and finish something that neither of them actually started. A year to the day of the original airing, the newly expanded version is ready."

  • The definitive, extended version with specially recorded spoken sections by Paul Morley.

    For full track listing see the ubuweb page.

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RELEASED: 20 Jan 2005
FORMAT: Download
LABEL: n/a
CAT NO.: n/a
MIXER: Strictly Kev
GUESTS: Paul Morley
SPOTTERS DELIGHT:  Internet only release.
LISTEN: UBUWEB PAGE

DJ Food ‘Raiding the 20th Century’ (A History of The Cut Up)

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  • 39 minute version originally made for XFM's The Remix Superchunk section. An attempt to compress the history of the cut up into 40 minutes. Transmitted 18/01/04.

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RELEASED: Jan 2004
FORMAT: Download / CD
LABEL: n/a
CAT NO.: n/a
MIXER: Strictly Kev
SPOTTERS DELIGHT: Approx 100 copies
EXTRA ZEN: LISTEN

Double Dee & Steinski ‘Now We Come To The Payoff’ Solid Steel interview

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  • DK and I interviewed the dynamic duo in Double Dee's studio after a great sushi meal in what turned out to be the longest interview they'd ever done together. It was the first time we'd met Douglas and he was on top form (as was Steve) throughout the two hour recording.

    After I'd gone through the material he dug out the original re-edit of Led Zeppelin's 'The Crunge' that he'd made for 'Lesson 3' so that we could use it in the piece. Likewise Steve provided adverts, audio flyers for old gigs and the original session material for the unfinished 'Lesson 4' from back in the eighties.

  • Two versions exist, a two hour internet broadcast one and another for the double CDs that has 17 more minutes of material. When Douglas heard the final show he emailed me within 20 minutes to say thanks as he was totally blown away.

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RELEASED: 2003
FORMAT: 2xCD
LABEL: n/a
CAT NO.: n/a
MIXER: Strictly Kev
GUESTS: DK
SPOTTERS DELIGHT: A handful of handmade CDR versions include extra material, radio ads and outtakes
EXTRA ZEN:

Herbie Hancock ‘The Solid Steel Interview’

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  • He was on a trip to promote his new record with Bill Laswell, 'The Future', and, after quizzing him about this, we delved back far into his 70's incarnations asking all kinds of trainspottery questions about lost soundtracks, sampling, 'Sextant' and Sesame Street. You could not hope for a more gracious and forthcoming subject and he really got into things by the end, having to be virtually dragged from the studio by his PA in order not to miss his next appointment.

    The final programme was a full on collaboration between DK and I as we pooled our collections and found all the different pieces of the jigsaw that would illustrate the interview he had given us. The cover of the CD was made up of slices from all of the records we discussed, each one showing part of a face from the original cover. DK liked it so much he had me make up a poster for his studio and we made a small run of CDs as before, one of which we sent to Herbie but we don't know if he ever received it.

  • To say DK and I were excited about this meeting would be an understatement of galactic proportions only equaled by the size of Herbie’s afro in the seventies. From our first encounter with him via ‘Rockit’ (along with virtually every B-Boy-to-be outside of the States in the 80’s) to his jazz, electronic, funk and disco eras we would later discover, this was a very big deal.

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RELEASED: Apr 2002
FORMAT: CDR
LABEL: n/a
CAT NO.: n/a
MIXERS: DK, Strictly Kev
GUESTS: Herbie Hancock of course!
SPOTTERS DELIGHT: A handful of CDR copies with covers exist
EXTRA ZEN: Discog page

Various Artists ‘D Is For Dig’ (unreleased)

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  • A one hour mix compilation of mostly unreleased music from the early 70's from Sesame Street. After licensing and re-editing the 'Pinball Number Count' track for the original version of 'Now, Listen' I went to New York to dig through the archives at the Sesame Workshop. Coming home with masses of material I compiled an hour long mix CD of the material that will delight both children and DJs in equal measure. At the moment this remains unreleased due to legal licensing complications at Sesame Workshop...

    But it does exist in some form, a demo I sent to various people at Sesame Street to get them into the idea complete with dummy artwork. This is obviously a mock up but there was talk of hiring the puppets out and creating a basement digging scenario for the sleeve. Cookie Monster would be eating the records, The Count would be on the cash register counting, The Grouch would be in the dollar bin etc etc. Annoyingly, several years later, two (quite excellent) DVD compilations called 'Old School' appeared with a large amount of content bearing a striking similarity to some of my mix.

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RELEASED:Dec 2003
FORMAT: CDR
LABEL: Sesame Workshop
CAT NO.: n/a
MIXER: Strictly Kev
SPOTTERS DELIGHT: Approx 5 copies
EXTRA ZEN: Coming to the web one day...

DJ Shadow ‘Press Cuttings’

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  • Another big release, one that was also leaked months before the record hit the stores, I wanted to do something for the radio to promote it that was more than just a few tracks so I got everything I could find and did a 25 minute mix of everything. Joost from the Solesides board also helped me by supplying several interviews Shadow had given around the time to flesh out the feeling that this was a journey through the making of the album.

    I gave Shadow a copy at a show along with the Double Dee and Steinski interview and was delighted when it cropped up in his official discography on his website.  As the record was called The Private Press I scoured the web for images of handmade records of the type you could get at stores in the 50's and 60's and adapted these to incorporate the title 'Press Cuttings' as it seemed apt for this promo piece.

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RELEASED: May 2002
FORMAT: CD
LABEL: n/a
CAT NO.: n/a
MIXER: Strictly Kev
SPOTTERS DELIGHT: 5 copies, each with a different on body image.
EXTRA ZEN: LISTEN

Boards of Canada ‘Sometime In The Future’

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  • I wanted to do something really special for this, being a big fan of the group. There was a lot of secrecy surrounding this record and I was given a copy of the album just before the release. I rushed through it in a weekend to make the deadline for the radio show so that this could be out the week it was released.

  • As a thank you I made 10 copies in a foldout hexagon sleeve, each with a different sticker inside and a 3″ CD containing the mix. I sent four to Mike & Marcus, two to Warp and kept four for myself.

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RELEASED: Feb 2002
FORMAT: 3" CDR
LABEL: n/a
CAT NO.: n/a
MIXER: Strictly Kev
SPOTTERS DELIGHT: 10 copies
EXTRA ZEN: LISTEN

DJ Food & DK ‘Now, Listen!’ (The Directors Cut)

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  • the Simon Says/Addams Family routine, the inclusion of Lorez Alexandra, 10cc and Vangelis but these were all refused or the licenses unobtainable.

    Unfortunately the CD was released on Sept 22nd 2001, ten days after 9/11 and we had DJ Vadim’s ‘the Terrorist” acappella in the mix. Being that it would have been highly inappropriate to include it in a radio broadcast at the time, it was removed and a compilation of excerpts from various interviews we had given were inserted over ‘Ug’. PC had recorded lots of us doing simultaneous interviews over speaker phone only a few weeks earlier so I chopped them up and replaced the offending acappella at the 11th hour.

    There was also another Director’s Cut, again 2 hours long, that we prepared for the London Xpress show on XFM which was subtly different again with variations on some mixes. Also an online Groovetech session that DK and I did which was us performing the ‘live’ version of the mix that we toured later, including parts of this version and more.

  • Come the time of the mix CD’s release we compiled a 2 hour ‘Director’s Cut’ of music that we had discarded, mixes that we liked but didn’t make the grade and tracks we couldn’t license. We included Ollie Teeba’s contribution (from Jazzy Jay to The Herbalier’s own Shocker Zulu) as it was originally integral to the mix and the original mix ending (from Steve miller to Starvue). For my money there are sections here that would have made the version we finally released even better,

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RELEASED: Sept / Nov  2001
FORMAT: Radio shows
LABEL: n/a
CAT NO.: n/a
MIXERS: PC, Strictly Kev, DK
GUESTS: Ollie Teeba
SPOTTERS DELIGHT: There are actually two Director's Cuts
EXTRA ZEN: Not on the web yet