The T-shirt I designed for De:tuned records’ 15th anniversary is still available, inc. free download of the Future Sound of London’s ‘Pulse Five’ EP (which I designed too) – only 6 left!
There is also now a CD version of the EP available separately from FSOLdigital with extra tracks!
Out today for an extremely good cause and only available until March 1st – an album of exclusive electronic music in aid of Iklectik keeping going and finding a new venue to operate from. Put together by Castles In Space from a suggestion by Robin The Fog – the current crowdfunder has passed the £40k barrier and hopefully this will help.
Tune in tonight to hear what the 45 Live crew do when they’re given 7 minutes to shine for show #200. 8pm PST or 4am GMT on Dublab to hear host Greg Belson who has diligently hosted and put together 200 shows now.
Last week I made a playlist of some of my favourite / infuential records for the Balearic Burger group on Facebook – check it out, these are key tracks that genuinely changed the way I heard music or were gateways to new directions for me – thanks to John C Bawcombe for asking me, you’ll find many others have done playlists and the group is full of musical knowledge.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRzOvYwyrfTxGWHRSM7BfovBZWn9uke64
A dark but beautiful selection from a show I shared mix duty on with Riz Maslen aka Neotropic. My tape dates it as 30/01/98 but my online reference from Marcus Maack’s BTTB database says 04/01/1998. Whatever, it was sometime in January 1998 and this was recorded in the Ahead of Our Time studio in Clink St. most likely with engineer Ali Tod at the controls and my flanger pedal in the mix by the sounds of things.
Starting with the classic monologue about Cymatic frequencies that Coldcut used so often in shows we drift into an almost Steve Reich-ian minimalist piece from A Reminiscent Drive whose back catalogue contains a wealth of such treasures. Opiate’s ‘Small Talk Whirl’ is from his debut 12” on April Records which I can’t remember ever owning but that’s old age for you. Track 8 from the CD of Aphex Twin’s Analogue Bubblebath 3 is up next, a classic I was still dropping in my Selected Aphex Works mixes some years back.
Small Fish With Spine was/is an alias of Riz’s and she’d just released her Ultimate Sushi album on Oxygen Music Works (which I’d designed the cover for too). Not sure what I was thinking playing her new record before her, bad DJ etiquette but I was young and foolish back then. ‘Korona’ comes from the uber-rare MASK 100 12”, a very early Boards of Canada track from 1996, pre-Warp when they were still on Skam and largely unknown. Funny how you can just search for it now and it’s on YouTube, back then it was rare as hen’s teeth. There’s a snatch of Andy Partridge & Harold Budd’s ‘Mantle of Peacock Bones’ with some unidentified spoken word over the top and then Mike Paradinas finishes the first set with ‘Hi-q’ of which I can find hide nor hair of on Discogs.
The second half opens with some abstract ambience and another unknown spoken word piece, presumably from Coldcut’s might Word Treasure CD library. As One’s gorgeous ’Soliel Levant’ from his debut Reflection album slides in before the Ramsey Lewis’ Charles Stepney-produced cover of ‘Dear Prudence’ chugs through with its oddball electronic intro. Exquisite Corpse were connected to the Psychic Warriors Ov Gaia and produced what I’d call trance music in the most literal definition, the sort of tribal rhythms you could perform rituals to long into the night. ‘Cantadora’ bangs hard and comes from their 1993 album Inner Light and while I’m talking definitions; Water Melon and their comrades, Major Force are about as close to ‘trip hop’ in my mind as you could get. Their amazing Out Of Body Experience EP hosts two cuts that feature in this half hour. Harder to find outside of Japan but well worth tracking down. Another from Riz’s LP in the form of ‘Foul Play’ that more than liberally samples from Lalo Schifin’s Dirty Harry/Magnum Force soundtracks before the Prunes’ makeover of DJ Vadim’s ‘Conquest of the Irrational’ single on Ninja Tune. Finishing with another Water Melon track from the aforementioned O.O.B.E. EP and we’re out – I really enjoyed rediscovering this one, I’d probably not heard it since it was recorded over 26 years ago.
Track list:
Solid Steel jingle – The film you are about to see…
A Reminiscent Drive – Everything Is As I Am
Opiate – Small Talk Whirl
Aphex Twin – Analogue Bubblebath 3 track 8
Small Fish With Spine – In Your Own Bubble
Boards of Canada – Korona
Small Fish With Spine – Fung Koo
Andy Partridge / Harold Budd – Mantle of Peacock Bones
Mike Paradinas – Hi-q
Unknown – Unknown
As One – Soliel Levant
Ramsey Lewis – Dear Prudence
Exquisite Corpse – Cantadora
Water Melon – Moon Shaker
Small Fish With Spine – Foul Play
DJ Vadim – Conquest of the Irrational (Prunes mix)
Water Melon – Slow Boat to Mars
Mid May of 1995 was another smorgasbord of eclecticism with drum n bass making in-roads onto the show playlists. After the show’s intro and a snatch from Negativland’s plunderphonic ‘The Perfect Cut’ LP we get what may be the first outing of the Wagon Christ remix of 2 Player’s ‘Extreme Possibilities’. It’s hard to convey how exciting it was to first hear this remix, possibly Luke’s premiere public foray into DnB and a now classic milestone in the Ninja Tune catalogue. That he put this much work into such a mix is incredible and for a relatively new band consisting of Jon Tye (aka MLO/Lo Recordings) and a little-known composer named Daniel Pemberton. Daniel is now a world famous soundtrack composer of course, working on films for Marvel and Ridley Scott among others, but back then he was still at school and would come to our Stealth nights at The Blue Note before going home to study for his exams. He didn’t waste any time making inroads into the studio either, hooking up with Jon on various Lo Recordings and Ntone releases, recording with the Future Sound of London and releasing his first album on Pete Namlook’s Fax label, for which I did the artwork.
More DnB clatters in next from Sounds of Life which was Rupert (Photek) Parkes and Jim from Source Direct collaborating and taking a big chunk of FSOL’s Lifeforms by the sound of it. Spacepimp’s only outing on Clear pits a 70s car chase synth bass line against a DnB rhythm too, everyone was having a go at this ‘new’ style around this time as it emerged from its jungle origins although Spacepimp was an Acen alias so it wasn’t too much of a stretch. After an ad break there’s a swirling ambience I can’t place before the legendary Jello Biafra monologue that we used on the Coldcut Journeys By DJ mix later that year which then led on to Matt and Jon hooking up with the ex-Dead Kennedy frontman to record ‘Every Home A Prison’. Alec Empire’s debut album, Generation Star Wars kicked off with the excellent ‘Lash the 90ties’, the elongated ambient intro suddenly crashing into Aphex-ish distorted beats. Mike Ink’s ‘Rosenkranz’ came from one of the early Sahko releases and this jaunty, marching track is in stark contrast to his then usual 150bpm driving acid techno.
G-Man was Gez Varley from LFO on his first solo outing via the Swim label and this absolutely banging piece of techno is such a joy to hear, despite my fumbled mix with Mike Ink at one point. I must have visited Vienna recently because Elin’s ‘Mondlandung’ is featured and I remember Pita aka Peter Rehberg (RIP) giving me copies of the first few Mego releases when we played there of which this was the second. Soon after comes the masterful Autechre remix of Beaumont Hannant’s Psi-Onyx – all 9 minutes + of it with Ae on peak form – ah the memories… Flanging in over the end beats is a track from Caustic Visions, a group who originally debuted on Industrial Strength with nosebleed acid techno before releasing steadily more experimental fair on their own label, influenced by Aphex Twin and beyond. ‘Corner of a Sphere’ comes from their fourth self-released EP and is well worth investigating if you see a copy and enjoy forward-thinking electronica. ‘Lunatic Jam’ by Germany’s Fauna Flash takes a large chunk of DJ Food’s ‘Dark Blood’ and builds a soulful track around it, from their debut 12” on Compost. We get a snatch of the Jedi Knights’ remix of ‘Antacid’ and then it appears the tape switches to Aphex’s ‘Ventolin’ except it may be from one of my own mixes that I’d taped over as the presence of my old flange pedal in the mix is a telling sign of the era.
Track list:
Solid Steel – intro jingle
Negativland – The Perfect Cut
2 Player – Extreme Possibilities (Wagon Christ mix)
Sounds of Life – Intellect
Spacepimp – Space Chase
Unknown – Unknown
Jello Biafra – A Message From Our Sponsor
Alec Empire – Lash the 90ties
Mike Ink – Rosenkranz
G-Man – Legion
Elin – Mondlandung
Beaumont Hannant – Psi-Onyx (Psix Million Dollar Myx Oscar Goldman’s Bonus)
Caustic Visions – Corner of a Sphere
Fauna Flash – Lunatic Jam
Link & E621 – Antacid (Jedi Knights remix)
Aphex Twin – Ventolin (Deep Gong mix)
The second edition of Brian Eno‘s turntable is showing at the Paul Stolper Gallery in London this month. Prices last time were eye-watering and actually went up as the edition sold out giving an incentive for early buyers.
Gary Hustwit‘s Eno film premiered at the Sundance Festival in January to rave reviews, it compiles a different film with each showing from 168 hours of footage. You can buy these limited prints or Sundance Poster, designed by Build, from Hustwit’s site
And if that wasn’t enough Eno for you, there have been more tracks added to his radio station, The Lighthouse, on Sonos. At the end of 2023 there were 424 but 447 and 448 cropped up today, The Lighthouse is a continuous stream of largely unreleased tracks from Brian’s archive that play randomly 24 hours a day – am investigating…
UPDATE: There are at least 25 new tracks from 2023 and 2022 added as of Feb 2024 bringing the total of tracks up to 449.
Around the start of each month I publish a selection of roughly 10 releases that I’ve discovered or which are on pre-order via Bandcamp on the Buy Music Club website. Here you can easily create clickable lists that preview a track from each release and can then take you through to buy via Bandcamp. Think of it as my monthly DJ chart, each monthly entry can be viewed here.
Or you can even embed them
What a time for music, early 1995 and not only did we have the hugely anticipated new single from DJ Shadow but also Aphex Twin’s Ventolin EP and Fatboy Slim’s debut single when he was still in downtempo mode with ‘The Weekend Starts Here’. After ‘In/Flux’ blew up, not only for Shadow but by putting MoWax into a higher orbit, everyone was waiting for new music from Josh Davis and he delivered big time with a four part 30 minute single called ’What Does Your Soul Look Like’. The first half of the show covers three of the parts, available on a set of three blue vinyl 10” promos inside sleeves that joined together. Interspersed between them is the Fatboy with the Weekend Bonus Beats version of his single and Death’s sole release (aka Thomas Heckmann) on Trope, a modular bleep-fest called ‘Electronic Realisations Chapter 4’. Following ‘What Does Your Soul Look Like Part 4’ come three ‘Ventolin’ mixes from Aphex, the second, the Deep Gong mix, is by Wagon Christ and a snatch of the London Funk Allstars’ ‘Listen To The Beat’ appears before the tape runs out.
Track list:
DJ Shadow – What Does Your Soul Look Like Part 1
Faboy Slim – The Weekend Starts Here
DJ Shadow – What Does Your Soul Look Like Part 3
Death – Electronic Realisations Chapter 4
DJ Shadow – What Does Your Soul Look Like Part 4
Aphex Twin – Ventolin (Crowsmengegus Mix)
Aphex Twin – Ventolin (Deep Gong Mix)
Aphex Twin – Ventolin (Marazanvose Mix)
An incredibly important release – the first solo album proper from Patrick Carpenter aka PC aka DJ Food, former Cinematic Orchestra member and long-time collaborator with Coldcut both in the studio and on their Solid Steel radio show. This album has been gestating for over 15 years and almost been released on a couple of different labels. For various reasons it hasn’t happened and yesterday, on his birthday, Patrick put it up on Bandcamp for all to hear. It’s a gorgeous mix of jazz, electronica and orchestral bliss that could soundtrack a thousand different moods. I’m so pleased to see this record get released and hope people get to hear it as I’ve been lucky enough to over the last few years. Don’t leave it another 15 years please mate.
We’re still in the early 00s here with a mid November 2002 set that includes a few boots/mash ups and a lot of great RnB / Hip Pop. A strong start to the show with the remix of DJ Shadow’s ’Six Days’ featuring Mos Def, this was undoubtedly the most hyped track of his second LP, The Private Press, and a no-brainer for a single makeover. Nice little cut up with the Solid Steel jingle and the ‘it’s only Monday’ lyric (our show used to got out on Monday nights on BBC London at this time). I don’t know which came first, this mix on the tour with Amon Tobin but I was dropping the Streets/Fine Young Cannibals/Gloria Jones combo in DJ sets around that time although it’s one of the only times I played anything by Mike Skinner as it wasn’t my bag at all, the baseline in the High Contrast remix was the catalyst. Adding Gloria Jones’ ’Tainted Love’ with the rhythm the FYC stole after was a no brainer.
I was deep into the mash up thing at this time and Dsico was an Australian producer whose productions I liked a lot, his extreme cut up/glitch styles going way further than most on the scene, riffing off that Kid 606 sound but with plenty of funk. He appears here twice, first dismembering Beyonce and later dicing with Puff Daddy, by this time, P Diddy. A sharp contrast is Joni Mitchell who I’d suddenly ‘got’ and hoovered up a load of albums on tour in the US, weird how tastes change and then one day an artist just makes sense, I’d had the same thing with the Beach Boys a couple of years before. ‘Dry Cleaner from Des Moines’ is from her Mingus album but I’m not sure what I was thinking adding it in here with way too much ‘jazz scratching’ to boot.
RJD2’s excellent ‘Final Frontier’ from his debut, Deadringer begins a trio of rap tracks followed by the ‘Halfway Home’ interlude from Blacklicious’ Blazing Arrow album. This was produced by DJ Shadow and is hard as nails, search for an amazing remix of this by UK producer Awkward which really bangs. N.O.R.E.’s ‘Nothin’ is such a simple tune, a straight loop of basic drum, bumping bass and that haunting flute top line, loose as anything and reliant on the vocals to provide a chorus. The genius of the Neptunes right there although having Noreaga on the mic helps too and I think his ‘SuperThug’ track from four years before was the first time I ever heard a Neptunes production. They had virtually taken over at this point, issuing track after track with different vocalists that were classics as soon as they hit the dance floor. I let the instrumental run out of Blacklicious, add the Discover Hip Hop advert that gives the mix its name and then off into the radio edit of the vocal.
Randy Maverick’s ‘Pure Love’ is funk 45 heaven and still gets spun – I just looked him up and this is his sole release on Discogs, I’d presumed it was some sort of reissue/re-edit at the time but it seems it was a remix of Al Reed’s ’99 444/100 Pure Love’ by the Nextmen and the Maverick name was a cover. I’ve just heard the original for the first time and they did a great job, the definition of a remix breathing new life into an old song. You can find the Randy Maverick for £6 on Discogs which is a lot cheaper than the Al Reed. DJ First Rate (or just First Rate later on) put out a 3 track sampler in 2002 with a demo mix of ‘One Day’ on it which would later surface on his first album proper in 2005 and it’s doing my head in as to where that bass comes from. Reminds me a bit of Air with those little synths flourishes.
Into some crazy versions next with the second Dsico cut up of P Diddy’s ‘Diddy’ then a mash of Tweet’s ‘Oops (Oh My)’, The Gap Band’s ‘Oops Upside Your Head (see what they did there?) and Bob Marley(!). It sort of works in places but is mercifully short. Lightning Head is Glyn ‘Bigga’ Bush with his dub hat on, here versioning Jean Jacques-Perry’s ‘E.V.A.’ which, of course, then leads onto Gang Starr who chopped up the original many years before. Skanking along in the mix for a good while is The Cinematic Orchestra’s ‘Horizon’, a stand alone single that followed the ‘Every Day’ album and should have been a huge hit in a just world. This whole section really rocks along nicely and I’m layering up extra FX over the top, I might try and re-work this into the DJ set. Next we head to Brighton for a Limp Twins cut and DJ Format remixed by Pablo of the Psychonauts who whips ‘B-Boy Code’ up into a chugging break-fest that was a set staple for a good while. I can’t remember where the ‘Discover Hip Hop’ spoken word came from but it’s not on the original record. There’s some genius sampling on this, pairing old school rap bars from different records to make a new verse.
John Kennedy’s ‘Chocolate & Cheese’ has something I can’t put my finger on but I like it. Tony Touch’s ‘The Diaz Brothers’ I can only take in instrumental form though as it samples David Shire’s ‘Salsation’ from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, the same tune that Lightning Head covers on ‘Mudman Skank’ so it was a no-brainer to put them together. I have to apologise for what comes next but you can always switch off as it’s the last track, a mash up of Eminem and Phil Collins that I thought was a good idea at the time. By matching the former’s ‘Cleanin’ Out My Closet’ and the latter’s ‘Mama’ I thought there was some fun to be had. To be fair, it does work in the verses with a nice tension building but the choruses are a painful mess – sorry about that, bit of a duff ending to the hour.
Track list:
DJ SHADOW – SIX DAYS (REMIX feat. MOS DEF)
THE STREETS – HAS IT COME TO THIS (HIGH CONTRAST REMIX)
FINE YOUNG CANNIBALS – GOOD THING
GLORIA JONES – TAINTED LOVE
BEYONCE – WORK IT OUT (DSICO 160 MIX)
JONI MITCHELL – DRY CLEANER FROM DES MOINES
RJD2 – FINAL FRONTIER feat BLUEPRINT
BLACKALICOUS – HALFWAY HOME (INTERLUDE)
N.O.R.E. – NOTHIN’
RANDY MAVERICK – PURE LOVE
DJ FIRST RATE – ONE DAY (Demo Mix) feat. JOHN MACALLUM
P DIDDY – DIDDY (DSICO CUT UP)
MIXED BIZNESS – OOPS TO BE LOVED
LIGHTNING HEAD – E.V.A.
GANG STARR – JUST TO GET A REP
CINEMATIC ORCHESTRA – HORIZON
THE LIMP TWINS – MOVIN’ CLOSER TO THE SOFA
DJ FORMAT – B- BOY CODE (PSYCHOPAB REMIX)
JOHN KENNEDY – CHOCOLATE & CHEESE
TONY TOUCH – THE DIAZ BROS (INSTRUMENTAL)
LIGHTNING HEAD – MUDMAN SKANK
FLEXUS – I’M SORRY MAMA
An exhibition of phenakistoscopes and zoetropes revolving around music and audio has just opened at the Rotundes venue in Luxembourg. I was thrilled to see my design and viewer for Bonobo‘s ‘Cirrus’ on Ninja Tune way back in 2013 using animations by Cyriak from his video for the song.
Turn On is open from Saturday 20.01 to Sunday 11.02 as part of the festival Fabula Rasa.
All photos and film by Reuben Sutherland/Sculpture who played there on Saturday after their triumphant turn at The Light Surgeons‘ takeover at Iklectik last Thursday. The exhibition is on until February 11th and there’s an exclusive slipmat available as part of it, designed by Etienne Duval.
Opening hours:
Thu + Fri >15:00 – 18:00
Sat + Sun >11:00 – 18:00
Closed from Monday to Wednesday
More info: www.rotondes.lu
A true mixed bag with this set from March 2003, opening with Dark Circle from their Jazz Fudge release bolstered by a double time Flytronix DnB tune with a fine filtered horn line. The original listing for McKay’s acappella that I float over the top was wrong, it’s actually ‘Rising Tide’ rather than ‘Bluesin’ It’ – check her stuff, she’s made some great music with the likes of Boca 45, DJ Spinna and Katalyst over the years. Spanish producers Camping Gaz and Digi Random drop a tune from their 3rd and final EP together before Nino Nardini stomps in with Afro-Beat. I’m not sure where this version comes from but I think it’s different from the one put out on a 45 by Jazzman which I still play out on occasion. I always like Def Tex’s approach to hip hop, never afraid to switch things up and ‘Dancehaul’ is no exception, tight beats and scratches and lyrics all over the rhythm. Pepe Deluxe’s ‘Salami Fever’ was the first time they caught my ear with the crazed cut up of beats, power chords and scratching and they’ve not deviated far from this path for the last 20 years despite various psychedelic adventures.
Nostalgia 77 aka Ben Lamdin put out many a great 45 on Tru Thoughts in the 00s and it’s great to see he’s still releasing material, the latest being an album on the aformentioned Jazzman. I must dig this out again as I’d forgotten it – HUGE Beatles sample! Taskforce get jiggy on ‘Rockstarz’ which comes from the Low Life Records’ compilation Main Courses -Food. Things take a turn with Plasikman’s ‘Kriket’ and Lisa Maffia’s ‘All Over’ acappella which is a pairing I used to do regularly in DJ sets around this time before we journey over to Montreal for Sixtoo and MattH and the first release on the Bully label. Mostly dealing in screen-printed, hand assembled 7”s, the label, run by the mysterious Marco, put out around 30 experimental beat-led releases from 2003 onwards including a Silver Apples album at one point! Loads of great stuff on the label and the records are beautiful objects.
Aah, it’s great to hear this Gray Market Goods track again, a release by my old friend Bundy K Brown for which I also supplied a meticulously drawn homage to Vaughn Bode for the sleeve. We’ve been chatting a bit online of late about various states of the music industry and I always respect his take on things. He has a unique way of putting together samples that never bores me and is rewarded by repeated listens, this Herbie Hancock-sampling groove being no exception. Herbie was a big love of Bundy’s and he hipped me to the Mwandishi Band era stuff when I first visited the US looking for records in the mid 90s. The killer wah wah groove of the Stark Reality is up next from the ‘Now’ compilation on Stones Row around this time, with ‘All You Need To Make Music’ which runs through the various differences between musical notes. I noticed that this version is just over 8 minutes but on the original Hoagy Carmichael’s Music Shop LP it’s over 12 minutes!
Back to the future next for Wagon Christ’s remix of Tipper’s ‘Donut’ – a match made in heaven I think. Dan Snaith’s Manitoba (before he had to change it to Caribou) up next with the lengthily-titled ‘If Assholes Could Fly,This Place Would Be An Airport’ which is all 2-Step beats and Amen breaks, overlaid with spoken word from Yoshinori Sunahara’s ‘Tokyo Underground Airport’ – a concept single about said airport. The record comes in a gatefold gold printed sleeve with picture disc, booklet and sticker sheet, all designed immaculately as only the Japanese can. Sunahara has made many airport or airline-themed records over the years. Da Boo’s lone release, the Herbie Hancock-sampling (again) ‘Spark This’ underpins the end of the show with a lengthy dialogue from Bell Telephone Labs which comes from a strange double album I found of spoken word entirely about computers from serious science to comedic skits.
Track list:
Dark Circle – That’s Cool
Flytronix – Zig Zag (Alternative DJ mix)
McKay – Rising Tide (acapella)
Camping Gaz & Digital Random – Gazoul (Camping Gaz Symphony 3)
Nino Nardini – Afro-Beat
Def Tex – Dancehaul
Pepe Deluxe – Salami Fever
Nostagia 77 – The Goat
Taskforce – Rockstarz (remix)
Plastikman – Kriket
Lisa Maffia – All Over (acapella)
Sixtoo & MattH – webeganhearingthings
Gray Market Goods – We Live In The Future
Stark Reality – All You Need To Make Music
Tipper – Donut (Wagon Christ remix)
Manitoba – If Assholes Could Fly…
Yoshinori Sunahara – Tokyo Underground Airport
Da Boo – Spark This
Bell Telephone Labs – Computer Speech
20 years ago today I premiered the first version of my Raiding The 20th Century guest mix on XFM‘s The Remix radio show. Originally commissioned by James Hyman as a 30 minute set for the evening show he and Eddie Temple-Morris chaired together, what emerged was a 39 minute mini history of the cut up. James had left the show by this time but I visited the studio and sat in live with Eddie as the show unfolded, chatting a little at the end about the mix and why I’d felt the need to undertake such an epic excercise. At the time the mix took down the home of online mash ups, the Boom Selection server for a bit when it was uploaded and I made a run of 100 copies of a CD version that I largely sold at our Solid Steel nights or through the Ninja Tune forum.
Fast forward about 18 years and I’m contacted by Yoshi from Delic Records in Japan who wanted to make a physical tape version of the mix as he thought it was an important work and wanted to have a physical item to save it from being just another digital file floating in the ether. At the time I was sceptical and not too interested – afterall, the mix is out there if you look, as is its bigger brother the Paul Morley-narrated Words & Music Expansion that clocks in at 59 minutes. Yoshi was persistant and, as the 20th anniversary approached, I could see his point and wanted to do something commemorate it.
So here we have a cassette version of the first edition of the mix, spread over both sides (I did the edit) and with rejigged artwork from the original CD release. Also available is a double-sided T-shirt or you can get both as a bundle. These are only being sold by Delic Records in Japan, I have none here aside from my own personal copies. I’m sure there will also be a companion release for the expanded mix this time next year…
A new remix performed on the Quadraphon turntable using a 7″ locked groove record by Slim Vic (given to me years ago by Graham Dunning who has grooves on the other side) features on this release.
Out now on the Because We Love Music 24 compilation from Lamour Records out of Sweden.
Spotify / Bandcamp / Tidal
I discovered the Portugese Prisma Sonora label randomly on Bandcamp late last year and was struck by their great cassette artwork. Upon diving in I found a label full of hauntologial synths, tape montage and found sounds very much in the Ghost Box tradition (or the older GB maybe). Anyway, I thought I’d share these lovely graphics and maybe you’ll like the sounds too, they even have a release with songs made for typefaces.
This show aired just over 20 years ago and was the product of a tour to Australia and New Zealand the previous year, showcasing a lot of the music I’d been given or bought from groups largely indigenous to those shores. Opening with the Bamboo Shack version of the Limp Twins’ ‘Another Day In The Life of Mr. Jones’ on Tru Thoughts – a long time record box staple – played by The Bamboos, a remix/rework that no doubt saw to them releasing many records on the label. Whilst in Auckland, New Zealand, I hooked up with Stinky Jim aka UK ex-pat Jim Pinckney of Unitone HiFi, owner of the Round Trip Mars label who furnished me with much of the music in this mix. SJD was one of his artist and ‘The Lowdown Pt.2’ is one of a couple of tracks in the mix – following is the Daly Wilson Big Band, an ensemble of up to 18 musicians who played popular jazz and cover versions. Their version of the Theme from the Rockford Files is overlaid with a load of dialogue from the show courtesy of Megatrip’s Soundbank library that we took so liberally from in the 00s.
After the first of several intros from several mix CDs Jim gave me is another Australian funk combo, Cookin’ On 3 Burners with their debut release on the Bamboo Shack label – remember the funk 45 ‘craze’ was in full swing around this time after Shadow and Cut Chemist’s ‘Brainfreeze’ mix had opened the doors and all sorts of bands were creeping out the woodwork with credibly retro-sounding songs or covers in a 60s/70s style. Mood Unit’s ‘Games?’ reminds me of Tipsy’s first album, a psychedelic lounge style not far from trip hop and came from the sole12” released on the Froth Recordings label from New Zealand. I seem to remember it was around 9 minutes long so I’ve edited it a bit for this mix – the Unit’s only other release was on a Round Trip Mars compilation.
While I was in New Zealand I visited a promoter’s house who had Dave Tipper staying as he was on some sort of tour, I’ll never forget him making beats on his laptop on the sofa and then going into the next room and performing some incredibly tight scratch cuts, I had no idea he was such a good turntablist at the time. I think he gave me a Cdr of music he was either working on or had coming out as I don’t know the title of the next track which he produced. I got him to do a guest mix for the show when I was back in the UK and you can hear some of his scratching skills during the next ‘Cut The Jibber’ section which was inserted into my set. All the scratching spoken word inserts were put on by me later – sorry Dave! I think you’ll agree, the guy has skills. After running through Mark Pritchard, DJ Vadim, Mr. Oizo and Prefuse 73 instrumentals then it’s back to me for a couple of songs, the Mudie Allstars ’10 Steps To Soul’ being from a mix Jim gave me of Harry Mudie productions.
Downsyde are a rap group from Perth and ‘Did Not You know’ is from their Land of The Giants album before we’re plunged back into the second part of the Tipper cut-fest over a Mark B instrumental. The second track from SJD – ‘Guiding Light’ – is in stark contrast to the first, a big band jazz number with vocals and it seems that Sean James Donnelly is still putting out music to this day, I’m not surprised if he could come up with this on only his second album. More Mudie next, an unlikely reggae cover of Idris Muhammad’s classic, ‘Loren’s Dance’ before we drift into the last 11 minutes of Fat Freddy’s Drop’s ‘Bluey’ from their debut 10” single in 2003. At this point the band were well known in New Zealand and it didn’t take them long to make it out onto the international circuit where they’re now festival regulars.
Track list:
The Bamboos – Another Day In The Life of Mr Jones (Bamboo Shack version)
SJD – The Lowdown Pt 2
Daly Wilson Big Band – Theme from the Rockford Files
Stinky Jim – Intro 11
Cookin’ On 3 Burners – Gravel Rash
Mood Unit – Games? (edit)
Stinky Jim – intro 14
Tipper – unknown
Tipper guest mix insert: Cut The Jibber pt 1 intro
Mark Pritchard – unknown
Tipper – Tip Hop
DJ Vadim – Friction (Instrumental)
Mr Oizo – Electro Shit Non Stop
Prefuse 73 – Eve Of Destruction
Mudie All Stars – Ten Steps To Soul
Downsyde – Did Not You Know
Tipper guest mix insert: Cut The Jibber pt 2
Si Begg – Noodles 2
Mark B & Blade – Ya Don’t See The Signs (instrumental)
Stinky Jim – intro 1
SJD – Guiding Light
Stinky Jim – intro 3
Mudie All Stars – Loren’s Dance
Fat Freddy’s Drop – Bluey
Next gig – we’re reprising our Candlemas performance of last year on January 28th with a variety of liquid lights and slides plus music and food at the Royal Foundation of St. Katherine in east London. Curated by Heena Song, she’ll be joined by Julian Hand, Paul Naudin, Joe and Janie of Whyte Light Visuals and myself for an evening of psychedelic projection in and outside around the grounds of the Foundation. Nearest train station is Limehouse and then it’s just round the corner, you should be able to see the lights from the train. Tickets are available here or on the gate and the event runs from 6pm to 9pm.
The missing #172 upload (no, I didn’t notice either until a couple of weeks later). This is one of the tapes my ex-wife had squirrelled away that she wanted digitised and it’s one I didn’t have a copy of, a short set drifting from jazz to hip hop to funk and pop. The set starts with a classic Solid Steel jingle, ‘The Ninth World’ read, I think, by Matt Black’s dad.
Around the mid-late 90s the Ninja crew were regularly DJing across Europe and thus had access to piles of ECM jazz at cheap prices and bassist Barre Philips was a particular favourite of mine along with Jon Abercrombie and Eberhard Weber. Stanley Clarke’s ‘Concerto for Jazz / Rock Orchestra’ was on my radar as I was so into the sample at the end of DJ Shadow’s In/Flux on the Headz 2 compilation that I had to track it down. I ran upon a copy of his Journey To Love LP in the now closed Discovel (sp?) record shop in Montreal – you’ll know the part when you hear it. Echoes was an alias of my old friend Bundy K. Brown, ex of Tortoise and a future collaborator at this point in time, ‘Continental Drift’ was new back when this was recorded and was apparently very influential on a young Kieran Hebden aka Four Tet. Bundy worked in the Chicago record store Dusty Groove and was a little more keyed into what was happening on the electronic music scene than the other members of the band and made several sample-heavy beats and jazz-infused tracks and remixes around this time which caught my ear.
There’s an identified track at the end of the Echoes single, a distorted drum thing for a minute or so but I can’t identify it. KRS-One’s ‘Step Into A World’ was also new around 1997, transposing ‘The Champ’ into a new form alongside Blondie’s ‘Rapture’ which is why the Mohawks original comes next. Part 2’s ‘Automatic’ and ‘Prelude To Cycle 6’ were both taken from his sole EP for Jazz Fudge which was also current and one of the series of sleeves I put together for the label. The Human League’s ‘Being Boiled’ slots between them and needs no introduction, not sure why I felt the need to feature it here though. Water Melon’s cover of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Albatross’ is something you wouldn’t immediately equate with the Japanese group but it totally works and is just one of the treasures to be found of the Pussyfoot label’s ‘Fish Smell Like Cat’ compilation album.
Track list:
Barre Phillips – Mountain Scape
Stanley Clarke – Concerto For Jazz / Rock Orchestra
Echoes – Continental Drift
KRS One – Step Into A World (Rapture’s Delight)
The Mohawks – Champ
Part 2 – Automatic
The Human League – Being Boiled
Part 2 – Prelude To Cycle 6
Water Melon – Albatross
Unknown to all but the most observant fans, Ian Peel – keyholder to the ZTT vaults and curator of the label’s reissue series for the last 30 years or more – has been celebrating their four decade anniversary in 2023 by compiling 40 digital releases from the deepest depths of the tape cupboard. Working as The Dream Department alongside Philip Marshall – who has been adding appropriate period visuals to each release – they’ve been giving the complete or expanded treatment to the label’s 80s and 90s output for everyone except Frankie, Seal and 808 State (who they extensively covered a couple of years back). Having visited the ZTT archives with Ian over a decade ago I can attest to the sheer volume of music that is on tape but it’s still a surprise to see what’s coming to light over three decades after it was recorded.
ZTT debuted in 1983 with two different series’ – Action (for pop) and Incidental (for more experimental fair), a concept dreamt up by publicist Paul Morley to separate different strands of their output. A Certain series was added for the surreal cabaret of Anne Pigalle in 1985 and a Fatal series was mooted but never materialised. When the label moved from Island to Warners in the late 80s these disappeared, as did the playfulness that Morley bought to the sleeve and promo art – something Ian resurrected when he started working on the back catalogue in the 90s, at first with ZTTTen, then creating the Artefact Series for the physical reissues from 2005-2011, followed by the Element Series from 2008-2019. Once the label passed to Universal in 2019 he started the Definition Series, releasing expanded digital singles for the likes of 808 State, Propaganda and MC Tunes among others. There was even a briefly resurrected Fatal(e) Series for the ex-ZTT Propaganda releases and an Adventure Series for The Art of Noise but I digress…
The digital releases have gone into overdrive in 2023 but sadly Universal seem uninterested in promoting anyone but the big guns so, unless you follow Ian’s Twitter feed, you probably wouldn’t be aware of much of this. Ian knows the catalogue and the archive inside out, having spent years cataloguing it from the master tapes, along the way discovering all manner of hidden, lost or unreleased treasures. Using this knowledge he’s enhanced the Definition Series – think also ‘Definitive’ – under the ZTT40 banner to celebrate four decades of the label’s esoteric output. 40 digital singles or albums with mulitple single mixes, demos, live takes and more – shining a light into the darkest corners of the vault, exhuming and digitizing songs for the first time, long left to fester on maganetic tape.
Streaming services notoriously don’t like record label data, preferring to catalogue releases by artist, title or album, so looking for ZTT records on Spotify is not going to net you much. Similarly they’re not big on details so, once you’ve found a release, the most you’ll get is a tracklist, running time and year of release. Frustratingly limiting in the case of a project like this where some songs were released, some weren’t, some appeared later in different forms, thus rendering the historical details of such an endeavour invisible. And collectors and fans are nothing if not concerned with the details, it’s the small print that interests us, context is everything, when a song dates from being one of the foremost.
I asked Ian about this process, keen to learn more details about his history as the label’s curator, his treatment of the archive and what may be on the horizon. What follows, I can safely say, is the most indepth article ever about ZTT’s back catalogue reissue programme and even this only feels like it’s scratching the surface. Many thanks to Ian for going above and beyond and even supplying photos to illustrate, strap in as this is a long one.
The Art of Noise/Revision at a festival date this summer, L-R: Ian Peel, Gary Langan, JJ Jeczalik, (note the Nasty Rox Inc. promo T-shirt)
What was the plan and thinking behind this series of 40 weekly digital releases?
Ian: I wanted to do something suitably ambitious and memorable to mark 40 years of ZTT. One release a week for 40 weeks. I also wanted to use it as a chance to bring slightly disparate chapters of the story together and present a cohesive vision of an auteur label that rivalled and, in many ways, outstripped Mute, Factory and 4AD. I realised that I’ve been working in, on or for ZTT for 35 years, which must be some sort of record, but this has been one of the most enjoyable projects to put together.
I approached it in the same way as all the other ZTT releases, box sets and compilations I’ve put together which now go back more than 30 years: as a chance to continually reinvigorate the myth of the label. And a chance to work so hard on it that 00s Leilani could sit naturally alongside 80s Propaganda and 90s Shades of Rhythm. The best way to do this is with a series, with consistent curation and an overarching plan (even if the plan took a few twists and turns along the way).
It was also a chance to release a huge amount of material that had never been heard before. And to explore some of the artists that recorded and worked hard for the label but who were never properly ‘taped and brochured’. It would be unthinkable to not go back and complete the digital catalogues of the likes of Anne Pigalle, Act, S/O/R and All Saints once this anniversary has passed but, for a lot of artists and projects, it felt very much like a case of ‘if not now, then when?’.
It’s been like writing an audio history of the label–especially as there are chapters in the story that I know took place behind the scenes, but which never actually resulted in records being released. I’ve tried to fill in the blanks, like pointing to ZTT’s momentary dive into acid house with singles like ‘Spectrum is Green’ by Acid Rox Init. Or one of the foundations of the label’s almost-comeback in the early 00s, with ‘Craving’ by Aurora and the Davids Daughters album. None of these were ever released, to say nothing of the 12” and remix 12” of the great lost early ZTT single, Instinct’s ‘Sleepwalking’.
The other exciting thing about the unreleased material is it needed artwork, so I have to say Philip Marshall, who I have been working with on ZTT projects since the start of the Element Series, has created some brilliant work. You can totally imagine the ‘Spectrum is Green’ sleeve racked in Our Price alongside something like Sputnik’s ‘S.U.C.C.E.S.S’. The Time Unlimited cover is a work of art. Likewise, the Leilani cover – the photo that was originally earmarked for her LP looked, in hindsight, like a throwaway pin-up poster, so instead we went with something much more mature and intriguing.
And if I’d found records like ‘Das Psych-oh! Rangers in The Blue Building’ and Nasty Rox’s ‘Ninth Wonder’ in a high street record store back in the day I would have bought them in a heartbeat on looks alone.
Did you have a free hand as to who and what to include?
Yes, absolutely. And that hasn’t always been the case, by any means. But with this project I can say that this is the ZTT music that I love, that I think changed the course of history and that I could happily listen to all day.
It’s only slightly skewed in that I’d already put together the entire 808 State, Propaganda, 90s-era Art of Noise, Kirsty MacColl and MC Tunes catalogues for digital already. It’s my version of ZTT and my vision of ZTT but excluding those artists and also some that could not be included due to rights.
Certain artists that released music on ZTT – but which I felt were never part of the original (or any true) ZTT ethos – were not included: The Frames, The Marbles, Shane MacGowan, Sinead O’Connor, Raging Speedhorn and Lisa Stansfield. All great artists in their own respect, but I don’t think anyone ever became a ZTT fan after buying one of their records.
Conversely, I was excited that the series could include so many artists that were in the label’s original spirit but came after the Island Records era, like Mantra, Shades of Rhythm, General Max, Solid State Logic, Glam Metal Detectives, Lee Griffiths, and so on. They’re all now properly glued into that spirit I hope, and I’ve tried to show how that initial spirit extended way beyond 1988.
You mentioned some artists couldn’t be included due to rights. Which were they?
Hoodlum Priest was deemed off limits on account of samples. Which is a shame, as they were Trevor’s dream ZTT group at one point. And as the project was lead from the UK, releases that are controlled out of the US end of Universal could not be included. So that put a line through Grace Jones’‘Slave To The Rhythm’, Tom Jones’‘The Lead and How To Swing It’, Wendy & Lisa and the ‘Toys’ soundtrack, and also Roy Orbison’s ‘Wild Hearts’.
The Tom Jones material was always a bit of a curveball but it would have made sense if the 40 had included the two six-minute Youth remixes of his cover of Yazoo’s ‘Situation’. There’s also Frankie Goes To Hollywood but I think it’s clear from the two Frankie releases over the last couple of years (2022’s budget-price ‘The Essential’compilation and the digital single of ‘Sped Up’ and slowed down TikTok remixes of ‘The Power of Love’), neither of which have been on ZTT, that Universal sees them in their own particular way.
Late 00s and the very start of the Sarm/ZTT tape archive – “note the Frankie film tins, and initial complete lack of order (and even shelving)” (photo: Aaron Horn)
Was everything planned completely in advance or were there changes along the way?
The beauty of a digital series is that nothing goes off to be physically manufactured, so there’s always scope to make a few changes. Initially I had the idea that every fifth release would be from Act, because I’d already got that catalogue completely researched and restored for a digital roll-out early on in 2023.
But the more I got into it, the more I really didn’t want to dwell on any one group more than another, so I parked that idea after the second Act single went live in May. The only exception was –as there was a lot more to do with the 80s-era Art of Noise catalogue, and September was the 40th anniversary of ‘Into Battle’ – the series went on a bit of a detour into AoN-land for a few weeks.
The other swerve came as, in the summer, I finally tracked down recordings of Anne Pigalle, Propaganda and others at 1985’s ‘The Value of Entertainment’ concert. I’d been looking for those tapes for more than 20 years. It turns out they were in the Island Records archive within the Universal vault. That was a perfect ZTT40 release, so I managed to get the multitrack to Gary Langan and get some space in his diary so he could mix and produce them into a final release. (There’s lots more on that particular release on the Art of Noise Facebook page here.)
How does this series differ from what you put together for the thirtieth anniversary?
At that point it was still very much the CD age, so you were limited by what you could include: it had to fit to 70 mins (though I tried to stretch every single one to 73 mins), it needed to get retailer interest so certain tracks and mixes had to be included no matter what.
At that point Sarm Studios still existed and I was working there as label manager of ZTT and marketing manager of all the businesses in the group. I’d renewed the Union Square license and set up new partnerships for North America and Japan. So rather than one 30th anniversary CD, at least I could come up with three 2-CDsets – the London, New York and Tokyo Editions – and include tracks that might not work in one territory in another.
Other differences are where the artists in question are at, and where the tapes are at. For example, I approached Leilani about her unreleased album in 2012 and – perfectly understandably – she wasn’t quite in the headspace for it. Ten years later she really embraced the idea of it being released. In fact, this was one of the factors that spurred her on to apply for ‘Survivor’ on BBC One, where she was the winning woman. And those two factors combined inspired her new music with Philip Jap which has come out in the last few weeks.
Likewise, I’ve never seen members of Instinct talk about their time on ZTT. But Angela Jaeger has been sharing news of the Definition Series editions on socials. In terms of the tapes, in a much more practical sense, things like the DAT archives – of Time Unlimited, Sun Electric, Tara, All Saints and Shades of Rhythm – they just hadn’t been properly transferred and archived at that stage.
Ian inside his infamous ZTT tape library in 2014
OUTSIDE WORLD AND INSIDE ZANG TUMB TUUM
Can you give us an encapsulation of your interest in ZTT, l first became aware of you from the ‘Record Collector’ overview of the label in the 80s…
To begin with, when ZTT was at its initial peak, I was a bit of a ‘Smash Hits’ addict and saw it through their eyes in a way. I used to write letters to Silvia Patterson which she edited quite heavily but I didn’t mind as they would end up in print. ‘Smash Hits’ coverage of ZTT was really interesting and quite daring for a mainstream pop magazine. Like doing two pages on Anne Pigalle and two on ‘The Value of Entertainment’. They once wrote about an unsigned group called Das Euphony Kiks, which lead them to being signed to the label, as Das Psych-Oh! Rangers.
When the Art of Noise left the label, I thought it was all over. But then I entered a ‘Smash Hits’ competition to win their first post-ZTT single, ‘Legs’ (on 12”, promo T-shirt and 12”‘Inside Leg Mix’ promo VHS video) and won, so that hooked me back in and lead to me following the group on China Records a/k/a The Adventure Series.
In 1987, ‘Record Collector’ magazine trailed a ‘coming soon’ piece about the label that never appeared, so I wrote to them to ask when it was coming out. They wrote back to say the journalist had given up, so could I please write it?
It became a three-part special that was published in October, November and December of 1988, and I carried on writing for ‘Collector’, on and off, from then on. It led to me joining DJ magazine and writing a full-page column for them for 11 years. DJ was fortnightly then, so that was about 300 issues of the magazine.
That was across the whole of the 90s and into the early 00s, so I used the DJ mag column at times to catch up with ZTT artists, like Art of Silence, Debussy-era Art of Noise, 808 State, and to interview artists who had been inspired by the label like The Orb, The Black Dog and Scanner.
There was also your ‘Outside World’ zine in the early 90s…
After the ‘Record Collector’ articles, I wanted to carry on writing about the ZTT world and was inspired by a couple of other fanzines at the time — ‘Telegraph’ about OMD and ‘Conductor of the Masses’ about Jean Michel Jarre. So I decided to put together a ZTT fanzine.
The first one was full cut-and-paste style with scissors, Letraset and gluestick. For content, I had my ‘Smash Hits’ collection and all the ‘Collector’ research to draw on. My brother Ken Peel who is an electronic musician, had a great collection of magazines from his world like ‘Music Technology’, ‘Electronics & Music Maker’ and ‘Making Music’ that I could draw on.
By the second issue in 1991, I’d discovered Macs and laser printing. By the third issue in 1992 I’d discovered email and connected with contributors around the world. Not least Philip Marshall who wrote about Sense (of Island) and Teutonic Beats for the zine. It was the start of a great friendship and working relationship.
The zines were labours of love in that Issue 1 came out in the summer of 1990 and it took me a year to get Issue 2 out and another year for Issue 3. It also took an incredible amount of work placing ads and taking and dispatching orders. But people seemed to like it. It got a great review in i-D magazine. Teletext had a music reviews section and the guy that reviewed it there is now one of the most prolific writers for Classic Pop (Ian founded Classic Pop magazine in 2012).
How did you get the prime job of chief archivist for the label?
It was as a result of producing ‘Outside World’. I thought Issue 1 was OK, but I was pleased with Issue 2 and sent a copy to the ZTT office at Sarm Studios along with the ‘i-D’ review. They loved it and invited me in for a chat where they asked me to work as an A&R and marketing consultant. It must have been December 1991. In that meeting I was one of the first people to find out that Seal had shaved his head as they showed me the first cut of Wendy & Lisa ft. Seal’s ‘The Closing of The Year’ video.
They were trying to figure out what to do for the tenth anniversary campaign, so I put together lots of material and ideas that went into Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s ‘Bang!’ and ‘Reload!’ compilations, the ‘Zance’ comp as well as the CD reissues of the early albums.
That was the extent of the back catalogue marketing for the tenth anniversary. It was the early 90s so everyone was focused on the future so the majority of my work was on D2C (direct to consumer) campaigns for new artists like All Saints and Tara. The only territory that was interested in rare bonus material was Japan, so I put together extra tracks for the 10th anniversary CD reissues that were released there, which was simply called the ZTTTen Series.
The Grace Jones and Frankie remixes from that time (around 1992) did really well but there were also lots of other remixes of all the other early artists that never came out. There was a funny highlight from the ZTTTen Series when I worked with a TV show called ‘Naked City’ for which Caitlin Moran interviewed Paul Morley and Paul Rutherford.
I was also pitching to work with another label called Solid Pleasure. Formed by Yello, and alerted to me by Philip Marshall originally, some of their brilliant releases included a collaboration with Ralf Dörper (under his Technocrats alias) called ‘Qtopia’ by ST Melody.
Naked City needed some Frankie merchandise to shoot for the segment, so I sent them ‘Frankie Say ARM The Unemployed’, ‘Frankie Say WAR! Hide Yourself’, and ‘Frankie Say BOMB Is A Four Letter Word’. But to help prove a point to the other label I wanted to work with, I printed up one saying ‘Frankie Say SOLID Pleasure’ and sure enough they shot it on a rostrum camera and it appeared on Channel Four.
Another Art of Noise festival date in summer 2023 (with a ‘Value of Entertainment’ T-shirt this time). (photo: Marc Pinder)
Can you give us an overview of how and when you started a new strand of releases for the label with the Artefact Series in the mid-00s?
In the mid-00s, back catalogue marketing was becoming properly established, as was interest in ZTT’s history. At first, Jill Sinclair had random members of the in-house staff of the time put together some back catalogue releases: someone who loved Propaganda rustled up a p:compilation, the most important person in the hierarchy got Frankie, and so on.
What resulted was a disparate bunch of products from a disparate bunch of people. No cohesion at all as they had very little understanding of the ZTT world, no energy for a label identity, and were far more excited by the ‘pub rock’ music of the Stiff Records catalogue that the label also owned.
As a result, there were things like FGTH’s ‘Twelve Inches’ and Propaganda’s ‘Outside World’. Products that sound easy to execute in theory but, as the finished releases prove, much harder in practice. There were also digital releases like ‘The ZTT Singles’ (random CD singles from different artists squeezed together onto digital albums with Ariel-font artwork) and it still pains me that some of those are still online. Though to be fair, when they were put together, no one knew if iTunes would ever take off and Spotify hadn’t even been launched, so you can perhaps understand them being thrown together (artwork and all) in about five minutes.
I was called back in when that team, who left soon after, hit a roadblock when Jill and Trevor Horn began to talk about more expansive and detailed deluxe reissues for the likes of Andrew Poppy, Art of Noise, Anne Pigalle and 808 State. I dived headlong into all of them and started the Artefact Series.
It was an exciting time to be involved again because I could see the past was merging with the future. Trevor, Paul, Anne Dudley, JJ Jeczalik and Gary Langan were all happy to talk about the Art of Noise for the first time since their split in the mid-80s, which lead to the ‘And What Have You Done with My Body, God?’ box set. Many of the tracks didn’t have titles, so Paul gave me a list of new Art of Noise song titles and said – including for the name of the actual box set – just use the titles that the music pulls you towards.
Jill had got the rights to The Buggles’ second album back from Carrere Records, so that was put in the mix too, and Trevor was really excited to go back to those recordings and find unreleased tracks for the second disc. He continued the flow and built on some of them for Yes’s ‘Fly From Here’ album.
My series highlights are maybe Artefact 12: the London and Tokyo ‘Art of ZTT’ exhibitions, Artefact 13: the FGTH ‘Return To The Pleasuredome’ box set (the title of which was an intentional precursor to ‘Inside The Peasuredome’) and also (again intentionally) Artefact 08: the four deluxe expansions of the 808 State albums. The plan was to release those on 8.08.08 but there were a few delays. I did manage to issue the press release announcing them on 8.08.08, though.
Ian and some of his vinyl archive at ‘The Art of ZTT’ exhibition in London, 02 Oct, 2008 before it moved for a second installation in Tokyo (photo: Mark Nicholson)
As this is Trevor and Jill we are talking about, at the helm of both the label and studio at that time, any type of catalogue marketing was based around making something new as well. And at that time, it was live events. So I wrote the souvenir programme for the ‘Produced By Trevor Horn’ concert at Wembley. This was a major deal for the family and everyone at Sarm. Prince Charles visited the studio the week before the concert; I was writing the programme and interviewing Trevor as he was trying to learn the bassline for Close (To The Edit) and listening back and loving the early Dollar singles in his suite above Studio One.
The live event to follow Wembley was to be an open air ZTT takeover of Trafalgar Square. Just as the Pet Shop Boys did the same year with Battleship Potemkin. The head of the ICA at the time was a big ZTT fan and approached the label about a joint project where the ICA took over the space and Trevor/ZTT curated it (as The Art of Noise). It had the working title of ‘ElectronICA’. I wanted to call it ‘Artefact’ to properly launch the series (and a new start for the label) and put together plans for guests and setlists.
The day before what was scheduled to be the first meeting for Trevor and Jill to visit the ICA to properly start planning the event was the day of Jill Sinclair’s accident. Of course, that meant Artefact was over and the trajectory of label changed forever.
With the SPZ (SarmStudios/Perfect Songs/ZTTRecords) team in 2012 in The Blue Building; Ian at the back and, coincidentally, on the left is Perfect’s Melanie Redmond who was the backing singer in The The’s ‘Versus the World’ touring line-up.
ACTIONS/INCIDENT AND ELEMENT/DEFINITION
How did you come to resurrect Paul Morley’s Action and Incidental series?
In the mid-00s, I was also running media relations and the website for ZTT (and also for sister companies Sarm Studios, Perfect Songs, Stiff Records, Horn Brothers Pictures and Music Bank). I was pretty proud of the press we were getting, not least a half-page piece in ‘The Guardian’ on the Andrew Poppy box set. People were really starting to reassess ZTT and also 80s music in general around that time. I showed the press book to Jill Sinclair and I remember she dispensed a typically dry but inspiring pearl of wisdom. “When it comes to press coverage, don’t read it, weigh it.”
It was that same meeting that I was given a bunch of old folders to work through in the hope that some of it would be useful for reissues. Most of it was archive press coverage but it also contained dot matrix-printed and hand-typed lists of the early releases and series: Action, Incidental, Fatal, Perfect, Certain, and IQ. They had exact release dates, for example, for each of the different editions of ‘Relax’, all of the singlettes and so on, as well as catalogue and series numbers. The brief was simple: “if you think any of it’s of use, just take it and run with it.”
When some of the catalogue releases began to feel like ‘frontline’ records, that was when I knew the Action Series was back. Like when I worked with Claudia Brücken to get a new single and video recorded and released as part of her ‘ComBined’ compilation, or came up with a Frankie Goes To Hollywood ‘Maximum Joy’ 7” picture disc for Record Store Day.
I signed Aaron Horn and Alex Preager’s A Theory project to ZTT and they seemed like the perfect group to bring the Incidental Series back to life. And there were countless smaller incidents that have been catalogued along the way: one of my favourites – the perfect modern-day entry into the Incidental Series – is ZTIS 304: a sample of Propaganda’s ‘Dr Mabuse’ when we licensed it to appear in the opening track of Foxes’ 2014 debut album, ‘Glorious’.
The longest strand of ZTT releases in its history must be the Element Series, surely? There must be roughly 50 physical editions across a ten-year period?
In 2008, ZTT signed a licensing deal for Europe with Union Square Music. They specialised in back catalogue and it was an era where there was still a market for classic albums being celebrated as 2-CD sets. I was working for ZTT and Sarm Studios and USM hired me to put together these releases. It started off with 2-CD sets but grew and grew to take in vinyl and eventually the ‘ultra-deluxe’ Frankie Goes To Hollywood box set, which I called ‘Inside The Pleasuredome’. When Union Square was bought by BMG in 2016, they gave a copy of it as a gift to each member of the BMG board at the signing meeting.
When the license started, around 2009, the very first release was what they called a ‘vanilla repress’ of ‘Welcome To The Pleasuredome’. All old copies had to be removed from sale and replaced with their identical (save for the barcode) repress. Rather than just add the barcode, I realised this was a chance to start a new series. The Warners era had the ZANG catalogue numbers, so I added ‘TUMB 1’ as a catalogue number to on-body artwork. But after that I came up with a better title – relating to each release being like elements or parts of the periodic table of ZTT. So the TUMB series stopped there and the Element Series began.
What made the Element Series exciting for me was that, over at ZTT, I was given the job of archiving their complete tape library as well as all tapes of Stiff Records and Perfect Songs (ZTT’s publishing company). Actually, I made it a library after about a year because, to begin with, it was just a big pile of tapes in a completely random order. Anything they had kept anywhere, all delivered to a storage unit in Slough, and the keys delivered to me. My best guess was that there were 100,000 tapes: 2” reels, ¼” reels, DATs, F1s, videos, CDRs and cassettes. This meant that, for the first time, archive reissues could contain music that no one had ever heard before.
There was also, upstairs, a complete paperwork archive to deal with, which is a separate story in itself. But I can say that having found the original contract between Trevor and Jill and Island Records, ZTT was not originally going to be called ZTT…
“I spent a lot of the 00s ferrying tapes from Sarm Studios to Avance Music Research in Manchester to be baked and transferred. Occasionally I used FX Copyroom in London if things were urgent and hand-carried them there. I’m on a very late-night mission here with the master tape for one of the 12″ mixes of ‘Cry’ by Godley & Creme.” — IP
ZTT seemed to have somewhat of a reboot around the time of the Element Series, and I guess you must have been working at Sarm Studios in its final days?
I was there literally in the last weeks of Sarm Studios cataloguing everything on the walls, the gold discs and awards and illuminating framed letters… Then, when the demolition started, we were back in there filming an April Fool’s video for YouTube with Trevor and Lol Creme about vacuuming the vibes out of the concrete.
That was around 2017 but, five years before, everything was on a roll and it was a bit of a rebirth. Stiff Records signed Sam And The Womp and had a No. 1 with ‘Bom Bom’. (Although I always thought they were way more of a ZTT act, especially with the more KLF-like early single mixes.) Perfect Songs placed ‘The Power of Love’ in the Christmas John Lewis ad, which lead to another No. 1 with Gabrielle Aplin. Another Perfect project reached No. 3 (Sonnentanz by Klangkarussell ft. Will Heard). It was a small team of no more than a dozen of us across ZTT, Stiff, Perfect and Sarm Studios so there was quite a buzz again, thanks in part also to Ken Horn, Trevor’s brother (and television producer), who was a very stabilising factor following various haphazard appointments after Jill’s accident.
The studios were doing well at that time, too. I remember hearing Justin Parker writing Rihanna’s ‘Stay’ in the room above the ZTT office. I held the fort on reception once and had Jessie J, Jon Bon Jovi and a reformed Take That to deal with in the space of an hour. But I was most excited about the Element Series: the 2-CD edition of Propaganda’s ‘A Secret Wish’ equalled the original’s chart placing (a fact I proudly told Steve Lipson). And the 2-CD of Frankie’s ‘Welcome To The Pleasuredome’ eventually earned a gold disc.
I wrote up a complete list of all the Elements of Zang Tuum Tumb for the inner sleeve of 2021’s Record Store Day edition of ‘Who’s Afraid Of The Art Of Noise?’. One of my personal favourites from the Element Series is ‘Frankie Said’ as it gelled everything together in one release: the title was a new one courtesy of Paul Morley, Philip did a great job blending ‘Liverpool’-era photography with ‘Pleasuredome’-era graphics. And I was determined that, even though the brief from Union Square was a ‘Best Of’, the dedicated people who buy every ‘Best Of’ should get to hear surprising, unreleased versions of all the tracks.
It timed with ‘The Power of Love’ going to No. 1 again, and I discovered the incredible, unreleased orchestral session from the Frankie original. Like so many unreleased mixes, it was untitled so for this one I took a line from one of the single sleeves for it: ‘Best Listened to By Lovers’. It was also one of the releases, alongside ‘Zambient One’, that I put together with Ian Usher (who signed Sam And The Womp). The great thing about working with Ian was that he would rein me in when I went too far with certain ideas but, at the same time, he would go way too far with something else and I’d be there to rein him in.
Arriving in Tokyo in 2017 for live Art of Noise dates with Anne Dudley (centre) and team (photo: Martha Langan)
More recently you’ve put together the Definition Series of more than 100 digital releases. How did these come about?
By the time Union Square/BMG’s license expired, ZTT had been acquired by Universal Music. So that seemed like the moment to stop the Element Series. Not least because anything placed on streaming or download platforms by BMG was taken down. It felt like the right moment to ask, what is the definition of Zang Tuum Tumb? And I realised that you could answer that with any one of a vast number of records. So that’s how the Definition Series started.
It began with a massive dive into 808 State and it was a joy to be able to finally get records like ‘The Extended Pleasure of Dance’ and all ‘The Tommy Boy Mixes’ released. It’s also been a chance to make sense of the Propaganda digital catalogue and include the lost, final single ‘Sorry For Laughing’.
Can you give us some clues to some of the missing pieces, like Element 18, the Adventure and the Fatal(e) series’?
Yes and there’s so much more to say – we’ve not even touched on the Certain, Perfect, Zambient and ZACID Series. To say nothing of NRO, ZANG, XZIP and ZTE…
The Fatal Series was Paul Morley’s moniker for releases that perhaps signalled the end of something rather than the beginning. Esquire’s 1987 album (which was originally set to be released on ZTT) would have been ZTFS 1, and I placed the prospectus document that led to the sale to Universal as ZTFS 2.
Two singles, when they appeared on recent Record Store Day box sets that should have been massive but weren’t even released were ZTFS 4 (Propaganda’s ‘Frozen Faces’) and ZTFS 5 (Art & ACT’s ‘Life’s A Barrel of Laughs’). When I put together Propaganda’s post-ZTT work on Virgin records for deluxe digital editions about three years ago, it seemed logical to mark them up as the Fatal(e) Series.
As for Element 18, that was a deluxe 2-CD Propaganda compilation, covering all eras of the group, pre-and post-ZTT. It was to start with the original ‘3D’ trilogy from before they even arrived at Sarm: ‘Duel’, ‘Doppelganger’and ‘Disziplin’. And, to cover the later years, Michael Mertens supplied some great material including ‘Who’s The Fool?’ from the 2000 reunion, a new track called ‘I Am A Cathedral’, and a previously-unreleased collaboration with Karl Hyde of Underworld. But it was parked – and eventually replaced with the ‘Noise and Girls Come Out To Play’ compilation – as the group could not reach an agreement with Union Square.
As for the Adventure Series, that’s Art of Noise post-ZTT. The original edition of ‘In Visible Silence’ mentioned it, and I’ve carried it on with all of the releases I’ve been working on for Warners. It’s lead to the Art of Noise/Revision live project I’m part of with JJ Jeczalik and Gary Langan, that we performed to more than 30,000 people at festivals last summer.
Some of our Art of Noise/Revision guests recently have included Afrodeutsche, Sigue Sigue Sputnik’s Neal X, the actor David Tennant, Chilean genius Raimundo Ladrón de Guevara, Paul Morley, Tom Jones and Donal Hodgson (who was also the MD for the Frankie Goes To Hollywood reunion show at Eurovision last May).
Although it possibly works best indoors, recent full-length shows – like the residency we did at The Jazz Café last January (which had a wonderful opening set from someone called DJ Food…) – start off with Adventure 09: ‘Canticles of The Moon’, a piece I worked on with Anne Dudley that blended her ‘Ancient and Modern’ album with Apollo moon landing footage.
Now that the ZTT 40 series is complete, I can happily get back into the headspace of Adventure 04: the ‘Producer’s Cut’ of ‘Below The Waste’ and its accompanying single, the ‘Outer Heat EP’.
Adventure 09: Canticles of The Moon Landing, Art of Noise live at The Jazz Café
40 DEFINITIONS OF ZANG TUUM TUMB
The complete Definition Series for 2023’s 40 fortieth-anniversary weekly releases:
1.Act–‘Snobbery & Decay (Showtime)’: single, 31.03.23.
8 tracks, 3 of which new to digital (download/streaming) platforms and previously cassette-only
2.Leilani–‘Precious Treasure’: album, 07.04.23.
12 tracks, 11 of which previously unreleased. Also catalogued at IQ 11
3.Nasty Rox Inc.–‘Ca$h (Deluxe Edition)’: album, 14.04.23.
20 tracks, 6 of which previously unreleased and 14 returning to digital
4.All Saints 1.9.7.5.–‘Silver Shadow’: single, 21.04.23.
7 tracks, 1 of which previously unreleased and 6 new to digital
5.Glenn Gregory & Claudia Brücken–‘When Your Heart Runs Out of Time’: single, 28.04.23.
5 tracks, 4 of which new to digital and previously vinyl-only and 1 returning to digital but this time from original master tapes (previously was a vinyl rip)
6.Act–‘Absolutely Immune (I)’: single, 05.05.23.
6 tracks, 1 of which previously unreleased
7.Mantra–‘Rise’: single, 12.05.23.
4 tracks, all previously unreleased. Also catalogued at ZANG 37
8.Instinct–‘Sleepwalking (A Waking 12”)’: single, 19.05.23.
3 tracks, 2 of which previously unreleased and 1 returning to digital. Also catalogued at ZTAS 11
9.All Saints 1.9.7.5.–‘If You Wanna Party (I Found Lovin’)’: single, 26.05.23.
4 tracks, all new to digital
10.Das Psych-Oh! Rangers–‘The Essential Art of Communication’: single, 02.06.23.
4 tracks, all new to digital and previously vinyl-only
11.Anne Pigalle–‘Souvenir d’un Paris’: single, 09.06.23.
4 tracks, all returning to digital. Also catalogued at CERT 3
12.Lee Griffiths–‘First Things First’: single, 16.06.23.
4 tracks, all new to digital
13.Instinct–‘Sleepwalking (A Sleeping 12”)’: single, 23.06.23.
4 tracks, 3 of which new to digital and 1 returning. Also catalogued at 12 XZTAS 11
14.Glam Metal Detectives–‘Glam Metal Detectives (Expanded Edition)’: album, 30.06.23.
15 tracks, 14 of which new to digital and 1 returning
15.Andrew Poppy–‘32 Frames for Orchestra’: single, 07.07.23.
5 tracks, 1 of which returning to digital (and previously only available in Europe) and 2 of which returning to digital (and previously only available in North America)
16.Nasty Rox Inc.–‘Escape From New York’: single, 14.07.23.
6 tracks, 5 of which new to digital.
17.Davids Daughters–‘Chemistry’: album, 21.07.23.
10 tracks, 8 of which previously unreleased and 1 new to digital. Also catalogued at IQ 21
18.Art & Act–‘Life’s A Barrel of Laughs’: single, 28.07.23.
5 tracks, 4 of which new to digital and 1 returning. Also catalogued at ZTFS 02 and ZTPS 05
19.Tara–‘Save ME from mySelf’: single, 04.08.23.
9 tracks, 3 of which previously unreleased and 6 new to digital
20.Propaganda–‘p:Machinery (via T-Empo/Nicolosi)’: single, 11.08.23.
4 tracks, 2 of which previously unreleasedand 2 new to digital. Also catalogued at ZTFS 11
21.Shades of Rhythm–‘The Sound of Eden (Every Time I See Her)’: single, 18.08.23.
6 tracks, 1 of which previously unreleased, 1 new to digital and 4 returning
22.Nasty Rox Inc.–‘Ninth Wonder’: single, 25.08.23.
5 tracks, 3 of which previously unreleased, 1 new to digital and 1 returning. Also catalogued at NROX 3
23.The Art of Noise–‘(Share) Moments in Love’: single, 01.09.23.
8 tracks all of which new to digital and previously vinyl-only. Also catalogued at XTPS02 and WEEPS 2
24.The Art of Noise–‘Close (To the Edit)’: single, 08.09.23.
6 tracks, 2 of which new to digital and previously vinyl-only and 3 returning
25.The Art of Noise–‘Closer (To The Edit)’: single, 15.09.23.
7 tracks, 5 of which new to digital and previously vinyl-only. Also catalogued at XTPS01
26.‘Worship with The Art Of Noise’: album, 22.09.23.
18 tracks, 8 of which new to digital
27.The Art of Noise–‘Beat Box (Diversions Zero to Seven)’: single, 29.09.23.
8 tracks, 2 of which new to digital and previously vinyl-only, 2 new to digital and previously vinyl-/cassette-only, 1 new to digital, 3 returning. Also catalogued at XTIS 108
28.Shades of Rhythm–‘Fear of The Future EP’: single, 06.10.23.
8 tracks, 7 of which previously unreleased and 1 returning. Also catalogued at ZANG 28 and ZACID 05
29.Public Demand–‘Invisible’: single, 13.10.23.
6 tracks, all new to digital
30.Acid Rox Init–‘Spectrum Is Green’: single, 20.10.23.
5 tracks, all previously unreleased. Also catalogued at NROX 4 and ZACID 02
31.Aurora–‘Craving’: single, 27.10.23.
7 tracks, 6 of which previously unreleased and 1 new to digital. Also catalogued at ZANG 99
32.Tara–‘Experience EP’: single, 03.11.23.
5 tracks, all previously unreleased. Also catalogued at ZANG 61
33.Solid State Logic–‘Rise’: single, 10.11.23.
6 tracks, 3 of which new to digital and previously vinyl-only
34.General Max–‘We Can Do It’: single, 17.11.23.
4 tracks, 3 of which new to digital and previously vinyl-only and 1 new to digital
35.Sexus–‘The Official End of It All’: single, 24.11.23.
10 tracks, 3 of which previously unreleased and 3 new to digital and previously vinyl-only
36.‘Homage to The Blessed–Das Psych-Oh! Rangers in The Blue Building’: compilation, 01.12.23.
8 tracks, all previously unreleased. Also catalogued at IQ 19
37.‘Poetry in Motion–Time Unlimited on Zang Tuum Tumb’: compilation, 08.12.23.
16 tracks, all previously unreleased. Also catalogued at IQ 12
38.‘The Value of Entertainment–Time Capsule Highlights’: compilation, 15.12.23.
5 tracks, 4 of which previously unreleased and 1 returning to digital. Also catalogued at IQ 13
39.‘Repetition Plus Variation–Propaganda Live at The Value of Entertainment’: album, 22.12.23.
6 tracks, all previously unreleased. Also catalogued at IQ 18
40.‘Will the World Remember?–Sun Electric on Zang Tuum Tumb’: compilation, 29.12.23.
12 tracks, 11 of which previously unreleased and 1 new to digital. Also catalogued at IQ 20
Currently Ian has compiled a playlist of a track from each release on Spotify which will in turn lead you to each entry, this is the only way to find all 40 in one place if you want to listen to the set.
For those wanting to avoid Spotify/amazon/itunes due to their lack of high quality options, quite a few of the releases are available in proper 320/FLAC form here : https://uk.7digital.com/
Derek and Stefan also pointed to the catalogue being available on qobuz
There’s also an incomplete fan-maintained list on Discogs that sets out each of the 40 entries (plus a few pre-40 releases) with track titles, times and some notes where known. There are many treasures to be discovered along the way and I’m looking forward to seeing what 2024 brings as we enter the 40th anniversaries of ‘Two Tribes’, ‘Welcome To The Pleasuredome’ and the whole summer of Frankie of 1984.