[youtube width=”640″ height=”390″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw6G5PNKkSQ[/youtube]
I played with these guys (Reverse Engineering) last weekend in Switzerland and they premiered this at the gig, love the look and location.
Kid Koala tonight – DAMN! – way to build a show around a turntable blues record with an average bpm of 80. Dancing girls, puppets, giant record deck, paper planes, kazoos, audience participation and crowd surfing.
And that’s not even everything, in the middle of the show he plays a particular track, one I never thought I’d hear him play, those that have seen it will know what it is but I won’t spoil it. He plays Bristol tonight and Manchester Saturday, make sure you see it, he only does these shows once.
If you can’t then do the next best thing and buy his new ’12-Bit Blues’ LP which melds The Blues with Turntablism perfectly and also comes with a DIY turntable and 5″ flexi disc.
Kid Koala tonight – DAMN! – way to build a show around a turntable blues record with an average bpm of 80. Dancing girls, puppets, giant record deck, paper planes, kazoos, audience participation and crowd surfing.
And that’s not even everything, in the middle of the show he plays a particular track, one I never thought I’d hear him play, those that have seen it will know what it is but I won’t spoil it. He plays Bristol tonight and Manchester Saturday, make sure you see it, he only does these shows once.
If you can’t then do the next best thing and buy his new ’12-Bit Blues’ LP which melds The Blues with Turntablism perfectly and also comes with a DIY turntable and 5″ flexi disc.
Incredible stencil work done by Snub23 for the ultra limited edition (and sadly sold out) deluxe LP bundle for The Herbaliser‘s new album, ‘There Were Seven’. You can however buy the regular vinyl (but not for long as that’s a limited run too), designed by yours truly, from the Herb’s online shop, (click the red ‘store’ button top right for a pop up). Each one comes with two printed heavy card inners inside a screen printed PVC sleeve with a downlode code too.
Kid Koala‘s ‘Vinyl Vaudeville’ tour comes to London tomorrow at the O2 Academy in Islington and I can’t wait to see it judging by this short film they made last week in Paris.
Check these two promo images drawn by Pat Hamou as well, perfectly fitting in with Eric’s new album, ’12-Bit Blues’. I think this is his strongest record to date (well, it’s a tie with The Slew LP) and the inclusion of a 5″ flexi disc and DIY turntable in the package just seals the deal for me.
My friend Duncan who runs the Clockwork Shorts site (some of the best film reviews out there, mixes too) sent me these photos of a custom Gelaskin he got made for his Nexus 7″ tablet – nice 
This little lot left the studio today, a raft of Hip Hop, Trip Hop, Turntablism and other assorted breaks and beats that I can live without for the moment. I’ve not had a good sort out since the mid noughties and it really is time. I said last year in the Record Collector piece that I had spent 40 years building up a collection and was planning on spending the next 40 dismantling it. Well not quite but boiling it down to essentials is the main thing for me now, I have too much, some of it hasn’t aged well and I only have so much space.
It’s a pretty satisfying experience to be rid of this much in one fell swoop too and, again, going through the shelves I’m reminded of several things that I’d forgotten about. Divine Styler’s little known ‘Spiral Walls of Autumnal Light’ album, J-Live‘s second album, Broadway Project‘s first, ‘Compassion’ – all solid records that may have taken a few listens the first time and still contain forgotten treats. Those Lemon Jelly singles with the crazy denim, leather and sack sleeves, hand-painted promo 12″s, and designs for lesser known releases like this Kid Acne cover for Rex Records.
One thing that’s a godsend and will be sadly lacking for future generations of music fans, historians and librarians is the record sleeve. Not just for the obvious large canvas that the cover affords and the packaging opportunities but for the small print and credits on the back. Several times whilst going through records I’ve flipped over a sleeve to discover someone was part of the process that I never realised, little messages that flesh out the release, lyrics and thank-you’s. I kept records where I had a thanks, a cover design was just too nice to part with or, in the case of most of the Finders Keepers releases, the sleeve notes are an education in themselves.
The art of finding samples is all about reading the small print, noting engineers, producers, player, studios, labels and year of issue wherever that is hidden on the recording. Now without sleeves, labels and inners that is being lost – iTunes doesn’t even have a box to add the label to the mp3 info and how many of your files are tagged with the year they were released? What about mixes? All those tracks, sitting together without a tracklist let alone the writer, label and year of issue. We’ll have a situation similar to the taping of mixes off of radio years back where you’ll never know what track 4 was, I suppose Shazam could come into play here.
It does bear thinking about though, not only are we entering a time where music is becoming faceless, it’s also becoming credit-less too. Instead of a quick flip of the sleeve we’ll have to consult the web to find info on tracks in the future, pdf ‘booklets’ with albums is all fine and well but how many of those do you have? People need to tag their files with as much info as possible but I doubt many are going to include the publisher, the engineer, who worked the desk or the equipment used. Should a site like Discogs ever disappear, (surely the no.1 music info resource on the web?), what would we be left with?
Loving these Shogun / Samurai figures that are forthcoming from 3A.
More Dredd concept art and Mega City scenes from the film. Some of these are by Jock , some by Neil Miller VFX (check his site for tons more) and some by Daren Horley. It’s a shame the film didn’t have as glorious an opening weekend as in the UK. Reading comments on some websites it seems that the Stallone film did more damage than we thought with a lot of Americans thinking that this was a remake of the 1995 film rather than a new take on a 35 year old character. Depressing.
Jonny Trunk that is, of Trunk Records. Here he is explaining the premise behind each night:
“Both in London. The first is this coming Friday, It’s called Out Of Order, it’s free to get in, myself and a fellow DJ Pingo, (one of the Moshi Moshi DJs) will be playing interesting records (1950 – 2011) in a small and strange bar / place / hangout on the corner of Old Street and Shoreditch High Street. 9pm until 2am.
And secondly, we have a new Vision On evening coming up, which is an excellent night to come along to and drink and draw and make things and stuff, and this time we are having a vague hospital theme, so expect paper bandages, cardboard crutches, eye patches, that sort of thing getting constructed. Again, it’s free to get in, and is on Wed 10th October at the Waiting Room in Stoke Newington.”
I love these short comics about record collecting by illustrator Mat Pringle, especially the Scott Walker one, easy to forget pre-internet era collecting. He also does a fine line in prints, gig posters (see the Silver Apples one below) and the odd Threadless shirt design too.
Talented guy, see more at his site.
Shelter from Carl Burton on Vimeo.
Incredible short film by Carl Burton. An epic secret world is revealed within an attic during a rainstorm. Show support by purchasing a download bundle.
Contains: Digital HD Copy + “Making-Of” PDF + Wallpapers for $3
Bundle and T-Shirts available here: shelteranimation.com/shop
Main animation site: shelteranimation.com/ Inspiration Tumblr: carlburton.tumblr.com/ Twitter: twitter.com/carlburton
The excellent Pepe Deluxé are coming to the UK for their first live performance on November 12th at the Scala in London. Tickets are available here from Soundcrash.
The full live experience will be supported by Husky Rescue and guests and coincide with the release of the Deluxe edition of Pepe’s ‘Queen Of The Wave’ album which I rhapsodised over earlier this year.
Apparently the new edition (a deluxe Deluxé edition?) contains 2 CDs and a DVD and comes in a 64 page hardback book with loads of extra artwork to add to the album companions already generated for the original version. Check the front and back covers below and get more info from their Facebook page.
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More photos from the recent Sacrum Profanum concert in Poland – this time by the excellent photographer Bartosz Holoszkiewicz. These go right through from our arrival, rehearsal, backstage banter and make up (B&W) to the final performance (colour). There are even more over on Bart’s site but this is my pick of the bunch, also that’s Prof. Penderecki with Skalpel below.
My good friend Sarah Coleman, aka Inkymole, who recently put on an exhibition of mine and Henry Flint‘s work, has done the cover for the new US edition of Playboy!
No, she hasn’t given up the pen to strip off and become a bunnygirl but that’s her hand drawn type all over the cover. The mag has recently gained a new art director who is keen to get back to the days of old when it had some genuinely original designs fronting it.
For more info, and a look at past designs sourced from the ever-handy Secret Oranges blog, go to Sarah’s Inkymole site.
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ubscribers get this on a Saturday, always a joy to come home from a gig, stick the kettle on and relax for 30 minutes with an issue.
Really packed opening at the Blackall Gallery on Leonard St. last night for the opening of the Futurism 2.0 show. Featuring a gallery of modern artists, at least half of whom piss from a great height on anything in a regular Tate Modern showing. Be quick if you want to see this show, it’s on for a ridiculously short time and finishes next week on October 2nd.
Shots of the forthcoming album by The Herbaliser, ‘There Were Seven’, which I designed. This is the regular vinyl version which comes in a screen printed PVC sleeve and has a download code for the whole album too. You can pre-order if here (Click the red ‘shop’ tab for options).
The launch party in London is at the HMV Forum on October 27th where I’ll also be supporting along with Belleruche and DJ Cam. Tickets with a special ‘Friends of Food’ discount can be found here. Or, if they’re all gone – here.
Very jealous of those who will be able to go to this
Way back in March I was asked by Eddy Temple-Morris if I would be interested in putting together a short mix offering my take on the work of DJ Shadow. This was to form part of a marathon special on his XFM show celebrating Josh’s career and tying into a compilation of some sort which has since evolved into the ‘Reconstruction’ release and deluxe box set.
Anyone who knows me knows I’m a big Shadow fan so this was a thrilling opportunity and also a daunting task. The mix had to be between 17 and 20 minutes long according to Eddy, how on earth to fit so many great tracks into that length of time? No idea but best get down to it and see what develops. Going through my extensive collection threw up over 80 potential tracks, skits, remixes, co-productions and original samples which totaled over 6 hours of music if I remember correctly. How to do this so that it wouldn’t be just another Shadow mix? How to present the ubiquitous but essential ‘Organ Donor’ in an exciting way? Have a listen…
Well, I couldn’t get it down to to 17 minutes, or 20, but squeezed it all into 23 which Eddy graciously let me get away with. I decided to go for the essence of a lot of tracks rather than letting everything play out, trying to edit sympathetically to each track’s progressions so it wouldn’t seem too brutal. I used a lesser-known compilation track (from ‘Turntables On The Hudson’) called ‘Flashback’ as a theme to title the mix as it’s such a blur of sonic information sometimes that it seems like it might be just that. Having not listened back since I made it nearly 6 months ago I find it’s quite an exhilarating ride if a bit relentless, which I quite like but it you might have to be in the mood for it. The solution to ‘Organ Donor’, probably his most well known creation, was to put it at the end, the big bang after a big build, mixing in the original Giorgio Moroder ‘Tears’ sample that forms the main melody as well as a newer production to show that he’s still got it.
But after all that, I still had material left over, specifically large chunks of ambient sound beds that formed a big part of his earlier releases, which is something I love about his music and that stood out as both original and uncompromising at the time. I wanted to put these together as some sort of collage without the usual beats and vocals, maybe it could be used as a bed to talk over on the radio? It was all here, might as well see what could be done with it, I doubted anyone else would go down this route too. The result is the short but sweet ‘Trip Out’ mix…
I was thinking of the KLF‘s classic ‘Chill Out’ album here, hence the pastiche of the cover and the title – also an allusion to hallucination of course but also a knowing wink to the Trip Hop genre tag that has dogged Shadow since the start of his career. I actually think this concept could have been taken further with a bit more production to extend and rearrange sections but time constraints didn’t permit. Anyway, now I had over 30 minutes of mix for Eddy when he only wanted half that. Props to him that he played both and you can hear the whole thing, along with mixes by IRN MNKY, Bare Noize, Stereo:Type and Culprit One online at XFM for the next week. If you’re abroad and you need to enter a postcode to make it think you’re listening from the UK then try W1A 1AA.