What a trip (hop) this set is! Classic mid nineties styles of downtempo beats and peerless electronica drawing heavily from the MoWax and Warp golden eras.
Starting off with a slice of Negativland’s ‘Perfect Cut’ – for my money one of the greatest cut and paste albums ever made, like dialling through the FM dial of middle American radio in the 70s, search it out for a whole side of this madness and their infamous Helter Stupid on the reverse. East meets West with the DJ Krush/DJ Shadow collaboration ‘Duality’, what a killer combination, love that switch into 6/8 time and back again. Something instrumental from the New Breed label next from the Twisted Jointz EP by I-Cue and then a snatch of ‘Megaphonk’ by Jake Slazenger aka Mike Paradinas aka MuZiQ, from a 12” on Clear I believe. Attica Blues’ beautiful ‘Blueprint’ gets an airing before downtempo beats that literally lower the bpm drastically.

No matter because Autechre storm in in double time with ‘Second Peng’ from the Anvil Vapre release which I always thought sounded like a template for dubstep later on. Most from ‘The Perfect Cut’ and a piece of Gescom I can’t identify before Journeyman’s dubbed out remix of 9 Lazy 9’s ‘Electric Lazyland’ on Ninja. A pre-Big Dada Roots Manuva from his Sound of Money days is up after the break and a sleazy live version of Jimi Tenor’s ‘Cafe Europa’ that would have fitted perfectly with the earlier Jake Slazenger tune. The next track sounds like it could be Jake again but a quick trawl through his first couple of albums says otherwise. It has that Paradinas drum and bass line sound but the melody sounds a little more like Kirk Degiorgio to me – anyone know?
UPDATE: Eduard Fogel came through with a full tracklist – thanks Eduard!

Got a treat in store for you all next week…

Track list:
Negativland – Perfect Cut (Rooty Poops)
DJ Krush & DJ Shadow – Duality
I-Cue – Booda Brain
Jake Slazenger – Supafunk
Attica Blues – Blueprint (Attica Blues Remix)
Frank Coe – The Tin Age Story
Autechre – Second Peng
Negativland – Perfect Cut (White Rabbit And A Dog Named Gidget)
Freeform – Fane
9 Lazy 9 – Electric Lazyland (Journeyman Mix)
Roots Manuva – Next Type Of Motion
Jimi Tenor – Cafe Europa (Live)
Paul W. Teebrooke – 121346

Late one Friday evening I was helming the good ship Solid Steel solo – possibly for the first time – up at KISS FM on the Holloway Road, not quite believing that Coldcut had entrusted me to do it without them after listening for all those years. I wasn’t alone though, my guest in the studio was Jazz Fudge label owner and newly-signed Ninja Tune artist, DJ Vadim. We’d only met a few times but I was already a fan of his early self-released work which, to my ears, was as good as any definition of trip hop with his heavy sampling of music concrete and abstract beat patterns. It sounded very lysergic to my ears but Vadim didn’t touch the stuff which was doubly strange. We got along well from the start, so much so that I started designing for him almost immediately and would do so for some years.

He’d bought two friends with him to the studio who I’d not met before, Simon Rose – who would go on to run the label later and I think A-Cyde, an MC/poet who would feature on early records and was always a great laugh with a dry sense of humour. We were to divide the show up into segments and I went first, layering up CDs and vinyl into an ambient collage before the beats kicked in. We were pre-recording – not live – and after about 15 minutes I noticed that the DAT had stopped. I was mortified, standing there with three guys I barely new and the tech had failed me. I had to start again and repeat the whole thing while they waited, only for it to do exactly the same thing again! By this time I was seriously panicking as I had no idea what to do to fix it and restarted, running through the same records and hoping it wouldn’t stop a third time. Luckily it didn’t and the rest of the show went without a hitch aside from some DAT glitches from Vadim’s portable player that he’d bought along with some exclusives.

I’m fairy sure some of those are over parts of my mixes featured here with phone messages and static interjecting here and there. The intro I have no idea the origin of and suspect that’s A-Cyde’s voice in there somewhere over the James Bond theme, maybe even live on the mic. It sounds like a bit of the Percussions De Strasbourg clattering in as well, one of the Philips silver covered records that both Vadim and I were collecting at the time. I can’t find anything about the New Jack Hustlers track after this on Discogs but the Earth Leakage Trip track ‘The Awakening’ was a B side on Rising High and a definite contender for lost early trip hop classic. Cheech and Chong were always in the bag for comedy relief in my chill out sets and this straight vs hippy sketch is a classic. The space-themed ‘The Gemini IV Incident’ was a standout on the Wiseguys’ debut album for Wall of Sound but the name of the Tortoise ambience up next is lost in my record collection somewhere, probably something from the Rhythms, Resolutions and Clusters LP or the single they put out on Stereolab’s Duphonic label.

After a break we have a snatch of Buchanana and Goodman’s early cut up classic, ‘The Flying Saucer’ before Axiom Funk take DJ Krush’s ‘Kemuri’ and scratch all over it before retitling it ‘Order Within The Universe’. This was from a Bill Laswell project that collected all sorts around this time and threw in some early trip hop US style with DJ DXT, Bernie Worrell, Sly & Robbie, Bootsy Collins, Maceo Parker, even Herbie Hancock is on one track, on his Axiom label. It was like a kind of new Funkadelic meets JBs meets reggae all stars things with a Pedro Bell cover, looks amazing on paper but is a bit of a mess in reality. The Runaways were two of the RPM crew from Mo Wax, freshly installed on the Ultimate Dilemma label and S.E.T.I. was an early release on the Ash International label, exploring the Search For Evidence of Terrestrial Intelligence (here overlaid with various telephone messages by Vadim).

We switch things up into drum n bass mode with bangers from Tom Jenkinson, an unidentified track sandwiched between that and Photek’s peerless ‘KJZ’ and Funki Porcini’s insane ‘Carwreck’ which surely has to be one of the craziest bits of thrashy DnB out there. There was a strand that wanted to go faster, madder and trickier with every release at this time, the sheer speed of drum n bass prompting ever-increasing twists and turns to the drum programming. Things calm a little with ‘Edgar Allen’ from The Black Dog’s then newly-released ‘Music For Adverts and Short Films’ album on Warp and then we’re into a mellower section with the Irresistible Force’s ‘Flying High’, an amazing electro track that could be a Jedi Knights things but I don’t think is and Kirk DeGiorgio’s gorgeous ‘Epic’ from his The Message In Herbie’s Shirts album on Clear to play us out. Vadim and I give some shouts and gig news over the earlier Mixmaster Morris tune which gives you a peek into what was going on in our worlds at the time and by 1996 I was a full time DJ and graphic designer, fitting in radio shows, the occasional mix or remix and touring into my day – a golden year.

Track list:
DJ Vadim – Intro featuring A-Cyde
Percussions De Strasbourg – Alternances
New Jack Hustlers – unknown
Earth Leakage Trip – The Awakening
Cheech & Chong – Blind Melon Chitlin’
The Wiseguys – The Gemini IV Incident
Tortoise – Unknown
Buchanan & Goodman – The Flying Saucer
Axiom Funk – Order Within The Universe
Runaways – Finders Creepers
S.E.T.I. – Gathering + (Vadim phone messages)
Tom Jenkinson – Happy Little Wilberforce
Unknown – Unknown
Photek – KJZ
Funki Porcini – Carwreck
The Black Dog – Edgar Allan
The Irresistible Force – Flying High + Vadim and Kev shout outs
Unknown – unknown
As One – Epic

**I only just realised that I didn’t put this live last week – slightly confusing as there’s no upload this week – just can’t keep up with everything going on at the moment.

Continuing the mix from last week there’s more Solid Sloth although my tape had nearly two hours worth of mixes from me and also so from PC so I’m not sure if something was mislabeled. I’m fairly sure last weeks was all me but this seems to be my selection too so… I don’t know, it was over 25 years ago, these things get lost in the mists of time and who really cares anyway? To the music…!

The intro spoken word originally comes from The Warriors, but I was playing it from a Renegade Soundwave promo sampler of past classics that preceded their re-emergence onto the scene with new music that year. Blacka’nized’s ‘Vibe’rations’ opens proceedings with an almost ’Night Interlude’ vibe, that it has the subtitle ‘Summer Madness’ says it all. Their Music For Your Mind EP can be had for a pound currently on Discogs. Showroom Recordings were part of the Cheap label Vienna set with Patrick Pulsinger and Gerhard Potuznik among them, only releasing two 12”s of which ‘The Big Shmoov’ is taken from the first. I will never forget hearing this the first time at Mixmaster Morris’ Camberwell flat one rainy night and I always imagine it’s raining when I hear this. The Headphonauts only put out two 12”s but for me they personified trip hop at the time, or what I wanted it to be – which was ultimately NOT what it became. Properly tripped out long form jams with downtempo beats, much like early UNKLE and Major Force West productions, it was a shame they didn’t do more, again they can be had for a few quid online.

2 Player (Jon Tye and a fresh out of school Daniel Pemberton) remixed by The Herbaliser was on Ntone (Ninja’s sub label) but it sounded like if should have been on the parent label. Organised Sound was a pseudonym of DJ Vadim although it’s not hard to tell is it? NT’s ‘Distances By Air’ is another lost gem from the mid 90s, they made a few authentic soul tracks way before it was fashionable back in the day but this little number was on the B side of their first single, easily findable for pennies yet again. More Ninja business from the London Funk Allstars the LL Cool J’s ‘Boomin’ System’ – not sure why, maybe I’d just bought a copy? Cabbage Boy aka Si Begg on Ntone with possibly my worst ever cover design (sorry Si – so busy around that time) the Neil Hefti’s ‘Batman Chase’ which was the B side to the theme tune. State Login were on Renegade Recordings and this wasn’t ‘Poetry In Motion’ as PC later states but ‘Live in Session’ – I must have got the sides mixed up.

Samuel Purdy is a real weird one, this turned up on a promo 7” one day and I remember liking the instrumental which basically strips away the main song vocal but still leaves all the backing ones. It sounds so 70s to me, almost Steely Dan or Carpenters-esque which is why it’s in here, love those harmonies. This really is a random selection the B-52’s followed by Jimi Tenor which we had got on an acetate so we must have been mixing the Blech CD around this time because Warp made up some one-off discs for things yet to be released so that the mix would be bang up to date once it was released. There’s a quick blast of Herbie Hancock’s ‘Rain Dance’ whilst PC backtracks through the set (not Miles as he says), we loved this track and sampled it here and there (maybe – shhhhhh…). There’s a break and then we’re back with a classic slice of techno in the guise of Carl Craig’s 69 alias with ‘Microlovr’ – such an awesome piece of music, again, first played to me by Mixmaster Morris who was championing Craig well before anyone else. Uriel’s ‘Proxima Session’ is a lush piece of French jazz house that came on a 12” with a 45 middle cut out of the label, the only one I’ve ever seen. We finish as we began with a bit of Renegade Soundwave and ‘Ozone Breakdown’, the original B side of ‘The Phantom’ in 1989, still sounding contemporary.

Parts 3+4 Track list:
Blacka’nized – Vibe’rations (Summer Madness)
Showroom Recordings – The Big Shmoov
Headphonauts – Cedez Le Passage
2 Player – Sometimes (The Herbaliser remix)
Organised Sound – Nocturnal Thought
NT – Distances By Air
London Funk Allstars – How To Be A Ninja
LL Cool J – The Boomin’ System
Cabbage Boy – Planet Domination
Neil Hefti – Batman Chase
State Logik – Live In Session
Samuel Purdy – Whatever I Do (Inst.)
B-52s – Planet Claire
Jimi Tenor – Downtown
Herbie Hancock – Rain Dance
69 – Microlovr
Uriel – Proxima Session
Renegade Soundwave – Ozone Breakdown

These track lists get harder and harder the further we go back, Discogs and Shazam are called on more and more as the memory gives up and the gaps in the record collection once filled with these tunes appear empty. Back in mid-’96 PC did a show he christened Solid Wood (available on the 20 years of Solid Steel DVD I believe) and a week later we christened this one ‘Solid Sloth’ – not sure exactly why. After a custom Solid Steel intro I’d forgotten that appears to be made from our Journeys By DJ scratches and a DJ Food off-cut we jump into an amazing sound collage of which I have no recall at all. The original DAT this was taken from was seriously messed up and I had to cut all manner of glitches out, not that it’s that apparent in the tornado of sound we’re dropped into. The old Decca LP with the ‘This Is A Journey Into Sound’ sample appears over the top before we’re into Spacer’s ‘Contrazoom’. This was the first time I remember hearing Alison Goldfrapp’s amazing vocals, coming on like Shirley Bassey over a Bond theme mixed with drum n bass, incredible. This mix is littered with a league of producers putting their take on DnB which had, by mid ’96, well and truly made its mark on the electronic music landscape outside of its origins.

Luke Vibert, an early adopter with several Plug EPs under his belt, takes the easy vocals and horns of the Mike Flowers Pops and blends them into a smooth cheese before Amon Tobin carves up the terrain with the frantic ‘Cruzer’ in his original Cujo guise shortly before signing to Ninja Tune under his own name. DJ Shadow’s hard to find Legitimate Mix of Zimbabwe Legit’s ‘Doin’ Damage’ was finally widely available via the Mo Wax Headz compilation so this got an airing along with a suitably downtempo War cut, ‘Four Cornered Room’ which I later found out used to get airplay from Alex Paterson at Land of Oz. Mo Wax was truly in its golden age at this point, every release a winner with multiple remixes across singles from some of the best names covering all genres. DJ Krush’s collaboration with CL Smooth gets a going over by Attica Blues and then I mix in something sampling his and Shadow’s beat from their ‘Duality’ collab, except it features a beautiful synth line over the top. The identity of this escapes me but it smacks of someone like Stasis or As One although I don’t think they’d be that blatant with the beat-swiping. If anyone recognises it then please leave a comment.

A brief hip hop interlude in the form of Erule’s ’Synopsis’ reminds me that I’ve literally just trading this single with a bunch of others for a stack load of comics via a US connection so it’s going back overseas to where I first picked it up. Aphex gives his own unique take on DnB with a mix of his ‘Girl Boy’ single and then we run into a couple of unknowns. I’ve racked my brains (and other’s) to identify this next track, scoured the shelves and Discogs but to no avail, at first it sounds like Squarepusher but it’s a bit too straight for him. Then I thought Danny Breaks/Droppin’ Science but no, too heavy/tricksy in the drum programming – I’m now convinced it’s T-Power in some form or other but I’m damned if I can pin it – please put me out of my misery. The next track is the same, I thought maybe early Hospital Records but no, drawing a blank here too as is Shazam. Mo’ Mo Wax business with the DJ Crystl remix of Dr Octagon’s ‘Blue Flowers’ before the madness of Squarepusher’s complete write-off of Funki Porcini’s ‘Carwreck’ rounds the hour out as PC scratches in his first record for the next set.

Track list:
DJ Food – Solid Steel intro
Unknown – Journey Into Sound
Spacer – Contrazoom feat. Alison Goldfrapp
Luke Vibert & The Mike Flowers Pops – Mfp Chunks
Cujo – Cruzer
Zimbabwe Legit – Doin’ Damage (Shadow’s Legitimate Mix)
War – Four Cornered Room
DJ Krush – Only The Strong Survive feat. CL Smooth (7th Samurai mix by Attica Blues)
Unknown – (Stasis? AsOne?)
Erule – Synopsis
Aphex Twin – Girl Boy (£18 Snarerush Mix)
Unknown – Unknown (T-Power ?)
Unknown – Unknown
Dr Octagon – Blue Flowers (The Flower Bed Mix 2 by DJ Crystl)
Funki Porcini – Carwreck (Squarepusher Mix)

Summer of 1997, I did a set for Solid Steel that comprised one entire track on one turntable and various others on the other, all slurped together to make a whole larger than the sum of its parts. Said track was all 29 minutes of Steve Roach’s ‘Structures From Silence’, side two of his 1984 album of the same name. Roach has a 40 year career under his belt at this point, debuting in 1982 and clocking up nearly 200 albums so far, releasing between five and ten albums a year. I wish I could tell you where to start but the beginning seems as good as any (Structures… was his third album).

Drifting in and out of Steve’s sublime synths are snatches of Cluster & Eno’s ‘Wehrmut’ from their self-titled sole collaboration, ‘Riversong’ from Tonto’s Expanding Headband from their Zero Time LP. DJ Spooky gets two tracks in quick succession – ‘Juba’ and ‘Thoughts Like Rain’ from his 1996 Songs of a Dead Dreamer LP then there’s a final electronic track from D.I.A.L. (on Spymania) before we return to Steve for the final say, as we do throughout the set. I’ve left an advert for Wild Brew alcoholic Guarana beer on the end as it seemed the perfect coincidence to come in straight after such a chilled set, such a shame it’s cut short at the end, great ad too.

Normal service will be resumed next week…

Track list:
Steve Roach Structures From Silence
Cluster & Eno – Wehrmut
Tonto’s Expanding Headband – Riversong
DJ Spooky – Juba
DJ Spooky – Thoughts Like Rain
D.I.A.L. – Silent Waves
Wild Brew – Guarana beer ad