Saw this last night, REALLY good, go and see it, everything you’d want in a blockbuster superhero film.
3D isn’t essential but doesn’t spoil it, just really well paced character driven action with an unexpected dose of genuinely funny humour.
Also some cracking design on the vehicles, looking forward to the follow up. 10/10 to all involved and I’ve never read an Avengers comic in my life.
Gorgeous poster for the 1st East London Comics & Arts Festival by one of my favourite artists currently – McBess. 7th June is the date with McBess as the artist in residence; live drawing relay races from Luke Pearson, Jack Teagle, Kyle Platts, and many more; a process talk by BLEXBOLEX, chaired by Paul Gravett; 600 second interviews from Avoid the Future; a kids workshop organised by Anorak; Screenings by Nexus; panel discussions with Karrie Fransman, Darryl Cunningham and Simone Lia; stalls from the very best comics publishers, including Jonathan Cape, SelfMadeHero, Blank Slate, Nobrow, Knockabout, Landfill Editions, Solopsistic Pop, WAWAP and more. Alos there will be a ticketed concert featuring the Dead Pirates (McBess’ band), the Vuvuvultures and a special guest running from 8 ’til late.
Here’s something I did last month in conjunction with Carling Zest, a new drink being promoted this summer. The idea was to take three producers, myself, DJ Yoda and Jaguar Skills, and give everyone sights and sounds of summer to incorporate into a track that had the feeling of summer to it. I called mine ‘Sunspot’, after one of my favourite Vaughn Bodé strips, and used some of my home made phenakistoscopes as elements for the video in conjunction with the footage Carling supplied.
[youtube width=”640″ height=”375″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_8Nx1TmC1o&feature=relmfu[/youtube]
I was left to my own devices and incorporated a lot of my own melodies into the track, using their bee sounds and lots of percussive elements to form the basic beat of the piece. Making a track that evokes a ‘summer’ feeling is a lot harder than making something dark and moody, especially without stepping into cheesy territory but I’m really pleased with the outcome.
During the process I was filmed going through samples in my studio and generally talking about records I thought bought out the summer feeling in me. This quickly degenerated into what seemed like a massive advert for Boards of Canada‘s back catalogue 
with other shouts to the Orb (Little Fluffy Clouds) and The The (This Is The Day). The film crew, who were great fun to work with, shot for a whole day and then crammed it all into 2 minutes, so, if the editing seems a little fragmented here and there, you’ll know why. Big thank you to Ash for getting the shots and Tom for doing a great job on helping me with the last touches on the video edit.
[youtube width=”640″ height=”375″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQFCJtD7S1w&feature=relmfu[/youtube]
Wish they hadn’t put that ice cream bit in Spot the ‘Rave Wars’ 7″s and 3A robots everywhere There’ll be an online competition to remix this track and win tickets to the V festival and other goodies coming up on May 23rd so I’ll post about that when it’s online.
A quick update on things on the DJ Food front these coming months…
Aside from the usual round of DJ gigs and festival appearances >>> over there on the right hand side column >>>, I’m going to Montreal in less than 2 weeks to research and train at the SAT Dome on the best ways to make full dome content for my planetarium show. This will be followed by a performance over several nights in Montreal mid July. This will be a remixed, updated version of the show I did at the London Planetarium and I’ll be bringing it back to the UK for the winter months before the year is out too.
On the music front, I’ve just finished a mix for 2econd Class Citizen‘s album, a couple of mixes for a DJ Shadow project premiering this summer (not the MPC archive one), there’s a 3 DJ tag team mix on the agenda for a July release and an AV project in conjunction with Carling that will go online at the end of May. The response to the Amorphous Androgynous remix release for Record Store Day has been fantastic, thanks to all who bought copies and sent pictures, the repress should be in next week so all those waiting for copies should get them.
Design-wise I’ve just started work on The Herbaliser‘s 7th studio album artwork which I’m really excited about, there’s also talk of a remix if I can fit it into the schedule. I’ve also just been asked to chair a discussion between two 80’s sleeve design heroes of mine which will be quite mind-blowing if it actually happens. I’ll also soon be announcing a second round of the exhibition of mine and Henry Flint‘s artwork for ‘The Search Engine’ which will be taking place in the UK within the month.
There’s been a lot of press in the comics world concerning the return of three of the Dark Judges to the current Judge Dredd epic, ‘Day of Chaos’, in 2000ad recently. Besides them being great characters, who haven’t featured in the comic for a few years now, I’m especially into this because Henry Flint is sharing art duties on this story and he’s never drawn them before save for a few promotional images.
What’s also a big deal is that no one saw this coming and their introduction into the story at this point is one of the biggest WTF? moments, and strokes of genius from writer John Wagner, that I can remember in a long time. What’s so good about the story currently running is that, unlike past ‘epics’ in Dredd’s world, this one hasn’t been trailed in quite the same way. There was no big announcement that the-story-to-end-all-stories was about to begin, more that several slow boiling story lines have come together and built upon each other and snowballed.
The basic set up for this epic in the making is that the Sovs (Soviet Judges) have been planning an attack on Mega City 1 in reprisal for Dredd annihilating East Meg 1 in the Apocalypse War decades ago. This has been a slow burn, deep cover operation where they’ve infiltrated the Judicial system to it’s core. Add to that the kidnap of a scientist who has created a doomsday virus with no cure that’s slowly infecting the population of the city, bogus propaganda (or is it?) that the Judges are simply taking the infected and dumping them into plague pits outside the city and full on city-wide civilian rebellion and we’re firing on all cylinders.
To then ramp things up a gear and drop the Dark Judges into the equation (inter dimensional beings who’s maxim is that life is a crime and the sentence is death) and it’s looking like there is no way out for Dredd, or the city for that matter, this time. All the praise that’s being heaped on this story is justified and it seems lapsed readers are returning to the comic after years away and being wowed.
If you want to see what the fuss is all about you can read two chapters over on CBR and an interview with Henry, John Wagner and second artist Colin MacNeil. There’s also a ‘Day of Chaos’ catch up on the 2000ad site too and with the rest of the comic bearing rich fruit and the impending Dredd film at the end of the year, it’s turning out to be a very good year for the title.
[youtube width=”640″ height=”485″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9tLzLtAj6w&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
Having a serious flashback to my youth watching this
May I present for your delectation: a personally mixed, sliced and diced preview of 2econd Class Citizen‘s forthcoming album – ‘The Small Minority’.
I’ve been lucky enough to hear it in progress over the last 2 years and it’s changed and developed to a point where it really all holds together as a complete album rather than a collection of separate tracks.
This is definitely up there alongside DJ Format and Pepe Deluxé as one of my albums of 2012 already. It will get compared to DJ Shadow‘s older work but the folk stylings and Aaron’s violin playing set it apart. If you enjoyed 2009’s ‘A World Without’ album – available to listen to in full here – then this is the logical progression.
This mix is available to download from Bandcamp but it’s only streaming via Soundcloud at the moment. It was a real labour of love and I think I managed to get elements from all the tracks in there at some point including a remix of the single ‘Outside Your Doorway’ – see if you can untangle it all when you listen to the LP.
The full album is available on Equinox Records on May 25th, on CD and double vinyl with a gatefold sleeve plus digital download (Juno will have it a week early). The artwork you can see below is by label boss Gunter Stoppel, the man responsible for the overall look of the label as well as the day to day running of it.
[vimeo width=”640″ height=”370″]http://vimeo.com/41214166[/vimeo]
Amazing achievement by the Agents of Change on this mega project for a hotel in London’s Kings X. What you don’t see here is that they painted inside the building too, including murals and canvases that filter inside the hotel and restuarant and flesh out the experience.
This new series from Fracture & Neptune‘s Astrophonica label is going to go pretty fast I think. Three limited 300 copy 10″s from Om Unit, Machine Drum and Fracture based on footwork/juke rhythms, each with screen-printed sleeves.
I’m not the first person to sing the praises of juke and I find a lot of the shoehorning of old samples into new rhythms that’s going on with it a bit tedious. It’s not easy music to play out, audiences don’t respond particularly well to it as it’s not particularly dynamic in its arrangements but then the same could have been said for dubstep and look where we are now.
But, there are always exceptions and this is one of them, what starts out as straight dnb then drops and wrong foot(works) you into a juke rhythm that cuts it in the same way as Machine Drum, Africa Hi Tech or the Phillip D Kick boots of last year. ‘The Limit’ is going to be the first of 3 releases, each featuring the aforementioned producers, and this will be the transition track between the two generes in my box for a while I think.
[youtube width=”640″ height=”290″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8evyE9TuYk&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]
[youtube width=”640″ height=”280″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1byZkbNB3Jw&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
I heartily recommend this book for anyone interested in the history of recording. No, no, don’t all run away, it’s actually very good and I say this as someone who literally falls asleep reading any sort of manual.
Starting with the Big Bang and progressing through Edison’s cylinders and tone tests Greg Milner knows his stuff and the stuff he doesn’t he’s gone out and researched. Histories of the birth of vinyl, cassettes, laser discs, synclaviers and fairlights, the New York radio amplification battles and the loudness wars are all covered.
The uneasy birth of the CD and the industries’ initial refusal to accept the medium features along with a step by step guide to what the air particles where doing when John Bonham hit his drums in a stairwell for ‘The Crunge’.
The analogue vs digital debate is also covered but with an even hand rather than the usual ‘vinyl is warmer’ stance adopted by most.
I’ve had this for a while now but not had time to photograph it properly. Beautiful primer for the upcoming 2econd Class Citizen album – ‘The Small Minority’ – on Equinox Records out of Berlin.
They’ve put my postcard record to shame with this package and were sold out in a day sadly (very expensive to produce in large numbers, as I found out). Love the detail of the 2nd class stamps on the reverse when you remove the postcards from the backing board!
The album is out in May and I’ve just finished a 17 minute preview mini-mix of the whole record which will be online soon. Aaron has also put down the space-themed mix he assembled for my album launch party too and it will be appearing on Solid Steel soon.
This week’s Prog, Henry Flint on the art. Beyond excited to read this, hurry up Mr Postman!…
[youtube width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WmjB3igMKo&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
The remaining unsold Secret 7″ sleeves and records are now up for sale on the Teenage Cancer Trust’s eBay page, each is one of a kind, a unique artwork with a limited edition 7″ by one of 7 artists. They start at just a penny and all the money goes to TCT once the auction is over.
[youtube width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBOaT6ar3Ww[/youtube]
Definitely going to this… check out Felt Mistress‘ work
Last night I did a Record Store Day round up on Solid Steel on Strongroom Alive radio, you can listen again here
or, if you prefer less chat, catch the non-vocal version with no RSD section here later on today.
I thought I’d put up some pictures of the releases I was chatting about so here you go. Wicker Man 7″ photos nicked from Stuart Ford‘s blog. More on the Vinylmania film here.
[youtube width=”640″ height=”385″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4CN9ntm8ZY&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
As seen first on Secret Oranges, I got my tickets today, got to wait until June 2nd but it’ll be IMAX for me.
Sesame Street System [2012] Complete shot + detail (20 x 30/5 x 2 inches)
Found record covers, pencil, ball point pen, acrylic and xerographic gel transfer on wood panel. Finished in a matte varnish. Framed in found yardsticks and mahogany lattice.
Augustine Kofie for Sesame Street presented by The Seventh Letter & Neff Headwear
Benefiting City of Hope’s Department of Pediatrics
Known Gallery: 441 North Fairfax Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90036
Show runs April 28 – April 29, 2012