Omega Auctions have taken on the task of disposing of some of John Peel‘s incredible collection and I can’t think of anyone better. It’s odd seeing objects that I’ve actually held in my hands up for auction and fascinating to see some of the items that I’d not seen when I visited Peel Acres for the Dust & Grooves 2 book – I feel very lucky to have seen it before it was broken up. Here are just some of my favourties from the catalogue, the auction takes place on July 28th.
I recently found these photos, completely forgotten save for the one above, whilst looking through files for another project. These show four collages and six zoetropes (some of the first I ever made) from 2013 before I had them randomly inserted into copies of the 4xLP vinyl version of my ‘The Search Engine’ album for Record Store Day 2014.
The zoetropes are high quality prints but the collages are originals, so far I only know of three that have been found, one zoetrope in Estonia and two collages in Helsinki and Nurnberg. I sometimes wonder if the rest are nestled inside people’s copies, still waiting to be discovered, please leave a comment if you have one. The one on the top right of the image below later became the sleeve for a Janko Nilovic and Lavotta Arpad 7″ on Broc Recordz.
The lack of updates on here recently really does point to the fact that I have been super busy recently, not through lack of wanting to share stuff. One day I won’t have a pressing deadline that doesn’t allow me the luxury of uploading all manner of wonderful content to this blog. Or needing some downtime to let off some steam. Last week was all accounts, mortgages and life stuff and this week it’s all light shows. Plans are afoot in many camps, some of which I still can’t reveal, also the heat doesn’t help.
There’s been a lot of carbooting this summer and I seem to be picking up esoteric badges here and there along with picture frames, art materials for my kids and even the odd record. Find of the year so far was this battered but beautiful copy of the limited edition Robert Rauscherburg-designed Talking Heads LP, ‘Speaking In Tongues’.
I made it to Birmingham to see the Henry Chalfont exhibition, caught up with Snub and Sprite contributing to the 2000AD-themed wall at the Hi-Vis graffiti jam and managed to score some lovely original comic art from Hunt Emerson all in the same day.
Given the weather we’ve been having it’s appropriate that I’ve just finished ‘Heatwave’ by John L. Williams, a look at British news and culture during the long hot summer of ’76 – very good it is too.
Finally, the Telepathic Fish enamel badge samples have arrived and look amazing, lucky purchasers of the deluxe edition of the compilation will be getting one of these come September 5th.
Currently there is no time to do a radio show because I’m engaged in preparing mixes elsewhere for others, no doubt they will all arrive at once in a musical glut after months of gestation. Speaking of which, here’s this month’s recommendations from the ever-flowing sea of sound. The Natural Yoghurt Band have put out two albums this year already, ‘Parasol’ is the newest, Markey Funk is back for another Delights 45 with the excellent double-header as The In Sound Company. Awkward has collected a load of beats under the title, ‘Hardcore Restoration 2’ and Hawksmoor has been experimenting with tape loops in the style of Howlround or Paul Cousins for Castles In Space‘s new CD imprint, Lunar Module.
Album of the year contender is from Coastal County who follow their superb debut from 2018 with ‘II’ – that’s it in the centre of the pic at the top. Fans of Axelrod, Gainsbourg, Schifrin et al should check it – also RIP Lalo, we’re losing so many greats at the moment. Tortoise get remixed by all and sundry and the mysterious Telefax Productions hip houser from last year gets a set of remixes – I know who’s behind it but am sworn to secrecy. Ternion Sound make the kind of dubstep I like, and look at that logo, beauty. Last but not least, I may have had something to do with the (may the) fourth part of the Rave Wars saga, ‘The Acid Awakens’, which sold out very fast due to each 7″ coming with an attached Star Wars figure.
The new Rave Wars 7″ suddenly appeared today, I wasn’t prepared for it, nor for my track to be revealed but then nothing is normal about this release.
3 different covers (maybe 4?)
3 different tracks, pot luck as to which 2 you get
8 different labels
Multiple different vinyl colourways
1 of 80 different random original SW figures
Vinyl package of the year?
This must have been in the works for over 2 years now, glad to be a part of it and have it out in the world. To top it all I found a nice little Lego Stormtrooper mech in the charity, must have been a sign. Order a copy from HERE
It’s been very quiet on here because I’ve been doing so much I’ve not had the time but I’ll spare you the carboot sale trips, Tate Modern gig with Doug Shipton and Mixmaster Morris and venue location scouting. Press for the Telepathic Fish release has started and I spent a few days hand-making some promo CDs with tracing paper covers for a lucky few. The Openmind exhibition in Folkestone came and went and will be arriving somewhere new soon hopefully.
I lent Warp some bits and pieces for their show at the Barbican this past weekend too and I’ve been co-ordinating getting the first wave of Acid Endless lathe cuts out to people in the UK.
The pre-order for the second run of those ends at the end of the month and they will be cut to order so contact me if you want one and you’re in the UK.
Last week saw a visit to the Royal Albert Hall to see Holly Johnson (ex-Frankie Goes To Hollywood) in concert, expect a huge announcement connected with that soon…
Also last week was the soft launch of a new book from long time friend Remi Rough and Velocity Press – Future Language of the Ikonoklast – an amazing collection of work from the graffiti crew of the same name that operated from the late 80s in the UK and rewrote the rulebook on what could be classed as writing. Seen here with Remi’s latest album, you can pre-order the book and there should be a proper London launch around September with one in Birmingham at the end of the month with special guest Henry Chalfont!.
Speaking of Birmingham and Henry, one of the reasons he’s there is because there’s an exhibition of his photographs from Subway Art and beyond on RIGHT NOW and it ends at the end of June! Get up there, and while you’re there the High-Vis graffiti/comic festival is on this weekend 21st June in Kingsheath too – all roads lead to Brum.
Slightly late this month (been very busy) and still no new episode of the Electrik Collage show (it’s coming) – I’m enjoying having two releases and three cover designs in this month’s list. The Locked Loop Group lathe cut zoetrope is on its second pressing now and will be cut dependent on orders received by a cut off date. Big news for this month is the final announcement of a project I’ve been working on with Doug Shipton at Fundamental Frequencies for a year now – Telepathic Fish: Trawling the Early 90s Ambient Underground.
This double album compiles tracks I and my friends were playing at the ambient parties we held under this name between 1992-1995 in London and beyond alongside Mixmaster Morris and Matt Black and a 20 pg booklet included with the package details the whole adventure. I also collaborated with artist Al White on the Terrace album cover for De:tuned (he did the cover, I did the reverse and labels – it came out nice).
Elsewhere, the Move 78 album is one for the end of year lists, Hieroglyphic Being – who has released about five or six albums in the last month alone – mutes the drums for a new series of ‘Re-selected Psybient Jazz Soundscapes’ which are quite revelatory in revealing the complexity of his compositions. I’d missed his ‘Dance Music 4 Bad People’ album on Smalltown Supersound but it’s one of his strongest of late, my suspicion being that his self-releases can suffer from a lack of quality control sometimes whereas music for other labels steps up a gear.
JG Thirlwell‘s third Xordox album is a synthesiser sci-fi epic and Kate Brooks unearths an album’s worth of outtakes from her Advisory Circle project. I’ve not included the new Stereolab album as that was in a previous list but it’s out now and every bit as good as you hoped it would be.
It’s been a bit hectic recently, hence not many posts as I’ve been busy framing and preparing artwork for my latest exhibition. After 2 days of transporting, hanging, re-hanging and cleaning up artwork, my Openmind show of work is finally up at Cabron Groove Bar in Folkestone.
The bar will be open 6-10pm for viewings week days and 2-11pm weekends until the 14th June when I will be returning to play a set with support from Brassica and Bobby Dazzler (see posters at the end for full details)
There are nearly 50 pieces in the show from 1995 to the present day and I’m now working on a digital catalogue of pieces for sale (I totally ran out of time to do that for the show opening).
This has been a long time coming, I’ve been wanting to do something like this for a few years now and at last its time has come. I was approached by Doug Shipton of Finders Keepers / Fundamental Frequencies last year about doing a compilation based around the Telepathic Fish parties I co-founded in the early 90s with Chantal Passamonte (later Mira Calix), Mario Aguera and David Vallade. The four of us shared a house in East Dulwich between 1992-1995 when David and I were in our last year at Camberwell College of Art before leaving to make our way out into the world. What started as a house party grew into a series of ambient events called Telepathic Fish under the name Openmind, an alias I still use to this day for my design work.
Doug’s enthusiasm for the project got Mario, David and I back together (Chantal sadly passed away in 2022) to compile an album of tunes we’d all played and loved at the parties as well as digging in our respective archives for photos, artwork and memorabilia from the time. This was a pivotal era for all of us, a formative intersection before we split and went off in our various directions, and the people we met and partied with remain friends to this day. The double album – Telepathic Fish: Trawling the Early 90s Ambient Underground – includes music from the timeframe above by Caustic Window, Global Communication, Spacetime Continuum, No-Man, Tranquility Bass, Nightmares On Wax, Insides and remixes by The Irrestistible Force, The Orb and David Morley.
It comes in a gatefold sleeve with a 20 page booklet that tells the full Telepathic Fish story and features Mixmaster Morris, Coldcut’s Matt Black, Aphex Twin, Orbital, the Leaf Label’s Tony Morley, the Ambient Soho shop, Megatripolis, The Roundhouse and a disused gas tanker in Amsterdam. All lavishly illustrated with loads of unseen photos and art.
Also available exclusively through Fundamental Frequencies will be a limited bundle that includes a 44 page zine, Mindfood #5 (we also made an ambient fanzine back in the day) that features material from the first 4 issues plus additional unseen ephemera plus a 60 minute mystery mixtape – ‘Float III’ – and an enamel badge of the Telepathic Fish logo too if that kind of thing floats your boat. Pre-order is up now for a release date of September 5th and we’re looking at the prospect of re-enacting the old Fish parties with some of the original participants and decor around that time for a launch party.
It seems things are coming full circle at the moment, what with me supporting The Orb the other weekend. Ambient music is where I first cut my teeth in London as a DJ and these parties were greatly influenced by Mixmaster Morris aka The Irrestistible Force. They were the springboard between college and a career in music and design, where I met Coldcut and in turn ended up jumping on board the Ninja Tune ship for the next three decades. Coinciding with the launch announcement today, Mixmaster Morris, Doug Shipton and I are playing tonight at the Tate Modern Corner bar in London, giving you a flavour of what to expect from the compilation.
I recently had the pleasure of chatting to Moz from 0282 for his ‘Doings’ podcast, about finding cheap records, or the things I look for that are cheap anyway. One of life’s pleasures is looking for and discovering new music and I look almost every day.
There’s been a lot going on recently which is why there’s been few updates here. I did a couple of gigs supporting the Orb recently, have been designing a lot of stuff I can’t quite talk about yet and am currently framing a lot of my work for an exhibition next month in Folkestone, see details below. It’s followed by a gig in the same bar as the exhibition on June 14th so, if you’re in the area that weekend, come on down.
Another bumper selection this month – too much good music! From Richard Norris‘ triple CD psych compilation to Little Barrie & Malcolm Catto‘s short but sweet ‘Electric War’ LP to the biggest surprise of April – a new Stereolab album! For beats you have the new Move 78 album (in the green cover, top right), Paten Locke‘s posthumous ‘Dance On My Grave’ and the reactivated Bassbin Twins‘ ‘Beats Are King 3’ EP. I’m a new convert to goat(jp) and if the sound of Tortoise playing with military precision in the style of a Steve Reich composition is your bag then you might like them too.
310‘s classic prog cut up masterpiece ‘Prague Rock’ is on Bandcamp in a new edition and whilst trawling through the (In)Active Listener‘s comps I came across Scotland’s Nebyudelic Soundsystem with a sitar-drenched wig-out named ‘Down By The River’. Barely active over the years, there’s little else by him out there but there are treats on his Soundcloud page. King Gizzard have a new orchestra-led album coming up but for all your acid needs you could do worse than the L/F/D/M release on Don’t Recordings which twists things into new shapes. Also you may have noticed my own release nestling in there, a Quadraphon turntable acid jam under my Locked Loop Group alias which has taken well over a year to come to fruition due to general tardiness by myself. But here it is, an 8″ lathe cut zoetrope picture disc of two tracks in a die-cut sleeve from Acid Lathe in the US, it’s very limited, it’s not cheap but it’s what I and the label came up with as a release and it’s one of the best zoetropes I’ve done IMO. Pre-order is up as of today and if anyone in the UK wants to save a bit on shipping then contact me as I will be getting artist copies sent over soon and we can get a package together and sort out a deal with minimal postage.
Out today on the Acid Lathe label from Portland, Oregon – my Locked Loop Group alias over two sides of an 8″ zoetrope picture disc in a fold-over die-cut sleeve. ‘Acid Endless’ is a two part improvised turntable jam on my Quadraphon turntable using locked grooves to generate churning acid beats which were then edited down for this release. Chris from Acid Lathe approached me about doing something a couple of years back, when the idea of the label was just in his head and over time we worked out this release and I helped formulate the label look for him along the way. The cut on the disc is mono but the digital files are stereo so I’d advise you to download them for the full experience.
I’m really pleased with this release and can’t wait to see a physical copy as I only have these photos to go by at the moment. It’s limited, it’s expensive but it cost a fair bit to make and I’m not sure how many other double-sided zoetrope picture disc lathe cuts are out there? Also, postage is a mother these days so if anyone from the UK wants one and wants to save on postage then contact me and we can work something out when Chris sends my artist copies over, adding extras into the package which I can then send on to you for a more affordable price. Sadly it seems EU postage costs aren’t much different to US these days so this is just an offer for UK residents. Pre-order here, it’ll be released officially on the 12th of May I think but of course it’s Bandcamp Friday today so 100% of the revenue goes to the label/artist for 24 hours.
Found online last night whilst looking for something else (as usual) were these four underground comix from 1966-1969 by a group called Hairy Who from Chicago. The Hairy Who? I hear you ask? A group of graduates from the Art Institute of Chicago practicing together during the late sixties who formed their own movement for a few short years. Not only are they wonderfully surreal, colourful and original, they also look nothing like the prevelant psychedelic styles of the time save for the odd Heinz Edlemann-esque touches here and there from Gladys Nilsson. They also veer far from the underground comic scene on the West Coast and actually look more like something from Art Speigleman‘s RAW magazine although that wouldn’t appear until 15 years later. You wouldn’t be able to afford them even if you found a copy from what I’ve seen of past sales but some kind soul has scanned each of the four extremely rare issues and put them on Internet Archive for all to enjoy.
Portable Hairy Who (1966)
Hairy Who Sideshow (1967)
Hairy Who (1968)
Hairy Who Cat-o-Log (1969)
I did a little mix for the Oonops Drops show for Brooklyn Radio, and it airs today. All 45s, all vinyl, just some beat-heavy bits and pieces I’m digging at the moment and wanted to piece together. I’m finding myself drawn more and more back to the instrumental hip hop/trip hop sound, not in a retro way, many of these tracks are brand new and there’s a lot of it out there. I’ve never stopped loving this sound and it seems to be bubbling back into fashion of late. My mix starts at 40:35 min – 1:10:36 min after DJ Oonops, to be followed by mixes from Sola Rosa and DJ Friction.
Track list:
Shawn Lee – You Seem To have Forgotten What Music Was… (Idlesound)
Ticklish – Lost (Beat Machine Records)
Keina – True Love (Cheeba Cheeba Records)
Buggseed – Crystal Morning Pt.2 (Cheeba Cheeba Records)
Unknown – Glass (Drum Breaks Edits) (Solo 500)
The Psyclops Trees – Beak Street (Flying Saucer Records)
Herma Puma – Rockem Man (Cheeba Cheeba Records)
Herma Puma – Illery Summer (Cheeba Cheeba Records)
Time Signature – Brklyn (Slow) (dub plate)
Lord 69 – Fertilise The Corn (Howlin’)
Mike Bandoni – Kool Trippin’ (Village Live 45)
DJ Koco aka Shimokita – World’s Famous feat. 45trio
MagicTouch – Kyousoku 3 (Delic Records dub plate)
Out 10th October 2025
An extended Buy Music Club Recommends this month as there’s so much great music out there.
From top to bottom, left to right – DJ Sofa – the next entry in the Swinging Flavors series from the Italian Beat Machine label on 7″, the new Clipping. album, ‘Dead Channel Sky’ – constantly evolving their unique template of rap music and Mike Paradinas‘ latest under his Kid Spatula alias, quality electronica from this UK legend. Yage remixes the ‘Translations’ album, itself a radical reworking of their classic ‘Papa New Guinea’, this is more in line with the Amorphous Androgynous and ladles on the sitars. Snapped Ankles – ‘Hard Time Furious Dancing’ – already contender for album of the year on the Leaf Label and then on the right, Sully with a two track club banger of a release on a beautifully etched 12″.
Tortoise have a new track out, preceding their next album, KiF pay homage to guess who with ‘Still Out’, up for pre-order on the Stroud’s Sound Records and Dylan Dylan delivers an EP of 90’s flavoured dance tracks on Pont Neuf. An oldie but new to me is Sir Psyche‘s ‘Bodies of Work 2011-2013’, a free download of properly psychedelic trip hop I recently discovered on a Bandcamp trawl and a recent cover design of mine adorns the first new Dan Curtin album in over a decade, ‘The 4 Lights’ on De:tuned. Last but not least, the long overdue re-issue of chill out classic ‘Dreamfish’ (by Dreamfish aka Pete Namlook and Mixmaster Morris) is here from Silent State Recordings.
I’m really loving the new Snapped Ankles album, their fourth for The Leaf Label, ‘Hard Times Furious Dancing’, it’s refreshing and genuinely exciting whilst chiming with the times we live in. People ask where all the protest songs have gone, well here’s an album of them without ramming the point home and set to furiously fizzing beats and basslines. The video above is an imaginary conversation between seventies era Conny Plank and Brian Eno talking about AI.
Available on LP, CD, download with different coloured vinyl variants for Dinked indie shops and Bandcamp. Grab it from Bandcamp to put more money in the band’s pockets. They are on tour but will make a loss so had to start a GoFundTrees Crowdfunder, this is the reslity for bands today in the UK.
I recently ran across this great piece of packaging on eBay on a lot for The Great Zoetrope made by the Adult Toys Inc company in 1966. They’ve really made the most of the box graphics here and I’m wondering if things like this being around helped influence the graphics of Sgt. Pepper a year later? They don’t make them like this anymore.
These last two were from a different auction but show more of the contents and some scale.
More images saved from various trawls around the web, above: Images for Learning (Science Research Associates Inc.) 1971, found on eBay.
From Andrew Sclanders’ Beat Books list: A large postcard with designs by Gompers Saijo publicising the benefit held for the Zen Mountain Center at the Fillmore, San Francisco, March 15, 1967.
22.5×14.7cm.
Apple Boutique ‘Upon Our Way’ poster by The Fool, 39.5cm x 57cm, 1967/68.
Upscaled repro Pink Floyd poster, 1967.
International Times graphic, 1968. Thanks to Neil Rice for pointing this out. From Hoppyx.com
Four sheets of Dave Roe designed ‘Polypops’ wrapping paper, originally sold circa 1968. Each approx 49 x 73.5cm
For anyone who missed it in January and wants a copy, Delic Records has repressed the expanded version of my Raiding the 20th Century tape – be quick, only 30 copies
https://delicrecords.bandcamp.com/album/dj-food-feat-paul-morley-raiding-the-20th-century-words-music-expansion-2nd-press
It’s seemingly been a month of losses so far and sadly news of another reached me this week, less than two weeks after I’d posted about him for the first time. Doug Lear, formerly one of the UK’s leading exponents of the Magic Lantern (both in performance and collection) passed away on March 6th. Bizarrely, on that very day, I met with friends Neil and Sally Rice who had known him for decades and Neil passed me a red photo album given to him by Doug some years before. Inside this treasure trove is a collection of press cuttings, flyers and other ephemera from his days of giving Magic Lantern performances alongside his then wife, Anita, on their two canal boats.
With Neil’s permission I’m posting some of the contents as a record of their activites in the 80s and 90s, hopefully people will find them along the way and they’ll be useful for research. Also included were four copies of The New Magic Lantern Journal by The Magic Lantern Society from the late seventies / early eighties. This was a reactivated version of an original publication that ran around the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s – several issues of which can be perused on the Internet Archive. I hope you enjoy these pieces of history as much as I do, RIP Doug.
With a growing family, the couple opened a museum, tea room and theatre in Wales in 1991, leaving the boats behind. For more information, see my previous post on the Lears. 
