When we see the artwork above, we immediately think Super Metroid, but maybe that’s just us. It’s still cool though.
So it has always been a Ninja Tune shtick to have old school samples peppered throughout their jams, but this new release from DJ Food has a distinctive sound we’re used to. For instance, one of our favorite DJ Food tracks of all time is DJ Food fear. Ken Nordine – “The Ageing Young Rebel:”
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That came out over 11 years ago, and this release from DJ Food also incorporates new styles from the guys, of course, and they’re heading in a direction that we like. To be clear, the last DJ Food album, Kaleidoscope, and it’s also 11 years old. This is a pretty exciting release for any DJ Food fans. The Search Engine is set for release on February 7, 2012.
Press:
Eleven years after the last DJ Food album release (“Kaleidoscope”), Strictly Kev and various friends, associates and like-minded collaborators return with a new full-length. The Search Engine distills the bests parts from three EPs worth of material into a continuous 56 minute album of unbridled creativity.
Collaborations abound in the form of vocal appearances from Natural Self (aka Nathaniel Pearn), JG Thirlwell (Foetus, Streoid Maximus etc.) and The The’s Matt Johnson. The latter reprises his vocal on a cover of his own track “GIANT,” nearly thirty years after its first release. Musical hook-ups include 2econd Class Citizen, who trades sample-attacks with Strictly for the suite of nine tracks that make up the 11 minute “Magpie Music.” Dr. Rubberfunk lends his drumming skills to the opening track and old DJ food partner Solid Steel’s DJ add their own ingredients to the mix.
While there isn’t a single concept behind the record, certain themes twine their way through the music. In particular, the twin retro-future icons, astronauts and robots, float and bleep their way across the surface of the album, from the Henry Flint cover art onwards. Perhaps best known for his groundbreaking work on the 2000AD comic, Flint gave Kev access to a caché of his personal drawings to colour as well as a creating a new work specifically for the project.
Perhaps the biggest surprise to all those who associate the DJ Food name with the early 90′s “Jazz Brakes” records is just how heavy The Search Engine is. Styled as a kind of psychedelic rock album made with samplers, Strictly Kev has not been afraid to frug the fuck out, with thundering drum work and fuzz bass perhaps the central musical signature of his work.
Reflecting Strictly’s work as a designer as well as a musician (he had to take the whole of 2010 off from recording the record while he did all the design for Ninja’s 20th “XX” anniversary) the album comes in a number of formats: regulard CD digipak, download, comic book with CD and a 7″ flexi-disc of a bonus track with an exclusive remix 12″, comic and flexi-disc.
As for the title, Kev explains that, “the way we live every day is helped by search engines of many shapes and sizes. Some people think they control and influence how we work and play. In this case though, the Search Engine could be something waiting to be found out in the vastness of space…” Thrusters on full…
Quite the interesting project (mini-documentary) we have from Stones Throw Records and Dublab on DVD, which released just 10 days ago. What are you waiting for? Check the trailers out. Also, for information on the DVD release party this coming Saturday, April 3, go here.
To his fans, Cole Dennis is a heavyweight contender with a devastating right hook. To a city being held hostage to chaos and terror, Dennis has a grit and charisma that make him the shining hope for justice–until he is arrested for a brutal murder. Framed for a crime he did not commit, he finds himself captive in a foreboding high-tech superprison whose masters secretly conspire to turn inmates into tomorrow’s most terrifying bioweapons–with Cole Dennis as the intended prize specimen. But Dennis is nobody’s lab rat. Reborn as a towering engine of destruction, Dennis will prepare for the fight of his life. He will rename himself Ghostface Killah. And his cry of righteous rage will echo beyond the cold steel walls of Cell Block Z.
So we love art and we love music, but it was only within the past couple years we noticed that musicians, specifically hip hop MCs, are beginning to star in their own graphic novels. Good hip hop MCs have already created vivid images of themselves with their lyrics, music, videos, photos and so on. Now, these MCs that we’ve known and loved for years are exploding onto pages, or even LCD displays in digital form. Method Man was the first of the Wu-Tang Clan to release a graphic novel for Hachette Book Group, followed by members GZA and now the great Ghostface Killah.
When given the opportunity for an interview with Chris Walker, the illustrator behind Ghostface’s new graphic novel Cell Block Z, we couldn’t resist. Walker’s work has appeared in the pages of such substantial comics as Batman, Spider-Man, and Superman when he worked for Marvel, and he is currently producing and developing animated projects for Humouring the Fates animation studios, and creating communication solutions for companies through 5Rings Design.
Interview:
How did you get into comic books and graphic novels when you were younger?
Chris Walker: Well, I was always into comics. Some of my first drawings as a kid, where you can tell what they are, are of Batman and Robin. I’ve always liked cartoons and comics so it was just one of those things.
Hipsterwave: Just made sense, huh?
Chris Walker: Yeah. I would save my money and buy comics at the drug store, and when I got older, I would go to the comic shop we had downtown.
Hipsterwave: They had a bigger/better selection, I’m guessing?
Chris Walker: :D Just a little. That’s when you get serious. At first it’s like Spider-Man is cool. Then you want to know what happened in the story and somehow you find out, “At the comic book store, they have all the back issues with all the story lines you’ve ever wanted to know!!” LOL! I’ve seen it happen old and young: like someone who has been away from comics for years discovers the comic book store and they are hooked at least for 2-3 years from that point.
The classic Mr. Scruff album has been remastered (in warm and glorious analogue) and is packaged with a 9 track bonus CD including 6 unreleased tracks from the original Scruffy studio sessions.
Scruffy has put up a 15 minute megamix to give to fans in celebration of 10 year re-issue of Keep it Unreal.
And to keep up the celebratory spirit, Mr. Scruff is running a photo competition to win a gold disc on his site here.
Have a look and please ask your friends, family etc. to get involved! Just upload a photo of someone/something “keeping it unreal” and Scruff will select the best one to win the gold disc!
Mr Scruff’s music can be found in the new Rolando 2 game for the iPhone. The first installment was considered by many to be the best iPhone game of 2008, so the second is bound to be a hit!
Spanning the high seas on the way to the tropical island of Fontanis, ‘Rolando 2′ takes players to a beachside retreat set to the tune of Mr. Scruff, who appears in the game as a Rolando! At Mr. Scruff’s music shack, gamers can groove to Scruff classics ‘Blackpool Roll’, ‘Spandex Man’, ‘Fix That Speaker’ and ‘Sweetsmoke’ and buy tracks directly from iTunes.
Joe Corrales, Jr. aka Yppah (pronounced “Yippah”) is back. The young Mexican-American from Texas debuted on Ninja Tune in 2006 with his album, “You Are Beautiful At all Times,” and now releases his sophomore effort, “They Know What Ghost Know.”
Fashioning a rockier sound than last time out, the album draws on a cultural heritage that took in My Bloody Valentine alongside hip hop and which is heavily influenced by various forms of electronic music, psychedelic soul and rock. It means that this is really versatile music which has been created. It’s the kind you can listen to if you were walking to work or even while reading what’s going on at pokerblog.com. There’s something for everyone in it.
Opening track “Son Saves The Rest” is wall-of-noise guitar pummeller. “Gumball Machine Weekend” sounds like southern-fried Go! Team with more soul. “Playing With Fireworks” somehow reminds you of the way you felt stuck between childhood and the adult world, not a million miles from instrumental tracks from the Phantom Band. “Shutter Speed” is nostalgia psyched into a memorable tune. Title track “They Know What Ghost Know” is West Coast rock reimagined as trance-rite, a spooky, echo-heavy drum-roll-filled set of repetitions and overlaps that builds into a tune which DJ Shadow in his heyday might have dreamed of making. “Sun Flower Sun Kissed” takes the doomy grey skies of MBV and gives them a Texan make-over. “Bobbie Joe Wilson” channels the Dust Brothers and proves Yppah hasn’t lost his love of hip hop. Corrales build moods through a combination of melody, rhythm and sonics and if those moods are mainly melancholy, they’re also ecstatic.
After a series of shows last year from SXSW to Japan, there’s a real feeling that Joe Corrales is ready to step up into the big league. The album has that feel to it – that it has been made under huge skies, that it’s possible to make music which is epic and intimate all at once. It’s beguiling and beautiful and makes you a little giddy, too. Find out what Ghost know.
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