DJ Food - The Search Engine
(CD/Digital) Ninja Tune ZENCD176/ZENDNL176, 2012-01-23

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 best parts from three EP’s worth of material into a continuous 56 minute album of unbridled creativity and laser-sharp focus. Collaborations abound in the form of vocal appearances from Natural Self (aka Nathaniel Pearn), JG Thirlwell (Foetus, Steroid 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 PC and Solid Steel's DK add their own ingredients to the mix. Perhaps the biggest surprise of all to those who associate the DJ Food name with the early 90s 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 the frug the fuck out, with thundering drum work and fuzz bass perhaps the central muscial signature of the work.

Loka - Sam Star / Temporary External
(Digital Single) Ninja Tune ZENDNLS293, 2011-11-21

Loka, Ninja Tune's cult psychedelicists, purveyors of cinematic music that disturbs and troubles and intrigues rather than comforts, return with a new album, Passing Place and, to build up to it, The Daily Bread, an exclusive Paris DJs mix, and the Sam Star EP, which sounds like Broadcast after munching an acid blotter and staring at a Boyle Family light show. Temporary External features vocals by Lido Pimienta and Brass layers by the welsh brass band Seindorf Beaumaris Band, comes on like the soundtrack to an anticipatory biopic of Robert Wyatt, made while he was still a school boy and. The 2econd Class Citizen remix of album track The Sound Stars Make allows the original's atmosphere of hazy menace to build for three minutes before hardening up the beats and building to a rhythm-led crescendo. Loka is an ever evolving band, drawing on influences from jazz to classical to BBC radiophonic to 60's psychedelia and much more. With a career on Ninja Tune that dates back to the year 2000 but has resulted in only one album (2006's critically acclamied Fire Shepherds) the band continues its compelling and innovative journey at its own stately pace. The eagerly awaited second album Passing Place, due for release in November 2011, is beautifully dark and disorientating with haunting vocals and brass interludes.

DJ Food - Magpies, Maps & Moons
(12"/Digital/promo CD) Ninja Tune ZEN12299/ZENDNLS299/ZENCDS299, 2011-11-07

Finishing the trilogy of EPs started in 2009 with One Man's Weird Is Another Man's World and The Shape of Things That Hum, comes Magpies, Maps & Moons. Another five track 12", wrapped in a poster cover by 2000ad comic artist Henry Flint, and featuring more collaborations to add to the growing Food roster. In vocal form we have JG Thirlwell - aka Foetus, Steroid Maximus and Manorexia amongst many others - providing a vocal for the lead track, Prey. Having been a fan of JG's work since the late 80's this was a dream come true for Strictly Kev who remixed a Foetus track for free, alongside Amon Tobin on 2002's Blow album for Thirlwell, on the provision that they collaborate in the future. The other collaboration comes from London resident Aaron Thomason aka 2econd Class Citizen on the 11 minute plus audio montage, Magpie Music. The two met up earlier this year after Kev had raved about Aaron's debut LP A World Without on Germany's Equinox label. Rather than sit down and work on a single song the pair decided to swap samples and create short pieces in isolation before comparing and critiquing them, then remixing and working them into a long form piece. All this, with various tracks from the previous EPs, will add up to the album, The Search Engine, released in Jan 2012, which cherry picks the best 10 tracks, remixing or editing them along the way, and adds a final collaboration to boot.