Summer is just around the corner for most people, so it’s time to put on something… funky! Cue DK, one-half of DJ Food and one totally nice fella with an ear for the tunes. Effectively a 0.5 in the official Solid Steel mix CD series, SSDK01 came across 2 CDs and features some great sounds for you to shake your rump to. If the sun isn’t shining when you’re listening, it soon will be! Part 1 is streamable now from Ninja Tune on the 25/04/2008 show, part 2 downloadable below. But first, a word or two from DK himself.

About to tour North American with Coldcut in 2000, I wanted to put together a promo CD that I could give away on the tour and thus took three sections from some of my favourite Solid Steel shows that year and put them together on 2 CDs. Among the usual DK mix of old and new, are Yush 2K - Fade Away (which made the short list for Now, Listen), The Orb - Little Fluffy Clouds given an excellent remix by Danny Tenaglia, Big Dada Allstars with their Planet Rock homage “Showtime”, Little Richard and Love on the breaks and beats. On the reggae front, Merciless, Cutty Ranks, Sean Paul, Burning Spear and King Tubby all make an appearance, Club favourites of the time were Solomon Funk, Re-Return of the Original Artform and Ozomatli (both getting the Cut Chemist lick) and 7 inch pressure from Eddie Warner and the Backyard Heavies.

Solid Steel only had a basic logo at that time and, needing some packaging, I enrolled the skills of Strictly Kev to design the artwork for the double CD. The started point was an Audio Obstacle Course Stereo test record we both had and the design became a template for the real series that followed. Dubbed as the first “unofficial” Solid Steel mix CD, with it’s own catalogue no. SSDK01, the two CDs came housed in a double plastic wallet with printed colour insert and were only sold at shows on Coldcut’s ‘Let Us Replay’ tour.

Download: DK - Solid Steel SSDK01 CD2 (58mins, 79MB)

Tracklisting

1. Major Force - Re-Return Of The Original Artform (Cut Chemist Remix) (Mo Wax)
2. Hi-C - I Don’t Know (Sleeping Bag)
3. Solomon Funk - Rock Me Again (Howlin’ Records)
4. Organized Konfusion - Open Your Eyes (Hollywood Basic)
5. Herbie Hancock - Chameleon (Columbia)
6. Shawn Lee - Disappearance Of The Man (We Love You)
7. Lee Michaels - Tell Me How Do You Feel (A&M)
8. Ozomatli - Cut Chemist Suite (Almo Sounds)
9. Trouble Funk - Hey Fellas (Sugar Hill)
10. Lola - Wax The Van (Jump Street)
11. Cedar - Golden (Cookin’)
12. Eddie Warner - Devil’s Anvil (Jazzman)
13. Backyard Heavies - Expo ‘83 (Scepter Records)
14. Love - Doggone (Blue Thumb)
15. Funkmaster Flex - Safe Sex, No Freaks (Wreck Records)
16. Jill Scott - Love Rain (Accapella) (Hidden Beach)
17. Sean Paul - Infiltrate (2 Hard Recordings)
18. Burning Spear - Slavery Days (Mango Records)
19. King Tubby - Keep On Dubbing (Clocktower Records)