We return to the K Mixes archive this week and dig out four storming sets from Coldcut and PC including Old School Hip Hop in the disco rap mould, cut ups galore as only Coldcut do, a Jazz Rap, a Native Tongues era Hip Hop mix and a Go Go session from PC. All I can see when I listen to these mixes is London club culture at the dawn of the 90’s, completely mashed up musically, rife with sample plundering to the point where the samplers were sampling other samplers.

Dance music everywhere, infiltrating both the charts and the music of those who had previously dominated the charts. Soul II Soul, Native Tongues, KISS FM, The Stone Roses, the dawn of ambient and rave, popular brand logos bastardised into awful puns…  Plenty or multitrack fun and double copies going on here. Yeah, some of it has dated, but most is bona fide classic material to this day.

The second hour here really is an oddity, the only hour long K Mix, entitled ‘An Hour Of Ambience’. It is part studio jam and part mix with loops, music concrete and effects threaded throughout. At around the 21 minute mark a techno track creeps in which morphs into a jackhammer beat with Tibetan throat singing over it, then on into some Terry Riley-esque minimalism. At one point there’s even a snatch of Gabba before it all falls apart and we arrive at…reggae - ‘Queen of the Minstrels’ by Cornell Campbell - of course!

Matt Black explains the idea behind it all:

“I had become a born again Slacker, into the Church of the SubGenius and Bob Dobbs. They, amongst other hilarious scatological and creative activities, did radio broadcasts which sounded good, known as Media Barrages. I sent off for some tapes and they ended up being strong influences on the Sphinx era Solid Steels. That sample of ‘yo man I’d rather have the Rubber’ is from a Media Barrage phone in section. The various noises, loops, poems and rants were thrown together with as you all too accurately put it ‘complete disregard for the listener’.

A sampler was used to run quite a lot of randomly looped stuff which we could just push into the mix on different channels on the studio mixer. I think it was [recorded at] Clink St., the number kmix71 should enable you to date it as all k mixes were done in order…94 at a guess.

There’s a section with a funky loop that just goes on too long which could be edited down…it gets pretty rocking but theres def a ‘oh fuck what can we do now’ moment. The out of tune-ness of the whole thing is part of its charm i guess.”

This isn’t eclecticism for eclecticism’s sake though, think of it more of a deranged cousin to the KLF’s Chill Out with Lord Buckley replacing Bill Drummond. Tracks are built up and broken back down again, only to return later, synths noodle into the mix, plenty of spoken word is thrown in and it’s all live. No obvious tracks standout but it’s a trip for sure, heaven only knows what people must have thought when casually tuning into this one. There’s a CD skipping in there somewhere but it could well be intentional, what isn’t though is distortion and it’s inherent in the recording in places I’m afraid.

All this weeks selections are sourced from pre-broadcast DATs with no studio chat or adverts but include various Coldcut and KISS FM jingles.

Strictly Kev

2nd Hour - TX: approx 1994

1 Hour Of Ambience K Mix #71 1992 (Coldcut/PC)
(no tracklist available)

Download: Coldcut/PC - 1 Hour Of Ambience (1hr, 83MB)

1st hour - TX: Various Shows 1991-93 (available via Solid Steel Podcast, 01/08/2008 show)

‘Back In The Old School’ - K Mix #20 1991 (Coldcut)

  1. Spoonie Gee Meets The Sequence - Monster Jam
  2. Flash To The Beat - Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five
  3. The Disco Four - Move With The Groove
  4. Treacherous Three - At The Party
  5. The Birthday Party - Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five

‘Pumped Piper’ - K Mix #2 1990 (Coldcut)

  1. Snap - The Power
  2. Public Enemy - Bring The Noise (A Cappella)
  3. Coldcut - Ride The Pressure/Working Trax
  4. De La Soul - Say No Go (Say No Dope Mix)
  5. Hack Attack - A Knife, A Fork, A Bottle & A Cork

‘Rap It Up’ - K Mix #19 1991 (PC)

  1. A Tribe Called Quest - Can I Kick It? (Boilerhouse Remix)
  2. MC Shan - Time For Us To Defend Ourselves
  3. LL Cool J - The Boomin’ System
  4. Masta Ace - The Music Man
  5. Afros - Kickin Afrolistics
  6. X-Clan - Grand Verbalizer

‘Old School Goo Goo’ - K Mix #82 1992 (PC)

  1. Trouble Funk - Live in London
  2. Trouble Funk - So Early in The Morning
  3. Unknown
  4. Chuck Brown & The Soul Searchers - Bustin’ Loose
  5. Chuck Brown & The Soul Searchers - We Need Some Money
  6. Trouble Funk - Live in London
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