I have been a big fan of the Ninja Tune record label and the Solid Steel mixes over the years. I still have a few of the first Ninja Tune records knocking about which have the old ninja logo that looks like its been drawn by a ten year old.

The last few days I have been non-stop listening to one of the Solid Steel shows. Podcast #181 to be exact. It’s by Maribou State (whoever they are) and it is really very good in a more chilled out way.

My previous favourite before this was an XLR8R mix by Fantastic Mr. Fox. If it was a tape it would have had to be sellotaped back together several times by now. I was just wondering if anyone has any other favourite mixes that they can’t stop listening to (Solid Steel or otherwise)?

A real old Wall of Sound mix by Dj Touche (free cassette with DJ mag) http://www.discogs.com/Various-Stable-Manners/release/132721

Cream Live 2 – only the James Lavelle mix http://www.discogs.com/Paul-Oakenfold-Nick-Warren-James-Lavelle-Cream-Live-Two/release/161518

DJ Food and DK “Now Listen” Solid Steel is probably my favourite.
Mr Scruff’s “Keep it Solid Steel” great too and the Hexstatic “Listen & Learn”

Don’t listen to mixes very often, but love these – Alex Smoke never goes wrong:

http://alexsmoke.com/2014/09/12/dj-mix-the-selector/
http://alexsmoke.com/2014/07/14/downtempo-dj-mix-for-rs/

and

FACT mix 467: Jacques Greene

I was going to post some links to a few of the Forgotten Treasures mixes over on the Music is my Sanctuary website – there is much more on there that’s also worth a listen though, like some of the 24hrs of Vinyl mixes.

Edit: I usually listen to them through Mixcloud instead of the website.

Andrew Weatherall/Sean Johnston. Slo-mo electronic bliss to dance/chill out to.
I’m too good to you lot

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A lot of their video podcasts (Hexstatic, DJ Cheeba, DK) have been superb and are amongst my favourite music. I can’t help but keep re-listening to them. I actually missed out on seeing Cold Cut/Ninja Tune at a party on NYE 1999. I only found their room at the end of the night and by that time it was pretty much dawn and most people had left. 14 years later and I still regret it.

If you want other suggestions, search Youtube for the Nightmares on Wax Boiler Room set. It is superb.

The only cassette tapes I have hung onto are my Coldcut Solid Steel recordings from Kiss FM in the 1990s.

Loved the way they mixed house, techno and hip-hop with old-school funk, electro, reggae, krautrock and jazz.

Really opened me up to a lot of different music styles.

🙂

If you want other suggestions, search Youtube for the Nightmares on Wax Boiler Room set. It is superb

I know that one cheers….it is a fantastic mix.

Forgot to mention the 70 mintues of madness , that’s where listening to mixes began for me and its still right up there as one of my favourite mixes.

This used to be quoted more than anything by me and my mates back in the day. It was made all the more special by having a Jun Tae work at the same company as I did about ten years ago (I’m not sure he ever thought it was funny, but it didn’t stop me)

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iYM6R1FIwo[/video]

ticking this box.

These two are also worth a mention – I remember seeing Coldcut many years ago and they played Timber in their AV Set, mind blowing.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8-QDCKdVO4[/video]

I’ve never seen Hexstatic live – something I hope to change in the future

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpMC2_SCY7w[/video]

(edited for the proper NinjaTune youtube link)

I’ve never seen Hexstatic live – something I hope to change in the future

I saw Hexstatic at a festival a few years ago and they were amazing. Have seen a few dj’s with synced visuals but none anywhere near what they were doing. Mrs isto doesn’t really like dance music and she loved them.

I saw Hexstatic live in a church in Bristol in about 1997 I think – they were f*cking awesome.

http://www.deephousepage.com/mixes.php?nRecSet=1300
Here’s pages of mixes by the like of Frankie Knuckles all the Hot Mix 5 (Farley Kenny Jason Steve Hurley) and of course the legend that is Ron Hardy. These are truly incredible especially the Ron Hardy one from the Music Box

I have some from the NYC disco legends somewhere when they were on belt drive turntables – Tom Moulton, Mancuso, Larry Levan, Jim Burgess Roy Thode. These also have to be heard as they are in effect the start of DJ culture and skills with those decks are stunning. Will try to dig them out and post.

I worked for ninja tune for about 10yrs great people & Strictly Kev, PC and Jon Moore are up there with the best DJs I ever heard.

https://soundcloud.com/mixmastamullet

Bobby Corridor’s Melancholy Flowers is a classic I keep coming back to.

Also Wolf Diesel Mountain by Buddy Peace.

Fond memories of seeing Hexstatic’s Halloween version of Timber done live at the Big Chill house in 2006.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIycjxATmFI[/video]

Never seen that version of timber before…..awesome. Pretty impressive that they rewrote the whole track just so it went with the video they were putting together.

Bobby Corridor sounds pretty damn good so far. Cheers for that.

This used to be quoted more than anything by me and my mates back in the day. It was made all the more special by having a Jun Tae work at the same company as I did about ten years ago (I’m not sure he ever thought it was funny, but it didn’t stop me)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iYM6R1FIwo

Depth Charge still get a regular play on my stereo.

There are so many great Solid Steel shows, there was a great Scratch Perverts set I used to play all the time but I can’t find it from work…

Steve Stunts to the forum please, Steve Stunts!

I have about a million hours of those mixes but for me some of the best were a selection of 10 mixes on mp3 which were done by Solid Steel / Ninja Tune for a Canadian college radio station. Must dig them out as they were amazing (but then again, I am biased as I truly believe that after hearing my first show it changed the way I wanted to hear music presented).

Got so many freebies of Kev et al over the years, time to make a display of them.

EDIT: just remembered. One of my favs was that mix when they cut up about 10 different versions of Light My Fire – stunning.

http://www.vjsproductionsinc.com/mixtape/index_new.asp?typ=2

Here’s all the disco mixes think the earliest is 74 from Tom Moulton at Fire Island. It’s amazing to hear where it all started & the skills these guys had. Also some Daniele Baldelli stuff from Italy hearing him play things at 33 & mixing in some real eclectic stuff for the time.

Insane http://youtu.be/_EOq7DGW2Ns

Isto – thanks for the reminder of Coldcuts Journeys By DJ, have just listened to that after many years without. Its ******* brilliant still!

Tonight I’m digging out James Lavelle at Cream which is also one I’d forgotten.

Loving it.

Just found this on youtube thought I’d share [video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB9i4ihh83U&sns=em[/video]

Solid Steel Podcast 156 – basically the Pauls Boutique album taken apart and put back together again

There’s so many good solid steel podcasts….i like no 117 from about 50mins onward, gets a bit good

Cubist – cheers for that. Good to know how they put it all together…..that’s some setup.

Maccruisken. Yip that Pauls Boutique one is brilliant. Have you heard the 3 Feet High and Rising one? Really good as well.

Some quality stuff listed above. I’d recommend some of the Stanton Warriors stuff on Soundcloud.

Caught in the middle of a 3 way mix is pretty special. But then just about anything Dj Food is involved in gets a massive thumbs up from me

Been a Ninja Tune fan for a long time, first got a mix tap from a mate back around 1996 and it was exactly what I was looking for. Round about the same time as Mo Wax, Endtroducing and the whole trip hop scene.

ahhh trip hop – off to search out some old portishead/tricky/massiveattack/dj shadow stuff now!

Dj Food just posted this up on FB.. for anyone that interested

https://soundcloud.com/strictly/solid-psyche-japanese-bonus-cd-version

Yip I sure am. Cool….cheers for that, start sounds really good and have cued the rest up for when I hit work tomorrow.

I’ve got minidiscs from around 2001(+cdr’s of Napster/Limewire recordings) with stuff like CabbageBoy solid steels that I want to put on the hard drive but not sure which way will be best.

I don’t listen to much else, been listening to them since around 1997 at a guess. Would I be right in saying that they have gone towards dance music lately?
Random fact: Danny Mac is a fan.

Edit: Also amazed that the guy I work with (aged 19, I’m 42) sometimes calls it Solid Chit. He’s frequently listens to Limahl – Never ending story, Kate bush and a heap of other 80’s junk, sometimes repeating the same song up to 6 times. He often plays Daniel O’Donnell to wind me up but seems quite happy listening to it himself.

It’s one of the reasons I’d put forward if I were to leave my job. Not to mention the dire stuff my boss plays.

I’ve got minidiscs from around 2001(+cdr’s of Napster/Limewire recordings) with stuff like CabbageBoy solid steels that I want to put on the hard drive but not sure which way will be best.

You should just be able to hook up your minidisc player to your soundcard and then use a program called Audacity (there are lots of others but this is free and fairly straightforward) to record the Minidiscs to WAV. From there you can convert to MP3 in Audacity provided you have the Lame plugin installed.

Here’s a link to the Audacity site.

That’s pretty cool that Danny Mac is a fan….he obviously has good taste 😀

The mixes I keep going back to are the Kruder and Dorfmeister, DJ Kicks mix and James Lavelle Living in my Headphones pt1. Both are brilliant.

Thanks, I’ll get the player up and running. It took a few hours for it to start flowing freely and working properly last time I started it up! (sony mz91) I downloaded Audacity months ago but forgot about it. Hopefully I’ll find spare time in these dark nights to finally do it.

Youngrob, have you seen this? The gems James Lavelle has in his lock-up are jaw dropping. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8jzd3JyrD4