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Journeys by DJ: 70 Minutes of Madness is a DJ mix album by English electronic duo, released on 16 October 1995. It was the eighth instalment in the Journeys by DJ series of mix albums released by the label of the same name. Unlike previous editions, which focused on house music, Coldcut's mix profiles the act's 'freestyle' mixing approach, blending 35 tracks that span many genres, including techno, hip hop, electro, jungle and funk, into an eclectic, frenetic DJ set.

Inspired by their Kiss FM radio series Solid Steel, Coldcut created Journeys by DJ: 70 Minutes of Madness with collaborators Kevin Foakes and Patrick Carpenter. The team were motivated to prove what could be achieved with a DJ mix and to exhibit true DJ culture. Licensing some songs proved difficult, resulting in several last minute replacements. The final mix incorporates rapid changes in tempo, spoken word samples, scratching and heavy layering.

On release, the album received wide critical acclaim for its diverse track selection, dextrous mixing and originality, becoming the best reviewed DJ mix album of the era. It has since been widely described as one of the greatest DJ mix albums ever released, featuring in lists compiled by Q, Spin, The Quietus and DJ Magazine. In 1998, it was named the best compilation album ever by Jockey Slut. It has also been cited as an influence on big beat and mashup music. Originally reaching number 41 on the UK Compilation Chart and falling out of print in 1998 following the expiration of the track licenses, Journeys by DJ was re-released in May 2002, allowing it to reach a new peak of number 28.

"...in a  bid  to  bump  up  the running  time, [Ezrin] added  sound  collages  at  the  start  and close.  An  eerie  86-second  coda  mixes  backward  bits  of Destroyer  with  a  snippet  from  Alive!" Strong Larkin

Criss
"Maybe Peter Criss’ solo LP was a cry for help, after years trapped in the relentlessly charging Kiss machine, but it was nothing like the chorused cries of “HELP!” issued by all the fans who bought this sub-yacht-rock debacle. Sure, the entire point of Kiss’ joint-released solo efforts (which famously shipped Gold and were returned Platinum by record stores that couldn’t move them!) was for each band member to “just be himself”; but Criss clearly misread the memo and decided to “just be Barry Manilow” instead."

"It's tempting to leave Criss' solo project out of these Kiss album rankings altogether. After all, he was clearly running as far from the band's hard rock sound as possible. Instead, the voice behind "Beth" and "Hard Luck Woman" leans heavily on ballads and the R&B sound of his previous groups. Even considering that, he simply doesn't have the songwriting talent or charisma to front an entire album."

"It wasn’t the worst solo album ever made by a drummer – that was Keith Moon’s risible Two Sides Of The Moon. But this was undoubtedly the worst of the Kiss solo albums. A fan of pop and soul music, Criss turned MOR crooner on lightweight toe-tapping tunes such as Don’t You Let Me Down and That’s The Kind Of Sugar Papa Likes. Tellingly, the best song on the album is a ballad, I Can’t Stop The Rain, written by long-time band associate Sean Delaney, and perfectly suited to Peter’s raspy voice. To the horror of Kiss fans, this was music that their parents would like. As Paul Stanley said: “Peter’s album was ghastly.”"

Gap
33⅓ author R. J. Wheaton: the "first androgynous supermodel", said Jean-Paul Gaultier, and "the Grandmother of Trip-Hop" said NME later. Part of the New York art-fashion-literary scene of the early 1980s. Moved to London in the mid-80s. "She was listening to 'dancehall and Scientist, or singers like Vera Hall, Iris DeMent and The Carter Family, or Bakoya Pygmy music'. Witch was finished in 1990 but not released until 1993. "The album suggests, certainly, dub's thick pace and bass, ambient techno and hip-hop. But Witch is subversive and political where so much of trip-hop was interpersonal and introspective, most obviously on 'N1 Ear' ('I still can't get birth control / While some fucker's roaming the moon'). It suggests an alternate genre which was made of the same thing but might have been a great deal more piercing.

Mat Smith (Electronic Sound review):
 * Hailed as "the grandmother of trip hop" because of the album. Prior to this, she was a New York model who became an "uncompromising musician and poet" after meeting with Burroughs and Basquiat, then moved to London and "wound up in a scene that was recovering from the brief explosion of punk but aggressively evolving towards artsier concerns".
 * Recorded under the alias ©, "being Winer’s angry response to the concept of words being ‘owned’ through copyright."
 * Her collaborators include "PiL’s Jah Wobble, Adam And The Ants’ Kevin Mooney (Winer’s future husband), video director John Maybury, and Culture Club’s Helen Terry, while the album was principally produced by Winer, Mooney and Renegade Soundwave’s Karl Bonnie."
 * It "surfaced as a white label on Rhythm King’s Transglobal imprint in 1990, but didn’t receive an official release until 1993."
 * Musically, it is "positioned singularly at the intersection of dub, hip-hop and spoken word, with tracks loitering around that junction aimlessly, skulking darkly and kicking sounds nonchalantly against the kerb. The influence of working with Burroughs on his cut-up recordings comes through, with Winer creating loops and disconnected observations about the weather, sexual inequality, war, nudity, finance and advertising slogans."
 * "Flove" features a "hiccupping, heavily-processed voice over a classic Renegade Soundwave groove of heavy bass and floating percussion", and is similar to "MIA sonic genius Bonnie"'s work with Danny Briotett and Gary Asquith, making his influence likely.
 * In his review for Electronic Sound, Smith considers the music to grab listeners, and believes three of the best songs were co-written by Bonnie, "standing out as major highlights among his own criminally slight discography". "Whether Winer deserves the acclaim of being the inventor of trip hop is debatable, but ‘Witch’ remains a powerful statement, even a quarter century on. Copyright laws and a general move toward restraint means we’re unlikely to see this type of hybrid album emerge and achieve such cult status ever again."

The Vinyl Factory's Lazlo Rugoff says its her 1993-released debut album, and "its combination of hip-hop samples and spoken word tracks helped to push forward the burgeoning trip-hop sound forward."

Quietus article from Bernie Brooks (not on the album itself):
 * By the early 1980s, Winer provided vocals, lyrics and instrumentation in Kevin Mooney's musical activities, following the dissolution of Adam and the Ants. She made Witch with a "slew of friends".
 * Released in 1990 on white label. It is "incredible. 42 minutes of mutated dub and hip hop, like the best On-U Sound record that On-U Sound didn't release."
 * Songs: "N1 Ear" is "a furious feminist anthem set to a massive, booming drum loop and killer bass line. It’s supremely groovy, straight out of ‘Beat Bop’-era NYC. It sounds like it was recorded in a filthy loft with no hot water." Meanwhile, "Dream 1" is "a woozy, sea-sick lullaby sort of thing", while "He Was" is a languid, warm dub song that Brooks believes "feels like it's about New York".
 * On her 2021 retrospective compilation When I Hit You – You’ll Feel It (Light in the Attic records), Witch is represented by "N1 Ear", "The Boy Who Used 2 Whistle", "Dream 1" and "He Was".
 * Initially released "as the commercially suicidal "©". That’s right, the copyright symbol. Surrounded by trappings of the occult, it occurs to me that this might be a potent sigil, a claim of ownership. Ownership of the sounds within, of herself. Though she’d discard this alter ego, it still strikes me as a profound gesture, especially for a veteran of the fashion industry: Winer’s identity is her own."

https://ra.co/reviews/34411

https://web.archive.org/web/20210830160814/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/30/arts/music/leslie-winer-when-i-hit-you-youll-feel-it.html

Caroline Sullivan of The Guardian wrote in her review that while Winer has been called a "female Tom Waits", this does not convey her music's "freeform oddness". "Winer recites advertising slogans over minimalist dub rhythms, and sings a bit in a heavy, brooding voice. Her breathy style is said to have inspired Madonna's Justify Your Love. It's more accessible than it sounds, and is worth investigating."

Select reviewer Andrew Perry says it is simply pronounced "C". He advised listeners not to "hold any of that [modelling for a Vogue cover, being Burroughs' teenage secretary, writing songs for Grace Jones, Madonna and Sinead] against her, mind, as her debut LP hinges on deliciously catchy reggae basslines, near-tribal percussion and hazy spoken narratives - like Laurie Anderson meets Lee Perry, or The Drum Club with words." Says the basslines come from Jah Wobble. "Little wonder that Witch has been nominated for the '93 Mercury Music Award. As art dub weirdness goes, it's class stuff."

Wyndham Wallace of The Quietus (2012):
 * Argued by some to have originated trip hop with, until 2012, her "only commercially released album", and the NME dubbed her "the grandmother of trip hop", though Winer considers this dubious. "As far as I know that term didn’t arise until later, one of those things that critics make up in order to better organise their record collections. As we were making Witch, a lot of cassettes with different mixes were circulating around London. It’s possible they heard some of these. I probably heard Massive in 1990 when Witch was already recorded. Of course, it’s always possible that I was influenced by them, but at the time I was more likely to be listening to Dancehall and Scientist, or singers like Vera Hall, Iris DeMent and The Carter Family, or Bakoya Pygmy music. And I haven’t been accused of being influenced by June Carter or the Pygmies yet."
 * "originally released as a white label in early 1990 (though exact dates remain vague, even to those involved)"
 * More on trip hop: to those who knew, "she had inadvertently stumbled upon a musical style that was not only prescient and innovative, but also unusually articulate and powerful. In their minds, she was a fearsome, fearless prophet before her time whose beats were blunt, whose aesthetics were ingenious and whose lyrics were both provocative and cerebral."
 * Not done with this yet

Remember NME and Maker

Van the bin
Music critic Richard S. Ginell called it the culmination of Morrison's spiritual jazz period and "perhaps not coincidentally" his final Warner Bros. album, in which the "deepest, most inward areas" of the singer's "renegade Irish soul" are explored. The record is largely mellow and includes four instrumentals. "Higher Than the World" features a choir-like synthesizer form Mark Isham. The instrumental "Connswater" is considered by Ginell to be Morrison's most Irish-flavoured piece up to that point and until the 1988 Chieftans record. "Rave on, John Donne" is "in part a recitation invoking a roster of writers over a supple two-chord vamp" while the only rock song, "The Street Only Knew Your Name", is still layered with synths.
 * Composition

Writing for AllMusic, Ginell wrote that the almost "forgotten" album sold poorly and perplexed contemporary rick critics with its high number of instrumentals, but believed that those who bought the album "consider it one of the most cherished items in their Van Morrison collections." He wrote that although mellow, the record is "never flacid or complacent; there is a radiance that glows throughout."
 * Reception

Timothy and Elizabeth Bracy of Stereogum call it a "bizarre, but still thrilling" album that "does its level best to defy categorization." They add: ""Awash in a placid stream of atmospherics, it barely touches on the rock and soul idiom that has so long been Morrison's template. Like a distinctly Irish take on late period Roxy Music, the release seems eager to challenge the album form altogether. Gorgeous instrumental digressions morph into romantic pop, balladry and then digress formless again. Melodies occur seemingly haphazard and improvised and then reoccur as though conjured. Some believed Van had gone crazy by this point. Another interpretation is that he had finally figured out yet more things the rest of us don't know.""

Neotropic
NEOTROPIC https://www.treblezine.com/34054-top-50-best-electronic-albums-of-the-90s/

Track listing
All songs written by Dr Calculus.

Side one

 * 1) "Blasted with Ecstasy" – 7:11
 * 2) "Programme 7" – 3:17
 * 3) "Moments of Being (Interlude)" – 1:09
 * 4) "Killed by Poetry" – 4:10
 * 5) "Moments of Being (Reprisal)" – 2:33
 * 6) "Man" – 4:33

Side two

 * 1) "Dream Machine" – 4:36
 * 2) "Candy Floss Pink" – 3:17
 * 3) "Just Another Honey" – 4:54
 * 4) "Designer Beatnik" – 4:14
 * 5) "Perfume from Spain" – 5:09

Personnel
Adapted from the liner notes of Designer Beatnik.


 * Dr Calculus – writers, composers
 * Stephen Duffy – guitar, bass guitar, drums, percussion, finger cymbals, piano, synthesisers (DX7, Emulator and Fairlight), producer
 * Roger Freeman – vocals, trombone, piano, percussion, producer
 * Paul Staveley O'Duffy – producer
 * Olly Moore – baritone saxophone, tenor saxophone
 * Izumi Kobayashi – synthesisers (Emulator and T8)
 * Chris Lee – trumpet
 * Francoise Gigandet – vocals
 * Guy Pratt – bass guitar ("Just Another Honey", "Perfume from Spain")
 * Nick Duffy – violin ("Just Another Honey")
 * Junior Gee – rap ("Perfume from Spain)"

Garcia

 * "Late for Supper": avant-garde / musique concrete / sound collage / electronic
 * "Spidergwad": electronic / musique concrete sound collage / avant-garde
 * "Eep Hour": electronic / sound collage / avant-garde

Side one

 * 1) – 10:41
 * 2) "The King Must Go" (Segments) (John Benson Brooks)
 * 3) "The Gods on High" (Brooks, Milt Gabler)
 * 4) "Pie in the Sky" (Brooks, Gabler, lyrics by John Donne)
 * 5) "El Bluebirdo" (Brooks)
 * 6) "A Bird Can Be" (Gabler)
 * 7) – 12:11
 * 8) "Cherries Are Ripe" (Brooks)
 * 9) "What's a Square?" (Brooks, Gabler)
 * 10) "Slapstix" (Jack Shaindlin)
 * 11) "True Blue Heart" (Shaindlin)
 * 12) "Little Boxes" (Excerpt) (Malvina Reynolds)
 * 13) "But, Where Are You?" (Brooks, Gabler)

Side two

 * 1) – 13:07
 * 2) "Ornette" (Segments) (uncredited)
 * 3) "Love Is Psychedelic" (Brooks, Gabler)
 * 4) "The Life I Used to Live" (Lightnin' Hopkins)
 * 5) "When I First Came to To Town" (uncredited)
 * 6) "Mend Them Fences" (Brooks, lyrics by Robert Graves)
 * 7) "But, Where Am I?" (Brooks, Gabler)
 * 8) – 9:38
 * 9) "Satan Takes" (Segments) (Brooks)
 * 10) "Pie in the Sky" (Brooks, Gabler, lyrics by Catherine Lee Bates)
 * 11) "We Shall Overcome" (Thomas Jefferson)

Excerpt credits

 * Sammy Davis Jr. – Sammy Davis Jr. at Town Hall
 * Jack Shaindlin – piano solo portions from 50 Years of Movie Music
 * The Tarriers – "Little Boxes"
 * Seymour Krim – The Magic Underwear Panty (with Detachable Garters)
 * Lawrence Ferlinghetti – Autobiography
 * Carl Sandburg – The People, Yes
 * LeRoi Jones – Black Dada Nihilismus
 * Lightnin' Hopkins – "Life I Used to Live"

Personnel
Adapted from the liner notes of Avant Slant.


 * The John Benson Brooks Trio
 * John Benson Brooks – piano
 * Don Heckman – alto saxophone
 * Howard Hart – snare drum, cymbal


 * Others
 * Milt Gabler – producer, editing supervisor
 * Ernie Stone – voice actor
 * Herb Hartig – voice actor
 * Jack Gibson – voice actor
 * Joyce Todd – voice actor
 * Judy Scott – voice ( "The Gods on High", "What's a Square?", "But, Where Are You?", "But, Where Am I?" )
 * Lawrence Ferlinghetti – voice ( "El Bluebirdo" )
 * Jack Shaindlin – piano ( "Slapstix", "True Blue Heart" )
 * The Tarriers - performer ( "Little Boxes" (Excerpt) )
 * Frank Hamilton – voice ( "We Shall Overcome" )
 * Guy Carawan – voice ( "We Shall Overcome" )
 * LeRoi Jones – voice ( "We Shall Overcome" )
 * Pete Seeger – voice ( "We Shall Overcome" )
 * Zilphia Horton – voice ( "We Shall Overcome" )
 * Emil Korsen – engineer
 * George Chandler – engineer
 * Joseph Curran – engineer
 * Rudy May – engineer
 * Joan Franklin – recording
 * Robert Franklin – recording
 * Steinweiss – cover
 * John Clellon Holmes – liner notes

Faust Tapes
Greg Kot of The Chicago Tribune included it "The avant-garde on disc: An introduction to avant-garde rock on CD." They write, "A jumpy but fascinating glimpse into what happened in a farmhouse-turned-sound-laboratory in northern Germany more than two decades ago."

Jon Savage of The Observer reviewed the 1987 reissue (Recommended RR6). "Faust's inspired collages" still sound timeless, and are "still best heard on The Faust Tapes", but notes So Far and Faust as very good also.

1973 Reading Evening Post Review

1973 Cambridge Evening News article

1973 Bracknell and Ascot Times review

"At Island, one of the strangest stories we heard was about" The Faust Tapes, released by Virgin and distributed by Island Records. "This album of private tapes ... is selling for 34 pence (about 85 cents) as a publicity gimmick and is having an amazing success, although Virgin Records loses money on every copy. The music is a strange kind of electronic rock, the kind that is beginning to be heard in America too."

Evening Standard: "When an album has sold a healthy 60,000 copies in the first few weeks of release, it hardly seems logical to delete the title. But this is what Virgin Records is" doing, "for the simple reason that each album sold loses the company about 1p. The LP sells for the same price as a single and was issued as a promotional gimmick to help establish Faust, one of Germany's most significant avant garde rock groups in Britain."

"Still pleasingly avant-garde", "marketed to British audiences by the fledging Virgin label for the price of a single."

First for Virgin after being dropped by Polydor. "A generation bought the 49p Faust Tapes LP, promptly dumped it at the local record exchange, waited 10 years and then re-bought it on the realisation that it was a masterpiece."

One of "the most listened to bands in the mid-Seventies, thanks to Virgin Records which put out their Faust Tapes album for the cost of about two Curlywurlys. A fantastic sound collage, it was proper hippie music and it's only right that they are having something of a renaissance in this age of electro beats."

C'mon Kids
Shane Brown of The Dispatch Sun-Argus named it his fifth favourite album of 1997, commenting that Carr is arguably "the most gifted songwriter of the last decade". Calls it "their most experimental offering to date, matching Carr's lyrics with an array of sonic soundscapes from Beach Boys harmonies to dance beats to an avant garde extremism reminiscent of Frank Zappa".

Sean Leary of the same paper in a best albums of 1996 list said the album grew on him, dubbing it a true "pastiche of style and influences, linked together by a distinctly pop sensibility."

The News Journal review (1997, 4 stars): album is "an extremist reaction" to the commercial success of Wake Up. "While Wake Up was an infectious album of three-minute quick-hook Britpop, C'mon Kids is obviously meant to alienate any fans who weren't true fans." "It is an eclectic, avant-garde, experimental album featuring two hard rock albums assuring the album of a quick exit from the UK charts." Alongside those singles, there is "two trip-hop songs, a few ballads, a few experimental guitar rock tracks and even a few acoustic efforts." Considers it "brilliant, albeit confused" but it won't crack the US charts.