raiding the 20th century - revisited.

a story :

2 years ago, strictly kev (aka dj food part of the ninja tune empire) broadcast a 45 minute mix that gave a rundown on the world of cut-n-paste, and it's more mutant bastard offspring, mash-ups. the mix, naturally found its way onto the wire and eventually to my ears. 'twas a glorious experiment, and proved that the art of cut-up was indeed worthy of such a document.

however, there was one glaring (for me anyways !) omission, kisspower by my beloved age of chance. subsequently, i tracked down kev, and explained that there was indeed one uk track from 1986 missing from the mess of noise he has released. to which kev advised that the 45 minute mix was a precursor to the full deal that he was in the process of making. this was too good an opportunity to miss. i sent kev a cd-r of the kisspower track and followed this up with a few easy q's for the ireallylovemusic site.

a year later, i received confirmation from kev that the monster, now known as 'raiding the 20th century', was ready to release to the world, such was the recognition of this aural document even paul morley had agreed to appear as a master of ceremonies throughout the hour long document, reading passages from his own 'words & music'.

word had spread since the original version, and the anticipation was rather frenzied amongst certain areas of the net. once the mix was online (no real world copies were ever pressed - this was a free internet only mix), demand hammered the ninja tune webserver into submission taking various chunks of ninjatune offline while chaos ensued.

ireallylovemusic once again assisted by hosting details of the mix and original artwork, as hidden away in the final tracklisting was a certain kisspower track. fame at last!

the internet community was brought into the funk as direct requests were put out to spread the mix far and wide for fear of a kickback from various big brother institutes (the memories of danger mouse vs emi were still fresh).

a few weeks later, the party had fizzled out, everyone who wanted the manipulated noise, had it, and all seemed to go back to normal.

that is, until this weekend.

ireallylovemusic has been requested by kev to drop the artwork associated with the mix, links to dj food's website and any references as to where the mix may be available. apparently, as a result of the interview he did with ireallylovemusic, he has received a strongly worded letter from emi.

over a year after the event things have come back to kick us into touch, to quote kev :"This has served it's purpose and it's amazing I got away with it for so long but I have to make it unavailable as of NOW otherwise I am getting to get the danger mouse treatment over it"

i have to be honest, the fact that a largely imageless, low profile website like ireallylovemusic has been noticed, gives me a tingle of excitement, but there is no way i would want to get kev into trouble, so of course i did as requested.

i do think, however, that maybe the horse has bolted and the actions by emi will result in little, the mix should be celebrated as a work of art, a statement of the modern world of music, and in a just world, be broadcast in complete on bbc3's excellent radio show mixing it. i am sure that if there is anyone who still wants to track the mix down, then it shouldn't be too difficult, just dont ask me for any clues. more details on the mix, the interview and full track listing : here

thank you.

mark e

ireallylovemusic