DJ Food

Originally produced by Coldcut on the ninja tune independent record label, the DJ Food project started in 1990 on the premise of providing metaphorical “food for DJs”. DJ Food released the Jazz Brakes series, with Jazz Brakes Volume 3 being the most successful. The records consisted of collections of breaks, loops and samples, ideal for mixing, remixing and producing the trademark ninja tune blend of jazz & hip hop. Volumes 4 and 5 of the Jazz Brakes series, co-created with DJ / producer PC transcend the breakbeat compilation format to stand as artist albums in their own right. The later DJ Food albums have developed with shades of latin, dub, techno, ambient, and jungle flavouring the funk. The 1995 album, A Recipe for Disaster was a conscious move away from the Jazz Brakes volumes to form more of an identity as an artist, and a remix album of tracks from all 6 LPs, entitled Refried Food was released the following year. Their last release, Kaleidoscope, featured guest artists including Bundy K. Brown (formerly of Tortoise, Directions In Music, Pullman) and voiceover artist and jazz poet, Ken Nordine). With a seemingly single DJ name, it is often wrongly assumed that DJ Food is single person. In fact, a whole host of DJs, producers and musicians have performed under the name, so the evolutionary nature of the DJ Food sound comes as no surprise. Matt Black and Jonathan More (aka Coldcut) were responsible for starting Jazz Brakes series in the early 90s. Along the way they met Patrick Carpenter, who, being listed on the liner notes simply by his initials, was often mistakenly thought to be a Personal computer. A loose collaborative team began to form as more like-minded people arrived at the party, including Paul Brook, Paul Rabiger, Strictly Kev and Issac Elliston. Although keeping their hand in as DJs on the albums, Matt & Jon couldn’t perform DJ sets twice in one night under both aliases of Coldcut & DJ Food, so they handed the mantle of live DJing over to PC and Strictly Kev. Later, PC became so busy with The Cinematic Orchestra that he decided to quit, at least temporarily leaving DJ Food as a Strictly Kev solo project. In addition to The Cinematic Orchestra, PC also recorded with J. Swinscoe under the band name Neptune. Strictly Kev has recorded under the name Flexus.