British electric musician
DJ Food is an electronic music project currently headed by Kevin Foakes (also known as Strictly Kev). It was conceived in 1990 by Jonathan More and Matt Black of Coldcut and the Ninja Tune record label. It has since included various lineups of More, Black, Patrick Carpenter (known as PC), Foakes, and others, before finally being formed only of Foakes.
History
Originally conceived by the members of Coldcut on the Ninja Tune record label, the 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 that could be used for mixing, remixing and producing.[1]
Later DJ Food albums have developed with shades of Latin, dub, breakbeat, ambient, and drum and bass.[1]
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,[1] and a remix album of tracks from all six LPs, entitled Refried Food was released the following year. The more recent release, Kaleidoscope (2000), featured guest artists including Bundy K. Brown (formerly of Tortoise, Directions in Music, Pullman) and voiceover artist and jazz poet, Ken Nordine.
Members
DJ Food started as a Coldcut side project from Jonathan More and Matt Black.[1] Along the way they met Patrick Carpenter (known as PC). A loose collaborative team began to form including Paul Brook, Paul Rabiger, Kevin Foakes a.k.a. Strictly Kev and Issac Elliston.
Although keeping their hand in as DJs on the albums, Black and More could not perform DJ sets twice in one night under the aliases of both Coldcut and DJ Food, so they handed the mantle of live performances over to PC and Strictly Kev. Later, PC became so involved with the Cinematic Orchestra that he decided to quit DJ Food, leaving Strictly Kev as the sole director of the project. He has since contributed three remixes to The Shape of Things That Hum EP in 2009.
