Journeys by DJ: 70 Minutes of Madness is a DJ mix album by English electronic duo Coldcut, 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 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.
Background Launched in 1993 by London nightclub owner Tim Fielding and released via his label of the same name, Journeys by DJ were a series of dance-oriented DJ mix albums, inspired by the plethora of bootleg mix tapes on the black market but with all source material listed and officially licensed. It gave major DJs an opportunity to craft personalised set lists away from the pressure of one-take live club mixes, allowing them time to tweak their mixes. After seven volumes, all of which profiled popular house DJs, Journeys by DJ asked Coldcut – a duo of Matt Black and Jonathan More – to contribute a mix to the series. By this point, Coldcut were considered veterans, having four albums, numerous singles and multiple remixes. Dubbed 70 Minutes of Madness, the duo's entry to the series was a way to celebrate ownership of the name Coldcut returning to More and Black, as it had been in licensing limbo for several years following contractual problems with their former label Arista Records. Coldcut were assisted in creating the mix by their associates Kevin Foakes and Patrick Carpenter.
Coldcut's mix was rooted in Solid Steel, the London-based Kiss FM radio show that the duo had hosted since the late 1980s, which prioritised an improvised and diverse array of records and quick mixing; according to More, Coldcut sometimes persuaded Kiss's station manager to allow them into broadcasting DJ sets over two hours without advertisements, experiences which influenced the structure of the Journeys by DJ mix. Two pivotal influences on Coldcut's approach were Grandmaster Flash's "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel" (1981) and Double Dee and Steinski's "Lessons 1–3" (1985), described by Foakes as "taking the best bits from everywhere and making them into something else. It didn't matter if there was some pop in there, like Junior or Culture Club, which generally I hated, but the fact that it was mixed in with all that other stuff... Bugs Bunny and Clint Eastwood." Black said that "Adventures" redefined his personal defections of "what a song could be like", while describing "The Lessons" as "very important, because they were actual lessons. This is how you can go about taking a bunch of old stuff and making it into something new."
Recording Coldcut approached their Journeys by DJ mix through what More described as a set of "random consequences", commenting that each contributor created his own section of sequenced tracks for the mix, including some that were "little routines that been honed at the club nights we used to run." Foakes said he added several ideas that he had practiced in the Solid Steel mixes and in clubs to the mix, such as "where the record gets turned down from 45rpm to 33rpm – that was one of my little club tricks to change the tempo." Black said that a competitive streak drove his contributions to the mix, believing that as audiences were satisfied "with so little", it was an opportunity to show them what could be achieved with a DJ mix and to exhibit "what DJ culture is actually about". Moreover, Black and Foakes commented that the mix was partly a reaction to the prevalence of house DJ mixes, with the former believing that house did not deserve to be "the only musical dish on the menu" and that the mix was an ideal opportunity to prove it. According to The Quietus journalist Joe Clay, DJ mix albums prior to 70 Minutes of Madness tended to be straightforward and linear, with records of the same genre and tempo mixed seamlessly, whereas Coldcut's approach on Journeys by DJ presented a break from the norm.
Coldcut and their collaborators pooled a list of records for inclusion, some of which they could not license. More and Black said they would mix first and only then seek permission, which affected the course of the production; the former commented that Sony refused to license Coldcut their own song "People Hold On", which Patrick had mixed with the Moody Boys' "Free". Similarly, Black said that Leftfield's "Original (Jam)" could not be licensed so the act placed Air Liquide on the mix instead. The mix was created in parts, resulting in what Black called it a "kind of a comment on the interface between DJing, mixing and studio production"; Foakes commented that the multilayering was achieved using ADAT, with computers only used for editing at the end of the process, while More says the act created alternate parts over two 40-minute ADATs which then had to be joined: "Kiss FM had got some computer editing software for radio and we copied the two sections from the ADAT and loaded them into the computer and joined it together. We did it up in the studios of Kiss." The album was mastered by David Turner.
Composition
Journeys by DJ: 70 Minutes of Madness is structured similarly to Coldcut's cult Kiss FM shows and exhibits their 'freestyle' approach to mixing. A highly eclectic set comprising 35 tracks, the album incorporates a wide array of genres, including hip hop, electro, funk, techno, dub, breakbeat, drum and bass, jungle, ambient chill-out, house, reggae and jazz. The dense soundscape of the music is both layered and interrupted with an array of unusual spoken word samples, including from kung fu and martial arts films, The Jungle Book (1967), and Jello Biafra's vitriolic tirade "Message from Our Sponsor" (1987). The mix also incorporates scratching. A reviewer for Music Week said the album draws together "all manner of dub, hip hop and breakbeat styles. Mashed up dirty beats, bleepy noises, bits of soundtrack – it's all thrown in for an armchair rather than dancefloor experience." Gillett describes it as a "frenetic DJ mix", while ambient music historian Mark Prendergast calls it "a beat collage of various DJ recordings".
Music writer Sean Cooper highlights the disparate artists, ranging "from Harold Budd to Dillinja, Joanna Law to the Jedi Knights", and the mix's rapid jumps between musical styles to draw connections "between hip-hop, jungle, techno, electro, ambient, and beyond". Music author Ed Gillett says it swerves deliriously "between jungle, acid techno, breakbeats and ambient interludes, layered with vocal samples salvaged from the dustbins of twentieth-century cultural ephemera," while critic Matt Cibula wrote how "abstract and ambient stuff like Plastikman and Harold Budd and Photek were considered equal partners with Mantronix and Queen Latifah and Masters at Work". Foakes highlights the mix's fair amount of contemporary material, such as music from Photek, which is mixed with Boogie Down Productions' "The Bridge Is Over". Commenting on the heavy amount of jungle and drum and bass, Foakes said that placing an a cappella from Junior Reid "over the top ... brings it out of just being jungle."
The mix employs the technique of fusing unrelated songs to create new ones, described by Clay as early examples of mashups; More believes that Brian Eno and David Byrne's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1981) pioneered the technique and that its "DNA seeped into our work because we’re such big fans." Journeys by DJ is not a particularly seamless mix; on some occasions, the tempo slows down for one or two short tracks and then returns to 120bpm, with segues seeming smooth "probably because there were at least two or three sounds continuing on at every transition", according to Cibula, who notes that new tracks are introduced just as the previous one has registered. The tracks are generally shortened, although some play to a longer length, as with Boogie Down Productions' "The Bridge Is Over", which plays at a faster tempo while being layered with ambient keyboards and birdlike sounds.
The album begins with the words "This is a journey." Spoken by actor Geoffrey Sumner and lifted from a 1958 stereo sound demonstration LP, the sample continues that the journey "will bring to you new colour, new dimension, new values, and a new experience", before, as Gillett describes, "his voice echoes away into nothingness, and the beat drops." The first track is Philorene's "Bola", mixed in with Depth Charge's "Depth Charge", a piece of dub hip hop whose prominent beats and unusual effects set the tone for the album. Junior Reid's "One Blood" is played over Roni Size-style beats and is in turn segued into a dub mix of Newcleus' "Jam on It", which then switches to a hard glitch remix of 2 Player's "Extreme Possibilities". Among later contrasts, Ron Grainer's Doctor Who theme music (1963) plays besides the 1990s dub of the Moody Boys, while Biafra's piece, a protest against fascism in the United States, is sequenced between Hookian Mindz' ambient track "Freshmess" and the "beat freneticism" of Pressure Drop's "Unify". Some inclusions pay homage to Coldcut's 1980s hip hop roots, such as selections from Boogie Down Productions and Mantronix.
Release Journeys by DJ: 70 Minutes of Madness was released on 16 October 1995 through Journeys by DJ and its distributor Music Unites. It was the eighth edition in the Journeys by DJ series, and spelled the end of a long hiatus for Coldcut. The subtitle, 70 Minutes of Madness, is a reference to Coldcut's 1987 genre-fusing remix of Eric B. & Rakim's "Paid in Full", which was subtitled "Seven Minutes of Madness". The liner notes dedicate the recording to William Burroughs, Double Dee and Steinski, Grandmaster Flash and other "cut and paste" pioneers. Journeys by DJ spent five non-consecutive weeks on the UK Compilation Chart, peaking at number 41 in October 1995 and initially making its final appearance in January 1996.
The album was deleted in 1998 after the track licenses expired, by which point the album had become a "modern classic". Demand for a re-release followed but it took four years to renegotiate the track licenses. Journeys by DJ was re-released by the label of the same name on 28 May 2002, following an event celebrating the reissue at London nightclub The End on 18 May. Laurence Windo, writing in Music Week, wrote that "all the buyers are after it and as a result the sell-in has been phenomenal and it should chart well." The re-release reached number 28 on the UK Compilation Chart. It also peaked at number two on the American CMJ RPM airplay chart for electronic music and ranked 28th in its year-end chart.
Critical reception