This wasn’t actually the inspiration for the artwork for James Holden‘s DJ-Kicks compilation, but to look at you might guess that it was!

The cute fox is actually a wallpaper to advertise the Fantastic Mr Fox film, which you can download here from Entertainment Wallpaper. It was sent to my be our windmill-lansdcape-designer-friend Tom Horner, who was the one who spotted the similarity between the graphical stylings of Mr Holden and his fox friend Kristofferson. They even have matching little shirts!

Stream James Holden’s guest mini-mix for Studio Brussels’ ‘Switch’ show (including Avus’ ‘Poppy’) via Mixcloud: GO>>

By now you should be three days into your degustation of James Holden‘s DJ-Kicks, which has been available to own since Monday on CD, mp3 and accompanying double vinyl sampler (complete with exclusive Holden remix of Mogwai and previously unreleased Luke Abbott goodies too, in the form of new album track ‘Soft Attacks’ and that Holden-beloved remix of MIT’s ‘Rauch’) from all good record stores, on- and offline. Not forgetting of course bonus new Holden single ‘Triangle Folds’, which also comes in 12″ vinyl and twin-mp3 form. As if that wasn’t enough Holden action for one week, that mammoth world tour of Mr Holden also kicked off last weekend, beginning with Portugal and Belgium; Amsterdam, Cork and Verona lie on the agenda for the weekend ahead: see James’s Myspace for the full list of dates.

Of course, we couldn’t leave out our hometown of London, which takes its turn for a Holden workout on 11th June when the conveniently located Village Underground warehouse space plays host to man of the hour James Holden, previous DJ-Kicks incumbent and Four Tet man Kieran Hebden and our own DJ’s DJ Avus. All of which promises to be a bit of an End reunion, since the same deadly DJ trio made up our team of loyal residents during the days of our much-missed End residency, and so much more than that besides, as this party comes about as close to “essential” as the music-for-dancing-to scene gets. I’d hate you to miss out – so make sure that you don’t by securing your advance tickets now from Resident Advisor or Ticketweb today (check who else is going here first, if you must). It also coincides with the birthday celebrations of a certain Rave Hobbit, so brace yourselves…

Until then, all that remains is for you and your new musical-best-friend to become better acquainted, as the reviews continue to trickle in. The all-important Pitchfork on the whole seemed to get it, awarding it an oddly-precise 7.7 out of 10 and acting very much in the spirit of James’ inspirational sleevenotes to send out an encouraging message to: “Approach Holden’s mix with an open mind, and you might reconsider what’s danceable”. A quick interview with Ireland’s Bodytonic also provided an opportune platform for James’ uncharacteristic optimism, bestowing plentiful praise on the UK and “this hybridisation of dance and not-dance, the approach non-scene people have to making music that you could dance to is so much less conservative than people within the scene normally manage”. Donning my best and most zany weatherforecaster’s jumper (wait till you see it, Michael Page!), I can say that the outlook round these parts is overwhelmingly positive, whatever other people might tell you…

As for that little psychedelic amuse bouche from the Holden hard drive ‘Triangle Folds’: whether you see it as “21st Century kraut gorgeousness” (Ewan Pearson), “liberating stoner-techno” (Tomas Andersson) or “the best track I’ve heard this year” (Agoria), all it seems to have done is whetted the world’s appetite for a whole album’s worth of more-where-that-came-from. And that will indeed be James’ next task, but first there is the small matter of a world tour to get out of the way. Your patience would be appreciated.

NOTE TO RSS FANS: In case you were wondering where I have been these past couple of weeks, all blogging activity had to be temporarily suspended whilst we migrated from Blogger to WordPress. Which shouldn’t make a lot of difference to you, unless you were subscribed via the old RSS feed, which has ceased to function as of today. So be sure to update your feed readers with our brand spanking new RSS feed here: I don’t want to lose you now!

DJ Kicks, mixed by James Holden, released 24th May 2010 by !K7.

Listen: bandcamp spotify

01. Piano Magic – Wintersport / Cross-Country
02. Grackle – Disco (Musiccargo Remix)
03. Mordant Music – Olde Wobbly
04. Maserati – No More Sages
05. Caribou – Lemon Yoghourt
06. Luke Abbott – Soft Attacks
07. Mogwai – The Sun Smells Too Loud (Holden Remix)
08. Kieran Hebden / Steve Reid – Departure
09. Ursula Bogner – Punkte
10. Eric Copeland – Auto Dimmer
11. Mit – Rauch (Luke Abbott Remix)
12. ARP – Potentialities
13. Lucky Dragons – Open Melody
14. Holden – Triangle Folds (DJ-KiCKS)
15. James Ruskin – Definition Of
16. Legowelt – Flight Of The Jupiter
17. Walls – Gaberdine
18. Lukas Nystrand – Never Fail (Vocal)
19. Didier Pacquette – Arwen, Namarie
20. SS Pyramid Snake – Catacomb City

– Listen to James Holden‘s contribution to !K7‘s DJ Kicks compilation series, featuring Luke Abbott‘s ‘Soft Attacks’ (from his upcoming Holkham Drones album) as well as new music from James Holden himself: GO>>

– Listen to Red Bull Music Academy Radio‘s Fireside Chat with Nathan Fake: GO>>

– GROOVE review James Holden‘s new DJ-Kicks DJ mix compilation for !K7, featuring Luke Abbott‘s ‘Soft Attacks’ (from his Holkham Drones album) [GERMAN]: GO>>

I haven’t been to Ibiza in years; James ventured there alone for his last Cocoon appearance a couple of years back,  and we only just got him back in time thanks to kindly soul Loco Dice, who stepped in as the voice of sanity to sort out the necessary airport lift to extract him from Sven “party animal” Vath’s obligatory underwear after party.

But I have to admit I am curious about what things are like there nowadays: so lucky for me that the We Love… crew have provided me with a welcome excuse to get ourselves back out there by booking James to play on August 29th as part of this year’s Sundays at Space season, alongside The Mole, Paul Woolford, Ewan Pearson, Joris Voorn, Paul Mogg and a special mystery headline guest that is still to be announced (don’t ask, because I don’t know either).

Other (perhaps surprising) Balearic enticements provided by the We Love… crew this year include debut Ibiza appearances from Aphex Twin (September 26th) and Prins Thomas (June 27th), and if I am not mistaken it will also be our mate Kieran Hebden’s first Four Tet appearance on the isle (August 1st), much to his amusment. And with a pleasing assortment of other names including Carl Craig, Felix Da Housecat, Riton, Jeff Mills, Minilogue, 2ManyDJs, Ivan Smagghe, Heidi, The Juan Maclean, Dixon, Miss Kittin, Derrick May, Will Saul, DJ Hell, Zombie Nation, Pier Bucci, Slam, Danny Howells, Lee Burridge, Matthew Dear, Pete Gooding, Appleblim and residencies from Hot Chip and Simian Mobile Disco peppered throughout the 16 week schedule, perhaps we won’t be alone in our decision to give the island another try this year. Choose your weekend carefully: see the full line-up on the We Love… website.

One of the many ventures competing for your festival dollar this summer is Stop Making Sense, a brand new cosy affair that probably earns the tag boutique that takes place on the weekend of 3rd-5th September on a wooded peninsula in Croatia. Hoping to lure you all the way across Europe to the small village of Petrcane on Croatia’s Adriatic coast, the SMS collective of London-based promoters have assembled a decidedly Detroit-leaning line-up that includes Carl Craig, Juan Atkins, Theo Parrish, Django Django, Matias Aguayo, Friendly Fires, Optimo, Rebolledo, Chris Coco, Richard Norris, James Priestley, Giles Smith, Ali Tillett, John Power Jnr and our old muckers Allez-Allez. Border Community’s own Nathan Fake will also be making the journey, and has done his bit towards the festival’s blog effort with this mini-interview, where he passes on his invaluable festival advice of “Don’t camp”. I am with him on that one.

You can camp if you really must, but the SMS peninsula takeover means that this is a festival with a difference, with a variety of hotels, apartments and villas from €10 per night located within walking distance of the festival site, and on-hand family restaurants that make it easy to steer clear of the ubiquitous scourge of the festival noodle. Tickets are priced at £80 (but if you’re quick you can still bag yourself a £60 early bird), although they do seem to be charging an extra £10-a-shot for entrance to the twice daily boat parties and after hours 70s-designed nightclub that takes the music through to 6am. But with an open air live stage, outdoor dancefloor and even a private beach, the location can’t fail to impress:

The SMS Mixcloud podcast series serves to act as further enticement, with a series of contributions from festival guests: our BFF Allez-Allez were ready, willing and extremely able to step forward with this on-it-as-ever early contribution.