‘The Search Engine’ Is Complete

The Search Engine is the first album from Strictly Kev, Ninja Tune regular (and the label’s art director), in over a decade. Recording as DJ Food, Kev welcomed guests Matt Johnson (The The) and J.G. Thirwell (Foetus), among others, to the project. In an extensive podcast interview, hosted by the label, he talked about the intersection of sampling and songwriting. “The phrase ‘keep it real’ in hip-hop just makes me despair,” he said, expressing no interest in sonic reality and everything in a studio-production basis for the manipulation of sound and for the construction of tunes (the file is available not as an MP3 but as a sizable M4A). He also discusses the complexity of working under the name DJ Food, since it has been used by various people over the course of the history of Ninja Tune Records. And there’s plenty of music from the record. More on his Search Engine album at ninjatune.net. And while on the subject, here’s an interview with DJ Food from back in 1997, when that name was employed not by Kev but by Ninja’s Patrick Carpenter: “Anatomy of a Remix.”