The Specialist: DJ Food on flexi discs

The Specialist is a new short film series profiling record collectors through one aspect of their collection that’s particularly important to them. Following Andrew Weatherall’s excursion into rockabilly, we visited Ninja Tune resident and beat maker DJ Food to rifle through his unparalleled collection of flexi discs – the disposable sound sheets that capture some of the strangest recordings ever committed to disc.

When it comes to strange formats, Strictly Kev is your man. Long time head chef behind Ninja Tune’s DJ Food project, whose identity he has now fully assumed, Kev cut his teeth as a breaks DJ, feeding his hunger for records to amass a perfectly organised, impeccably displayed collection from across the whole spectrum. A graphic designer with an eye for comic book culture and ephemera that would give James Lavelle a run for his money, Kev’s feel for the visual and the curious has led him to some of record collecting’s more obscure enclaves.

Taking its place alongside the zoetropes, mini-records and novelty formats is his collection of flexi-discs. Featured regularly as part of the ‘Flexibition‘ series on his peerless blog, these throw-away sound sheets have a charm and naivety to them that stands out a mile. An oft-ignored, largely disposable phenomenon, DJ Food shares the most bonkers flexis in his collection from bird song and soft-core porn to a recordings of Jonathan King commenting on the gas crisis.

See more from DJ Food on his website.