The Search Engine is a studio album by DJ Food, a project of Kevin Foakes who is also known as Strictly Kev. It was released on 23 January 2012 through Ninja Tune.[1] It received generally favorable reviews from critics.[2]
Background
DJ Food originally started as a collaborative project between the Coldcut duo Matt Black and Jonathan More.[3] They were subsequently joined by Kevin Foakes (also known as Strictly Kev) and Patrick Carpenter (also known as PC).[3] Black, More, and Carpenter left the project, and Foakes became a sole member of the project.[3]
The Search Engine is DJ Food's first studio album since Kaleidoscope (2000).[4] It includes tracks from three previously released EPs: One Man's Weird Is Another Man's World (2009), The Shape of Things That Hum (2009), and Magpies, Maps and Moons (2011).[5] It features guest appearances from The The vocalist Matt Johnson (on a cover version of The The's song "Giant") and Foetus' JG Thirlwell (on "Prey").[4]
The album's cover art is an illustration by the comic book artist Henry Flint.[6] Kevin Foakes asked him to draw "a cosmonaut, hanging in space, strapped into an unfeasibly large backpack, the kind you could only wear in zero gravity."[6]
A limited edition of the album comes with a comic-sized booklet, a CD, and a 7-inch flexi-disc.[4]
According to the review aggregator Metacritic, The Search Engine received "generally favorable reviews" based on a weighted average score of 69 out of 100 from 7 critic scores.[2]
John Bergstrom of PopMatters stated, "Though the interludes have been added to help smooth things out, the album still comes across as a hodgepodge, albeit a pretty good one."[10] He added, "If you have enjoyed previous DJ Food or Ninja Tune releases, The Search Engine has plenty of elements that will sound comfortingly familiar, if not exactly fresh at this stage."[10] Alan Ranta of Exclaim! commented that "The style is mature, intensely smoky and cinematic, recalling trip-hop, gamelan, vintage propaganda, film noir, sci-fi and stag films."[5] Phil Freeman of AllMusic stated, "Surprising as it may be, coming from masters of the quick-cut DJ collage, The Search Engine is a journey worth taking from beginning to end, uninterrupted."[7] Meanwhile, Will Salmon of Clash called it "a tired, conservative and weirdly insular album."[8]
