A Italia

By the time this post is published I shall be in the air, flying to Italy for a week's holiday. The three of us are landing in Napoli later this morning, two days and nights there and then five on a hillside overlooking Maiori and the Amalfi coast. At some point we are going to Pompeii and Herculaneum. At several points we will be enjoying pizza, local produce (wine, tomatoes, lemon pastries) and the odd Negroni. As a result there will be no posts here for a week but don't worry, I'm filling today's post with a load of music for you to enjoy and explore while I'm away.

A week ago Daniel Avery announced the release of a new album in October, Tremor (out on Hallowe'en, the same night he plays New Century Hall in Manchester). In advance of Tremor Daniel gave us Rapture In Blue, a single with Cecile Believe on vocals and guitars from Andy Bell (whose music with Ride, GLOK and solo has been featured here regularly and who is currently treading the boards with Oasis). Rapture In Blue took a few plays to really get under my skin but now it's firmly there. It's a change of direction compared to what came before- slow mo 4AD goth/ techno pop. 

Also out last week is a new track from the reformed Factory Floor, Tell Me. Tough edged and propulsive, with thumping beats and acid synths, Tell Me is very much after dark music, with New Order's  Stephen Morris adding his expertise to the drum programming. Nic Void's vocal is at the intersection between human and robotic. At Bandcamp there's a short and extended version available . 

Rich Thair and Ali Friend's Number is a post- punk/ disco party outfit, the Red Snapper pair having the freedom to do something outside their main band. Back in 2019 they released an album called Binary. A few days ago they put the first single from a forthcoming album out, the funked up Le Boucle Nouveau. The drums are absolutely on it and the rhythm is irresistible. There are pianos and synth squiggles and a choral vocal. There's a Duncan Grey remix forthcoming and then an album- Pollinate- is due to follow on Ramrock Records. 

Two weeks ago Paisley Dark released an EP by Jay- Son, Tales Of Freedom, an original mix and five remixes- dark cosmic disco with laser beams firing and a gliding bassline. The remixes come from Ian Vale, Hogt I Tak, Viper Patrol, Keith Forrester and this one from Cosmikuro which throbs and thumps deliciously. The whole EP is here. 

Over at Mighty Force there is more acid techno out now courtesy of Byron Carignan and an album called Symmetrical Universe. The ten tracks burst with energy and acid techno, synths overloaded and basslines wiggling, and all manner of interstellar and galactic references in the track titles, tracks such as Nebula Groove, Astral Acid and Spacewave Symphony. Mighty Force don't ever put a foot wrong and this is yet another release that I'll be coming back to in months to come- get it here. 

Finally, something Italian to sign off with. In 2017 a compilation called Welcome To Paradise (Italian Dream House 89- 93) followed by second and third volumes a year later. The albums are chock full of the deep, rich, euphoric, sunrise/ sunset sound of Italo house, Italian producers and DJs making full use of the new technology that was arriving in the late 80s. This one is as good as any, a 1989 12" single by Morenas. Ciao!

Somnambulism

Her Life Was Saved By Rock & Roll

I've been listening to The Velvet Underground a lot recently, partly due to my 2025 dive into the Lou Reed solo back catalogue and partly due to them being one of the cornerstones of my record collection since the late 1980s. In 2017 the record company Verve released an album called The Velvet Underground 1969. This is not the self titled third Velvet Underground nor the much loved Live 1969 album but a twenty song, four sides of vinyl album pulling together the group's recordings from 1969, some of which made up the self titled third album, some of which came out on Loaded a year later, some of which didn't come out until the VU album in the mid- 80s, some of which were reworked and re- recorded as Lou Reed solo songs and some of which are/were unreleased off cuts and extras. 

1968- 1969 was a tumultuous time for the group. Reed wanted John Cale sacked after White Light/ White Heat. Lou wanted to be more recognition and success, Cale wanted to be more experimental. Lou's songs at the tail end of '68 were heading in a poppier direction, songs like Stephanie Says and Beginning To See The Light. John had a viola drone song, Hey Mr. Rain. Lou told Sterling Morrison and Mo Tucker that if Cale wasn't sacked he would dissolve the Velvets and though neither was happy with it they went along with Lou. Doug Yule was invited in as bassist and the group recorded The Velvet Underground, a gentle, after hours, chilled out affair with some of Lou's best songs- What Goes On, Jesus, Pale Blue Eyes, Some Kinda Love, Candy Says, Beginning To See The Light... It's an almost perfect album, brought down only slightly by The Murder Mystery which has two vocals running simultaneously in the two stereo channels and is messy. It's then redeemed by the Mo Tucker sung After Hours. 

The so called 'lost VU album' released in 2017 is filled with great VU songs that highlight what a superb band they were. There are some Cale moments which remind you why the first two VU albums are so good, the viola droning away on Hey Mr. Rain and some organ playing too. There is some stunningly primitive but brilliant Mo Tucker drumming and Doug Yule's playing shows why he was a key part of the Velvets in the 1968- 1970 period. Mainly, running all the way through from start to end, there is the magical guitar interplay of Lou Reed and Sterling Morrison. It's difficult sometimes to know where one starts and the other takes over, who is rhythm and who is lead or if they're both playing different rhythm parts. 

Foggy Notion, I Can't Stand It, Temptation Inside Your Heart, Stephanie Says, Beginning To See The Light, Ocean- all are present, all from different sources and all ending up on a variety of releases and all among the best songs of the period by anyone. There is also this, the full length version of Rock & Roll, the song which came out on Loaded in 1970 in slightly shorter form (4. 47 rather than the 5.15 on 1969), a song with the best choppy guitar riffs and rhythm playing, sheer joyousness in the singing and in the lyrics, the story of Jenny (but really Lou) whose life was saved by rock & roll.

Rock & Roll  (Original 1969 Mix)

Thee is also this song, Lou's tribute to Coney Island, the seaside resort at the end of the line in Brooklyn. In 1976 Lou would write and record an entire solo album about Coney Island, a love letter to his partner Rachel and to 'a Coney Island of the mind'. In 1969 Lou's first run at it is a two and half minute song, ragged guitars and the 'nice/ ice' rhyme he'd come back to in the 70s. There's a line about his childhood and parents- 'like a sister and brother/ who cling to each other/ when they realise their parents are mad'-  and then the guitars chop away as Lou and Doug croon the days of the week

Coney Island Steeplechase (2014 Mix)

Coney Island Steeplechase originally saw the light of day in 1986 on Another VU, a follow up to 1985's VU- two collections of unreleased Velvets songs that kick started the whole rediscovery of the group and played a huge part in creating the sound of the UK's indie scene. The Another VU version has very muffled, compressed vocals. The 2014 mix is much clearer and rattles along beautifully. Lou's songwriting at this point was at its VU peak and the 'lost 19769 album' is  wonderful collection of songs, an alternate view of the group that year- I wouldn't give up the third album in favour of it but 1969 is a welcome companion piece (even though the vinyl pressing is annoyingly much too quiet). 

It's Where He's From

Seeing Iggy Pop live at Manchester's Victoria Warehouse at the end of May has lived long in my memory. Two months on I can still get a little buzz of excitement from the thought of it and as Iggy has wended his way across Europe since then I get the same excitement from seeing clips of various gigs and festivals popping up in my social media. 

Iggy's solo career is perhaps the definition of uneven, wildly varying solo albums from the genius of 1977's The Idiot and Lust For Life to albums where he barely sounds interested or has unsympathetic bands bludgeoning songs to death. In between there are lots of Iggy albums that have some cherries and some stinkers and much in between. His 21st century solo albums run a similar gamut. 2016's Post Pop Depression felt like a late career high point, a top 5 solo Iggy album. 2001's Beat 'Em Up was uninspiring hard rock. In between he did a jazz album, an album sung mainly in French, a sixteen song album that saw him reunited with The Stooges on four songs including a song each with Peaches and Green Day, some reflective  crooning and story telling, and on 2023's Every Loser songs with musicians from Jane's Addiction and Guns 'N' Roses that try to cover every style he's played with on every previous album. 

This is a pick 'n' mix of 21st century solo Iggy Pop, not necessarily the best four, just four Iggy solo songs from the last quarter of a century plus a collaboration from this year that you might have missed from a few months ago. 

In 2003 Iggy released Skull Ring, a seventeen song monster with Green Day, Peaches and Sum 41 all in tow and seven songs recorded with a group Iggy put together called The Trolls. Sadly of the four musicians that formed The Trolls only two are still alive, guitarists Whitey Kirst and Pete Marshall. Bassist Mooseman was the victim of a drive by shooting, a case of mistaken identity and drummer Alex Kirst was killed in a hit-- and- run in 2011. 

The remaining four songs on Skull Ring were recorded with The Stooges, the first fruits of a re- union that led them to festival stages all over the world. The four songs on Skull Ring had Iggy with Scott Asheton and Ron Asheton, Minutemen's Mike Watt playing bass and Steve Mackay from Funhouse rejoining on sax. When Ron died in 2009 James Williamson rejoined. Scott died in 2014, Steve Mackay in 2015. The four songs were Little Electric Chair, Skull Ring, Dead Rock Star and Loser. 

Skull Ring

Sludgy guitar riffs, overloaded sound and Iggy chanting 'Skull rings/ Fast cars/ Hot chicks/ Money'. It's good enough and more than a little a little tongue in cheek. 

2009's Preliminaires was a quieter affair, jazz and blues and bossa nova, a definitive attempt to something completely different. On Les Feuilles Mortes (Autumn Leaves) Iggy covered a 1940s standard in the original French. It suits him. 

Les Feuilles Mortes

In 2016 Iggy released Post Pop Depression, an album written and recorded with Josh Homme (Queens Of The Stone Age) and Matt Helders (Arctic Monkeys) and followed it with a tour. The album was a big success, strong songs, well recorded and played by a band who knew how Iggy Pop should sound. Gardenia, Break Into Your Heart, Paraguay and American Valhalla all sounded like first rate Iggy Pop and Sunday saw him accepting his age and place in the bigger scheme of things as the band cranked out the best backing tracks he'd had for years. 

Sunday

In 2018 Iggy collaborated with Underworld on a four track EP, Teatime Dub Encounters. Both parties sounded like they given it their best shot and it was fun for the time it lasted. On Bells And Circles Iggy sings/ speaks about the golden days of the 1970s, when you could smoke on the plane rather than now when you just get told 'you can't do that'- and if it sounds a bit 'old man shouts at the clouds' thats because it is. 

Bells And Circles

There's probably a follow up post to this one about Iggy's various guest vocal appearances but for the moment can I just remind you that earlier this year, before he set off on tour, Iggy recorded a vocal with The Moonlandingz, a song called It's Where I'm From, and it still sounds like a 2025 highlight, Iggy's elder statesman melancholy hitting all the right spots.

 

Monday's Long Songs

This came out in 2023 but I only discovered it recently- not sure why it took me so long as I posted a Justin Robertson remix of a track from the same EP over a year ago. Sewell And The Gong is Matt Sewell, an illustrator, artist, ornithologist and author in his day job who had an acoustic guitar in his studio. Eventually he hooked up with multi- instrumentalist, producer and fellow traveler Chris Tate and began to put some of Matt's folk- inspired guitar parts down on tape and embellish them a little. The result was an EP, Tonight We Fly, beautifully done, psychedelic folk with this track- Better Words- as the fourth of four...

Better Words sounds like something very familiar even on first listening, there's something about the melodies and arrangement that hark back to something deep inside- themes from children's TV in the 70s maybe, some lost folk memory, a fusion of late 60s folk rock and 90s/ 2000s lo fi Balearica. All four tracks are lovely and can be found at Bandcamp. 

There's a remix EP with the previously mentioned Justin Robertson Deadstock 33s remix of Passing Oort Clouds too and then on the first of next month a seven track mini- album called Patron Saint Of Elsewhere with a pair of tracks already out including the eight minute Quiet Storm, more wonderful gently psychedelic folk with shimmering guitars, found sounds, FX, hand drums and somewhere deep inside it some voices. 

An Hour Of Sunshine From Glasgow And Two Hours Of Do!! You!! From Richard Sen

John Fenner of Glasgow did this mix recently and shared it, Cafe Del Muir, an hour and seven minutes of sunshine for a rainy day in Glasgow (or anywhere). It's a blend of old and new and some of the tunes John selected came via recommendations from this blog- it's nice to see the ripples that go out and come back. There's a couple that are new to me as well and so the ripples go back out again. You can find Cafe Dal Muir at Soundcloud. 

• The Chemical Brothers: One Too Many Mornings
• Four Tet: Loved
• Saint Etienne: Alone Together (Hove Lawns Sunset Mix)
• The Cure: Pictures Of You (Extended Dub Mix)
• The Vendetta Suite: Warehouse Rock (Timmy Stewart's Six Minutes To Sunrise Mix)
• Sinead O'Connor: You Made Me The Thief Of Your Heart
• The Main Stem: Since You Left (Prins Thomas Miks)
• 10:40: Kissed Again
• Bal5000: Bleu Infini
• The Blow Monkeys: Save Me (Neville Watson Dub)
• The Light Brigade: Only Love Can Save Us
• Orbital: Belfast (ANNA Ambient Mix)

On Friday Richard Sen hosted his weekly Do!! You!! radio show, two hours of top tunes from a man who knows his musical onions. Richard played three tracks from our forthcoming Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 2 album (and ave us a shout out) so if you're itching to hear three of the tracks from it- the unreleased version of Lik Wid Nit Wit by Sabres Of Paradise, Red Snapper's Qraqeb and Sleaford Mods cover of Two Lone Swordsmen's Sick When We Kiss (retitled as sick wen we x) then this is the place to do it until the vinyl copies start arriving on doormats and in porches. As well as those three Richard plays tons of other great tracks, including some classic trance, breakbeat, and some very deep cosmic disco. Listen here. 

Soundtrack Saturday

It's nearly the end of July so we're seven months into Soundtrack Saturday and I've not yet posted anything by Ennio Morricone, the composer, orchestrator and musician who is possibly the greatest film score/ soundtrack artist of all. Just listing some of his film works shows his importance and range- all of Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns, The Thing, The Mission, The Untouchables, Cinema Paradiso, The Battle of Algiers, Days Of Heaven, various Tarantino films, Once Upon A Time In America.... 

It is his scores for Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy that made him a household name, startling and instantly recognisable pieces of music that are as much part of the three films as any of the actors, scenery or action. The budgets were tight and there were insufficient funds for a full orchestra. Instead Morricone made use of sound effects (whip cracks, gunshots, whistling, voices) and unlikely instruments (Jew's harps, Fender guitars) to soundtrack the three Spaghetti Westerns- 1964's A Fistful Of Dollars, 1965's For A Few Dollars More and 1966's The Good, The Bad And The Ugly. It's probably fair to say more people have heard the theme tune and know the music than have seen all three films. They used to be classic late night television. I lapped them up, watching them over and over. Leone's films and dialogue and Morricone's soundtrack music crossed over into pop culture and music, sampled and borrowed/ stolen far and wide. 

This is a twenty five minute mix of music from Ennio Morricone's Dollars Trilogy, eight Morricone Spaghetti Western pieces plus a surprise cover version at the end. It may be among the most atmospheric and original twenty five minutes of music you press play on today. 

Twenty Five Minutes Of Ennio Morricone's Dollars Trilogy

• Watch Chimes (Carillon's Theme)
• The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
• A Fistful Of Dollars
• For A Few Dollars More
• Chapel Shoot Out
• The Ecstasy Of Gold
• The Strong
• Father Ramirez
• The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

The cover version at the end is Wythenshawe guitar slingers Johnny Marr and Billy Duffy in 1992 paying tribute to the famous guitar lines from the soundtrack to the film of the same name, recorded for an album in 1992 called Ruby Trax, commissioned, compiled and released to mark the fortieth birthday of the NME. 

Memories

A week of new music comes to a close today- this week's posts have featured KiF's Still Out, a pair of new tracks from 100 Poems, new singles from The Charlatans and The Orb, and Richard Sen's remixes of John Grant (from 2016 admittedly but unreleased until now). Today we start off with two new releases on Brighton's Higher Love. The first, out yesterday, is from Polish duo Jazxing whose Pearls Of The Baltic Sea album was one of 2022's best albums, a blur of dub, indie, cosmic disco, Balearica and pop. 

The new Jazxing single is Memories, a full on 80s pop song with a lyric looking back at youth. Imagine Cupid And Psyche era Scritti Politti glazed in honey but with a hefty slice of 2025 production, laced with a shot of regret and nostalgia. There is a much longer alternate version, the Full Disco Purrefection Mix, that breaks it down and stretches it out, starting with percussion, disco strings and some congas and then building, snatches of vocal drifting in, a choppy rhythm guitar, sequenced bassline and more synths. Memories is at Higher Love's Bandcamp. 

Out in early August on Higher Love is a single from Puerto Montt City Orchestra, And We'd Be So Happy. More nu disco/ Balearic musically, an insistent rhythm, prodding bassline, hints of guitar and piano, all very chilled and lovely and on top band member Tim's daughter's spoken word piece, more memories, describing days out to the seaside, the simple pleasures of amusement arcades, penny falls, piers, car picnics and having fun despite the rain as all the while the guitar line floats away on top. There's a second version of And We'd Be So Happy too, The Cruel Mistress Mix, that slows it down, adds some dub space and echoes of early 90s Saint Etienne. And We'd Be So Happy is sounding like one of the singles of the summer round these parts. It'll be at Higher Love on 6th August

Coming from a similar place but a bit hazier is an EP from ddwy called Beaming Backwards, four slices of dreamy electronic Balearica with a Cocteau Twins/ One Dove feel, ethereal but with a pulse running through it, more early 90s influences and sounds, the feel of those songs that made up Creation's 1991 Keeping The Faith compilation, bands like Hypnotone, Love Corporation and Sheer Taft. The title track is a joy, forwards momentum with some backwards sounds and a distant vocal. 

Stars, Stars is led by a very mid- 80s Cure/ Cocteaus/ New Order guitar line and then a low slung bass. Peak Smile pushes on, aiming for the dancefloor, with a bleepy topline and crunchy synths. The EP finsihes with Hueldro'r Haf, a hazy, blissed out song with piano and viola. Buy/ listen to the whole EP here.  Like me, you may keep going back to it.