An Hour Of 2025 Dub/ Dance

A follow up to my New Year's Eve mix which was an ambient/ downtempo and largely instrumental hour of music. This one starts out dubby and then heads in Balearic and dance directions, getting increasingly thumpy with a three tune Belfast detour before finishing with the voice of Andrew Weatherall. As maybe all mixes should. 

There were a lot of things that I couldn't find room for here, not least Four Tet's Into Dust (Still Falling)- maybe there's time for one more 2025 mix next Sunday to see that year out. 

An Hour Of 2025 Dub/ Dance

• Adrian Sherwood: Spaghetti Best Western
• Soft Cotton County: The Future's Not What It Used To Be (Justin Robertson's Five Green Moons Remix)
• Rude Audio: No Sleep
• Escape- Ism: Last Of The Sellouts
• Daniel Avery ft. Cecile Believe: Rhapsody In Blue
• Jezebell: Movimento Lento
• Puerto Montt City Orchestra: ...And We'd Be So Happy
• Pandit Pam Pam: The Senator
• Le Carousel: We're All Gonna Hurt
• Factory Floor: Tell Me
• Black Bones: Voodoo
• The Light Brigade: Shuffle The Pack

Adrian Sherwood's The Collapse Of Everything was one of my favourite albums of 025, a solo album that becomes a mystical sonic adventure, Sherwood reaching out from dub into soundtrack territories and beyond. Spaghetti Best Western's guitars are worth the price of entry alone. 

Soft Cotton County's Coward Of The County Fair came out in January 2025, a single backed with a pair of Justin Robertson dubs (wearing his Five Green Moons hat- and the Five Green Moons Moon 2 album should have showed up here too). SCC are an indie/ dreampop/ shoegaze duo from Richmond- upon- Thames. This is lovely, laid back folk/ dub. 

Rude Audio are a South London dub/ dub techno specialists under the leadership of Mark Ratcliff. The Strange Phenomenon EP was a 2025 highlight, premium grade Dulwich dub. 

Escape- Ism's The Charge Of The Love Brigade was one of my 2025 peaks, a ten song trip inside Ian Svenonius' world, the last man in the business to sell out. 

Daniel Avery and Cecile Believe's Rhapsody In Blue was the most 80s teen drama, pop moment on Tremor (and came with a Midnight Version too, dirtier and tougher). It still hits the right spots now, six months after its release.

Jezebell's second album, Jezebellearic Beats Volume 2, pulled together some further remixes and productions together with some new material- this track, Movimento Lento, and the closer Turn It Yes, were a perfect pair of bookends. 

Puerto Montt City Orchestra's ...And We'd Be So Happy came out on Brighton's Higher Love label, the home of many fine modern Balearic releases. A spoken word family trip to the seaside in the pouring rain. 

Pandit Pam Pam is from Sao Paulo and makes uneasy ambient music. The Senator is the most dancefloor friendly thing in the Pandit Pam Pam back catalogue, dynamic and lively but still a little unpredictable and the horn that floats above the drums is a thing of beauty. 

Le Carousel is Phil Kieran from Belfast. We're All Gonna Hurt is full on, pulsing, electronic dance music, uplifting but shot through with heartbreak, like all the best dance music is. 

Factory Floor's 2025 return saw them come back with more bone shaking beats and face melting synths, on a pair of singles, Tell Me and Between You. Stephen Morris added some drum programming touches to Tell Me. Experimental, machine music with a random human heart. 

Black Bones are also from Belfast. They released an album across a variety of vinyl formats, dark industrial basement music- acidic, technoid, dubbed up Belfast rave. 

The Light Brigade are David Holmes and Keith Tenniswood. Shuffle The Pack is a righteous acid house record, a call to arms and positivity and very much part of Holmes' 'music as an act of resistance' vision that fades out leaving Andrew Weatherall's voice talking about music, smoke, coloured lights and acid house as gnostic ceremony. 

Oblique Saturdays

For the last three years I've had yearlong Saturday series running- last year was a year of film scores and soundtracks, Saturday Soundtrack, and before that Saturday Live (artists playing live) and VA Saturday (Various Artists compilations). I had a couple of ideas for 2026 and have settled on this- Oblique Saturdays.

In 1975 Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt came up with a set of cards designed to promote creativity and break moments of studio deadlock. Oblique Strategies were available for general sale on several occasions and in various editions. The most recent was in 2013. Each card contains a gnomic suggestion which must be interpreted to break a deadlock or resolve a dilemma. Various artists have gone public about their use of the Oblique Strategies cards- Eno himself during  Bowie's Berlin triptych, The B- 52s, LCD Soundsystem, Blixa Bargeld (a similar system of cards called Dave), Bauhaus, MGMT, Phoenix and, um, Coldplay. 

I was thinking about the Oblique Strategies a few months ago while reading an article about Eno and the words strategy and Saturday merged, suggesting this as a series. At some point before each Saturday I will go to the Oblique Strategies website, click onto it and reveal a card- without much thought, I will then post the song that first came to mind. I've no idea how this will play out, it's being done on the hoof. The first Oblique Saturday suggestion card I turned over was this...

Reverse 

In 1988 The Stone Roses discovered the joy of reversing the tapes of songs they'd recorded in the studio and they played around with them. Eventually this resulted in Don't Stop, for me one of the highlights of the debut album, Waterfall reversed with a new drum track and Ian Brown singing new words (the lyrics were written by John Squire listening to the backwards vocals of Waterfall and writing down what they suggested). The first backwards track they released was a B-side to Elephant Stone, Full Fathom Five.

Full Fathom Five

The sucking sound The Roses managed to obtain from their backwards guitars and drums is a trip, the whoosh and rush of music, the feel of and energy of gigs and clubs. On Full Fathom Five Ian's backwards vocals sound like a new language, the drums thump and skitter and it's like being in a bubble. 

Ian and John gave an interview at some point in the late 80s where they described driving out to the roads on the edge of Wythenshawe late at night, parking as close to Manchester Airport's runway as they could and lying on the bonnet of the car. They said that the whoosh of jets taking off directly overhead was the sound they were trying to replicate with the backwards tracks. Full Fathom Five is noise but it's noise as psychedelic sound/ music. 

If you reverse Full Fathom Five you'll find it's an alternate version of Elephant Stone. John Leckie encouraged them to experiment with reversed tapes and this would lead to several more experiments- Simone, Guernica and Don't Stop. Full Fathom Five is named after a Jackson Pollock painting- Elephant Stone was the first single to be housed in one of Squire's Pollock style paintings. 

Feel free to drop your own Reverse suggestions into the comment box. It would be interesting to see how other people interpret the oblique strategy. 

Poor Is The Man Whose Pleasures Depend On The Permission Of Another

Back to 1990 today  and a Madonna single that still packs a punch all these years later- thirty six years later. 

Justify My Love was released to promote Madonna's first compilation, The Immaculate Collection. Co- written by Madonna with Lenny Kravitz and Ingrid Chavez, with Kravitz producing and contributing, it was slightly overshadowed by the video which has implied S&M, flashes of nipples (female), same- sex scenes (male and female), females in charge of and in control of sexuality, bedroom stuff- MTV predictably banned it. It was issued as a commercially available video single which added to its transgressive appeal, too steamy to be shown on the TV- buy it and watch it yourself at home. It's ahead of its time in what it portrays, certainly in terms of mainstream pop (I guess Frankie Goes To Hollywood and some others had been there before but Madonna was global in 1990) and much of what is portrayed in the video is commonplace now in pop music and popular culture. As a promotional tool, a music video and a slice of 1990, it's very, very cool indeed. 

The song is a banger, riding in on the drumbeat that defined 1990 (on this occasion a Public Enemy sample rather than the actual Funky Drummer, the drums from 1988 track Security Of The First World, sped up slightly to 132 bpm. Public Enemy threatened to sue due to its unauthorised use. Kravitz denied taking it from PE, saying it was one of those beats that was just lying around. Public Enemy took it from somewhere etc etc). The rhythm is everything, it drives it. It's joined by a deep and burbling bassline, synth chords/ drones and Kravitz on backing vocals. Madonna takes the lead, speaking breathily, unleashing her 'inner freak'...

'I wanna kiss you in Paris/ I wanna hold your hand in Rome/ I wanna run naked in a rainstorm/ Make love in a train... cross country'

She's clearly never travelled cross country in the UK. No matter how much inner freak you'd unleashed you'd think twice, thrice, before shagging in the grim, rarely cleaned toilets on the trans- Pennine service (though I do not doubt that it has happened). 

Justify My Love

It's about dominance and pleasure, sexual fantasy and pleasure in connection to permission. It sounds fantastic, the production and drums are superb- its the best thing Lenny Kravitz has been connected to, it's Madonna in absolute control, of her music, her image, her sound, her music. It could still cause a storm on a dancefloor. It's a jam. 

There were remixes including one, The Beast Within Mix, which saw Madonna accused of anti- Semitism. 'It's ridiculous', she replied, 'People can say I'm an exhibitionist but no- one can ever accuse me of being a racist'. Of the remixes the one that we'll go with is William Orbit's...

Justify My Love (Orbit 12" Mix)

Seven minutes, drawn out intro, different drumbeat, a new shuffly rhythm, typically swirly, trippy Orbit production, an organ stab and bursts of guitar. Lovely stuff that would eventually lead to William Orbit working with Madonna more closely and what would become 1998's Ray Of Light album. 

Sixteen

Bagging Area is sixteen years old today. On the cusp of adulthood, at the age of majority, able to leave school, join the army, get married (with parental consent) and buy an aerosol in a shop. 

The world I started typing this stuff into- 1st January 2010- seems a very long way away in all kinds of ways. Back then I thought I'd do this for a year and see what happened. What happened was I just kept going and here we are, still going, 6, 296 posts later. 

Some sixteens from my record/ CD/ downloads collections...

In 1955 Tennessee Ernie Ford recorded Sixteen Tons, a song about the coal mining industry in the USA, being owned by the company, having to haul sixteen tons every day and every day ending up deeper in debt. A series of strikes and the growth of trade unions put an end to the practices of the truck system and debt bondage that Merle Travis describes in the song and that Ernie sings about. 

Sixteen Tons

In 1980 The Clash gave their European tour the name Sixteen Tons, the band comparing their situation with CBS to coal mining in the 1930s and 1940s, trapped by debt. The band kept gig and record prices as low as possible, the record company took it out of their royalties. 

Clash associate Don Letts released an album on the Late Night Tales series, Version Excursion, that included Sixteen Tons Of Dub, a dub version of Ernie's tune by OBF...

Sixteen Tons Of Dub

In 1983 Jazzateers released a 7" on Rough Trade, Show Me The Door and Sixteen Reasons. Glaswegian post- punk/ New Wave, with Ian Burgoyne and Keith Band as the core members and on this single with Paul Quinn on vocals. The band split and became Bourgie Bourgie and then reformed as Jazzateers.

Sixteen Reasons

Let It Be is The Replacements masterpiece, a 1984 album where it all came together for the band. On Sixteen Blue Paul Westerberg writes yet another anthem for teenage outsiders, one about empathy and sexual blurriness. His vocal on Sixteen Blue is maybe the best on the entire album, not least when he croaks and then goes full throttle with the line, 'Your age is the hardest age/ Everything drags and drags/ One day baby, maybe help you through/ Sixteen blue'.  There are entire teen/ rites of passage films that don't manage to nail what The Replacements do in three minutes here... 

Sixteen Blue

Oh look out, here's Iggy...

Sixteen

'Sweet sixteen in leather boots/ Body and soul I go crazy'. From Lust For Life, Iggy's second solo album and his second in 1977, the band sound totally on it, fully focussed and as one, straight ahead drug/ proto- punk rock with Bowie at the producer's desk. In 1982 a gaffer taped Iggy turned up on The Tube and did Sixteen for the early evening teatime crowd. I'm going to end this post here because I'm not sure it's going to get any better than this today. 

2025 Mix For NYE

An hour long mix for New Year's Eve  featuring solely music released in 2025, ambient and largely instrumental although some voices creep in to the Keith Tenniswood remix of Deeply Armed's The Healing and Mogwai's God Gets You Back. 

I was going to do a second mix to go with it, a more uptempo, more vocals based hour long mix but time and circumstances conspired against me. It'll follow at the weekend hopefully. In the meantime this one gives some low key shimmer and emotion to the last day of the year. 

NYE Hour Long 2025 Ambient/ Instrumental Mix

• Death In Vegas: Lightning Bolt (Live at EartH, 2025)
• Jamie Lidell and Luke Schneider: The Story Of Your Life
• SUSS and Six Missing: Old Mission
• Robin Guthrie: Her Name Is Dulcinea
• Deeply Armed: The Healing (Keith Tenniswood Remix)
• Klangkollektor: Isle Of Stonsy
• Mogwai: God Gets You Back
• Andy Bell: Pinball Wanderer
• Sewell And The Gong: Communion Phase
• Kieran Hebden and William Tyler: Secret City
• Daniel Avery: Neon Pulse
• Moon Dust: The Glow (Slowed + Reverb)

The Death In Vegas track Lightning Bolt dates from 2011 and the Trans- Love Energies album but this version was recorded live when DIV played at EartH in Dalston this year, fragile, drifting ambience.

Jamie Lidell and Luke Schneider released A Companion For Spaces Between Dreams, Luke's pedal steel ambient- Americana crossed with Jamie's modular synths and tapes effects. Psychedelic inner voyage music. 

SUSS are also from the ambient- Americana/ cosmic country scene, a trio from New York. This song with Six Missing's electric guitar came out in November. 

Robin Guthrie occasionally tidies up his unreleased files/ shelves and releases music onto Bandcamp, tracks that didn't make albums released in the past- orphan tracks. Her Name Is Dulcinea is one of those, from 2012, that saw the light of day in November this year. Ambient shoegaze/ dream pop for which the word 'ethereal' seems a cliche but also very apt. 

Belfast's Deeply Armed released a 12" called The Healing in the spring complete with remixes by Death In Vegas, Andrew Innes with Brendan Lynch and lone swordsman Keith Tenniswood. The original is ghostly, shamanic psyche/ kraut. Keith strips it down with a primitive drum machine and heartbeat pulse. Low key beauty. 

Klangkollektor's Balearic/ dub instrumentals have been present in two releases in 2025- Dubtapes Volume 2 and The Stockport Tapes (recorded live at Bruk). Isle Of Stonsey adds pedal steel or Hawaiian guitar to the soundscape, a very chilled out, beatific excursion.

Mogwai's The Bad Fire opened with God Gets You Back, stellar guitar picking and FX that builds, going supernova in the second half when the synths, drums and vocals join in. 

Andy Bell's Pinball Wanderer album came out in February and has been played round here every month since. The title track marries late 60s acid folk guitar and cosmische rhythms with Andy's spacious, warm production. 

Sewell And The Gong's Patron Saint of Elsewhere has been one of my favourite records of 2025 and this track, Communion Phase, is as good as any from it- psychedelic, motorik and folky with an optimistic feel.   

Kieran Hebden and William Tyler's 41 Longfield Street Late 80s splices Kieran's laptop beats and productions with William's acoustic and electric guitars to make one of the most affecting albums of 2025- hypnotic, engaging, with an eye on the past (and on Kieran's Dad's record collection in the late 80s, alt- country and Nashville) but avoiding dewy- eyed nostalgia to create something entirely their own. 

Daniel Avery's Tremor album was a departure from his ambient techno of recent years and a swerve into channeling his early 90s industrial rock influences. He toured the album with a full band, guitarist, bassist and drummer kicking up a right old noise alongside his synths and machines. On the album's opener, Neon Pulse, he lulls us into a sense of ambient security, two minutes of gorgeous floaty sci fi synth ambience.

Moon Dust is yet another Richard Norris project this time with Lol Hammond from The Drum Club. Piano and FX, a slowed down and reverb laden way to drift out of this hour's worth of music. 

Death In Dalston

Death In Vegas' album Death Mask is one of 2025's highlights round this way, a techno tour de force spread over four sides of vinyl, imperious machine music with a human, emotional soul. Earlier this month Richard Fearless released an EP to close the year, two tracks recorded live at EartH in Dalston, London. COUM is a 2011 Trans- Love Energies era track reworked into the 2025 DIV set, huge sounding squeaky reversed synths and a big old Linn drum battling through a tense techno storm. 

On Lightning Bolt Fearless is in dubbier/ ambient territory, slow moving sounds, spacious and celestial. Both tracks can be bought digitally at Bandcamp and a two track 12" follows in January 

Back in 2011 when Trans- Love Energies was being released Death In Vegas turned up at Lauren Laverne's BBC 6 radio show and played two tracks, Your Loft My Acid and Medication. 

Death In Vegas Session 2011

Monday's Long Song

It is Monday apparently and if it is Monday there must be a long song. This is Tortoise's remix of Yo La Tengo's Autumn Sweater from 1997. 

Autumn Sweater (Remixed By Bundy K. Brown, John Herdon, Douglas McCombs And David Pajo)

In its original Yo La Tengo form Autumn Sweater is a beautiful, organic song with woody drums, organ/ synth and a hushed vocal about the changing of the seasons, a couple slipping away, moments frozen in time, love and longing. Tortoise don't remix the song so much as completely reinterpret it, a languorous seven minute instrumental that defies description. Electronics with live drums, from jazz but not jazz, indie but not indie, not really post- rock but definitely not rock. Not rockist at all. Lovely, understated, a mood as much a piece of music. 

Tortoise released an album at the end of October, Touch, their first since 2016. It's a 2025 joy that I overlooked slightly and have only really grown to appreciate it recently. It's intricate and layered, instruments working out their roles in the space around them- lots of little shifts and changes but all feeling like a unified whole. Cinematic. An album that gives a little more away each time. Find it at Bandcamp.