Twenty Five Minutes Of Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 2

Our second album, Sounds From The Flightpath Estate, went on sale for pre- orders last week (as announced here on Monday and on various Flightpath Estate social media platforms). We are pressing 1500 copies. We did 1000 of Volume 1 and sold them all, something that still amazes me although it shouldn't- the music was so good it should have been no surprise we'd sell out. Flightpath and Rude Audio main man Mark Ratcliff has done a taster mix of all ten tracks for Volume 2, deftly sequenced and mixed, with the unreleased Sabres Of Paradise track making its presence known more than once. 

The unreleased version of Lick Wid Nit Wit stands alongside anything else Sabres recorded and released. It got it sole airing when Andrew Weatherall played it as part of his legendary 1993 Essential Mix at the BBC and even then that version is not the same as the one we have. 

As well as that track Mark has mixed in the nine other brand new tracks, music by Richard Fearless, Red Snapper, A Certain Ratio re-worked by Number, David Harrow, Bedford Falls Players, Dicky Continental, Richard Norris, Unit 14 and a cover of Two Lone Swordsmen's Sick When We Kiss by Sleaford Mods. Mark's mix, featuring excerpts from all ten tracks, can be found here. Mark has adeptly brought together mid- 90s dub/ techno skank, 21st century machine techno, Manc noir, North African percussion, chuggy cosmische, thumpy acid house, clattering Notts post- punk and much more into one sequence- you can play guess which track is which.

Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 2, double vinyl clad in a beautiful sleeve courtesy of Personality Crisis, can be pre- ordered from Golden Lion Sounds and/ or the GLS Bandcamp. There are still some copies left but don't hang around- as with Volume 1 there will be no repress. When they're gone, they're gone. 

I'll Be Down When You're Down I'll Be Up When You're Up

Sounds Of The City takes place in early July every year in Manchester, a week of gigs at Castlefield Bowl, an 8000 capacity outdoor venue surrounded by Manchester's past and present- the remains of the Roman fort, the Bridgewater Canal and the canal basin, the railway line and the tram, the world's first passenger railway station, and the Beetham Tower. This year's line up included The Charlatans. At the end of last year via the magic of social media, Charlatans front man and all round nice guy Tim Burgess found out that we played North Country Boy at Isaac's funeral and he messaged me with the offer of free tickets when the band next played Manchester. When their Castlefield gig was announced I messaged him to remind him of his kind offer and Tim was as good as his word. 

At 9pm on a warm and sunny Manchester evening and with an up- for- it crowd, four Charlatans take to the stage. Drummer Pete Salisbury starts up on the hi- hats and the band kick in and the sound of 1999's seven and a half minute single Forever builds, the two note organ drone, Martin Blunt's rumbling bass and eventually shards of Mark Collins' guitar. It's three minutes before Tim Burgess arrives on stage, all smiles, striped jumper and big hair, waving and then grasping the mic to sign, the dam bursting at the end of the first verse with the line, 'I wonder what you people do with your lives... once more this will be forever'. 

After Forever's slow burn we are treated to a ninety minute hit heavy set, mainly fan favorites from the 90s with a couple of new ones. Weirdo comes next, the wheezy organ splicing 1966 and 1992, wonderful indie- psyche from their second album Between 10th And 11th.

Weirdo

Then three songs in they rip into the opening chords of North Country Boy. I thought I was prepared for this happening- the song, its connection to Isaac (for me now the boy of the song's title) and the lines that took on new meaning after he died  'Every day you make the sun come out/ Even in the pouring rain/ I'll come to see you/ And I'll save you, I'll save you' for one, and there are several others) and the surge of emotion I expected to feel when they played it- but instantly me and Eliza are in floods of tears, my brother's behind us hugging us and the band are powering through the song's verses and choruses; 'Hey country boy/ What are you sad about?'. It took the next song, Can't Get Out Of Bed, to get ourselves back into one piece.

Tim reminds us its thirty years since the release of their self- titled fourth album, one that in 1995 pushed them back onto bigger stages and they play a mini- set of songs from it- Here Comes A Soul Saver, Toothache and the mighty, emotive Just When You're Thinkin' Things Over, a song about coming home, all tumbling drums, acoustic guitars and piano runs. Released at the height of Britpop, The Charlatans were doing Exile On Main Street. We get a new song, We Are Love, and then a run of big hitters- the huge pounding Chemical Brothers enhanced dance- rock of One To Another, probably tonight's peak in terms of energy and whoomph, Just Lookin', Impossible, Blackened Blue Eyes, The Only One I Know and then the raucous and distorted guitar slashing, Bob Dylan meets Wu Tang Clan torrent of words that is How High, and all that flashing imagery that Tim piled into the words about the lyrics of your life, kissing the sun and pledging my time 'til the die...

How High

They encore just as the sun has dipped out of view with I Don't Want To See The Sights and another new one. Finally, the lysergic spin of Sproston Green starts up, the group's welding together of 60s garage psyche and late 80s indie- dance still burning, Tim at the front singing about an older woman who came and went and took what was his, over and over. It's all life affirming stuff, songs that have become part of the soundtrack our lives played by a band that have known their own tragedies and who have a genuine connection with their audience. Thanks Tim. 

Sally Can't Dance No More

At the start of this year I decided to undertake a trawl through Lou Reed's solo back catalogue. My long standing received wisdom is that it's the definition of uneven, a hit and miss, zig- zag of styles, disappointments and comebacks with a few iffy live albums and a handful of pearls in among the sand. On re- listening, at a couple of decades distance, to the 1980 greatest hits collection A Walk On The Wild Side I found a lot to enjoy and was really taken with some songs I'd not heard since my tape collection got broken up in the early 90s- I had cassette copies of several Lou Reed solo albums from the 70s and  have a few on vinyl and/ or CD, Transformer of course, New York, Street Hassle. 

This is less of a deep dive into Lou's solo albums, more a shallow paddle or a slow meander. I decided that to make this work I needed to pick up copies of the albums on second hand vinyl. I don't know yet whether this will sustain itself into the 80s. The thought of handing over actual money for Mistrial scares me. I've decided too to avoid the live albums- someone lent me Rock 'n' Roll Animal in the late 80s and I thought it was the worst thing I'd ever heard, dreadful heavy rock/ metal versions of classic songs. I've no need or desire to go back there. 

Since January I've bought, listened to and written about Berlin ('Lou's masterpiece'), his solo self- titled debut ('flawed but with some really good moments') and Transformer ('everyone knows/ has a copy of Transformer- and rightly so'). At this rate I'll be getting to New York in 2030. Recently I found a copy of 1974's Sally Can't Dance second hand. The vinyl plays fine, no scratches or jumps, perfect condition and half a century old. The sleeve smells like it's been in someone 's garage since the mid- 70s however but nevermind. 

I approached Sally Can't Dance with some trepidation. I had it on cassette a long time ago and didn't remember it being that good. It was the first Lou solo album without any Velvets era songs on it and the first recorded in New York. Weirdly it was Lou's biggest solo album and was very much seen as a hit. In 1976 Lou, never the best judge of his own work maybe and not a reliable interviewee at all at that point- contrary is putting it mildly- described it as a 'piece of shit from beginning to end'. It's not. He didn't like Steve Katz's production either and the reviews were critical on release. With some caution I dropped the needle on the record...

Ride Sally Ride comes in with piano and horn and that familiar Lou Reed Weimar/ New York feel, torch songs with a little crooning, tumbling drums and female backing vox. 'Ooh isn't nice/ When your heart is made out of ice', Lou sings, rhymes confusion with contusion as the brass parps away and all is good in Lou Reed world. Relaxed- it's the Quaaludes maybe- and easy. Animal Language follows, Lou's bleach blonde hair from the (horrible) sleeve painting and glam rock strutting to the fore, a song about Miss Riley who had a dog and Miss Murphy who had a cat and their neighbour's complaints. The chorus- 'ooh meow meow, ooh bow wow'- is hilarious, the guitars squeal and Lou Reed is surely taking the piss. 

Next is Baby Face, a slow blues with guitar and bass locked in and Lou singing softly, close to the mic. Lou's voice is so distinctive and very limited really, two notes, a snarl, a drawl or a croon but he always makes the most of it. The voice is Lou Reed. Baby Reed is a snarky song but well worth sticking with. It's written from the point of view of his ex- wife- 'Jim, livin' with you is not such fun/ You're not the only one/ You don't have the looks/ You're not the person you used to be/ There are people on the street that would go for me...'

Side one finishes with N.Y. Stars. It's amazing and refreshing how short albums used to be- eight songs, not much more than thirty minutes. N. Y. Stars kicks in with a gnarly guitar part (David Weiss I think) and then a full band, some echo, a Bowie feel, and Lou turning his caustic glare on the next generation, the '4th rate imitators', with Lou becoming increasingly bitchy. 'I'm just waiting for them to hurry up and die', he sings, the guitars and drums gathering pace. It's sleazy and wired and alive. 

Turn Sally Can't Dance over and side two gives us Kill Your Sons, a key Lou Reed solo song. Crunchy guitar riffs and a processed vocal. Lou's lyric dissects his parents' decision to send a young Lou to a psychiatric hospital to be cured of his proclivities- which included ECT. Lou sneers at the two bit psychiatrists and the electric shocks, the inability to read a book past page 17 because he couldn't remember where he was or what he'd read. He turns his aim at his mum and dad and his sister and her husband (which his sister thought was very funny apparently). As he lists the drugs they put him on the guitars ring out and the song fades into a buzz of feedback and Lou singing 'they're gonna kill your sons...' After that the mood changes with Ennui, another slice of Lou Reed cabaret/ supper club music with a late period Velvets feel and more scores being settled, more aging and waiting for death. 

The title track comes next, Sally Can't Dance, horns and New York cool, guitar solos and one of Lou's character songs, Sally who can't get off the floor and can't dance no more. Lou paints a portrait in a few lines, 'she was the first girl in the neighborhood to wear tie die pants... that had flowers painted on her jeans... now she kills the boys and acts like a son'. It's a groove and a blast, it's sassy and pulls apart a New York face, maybe Edie Sedgwick. It's about decadence and lifestyle choices, regrets and depravity and it being too late to pull back from the flame. 

Sally Can't Dance

After that there's just the five minutes of Billy. Acoustic guitar and sax and Doug Yule on bass, a lovely recording of the bass guitar, the much maligned Doug invited by Lou to play on the song because Lou thought it would suit him.  Billy is a story song. Lou and Billy went to school together, best friends since nine years old. Billy was the football player, Lou the do- nothing. Billy studied hard. They both went to college. Billy went for a PhD. Lou dropped out. Billy became a doctor and then war broke out. Billy went to Vietnam and Lou didn't ('mentally unfit they say'). The sax wails away, needlessly but brilliantly, over the top. The acoustic guitar is scrubbed as much as played. Billy comes back from the war not quite the same and it leaves Lou wondering, 'which of us was the fool?' 

My caution and trepidation were unfounded. There's very little wrong with Sally Can't Dance- mid- 70s Lou is still very much in the driving seat and his talent is undoubted. RCA put pressure on him to repeat the trick, give them another big hit. This annoyed Lou so he gave them Metal Machine Music (an album memorably described by Tony Wilson as 'the sound of your fridge switching on and off'). Lou Reed- contrary much?

The Collapse Of Everything

Adrian Sherwood's The Grand Designer EP that lit up June and continues to get regular plays round here. The lead and title track is a beautifully rich and textured piece of dub, all manner of instruments and FX flying in and out of the mix over a bobbing rhythm and occasional bursts of siren. It's followed by Let's Stay Together, a track in the old style dub tradition of using the same rhythm and some of the sounds but with a vocal drizzled over the top, in this case one b the late Lee 'Scratch' Perry, the Upsetter jutting in and out in typical fashion. I suspect Mr Sherwood has files and tapes filled with Lee Perry vocals just waiting to find a track. 

Let's Stay Together is followed by Russian Oscillator which may (or may not) be based on the same building blocks but distorted and bent out of shape, rough industrial abstract dub. The fourth track, Cold War Skank, is a joy, guitars and rumbling bass, echoes of the desert and Saharan blues. 

The Grand Designer can be heard and bought here. It turns out that the EP is a spearhead, leading the charge for a Sherwood solo album to follow in August, a record called The Collapse Of Everything. The title track and album opener dropped onto the internet earlier this week, old school dub from the On U studio- languorous dub groove, bubbling bass, sounds ricocheting left and right, FX and flow, piano and fuzz guitar. 

The Collapse Of Everything was partly inspired by the losses of Mark Stewart and Keith LeBlanc- the title comes from a Stewart song- and features Doug Wimbish, Gaudi and Brian Eno all making appearances among a cast of sixteen players. You can pre- order the album on vinyl and digitally at Bandcamp. 

How Long Is Now/ Galactic Ride

Sheffield band Pale Blue Eyes released an album earlier this year called New Place. The band are a trio, married couple Matt and Lucy Board (him vocals and guitars, her drums and synths) and bassist Aubrey Simpson. They moved from South Devon to South Yorkshire and embraced the Steel City's love of electronics and synths, making an album that sounds inspire by the krauty sounds of Neu! and Harmonium and the perpetual motion of the autobahn. The album is here. 

A month ago a Richard Norris remix of opening track How Long Is Now came out in both vocal and instrumental form. Richard is no stranger to the cosmische sounds of West Germany in the 70s and set the controls for the heart of the Mittel Europe, a Klaus Dinger motorik drumbeat and throbbing sequenced bassline propelling the song to new speeds with Matt's guitars gone all Rother- esque. All the versions are available at Bandcamp. 

Gordon Kaye has been around almost as long as Richard Norris, DJing in clubs in his hometown of Brighton since the mid- 80s and starting a night at The Escape Club called The Sunshine Playroom that became a lynchpin for South Coast 80s psychedelic/ indie, frequented by Alan McGee, Primal Scream and Norman Cook. Since the late 80s he's DJed all around the world, playing indie- dance and various shades of house and dance music. Recently he's reignited his passion for making music and the first fruits are a nine minute cosmic chug glide called Galactic Ride, synth arpeggios firing off against the burbling bassline and as with Pale Blue Eyes, a sense of perpetual motion, building steadily ever upwards. Listen to it at Soundcloud. 

I Was On The 212

Back in 2011 Azealia Banks announced her arrival into the musical world with the song 212, one of the songs that defined the 2010s. Since then she's become as well known for her political views, mental health issues and feuds with others, and there's no doubt some of her views are pretty extreme and (depending on your own political views) indefensible. But there's no denying the power of 212, the sheer energy in the track and the flow of Banks' delivery, a blur of lines that describe her youth in Harlem, her sexuality, race and power. 

Last week Leo Zero put out an edit of 212, Azealia's voice chopped up and re- arranged over the very recognisable bass and synths of Once In A Lifetime. It's massive, exhilarating and sure to rock a party. Get it here. 

Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 2

 

Last year the five of us that make up the online Andrew Weatherall fan group that is The Flightpath Estate made an album and sold 1000 vinyl copies of it. It featured nine entirely new tracks from Weatherall associated artists and a then unreleased on vinyl Two Lone Swordsmen ambient track called The Crescents. Our album, Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 1, came out with our friends at The Golden Lion in Todmorden on Golden Lion Sounds and raised over £6, 000 for Andrew's chosen charities. It made the Piccadilly Records and Uncut end of year round ups, we had three tracks played on Lauren Laverne's 6 Music show as Compilation Of The Week, had a Piccadilly Records window takeover- it was all very exciting. The music was all uniformly superb with tracks by Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s, Timothy J. Fairplay, The Light Brigade (David Holmes), Rude Audio, 10:40, Richard Sen, Sons Of Slough and Hardway Bros, all recorded specifically for the album, and Andy Bell recorded an acoustic/ electric guitar cover of Smokebelch. 

We named the album Volume 1, partly chancing our arm collective arms in the hope that we might get to do a follow up. That album, Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Vol.2, is done, dusted, polished, shone and on its way to the pressing plant. The line up of artists and the music stands head and shoulders alongside Volume 1's. In no particular order, Volume 2 features a previously unreleased Sabres Of Paradise track, and new and exclusive music from Richard Fearless (of Death In Vegas), A Certain Ratio remixed by Number, Red Snapper, Richard Norris, David Harrow, Bedford Falls Players, Dicky Continental, the mysterious Unit 14, and a Two Lone Swordsmen cover by Sleaford Mods. Exciting eh?!

Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 2 will be available for pre- order tomorrow morning at 10 am from the Golden Lion Sounds Bandcamp page and from the Golden Lion Sounds online shop (via The Big Cartel). I'm giving Bagging Area readers a heads up today- I know some of you bought Vol. 1 and would imagine/ hope some of you will want to be online tomorrow, Tuesday 1st July, fingers poised over the Add To Cart button. There are 1000 copies for pre- order tomorrow with a further 500 going to selected record shops in late August when the album will get its full physical release. 

We've been sitting on this for a couple of months and we're itching to get it out to people so they can enjoy the music as much as we have been. Mark has done a twenty- five minute mix of all the tracks which I'll share asap and I'll put the links up to order too. There'll be a few other bits of Vol. 2 news coming around over the summer- in the meantime...

David Holmes used the pseudonym The Light Brigade on Volume 1 and has this year putout a 12" on Mystic Arts under the name name. Shuffle The Deck came out on 12" and digitally in May, two tracks- the first was made with Lone Swordsman Keith Tenniswood and samples Andrew at its end, a rabble rousing acid house monster called Shuffle The Deck. The flipside, Only Love Can Save Us, was made in collaboration with Michael Andrews who David worked with on his Blind On A Galloping Horse album and is shimmering, heavenly electronic goodness. Get both here.