The planets and moons that orbited around Andrew Weatherall's sun still spin, musical and artistic endeavours spreading out in ripples. Big Vern Burns was once a resident at Weatherall's Double Gone Chapel, held at various locations across East London in the 00s. Now residing in deepest Cornwall, Vern records cosmic, spangled acid house as Boxheater Jackson and the revived Mighty Force label have just released Boxheater's album We Are One. One Nation is the kind of house music that goes straight to the central nervous system- bouncing synth sounds, kick drum, rippling FX, long ominous chords and a deep portentous vocal, 'One nation/ We are one nation/ One nation/ Under the sun'.
The album has a cosmic/ time theme running through it, a sense that the universe is big and we are small. Why Can't You See has a spoken word vocal talking about light, human beings, musical symphonies, uniqueness and individuality and at over ten minutes long takes its time very nicely, chugging along with descending synth lines and buzzing basslines with production that makes it all sound huge. We Are One is at Bandcamp, CD and digital.
I was reminded of this pair of songs recently by a discussion of goth taking place elsewhere. The Danse Society were goths from Barnsley but their music often veered off into other parts of the 80s post- punk/ indie diaspora. Between 1980 and 1987 they made three albums before the original line up splintered. They've reformed in different incarnations since 2011.
Their second, 1983's Heaven Is Waiting, is well worth a spin. The title track marries rapid machine drums and synth pop with their Yorkshire goth roots, like a less poppy Depeche Mode maybe- the sort of thing that got played at midweek alternative nights to punters careering round empty dancefloors, white sleeves flapping, ciggies flicking embers everywhere, hairspray mingling with the smoke machine.
This one from 1986's Looking Through is a keeper too, echo guitar, cavernous drums, intense vocals. They'd become Danse Society International by this point for reasons I'm unclear about.
Back in August Stinky Jim sent me his latest album, Spacial Awareness, flying through the ether from the other side of the world. His 2021 album It's Not What It Sounds Like was a box of dub and reggae treats and delights, recorded in Auckland, New Zealand where Jim lives.
Spacial Awareness is a further twelve tracks of dubby goodness with plenty more going besides. First song, Avant Grades, skanks and shuffles its way in, echo shifting the sounds around in the mix. Steam Fish, with a vocal from Nazamba recorded at Tuff Gong in Kingston, Jamaica, is superb stuff, a solid riddim and the righteous, gravel on toast voice of Nazamba on top. Cry For The Ute is faster, gliding around beautifully, with melodica and sampled voices dropped in and out. Owner Face, with wheezy keyboards and shifts into mid 90s downtempo territory. A distorted horn riff turns up, early 80s punk funk style. Le Creak and Runs On The Board return to the dubbed out sounds (Runs On The Board as a very Sabres Of Paradise bassline at the fore). Quiet Spillage is funked up exotica/ dub, double bass, piano and hiss. Loose Carry has some wonderfully clanky steel drums over clattering rhythms and a stuttering synth bassline, the riffs swapping places with each other and then piling up, breaking down, and then being set loose again. Bolshy Ballet is further out, industrial dub rhythms and space echo, and then a lighter middle section with spaced out melody lines. Spacial Awareness closes with Sand Gestures, a vintage drum machine sound puffing away, computer game bleeps flying in and the skank returning, reminiscent of Nightmares On Wax and Warp's dubbier output, music for late night downtime.
Spacial Awareness is at Bandcamp, and selected digital retailers. Jim's Stinky Grooves radio show is highly recommended, promising (and delivering) 'broad beats and robust rhythms'. Last year's It's Not What It Sounds Like is here, dubby sounds for difficult times.
By the turn of the millennium The Fall were becoming a less well loved affair. Mark's reign seemed to have flipped into something less lovable, line ups disintegrating, being fired or walking out, tales of drunkenness, violence and arrests (on stage and off stage) becoming wearying and worrying. There were of course still disciples who would buy every album and go to every tour but by the time their 2000 album The Unutterable hit the shelves, some had silently drifted away. But even a below par Fall album contains moments of Smith genius and on The Unutterable one song stands as a 21st century Fall highlight.
The band are in their finest North Manchester garage band form, guitar lines ringing and drums clattering and when they smash into the chorus the sheer force of the distorted guitars is a shot of pure adrenaline. The bass sounds brilliantly filthy, as if it's been dredged up from the bottom of the ship canal, covered in all manner of shite and detritus, shaken down and forced through an overdriven amplifier.
There are websites that try to pinpoint and explain all Mark E Smith's lyrical references, a small band of users making contributions and identifying the obscure, the possible and the probable. There are similar websites for Half Man Half Biscuit and I can't be the first to see parallels between these two long running north west cultural commentators. Two Librans is littered with classic Smith lines and references, from the titular zodiac pair to Oprah Winfrey and her study of bees, Nelson in Timor, Tolstoy in Chechnya and the miracles of blonde September.
Today's long song comes from the mysterious Anatomy Of The Head, an EP that was revealed in a dream in the winter of 2021 and then recorded in Germany by a three piece group who live in Kiribati, possibly (Kiribati is an island in the central Pacific Ocean). The EP, one long twenty nine minute piece made up of eight shorter movements and titled Unholy Spirits Light Divine is a ghostly invocation, the sound of a string movement playing in the wind recorded onto a hand held microphone in the dark. It is long and hypnotic, anxiety inducing in places, freaked out ambient/ neo- classical/ sonic disturbance. It's an enthralling listen, one which could be experienced differently in different circumstances. Your Monday morning commute may not be the ideal circumstances but then again, you never know.
You can buy Unholy Spirits Light Divine at Bandcamp where the group- Michael van Gore, Heidenreich and Mr Fishman who play respectively strings of blood, mutilation and dismemberment- have provided more detail and background about the EP and the long song itself, The Tomb Of Kitlab Al- Roh.
The Convenanza festival held at Carcasonne in south west France is in its third day today, the first festival since 2019 and the first since Andrew Weatherall died in February 2020. Convenanza started as an Andrew Weatherall and friends three day festival held inside the walls of the Medieval castle, organised by Bernie Fabre with a hand picked line up reflecting Weatherall's singular and eclectic worldview- acid house, dub, space rock, gnostic sonics, leftfield literature, artists painting the castle walls in trippy yellow stripes and performances from Andrew as DJ and as Woodleigh Research Facility with sets over the years from the likes of Silver Apples, The Liminanas, Red Axes, Baris K and Curses. This year the three nights have seen headlining sets by David Holmes with support including Glok, Ian Svenonius, The Utopia Strong, Manfredas and Sean Johnston/ ALFOS. I've never been to Convenanza, it's the wrong time of year for a teacher to be flying to south west France for a weekend of debauchery, but one day I shall no longer be bound by school holidays and if Bernie still puts Convenanza on, I shall be there. In the meantime I live Convenanza vicariously through updates from friends who are there. In tribute to the festival and Andrew Weatherall todays forty minute mix is a Convenanza friendly set of Weatherall remixes from the last decade, the hissy drum machine, space echo, arpeggiator and sequencers all deployed, setting the controls for the heart of le sol.
Richard Sen: Songs Of Pressure (The Asphodells Remix)
The Venetians: Son Sur Son (Andrew Weatherall Edition Uno)
Silver Apples: Edge Of Wonder (Andrew Weatherall Remix)
Heretic: Pollux (Andrew Weatherall Remix)
The Twilight Sad: Videograms (Andrew Weatherall Remix)
Andrew Weatherall: Intro
We are making our own pilgrimage today, to Childhood Wood on the edge of Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire. The MPS Society, the charity who look after children and adults born with the set of genetic diseases, have a piece of woodland where they invite families to plant a tree in memory of those who have died. We're going there today to plant an oak sapling for Isaac and to see him added to the memory board. Another moment of grief and remembrance in a year full of them.
New Century Hall is a first floor concert venue at the foot of the CIS tower near Victoria station in Manchester. Opened in 1963 it has recently been restored to its former modernist glory and has spectacular wooden panelled walls and a ceiling filled with hundreds of painted lightbulbs. Back in the day Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd and Tina Tuner played there. In 2009 I saw Billy Childish play the venue (though I think it was downstairs, it wasn't in the upstairs room). This week it's hosted a week of gigs to celebrate its re- opening. On Thursday night The Charlatans played there.
The band were playing two sets- a one off performance of their 1992 album Between 10th And11th in full, some songs not played since the 90s, followed by 'the hits'. The album is a curious one, caught in a no- man's land between Madchester and Britpop while grunge raged around them. The first flush of fame following Some Friendly and the success of The Only One I Know was behind them, guitarist John Baker was out of sorts and eventually left the group, replaced by Mark Collins. Bassist Martin Blunt was episodically unwell, the arrival of Collins led to some songwriting tensions and they were a little unsure about whether they'd alienate their fanbase by moving on from the sound that secured their rapid rise. The exact conditions in which make a record which then feels a little overlooked, an album of mainly album songs and one which is probably a fan favourite but was panned by the music press at the time and left behind by an audience moving elsewhere. Perfect then for re- appraisal in a live environment three decades later.
With support from DJ Andy Votel playing all manner of 60s psychedelia, weirdness and exotica, The Charlatans take the stage just before nine, clearly excited to be in the building. They launch into Between 10th And 11th's opening song I Don't Want To See the Sights, a full on swampy groove, 1992 dance/ psychedelia, the organ and guitar swirling around Martin Blunt's thick, upfront bass. Tim Burgess is having the time of his life, grinning, waving, cheer leading and in very good voice. The song's layered and dense sound, long lyrical lines and subtle choruses are mirrored by the lightshow and projections- footage of the band across the years, album covers, the bands name, images of posters and gig tickets (including one for the gig at Liverpool Poly, March 1990 that I attended) and the circling oil wheel of 60s live gigs. Between 10th And 11th sounds played live now like a lost 90s gem- I think it probably always has been- but in the New Century Hall tonight its alive and present, layers of sound twisting around each other, guitars and organ/ keyboards with driving rhythms. Can't Even Be bothered gets a big cheer. The album's single, Weirdo, a genuine Charlatans classic with that woozy Hammond, is massive. Chewing Gum Weekend is a blast, an ode to youthful excess. They alter the order slightly, moving The End Of Everything to the end, a long, powerful psychedelic groove that brings it all to a climax.
They leave the stage for ten minutes and then return for a perfectly pitched, emotional second half, beginning with a gloriously funky and melodic Let The Good Times Be Never Ending from 2015's album Modern Nature (their best from recent years) and then throw back to 1990 with a rocking version of Then, with its pumping rubbery mod bassline, indie dance drums and Tim's sweetly threatening vocals. The 70s Stones/ disco of You're So Pretty/ We're So pretty and Oh! Vanity follow, temperature rising, the band grinning at each other. The joyous title track from 1997's Tellin' Stories is played, fist pumping from Tim and the crowd singing along. 'Good that one isn't it', Tim says as it finishes.
Then they play North Country Boy. I was expecting they would and was steeling myself for it. The single has always been an Isaac song for me. A friend bought it on 7" for Isaac not long after he was born and we played it at his funeral last year which has given it a massive resonance for us. When we walked into the chapel and the drums and guitar kicked in I did wonder if I'd ever be able to listen to it again. Crying at gigs has become a regular thing for me since he died and North Country Boy works its utterly sad magic, reducing me to tears, sucking all its emotion in and crying it out. I'm still in a state when they blast their way into One To Another, an inclusive outsider anthem, Bob Dylan meets The Chemical Brothers at the Heavenly Social. Next is another Modern Nature highlight, Come Home Baby, and then the finale, a long, trippy, stretched out and loud romp through Sproston Green, everything in its right place, a song to close a set with as good as any from the period that any of their contemporaries wrote. As a friend on Twitter said, 'Blimey, this looks like it was sensational!'
More new music, this time from regular postees Pye Corner Audio and Sonic Boom, the latter remixing the former. Pye Corner Audio's album Let's Emerge has bene a 2022 highlight, layers of subtleties and nuance in the drones and ambience. Pye Corner is often the music of dystopic nightmares, unsettling and subterranean. On Let's Emerge he has tried to face the light and make music that is optimistic and warm. On the closing track, Warmth Of The Sun, with Andy Bell on guitar he more than achieves it. Over the previous two sides of vinyl, the more I listen to it, the more I hear it (especially now my right ear is functioning more fully).
Sonic Boom, residing in Sintra, Portugal, has remixed three of the tracks from let's Emerge and they're coming out as an EP, digital and vinyl with the 10" vinyl limited to 1000 copies on orange vinyl with am inside print too. By the time I heard about it it had sold at Bandcamp which at least spared me the moral dilemma of whether or not I could justify spending £17.99 on a three song EP (spoiler- I couldn't). The first of the three is available to listen to, a remix of Saturation Point that Sonic has pivoted back to the gloom. It starts out with gloomy synth sounds and creeping drones but eventually the door opens and twinkling beams of light work their way in, with a lovely, echo- laden Andy Bell guitar line that working its way to the fore. The EP, Let's Remerge!, out in November, also has Sonic Boom remixes of Haze Loops and Warmth Of The Sun which on the basis of this will be worth waiting for.
Brix Goes Tubular, a collaboration between Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s and Brix Smith, came out in the sweltering heat of August, a low slung and infectious slice of groovy acid/ indie disco, Brix surfing on top of Deadstock beats and bleeps. A joy.
Last week a dub version came out, prompting me to go back to it having played it non-stop for a few days and then forgotten about it. That seems to happen a lot. I'm not sure of that's my current concentration span issues or the nature of the seemingly constant torrent of music that floods out of the computer. The dub is lovely, laid back and warm, unwinding at its own pace and in no hurry to be anywhere at all sooner than it needs to be.
Having been reduced to only one fully functioning ear since early July has made appreciating new music difficult. Three weeks ago the GP diagnosed a sinus infection, an MRSA type bug, which had filled the eustachian tube to my right ear causing it to block, wipe out much of the hearing in it and produce raging tinnitus as a side effect. Eventually after two months of trying this, that and the other, I was prescribed some antibiotics (which it turns out they use to treat syphilis and malaria too) and although the first course didn't touch the infection, the second course began to work. Driving home last Wednesday, my right ear popped and I could hear. It fluctuated a bit over the next few days but then improved further. It is, in some ways, like being born again. All of which is a long winded way of getting round to some new music.
In July Daniel Avery released Higher, the then latest lead in to his new album Ultra Truth (due in November). Listening to Higher and the B-side Unfolder with tinnitus and only one ear was a disappointing experience. Listening to Higher and Unfolder last week on headphones in stereo was a revelation. Intense, reverb drenched, speaker rattling, emotive 21st century rave/ techno.
Unfolder is even better, the sound of static, synths and filters, echo, dredged up from somewhere, with the drums pushing ever forwards and a spooked vocal sample. It all sounds very simple but I imagine took endless tweaking and refining. At one minute fifty a descending bass synth kicks in, adding not a little tension/ drama.
Yesterday Daniel put out the latest track from Ultra Truth, the altered state, another dimension woozy and drift of Wall of Sleep, metallic drums in the distance behind a blur of drones and a submerged vocal from HAAi. It does sound exactly like the techno your brain imagines as you wake up or drift off. Well, the techno my brain does, I can't speak with any confidence about yours. You can buy Wall of Sleep here, Higher/ Unfolder here and Ultra Truth here.
We've been away for the weekend, spending two very enjoyable days in Sheffield and a walk in the Peak District yesterday. Late on Saturday night we started playing songs and videos from YouTube through the TV and this piece of brilliance was selected...
Triumph Of A Heart came out in 2005, the closing song on Björk's Medulla album. I haven't heard Medulla and this song and video were new to me. The video, directed by Spike Jonze (of course) is filmed in and around Reykjavik and features Björk driving off from her house into town for a night out, disappointed as she is with her husband. Who is a cat.
The song is a riotous musical adventure too, with human trombone sounds courtesy of Gregory Purnhagen, beatboxing, orchestral strings, synths, and Björk singing 'just celebrating the body, cells doing rollercoasters rides up and down your body'. Mark Bell from LFO is on board and beatboxing comes from Dokaka and Rahzel. The version of the song in the video is different from the one on Medulla, mixing the album version and the Audition Mix from CD single 2 I think, making a superior version but either way Triumph Of A Heart is great fun, bouncy, idiosyncratic, cacophonous, celebratory pop music.
The video is a blast- the part where Björk nips to the toilet, the song stops and the rest of her party step in and begin beatboxing and making all kinds of vocal noises is superb. She then goes off, falls over, bangs her head, stumbles around and is eventually rescued in the car by her feline husband. Back at the house they kiss, the cat grows to human size and they dance around the living room.
A very long song, or rather a mix of eight different songs, seamlessly joined together (including one, Massif, clocking in at seven minutes and another Medley #2 reaching nearly twelve), from a live DJ performance at The Brain in 1990. Live At The Brain 1990 was recently unearthed and pressed up on vinyl, the forty five minute long track is from The Irresistible Force aka Mixmaster Morris and Ramjac Corporation aka Paul Chivers. The pair present an ambient/ acid house masterclass, with drum machines, synths, programmed sounds, samples, keys and sequencers employed to create non- stop, semi- improvised, acid house/ rave/ psychedelia. IT pulses and flows, melodies and rhythms rolling on top of each other, sampled voices dropped in and out- 'This is joy that I'm feeling'. Live At The Brain 1990 is a time capsule, a life affirming slice at a point when the future was real and being made in front of your eyes.
The Brain was a pioneering acid house night promoted by Sean McClusky (ex- Jo Boxers and IF?) and artist Mark Wigan, on Wardour Street in Soho, running between 1989 and 1992. The list of people who played there is a who's who of British club culture at the turn of the 90s- Weatherall, Orbital, Leftfield, The Shamen, Graeme Park, Norman Cook, A Guy Called Gerald among them- and the roll call of people who frequented it as customers equally impressive- Boy George, Gilles Peterson, Neneh Cherry, Paul Oakenfold, Mark Moore, Tim Simenon, The pre- Chemical Chemical Brothers, various members of Primal Scream, Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses, Rankin, John Galliano, Sheryl Garrett, George Michael, Christy Turlington, Matt Dillon and so on....
Dr. Alex Paterson has been in a rich vein of form in recent years with The Orb and various side projects rediscovering and revisiting the sounds and elements that made The Orb so good in the 90s- widescreen ambient dub house liberally peppered with vocal samples and the feel of the weightlessness of space. It seemed only right to stitch some of these together into a forty minute mix, the only problem being Orb songs are sometimes of such a length that it could easily have been a three song mix. It was only once I started putting it together I realised that some of the Orb's recent works have a particularly current resonance...
Dohnavùr: New Objectivity (The Orb's Rest And Be Thankful Mix)
Sedibus: Toi 1338b (Edit)
OSS: Wow Picasso!
The Orb: Ital Orb
The Orb: Alpine (Prins Thomas Short Yoga Break Version)
The Orb: The Weekend It Rained Forever- Oseberg Buddha Mix (The Ravens Have Left The Tower)
Dohnavùr are a Scottish duo on the excellent Castles In Space label. The Orb's remix is on a remix package that came out in January this year.
Sedibus is Alex and original Orb man Andy Falconer. Their album The Heavens came out in May 2021 and was one of the records that sound-tracked last summer for me.
OSS (Orb Sound System) are Alex and Fil Le Gonidec. Enter The Kettle, a six track album, came out in either November 2021 or July 2022 depending on whether you got the digital or the endlessly delayed vinyl.
Alpine was a single from 2016 with the Prins Thomas mixes following shortly after. At this point The Orb were Alex and Thomas Fehlmann (who has since departed).
Ital Orb and The Weekend It Rained Forever are both from the album which was one of the sounds of the first lockdown, released just a couple weeks after the country shut down- March 2020's Abolition Of The Royal Familia. On Abolition Of The Royal Familia The Orb were Alex and Michael Rendell with contributions from Roger Eno the lovely piano on The Weekend...), Youth, Steve Hillage, David Harrow, Gaudi, Miquette Giraudy and Nick Burton and it sounded then and still sounds now like a 21st century Orb classic. Have the ravens taken flight yet?
In 2003 The Fall released an album that was as good as anything they'd done for a decade, titled The Real New Fall LP (Formerly Country On The Click). Mark E Smith was unhappy with the mix on what was intended to be released as Country On The Click and pulled it to re- mix it. Some copies leaked out. Mark described the Country On the Click mix as resembling 'Dr Who meets Posh Spice'. One of the Real New Fall LP's stand out songs was this...
Ben Pritchard's descending guitar riff intro and clattering drums and then the crunchy guitar riff running through it are exciting enough, handclaps and chants add to the joy. Mark's lyrics are brilliant, his narrator a Greek football fan of a fictional Greek football club (Turkish club Galatasaray feature too- when Manchester United played there in the 90s, trying to navigate their way through the group stages of the then new fangled Champions League, a banner at the home end read 'Welcome To Hell'. The United's player's faces, some well travelled and seasoned footballers among them, suggested that playing there was indeed like an away game in Hades). 'Come and have a bet/ We live on blood', the Greek fan/ Mark chunters, 'We are Sparta F.C.' The English fans of Chelsea get their marching orders too- 'English Chelsea fan/ This is your last game', he threatens and adds, 'Take your fleecy jumper/ You won't need it any more... No more ground boutique at match in Chelsea'. It's funny and unnerving.
Theme From Sparta F.C. was recorded at Lisa Stansfield's studio in Rochdale. A year earlier a version had been recorded for John Peel and a year later a re- recorded version became a single- but as the early 21st century line up of The Fall batter their way through this new garage classic and Mark slurs and sing speaks as only he can, there's no doubt that this is the one, electrifying, compelling and uniquely The Fall.
This came out last week with an album out today on Brighton's Balearic Higher Love label- Fala by Jazxing, a lovely instrumental fading in on seagulls and synth strings and then suddenly hitting a groove, a slow motion beat surrounded by all manner of sounds. The appearance of a very 80s saxophone, often an instrument that has me reaching for the off button, adds some dissonance as it floats in and out, Michal Jan Ciesielski's horn pushing and pulling Fala onwards. There's an album out today, which I haven't heard yet, but will do as soon as I can based on how many times I've replayed Fala recently. You can buy Fala here and the album, Pearls Of The Baltic Sea, here.
Jazxing are a duo from Gdansk, Poland and are inspired by Daniele Baldelli's 80s cosmic disco and 90s Balearic house. The pair's influences- dub, Weatherall, Saint Etienne, post- punk, Lara Croft Tomb Raider- spanning Europe from east to west, from the Mediterranean to the pair's home on the Baltic.
Brother Joseph's Sonic Treasures is a repeated listening highlight, broadcasting on Radio Magnetic from Glasgow, Brother Joseph in the mix joined by Stephen Haldane and an all star cast of guests- David Holmes, Sonic Boom, Nina Walsh, Andy Bell/ Glok and Chris Rotter have all spun in guest mixes.
Sonic Boom has recently released an album, Reset, with Panda Bear, a collaboration combining their love of early 60s pop with their own psychedelia. In making Reset they sampled various artists from the Kennedy/ Kodachrome years and constructed their own songs around the samples- The Troggs, Eddie Cochrane, The Everley Brothers, The Drifters and Randy And The Rainbows all turn up in the songs, recognisable but submerged too. The effect is a brightly coloured, woozy, layered, head spinner of an album where everything sounds both new and old at the same time. The loops and samples make the songs exist in circles, spinning permanently on a Sonic Boom/ Panda Bear jukebox- the appear, play and disappear, one after another, harmonies and handclaps and reverb drenched drum tracks rotating, seemingly forever. This one Edge Of The Edge , sampling Randy And The Rainbows' 1963 song Denise, sounds like the most early 60s Beach Boys song since the Beach Boys themselves were an early 60s band.
Brother Joseph invited Sonic Boom back to Sonic Treasures and Sonic put together a Reset mix, the source songs and the Sonic/ Panda songs together in a seamless fifty two minutes. The full four hour show with Brother Joseph playing an hour of ambient/ psyche/ country with some new Chris Rotter magic, Stephen Haldane with a half hour delight including Django Django, Andrew Weatherall and Syd Barrett, Sonic Boom's Reset mix and then Joseph back for the outro section is at Soundcloud.
Gabe Gurnsey's second solo album Diablo came out last week, a ten track audio pleasure as brightly coloured as the pink vinyl it's pressed onto. Gabe has taken house music/ dance music's physicality and pushed it into autumn 2022. It's a full on, immersive record, that pulsates and throbs and draws you in. 808 rhythms, distorted synths, wobbly basslines, intense production where every element is perfectly clear and present, it's quite a ride. On top of these slices of late 80s/ early 90s house, Tilly Morris' voice, sometimes sounding like she's just been woken up and forced to the microphone, sometimes chopped up and stuttering, as the strobe- lit tracks bounce around her. My favourite currently is You Remind Me.
You Remind Me is six and half minutes of dark, basement synths, squelching bass, thumping drums and sounds ricocheting at the edge of the mix and Tilly intoning, half awake, half breathily blissed out, 'You remind me/ Of a sunrise/ You remind me/ You remind me of a good time... I'll take you by surprise'. The breakdown and ghostly noises at around five minutes followed by the 808's riding back in is exhilarating stuff, a reductionist version of New Order in '89 when they were fully seduced by the dance floor.
The New Order reference isn't that wide of the mark. Tilly Morris is the daughter of Stephen and Gillian, the apple not falling far from the tree in Macclesfield. Gabe Gurnsey is also the drummer in industrial noise/ analogue synth duo Factory Floor. His first solo album, Physical from 2017, was an equally intense and rhythmic ride, slightly less fully realised than much of Diablo maybe, but well worth seeking out. This version of the single Eyes Over, the Extended Dub, is a blast.
Those sunflowers again from up the road. I'll miss them when they're gone.
Coyote's creative hot streak continues. The Notts duo have just released a mini- album on NuNorthern Soul, a six track record called Everything Moves, Nothing Rests. It's full of their signature sounds- acoustic guitars, padded drums, a touch of dub, some Italo piano, Mediterranean grooves, trumpets and snatches of sampled voices.
The title track Nothing Rests seems tailor made for this change in seasons, a song that points out that change is inevitable, nature never stops, the world keeps turning, life goes on- but also, sit down and just enjoy the moment while listening to this.
I watched the Proclamation ceremony on Saturday morning where the Privy Council (a Medieval body which advises the sovereign) met to formally announce the accession of Charles to the throne, making him King Charles III. It struck me watching at home that this outdated show of pomp and ceremony, is designed specifically to show those watching (us) that the monarchy (them) is a seamless inevitability which cannot be questioned and that we should know our place. No sooner has the old Queen died than the new King is signed in. The uniforms, costumes, parade of former Prime Ministers, throne, list of articles regarding the Scottish Protestant church, documents to be signed and arcane rigmarole is a form of control, reminding all of us where the power lies. It goes without saying this is a profoundly undemocratic- antidemocratic even- system, the eldest child of the sovereign immediately replacing the deceased. These gun salutes, heralds, marching soldiers, references to Lords Spiritual and Lords Temporal and arcane conventions are no way for a 21st century nation to behave and this country needs to have a proper conversation about becoming a modern, grown up democracy where positions of political influence (including the head of state) are chosen by voters and not by accident of birth. I appreciate that many will not agree.
Orbital's second album (known as Orbital II or the brown album) came out in May 1993, eighteen months after their debut (Orbital I or the yellow album) which was a wide eyed record, filled the optimism of the new decade, Chime and Belfast somehow reflecting the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of apartheid and release of Nelson Mandela, the popular revolt against the Poll Tax and subsequent fall of Thatcher, several summers of love and a sense that things might actually be getting better. The second album is a bit tougher, more techno oriented, pushing on and finding new ways to sound better. The two stand out tracks- Impact (The Earth Is Burning) and Halycon + On + On -alternately want to wake the world up to climate catastrophe and allow the listener to dance away, tranced out and hypnotised. On Monday they build a classic Orbital track, seven minutes of loops and thumping drums, dancing synth toplines, a repetitive euphoria.
A few weeks ago I thought I'd do a mix of Aphex Twin tracks for this Sunday series of half hour mixes and then suddenly felt quite daunted by it- by the sheer range, breadth and depth of his back catalogue- and shelved it. Recently, feeling a little more confident about it, I dove in and just stitched together the Aphex Twin tracks that I'd reach for if I wanted to hear some of the inner workings of the mind of Richard D. James, pulled gravitationally towards the less nosebleed stuff and more towards the more ambient/ dreamy/ chilled output. There are umpteen potential further Aphex Twin mixes lurking in my head/ on my hard drive but for the moment this one will have to do- since throwing it together I've listened to it several times and it works much better than I expected it to.
Track 19/ #19 aka Stone In Focus is from 1994's Selected Ambient Works II, the vinyl only, it was omitted from the CD releases for lack of running time (it's over ten minutes long), a slow moving ambient recording, three chords in very minimal style. It sounds something like the universe shifting around slightly. Planets and stars in super slow orbit. Dust forming over eons.
34 Ibiza Spliff is from the Soundcloud page belonging to user18081971, widely recognised as Aphex Twin's unreleased tracks dump, a treasure trove of recordings. On came out on Warp in November 1993 and had a video directed by Jarvis Cocker and filmed in West Kirby, Wirral.
Alberto Balsam is from the third Aphex Twin album, ...I Care Because You Do, released in 1995, a record that combines analogue ambient, Philip Glass inspired minimalism and brain mashing techno.
Delphium is from Selected Ambient Works 85- 92, the legendary 1992 album made up of tracks Richard James did using homemade synths and drum machines and recorded onto cassette, full of moments of subtle, melodic, organic, acid house/ dance music/ IDM.
Analogue Bubblebath was The Aphex Twin's debut, out on Mighty Force in September 1991. The record's Wikipedia page says 'it's release has been described as a key event in the history of dance music' and that's putting it mildly.
Avril 14th is a Satie- esque minimalist piano track from 2001's Druqks. It has been streamed hundreds of millions of times, been used in films and sampled by Kanye West.
Avril 14th Reversed was officially unreleased until 2018 when James dropped it onto his online store. The mp3 comes with this information- 'reversed music not audio [tapedel] played and programmed modified yamaha disklavia pro, recorded to Nagra IVS 5_' which is a very technical and unromantic description of something very beautiful indeed.
I'm interrupting the regular Saturday Theme series this week for an account of an event I went to on Thursday night, an event which started only two hours after the announcement of the death of the Queen (which had some strange parallels that occurred to me as I walked home). Dave Haslam- DJ, writer, journalist, man abut town- has been writing a series of mini- books over the last few years, published by Confingo, an independent publishing house based in West Didsbury. The books fit in your pocket and are a quick read, more an essay than a full length book and in Dave's words 'tell stories that haven't been told'. All You Need Is Dynamite deals with a terrorist cell based in Moss Side in 1971 linked to the Angry Brigade. Another deals with Sylvia Plath and the few weeks she spent in Paris in 1956. We Are The Youth tells the story of Keith Haring's adventures in New York's nightclub world and Searching For Love deals the truths and rumours concerning the six month period Courtney Love spent in Liverpool in the early 80s. His latest book is called Not All Roses, the life and times of Stephen Cresser aka Cressa, the man who was the fifth Stone Rose, an ever present in their live performances and photo shoots in the 1989- 90 period, where the band went from being local heroes to a phenomenon. Dave has arranged a run of A Conversation With Cressa events, one being up the road from me in Stretford at head, a bar in a former bank on the Chester Road facing side of Stretford Arndale.
Cressa has quite the story to tell and over a series of interviews and conversations Dave pulled it together. Cressa grew up in Firswood, a mile north of Stretford and became a member of the Happy Mondays road crew, a Hacienda face, the man who danced on stage with The Roses and operated John Squire's FX pedals. In the mid 90s he tried to get his own group- Bad Man Wagon- off the ground and failed trying (Dave said in his intro this was almost what the book was about, the band that didn't make it whose story is as interesting as the ones that did). More recently Cressa became homeless and addicted to heroin, begging on the streets of the city centre and this is where the public conversation begins, Cressa speaking openly, honestly and passionately about the situation he got himself into. Cressa is a livewire, Dave asking questions, being the butt of the jokes at times, steering Cressa back towards the story and keeping the freewheeling conversation on track.
Cressa talks of his first musical experiences, albums by The Stranglers, and the time in the 80s when he first encounters and becomes friends with the people who would several years later become magazine front cover stories. On scooter club runs he meets Ian Brown and John Squire and they become firm friends. At the Hacienda, at a time when a crowd of two hundred people was considered a good turn out, he meets members of Happy Mondays and starts to go with them when they play gigs outside the city, the man in the back of the van who eventually gets paid to carry amps and instruments into and out of gig venues. He speaks warmly about Derek, Shaun and Paul Ryder's dad, the man who was the band's one man road crew. He talks about John Squire giving Cressa the job of operating his guitar pedals, a job that seems unnecessary in many ways as most guitarists operate their pedals themselves with their feet- he thanks John for doing this and says that when it came to it there was no choice between staying with the Mondays and joining the Roses, it was The Stone Roses every time. Cressa introduces them to some of the musical influences that would hone their sound, 60s psychedelia, Jimi Hendrix, The Nazz, The Rain Parade. The three way friendship between Ian, John and Cressa comes across as the glue that held the group together in the late 80s. He then talks about how after the gig at Glasgow Green, 9th June 1990, that was it- the band stopped functioning. No more gigs, no more records for five years and Cressa suddenly out of the set up.
As well as the heavier serious stuff- heroin addiction, homelessness, generation defining guitar bands and the way that they blew it after having it all- Cressa, emotions always close to the surface, is also witty, sparky and warm, still able to talk affectionately about the good times. He appears with The Stone Roses on Tony Wilson's late night, north west only music programme The Other Side Of Midnight, the band's first TV appearance with the group in their cocky prime playing Waterfall, their dreamiest moment. Cressa by this point is wearing flares, a sartorial pioneer of the bell bottomed jeans in Manchester. In the clip the rest of the group are cool as you like, looking like a 60s/ late 80s street gang, but definitely not wearing flares. Cressa is dancing behind John's amp, doing the loose limbed rolling shoulders shuffle, his wide legged trousers hidden from view. Six months later, as Cressa grins ruefully at Head, they were all wearing them, Ian in famously 22" bell bottomed jeans.
There was an interview in the NME around that time, when The Roses were making their seemingly effortless ascent. In '89 they often came across as a political band, talking about lemons as protection against CS gas as sued by riot police, the Paris riots of Mai '68, anti- monarchical and anti- establishment. They placed great store in being against the monarchy. In the interview they talked about the ravens at the Tower Of London and the myth that if the ravens leave the tower, England would fall. Ian (or John) mentions wanting to be at the Tower, shooting the ravens. The interview then goes onto the subject of trousers and their width- in the 80s flares were a big deal, they had been so unfashionable for so long that wearing them was a statement. 'Flares', one of them says in the interview, 'are as important as England falling actually'.
Their debut album came out in early May 1989 and they toured extensively to support it, Cressa there every night, part of the gang, the man who gave them a strong part of their look, dancing away behind John Squire. When you flipped the record over, side two opened with this.
Scooters, flares, homelessness, heroin, cough medicine, the Festival of The Tenth Summer, albums by The Stranglers, the Hacienda, Bez, Joe Strummer... you can find it all in the book here priced only eight pounds.
Another former Stone Rose present at Head was Andy Couzens, another man who suddenly and unexpectedly found himself an- ex Stone Rose. Andy took his guitar and went off to form The High. I had a brief chat with him, told him how much I liked his records and said I saw The High play at Liverpool Poly in 1990, a gig he said he remembered. Talking to Dave afterwards we both mentioned the Newcastle gig on the same tour where singer John Matthews was taken ill and Cressa, by this point touring with The High, was persuaded to go onstage and fill in on vocals. The gig ended in what the NME described as a riot. They never quite got the sales to match their still wonderful sounding 1990 debut album, Somewhere Soon, a record with three shimmering guitar pop singles in Box Set Go, Up And Down and Take Your Time. This song, chiming guitars and reverb soaked vocals, is one of the period's lost gems.
I was watching another of Guy Garvey's From The Vaults series the other day while doing the ironing. From The Vaults is on Sky Arts on the Freeview channels, a series compiling clips and performances from the wealth of material the UK's independent TV channels- Granada, Tyne Tees etc- amassed in the 70s and 80s, some unseen since broadcast. It is amazing to see what bands were willing to do to plug their latest single- Prefab Sprout miming at Alton Towers, trying to balance while standing and playing When Love Breaks Down on hydraulic platforms sticks in the mind.
As well as doing episodes based on specific years the producers have started to put together some themed episodes, an electronic music one and a Britpop one. As I was ironing I didn't feel the need to be paying 100% attention or to be too challenged so I stuck the Britpop one on. Several things struck me. How long ago the mid 90s look on TV now for one- it was three decades ago so that's to be expected but it looks like it too. The fact it's all filmed on tape not digitally makes it look dated and everyone, roughly the same age as me, looks so young and fresh faced. There are some very mid 90s clothes too. Second, there were some bands who struck lucky during that period, signed big deals with major labels, got some press behind them, had huge amounts of money thrown at them but sounded very much like the kind of band you hear in pubs. Thirdly, out of all the acts shown Suede took the crown by some distance with a performance of their debut single The Drowners
The Drowners is a blast, thumping drums with a dirty, loose, gritty, string bending Bernard Butler guitar riff and Brett singing about illicit sex and being taken over.
I kind of missed out on Suede at the time. I read the music press every week so was well aware of them but my head and tastes were not in that area at all in 1992, I just wasn't tuning into grimy, glam inspired indie at that point. I did like and buy Animal Nitrate in 1993 and then loved Trash in 1996 but my Suede collection is pretty small, a few singles and a Best Of CD.
Every time I post here about Isaac and our loss since he died last November (as I did yesterday) I'm a bit overwhelmed by the responses. People leave the loveliest comments, here and on social media. I know that it can't be easy to find the words sometimes- I think I'd struggle myself if it the situation were reversed- but one thing we've learned in this is it's often better to say something rather than nothing. So thank you to you all who do leave comments. I'm sure there must be times when it's difficult to read and I don't blame anyone who comes for the music and doesn't want to read my posts about bereavement and grief. I get that too. Some of you I've met in real life, many I haven't, but you're all my friends in either real or virtual life and thank you.
Earlier this week JC at The Vinyl Villain posted a three song mini- ICA revival featuring New York indie- disco outfit LCD Soundsystem. In 2007 they released Sound Of Silver, a much lauded (deservedly so) album with a single, All My Friends, which is a superb piece of massive sounding, infectious, danceable, melancholic but ultimately life affirming music. The post is here. When All My Friends came out as a single fifteen years ago there were two 7" vinyl versions, each with a cover of the song by a different band. One cover was by Franz Ferdinand and the other courtesy of John Cale. Cale's version is magnificent (obviously) and it felt apt for this post.
The grief that we've been feeling since Isaac died at the end of November last year has been all consuming but it also has been shifting a little as the months have passed. Sometimes now it's an ever present but lower level thing, a heaviness or a dull ache, which is liveable with and different from the sheer, raw, physical pain it was back in the spring. There were days back then when functioning was an act of survival. Now it- the grief, the loss- underpins everything but isn't at front all the time. It comes back with a vengeance sometimes, with a force that can leave me feeling like I've been winded and as if I actually have to catch my breath for a moment. One unexpected trigger or thought can be overwhelming. Occasionally recently I've been in meetings or at events and I catch myself wondering what I'm doing there when everything has changed beyond recognition for us. But I suppose the truth is that the world does go on and the sun still comes up and normality (whatever that is) does have to be restored. We can go out, we can talk and laugh and enjoy things, step outside the grief I guess, but it comes back, ebbing in, almost tidal in the way it moves. I have some further bereavement counselling starting soon which I think will help. We have a daunting autumn ahead. In late November it will be Isaac's birthday and then a week later the first anniversary of his death. Both of them loom over us. The speed at which time has passed and is passing is disconcerting too, as each month ticks by the further away in time he is. We don't know yet what we're gong to do to mark his birthday and the anniversary of his death- I don't think any of us are looking forward to it. Nearer the time we'll work it out.
We haven't got a gravestone arranged yet either which remains a thing which has to be done but without a deadline. There's something about a stone which is so permanent. The planter and potted flowers that have been marking his grave are ever changing. We've been visiting weekly, more than that sometimes, tidying up and staying for a while. It helps, it keeps him close to us, but it's hard too and it brings the enormity of it flooding back in sometimes. In some ways though, that flood of grief and tears is a good thing, a reminder that while we can attempt to get something of our normal, lives back, he will always be there even though he physically isn't.
I'm back at work this week. I went back to work in January after Isaac died on reduced hours, only going in to teach my classes. I had a late start some days and left early every day due to my timetable. I had none of my wider whole school responsibilities and this worked I think, helped me establish a routine (even if there were times when I wondered what the fuck I was doing being back at work and dealing with some of the stuff a busy secondary school chucks at you). My classes were all exam classes, GCSE or A level, and I felt I should be there for them. In the summer it was agreed that I would step down from my whole school role and return to be head of department, a much smaller role, lower down the hierarchy (and with the pay cut to go with it). This was much chewed over back in June, caused me a lot of thought, but I think I've made the right decision. But, being back now, full time in a new role, watching other people doing my old role, is taking some getting used to. Being back full time is also another sign of things going back to 'normal' (whatever that is- I'm not sure things will ever be normal again). Being 'back to normal' is another sign that things change, everything moves on and in some ways it doesn't feel right to move on. There's something to talk over and attempt to resolve there.
These things come together sometimes in a way which is neat and tidy and coincidental. In 1970 The Beach Boys released an album, Sunflower- yesterday's post was a pair of sunflower pictures and a pair of sunflower songs. The Beach Boys' Sunflower was recorded when they were out of fashion, massively out of step with the rock sounds of 1970, post- Woodstock and post- Altamont. They were in massive debt and Brian was at his most erratic and reclusive. It is probably their best post- Pet Sounds album. Two of the songs slipped into my consciousness recently, suggested subliminally maybe by the sunflowers. One of them then hit me good and proper.
Forever was written by Dennis Wilson, a two minutes forty two seconds song of devotion, a ballad and in the words of his brother Brian, 'a rock n roll prayer'. 'Let the love I have for you/ Live in your heart/ And beat forever' they boys sing, harmonies ascending and soaring. The song floats away with the lines, 'So I'm goin' away/ But not forever/ I gotta love you anyway/ Forever'.
These sunflowers have been growing in a neighbour's front garden, just up the road from us. The tallest is over six feet tall. Walking home in late August they seemed perfectly framed against the sky. The picture I took was a bit overcast, the clouds and lowlight making it very heavy so I added a bit of a filter.
We've been taking sunflowers to Isaac's grave all summer as well. There is something magical about them.
In 2001 Low released Things We Lost In The Fire, an album recorded with Steve Albini that put them on the map of US indie rock royalty, a record that was dubbed slowcore. The first song on the album is Sunflower, a gorgeous, slow paced guitar song from a similar emotional space as Yo La Tengo (see last Sunday's post).
Paul Weller's Sunflower is from 1993, a, maybe the, song that marked his creative rebirth. Sunflower is a thunderous, reverb drenched song with a stop- start, dynamic, the guitars and drums summoning late 60s psychedelia but in a very early 1990s way. Over massive drum fills and rolls from Steve White and ringing, circling guitar lines, Weller sings to his love, 'I don't care how long this lasts/ We have no future we have no past'. A song about being in love, about losing love and being in the moment.
Back in 2009 The Horrors returned with a song that proved they were much more than a bunch of skinny jean wearing, straggly haircutted, black leather jacket wearing NME garage band. Sea Within A Sea was an eight minute krautrock inspired epic, pounding in on a distorted bassline and the motorik rhythms it builds and shifts, marrying Neu! with Silver Apples. Cymbals splash, bursts of guitar shatter their way in, minimalist synths pulses ripple and Farris sings, drenched in reverb, about 'dreams in the shallows' and 'my destination there tonight'. There's a superb bit halfway through where everything drops out except the drums and a spooky, hypnotic synth arpeggio squiggles away on top. It's a magnificent song, a 21st century take on psychedelia and proof that sometimes bands can spring surprises and create something that takes them to a new place.
New Jersey three-piece Yo La Tengo make a very particular kind of US indie rock- their sound comes from the New York traditions of 60s folk, CBGBs punk, angular post punk and The Velvet Underground married to the wall of shoegaze feedback. The husband/ wife duo of guitarist Ira Kaplan and drummer Georgia Hubley and bassist James McNew all contribute vocals. Starting out in the mid 80s, in the 90s and 2000s they made several superb albums, filled with the kind of songs that hit a certain spot, an emotive, just out of reach, dewy eyed fuzzed up guitar rock, melodies smothered in noise.
1993's Painful album, 1995's Electr- O- Pura and 1997's I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One are their high watermarks. In 2000 they released And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside- Out, the record that saw the music press catch up with them, at the exact point they slowed down, turned the amps down and created a much softer sound. Since then they've released a further seven albums, meandering between the differing points of US underground indie.
I saw them play at The Roadhouse in Manchester, a basement venue on the edge of the Northern Quarter that closed its doors to bands for the last time in 2015. Today it's a restaurant. The internet tells me the gig was 9th November 1997 and who am I to disagree. I'm pretty sure this is correct, '97 (pre- kids for me, touring to promote I Can Hear The Heart...) but don't remember it being November, it seemed like the end of summer in my memory but maybe that's just the YLT sound. They played a dozen songs, the wondrous Autumn Sweater included (a song I never get tired of) and encored with an unrehearsed version of Borstal Breakout and spine tingling covers of However Much I've Lied (Gram Parsons and Emmy Lou Harris) and Speeding Motorcycle (Daniel Johnson) before a ear splitting, amp bursting Big Day Coming. One of those gigs in a small, sweaty, dimly lit basement that lives long in the memory.
Autumn Sweater, Sugarcube, Stockholm Syndrome and their cover of The Beach Boys Little Honda are all from '97's I Can hear The Heart Beating As One, a sixteen song double vinyl album that is one of the 90s unsung guitar peaks. Autumn Sweater, with it's dry, woody drum intro and heartstring tugging descending organ chords, and Ira's thin, enervated vocal, is beautiful as I said before. 'When I heard the knock at the door/ I couldn't catch my breath/ Is it too late to call this off?' he sings, 'We could slip away/ Wouldn't that be better/ Me with nothing to say/ And you in your autumn sweater'. A film scene in a few lines.
From A Motel 6 and Big Day Coming are from Painful (which isn't far behind I Can hear the Heart Beating As One, a superb self contained album that seems to summarise a world). There are two versions of Big Day Coming on Painful, a quieter, hushed one led by a droney organ that opens the record and then a noisy, amps and pedals turned up one- the one in this mix is the latter one. Tom Courtenay, which starts with the line 'Julie Christie/ The rumours are true' sung over a wall of fuzz, is from Elect- O- Pura. Here To Fall is from 2009's Popular Songs, an album that had noise and atmosphere plus strings.
Yo La Tengo is Spanish for 'I have it!', from a story connected to a baseball team in 1962 and confusion between team members who spoke English but no Spanish or vice versa.
Today's theme song came out at the tail end of 2020 from French musician Arno Vancolen on an album called 6 Fragments. Arno has an impeccable background, firstly in his electronic rock outfit Steeple remove, secondly in various guises appearing with or supporting Michael Rother, Wire and Faust and thirdly recording with Laurent Garnier.
Across the nine songs on 6 Fragments Arno pulls it all together- loose grooves, motorik rhythms, noisy shoegaze/ indie, minimalism, ambient, cosmische and post- punk electronics. With its twinkling synths, loops, repetition, linear driving drums and sense of freedom Theme 4 sounds like a close cousin of Neu!'s dreamier, motorik moments such as Hallogallo or Fur Immer. The album can be bought here.
A scheduling error meant this post is ten hours late in being posted. An internal review has identified human error as the significant factor. I have had a stern word with myself.
An album I've only recently gotten into even though I've been meaning to for years and one I know that is a favourite among bloggers (and ex- bloggers) who frequent this corner of the internet. I bought a copy of John Martyn's Solid Air (on CD, second hand) and played it late one night early on in August when I was alone in the house and it worked its spell on me. Recorded in late 1972 and released in February 1973 it has a small hours feel, Martyn's voice close to the mic, his guitar playing not far away, Danny Thompson's upright bass further back in the mix but adding a lot. There are moments where the influence Martyn's guitar playing had on Vini Reilly leapt out at me, the Echoplex on I'd Rather Be The Devil being the most obvious example. It works best as a full piece, the songs taking in folk, jazz, blues and early 70s space rock while at the same time having a weirdly timeless feel.
I was going to post the title track, Martyn's song for Nick Drake but listening to the album again I thought I'd go for this one, Richard Thompson and Simon Nicol of Fairport Convention on mandolin and autoharp, and John Martyn's song written as he came home early one morning after a night on the tiles, and saw his house appear from behind the hill, 'nothing in my favour/ Got the wind in my face/ I'm going home/ Over the hill'.
I've posted this song before on 1st September but not since 2018 and it's a song I can't imagine anyone would ever get tired of hearing. September Gurls was both a single and a song on Big Star's second album Radio City, released in 1974. Alex Chilton's lyrics are economical, painting a lot of yearning and heartbreak with only a few words (two verses, a brief chorus of 'December boy's got it bad' and a bridge). The song's beauty comes as much from the performance and the recording, the crunchy jangle of the guitars, those swooning chord changes, the melodic bassline pushing things on and Alex's vocal.
The September gurl Alex sings about seems to be unobtainable to him. They were together (I think) and now she's gone. There's some thing very autumnal about the song- it isn't a summer song, it's not about the flush of teenage love, it's the regret and longing once it's gone. That's autumn too- no matter how much we say we love the rusty colours of the leaves and the cooler, crisp autumnal days, they don't last long and winter waits. Possibly the song describes the length of the relationship, from September to December, the whole thing done in less than a quarter of a year, Alex looking back at the end of the year at what's gone.
Maybe we shouldn't try to pin down or describe what makes a great song great. Maybe I should just enjoy it.
In 1986 The Bangles covered September Gurls for their Different Light album with Michelle Steele on lead vocals. The Rickenbackers jangle, the backing vocals coo away and a controversial* backwards guitar solo hints at the mid- to- late 60s. It's fine enough if not a patch on the original.
* The band had a difficult time with producer David Kahne and all of them except Michelle found their parts at one point or another were played by replacements Kahne brought in. Guitarist Vicki Peterson returned to the studio from an emergency and found that Kahne had 'had some guy show up and do a solo'. That was the backwards guitar solo on September Gurls.
