V.A. Saturday

Jon Savage is a writer who fully deserves the status legendary attached to his name- since the early days of punk he chronicled the music and the subculture, a  writer and journalist who knows his stuff and who cares. His Sex Pistols book England's Dreaming is probably the definitive account of account of UK and US punk and his oral history of Joy Division, This Searing Light, The Sun And Everything Else,is the best account of that band's trajectory and story bar none. He has had for many years a sideline as a Various Artists album compiler, including some VA albums that have had repeat plays round here over the years: Fame- Jon Savage's Secret History Of Post Punk 1978- 1981 and 1966 Jon Savage's The Year The Decade Exploded are both Bagging Area favourites and his recent one, Do You Have The Force? Jon Savage's Alternate History Of Electronica 1978- 1982, is a genre busting, futuristic compilation that finds proto- electronica in Throbbing Gristle, Soft Machine, UFO, PiL and The Flying Lizards among others. 

In 2015 Caroline True Records released Perfect Motion: Jon Savage's Secret History Of Second Wave Psychedelia, 1988- 1993, a treasure trove of the period across four sides of vinyl, a snapshot of guitar bands, pop acts and dance music that to Jon, was what the title suggested- a new wave of psychedelia. Jon found it in Shack, The High and The Stone Roses (for this release the head spinning track Full Fathom Five, Elephant Stone played backwards, named after a Jackson Pollock painting), he found it in Deee- Lite, Pet Shop Boys, 808 State and Joi, he found it in Saint Etienne and Electronic and he found it in 'the scene's resident genius', Andrew Weatherall (Clock Factory by Sabres Of Paradise, Andrew's remix of Sly And Lovechild and his production on Screamadelica, in this case Slip Inside This House, Primal Scream's cover of a first wave of US psychedelia band, The Thirteenth Floor Elevators).

Full Fathom Five

Jon takes some delight I think in stretching the boundaries of the genre he's compiling, in finding what he's looking for places some people wouldn't. His latest compilation for Caroline True Records, out at the end of last year, is titled Jon Savage's Ambient 90s, a concept and compilation that's very up my street. True to form Jon stretches the definition of ambient so far it almost snaps the fabric of music to pieces, but it all makes sense too. In 1992 Jon started sending articles to Jockey Slut, fired up by the new music being made- 'a new way of looking at the world, a new language', he said at the time. Jockey Slut were more than happy to publish 2000 words on the importance of Aphex Twin by the man who saw Joy Division at the PSV. 

On Ambient 90s he compiles tracks by William Orbit, Aphex Twin, Underworld (Blueski from Second Toughest In The Infants, three minutes of Karl Hyde's blues guitar looped and distorted), Sandoz (Richard Kirk from Cabaret Voltaire), React To Rhythm's Intoxication (a huge progressive house track with a vocal sample whispering, 'this works almost instantly', a track so rhythmic and thumpy it can't be really called ambient but let's go with it), U-Ziq and several others. It closes with this by Biosphere, a 1994 release by a Norwegian artist on a Belgian label that starts out with background noise and acoustic guitar and floats away on ambient waves, synths and washes of sound ebbing and flowing as the acoustic guitar keeps time. 

En- Trance