Imagine It Create It

One of the treats of this week that keeps repeating has been the arrival of our album, Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 1, arriving in physical form through people's front doors. The first copies started to fall onto door mats a week ago and there's been a stream ever since. My copy arrived on Saturday morning an to say it's a been a thrill is an understatement. 

When I was younger records had a mystical power, they cast a spell and there was a ritual connected to playing them- the black vinyl and the way it crackled slightly when pulled out of the sleeve, the spiralling groove with the stylus sitting within it, the magical sounds that emanated from this piece of plastic via the arm of the record player and out of the speakers, the sleeve with art or photo on the front and the world of credits, track titles, sleeve notes, and thank yous on the back or inside. And even though DIY culture has been part of the musical world I've been inhabiting since I first started buying records (the philosophy that anyone can make a record was part of both punk and its aftermath and acid house), the idea that a twelve track album in a gatefold sleeve with an array of top quality tracks, all connected to Andrew Weatherall, with my name, picture and sleeve notes written by me would some exist as an actual physical artefact, is a little mind blowing still. That mystical power of black plastic and a cardboard sleeve still exists. It was there last Saturday when I opened the package and slid the album out, Personality Crisis's brilliant artwork in my hands, the gatefold opening up with my sleeve notes on the left and the credits and thanks you's on the right (and a dedication to Isaac too, another proper moment), the pair of discs inside paper inner sleeves... the magic is right there. 

The twelve tracks are all absurdly good, everyone involved has sent us music from their top drawer. The opening track is a Two Lone Swordsmen ambient track (not a genre they explored that in that much depth) from a CD promo issued solely in japan twenty years ago called Still My World. We managed to get Rotters Golf Club to license it for our album, something that still has me shaking my heard. Sons Of Slough, Ian Weatherall and Duncan Grey, follow with a chunky, chuggy monster called Red Machine, recorded live at their soundcheck at The Golden Lion last August. Timothy J. Fairplay's Centurion Version, closes side 1, Tim's own tribute to the planned follow up to his and Andrew's Ruled By Passion, Destroyed By Lust album (as The Aphodells), a rocking synth dub track. Flip the disc over and  you find Justin Robertson and his Deadstock 33s and a wired, tripped out dub ode to Todmorden and The Golden Lion, a very FXed vocal talking about happy valleys and UFOs (the Todmorden UFO society meets monthly upstairs at the pub. A friend who moved into the area and who attended a meeting was treated with deep suspicion by the regulars who thought he might be from the government). Curtains Twitch On Peaks is followed by the huge sounding Tough On Chug, Tough On The Causes Of Chug by Richard Sen, thumping, driving electronic music. Disc 2 kicks off with Rude Audio's sleek dub techno track Running Wild, driving bass, guitar, keys and rocking dubbed out drums. Jesse Fahnestock's 10:40 comes next, a circus organ riff transplanted from a fairground to acid house with Emilia Harmony's  blissed out, otherworldly vocal a siren call. Side 4 has Sean Johnston's Hardway Bros and the self- explanatory Theme For Flightpath Estate (how ace is that? We have our own theme??). Cosmic disco of the kind he plays at ALFOS with a nod to Andrew Weatherall's Walk of Shame within it. The Light Brigade come next (it's a pseudonym due to the artist being contracted Heavenly but the notes on the gatefold  credit the writing and production to David Holmes so you can probably make you onw mind up about who it is). Human : Remains sat unfinished and homeless on the shelf for twenty years before being dusted down, sharpened up and released on our album, a track that surges with krautrock drums and layers of synths, keys and bass. We finish with Andy Bell's cover of Smokebelch, a gorgeous, lilting cover version, Andy's fingers moving up and down the strings of his guitar audible, piano and guitars and FX, the perfect way to close the album. Andy began it on the day Andrew died in 2020 and finished it for our album back in October. As I've said and keep saying, a record full of moments that have had me/ us pinching ourselves at almost every stage, from the first week we had a 'yes' to our proposal to this week when the record arrived at our homes. 

The album's sold out online. There are some copies available from today at The Golden Lion, at AW61, a weekender to celebrate what would have been Andrew's 61st birthday. Tonight Radioactive Man and David Holmes will rock the Lion with Matt Hum and Rusty and Rotter. There are some copies due to land at Piccadilly Records soon and some more at London's Stranger Than Paradise Records. All these things make me shake my head and pinch myself again. Yes, I will be going to Piccadilly Records to photograph our album in the racks. 

In an interview many years ago Andrew Weatherall spoke of what he did being in the spirit of 'the grand amateur'. I think that's us too. Waka, the man who runs The Golden Lion, said on Facebook this week, 'Imagine it: create it'. And that's what we've done. 

I can't post any of the songs- we only got the license to put them out on vinyl, so there's no digital release. Some of you may have copies of the album. If you do, I hope you're enjoying it as much as we have been. We've already started contemplating the part of our album's title that says 'Volume 1'. 

Tim Fairplay posted his copy on Tuesday with the comment that the first band he ever saw live back in 1992 aged thirteen was Ride, on their Going Blank Again tour, adding it was kinda cool to ned up on the same album as Andy Bell. Both Tim and Andy have new material out elsewhere too. In February Tim released a six track EP/ cassette on Belgian label Pinkman called Convictions That Stick, six slices of Timwave electro, thunderous jacking grooves, squelchy synth sounds and strobe lit keys. It's here. 

Andy Bell and the other three members of Ride have just released their third album since reuniting, a twelve song monster called Interplay. It's got guitars and synths, a big sound made for playing live, nods to various 80s and 90s guitar bands and among the soaring chord sequences, towards the end, is this low key beauty, Essaouira, possibly a tribute to the Moroccan town that became a hippy haven in the 60s, with shuffling drums, samples, blissed out guitars and a dreamy, shimmering haze.