Fifty Four

I am 54 today- and all of a sudden the mid- fifties have arrived. I have tied to put together  a number 54 based Sunday mix. It turns out 54 isn't a particularly popular musical number. As so often happens Mr Weatherall came to my rescue along with The Clash and a very famous and debauched New York nightclub and a blinding reggae song. This mix is as a result somewhat varied stylistically and gets even more random towards the end- maybe that's a metaphor for one's 50s.

Forty Five Minutes Of Fifty Four

• Grace Jones: Nightclubbing
• Tom Tom Club: Genius Of Love
• The Clash: Ivan Meets G.I. Joe
• Two Lone Swordsmen: Shack 54 (Joe Mckechnie Remix)
• Patrick Cowley and Sylvester: Menergy (Rich Lane 'Too Hard' Cotton Dub)
• Big Audio Dynamite II: The Globe (Studio 54 Remix)
• The Velvet Underground: I Can't Stand It (2014 version)
• The Rolling Stones: All Down The Line
• Toots And The Maytals: 54- 46 That's My Number

Studio 54 was a New York nightclub located at 254 West 54th Street, midtown Manhattan. It was converted from a theatre to a club in 1977 and for a while was the world's premier disco nightclub, a place with a famously loose approach to sex, drugs and extravagance. It had apparently the world's most difficult entry policy but once in 'the dancefloor was a democracy'. A list of Studio 54's celebrity clientele includes Grace Jones, Woody Allen, Bianca Jagger, Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol, Bowie, Cher, John Lennon, Diana Ross, Lou Reed, John Travolta, Margaret Trudeau, Divine, Farrah Fawcett, Faye Dunaway, Jack Nicolson, Liza Minelli, Rick James and many more. Some of those people were thusly shoehorned into my mix above. Chic famously were turned away at the door and went home and wrote Freak Out, a disco track which started with the phrase 'Fuck You!' chanted as the chorus instead of the eventual title. 

Grace Jones, a Studio 54 devotee, released her album Nightclubbing in 1981, an early 80sunk/ reggae/ post- punk/ new wave/ disco masterpiece, recorded at Compass Point in the Bahamas. The title track is a cover of Iggy Pop's 1977 song, an ode to numbed out nighttime adventures on the floor. It's Grace's birthday today as well- happy 76th birthday Grace.

Tom Tom Club's Genius Of Love is also from 1981, a brilliant slice of New York post- disco/ synth- pop/ art rap that nods its head to a cast of black musicians- James Brown, Sly and Robbie, Hamilton Bohannon, George Clinton, Bootsy Collins and Bob Marley- and was a big tune at Studio 54. Its creators, Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz only went a couple of times, they claim, preferring the Mudd Club or Danceteria. 

The Clash went to Studio 54 once and Joe Strummer said they were observed by the Warhol crowd like animals in a cage. Joe wrote The Beautiful People Are Ugly Too about the experience. Ivan Meets G.I. Joe is from Sandinista!, and includes the line 'so you're on the floor at 54', imagining the Cold War as a competition on the nightclub's dancefloor, a Soviet- America disco face off, sung by Topper Headon. It's not my favourite Clash song but it fits this mix. 

Shack 54 was on Two Lone Swordsmen's Wrong Meeting Part 2, a 2007 album with Weatherall and Tenniswood by this pint deep into live rock 'n' roll/ garage rockabilly territory. It was great fun, Andrew once again turning on a sixpence and wrong footing people who expected him to keep doing the same thing. This remix of Shack 54 by Joe Mckechnie is I think unreleased. 

Patrick Cowley and Sylvester were both Studio 54 attendees. For his Cotton Dub edit Rich Lane ramps up the campness and Hi NRG to the max on a song that wasn't exactly lacking in either. 

Big Audio Dynamite II's The Globe was the best single the second incarnation of the band released, a  1991 single that samples Mick's most well known Clash riff. It was a Mick Jones and Gary Stonnage co- write and produced by Mick and Andre Shapps (making both of them related to current Tory Minister Grant Shapps, a man I sincerely hope loses his seat and his deposit come election day).  The Studio 54 remix adds some disco strings and keys and has never been officially released but is on the bootleg series The B.A.D. Files. 

The Velvet Underground have Studio 54 connections via Lou Reed and Andy Warhol but there's a big disconnect between the sound of the Velvets and Studio 54 so really this was just an excuse to shoehorn in this 2014 version of a Lou reed song that should be played daily by everyone, Lou and Sterling taking the Bo Diddey beat and rhythm guitar to its logical limit. The part where Lou counts down from 8 is among my favourite moments on any song. 

Bianca Jagger once rode into Studio 54 on the back of a white horse, an eye- opening way to celebrate one's birthday (a party for Bianca thrown by fashion designer Halston). Bianca later said she didn't ride the horse to or in the club, she just sat on its back once it was already inside. I was going to say, with a knowing smirk, hey, we've all been there- but then I remembered that at the Golden Lion last November at the end of a night David Holmes played at the pub there was a horse at the bar having a pint with its owner, so actually, maybe we have all been there. Bianca was married to Mick from 1970 to 1978, a period The Stones made their final absolute classic album, 1973's Exile On Main Street from which All Down The Line is one of four superb songs that make up the album's fourth side. 

Toots And The Maytals released reggae classic 54- 46 Was My Number in 1968. 54- 46 was Toots' prison number when he was jailed for possession of marijuana and for the next 365 day trip around the sun, 54 is my number. 

V.A. Saturday

Boy's Own began in 1987, four friends inspired by records, clubbing and clothes (and football)- they started a fanzine inspired by Peter Hooton's Liverpool based fanzine The End. Andrew Weatherall, Cymon Eckel, Terry Farley and Steven Hall had come together through connections in the Windsor/ Slough area and via Paul Oakenfold began hitting the early acid house clubs. Boy's Own ran for several years as a very funny, sharp and hipper- than- you fanzine, the 'acid house parish magazine'. I never saw a copy at the time but did pick up a few issues of The End. Eventually Boy's Own became a record label too and a band, Bocca Juniors, grew out of it releasing two singles, the first the superb Raise and a second, Substance. Boy's Own Recordings put out a series of the period's defining 12" singles, records by Less Stress, Jah Wobble, One Dove and LSK as well as their own Bocca Juniors singles. Eventually Andrew Weatherall moved on and did something different, as he was wont to do any times over the subsequent decades- he had a knack for knowing when to switch course or change lanes. 

In 1992 Farley and Hall created a spin off label, Junior Boy's Own which stated by putting out a run of essential 12" singles, some of the key dance music/ house/ techno releases of the mid- 1990s and then moving into the brave new world of dance acts making albums. The Chemical Brothers started on Junior Boy's Own and Underworld released their three 90s albums on the label, dubnobasswithmyheadman, Second Toughest In the Infants and Beaucoup Fish. In 1994 they compiled a various artists compilation that pulled together some of the records from those first few years, tracks that in some ways are the sound of the period- if you went clubbing in 1993/ 1994 you would have been dancing at some point in those long nights to some or all of Fire Island, X- Press 2, Underworld, Outrage, Roach Motel and The Dust Brothers. The influence of New York house, gay club culture and UK techno is here. The emerging sound of what would become Big Beat and the Heavenly Sunday Social scene can be found here too, not least in the massive sirens and crashing hip hop drums of Song To The Siren, The Dust Brothers' calling card. 

Song To The Siren

X- Press 2 released London X- Press in 1993, a percussive, relentless house groove and some funky guitar, synth sabs, thumping bass and that 'raise your hands' sample accompanied by sirens. 

London X- Press

Roach Motel were Pete Heller and Terry Farley, funky, early 90s house, deep, soulful, influenced by New York's club sound. Would still rock a dancefloor today. 

Movin' On

Underworld appeared on Junior Boys Own Collection twice, once as themselves (with Rez) and once as Lemon Interrupt. It originally appeared as 1992 12" with Eclipse but Bigmouth eclipsed Eclipse, a huge ten minute long Underworld drum track with head spinning lead harmonica on top, a swampy, chuggy, uplifting, funky, shot of 1992, Darren Emerson pushing Rick Smith and Karl Hyde into new places. 

Big Mouth

The Junior Boy's Own Collection sleeve was a very knowing mid- 90s thing too, portraits of various faces done as 1940s cigarette cards- Michael Caine, Tommy Cooper, Pete Townsend, Phil Daniels in Quadrophenia, Captain Scarlet, Al Pacino, Norman Wisdom, Sid James, Marlon Brando, Travis Bickle, Mick Jagger, Patrick McNee, Sean Connery, Terry Thomas, W.C. Fields and Zachary Smith. 

Friday TV Noise

Two blasts of noise from the late 80s/ early 90s indie/ punk/ alt- rock underground on the verge of going overground on Tv to celebrate reaching the end of the working week and getting to Friday. First is Sonic Youth at their peak, Daydream Nation era, playing the epic rush of Silver Rocket live on MTV in 1988. I remember being quite anti- MTV in 1988, it was one of the frontlines in the indie wars. This performance holds nothing back, Thurston, Kim Lee and Steve bringing the noise, the tempo, the melodies and the energy. 

This live version of Silver Rocket was released as part of disc 2 of the Deluxe CD edition of Daydream Nation that came out in 2007. Thurston dedicates it to Andy Warhol. Daydream Nation is the perfect summary of Sonic Youth's abilities, ambition and expression. An essential album.

Silver Rocket (Live in NYC, June 1988)

The second blast of noise is from My Bloody Valentine, miming on Spanish TV on a programme called Plastic in 1991. This is around the time Loveless was recorded, the second giant leap they made in terms of sound and songs. On Plastic they mime to You Made Me Realise, released in 1988. There is an contrast between the energy and flailing that Debbie and Colm put into miming on bass and drums respectively and the complete lack of physical action from Kevin and Belinda which really does make this clip. 

That song, it's wooziness, the slurred vocals, the rattling drums, and the life affirming noise kicked up the guitars, is a late 80s pearl. Live it's middle section would become a test of how much an audience could take, pushing the freak out to its extreme in terms of noise, volume and length. This is the studio version, as released on Isn't Anything. 

You Made Me Realise

Feels Like Love

A few weeks ago a friend sent me a link to an album celebrating it's tenth anniversary, one that has been re- released on limited pink vinyl with a fetching t- shirt to match- Psychic 9 - 5 Club by HTRK. The group are from Melbourne, Australia, a city someone described to me recently as 'one of the nicest places to live anywhere on earth'. HTRK (Hate Rock) go back to 2003, a three piece made up of vocalist Jonnine Standish, bassist Sean Stewart and guitarist Nigel Yang. They have traversed various minimal and experimental styles, with a restless energy to their music, sometimes sounding alternately bored to tears and post- coital, sometimes at the same time. Their debut album was produced by The Birthday Party's Rowland S. Howard, with punk and industrial influences, a slow mo drum machine and bass, textures and atmosphere. They moved into and through post- punk, cold wave and electronic, moving to London, playing gigs with Alan Vega, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Horrors and Fuck Buttons. 

In 2010 the band was struck by horror- bassist Sean Stewart was found dead at his London flat, having killed himself. They were partway through recording an album that eventually came out as Work (Work Work), an album of heavy, synth led songs that sound like they have an ominous calling. After that, now working as a duo, Jonnine and Nigel recorded Psychic 9- 5 Club, an album that pushes their sound further again into new territories- the beats and bass are nod to modern r'n'b, to some strange downbeat, dubbed up version of trip hop, by the huge, echo- laden dub spaces of Basic Channel. There are skeletal, pared back beats, minimal instrumentation, loops and a few brooding lines of vocal, the odd line delivered in a smoky bedroom voice. It's a world of its own- intense, languid, mysterious, not giving much away but sometimes saying too much- 'I got mood swings I got no control of', Jonnine coos at one point.  It's an album that works well as an entire piece, the flow through the nine tracks as important part of its appeal, from the r'n'b sounds of Give It Up and the stuttering drums and Portishead vibes of Sunshine to the ghostly, dubby Wet Dream and the more clamorous sounds of Love Is Distraction. 

This song is as good a taster as any, sequenced midway through side one- Feels Like Love. Hissing drum machine percussion inside a ball of dub space, synths and minimal descending bass, what could be someone exhaling breath, a looped snatch of backing vocal, FX phasing from the back to front of the mix and towards the end a short burst of laughter, suddenly undercutting the tension. 

Feels Like Love

Er... Hello?

A friend sent me this recently, an album from January this year which deserves to be heard more widely- OBOST's Er... Hello? OBOST is multi- instrumentalist Bobby Langfield, just 17 years old and currently studying for his A Levels. Bobby has grown up in a household where the music of Andrew Weatherall, Kraftwerk, Paranoid London and Red Axes was a constant backdrop. Bobby, as OBOST, sings, writes, records and mixes. That this is a debut album, thirteen songs across a slew of electronic styles, is one thing- that it's been made by someone so young is something else. 

Er... Hello? album opens with You Messed With Fire, acoustic guitar chords and the thud of a kick drum and then a wash of guitars, synths and a very distorted voice, everything swimming and swirling around as the kick keeps things moving forward. The sound of fingers on guitar strings appears, handclaps and wobbling synth parts and that voice, never clear enough to hear what it's saying. It's a nicely disorientating start followed by some slowed down electronic pop, I Don't Want To Be Alone, Bobby's voice and machines pulling off that trick of electronic euphoric melancholy- synths that suggest good times with minor chords and lyrics that hint at something else. Over the course of the ensuing eleven songs there is FX and sample driven electronic music, drum machine driven cosmische, experimental instrumentals, glitchy pop that calls to mind The Xx, rippling synthlines and on Another Type Of World, alienated synth pop with double time drum machine and eventually walls of noise.

The second half of the album spins even further and more wildly, a range of styles and sounds on offer, all the while the fizz and clatter of keys and drums set against the doleful vocals. Penultimate song Hurry Up has a wall of Daniel Avery style drone and static and then the judder of synths and hiss of hi hats, a techno workout. The album finishes with Lips Fade to Blue- it starts with the crackle of vinyl and an acoustic guitar part circling as Bobby sings a lament, and then shifts somewhere else, 80s synth pop colliding with 21st century electro, that dissolves into a mess of repeating loops and FX. You can get it at Bandcamp. 

Since Er.. Hello? came out OBOST has followed up with Apollo, a track in two versions, DanceApollo and DubApollo. Both here and free/ name your own price. The Dub version is eight minutes of clashing sounds and samples, thudding drums and eventually some very gnarly slo- mo sounds. I Don't Care For You came out at the end of 2023, an EP that included this song, Look Inside Your Mind. All of this is highly recommended. 

Fruits Of The Deep

The Woodentops released their latest album in late April, a fourteen track opus called Fruits Of The Deep. Rolo has been working towards this for some time- the first inklings of it came out as the single Ride A Cloud back in 2022 and more recently the slowed down Balearic shuffle of Dream On. The opening five songs of the album, the two already mentioned along with Liquid Thinking, Too Good To Stay and Lately, make as good a run of songs as the band have ever released, matching their late 80s classics from Giant and Wooden Foot Cops On The Highway. The trademark Woodentops acoustic guitars are there, the rattling hubcap percussion and rhythms. Lately rides in on a piano riff and a ringing Simon Mawby lead guitar line, Rolo in fine voice front and centre.  

The album takes a sharp left turn after Lately, the three minutes detour into Hotel a disorienting scrambled piece of music, Prince fed through a load of FX dissolving into an ambient soundscape. After that there's a bluesy shuffle (Don't Stop), some turbo- charged Woodentops Balearic pop that could have come straight from Hypno Beat Live in 1987 (Saturday Soundcheck), an instrumental that sounds like Lalo Schiffrin's Bullitt had it been recorded underwater while a train went past (City Wakes) and then three more ultra- Woodentops songs- Can't Stand Still, I Can Take It and the gorgeous lament Traversing Heartbreak. 

Fruits Of The Deep could have finished there- acoustic guitars, Frank de Freitas' bass, Simon Mawby's guitars, Rolo's vocals, loads of layered backing vox, found sounds, the sound of a band building on their glory days of several decades ago but moving on confidently and with as et of fully realised and fleshed out songs that the world needs to hear. But Rolo has two more cards up his sleeve, a sixteen minute finale, a pair of long songs inspired by the sea. The first is The Fishermen Leave At Dusk, eight minutes of impressionistic seascapes, FX and acoustic guitars submerged into the aqua, diving deep while bubbles surface. The second and the track that closes the album is  Bathyscaphe, an even more distorted dive into the subaqua world, effects, found sounds, and eventually a slo- mo jam, guitars and drums dredging the seabed, dropping out, returning and building to an echo laden ending. 

Buy Fruits From The Deep here. Once enough orders are in Rolo's going to go ahead with CD and vinyl versions. 

Monday's Long Songs

This came via a tip off from Dan of The Flightpath Estate, an imminent release on Jason Boardman's Before I Die label- Dub Tapes Volume 1 by Klangkollektor. There are three tracks to listen to at their Bandcamp page and a further four due when the album releases in full later this week. Sumptuous, deep, richly textured dub with a smattering of ambient techno and a splash of the Balearic feel. 

Klangkollektor is Lars Fischer, drummer from Nuremberg's psychedelic Cumbia band Trak Trak. All three tracks released so far are long- Lake Lounge comes in at just under ten minutes, a dub experiment, all space, echo, rattles and rhythm and some tinkling piano. The six minutes forty seconds of Midnight Express is laid back and bubbly, a trip into an absorbing dreamworld. Globulus is seven minutes plus of spacious, atmospheric dub with a piano line picked out on the top. You can listen and buy here. There must be something going on in Nuremberg- Before I Die released another Nuremberg act's album last year, Konformer's self titled debut, an album that opened with the superb Noris Noir.

There was a remix EP with this remix from Sean Johnston. There's no point trying to describe it, it does exactly what it says on the tin and should be felt rather than read about. 

Konformer (Hardway Bros Techno Remix)

Forty Five Minutes Of David Holmes Remixes

Summer has finally gatecrashed its way into northern England and we've had the sudden appearance of the aurora borealis all over the country (I missed this on Friday night, having gone to bed. I woke up on Saturday morning to everyone else's photos of the northern lights on display in the skies all over the nation). It's been too nice to spend too long sitting indoors in front of a computer screen so this mix was a little thrown together in a rush but it's turned out quite well- a selection of remixes of other artists by David Holmes from the last few years.

Forty Five Minutes Of David Holmes Remixes

• Andy Bell: The Sky Without You (David Holmes Radical Mycology Remix)
• The Vendetta Suite: Purple Haze, Yellow Sunrise (David Holmes Remix)
• Jo Sims: Bass- The Final Frontier (David Holmes Remix)
• Orbital: Belfast (David Holmes Remix)
• Lisa Moorish: Sylvia (David Holmes Remix)
• X- Press 2 ft. Kele Okereke: Phasing You Out (David Holmes Remix)

The Sky Without You was the opener on Andy Bell's solo album Flicker, released in 2022, a blur of backwards guitars and reversed vocals inspired by the backwards songs The Stone Roses recorded in 1989- Don't Stop, Guernica, Full Fathom Five, Simone (in fact, there's the germ of an idea for another mix...). David's remix came out on 10" vinyl and digital in October 2022, a remix inspired by microdosing during lockdown in Belfast. The I Am A Strange Loop EP also came with remixes by Richard Norris, bdrmm, A Place To Bury Strangers and Claude Cooper- even among that company Holmes' remix stands out.

The Vendetta Suite is Gary Irwin, a stalwart of the Belfast club and music world. The album The Kempe Stone Portal came out in 2021, with some remixes following a year later including David's remix of Purple Haze, Yellow Sunrise which is a psychedelic/ acid house monster, a huge sounding record that fills any space it's played in, a genuinely transportative piece of music.

Jo Sims' Bass- The Final Frontier came out on Pamela Records last year, Holmes' remix one of '23's highlights. Space house. 

David's remix of Belfast was done for Orbital's 30soemthing album, a celebration of three decades of Orbital. The original was recorded after the Hartnoll brothers played at David's club in Belfast in May 1990. The even more recent version with Mike Garry, Tonight In Belfast, is one of 2024's highlights. 

Lisa Moorish's Sylvia came out in spring 2024, a song recorded as a tribute to writer Sylvia Plath. In April we stayed in Heptonstall while attending the AW61 celebrations in Todmorden. Sylvia is buried in the graveyard at Heptonstall, that's her grave in the picture above (with Ted Hughes' name scrubbed off by Sylvia's fans). Her grave has hundreds of pens sticking out of the soil, left by visitors. Holmes' remix is crunchy acid house, and was played at AW61 by Mark and then not long after by me (duh!).

X- Press 2's Phasing You Out is from their 2023 album Thee, a return to form by Rocky and Diesel, with former Bloc Party singer Kele Okereke on guest vocals. Holmes' remix is a full on, city scape sounding record, ending in a sea of sirens and traffic after several minutes of busy, high tempo drums. Makes it quite difficult to sequence/ mix but it had to go on this mix as I really like it. 

V.A. Saturday

My photo shows the beach at Wallasey on the Wirral rather than the one that the Cafe Del Mar overlooks on Ibiza but a beach is a beach yeah? This week's various artists compilation is the sequel to last Saturday's Cafe Del Mar Volumen Uno, Volumen Dos. Sequels can be hard, difficult second album syndrome is very much a thing, following as perfectly pitched and sequenced a Balearic compilation as Cafe Del Mar Volumen Uno can't have been easy but on the whole Jose Padilla largely achieves it although the classic feel of the first one overshadows the second a bit- there's no Penguin Cafe Orchestra, no exclusive Underworld trance/ techno banger, no dub monster from Leftfield. A Man Called Adam and Sabres Of Paradise are both given second bites of the cherry with Easter Song and Haunted Dancehall and Jose himself is back with Sabor De Verano. 

Salt Tank were a duo from the UK, ambient/ trance DJs and producers making records throughout the 90s. Sargasso Sea is the kind of weightless, trippy, expansive early 90s ambient house that that period was made for, with seagulls, ripples of synth, echoing drumbeats and warm, padding bass. The Sargasso Sea is in the Atlantic and famously has no land boundaries and plenty of calm blue water 

Sargasso Sea

Entre Dos Aguas is by Paco De Lucia, a legendary Spanish guitarist and composer, a flamenco virtuoso. The song dates from 1973, and is considered a masterpiece of the form. 

Entre Dos Aguas

Cafe Del Mar finishes with Haunted Dancehall, from Sabres Of Paradise's album of the same name. Before that we get The Metaluna Mutant and their track Blinky Blue Eyed Sunrise, an experimental ambient/ downtempo outing from 1995, from an EP called Midi- Knight At The Oasis. It's a six minute excursion into abstract dance music and is very nice indeed. 

Blinky Blue Eyed Sunrise

Steve Albini RIP

Steve Albini's death at the age of 61 from a heart attack while in his studio has caused shockwaves and an outpouring of tributes. Albini could be a polarising personality and in recent years he admitted saying and doing things in the past he regretted and apologised for them. Naming his early 90s band Rapeman was a clearly provocative/ idiotic decision and cost him a lot. His previous band, Big Black, were a huge part of the US post- punk/ hardcore scene, an abrasive and aggressive guitar band, clanky, metallic guitars and a drum machine. They courted controversy with their songs and lyrics but were by 1988 a big part of whatever constituted alternative culture- their name and sleeves were in the record racks, fly posted on walls, on gig listings and in the music press. Atomizer is a huge and dark record. Songs About Fucking was everywhere briefly. 

My friend Ian (Meany) was and is a huge fan of US hardcore and was part of the scene in Liverpool in the mid- 80s, promoting gigs, photographing bands and interviewing them. He posted this on his social media yesterday by way of an obituary for Steve Albini and he says more and says it better than I can...

'I was just about to buy a ticket for Shellac in Brighton and get stuck into the interview in the latest Wire mag, hot off the press, and the bad news arrived. Fuck…. Proper legend obvs. No doubt the obits will focus on his engineering/production credits (his ‘cutlery scraping together’ production vibe, as I once heard it described (did round out as he went on) wasn’t always great - PJ Harvey wisely moved on I thought. In Utero (wasn’t that a bit shit?) but his guitar playing genius and his unique guitar sound are oft overlooked. Big Black were one of the pivotal bands of the post hardcore US underground halcyon days of my yoof and I forever regretted not seeing them on the Songs About Fucking tour before they split, tho I had the chance. ‘Kerosene’ would reverberate through indie discos (including Planet X, Liverpool) for years to come. The brilliance of his next outfit, a supergroup of sorts, Rapeman, got lost in the furore surrounding their admittedly very stupid name. Us members of the north west punk rock contingent have fond memories of their legendary Chester gig with (peak) Dinosaur Jr. The threepiece genius continued with Shellac, who I saw on several occasions, including at the Shellac curated ATP at Camber Sands (Cheap Trick, Wire, Low, Bonnie Prince Billy, Breeders, Rachels, Smog, Low, Mission of Burma, Melt Banana … need I go on). Famously cantankerous and opinionated, he was in fact, if you were on the right side of rock’n’roll history, quite affable in person. I had the good fortune to photograph him on a few occasions and hang out with him a couple of times: sitting on the floor in John Loder’s office (Crass, Big Black, Jesus and Marychain etc engineer) at Southern Studios chatting about the Scala cinema and films I remember, and I interviewed him at the legendary Newport TJs before a Shellac gig when he advocated for the greatness of ZZ Top (that’s all I can remember of that encounter!). Although he was fiercely indie, and railed against the the exploitation of the music industry, he also accepted the inevitability that streaming would deliver free listening, suck the profit out of recorded music but also would greatly increase listenership and push bands towards live performance. An antidote to the ideology of the privileged whiny whinging wealthy middle aged vinyl collecting cognoscenti. Gone too soon. Rest in power mate.'

Thank you Ian/ Meany

If you've never heard Big Black's cover of The Model by Kraftwerk (off 1987's Songs About Fucking), you should rectify that immediately by heading here. We were back at Meany's once after clubbing (at Cream in the mid 90s, no doubt a foray to see Mr Weatherall DJ) and Ian slipped The Model into the post club soundtrack and it blew us away all over again. 

Steve Albino's production was legendary. Albini scoffed at it being called production- he said it was all about how many and which microphones you had and where you placed them. He called it recording rather than production, the no bullshit attitude on display. In the early 90s he made The Wedding Present move into a different musical landscape...

Dalliance

May Ninth

I posted this song back in February but it seemed so obvious to repost it today- today is 9th May and this is May Ninth from Khruangbin's latest album A La Sala. 

A very languid early summer groove, lighter than air vocals, the drums tap tapping away, the bass prodding gently while the guitar drops warm sunshine all over the song. 

The album came out a month ago. My pressing isn't brilliant, a little bit crackly and it doesn't seem loud enough to me but its an album that's growing each time I play it. The feel of the twelve songs is very much lounge, with a backdrop of psychedelia, some dub and the rhythms of early 70s soul and funk bands like The Meters, lush and widescreen. Many of the songs on A La Sala sound like they could play over the end credits of a film, as all the plotlines are resolved and everything's fixed. There are some found sounds in places, some ambient atmospherics and the album ends with a locked groove, a field recording circling endlessly. First song Fifteen Fifty Three opens with some crickets chirruping and the hum of the outside world, then the guitar and bass ease their way in and we're off into the Khruangbin world, eleven more tacks gliding by, no hurry or haste to get anywhere quickly and nothing outstaying its welcome either. 

This one, Pon Pon, is equal parts clipped, scratchy funk, whispered vocals and supper club. 

Pon Pon

A La Sala finishes with Les Petit Gris, a piano playing a couple of notes, lots of echo and a guitar line picking a way through the song, before it dissolves into the sound of cicadas. 

Asylums In Jerusalem

While filing a few records away at the weekend I pulled out some discs from the S section and happened upon Scritti Politti's Songs To Remember, a record I haven't played for a long time. I put it on and spent three quarters of an hour in the company of Green Gartside in 1982. It is a very good album, a record with a long and complex back story that definitely adds to the experience of listening to it. It can of course also be listened to purely as a piece of early 80s pop music, something I'm sure Green was keen for it to be taken as when it was released- but on the other hand, you can't abandon the scratchy, squat post- punk DIY sound of Skank Bloc Bologna for the new wave/ soul pop of Songs To Remember, and name your songs things like Jacques Derrida, Asylums In Jerusalem, Lions After Slumber and include the arch quotation marks around 'The Sweetest Girl' without expecting the listener to pick up on these things. This was pop music and yet more than pop music too. 

The album was recorded in late 1980 and into 1981 but delayed at the band's request until September 1982 so that they could release some singles, build up interest and sell more copies. Green wasn't interested any longer in the post- punk/ indie ghetto. He wanted success and was eventually unhappy with Rough Trade's promotion of the album. For Green, who spent nine months convalescing at his parents' house in Wales after collapsing on stage with what was at first thought to be a heart attack but later confirmed as a panic attack brought on by massive stage fright, going pop wasn't a rejection of punk or selling, it was making pop not pap. Green lost interest in selling a few hundred records to the indie scene, he wanted to make pop music that found 'a way into people's hearts the way independent music never did'. He had spent months listening to funk, disco and soul, Stax and early 60s beat music. He also moved away from the constraints of the Marxist philosophy that inspired Scritti's earliest recordings, rejecting what he called 'monolithical Marxism'. His group he admitted were viewed as a cult band and as intellectuals and he was keen to move away from those margins. 

Asylums In Jerusalem

Songs To Remember arrives with the spring loaded bassline of Asylums In Jerusalem, a sound that bounces out of the speakers, along with Green's honeyed vocal, clear and bright, and some female, soul backing vocals in harmony. The lyrics sound like classic radio pop fayre but were inspired by Nietzshe's writings about the huge number of madhouses built in Jerusalem to contain the religious lunatics who sprung up in the wake of the arrival of Jesus, desert dwelling, locust eating prophets 'talking in tongues again/ let him shake a little/ let him rock a little'. The B-side, Jacques Derrida, references the poststructuralist philosopher of the song's title and how Green found himself torn between glamour and left wing politics, between glamour and being reactionary, and the politics of desire. 

Songs To Remember is lush and bright, sugar and honey, radio friendly but with the influences of funk and soul and digital dancehall, Prince and the nascent rap scene, vocoders and Lover's Rock running through it, along with all this thought and politics and philosophy. The rest of Scritti Politti, drummer Tony Morley and bassist Nial Jinks both left the group in the aftermath of the recording/ release of the album, leaving Green to pursue things on his own, a road that led to the pop perfection of Cupid & Psyche 85, The Word Girl, Wood Beez and Absolute. I've posted Absolute before, a song that sounds like everything great about shiny 80s pop condensed into a four minute single sung by a man with Princess Diana's hair and wearing a Nike Windjammer jacket, a jacket that in '85 was favoured by breakdancers and casuals. 'Absolute, a principle/ To make your heart invincible', Green sings as the music explodes and swoons around him. 

Absolute

Green And Pleasant Land

The Top Of The Pops repeats on BBC4 have reached January 1996. The two episodes that were shown last Friday night contained the usual mixture of good, bad and awful- the number one single in the 4th and 11th of January editions was Michael Jackson's Earth Song, surely one of the worst records ever made. The merely bad came in the form of The Outhere Brothers, Boyzone and a Shaggy song where he included this rhyming couplet- 'I treat you like a Queen, you treat me like  peasant/ Why do you have to treat me so unpleasant?'. Babylon Zoo were also present.

The good were represented by Everything But The Girl and Missing, and three singles from mid- 90s bands that all struck chords with me in different ways while watching. From the 4th January episode, welcoming in the new year, there was Dubstar and their single Not So Manic Now. 

I always liked what I heard by Dubstar but I never bought anything by them. This song was from their debut album Disgraceful, a cover of a song by an obscure mid- 90s band from Wakefield, Brick Supply. The vocal by singer Sarah, her north east accent and flat delivery, the synth strings and indie guitars, all slightly distracting from the song's lyrics that detail an attack on a pensioner (written by a mental health nurse who presumably with some experience of this). Leaving the topic of the song aside (and I didn't know this was what the was about until I started writing this post) the idea of not being so manic now was one that stuck with me. 

A week later (or about ten minutes later on Friday night with some judicious use of the Fast Forward button) we had an episode presented by Lisa I'Anson, much preferable to Nicky Campbell who presented Top Of The Pops the previous week. The show paddled through some filler- Judy Cheeks, Tori Amos and Baby D before we arrived at Gene and For The Dead. 

Again, like Dubstar, I liked what I heard by Gene but own nothing by them. I don't think I was looking for a new Smiths in 1996 but the song cut through on Friday night, the guitars chiming and swirling and singer Martin Rossiter looking every inch the mid- 90s indie rock star, a growl in his voice on the chorus and a good turn of phrase here and there- the song's title stayed with me for a while, as Dubstar's did. 

I do have this song by Gene, also a single and from their debut album from 1995, and I'm hearing this in a new light now too.

Olympian

The third band that lit up January 1996's first two Top of the Pops was Dreadzone and their single Little Britain. Dreadzone formed from the ashes of Big Audio Dynamite, drummer Greg Dread hooking up with Tim Bran and then recruiting former BAD mates Leo Williams and Dan Donovan. Little Britain became one of the crossover hits of 1996- I think one of the TV channels used it for their football coverage during Euro 96, a bit of a cultural dissonance as the St. George's flag flew everywhere and a supposedly new friendly, modern English nationalism was born. 

With lines like, 'Say no matter what your colour/ Your race or your culture/ This is our inheritance/ To lead you on a merry dance' and 'This is our land/ This is your land', Dreadzone were surely promoting immigration and a multi- cultural society, the waltz time strings of the song crossed with reggae, raga and the black British experience, and the power of music and dance to bring people together. 

Little Britain

As well as a couple of things that struck me personally, between them these three songs seemed to offer up something about the times- a sweetly sung song about trauma, an ode to the departed, and a celebration of black Britain and dancing. The then government, led by John Major, staggered on from one crisis and scandal to another for another year and a half after January 1996, until Labour landslide of May 1997 swept the Tories out of power for the next thirteen years, the TV coverage showing one Tory MP after another, standing in leisure centres and halls across the country as the results were read out by the returning officers, wiped out at the ballot boxes by voters who had finally become sick of them. Last week's election results- the local council elections, the Blackpool by- election and the mayoral elections- all seem like steps in the right direction for 2024. 

Monday's Long Song

Pye Corner Audio added another track to his hefty back catalogue of analogue dystopic acid last week with a Bandcamp release titled Walk In The Forest. Seven and a half minutes of burbling, radiophonic machine music, with an intermittent rattly drum machine that sounds like drawing pins being shaken in a biscuit tin and eventually uncharacteristically euphoric, rising synth chords. There's a lovely long fade out to the end too. Available at Bandcamp for free/ pay what you want. 

Today is May Day, the bank holiday that celebrates worker's rights and always seems to promise the start of summer. Last year Pye Corner released a track to mark this, the six minutes and fifty three seconds long, deeply dark/ darkly deep trip of Mayday Acid that would give any Maypole dancing ceremonies a very different edge. 

Mayday Acid

Seven Hours Of The Flightpath Estate At Blossom Street

If last Sunday's mix, seven and a half hours of the Flightpath Estate DJs playing at The Golden Lion's AW61 celebrations in April, wasn't enough for you our outing at Blossom Street Social two weeks previously has just gone up on Mixcloud too- me, Martin, Dan and guest Rob Fletcher playing a seven hour fifteen minute vinyl only set on the afternoon and evening of 17th March. The full set can be found at Blossom Street Social's Mixcloud. It was the first time a test pressing of our album got played out in the wild, exciting for us even if it didn't exactly stop the traffic in Ancoats. In the end we played five tracks from it- Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s, Rude Audio, Hardway Bros, Andy Bell's cover of Smokebelch and The Light Brigade's Human : Remains. 

Rob Fletcher was the man behind Herbal Tea Party, a 90s clubbing institution in Manchester. It started out at the New Ardri in Hulme and moved to Rockworld, midweek techno and electronic music nights that hosted gigs by Andrew Weatherall, Sabres Of Paradise playing live, Orbital, Fabio Paras, The Drum Club, Sven Vath, Psychick Warriors Of Gaia, Justin Robertson and David Holmes among the guests. Rob's got an exhibition at Electric in Chorlton to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Herbal Tea Party- fliers, posters, tickets plus some recordings of sets and gigs- which has its opening night this Thursday. If you're in the area, pop down and say hello. 

The set from Blossom Street is a live recording, the Tascam plugged directly into the decks and mixer so there are a few glitches and errors- the sound levels were a bit variable, deck two seeming to drop down in volume at times and the odd technical error here and there (one of us accidentally turning a turntable off at one point and another thinking a record was playing when they were hearing it through the headphones only). Some of the mixing may be a bit hit and miss too; mine especially. If it's perfection you're after, we may not be the people you're looking for. Our tune selection however...

Martin

• Lionrock - Rock Steady Romance
• Innervisions - Mermaids

Rob

• Craven Faults - Deipkier
• Detroit Escalator Co. - Psalm
• Chapterhouse - Alpha Phase (Retranslated by Global Communication) 

Adam 

• Sedibus - Seti (Pt. 2) 
• Coyote - Cirrus 
• Brian Eno - An Ending (Ascent) 

Martin 

• Air - Modulor Mix 
• Purple Penguin - Memphis
• Biome - Skafter 

Rob

• Two Lone Swordsmen - Big Man Original
• The Irresistable Force - The Lie-In King 
• Pye Corner Audio - Exhumed 

Adam

• Tranquility Bass - They Came In Peace
• Four Tet - Loved 
• Coyote - Western Revolution

Martin

• Mad Professor & Chuck D - At Least The American Indians Know Exactly How They've Been Fucked Around 
• Craig Bratley ft Amy Douglas - No In Between (Ashigaru Dub) 
• Don Letts - Outta Sync (David Holmes Remix Edit) 

Rob

• Drum Club - Alchemy (D-Fex Dub)
• The Clash - Justice Tonight / Kick It Over
• Leftfield - Release The Pressure (The Desert Edit) 

Dan

• Mode - Lo-Fi Odyssey (Stallions Remix)
• Vanishing Twin - Cryonic Suspension May Save You Life 
• The Circling Sun - Spirits, Pt.2 

Adam

• Panda Bear & Sonic Boom - Whirlpool Dub (Adrian Sherwood Reset In Dub Version)
• The Clash - Bankrobber / Robber Dub 
• JIM - Phoenix (Crooked Goth) 

Martin

• Hedford Vachal - Toys 
• Hiem ft Roots Manuva - DJ Culture (Hiem 2013 Remix)
• The Asphodells - We Are The Axis (Daniel Avery Remix) 

Rob

• Glok - That Time Of Night (Hardway Bros Meet Monkton Uptown)
• The Shamen - Lightspan (Renegade Soundwave Mix) 
• Orbital - Midnight (Live) 

Dan

• Trevor Jackson - Lumiline 
• Hardway Bros - Theme For Flightpath Estate
• The Asphodells - Never There (Hardway Bros Remix) 

Adam

• Rheinzand - Porque 
• The Durutti Column - The Together Mix
• David Holmes - It's Over If We Run Out Of Love 

Martin

•  It's Immaterial - Driving Away From Home (Jim's Tune) 
• Talking Heads - Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On) 
• Anthony Teasdale - Deep In The Forest Something Stared 

Rob

• The Liminanas - The Mirror 
• The Primitive Painter - Hope 
• Golden Bug & The Liminanas - Variation Sur 3 Bancs 

Dan

• Patrick Cowley - Jungle Orchids 
• Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s - Curtains Twitch On Peaks 
• Richard Norris - Pagan Dub

Adam

• Pete Wylie - Sinful (Tribal)
• Jo Sims - Bass – The Final Frontier (David Holmes Remix)
• Primal Scream - Uptown (Long After The Disco Is Over) 

Martin

• DAF - Brothers (Mix Gabi)
• Massimiliano Pagliara - It's A Lately Thing
• Black Strobe - Innerstrings 

Rob

• Two Lone Swordsmen - Glide By Shooting
• The Disco Evangelists - A New Dawn (Back To The World) 
• Headfunk - Dawn Til Dusk

Dan

• Rude Audio - Running Wild
• Llewellyn - These Days (Don't Make Me Wait)
• The Light Brigade - Human : Remains 

Adam

• Coyote -  Lonely 
• Andy Bell - Smokebelch II

Martin

• Andrew Weatherall - Ghosts Again
• The Asphodells - Another Lonely City
• Bjork - One Day (Springs Eternal Mix)
• Rae & Christian - Swansong (2 Lone Swordsmen Dub)
• Two Lone Swordsmen - Rico's Helly (Re-Tailored By Nourizadeh And Teasdale) 
• Woodleigh Research Facility - Yaldabaoth 
• Andrew Weatherall - Kicking The River 
• The Asphodells - A Love From Outer Space
• Public Image Ltd. - Careering 
• Throbbing Gristle - Distant Dreams Pt. Two

V.A. Saturday

Following on from Wednesday's post about Penguin Cafe Orchestra's Music For A Found Harmonium, today's various artist compilation is the 1994 that made it widely available to the clubbing generation, Cafe del Mar Volumen Uno, a double album compiled by legendary DJ from the titular beach front cafe, Jose Padilla. The Cafe del Mar series ran and ran, up to Volumen Veintitres (Volume 23- there's that number again) plus some Best Ofs, Dreams, something called the Chillhouse Mixes plus some anniversary editions. It spawned the chill out genre, double CD sets to stick on while relaxing at home in the mid- 90s. We shouldn't lay the blame for all of this at the Cafe del Mar series- what came after is not the fault of those who came first- and besides Volume 1 of Cafe del Mar is a genuinely brilliant compilation, a VA classic, a perfect selection of tracks. Volumen Dos was very fine too and the subsequent ones all feature some really good tracks- you can get up to Volumen Cinco before running into diminishing returns. 

Volumen Uno is very much an ambient/ ambient house affair, with some definitive tracks, utterly essential whether heard watching the sun go down on the White Isle or coming up after a night out that ended up in a car park in Wigan in winter. It opens with Jose's own Agua, found sounds, hand drums, pan pipes and then a warm bubble bath of synths. It's followed by William Orbit's The Story of Light, six minutes of weightless drift, house rhythms eventually kicking in, chimes, wordless vocals- global ambient.

The Story Of Light

Sabres Of Paradise close side one with Smokebelch (Beatless Mix). I've written about this track before, one of those songs that has soundtracked my life in all sorts of ways- we played it at the graveside when we buried Isaac. When we did the Sabresonic Q&A at The Golden Lion in November Jagz and Gary spoke about the making of the track. It feels like it's a fundamental part of me.

Side two has Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Sun Electric's Sundance (like standing in warm rain) and Leftfield's mighty Fanfare Of Life, ambient/ dub in excelsis. Side three gives us Sisterlove's Balearic meditation The Hypnotist and then Second Hand by Underworld. This track was trailed on the sleeve as exclusive to the compilation. Underworld were at the very top of their game in 1994 and Second Hand is as good as anything else they did, nine minutes of that Underworld synth sound repeating, another wobbling synth on top, a third chirruping, a little guitar motif, everything building very gradually, no rush to hit the runway too soon. At five minutes there's a slight change, a pause almost (although everything keeps playing), some tension, the anticipation that something's about to happen, and then at six minutes twenty the kick drum starts thumping, a snare and whooosh, off we go. 

Second Hand

Side three finishes with Ver Vlads' Crazy Ivan, all drama and stormclouds. Then we're onto side four with A Man Called Adam's wondrous Estelle, Obiman's On The Rocks and finally Tabula Rasa's Sunset At The Cafe Del Mar takes us home, a track that is less a piece of music and more a feeling pressed onto vinyl, that ends with a guitar loop and the sound of waves lapping on to the shore.  

Sunset At The Cafe Del Mar

Make It Burn

New from the mighty Tici Taci label comes this three track EP by Mr BC (known in his daily life as Bob Salmond), Make It Burn. There are three mixes/ remixes. The first is the Rave Mix, a seven minute joyride of New Order drums, pulsing sequencers, dive bombing, oscillating synths, stereo panning and squelch... more synths, more kick, more pulse

Label boss Duncan Gray provides the second version, his own remix, a stripped down version with an 80s Cure- at- the- disco bassline, a bouncy topline, synth strings, and after a build up of nearly three minutes, some glorious, life affirming, hands in the air pianos. 

The third version is a remix by Viper Patrol, a version led by some speaker rattling wobbly bass, and after another lengthy build up, more wondrous piano action that manages that trick that great music does- hedonism and dancing with a tinge of melancholy in the chords. 

Both Duncan and Mr BC also appear on the recent Shelter Me- In Crisis album on Paisley Dark, an eighteen track compilation released to raise money for homeless charities and doing a very good job of it. Duncan's The Remote Control Thief, Mr BC's Call To Arms and sixteen others can be found at Bandcamp. Other highlights include a very woozy track from Al Mackenzie, some juddering filth from Hunterbrau and Jezebell's Perfect Din. Today is Bandcamp Friday where more of the money goes to the artists, in this case to the Beats For Beds charity. 

Duncan is preparing for an album release later this year, a solo album currently going under the title Five Fathoms Full and it promises to be a bit special. More news as and when. Last November Duncan put together an eight hour mix to promote the Tici Taci Decade celebrations, ten years of the label with four compilations. It's a masterclass in the long form mix, kickin gin at 90 bpms and rising as Duncan puts it to the giddy heights of 120 bmps- if you like your music chuggy and slinky, electronic and bass- led with kick drums and cowbells and sliding into wonky disco/ house/ ALFOS kind of areas, then you could do a lot worse than click play on this tonight and let it unfold. It's here. 

Moments

This song came my way again at the weekend, on Sunday night as I was getting my head around work the day after I think, a very welcome postcard from 1989 courtesy of J.T. And The Big Family. It led to a train of music in my head, one song leading to another, all links in a late 80s/ early 90s musical chain.

J.T. And The Big Family's Moments In Soul was created and mixed at Strawberry Studios in Stockport, one of many records passing through that studio in the 1980s, the state of the art desk and facilities paid for by 10cc's hit singles and desire to have a good studio to record in close to home and not have to go to London to make records. J.T. And The Big Family were Italian and created Moments In Soul largely from samples- the two you'll pick up on straight away are the synth stabs from The Art Of Noise's ambient classic Moments In Love and the summer  of '89/ '90 shuffle of Soul II Soul's Keep On Movin', plus the very familiar, 'ah yeah' vocal sample, and vocals by an uncredited Susy del Gesso. 

Moments In Soul 

Here's the two main source samples, Art Of Noise and their 1986 masterpiece, a song that in 12" form is one the 1980s best moments.

Moments In Love

Keep On Movin' was a March 1989 single for Soul II Soul, the second single from Club Classics Vol. One, with Caron Wheeler's vocal and Nellee Hooper and Jazzie B's production. One of those songs from a year when great singles seemed to be released on a weekly basis. 

Keep On Movin'

Moments In Soul was a top ten hit and a summer of '89 classic, a slowed down chugger giving dancers a few minutes of respite from the higher bpm tracks. The provenance of all those samples and their sources takes in a list of artists including Biz Markie, Toots And The Maytals, The O'Jays, Bobby Byrd, Foxy Brown and Grand Central Station (whose The Jam provided Soul II Soul with their drum break). 

Moments In Soul fits perfectly with many other dance records from the period not least this one, another chart smash. Tom's Diner was a 1990 hit for DNA and Suzanne Vega, with a Soul II Soul drum break, this time from Back To Life, with an a capella vocal from 1981 laid over the top. It was done originally without Suzanne's knowledge or permission, Tom and Neal from DNA chopping the vocal up into little bits, sampling it and then re- assembling it with drums, bass, some string stabs and piano. 

Tom's Diner

In 1991 Electronic, Bernard Sumner and Johnny Marr's band that was something of a bid to break out of the shadows of their two bigger bands, released Feel Every Beat, a single from their debut, self- titled album. DNA remixed it for the CD single- there are lots of guitars courtesy of Mr Marr, some big piano house chords, another shuffling DNA drum beat and Bernard's rather sweetly sung vocals, 'we don't need to argue/ we just need each other'. Bernard also raps (and gets away with I think), a vaguely coded response to the criminalisation of rave culture and free parties.   

Feel Every Beat (DNA Mix)

Music For A Lost Spring

It's May today. It doesn't feel like May, it feels like it's been winter forever, that New Year and January can only have been a few weeks ago and that the spring is still weeks or months away. The sun occasionally shows itself but the wind and rain are never far away, the blossom appeared a few weeks ago and there's the hint of green on the trees but it does not feel like it is May. 

One f last year's albums that I missed and caught up with a while ago was Rain Before Seven... by Penguin Cafe, an album that lives in a world where alternative music, folk and classical crossover, traditional and classical acoustic instruments but with a sound and style that could easily fit in to an ambient/ alternative set or gig. Penguin Cafe's leader Arthur Jeffes recorded the album with a post- Covid, post- lockdown optimism in mind, and much of the ten instrumental tracks have that feel, a rhythm and a bounce, a giddiness or lightness that suggest something new, rebirth maybe. 

The standout track for me is Galahad, written in a 15/ 8 time signature and a tribute to Arthur's much loved dog of that name.

Galahad

Post- Covid means different things to different people. It lives on with us following Isaac's death from Covid in November '23 in a way that may be different for other people. But Rain Before Seven... definitely has a feel and a sound I can recognise and identify with. Spring? Yes please. 

Arthur's father Simon Jeffes was the founder of the original Penguin Cafe Orchestra, an avant/ classical/ pop/ folk outfit formed way back in the 70s who fond some success in the 1980s and 90s. Simon's vision for the PCO came to him while hallucinating with food poisoning in France in 1972. One of their tracks, their best known, is Music For A Found Harmonium- named after Simon found a harmonium in a back street in Kyoto while touring Japan in 1982. It's a lively, affecting, ascending and descending instrumental, a reel, catchy as you like and always guaranteed to raise a smile. It crossed over in all sorts of places, eventually finding its way into the DJ sets of Jose Padilla and Alfredo in Ibiza. It's a song we became a little obsessed with in the early/ mid 90s, especially when it was included on the first Cafe del Mar compilation and we got hold of a copy, playing it when returning from nights out, the hypnotic riff circling round and round our rented flat.

Music For A Found Harmonium

PCO released a best of in 1996 (a year before Simon Jeffes sadly died from a brain tumour). Along with the original version was a cover of Music For A Found Harmonium by Patrick Street, the jig and reel element taken up by the Irish folk band.  I love both versions. It's since been used in films and (inevitably) in adverts.

Music For A Found Harmonium (Patrick Street Version)

Insanely Beautiful

Long time Bagging Area favourites Fluke are back, out of the blue and a long hiatus, with a new single called Insanely Beautiful. It has a big sound and production, Jon Fugler's vocals up front, 'just trying to do the best that we can do', over piano and a wall of synths and sound. It's a very welcome return to form that sits alongside their 90s work- Philly, Slid, Joni, Thumper, Electric Guitar, Slap It, Groovy Feeling, not to mention all those hyper- dancefloor oriented, wigged out remixes of people like Bjork and World Of Twist- without repeating themselves, and feels totally modern. 

If that wasn't enough one of my favourite remix teams, Hardway Bros  and Monkton aka Sean Johnston and Duncan Gray, are on hand to extend an already long track into an even longer one- the Hardway Bros Meets Monkton Uptown Mix is a chuggy, trippy, low slung groove with a bassline that finds the absolute centre of the sweet spot, a remix that goes on and on and on.....

Monday's Long Song

 

Richard Norris' tribute to Andrew Weatherall came out on 6th April, what would have been Andrew's 61st birthday. It's a lovely piece of music, seven minutes of drum machine propulsion, dancing synths and pulsing sequencers, all soft glow euphoria tinged with the double edged sword of what and who has been lost. Buy Weatherall's Last Stand and the alternative version, the No Pads Dub at Bandcamp. 

I'm reading Richard's autobiography- Strange Things Are Happening- and am only a few chapters in. It's the mid- 80s and Richard has gone to Liverpool University (I went in '88 so we almost overlapped). By this point, his late teens, he has already been in two bands, had records played by John Peel, sold out 1000 copies of a single through Rough Trade, been involved with two record labels, one in London and in his home town St Albans, been on the fringes of various club nights and on arriving in Liverpool started a psyche/ freakbeat night at a nightclub in town. We've not even hit the acid house days yet and Richard's crammed more in than most people manage. 

Seven And A Half Hours Of The Flightpath Estate At AW61

Yesterday saw the latest installment in the continuing adventures of our album, Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 1. Every step along the way has been a leap into the unknown and it has exceeded our expectations at every stage, from David Holmes saying 'yes' to Justin Robertson sending us the first piece of music to the rest of the tracks coming in to Andy Bell at the eleventh hour sending us his cover of Smokebelch to Rusty's beautiful artwork to the first run of 500 copies selling out in a day to Lauren Laverne playing some of the tracks on 6 Music and making it compilation of the week to the actual physical records arriving to it appearing on Piccadilly Records website a couple of weeks ago... on and on it's gone, jaw dropping at every turn. Last week when I went to see ACR at Soup I called in at Piccadilly Records and was massively excited to see our album in the racks. Then, entering the venue, the man in front of me had a copy in his carrier bag. Yesterday, another amazing moment- Piccadilly Records gave us a full window display. 

I've been buying records from this shop in three different city centre locations, since the late 80s. They are my first choice of shop for new music. To see thirty six copies of our album in the window was a fairly mind blowing experience. Me, Dan and Martin from The Flightpath Estate and Matt from The Golden Lion all attended- and here we are (left to right, Dan, me, Martin, Matt. Yes, Matt is bringing the average age down a bit). Twenty copies of the album went to Piccadilly but I believe they've all gone now. Ten went to Vinyl Exchange over the road (another shop I've been buying records from for decades). 

With this long running Sunday mix series I usually try to come in at around thirty to forty minutes, occasionally going up to an hour. Today's mix comfortably tops any and every Sunday mix for running time, seven and a half hours of tracks and songs played by us at The Golden Lion at AW61 at the start of April. We played from Saturday afternoon to evening, kicking off at about 2pm with Baz, taking an hour each (my set ended with the AW61 auction and raffle, the first time I've DJed to support an auction of Andrew Weatherall's belongings which included a mug, some cufflinks and his stash tin). At about 7pm we began to play back to back, three tracks each and then two each, rotating on and off. It was brilliant fun, a wonderful experience. The sets weren't recorded but we've done our best to re- create them since. It's not entirely as was played- there are a few things missing that are currently unreleased and which can't be distributed more widely just yet (including one that's missing that may well be one of the tracks for what will hopefully be Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 2 but I'll say no more about that at the moment). Also, in my three I played David Holmes' remix of Sylvia by Lisa Moorish. I hadn't been paying enough attention to notice that Mark had played it earlier so to avoid repetition I've taken that out and replaced it with David's remix of X- Press 2 (which I had in my bag and was planning on playing later but didn't). Some of our memories are a little sketchy in places but it's fairly close to what we played between 2pm and 9.30pm on Saturday 6th April at The Golden Lion in Todmorden before Sean Johnston and Duncan Gray took over and lifted the roof tiles.

The entire seven and a half hour set is at Mixcloud here. I have an mp3 of it which is a whopping 1GB file and too big to host at my usual file hosting service. I've uploaded into WeTransfer and it will be live for a week from today if you want to download it. I haven't managed to recreate the auction and raffle- that really was a 'you had to be there' thing. It took place between me playing A Mountain Of One's Star (GLOK Starlight Dub) and David Holmes' Emotionally Clear and you'll just have to use your imagination or your memory, but it looked like this...

The Flightpath Estate Live At AW61 

Barry

• Two Lone Swordsmen - The Crescents
• Barry Woolnough - Great Father Spirit In The Sky
• Manfred Mann - Just For Me
• Angel Corpus Christi - Dream Baby Dream
• Chris & Cosey - October (Love Song) (86 Version)
• The Prophets - Was Alive
• Minami Deutsch - Sunrise, Sunset
• Trash Kit - Every Second
• Tav Falco Panther Burns - Master Of Chaos
• White Williams - Route To Palm
• Noema - One (Kalabrese Re-Jam)
• Johnny Waleen - Mystery Train
• M&M Hardway Bros - Acid Edit
• Andy Bell - Smokebelch II

Martin

• Andrew Waite- Smokebelch (Final Fanfare Mix)
• Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Love Letter
• Joshua Idehen - Learn To Swim Pt 2
• Lee Perry - Future Of My Music
• groundsound - Trod
• Alev & Jas - A World Beyond
• Kreidler - Mount Mason
• Golden Bug ft The Liminanas - L'effet
• Mildlife - Chorus
• Two Lone Swordsmen - Get Out Of My Kingdom (unreleased demo) 
• Sorcerers - Yasuke In Roppongi
• Phil Kieran - Atlantic
• Leo Hellden & Rocket Mike - Strange
• Ashley Casselle - Wannabee (Andrew Weatherall unreleased remix)

Adam

• Coyote - Western Revolution
• Durutti Column - Bordeaux Sequence
• Psychederek - Test Card Girl
• Four Tet - Loved
• Rick Cuevas - The Birds
• Biosphere - En- Trance
• Underworld - 8 Ball
• Wixel plays Sonic Youth - Expressway To Yr Skull (Long Champs Bonus Beats)
• This Mortal Coil - Edit To The Siren
• Bjork - One Day
• James Holden - Common Land
• A Mountain Of One - Star (GLOK Starlight Dub)
• David Holmes and Raven Violet - Emotionally Clear

Dan

• Fragile X - Initial Conditions (0.506)
• Sabres Of Paradise - Duke of Earlsfield (LFO Mix)
• Toy - Dead & Gone (Andrew Weatherall Remix)
• Bedford Falls Players - Cosmosapien Revisited (The Long Champs Remix)
• Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s - Curtains Twitch On Peaks
• Jah Division - Heart And Soul Dub
• Adrian Roman - Thoughts Against Death
• MOY - Sunrise (live)
• Deutsche Wertarbeit - Auf Engelsflugein
• Golden Age - Lives Of Angels 
• Jah Division - Division Dub

Mark

• 100 Poems - Joyness Magnificent (We'll Find The Light Together)
• Zeb The Spy From Cairo - Alladin Dub
• Coyote (Featuring Rolo McGinty) - Marijuana
• 10:40 - The Engineer
• International Observer - Saturday Night In Camden Town
• Against All Logic - Cityfade
• Lisa Moorish - Sylvia (David Holmes Dub)
• Rude Audio - Swamp Ting (Unmastered/Unreleased - out in the next few months)
• Bedford Falls Players - Agent Cooper Coffee Dreams
• Supereal - Body Medusa (The Leftfield Dub Mix)
• Franz Ferdinand - Stand On The Horizon (Rude Audio's Massive Re-edit)
• Music For Swinging Mothers - Everyday
• David Bowie- Ashes to Ashes (speed garage bootleg)
• In Dada - Uptown (Crooked Man's Dubtown Mix)

Martin

• Domenic Cappello - Mushroom Waltz
• The Light Brigade - Human : Remains
• Andrew Weatherall - Liar With Wings (Mat Carter & Ian Weatherall Unreleased Remix)

Adam

• C.A.R. - Anzu
• Orbital, David Holmes and Mike Garry: Tonight In Belfast
• X-Press 2 ft. Kele Okoreke: Phasing You Out (David Holmes Remix)

Dan

• Psychederek - Tongue Tied (Moodymanc's Listen To Me Remix)
• Adrian Roman - I Think It’s Not You 
• Alter Ego - Beat the Bush (Ewan Pearson Slow Nrg Remix Edit)

Martin

• Man Power - Maybe Even Never
• Yuksek ft. Luedji Luna - Santas Almas Benditas (Red Axes Remix)
• Wah Together - I'm A Swimmer (Friends In Town Remix)

Dan

• Rude Audio - Running Wild
• Llewelyn - These Days (Don't Make Me Wait)
• Glok - That Time Of Night (Hardway Bros Meet Monkton Uptown Dub)

Martin

• New Order - Vanishing Point (Rich Lane Cotton Dub)
• Jain - Makeba (T-Bone Edit)

Mark

• Bedford Falls Players - Beautiful Chaos (Dub Mix)