From Slough To San Francisco

Out today, remixes of five tracks from Duncan Gray's Five Fathoms Full album which came out last year, a chuggy cosmic disco delight from the heart of Slough. Five Fathoms Further is the hundredth release on Tici Taci which is an achievement in itself. The remixes take Duncan's sound and colour palette as the starting point and head outwards. Meat Katie remix the title track, adding a vicious kick drum, a throbbing bassline and some haste to proceedings. 

Bagging Area favourites Number (an extra- curricular outfit for Red Snapper's Ali Friend and Rich Thair where they get to explore punk- funk/ dark disco) take on Hot Jupe and send it to early 80s New York, the rubber band bassline sounding like it's been listening to ESG and ACR and the sampled voice could straight from an NYC radio station. Lovely post- punk bump and grind.

Jack Butters remixes In The Attic, high calibre machine funk bringing distorto guitar, tabla and fuzz synth bass. Mr BC's version of Greenville heads for the cosmic- disco after party, widescreen, robotic synth action. Finally Justin Drake takes on Shark Bumps, thudding kick drum and rumbling bass suddenly lit up by synths and sparkles. There are excerpts at Soundcloud and the full Five Fathoms Further can be found at Tici Taci. 

Over in San Francisco DJ, musician and producer Cole Odin has launched a new project called Joy Theatre, a label and a production house for the Bay Area. The six track album opens up with an already released piece of music, the seven minute majesty that is Psychemagik's remix of Cole's Dawn's Approaching- blissed out SF cosmische that never stops giving with chuggy drums, angelic vocals, big piano chords. Cole wrote Dawn's Approaching as a tribute to Underworld's Rez and when the synth squiggle appears in the third minute you'll hear why. A welcome re- release. 

There are five further tracks on Joy Theatre. Babylon Black is a dark disco delight from two Bay Area producers, Buna Babillions and Corey Black. Evil Eyes is bass led party music. Jesse Fahnestock is well known round these parts as one half of Jezebell and all of 10:40. In the 90s Jesse lived in San Francisco and DJed at Bulletproof, an influence on Cole. Jesse appears on Joy Theatre under his own name, Jesse Black Fahnestock, with a track called Quienes Son, eight minutes of dub- disco with snakey horns working their way in and some of Jesse' signature production sounds. 

Over on side two there are more Bay Area tracks and artists- D- Freq by Sweetdique starts out like the theme from an 80s teen movie but when things have gone very dark indeed and then turns into a deep, slo mo joyride. The Arturian gives up Break Free, shimmering cosmic sounds with thudding drums and bass, flashes of synth blazing across the skies. Finally Jamel Lee closes the album with I Remember The Sun- the sound of children playing, deep house drums, synth chords always looking upwards and a spoken word vocal about the sunlight. 

Vinyl available here. 

Protection

We've been away for a couple of days this week, a trip to North Yorkshire to Harrogate and York. One of the in- car entertainment CDs I took was Massive Attack's second album, Protection. Released in September 1994, three years after Blue Lines re- wrote the book for British reggae/ soul/ rap, in many ways Protection is the equal of that debut- Tricky had gone (except for an appearance on Karmacoma) but 3D, Mushroom and Daddy G were still writing great music that skipped across boundaries and invented a new one, something defiantly their own. An entire genre, trip hop, grew up in their wake. Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt appear on two songs including the magisterial title track, Horace Andy contributes vocals (again), Nellee Hooper's production is first rate (again), and songs like Karmacoma, Eurochild and Spying Glass are as good as any on Blue Lines. On Sunday driving up the A1 the pair with vocals from Nicolette sounded superb...

Three

Three is the third track (obvs), opens ominously (also obvs) with a sampled voice shouting 'Three three three' and then Nicolette's voice glides in, 'Three, my lucky number/ and fortune comes in threes'. Three is the sound of a band in total control- synths, rattling drums and tension and Nicolette's distinctive vocal.

She sings on Sly too, the first single from the album, tucked away on side two of Protection.

Sly

More drama- strings and percussion, slo mo drums, a song that takes shape slowly, with a South Asian feel, an Indian string quartet, South pacific melodies, Nicolette singing about time travel motion and wandering. Dream music. 

None of which helps to explain why they chose to finish such a great album with their cover of Light My Fire, a song that sounded odd at the time and no less so now. Blue Lines concluded with Hymn Of The Big Wheel, one of the best songs they made, one of the best songs of the 90s. Protection ends with Light My Fire, seemingly a deliberate attempt to undercut everything with a sly smile and a wink. 

Standing There

At the end of last week these appeared on Youtube, John Squire's isolated guitar tracks from a handful of Stone Roses songs. Hearing just John's guitar was a bit of a moment, revelatory in some ways. The first one I found was the guitar from Standing Here, a 1989 B-side and a song that is the equal of anything else they released in '89.

Standing Here always sounded like John had been listening to Hendrix, the Are You Experienced? album, and then went straight into the studio to put his guitar down. The opening squall of feedback notes and then the bluesy riffing is pure Hendrix in 1967 filtered through late 80s Manchester. Take Ian's vocals and Mani and Reni's bass and drums away and it's like being in the studio hearing him play. The blissed out coda from three minutes sixteen is even more so, John's chorus pedal and picked out notes repeating (and it is difficult not to hear Ian singing 'I could park a juggernaut in your mouth/ And I can feel a hurricane when you shout/ I could be safe forever/ In your arms as it plays but on it's own it is very lovely). 

The next one I clicked on was the guitar from Bye Bye Badman, even more of a revelation- John barely plays what you think of as the song's melody, his fingers dance around the harmonies and the choppy part at one minute six through to one minute twenty five (the chorus essentially) is wonderful. There are more than one guitar parts on this I think. If one had a sampler and the inclination, one could take parts of this and construct a completely new version, an angelic Balearic sunset version of Bye Bye Badman....

The isolated guitar from Don't Stop is a joy to listen to, the backwards guitar from Waterfall on its own. Less of a jawdropping moment when first heard compared to the two above but lovely to listen to. This one lays bare the recording and writing process- you can imagine them playing the guitar part back, backwards, and then Reni drumming along with it, the cowbell being added, then the bass and then Ian's vocals (John wrote the lyrics by listening to the vocals from Waterfall backwards and transcribing what the backwards swirl suggested). 

The last one is the guitar part from the full nine minute 12" version of One Love from 1990. Shorn of Reni and Mani's huge funked up rhythm parts the guitars sound less typically 1990. John runs through his bag of tricks, riffs and solos, wah wah and distortion, chords for the chorus, runs up and down the neck. The second half where the song becomes an extended jam on disc, funky drummer and piledriving guitar and bass, sounds more experimental in isolation, choppy 70s parts, squeals of feedback, trippy harmonics and muted strings. You could do something else with some of the parts of this- sample them, loop them, reverse them... 

What Does A Rainbow Sound Like?

Small venues are very much the life and soul of music, rooms where the performer and the audience are within a few feet of each other. Manchester has a new arena on the outskirts of town, the massive Co- Op arena. It also has the Kamera Ballroom, a small room above a pub- The Lloyd and Platt- in Chorlton, a room with a stage at one end, a good sound system and space for 100 punters. Robyn Hitchcock was there last Thursday (sold out), Colin Newman from Wire is due at the end of the month and last Wednesday I accompanied Mr. James Clark aka The Vinyl Villain to see Emma Pollock play. 

Emma is a founding member of Glasgow's The Delgados and of Glasgow's Chemikal Underground label, the home many fine bands and records. She has four solo albums to her name since 2007, the most recent- Begging The Night To Take Hold-  out this summer. She was meant to be supported by label mates Broken Chanter but illness had sent Broken Chanter's David MacGregor home to recuperate and hopefully rejoin Emma for five dates in Scotland. Chorlton was the final English date of the tour and the Kamera Ballroom was busy, a devoted audience of indie/ indie- folk fans who Emma seemed delighted to see. She is good company, her between song chat every bit as entertaining as her songs- she tells stories of how and when the songs were written, of playing Manchester with The Delgados, the changes in touring in your 50s (key touring items now include 0% beer, HRT, toiletries and healthcare products), the differences between being in a band and a solo career, keys player Graham Smilie pranging her beloved camper van and more. 

The setlist is drawn from her solo albums, the three musicians kicking up a storm at times and playing quietly when needed. The cello is to the fore, giving the songs a baroque, chamber music feel. Emma plays guitar (and occasional bass) and sings beautifully and to her left there is Graham on keys and bass. The first song tonight, Prize Hunter, starts with the line, 'I didn't know the trouble I was causing/ Didn't know that I could do that', stabs of cello and finger picked guitar, and Emma's cool and clear voice. Future Tree is an early highlight, the line 'too many numbers/ not enough poetry' something of a clarion call. She talks of having had some tough times in the last few years, turmoil and loss, and of finding some clarity recently- both sides of this struggle are reflected in the songs. 

There are songs from all corners of her solo career, Dark Skies, Red Orange Green and I Used To Be A Silhouette, all sounding superb. They decline to leave the stage for an encore, staying on for a few more songs rather than trip over their instruments, hide and then return. They play a superb cover of John Cale's Paris 1919, and then Parks And Recreation from 2015's In Search Of Harperfield. It's a spiky, urgent song, full of energy (and reminiscent of Kristen Hersh's songs), the guitar filling the room before coming to a sudden halt. 

Monday's Long Song

I posted Rowland S. Howard's cover of Talk Talk's Life's What You Make It as part of the first Sunday cover versions mix three weeks ago. It sent me searching for other versions of the song and I remembered this edit that came out in the early summer. Some songs probably shouldn't be tampered with and I might usually think Life's What You Make It is one of them but this has grown on me...

Life's What You Make It (Random House Project Rework)

92 BPM chuggy drums, a wobbly synth sound that is very 2025 and some of Talk Talk's guitars, distorted and isolated, flying around. Mark Hollis' vocal and piano arrive and we're off. The final three Talk Talk albums- Spirit Of Eden, The Colour Of Spring and Laughing Stock- have become standard bearers for a different kind of pop music, something that started out as pop and became a marriage of avant-pop, post rock, ambient and something entirely their own. Life's What You Make It, from 1985's The Colour Of Spring, stands out as the big single, a Balearic/ new wave smash, written partly because the band's management were concerned there was no obvious single on the proposed album. Mark Hollis and Tim Friese- Greene went away, a little reluctantly, and wrote a single- Life's What You Make It. A decent day's work. 

Here's Rowland's version, recorded in 2009 for his Pop Crimes album when he knew had terminal liver cancer which gives him a different take on the lyrics. 

Life's What You Make It

Forty Five Minutes Of Cover Versions Part Three

A third Sunday covers mix for October this time with an 80s indie edge and some repeat offenders from the last two weeks present and correct. Starts out all small hours and hushed, goes noisier, comes down again and finishes where it started with The Velvets, one of the most covered bands. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Cover Versions Part Three

• Cowboy Junkies: Sweet Jane
• Sonic Youth: Superstar
• Primal Scream: Carry Me Home
• The House Of Love: Who By Fire
• Ciccone Youth: Into The Groovey
• World Of Twist: This Too Shall Pass Away
• Red Snapper: Sound And Vision
• R.E.M.: Indian Summer
• Minutemen: Have You Ever Seen The Rain?
• Calexico: Corona
• Paul Quinn & Edwyn Collins: Pale Blue Eyes (Western)

Cowboy Junkies covered Sweet Jane on their magical 1988 album The Trinity Session. The album was famously recorded in Toronto's Church of The Holy Trinity. Their cover was based on the version the Velvets played on their 1969 Live album rather than the one on Loaded. Lou Reed said the Cowboy Junkies take on the song was his favourite, the way the song was meant to be done. 

Sonic Youth featured twice last week and do this week too- their version of Superstar came out on a 1994 tribute to The Carpenters. Richard Carpenter didn't like it at all. Sonic Youth take a blow torch to the song, a huge amount of reverb, one massive piano note, some wobbly guitar sounds and surely nail something true about the song. The Carpenters released it in 1971 with LA session musicians The Wrecking Crew and a toned down, less suggestive lyric ('I can't wait to sleep with you again' was changed to 'be with you again'). The song was written by Bonnie Bramlett and Leon Russell and recorded first by Delaney and Bonnie in 1969, a song about the relationships between rock stars and groupies in the 60s.

Carry Me Home was on Primal Scream's Dixie- Narco EP, a bleak Dennis Wilson song made bleaker still by Primal Scream and Andrew Weatherall while recording at Ardent in Memphis in 1991. Weatherall's production and arrangement is superb, an extension of the Screamadelica sound into darker places. Dennis' song is sung from the point of view of a dying soldier in Vietnam.

Who By Fire is a Leonard Cohen song covered by The House Of Love on a 1991 tribute album, I'm Your Fan- there are loads of 80s/ 90s alt/ indie stars on the album including R.E.M., Pixies, The Lilac Time, Ian McCulloch, Lloyd Cole, Robert Forster, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, James and John Cale. I'm not sure any of them really improve on the original songs. 

Ciccone Youth were a Madonna inspired Sonic Youth side project with Minuteman Mike Watt on bass. Watt was in a bad way after D. Boon's death and what became The White Album was a way to get him playing again. Into The Groovey is a cover of Madonna (obvs) and samples her too. SY loved Madonna in the 80s, they loved Into The Groove. They also covered Robert Palmer's Addicted To Love. 

World Of Twist did a few covers- Kick Out The Jams, She's A Rainbow, Life And Death- and this one, This Too Shall Pass Away, which sits in the middle of side one on their sole album, 1991's Quality Street. Quality Street is a heady stew of psychedelic pop, Northern Soul and late 80s Mancunian indie. The original version of This Too... is a 1964 single by the Honeycombs.

Red Snapper's cover of Bowie's Sound And Vision is on Ban- Di- To, out earlier this year and thoroughly recommended. Red Snapper are a formidable live band and Sound And Vision is a live favourite- I saw them do it at The Golden Lion in 2023.

Indian Summer is a semi- legendary song by Beat Happening, lo fi indie pioneers from Olympia, Washington. The song is a slow burning tale of youth and lust, originally released in 1988. R.E.M.'s cover is from a 2008 single, Hollow Man. I have versions by Spectrum (Sonic Boom), Luna and The Jazz Butcher as well as this one. In fact Spectrum's may be the best version and should probably have been included here- R.E.M. find some late period magic and intensity here though.

Minutemen covered Have You Ever Seen The Rain? on their fourth and final album, 1985's Three Way Tie For Last, a cover of Watt and Boon's teenage heroes Creedence Clearwater Revival. AT two minute thirty seconds long it's an epic by Minutemen standards. D Boon died shortly after the album's release.

Calexico's cover of Minutemen's Corona was on their 2003 masterpiece Feast Of Wire. The original is from 1984's Double Nickels On the Dime, one of D Boon's best songs, a heartfelt protest song for the downtrodden people of mid- 80s Mexico. Calexico played it live and then covered it, adding mariachi horns. Let's forget the fact it became the theme tune to Jackass. 

Back to The Velvets. Paul Quinn and Edwyn Collins covered Lou Reed's Pale Blue Eyes for a one off single in 1984, done for the soundtrack of Alan Horne's Punk Rock Hotel. It's a much loved cover, Edwyn and Paul both sounding as good as they ever did. 

Soundtrack Saturday

Since writing about Tom Waits a week ago I've listened to Rain Dogs more times than at any point since buying it in the late 80s. I've been dipping my toes into other Waits albums too and think I may continue down this route for some time. Rain Dogs also took me back to Jim Jarmusch and his 1986 film Down By Law, a film that had Waits in a starring role and came sandwiched between Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise (1984) and Mystery Train (1989, already covered in this series). 

Down By Law is classic Jarmusch, written and directed by himself and shot in grainy black and white, the first he made with Wim Wenders' cinematographer Robby Muller. The film follows the story of three convicts who escape from a New Orleans jail- Waits, John Lurie (also on the soundtrack) and Roberto Benigni.

Waits' music and slow tracking shots of the city of New Orleans feature heavily. The films follows the jailbreak, discussions about the men's crimes, the interactions between the three convicts and their escape through the swamp to house in the forest occupied by Nicoletta Braschi. It's a neo- noir character study as much as an escape film. 

Tom Wait's song Jockey Full Of Bourbon plays repeatedly as the camera. The song was also on Rain Dogs. Marc Ribot's guitar twangs away, the clanking railway rhythm clatters away and waits mutters about being on the run with another man's wife and being on the corner in the pouring rain

Jockey Full Of Bourbon

As with Mystery Train John Lurie provides the incidental score but much of the film is music free, the naturalistic sound of voices and ambient noise very startling and close up. As in this famous scene...

Tango Til They're Sore, also from Rain Dogs, appears and a pair of early 60s hits, Irma Thomas' It's Raining and Roy Orbison's Crying (the lines said by Waits just before he is stopped by the police while driving). Irma Thomas playing on the jukebox soundtracks this scene, Banigni and Braschi dancing while Waits and Lurie sit at the table watching. Jarmusch uses of music as part of the plot rather than a permanent feature playing behind the action, something that marks Down By Law out very different to many other films both at the time and since. 

Dave Ball

I don't think this will be the only blog celebrating the life of Dave Ball today and marking his death (Wednesday, aged 66). Dave was a pioneering musician in many ways. He was born in Chester and grew up in Blackpool, surrounded by Northern Soul. His keyboard and arranging skills delivered in style with Soft Cell's cover of Gloria Jones' Tainted Love. Dave met Marc Almond while at Leeds Polytechnic and they became the archetypal 80s synth duo- attention grabbing frontman and psychotic looking synth player. Marc faced all kinds of threats from audiences and Dave would happily weigh into the crowd to deal with anyone who was going too far. Soft Cell wrote many fine singles and songs and were early adopters of the 12" mix, making great use of the extra running time. This 1982 single is a highpoint of the period and genre....

Say Hello, Wave Goodbye (12" Extended Version)

Dave's Korg synth is central to the song, a lush and rich piece of synth pop coupled with some wonderfully mournful keyboard runs, woodwind, and Marc's bittersweet vocal, 'Standing in the door of the Pink Flamingo/ Crying in the rain'.

Bedsitter is stunning too, innovative and experimental pop, written from real life and creating mini- films with the music and words. 

Bedsitter (12" Extended Version)

Soft Cell embraced confrontation, Marc's stage presence a visible provocation to 80s homophobes. The pair thrived off it. Dave loved industrial music, a fan of Throbbing Gristle and Suicide, bands who forced you to pick a side. 

After Soft Cell split Dave moved on, playing with Genesis P. Orridge. He played with Psychic TV and through these connections met Richard Norris. They made the Jack The Tab album and at the end of the 80s they became acid house duo The Grid. Richard wrote a long, heartfelt post on social media about Dave yesterday. By coincidence The Grid recently re- released their 1990 single Floatation, a summer of 1990 ambient house classic (which gained a massive Andrew Weatherall remix, the Sonic Swing mix, which added John Squire's guitar from Waterfall to the end). 

To celebrate Floatation's thirty fifth birthday The Grid commissioned some remixes. This one, the Mark Barrott Ibiza Sunrise '90 Rework does exactly what it promises, Dave and Richard's 1990 music repurposed for 2025. 

The Grid had huge success with Swamp Thing and played around the world, a second bite at the cherry for Dave Ball. He produced, played and wrote with Kylie, Gavin Friday, Erasure and remixed David Bowie. Soft Cell reunited. The Grid played again this summer. He died in his sleep on Wednesday after some periods of ill health, one of modern music's unsung heroes, a man who in his words 'lurked in the background' but who did much more than that really. 

RIP Dave Ball. 

Black Bones

Belfast's Black Bones have released a six track album, vinyl only, with four further tracks to come out via a 10" and 7". The six on the self- titled album are to some extent inspired by/ influenced by dub, dub- techno and the underground percussive sounds of early 80s post- punk but this is music that is also very much being produced on its own terms, in its own world. Black Bones are big fans of the work of Andrew Weatherall and his attention to detail and singular sound can definitely be found inside the grooves of the album. 

The only one that exists in an online way is Zanzibar (also at Soundcloud)- it arrives with a subterranean, two note bleep surrounded by a murky hiss, and then a minute in a heavy duty drumbeat thunders in, not a million miles from some of Sabresonic's metallic dub- techno but much tougher and rougher, as if hewn from a cliffside. There's a vocal sample, an echoed chant, and more drums, shunting everything else along. 

On the disc Zanzibar is followed by the industrial dub of Take It Personal and then Warped, which starts out at a crawl with early 90s synth sounds bent out of shape and then kicks into gear with a piston powered breakbeat. The sound of rave gone dark and ominous. Flip the disc over and Voodoo rattles in, percussive and intent on gaining your attention. Persuasion is tougher still, a monkey wrench smacking  apiece of scaffolding in an echo chamber with dub FX and a hissing voice. There are synth stabs and a voice shouting, 'What's this what's this what's this?'. It ends with King Of The South, an abstract Two Lone Swordsmen indebted tribal dub outing, a tiny reminder from across the Irish Sea. 

Edit: the whole thing can be listened to and bought at Bandcamp. 

It's The Song I Hate

Two weeks ago JC at The Vinyl Villain posted Sonic Youth's 1992 single Youth Against Fascism, the CD single version with a mix he picked up second hand some time after the event (one I didn't have either). Youth Against Fascism has taken over in my world ever since, not least during last weekend when approximately seven million Americans marched in cities across the USA against the ever- increasing authoritarianism of Donald Trump's regime. 

There are mid- terms next year when conceivably Congress could swing to the Democrats. Trump keeps deploying the army into cities with Democrat mayors, under the spurious excuse that it's to restore law and order. Trump's acolytes/right hand men, Hegseth and Vance, further stir the pot- see Hegseth's recent demand of loyalty from army chiefs. ICE agents pick up people on the streets without any due reason other than skin colour. Women and people of colour are routinely fired from government posts. Trump pursues his enemies in the courts and orders them removed from the airwaves. 

Sonic Youth's Youth Against Fascism has lost none of its power in the thirty three years since it was released. In fact it only gains it. The version JC posted was this one, a cleaned up version produced by Butch Vig for radio consumption back in the early 90s...

Youth Against Fascism (Clean- Ex Mix)

Kim Gordon's distorted bass riff, four notes pushed hard, and Thurston and Lee's guitars- detuned, drum sticks against the frets- and Steve Shelley's tom tom thumping drumming are exhilarating enough, a powerful smack in the chops for dictators everywhere. Thurston sings of cans of worms, stupid men, the Ku Klux Klan, impotent squirts, fascist twerps and believing Anita Hill- all in all, the sound of resistance. Minor Threat/ Fugazi's Ian MacKaye turned up in the studio to add feedback guitar.

A friend remarked over the weekend that this song and the album it's from (1992's Dirty) were from the point when Sonic Youth had singed to a major label (Geffen) and were perceived in some quarters to have toned their sound down to become commercial. Go back to the cleaned up version of Youth Against Fascism above or this one from the album and see how commercial they sound now in the hyper- commercialised world of pop music in 2025... 

Youth Against Fascism (Album Version) 

In 1992 Sonic Youth played Youth Against Fascism on Italian TV- the band's performance is great, they play it like they truly mean it. As ever with music on TV, the response of the crowd is as much part of the fun. 

Sonic Youth signed to Geffen for 1990's Goo, taking R.E.M.'s move to Warners as a model of how to be on a major and still keep your credibility. In the 80s and 90s, especially in US indie- punk/ hardcore, independence and credibility were everything- to sell out was punk rock death. Signing to a major label carried huge risks. 'Corporate rock sucks' stickers and t- shirts were everywhere, in the UK as well as the US.

Now, in 2025, the war against selling out has long been lost; selling out is an attitude that is very last century. Primal Scream soundtrack Marks and Spencer. London Calling sold British Airways. Unknown Pleasures and Bummed are in Primark. It's a lost cause. The Cult's She Sells Sanctuary currently flogs a betting company's wares- you could argue that The Cult were already corporate rock by 1985 when the single came out but you'd like to think that advertising a gambling company might be a step too far. Apparently not. 

I tut loudly and roll my eyes noisily when 'our music' soundtracks multinational corporations and their products, their adverts reducing our songs to mere content, vintage cool co- opted for capitalism. But, before I get too far on my high horse and try to be too purist about this I should add that when The Clash went to number one in 191 via an association with a Levi's ad I thought it was great, Should I Stay Or Should I Go blasting out of TV and cinema screens worldwide. 

Eight years later I thought this was a superb, tick following tock... 

Meanwhile, to go back to where we started, here's Sonic Youth and some perfume, Marc Jacobs and Teenage Riot combining to make you smell better... just like teen spirit. 

 

Strange Phenomena

Rude Audio, South London dub- chug specialists, are back with a seven track EP to brighten and enliven late October. Opening track MGB1 bounces in, mind bending space disco destined for dance floor action.  North Star Dub is in familiar Rude Audio territory, Sabres style dubbiness, fat bass, chuggy drums and echoing rim shots. Swamp Ting goes further and deeper, downtempo bass and groove with lots going on on top- strings and synths and percussion ricocheting around. No Sleep is shorter, synth judders and whooshes, snatches of chopped up voices, whispers and echoes. Milo On A Hill is even more discombobulated, dubbed out and weirded out, picking up pace and the groove in its second half, the synths and drums sounding like the theme to a 90s sci fi you never watched at the time but binged in the small hours recently. 

Nobix is punctuated by a voice declaring, 'I had a dream last night... when I woke up I remembered it', and then, 'it's gone'. 

Much of this EP sounds like that vocal suggests- memories of a night out, thumping bass and drums, speakers rattling, a haze of people talking and dancing, glasses chinking, noises from the street bleeding in when the door opens, synths and mirror balls. The EP finishes with a Rich Lane remix of Milo On A Hill, slowed down and with some killer dub bounce and melodica. Strange Phenomena, highly recommended. Get it at Bandcamp. 

Monday's Long Song

Two years ago we went for an evening at an old friend's house. Like me he's an inveterate music lover and record buyer. The record spinning on his turntable when we arrived was The Ecstatic Music Of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda, a double album of music made by Alice Coltrane while at the Sai Anantam Ashram in California.

Even though I was only half listening it was a bit of a moment, this beguiling devotional/ spiritual music, a collision of synth drones, harp and Indian chanting, ensemble voices, melody and space. It left quite an impression on me. I ordered the album the next day. It's impossible not to feel uplifted by the ten tracks, some short and some very long. One reviewer (for Pitchfork) said the recordings feel like 'prayers for humanity' and that may be a tad pretentious but it also rings true. 

This one is nearly ten minutes long and like the rest of the album (assembled from a variety of cassette recordings in the 80s and 90s) has an energy unlike almost any other music.  

Keshava Murahara

Forty Five Minutes Of Cover Versions Part Two

Last Sunday's cover versions mix worked well enough for me to undertake a second. I started with Jah Divison and went from there, a succession of dub and reggae covers, wasn't happy with it and scrapped it and started again, setting off again with Jah Division but heading in a noisier, more guitar laden direction, all a bit more shambolic. Then it slows down and blisses out before kicking up a storm again for the finish. 

After I posted last Sunday's mix Steve from Andres y Xavi messaged me to say he had a series of cover version mixes called Under The Covers, up at Mixcloud. The latest, his ninth, covers a lot of ground from Lady Blackbird to The Droyds with Isaac Hayes, Bobby Womack and Jose Feliciano among the people sandwiched in between. Plenty to enjoy. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Cover Versions Part Two

• Jah Division: Dub Will Tear Us Apart
• The Fall: Mr Pharmacist
• The Jesus And Mary Chain: Surfin' USA
• Sonic Youth: I Know There's An Answer
• Sonic Youth: Computer Age
• Hardway Bros: 1979 GLOK Remix
• Andy Bell: Our Last Night Together
• The Liminanas: Ou Va La Chance
• The Vendetta Suite: Who Do You Love?
• Fontaines DC: 'Cello Song

Jah Division is a Russian reggae band, formed in Moscow in 1990. This is what it says in Wikipedia. It also say that the founder of Jah Division, Gera Morales, was the son of Leopold Morales, an associate of Che Guevara's. Elsewhere (Bandcamp) it says Jah Divison are from Brooklyn and their 2004 12" of four covers of Joy Division songs is their sole release. According to Bandcamp Jah Divison features members of Onieda and Home, began as a joke and the four tracks were recorded in the shadow of the Williamsburg Bridge. Take your pick. None of which stops Dub Will Tear Us Apart from being a genius cover version whoever recorded it. 

The Fall's Mr Pharmacist is a cover of a song by Los Angeles 60s psyche garage band The Other Half, a 1986 Fall single from the Brix period and produced by John Leckie. The original was on an early 80s Nuggets compilation. Mr Pharmacist was also on The Fall's Bend Sinister album, an opinion splitting album derided by Mark E. Smith and John Leckie.

Surfin' USA was a Darklands outtake, all feeedback, rough and rowdy drums, breaking glass, East Kilbride sneers and TV preachers. The Reid brothers knew how to cover a song. The original was a 1963 Beach Boys single...

... and I Know There's An Answer was a 1966 Beach Boys album song (from Pet Sounds). Sonic Youth's cover comes from 1989, recorded for a Brian Wilson tribute album released in 1990 and sung by Lee Renaldo- no one else could sing it according to Lee who says J. Mascis helped out in the studio too. Appropriately squally and rather wonderful. 

Sonic Youth also recorded a Neil Young cover in the same time frame for a Neil Young tribute album, The Bridge (a superb album). They chose a song from Neil's most misunderstood album, Trans. Like the Mary Chain, Sonic Youth instinctively know what makes a good cover version. Computer Age is a gem in the SY back catalogue. 

Sean Johnston's Outre Mer label is an outlet for Hardway Bros recordings. In January 2024 he released an EP called My Friends which included a cover of Smashing Pumpkins 1979 (a song which is itself pretty much a New Order tribute). A remix EP saw GLOK tackle 1979, and has a massively overloaded guitar sound that makes you check your speakers are OK. 

Andy Bell's covers EP Untitled Film Stills contains four covers- Our Last Together is an after hours beauty, impressionistic, woozy and moving. Well, it moves me. 

The Liminanas featured in last week's mix and they're back today with a song from this year's album Faded. Ou Va La Chance is a cover of a Francois Hardy song, closing the album in fine style.

The Vendetta Suite are from Belfast and their 2021 album The Kempe Stone Portal is packed with electronic, acid house, Balearic and cosmische sounds plus this slowed down, electronics and feedback rumble version of Bo Diddley's classic (also covered by The Mary Chain back in the 80s). The Vendetta Suite's Gary Irwin goes all the way back to David Holmes and Iain McCready's nights at Belfast's Art College in 1990 and has worked with Holmes on and off ever since. 

Fontaines DC's cover of 'Cello Song has featured in at least three previous Sunday mixes- a Nick Drake one, a Fontaines one and an end of 2023 mix. I make no apologies for its re- appearance here. They take Nick Drake's 1969 song, a beautiful poetic song and retune it, turning it into a modern rock 'n' roll thrill with Grian Chatten finding new meaning in Nick's words. Both versions, original and cover, struck me quite profoundly in the time since Isaac' died, these lines in particular...

'For the dreams that came to you when so young
They told of a life where spring is sprung

So forget this cruel world where I belong
I'll just sit and wait and sing my song

But while the Earth sinks to its grave
You sail to the sky on the crest of a wave'

And that's where we're ending today. 

Soundtrack Saturday

Soundtrack Saturday has been running all year and I've got this far- mid- October- without mentioning Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino had a big impact in the world of cinema 90s and if nothing else gave soundtracks a huge shot in the arm (maybe shot in the chest would be more appropriate given the famous scene in Pulp Fiction where they revive an overdosed Uma Thurman). Today's soundtrack isn't from a Tarantino film but instead Steven Soderbergh's 1998 movie Out Of Sight. Soundtrack albums with several revived pop culture songs with dialogue from the film spliced in are surely indebted to Tarantino and the popularity of his soundtracks for Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill and Jackie Brown.

Out Of Sight is based on an Elmore Leonard novel, a crime caper about a bank robber, Foley, played by George Clooney. Soderbergh said that Out Of Sight was a deliberate move on his part to leave the arthouse world ('arthouse ghetto' I think he may have described it as) and make a blockbuster. 

The soundtrack was scored by David Holmes who Soderbergh hired to do just a few scenes but they clicked and Holmes stayed around to do the whole film, working round the clock to meet the deadlines. In keeping with the film's influences Holmes drew on other soundtrack artists and their work- Lalo Schiffrin and Quincy Jones- plus a slew of American funk and jazz artists. The soundtrack is best listened to in one hit, it makes perfect sense as a single piece, fifteen songs, nine original Holmes pieces with dialogue from the film and two songs from The Isley Brothers and one each from Dean Martin, Walter Wanderly and Mungo Santamaria. You can probably pick the CD up for pennies.

It's Your Thing opens with Clooney giving instructions to a bank teller who he's robbing and then fades into The Isley Brothers and their 1969 song.

 It's Your Thing 

I Think You Flooded It is by Holmes but starts with the sound of a car engine not starting and voices from the film, followed by a jazzy Holmes instrumental.

I Think You Flooded It

Watermelon Man is a Herbie Hancock song, 1962 bop jazz. The version of Out Of Sight is by Mungo Santamaria, a 1963 hit for the Afro- Cuban percussionist. 

Watermelon Man

Rip Rip is another David Holmes piece, more dialogue, wah wah bass and organ, guitar licks and funky drums. 

Rip Rip

David Holmes has worked with Soderbergh often since Out Of Sight- the Ocean's films, No Sudden Move, The Laundromat and this year's Black Bag. David was booked to play The Golden Lion this autumn. Holmes at The Lion is always a great night out- he had to apologise for being double booked. It clashed with his required attendance at a film festival/ awards event in Toronto with Steven Soderbergh which as acceptable reasons for absence go, ranks pretty highly. 

Outside Another Yellow Moon

A conversation about Tom Waits last weekend directed me to this track by Akira The Don, a track with a borrowed vocal, Tom Waits reading Charles Bukowski's The Laughing Heart, a poem about existence, fulfillment and finding light among the darkness- 'Your life is your life/ Don't let it be clubbed into dank submission/ Be on the watch/ There are ways out/ There is light somewhere...'

I read Bukowski's Ham On Rye in the summer, a semi- autobiographical novel based partly on his own teenage and young adulthood in Los Angeles in the 1930s and 40s- it's a grim read in many ways, the young Henry Chinaski not fitting in at school or the private college his father sends him to, and he pulls no punches in his first person description of school brutality, domestic violence, masturbation, alcohol, terrible acne and indifferent doctors and the growing misanthropy of Chinaski (a thinly veiled Bukowski). That Bukowski wrote an existential poem that concludes there is light somewhere is remarkable given how dark much of his writing is. 

The Laughing Heart

Akira The Don adds piano, a jazz club feel and some very lazy hip hop drums, all very sympathetic to Mr. Waits. I then remembered that 100 Poems used the Waits vocal for Song For Claire (Your Life Is Your Life) on their 2024 album Balearic As A System Of Belief. 

It got me looking through my collection for more Tom Waits. I've posted this before but it's always worth a re- post, Tom Waits' Closing Time spliced with Allen Ginsberg reading his poem America, a Ginsberg peak, the young Allen looking around at the nation and his life- 'America/ I've given you all and now I'm nothing'. 

America features the use of a racial slur which was part of Ginsberg's America and very much not acceptable now. 

America (Closing Time)

Tom Waits is in a way one of the last links to the Beats, an artist in the Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs tradition. His bohemian life and scenes from the underworld/ underbelly of American society street poetry seems very 20th century now, a dying art form in some ways. I can't think of many artists existing in the same milieu- those that do, Jim Jarmusch say or Bob Dylan (also a Beat inspired writer), won't be around forever. David Lynch departed earlier this year- his music fitted into a Waitsian world. 

I don't have a huge amount of Tom Waits, I never committed to going the full hog. I used to have Swordfishtrombones on cassette but I didn't replace it after my cassette collection got slimmed down in the 90s, probably something I should rectify. I had a copy of Mule Variations too but can't find it now. Mule Variations came out in 1999- I was amazed it's that long ago. I always loved this piece of weirdness and neighbourly paranoia, What's He Building?

I do have Rain Dogs, Tom's 1985 album, often lauded as one of his best. It's got the full Waits range of carnival music, Weimar oompah, jazz, experimental rock and blues, New Orleans funeral marches, various styles of outsider music stitched into a whole. Rain Dogs was written by Waits in a basement room in Lower Manhattan in a two month period in the mid- 80s. He wandered round the city with a tape recorder taping sounds and noises which he then layered guitars, marimba, trombone, piano, accordion and banjo on top of and made drumbeats out of banging pieces of furniture, drawers from cupboards and cabinets. Sometimes the album's madness, variation and cacophony is too much- I have to be in the mood for it. But peppered among the underbelly pieces and bursts of chaotic noise are some of his best loved songs too- Time, Hang Down Your Head, Downtown Train. 

Clap Hands is the second song on Rain Dogs, with uneven pots and pans percussion and Tom narrating the lives of New York's dispossessed.

Clap Hands

Hang Down Your Head was released as a single, a song with a proper structure that nodded to his earlier work, Waits at his most direct and songwriterly, that gravel voice accompanied by electric guitar. 

Hang Down Your Head

9th And Hennepin finds itself in the gutter with broken umbrellas and dead birds, a girl with a tattooed tear and the train going by, an NYC Beat Generation blues poem. 

9th And Hennepin

Downtown Train is one of his most famous songs, covered by Bob Seger, Rod Stewart and Everything But The Girl. Tom's song has Robert Quine playing a wonderful electric guitar part (Quine turned up at Bagging Area last week playing guitar on Lou Reed's The Blue Mask). Downtown Train has become a classic and for good reason.

Downtown Train

What's In A Name?

Warrington- Runcorn New Town Development Plan, the synth based musical vehicle for Gordon Chapman- Fox, has a new album out, the sixth under the Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan name- Public Works And Utilities. The album buzzes with ideas and invention. A few weeks ago this track came out to promote it, Swift, Safe And Comfortable...

The video and sounds are in sync, the synths and drum machines replicating railway rhythms. This isn't just nostalgia for 60s modernism, concrete and the years of political consensus- Gordon is genuinely angry about the stripping of the UK's infrastructure in the 1980s by the Thatcher governments, the wholesale selling off of our public utilties. Forty years later none of the industries that were sold in the great Thatcherite privatisation scam are better for us as a nation- the services are worse and they're owned for the benefit of shareholders. 

The tracks on the new album are designed to play live, influenced by the tour W-RNTDP undertook last year. They are upbeat, for dancing too as much as listening too. On side B of the album there is a nineteen minute epic The People Matter which fades in slowly with drones, distortion and some horns before finding a cosmische pulsebeat. 

I have a friend who thinks that Warrington- Runcorn New Town Development Plan is a terrible band name, so bad it puts him off listening to them. But I think there are worse band names out there... 

Hello English Teacher!

English Teacher have pulled in some remixes and this one by Daniel Avery is predictably great, Avery building a wall of Stooges- esque guitars onto The World's Biggest Paving Slab. How good is that?

Todmorden's Working Men's Club have done a version too, skeletal acid house crossed with early 80s post- punk. 

And if we're talking about possibly poorly chosen band names Dry Cleaning are about to return with anew album and tour, the eleven song Secret Love (coming early next year). Dry Cleaning's debut, New Long Leg, was one of my favourite albums of 2021, grimy post- punk and flat, non- sequiturs. 

Scratchcard Lanyard

Straight To Tape

Hot on the heels of Leicester's dark synth/ ambient dystopia duo Smoke Test come Rentamax 2000, a retro- futuristic duo devoted to early 80s synth sounds and the humble c90 cassette, the most democratic if imperfect, music format of the 20th century. Rentamax are also railing against Spotify- the format wars may not be over yet! 

Leicester has a history of non- conformism and grass roots pop culture (see the Unglamorous Music Project, a wave of all female punk bands founded by local legend Ruth Miller before her death in October 2023). Rentamax 2000 come in that outsider, grass roots tradition. Their album Straight To Tape is available at Bandcamp where it can be bought digitally and on cassette, ten tracks in forty five minutes, inspired by the then futuristic sounds of the early 80s, tape experiments, synthesizers, Cold War paranoia, Tomorrow's World, TV rental shops, flickering graphics and worn out VHS recordings, the promise of a future that didn't arrive- or maybe it did but then swiftly departed. 

Stakeout is the sound of  a cop chase round a deserted warehouse, cars screeching on gravel and men in polyester trousers giving chase. Rumbelows is mutant instrumental synth pop, Fad Gadget in wind down mode. Tuesday am with synths is this year's most literal track title (I should have posted this yesterday though) and sounds like a New Order/ OMD rehearsal where everyone switched the machines on, went for a cigarette and came back to find a glorious, accidental, repetitious noise. Straight To Tape ends with Ignorance Is Bliss, a seven minute, slo mo, polyphonic synth playground, Kraftwerk's robots running out of juice and powering down. Rentamax 2000's Straight To Tape is here. Join the resistance. 

For some reason, Rentamax also make me think of this...

As mentioned above the Unglamorous Music Project has given birth to over a dozen all female punk bands, women the other side of fifty who to quote Alison Dunne/ Fish, has 'no fucks to give any more about what people think of me'. They write their own music and value prior musical experience less important than enthusiasm. Alison/ Fish's band Boilers is loud, shouty and have something to say, something by middle aged women, a group of people not normally afforded much time near microphones. 

Boilers EP We Are Boilers is at Bandcamp here, five songs recorded live 108 days after forming. Fellow Leciester punk band Bad Toaster are an all female three piece with two EPs of menopausal punk, Burnt Offerings and Sports Bra- shouty, punky, irreverent fun. 

Rocks And Gravel

This year started with Bob Dylan and the film A Complete Unknown and he's coming around it's tail end too with the release of Through The Open Window, the eighteenth edition of The Bootleg Series, this one covering the years 1956- 1963. It includes his earliest recordings but the main focus is the years when he arrives in New York and soaks up folk music, the pre- electric Bob Dylan making his name in the clubs, bars and hangouts. It also includes a full concert from Carnegie Hall, 26th October 1963. There's an eight CD deluxe version (probably let's be honest a bit too much) and a double CD/ four LP edition with a more manageable number of songs. A while ago Rocks And Gravel (already previously released) came out as a trailer for the album...

Rocks And Gravel was recored during the twelve months of sessions for the album that became The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, his second album, released in May 1963. It's difficult to see why Rocks And Gravel didn't make the cut but also hard to work out what could have been dropped from the final album to make way for it (some very early promo editions of Freewheelin' included the song along with three others but these were replaced on all subsequent releases- needless to say early editions are both rare and expensive. The other three songs were Let Me Die In My Footsteps, Rambling Gambling Willie and Talkin' John Birch Blues). Rocks And Gravel has Dylan's voice and finger picking guitar style in full 1963 flow, the folk and blues of the early '60s filtered into is own style. People who knew him at the time he arrived in New York say he moved so fast and got so good so fast, it was breathtaking. 

The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan was a step up from his debut, with several songs that became Dylan standards- Blowin' In The Wind, Masters Of War, Don't Think Twice, It's Alright and A Hard Rain's A' Gonna Fall, not to mention Girl From The North Country. The cover, Bob (brown suede jacket and jeans) and Suze Rotolo (coat and black boots) walking down the snow covered Jones Street, West Village, New York, is as famous as the songs. 

Dylan's songs from Freewheelin' have been covered by all and sundry, with degrees of success.  In 2003 Johnny Marr covered Don't Think Twice, It's Alright, and does a decent job of it, acoustic guitar, piano and harmonica and a Marr vocal. Bob wrote Don't Think Twice... while Suze was in Italy, some distance between her and Bob, possibly instigated by her mother who didn't care for Dylan. He wrote the song 'to make himself feel better'.

Don't Think Twice, It's Alright

Monday's Long Songs

The Orb's latest album came out last Friday, their eighteenth since 1991's Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld. Alex Paterson has been rejuvenated in recent years, working with a new partner Michael Rendall in The Orb as well as Andy Falconer as Sedibus and with Fil in OSS. The new album, Buddhist Hipsters (I know, the title sets my teeth on edge a bit too) has split opinion among the fanbase. Some are saying its the worst Orb album since [insert personal worst Orb album here], some saying there are four or five tracks to cherry pick and some saying it's got lots of what makes The Orb The Orb. I had it a month ago and listened to it a lot for a week on my new (much shorter) commute to work. 

Buddhist Hipsters has a slew of guests and collaborators including Steve Hillage and Miquette Giraudy, Youth, Killing Joke's Paul Ferguson, Roger Eno and Andy Falconer. It recalls earlier 'classic' Orb in places, with voices sampled from TV and radio, long sci fi synth chords, deep bass, ambient house rhythms and chopped up sounds and on track two, P~1 noise and sound collage. Opener Spontaneously Combust is ten minutes of early 90s Orb. Sacred Choice brings the reggae. The Oort Cloud (Too Night) revisits early 90s progressive house. To these ears though the album's best moments come with the final pair of tracks, the first, Under The Bed, written and recorded with Andy Falconer sounds like it should have been on last year's Sedibus album, seti, one of 2024's highlights. Under The Bed has the same widescreen ambience, a wash of synths and piano, voices coming through the mix, swirls of space dust and static and orchestral drones. Ten minutes long and utterly magical.

It's followed by Kharon, which is twelve minutes long, and sets off with a plummy BBC voice commenting on Sputnik and satellite deep space exploration. The FX and drones swirl around, bleeps dart about and Roger Eno is on hand to add piano to the gathering solar storm. A wall of ghostly voices. Dripping water/ piano notes. After four minutes a ripple of synth arpeggios- and then at the end, static and a halt and someone saying, 'goodnight goodbye goodbye'. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Cover Versions

I held back from doing this for ages, a mix just containing cover versions, because it felt a bit lazy, a bit uninspired but the recent covers of Nick Drake by Joao Leao and The Velvet Underground by Thurston Moore twisted my arm into it. There are potentially more cover versions mixes to come. All these are relatively recent, although now I think about it Rowland S. Howard's Pop Crimes album came out in 2009 which is sixteen years ago and Calexico's in 2003 which is twenty two years ago- but the rest are all fairly recent. This mix leans towards the garage/ psyche/ guitar side of things. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Cover Versions

• Andy Bell: Smokebelch
• Joao Leao: One Of These Things First
• Calexico: Alone Again Or
• Rowland S. Howard: Life's What You Make It
• Moon Duo: Planet Caravan
• Moon Duo: No Fun
• The Liminanas: Angles And Devils
• Thurston Moore: Temptation Inside Your Heart

Andy Bell's cover of The Sabres Of Paradise's Smokebelch was begun on the day of Andrew Weatherall's death, 17th February 2020, and finished in late summer/ early autumn 2023 when I emailed Andy to ask him if he had a track for our then unreleased pipe dream album Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 1. Andy's reply contained the completed cover and as soon as we listened to it, we knew it would close the album. Smokebelch itself began life as a cover version of L.B. Bad's New Age Of Faith.

Joao Leao's bossa nova flecked cover of Nick Drake's One Of These Things First, a song from Nick's 1971 album Bryter Later, came out as a 7" single on Toronto's Local Dish label and was posted here two weeks ago. 

Calexico's cover of Love's 1967 classic Alone Again Or doesn't stray too far from the original- Calexico were surely destined to cover it through with their combination of desert indie and mariachi horns. I thought I had a dub version of Alone Again Or- it sounded superb, dub groove, those horns and a snatch of vocal but I must have dreamt it. 

Rowland S. Howard's Pop Crimes was the former Birthday Party guitarist's second solo album. He was undergoing treatment for liver cancer at the time and died two months after it was released. Under those circumstances Talk Talk's Life's What You Make (second line, 'can't escape it') takes on a different meaning. Rowland's guitar playing- in fact just the way he held and approached the guitar- is pretty unique. His roiling guitar lines and feedback, the metallic clang and grim vocal delivery take the song into new places- which is what a cover version should do really. 

Moon Duo are represented twice here. First their cover of Black Sabbath's Planet Caravan was a summer 2020 release, their version of the 1970 original a chilled and weightless cosmic take. Their version of The Stooges' No Fun is from a 2018 12" single with Alan Vega's Jukebox Babe on the other side. Sonic Boom produced it. Again, a blank eyed, calmed down take on Iggy's 1969 proto- punk classic. 

The Liminanas released a compilation of singles and other rarities in 2015, I've Got Trouble In Mind Vol. 2 which included this cover version of Angels And Devils, an Echo And The Bunnymen B-side. The Liminanas, French psyche/ garage band par excellence, take The Bunnymen's Mo Tucker stomp and turn it Gallic. 

Thurston Moore's cover of The Velvet Underground's Temptation Inside Your Heart came out in September, a song he's been playing live for some time, MBV bassist Debbie Goodge plays the bass (as she does when Thurston plays live). Lou Reed's song first saw the light of dark on the 1985 outtakes album VU and has been a favorite of mine since the late 80s. Thurston more than does it justice.

Soundtrack Saturday

Napoli's railway system is covered in graffiti- it's a battle the authorities have lost. There are some interesting juxtapositions of expression. 

One thing I think I can promise in this series of songs from soundtracks is that there won't be many theme tunes from 1980s sitcoms. Terry And June, It Ain't Half Hot Mum, Last Of The Summer Wine, 'Allo 'Allo, Ever Decreasing Circles, To The Manor Born, Open All Hours, Butterflies... none of these will trouble us. But this one will...

Because Of You

Credited to Kevin Rowland and Dexys Midnight Runners, Because Of You was a 1986 single, a Kevin Rowland, Kevin Adams and Helen O'Hara co- write, a lilting song about love with some fiddle, sweetly sung by Kevin. 

It was also the theme tune to Brush Strokes, a BBC sitcom that lasted from 1986 to 1991 for six series (these things always went on longer than you remember don't they?). The lead character was Jacko, a painter and decorator played by Karl Howman. Jacko is a ladies man and most of the jokes come from him trying to find success with women while on various painting and decorating jobs. If you want an instant hit of early evening TV from 1986, these are the opening titles

The Blue Mask

At the start of this year I undertook the totally self- imposed decision to explore the world of Lou Reed's back catalogue with fresh ears and an open mind. This was based on a post at The Vinyl Villain at the tail end of 2024 where JC posted the songs from a 1980 Lou Reed compilation and some of them, songs I hadn't heard for decades, really caught my attention. I went back to some albums unplayed for ages and found much to enjoy. Berlin I opined, is a masterpiece. I then decided to do Lou Reed solo, album by album, on second hand vinyl wherever possible. Not long after I was in a second hand record shop- dangerous places I know- and Lou's self titled debut album was in the rack. I bought it, listened to it several times and then wrote about it here. After that Transformer (one I already had on vinyl). Then I bought a copy of Sally Can't Dance and was not disappointed. Sally Can't Dance but Lou Can Write. 

And that was as far as I got. Summer drifted on and I was looking for a copy of Coney Island Baby, the next logical place to go but I couldn't find a copy at a price I was happy with. Then, while browsing the Lou Reed/ Velvets section in a second hand shop I found a copy of The Blue Mask for under a tenner. This meant jumping out of the 70s and into the 80s. Lou Reed, like many other 60s stars had a very bad 80s- but, some Lou Reed fans speak highly of The Blue Mask, an 80s highlight, one to play alongside the best of his solo albums. 

I can't completely agree. The Blue Mask has some good moments and with Robert Quine on guitar some really good playing, Lou's guitar in the right hand channel and Robert's in the left. Lou sounds alive, sarcastic, snarly, full of New York skronk and grime and when it's good, it's good enough. The run of songs towards the end of side two are good- Waves Of Fear is nasty (in a good way), with squally guitars and feedback, lyrics of  revulsion, panic and alcoholism. Lou has cleaned up, got married and is looking at two decades of squalor and drug addiction in the rear view mirror.

Waves Of Fear

It's followed by The Day John Kennedy Died which is I suppose well meaning but there's something about the simplistic, spoken word lyrics that don't quite work for me- although the sound and feel of his 1989 album New York can be found in the song. He ends with the line 'I dreamed that I could comprehend that someone shot him in the face' (which is for the record, historically wrong- JFK was hit in the top of the head and the throat. Pedantry maybe but it jars).  

The Day John Kennedy Died

It finishes with Heavenly Arms which is a good song, a nod to the sound of Transformer (along with the front cover shot). 

Side one was a struggle though, I nearly took it off. Opener My House is good, sympathetic twin guitars, lead bass and Lou singing about his house out of the city near the lake, a new found domestic lifestyle, his luck at having a wife, house and motorcycle- and the spirit of Delmore Schwartz haunting him. 

Women is knuckle bitingly bad. 

'I love women/ I think they're great/ They're a solace to a world in a terrible state'. 

'I love women/ We all love women'

This is from the man who wrote All Tomorrow's Parties, The Black Angel's Death Song, Heroin, Pale Blue Eyes, Foggy Notion, Sad Song, Satellite Of Love and I Can't Stand It. The Gun is a mess. I'm sure Lou's satirising gun owners and gun culture but he does with such a display of deadpan machismo it's difficult to tell. Average Guy is awful. It's like he's deliberately writing shit to see if he can get away with it. 

The Blue Mask hasn't exactly sent me scurrying into Lou's 80s with a spring in my step. If this is a good 80s Lou Reed album, I'm not looking forward to the bad ones. I'm still on the look out for the rest of the 70s ones though, I haven't given up and there's still Street Hassle to do too. I'll try to leave The Blue Mask on a positive note. Robert Quine said they hardly rehearsed and everything was first or second take with few overdubs. If that's the case the playing is remarkably focused and the twin guitars and playing on this song are right up there. 

Underneath The Bottle

Holy Tongue

Last week David Holmes returned to NTS for his two hour expedition into music that is God's Waiting Room. The set is constructed partly around the psychedelic soul, global/ dub and eletronic end of things- the first half hour alone starting with Autarkic is a trip down the river. Later on Sly Stone turns up along with Holy Tongue, Sault, Sly and Robbie, Hugo Nicolson and a host of others. It's deep and can be listened to here with the tracklist here. 

Holy Tongue have been taking over my listening time a little. Holy Tongue began as a studio project between percussionist Valentina Maggaletti and producer Al Wootton. After releasing a handful of EPs since 2020 they have become a three piece for live shows with Susumu Mukai joining them on bass and guitar. The sound they cook up is a stew of drone, psychedelia and spiritual dub- think On U Sound especially African Head Charge, the expressionism and freedom of Alice Coltrane and early 80s punk- funkers like 23 Skidoo but with a very 2020s production feel, a sound built around echo and groove. 

This half hour film captures them playing live in their East London studio in early November 2021, a mesmerising thirty minutes of drums, percussion, synth and bass guitar. 

Earlier this year they released a 7" single on Trule, the A- side Ambulance Dub a serious slice of experimental, spiritual dub. The 7" and digital are at Bandcamp. Heads set to nod. 

In August 2024 they hooked up with Shackleton, sharing a festival line up. Initially they wanted to remix each other but soon went beyond that and recorded an album, The Tumbling Psychic Joy Of Now. On this track, Blessed And Bewildered, they drop eight minutes of righteous free form dub- jazz soundscapes, all of them locked in tightly to the rhythm. The album is here. 

41 Longfield Street

Kieran Hebden (Four Tet) and guitarist William Tyler (formerly of Lambchop) released an album a few weeks ago, 41 Longfield Street Late '80s (Hebden's childhood address where part of his musical upbringing was his father's collection of country and folk music). The first track on the album is the dazzling Lyle Lovett cover, If I Had A Boat, an eleven minute long, softly played melding of ambient electronics and finger picked acoustic guitar that starts out with a hum and drone which becomes ambient noise. At exactly the right moment, Tyler's guitar, buried as part of the drone and wash suddenly snaps to the fore and becomes the song. Tyler's guitar playing, delicate and melodic, two parts, a finger picked top note part and a second descending one underneath, carry the song through the next eight minutes, chords and notes that never sit still with some gentle electronics occasionally wafting in and out. 

It's followed by Spider Ballad, the least Tyler sounding track on the album, seven and a half minutes of electronic beauty, everything Kieran Hebden can do so well- a synth part that rises and falls, move around, gradually altered by FX. Underneath the four four drum prods away, a gentle propulsion. 

William Tyler said he was surprised when he heard the album, that what Kieran had done with the guitar parts they recorded together had become something else. There's a guitar in there somewhere but its not the clean finger picking of If I Had A Boat, the late 80s country gone. As the synths gather and the rhythm becomes more insistent there's an emotive ebbing and flowing, melancholy and possibility- its very evocative. 

The album was recorded together and worked on by Hebden for a two year period, Kieran adding and filtering, cutting and pasting with Tyler's very human acoustic guitar subsumed into the electronics. It's a bit disjointed, the remaining five tracks (all on side two on vinyl) taking in a variety of sounds and feels- stretched out bursts of feedback and ghostly chords (I Want An Antennae) and pastoral folk (When It Rains), a wonderfully reflective five minutes of guitar playing, two or three parts combined, that sound like they were recorded in a log cabin while staring into the flames, that dissolves into squally feedback. Timber repeats the trick, electronic flutter and acoustic guitars piling up, a ringing topline taking the lead. Loretta Guides My Hands Through The Radio is two minutes of sound collage that turns into the album's closer, Secret City, a seven minute excursion that marries Kieran's laptop electronics and Tyler's guitar perfectly, a background cloud of FX and synth drones and some guitar parts- a strummed acoustic and an electric lead both equally central to the song, a song that is sweetly euphoric, cathartic even. Magical and uplifting, Nashville and South London, late 80s and 2025. 

Find it at Bandcamp.