We Hold This Dear

Lines Of Silence, a Manchester/ Todmorden psyche- cosmische band played at Halle St. Peter's in Manchester last night supporting The Utopia Strong- full review to follow. A week ago Lines Of Silence released their second EP, Harmonise, for Sprechen, a radio edit of the kraut grooves of Lines In Opposition which kicks in with rapid fire motorik drumming, wobbly synth sounds and a chanted/ spoken incantation for a vocal. Guitar lines are beamed in straight from West Germany in the 70s and it all comes to an end with singer Andrea left alone intoning, 'we hold this dear'.

There are two remixes ahead of the imminent Lines Of Silence album, also called Lines In Opposition! The first is of album track Kinetik by Coventry's Stone Anthem, an industrial ambient version, with radio static, the threat of rumbling bass and fractured drums. Stretford's own, Psychederek, then completes the trio with his remix of Lines In Opposition, relocating Lines Of Silence into the cosmic chug machine with a driving post- punk bassline, bursts of synth and Andrea's vocal pushed to the fore.

Harmonise can be heard/ bought here.  

If you like that you should stick around for the album, Lines In Opposition!, eight slices of cosmic/ kraut that opens with the ambient drone and synth wiggle of Wolf, Klaus Dinger's Apache beat making its presence felt early on. Kinetik is a driving instrumental with fuzzed up guitars, the controls set for outer space but fast, and Come With Us (If You Want To...) is a psychedelic/ analogue dream. The ambient/ industrial drones re- appear on A Life Examined, a burst of transmission from distant places. Aesthetik counters it with blissed drones and FX, the guitars and synths eventually pulled in- sci fi for the FRG. Transcendental Radiation was the first single, released on the Radiate EP back in March, Moog cosmische with the space of dub. The album ends with the The Unity Drone, a spacey combination of drones, FX and melodies that feels like coming down.

Lines In Opposition! is here, on digital and vinyl- highly recommended and likely still be close to your turntables/ devices come the end of the year. 

Anatolian Edits

Anatolian Weapons is a prolific producer/ DJ from Athens, Greece whose music is wide and varied with self explanatory such as EPs called Immersive Greek Folk and Yellow Ambient Tracks sitting on his Bandcamp page. In 2022 he released Selected Acid Tracks which was one of my favourite releases of that year, long acid techno tracks to lose oneself in. 

Anatolian Weapons latest release is a four track EP titled Heart Of Asia, four edits that are inventive, engaging and funky as a mosquito's tweeter. The first one is an AW edit of Shamansky Beat's Heart Of Asia, chunky rhythms and Eastern/ Arabic sounds, very much in that early 90s Transglobal Underground vein of global dance/ acid house style and all the better for it. 

It's followed by an edit of Han'nya Shingyo by Japanese artist Soichi Terada, a rumbling, tumbling widescreen acid- global groove with synth stabs and chanted vocals. The AW edit of Rolling With Rai by Axis, a 1989 Ashley Beedle production, Algerian Rai crossed with hip hop beats and late 80s tribal house re- done for 2026.Lovely stuff. 

The fourth track is an edit of Tranquility Bass's ambient house/ downtempo/ trip hop classic They Came In Peace, eight and a half minutes of found sounds (birdsong and cicadas), ambient synths, breathing, blissed out chords, chopped up vocal samples, 'they came in peace for all mankind', and eventually, just prodding away deep in the background, the double bass riff. Perfect. 

Get Heart Of Asia at Bandcamp, free or pay what you want. 

The Mid- Week Special

Three newbie, one off single releases for mid- week to get you pumped up and in the mood for the local elections tomorrow, a soundtrack as you contemplate where to cast your vote. Maybe a more cosmic disco/ psychedelic approach to politics would benefit everybody at this stage in proceedings. It goes without saying that there is nothing remotely cosmic, psychedelic or Balearic about Nigel Farage and Reform and there's a lot to be said for voting with the sole intention of stopping Reform.

Pye Corner Audio tends to deal in dystopic, sci fi techno, acid and murky, subterranean ambient music. It's not all dark and edgy but much of it is. His latest track is very different and parallels the sunshine facing, optimistic sound of his forthcoming album (with Andy Bell's guitar on board), an album with track titles including My Shimmer, Euphoria, Rays Of Sunshine and Greet The Dawn. 

New track The Cool Breeze At Sunset came out on 1st May, an appropriately May Day sounding Balearic/ kosmische five minutes of music with percussive taps, wafty synths, some Mediterranean piano and whispery, almost jazzy 80s chord progressions. 

The Cool Breeze At Sunset is at Bandcamp, free or pay what you want. 

Brighton producer/ DJ Gordon Kaye follows his Galactic Ride single from last year with a new one, Garbage In Garbage Out. Uptempo cosmic disco with some lovely disco- birdsong screeches, a wobbly acid bassline and Gordon's daughter Gabriella singing. Nine minutes of heavenly, brightly lit psychedelic acid house. 

Garbage In Garbage Out is at Bandcamp. 

Jesse Fahnestock's music is always a pleasure, as part of Jezebell and on his own as 10:40. The latest 10:40 track is a one off edit, Winner. It kicks off with some very 10:40 synth sounds and a chunky drumbeat and then a familiar acoustic guitar riff, early 90s stoner folk/ hip hop mangled into new places. Get crazy with the Cheez Whiz. Soy un perdedor.

Get Winner at Bandcamp, free/ pay what you want. 

Ariadne is the name of a locomotive at Manchester Museum of Science and Industry, displayed in the newly re- opened Power Hall. Ariadne was constructed in the British Rail works in Gorton in 1954 and hauled carriages between Manchester and Sheffield until 1977 when the line closed and Ariadne was sold to the State Railways in The Netherlands (which is where this livery and eye catching double arrow logo are from). 

In Greek mythology Ariadne was the daughter of King Minos and Pasiphae. She helped Theseus escape from the labyrinth and the Minotaur by giving him a ball of wool which he used to retrace his steps. Later on Theseus abandoned her. 

Typical. 

Dionysus saw Ariadne sleeping and fell in love with her and they married. She became the mother of eleven children including Oenopion (who personifies wine) and Staphylus (who is associated with grapes). 

I spent some time seeing if I could connect any of this, all sparked by the photo I took in MOSI recently, with the music posted above but apart from some vague ideas about wine, partying, Mediterranean islands and the British and Dutch railway networks capacity for bringing people together I haven't really come up with anything. 

Gonna Keep It Underground

One of last month's books was Thurston Moore's memoir Sonic Youth, written during lockdown and published two years ago bit I only got around to it now. Thurston writes directly and economically but at length (Sonic Life is over four hundred pages). His memory is fantastic- he can vividly recall aspects of his life, gigs particularly. His life changed when his older brother exposing a very young Thurston to Louie Louie by The Kingsmen, the addictive joy of distorted guitar chords planting a seed that grew and grew in the pre- teen Thurston. He recounts his teenage years, the growing interest in leftfield and proto- punk bands in the early and mid 1970s. Tragedy strikes the Moore family with the sudden death of his father and the impact that has on himself and the family, Thurston briefly heading down a self destructive road of teenage delinquency. 

He writes of his teenage friendship with his best friend Harold and their trips to New York City in the mid- 70s to see the bands and singers they'd read about in magazines- the New York Dolls, The Ramones and Patti Smith- coupled with his first attempts at playing the guitar (inspired primarily by Ron Asheton's guitar sound on The Stooges and Funhouse). Thurston is above all a fan and his fandom, his love of bands and music and the associated culture- records, cassettes, posters, flyers, magazines, books, gigs- drips off every page. He loves experimental artists and noise, genuinely thrilled by artiness and one- off gigs that many people leave early from. 

His depiction of New York is also vividly drawn. Thurston moves there in 1978, looking to become part of the scene he's been tiptoeing into as an out of town punter. Pre- gentrification it was possible to rent an apartment in Lower Manhattan for less than $100 a month. Thurston notes the changes in the mid- 80s as bands, poets and artists and the various ethnic minority groups who live down there begin to get priced out by the arrival of people with money. For a while Thurston lives in a crime ridden but exciting post- punk playground where you had to watch your step- don't go out to buy cigarettes at 3 am he notes- but also where you could see Patti Smith and Ramones play at CBGBs and The Dead Boys at Max's Kansas City, the bands mere inches away from the crowd, where the fledgling New York noise of James Chance and Liquid Liquid rubbed shoulders with really obscure art- funk and punk rock. 

The early 80s scene which he gradually becomes a part of, first via his role as guitarist in The Coachmen and then by the beginnings of Sonic Youth (and playing as part of Glenn Branca's guitar orchestra), is filled with a vibrancy and energy and partly populated by people who become legendary in years to come- Madonna, Keith Haring, Jean- Michel Basquiat and The Beastie Boys are all doing their things in early 80s/ mid 80s Manhattan and in this creative maelstrom Thurston gives birth to Sonic Youth, meeting Kim Gordon and enrolling Lee Ranaldo. They go through several drummers before Steve Shelley takes up the drum seat permanently. 

Thurston's recall of these years, the details of gigs and recording studios, trips out of New York to play gigs elsewhere, several people crammed into vans with all their gear and no money, the connections made with similar bands doing similar things in other cities- Minutemen, Bad Brains, Black Flag- is incredible. He outlines Sonic Youth's artistic growth Sonic Youth as they hone their sound, the alternate tunings, with drumsticks and screwdrivers jammed into guitar necks, writing songs and lyrics, untutored and expressive, each album a step on from the previous one-  1986's Evol and 1987's Sister being breakthrough records and then the mighty Daydream Nation in 1988, putting the band on a level with the groups he moved to NY to see play. Sonic Youth's move to a major label and the 1991 tour with Nirvana brings the group to European festivals and big crowds and his friendship with Nirvana, Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love is central to several chapters. Kurt's death too. 

There's warts and all as well as the rush of being in a band on the rise- his own (sometimes bratty) behaviour and the tensions between bandmates and crew jammed together in confined quarters is alluded to if not detailed. There's also the whole Kim Gordon situation- Thurston and Kim split in 2013 after a 27 marriage and even longer time as bandmates. In 2013 Kim published her own book, Girl In A Band, a book that opens with Thurston and his betrayal and makes their relationship central to her view of things. Thurston's book deals with the split, his relationship with Eva Prinz that led to it, and the end of the band, right at the end of the book- literally a few paragraphs in the last chapter. It's too personal to speak about in public is his defence. The end of the marriage ended the band and it ends the book too. 

I enjoyed Sonic Life- Thurston writes well and he really brings 80s New York art rock scene, the downtown hip hop/ art- world crossover and Sonic Youth's career to life, and (sign of a good book) it sent me scurrying back to their records and his endless enthusiasm for music, bands and records is genuine and palpable. But one of the things that struck me about Sonic Life is that it's really not a book about the people in Thurston's life. Kim gets a part and their daughter Coco does towards the end, his teenage friendship with Harold too, but I don't feel like I came away knowing anything about what Lee Ranaldo or Steve Shelley were actually like as people despite Thurston spending decades playing with them. Really, Sonic Life is about music and its attendant culture and its transformative effect on Thurston- other people's music, via gigs and records and shared stages, and Sonic Youth's music, music made by a fan of music. 

Kotton Krown is from 1987's Sister, the album where they married their experimental art- noise to tunes and really nailed how to write affecting leftfield, post- punk, where they transcend their influences. The lyrics on Sister are personal but oblique, sung by Thurson and Kim intuitively. Someone called it 'the last great album of the Reagan era' which rings true. Distorted guitars as a response to trickle down economics. 

Kotton Krown

A year later Daydream Nation distilled the Sonic Youth sound and songwriting into one of the best albums of the 1980s. It's an exhilarating blast of energy and electricity, it led them to a major label and Goo and Dirty and giant festival stages but remains at heart an album made by kids with scruffy pumps and ripped jeans. 

Hey Joni

Monday's Long Song

Back in the late 90s and early 00s there was a lot of Americana/ singer- songwriter music going on and I did my fair share of it- Howe Gelb, Giant Sand, Bonnie Prince Billy, Calexico, Smog, Ryan Adams (now disgraced and to be fair I got out early with him), Iron And Wine... I'm sure there are more I've forgotten about. As a result I don't often feel like I need to dip my toes back into the sandy desert of Americana/ Alt- Country but occasionally a song or an album comes along that catches my ear. 

Recently it was Bill Callahan, formerly recording as Smog, who a few weeks ago released a new album- My Days Of 58. Bill is approaching 60 and the songs on this album were all written during the year he was 58. I'm 56 in a couple of weeks so can relate to the feeling of turning 60 being a big deal. Bill Callahan is wry, deadpan, at times bleakly funny and honest in his lyrics. This song came to me via the algorithm and I clicked play without expecting to be surprised too much...

Why Do Men Sing is very familiar- Bill's voice is especially familiar, homely and warm- and the acoustic guitars are close up and woody. The song unfolds over seven minutes, growing into something sprawling and veering on uncontrolled with high pitched backing vocals bleeding in, an electric guitar and piano adding to the sound, and Bill asking questions, meditating on middle age and masculinity and why men sing. Why do men sing? What is this place that you took me too? 

Horns join in and Bill impersonates Lou Reed as a response to his question- 'let it ride let it ride'. I don't know if we find a definitive answer to the question but it becomes less of a problem as the song plays, the singing of the song instead becoming an answer in itself. 

Back in April 2000- and doesn't that seem a long time ago?- Bill was still recording as Smog and he released Dongs Of Sevotion, an album title that still takes some beating. The second song on it was this...

Dress Sexy At My Funeral

Bill was twenty six years younger then (weren't we all), in his early thirties with decades ahead of him. His electric guitar has a similar Lou Reed tone and his voice is recognisably the same, a little softer perhaps, less worn. He tells his wife/ future widow to dress sexy at his funeral, to wear her blouse 'undone to here' and skirt cut 'up to here', to wink at the minister and to regale the mourners at the wake with tales of their sexual exploits- doing it on the beach and on the railroad tracks. A younger man's meditation on life and death and memory. In 2013 Bill was interviewed about the subject of death in his songs and he replied that he tried to avoid it but that it was ultimately 'the big joke at the end of existence'. Maybe that's why men (and women) sing. 

Fifty Minutes Of John Martyn

 I was putting together this mix of John Martyn songs earlier this week, something I'd decided would start with Small Hours and finish with the Talvin Singh mix of Something's Better, when I saw a news article reporting that Beverley Martyn had died aged 79. Beverley was surrounded by music and musicans from a young age, was tuaght guitar by Bert Jansch, played in bands, wrote songs with Nick Drake, Levon Helm, Loudon Wainwright III and Wilco Johnson, went out with a young Paul Simon, released a solo album in 2014 and in the 70s married John Martyn. They had two children and performed together but she acknowledged it put an end to her career at the time. John's vices- drink and drugs- led to Beverley getting out of the marriage eventually, with accusations of John's domestic abuse part of the reason for the break up. 

This song, John The Baptist, was on Beverley and John's 1970 album Stormbringer! RIP Beverley Martyn

John The Baptist (Unreleased Version)

John Martyn's music has crept up on me in recent years. Drew from Across The Kitchen Table, a long gone and much missed blog, was a big fan and his posting of John's songs over a period of several years in the 2010s got me interested and I've subsequently picked up albums as I've found them- Solid Air and One World were my starting points and just last week at a record stall I found a copy of Grace And Danger, the 1980 album made during the period John and Beverley were getting divorced. John had to pressure Island records boss Chris Blackwell into releasing it- Blackwell said it was too depressing but Martyn insisted, calling it catharsis as well as the most directly autobiographical record he'd made. 

John's music began steeped in blues and folk and then took in a variety of influences- jazz, blues, reggae, and his sound and use of alternate tunings, echo and delay pedals pushed some of his songs into the ambient and Balearic worlds. Vini Reilly has said Martyn's guitar playing was a big influence. In the 90s John's music took in trip hop among other sounds. He died in 2009, his death caused by life long abuse of drink and drugs.  

John Martyn was by all accounts a difficult man, trouble with a big T. Drink, drugs, unpleasant behaviour, accusations of domestic abuse. It's difficult sometimes to separate the artist and the music. Drew (mentioned above) has stories of as a younger man being a barman in a pub that became Martyn's local for a period and having to kick him out on the landlord's orders, a man whose music he loved conflicting with the person presenting in front of him. 

A folk and blues background, pioneering and experimental guitar playing, 80s sheen and ambient production, (One World was famously recorded outdoors and a flock of geese made it onto the album's final song, Small Hours, found sounds stitched into the music)- it's all here in the mix below, fifty minutes that only really gives a small glimpse into the man's music. 

Fifty Minutes Of John Martyn

• Small Hours
• All For The Love Of You
• Anna
• May You Never
• Solid Air
• Johnny Too Bad (Alternate Take 2)
• Over The Rainbow
• Sunshine's Better (Talvin Singh Mix)

Small Hours is the last song on 1977's One World, eight and a half minutes of ambient- folk, Martyn's Echoplex guitar, the subtle Moog playing of Stevie Winwood, some percussion and the audible sound of geese on a lake in the early hours of the morning. Ralph McTell called it a 'nighttime hymn'. If nothing else of his back catalogue survived, this song on its own would be enough. 

All For The Love Of You is a One World outtake, recorded at home in November 1976 but not released until a 2008 box set. Acoustic guitar and voice, beautifully played and sung, and ending with the sound of snoring. 

Anna is from 1978, a song recorded for an Australian film called In Search Of Anna and played live around that late 70s and early 80s, but only released (I think) as an Australian single. It's got a fuller, band sound, drums and electric guitars, a heady brew. 

May You Never and Solid Air are both from his much loved, best known album Solid Air, released in 1973. The title track was written for Nick Drake, a friend to both John and Beverley, who died the year after the album's release. Danny Thompson's bass playing is a treat, rich and woody and John's guitar playing and singing are superb, a real late night record. May You Never is his best known song, written in his early 20s but sounding like the work of someone much older and experienced, making use of the dropped D tuning. 

Johnny Too Bad is from Grace And Danger, a cover of a 1971 reggae song by The Slickers that made its way onto the soundtrack of The Harder They Come. This take came out on the deluxe CD edition of the album. John's guitar playing is choppy, reggae distorted by guitar FX pedals. 

Over The Rainbow was 1984 single and on that year's Sapphire album, recorded at Compass Point in the Bahamas with some help from Robert Palmer and an Anton Corbijn sleeve photograph. It's a cover of the famous Wizard Of Oz song, written by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg- I can never decide if I like it or not, the 80s synths, drums and keys sometimes too syrupy, too smooth but I included it here because occasionally it hits the spot for me. Sapphire's considered to be something of a lost classic after a couple of more mainstream ones. 

The Talvin Singh remixes of Sunshine's Better came out in 1996, a thirteen minute excursion into downtempo/ ambient/ Balearica and officially released on the Cafe Del Mar series (Volume IV). It's a perfect example of the art of the remix, testament to Talvin Singh's talent (and tabla playing), and one of Jose Padilla's sunset records. A blissed out, after hours psychedelic ambient classic. 

Oblique Saturdays

A series for Saturdays in 2026 inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas). Eno and Schmidt created them to be used to unblock creative impasses and approach problems from unexpected angles. Each week I'll turn over an Oblique Strategy card and post a song or songs inspired by the suggestion. 

Last week's Oblique Strategy suggestion was Short circuit (if eating peas improves virility, shovel them into your pants). 

I responded to this fairly instantly and without much lateral thinking going on- Fred Wesley and The JBs and their 1973 single More Peas, and Secret Circuit's Jungle Bones from 2012, two dance tracks forty years apart. There was more going on in the comments box. Lizarus suggested musical nonsense and the 'wilful horny chaos' of Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica, Keith offered The Spitting  Song, Ernie went for Groin Strain and Keith Hudson,  Rol opted for Goober And The Peas and Chris went with Natural Life's Natural Life. All of which led me back to I, Ludicrous and their Preposterous Tales. 

This week's card says this- Don't be afraid of things because they're easy to do.

It made me think of a famous John F. Kennedy speech from 1961, ''We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard." 

Maybe it was the recent Artemis space mission, maybe it's because I've recently taught a lesson on the space race and The Cold War, maybe its just an oblique connection. What Kennedy was saying is the opposite of Eno and Schmidt's advice but I guess the point of the Oblique Strategies is you go where you with it, you follow the suggestion. In this case it took me here- Steinski and Mass Media in 1986. 

The Motorcade Sped On

More details just arrived... Mrs Kennedy jumped up, she called 'oh no'... The world is very different now... The energy, the faith, the devotion... Oswald has been shot!... The motorcade sped on...

From there it was a short hop to The Wedding Present in 1989...

Kennedy

Have you lost your love of life? Too much apple pie. 

From that to this, a Lou Reed song from his 1982 album The Blue Mask. I'm not sure this counts among Lou's best work. Last year I did an irregular series where I worked my way through his solo back catalogue and found a lot to enjoy in the 1970s but the 80s was slim pickings until New York in 1989. This isn't the best song on The Blue Mask but it's not the worst either. 

The Day John Kennedy Died

Feel free to make your own suggestions and responses in the comment box. Don't be afraid of things because they're easy to do...

Japanese Boredom

The Bagging Area- 27 Leggies game of Japanese psyche blog tennis has had a pause since Ernie posted Kikagaku Moyo two weeks ago (here) but fear not, I'm knocking the ball back over the net and into Ernie's half of the court today with The Boredoms.

Boredoms are psyche- they're also experimental punk, jazz, noise (Japanoise if you please), space rock, ambient and probably stray into other areas too. From Osaka, Boredoms formed in 1986, and are named after the legendary Buzzcocks single that was one of UK punk's origin stories. Over the years sixteen members, maybe more, have passed through the ranks of Boredoms with Yamantaka Eye at the core. 

Their status and renown outside Japan was boosted by Eye's friendship with Thurston Moore, forged when Sonic Youth toured Japan in 1989, and then further in 1994 when were invited to play at Lollapalooza. The band had just released Chocolate Synthesiser in the USA and they reached thousands of young Americans who were not necessarily well acquainted with experimental Japanese noise psyche rock. Recent incarnations of Boredoms in the 2010s saw them play gigs with eleven drummers and a hundred cymbal players and, as at All Tomorrow's Parties, fourteen guitarists and six drummers and motion sensor activated ambient soundscapes. More power to Boredoms.

Free is a cover of a song by Phish, the American prog/ psyche/ jazz fusion band- wait come back- from a double CD compilation from 2001 called Sharin' In The Groove which had covers by The Wailers, Tom Tom Club, Preston School Of Industry and Arlo Guthrie among the line up. On Free Boredoms are in ambient/ psychedelic/ spaced out mode with distant, far out vocals. Think The Flaming Lips on a blissed out trip from Osaka. 

Free (End Of Session Version)

Arpeggiator

I saw this clip recently on social media and was transfixed- three and half minutes of life affirming punk rock from August 1993, the mighty Washington DC band Fugazi. They were performing at The Concert For Justice on the thirtieth anniversary of Martin Luther King's March On Washington in the summer of 1963, an event attended by a racially mixed crowd of quarter of a million that showed the strength of feeling about civil rights and the desire for change. The march added to the pressure on President John F. Kennedy to enact civil rights legislation to improve the lives of the USA's African- American people. Three decades later Fugazi were part of a celebration of this, marking it in their own way with a style of music pretty much unheard of in 1963. 

Fugazi were a post- hardcore band, twin guitars, bass and drums, led by Ian MacKaye (who recently celebrated his 66th birthday, which probably why the clip was shared). Fugazi had a seething contempt for the music industry, were righteously independent and DIY and, as this clip shows, a fucking amazing live band... if you can't get some joy from watching this song, the band slamming their way through Brendan #1, then maybe there's no hope. The thumping drums, the tight rumbling bass and the interplay between MacKaye and Guy Piciotto's guitars, everyone utterly locked in and giving it their all in broad daylight and ending together on a perfectly precision timed stop- it's all thrilling. 

They followed that with Turnover, more and more of the crowd getting drawn in, the front rows bouncing up and down.

And then this one, Facet Squared, where they are in full flow. There's a girl in a purple vest top on the opposite side of the stage to the camera lost in her own world, dancing to Fugazi's fearsome racket. 

There are further songs and further clips from the gig on YouTube, well worth watching even if you don't think you're a fan of US hardcore. In 1998 I saw Fugazi at Manchester University, touring to promote their album End Hits. They were sensational and were playing Arpeggiator as we arrived, slightly late. Arpeggiator sounds like Neu! playing punk rock- life affirming, electrifying rock 'n' roll. 

Grown Up Fun

Matt Gunn has featured here before, his various solo works taking in chuggy cosmische, dubbed out shoegaze, psyche rock and psychedelia. Always interesting, always groovy, always tuneful. Matt has got a new EP out under the name Freedom For Adults, the result of him catching up with an old friend from a band they were both in three decades ago, meeting at the end of 2025 and recording some new material. His friend, Ram Orion, was on temporary respite from his adopted country. They met in Todmorden, a place where the stars align and the channels cross, and then again in the Malvern Hills and then went back to Windsor where they wrote and recorded four songs- Freedom For An Adult, Thanks For The Offer, Zonkey Or Zorse and Your Tomorrow.

The first of those, Freedom For An Adult, is a slippery funky number with echoes of Talking Heads (the big, post- Eno Talking Heads), chanted vocals and synth bass with sinuous guitar lines. Thanks For The Offer comes in with cowbell and then buzzsaw guitars over dance beats, sounding like an indie- dance band crossing over on an early 90s Top Of The Pops, wide eyed and baggy trousered. Zonkey Or Zorse is slower with a cowboy bounce, woodblock and a loping gait, and vocals that sound like they've been beamed in from one of the 80s/ early 90s Creation band. Your Tomorrow is psychedelic indie- pop, infused with the spirit of possibility that the acid house revolution offered and the guitar band/ sampling sound pioneered by B.A.D. among others. The EP, Freedom For Adults OK! finishes with an Airsine remix of Thanks For The Offer that goes all 2020s ALFOS mirrorball chug. 

You can find Freedom For Adults OK! at Electric Wardrobe Records Bandcamp. There's loads of more Matt Gunn recordings, EPs singles, remixes and albums at Bandcamp. 

Three years ago Matt released an album called Mostly Fiction which included Learning Thru Loops, a stunning piece of electronic music that sets sail for the cosmos, and via the magic of bleeps and synths, piano and arpeggios and drum machines, arrives far away but bang on time. 

The Rest Of Ever And More

Michael Stipe appeared on American TV last week singing The Rest Of Ever, a brand new song from a solo album that is apparently going to be out by the end of the year. In the clip below Michael performs it with the house band, as is the norm on US chat shows- Louis Cato and The Great Big Joy Machine- so the recorded version may be a little different but the song sounds pretty good, Stipe is in good voice, and it is good to hear him singing again. 

In the interview section he talked about recording the sound of a tree and singing along to it in the style of a sea shanty. Difficult to tell how serious he was being but I'm always in favour of the spirit of experimentalism and playfulness. 

Back in 2020 Michael sang with Big Red Machine, a duo consisting of Aaron Dressner of The National and Bon Iver's Jason Vernon. The recording was done during lockdown and that period inspired Stipe's lyrics. 'No time for dancing... no time for love like now'. Low key, pattering drums, pianos, strings, and Michael Stipe's very specific timbre and phrasing. 

No Time For Love Like Now  

The year before Michael released his first solo single via his own website, a quite startling song, very much a break from the R.E.M. alt- guitar sound that people might have expected and been hoping for. Juddering synths and tambourine, drones and keys, Stipe's voice on top, a little like a warmer but fragile version of Suicide.

Your Capricious Soul

In coming up with a solo album, a definitive Stipe solo musical statement, he's been taking his time and genuinely doesn't seem to have been in any rush to make music since R.E.M. called it a day back in 2011 but gradually we seem to be getting closer to the day we get a Michael Stipe solo album. 

Springwatch

My brother took me along to a gig at Big Hands in Manchester on Saturday night, a small venue near the university in what was a branch of Barclays bank when I was a kid. Big Hands mainly put on guitar bands in all the flavours and varieties- punk, indie, grunge, metal, garage, psyche. Playing on Saturday night were Spring, a trio of young men in their mid- twenties, friends from primary school in Leicester who formed a band when all three went to university in Sheffield, who we were keen to see. Spring make a hazy, blissed out shoegaze- inspired sound, the three instruments- drums, bass and guitar- all perfectly balanced with each other. On top of this swirling, melodic storm the drummer sings/ whispers. 

Spring took the stage at 11 pm and the crowd, most of whom were three decades younger than me and my brother, were on board straight away, drawn in by the hypnotic groove of drums and bass, guitarist Theo switching between ringing guitar toplines lines and a fuzzy, gauze wall of noise- a busy and urgent sound, driving drums and peeling guitars with nonchalant vocals. They look and sound totally assured, locked in to the music and the thrill of it being well received. 

This is Watcher, their first single, released last December. There's a second single, Bones, due out this Friday. 

Spring were supported by Leeroy Salmon, heralded as jazz punk on the flyer. A punkish looking four piece, again all in their twenties, Leeroy Salmon blasted their way into Big Hands from the moment the drummer clicked them into their first song.  

From the south coast but now based in Manchester, totally single minded and utterly focussed, Leeroy Salmon hit hard- twin guitars, bass and muscular drums and the vocalist's gutteral roar (the only words I can make out all set are 'thank you' after some of the songs and the occasional 'fucking'). The beanie hatted guitarist stage left picks out wirey leadlines while the singer/ guitarist slashes at his Gibson SG and leaps around the tiny stage space. At one point he clambers on top of the bass drum and motions for the crowd to separate leaving a space down the centre of the floor into which he's going to run. Everyone complies. 

I was watching and thinking 'I didn't know the youth were into Black Flag and Bad Brains'. I mentioned this to the singer later and it turns out I was a generation early- he said At The Drive In were their biggest influence which definitely makes sense. This is Kim Chi from 2025. 

A good night, two young bands inspired by music from the 80s, 90s and 00s, a time before they were born, making sounds of their own, playing to their peers and looking like they were having fun doing it. Go and see both or either if they're playing near you. 

Forty Six Minutes Of Hope Sandoval

Hope Sandoval has one of those voices. It almost goes without saying. She sounds as if she's halfway between sleep and being awake, an effortless, soothing, narcotic tone, a heavy lidded half sigh. Born to Mexican- American parents, who split up when she was young, Hope struggled at school and dropped out, largely spending her teens at home listening to records. 

Hope and Dave Roback (who died of cancer in 2020) formed Mazzy Star in 1988 when the band they were in, Opal, lost its singer. Mazzy Star went on hiatus in 1997 and Hope formed The Warm Inventions with My Bloody Valentine's drum Colm O'Ciosoig, releasing three album. Mazzy Star reunited in 2016. Hope's voice has featured on loads of records with other people- The Chemical Brothers, Mercury Rev, Bert Jansch, The Jesus And Mary Chain, Massive Attack, Death In Vegas, Vetiver, Air and Le Volume Courbe have all benefited from her vocals. I could have done this mix twice given the sheer number of songs by her two bands and all those guest appearances. 

Forty Six Minutes Of Hope Sandoval

• Hope Sandoval and The Warm Inventions: Into The Trees
• Hope Sandoval and The Warm Inventions: Suzanne
• The Chemical Brothers with Hope Sandoval: Asleep From Day
• Hope Sandoval and The Warm Inventions: Wild Roses
• Hope Sandoval and The Warm Inventions: On The Low
• Mazzy Star: Blue Flower
• Mercury Rev with Hope Sandoval: Big Boss Man
• Mazzy Star: Fade Into You
• Mazzy Star: Five String Serenade
• Mazzy Star: Happy

Into The Trees is a long piece of music from her third album as Hope Sandoval and The Warm Inventions from 2016, Until The Hunter. Hope and My Bloody Valentine's drummer Colm O'Ciosoig recorded the album in various locations including a Martello Tower in Dublin, which had a natural reverb caused by the circular Napoleonic period room of the tower. Hope plays organ, a two chord drone and Colm plays gentle tumbling drums. Hope sings gently over the top and it all goes on softly and slowly for nine minutes.

Suzanne is from the first Warm Inventions album, Bavarian Fruit Bread, released in 2001. Hope and Colm recruited several guests for the album, including Bert Jansch. It came out a month after the 9/ 11 attacks and like all albums released in the wake of that event, it seemed to have something to say on the matter even though it was clearly recorded months prior to it. The fragile, narcotic tone of the album, a numbed out response to the world, minimal and spooked. It's difficult not to associate Hope's Suzanne with Leonard Cohen's Suzanne. On The Low is also from Bavarian Fruit Bread, an album that opens with a cover of The Jesus And Mary Chain's Drop. I vividly remember buying it on release in November 2001 and playing it on a Sunday evening while getting mentally prepared for the week ahead at work and the two sides/ twelve songs being quite the Sunday night experience. 

In 1999 The Chemical Brothers put out Surrender, probably their third album and for me their most complete and satisfying record. It came packed with guest vocalists- Bernard Sumner, Noel Gallagher, Jonathan Donahue and Hope Sandoval. Hope's vocal on Asleep From Day is the perfect accompaniment to the album's most blissed out track, a song that sounds like the space between sleep and dreams.

Wild Roses is from the second Warm Inventions album, from 2009- Through The Devil Softly. It had a slightly fuller sound than the first album, a fleshed out band feel, partly possibly due to its recording being interrupted by Colm going on tour with My Bloody Valentine. The arrangements are more complex and intricate, there's a lot more going on. Still as beguiling and bewitching as ever and Hope's voice still sounds like the one you want to hear as you're drifting off to sleep. 

Blue Flower is from Mazzy Star's debut, She Hangs Brightly, from 1990. Hope and Dave Roback formed Mazzy Star as the previous band they were in, Opal, broke up and Blue Flower carried over. It's a cover of a Slapp Happy song from 1972. Mazzy Star released it as their first single in August 1990. It's far more guitar/ third Velvets album sounding than the dreamy sound they developed into- in fact it could easily be on The Mary Chain's Darklands. 

Big Boss Man is from a 2019 album Mercury Rev recorded, a cover/ re- imagining of Bobby Gentry's The Delta Sweete album from 1968. Mercury Rev enlisted a cast of female vocalists including Hope and Rachel Goswell, Latitia Sadier, Vashti Bunyan, Lucinda Williams and Beth Orton.

Fade Into You is from 1993's So Tonight That I Might See, Mazzy Star's second album. You don't need to me tell you how great Fade Into You is- one oft he best indie/ dreampop songs of the 1990s/ all time. Inexplicably good- Hope's voice, the acoustic guitars, the electric guitar topline, the brushed drums, the sense that the song is really just one huge sigh, the feeling of dissolving into another person that comes with young love. 

Five String Serenade is also from So Tonight That I Might See- an album that blurs the lines between country, indie, psychedelia and dreampop, everything soaked in a narcotic, hallucinogenic gauze. It was written by Arthur Lee of Love. 

Happy is from 1996's Among My Swan, Mazzy Star flirting with the mainstream, MTV, Batman soundtracks and all the rest that fame and a hit single, Fade Into You, brings. 

Yes, I should have included Paradise Circus, the song she did with Massive Attack and also should  have finished this mix with Sometimes Always, the song she sang with The Jesus and Mary Chain in 1994. To make up for its absence, here's Hope and Reids live in TV in the mid- 90s. 

Oblique Saturdays

A series for Saturdays in 2026 inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas). Eno and Schmidt created them to be used to unblock creative impasses and approach problems from unexpected angles. Each week I'll turn over an Oblique Strategy card and post a song or songs inspired by the suggestion. 

Last week's Oblique Strategy was- Tape your mouth.

I plumbed for the recently released Tom Waits and Massive Attack single, Boots On The Ground, a song I've returned to many times since, Tom Waits' mouth taped, both the disgust in his delivery and his words and the sound of him breathing. 

There were as usual some excellent suggestions from the Bagging Area massive- Cryptoliz opted for the Bulgarian State Television Female Choir, as beloved by 4AD's Ivo Watts- Russell and as heard here singing Erghen Diado. 

Rol went with Radiohead's Gagging Order, Ernie with Julie Fowlis and Joe Dolce and Al G with Deerhunter.

This week's Oblique Strategy card is this- Short circuit (if eating peas improves virility, shovel them into your pants)

Sound advice from Eno and Schmidt. 

Pass the peas. More peas. Fred Wesley and The J.B.s. 

More Peas

I dunno if Fred Wesley and The J.B.s' peas improved their virility or indeed if they shoveled them into their pants but this is very much music that struts, 1973 funk that could potentially cause accidental pregnancies. 

This is an ALFOS favorite, one I've heard go off in The Golden Lion, courtesy of Secret Circuit. Maybe not virile but definitely sexy. 

Jungle Bones (Tiago Mix)

Late To The Party

A new release from Irish artist Def Nettle and a song that pushes a lot of post- punk/ 80s alternative and indie buttons, The Party. Built on top of punchy drums and a prodding bassline, there's accordion and flecks of guitar and singer/ frontman/ songwriter Glen Brady singing of being late to the party, acrid smoke and moving on. Lots of echoes of The The, Fatima Mansions, The Cure and other literate 80s indie- pop. 

There's a remix by Andy Bell in his GLOK guise which strips the song down, adds throbbing electro bass and percussive clacks. Andy drops the accordion melody back in among blips and bleeps and the vocal comes back sounding even more alienated than before. It's a murky and dark but energising piece of music, the sort of thing you hear in the street late at night, suddenly coming out of a briefly open door that leads down some stairs to a basement club, where there are lights flashing and the unmistakable smell of dry ice. 

You can find The Party at Bandcamp. 

More At Ban Ban Ton Ton

I've continued writing some guest posts at Ban Ban Ton Ton, the Japan based Balearic blog run by Dr. Rob. I say Balearic, Ban Ban Ton Ton's remit runs far wider than that. Since the start of February this year I've written about these four albums.

Jason Boardman's second compilation of obscure post punk and dub cuts, music from the outer fringes of the early 1980s. ...And The Native Hipsters open the album with the surreally brilliant There Goes Concorde Again, low fi, DIY post- punk recored onto 4 track in a band member's bedroom. 

No One's Listening Anyone 2 is a trip back to a time of invention and inspiration, the swirling creativity that was thrown into the air by punk, giving everyone and anyone who had an idea the confidence to go out and have a go. It was also a period with an ever present threat of nuclear war, economic recession and warmongering, clinically insane leaders... hmmm... You can read my review of No- One's Listening Anyway 2 here. 

In March I reviewed the latest album by Craven Faults, an ambient outfit who make music inspired by the post- industrial landscape of northern England, a world of engine sheds, derelict mills, paths and cobbled streets walked by people from two hundred years ago. Craven Faults are dark and immersive, an experience. My review of Sidings is here. This is the fifteen minute long track Far Closes that ends the album. 

A month ago I wrote about the latest album by Thought Leadership, a mysterious Stockport based guitarist who has released three album now, each one named after a suit from a deck of Tarot cards. The latest one is called IV Of Cups and indicates that Thought Leadership is showing no signs of running out of inspiration or ideas. IV Of Cups has ten new guitar led ambient/ instrumental pieces, all named Roman numerically from XXI to XXX. It's a joy of an album, inventive and hypnotic, some obvious influences worn on its sleeve but very much its own thing too. My review of IV Of Cups is here and the album can be found at Bandcamp with some vinyl still available here. 

Most recently, two days ago in fact, Rob posted my review of the new Pan* American album, Fly The Ocean In A Silver Plane, an ambient/ electric./ acoustic tribute to travel- physical travel by airplane and the kind of metaphorical travels we can make at home, transported by music to another place. It's also a response to the decline and death of Pan* American's parents so there's a third kind of travel involved and referred to, the passage from life to death. Fly The Ocean In A Silver Plane is by no means a depressing or downbeat album though, it's an album of possibilities and of taking flight. You can read my full review here and listen to the album at Bandcamp. 

Gorilla Head

At the end of March I went to see Ladytron play at Gorilla. The tickets were a gift, courtesy of friends who couldn't make it. I tend to think of Ladytron as a relatively recent band but they formed in Liverpool in 1999 and have released eight albums since 2001, the most recent a few weeks ago. Gorilla was rammed to the rafters, a little unpleasantly so. Once inside the venue (and it's a small venue anyway) the only way to move was if someone else moved. Making our way to the bar was a feat in itself and once there there was little chance of moving any further forward. 

The band played twenty songs, set up with the two female members, Helen Marnie and Mira Aroyo, at the front of the stage- Helen sings most of the songs, the archetypal cool front woman, and Mira playing synth/ guitar and singing on a handful of songs. When Mira sings they become more angular, sounding like a Bulgarian Stereolab. When Helen sings, they snap into sharp, futurist synthpop mode. 

Behind them founder member/ songwriter Daniel Hunt plays bass/ synths, there's a human drummer and another synth/ keys player. The songs from the new album Paradises follow in the electronic- synth pop vein they're known for and early on this single, Caught In The Blink Of An Eye, stands out- dramatic and urgent, slow burning synth with the drummer adding masses of extra oomph. 

Old favourites Seventeen (their breakthrough from 2002) and Destroy Everything You Touch (from 2005) are saved for the end of the set and the encore. There's some audience- band interaction, Daniel joking about the heat onstage making everything 'moist' and all the songs, new and old, are well received. Just wish it hadn't be so packed in there. 

More recent, closer to home and slightly less packed out, Justin Robertson appeared at Head last Thursday promoting his latest novel The MineralTail. Head is just up the road from me, a twenty minute walk to Stretford and is a bar/ space in a former branch of Barclays with the bar being the surviving bank counter and some of the late 60s modernist design features still intact. It's a low key and welcoming place with 70s geometric wallpaper and assorted pieces of furniture. 

Justin promoted his second novel The Trial Of Jonah at Head a year ago and returned with his third- The MineralTail, a cosmic tale of the greatest three piece rock 'n' roll band ever formed (in this case, a trio of a megalithic stone and two dogs), the greatest album ever made and the longest song ever recorded. Following on the heels of the semi- autobiographical time travelling story The Trial Of Jonah, it's an irreverent, freewheeling tribute to the redemptive powers of music and of sound. 

Justin reads a couple of passages and does an in- conversation with our host Stephen, who delves into the book's creation myth, the Buddha nature of dogs, 'Satan's flaccid jingles' and we take a headlong dive into the magical psychedelic world of pan pipes and bagpipe jazz.   

The MineralTail has an album to accompany it, the soundtrack to the novel. There's a fifteen minute sampler at Soundcloud- motorik space rock, ambient dub ritual and rocking cosmische. Listen here. 

Tape 05

The return after a thirteen year gap of Boards Of Canada last week caused a ripple in the internet continuum. It began with some VHS tapes and cryptic posters and then continued on Thursday with Tape 05. 

Boards Of Canada have often dealt with a certain sense of unease and Tape 05 fits in with that- ghostly synth sounds, the rattle of TV static, voices that you can't quite hear clearly, the feeling that something's not quite right, the ghosts of the recent past lingering- cults, 70s TV preachers, adverts for obsolete products, railway stations where trains no longer stop, news radio broadcasts from thirty or forty years ago somehow returning to the airwaves. Nostalgia, hauntology, psychgeography, a promised future that never arrived, all wrapped up in a three minute piece of ambient music. 

Back in 2005 Boards Of Canada released The Campfire Headphase. The Japanese edition of the album contained one extra track, Macquarie Ridge. It is ridiculously beautiful and affecting in a specific way that electronic music can be- waves and shimmers of synth, backwards drums, piano, the hint of choral voices- a kind of ethereal, psychedelic, elemental music.   

Monday's Long Song

Back to work after two weeks off and back to 1992 for today's regular weekly long song with an epic version and fine example of the art of the remix- Thrash and Greg Hunter taking Killing Joke's gothic/ post- punk 1980 single Requiem and turning it into something entirely new, an eleven minute trip down the river, a dub techno version of Apocalypse Now! and the mission to find Colonel Kurtz.

A Floating Leaf Always Reaches The Sea crosses borders and ignores boundaries, a constantly evolving, living entity with squelchy synths, bubbling bass, crunchy drums, dub echo and space and Geordie Walker's guitar beamed in like a transmission from a dying star. 

Requiem (A Floating Leaf Always Reaches The Sea Dub Mix)

Fifty Minutes Of A Mountain Of One

A Mountain Of One recently called time on the band, a four piece that in two bursts of activity, once in the 00s and then again in the 2020s, made some beautifully sunkissed psychedelic Balearica. They produced a sound that had a tinge of darkness to it, songs that had been left out in the sun too long and was now a little feverish, the result of a night out on holiday that ended up in a strange place that you could never find again. There are echoes of 70s and 80s bands, of weird Europop summer singles, of psychedelia and late 80s/ early 90s acid house, of guitar bands lost in the outer fields at summer festivals, yacht rock where the yacht is taking in water. 

The group put out three albums (2009's Institute Of Joy, 2022's existential Balearica Stars Planet Dust Me and a 2023 Ricardo Villalobos remix of SPDM), a compilation (2007's Collected Works) and various EPs and singles, which provide rich pickings for a mix- this one has a nice flow to it I think. 

Fifty Minutes Of A Mountain Of One

• Here Comes Nothing
• Innocent Reprise
• Surrender (Generalisation Dub)
• Star
• Star (GLOK Starlight Dub)
• Stars Planet Dust Me
• Ride (Time And Space Machine Remix)
• Can't Be Serious

Here Comes Nothing is from Collected Works, a 2007 CD that compiled the five songs from EP1 and the five from EP2 plus two extra ones- Here Comes Nothing and Brown Piano (which was also a single). Acoustic guitars and electric ones, swirly production, piano, wordless backing vocals- a heady stew. 

Innocent Reprise is from EP2, released in 2007- a psychedelic folk instrumental with a solid dance groove and some lovely guitar and electric piano melody lines. The choppy, fuzzy rhythm guitar part towards the end is nicely frazzled. 

Surrender was on 2022's Stars Planet Dust Me, an eight song, double vinyl downtempo masterpiece, one of my favourite records of that year. In 2024 Damian Harris remixed Surrender with his Midfield General hat on bringing some dubby funkiness. 

Star is from Stars Planet Dust Me, one of the key tracks on it. Laid back with a soulful vocal and an 80s Mediterranean beach bar piano part. Loafers, no socks, Euro- hippy braids and bracelets. Andy Bell's GLOK remix is a superb drawn out dub version, electronic drums and chuggy rhythms, the female backing vox recurring and the bass and FX reverberating all over the place. 

The Stars Planet Dust Me album's title track was an appropriately cosmic excursion, choral vocal and organ, very spaced out production and wide eyed questions. Proggy. 

Ride was a 2008 single and opening song on the Institute Of Joy album, and was remixed by Richard Norris during one of his Time And Space Machine phases. Ibizan acoustic guitars, rattling percussion and propulsive bass with Richard Norris setting the psychedelic space rock controls for the heart of the sun. 

Can't Be Serious is from EP1 from 2007, off kilter 80s Balearic pop with a distorted spiraling guitar solo, and a vocal that answers its own question. 

Oblique Saturdays

A series for Saturdays in 2026 inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas). Eno and Schmidt created them to be used to unblock creative impasses and approach problems from unexpected angles. Each week I'll turn over an Oblique Strategy card and post a song or songs inspired by the suggestion. 

Last week's Oblique Strategy card said this- Use 'unqualified' people.

I came up with Mancunian punk group The Nosebleeds and their calling card Ain't Been To No Music School. The Smiths, Gang Of Four and Shane MacGowan and The Popes with Johnny Depp guesting on guitar all followed. The Bagging Area community was inspired to suggest Ed Harcourt's Kakistocarcy, Bob Dylan getting the pros in to nail Visions Of Johanna, Billy Bragg, Paul Bowles, Sparks, The Shaggs and Fire Engines- thank you to Brainlizard, Darren, Rol, Ernie, Walter and Chris and to JC from The Vinyl Villain who nominated himself for a pair of musical contributions he's made this year, once in live in LA and again on the forthcoming Broken Chanter album. 

This weeks Oblique Strategy is this- Tape your mouth.

I turned the card over on Wednesday evening. I ruminated a bit on the double meaning of tape- one could be to cover one's mouth with tape, to be censored or to self- censor, to keep the vocals out and focus on the instruments and the other could be the instruction to record one's mouth. These things percolated for a while and a few ideas floated towards the front of my mind and then on Thursday morning this miraculously appeared on the internet and it replaced all the other ideas that were simmering gently... 

Boots On The Ground is a collaboration between Massive Attack and Tom Waits, the first new music from either artist for a long time. If you're going to tape a mouth for a new song, a powerfully 2026 anti- war, anti- authoritarian song, then that mouth may as well be the that belongs to Tom Waits- his mouth sounds like no other.

The music- clacking rhythms, some very late period Massive Attack piano chords- is claustrophobic and tense. Then Tom Waits starts up, a voice as old as time, commenting on the growing militarisation of the police in the USA, the BLM protests of 2020 and the anti- ICE protests of this year, the murder of US citizens by ICE and by chance of timing, the repeated title phrase coinciding with Trump's illegal war on Iran, one in which he is so far out of his depth he cannot even see the shore any more. Waits recorded the vocal some time ago and Massive Attack, never a group to rush things, haven't got the track completed until now- when it transpires the moment is exactly right. 

Waits takes no prisoners. 'Fucking ass machine gun war... holler and burn down cities... federal pricks... air conditioned fuckstick loafers... killed a brown man... he rotted in the sand and all they found was his boots on the ground'

There's an unsettling pause partway through, Wait's breathing and a choral swell rising and the music twists and turns inside itself. Then Waits recovers his flow and the piano comes back in. In the seven minute version/ film of Boots On The Ground, there's an entire section after five minutes which is more or less just the sound of Tom Waits breathing at the microphone. Tape your mouth. 

Last weekend Massive Attack's 3D (Robert del Naja) was arrested while protesting in London against the ban on Palestine Action. 'A few hours in a police cell... is a small price to pay', he said later. 

Tape your mouth, say your piece.

Feel free to drop your own suggestions into the comment box. 

Five Go Mad For Friday

Some tracks from the corners of the internet you might not delve into to brighten up this Friday in April with little tying them together other than they all caught my eyes and ears recently. 

First, from January 2025, a German band called Magic Source releasing on Favourite Recordings, a label based in Paris- a funky jazz/ disco cover version of A Guy Called Gerald's Voodoo Ray. 

There's an argument that Voodoo Ray is the best British house/ dance record, the numero uno of UK dance music. Magic Source manage to bring a freshness to Voodoo Ray, a quirkiness that makes it bounce- the ooh ah ahh vocals, the funked up glockenspiels, the springy rhythm, the synth squiggle four minutes in, all in all a certain je ne sais quoi to a track that began life in the Crescents in Hulme in late 80s Manchester. 

Magic Source pair Voodoo Ray with Interplanetary Bounce, their own composition, light on its feet and looking to boogie. Find both at Bandcamp. 

Next, from Nottingham and the Coyote duo is an EP that goes heavy on their recent dub excursions. Nag Champa is three tracks, led by Fittest, a Balearic/ dub crossover with toasting, rolling hand drums and whistles. Nag Champa Dub follows, a Nyabinghi- inspired slow and low cut, psychedelic Jamaica with melodica. The final of the three is Teacher, less dub, more chilled Balearica, with one of those expertly selected vocal samples that Coyote are so good at finding- 'whatever resonates, resonates... no big deal... there's nothing you have to do, this is the wonderfulness of consciousness'. The Nag Champa EP is at Bandcamp. 

Thirdly, Coco Steel and Lovebomb put out this at the end of March, a full on acid party track, totally infectious and sonically superb. E1 AC1D0 is sheer joy- a rocking breakbeat, acid squelch, birdsong, female vocal, six minutes of summer come early. Find it here. 

Finally, another cover- Kenneth Bager and Le Bacoll with a dance/ Balearic cover of R.E.M.'s What's the Frequency, Kenneth? The first time I clicked on this I wasn't sure about it at all- and left it alone for some time. I can easily see that some R.E.M. fans may see it as sacrilege but it's grown on me, I can see it causing a fuss on certain dancefloors at certain times and I'm pretty sure Michael Stipe would be out there shaking his arse to it. 

This is the remixed version of Kenneth from the 2019 remix of Monster, a record that producer Scott Litt went back to and remixed. The 1994 version of Monster was full of guitars and Michael Stipe's voice was low in the mix, there was a sense of murkiness about some of the songs and as the group stepped out for their arena tour a vague feeling that the album hadn't quite nailed it. I don't think anyone in the band was especially keen for Litt to remix the record in 2019, or even asked for it, it was one of those things that just happened and was interesting enough. Weirdly, what maybe sounded off in 1994, sounds just fine now. But the companion version is an interesting listen regardless. 

Litt's version of Kenneth pushes everything to the fore, Stipe's vocal included, strips the guitars a bit and makes the drums louder. The rhythmic pull of Bill Berry's drums is odd on this version, he seems to be holding the song back rather than letting it go. 

What's The Frequency, Kenneth? (2019 Remix)

I Lose My Sense Of Gravity

Patti Smith's historical importance probably can't be overstated. From the release of Horses in 1975 she provided the spark for several generations of New York and US punk/ post- punk and indie musicians and her entire being is an act of willpower- inspired by transformative powers of rock 'n' roll she decided to become an androgynous poet/ punk and that's exactly what she did. The Patti Smith Group played every venue New York had to offer in the mid- to- late 1970s, from CBGBs upwards while recording four albums- Horses, Radio Ethiopia, Easter and Wave. The last one of those four, 1979's Wave, had this as a single...

Dancing Barefoot

Less a song, more an incantation (as someone at YouTube rather succinctly puts it). Dancing Barefoot has become one of her best loved and most covered songs. It doesn't sound specifically 1979 either, it could just as easily have been recorded in 1995 or 2001- a two chord acoustic guitar riff, an electric on top, folk rock/ indie punk and Patti giving her all lyrically, a song (according to the sleeve notes) dedicated to women such as Amedeo Modigliani's mistress Jeanne Hebuterne. Love as addiction (heroin and heroine used deliberately in the lyric), love as sublimation, love as intoxication. 

After the release of Dancing Barefoot as a single Patti withdrew and semi- retired, the band fell apart and she spent most of the next decade at home with husband Fred 'Sonic' Smith, raising their two children Jesse and Jackson.