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 card said 'Disconnect from desire'.

Disconnection from desire came via Gala, The Beastie Boys and Scritti Politti. From the Bagging Area readership pool, Ernie was in first with Alessandro Moreschi, L. Braynstemmmmm suggested Kraftwerk's Computer Love, Rol offered Claudie Frish- Mentrop and Expendables' Man With No Desire and Jase gave us Sinead and I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got. Chris also offered Sinead's second album and suggested the Apple Brightness Mix of I Am Stretched On Your Grave which has a sample of How Soon Is Now buried within it.  

This week's card said this- Breathe more deeply.

Good advice. Useful for dealing with stress, increasing mood and focus. 

In the studio breathing more deeply could be interpreted as an instruction to let the music breathe, to slow it down, leave more space between the notes, focus on what you're not playing as much as what you are. It makes me think of Basic Channel, the Berlin techno duo who made dub- techno so minimal, so stripped down that it almost became something not music- just pure sound, a breathing exercise. 

This one is fifteen minutes long and from 1994. The dull thud of a muffled kick drum, a ball of barely there static, a repeating synth sound. Inhale exhale.  

Quadrant Dub I

I also thought of this from Deanne Day, a mid- 90s pseudonym used by Andrew Weatherall and David Harrow on three 12" singles. D and A. Andrew had dropped out of view a little post- Sabres, a choice to shun from the bright lights and the greasy pole. Blood Sugar was a deep house/ dub techno night he put on and Deanne Day fits in very well with that sound- kick drum, hiss of hi hat, lots of space, that vocal sample, 'I can hardly breathe', and a bassline to groove to. Another nearly fifteen minute long track.

Hardly Breathe

Inhale exhale. Calm in repetition. 

Later on the vocal becomes, 'When you stand there/ When you stand naked/ Looking at you'. Less calming perhaps. 

The synths swirl, the drums drop out, the bass bumps away, the snare rattles. A few minutes later (and nothing happens in a rush in Hardly Breathe, everything plays out for bars, unfolds in its own time) a long two note chord moves in. 

Andrew had a thing when making records around this time, as Deanne Day or Blood Sugar. There could only be four elements going on at once. If you wanted to add a new sound, you had to remove one. It kept it minimal and focused. Restrictions as a creative tool- which sounds like an Oblique Strategy. 

Feel free to make your own Breathe more deeply responses into the comments box. 

Primal And Unholy

Two new releases, single tracks and both out this week. On Tuesday Prana Crafter, a Washington state based solo artist who has tended to the ambient and beatific previously, released a furious and transcendental guitar instrumental called Unholy Wars accompanied by the statement 'ALL wars are unholy wars'. Prana Crafter's guitar starts out ringing, some feedback, the amp and fuzz front and centre. The tone gets darker a minute in, unmistakably angry and frustrated at the state of the world. Stop- start riffs. Single notes rippling on top. Hendrix at Woodstock. Neil Young and Ohio. War pigs. It speeds up, faster- punk's inchoate fury. A smoked out coda, the amp being pushed to its limits. Space rock for peace cadets. 

Unholy is at Bandcamp, free/ pay what you want. 

Yesterday Stourbridge's acid house/ dark Balearica/ cosmic chug king Dirt Bogarde released Primal, a six minute thumper, bursts of distorted synths over gnarly bass. The kick drum continues relentlessly, and the hoover synth sounds increase, ratcheting the tension higher. The serious business of dark dance music, the flipside to sunshine and love. Midnight tension. Strobe lit and losing track of time. 

Primal is at Bandcamp, price one pound. 

A Thousand Threads

I recently read Neneh Cherry's autobiography A Thousand Threads. It's a reflective and honest look at her extraordinary, bohemian life, a life with moments and people that leave you feeling she was near the centre of almost everything that was interesting. Her childhood was unconventional and filled with experiences. Her mother Moki, a Swedish artist and 60s beatnik met Ahmadu Jah in Stockholm. He was a student on a scholarship, one of six men who left from Sierra Leone to study engineering. They moved in together and Moki got pregnant. Not long after, when she was five months pregnant, Moki found out that Ahmadu and monogamy were incompatible. Neneh was born in 1964. The year before Moki had met musician Don Cherry. When Ahmadu moves on, amicably, Moki and Don get together at a jazz gig in Stockholm and become a couple. Neneh is from thereon the child of three parents. 

Moki and Don spend Neneh's childhood shuttling between a life in idyllic Sweden, the family living in a converted school house that Moki has made the centre of her world, one where art and family life are one and the same, a home and performance space, and life in 70s New York. Don is a heroin addict and when in New York he often disappears for a couple of days to 'take care of some business'. The family accept Don's addiction and work with him and it but the terror of Don not coming home or dying in their flat creates a lifetime of issues for everyone. 

As well as Sweden and new York the family move to London. Neneh is transformed by punk, meets and befriends Ari Up, joins The Slits, starts a relationship with Bruce Smith (drummer in The Pop Group and later The Slits and New Age Steppers), has a child (at 16!), splits up with Bruce, meets Cameron McVeigh (producer of Massive Attack), makes her solo album, appears on Top Of the Pops eight months pregnant... its a whirl of art and culture and life, Neneh constantly inspired and inspiring. 

She's honest too- she admits that the moving around of her childhood was something she continued into her adult life and that maybe her own children might have benefited from a more stable home life. She l about her spiraling alcohol issues that follow Moki's death and the long periods where she writes and releases nothing, totally consumed by being a mother. 

One of the most affecting chapters describes her first visit to Sierra Leone. She arrives in full punk clobber, army boots and trousers, a Clash t- shirt and leather jacket, and as she is taken in by her African relatives she discovers and embraces that side of her family. When she returns to the UK and appears in the Earthbeat video (from The Slits second album) she is wearing the African clothing she brought back with her. 

Writing the book as a grandparent, she is clearly still getting her head round some of it. She is as proud of her achievements as a women and a mother as her ones as a musician. Race and sex are never far from the story. Her upbringing in Sweden as the only mixed race kid in the school. Her fusion of punk, hip hop and street soul into Buffalo Stance. Her adventures as a teen in New York's early 80s downtown clubland. Her first transatlantic flight as a five year old (flying solo, aged five). A trip to Japan as part of Ray Petri's Buffalo posse with The Face. An international smash hit single in the 90s with Youssou N'Dour.  It's all there and more. She's funny, wise and insightful, unapologetic in some ways but clear minded too and has lived a life. 

Some music...

Buffalo Stance is one of the late 80s best pop singles, a streetwise and sassy piece of pop- hip hop scratching and house grooves with Bomb The Bass' Tim Simenon producing (it was worked up from a B-side for a Stock Aitken and Waterman single Looking Good Diving that husband Cameron McVey and Jamie Murphy had recorded). Buffalo was Ray Petri's outfit, a bunch of artists, models, musicians and stylists who enjoyed a burst of fame in mid- to- late London. A Buffalo Stance is an attitude, a mode of survival in urban life- 'We always hang in a buffalo stance/  We do the dive every time we dance'.

Buffalo Stance

Woman came out nearly a decade later, a riposte to James Brown's It's A Man's Man's World and song about female empowerment. Dramatic strings that echo James Brown's, trip hop beats and written at a  time when fame was on the verge of destabilising her completely. 

Woman

Blank Project came out in 2014, an album produced by Keiran Four Tet Hebden. Sparse, minimal, electronics via jazz and soul. Uncompromising. I loved it back in 2014 and haven't listened to it for ages- it still sounds like a powerful piece of music.  

Blank Project

Exploding In Society's Eye

Spectators Of Suicide- how's that for a typically early Manic Street Preachers song title?- was on the You Love Us EP in 1991, the last thing the band released on Heavenly before they moved to Columbia. The EP's sleeve is also typically Manics with Beatrice Dalle as Betty Blue, Karl Marx, Robert Johnson and Travis Bickle all jostling for attention among brightly coloured cut and paste newspaper headline lettering. The title track is Manics punk, huge anthemic choruses, massive guitars and an arrogance that outweighed their then sales. 

Spectators Of Suicide could be by a completely different band- slowed down, ringing guitars, a sample of  Black Panther Bobby Seale saying he's gonna go down 'to the whole damn government and say ''stick em up motherfuckers we've come for what's ours''. The rippling guitar chords and notes and restrained vocals shimmer rather than slash and burn, the drums are in the room, the production is all about feel and tone. They sound like they're feeling their way into something.

Spectators Of Suicide  

Richie's lyrics take in democracy as a lie, obedience, choice (or lack of it), smoking as a lifestyle choice, advertising... concluding with James singing over the coda, 'You gonna shoot us dead/ With decadence'. 

The band re- recorded it for Generation Terrorists, an amped up, glam rock version in line with the rest of the album (although you can hear some of Motorcycle Emptiness's wasted beauty in the original version I think). In 2020 they did it again with Gwenno sharing the vocals, two versions (one sung in English and one in Welsh) in aid of two charities, Missing People and the Trussell Trust. You can get both of those here. Bigger, older and wiser- but I still prefer the first version and its demo quality. 

Iridescent

Indonesian five piece band Strange Fruit have an album out next month- Drips- which crosses the streams between cosmische, dreamy blissed out indie dance and shoegaze. The songs available so far, Iridescent and Monopolar, are floaty and chuggy, a splash landing in the sea where guitars meet electronics. Repetition as an end in itself, sun kissed vocal melodies, guitars and synths bathed in psychedelic light. Both of these should slow your circulation right down. 

Ahead of the rest of the album Strange Fruit have put out some remixes. Tom Furse of The Horrors takes Monopolar and slows it down, reverb soaked drums and FX with a heavy undertow. The vocals sound even more sleepy. 

Hardway Bros Sean Johnston has given Strange Fruit three new versions of Monopolar to play with- wisely they're releasing all three. The Hardway Bros Remix is a slo mo affair, an electronic squiggle riding on the top, a hypnotic and streamlined remix that glides off into the sunset. Jakarta via ALFOS. Sean's Live At The SSL Dub comes out shortly and is worth waiting for, a slowed down and laid back Hardway Bros version. 

Drips is out at Bandcamp. Find it here.  

Monday's Long Song

Echo and The Bunnymen are touring at the moment and walked into some difficulties last week with a few hit and miss reviews and a last minute cancelled gig in Manchester. They got back underway at Bristol and seem to be back on track but all is not well if you read between the lines. I've seen them several times in the last few years and always had a good night out- those songs, Ian in good voice, Will's guitar playing- but at some gigs others have attended Ian hasn't always been at his best and this seems to have been the case last week. Hopefully, he's OK. 

In 2013 Will and original bass playing Bunnyman Les Pattinson formed a side band, Poltergeist, a trio of cosmic explorers with Will very much free to indulge his psychedelic guitar dreams. The eight instrumental songs on Your Mind Is A Box (Let Us Fill It With Wonder) are all worthy of the time spent with them, Will and Les mining 70s cosmische, 60s psyche and scouse adventurism to fine effect. Over half the songs on the album stretch out over six minutes- this one, Cathedral, opens the record and gathers a head of steam, Will's guitars shimmering and careering over some lovely bass playing from Les. 

Cathedral

In the 70s, as Liverpool's punk scene spun into being Will lived on a flat with Paul Simpson (Teardrop Explodes, The Wild Swans, Care, solo, author, smart dresser) halfway between the city's pair of famous cathedrals. Leaving his front door and turning left or right would bring either the Anglican one or the Modernist Catholic one immediately into view. I've always assumed that this track is a tribute to one or the other or both. 

Forty Minutes Of Arthur Russell

Firstly I should probably admit to being in no way an expert on Arthur Russell. I've got various tracks and a handful of albums but don't feel like I've done much more than scratched the surface of his music and on top of that I always feel with Russell's music there's something unknowable about it, something just out of reach. Sometimes it feels like his songs drift by like they've been caught by the breeze. I often feel like I'm slightly out of step when listening to them- but when they hit though, when the penny drops, they have a deep impact. 

Arthur was a cellist, producer, singer and songwriter from Iowa who moved to New York in the mid- 70s and became very much a part of the Manhattan avant garde scene and then New York's disco world. He recorded dance music as Dinosaur L and moved in circles with Peter Gordon, Talking Heads, Allen Ginsburg and Nicky Siano. He released only two albums during his lifetime- 1983's Tower Of Meaning (an orchestral piece) and 1986's weird and wonderful World Of Echo (cello and voice, dub disco and acres of space and echo) plus an album as Dinosaur L 24- 24. Arthur died in 1992 from AIDS related illnesses. In the years since his death a series of albums have been released, putting more and more previously unheard Arthur Russell songs out into the world and his reputation and influence have grown and grown. 2004's Calling Out Of Context is as good a place to start with the posthumous releases along with The World Of Arthur Russell from the same year. 

This mix is based on my incomplete knowledge of Arthur's music and isn't much more than some of my favourites thrown together in an order that seemed pleasing. 

Forty Minutes Of Arthur Russell

• A Little Lost
• In The Light Of A Miracle
• Time Away
• Calling Out Of Context
• See Through Love
• In The Corn Belt (Larry Levan Mix)
• I Like You!
• That's Us- Wild Combination
• Let's Go Swimming

A Little Lost jumps in with Arthur singing 'I'm a little lost/ Without You/ That could be an understatement...' accompanied by his cello and warm, wobbly echo. It came out on the posthumous album Another Thought, the first recordings released after his death in 1993 and is a good scene setter for Arthur's music- all those weird, non- obvious qualities that make his songs so unique. See Through Love is from the same album, a song that bubbles and echoes, as if recorded underwater. 

In The Light Of A Miracle was another unreleased during his lifetime track, one that came out on Philip Glass's insistence on Another Thought. It was a Loft classic (David Mancuso's NY invite only underground dance party/ space) and has been remixed various times to transcendent effect. The version here is the original mix, a shapeshifting, otherworldly piece of music, impossible to pin down, floating in some space between avant garde, disco dub and house- while sounding like none of those. 

Time Away is from Love Is Overtaking Me, a record that is an outlier in the Russell catalogue- no jazz inflected disco or avant garde cello and space experiments but more traditional songs, just voice and acoustic guitar. Time Alone is minimal and naive, a song about tidying up his room, Modern Lovers indebted perhaps. 'I'm taking time away/ To dream'.

Calling Out Of Context is a collection of songs Arthur recored between 1985 and 1990, released in 2004 and containing some of his most brilliant work- the title track blends voice, percussion, guitar and keys and boundless experimentation to create something really special. That's Us- Wild Combination is from the same record, a joyous anthem with Jennifer Warnes sharing vocals. It seems to me that one of the main presences on these tracks, the main sounds, is New York, the spaces and rooms and spirit of the world he lived in. I Like You! is also from Calling Out Of Context, a strange and murky stew, electronics, cello, percussion and voice. 

In The Corn Belt was one of Arthur's Dinosaur L tracks, NY dance music remixed by Larry Levan, the man who DJed for a decade at Paradise Garage, splicing dub and disco, hugely influential and pioneering post- disco/ pre- house scene, playing records on turntables with live synths and drum machines. 

Let's Go Swimming is the final song on World Of Echo, a short and simple meditation and a totally unconventional marriage of cello, folk/ disco, tape delay and voice-

'To the north part of it
The country I was made to
Cause were you been I go
That's where you'll always go
I'm banging on your door
Up in the big blue sky
When you let the water in'

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 card said this- Put in earplugs.

I went with My Bloody Valentine and Bob Mould, both of whom play really loud and earplugs are probably recommended. They hand them out to people entering My Bloody Valentine gigs. Jase and Darren both agreed about MBV. Walter said Motorhead made him wish he'd worn earplugs and Chris saw Pixies and compared it to the CIA blasting Noriega out of his complex with extreme volume. 

Drazil went for a more considered approach and the idea that if you put earplugs in and then listen to music (or make it as Eno intended) then you start to feel the music around you- vibrations, muffled bass, texture. This made him think of Burial and the track In McDonalds. 

This week's card is this... Disconnect from desire

In 1997 Italian artist Gala released Freed From Desire, a Eurodance single that was a hit across Europe. How far it is actually about being freed from desire I don't know- the lyrics are about Gala's love interest, who's 'got no money, he's got his strong beliefs' and how other people just want more and more but 'freedom and love/ that's what he's looking for/ freed from desire/ mind and senses purified'. 

Free From Desire has since become attached to football matches, firstly from fans of various clubs including Bohemian FC of Dublin, Stevenage, Bristol City, Wigan Athletic and the Northern Ireland national side.

Being free from desire is a state I'd associate with those who enter monastic orders, Buddhists, people who renounce worldly pleasures in search of a higher level of being. Desire would equate with sex and lust, the longing for material goods, wealth, status and some of those deadly sins- lust, avarice, envy, gluttony. People who choose to disconnect from desire would presumably disconnect from music too- the purchasing of music in a physical form can't be compatible with being disconnected from desire, although I can imagine some music/ sound being useful for assisting in meditation. Gong baths and sound therapy are currently very popular and probably happening in a hall somewhere nearby. 

Adam Yauch (MCA) of the Beastie Boys embraced Buddhism and on 1994 recorded Bodhisatva Vow, marking the New York threesome entering a more gentle and wiser state- 'As I develop the wakening mind/ I praise the Buddhas as they shine'. 

On Bodhisatva Vow MCA's spiritual growth concludes thus...

'For the rest of my lifetimes and even beyond I vow to do my best, to do no harm And in times of doubt, I can think on the Dharma And the Enlightened Ones who've graduated Samsar'

Which is some distance from fight for your right to party. On 1998's Instant Death MCA reflects on the death of a friend to a drug overdose and of his mother and hopes for something else- the musical box/ toy piano melody and soft acoustic guitar backing with whispered vocals make this possibly the most affecting Beastie Boys song.

Instant Death

I've been listening to Scritti Politti a lot this week, after the forty minute Green Gartside mix I did last Sunday. Early Scritti and Green had desire on their minds a lot. Some aspects of early 80s post- punk was anti- commercial, anti- consumerist, anti- sexist, anti- advertising. Being anti- desire fitted in to that somewhere, rejecting the products that capitalism wanted to sell you, using sex to sell to sell cars and lipsticks, lager and cigarettes.

In 1981 Scritti Politti released The 'Sweetest Girl' with its B- side Lions After Slumber. The title comes from a line by Percy Bysshe Shelley, written in 1819 after the Peterloo Massacre which suggests the song is about revolution but the majority of the lyric is a list of desires and needs- diplomacy, security, hope and ice cream in the first line alone. Lions After Slumber was re- recorded for the 1981 album Songs To Remember, Green's loves and desires over a funk bassline and bright early 80s synth pop.

Lions After Slumber

A year later Green returned to love and desire on the song Jacques Derrida. Green said the song was inspired by the French poststructuralist philosopher and about 'It's about how powerful and contradictory the politics of desire are. About being torn between all things glamorous and reactionary and all things glamorous and leftist. Then in the rap it dispenses with both in favour of desire'. The song, lighter than air and catchy as flu, is a total joy and in no way disconnected from desire. 'Desire', Green sings, 'is so voracious/ I wanna eat your nation state'

Jacques Derrida

And that's all I've got on this one for the moment. Feel free to make your own Disconnected from desire suggestions in the comment box. 

Snubhole Voltaire

A return to Snub TV today, one from 1989 and one from 1990. In 1989 Texan experimental psychedelic punks Butthole Surfers arrived on Snub. The band pursued extremes to their outer limits- hardcore punk, noise, chaos, drugs, tape edits. They were not a mainstream band and were not looking for mainstream approval. Their appearance on early evening BBC 2 must rank as one of Snub's finest achievements. 

Snub caught the Buttholes at their home studio and asked them some questions which were answered in absurdist style. Note the size of some band members irises during the interview section- substances may have been consumed. The band then play live, filmed at a gig where they take sludgy 80s slowcore punk to new levels.

In 1987 Butthole Surfers released an album, Locust Abortion Technician, a record that captures them somewhere in the midst of art rock, noise and weird metal. Sweat Loaf samples/ covers Black Sabbath and opens with some lovely chords and then goes seriously leftfield with an exchange between a father and a son...

'Daddy?
Yes, son.
What does regret mean?
Well son, the funny thing about regret is that it's better to regret
Something you have done than
To Regret something that you haven't done
And by the way, If you see your mom this weekend, will you be sure and
Tell her...
SATAN SATAN SATAN!!!'

Sweat Loaf

I'm not sure they still make bands like Butthole Surfers.

A year later, March 1990, electronic/ industrial pioneers Cabaret Voltaire were on Snub. 

Cabaret Voltaire were punk before punk, making their own instruments, sampling, looping tapes, using video and film, hitching a ride with punk but not really playing in the same park. 1981's Yashar and their adoption of synths and sequencers saw them move into new territories- Sensoria, Don't Argue, Hypnotised are all shown in this ten minute clip and all sound like they were leading while others followed. The interviews and footage in the Snub clip shows how ahead of their time they were, and in some ways, still were in 1990. Richard H Kirk played a key role in the development of techno with Sweet Exorcists' Testone. 

Sensoria

Sunset Wasp

More new music, the third new releases post this week. I was talking to another blogger recently and we agreed that continuing to find new ways to describe and write about new music can be difficult. There's only so many ways to describe a combination of drums, synths, guitars, bass, vocals, production and FX and there's always the risk that you just end up repeating yourself, writing the same lines over and over. Writing about older music is easier- there's often a story or memory attached or the song has a history to be traced. But there's so much new music out there and so much of it is good and worth sharing- that's the trick I guess, sharing the enthusiasm for new music that might otherwise go unnoticed. 

Here goes with some more, two new tracks by unrelated artists but which have something in common, a similar tone maybe. A feel. 

SUSS are an ambient- Americana trio who I have written about before. Their blend of synths, guitars and pedal steel creates a sound which is very much North American and often conjures up imagery of open roads, desert landscapes, tarmac unspooling in front a windscreen, the white line disappearing into the horizon, roadside truckstops, cactus and vending machines, and arriving somewhere in the middle of the night and there not being a soul around. The new album is called Counting Sunsets and there are ten pieces of music, all called Sunset and given a number. 

Sunset II is slow and melancholic, a synth backdrop punctuated by acoustic guitar notes and keening pedal steel and according to SUSS is preoccupied with 'memory and the slow erosion of time'. 

This side of the Atlantic Halifax/ Manchester trio The Orielles are gearing up for what could be one of 2026's most affecting albums, a record called Only You Left. On Tuesday they released the fourth song from it ahead of its full release at the end of this week. Wasp follows Tears Are, You Are Eating Part Of Yourself and Three Halves...

Wasp is more direct than those three, with foregrounded drums and bass and a staccato guitar riff that becomes full, fuzzy chords in the chorus. The three previous releases from the album all hinted at something, showed rather than told, improvisation but with song structure behind it, an ambient guitar crossed with noise feel. Singer Esme's words on all four songs released so far seem fairly free form, poetic and profound, lamenting something perhaps. Wasp maybe less so- the song was written in Islington Mill in Salford in a studio with a wasp infestation. 

Still Boogie

One of 2026's early album treats was Number's Pollinate, a ten track dance/ post- punk/ punk funk affair from the Red Snapper duo of Rich Thair and Ali Friend. This A Certain Ratio rework of Amber ratchets the buzz and the rhythms up a few notches too. A vinyl release of Pollinate is happening- get it here. 

As well as Number and Red Snapper Rich Thair records as Dicky Continental and has recently remixed Hungarian artist Doktorhokashi and his track It's Still Boogie...

The drums rattle in like a New York subway train, the bass rumbles and a nagging synth part works its way through. The vocals, slightly lower in the mix, and a repeated 'Hey!' echoed by a softer 'boogie'. The sound of the Hungarian underground. Out on Budapest's Mana Mana Records and available here. 

An Officer And A Sister

Officer John is from Dublin, a mysterious solo outfit (expanding to four for gigs) led by Niall Rogers, recording for the equally mysterious Dublin label Wah Wah Wino. Information is scarce and it feels like that's the way Officer John likes it. I was tipped off by a conversation at the Golden Lion recently and then a post at Ban Ban Ton Ton. The most recent release is a June 2025 song called Handle which drifts in on a bed of FX and then a nicely early 90s shuffly drum break. A fluid guitar line drizzles down and then a softly sung vocal. Psyche- Balearica anyone?

Over at Bandcamp there are a handful of other tracks. Stay kicks in with a beautifully distorted guitar and rattly drums and a Spacemen 3 level sleepy vocal. Pass is led by thumping drums, another cool guitar riff and some FX. The vocal sounds like the singer has been woken just a few minutes before the Record button was pressed. Blissed out indie dance from Dublin suddenly seems like a very good idea. There's more here plus dates for a tour in April which includes a stop off at the Castle on Oldham Street. 

From Dublin to Muscle Shoals- Sister Ray Davies make shoegaze/ guitar dream pop, a duo from Alabama who released an album last year themed around Holy Island, Northumbria. Alabaman shoegaze based around 6th century Celtic Christianity is pretty rare on the ground and I really liked it- and then in the way that often happens in an accelerated internet culture I forgot about it. Last week Sister Ray Davies announced a new EP, Holy Island Baby which will come with two Pye Corner Audio remixes among its five tracks. It also has this one, Iona (Portside Dub), a shimmering, motorik, cosmische/ Balearic creation with dream state whispered vocals and a Spacemen 3 style fuzz guitar riff. 

Iona (Portside Dub) is out now, the Holy Island Baby EP next month. Get both at Bandcamp. They're also touring in April with dates in both Todmorden and Yes in Manchester. 

Monday's Long Song

'Gimme an F'

'F!'

'Gimme a 'U'

'U!'

'Gimme a C'

'C'

'Gimme a K'

'K'

'What's that spell?'

'Fuck!'

'What's that spell?'

'Fuck!'

What's that spell?'

'Fuck!'

Deep voice 'War'

This artist- audience exchange is sampled from the 1969 film of the Woodstock festival, Country Joe and The Fish protesting about Vietnam in front of quarter of a million kids*. It kicks off the DSS remix of We Wanna Live by Sandals, a 1993 single on the band's own Open Toe label. The drums rumble in and vocalist/ poet Derek Delves begins his address. 

'Think you know what's right? Think you know what's wrong? How long? Well, it's anybody's guess, we all wake up, get out of this mess...'

We Wanna Live (DSS Remix)

The drums and percussion, courtesy of the four Sandals and on this remix Ashley Beedle, David Holmes, Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns, thump and rattle, everything part of a deep and murky, progressive house sonic stew, acid house that's been through the wringer and is now on the other side of the mother of all comedowns. 

Well, it's late 1993 yeah, over five years since the summer of love, two decades since the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, two years since the first Gulf War, three since the Soviets left Afghanistan, two since Thatcher went, five since Reagan left, four since the Berlin Wall came down and the Cold War suddenly ended and the Soviet Union fractured. Yugoslavia is becoming an ex- state, a civil war and sectarian murder, genocide, already underway. 

In Oslo the PLO and Israel, led by the US President Bill Clinton,  announce a peace process aimed at establishing self- government for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. A joint declaration about a peace process in Northern Ireland is issued, paving the way for the Good Friday Agreement five years later. 

'If we don't wake up/ We don't get out of this mess'

'We wanna live!'

There's a sitar, raga scales running down, synths and at seven minutes a breakdown, crowd noise and then a lone voice shouting, 'Party!' and the crowd chanting it back, 'Party!'.

Derek returns. 'How long?' 

Flute, more whispered poetry and more questions. 

The questions remain the same. And now, March 2026, there are psychopaths in the White House. No restraint. No control. Reveling in their power to kill. 

'What's that spell?'

* In a weird coincidence, an hour after writing this post I saw that Country Joe McDonald's death had been announced. He died aged 84 due to complications from living with Parkinson's disease. RIP Country Joe. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Green Gartside

Green Gartside and Scritti Politti have led a long and strange musical life, from forming in Leeds in 1977 and their initial recordings, scratchy dubby DIY/ squat post- punk (where they released a single which was in part a demystification of the process of making a record) through to shiny 80s synth- pop, soul, reggae and disco, hip hop and rap and gorgeous folk- pop. 

Underpinning it was Green's application of Marxist theory to music and hundreds of lyrical references- Scritti's 1982 song Jacques Derrida, named after the French post- structuralist philosopher, opened the eyes and broadened the reading lists of many listeners. Green has said that on many occasions he's been approached backstage by men carrying their PhD and asked to sign it, PhDs dedicated and inspired by him. 

As well as this, Green's voice is like an angels and his songwriting is second to none and while he hasn't been particularly prolific since the glory days of the 80s, his back catalogue is packed with gems. This mix is filled with singles and big hitters. A deeper dive could be on the cards. I wasn't sure the various styles and genres would work as a coherent whole and was surprised by how well they do- even the early DIY post- punk/ dub finds a place alongside songs recorded in much more expensive studios. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Green Gartside

• Scritti Politti: The Boom Boom Bap
• Scritti Politti: Asylums In Jerusalem
• Scritti Politti: Tinseltown To The Boogiedown
• Scritti Politti: Skank Bloc Bologna
• Scritti Politti: Absolute
• Scritti Politti: Dr. Abernathy
• Green Gartside: Tangled Man
• King Midas Sound: Come And Behold (Green Gartside Revoice)
• Scritti Politti: After Six
• Scritti Politti: The 'Sweetest Girl'

The Boom Boom Bap is from 2006's Scritti Politti album White Bread Black Beer, an album which is now twenty years old. The Boom Boom Bap is a minimalist tribute to Green's beloved hip hop culture and rap music- to the sound of the drums, the 'yes yes y'all', and to the songs of Run DMC. Greens says its also about 'the difference between being in love with something and being unhealthily addicted to it'. The album is spacious, sumptuously produced and filled with heartstopping moments. Dr. Abernathy is from the same album, a gorgeous acoustic song that references Greek mythology (the owl of Minerva), Hegelian philosophy, the 18th century surgeon of the title, more 80s hip hop ('punks jump up to get beat down') and a range of substances including heroin, meth amphetamine, mescaline, beer and gin all sung so sweetly. One of the best songs of the 00s. After Six, a short two minute song is also from White Bread Black Beer, in which Green pleads, 'oh Jesus, keep your love away from me'.

Asylums In Jerusalem is from 1982's Songs To Remember, a change in sound and style from their post- punk recordings, funk bass and synths, backing vocals and bigger studios. It was a reaction partly to Green's growing distaste for the indie ghetto- the desire to break out, to not be seen as bedsit/ squat intellectuals, to connect with an audience, all drove it, as did Green's rejection of 'monolithical Marxism', and a nine month recovery in Wales from a nervous breakdown triggered by stage fright. Asylums In Jerusalem was inspired by Freidrich Nietzche's descriptions of the mentally ill contained in asylums built to hold the number of religious lunatics who appeared in the wake of Jesus Christ. 

Tinseltown To The Boogiedown was released in 1999 on the album Anomie & Bonhomie, Green making music with the cream of 90s hip hop. On Tinseltown... Green sings and plays with Mos Def and Da Bush Babees (a New York Native Tongues affiliated group) 

Skank Bloc Bologna is from 1978, an oblique, lo fi single, the musicians sometimes seeming to be playing different songs- scratchy, weird, post punk dub with a title inspired by Antonio Gramsci and his writings about class and society. Gramsci also gave the band their name, from his book Scritti Politisci. 

Absolute is a 1985 single and is pop perfection, a sublime single with a sound that swims and soars with Green's voice never sounding better. The video is a joy too, Green in Nike Windjammer track jacket and moon boots and with huge Princess Di hair, and a party of impossibly young and beautiful people.

In 2020 Green released a 7" single out of nowhere, a pair of covers of Anne Briggs songs which revealed Green's pre- punk love of British folk music. The songs were done at home with bandmate Rhodri Marsden. Tangled Man and Wishing Well were very near the top of my list of  my favourite songs of 2020 and both still sound lovely today. 

King Midas Sound's Without You is dub, dubstep, experimental double album from 2012, songs reworked and remixed by an array of artists. Massive Attack and Tricky are close companions of the original album, from 2009. Green re- voices Come And Behold, adding his vocals to the song.  

The 'Sweetest Girl' is a 1981 single, an about turn for Scritti in music and production, with Robert Wyatt on keys. The song was designed to be a hit single and provoked a furious disagreement at record label Rough Trade, many of whom were ideologically opposed to hit singles. It was also the most money Rough Trade had ever paid to make a single, £60, 000. For Green, making pop music in 1981 did not mean selling out or dumbing down punk's principles but was about making music that would find a way into people's hearts. Songs To Remeber was partly about what happens, as he said to The Face, 'when anchor points of political, moral or religious understanding fall away'. The 'Sweetest Girl' is about the promise and the myth of 'the perfect girl', or about how the idealised male version of the 'sweetest girl' was a myth. 

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 this- Towards the insignificant- and my song choices went all existential, Pixies, Julian Cope and Tim Burgess. Suggestions from readers (Ernie, Khayem, JC, Walter and Chris) took in Talking Heads' Road To Nowhere, Nic Roeg's film Insignificance and its soundtrack song by Glenn Gregory and Claudia Brucken, The Indelicates and The Last Significant Statement To Be Made In Rock 'n' Roll, John Martyn's Solid Air, Richard Norris' Music For Healing series, anything by Nick Drake, and Frazier Chorus' Nothing (Land Of Oz Mix). That's as good a playlist about insignificance as we're ever going to assemble. 

Today's card is this- Put in earplugs. 

Which made me laugh out loud when I turned it over. 

Friends of mine attended the recent My Bloody Valentine gig at Factory Aviva Studios in Manchester (I missed out on tickets). They all wore earplugs, all found it deafeningly, unbelievably loud and couldn't tell, despite being confirmed and long time MBV fans, which songs were actually being played. Their account made me regret even more that I missed it in a way. 

You Made Me Realise

The loudest gig I've attended in recent years was Bob Mould at Manchester Academy 2 in March 2019, a gig that in retrospect I should have worn earplugs for. The hearing in my right ear has not been the same since. I wrote about it at the time...

Bob Mould at Manchester Academy 2 on Sunday night, twenty years after I last saw him play there. Back in 1998 he played almost entirely solo stuff, promoting his then new record The Last Dog And Pony Show, with just a Sugar song held back for the encore. This time around, promoting his current new album Sunshine Rock, he plays songs from the last forty years of playing and making records, from their earliest recordings to his latest. Backed by a high kicking bassist and a drummer engaged in a one man war of attrition with his snare drum Bob hits the stage loud and fast and doesn't really let up. His guitar/pedals/twin amp set up makes Bob sound like two or three guitarists and it's loud, really loud, with those crystalline melodies fired off within the sheets of distorted riffs. 

There are few gaps between the songs, no light show to speak of, no projections or backdrop- just songs from the Bob Mould back catalogue. He opens with 2014 song The War and then blasts straight into Sugar's A Good Idea, the bass riff on its own for a few seconds before being submerged in Bob's wall of guitars. Three songs in and we're into I Apologise off Husker Du's 1985 New Day Rising. There is then a liberal smattering of songs from Sunshine Rock, Bob's self-willed optimistic, happy album, an album written in the aftermath of the death of both parents and Husker drummer Grant Hart, songs like Thirty Dozen Roses and Sin King, and highlights from Sugar's 1992 album Copper Blue (Hoover Dam sounds enormous, bigger than the guitars and keyboards of the album version). People around me are adjusting their earplugs. 

Husker Du's 1982 hardcore single In A Free Land has been dusted down and in Trump's wake sounds no less relevant and no less alive. Bob has been unwell in recent days and on antibiotics for a chest infection, not that you'd guess- Sugar's If I Can't Change Your Mind roaring out of the amps, noise plus melodies, punk plus choruses. He pauses three quarters of the way through to thank us for coming and introduce Jason Narducy and Jon Wurster on bass and drums and then its back to business. Something I Learned Today, one of Husker Du's most vital songs, is a ferocious blast, spitting fire and piss and from this point, for the final fifteen minutes or so Bob and band go off setlist, launching into one Husker Du song after another, almost a medley- Chartered Trips, their cover of The Mary Tyler Moore theme Love Is All Around Us, a beautiful and raging Celebrated Summer with Bob stretching out the pause into the guitar picking section at the end, finishing with Makes No Sense At All, the single that paved the way for Pixies and Nirvana to name but two. No encore. Lights on. Ears ringing. Home.

Hoover Dam

Chartered Trips

Neither of those mp3s give any idea of how loud Bob was that night. At one point people were physically flinching and stepping back from the stage. I remember moving forwards into a gap and turning my head sideways on at one point as Bob turned the single guitar he was playing into three, all at max volume. 

Bob recently announced Sugar's reformation and a new single, Long Live Love. And gigs including one in Manchester at the end of May. Put in earplugs. 

Thrice Yes

'Language has the power to alter our perceptions... a single word can change our reality... and that word is yes!'

Jezebell's second album, Jezebellearic Beats Volume 2, came out last year, a twenty track, four sides of vinyl epic with remixes, edits, originals and five brand new recordings. The album's ultimate track was Turn It Yes, the song that maybe Jesse and Darren have been building up to all this time- rippling synths, rolling electronic drums and percussion, a vocal sample about language and reality and the word yes and a second vocal sample, one about a famous exhibition at The Indica Gallery in 1966 that proved to be a crucial part of the story of one of the most famous people of the 20th century. 

Today sees the release of a remix EP, Turn It Yes redone in three versions. Sean Johnston's Hardway Bros remix is straight out of Sean's top drawer, a thumping, pumping, uptempo glide by that threatens to turn into Underworld on several occasions- I can imagine Two Months Off and this remix being mixed in and out of each other, cutting from one to the other for ages. Sean keeps it going, the juddering kick drum and the words and the topline, all piling up, a never ending peak. The Parvale Remix is tougher still, a four four chug with everything- bpms, synths, rave bass- set to max. 

Justin Robertson is the third man, remixing Jezebell in his psychic folk dub, Five Green Moons mode, slowing Jezebell down, dubbing the bass, FX ricocheting, drums skanking, organ notes flaring like flashes of sunshine and that nagging key topline appearing and re- appearing and the vocals slurred and stoned... 'and that word is Yes'. Justin's on a roll right now and this one is right up there with his best work of recent times. 

You can find Turn It Yes Remixes Vol. 1 at Bandcamp. 

Justin can also be found remixing Brisbane band Das Druid. The Aussie three piece have been compared to the sound of late 80s/ early 90s Manchester, the swaggering indie- dance rolling drums, psychedelic guitar lines and euphoric, wide eyed spirit. On their Das EP there are three songs- Freedom, Less Than 3 and Incense- and if you slotted them into a Madchester/ indie dance playlist they'd be right at home, you'd barely hear the joins. The third of those three, Incense, also carries one of the next steps from those early 90s days, the spaced out swirl and psychedelic rock of Spiritualized and early Verve. 

Justin's Five Green Moons remix of Freedom comes in two versions, a remix and a dub, each eight minutes long, the spaced out dubness, FX and melodica and slo mo rhythms slipping and sliding through a Five Green Moons haze. As well as those two Das Druid are put through their paces by Ruf Dug, the Stoner Trance Version of Incense, a slow burning behemoth, distorted bass and grinding rhythm in contrast to the half whispered, starsailing vocal. The drums double up at three minutes and there's some wailing, an acid house, psychedelic stew. Intense. Incense. 'Two hands are better than one'.

The Das EP is also available at Bandcamp. 

Justin is in demand in the world of Magick Knives too where he's taken the Dungeon Jazz and Wizard Psych of their song Existence into his folk- dub netherworld, where the hills have eyes and the isles are being prepared for midsummer. Dislocated trumpets, disembodied vocals, spindly guitars and whirling organs. Get tripped out at Bandcamp. 

Armed And Eleven

Last weekend was The Golden Lion's 11th birthday, a weekend of musical events to celebrate the 11 years since Gig and Waka took the Todmorden pub and turned it into something much more than a pub- 'ceci n'est pas une pub' is painted onto the side of the building. On Friday night Joe Goddard from Hot Chip played and on Saturday there was a Belfast themed takeover with David Holmes headlining downstairs and the band Deeply Armed playing upstairs. Around these two we got to play again, the Flightpath Estate DJs from 2pm downstairs and then either side of the band upstairs.

We played a bagful of tunes and maybe at some point we'll recreate at least part of the several hours long set and share it here. There was a section in the middle where I played Richard Norris' remix of Warpaint (Disco// Very), the Two Lone Swordsmen remix of X- Press 2's Witchi Tai To and then this...

Kingdom Of Rust (Prins Thomas Diskomiks)

... which had a few people reaching for the Shazam app on their phone. It's a wonderful Prins Thomas version, the drums and bass winding their way round and round and a guitar picking out single notes, building over several minutes, the guitars and strings gradually joining, the sound becoming richer and fuller but all the while following the groove. Those trademark, world weary Doves vocals arrive halfway through. A glorious eight minutes of music. 

Deeply Armed flew over from Belfast, a band with a one single behind them, some serious remix action (Keith Tenniswood, Richard Fearless) and an album recorded and ready to go. They took to the stage at 9.30 playing to a full room, singer Michael brandishing a tambourine and giving the Ian Brown stare into the middle distance of the room. Around him the band kick up a motorik groove, synths and guitar/ bass conjuring a blissed, psychedelic sound- repetition, garage band chord changes, Spacemen 3 tempo, and the street menace of early Happy Mondays evident too on some of the first half of the nine song set. On last year's single The Healing it all comes together into one krauty/ Velvets drone...

Downstairs fellow Belfast native David Holmes is kicking up a storm. We miss the first part of his set due to playing before and after the band but after the Deeply Armed have finished and everyone has moved downstairs- Holmes v The Flightpath Estate, it's no contest- I make my way down and into the maelstrom of a packed Golden Lion, dancers everywhere, the red lights bouncing off the mirrorball and a Holmes set that takes in Crooked Man, the Leftside Wobble edit of Tomorrow Never Knows, All Seeing I and much more. 

Blacked Out

Black Bones, a Belfast duo, released a six track album last year that took nightclub music- techno, dub, disco, whatever else gets people dancing- and lit a fire under it. Tough beats, wonky experimental sonics, a dark Balearic feel, more than a little influenced by various points in Andrew Weatherall's back catalogue- the noir feel of Sabres, the basement beats of 2000 era Two Lone Swordsmen, the adventurism of his solo work from the 2010s. 

Black Bones have followed that album with a new 10" single, two more slices from Belfast. The A- side, Barrios And Barricades is an urban trip with voices, a banging bassline, a rattling snare, shrieks and cries, the thump in the chest you get when music is played through a big soundsystem and the staccato flash of the strobe. Full blooded music that makes you feel alive and in the moment. Listen and buy at Bandcamp. 

On the flip is Cruising, a Black Bones- Autumns collaboration. Cruising drives in with the same four four thud, the drum sound pushed to the edge and a bassline that would chew up the carpet at parties. Swirling around those two elements there are crashes and FX, echoed shouts, metal on metal and at two minutes forty seven seconds a breakdown, a brief pause before the tension and the rhythm returns. 

The Last Time I Saw You Was Down At The Greeks

A few weeks ago I came across the lyrics to The Broad Majestic Shannon, a Pogues song that is absolutely one of their finest songs and one of Shane's greatest lyrics. Looking at the words on my screen it occurred to me that they work perfectly as just the words, a poem. 

The last time I saw you was down at the Greeks
There was whiskey on Sunday and tears on our cheeks
You sang me a song that was pure as the breeze
On a road leading up Glenaveigh

I sat for a while at the cross at Finnoe
Where young lovers would meet when the flowers were in bloom
Heard the men coming home from the fair at Shinrone
Their hearts in Tipperary wherever they go

Take my hand and dry your tears, babe
Take my hand, forget your fears, babe
There's no pain, there's no more sorrow
They're all gone, gone in the years, babe

I sat for a while by the gap in the wall
Found a rusty tin can and an old hurley ball
Heard the cards being dealt and the rosary called
And a fiddle playing "Sean Dun Na Ngall"

And the next time I see you we'll be down at the Greeks
There'll be whiskey on Sunday and tears on our cheeks
For it's stupid to laugh and it's useless to bawl
'Bout a rusty tin can and an old hurley ball

Take my hand and dry your tears, babe
Take my hand, forget your fears, babe
There's no pain, there's no more sorrow
They're all gone, gone in the years, babe

So I walked as the day was dawning
Where small birds sang and leaves were falling
Where we once watched the row boats landing
By the broad majestic Shannon

Every line Shane writes in The Broad Majestic Shannon, every image he paints, can be seen and felt. That's how it seems to me, written down. The Pogues matched Shane's words with a glorious, swooning, lilting tune and performance.

The Broad Majestic Shannon

It took a while to suss out the penultimate line. I couldn't understand why after all these scenes Shane depicts so vividly, flashes of life from his childhood and teens, the tears and optimism of the chorus, and the new day of the last chorus, why Shane was watching robots landing. It made no sense. Was this a War Of The Worlds thing? Why were robots crossing Ireland's longest river? Back in the early 90s, having mentioned this to a friend, I got a postcard from him while he was on holiday in Ireland. He wrote an update of his adventures and places he'd been. The P.S. at the very bottom of the postcard read just this- 'it's row boats, not robots'. 

Not long after I saw the lyrics in front of me on my screen and had these thoughts, news of the death of Pogues drummer Andrew Ranken aged 72 appeared on my screen too. RIP Andrew. 

Monday's Long Song

It sounds overblown not to mention a little pretentious to state that with the release of Selected Ambient Works 85- 92 in 1993 Richard D. James invented a new language for electronic and ambient music. Many of the elements he used- basslines from house and techno, spongy synth tones, clicky, repetitive rhythm tracks made from drum samples, a sound that felt ultra- modern and futuristic yet seemed anchored in something from the past- were already familiar but the way he put them together, the way as Aphex Twin he constructed and layered his tracks, was something else and new too. A problem with Selected Ambient Works is that it is almost too good, so full of beauty, ambient/ dance music with ambition and nuance, that what came after would never sound as good. Richard continued to make many, many great records, tracks that flipped what electronic music could be, but the magic he conjured up on the thirteen tracks that make up SAW is almost unique to that record. 

This is Tha, a nine minute odyssey that starts out with the sound  of a tap dripping and then transforms into ambient/ techno, outer/ inner space, excursion. 

Tha

Hiss, clicky drums, a warm bassline that dances about that I can almost see (I can definitely imagine it visually), the hint of voices, keyboard notes in a space above the rest of the track and a murky, middle of the night feel- an otherworldly, dream energy. 

Some of the music on it was made by a teenage Richard, using homemade equipment and recorded onto cassette. Jon Savage, a man who knows about many things but especially music, said that Selected Ambient Works 'defined a new techno primitive romanticism' and the primitive nature of the music is absolutely part of its beauty. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Colourbox

A few days ago I posted Colourbox's Tarantula and the wonderful Pandit Pam Pam v Darkinari cover version of it (out two days ago here). Eduardo sent me this video he made on Friday, filmed on the forty five minute flight between Sao Paulo and Rio. 

Today's forty five minute mix is some Colourbox tracks thrown together/ skillfully sequenced, a celebration of a band who threw soul, reggae and dub, electro, industrial and sampling together into a big stew and came up with some genuinely pioneering records between 1982 and 1987.

Some biographical details first.  Colourbox were formed in London in 1982, brothers Martyn and Steve Young, Ian Robbins and singer Debion Currie. Currie and Robbins left a year later, after the first single was released (Breakdown/ Tarantula) and singer Lorita Grahame joined. They signed to 4AD, a street counterpoint to the ethereal, indie/ gothic sounds of the rest of the 4AD line up (Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, This Mortal Coil) and released three albums, all called Colourbox, and a slew of great singles. In 1987 Colourbox and AR Kane collaborated as M/A/R/R/S and between them, despite a rather difficult studio relationship, created an international hit- Pump Up The Volume. Pop star fame and long running legal bother over Pump Up The Volume and sample clearance led both Martyn and Steve Young to abandon Colourbox. 4AD issued best ofs and  box sets and in 2000 Andrew Weatherall included them on his 9 'O' Clock Drop compilation. Steve Young died in 2016. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Colourbox

• Looks Like We're Shy One Horse
• Baby I Love You So (12" Mix)
• Breakdown
• Say You (12" Mix)
• Edit The Dragon
• Tarantula
• The Official Colourbox World Cup Theme
• Arena II

Looks Like We're Shy One Horse, packed with gun shots and Spaghetti Western samples, was the B-side to Colourbox's 1986 Baby I Love You So single. The slowed down dub section at the end is genuinely thrilling after six minutes of drum machines, guitars, keys, samples, river dredging bass and South London via the Great Plains.

The A- side was Baby I Love You So, a cover of a Jacob Miller and Augustus Pablo song from 1974. King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown was constructed around the dub version of it. Colourbox's cover is a dub version it its own right, a masterful and superbly produced slice of 80s British street sounds with a bassline that you could chew. 

Breakdown was Colourbox's debut single, released in 1982 with Debian Currie on vocals. Tarantula is industrial synth with a detached, numbed vocal. Breakdown is New Wave synthpop, a very of its time song but one that should be better known than it is. 

Say You was a 1984 single, a cover of a U- Roy song from 1976, one of those reggae songs that has a complicated back story with umpteen versions, dubs and covers. Colourbox's version is sweet 80s electro dub- soul. 

In 1985 Colourbox released their first full length album- Colourbox (a mini- album called Colourbox came out two years before). It included Just Give 'Em Whiskey which I wanted to include here but couldn't find a digital version and a cover of Keep Me Hangin' On, the Motown classic. William Orbit plays guitar on Manic. The first 10, 000 copies with a second album, also called, wait for it Colourbox. The mini- album had versions and tracks extra to the first including Edit The Dragon, an electro/ sample piece that in some ways sounds like one of Pump Up The Volume's origin stories. Arena II is a different version of Arena, a mid- 80s soul/ torch song that could have been huge. 

Official Colourbox World Cup Theme was a 1986 single released on the same day as Baby I Love You So. The track was recorded to coincide with the 1986 Mexico World Cup and was nearly chosen by the BBC as the theme music for their coverage. It is Martyn Young's favourite Colourbox song and came in a sleeve that had Jimmy Hill on one side and Bobby Robson on the other. England went to the 1986 World Cup, managed by Bobby Robson and Jimmy Hill was the anchor in the studio- they reached the quarter finals where they lost to two pieces of Diego Maradona audacity.