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. 

Asha Bhosle

Legendary Indian singer Asha Bhosle died a few days ago aged 92. Her singing career,alongside acting and television presenting work, spanned eight decades and apparently she is the most recorded artist in history. She may be best known to British indie audiences from the title and lyrics of their 1997 single Brimful Of Asha.

Brimful Of Asha

What a great song- The Velvet Underground via Indian TV and film, the beauty of the 7" single as an art form, Asha's sister Lata Mangeshkar (also a singer of renown), Ferguson Mono, Jacques Dutronc, the Bolan boogie, Trojan Records... a lyrical stream of consciousness that makes perfect sense even if you don't get all the references. The single stalled on release but a Norman Cook remix smashed its way to the top of the charts and it sold millions. Asha herself said that the song was significant, the moment that two worlds, British indie rock and Bollywood, collided.

Asha Bhosle sang on this song, O Je Suis Seul,too by West India Company. West India Company were Neil Arthur and Stephen Luscombe (from Blancmange), Asha and tabla player Pandit Dinesh (when West India Company started in 1984 Vince Clarke was involved too but Erasure became a much bigger day job). 

In 1989 West India Company rubbed shoulders with Dr Alex Paterson of The Orb and his Battersea neighbour Andrew Weatherall (then at the start of his remix career) and the pair did two remixes of O Je Suis Seul, another Asha Bhosle cultural collision, this time, acid house/ ambient house and Bollywood spliced. Weatherall drops in the 'Yep, I know that feeling' sample, Nastassja Kinski in Paris, Texas, one he'd use again on Screamadelica a year later. Thrash, then of The Orb, engineered both remixes, the Bhagwan Boogie is Andrew and the Orient Express Mix is Andrew and Alex. 

O Je Suis Seul (Bhagwan Boogie)

O Je Suis Seul (Orient Express Mix)

Both are totally of their time, have a wonderful 1989 innocence about them and are completely fantastic, the Bhagwan Boogie especially. 

Asha also sang on Bow Down Mister, Boy George's late 80s/ early 90s acid house/ Hare Krishna outfit Jesus Loves You. George wrote the song on a trip to India- Asha said several times it was the song she was most pleased to have contributed to. Her vocal in the second half elevates the song. 

Bow Down Mister (A Small Portion 2 B Polite Mix)

Asha Bhosle also appears on this 2021 track by Bicep, a duo from Belfast. Asha's vocal is a strong presence in the track, set back from the tumbling and thumping drums and the skipping synths, the track on the verge of falling apart. The album Isles was released in early 2021, a point where any communal activities- dancing, clubbing, going to gigs, even meeting indoors- were out of the question. Asha's vocal seems to fully capture that in a way, partway between euphoria and melancholia. 

Sundial

Lastly, and I was completely unaware of this song until this week, is this- in 2002 Asha sang a duet with Michael Stipe, a song that appeared on an album by 1 Giant Leap (Faithless' Jamie Cato). The Way You Dream is pretty stunning- eight minutes long, building gradually with tabla and samples, Asha's divine voice, strings, Michael joining in just after two minutes, singing along with and around the vocal the 1 Giaat Leap pair had already recorded with Asha. 

Asha's funeral took place two days ago, huge crowds coming out to pay tribute to her as she made her way to be cremated where she was sent off with a gun salute. 

RIP Asha Bhosle. 

Transcendental Radiation

Manchester label Sprechen released an EP by Todmorden cosmische band Lines Of Silence last month with an album and another EP lined up to follow shortly. 

The Radiate EP begins its orbit with Transcendental Radiation- warm bass, squelchy synth sounds and a ticking rhythm, a spaced out joy that should be the soundtrack to what the four astronauts saw from the windows of Artemis II last week, the earthrise coming into view as the spacecraft clears its journey round the back of the moon, dissolving into dub FX before heading for splashdown. 

There is a further version, the Kayla Painter Remix, an ambient remix by Bristolian artist Kayla, that softens the sound even further and bathes it in a golden, liquid glow. Third track Walrus (Amaury Cambuzat's It's A Rainy Mix) is a stompy, flipped out techno track remixed by Ulan Bator/ Faust member Amaury, a darker, more subterranean take on the Lines Of Silence sound. 

The EP is at Bandcamp and Transcendental Radiation will be part of the forthcoming Lines In Opposition! album. There's another EP, Harmonise, due too which comes with a Psychederek remix. We'll return to both at some point in the near future and in May they're supporting The Utopia Strong in Manchester. 

月曜日の長い歌

Getsuyōbi no nagai uta. Monday Long Song. 

Apologies to any Japanese readers who find any errors in the translation of the title of today's Monday Long Song post- I relied on a popular internet translation service. 

A couple of weeks ago Ernie posted some Japanese psyche at 27 Leggies, by the band Nagasa Ni Te. I responded a few days later with some Japanese psyche by Yura Yura Teikoku. Last week Ernie raised me with a London based Japanese psyche band who go by the name of Barbican Estate- you can read about them here. I suspect this is a game of musical tag that we won't be able to keep going for very long but I'm going in again...

Bo Ningen are a London based  Japanese psyche rock four piece who make a fearsome racket. I saw them play at Manchester's Albert Hall in 2016 supporting Savages, quite an intense pairing. Bo Ningen were hugely impressive, four androgynous figures swinging their guitars around, the bassist/ singer Taigen Kawabe finishing the gig by turning his bass around and playing it with the headstock in his armpit and the body pointing out away from him and towards the audience. 

In 2021 they re- released their debut album on double vinyl but decided to rebuild it, taking the master tapes and completely remixing it. It ends with Triangle, a sixteen minute psyche epic that starts out gentle and then builds, becoming a ferocious noise. 

Triangle

The rest of Rebuilt is at Bandcamp along with several more Bo Ningen albums. 2024's live score for The Holy Mountain is an experience that should be enjoyed at least once. 

The Flightpath Estate At The Social

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This was last Saturday night at The Social where Acid House Chancers hosted a tribute to Andrew Weatherall on what would have been his 63rd birthday with a line up spread across the venue's two floors. 

The Flightpath Estate had been asked to play a few months ago and the prospect of playing The Social was pretty exciting. The Social is on Little Portland Street, just north of Oxford Street and a stone's throw from Soho. Dan and Martin couldn't make it and Mark was also playing as Rude Audio, so me and Baz travelled south to represent on the decks. We were on downstairs, a club space with a dancefloor, DJ booth and bar area. When I arrived there were already a good number of people downstairs, Stuart D. Alexander at the decks and Jenny Leamon taking over from 5.15 pm. Jenny had a crowd up and dancing before 6 pm, something that caused me some pre- gig nerves with visions of clearing the floor, playing the wrong tunes and various technical mistakes all running through my mind. 

I shouldn't have worried. I got the obligatory minor technical fuck up out of the way early on and then we were off and in a groove. As the room filled up the energy levels kept rising, more people arrived to dance with some familiar faces from gigs at The Golden Lion, and it was a total blast- one of those times when you're completely caught in the moment and wish you could revisit, soak up and enjoy. It just flew by. 

                                             

This was the scene looking out from the booth- red lights, dry ice, a blur of dancers... the most mayhem we've ever caused on a dancefloor. Alex Knight, formerly of Sabresonic and Fat Cat records and the Sabres Of Paradise tour DJ, took over from us, playing a seamless set with some Weatherall and Sabres inspired mid- 90s techno. 

Our set wasn't recorded but I've recreated it since and it's available to download below or you can find it at The Flightpath Estate's Mixcloud is you prefer to stream. What a night we had. 

The Flightpath Estate At The Social

• The Light Brigade: Shuffle The Deck
• SOP: Ysaebud (From The Vaults)
• Bim Sherman: World Dub
• The Clash: Ghetto Defendant
• Coyote ft Daniel Gidlund: Butterflies
• Paul Weller: Kosmos (Lynch Mob Bonus Beats)
• New Order: Your Silent Face
• Doves: Kingdom Of Rust (Prins Thomas Diskomiks)
• Mark Lanegan: Ode To Sad Disco
• Le Carousel: We're All Gonna Hurt
• Unloved: Turn Of The Screw
• Fontaines DC: A Hero's Death (Soulwax Remix)
• Bedford Falls Players: Fool's Gold- en
• The Pogues: A Rainy Night In Soho

The Light Brigade is David Holmes and guests/ collaborators. On Shuffle The Deck it's former Swordsman Keith Tenniswood and a floor shaking, civil rights leader sampling tune, opening with a rousing speech- 'It's time for a new course, a new coalition, a new leadership... somebody gotta rise above race, rise about sex... Don't cry 'bout what you don't have, use what ya got... Our time has come!', and after several minutes of bass- led oompty boompty finishing with Andrew's musings on acid house as gnostic ceremony, music, coloured lights and smoke.

SOP was Sabres Of Paradise, a one off, one sided 7" single from 1996 with a righteous vocal sample from Count Ossie and Mystic Revelation Of Rastafari- 'Ever since I was a youth/ I've always been searching for the truth'. 

Bim Sherman and Adrian Sherwood's Ghetto Dub album came out in 1988 and due to all kinds of legal complications over the late Bim Sherman's back catalogue has remained out of print. A German label have unlocked some of the problems and re- pressing of Ghetto Dub is out shortly on Week- End Records. 

Ghetto Defendant is from Combat Rock, The Clash and Allen Ginsburg rocking out in dub reggae style, Strummer lamenting the drug addiction and heroin pity that prevents civil resistance'. Paul Simonon's bassline and Topper's drum keep the song grounded in reggae/ dub groove. A late Clash classic. 

Coyote's Butterflies is a moment of Balearic calm, from a forthcoming 12" with vocals by Daniel Gidlund. Last Saturday night it slowed things down a little and gave the dancers a breather.  

Playing at The Social was a big deal. In the 90s I'd read about the first Heavenly Social nights at The Albany pub, accounts in the music press of exhilarating music and wanton debauchery, Weatherall, The Chemical Brothers, Tim Burgess, the Heavenly and Creation crews, a cast of thousands. One of those accounts was of people flipping out to Andrew playing Brendan Lynch's version of Paul Weller's Kosmos, a dub/ trip hop/ jazz noise fest that scrambled minds as it squawked and ricocheted on a Sunday evening. I'd been to The Social on Little Portland Street before but only as a punter so to actually take to the decks was a big moment. Playing Kosmos was a nod to all of that. 

New Order's Your Silent Face is one of the great New Order songs and therefore one of the great songs. It provoked a few moments of emotion on Saturday night, Hooky's bass, those one finger keyboard notes and everyone waiting for Bernard's kiss off last line 'So why don't you piss off'. It was released in 1983 on Power, Corruption And Lies and is one of those New Order songs that really should have been a single, had New Order in the 80s operated along the lines other less obtuse bands at more conventional record companies did. 

Doves' Kingdom Of Rust remixed by Scandi- disco legend Prins Thomas is one of those tunes that always gets people asking what it is (or Shazaming it on their phones). A hypnotic, locked in groove, bass and drums circling, guitars picking out little melody lines and then sweeping strings joining in with Jimi's vocals- glorious Mancunian melancholy. 

Mark Lanegan's Ode To Sad Disco is a New Order- esque song from man usually more associated with grunge and gnarly blues rock. The synths and guitars are heavenly and Mark's imagery is memorable- subterranean eyes, the factory line, a mountain of nails, a white horse that drowned on parade, an Arcadian twist and a hollow headed morning all stand out. The 'mountain of nails' mentioned in the second verse links rather nicely to the 'kingdom of rust' and 'ocean of trust' in the Doves song too I've just noticed. 

Le Carousel's The Humans Will Destroy Us is already one of 2026's best and most prescient albums and We're All Gonna Hurt is its emotional centre and heartbeat, a Giorgio Morodor via Belfast acid house banger, dance music that is up and happy but sad and broken. 'Sooner or later/ We're all gonna hurt'.

Unloved's Turn Of The Screw came out on 2022's The Pink Album, David Holmes' beat group joined by Raven Violet for a 1960s in the 2020s song with a philosophy and attitude to admire. 

A Hero's Death was from Fontaines DC's second album and was remixed by Soulwax in 2021, the clanging guitars replaced by stripped back Balearic dance- cowbell and bass- with Grian Chatten's Dublin street poetry riding on top. 

Fools Gold- en is by Berkshire's Bedford Falls Players, a crowd pleasing mashing together of The Stone Roses and Rockers Revenge that hits all the spots and really gathers pace in its last few minutes, the bass and drums tumbling and thumping, a looped Reni and Mani doubling and powering on. 

Finishing our set with A Rainy Night In Soho, just a few hundred yards north of Soho, felt right. A Rainy Night In Soho is from the 1986 Poguetry In Motion EP, one of Shane MacGowan's most loved songs that ends with one of his best verses- 'Now the song is nearly over/ We may never find out what it means/ Still there's a light I hold before me/ You're the measure of my dreams/ The measure of my dreams'. 

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 Do nothing for as long as possible.

My responses were the Specials, The Stone Roses (who I've just realised also did nothing for as long as possible by releasing nothing between One Love in June 1990 and Love Spreads in November 1994), Underworld and Sandals with Leftfield. Brian and Peter's Oblique Strategy proved to rich pickings from the Bagging Area readership with a bumper comments box of responses- Brian (not Eno) suggested Black Flag, Swc came up with Notts post- punkers Do Nothing, Ernie suggested Elton John's Song For Guy, Khayem had multiple songs (John Cage, Orbital, Richard Norris' long running Music For Healing, and Love Is All), Anonymous proposed Andrew Ridgeley and Wham!, Rol went with Simon Armitage's Scaremongers, Beerfueledlad gave us Spacemen 3, C turned off her mind, relaxed and floated downstream with The Beatles, Dan went for Fugazi, Jase suggested The Beach Boys and Chris went for Stasis by Force Of Angels. 

This week's card is this- Use 'unqualified' people.

I didn't have much of an immediate response to this Oblique Strategy, I had to let it percolate for a while. If by unqualified it refers to musical training and qualifications, I'd guess that the majority of people who make the music I listen to are unqualified, at least in terms of formal musical training. Many musicians are self- taught, many of the vocalists who stand up in front of a microphone are several years down the line before they get any vocal training or singing lessons. I'd guess that there's a decent number of people I listen to who have some educational qualifications despite the ongoing pop culture suspicion of education. Punk made a virtue out of being unqualified- being able to play and having stayed in school and gained O Levels were seen as/ portrayed as un- punk. 

In 1977 The Nosebleeds released a 7" single, Ain't Been To No Music School. After a burst of classical music at the start we get a couple of minutes of very 1977 punk, fast and thrashy, shouty vocals, lo fi production. 1977 Mancunian punk. 

Ain't Been To No Music School

It probably wouldn't be of much wider interest if not for who was in The Nosebleeds (formerly Ed Banger and The Nosebleeds) and what they went on to do. Ain't Been To No Music School is the first recorded output of Vini Reilly, the pale young guitarist from Wythenshawe who went on to form The Durutti Column, a key Factory act and a huge Bagging Area influence and favourite. Vini co- wrote the song and the B-side (Fascist Pigs) with Ed Banger. Both Vini and Ed left The Nosebleeds after the single's release. Vini and the first version of The Durutti Column would also come to an end fairly abruptly and if it wasn't for Tony Wilson's intervention, pushing Vini into a recording studio with Martin Hannett, we might not have heard much more from Vini either. 

The drummer on this single incidentally was Philip 'Toby' Tomanov, also from Wythenshawe, who played with Linder Sterling's band Ludus and on The Return Of The Durutti Column after The Nosebleeds demise. He would also play in Martin Hannett's Invisible Girls and drummed for Nico (who lived in Manchester during the 1980s), John Cooper Clarke and Pauline Murray. In 1988 he joined Primal Scream and played on I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have, the song that Andrew Weatherall remixed into Loaded. Toby drummed on both Screamdelica and Give Out But Don't Give Up. 

The Nosebleeds continued for a while without Ed and Vini, a certain Stephen Patrick Morrissey arrived as singer and one Billy Duffy joined on guitar. There were two gigs and then The Nosebleeds split up in May 1978 but both The Smiths and The Cult have their origin stories in The Nosebleeds. Morrissey had his own views on education and the qualifications system and on The Smiths' second studio album he took his revenge on the Manchester schools and the 'belligerent ghouls' who ran them in the late 60s and early 70s . Given what he's become, it's probably best to remember him this way.

The Headmaster Ritual (Live on Spanish TV, 1985)

Punk and post- punk saw qualified/ educated musicians form bands as well as unqualified- for every Steve Jones (in his memoir Lonely Boy he tells of rarely attending school and leaving with nothing and says he was functionally illiterate until into his 40s) there's a Green Gartside (Fine Art, Leeds Polytechnic). Joe Strummer, Mick Jones and Paul Simonon all went to art college- Simonon and Jones met there, Simmo regularly pinching oil paints and brushes off the students from wealthier backgrounds. The Gang Of Four formed when the members met at Leeds University. Jon King, the group's singer, has been interviewed at two friend's music blogs this week, Plain Or Pan here and The Vinyl Villain here, to promote the publication of his autobiography in paperback, out shortly. 

To Hell With Poverty! is a key Gang Of Four song, scathing and frantic,Andy Gill's overloaded guitar feeding back and sounding like a siren, with rumbling but danceable post- punk bass and King's vocals, an anti- capitalist celebration of getting drunk on cheap wine while waiting for the giro to arrive. 

To Hell With Poverty!

It's telling that Eno and Schmidt's card puts 'unqualified' in inverted commas- unqualified for what? Maybe it suggests that in the studio the band should go and find someone from outside to contribute, someone who is not from the band, an unqualified outsider. I started to think of the guest appearances on songs and albums by people who might be seen as unqualified for the part just by being external. Johnny Depp appeared on guitar with both Oasis and Shane MacGowan (the latter on Top Of The Pops in 1994 with The Popes doing That Woman's Got Me Drinking). 

In his memoir Sonic Life Thurston Moore talks about arriving in the mid/ late 70s New York scene and how creativity was far more important than technique or training, that being unqualified is no object if you have ideas and the desire to do something. This is what keeps inspiring people to have a go, the idea that anyone can step up, plug in and have ago. It's the basis of most outsider pop music since the 50s really- the 60s art school bands, the punks, 80s indie, acid house, many of the groups and bands in the 90s, all very much making the art of the unqualified. 

Feel free to drop your own responses to Use 'unqualified' people in the comment box. 

More

Steve Hillage has had a long and interesting musical life- part of the Canterbury scene in the early 70s, solo and with Kevin Ayres and Soft Machine, then Gong with Daevid Allen (and where he met his partner Miquette Giraudy, his and Miquette's 1979 solo ambient opus Rainbow Dome Musick, production work with Simple Minds in the early 80s and The Charlatans a decade later and from 1989 his and Miquette's ambient/ dance outfit System 7 with The Orb and Youth and he played a key role in establishing the dance tent at Glastonbury.

Steve and Miquette are not standing still. System 7 are back with a new album, Flower Of Life, out later this month. A single came out ahead of it at the end of March, I Want More...

Coldcut's Matt Black is present on I Want More, which starts out with Can inspired bass and then mutates into pulsing synthlines, Matt's demo the launchpad for a soaring, insistent, four- four track that began as a discussion about Miquette's early 70s film soundtrack work, specifically a French underground film from 1969 about heroin addiction in Ibiza called More (to which Pink Floyd contributed the soundtrack). This short clip provides a flavour of the film...

This is Pink Floyd's Main Theme from the soundtrack, a very late 1960s Floyd track- cymbal splashes, wheezy organ, skittery drumming and throbbing bass. The sound of what they called a Happening. 

Main Theme

System 7's album follows in couple of weeks, ten tracks with early 90s ambient/ progressive house grooves and synth sounds. The title track pulses with positivity. On Beulah Alex Paterson from The Orb shows up, crunchy drums, synth squiggles, a Mae West vocal sample and visions of fields filled with dancers. There are faster and thumpier tracks, full on banging psy- trance on Atmosphere and an Eat Static collaboration Transceptor. Penultimate track Bonjour takes us down, three minutes of comedown with a slightly paranoid edge that eventually evens out. Flower Of Life finishes with a System 7 remix of Delia Derbyshire Appreciation Society, Dubby Chain Signal is an extended downtempo/ ambient, chill out room delight that could be twice its seven minute length and not outstay its welcome. 

Better Days Are Coming

Nightmares On Wax released In A Space Outta Sound in 2006, the fifth album by George Evelyn. The sound was a trippy blend of soul, reggae and electronics, a late night album for heads, lots of detail in the sounds. Flip Ya Lid has some cheerful whistling and a clanking machine rhythm and then a lovely warm reggae bassline. 

Flip Ya Lid

Soul Purpose is electronic soul, lo fi and scratchy like an old 7" playing with a new vocal sung alongside it. It's entrancing and not a little beautiful. 

Soul Purpose

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of In A Space Outta Sound Warp have released a box set which includes a set of  Adrian Sherwood versions, eight new dubbed out remixes that make a companion version, another side of the album. Sherwood's reconstructions head into dub space, that particular place and channel he operates in. He's been on a roll in recent years with solo releases, compilations and Dub Syndicate reissues. His album The Collapse Of Everything was a 2025 highlight. His work on In A Space Outta Dub is more of the same, the usual brilliance with Doug Wimbish playing new bass. 

On You Bliss Sherwood blurs horns, guitar lines and bass, all surrounded by echo and space. On Purpose starts out spindly and brittle but then the vocal kicks in, 'better days are coming you see', and we're into dub/ Lover's Rock territory. Flippin 'Eck has Flip Ya Lid's whistling and an entirely new rhythm, a Space Invaders sound. Final track, Nyabinghi Dub, is seriously good, a filmic piece of music with a 50s feel. You can listen to the whole album below or go to Bandcamp and get it there.