Monday's Long Song

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

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

Mayday Acid

Seven Hours Of The Flightpath Estate At Blossom Street

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

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

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

Martin

• Lionrock - Rock Steady Romance
• Innervisions - Mermaids

Rob

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

Adam 

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

Martin 

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

Rob

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

Adam

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

Martin

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

Rob

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

Dan

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

Adam

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

Martin

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

Rob

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

Dan

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

Adam

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

Martin

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

Rob

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

Dan

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

Adam

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

Martin

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

Rob

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

Dan

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

Adam

• Coyote -  Lonely 
• Andy Bell - Smokebelch II

Martin

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

V.A. Saturday

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

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

The Story Of Light

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

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

Second Hand

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

Sunset At The Cafe Del Mar

Make It Burn

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

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

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

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

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

Moments

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

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

Moments In Soul 

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

Moments In Love

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

Keep On Movin'

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

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

Tom's Diner

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

Feel Every Beat (DNA Mix)

Music For A Lost Spring

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

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

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

Galahad

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

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

Music For A Found Harmonium

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

Music For A Found Harmonium (Patrick Street Version)

Insanely Beautiful

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

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