This 350 page hardback book came out recently, the work of the team at Disco Pogo (the people who used to be Jockey Slut, the 90s/ 00s Manchester based magazine that chronicled dance music and beyond). The book is a comprehensive look at the life and music of Andrew Weatherall. Back in 2020 Disco Pogo published a previous version of the book but this one is expanded with tons of new material (over 200 pages of new material) and interviews with insight and behind the scenes detail from those who knew and worked with Andrew- there is a lengthy section on his remixes with contributions from Hugo Nicolson, Jagz Kooner, Keith Tenniswood and Tim Fairplay, there is Justin Robertson writing about Andrew and his visual art, plus contributions from David Holmes, Daniel Avery and Bobby Gillespie among others, a chapter on the gear and instruments in the various studios Andrew occupied, and in depth accounts of the making of the Sabres Of Paradise albums, the Two Lone Swordsmen days, The Aspodells' Ruled By Passion Destroyed By Lust, the story of Convenanza, lots of photographs and posters, an oral history of the acid house years, a full discography and much more. It's beautifully designed and printed and looks incredible.
There is also a chapter on The Flightpath Estate, the edited transcript of an interview the five of us did a few months ago about our albums and the Weatherdrive and a Flightpath Estate guide to five Weatherall online mixes. I thought we might get half a page- turns out we got eight, with the sleeves of our pair of Sounds From The Flightpath Estate albums and a photo of us at The Golden Lion with Waka.
Mind blown.
Disco Pogo's Tribute To Andrew Weatherall is available here and also at many other places that sell books. At some point soon I hope to be able to share some news about a third volume of Sounds From The Flightpath Estate. We always thought we should aim for a trilogy and things are happening behind the scenes.
In the meantime, to accompany all of this here's a fifty minute mix of music Andrew made under his own name. He didn't release any music under his own name (other than remixes of other people's work) until 2006 when his manager suggested that putting out an EP of new music he'd recorded under his own name might help sell more copies. That EP, out twenty years ago, was The Bullet Catcher's Apprentice. He followed that with a solo album in 2009 (A Pox On The Pioneers) and then in the 2010s several albums and EPs using his own name. There's also a second solo album, I Laugh Myself To Sleep, that is unreleased (for various reasons) and which is something of a lost gem in the Weatherall back catalogue. Maybe one day...
Fifty Minutes Of Andrew Weatherall
- Vorfreude 2
- Privately Electrified
- The Moton 5.2
- The Confidence Man
- The Confidence Man (The Emperor Machine Dub)
- Unknown Plunderer
- Feathers
Vorfreude 2 is from Andrew's album Qualia, out on Sweden's Hoga Nord label in 2017, eight instrumentals that combine steam powered drum machines, throbbing live bass, synths and keys, a very Weatherallian fusion of post- punk, dub and cosmische.
Privately Electrified is from A Pox On The Pioneers, the 2009 solo album that fused proper verse- and - chorus songs and singing, guitars (Chris Rotter in fine form), the doomed, lost causes of Victorian and Edwardian adventurers, and dub influenced indie/ post- punk. On Privately Electrified the synths, drums, guitars and vocals are all perfectly weighed and produced with Andrew's multi- tracked vocals and some glorious backing vox building and swelling to the ending where he sings and signs off with, 'Three bottles and a hundred tears show/ Just how drunk I am'.
The Moton 5.2 was one of four tracks on an EP for Pamela Records in February 2020. Chugging, slippery dark dub disco with hissing drums, synth squiggles and some dramtic keyboard chords. The Moton 5.2 is a version of the EPs lead track, The Moton, which I think was a pun on Pamela and Moton/ Tamla Motown. The track March Violets, also on the EP, was named after Philip Kerr's Weimar and Nazi era noir detective novels.
The Confidence Man was on 2016's Convenanza album, a nine track double vinyl work that drew on much of the music he'd made over the previous decades, from Screamadelica onwards, to create a definitive statement of some kind about where he was and what he was doing. There is dub and piano, electronics and guitars, songs that nod to what he was reading and also some big picture stuff (We Count The Stars, Kicking A River). The Confidence Man is a blast, there's some Clash in it, the Sandinista!/ Combat Rock era of the band, some post- punk too. 'From deep within, the chants begin', Andrew intones.
Convenanza was paired with a remix album, Consolamentum, with songs from the first remixed by a cast of friends and musical partners- Scott Fraser, Red Axes, Unloved, Justin Robertson, Solar Bears, Heretic, Timothy J. Fairplay, Sons Of Slough, Duncan Gray, Vox Low and Black Devil Disco Club all show up on the vinyl. The Emperor Machine remixed The Confidence Man in dub style on the digital release.
Unknown Plunderer was one of two tracks on a 12" whose release sadly coincided with Andrew's death in February 2020, another Weatherall and Nina Walsh excursion into leftfield dub. On the flipside was End Times Sound. Andy Bell of Ride and GLOK contributes guitar. Andy arranged to buy a guitar from Andrew and when he arrived at the studio played it for a while. Before he left, Andrew and Nina asked him to play along to some tracks they'd been working on- Andy's guitars also appeared on Unknown Plunderer/ End Times Sound and the 2018 Blue Bullet EP which includes the track Making Friends With The Invader (the Invader in the title is the guitar Andy bought from Andrew, a 1960s guitar with a built in speaker). All four tracks on those two EPs plus the two released on the Kiyadub EP in 2017 are cut from similar cloth and together make a very good half hour Andrew Weatherall mixtape/ album.
Feathers was the lead track on the 2006 EP The Bullet Catcher's Apprentice, a chunky, percussive instrumental with scratchy, clanging guitars and lead bass. The Bullet Catcher's Apprentice was the first thing Andrew did after Two Lone Swordsmen came to an end and represent Andrew dipping his toe back into the world. I think there was a bit of a sense of 'what next?' at the time, Andrew a little unsure of himself and where he fitted into the musical world of the mid- 00s (uncharacteristically maybe) and was a very welcome release. It also has the lost gem Edie Eleven, an 00s dance floor thumper with some great Balearic acoustic guitar, and the very funny and self-explanatory You Can't Do Disco Without A Strat. The Disco Pogo book and the music above show just what a singular and much missed talent he was.
