Make Something Of All The Noise

Back in the 00s there were a lot of two person bands,  some maybe inspired by the sudden ascent of The White Stripes who proved that less could be more (and put a lot of bass players out of work perhaps). One of them were The Kills, formed in 2001 by singer singer Alison Mosshart and guitarist Jamie Hince. Between 2003 and 2011 they put out four albums- Keep On Your Mean Side, No Wow, Midnight Boom and Blood Pressures. In 2016 they released a fifth, Ash & Ice. I dipped in and out and can't remember what the first thing I heard by them was but I think it came from a music blog- they always strike me as an early days of music blogs band.

The Kills were dark and messy, four track/ eight track recordings, garage blues and Velvets sounds, Jamie's gnarly guitars and basic drum machine programming and Alison's chain smoking vocals. In 2011 I heard this song and it became one of the songs of the year for me...

Baby Says

Jamie's guitar playing is superb, the tone and ringing, fuzzy lead line endlessly brilliant. Alison comes in with one of those gutter punk love song lyrics, instantly conjuring the Chelsea Hotel, leather jackets and dirty jeans, a life shot in grimy black and white- 'Baby says/ A howl of romance I'll get/ From all your sleeping dogs/ You thugs of God/ I'll get one yet'. Eat your heart out Allen Ginsberg. 

They released The Last Goodbye as a single from Blood Pressures too which had a cover of Pale Blue Eyes on it- so many bands have covered The Velvet Underground's Pale Blue Eyes but The Kills bring manage to something of themselves to it, a scratchy, lo fi, rickety version.

Pale Blue Eyes

Last week Thurston Moore released his own Velvets cover to mark Sterling Morrison's birthday, a version of Temptation Inside Your Heart. Debbie Googe (ex- MBV) plays bass on it. Thurston's been playing the song live for ages and its probably about time he committed it to tape...

Thurston plays that riff like its all that matters and his NY drawl is perfect on this. The Velvets version didn't come out until 1985 when it was on the VU album and is one of my fvaourite VU songs- Lou is all the place vocally, funny asides, laughter and goofy lines thrown about. Lou starts off saying, 'somebody shut the door', and, 'somebody get her out of here'. Later on he chucks out, 'electricity comes from other planets', and there's more nonsense at the end- 'the pope in the silver castle'. The 'wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong' backing vocals are a joy too. Sterling and Lou's guitars are locked into each other in a way that makes the Velvet Underground in 1968/ 9, the perfect guitar band. 

Temptation Inside Your Heart

Alison Mosshart turned up last week too on the latest preview from Daniel Avery's forthcoming album Tremor. Greasy Off The Racing Line is dark electronic blues, a grimy, overloaded bassline, synth noise explosions and Mosshart back at the mic, ten chain smoked cigarettes in and falling down a deep hole. 

Midnight Versions

Much of what I've posted here over the last month has been new music. It always used to seem that August was a bit of a quiet time, a dead zone in the music industry, nothing much released, everyone waiting for the big rush of autumn releases- but over the last month I've posted new music from Adrian Sherwood, Jezebell, Statues, The Lemonheads, The Charlatans, The Orb, ddwy, Jazxing, Puerto Montt City Orchestra, 100 Poems, Sewell And The Gong, Daniel Avery, Factory Floor, Number, Jay- Son, Byron Carignan, Luke Schneider, Florecer and senses remixed by GLOK. There's probably loads I've missed too and I've got several other new releases noted down to be posted in the upcoming days and weeks. 

All of this is a good thing obviously, new music to be enjoyed and absorbed, but it also possibly makes the posts a little perfunctory sometimes- there isn't always a lot of context or narrative, just me saying, 'here's some new music, I like it, I think you might like it too', and then some kind of attempt at describing said music. The sheer amount of new music also means that sometimes it feels like one listens to something new a lot for a few days and then move on to the next new thing and then on again, a flow that can feel like a flood, and there's a danger that stuff gets lost further upstream behind me/ us. 

This came out yesterday, a new version of a Daniel Avery single that came out two weeks ago. Rapture In Blue is the first single from his new album that comes out at the end of October (with a gig in Manchester the same night). It has Cecile Believe on vocals and guitar from Andy Bell and sounds better with each listen, a 2025 goth- pop/ dance rhapsody, a slow burning rush. The Rapture In Blue (Midnight Version), out at Bandcamp, is a re- imagined version,, made for darker corners and specifically for the club, to shake the floor in DJ sets- that doesn't stop it from sounding good at home though. The pop dynamics and mid- 80s film feel is dialed down and stripped back, with drums and bass toughened and isolated and Cecile's vocal isolated on top. There are whooshes, industrial clangs, shuddering synth breakdowns and stuttering vocal parts. I already like it as much as the original. I'm anticipating that as the album release draws nearer and more songs are released ahead of it, there may be more Midnight Versions too. 

Midnight occurs in thousands of song titles- a search of my downloads folder brings up hundreds. In May Peaking Lights and Coyote released an EP called Love Letters/ So Far Away, three beautifully hazy, dubby tracks. Back in 2012 Peaking Lights remixed their entire Lucifer album as a dub version and Midnight Dub is as good as anything they have done before or since. Gloriously blissed out, wonky dub- pop. 

Midnight Dub

Baltic Fleet is a one man band from Warrington, named after a famous waterfront pub in Liverpool. Paul Fleming played keys and synths for Echo And The Bunnymen and built up a repertoire of songs that he released as a self- titled debut album, Towers, in 2008, followed by Towers (2012), The Wilds (2013) and The Dear One (2016). Midnight Train is from Towers, a chiming, synth- led instrumental, the autobahns of mid- 70s West Germany crossing over to the M62. 

Midnight Train

Finally, a third midnight song, this one from 1987, a single by Creation group The Weather Prophets- Midnight Mile was the B-side to Why Does The Rain although by this point they'd jumped from Creation to Elevation, a Creation offshoot label that Alan McGee set up in conjunction with major label WEA- a major label funded indie that was supposed to benefit from better distribution, and hoped that the better sales would siphon money back to Creation to invest in other artists. 

Midnight Mile is very typical of the period between the end of The Smiths and the dawn of acid house/ indie dance, Pete Astor's '87 jangle- pop confessional produced by Lenny Kaye. 

Midnight Mile

Elevation eventually folded. WEA expected an instant return and hit singles, something The Weather Prophets didn't/ couldn't provide and singles by Primal Scream and Edwyn Collins didn't either. McGee later said setting up Elevation was the biggest mistake he made. Such was the indie scene in 1987 that bands who left the indie nest often lost their original fans who saw major label money as evidence of selling out.  Nowadays everyone and anyone can release songs immediately via Bandcamp (or other services), on their own and cut out the middle man/ record label completely- although the returns are pretty low and not everyone, or many, can make a living out of it. 

A Italia

By the time this post is published I shall be in the air, flying to Italy for a week's holiday. The three of us are landing in Napoli later this morning, two days and nights there and then five on a hillside overlooking Maiori and the Amalfi coast. At some point we are going to Pompeii and Herculaneum. At several points we will be enjoying pizza, local produce (wine, tomatoes, lemon pastries) and the odd Negroni. As a result there will be no posts here for a week but don't worry, I'm filling today's post with a load of music for you to enjoy and explore while I'm away.

A week ago Daniel Avery announced the release of a new album in October, Tremor (out on Hallowe'en, the same night he plays New Century Hall in Manchester). In advance of Tremor Daniel gave us Rapture In Blue, a single with Cecile Believe on vocals and guitars from Andy Bell (whose music with Ride, GLOK and solo has been featured here regularly and who is currently treading the boards with Oasis). Rapture In Blue took a few plays to really get under my skin but now it's firmly there. It's a change of direction compared to what came before- slow mo 4AD goth/ techno pop. 

Also out last week is a new track from the reformed Factory Floor, Tell Me. Tough edged and propulsive, with thumping beats and acid synths, Tell Me is very much after dark music, with New Order's  Stephen Morris adding his expertise to the drum programming. Nic Void's vocal is at the intersection between human and robotic. At Bandcamp there's a short and extended version available . 

Rich Thair and Ali Friend's Number is a post- punk/ disco party outfit, the Red Snapper pair having the freedom to do something outside their main band. Back in 2019 they released an album called Binary. A few days ago they put the first single from a forthcoming album out, the funked up Le Boucle Nouveau. The drums are absolutely on it and the rhythm is irresistible. There are pianos and synth squiggles and a choral vocal. There's a Duncan Grey remix forthcoming and then an album- Pollinate- is due to follow on Ramrock Records. 

Two weeks ago Paisley Dark released an EP by Jay- Son, Tales Of Freedom, an original mix and five remixes- dark cosmic disco with laser beams firing and a gliding bassline. The remixes come from Ian Vale, Hogt I Tak, Viper Patrol, Keith Forrester and this one from Cosmikuro which throbs and thumps deliciously. The whole EP is here. 

Over at Mighty Force there is more acid techno out now courtesy of Byron Carignan and an album called Symmetrical Universe. The ten tracks burst with energy and acid techno, synths overloaded and basslines wiggling, and all manner of interstellar and galactic references in the track titles, tracks such as Nebula Groove, Astral Acid and Spacewave Symphony. Mighty Force don't ever put a foot wrong and this is yet another release that I'll be coming back to in months to come- get it here. 

Finally, something Italian to sign off with. In 2017 a compilation called Welcome To Paradise (Italian Dream House 89- 93) followed by second and third volumes a year later. The albums are chock full of the deep, rich, euphoric, sunrise/ sunset sound of Italo house, Italian producers and DJs making full use of the new technology that was arriving in the late 80s. This one is as good as any, a 1989 12" single by Morenas. Ciao!

Somnambulism

A Midsummer Mix: Forty Minutes Of 2025 So Far

There's some big news coming tomorrow which some of you will want to act on- if you were one of the people that bought a certain compilation album last year, you might want to be back here bright and breezy on Monday morning. Full details to come in twenty four hours time. 

It's the end of June tomorrow also, halfway through the year- I've no idea how the last six months have gone so quickly- but it seems like a good point to do a 2025 So Far Sunday Mix, not a definitive Best Of 2025, rather some of the tracks and songs I've enjoyed the most so far this year. 

A Midsummer Mix: Forty Minutes Of 2025 So Far

• Death In Vegas: Chingola
• Andy Bell: Pinball Wanderer
• Adrian Sherwood: Cold War Skank
• Demise Of Love: Carry The Blame
• 10:40 presents Retro Fit: An Alternative History (Lavender Mist)
• Escape- Ism: Last Of The Sell Outs
• Klangkollektor: Isle Of Stonsey
• Four Tet: Into Dust (Still Falling)

Chigola is a five minute ambient techno intro to the latest Death In Vegas album Death Mask, an album which does not hold its techno punches and which is a machine music tour de force. Richard Fearless poured a lot into the making of Death Mask, some personal losses reflected and worked through. It's an overloaded and emotional trip. Chingola is few minutes of scene setting, calm before the storm. 

Andy Bell's latest solo album Pinball Wanderer came out in February led by a cover of The Passions' I'm In Love With A German Film Star with Dot Allison and Michael Rother on board. The album's title track is an instrumental delight, a circling guitar part beamed from late 60s folk into Andy's 2025 motorik/ cosmsiche/ electric shoegaze. 

Adrian Sherwood's four track dubplate 10" came out recently, led by title track The Grand Designer and has been on steady rotation round here ever since (though I missed out on the vinyl). Cold War Skank is a moody dub/ guitar workout.

Demise Of Love is a three man modern electronic meeting of Daniel Avery, Syd Minsky- Sergeant (Working Men's Club) and James Greenwood (Ghost Culture). They have, like Adrian Sherwood, released a four track 10" EP that merges acid house, some intense techno sounds, industrial noise and the flickers of what New Order could have been had they kept heading away from the light. 

An Alternative History was written as an imaginary Stone Roses song, based on a blogpost by some blogger or other that imagined a world where the band didn't blow it but kept their heads and kept making music, avoiding the pitfalls of The Second Coming. Jesse's new Roses song came in three versions. Lavender Mist is the backwards one. 

Escape- Ism is Ian Svenonius' latest revolutionary outfit, a duo aiming to rewrite modern culture/ indie- rock with stripped down, scuzzy guitar/ drum machine/ keys/ vocals. The album- Charge Of The Love Brigade- is one of my favorites so far this year, a thirty five minute manifesto. Last Of Sell Outs is the best song on it, a meditation on commerce, art and musical integrity and the price of selling out. 

Klangkollektor is Lars Fischer from Numremberg. The EP Dubplates Vol 2, out on Manchester's Jason Boardman's Before I Die label, is a chilled Balearic dub masterclass ending with Isle Of Stonsey with pedal steel/ Hawaiian guitar sailing out into the cosmos. 

Four Tet's latest single samples Mazzy Star to achingly beautiful effect, a Four Tet track that hits all the spots, capable of moving me to tears. 

When We Talk Of The Times

LCD Soundsystem began an eight night residency at Brixton Academy last week, the New York art- dance, post- punkers continuing their habit of rolling into a city and taking it over for a week. If I hadn't been down to London for Sabres Of Paradise I might have thought about going, although I'd prefer it if James Murphy decided the next UK destination for a residency is a bit closer to home- Manchester would do fine. 

In 2010 LCD Soundsystem released their third album This Is Happening, an album that at the time I remember feeling a little ambivalent about. It seemed quite stuck to the LCD template that Murphy and co. had established on Sound Of Silver three years earlier but it's grown on my over the years and songs like Drunk Girls, I Can Change and Pow Pow all worked their magic eventually. This Is Happening starts with this song...

Dance Yrself Clean

Many of LCD's songs are builders. Dance Yrself Clean is very much a builder and at nearly nine minutes long there's a lot of time to build. The first three minutes are very slow and low, a sparse drum machine pattern, James' voice compressed and alone, some backing vocals joining in and the thud of a piano. The lyrics dissecting friendship gone wrong or maybe some soul searching. The song explodes in the third minute, synths and FX, and continues ever onward, James now on the floor and dancing himself clean. 

Support at the second half of the residency comes from Working Men's Club, the Calder Valley's own electronic dance/ rock/ acid house/ post punkers, a group led by Syd Minsky- Sargeant. On Friday night Working Men's Club warmed up for those gigs with one at The Golden Lion, a much more intimate venue than Brixton Academy. 

The pub is packed, the downstairs stage is low and where I'm standing over by the DJ booth it's difficult to see much, Syd's head and microphone, the occasional glimpse of the other members of the band. A stuttering synth loop kicks in and builds over several minutes, other loops kicking in, eventually all coming into sync and then we're off, a full on WMC sound- synths, bass, 303s and 808s and on top Syd's vocals, repeated loops of lines. There aren't any gaps between songs, one song seguing into the next, an hour long megamix. Working Men's Club sound like New Oder if they'd kept pushing and got tougher after Technique or maybe Joy Division in an alternative 1983, one where Ian didn't die but they'd gone fully synth and electronics anyway. WMC's second album, Fear Fear, came out in 2022 and was informed by lockdown and existential dread, Syd's fear writ large. 'When we talk of the times/ We talk in the past tense', rattles round the pub over some very heavy post- punk/ New Beat. There's a healthy dose of late 80s rave and its defiance, its anti- authoritarian stance- the refrain from the song John Cooper Clarke, 'We dance and we smile/ We laugh and we cry/ We play and we fight/ We live and we die', sounding anthemic. 

Both Working Men's Club albums were mixed into single, twenty minute megamixes by Syd, versions of the albums and the live set. Megamix and Megamix II give you an idea of what the live set sounds like. 

Live the songs are even more physical than they sound on disc, Syd a bobbing and frenetic presence at the front of the stage, conducting and waving his hand around as his stream of consciousness is thrown around the pub, the soundman applying layers of FX to the vocals. We get an hour and then they're off. On the basis of tonight, anyone with tickets for LCD Soundsystem should get there in good time. 

Be My Guest was on WMC's self titled debut album, released in 2021, crunching drums and laser focused noisy guitars, Syd bursting out of a small town in West Yorkshire. 

Be My Guest

Syd is also a member of Demise Of Love, a trio made of him, Daniel Avery and Ghost Culture's James Greenwood. A four track 10" EP came out recently led by Strange Little Consequence which I posted in February. This song is also on the EP, Like I Loved You, a slow burning summer epic, some New Order gone interstellar synths, distorted vocals and a loud/ quiet dynamic that keeps the song shape- shifting. 

 

Sunday Mix Trio

Some long form mixes for Sunday, enough to keep you occupied for a few hours if you need some soundtracks for your weekend. First up is David Holmes back at NTS for his monthly God's Waiting Room show, which you can listen to at Soundcloud. No tracklist as yet but the usual excellence in selections- esoteric jazz dub,  sounds, psych and all round good old weirdness. The first thirty minutes covers more ground than some radio shows do in a year. 

Also at Soundcloud is the latest mix from M- Paths and Reverb Delay man Marcus Farley, a forty five minute, 115 bpm mix that starts and ends with Vangelis' Blade Runner soundtrack. 

• Vangelis: Rachel’s Song
• Shed: The Praetorian
• Christian Loffler: Veiled Grey
• Grouper: Sick
• Moderat: Finder
• Shed: Keep Time
• Rebekah: Intro
• R.Rose: Kneeling
• Marco Lazovic: Untitled 1
• Clockwork: Escape Sequence
• Vangelis: Blade Runner (End Titles)

Thirdly, and once more at Soundcloud, is a six hour and forty minute extravaganza from Daniel Avery and John Loveless playing back to back, one on- one off, live at The Lighthouse, Plotzensee back in February. No tracklist unfortunately- starts out ambient, goes techno via submarine dub and Avery's Cure remix ninety minutes in. 

Strange Little Consequence

I spent Sunday afternoon at Yes in Manchester, a free event with the added promise of a free pint for the first hundred people through the door- Daniel Avery, Syd Minski (of Working Men's Club) and Ghost Culture DJing in the main bar. Two years ago Daniel did a similar session at Yes and it was really good so I didn't need asking twice to go again for some Sunday afternoon/ Mother's Day techno. 

I got there at 2pm and stayed for a few hours. By the time I left it was gathering pace, the bar filling and the music getting quite loud and thumpy, techno's promise kicking in. At the start Daniel was playing ambient techno, a sound he's made his own since 2019, and the bpms were slow. Death In Vegas' 1999 track Soul Auctioneer, pitched down a bit, was played along with The Black Dog's minimal techno take on Bjork. Syd took over and jolted it up a bit with some noisy synth action and then Ghost Culture played Depeche Mode's Never Let Me Down and Bowie's The Man Who Sold The World. The Cure in remixed form appeared and then things got increasingly more techno and intense. It was good fun and I wish I'd stayed longer.

The trio have joined forces to make music too, as Demise Of Love. The first fruits of this are a track called Strange Little Consequence, which starts out very alienated and then goes all dreamy when the synth chords wash in. Everything's up in the top end of the frequency range, with fractured drums and Syd's voice going from spoken to softly singing. If New Order were starting out now, and in their twenties again, this is probably what they'd sound like. 

Time Takes A While

Three years ago today we buried Isaac at Dunham cemetery. The recent anniversaries- his 26th birthday on 23rd November, the third anniversary of his death on the 3oth November- were heavy and gruelling, the weeks of build up as they loomed over us and then the days themselves. The anniversary of his funeral is a bit different, it doesn't feel as heavy somehow although I had a couple of twinges yesterday when it bumped up against my emotions. 

I was down at the cemetery on Sunday, just popping by to say hello and check the flowers were all still ok. It struck me that we've developed all sorts of little acts of remembrance in the three years since his funeral. The weekly visits to see him (and now when we go it doesn't feel like we're going to see him- at first it felt awful, a bottomless hole of grief, standing in a wind and rain blasted field staring at his plot, but the more we've been the more it's changed): the replacing of the flowers; the way that when they're in season I always want to have sunflowers in the vase next to him; the bringing back of trinkets and mementos from holidays for his grave; the association with the number 23; the thing with robins I wrote about last week; the busses that go past on the road in the distance; even the electricity pylons that cross overhead very close by and the pigs that live in the field behind the cemetery have become part of the whole. When we go to the grave I always touch his name on the headstone before leaving. All these have become mixed up in his death and in his grave. I'm not a religious person but I understand why people light candles in cathedrals. Acts of remembrance and little rituals that bring some kind of comfort. 

We played some songs for him at the funeral- North Country Boy by The Charlatans as we entered the chapel, You And Me Song by The Wannadies (Eliza's choice), Sketch For Summer by Durutti Column as a slideshow of photographs of him played, and then at the graveside Race For The Prize by The Flaming Lips and the Beatless mix of Sabres Of Paradise's Smokebelch. 

Isaac's Funeral Mix

I can listen to them all now, something I wasn't sure I'd be able to do three years ago- You And Me Song has the capacity to move me to tears and North Country Boy still packs a powerful punch but when I hear them I want to listen to them play in full, I don't reach for the off button. Three years on from that day it does feel like a lot of time has passed while seeming like it was just yesterday too. 

In 2023 Daniel Avery followed his Ultra Truth album with a seven track collection of B-sides and bonus material which included this beautiful piece of weightless ambient techno...

Time Takes A While

Daniel Avery And The Early Bird

No forty minute Sunday mix from me today- I've been away this week and haven't had much time. Instead, enjoy this sublime two hours from Daniel Avery and The Early Bird Show at NTS from last week. Daniel plays an early morning selection of songs and tracks, joining the dots between ambient, indie, trip hop and techno, with PJ Harvey, some of his own music, Sinead O'Connor, Two Lone Swordsmen, Holden Federico, George Clanton, James K, Deftones, Death In Vegas, Everything But The Girl, Skee Mask, Smashing Pumpkins, Interpol, Solvent, and Nulifer Yanya all making appearances. The full tracklist is here and you can listen here. Two hours well spent. 

I've posted two different Daniel Avery mixes previously. Both are still available to download. In November 2022 I put together a forty minute mix of remixes Daniel has done of other artists- it's quite intense and thumpy. 

Forty Minutes Of Daniel Avery Remixes 

• Enfant Sauvage: 58500 (Daniel Avery Remix)
• Saint Etienne: Fonteyn (Daniel Avery Remix)
• Leaving Laurel: Winter In The Woods (Daniel Avery Remix)
• David Holmes: Hope Is The Last Thing To Die (Daniel Avery Remix)
• Mandy, Indiana: Alien 3 (Daniel Avery Remix)
• Joshua James: Amber Rush (Daniel Avery Remix)
• Confidence Man: Feels Like A Different Thing (Daniel Avery Remix)
• Daniel Avery: Lone Swordsman (Chris Carter Remix)

Previous to that, in February 2022 when I started this Sunday mix series, the second forty minute mix I posted was a Daniel Avery one, thirty minutes of echo, reverb, FX and emotive ambient/ techno.

Half An Hour Of Daniel Avery

• Together In Static
• Illusion Of Time (Teodor Wolgers rework)
• Petrol Blue
• Lone Swordsman (Chris Carter Remix)
• Into The Voice Of Stillness
• A Story In E5
• Midnight Sun
• Lone Swordsman

Fifty Minutes Of Deadstock 33s

Last May I did a Sunday mix of Justin Robertson remixes from the 90s, forty minutes of trumpets and acid house/ indie- dance. It's here. I always intended to come back and do a more recent mix of Justin's music and having struggled with a completely different Sunday mix for a couple of days- it just wan't coming together and the segues were difficult to get right- I thought today would do for a return to Mr. Robertson and specifically his music and remixes as his Deadstock 33s. There are eight tracks in today's mix coming in at around fifty minutes, plenty of dub influence, lots of chuggy drum machine rhythms, a few New Order- esque moments, some cosmic motorik grooves and some lovely wired and weird synth and FX flying around. On top of all that Justin is always faultlessly turned out, has a fine array of headwear and always comes across as a thoroughly good chap. 

Fifty Minutes Of Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s

• Mercury Project
• Magnetic
• The Confidence Man (Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s Remix)
• Dark Endless
• Brix Goes Tubular
• Lone Raver In Dub
• The Circular Path (Asphodells Remix)
• One Lone Rider

Mercury Project came out on a  2013 compilation titled Treasure Hunting, released by Astrolab, and a rather good round up of chuggy cosmic disco/ house from a decade ago with Hardway Bros. Tim Fairplay, Toby Tobias, Scott Fraser, Daniel Avery, Mugwump, Marc Pinol and Ana Helder in the list of artists included. Something of a forerunner in that sound/ scene. 

Magnetic was from an EP with Daniel Avery and sounds like early 80s New Order wired up to the nearest electricity pylon, a very smart piece of 2012 motorik psychedelia, released on Optimo.

The Confidence Man  was a stand out song on Andrew Weatherall's solo album Convenanza. The remix album that followed it, Consolamentum, saw Andrew remixed by Justin along with Unloved, Heretic, Duncan Gray, The Emperor Machine, Red Axes, Tim Fairplay and Scott Fraser. On the sleeve there was a very Weatherall quote- 'delights are stronger the longer they remain secret' (by Joseph Roth).

Dark Endless was on a digital only compilation released by Spun Out Agency in 2022, a tribute to Mr. Weatherall, that went under the title More Of That Frightful Oompty Boompty Music. Justin gets on the cosmische tip on Dark Endless, a throbbing bassline and swirling sounds setting the controls for the outer limits. 

Brix Goes Tubular was a Bandcamp only single from 2022, three tracks recorded by Justin and Brix Smith (with a dub mix). I'd forgotten about it until pulling this mix together and really like it, Brix and Justin finding a musical sweet spot in the space somewhere between dub, Tom Tom Club and surf. 

Lone Raver In Dub is a bouncing, rocking dub- flecked tune from September last year, part of the ongoing Deadstock 33s Unreleased series at Bandcamp, a goldmine of music. 

The Asphodells (Andrew Weatherall and Timothy J Fairplay) remixed Deadstock 33s' The Circular Path in 2013. The remix is ticking, clanging, metallic space motorik with a spluttering topline and acres of echo and wobbling synth oscillations. 

One Lone Rider came out in summer 2023, a massively distorted bass drum and frequency test synth line, six minutes of hypnotic sci fi dub/ acid house.

Forty Five Minutes Of Jon Hopkins

Last Sunday's spoken word/ ambient mix featured two tracks with Jon Hopkins on board, one his own recording with the voice of Ram Dass and the other a track with David Holmes and Stephen Rea reading Seamus Heaney. Both could have been on today's Sunday mix, forty five minutes of Jon Hopkins, an artist who has the ability to switch between spaced out ambient, neo- classical piano and full on electronic rave. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Jon Hopkins

• Bats In The Attic
• Deep In The Glowing Heart
• Emerald Rush
• Luminous Spaces
• Everything Connected 
• Glitter (Jon Hopkins Remix)
• Love Flows Over Us In Prismatic Waves

Bats In The Attic is from Diamond Mine, an album Jon recorded with King Creosote in 2011. Kenny's fragile voice and guitar are matched by Jon's use of found sounds and musique concrete techniques. 

Deep In The Glowing Heart and Love Flows Over Us In Prismatic Waves are both from 2021's Music For Psychedelic Therapy, an album I've gone back to many times over the last eighteen months. 

Emerald Rush is a stuttering, distorted building piece of music from Singularity, his 2018 album that sounds as deep as the lush deep blue/ violet vinyl it was pressed on. Everything Connected is from the same album, an epic piece of entrancing, ebbing and flowing, intense 21st century dance music.

Luminous Spaces is a version of Luminous Beings, a track from Singularity but with Kelly Lee Owens on vocals, a track that achieves take off in spectacular fashion, music for stellar places. 

Glitter is by Daniel Avery, a remix of a song from Song For Alpha, the 2018 album that started his remarkable run of recent albums. Jon's remix takes Daniel's thumpy original and increases everything- the kick drum bangs and rattles and the drop and crashing re- entry two thirds of the way through are heart- stoppingly exciting, capable of making me feel vaguely anxious and laughing out loud at the same time. Goosebumps stuff. 

On And On

This is newly out, On And On (Again), a collaboration between Daniel Avery and Confidence Man, five minutes of bouncy techno/ rave pop which sounds tailor made for summer, a track that will light up everything from barbecues to festivals. 

Last year Daniel remixed Confidence Man's Feels Like A Different Thing, a chunky breakbeat driven track with sirens and distorted synth sounds and one fragment of vocal looped up, 'You know I love it'- an altogether heavier, slightly darker affair. 

Feels Like A Different Thing (Daniel Avery Remix)

In a similar area Underworld have a new single out too, a full on thumper from Karl and Rick, Karl intoning, 'And the colour red', as the drums kick up a storm, the bass pumps away and the synth squiggles flicker in and out. 

Against The Backdrop

If you want some slow motion machine music, acid tinged, widescreen emotive techno on a Tuesday morning in early April- and why wouldn't you?- then you need look no further. Against The Backdrop is the closing track on a five track EP, The Long Tail by Inigo Kennedy, out at the end of last month and ticks all the boxes. The chugging rhythms and lovely lysergic acidic squiggle are almost enough on their own but when the deep synth string chords hit, the track provokes some serious moments. It would sound equally good pushed through a big sound system in a cavernous space, played on crappy car stereo speakers or through headphones while walking. 

Against The Backdrop and rest of The Long Tail can be bought at Bandcamp. It can also be found towards the end of the first hour of Daniel Avery's Morning After mix, recorded at Ramona in Manchester a couple of Sundays ago for a BBC Radio 6 weekend festival. You can listen to it here.

Double Avery

As well as my ambient/ cosmische gig on Friday night I spent much of Sunday in two different venues enjoying DJ sets by Daniel Avery. The first was at Ramona on Swan Street, an indoor/ outdoor venue with a DJ booth inside a large teepee. The appearance, billed as The Morning After, was part of BBC Radio 6's weekend long festival in Manchester. Avery is riding high on the back of four albums since 2020 (Illusion Of Time, Love + Light, Together In Static and Ultra Truth) and a career high in the single Lone Swordsman (written and recorded in the immediate aftermath of Andrew Weatherall's death in February 2020). Lone Swordsman got an airing at Ramona and the chilled industrial ambient sounds were a part of the lunchtime set but by the time we'd finished our pizza he was upping the tempo and found a sweet spot of lovely 110 bpm thump, big warm basslines and fizzing topnotes, entrancing grooves- intense and hypnotic stuff.  

Daniel had agreed to play at Yes too, a venue a hop across town in a converted three storey Victorian house near the old Factory offices/ Paradise Factory building. Free entry and a five hour set from 5pm through to 10pm. Daylight raves are a thing now. We wandered across town, stopping off in Ancoats for a drink, in time to see him start his second set of the day, tipping his hat to the city by starting with Everything's Gone Green, New Order's 1981 classic melding of rock and dance. The crowd, a mix of the young and the middle aged, were onboard straight away and the room became a mass of dancing. He followed it fairly soon with Peak High's Was That All It Was, a disco/ chug/ Balearic highlight from the end of last year and not much later spun a very chunky edit of Primal Scream's Don't Fight It, Feel It, presumably his own work. Both venues were graced by what sounded like his own, as yet unreleased, remix of Depeche Mode along with lots of modern acid techno. Avery sets have plenty of thump- this is techno after all- but with peaks and troughs, moments of euphoria and release. 

We left around seven, it being Sunday and a school night (and having been out for several hours by this point). Somewhat amusingly, while on the dancefloor at Yes, clutching my pint and jigging around, I was approached by a woman who said hello and then asked if was 'Mr Turner'. I nodded. 'You teach my child', she said, and we both laughed, a little nervously. 

Lone Swordsman

Forty Five Minutes Of Factory Floor And Gabe Gurnsey

Friday's Factory Floor single Two Different Ways sent me back into the group's back catalogue. I've also been playing Factory Floorer Gabe Gurnsey's Diablo a lot recently, an album that is up there with this year's best to these ears. Factory Floor, a trio but then slimmed down to Gurnsey (drums, programming, synths, production, vocals) and Nik Colk (vocals, guitar, samples) started out in the mid- 00s, all post punk dread and industrial noise before hitting a Chris and Cosey inspired, acid house/ techno groove. Dystopic dance music. Synth- noir. No wave electronica. 'Unsettling disco' according to New Order's Stephen Morris who has worked with them (like Morris, Gurnsey is a Macclesfield man). 

The idea to sequence a bunch of FF and GG tracks together seemed like a good one but technically has been quite tricky. I use Audacity where it's a matter of drop and drag, lining them up next to each other, slightly overlapping to give the impression of mixing. But without any actual DJ software, getting tracks to segue and mix properly can be difficult and this one took a lot of playing around with. There were a few that didn't make the cut- Two Different Ways and the Factory Floor remix of Grinderman were both vying for inclusion but didn't make it. 

The tracks here won't ease you into Sunday gently but if you want modular synths, acid squiggles, thumping 808 kick drums, slowly building tension and blank/ sexually charged vocals (courtesy of Colk on Factory Floor and Tilly Morris on Gabe's Diablo) to throw yourself around the kitchen to, then give it a whirl.

Forty Five Minutes Of Factory Floor And Gabe Gurnsey

• Factory Floor: Heart Of Data
• Daniel Avery: Drone Logic (Factory Floor Remix)
• Gabe Gurnsey: Eyes Over
• Gabe Gurnsey: Push
• Gabe Gurnsey: You Remind Me
• Factory Floor: ~(REALLOVE) (An Optimo (Espacio) Remix)
• Factory Floor: Ya

Heart Of Data came out in 2018, a pulsing modular synth score to Fritz Lang's 1927 film Metropolis, commissioned by London's Science Museum). Highly recommended. 

The remix of Daniel Avery's Drone Logic came out in 2013 along with a multitude of other remixes from Avery's first album. 

Eyes Over is from Gabe Gurnsey's first solo album, Physical, released in 2018. Eyes Over was a single and came with a very good extended dub mix on the 12".

Push and You Remind Me are two of the standouts from this year's Diablo, both with vocals from Tilly Morris. 'This is the kind of feeling I could ride forever/ Let's push together', Tilly sing speaks on Push, sounding like you're there for her amusement solely. 'You remind me of a sunrise/ You remind me of a good time', she sings on the latter, again sounding like she's pretty much done with your shit. 

Real Love (or ~(REALLOVE) came out in 2011 on DFA and was remixed by Scottish legends Optimo. A track that really goes for it brackets- wise and produced by Stephen Morris. 

Ya was on Factory Floor's 2016 album 2525, a juddering, minimal, floor filling electronic dance record with one foot in the Hacienda. 

Forty Minutes Of Daniel Avery Remixes

Daniel Avery's new album Ultra Truth came out on Friday, a record already sounding like a contender for album of the year. Across fifteen tracks Daniel's cavernous, euphoric/ anxiety inducing ambient/ industrial/ techno has been fine tuned into an emotive and immersive album. Back in January when I started this Sunday mix series the second week was an Avery half hour mix. In way of a follow up and to celebrate the release of Ultra Truth I thought I'd do a second Avery half hour but this time remixes, Daniel's of other people and one of Daniel, all dating from the last couple of years. The sounds that are trademark Avery- the reverb, the drums, the wall of fog and distortion, the thump of the kick drum, the wobbly synths- are present in many of these which range from fairly languid to full on 'panel beaters from Prague' techno (quote courtesy of Andrew Weatherall, who is never very far away). 

Forty Minutes Of Daniel Avery Remixes

• Enfant Sauvage: 58500 (Daniel Avery Remix)
• Saint Etienne: Fonteyn (Daniel Avery Remix)
• Leaving Laurel: Winter In The Woods (Daniel Avery Remix)
• David Holmes: Hope Is The Last Thing To Die (Daniel Avery Remix)
• Mandy, Indiana: Alien 3 (Daniel Avery Remix)
• Joshua James: Amber Rush (Daniel Avery Remix)
• Confidence Man: Feels Like A Different Thing (Daniel Avery Remix)
• Daniel Avery: Lone Swordsman (Chris Carter Remix)

Forty Five Minutes Of Justin Robertson

Justin Robertson is a DJ, producer, artist, writer and natty dresser and hat wearer who started out behind the counter at  Manchester's Eastern Bloc records shop while studying at the university and in Spice and Most Excellent was at the centre of two of the city's late 80s/ early 90s Balearic clubs. The mix below is based around his recent musical adventures, in his Deadstock 33s guise (which he adopted circa 2009) and his Formerlover project with his wife Sofia Hedblum (a trawl through his 90s back catalogue as Lionrock and his remixes for everyone who was anyone in the 90s would be a very different mix). Some of the tracks in this Sunday mix are among my favourites of the last few years, Justin finding a sound that pulls in dub, acid house, Nigerian house, post punk and dark pop. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Justin Robertson

• Formerlover: Correction Dub
• Formerlover: Discomfort (Dub)
• Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s and Brix Smith: Brix Goes Tubular (Dub Version)
• The Deadstock 33s: The Circular Path (Asphodells Remix)
• Daniel Avery and The Deadstock 33s: Magnetic
• Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s Feat. Formerlover: Dark Endless
• Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s: Numerical Discord Swap

Formerlover is a lockdown born project, Justin and his wife Sofia Hedblom, marrying Lagos beats, dub and a sleazy underbelly. Correction Dub came out on a Galactic Service Broadcasting compilation and Discomfort on Bandcamp in 2020. The Deadstock 33s and Brix Smith single is from only a few weeks ago, a 2022 treasure. The Asphodells remix of The Circular Path came out in 2013. The Daniel Avery and Deadstocks collaboration was a four track EP on Optimo in 2012. Dark Endless is from a compilation from earlier this year, put together by the Spun Out Agency called More Of That Frightful Oompty Boompty Music, the stand out track to these ears, nine minutes of dubby/ cosmic Balearica. Numerical Discord Swap was the A- side of a 7" on Paradise Palms in 2017, a fantastic slice of upfront acid disco. 

Wall Of Sleep

Having been reduced to only one fully functioning ear since early July has made appreciating new music difficult. Three weeks ago the GP diagnosed a sinus infection, an MRSA type bug, which had filled the eustachian tube to my right ear causing it to block, wipe out much of the hearing in it and produce raging tinnitus as a side effect. Eventually after two months of trying this, that and the other, I was prescribed some antibiotics (which it turns out they use to treat syphilis and malaria too) and although the first course didn't touch the infection, the second course began to work. Driving home last Wednesday, my right ear popped and I could hear. It fluctuated a bit over the next few days but then improved further. It is, in some ways, like being born again. All of which is a long winded way of getting round to some new music.

In July Daniel Avery released Higher, the then latest lead in to his new album Ultra Truth (due in November). Listening to Higher and the B-side Unfolder with tinnitus and only one ear was a disappointing experience. Listening to Higher and Unfolder last week on headphones in stereo was a revelation. Intense, reverb drenched, speaker rattling, emotive 21st century rave/ techno. 

Unfolder is even better, the sound of static, synths and filters, echo, dredged up from somewhere, with the drums pushing ever forwards and a spooked vocal sample. It all sounds very simple but I imagine took endless tweaking and refining. At one minute fifty a descending bass synth kicks in, adding not a little tension/ drama.

Yesterday Daniel put out the latest track from Ultra Truth, the altered state, another dimension woozy and drift of Wall of Sleep, metallic drums in the distance behind a blur of drones and a submerged vocal from HAAi. It does sound exactly like the techno your brain imagines as you wake up or drift off. Well, the techno my brain does, I can't speak with any confidence about yours. You can buy Wall of Sleep here, Higher/ Unfolder here and Ultra Truth here. 

Chaos Energy And Bliss

I'm a big fan of Daniel Avery's ambient/ industrial techno. His run of albums from Song For Alpha in 2018 to Illusion Of Time (with Alessandro Cortini in 2020, just as the first lockdown kicked in) to Love + Light (also from 2020) and then last year's Together In Static have been as much part of my listening habits over the last few years as anyone else's. He recently announced the release in the autumn of his next one, Ultra Truth, which will include Lone Swordsman, his affecting, emotional tribute to Andrew Weatherall. The first taster for Ultra Energy came a few weeks ago with Chaos Energy, five minutes of heart stopping, intense, vibrant melodic techno. After two years of difficult times and pent up emotions, reflected in Daniel's music, uneasy and dark in places, this feels alive and celebratory. 

Yesterday the B-side to Chaos Energy came out digitally. Daniel says Bliss is 'shoegaze rave', made to play live, and driven by rapid, rattling drums and some of those synthlines that send shivers running up and down your central nervous system. Ultra Truth is out in November. 

Half An Hour Of Four Tet

Some Kieran Hebeden/ Four Tet for this week's Sunday half hour. There's an embarrassment of riches in his back catalogue- the difficult part was narrowing it down to just six or seven tracks. Kieran takes the energy and feel of rave and combines it with ambient sounds, skippy laptop drums and Indian instruments to make something which is very much his. 

The mix starts with Teenage Birdsong, one of my favourite Four Tet tracks, taken from his Sixteen Oceans album, a record which reminds me of the first days and weeks of the first lockdown in March and April 2020 like no other. Lahaina Noon is from the Ana Painting EP which came out in 2019, a collaboration with the painter Anna Liber Lewis where he made music and she painted in response to each other. Two Thousand And Seventeen is from 2017's New Energy album. Jamie Xx's remix of Lions came out as part of the Atoms For Peace project in 2014 and Raga To Midi W was part of a collection of unreleased tracks and edits he dropped onto his Soundcloud page in 2020. There's one of his unpronounceable Wingdings tracks on there and it finishes with his epic eight minute remix of Daniel Avery's New Eternity. 

Half An Hour Of Four Tet

• Teenage Birdsong
• Lahaina Noon
• Two Thousand And Seventeen
• Lion (Jamie Xx Remix)
• Raga To Midi W
• ʅ͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡(ƟӨ)ʃ͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡ ꐑ(ཀ ඊູ ఠీੂ೧ູ࿃ूੂ✧✧✧✧✧✧ළඕั࿃ूੂ࿃ूੂ,
• Quick Eternity (Four Tet Remix)