Like much of the rest of the country I was outside on Thursday night taking in the spectacle of the northern lights. To the naked eye not much more than a faint flicker but when seen through a camera on night setting giving us a dazzling display of the aurora borealis. This photo was taken from our loft window by my daughter Eliza and is better than any of the ones I took.
Today's mix has a similar cosmic vibe, seven songs from the bass playing legend Jah Wobble. His back catalogue is so wide and deep that it would take several mixes to pay justice to Wobble's music so this is just a selection of post- PiL Jah Wobble tunes with an emphasis, as always in Wobble land, on the dubbier end of things.
King Of The Faeries (Avengers Outer Space Chug Dub)
Visions Of You (Pick 'n' Mix 1)
Higher Than The Sun (A Dub Symphony In Two Parts)
Post Lockdown Dub
Inspector Out Of Space
Everyman's An Island
Angles is from Jah Wobble's Invaders Of The Heart 1994 album Take Me To God, an album with twelve different vocalists, the voice on Angels belonging to the Senegalese singer Baaba Maal, the song underpinned by one of those lovely fat dub basslines that only Wobble can conjure.
King Of The Faeries is by Dub Trees, a Martin Glover/ Youth project with Wobble and Daniel Romar in 2016 with some loop and beats consultancy by Andrew Weatherall and Nina Walsh. The Dub Trees album is an excellent collision of dub and folk with a pagan angle.
Andrew Weatherall is also present on the 1992 remix of Visions Of You, a single from 1991's Invaders Of The Heart Rising Above Bedlam album. Visions Of You was the first time Andrew worked with Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns, a partnership which would lead to Sabres Of Paradise. On the 12" there are three AW remixes of Visions Of You, Pick 'n' Mix 1 and 2 and then The Secret Love Child Of Hank And Johnny, twenty five minutes of dubbed out excellence with the beautiful voice of Sinead O'Connor. Everyman's An Island is also from Rising Above Bedlam.
More Weatherall! This time from Primal Scream's Screamadelica. In an interview for the Classic Albums series Andrew describes sitting in the producer's chair and realising what this version of Higher Than The Sun needed, reaching for the phone with the words, 'Get me Jah Wobble'.
During lockdown Jah released a series of tracks onto Bandcamp, recorded at his home in Stockport (I know! How did Jah Wobble end up in Stockport right?!). Post Lockdown Dub is self explanatory.
In May 2020 Youth and Jah Wobble released an album called Acid Punk Dub Apocalypse, a selection of dub songs with various singers- Hollie Cook, Rhiannon, Aurora Dawn, Durga McBroom- plus appearances from Richard Dudanski, Roger Eno, Nik Turner and some of the beats and programming courtesy of Mr Weatherall and Nina Walsh.
This Saturday Marconi Union play a gig at Soup in Manchester supported by Contours with further support by The Flightpath Estate DJs. On this occasion the Flightpath Estate DJs are me and Martin. We are starting things off at 6.30 and then on again between Contours and Marconi Union at about 8pm- we're playing ambient/ electronic sounds and it would be lovely to see anyone who fancies a night of electronic music. There are some tickets left and they're priced at under £14.
I saw Marconi Union last march, an audio/ visual experience, three people playing laptop, synth and keys with a guitarist centre stage playing the least guitary guitar. Layers of ambient sounds but with real intent and propulsion. This is from an EP that came out in 2022, The Ilex, a moody and compelling piece of electronic music, non- stop drums and ripples of dark synth textures. It's from Versions which you can get here.
In 2021 Marconi Union released a seven track album they recorded with Jan Wobble, a Record Shop Day exclusive. The album opened with Wealth, seven minutes of abstract experimentation, a long slow fade in of ambience and then the deep, dub bass of Mr. Wobble. Jah's repetitive bass riff provides the bedrock for the sci fi synths and keening guitar lines.
Contours provides support on Saturday, the project of Cumbrian born/ Manchester based DJ and producer Tom Burford. Contours released an EP in April- Elevations- which I'm going to be reviewing for Dr. Rob's Ban Ban Ton Ton so I won't steal my own thunder or Rob's by posting anything about that. Instead here's The Programme from a 7"/ digital release from October 2021 (available at Bandcamp), a three and a half minute focussed excursion on drum machine and synth with some lovely percussion and the hint of some acid.
Over at The Vinyl Villain you can find a long running series of Imaginary Compilation Albums where JC and various readers have put together compilations for a range of artists and musicians from The Smiths (ICA 001) to Steve Albini (the most recent, ICA 366). This is not a post or series to tread on those toes- this is imaginary albums that should have happened but didn't or that only exist in the mind, music that should have/ could have been made but which remains unwritten, unrecorded and inexistent.
I've spoken to Mark from Rude Audio/ The Flightpath Estate previously about the imaginary album we wanted to happen. In 1991 Jah Wobble and The Invaders Of The Heart recorded Rising Over Bedlam, an album taking Wobble's huge love for dub and fusing it with what was then called World Music. Sinead O'Connor and Natacha Atlas both appeared on vocals and on Bomba and Visions Of You Wobble produced some of his best solo songs. In 1992 a 12" of Visions Of You appeared. The A Side was the version from the album. The flipside, The AW Side, had three remixes by Andrew Weatherall, remixes that ran into each other, adding up to nearly thirty minutes of music- Andrew took the song and looped it, twisted it, dubbed it, reshaped it, the bass and FX bubbling on forever, Sinead's voice dropping in and out. The AW remixes, Pick 'n' Mix 1, Pick 'n Mix 2 and The Secret Love Child Of Hank And Johnny Mix, are a brilliant piece of work in their own right, the remix as an artform.
Weatherall's remixes of Visions Of You were also the first time that what would become The Sabres Of Paradise would work together. Andrew had met Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns in a club and said they should work together. Jagz and Gary nodded and smiled and said, 'of course, of course', not expecting it to happen. Andrew phoned them shortly after and the three of them went to work on Visions Of You.
In the imaginary album of my mind the remixes led to talks about an album, and in the aftermath of the albums Andrew produced for Primal Scream and One Dove, he, Jagz and Gary went into a studio somewhere in London (Orinoco was popular at the time) with Jah Wobble and Sinead O'Connor and they went onto write, record and produce a full length album- Andrew Weatherall's production, Jah Wobble's bass and Sinead O'Connor's voice all fleshed out over four sides of vinyl, a widescreen, post- acid house, 1992/ 1993 dub and electronics masterpiece to go with Morning Dove White.
I have a second imaginary Andrew Weatherall album that coulda/ shoulda happened. In December 1993, in the bumper end of year Christmas edition of the NME, Mark E Smith was one person given a series of questions, including being asked to nominate their Jerk Of The Year. MES gave the response 'Andy Weatherall' (he also replied to Woman of the Year with 'lead singer from James' and said what he wanted from 1994 was 'death to all French people' so curmudgeonly Mark was definitely having one of those days). But to nominate Andrew Weatherall, out of everyone who could have annoyed MES, as Jerk Of The Year seemed odd.
It turns out Andrew had been lined up to produce a Fall album. Like all right minded folk, Andrew was a huge fan of Prestwich's finest post- punk group and in 1993 had accepted the challenge. Mark and the then line up had been playing with dance music rhythms and the album that ended up being '93's The Infotainment Scam included The Fall covering Lost In Music among the customary swaggering Fall brilliance and mayhem. If Andrew had stayed on the job, he would have been the producer of The Infotainment Scam. The thought of a 1993 Andrew Weatherall produced Fall album is mind boggling- by '93 Sabres were off the ground and the techno sound of Andrew's Sabres Of Paradise club and label had shifted him away from the Balearic remixes of the previous years and the genre bending sounds of Screamadelica.
In reality Andrew arrived at the studio, took a look at the amount of boozing that was going on (as Brix Smith has said in an interview) and walked away. Other Weatherall insiders have said similar. We can only imagine what a Weatherall produced Fall album would have sounded like but the thought of some of the Sabresonic- era sounds and rhythms with Mark E. Smith's voice plus those ramshackle, distorted Craig Scanlon guitars cut up and looped is mouthwatering.
The experience may have led Mark to call Andrew Jerk Of The Year. It clearly didn't put Andrew off The Fall- they appeared in mixes and sets thereafter, not least on Sci- Fi- Lo- Fi, a 2007 compilation Andrew put together for Soma which had Big New Prinz on it (From 1988's I Am Kurious Oranj). In 1988 The Fall played the song on Tony Wilson's The Other Side Of Midnight- a proper glam racket.
There may be more imaginary albums to follow, some may even be non- Andrew Weatherall related. Although there is the story of the Sabres Of Paradise album with guest vocalists that never happened that I'll probably come back to.
Sinead O'Connor's death was announced by her family on Wednesday night. We'd been to the cinema and came out into the July rain, the news coming through almost immediately onto our phones. Not long after a neighbour sent a message, a family photo of Sinead and Andy Rourke (with a guitar) smiling in the sunshine in Palma in the 90s (my neighbour's mum is friends with Andy's- both Andy and Sinead gone in a matter of months). Sinead's traumatic childhood, bumpy ride through the music industry in the aftermath of her massive fame in 1990 and struggles with her family, mental health and physical health are well documented. Last year her son Shane killed himself, aged seventeen. To lose a child is an awful, heartbreaking, lifechanging and catastrophic event for any parent, as we know too well. To lose a child to suicide is unimaginable.
I saw Sinead at Glastonbury in 1990, playing mid- afternoon, singing to 30, 000 people from the Pyramid stage, dressed in black biker jacket, circular shades and a Viz Fat Slags t- shirt. This song, The Emperor's New Clothes with former- Ant Marco Pirroni windmilling on guitar, was a highlight. It's a powerful song, Sinead dropping in lines about youth, fame and pregnancy and a partner who has misjudged her, got her wrong. In the end she decides, 'I will live by my own policies/ I will sleep with a clear conscience/ I will sleep in peace'.
Those lines are how she lived her life- singular, fearless, battling, courageous, unafraid. In 1987 I watched her on Top Of The Pops performing her single Mandinka. In denim and black boots and with her shaven head she looked amazing, a punk spirit making announcing her entry the world.
By this point she'd already sacked her producer and re- recorded her debut album, The Lion And The Cobra (an album that includes her debut single, the epic Troy, and the song I Want Your (Hands On Me) which was remixed with rapper MC Lyte and became big in the growing underground club culture).
Sinead took no prisoners in her songs, her brushes with her parents split as a child, trauma, abuse, eighteen months in the Irish care system and her mother's death in a car crash fuelling her fire. When her cover of Nothing Compares 2U went supernova she found herself at a level of fame that would have derailed even the most well adjusted person. She was badly treated by many people. The album Nothing Compares 2U came from, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, contains many great Sinead songs, not least this one which takes on new layers of meaning every time I play it, a 17th century poem sung over a Soul II Soul drum beat with a fiddle by a Waterboy arriving at the end as a final lament.
I posted the full version of this gig, a performance in Brussels in 1990, earlier this year as part of my Saturday Live series. In this excerpt from it, she sings I Am Stretched On Your Grave on her own on stage, one woman with a reel to reel tape recorder and an audience in the palm of her hands.
Earlier in the year she appeared on The Late Show singing Black Boys On Mopeds, her evisceration of Margaret Thatcher's government, its hypocrisy, late 80s Britain's racist policing of young black men and how 'England's not a mythical land of Madame George and roses'.
Fridays here recently have been a celebration of Andrew Weatherall remixes. Here are two with Sinead. The first is one of three remixes Andrew did of Jah Wobble and The Invaders Of The Heart's Visions Of You, utterly essential 1992 dub/ pop (Sinead's love of reggae and dub is one of the recurring themes of her albums and her book Rememberings). This 12" was a bit of a dream team assembled, Weatherall's production, Wobble's bass and Sinead's voice- they really should have made an album together.
Peace Together was a collective formed to promote the peace process in Northern Ireland, formed in 1993. The twelve minute Sabres Of Paradise remix of the song Be Still is very much an overlooked Sabres remix, extended Gaelic- dub. Listening to it yesterday, it felt like a celebration and a eulogy.
There are many more songs from Sinead's back catalogue that I could post here but I've probably done enough- You Have Made Me A Thief Of Your Heart, her cover of Song To The Siren, Fire On Babylon and Thank You For Hearing Me ( both from Universal Mother in 1994), 2020's 7" single, a cover of Mahalia Jackson's Trouble Of The World, recorded with David Holmes and Unloved, the first fruits of an album abandoned when Shane died and then restarted later on last year.
Someone at Youtube left a comment years ago that said, 'So many people owe Sinead an apology'. That's the truth- she was frequently, insultingly, portrayed as 'crazy' in the press but was proved correct about so much. In fact, rather than crazy I think Sinead was someone who had figured out exactly what the world is like. Eventually it took an enormous toll on her. I hope she has found some kind of peace, the peace she referred to in The Emperor's New Clothes.
Mark Stewart's death at the age of 62 was announced on Friday. Mark was a towering presence in post- punk and in music thereafter, a man who saw music as an art form that should be provocative and challenging. The Pop Group, the Bristol group he led, brought together punk's guitars and confrontation, dub's space, free jazz's noise and funk's basslines with Stewart's politicised, expressive and sometimes ranting vocals, with Dennis Bovell at the controls. They were hugely important in influencing the wave of 80s and 90s industrial bands. When the group fractured in 1980 Stewart went on to New Age Steppers and then to work with a like- minded soul in Adrian Sherwood and the On U Sound collective. His Mark Stewart and The Maffia records were made firstly with On U musicians from Creation Rebel and later on the Tackhead trio of Doug Wimbish, Skip McDonald and Keith LeBlanc.
This song was from 1983, the title track from his debut album although the edited version here is from a flexi- disc given away with a Dutch magazine. The album, all cut up electro beats, dub bass, distorted, sample- like vocals and Mark's politics, isn't an easy listen and it's not supposed to be.
In 2019 Mark's voice and denunciation of Brexit and all those who pushed it were at the centre of a single recorded by Jah Wobble and a post- punk supergroup containing Youth, Richard Dudanski, Keith Levene and drum tracks and loops courtesy of Andrew Weatherall and Nina Walsh. Mark Stewart- one of those people who you feel we shall not see the likes of again. R.I.P.
The Top Of The Pops repeats on BBC 4 are into 1994, a very mixed bag indeed. The shiny kitsch of the 80s episodes has long gone, an attempt to renew itself as a vital piece of youth culture- it doesn't really seem to be working. Many of these episodes seem new to me, a sign probably that most Friday nights in 1993 and 1994 we were already out, hitting the town. This performance made me stop and listen the other night Sinead O'Connor singing You Made Me The Thief Of Your Heart...
It's dramatic and intense, the drums and strings providing a powerful backdrop for Sinead's voice and the fiddle towards the end adding to the power. Sinead' vocal is a match for anything else she's sung.
The song was written for the soundtrack of the film In The Name Of The Father, the story of the Guildford Four, four men falsely accused and convicted of the Guildford pub bombings in 1974. The song has an all star cast- Jah Wobble played bass, Bomb The Bass's Tim Simenon produced it and Gavin Friday, Maurice Seezer and Bono wrote it (there aren't many appearances by Bono at these pages and on this occasion we'll let it pass without comment).
I had a different thirty minute mix in mind for today but then suddenly midweek it occurred to me that the Andrew Weatherall remixes of Jah Wobble in the early 90s would be an ideal way to ease in a Sunday in mid- February. I've left the Weatherall produced, massive dub bassline of Higher Than The Sun from Screamadelica off this, just because that would tip it towards an hour and it's not strictly speaking a remix. What you have here is the Weatherall remixes of Visions Of You from 1991 and the pair of remixes Andrew did with Hugo Nicolson under the Boy's Own banner of Jah's Bomba single from 1990. The 12" of Visions Of You, released as Jah Wobble and The Invaders Of The Heart in 1991 with Sinead O'Connor on vocals, was a real moment for me. I remember vividly buying it in Power Cuts, a massive basement record shop in Manchester just off Oxford Road (behind McDonald's and what used to be Rafters, a legendary venue in Manchester's music history due to its Joy Division connections). Power Cuts sold all sorts of stuff, cheap and piled high, including a lot of import records with either the corner cut off or a hole punched in the top right hand corner. Nothing cost more than a few pounds. The Visions Of You 12" was sitting there waiting for me, 99p I think. I got it back to my rented room and put the AW side on, a twenty minute excursion/ reconstruction, almost half an album in its own right.
The Bomba 12" came out the previous year but I don't recall picking it up until a year or two later in Vinyl Exchange, two remixes, one either side, with Natasha Atlas on vocals. The Miles Away Mix samples Miles Davis and his Sketches Of Spain album from 1960- it was a long time before I twigged the origins of the sample and title. Despite many of you being more than familiar with all the remixes here I hope you'll find them stitched together as one piece- a global, dubby, Balearic, acid house forty minute mix- as a fine way to see Sunday in.
This is Albert Bridge House in Manchester, an eighteen storey office building with lower level ones around it- check out the wave roof on the building at the fore in my photo, overlooking the River Irwell. It's housed various government departments over the years and has been described as 'the best modern building in Manchester' and 'an outstanding example of what good proportions and straightforward design'. Obviously it is currently under threat of demolition. Manchester City Council bend over backwards for anyone with money who want to demolish anything that is 'outdated' or 'ugly' and replace them with enormous glass towers that offer 'mixed use' development (this is usually un- affordable housing plus restaurants and/or a huge hotel). Recent reports have detailed how the planning committee has been meeting behind closed doors, as a response to Covid, and has been waving through developments that would have been held up to greater scrutiny otherwise. I've said before, I don't think that cities can or should be preserved in aspic and that cities are organic and change, buildings are put up, taken down, replaced and demolished, but the rate of change, kowtowing to private enterprise and lack of coherence in Manchester is out of control.
Here's some totally unconnected music for the Monday long song slot. In 1993 a single was released by the Peace Together project, a charity aimed at raising funds for cross- community activities for young people in Northern Ireland. The Peace Together single, Be Still, involved a huge cast of musicians and characters including Sinead O'Connor, Jah Wobble, Clive Langer, Nanci Griffiths, Feargal Sharkey, Peter Gabriel and Therapy? The CD single had remixes of Be Still by Robin Guthire with Liz Fraser on vocals and this epic Sabres Of Paradise remix.
This is one of the lost/overlooked Weatherall remixes from the 1990s, a twelve minute tour de force of Gaelic dub, tin whistles, echoing rimshots, bodhran, descending bass from Wobble, waves of synth and long, sustained keyboard chords and some of those trademark Sabres production touches from Gary Burns and Jagz Kooner. This remix often gets missed out of the round ups and retrospectives and it's a mystery to me why it does because it's Sabres Of Paradise at their extended dubby best.
Jah Wobble posted his latest lockdown tune, this one titled Post Lockdown Dub, the most upbeat of the eight songs he's written and recorded since mid- March. It's a great little song with a sprightly tempo, horns, uplifting piano and keys and a nice bubbling bassline.
Despite my love of the tune I'm not sure if the optimism is that well placed. The lockdown has seemed over for a lot of people since Dominic Cummins got busted and Johnson defended his senior adviser's right to do what he liked. Now it looks like for many people it's over completely. Shops may be set up for social distancing but on the streets and in public places it looks like many people think it doesn't apply to them. We are still shielding so for us very little has changed. When everyone was in the same boat it seemed much easier. Now through loosening the lockdown and the government's mixed messages and incompetence everyone is in different boats. The UK has the highest death toll in Europe which ever way you slice the figures, whichever set of statistics you use, and the third highest in the world. Countries that looked like they had beaten the virus are now reporting outbreaks again and having to reintroduce measures- New Zealand, Germany, China. The criticism for not prioritising schools is being deflected onto the teaching unions and the Labour Party (schools have had guidelines from government about social distancing- the government's own guidelines are why they've been unable to re- open). The UK's supposedly 'world beating' track and trace system won't work fully until the autumn and the government has gone on to prioritise re- opening the economy over public health. Queues formed early on Monday morning as non- essential shops re- opened. Talk of reducing the 2 metre guideline to 1 metre is giving out the message that getting pubs and restaurants serving again is more important than controlling the virus.
The photos show the car park above the Merseyway shopping centre in Stockport and it's magnificent concrete screen wall (designed by Alan Boyson). One of the upsides of lockdown has been deserted public spaces and the opportunity to explore them with no cars or people around.
Back in April I posted Jah Wobble's first lockdown recording, an meandering jazzy dub instrumental he called Lockdown, recorded in his home in Stockport. Since then he has added several other new recordings, Lockdowns 2- 5 (all available at Bandcamp for a pound each). This one, Lockdown 5 (Forbearance) is my current favourite, a bit ambient, a bit dub, a bit some of those jazz sounds he's been experimenting with.
Jah has making the best of it and his time adding Lockdown 6 (End Of Lockdown) and Lockdown (Reprise). Sequenced together on a playlist/CD the seven songs make for a good mini- album. Stockport vibes are good for the soul.
Jah Wobble is using his time in lockdown in Stockport usefully and has recorded and released a meandering jazz dub tune for your enjoyment.
The pressure to use lockdown purposefully is something I don't think any of us need. There are all sorts of lifestyle gurus and influencers saying we should be making the most of the time, learning a new language or developing cookery skills but for a lot of people, three weeks in and counting and with no end in sight, the ability to get from one day to the next while keeping children or teenagers occupied and on an even keel is more than enough. There's so much time at our disposal but for many of us being able to concentrate for extended periods just isn't happening, we're just skimming and scrolling, browsing, distracting ourselves and taking our minds off things. Maybe that's as much as we can expect. At the front line, in hospitals and care homes, people are dying and the staff are putting themselves in harm's way every day. Avoiding the non- stop news cycle seems to be good for our mental health- the constantly increasing body count and the evasive, slippery rubbish coming out of government, make us anxious and feel out of control. Turning it off is self- defence. I keep seeing the suggestion and the hope that things will change fundamentally in various ways once this is over. I hope so.
Some top quality dub disco from 1983 via Jah Wobble and his Invaders Of The Heart and a track named after the band or vice versa. Wobble's bass is the bedrock around which everything else revolves. Lots of eastern influences to the fore in this the 3rd mix off the 12"- eastern scales, instrumentation and vocals, and a tune that unfolds entirely at its own pace. The trombone solo is a joy.
Wobble has a new out imminently with Youth, an album called Acid Punk Dub Apocalypse, with Hollie Cook and Alex Paterson on board. Wobble and Youth have got previous not least the rather excellent Dub Trees project from 2016- this one, a dubbed out mix of their own work, came from Youth's garden studio in South London.
Youth is someone whose work is woven through my record collection, from his beginnings as bass player in Killing Joke through his long standing work with The Orb, in the 90s as Blue Pearl, his various works as producer and his more recent collaboration with Woodleigh Research Facility. The recordings with Andrew Weatherall and Nina Walsh were done around the same as the Dub Trees e.p. this version is from, possibly all stewed in the same pot.
I mentioned the remixes Andrew Weatherall made his name with yesterday. In the early 90s remix culture became the big thing, record companies throwing thousands of pounds at club DJs to stick dance beats underneath a song. Weatherall's remixes never took the easy road, were never formulaic. In most cases the remixes were better than the source material and he was still producing superb remixes until recently.
Primal Scream have put out several Best Of/ Greatest Hits, one only last year. The one they haven't released and would be the contender for the best Best Of would be the one that compiled Weatherall's work for the group. The AW/PS compilation wold start with Loaded, a remix so groundbreaking and gigantic it created an entire scene and gave the Scream a career. Andrew's remix of Come Together is monumental. I once said here that there are days when I think it is the single greatest record ever made and I don't see any reason to argue with myself.
'Today on this programme you will hear gospel and rhythm and blues and jazz. All these are just labels, we know that music is music'
The rest of Screamadelica that Andrew produced would be on this Primal Scream Best Of too- Inner Flight, Shine Like Stars, Don't Fight It Feel It (and the amazing Scat Mix where Denise Johnson's voice is chopped up and scattered over the track) and the Jah Wobble bass of Higher Than The Sun (A Dub Symphony In Two Parts). Then this, ten glorious minutes of slow groove, horn driven spaced out house, from the Dixie Narco e.p.
His knob- twiddling on the other two songs on the Dixie Narco e.p. brought two other classics in the shape of Stone My Soul and their cover of Dennis Wilson's Carry Me Home, one of the very best things Bobby Gillespie and co ever did. Primal Scream's follow up was their Rolling Stones record. Weatherall produced remixes of Jailbird. Trainspotting from Vanishing Point. The far out Two Lone Swordsmen remix of Stuka. The pair of productions he did on Evil Heat- the gliding shimmer of Autobahn 66 and the mutant funk of A Scanner Darkly. Two TLS remixes of Kill All Hippies. Bloods. The ten minute remix of Uptown, a signpost in 2009 that Weatherall was back at the remix peak. The remix and dub version of 2013. The stretched out remix of Goodbye Johnny. That's the Primal Scream Best Of.
In the early 90s his remixes broke genres, chucking in the kitchen sink, its plumbing, the work surface and all the white goods too. His dub remix of Saint Etienne was a moment of clarity for me, the doorway to another world, the two halves glued together by the sample 'the DJ, eases a spliff from his lyrical lips and smilingly orders ''cease!'' '
Andrew's remixes from this period are full of little moments to raise a smile, samples from obscure places, huge basslines, sudden changes in pace or tempo, piano breakdowns and thumping rhythms. Almost every single one is worth seeking out and almost every single one has been posted here at some point. In no particular order- S'Express' Find 'Em, Fool 'Em, Forget 'Em, The Drum by The Impossibles, a mad pair of remixes of Flowered Up's Weekender, the magnificent The World According To... for Sly And Lovechild, his work for One Dove (that produced some career high remixes in the shape of Squire Black Dove Rides Out and the Guitar Paradise version of White Love and his production work on the most beautiful and most lost of the lost albums of the 1990s Morning Dove White), his remix of My Bloody Valentine's Soon, on its own a justification of remix culture and two reworkings of The Orb's Perpetual Dawn that take his and The Orb's dub roots into pounding new places. Roots music.
Add to all these his remixes of Jah Wobble, three versions of Visions Of You, spread over twenty five minutes of vinyl and two remixes of Bomba that have to be heard to be believed. Decades after first hearing this one I found the source of the madcap intro (Miles Davis) when it had been there in the title all along.
His remixes of The Grid's Floatation are also sublime. As a fan of The Stone Roses the moment when he drops John Squire's guitar part from Waterfall into the ending of the track brought things together for me perfectly.
There are so many more. The speaker shattering thump of Fini Tribe's 101. His long tribal workout of Papua New Guinea. The sweet smell of didgeridoo on Galliano's meandering Skunk Funk. The wide eyed mixes of A Man Called Adam's CPI. Indie, ambient, house, dub, everything from the fringes of music's past, ready to sample and plunder to make something new, with a sense of possibility and openness. This would all be mere nostalgia were it not for Weatherall's continual left turns and about turns in the following years. His remixes from the last decade, again almost all posted here at some point, are of a similar high standard but he rarely if ever repeats himself. There are similarities in tone and palette but always with an eye looking forward and perpetual motion. The remix of MBV's Soon and his remix of Fuck Buttons Sweet Love For Planet Earth seem somehow linked to me, the manipulation of noise and the intense melodies found within over crunching dance floor rhythms. I've not even begun to touch on his remixes with Sabres of Paradise, the treasure that lies within Sabres own records (Sabresonic, Haunted Dancehall, Theme, Wilmot, oh man, Wilmot- we were at Cream once waiting for ages for Weatherall to arrive and eventually word came through that he was delayed, wasn't going to make it. Resident DJ and owner Darren Hughes played on and dropped Wilmot, unheard by us at that point, the whole back room skanking to those wandering horns).
Then there was Two Lone Swordsmen whose remixes were harder, purer somehow, more focused, less obvious. It took time sometimes for them to reveal themselves. The TLS albums from The Fifth Mission onward, the stoned hip hop grooves of A Virus With Shoes, the double album of juddering bass and London machine funk of Tiny Reminders, Swimming Not Skimming. My favourite of the TLS albums from this period has become Stay Down. Released on Warp from its cover art, a painting of a pair of deep sea divers, to its memorable song titles (try Hope We Never Surface, Light The Last Flare, Spine Bubbles, Mr Paris' Monsters and As Worldly Pleasures Wave Goodbye for starters- that last one has just made me gulp) it is a self contained mini- masterpiece. Stay Down is an abstract album of short tracks, weird, rhythmic, minimal ambient music, sounding like it has been submerged and then recovered from the deep, humanised analogue IDM. Never standing still, always moving forward.
This week Jacob Rees-Mogg suggested that if The House Of Commons continues to make every effort to avoid a no-deal Brexit the Queen should suspend parliament. There you have it, if there was every any doubt, the actual face and voice of a right wing coup, not by thugs in jackboots but by Old Etonians with upper class accents. Suspend democracy to get what you want. 'If Adolf Hitler, flew in today, they'd send a limousine anyway...', as Strummer put it in 1978.
So this is very well timed indeed, a new song from a very post-punk line up of Jah Wobble, Keith Levene, Richard Dudanski, Youth and Mark Stewart and this fantastic musical melting pot, a comment on the madness of Brexit, a piece of 2019 brilliance. Even more excitingly, there's a Weatherall remix to follow. Levene and Wobble's former PiL colleague, Brexit and Trump cheerleader Lydon, is nowhere to be seen.
In 2015 an enormous six disc Jah Wobble box was released into the world, more Jah than you can shake a bass at. One of the more intriguing tracks to my ears was a new version of his 1991 masterwork Visions Of You. The original, with its three Weatherall remixes, was an otherworldly adventure, an odyssey of groove, bass and music from around the world with Sinead O'Connor providing vocals. This version- and I've no idea when or where it was made or who the personel involved are- is subtly different, sharper and distinct. Not better, not worse, just version.
Youth, formerly Martin Glover and bassist for Killing Joke, is in the chair of a new Dub Trees project with an album out this month, tying together Jah Wobble, Matt Black from Coldcut, field recordings from India, druids, flutes and pipes and harps, Hinduism, Gaelic fiddles and those wonderful chugging basslines. This one is pretty dubby, with some Orb ambient-house style production and a generally laid back vibe. If the Bandcamp player doesn't load below (and it didn't the other night when I was writing this) try here.
Those early 90s Andrew Weatherall remixes have been hanging around my stereo a lot recently- there's something about them that is really pushing my buttons right now. You probably guessed that. There are two remixes of Jah Wobble's Bomba, from his Invaders Of The Heart period (with Natacha Atlas on vocals and in the picture above). The Miles Away Mix is a glorious acid house riot, from the marching band fanfare that opens it to the shouts of 'Musicaaaaaaa' and the almost chaotic clash of rhythms and sounds. Played loud it sounds like the maddest moment of the best party you went to. Slinky and sexy. The bass playing is superb too, obvs.
Stella Grundy, once of Manchester's Intastella, has had a second life as an actor and has been performing a one woman play, The Rise And Fall Of A Northern Star (based around the character Tracy Star). This song is from the album that goes with it- a driving, Jah Wobble powered tale of the darkside of the music industry, packed with hard won experience and Northern grit. It'll wake you up, shake you about a bit and stick in your head all day.
Peace Together was a project based in Northern Ireland in the 1990s which raised funds for cross-community activities for young people. In 1993 a single was released with vocals from Feargal Sharkey, Peter Gabriel, Nancy Griffiths and Sinead O'Connor. Therapy? contributed a song to it. Liz Fraser and Robin Guthrie of The Cocteau Twins did a remix. So did Sabres Of Paradise. This eleven minute fifty nine second remix took up the B-side of the 12". It is really good Gaelic dub, tin whistles, bodran, echo and delay, rim shots. Jah Wobble's lovely bass. Give up twelve minutes of your day to sit and listen to this. We could definitely do with some peace.
The Adventures of John Lydon Part Two- after the breakup of the Sex Pistols in 1978 Lydon was abandoned in the USA by McClaren while he set about making his doomed film and the rest of the band flew down to Rio to meet Ronnie Biggs. Lydon is rightly scathing about all of this in his book. He returned to London and took refuge in a flat he bought in Gunter Grove. These are some of the strongest sections of the book- his chaotic life in Gunter Grove, the continual threat of being busted by the police, harassment by the tabloid press, a trip to Jamaica to scout acts for Virgin's new reggae label. Reverting to Lydon from Rotten he sets about putting together a new band and a new type of band. Public Image Limited, more than any other band except Joy Division maybe, made what is now thought of as post-punk. He hooks up with Keith Levene (who gets castigated all the way through Lydon's autobiography but he acknowledges his abilities as a guitarist and writer) and old mate Jah Wobble (who can't play bass when he joins). Together they make some of the most brilliant music of the period. Opening single Public Image is still one of the great 7" records- thrilling, intense and Lydon giving his enemies (McClaren mainly) a tongue lashing and proclaiming himself as his own property. Levene and Wobble plus drummer Jim Walker are on fire.
After the first album they regroup to make Metal Box, all living together at Gunter Grove. No verses, no choruses, no running order, no filler. Not an easy listen in places but forward thinking and visionary. Death Disco is like nothing else, and sounds exactly like its title. Poptones is very unsettling. Careering is stunning.
After Metal Box PiL began to suffer from personnel changes- Wobble hates Levene and leaves, Levene is increasingly unreliable, Walker had already gone before or during Metal Box. Jeanette Lee joins as part of PiL's umbrella organisation and they make another album, The Flowers Of Romance, uneven but good in places. This Top Of The Pops performance is pretty memorable.
Beyond this Lydon's move to Los Angeles and further issues with band members leads to a decline in output and quality. The singles remain strong for a few more years- This Is Not A Love Song with a truly daft but attention grabbing video (and I prefer this poppy version with horns to the earlier one). A handful of album tracks still burn brightly.
In 1987 a further go in the studio, this time with seasoned professionals like Steve Vai and Ginger Baker, sees a new album called Album, and another great single- Rise- which managed to be a fairly major hit and still sounds vital. Beyond that, an LA cartoon version of PiL takes over as far as I'm concerned but I know there are people who will make claims for songs from beyond this point.
In Anger Is An Energy Lydon rails against X Factor and the obsession with perfect singing voices. Quite rightly he says what you say and the emotion in a voice is far more important than being able to sing scales or hit every note perfectly. PiL's best songs show this time and again and from Public Image through to Rise Lydon made records that are as good or better than Sex Pistols records- they just don't have the same impact as he did as Johnny Rotten. The times have changed. I saw PiL in 2009 and the new version of the band he's put together play a great set, proving the man can still do it when he wants it.
A final clip to illustrate his peculiar genius- invited to play on US tv show American Bandstand in 1980 PiL arrive to be told they will be miming. Lydon is at first disgusted and affronted but then plays with the format leading the studio audience, camera crew and producers on a merry dance. Surreal and hilarious and a little bit frightening.
