The Healing

Deeply Armed are a trio from Belfast who released a debut single earlier this year- The Healing. They have the support of Scottish author David Keenan who writes about them at their website where he and they promise 'Neu! tripping on a Northern Soul loop with Sonic Boom setting the controls for the heart of the sun'. The Healing is six minutes of magic that go a long way to meeting that description, shimmering analogue synths, a very mid- 70s West German motorik groove, some noise and distortion and eventually a guitar riff that pulls at the heartstrings. As the guitar gets you, the voices come in, singer Michael and sisters Sinead and Mairead all singing round one mic. The drummer messes with the groove, shifting to a military rat- a- tat- tat before dropping back in and the voices and synths combine, conjuring that late night, low lit, basement flat feel.

There are remixes, one from Andrew Innes and Brendan Lynch, one from Lone Swordsman Keith Tenniswood and most recently Richard Fearless of Death In Vegas. On the Born To Go Mix Innes and Lynch pump it up, turbo- charging the groove and the bass and pulling the backing vox to the fore, the motorik going to the go- go and coming in at under three minutes for those lovers of short 7" single length songs.

Keith Tenniswood strips The Healing down, a blip and a bloop over a low fi drum machine and padding bass, some synth wobble and glockenspiel. Hazy and spaced out, there's a warm glow about Keith's  eight minutes mix. It cold go on for longer and it'd be no problem at all. All three versions can be bought at Bandcamp, digital and 12" vinyl. 

The Richard Fearless isn't out until 5th September but is a ten minute machine music remake, very much in the vein of Fearless' recent releases, his Death Mask album from earlier this year and his Haywired track on Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 2. 

 

Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 2

 

Last year the five of us that make up the online Andrew Weatherall fan group that is The Flightpath Estate made an album and sold 1000 vinyl copies of it. It featured nine entirely new tracks from Weatherall associated artists and a then unreleased on vinyl Two Lone Swordsmen ambient track called The Crescents. Our album, Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 1, came out with our friends at The Golden Lion in Todmorden on Golden Lion Sounds and raised over £6, 000 for Andrew's chosen charities. It made the Piccadilly Records and Uncut end of year round ups, we had three tracks played on Lauren Laverne's 6 Music show as Compilation Of The Week, had a Piccadilly Records window takeover- it was all very exciting. The music was all uniformly superb with tracks by Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s, Timothy J. Fairplay, The Light Brigade (David Holmes), Rude Audio, 10:40, Richard Sen, Sons Of Slough and Hardway Bros, all recorded specifically for the album, and Andy Bell recorded an acoustic/ electric guitar cover of Smokebelch. 

We named the album Volume 1, partly chancing our arm collective arms in the hope that we might get to do a follow up. That album, Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Vol.2, is done, dusted, polished, shone and on its way to the pressing plant. The line up of artists and the music stands head and shoulders alongside Volume 1's. In no particular order, Volume 2 features a previously unreleased Sabres Of Paradise track, and new and exclusive music from Richard Fearless (of Death In Vegas), A Certain Ratio remixed by Number, Red Snapper, Richard Norris, David Harrow, Bedford Falls Players, Dicky Continental, the mysterious Unit 14, and a Two Lone Swordsmen cover by Sleaford Mods. Exciting eh?!

Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 2 will be available for pre- order tomorrow morning at 10 am from the Golden Lion Sounds Bandcamp page and from the Golden Lion Sounds online shop (via The Big Cartel). I'm giving Bagging Area readers a heads up today- I know some of you bought Vol. 1 and would imagine/ hope some of you will want to be online tomorrow, Tuesday 1st July, fingers poised over the Add To Cart button. There are 1000 copies for pre- order tomorrow with a further 500 going to selected record shops in late August when the album will get its full physical release. 

We've been sitting on this for a couple of months and we're itching to get it out to people so they can enjoy the music as much as we have been. Mark has done a twenty- five minute mix of all the tracks which I'll share asap and I'll put the links up to order too. There'll be a few other bits of Vol. 2 news coming around over the summer- in the meantime...

David Holmes used the pseudonym The Light Brigade on Volume 1 and has this year putout a 12" on Mystic Arts under the name name. Shuffle The Deck came out on 12" and digitally in May, two tracks- the first was made with Lone Swordsman Keith Tenniswood and samples Andrew at its end, a rabble rousing acid house monster called Shuffle The Deck. The flipside, Only Love Can Save Us, was made in collaboration with Michael Andrews who David worked with on his Blind On A Galloping Horse album and is shimmering, heavenly electronic goodness. Get both here. 

Shuffle The Pack

When David Holmes appeared on our album Sounds From The Flightpath Estate it was under the name The Light Brigade. He's using that name again now for a 12" single that's due out at the end of the month, a track that has been kicking around in David's DJ and radio sets for a while. Shuffle The Pack is a collaboration with former Two Lone Swordsman Keith Tenniswood, a fired up and righteous piece of music that sounds like the soundtrack to a protest. 

It starts with applause and crowd sounds and then a voice, 'yeah, it's time for anew course, a new coalition.. got to rise above race, rise above sex... don't cry about what you don't have, use what you got! Our time has come'. The drums kick in, a massive wobbly bassline rides the waves and synths, strings and FX echo and bounce around. Just as you think you're done, that the soundtrack to your own personal revolution is coming to an end and everything's fading out, the voice of Andrew Weatherall appears talking about gnostic ceremony, coloured lights, smoke and acid house as religious ritual. 

Shuffle The Pack is at Bandcamp. The flipside is a track called Only Love Can Save Us, another collaboration, this one with Michael Andrews who worked with David on his Blind On A Galloping Horse album. David was back at NTS last week, another two hour edition of God's Waiting Room with the subtitle Humanity As An Act Of Resistance. AS well as the usual excellent selection of tunes David intersperses the mix with excerpts from TV and radio news concerning the recent hysteria over Kneecap and the ongoing horror show in Gaza and genocide of the Palestinian people who live there- and die there. It's vital stuff, powerful and important. You can listen at NTS. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Two Lone Swordsmen

At the airport in Belfast they have robots to serve your breakfast. You have to go to the till and speak to a human to order but then the human loads your mugs and plates of food onto these robots and they bring them to your table. The eight year old me reading 2000AD in 1978 would have been beside himself at this aspect of the future but somehow, it just seemed a bit ridiculous. They even give the robot a smiley face to make them seem more human.

None of which has much to do with today's post and Sunday mix- except that the music Two Lone Swordsmen made is still far more of the future, more the soundtrack to 2000AD, than the robots at Belfast airport ever will be. When Andrew Weatherall formed Two Lone Swordsmen with Keith Tenniswood they made it a mission to go further and deeper, to take a more thorough and more purist approach to electronic music. After the sprawling magnificence of 1996's The Fifth Mission (Return To The Flightpath Estate) which went from stoned, paranoid ambience to big beat to two step and back again, they drilled deeper- minimal, brutalist electronic machine funk, ambient techno and glitchy dark electronic dub (with a detour into hip hop on A Virus With Shoes and then an exciting mutation into garage rock and rockabilly). Sometimes the music seemed a bit unfriendly and it lost a few people along the way but this being Mr Weatherall, there's no shortage of gold in among the darkness. 

This forty five minute mix is a celebration of Andrew's birthday today- he would have been 62 today. Many of his friends and family are at The Golden Lion today, day three of AW62 which will end tonight with a live performance by The Jonny Halifax Invocation (who have promised some live band TLS action) and a dub set from Adrian Sherwood. Happy birthday Andrew.

Forty Five Minutes Of Two Lone Swordsmen

• Heart Failed (In The Back Of A Taxi) (Two Lone Swordsmen Dub)
• We Change The Frequency
• Cotton Stains
• Lino Square
• Black Commandments
• Untitled Two Lone Swordsmen Remix
• Glide By Shooting
• Hope We Never Surface

Saint Etienne's 2000 album Sound Of Water was a bit of a departure for them. The Two Lone Swordsmen Dub of it's single Heart Failed (In The Back Of A Taxi) was a deconstruction, reducing the tune to its minimal dub basics, the wobbly bass a particular treat.

We Change The Frequency is from 1998's Stay Down, sometimes the TLS album I think is my favourite and one which has really grown over the years, lots of short, repetitive mechanical pieces and some gorgeous ambient techno, everything submerged in oceanic depths of bass and echo (like the deep sea divers on the cover). Hope We Never Surface is the opening track and always seems to be like a door opening... or a hatch...

Cotton Stains is on 2000's Tiny Reminders, the furthest and most purist they went, tunnel vision electro Six sides of vinyl, each disc starting with a track made up of static, a tiny reminder, before drilling into the netherworld of basement glitchy electronic bass and techno. Cotton Stains is the real sound of robots serving up breakfasts at airports- just before they declare independence and overthrow the security. 

Lino Square is from The Fifth Mission (Return To The Flightpath Estate), a fractured, mechanised but funky little number with a wiggy synth pattern kicking in after a few minutes. 

Black Commandments is from a 7" single that came with an EP, A Bag Of Blue Sparks, released on Warp in 1998, that included the track Gay Spunk (a title borrowed from Peter Hook's bass amp spray paint message).  

Untiled Two Lone Swordsmen is a remix of Ganger's Trilogy, a 12" from 1998, a nine minutes long and dusty with a flicker of guitar running through it. Ganger were from Glasgow, post- rock and krauty.

Glide By Shooting is one of the finest TLS tracks, a track on the double vinyl remix EP Swimming Not Skimming. Depth over surface. Eight minutes of sleek, mesmerising brilliance. 

The Flightpath Estate And The Crescents

You might remember that earlier this year me and my friends in The Flightpath Estate put out an album, Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 1. What started as a pub conversation between a handful of us became a reality and a slew of artists, musicians and producers connected to Andrew Weatherall or members of the Flightpath Estate Facebook group donated a track each to us, to release as a compilation album which we put out on Golden Lion Sounds. 

Various jaw dropping things happened around and following its release; we sold 500 copies in a day in February and decided to do a second pressing which also sold out; Lauren Laverne made it her Compilation of The Week on 6 Music and played three tracks from it; Piccadilly Records gave over their whole shop window to it and thirty six copies of Rusty's beautiful sleeve art adorned the shop's front window for a few hours. 

The music on the album was first rate, everyone giving us great tracks- we had a previously unreleased Two Lone Swordsmen track, The Crescents, and brand new tracks by Sons Of Slough, Timothy J. Fairplay, Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s, Richard Sen, Rude Audio, 10:40, Hardway Bros, The Light Brigade (I think everyone knows by now that this is David Holmes) and a cover of Smokebelch by Andy Bell. Matt Hum from The Golden Lion stitched the ten tracks from the album into one mix before the album came out which you can listen to here if you don't have a physical copy of the album. 

One of the things were were really sure about from the start was that any monies raised and left over after costs had been dealt with would go to charity. There are four chosen charities connected to Andrew- Crisis, Amnesty International, The Multiple Sclerosis Society, and The Thrombosis Society. Last week the final tying up of loose ends was dealt with and we found that we had raised a net total of £5928, which split four ways saw each charity receive a donation of £1482. I wrote a piece for Crisis which they published at their website (although embarrassingly there's a word missing from my text near the end-  the penultimate line reads 'Thank you to everyone involved- all the artists, Waka, Gig and Matt at The Golden Lion, Rusty for the artwork, everyone who shared news about it online and bought into the (and bought a copy) of the album and mainly to Andrew Weatherall for being the inspiration' but should read 'bought into the idea (and bought a copy) of the album...'. Proof reading your own text is difficult eh?).

We've been blown away at every step along the way with the album- obviously we're really pleased to have raised such an amount of money for charity. And now that we've tied up all the loose ends with Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 1 we can start thinking about a follow up, Volume 2...

The Crescents is the opening the track on our album, a three minute piece of ambient music by Andrew and Keith Tenniswood that originally only saw the light of day on a compilation of musical odds and ends called Still My World that was put together in 2003, a promotional CD for the Italian fashion house Zegna in Japan. Martin had a copy of this (quite rare) CD. We all loved The Crescents and chanced our arm contacting Rotters Golf Club and asking if we could license it for our album. Still My World has been released on vinyl this year as part of Record Shop Day, in a brand new sleeve with a lovely piece of writing by Keith about how he and Andrew worked in the studio. 

Still My World has since been released digitally and there's a continuous mix too, the ten tracks sequenced together with no gaps. Two of the tracks on Still My World, And Then The Walls Fell and Compulsion, were previously released as a 7" single on Andrew's Hidden Library imprint, Hidden Library 002 (both titled Untitled on that release). The remaining eight tracks were all new to Still My World. Thirty six minutes of magic from TLS world.  

Stay Down

In all the excitement about the 30th anniversary of Sabresonic the 25th birthday of Stay Down got a bit overlooked. Released in October 1998 Stay Down was Two Lone Swordsmen's follow up to the four sides of vinyl explorations of 1996's The Fifth Mission (Return To The Flightpath Estate) but doesn't sound anything like it. Like all the TLS releases, Stay Down sounds like it exists in a world of its own, it's not a staging post on the journey to another album, it's not part of a progression, it's an album that is in and of itself. It's also the Two Lone Swordsmen album which I think has grown the most since its release, revealing new depths and nuances. 

Stay Down is twelve short tracks, each one a self contained piece of ambient techno. The sound is deep, submerged, subaquatic ambience with drum loops and sub bass, and twinkles, bloops, blurps, stutters, synth stabs, bleeps, strings and samples, Andrew Weatherall and Keith Tenniswood operating like the pair of deep sea divers on the cover, drifting in a world far below/ aprt from the one everyone else was living in in 1998. It's analogue, ambient and noodly but focussed too, one track flowing to the next. The section where We Change The Frequency kicks in is a moment of excitement, a change of pace and tempo, but mainly it flows by, like the slow motion bursts of squid ink and spine bubbles that two of the tracks are named after.

The track titles are themselves a series of cryptic, tantalising Weatherallian clues to be pondered and pursued. Two of them have taken on a poignancy not intended on release, both beautiful, low key ambient moments - Light The Last Flare and album closer As Worldly Pleasures Wave Goodbye... The opening track Hope We Never Surface sets the tone as far as song titles go, a suggestion to stay below, to stay within the grooves of this record, to be present inside it. The Big Clapper, Alpha School and Ivy And Lead all conjure up vivid imagery. Mr Paris's Monsters is a mystery. We Discordians (Must Stick Apart) is named after Discordianism and everything that that entails, the number 23 included (I was told recently that when producing numbered vinyl editions and art prints Andrew always kept number 23 for himself). No Red Stopping was named after Andrew arrived for a DJ gig in a newly liberated nation in the former Yugoslavia and was picked up by a driver to take him to the club, who then sped through every red light at every junction between airport and nightclub. Eventually, knuckles white and tension rising, Andrew asked the driver why he didn't stop for red lights. Snipers, was the reply. 

We Discordians (Must Stick Apart)

There's precious little information on the sleeve other than the track titles and recording details- recorded at Rotter Golf Club, copyright Warp Records, made in England, mastered by 'amidst very unprofessional behaviour' Frank Arkwright- and Andrew's very recognisable handwriting. The only extra is a quote via Primal Scream's Andrew Innes and the source of the record's title, Andrew's advice in what to do in conflict situations- 'sometimes in a fight it's best just to stay down'. 

Weatherall Remix Friday Fifteen

The idea of Weatherall Remix Friday when I started it a few months ago, was to feature some of the less well known, less celebrated Andrew Weatherall remixes. Andrew produced hundreds of remixes during his lifetime- under his own name (with a range of studio conspirators including Hugo Nicolson, Steve Boardman, Timothy J. Fairplay and Nina Walsh), with Sabres Of Paradise and with Two Lone Swordsmen. There are some artists he came back to time after time, remixing their songs across the decades- Primal Scream for one and David Holmes for another. David's first solo album since 2008's The Holy Pictures is out today on Heavenly, a record titled Blind On A Galloping Horse, one which I've been eagerly waiting for since Hope Is The Last Thing To Die came out in October 2021. There's a launch party night at The Golden Lion on Saturday night with David DJing. The last time he played there, in October last year, was very memorable indeed. Hopefully Saturday will be similarly roof raising. 

Andrew's remixes of David, in reverse order, take in his versions of Unloved (Devils Angels from 2019, a Weatherall remix of When A Woman Is Around from 2016 and two remixes of Guilty Of Love in 2015), the wonderful Andrew Weatherall remix of I Heard Wonders (from 2008) and then before those two remixes of Gone, a song with Sarah Cracknell on vocals from Homer's 1995 debut solo album This Film's Crap, Let's Slash The Seats (an album recorded with Andrew's Sabres Of Paradise partners Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns co- producing. Jagz, Gary and David were three members of the four members of a 1993 one off group/ record Four Boy One Girl Action which I might come back to at some point soon). Lots of links and connections between them then resulting in lots of music. It's the remixes of Gone I thought I'd focus on here today, both dating from 1996.

This Film's Crap... was a double album, very much made under the influence of being active for half a decade in 1990s club music, a dark, moody, downtempo album with nods to techno, trip hop and house and the signs of David's future work in film soundtracks there to see. Gone, with Saint Etienne's Sarah on vocals, was an obvious single, one of the few tracks on the album with a vocal, Sarah lamenting, 'I gonna hide/ She don't even know/ You can never go home anymore'. 

Andrew and Keith Tenniswood had just begun to release records as Two Lone Swordsmen. They released their first full length album, The Fifth Mission (Return To The Flightpath Estate), the same year and these remixes sound like they came from similar sessions and times. Gone came out as a single with various remixes in March 1996, several months before The Fifth Mission in August. TLS had released a pair of 12" singles- The Third Mission and The Tenth Mission- ahead of the album, but the Gone remixes are some of the first fruits of the Swordsmen sound.

First Night Without Charge is a sublime, subtle, atmospheric early Swordsmen, those submerged and subaqua TLS sounds and motifs appearing, with double bass bassline and breakbeat taking the lead- not dissimilar to the sound and feel of The Fifth Mission. Sarah's voice is nowhere to be found- as Jagz and Gary confirmed at our Sabresonic Q&A last weekend, vocals are the first casualties of the remix. In the fifth minute a horn bursts through the smoked out jazz club murk.  

Gone (First Night Without Charge)

Second Night Without Charge is a different beast, opening with kick drum and the rumble of sub- bass, more tense, with some bleeps riding on top. A minute in the percussion and snare hit and they raises it up a notch. The track then winds and unwinds, various sounds entering and exiting, for the next seven minutes, all the time the drums and bass pushing on- for want of a better description, abstract deep house. 

Gone (Second Night Without Charge)

When This Film's Crap, Let's Slash The Seats was released on CD in the US in 1998 it came with a second disc of extras, the remixes and B-sides from the UK releases in 1996 compiled into a second album bookended by the Two Lone Swordsmen versions of Gone, opening and closing things in a way that made it sound like they were planned to do exactly that.

Weatherall Remix Friday Fourteen

A trip back to September 1997 today for this week's Weatherall Remix Friday and a pair of Two Lone Swordsmen remixes of The Money- Penny Project. The intention of this series was to highlight and spotlight some of the lesser known and less celebrated Weatherall remixes and this release definitely falls into that category. The Money- Penny Project was an alias for French producer Benoit Bollini and came out on London label Nuphonic, a label that lasted from 1995 to 2002. 

The first remix is brief by Weatherall standards, sub- five minutes and in semi- ambient techno territory, skittish synths and percussion with a background rumble. It's not quite in the vein of Two Lone Swordsmen's Stay Down album, released a year later but it could be a step on the road towards the sound they found on that album (a submerged and murky, ambient/ techno album, abstract electronic music music made by stoned submariners).

Clarisse- C (Two Lone Swordsmen Hor Fen Mix)

Flip the disc over though and the B-side gives up much more, the twelve minute splendour of the Double Mutator Mix. This one rattles and spins, the drums skipping as the whirring, clicking noises bounce around, the bass reverberates and distorted voices echo in and out, like someone tapping on the portholes of the submarine while a small dub/ house/ techno party goes on inside. At five and half minutes in some angelic choral sounds break in, sirens maybe, pulling our intrepid underwater crew towards the rocks. At nine thirty there's a sensation of a shaft light suddenly breaking in, of surfacing from the depths, taking us back up above the waves and into the air. 

Clarisse- C (Two Lone Swordsmen Double Mutator Mix)

Weatherall Remix Friday Thirteen

The afterglow of last Saturday night's Spiritualized gig has had me diving back into their back catalogue all week, in the car and at home- 1997's Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space mainly but also Pure Phase (from 1995), and the pairing of  Everything Was Beautiful and And Nothing Hurt (2018 and 2022). It seemed an obvious choice for today's Weatherall Remix Friday to feature the 1998 Two Lone Swordsmen remix of Come Together (the encore at New Century Hall last week and an utterly thrilling blast of psychedelic rock, a lurching, furious hymn/ lament to serious drug addiction). The Two Lone Swordsmen remix goes somewhere very different indeed. 

Come Together (Two Lone Swordsmen Mix)

'How big are your eyes?' a dislocated voice enquires as other indistinct voices and noises swim around. A taut detuned guitar line and what could be FXed horns appear. The voice goes on, to no one in particular, 'What of the sun?' Two minutes in there's a crash of noise, some drums rumble and then a dirty, broken breakbeat kicks in. It goes on, a quite unsettling piece of music, a cacophony, squawks of sax and bursts of trumpet, bass and rums the only real constant, Jason's expansive, symphonic, psychedelic rock spun into the outer edges by Weatherall and Tenniswood for fifteen minutes. Vinyl only, 1000 copies, embossed cover. 

The Oxford

To conclude this week's run of photos of abandoned and defunct pubs this is The Oxford on Oxford Street, Liverpool. It was once part of a Victorian terrace and is now the only building that remains standing. Given its boarded up state I guess that may not be the case for much longer. It stands at the eastern end of the University of Liverpool campus. At the other end is The Cambridge, a regular haunt of mine back in the late 80s and thankfully still open. This is one race in which Cambridge have definitely beaten Oxford.

Today is Weatherall Remix Friday Twelve and his ties in to last Sunday's Saint Etienne mix post too. Back in 2000 Two Lone Swordsmen remixed Saint Etienne's Heart Failed (In The Back Of A Taxi), a single from their Sound Of Water album. The album is a low key, minimalist affair, pared back and with some influences from the late 90s leftfield/ avant garde/ ambient end of things. 

Two Lone Swordsmen went to town on remix duties, producing four versions- gritty, bass heavy TLS urban dub. Only one was officially released, the other three appearing on a white label promo disc. I'm not going to describe each one in turn- they're all variations on a theme that go progressively further, murkier and dubbier. If you like the turn of the millennium TLS dub sound (and you should) you'll enjoy these. If you're a completist (and I know some of you are) you'll want them for your collection. 

Heart Failed (In The Back Of A Taxi) (Two Lone Swordsmen Remix)

Heart Failed (In The Back Of A Taxi) (Two Lone Swordsmen Instrumental Remix)

Heart Failed (In The Back Of A Taxi) (Two Lone Swordsmen Dub Remix Version 1)

Heart Failed (In The Back Of A Taxi) (Two Lone Swordsmen Dub Remix Version 2)

Weatherall Remix Friday Eleven

Inevitably September arrives and brings summer to an end, dusk falling earlier and back to school. I'm feeling it particularly keenly right now, the changing seasons and forward march of the year.  And the return to work which happens today. 

This week's Weatherall Remix Friday visits Two Lone Swordsmen in 1997 remixing old friends The Aloof (a group containing two former Sabres Of Paradise in Gary Burns and Jagz Kooner plus Rich Thair of Red Snapper, Dean Thatcher and Ricky Barrow). Sinking was the title track on The Aloof's second album, following 1994's superb dub- techno/ rave opus Cover The Crime. Sinking was a darker album, less clubby, more after hours, with some trip hop and blues as a part of the sound and more of a live band feel, something of a comedown record after the previous one's partying. 

There's plenty here to enjoy. TLS load up a skippy house beat, a deep house bassline, splashing cymbals and a lovely wiggly synth topline that weaves its way through the remix for seven minutes. Late 90s downtempo/ deep house that keeps your attention engaged and head nodding throughout. This vinyl rip has a lovely burst of crackle at the start for the vinyl lovers out there. 

Sinking (Two Lone Swordsmen House Mix)

Also from the 12" remix package is a pair of Ashley Beedle remixes, this one being the pick of the pair. Clattering drums, whispers, whistles and minor chords.

Sinking (Nautical Cosmic Break Mix)

Weatherall Remix Friday Ten

Weatherall Remix Friday is back today after a month's absence. When walking down the Bridgewater Canal from Stretford Marina to Castlefield a few weeks ago this piece of graffiti jumped out at me. I'm not sure if it's a Two Lone Swordsmen tribute (they did sometimes style their name as 2LS) or a local artist's tag but either way it fits with today's Weatherall and Tenniswood remix. 

In 1998 Ganger released a trilogy of 12" singles, all called Trilogy, with remixes by Two Lone Swordsmen, Underdog and D across the three discs. The TLS remix is the one featured here today, a lo fi, dusty and abstract piece of music, all squiggles, bleeps, static, little guitar parts, echo and whatever else Andrew and Keith scooped up from the masters,  dropped in and FXed. It gathers a little pace eventually with percussion and a low key rumbling rhythm. A snare works its way to the fore, a mechanical TLS drum sound taking the lead while the noises and loops percolate around it. On it goes, passing the eight and then nine minute mark, an exercise in lo fi TLS submerged meandering, eventually coming to a halt one second shy of ten minutes. 

a [Untitled] (Two Lone Swordsmen Remix)

Ganger were a Glaswegian post- rock/ krautrock group who released several singles and an album between 1996 and 1999, eventually signing to Domino. 

Houghton festival took place last weekend. Back in 2017 Andrew appeared at the decks following Ricardo Villalobos and Craig Richards and played a two and a half hour dub set. It's available at Soundcloud and really is dub of the highest order, Mr Weatherall proving he could move between genres at will and with ease. 

This set, recorded at a festival in Anglesey in 2016, is another current favourite, a two hour wigged out ALFOS trip through the Andrew's record box taking in among others Johnny Sender, Secret Squirrel, Scott Fraser, Duncan Gray, Anzano, Club Bizarre, The Rimshooters, Mustang and a seriously good edit of Captain Beefheart, always for dancing, always building, up and ever onwards. I don't think anyone else could put together a set like this. Listen here. 

Weatherall Remix Friday Eight

A reader got in touch after last week's Weatherall Remix Friday with a couple of suggestions for future posts both of which are a) fairly obscure and b) ones I think I'll get to. This one fits in well with last week's Two Lone Swordsmen remix of Alter Ego's Mescal and with the pair Keith suggested. Le Patron Est Devenu Fou! (translation- The Boss Has Gone Mad!) was a track by French producer Super Discount (Etienne de Crecy) and appeared on his album, also titled Super Discount. A 7" single was released in July 1997 with a remix on the B-side by Two Lone Swordsmen. 

Le Patron Est Devenu Fou! (Two Lone Swordsmen Dub  Mix)

For this remix Andrew and Keith Tenniswood head further into a murky basement/ underwater world of their own making- dingy, poorly lit and full of smoke and the aroma of substances. Six minutes of bubbles, echo, delay, rattles, the throb of sub bass, a quicker tempo than it maybe at first seemed like it would have, little synth/ keyboards runs, space, bleeps, more echo, more delay- wonderfully textured and nuanced deep house dub. 

Weatherall Remix Seven

This Friday series of Andrew Weatherall remixes has focussed so far on lesser known ones from either the 2010s or early 90s. Today I'm heading into 1996, a world where Andrew had moved on sonic miles from his much loved early remixes and after the Sabres Of Paradise years had moved into dustier and murkier waters. At this point, Andrew's sound was about finesse and purism, drilling further and deeper. The Two Lone Swordsmen sound had begun to coalesce, a marriage of techno, electro and downtempo. Before the full on six sides of electro/ bass vinyl of 2000's Tiny Reminders, the years 1996- '98 saw him and Keith Tenniswood brew up a stoned, underwater sound, some hip hop influences in the drums, the space of dub and their own approach to loops, samples and static. Their remixes from this period are low key, sombre and full of detail and very rewarding 

Alter Ego were Roman Flugel and Jorn Elling Wuttke, from Darmstadt, Germany. Andrew and Keith provided two remixes of Mescal, a seven minute remix and a shorter dub. The dub has springs, bubbles, sonar, tapping hi hats and then the deep thump of timpani. A mournful synth line starts to weave a path on top and then a female vocal part, a hum more than singing, drifts by. The breakbeat kicks in eventually. 

Mescal (TLS Dub)

There are a couple of Two Lone Swordsmen remixes from this period that fit very well with this one- Starsailor's Good Souls and Calexico's Virus Style both have a similar feel and the submerged, underwater, ambient/ techno TLS sound would be taken to a beautiful peak (or depth maybe) on 1998's Stay Down album. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Beth Orton

A couple of weeks ago I was crate digging in Altrincham, flicking through a box of records that even though it was outdoors smelt like it had been recently recovered from a damp garage. In among the finds and the rejects was a Beth Orton 10" single, Touch Me With Your Love, from 1996. Weirdly while the sleeve was in bits, water damaged and splitting at the seams, the record was in really good condition and though there was no inner sleeve around the disc the free postcard (a black and white photo of Beth) was inside with the record. The 10" single had four songs, the title track (from her debut album Trailer Park), an instrumental version, the B-side song Pedestal and a live version of the epically beautiful Galaxy Of Emptiness recorded at the Shepherd's Bush Empire in November 1996. I took it along with a copy of Bruce Hornsby And The Range's The Way It Is on 12", a compilation of Pentangle on Pickwick Records from the late 1960s and Warm Leatherette by Grace Jones, paid my tenner and shuffled off. 

As a result, a Beth Orton Sunday mix seemed to be a good idea. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Beth Orton

• Galaxy Of Emptiness
• It's This I Find I Am
• Bobby Gentry
• Touch Me With Your Love
• Anywhere (Two Lone Swordsmen Remix)
• Water On A Vine Leaf (Underworld Mix Part 1)

Galaxy Of Emptiness is the ten minute closer from Beth's debut Trailer Park, an Andrew Weatherall produced epic, with Red Snapper's Rich Thair and Ali Friend on brushed drums and stand up double bass. It's one of Weatherall's greatest 90s productions, full of space and atmosphere.

It's This I Find I Am was the B-side to the Someone's Daughter single from 1997, another Weatherall production and a bit of a lost gem. 

Bobby Gentry, named after the singer of 60s classic Ode To Billie Joe, came out a 2003 compilation that followed her Daybreaker album called The Other Side Of Daybreak. It's been a favourite of mine since I first heard it twenty years ago, a cinematic beauty with strings and heartbreak lyrics including this piece of poetry- 'Collecting dead rainbows/ From puddles and mires/ Taking them home to warm by the fire'.

Touch Me With Your Love was a 1996 single as mentioned above, CD and 10" vinyl on Heavenly. 

Anywhere was remixed by Two Lone Swordsmen, with some superb Keith Tenniswood programming, Beth sent into electro heaven, TLS remix gold. Anywhere was on Daybreaker, Beth's third album from 2002. There were Adrian Sherwood and Photek remixes too.

Water On A Vine Leaf was one of Beth's first vocal appearances, the result of studio time with William Orbit. This single from 1993 is one of the year's and William Orbit's best. Some of the songs Beth and William worked on resurfaced on Trailer Park under different names. There are several remixes that are right up there in terms of 90s acid house/ progressive house brilliance, three from Underworld and the Xylem Flow remix by Spooky. I could have chosen any and went for Underworld's Part 1 mix. 

The First Mission

It's a bit late in the day to advertise this but we've been a bit tardy with arrangements-amateurish you might say- and it's always better late than never. The Flightpath Estate is a Facebook group that was formed nine years ago to share news, recordings and information about Andrew Weatherall. It grew fairly slowly and only numbered a couple of hundred members until February 2020 when it grew  suddenly and quickly following Andrew's death. It now has over two thousand members and has become something more than a Facebook group- it is a genuine community of fans and friends. It is also the front door to the Weatherdrive, an archive of Andrew's DJ sets and mixes lovingly curated and annotated. To listen to it all would currently involve over 1300 hours of listening time.  The five of us that run and admin the page (me, Martin, Mark, Dan and Barry) were asked to contribute to an article in last Thursday's Guardian written by Joe Muggs on the occasion of what would have been Andrew's 60th birthday and two of us, myself and Martin, were quoted in the article. You can read it here. When I started this blog in 2010 and then helped Martin to set up The Flightpath Estate group I didn't expect that I'd end up being quoted in The Guardian in reference to Andrew Weatherall and his legacy but we are where we are as they say. 

The Flightpath Estate managed to get ourselves a DJ gig at The Golden Lion last October, supporting and warming up for David Holmes. We're back at the Lion at the end of the month to do the same for Justin Robertson as part of the AW60 celebrations. Again, when I started this blog I really didn't expect it would lead to this. We've been keen to do something for the group in real life and knocked about the idea of doing a Flightpath Estate social, a monthly meet up where we can get together, play records and people from the group can come down and join in. The first Flightpath Estate social is happening this Sunday, 16th April, at Blossom Street Social, a bar in Ancoats. This time around, the first outing (or First Mission in Two Lone Swordsmen terms), the northern members of the admin team- me, Dan and Martin- are on duties. If you're Manchester/ north west based, fancy a pint and a chinwag and some good music, please feel free to come down and say hello. Entry is free. We're on from 2pm through til the evening. We've managed to choose a date which coincides with the Manchester marathon and the end of the Easter holidays- whether these will affect attendance at our shindig remains to be seen. We may end up playing long Weatherall remixes to a disheveled groups of runners with finisher's medals round their necks. We may end up playing records for the enjoyment of no- one except ourselves. 

In 1996 Two Lone Swordsmen released their first full length album, a triple vinyl, fifteen track opus (or eighteen track monster if you bought it on double CD). The album, The Fifth Mission (Return To The Flightpath Estate), gave our Facebook group its name and gives us our starting point, our first mission. On the album Weatherall and Keith Tenniswood cast a wide net, all manner of slow and mid- paced, downtempo, experimental, electronic music goings on, from the huge bassline and trip hop drums of Big Man Original to the stoned, filtered, distorted guitar of Enemy Haze through to the wonky Kraftwerk- isms of Beacon Block and the double time, two- step, double bass plus electronics of Rico's Helly, it's a wigged out journey through the night, experimental but accessible too. The Flightpath Estate of the title is a reference to the studio they worked in, a first floor flat above a dry cleaner's under the Heathrow flightpath. Weatherall had a knack for taking the ordinary and the mundane and giving it a glamour in song titles and names. On the CD there were three extra tracks. This one, Extended Branch Brothers, sounds like the experience of being dislocated and discombobulated after a night out, in the back of  a mini- cab in the early hours, wanting to be home and in bed but safe too in the warm environs of the taxi as it glides through the suburbs towards the dawn. 

Extended Branch Brothers

Better Together

Holy Youth Movement are an amped up and feel good five piece band from Bristol. Their new single Better Together is the sound of an end- of- night floor filler at a 1990 indie dance club, rolling bassline, chunky drums, chanted vocals, fringes melted to foreheads, lovebeads stuck to sweaty necks and drenched t- shirts. This isn't entirely a retro trip though- this is a sound not far from 2020s party animals Confidence Man and their chantalong soundtrack to last summer. Better Together was produced by Jagz Kooner, whose background in Sabres Of Paradise (with Andrew Weatherall) gives him plenty to bring to bear and it's mastered by Keith Tenniswood (who was in Two Lone Swordsmen with... Andrew Weatherall). 

There are two remixes, released last Friday, from the magic hands and ears of Sean Johnston's Hardway Bros whose background in A Love From Outer Space (with... Andrew Weatherall) means he knows a thing or two about songs to shake a cellar. The Hardway Bros Cosmic Intervention Remix is eight minutes of bubbling sci fi synths, chuggy rhythms and cosmic facing dance rock, the track and vocals slowed down slightly, giving it an free and easy drawl- 'I feel better/ Better than ever/ I feel stronger/ Stronger than ever', singer Tom claims, and while I don't necessarily feel the same way you can't help but admire the sentiment. 

The Hardway Bros Dub Intervention Mix is dubbier, obvs, and looser with a great drawn out guitar/ synth part that winds its way round and round in ever wiggier circles. It will no doubt sound great at volume in a club or a field. Both can be bought at Bandcamp. 

Find 'Em

Andrew Weatherall died three years ago today and his presence continues to be felt in the culture he was part of though his absence does too. In April there are a series of events taking place to celebrate what would have been his 60th birthday including one at The Golden Lion in Todmorden which I am involved in, about which more later. It would be remiss of this blog to let today pass without a mention and it's best to do it by celebrating his life and work. Three links today to remember him by, from three different phases of his life and work. I was going to say career but I think Andrew would have spat out his tea at the suggestion that what he did was as planned as a career.

In 1991 when Andrew was becoming the remixer he did a remix for S'Express, the biggest flop single Mark Moore's hyperdelic house/ disco outfit had. Andrew and Hugo Nicolson's remix is however an absolute beauty, seven minutes forty nine of day- glo acid house, smiley face synths blaring over a crunchy breakbeat, Sonique's 'yeah yeah yeah' vocal, various grunts and oohs and ahhhs buried deep within and some jubilant house piano chords. It's a remix which is a bit overlooked among his early ones but is right up there among his best- an admittedly a crowded field. 

Find 'Em Fool 'Em Forget 'Em (The Eighth Hour Mix)

If you always suspected there might be a link between Andrew Weatherall and Wham! but couldn't quite put your finger on it, the bass player on this remix was Dion Estus, a Motown trained bassist and session musician, who looked after the bottom end for Wham!'s touring band and then George Michael's too.

In 2001 when Two Lone Swordsmen were at their most electro/ techno purist, they released a double pack of vinyl titled Locked Swords. The four sides contained a series of locked grooves, tones and samples, all used on their Turntables And Machines tour, designed to be used by DJs and bedroom DJs. It's one of the few TLS pieces of vinyl I don't own and I missed out on one that came up on Ebay recently. The tracks are numbered Black 1- 15 and White 1- 13. All are in the folder below as mp3s, for you to add to your collection and/ or muck about with if you have the software and inclination. I saw Andrew and Keith Tenniswood on the tour at Manchester's Music Box, a fairly sparsely attended affair. They set up their Technics 1200s and laptops down the side of the room and began spitting out a few hours of bass heavy, breakbeat driven electro/ techno, much in the vein of the Tiny Reminders album which came out a year before. 

Locked Swords

In the mid- to-late 00s Andrew became a regular radio presence, first at BBC's 6 Mix and then at NTS. His shows were a delight, never failing to introduce listeners to new music, sending them scurrying to websites and record shops to hunt down what he'd just played. Often he'd drop his own music in, much then unreleased  (some still unreleased today- hopefully this can be rectified in the coming months and years). His chat was very good too, amusing, sardonic and self- mocking. Equally there were times when he'd shut up and just play the music, with thirty minute mixes a regular feature at the 6 Mix shows and the occasional NTS show being two hours of music non- stop. 

This one here is from August 2019, the last time he darkened the BBC's doorway, standing in for an absent Iggy Pop (I can imagine a young Andrew being amazed at that turn of events). The tracklist below shows all manner of delights, his beautifully dubbed out remix of Meatraffle, a still unreleased Woodleigh Research Facility track conjured up by him and Nina Walsh and some favourites from his youth in the shape of Be- Bop Deluxe and The Dream Syndicate. 

• Meatraffle: Meatraffle On The Moon (Andrew Weatherall Remix)
• Krokakai: Bodhran Beat
• Dust to Dust: Cantillate
• Psycho & Plastic: Black Hole Acid Test
• La Decadanse: Bardo State
• The Woodleigh Research Facility: Vous Du
• Llewellyn: Remote Scope
• Enkidu: Shinkansen
• Sansibar: Home
• Photonz: Emerald City (Almaty Remix)
• Felix Leifur: Brot 6
• Ghost Culture: Meltwater
• Fabio Monesi: Strings Of Love
• De Sluwe Vos: Trans Magnetic Stimulation (Dexter Remix)
• Alfie: Coasting
• Be-Bop Deluxe: Electrical Language
• The Dream Syndicate: Treading Water Underneath The Stars
• Curses:Insomnia
• The Beat Escape: Seeing Is Forgetting
• Frobisher Neck: Isi
• Andrew Weatherall: Selling The Shadow
• Hamish Kilgour: Opening / Welcome To Finkelstein

David Holmes At The Golden Lion: Recreated

A trip back in time to two weeks ago for today's Sunday mix and a much longer offering than usual. You might remember- I do- that on Saturday 1st October a group of us supported David Holmes at the Golden Lion in Todmorden and had quite the night. David came on at about nine and played a four hour set that took the proverbial roof off. Using the power of our memories (hazy, intermittent, vague and unreliable admittedly) and those people who had the presence of mind to use Shazam in the building at the time, we've attempted to put together David's setlist from that evening and then I've slung the ones we've been able to identify together in a one hour and forty seven minutes long, fifteen track mix, in roughly the order we recall them being played. It's missing a lot of tracks clearly- Holmes played for four hours- and it's not anywhere near as skillfully mixed but it's here to give a flavour, a short recreation of David at the Golden Lion a fortnight ago. I've listened to it a couple of times since finishing it midweek and it works for me- if I do say so myself. 

David Holmes at The Golden Lion recreated by The Flightpath Estate

• Alex Kassian: Spirit Of Eden (Bill Laswell Remix)
• Roberto Rodriguez: Mustat Varjot
• Carte De Sejour: Ouadou
• Axel Boman: Klinsmann
• Pete Wylie and The Oedipus Wrecks: Sinful (Tribal)
• Dornbirn 78: Dancing In The City
• Suuns: Up Past The Nursery (Ivan Smagghe Edit)
• Ettika: Ettika (Version Maxi Inedite)
• Hans Zimmer: Inception (Junkie XL Remix)
• John Talabot: Depak Ine
• The Blow Monkeys: La Passionara
• David Holmes: It's Over, If We Run Out Of Love (Darren Emerson Huffa remix)
• Unloved: Turn Of The Screw (Erol Alkan Rework)
• David Holmes and Keith Tenniswood: I Am Somebody
• Orbital: Belfast (David Holmes Remix)

Alex Kassian's Spirit Of Eden came out as a 12" last year, my favourite release from last year I've only discovered this year. The original and the Bill Laswell mixes are superb. Roberto Rodriguez's Mustat Varjot is from a 2012 compilation EP called On the Latch. Carte De Sejour is Italian disco/ funk from 1984. The vinyl rip included here is crackly as fuck but I think it actually adds to the fun. Klinsmann by Axel Boman, a tribute to a very well known German footballer perhaps, is from 2013. Sinful (Tribal Mix), one of the night's highlights, is a 1986 single remixed by Zeus B. Held- the definitive version. I'm going to see Pete Wylie a week today and if he plays Sinful I will be very happy. 

Dornbirn 78 released Dancing In The City in 2019, a cover of Marshall Hain's 1978 song. Ivan Smagghe's edit of Suun's Up Past The Nursery is from 2013. Ettika is French disco from 1985. John Talabot's Depak Ine came out on his 2012 album Fin. The Junkie XL remix of Hans Zimmer's theme from the film Inception is from 2010. La Passionara is a  Balearic classic from 1990 by The Blow Monkeys.

The Darren Emerson remix of David Holmes' It's Over, If We Run Out Of Love was part of a remix package from earlier this year, with Raven Violet on vocals. Raven also sings on Unloved's Turn Of The Screw, from The Pink Album, out shortly on vinyl and already available digitally. The Erol Alkan remix came out as part of an EP recently. David's track with former Lone Swordsman Keith Tenniswood is currently unreleased and appears here courtesy of a rip from Holmes' wonderful Desert Island Disco mix for Lauren Laverne back at the start of the year- it has the voice of Andrew Weatherall at the end talking about acid house as gnostic ceremony. The David Holmes remix of Orbital's Belfast was the 'one more tune' track at The Golden Lion and came out a couple of months ago as part of Orbital's 30 Something compilation. 

Straight To Your Heart

It is two years ago today that Andrew Weatherall died aged just 57 and it seems right that this blog pays tribute to him on the occasion- his work and music has contributed to 602 posts here, well over 10% of my postings. At The Flightpath Estate (a Facebook group that I'm co- admin of) there is a semi- regular feature called Sunday Social, a Sunday evening comment thread with a theme where anyone can chip in. A few weeks ago there was an event at the (real) Social in London with David Holmes DJing, a launch party for the pair of Heavenly compilations of Andrew's remixes of the labels acts. Many of the Flightpath's membership attended and on the Sunday night the Social was a thread where we suggested and posted links to songs and tracks that might make the ideal accompaniment for a hangover/ sore head/ comedown. The mix below is a group effort, the suggestions on the thread from the Sunday night. I've stitched them all together into one mix, an hour and a quarter of songs and tracks produced, written or remixed by Andrew plus one from Radioactive Man, Andrew's collaborator in Two Lone Swordsmen, Keith Tenniswood, in solo mode. It's slow and low, a downtempo mix, ambient in places, dubby in others and song based in yet more, laid out maybe rather than laid back. I hesitate to say it's Weatherall in chill out mode but it's definitely one for contemplation and reflection.  And I hope in some way it pays tribute to a man who is very much still missed. Stream at Mixcloud or download below. 

The Flightpath Estate Sunday Social Mix February 2022

• Andrew Weatherall and Keith Tenniswood: The Crescents
• Two Lone Swordsmen: Tiny Reminder No. 3 (Calexico Remix)
• Calexico: III (Two Lone Swordsmen remix)
• Percy X v Blood Sugar: -3 (Emissions 2)
• Beth Orton: It’s This I Find I Am
• Two Lone Swordsmen: It’s Not The Worst I’ve Ever Looked… (Lali Puna Remix)
• Sabres Of Paradise: Siege Refrain
• Radioactive Man: Goodnight Morton
• Woodleigh Research Facility: Somnium
• The Liminanas Ft. Peter Hook: Garden Of Love (Lundi Mouille Mix)
• Peace Together: Be Still (Sabres Of Paradise Remix)
• Two Lone Swordsmen: The Big Clapper (CPIJ Remix)
• Two Lone Swordsmen: As Worldly Pleasures Wave Goodbye
• Primal Scream: Carry Me Home
• One Dove: Why Don’t You Take Me