Forty Minutes Of Folkishness

Today's Sunday mix is an inspired by or 'ish' mix, forty minutes of music that is folk adjacent or inspired- the melodies, the playing, a cover of a late 60s, English folk rock classic, an edit of a 60s folk song, some other songs that just feel like they're in the folk music vernacular. Most of the songs on the mix are from this year, the rest from fairly recently.  For want of a better phrase, they've all got a folk vibe. 

There's plenty more music sitting in my downloads and music folders that fall within the boundaries of this- Richard Norris and Dot Allison both come to mind so a part two may follow.

Forty Minutes Of Folkishness

• Luke Schneider: midafternoon classic
• Matt Deighton: Tannis Root
• Coyote: The Outsider
• Andy Bell: Pinball Wanderer
• Andy Bell: Light Flight
• Sydney Minski Sargeant: Long Roads
• Totem Edits 12: Feel
• Sewell And The Gong: Passing Oort Clouds
• Four Tet: Into Dust (Still Falling)

Luke Schneider is from Nashville, a pedal steel guitarist and part of the ambient Americana scene. midafternoon classic came out last year, a couple of minutes of ambient/ folk with nylon strings, pedal steel and harmonica. His latest four track release came out two days ago and can be found here. 

Matt Deighton's Villager is a 1995 folk gem, much overlooked at the time. Tannis Root is a few minutes of acoustic guitar and some woodwind, lovely modern instrumental folk inspired music that came out on Moonboot's Moments In Time compilation. 

Coyote's The Outsider was the closing song on their 2021 album The Mystery Light, an acoustic guitar sequence and the vice of mystic/ writer/ speaker/ philosopher Alan Watts. The Coyote duo were nodding their heads at Andrew Weatherall too, who wrote under the pseudonym The Outsider in the Boy's Own fanzine and who was exactly what Watts is talking about, 'you don't have to join, you don't have to play the game...'

Andy Bell's Pinball Wanderer came out at the start of this year. The title track is lit up by a late 60s folk rock guitar melody, some shuffly acoustic guitars and a sense that Fairport Convention and The Stone Roses in 1989 got in a room together. On his 2022 covers EP Untitled Film Stills, Andy covered songs by Yoko Ono, The Kinks, Arthur Russell and Pentangle. Light Flight was from Pentangle's 1969 folk- rock album Basket Of Light, an album that pushed them into the charts. Light Flight was also the theme tune to BBC 1's Take Three Girls, a late 60s/ early 70s drama about three young women sharing a flat in London. 

I wrote about Sydney Minski Sargeant's forthcoming solo album Lunga last week. The single Long Roads is folk indebted, echoes of Nick Drake and Syd Barrett in the playing and singing. Lunga promises to be one of autumn's highlights. 

Totem Edit is Leo Elstob and Justin Deighton. On Feel they take Gordon Lightfoot's 1967 song The Way I Feel and turn it into a 2025 folk/ Balearic groove. I've played this out and it always gets a response. 

Sewell And The Gong's recent album Patron Saint Of Elsewhere is one of late summer 2025's best, a lovely fusion of folk, drones, pastoral melodies, motorik drums and samples. Previously, in 2023, Sewell released a four track EP called Tonight We Fly and Passing Oort Clouds is a beautiful, folk inspired instrumental, looped melodies, acoustic guitars and a gently prodding rhythm. Oort clouds are (possibly) a giant spherical shell surrounding the sun, the stars and the Kuiper Belt, a bubble made of icy comet like objects. 

Four Tet's Into Dust (Still Falling) came out earlier this summer and has been getting regular plays round here ever since, the Mazzy Star sample and vocal sinking into Four Tet's folky melodies and skippy drum track, Hope Sandoval's melancholy playing off against Keiran Hebden's propulsion.

Forty Five Minutes Of Talking Heads And Friends

Update Sunday 10.00 am. The original version of this post received a sensitive content warning and was put behind a warning message. I think this is because in my description of Azealia Banks' 212, the final track in the mix, I used a word that starts with the letter C and then sounds like honey lingers. I'm reposting the post here with the offending word removed- partly just to see if it now gets through Google's censors. 

I started a Talking Heads Sunday mix a year ago and couldn't get it to work. The early stuff, New York art- rock didn't seem to sit well with some of the later stuff or the remixes/ edits etc I was trying to fit in. Many of the songs I was attempting to segue started and ended very suddenly which was tricky and the whole thing made me quite frustrated so I shelved it. Seeing Jerry Harrison and Adrian Belew play Remain In Light at The Ritz recently and the Leo Zero edit of Azealia Banks' 212 which splices Azealia's blinding debut single with Once In A Lifetime got me thinking I should try again. I've left out anything from their first three albums, much as I love all of them, and gone for a Talking Heads mix that is unashamedly dance music with some remixes, edits, side projects and solo works and covers- more an Inspired By Talking Heads mix than a strictly Talking Heads mix. I think it works now.

Forty Five Minutes Of Talking Heads And Friends Mix

• Jezebell: Swamp Shuffle
• David Byrne: My Big Hands (Fall Through The Cracks)
• Talking Heads: Burning Down The House (Pete Bones Remix)
• X- Press 2 and David Byrne: Lazy
• Rheinzand: Slippery People
• Tom Tom Club: Wordy Rappinghood
• Brian Eno and David Byrne: America Is Waiting
• Azealia Banks: 212 (Leo Zero Edit)

In August 2023 Jezebell released Jezebellearic Beats Vol. 1, the first full length album from Darren and Jesse, twenty tracks of 21st century pick and mix/ club culture dance music. It closed with Swamp Shuffle where David Byrne's 'high high high high high' chant (borrowed from Talking Heads song Swamp, off 1983 album Speaking In Tongues) surfaces and resurfaces. Speaking In Tongues doesn't get the respect it deserves I sometimes think- it's the last of the classic run of Talking Heads albums and has a very glossy commercial production, recorded (without Brian Eno unlike the previous three albums, a decision the rhythm section demanded) at Compass Point in the Bahamas, taking aim at the big charts with thumpers like Burning Down The House. It also has the sleeper song, the one that has over the decades seeped into wider popular culture, the wonderful This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody) which should be on this mix but isn't.

In 1981 David Byrne released an album, The Catherine Wheel, a score for a Twyla Tharp dance project of the same name. My Big Hands is a sign of where Byrne might go under his own steam, shimmering, juddering art- funk. He'd go there with the other three Heads too but already in 81 he was exploring outside the band. 

Burning Down The House was their breakthrough chart hit (as mentioned above), a song inspired by Chris Frantz shouting the title phrase over a riff the group were playing, himself inspired by Funkadelic and Parliament. This Pete Bones remix, pretty unofficial I think, streamlines it for modern dancefloors. Could be wrong but it isn't, it turns out right. 

Lazy is from 2002- I can't believe this track is already that old, an X- Press 2 single which Byrne sang on after he approached the duo to be his backing band. They turned him down, feeling they were unable to provide him with what he wanted but they got this song out of it, a gloriously catchy housed up 21st century Byrne. David has since then recored a version with an orchestra and played it live- he did it in his American Utopia tour in 2018, a tour I was lucky to see at a very memorable night at the Apollo.

Rheinzand are a Balearic dance act from Belgium who I love. Their debut album came out in 2020, an album released just as the world went into lockdown and with this cover of Slippery People on it, Ghent's finest rejigging Talking Heads into super sleek modern Balearic house/ disco. 

Tom Tom Club were Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz's side project, formed in 1981 because they were pissed off Byrne had gone off to do other things. They recruited a load of players including Adrian Belew, Steve Scales and Wally Badarou and made an album that chimed perfectly with 1981 New York's collision of rap, art, dance, graffiti, and fashion- Genius Of Love and Wordy Rappinghood were both hits which irked Byrne- proving Weymouth and Frantz's point that he should be sticking with them. Wordy Rappinghood was their debut single, a joyous thing with Tina's sisters Lani and Laura on backing vocals and utilising a typewriter, a Moroccan children's song and some French language lyrics about words. 

Also released in 1981 was David Byrne and Brian Eno's truly groundbreaking, visionary sampledelic, worldbeat, Afro Beat, found sound opus. Eno described the album as a 'vision of a psychedelic Africa', something that Adrian Sherwood and African Head Charge were taking note of in the UK. The album opens with America Is Waiting, a track that still sounds like it comes from the future while also rooted in turn of the 80s Cold War, moral majority, advent of Reagan paranoia. The voice is Ray Taliaferro, a US radio show host, taped off the radio.

Leo Zero's edit of Azealia Banks' 212 is one of the most exhilarating things I've heard recently, Azealia's celebration of youth, Harlem, sexuality, and her own prowess riding on top of Once In A Lifetime, some sirens and a rattling drum machine. As the kids say, it slaps. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Talking Heads And Friends

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I Was On The 212

Back in 2011 Azealia Banks announced her arrival into the musical world with the song 212, one of the songs that defined the 2010s. Since then she's become as well known for her political views, mental health issues and feuds with others, and there's no doubt some of her views are pretty extreme and (depending on your own political views) indefensible. But there's no denying the power of 212, the sheer energy in the track and the flow of Banks' delivery, a blur of lines that describe her youth in Harlem, her sexuality, race and power. 

Last week Leo Zero put out an edit of 212, Azealia's voice chopped up and re- arranged over the very recognisable bass and synths of Once In A Lifetime. It's massive, exhilarating and sure to rock a party. Get it here. 

Norris Triptych

Richard Norris is over forty years into a career and life in music and shows no signs of slowing up or losing inspiration. His Bandcamp subscription service pays off every month with the continuation of his Music For Healing series, a long running ambient/ deep listening music monthly release that is specifically designed to help listeners find peace and calm via twenty minute ambient pieces, all recorded live and in one take at 98 bpm. For 2025 the Music For Healing series has moved into oceans. March 2025 release is called Southern Deep and starts out with Mariana trench style depths followed by waves of synth chords. Find it here. It might help deal with the daily madness coming from the USA.

Richard's Oracle Sound dub outlet is up to volume four, an album out at the start of April with three slices of deep modern dubwise sounds released last week. The Oracle series has grown with each album, out digitally and on vinyl, and the latest is no slouch. Connected Dub is fractured, broken dub,slow motion drums and snakey bass and a very messed up vocal. Earthsea Dub goes slower and deeper still, waves lapping on the shores and a melodica wending its way. Flying Crane Dub is my favourite of the three cuts so far, a long sonorous piano note repeating over bass and drums dredged from the depths of the ocean. Oracle Sound Vol 4 is here. 

As if to prove he can do any electronic style easily and at will Richard has another release lined up for release next week, this one under the name of Dr No with Una Camille on vocals. Let Yourself Go is four four house, a main room banger with bass and bleeps that force the feet to move and Una's vocals rich and deep delight. Early 90s Manchester- style house music vibes. The EP comes with two Richard Norris mixes and a pair of Leo Zero remixes, one electro and one acidic, that do exactly what they promise, deep and dark fun, the Acid Mix particularly. Get Let Yourself Go here. 

Fifty Minutes Of Edits Volume Two

Another Sunday mix of edits to follow the one from two weeks ago (here). The first one was quite thumpy. This one is more dubbed out, more blissed out and laid back, more drifty, featuring a similar and familiar cast of edit- creators. There's plenty of material unused sitting in my downloads folders too so volume three is only a matter of time. 

Fifty Minutes Of Edits Volume Two

• Nine Million Rainy Days (Los Lopez Edit)
• One Way To Go (10:40's So High It Hurts Edit)
• Inner Meet Me (10:40's Outer Hebrides Dub)
• Kate's Bush (Nocturnal Edit)
• Steppers Rock
• Totem Edits 19 Medicine
• Edit To The Siren
• Totem Edits 18 Air

The Los Lopez edit of The Jesus And Mary Chain's 9 Million Rainy Days first came my way well over a decade ago, 2013 I think, Jim and William's misanthropy/ existential despair set to an electronic throb. 'As far as I can tell/ I'm being dragged from here to hell/ All my time in hell is spent with you', Jim mutters (on 1987's Darklands originally). This is the diametric opposite of the feelings and sentiment expressed in the widescreen, gloriously romantic, panoramic love that propels the fourth track in this mix. 

Jesse Fahnestock is 10:40. He recut a very early Verve song, One Way To Go (a B-side to the Wigan quartet's first release, the magnificent sky scraping northern psychedelia of All In The Mind). Jesse looped it up and set the controls for the heart of the dub. On hearing it I said to Jesse he should re- edit all of the early Verve's music as dub extravaganzas- A Dub In Heaven. I'm still waiting. His edit of The Beta Band's Inner Meet Me came out on Paisley Dark in 2021, a song from The Patty Patty Sound, one of those unearthly EPs The Beta Band released in 1997/ 1998 when they looked like the future of leftfield music, a completely new way of doing things. 

Coyote's edit of Nocturn was one of my favourite records of 2022, a swooning, deep sea dive into the cosmos. Or something. Their Magic Wand edit releases, vinyl only, are always top drawer. I love the way it starts off with one beat and then switches tempo, like the speed selector being suddenly flipped from 33 to 45. Nocturn was on Kate's 2005 album Aerial. 'We stand in the Atlantic/ We become panoramic/ We tire of the city/ We tire of it all/ We long for that just something more'. Yep, I know that feeling.

Steppers Rock came out on the recently revived Eclectics label, based in Bournemouth and the start of what promises to be one to watch. 

Totem Edits are the work of Leo Zero and Justin Deighton, a weekly treasure trove. Last week they dropped a Balearic/ cowboy stomp edit of Big Audio Dynamite's  Medicine Show (an all timer of a song for me). Air (from a week earlier) is John Martyn's Solid Air recut beautifully. I've been in a John Martyn phase recently, Solid Air and One World. By all accounts a terrible and flawed person but the music...

Edit To The Siren performs the possibly sacrilegious feat of taking This Mortal Coil's Song To The Siren and turns it into a dubbed out/ late night Balearic treat. The work of In The Valley. Wobbly. 

Two Hours Of Eclecticism

Today's Sunday mix comes from the south of England and from Grant Williams who runs the independent label Eclectics which has recently re- entered the fray after a hiatus of a couple of years. The recent edit of The Residents (featured in my edits mix last Sunday, part two to come soon) can be found at Eclectics Bandcamp along with a, yep, eclectic range of releases including a James Bright EP, The Outside, that comes with Hardway Bros remixes, Warmth by Cole Odin and a Coyote release from 2017. 

Grant hosts his Love Under Will radio show at 1BTN and last Sunday broadcast a two hour mix that is up at Mixcloud for those of us playing catch up. The two hours begins with Chris Rotter and his Bad Meat Club and the epic twenty three minute version of 86'ed that Chris recorded for Isaac when he died in November 2021 and then drifts off with some gorgeous electronic music- cosmic, ambient, space disco, dub and downtempo with tunes from Rhythm Doctor, Assab, Chris & Cosey and more. 

The Totem Edits service run by Leo Zero and Justin Deighton threw another top class edit out into the ether on Friday, this one called Medicine, an eight minute edit of Big Audio Dynamite back in 1985 that shifts Mick, Don and the B.A.D. boys towards a dusty western stomp, appropriately enough given the sampling and lyrical content of the original and its all star video. Your Medicine is here. 

Fifty Five Minute Edit Mix

There have been a lot of really good edits out in the wild over the last few years and the thought of slinging a bunch of them together into a Sunday mix became irresistible. In the fifty five minutes below you'll find various artists from the last sixty years of popular culture re- edited and rejigged into new shapes including Gil Scott Heron, Gordon Lightfoot, The Residents, Voice Of Africa, Monsoon, Siouxsie and The Banshees and Les Negresses Vertes. This mix is only part of the story- volume 2 (and maybe 3) will follow shortly. 

Fifty Five Minute Edit Mix

• Western Revolution
• Totem Edits 12- Feel
• Resident Rockers
• Totem Edits 03- Hoomba
• Lonely
• Trading Places (6PM)
• Arabian Knights
• Totem Edits 14- Zombi

Western Revolution was  released on 12" vinyl only, part of Coyote's Magic Wand Special Editions Volume 2, along with Lonely and two other edits (Love Home and Luca). Western Revolution is a live sounding, laid back groove with the unmistakeable voice of Gil Scott Heron advising us about the results of the revolution and theta there will be 'no re- run, brothers and sisters, the revolution will be live'. Lonely picks up where Monsoon's 1981 single Ever So Lonely left off and extends it out.

Totem Edits have become fairly essential recently, a page at Bandcamp for the edit work of Leo Zero and Justin Deighton (with plenty of input from Sean Johnston). One to watch. I posted Feel fairly recently, lovely drawn out funky folk built around a 1967 Gordon Lightfoot song, The Way  Feel. Totem Edit 03 has Voice Of Africa's 1990 Balearic beat smash Hoomba Hoomba close to its core. Totem Edits 14 is one of my favourite recent edits from the pair, a wonderfully absorbing version of Les Negresses Vertes' 1989 French punk/ folk/ Balearic song Zobi La Mouche. 

Resident Rockers is part of a two track EP on the recently reinvigorated Eclectics label, San Francisco avant garde/ art punk rockers/ giant eyeball headgear wearers The Residents bent into new shapes by someone very familiar to this blog. Find Eclectics and the EP here. 

Jezebell are masters of the edit, a sample forming the basis of a completely new track, something old being reworked into something new. Trading Places was a six track pair of EPs from 2023, split into two parts, daytime and nighttime versions. In the 6PM take Siouxsie Sioux's Peek- A- Boo gets reworked and taken for a spin round the floor. 

In 2015 Mojo Filter, an edit veteran, took The Banshees 1981 single Arabian Knights, Siouxsie's post punk psychedelia re- jigged into new shapes. Going from Peek- A- Boo to Arabian Knights seemed like too good an opportunity to miss. 

The Way I Feel Is Like A Robin

The Totem Edit Bandcamp page is a treasure trove of delights, edits of a wide range of songs by Leo Zero and Justin Deighton. This one has been hitting the spot recently, six minutes of Balearic dancefloor folk called Feel. Free/ name your own price here. You'll thank me. I've been hitting play endlessly. 

Feel is a 2024 edit of The Way I Feel by Gordon Lightfoot, from Gordon's album, Lightfoot! in 1966. The guitar playing is beautiful, and Gordon's lyrics tell a story of loss- 'The way I feel is like a robin/ Whose babes have flown to come no more/ Like a tall oak tree along and crying/ When the birds have flown and the nest is bare'.

The Way I Feel

I have developed a thing about robins. The one above was photographed while we were queueing for a ride at Alton Towers back in March, just sitting there along side us. Robins have been associated with the dead for centuries. Some people think that robins appear to bring messages from the dead, that they are messengers between the living and the dead. I don't know if I was aware of this before Isaac died but I've become aware of it since. The idea that Isaac would choose to reveal himself to us in the form of a sweet little robin redbreast seems a little unlikely and I'm a pretty rational person. But when I see one, I think of him and it makes me smile. We saw one in the hedge at the cemetery once which was a bit of a moment. There was one that lived in the tree behind out garden in the spring. It often fluttered into our garden, zipping here and there, occasionally landing on the kitchen window sill, before flying back to the holly tree. 

One morning in April I was preparing for a job interview (I didn't get it, they appointed someone younger and cheaper, something that happened twice earlier this year), the robin sat on the sill while I was looking out. Later on, when I got out of my car at the interview, a robin was on the pavement looking in my direction (I know it wasn't the same robin- I told, you I'm a rational person). It's become a thing, like some other things have become things since Isaac died- the number 23 for one. I don't mind these things that have become things, in fact I like them. Anyway, all this is related loosely to today's post and Gordon Lightfoot's song about feeling like a robin and this photo of a robin which I've been saving since March for just such an opportunity. I didn't even make the connection between the song, the photo and robins until I started writing. Funny how that happens sometimes. 

Monday's Long Song

Over at the Totem Bandcamp page you can find some very tasty Totem Edits including the most recent one, Totem Edit 14 Zombi. Dense and deep, swirling, hypnotic, rhythmic and multi- layered, dubbed out, chanted vocals, a certain Gallic flair. It's a beauty. 

Totem Projects is a repository for edits and other stuff by Leo Zero and Justin Deighton, a formidable team. Previous Totem edits include a recent one by Hardway Bros, Cali, and from near the start Totem Edit 03 Hoomba (a version of  the 1990 classic Hoomba Hoomba by Voice Of Africa) among the treasure trove. All available for free/ pay what you want. What's not to like?

Totem Edit 4 Zombi is a version of the song by Les Negresses Verte's Zobi La Mouche, a 1988 single and also on the 1989 album Mlah. Les Negresses Verte's fusion of French chanson, folk and world music made them a dead cert for the more broad minded clubs of the late 80s, from the Mediterranean to northern Britain. In fact, Leo Zero said of the edit, that he had one of the great dancefloor moments of his life when he walked into Ku in Ibiza in the summer of '89 to hear Mr Weatherall playing Zobi La Mouche. 

Zobi La Mouche (Single Mix)

This version, remixed by William Orbit, was often the one to reach for, the song retained with the exact amount of late 80s acid house brought in to raise the roof. The acidic squiggle breakdown in the middle section especially. 

Zobi La Mouche (William Orbit Remix)

Meanwhile, In Frestonia

The Clash's re- issue programme continues with a forthcoming special edition of Combat Rock released for the album's fortieth anniversary. Combat Rock, the last album by Strummer, Jones, Simonon and Headon, is the definition of uneven. Mick was holding out for another double, a sixteen song whopper/ double album. Everyone else wanted something more concise that might push them to another level in the USA. They tried mixing it while on tour in Australia and the Far East and eventually Glyn Johns was brought in to mix it, shorten some of the songs and cut the number of songs. This did nothing to repair the fracturing relationship of Mick and Joe. Mick was already smarting from the return of Bernie Rhodes. Topper was sacked by the time they took Combat Rock on tour. The end.

Combat Rock is still full of golden moments though wildly uneven as I said above- two enormous singles (one written by the soon to be ex- drummer), some funk and rap, some agit- prop, some spoken word stuff, a few killer album songs, Allen Ginsberg, Sean Flynn and the weird, stunning modern jazz/ soundtrack finale of Death Is A Star. It's all along way from Janie Jones and White Riot. The re- issue is coupled with a bonus disc (two CDs, three vinyl although only five sides of the vinyl contain music) called The People's Hall, an attempt to entice the collector with extra/ new material. The bonus material is pulled together from a variety of sources, much released elsewhere in previous re- issue campaigns. It's named after the venue the group rehearsed in Frestonia, a heavily squatted part of West London that tried to secede from the UK in the late 70s and form a breakaway republic. It's a strange collection of songs, some that aren't even from that period (Outside Bonds and Radio Clash date from prior to the Combat Rock sessions when The Clash took over New York, played Bonds and recorded Sandinista!), some from B-sides from Combat Rock singles (First Night Back In London, Long Time Jerk- both intended for Mick's double that never happened that he wanted to call Rat Patrol From Fort Bragg), previously unreleased alternative versions of Sean Flynn and Know Your Rights, an unreleased instrumental called He Who Dares or Is Tired, The Fulham Connection (which seems to be The Beautiful People Are Ugly Too outtake renamed), Midnight To Stevens (a tribute to Guy Stevens which was first released on the Clash On Broadway box set) and Radio One with Mickey Dread (B-side, previously released). There is a booklet and a poster. The CD is fourteen quid. The vinyl is just shy of fifty. 

*shrugs*

Two pieces of Clash related music for you today. The first is an edit of The Magnificent Seven (The Magnificent Dub actually) by Leo Zero, dating back to either 2012 or 1981 depending on how you look at it. Leo has cut the song up in fine style, looping Norman Watt Roy's bass riff, adding some sound from a gig along with sections of Joe's vocal and new drum loops. Nine minutes of fun. 

The Magnificent Dub (Leo Zero Edit)

Much more recently, Jezebell (rapidly becoming a weekly fixture at these pages) released a new EP called Dancing (Not Fighting), built around a sample of Mick Jones berating the bouncers at a gig, it's a riot of drums and bass and horns, acid punk funk, with remixes from Matt Gunn and Markus Cooper. All proceeds to assist the victims of Putin's war in Ukraine. get it at Bandcamp. 

Half An Hour Of Weller Remixed And Live At The Apollo

Paul Weller played The Apollo on Friday night, I was there courtesy of a ticket from a friend (who also took the photo in the middle, capturing the curving sweep of the Apollo's balcony rather beautifully). Weller and his band took the stage at eight thirty and played a two hour set, long standing guitarist Steve Craddock present and at the front and two drummers. The first few songs were largely drawn from recent albums, White Sky and Long Time from Saturn's Pattern from 2015, Cosmic Fringes from last year's Fat Pop, sounding tough and very Seventies, lots of guitar and rhythms. From The Floorboards Up, with its Wilco Johnson inspired riff, kept the tempo up. From there Weller dipped in and out of his back catalogue: a slightly ragged Headstart For Happiness; a lovely, low key Have You Ever Had It Blue?; the 90s single Hung Up; recent songs like Fat Pop and Village set against older solo ones like Stanley Road; a dip into the later period Style Council with It's A Very Deep Sea, a song which has aged unexpectedly well. The crowd, many of whom seem to have been out all day in the warmth of some Good Friday sunshine seem a little subdued at times- maybe some are just waiting for the hits or maybe too many beers have sapped the energy (not the two blokes near us who were ejected by the bouncers following a couple of scuffles with people around them).  

The run in towards the end of the set- a trippy version of Above The Clouds, the circling psychedelia of Into Tomorrow, a raspy Shout To The Top, the quickfire blast of Start! followed by full on guitar heroics of Peacock Suit and Brushed- demonstrate the riches in his cupboards, songs from different decades and different parts of his life all sounding like the work of one person, a lineage despite the stylistic differences each one had when first released. When they band return to the stage for the first encore Paul sits at the piano, the fluid, rolling Broken Stones followed by You Do Something To Me (not a favourite of mine I should add), a crowd pleasing That's Entertainment (a definite favourite of mine I should add) and then the slowed down, folk tinged shuffle of Wild Wood. The second encore is the two song punch of The Changing Man and A Town Called Malice, the Apollo's crowd now dancing and singing along in full voice. Weller's reputation as a prickly character and as a traditionalist (the Dadrock tag of the 90s sticks to him) is undeserved- his albums over the last ten years have been full of detours into krautrock, psychedelia, drones and noise and whatever The Style Council were, the weren't unadventurous. His band tonight are young (mainly) and give the songs a thumping (two drummers should do that) but they're delicate when required too. Paul Weller himself doesn't seem to have any less desire in his sixties than he had in his twenties, a man who just wants to get the songs out, get them written, recorded and played. 

For today's thirty minute mix I've pulled together some of the remixes of Weller's songs, drawn from the range of his solo career and taking in trip hop of Portishead, the crashing noise and thumping beats of Richard Hawley's take on Andromeda, some lovely widescreen Balearica courtesy of Leo Zero and Drop Out Orchestra (on Weller's own mid 2010's Balearic groove Starlite), some psychedelic adventures with Amorphous Androgynous and Brendan Lynch's still stunning psyched out/ dubbed out version of Kosmos from 1993 (a record Weatherall used to play as a set closer to fried minds at Sabresonic). 

Thirty Minute Paul Weller Remix Mix

• Wildwood (Portishead Remix)
• Andromeda (Richard Hawley Remix)
• No Tears To Cry (Leo Zero Remix)
• Aim High (The Higher Aim) (Amorphous Androgynous Remix)
• Starlite (Drop Out Orchestra Remix)
• Kosmos (Lynch Mob Bonus Beats)

This blistering Two Lone Swordsmen remix from 2000 didn't seem to fit in the mix, Weller sent to some place where Killing Joke and krauty- techno co- exist, but I though I should share it again anyway. It's never had an official digital release and when it came out in 2000 it was a white label 12" limited to just 75 copies worldwide. One of which sits is downstairs from where I type this. 

Heliocentric (Swordsmen 4UR Mix)

When All This Is Over

A new Bagging Area mix for Sunday, an optimistic sounding one now that the days are getting longer and the summer seems to be just round the corner. A lot of these songs have been posted here recently individually but they sounded good together. I'm not sure there's a huge amount of cause for optimism with the continuing, ceaseless flow of bad news, bad government and virus rates increasing but maybe it's best to turn the news channel off for a while and unplug. It's at Mixcloud, it won't embed but you can find it here. 

As the voice says in the opening Coyote song, 'when all this is over.... I plan to go north...' 

• Coyote: Café Con Leche
• Private Agenda: Malanai Ascending (Seahawks Remix)
• Chris Coco: Rainy Season
• Reinhard Vanbergen and Charlotte Carulaerts: Julien
• Primal Scream: Inner Flight
• Justin Deighton and Leo Zero: I Feel Edit
• Cantoma: The Mountain (Lexx Remix)
• HiFi Sean Ft. Yoko Ono: In Love With Life
• A Certain Ratio: Berlin (album version)
• Coyote: Feedback Valley
• Future Beat Alliance: Birth (Claude Young Remix)

I Feel

Some uplifting feelgood musical biscuits for Friday courtesy of some veteran DJs and producers. First, an edit of a 70s folk rock song, refitted for 2021 by Justin Deighton and Leo Zero, out on 7" and digitally at their own 7s Clash label (with a tie in bar at Two Tribes Campfire in King's Cross, London). I Feel is a funky/ Balearic number, acoustic guitars, a chugger of a bassline and lots of chanting- I'm getting hippy parties in the Med in the mid 1970s, unspoilt beaches, kaftans, hash, sunsets, sandals, love beads. Find it here. The B-side is a Pete Herbert dub of the edit, a more laid back version but still with that chuggy rhythm. 

Balearic overlord Phil Mison records under the name Cantoma. This Pete Herbert remix of Cantoma's Verbana from 2018 fits perfectly with the I Feel Edit above, more music for dancing, acoustic guitars, bubbly bassline, handclaps and a soaring synth part.

This one, another Cantoma/ Pete Herbert pairing, shows the Balearic revival (if it ever really went away) was well underway back in 2014. Very laid back magic. 

Just Landed (Pete Herbert Remix)

Tiers

Tonight at one minute past midnight Greater Manchester goes into Tier 3, the highest rank of the government's new Coronavirus restriction system- if this government can really be said to anything as planned or thought out as a system. The government have had months to prepare for an autumn wave. Literally everyone said it was coming. They've had months to set up a functioning testing service, to create a Track and Trace system, to come up with a coherent plan for dealing with the rapidly rising numbers of new cases and the influx of hospital admissions. Instead, they paid people to go to the pub for food in August while turning the blame for non- compliance with the rules onto the people. 

What they have signally failed to acknowledge is that this government lost all it's moral authority to govern, every last ounce of it, when they failed to sack Dominic Cummings in May. At that exact moment and that charade in the garden of 10 Downing Street where their senior advisor- an unelected member of the government remember- refused to admit any wrong doing, Johnson's government could no longer tell anyone what to do. They had broken the rules themselves and didn't care. They were laughing at us. They were contemptuous of us. 

Since then some people have kept to whatever rules are in force wherever they live, some people have largely followed the rules using their own judgement and common sense about where they can bend them and some people have taken the view that if the government don't play by the rules then why should they? Some of us have barely crept out of lockdown at all- we are still effectively shielding an extremely vulnerable person. Watching other people flout the rules hasn't been easy. The feeling that existed back in April, that we were all in this together, which existed genuinely for a while, has been blown apart. As numbers have crept up again since September Johnson has dithered and delayed. They locked down too late in March, they opened up too early in the summer. They introduced local restrictions that were difficult to understand and changed seemingly on a whim. They left Leicester in a local lockdown that never seemed to end. They announced that one place would go into further restrictions almost instantly while another would be able to wait until after the weekend. Now, with Merseyside, Lancashire and Greater Manchester all in Tier 3, gyms in Merseyside must close while in Lancashire they can stay open. Pubs serving 'substantial meals' can stay open but pubs that don't must close- does Covid 19 not infect people while using a knife and fork? They bullied the civic leaders of Liverpool into accepting Tier 3 and then found that the elected mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, the leaders of the council and a cross party group of MPs wouldn't roll over. Funnily enough the pair of Conservative MPs refusing to accept new restrictions without a fight (including the Chair of the 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady) weren't attacked with the same venom Burnham has been. The politicians fighting the government's attempts to impose Tier 3 on Greater Manchester weren't even necessarily arguing that the restrictions weren't called for, they just wanted the evidence that the ones being proposed would be effective (which wasn't forthcoming because this government is shit at details and just relies on the selective use of data to try to prove points). What Andy Burnham and the rest also wanted was financial support for the thousands of locals who would be affected by the loss of their jobs and the withdrawal of income. Johnson's middle man, Robert Jenrick (himself guilty of breaking lockdown restrictions in April), found himself up against a Zoom wall of anger and disgust, from Tories as well as Labour, and when it came to finding another £5 million, told his boss Johnson that the deal was off. Andy Burnham stood in front of GMex- the site of the Peterloo Massacre in 1819- and quite rightly told the cameras that this government promised to level up the north and here they were further levelling down. 

It seems pointless to close some businesses while leaving many others open. It seems pointless to close some pubs while leaving many still serving. Schools, colleges and universities are one of the main breeding grounds of the infection currently but since various opponents have called for a short 'circuit break', Johnson's government refuse to consider this- not for scientific reasons but because it's politically unacceptable for them to do what the opposition have asked for. A circuit break policy is now taking effect in Wales and it wouldn't be a surprise to see Scotland follow suit, but once again Johnson dithers until it's too late. Their own scientific advisors recommended it several weeks ago. Johnson rejected it but still claims to be 'following the science'. Tiers, as someone pointed out recently, are not enough. 

Here are The Lilac Time, mid 60s psychedelic style, in 1990...

It'll End In Tears 

Here's Paul Weller remixed by Leo Zero, Blackpool Northern Soul style, in 2010... 

Tears Are Not Enough (Leo Zero Remix)

A couple of days ago on social media I said this about Andy Burnham...

It's fair to say that this man becoming a genuine hero in Manchester and the north west wasn't predictable. His reasons for becoming mayor didn't always seem clear, his run for the Labour leadership in 2015 was a disaster and I don't think everyone here has always trusted him, but he's shown true leadership and grit the last few days, standing up to the useless bunch of chancers and incompetents in the government and standing up for us. More power to him.

And I stand by all of that, cometh the hour, cometh the man etc. It has been a truly absurd year, a nightmare in many ways, full of personal and public disasters and political horrors. It's genuinely encouraging to see the odd green shoot while also keeping that anger burning.

The Berlin Wall

Thirty years ago today the Berlin Wall began to crumble. The exodus of thousands of East Germans had begun in the summer as Hungary relaxed its travel restrictions following Gorbachev's softening of the USSR's position, not least his economic decision to start pulling the Red Army out of the satellite states. Many East Germans realised they could travel to Hungary from Dresden and from Hungary westwards to The F.R.G. On the night of the 9th November 1989 the East German government, faced with a losing battle and  mounting civil unrest lifted the their own travel restrictions. A bemused official at a press conference, when asked when the freedom to travel from East to West Berlin came into effect, shuffled his papers, shrugged and suggested from now. Crowds began to gather at the wall and pass through the border points without any kinds of checks. Guards looked on but did nothing. More and more people arrived. Some climbed the wall. Some danced on top of it. West Berliners arrived with hammers and chisels and started taking chunks out of the wall. East Berliners flooded into the western side of the city and filled the bars. Euphoric crowds partied through the night. Berlin had been divided by the wall since August 1961. Over 130 people were killed trying to cross it. Watching these events of November 1989 live on TV was bizarre and sticks in the memory as one of the seeming certainties of life vanished.

The Berlin Wall is littered through pop culture. Bowie and 'Heroes' and Iggy at Hansa in the shadow of the wall, Johnny Rotten in Holidays In The Sun 'I gotta go over the wall/please don't be waiting for meeee', Keith Haring painting the western side of it, West Berlin's isolation and interzone status, acting as a magnet for all sorts of outlaws, artists and reprobates- Einsturzende Neubauten, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds. On the eastern side of the Wall life was more dangerous especially for those who chose a non- conformist lifestyle. There's a set of photographs here of East Berlin punks, photographed, arrested, beaten and harassed by the Stasi for their dress and haircuts.

The pictures above are from my visit to Berlin a few years ago. The section of wall with the graffiti on it, the only real length of wall still sanding in the city centre, is poignant- 'Astrid,maybe some day we will be together'. Checkpoint Charlie is more of a tourist trap but worth a visit. The line the Wall took is laid into the streets in Berlin so you can follow the route it took but it's difficult to visit today and picture the city of the 70s and 80s, divided in two, with watchtowers, the death strip, machine gun posts and roads stopping suddenly, bisected by a concrete Cold War boundary marker.

This is from a series of remixes and re-edits released on the legendary Trax label, classic Chicago house music redone for the 2010s. Bring Down The Walls by Robert Owens, re-edited by Leo Zero.

Bring Down The Walls (Leo Zero re-edit)