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. 

Forty Minutes Of The Jesus And Mary Chain

The Reid brothers William and Jim announced their return to action last week with a new album, Glasgow Eyes (their first since the rather good Damage And Joy from 2017), a tour kicking off in Manchester in March and a new single jamcod. The video opens with a warning about strobe lights and then the hissy synth kicks in, reverb and distortion are everywhere, William plays a signature guitar riff and Jim sings and snarls, a vocal that could have been put down at almost any point between 1984 and three weeks ago.  

To coincide with this new song I thought a Bagging Area JAMC Sunday Mix was in order, one that throws in some rarities and some singles, an edit and some covers, ending at the beginning. 

Forty Minutes Of The Jesus And Mary Chain

• Nine Million Rainy Days (Los Lopez Club Edit)
• Snakedriver
• Coast To Coast (Alt Take with William vocal)
• Crackin' Up
• The Hardest Walk
• Head On
• All Things Pass
• Everything's Alright When You're Down
• If You Gotta Go
• You Can't Stop The Rock
• Upside Down

Nine Million Rainy Days was on Darklands, 1987's follow up to Psychocandy, an album that got them a proper hit (April Skies) and a bigger, slightly more polished sound.This edit by Los Lopez from 2012 has a juddering synth bassline not too far from the sound Jim and William have cooked up on jamcod. 

Snakedriver was a 1992 single, a shuddering, scabrous, noisy blast of self loathing that will give your eyes a good clean out and make you feel like you've bene dragged through William's FX pedals backwards. In a good way. 

Coast To Coast was one of the highlights of 1989's Automatic, Jim, William and a drum machine, with more reports from the frontline of the USA, Jesus and Coke. At the time Automatic felt a bit flat, a bit like they didn't know what to do or where to go. Now it sounds like a great Mary Chain album. This version with William singing instead of Jim came out on the Power Of Negative Thinking box set, a rarities and B-sides release from 2008.

Crackin' Up was the lead single from the album that broke them back in 1998, Munki. A William sung song with a riff that isn't a million miles from the one in jamcod. The band broke up on stage in Los Angeles. Alcohol and sibling rivalry played their part. When the brothers re- united for Damage And Joy and recent tours they had a new set of rules. Jim had given up drinking completely and William stopped drinking on stage. 

Punk trumpeter Terry Edwards with his The Scapegoats recorded an entire EP of Mary Chain covers in 1991. He then went on to play trumpet with the band. His cover of The Hardest Walk is a blast. 

Head On was a single in November 1989 and is one of my favourite Mary Chain songs. When they reformed and played Manchester Academy a few years ago, playing Psychocandy in full, they did an encore set first, seven songs, then a brief pause and then Psychocandy. They opened with Head On. Endearingly they messed up the beginning of You Trip Me Up twice, finally getting it right on the third go. Yes, I could have included Pixies cover of this song here instead.

All Things Pass was on their 2017 comeback album Damage And Joy, made with Youth on production and containing several songs the brothers had recorded separately in the period the band were broken up. All Things Must Pass dated from 2008, a different recording done for the TV superhero series Heroes. Two chords. Fuzz. Sneering vocals. It was like they'd never been away.

Everything's Alright When You're Down was the B-side to 1987s Happy When It Rains. Three minutes of Reidian perfection dissolving into feedback. 

If You Gotta Go was on a Jim Reid solo single, Dead End Kids, released in 2006, a cover of a Bob Dylan song. After the Mary Chain ended Jim formed Freeheat with Nick Sanderson and Ben Lurie and then reverted to using his name, recruiting Loz Colbert from Ride and Phil King from Lush for a tour that included a very low key gig at Night And Day in Manchester. 

You Can't Stop The Rock was on Little Pop Rock an album by Linda Reid, Jim and William's sister, who recorded as Sister Vanilla. Both brothers contributed songs and performances separately- they weren't taking at the time. You can't Stop The Rock then re- appeared on Damage And Joy. Little Pop Rock is a good album, a hidden gem in the Reid family back catalogue. 

Upside Down was The Jesus and Mary Chain's debut single in 1984. It gave the Reid's overdriven feedback to the world and gave Alan McGee and Creation Records a kickstart. Bobby Gillespie thumps the drums, standing up. It all started here, so it seems a good place to finish this mix. 

Nine

Bagging Area started nine years ago today, taking a few faltering steps into the blogging world, unable at first to even work out how to copy and paste a link to a song. Since then I've written pretty much daily, found blogging to be a really good way to distract myself, made all sorts of friends and connections that I wouldn't have done otherwise and have hopefully contributed a little to the enjoyment of music. Blogging was a bigger deal in 2010 than it is now- the landscape has changed and I suspect music blogs are a tad anachronistic in 2019- but I've got no plans to stop so it's a matter of just keeping going and seeing where it takes me. Thanks to all of you who read this, to those who comment and to those who I've met in real life. Salut.

Some songs with nines in them.

Jim and William Reid from their Darklands days, re-edited here with a juddering electronic bassline...

9 Million Rainy Days (Los Lopez Edit)

It wouldn't have been Bagging Area without Andrew Weatherall. Here Lord Sabre remixes Suns Of Arqa in fine style. Chunky acid house vibes...

City Of Nine Gates (Andy Weatherall Remix)

And finally London rock 'n' rollers The Flaming Stars with a drop of the dark stuff...

Nine Out Of Ten

Nine Million Rainy Remix

I'm not sure the Jesus And Mary Chain's Nine Million Rainy Days was crying out to be remixed or re-edited for a sort of subterranean, slow-mo club night- but I'm glad it was. Done by Los Lopez. Find it at Soundcloud.

I'm pretty sure some JAMC fans won't like this though.