Oblique Saturdays

A series for Saturdays in 2026 inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas). Eno and Schmidt created them to be used to unblock creative impasses and approach problems from unexpected angles. Each week I'll turn over an Oblique Strategy card and post a song or songs inspired by the suggestion. 

Last week's Oblique Strategy suggestion was You don't have to be ashamed of using your own ideas.

My lack of shame took me to Wayne Walker, The Black Balloons (Weatherall and Tenniswood), Sugar, It's Immaterial, Timothy J. Fairplay and Parquet Courts. 

The Oblique Saturdays collective came up with another set of eclectic, weird and wonderful suggestions: Leftfield and Toni Halliday (C); William Burroughs (Al G); The Streets (Mrs G); Courtney Barnett (Rol); Merle Haggard (Ernie); Culture (both The Swede and Chris Yardley); and XTC (John Medd and big apologies to Mr Medd whose Beatles suggestion I missed off the previous week's round up). 

This week's Oblique Strategies card says this- Change nothing and continue with immaculate consistency.

Sometimes I turn the card over and wish Mr Eno and Mr Schmidt would be a bit less fucking oblique. 

There are loads of songs about change, change as a force for personal or social improvement and about the possibilities of change. There are fewer about not changing. 

Stasis is the act of staying the same, of not changing. In 2016 Pye Corner Audio released an album called Stasis and at the heart of Stasis was a track called...

At The Heart Of Stasis

Gloomy ambience, modular synth drones, a hammering kick drum and then chords that evoke 70s sci fi crossed with Kraftwerk and Moroder's futurism. Which is what Ghost Box, the label he released it on, were all about. 

The word immaculate means only one thing in music- Madonna. In 1990 Madonna released The Immaculate Collection, her first greatest hits compilation, just at the peak of her Catholic Church baiting period, hence the title. She dedicated the album to The Pope, 'my divine inspiration'. This was apparently not a reference to John Paul II but to her brother Christoper, whose nickname was The Pope. I'm sure the confusion was intentional. The Catholic concept of the Immaculate Conception is that the Virgin Mary conceived without having sex, without the stain of the original sin of Adam and Eve.

Here's Keith Hudson with some righteous roots reggae...

Virgin Rock

The word Original takes us back to C's suggestion last week, Leftfield and Toni Halliday in 1995 and this superb piece of techno/ trip hop, a slow burning dubby odyssey...

Original

Back to Madonna. The Immaculate Collection was a greatest hits package starting with Holiday and working its way through her 80s hits and ending with two then new songs- Justify My Love and Rescue Me. Justify My Love is a great song, based on that Funky Drummer/ Public Enemy drum sample with Madonna in imperious mode. I've posted it twice in the last year, once in its own right and once as part of a Funky Drummer celebration mix. All of the songs on The Immaculate Collection were reworked by Shep Pettibone using QSound (a processor that gave sound a 3 dimensional effect). Some had new intros or were shortened. Into The Groove, Like A Prayer and Express Yourself were totally different versions. Borderline was the album version, pure pop and utterly irrepressible. 

Borderline

Borderline was written because Madge's first album was a bit short. Songwriter Reggie Davis wrote it for her while she was flat sitting for Jean Michel Basquiat. As one does. 

Feel free to drop your own responses to today's Oblique Strategy into the comment box- Change nothing and continue with immaculate consistency. 

Oblique Saturdays

A series for Saturdays in 2026 inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas). Eno and Schmidt created them to be used to unblock creative impasses and approach problems from unexpected angles. Each week I'll turn over an Oblique Strategy card and post a song or songs inspired by the suggestion. 

Last week's Oblique Strategy suggestion was What wouldn't you do?

I went down a road of asking all the big musical questions and ended up with The Cramps asking about pussies and dogs and Buzzcocks asking why they can't touch it.  

Out in the Oblique Saturdays community there were a huge range of responses, a playlist with something for everyone. Al G went with Betty Boo, Spencer gave us Benedict Drew, Mrs G threw in Rage Against The Machine, Prue Leith offered up Tool (their second OS appearance), SRC gave us The Associates and their mantra for life ('If you can't do no good, then sucker, don't you do no harm'), Jase came with Mark Lanegan and Ecstasy, Passion And Pain, JC suggested Malcolm Middleton and Paul Haig, Rol offered Pet Shop Boys, Beerfeuled gave us Rick Astley, C suggested The Bangles and Frankie Valli, Ernie had Gina Birch's stilettos, Khayem arrived with Boney M and Half Man Half Biscuit (they don't often crop up together), The Swede dropped in with Frank Sinatra and Count Basie and Chris Yardley came with a fear of potholing and The Jesus And Mary Chain. 

Thank you everyone.

This week's card from Messrs Eno and Schmidt says this- You don't have to be ashamed of using your own ideas.

Thanks Brian and Peter. I'm not sure how to take that. The whole blogging lark is largely using my own ideas and churning out daily posts. Back in the mid- 2000s when I first started reading music blogs (the Golden Age of Music Blogging) I began frequenting The Vinyl Villain and Acid Ted, satisfying my twin searches for digital versions of 80s indie and 90s acid house. I used to frequent several blogs that are long gone- STX's Audio.Out was a goldmine for Weatherall and similar and Spoilt Victorian Child was good for guitars. Ripped In Glasgow was essential. Drew started up Across The Kitchen Table, London Lee's Crying All The Way To The Chip Shop was very good and Davy H's The Ghost Of Electricity was an eclectic source of tunes. Song For Toad. Seventeen Seconds. Dusty Sevens. Planet Mondo. There were others that I can't even remember the names of now. 

All of these people were writing music blogs and suitably inspired at the dawn of 2010 I thought I'd do the same, post a song a day for a year and see how it went. My own ideas included posting plenty of Andrew Weatherall, various Manchester and Factory related acts, and try to feature songs that had stories attached to them. There was a long running Friday series, Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night that began after a guest posting at The Vinyl Villain, where I wrote about Wayne Walker's classic 1956 song All I Can Do Is Cry. 

All I Can Do Is Cry

In the early days there was lots of 60s garage, regular Half Man Half Biscuit posts and a lot of Wild Billy Childish. The first Andrew Weatherall post and the very first Bagging Area post (1st January 2010) was pretty obtuse- an idiosyncratic and one off track from 2002 by Weatherall and Keith Tenniswood as The Black Balloons called Fowler's End. 

Fowler's End

But enough of this self- congratulatory navel gazing. Here are some other ideas...

A Good Idea

Sugar in 1992, Bob Mould churning up loud guitars with a summer drowning, channeling Debaser's bassline and taking Husker Du's wall of noise into the charts. 

The Better Idea 

It's Immaterial in 1986, a sumptuous and vivid backing track with one of those It's Immaterial half spoken word and half sung vocals about suffering and surviving. 

Jennifer Has Some Strange Ideas

Timothy J. Fairplay has made loads of really good solo records, vintage synths and drum machines with descriptions such as Stasi House and Dungeon Module. He's a lovely bloke too. Jennifer Has Some Strange Ideas is from an EP in Hoga Nord in 2017 called Mindfighter and is typically inventive and engaging analogue synth electro fun. 

Finally, Parquet Courts in 2012 with no ideas other than some rather lovely, shambling indie rock...

No Ideas

As ever, feel free to drop your own responses to the Oblique Strategy into the comment box- You don't have to be ashamed of using your own ideas.

Oblique Saturdays

A series for Saturdays in 2026 inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas). Eno and Schmidt created them to be used to unblock creative impasses and approach problems from unexpected angles. Each week I'll turn over an Oblique Strategy card and post a song or songs inspired by the suggestion. 

Last week's Oblique Strategy suggestion was Get your neck massaged.

Which didn't spark too much initially in me by way of responses. Eventually I got to Oneohtrix Point Never, Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Love Corporation. 

Out in the field the Oblique Saturdays team pitched in with the usual array of inspired choices- JM suggested Reef and The Sweet, Her Palid Reflection came up with Cosey Fanni Tutti, Jake (bouncing back to the previous week's big rooms) gave us Paul Horn, Al proffered Wu Tang, Trail Of Bread suggested The Wedding Present, Devo, Prong and an unsafe for work track from Khia, Mrs G went with Elvis, Chris Yardley offered up a Roxy Music remix, Rol went for Stevie Wonder, The Swede wanted Shriekback and The Pretenders, and Khayem gave us Echo And The Bunnymen.

Broke My Neck

This week's Oblique Strategy from Mr Eno and Mr Schmidt is this- What wouldn't you do?

1. Vote Tory. 

As Meatloaf said, 'I'd do anything for love but I won't do that'.

I could probably add more items to that list but the question posed on the card made me think of other musical questions. How does it feel to feel? What have I done to deserve this? What time is love? Why are you being so reasonable now? What's the frequency, Kenneth? What's my name? What for? What is love? What is house? What does your soul look like? Where is my mind? Where have all the flowers gone? Why can't I be you? What's going on? How soon is now? What's all this then? What have I said now?  How far can too far go? What's inside a girl? What do I get? 

Can Your Pussy Do The Dog? *

Why Can't I Touch It? **

That's enough questions for the time being. Maybe you can come up with some answers. As ever, feel free to play along in the comment box. What wouldn't you do?

*I think Khia has the answer to this question.

** And this one. 

Oblique Saturdays

A series for Saturdays in 2026 inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas). Eno and Schmidt created them to be used to unblock creative impasses and approach problems from unexpected angles. Each week I'll turn over an Oblique Strategy card and post a song or songs inspired by the suggestion. 

Last week's Oblique Strategy suggestion was In total darkness, or a very large room, very quietly.

I responded with bands I'd seen in large rooms- Lou Reed, Nick Cave, The Charlatans, Bob Dylan, Beastie Boys and Prince, and also with Jamie Xx and John Talabot. 

The Oblique Saturdays community chipped in with Gram Parsons, The Deep Dark Woods, Fatima Mansions, Cave In, Rage Against The Machine, The Youngbloods, Bonnie Prince Billy, Idlewild, Pauline Murray and the Invisible Girls, The Twilight Sad and The Durutti Column. Thanks to Ernie, Rol, Chris Yardley, Al G and Mrs G, SRC, C, JC and Eddie Largely Anonymous. 

This is Pauline Murray and The Invisible Girls in 1980, Martin Hannett on production, Vini Reilly in the band and Peter Saville on sleeve art. 

Screaming In The Darkness

This week's card says this- Get your neck massaged.

I mused on this for a while and came up with nothing much.  I decided to engage my housemates (wife and daughter) into the Oblique Saturdays world and said to them, 'I'm going to say a phrase and I want you to tell me what song or songs it suggests.' They responded as follows-

Wife- 'Nothing'

Daughter- 'Nothing'

Wife- 'Stress'.

Stress Waves

Oneohtrix Point Never in 2010. If you're stressed it's good to try to find ways to relax. Here come Frankie...

Relax (Sex Mix)

Listening to relaxing music helps too, especially music with a vocal sampled from a relaxation tape. Maybe Love Corporation can assist. 

Palatial 

Feel free to drop your own responses to Get your neck massaged into the comments box. 

Post script: Spencer sent this to me earlier this week. I'm adding it here as an Oblique Saturday extra. It's from an interview Brian Eno gave in 1980

'The Oblique Strategies evolved from me being in a number of working situations when the panic of the situation - particularly in studios - tended to make me quickly forget that there were others ways of working and that there were tangential ways of attacking problems that were in many senses more interesting than the direct head-on approach. If you're in a panic, you tend to take the head-on approach because it seems to be the one that's going to yield the best results. Of course, that often isn't the case - it's just the most obvious and - apparently - reliable method. The function of the Oblique Strategies was, initially, to serve as a series of prompts which said, "Don't forget that you could adopt *this* attitude," or "Don't forget you could adopt *that* attitude." 

The first Oblique Strategy said "Honour thy error as a hidden intention." And, in fact, Peter's first Oblique Strategy - done quite independently and before either of us had become conscious that the other was doing that - was ...I think it was "Was it really a mistake?" which was, of course, much the same kind of message. Well, I collected about fifteen or twenty of these and then I put them onto cards. At the same time, Peter had been keeping a little book of messages to himself as regards painting, and he'd kept those in a notebook. We were both very surprised to find the other not only using a similar system but also many of the messages being absolutely overlapping, you know...there was a complete correspondence between the messages. So subsequently we decided to try to work out a way of making that available to other people, which we did; we published them as a pack of cards, and they're now used by quite a lot of different people, I think.''

Oblique Saturdays

A series for Saturdays in 2026 inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas). Eno and Schmidt created them to be used to unblock creative impasses and approach problems from unexpected angles. Each week I'll turn over an Oblique Strategy card and post a song or songs inspired by the suggestion. 

Last week's Oblique Strategy suggestion was The tape is now the music. 

I went through my collection of tapes and spooled up Billy Bragg, The Wedding Present, One Dove and Sabres Of Paradise, Klangkollektor and Rentamax 2000. Out in the Oblique Saturdays community the suggestions came thick and fast, everyone rewinding their cassettes with pencils to save battery life- Bow Wow Wow from C, This Heat from Walter, Martin Newell and Ephrem Tamiru via Ernie (who also had a photo of his small but perfectly formed collection of tapes with The Cleaners From Venus, Mikey Dread, Richard Hell and Joe Ely all featuring), Mrs G with The Smiths (How Soon Is Now. She also revoked her National Trust membership), Coldcut from Craytezboi, Tapes 'n' Tapes and The Lucksmiths from Al G, mixtapes of the BBC Essential Mix from Jase especially Felix da Housecat and also Brian Wilson's mid 60s tape experiments, The Pooh Sticks (Rol and Gullybully), Julian Cope from Khayem and Died Pretty courtesy of The Swede. And again I'm left thinking, what a mixtape that collection of tracks could turn out to be.

The Pooh Sticks in 1988 with a celebration of tape culture- this song was very much a precursor to LCD Soundsystem's Losing My Edge. 

'I've got all The Velvet Underground albums... on tape/ I've got The Monkees head soundtrack... on tape'. 

On Tape

This week's card is this- In total darkness, or a very large room, very quietly.

My mind focused on the very large room part. I wondered what the largest room I'd ever been in was and what the largest room I've ever seen a band in was. The first large room gig I attended was Lou Reed at Wembley Arena, 4th July 1989. I traveled down to London to stay at my friend Al's (we met that year when we both pitched up Liverpool university the previous autumn. We're still friends today). We went from his parents' house in Ealing to Wembley Arena to see Lou play his then current New York album in full and then a second set of hits. The venue seemed huge to me (at the time used to seeing bands in much smaller rooms), the seats on the venue floor were stackable chairs and the audience was largely a generation older than us. There were a few people our age, all in our 1989 clothes and haircuts, indie kids, goths and acid housers. Lou proclaimed at one point that 'everything you hear is being made by real musicians with real instruments, no samples or tapes', which made him sound like an out of date, punk rock Grandad. According to Setlist.FM the last five songs of the encore were Sweet Jane and Walk On The Wild Side (both of which I remember), Vicious, Satellite Of Love and Waiting For the Man (none of which I do). 

Romeo Had Juliette

The next two gigs in large rooms were both GMex. The December 1989 New Order, Happy Mondays and A Certain Ratio party and Pixies supported by The Real People and Cud gig of June 1991. 

Since then I've seen a few gigs at Manchester Arena (formerly Nynex and the MEN now the AO) most recently Nick Cave on his Wild God tour and before that Pet Shop Boys, Prince, Beastie Boys (twice), The Who with Joe Strummer, Bob Dylan and The Charlatans. Sometimes arena gigs can be a dispiriting, expensive and passive experience and they're not my favourite rooms to see bands in.  

Nick Cave shrunk the arena, making the room feel smaller and bringing the audience into his wild celebration of forty years of Bad Seeds music and the post- grief world of Wild God. The Mercy Seat is played at the end of most Nick Cave gigs and has lost none of its power since its first appearance back in 1988, the tale of a convicted killer going to his death in the electric chair, the condemned man confusing his own story with that of Jesus' and opening us to the possibility that he may have lied. 

I could divert here to two current news stories concerning the USA and its use of the death sentence, the botched attempts to kill Christa Pike and Peter Hegseth's recent announcement that Nidel Malikk Hasan, a disabled man, will be executed by firing squad and that it will be live streamed. In both cases, one is tempted to ask, for a nation and government that claims to be guided by Christian principles, what do you think Jesus would have done in this situation? Hegseth would probably say that Christ would have pulled the trigger. 

The Mercy Seat (Live 1992)

Pet Shop Boys know exactly how to play a very large room- with over the top staging, costumes, dancers, graphics, screens, lights, smoke and mirrors and a non- stop parade of wall to wall bangers. 

Prince in 2014 didn't have much of a stage show, just himself and his band 3rd Eye Girl and a set including Let's Go Crazy, Raspberry Beret, U Got The Look, When Doves Cry, Sign O' The Times, I Would Die 4 U, Purple Rain, 1999, Little Red Corvette, Paisley Park and about two dozen other songs. Pretty incredible really. Also, it was the most culturally diverse crowd I've ever been to a gig with, young and old and every point in between- dressed up Asian couples, middle aged Mums and Dads, musos, hardcore Prince fans, teenagers with chaperoning uncles/ aunties, hippy pensioners... everyone was there. 

Raspberry Beret

I saw the Beastie Boys play the arena twice (1999 was the Hello Nasty tour, an absolute peak, and the other was 2004 it seems- I thought it was earlier). Both times they were superb, a three way energy hit of rap, hip hop, lounge, funk, punk and stoner rock, ably assisted by Money Mark and Mix Master Mike. On the 1999 tour they played in the round on a specially constructed circular stage. Great fun. I'm off to see Mike D in a couple of weeks at the much smaller Albert Halls in Manchester.

The Who was in November 2000 while John Entwistle was still alive. I can't imagine I'd have much interest in going to see them now, Brexit Roger and internet Pete have both sullied their track record a bit. Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros supported playing to a half empty arena, Joe clearly enjoying himself, with Tymon Dogg wheeling around on violin and finishing with a dub version of White Riot. 

The Charlatans was twenty five years ago, in 2001, at the peak of their hits period, the Tellin' Stories and Us And Us Only albums. They were blistering and although the arena wasn't full, it felt full, they gave it their all and got it back from the crowd. 

Tellin' Stories

The Charlatans have made multiple Oblique Saturdays appearances.

Bob Dylan played Nynex in May 2002. We were at the far end of the room, a quarter of a mile away from the stage. There were no big screens, no show at all really, just Dylan and three musicians playing an arena as if it was a club gig. Setlist.FM tells me he started with Maggie's Farm and ended with All Along The Watchtower. The setlist looks like a great gig but I don't remember it being that great. 

All Along The Watchtower (Live 1974, Before The Flood)

Those are the largest rooms I've seen music performed in as far as I can remember. None played in total darkness or very quietly (although Tricky played in near total darkness at the Aviva Factory earlier this year). 

For some reason all of this mention of large rooms and total darkness also suggests this song from Jamie Xx's In Colour album, a beautiful song with bandmate Romy on vocals about a couple drifting apart due to their love of different social scenes.

Loud Places

There's also this John Talabot remix which is as good as anything you'll hear today... 

Loud Places (John Talabot's Higher Dub)

I only realised recently that two lines in the chorus are sampled from Idris Muhammad's Could Heaven Ever Be Like This, covered on the new Birds Of Pandaemonium album that I wrote about here and here.  

Anyway, these Saturday posts are getting longer and longer, more and more wordy. Maybe I should try to reel it in and be more succinct next week. It all depends on Eno's card I suppose. 

Feel free to drop your own responses to In total darkness, or a very large room, very quietly into the comment box. 

Oblique Saturdays

A series for Saturdays in 2026 inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas). Eno and Schmidt created them to be used to unblock creative impasses and approach problems from unexpected angles. Each week I'll turn over an Oblique Strategy card and post a song or songs inspired by the suggestion. 

Last week's Oblique Strategy suggestion was What are you really thinking about just now?

I was thinking about various things, both trivial and more important. Musically it took me to The Charlatans. There was an inspired response from the OSS (Oblique Saturdays Squad) which included Otavio August Fernades Cardoso (Ernie), Kurt Vile and The Charlatans (Al G, and a different Charlatans song from mine), The Housemartins, Broken Chanter, Happy Mondays, The Colourfield and Hifi Sean and David McAlmont (all JC), National Trust membership (Mrs G), the England 1970 World Cup squad (Jase), The B52s (Rol), Jake Thackray (The Swede), Jonathan Dee (A Telepathic Fish) and NOZZ (Chris Zen Arcade).

W.F.L. (Think About The Future)

At the start of this series in January I thought I might pull all the songs together into a mix or series of mixes but the sheer volume of them has left me a bit overwhelmed by the prospect. An end of year job maybe. 

Anyway, this week's card is this- The tape is now the music. 

A few weeks ago a friend who's moving house sent me a message to ask if it was worth trying to sell a box of old cassettes, 'mainly 80s pop' he said, 'Springsteen, Dire Straits, that kind of thing'. I said it was, the cassette revival was very much a thing and 80s pop was probably much sought after. I recommended Fountains records in Stretford. He came back with £50 in his pocket and promised to buy me a pint to say thank you (I've not had that pint yet it occurs to me). 

The photo at the top of this post and the one below are the tapes I still own, bought at various points since the late 80s. I sometimes bought cassettes back in the day- cheaper than vinyl, portable, often contained extra tracks, some bought for car listening- many of these pictured here were owned on vinyl as well (and possibly later on on CD too). A couple are magazine freebies, one is a bootleg of Andrew Weatherall DJing at Cream bought in a clothes shop in Wigan (funny the things you remember), a couple are promos from a magazine in Manchester I contributed a few things to in the mid 90s, a handful are very recent (products of the tape revival) and there's a few C90s in there too which for sentimental reasons I've never felt able to part with. I could probably equal my friend's £50 windfall by taking many of these up the road but I think I'd miss them. I do actually still have a cassette player too but am cautious about playing them in case they get tangled and snagged. 

Some tracks from a handful of the tapes pictured.

Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards

Possibly Billy Bragg's best song, certainly one of his most loved. I adored it when it came out and it evokes the world it was released into very much- the me as an 18 year old world and the wider world of 1988.

A Million Miles

See also The Wedding Present and George Best. 

The cassette single (they tried to make the word cassingle a thing and it didn't really take off) was a cheap way of picking up extra tracks and B-sides for Walkman listening, especially if you picked them up from the bargain bin in Woolworths after they'd dropped out of the chart. The 1993 One Dove cassingle of Breakdown cost me less than a quid and has the sublime Squire Black Dove Rides Out version of Breakdown on it, ideal for listening to on the move at a time when I didn't have the facility to tape from my vinyl. Andrew Weatherall and the Sabres boys with a ten minute cinematic dub odyssey, remixing One Dove and sampling Shades Of Rhythm and Tranquility Bass to fine effect. 

Breakdown Squire Black Dove Rides Out 

Klangkollektor is from Nuremberg and releases records on Jason Boardman's Before I Die label. Thoroughly recommended. The cassette release of The Stockport Tapes captures Klangkollektor playing live in Lower Hillgate, Stockport, two summers ago. Dubby Balearica with Roland Space Echo and tweeting birds. 

Evening Post (Live In Stockport)

Rentamax 2000's Straight To Tape came out in September 2025, the sound of the future past, Tomorrow's World, dial up and the 80s tape revolution.

Polytechnic

The tape is now the music. Feel free to drop your own responses and recommendations in the comments box. 

Oblique Saturdays

A series for Saturdays in 2026 inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas). Eno and Schmidt created them to be used to unblock creative impasses and approach problems from unexpected angles. Each week I'll turn over an Oblique Strategy card and post a song or songs inspired by the suggestion. 

Last week's Oblique Strategy suggestion was Always first steps. 

My steps took me up to Snapped Ankles, The Flaming Stars, Bocca Juniors and The Boo Radleys. The Bagging Area Oblique Saturdays squad excelled themselves with a bumper collection of songs and responses- from the top, The Babies (via Disco Spider), The Ventures (from Ernie), Caetano Veloso (Mmmmmmbop), New Kids On The Block (thank you Al G), Joe Jackson and his KORG drum machine (from John Medd), NKOTB and Public Service Broadcasting (Mrs G), New Age Steppers (from C), Mogwai (Beerfueled), The First Steps (courtesy of Rol), Stereo MCs (cheers Jase), early New Order (danke Walter), Chris and Cosey and Andrew Weatherall (both from Macdiddly), Mary Poppins (an unexpected one from Jake Sniper), The Incredible String Band (via The Swede), Smith and Mighty (from Khayem) and Acid Klaus (Chris ZenArcade's contribution). Amazing stuff, thank you all of you- and the first time that New Kids On The Block have ever darkened these doorways. 

I don't have any Caetano Veloso but have followed up Mmmmmmbop's suggestion and listened to Caetano's 1973 album Araçá Azul online during the week, an experimental album blurring tropicalia, psychedelia, musique concrete and samba and folk, a record that, as Mmmmmbop said, shakes a fist at the repressive Brazilian state and passive consumerist muzak. I do have this Gal Costa song from the same year, co- written by Caetano Veloso and from Gal's 1973 album India. 

Relance

This week's card, which I turned over on Wednesday evening, says this- What are you really thinking about just now?

And I'll be honest, it caught me unawares and startled me a bit. What was I really thinking about? Rather than sit on the suggesiton for a while as I sometimes do the card demanded an immediate response so I started typing almost straight away. 

I'd been going round the blogs and catching up with the daily posts from other music bloggers and one of the thoughts in my mind was what an incredible thing JC is doing at The Vinyl Villain, an 800 song countdown of songs that are important to him, a huge undertaking as a celebration of the upcoming 20th anniversary of The Vinyl Villain. 

I was thinking about going and finishing marking some essays on the use of propaganda in Nazi Germany that I'd brought home and which had a rapidly approaching deadline. 

I was thinking about the songs on Short Stories For Pauline, the Durutti Column album I'd been listening to in the car and which I was about to start writing about (for a piece that I posted two days ago). 

And I was thinking too about the fact that November is bearing down on us, just under six weeks away, and bringing with it on the 23rd what would have been Isaac's 28th birthday and a week later on the 30th what will be the fifth anniversary of his death and the moment I turned the card over I acknowledged to myself that I've been able to feel it physically again in recent weeks, that feeling of being a bit out of sorts and a bit aggy, a bit narked. The dull thud of grief sitting in my chest again. At least, I think that's what it is. I can usually recognise it now. 

So writing this Oblique Saturday's post started there and then with this rundown of what I was really thinking about 'just now'. 

Here's The Charlatans in summer 1995, thinkin' things over, needing a set of vows. 

Just When You're Thinkin' Things Over

What are you really thinking about just now? And do you have a song to go with it? As usual, feel free to drop it in the comment box. 

Oblique Saturdays

A series for Saturdays in 2026 inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas). Eno and Schmidt created them to be used to unblock creative impasses and approach problems from unexpected angles. Each week I'll turn over an Oblique Strategy card and post a song or songs inspired by the suggestion. 

Last week's Oblique Strategy suggestion was Remove ambiguities and convert to specifics. 

I converted this suggestion into The Ramones in 1976 and roped in Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie too. Out in the internerland/ real world the Bagging Area community came up with Smokebelch by Sabres Of Paradise (Rickyotter), Buzzcocks (Boredom courtesy of C), Jah Shaka (Ernie), The Cocteau Twins (Spencer), 808 State's Pacific (Al G), Tool (Mrs G), Camper van Beethoven, (Rol), Buzzocks (again, Oh Shit, The Swede) and Mont Kimbie (Chris ZenArcade). And there's nothing wrong about any of those choices, they make a fine Saturday morning mixtape in their own right. 

Boredom

The Swede works in a supermarket in Beccles, Suffolk, the home of Brian Eno (and formerly the town my maternal grandparents retired to). I'm encouraging The Swede to have a brief word with Mr Eno the next time he sees him down the bread aisle or by the deli counter and see if he'd like to drop in and contribute to the fun. If you're reading Brian, welcome. 

This week's Oblique Saturday card is this- Always First Steps.

Snapped Ankles took 3 steps to a development in 2019. Post punk/ psychedelic electronic band vibe, (unhinged in a good way), weird hyperactive 80s crossed with scuzzy Fall influences. 

3 Steps To A Development

The Flaming Stars took 39 steps on their Named And Shamed album in 2004. A Bad Seeds and Gallon Drunk kind of band. You'll like them. 

The 39 Steps

In 1990 Bocca Juniors, the Boy's Own inhouse band of Andrew WEatherall, Terry Farley, Pete Heller and Cymon Eccles, took 63 Steps to heaven. Anna Haigh on vocals singing Weatherall's Aleister Crowley inspired lyrics. A screech of tyres, a massive piano riff calling Thrashing Doves to mind, crunchy drums- a  roof raising record. 'Boy am I gonna wake you up!'

Raise (63 Steps To Heaven)

One shouldn't live in the past but within seconds of Raise playing my initial thought is almost always, 'oh man, take me back...'

In 19943 The Boo Radleys took Giant Steps on their album of that name, a record inspired by John Coltrane's Giant Steps (an album I own on vinyl but don't have digitally). The Do Badleys finally broke their reputation as the band Creation Records couldn't sell with a genre busting, spirit of Screamadelica record. On Lazarus a shoegaze band from Wallasey go dub reggae/ experimental that then becomes trumpet led MBV inspired pop. This is the first time Boo Radleys have appeared at Bagging Area. 

Lazarus

Feel free to drop your own responses to Always first steps into the comment box.

Oblique Saturdays

A series for Saturdays in 2026 inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas). Eno and Schmidt created them to be used to unblock creative impasses and approach problems from unexpected angles. Each week I'll turn over an Oblique Strategy card and post a song or songs inspired by the suggestion. 

Last week's Oblique Strategy suggestion was Spectrum Analysis.

My spectrum analysis took me to Sonic Boom and Spectrum, Aphex Twin and Sewell and The Gong. Further analysis came from Dumdedumdumdum (Oh! Gunquit), Ernie (The Dells), Khayem (Captain Scarlet and The Mysterons, Solid Space, Creation Rebel, Florence and her Machine and Seahawks with Prins Thomas), Al G (World Of Twist, Matt Berry), Mrs G (the ZX- Spectrum and Space Raiders), Weird Al (Pac- Man v The Beatles), Jase (Rain Tree Crow), Walter (Billy Cobham and Massive Attack) and Rol (more ZX- Spectrum, Jet Set Willy and Joni Mitchell).

From the above suggestions, here's World Of Twist covering The Rolling Stones...

She's A Rainbow

This week's Oblique Strategy card reads like this- Not building a wall but making a brick.

How are bricks made? I asked the internet. 

The main ingredient is clay. Another key component is sand. Sometimes other additives such as lime, iron oxide or magnesia might be used. The final crucial ingredient is water. The dry material is crushed. The soft wet clay is shaped by a mould. Once the brick has been shaped it is left to dry- the removal of excess water is important. The brick is then fired in a kiln. 

Clay

Clay is from Goldfrapp's 2013 album Tales Of Us, a lovely collection of folky album/ electronic songs. Clay tells the story of a doomed soldier during World War II writing a letter to his lover, Dave. 

Castles Made Of Sand

I don't think Jimi Hendrix ever sounded better than on Axis: Bold As Love- loose, electric blues, psychedelia. Castles Made Of Sand has some wonderful free flowing forwards guitar and bursts of backwards guitar, a tripped out solo and some autobiographical lyrics from Jimi about impermanence. 

I Wash My Hair With Limes

Obscure 1984 outliers Circus Underwater. Dreamy laid back psyche/ ambient. Stunning. 

Throw Some Water In

Lee Perry in 1978 and his Roast Fish And Collie Weed album, his first album to consist solely songs sung by Scratch himself. 

Summon The Fire

Body shaking, addictive astro- jazz/ dance- psyche from The Comet Is Coming is 2019. 

Unfortunately I can't find a song with the word kiln in the title. Killing on the other hand is very well represented. This is Moon Duo in 2009.

Killing Time

Feel free to contribute your own constructions in response to Not building a wall but making a brick in the comment box.

Oblique Saturdays

A series for Saturdays in 2026 inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas). Eno and Schmidt created them to be used to unblock creative impasses and approach problems from unexpected angles. Each week I'll turn over an Oblique Strategy card and post a song or songs inspired by the suggestion. 

Last week's Oblique Strategy suggestion was The most important thing is the thing most easily forgotten.

I went down a memory based rabbit hole with Pye Corner Audio, Boards Of Canada, Vangelis and Blade Runner, Jan van den Broeke and Aphex Twin (and those tracks all fit together really well, a nice twenty five minute ambient/ synth set). Out in the Oblique Saturday community we found Ernie with a trio of forgetful tracks from Morgan Morse, Farmergeddon and Kenmore Classic, Beerfueled with Pixies covering Leonard Cohen, Al G with the Sultans Of Ping F.C. and their lost jumper, Mrs G with Doves, Khayem and The Mekons, Jake Sniper and The Caretaker and Rol with The Panic Brothers. 

This one's for Jake and his Mum.

This week's Oblique Strategy card reads thus- Spectrum Analysis.

After leaving Spacemen 3 Sonic Boom released his first solo album Spectrum and then several albums and singles as Spectrum (including the sublime Highs, Lows And Heavenly Blows). 

In 1992 Spectrum/ Sonic released an EP with a cover of Daniel Johnson's True Love Will Find You In The End. It's a blissed out cover, Sonic singing dreamily with a choir of angels backing him, over twinkles, drones and pedal steel. 'Don't give up now/ True love will find you in the end', Sonic croons, sounding like he might just mean it and might just make it through the night. 

True Love Will Find You In The End

Anyone who's read Spacemen 3 bassist Will Carruthers' memoir Playing The Bass With Three Left Hands will recall the chapter describing a memorable evening the band played at a health club in Chester, the occasion when they were introduced to ecstasy (to add to the cocktail of somewhat stronger and more addictive drugs Sonic and Jason were well into by that point). The 1997 compilation CD What Came Before After finishes with this track, a nine minute exploration/ distillation of the Spectrum sound- synth drones, repeating and oscillating into eternity. 

Ecstasy In Slow Motion

This is from Spectrum's Indian Giver album with Captain Memphis from 2008. It's the same song that Sonic recorded for Recurring, 1991's final Spacemen 3 album, written by Mudhoney. Sludgy, stoned space rock. 

When Tomorrow Hits

Aphex Twin returns making consecutive Oblique Saturday appearances. In 2016 he put out a 12" single called Cheetah, which paid tribute to an obsolete British electronics company of the same name who made unfathomably difficult to work out synths. The first track on the EP was this one...

Cheetah2 [Ld spectrum]

Aphex Twin in coasting mode is still some considerable distance ahead of his peers. Slow motion, slippery and phased to jiggery. 

Finally, one of my favourite albums of last year was by Sewell And The Gong, pastoral sounding Balearica, instrumental folk gone cosmische. As Rob at Ban Ban Ton Ton put it, 'jubilant, trance- inducing, celebratory.... like a drug free, jolly Spacemen 3'. Which ties things together nicely. 

Spectrum Two

You can drop your own responses to Spectrum analysis into the comment box, if you want to. No pressure. 

Oblique Saturdays

A series for Saturdays in 2026 inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas). Eno and Schmidt created them to be used to unblock creative impasses and approach problems from unexpected angles. Each week I'll turn over an Oblique Strategy card and post a song or songs inspired by the suggestion. 

Last week's Oblique Strategy suggestion was Water.

I ran with Sordid Sound System and Raymond Chandler, Dreems, Kalima, A Certain Ratio, Andrew Weatherall and Michael Smith and William Orbit, Beth Orton and Underworld. There was a big response from the Bagging Area community with Sundappledliz going for Alex Kassian and Jessica Lauren, Al G with Juan Wauters, Ernie Goggins and The Incredible String Band, Jake with The Avalanches, Ricky Otter and Richard Norris, Walter and The Woodentops, SRC with Bruce Lee and Underworld and also Fela Kuti, Rol and The Cascades, and Jase who had several suggestions- Ride, Blackwater and Elvis. 

Jase's Ride suggestion was their debut album Nowhere which had that huge wave sweeping across the front cover, a visual representation of the band's shoegaze/ FX pedal wall of sound. The album's title track was missing from the album and eventually turned up on the Fall EP in October 1990.

Nowhere

This week's Oblique Strategy card says this- The most important thing is the thing most easily forgotten.

Which is oblique indeed. And then some. 

It made me think of memories, memory and the act of remembering. Which is always a deep rabbit hole. Not long after Isaac died in 2021- and by not long I mean weeks- I was in bed doom scrolling and a link to a newspaper article flashed up. The headline (from I think The Guardian) read something like, 'Scientists discover whether our lives really do flash before our eyes before we die'.

I didn't click through. At that point, I couldn't see any way that that article was going to be a comfort or a help. I've never been back and looked for it either although it has crossed my mind more than once since. I can still clearly recall that exact moment, the instant, I saw the headline, read it, thought about it and rejected it. I didn't really want to consider what would have flashed through Isaac's mind in the moments before he died, with the three of us in the hospital room with him. It's a strange memory that has stuck with me ever since, unforgotten. 

Buried Memories

Buried Memories is from Pye Corner Audio's 2019 album Hollow Earth, a radiophonic/ dark synth track that suggests all kinds of things. The Hauntology/ Ghost Box scene and much of Pye Corner Audio's output is partly about memory and the way past haunts the future. Boards Of Canada's albums, this year's Inferno included, deal in this too. One of the tracks on Inferno is this one...

Memory Death

As we get older it seems that more and more that what we are as human beings is a bunch of memories and experiences, encased in our bodies. Memory is a tricky thing. It's unreliable and inevitably one sided. It enables us to learn from the past. Sometimes it makes us cringe- things we said or did that we really wish we hadn't. One of the things about dementia that scares us the most is seeing loved ones lose their memory. What is a person without memories? 

In Blade Runner the new generation of replicants (Nexus 7s) have been given memories. Rachael, played by Sean Young, has been implanted with the memories of Tyrell's niece and as a result she believed she was human. On discovering this, her entire world is turned upside down. Her relationship with the past, her past, is fake, a construct, someone else's past. In the film,this Vangelis song plays as Rachael visits Deckard's apartment for the first time. Tellingly, it finishes with sirens and the whirring and bleeps of a computer programme. 

Memories Of Green

Jan van den Broeke's 2017 album 11000 Dreams is a deep dive into memory, found sounds, ambient and samples. This track is literally memories turned into sound, a woman's voice caught on tape with an ambient backing, '...things that happened years and years ago... incidents... memories...'

June 11 Memories

I don't know what Eno and Schmidt intended the most important thing to be or if they even had an intention. The most important thing for us as people could be many things- to be loved, to be remembered, to be live well without doing harm to others, to stand up for the things you believe in, to contribute to society in some way, to leave the world better than you found it. Big stuff. 

Maybe they just meant the drums. 

Short Forgotten Produk Trk Omc

That's Aphex Twin and an archival track he uploaded onto his User18081971 Soundcloud page back in 2023, that dates from 2006/7. 

Feel free to drop your own responses to The most important thing is the thing most easily forgotten in the comment box. 

Oblique Saturdays

A series for Saturdays in 2026 inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas). Eno and Schmidt created them to be used to unblock creative impasses and approach problems from unexpected angles. Each week I'll turn over an Oblique Strategy card and post a song or songs inspired by the suggestion. 

Last week's Oblique Strategy suggestion was Be less critical more often. 

This took me to San Pedro's Minutemen and their 1984 album Double Nickels On The Dime. The Oblique Saturdays collective weighed in various critical/ non- critical suggestions- Bob Dylan's Don't Think Twice, It's Alright (Trail Of Bread), Lyle Lovett and A House (Ernie Goggins), Herbie Hancock and Miles Davis and the incredible self- taught shambling proto- punk/ indie of The Shaggs (Rongniss), Dodgy (John Medd), George Bean and The Runner Beans (Rol- deftly avoiding Alexander O'Neal), Boo Radleys (Al G), Whitney Houston (anonymous), and Mojo Nixon (Chris ZenArcade).

This weeks Oblique Strategy card reads simply this- Water. 

For musicians in the studio I can picture numerous responses to this as they change their playing, use samples and found sounds. My response was much more literal songs with Water in the title. Ironically, given the multiple heatwaves we've had this summer, the falling water levels in reservoirs, drought warnings and scorched grass, there is no shortage of water at Bagging Area. This a selection of water songs, mainly lesser heard and less well known ones...

First up, Sordid Sound System, Los Angeles via Glasgow's Optimo and a 2022 EP Neon Noir- very persuasive electronic music, chunky and percussive with watery synths. The text accompanying the EP quotes Raymond Chandler-

'I drove on almost to Malibu and then parked and went and sat on a big rock that was inside somebody's wire fence. It was about half-tide and coming in. The air smelled of kelp and glowed like neon noir. I watched the water for a while and then I pulled a string of Bohemian glass imitation pearls out of my pocket and cut the knot at one end and slipped the pearls off one by one.

When I had them all loose in my left hand I held them like that for a while and thought. There wasn't really anything to think about. I was sure.

"To the Gods below," I said aloud.
I flipped her pearls out into the water one by one. I was as hollow and empty as the spaces between stars." 

Falling Out Of Water

From 2020, Dreems and Shark Water, an Australian exploration into the deep blue seas on the other side of the world....

Shark Water (Abyss Mix)

Two from Factory. Kalima emerged from Swamp Children, becoming Kalima in 1983 and making several records, latin and jazz based excursions. Black Water is moody, slinky and cool and then the vocal comes in and lifts it up a level (from their 1986 album Night Time Shadows)...

Black Water

The members of A Certain Ratio were deeply involved with Kalima. In 1981 ACR put out Water Line, a 12" that is the early ACR sound honed to perfection- taut but rubbery bass, skittery drums, otherworldly production, the sense of something being not quite right...

Water Line

Andrew Weatherall and Michael Smith's Unreal City has been here fairly recently, a 2013 ambient/ soundtrack/ spoken word project, that found Andrew and Nina Walsh providing soundscapes for Michael to read passages from his book over.

On Water Music Michael finds his way into London from the Kent coast into the city and down some steps to the side of the Thames. Michael sees 'light on the water, lights from the Millenium dome... lights from the sugar factory at Silvertown...'...

Water Music

Lastly, back to the recently departed William Orbit and his 1993 evergreen Water From A Vine Leaf. Water From A Vine Leaf was remixed by Underworld not once but three times, in total well over twenty minutes of 1993 trance house techno. 

Part 1 is the go to- chopped up synth squiggles, synthetic horns, chunky drums, widescreen cinematic progressive house that deals in hypnosis and delivers euphoria. 

Water From A Vine Leaf (Underworld Mix Part 1)

Part 2 is a twelve minute trip into the Orbit/ Orton/ Underworld dreamworld, a spaced out, relatively stripped back bubbling psychedelic adventure- Beth's vocals are FXed and looped, the pace is slow, there are tropical birds, a very loose guitar line and layers of synths. Chilled restraint is the order of the day on Part 2. 

Water From A Vine Leaf (Underworld Mix Part 2)

Feel free to drop your own responses to Water into the comment box. 

Oblique Saturdays

A series for Saturdays in 2026 inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas). Eno and Schmidt created them to be used to unblock creative impasses and approach problems from unexpected angles. Each week I'll turn over an Oblique Strategy card and post a song or songs inspired by the suggestion. 

Last week's Oblique Strategy suggestion was Don't be frightened to display your talents.

I wrote at some length about Talk Talk's 1988 album Spirit Of Eden, side one particularly, a three song suite that displays the talents of Mark Hollis and Tim Friese- Green, not to mention the other musicians that play on the songs- The Rainbow, Eden and Desire. 

Out in the Oblique Saturdays community Walter suggested The Slits and their cover of I Heard It Through The Grapevine, Jase went for Daft Punk's Discovery, Rol firmly in the Dexys camp with Show Me, C with Hendrix doing Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock, Ernie playing his wildcard again with Splodgenessabounds and Michael Booth's Talking Bum, Al G with The Modern Lovers and Pablo Picasso (whose childhood home in Malaga I visited last week, first floor flat in the building below )...

... and Mrs G who went with PJ Harvey's 50 ft. Queenie. 

Pablo Picasso

50 ft. Queenie

I would like to hear PJ Harvey cover Pablo Picasso. I think she could take it to places new. 

This week's card, turned over yesterday when I got back from Spain, is this- Be less critical more often. 

I turned this over in my mind a couple of times and ended up with Minutemen, the 80s band from San Pedro, California, who were inspired by punk to get up and do something. Formed by childhood friends D. Boon and Mike Watt, Minutemen pulled in George Hurley on drums and wrote songs, made records and toured, all three incessantly until tragedy brought them to an end. Watt and Boon gave everything they did a lot of thought- they weighed up the meaning and value of things, of how to be a band and how to go about doing it the right way, how to relate to each other and to the world. They were critical of themselves and each other but also madly supportive and encouraging (of each other, of themselves, of other people). If the key message of punk was 'do it yourself', then they absorbed that fully, added a massive dose of work ethic ('if you're not playin', you're payin', they stated in their Jam Econo theory, driving round the US in a van playing gigs here, there and everywhere, seeing records as a way to promote their gigs, building a network and a community of like minded souls in every town they played) and worked out their political stance- anti- commercial, anti- rockist, independent. 

Their music was everything except hardcore punk (despite being very much part of that world), an ultra- democratic sound (the bass and guitar stayed away from each other's areas). They were punk funk and folk punk, art rock and spoken word, unconventional and inspirational. They fused Wire, Pere Ubu, Bob Dylan, The Clash, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Pop Group, Gang Of Four, Captain Beefheart with the spirit and feel of 80s US indie- punk (contemporaries like Black Flag, Husker Du and Sonic Youth).

In 1984 they released their opus, Double Nickels On The Dime, a forty five song double vinyl masterpiece that saw each Minuteman select a side and the forth side collated from the remaining songs from the sessions (which they called the Chaff side- be less critical). It is a magnificent achievement, one of 80s punk's key albums.

By 1984 Minutemen were being less critical, were creating more songs, writing songs about anything that amused or interested them- Michael Jackson, Vietnam, racism, the poor, James Joyce and Ulysses and shit from an old notebook. 

Shit From An Old Notebook

In their songwriting, D. Boon and Mike Watt had freed themselves from external criticism. If it was valid to them, it was worthy of writing a song about. Double Nickels is autobiographical, is left wing, is funny and passionate and inspirational. 'Our band', D. Boon sang in History Lesson Pt. II, 'could be your life'. 

History Lesson Pt. II

While writing Take 5, D Boon told Mike Watt his lyrics were 'too spacey'. Watt agreed and re- wrote them, responding to criticism in an egoless way and writing new lyrics that were 'more real'. He based them on a note he found from a friend's landlady complaining about a leaky shower.

Take 5, D

'I hope we can rely on you not to use shower/ Hope we can rely on you not to use shower/ You're not keeping tub caulked/ Caused both downstairs bath ceilings and walls to be soggy/ Tub has to properly caulked prior to any shower/ Walls are drenched/ I'll refer plumber here/ Had to pay for two service calls/ Water drips from all around/ Kathy's ceiling, my ceiling/ Don't use shower/ Don't use shower'.

D. Boon died in December 1985 when the band's van, being driven by his girlfriend while he slept in the back, broke its rear axle, veered off the road and threw him from it killing him instantly. RIP D. Boon. 

I'm not 100% sure how I'm connecting all of that with Be less critical more often but it's where my head went with the Oblique Strategy suggestion- and that's what this series is all about. 

Feel free to drop your own responses into the comment box. 

Oblique Saturdays

A series for Saturdays in 2026 inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas). Eno and Schmidt created them to be used to unblock creative impasses and approach problems from unexpected angles. Each week I'll turn over an Oblique Strategy card and post a song or songs inspired by the suggestion. 

Last week's Oblique Strategy suggestion was Change instrument roles.

I went with the change in using the Roland TB- 303 by Phuture and Marshall Jefferson that led to acid house and also with Luke Schneider's ambient pedal steel guitar. In the comment box it all kicked off with Ernie bringing the funky jazz bagpipe sound of Rufus Harley, SRC with Carlos Alomar and David Bowie in 1980, Le Petit Mort and possibly the ultimate Oblique Saturday sound of Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music, C with New Model Army, Rol with the brilliantly named Twat Union, and on social media Chris Zen Arcade with A Guy Called Gerald's Voodoo Ray, an otherworldly and seminal record that was probably influenced by Phuture's 303 experiments a couple of years earlier. 

Voodoo Ray

This week's card say this- Don't be frightened to display your talents.

In 1988 Talk Talk released Spirit Of Eden, a record which is very much a display of talent and vision. Mark Hollis, Lee Harris, Paul Webb and producer Tim Friese- Greene made the album at Wessex Studio in London in 1987 and 1988. It sounds nothing like anything else made in those years, existing in its own world and context and on its own terms. The songs that make up side one- The Rainbow, Eden and Desire- run into each other, instrumental passages from the end of one song becoming the next and as such it's best taken as one piece...

Spirit Of Eden Side One (The Rainbow/ Eden/ Desire)

The short hand genre descriptions are usually post- rock, ambient, experimental, art rock combined with the influence of free jazz and folk but these labels don't really describe the three songs on side one of Spirit Of Eden. As Andrew Weatherall said, 'Don't get hung up on genres'. Spirit Of Eden is Spirit Of Eden

The three musicians (Hollis on guitar, organ, piano and melodica, Webb on bass and Harris on drums) plus Friese- Greene (harmonium, piano, guitar and production) were joined by umpteen other musicians who would be brought into the blacked out studio, in almost total darkness (oil projections and strobe lights were deployed to increase the disorientation). They were played the track as it was at that point through their headphones and asked to contribute. Under these circumstances there were presumably lots of takes and parts which were unused and unusable but what they coaxed out of the players and created between them is an astonishing piece of work. 

The Rainbow opens with a burst of a horn and then strings, a saw and woodwind. Some piano notes waft in. It's all tone and texture, the start of something, improvised and loose but clearly the work of someone with a vision. We drift along, the darkness of the studio reflected in the sound. An electric guitar picks up and then a harmonica that cuts right through. Three minutes in, there are suddenly drums and a groove and Mark Hollis sings- 'Oh yeah, the world's turned upside down...'.

The Rainbow is nine minutes long. It stops and starts, unhurried despite the harmonica's attempts to drive it. The long end section fades into Eden, followed by bursts of noise, a wah wah guitar maybe, some feedback, and then a shift as Eden starts. Acoustic guitar, softer and gentler for a while but with the propulsion of drums, bass and a guitar riff. Hollis sings again, somewhere out in the wilds, somewhere in the darkness looking in. 'Everybody needs someone', he settles on. 

The segue into Desire comes after seventeen minutes- organ, woodwind, a horn maybe- and then the guitar is back, clipped and woody. More piano. Not jazz but there's an echo of jazz of a kind in it and some of John Martyn's folk too. Hollis sings again over this freeform improvisational piece. I'm not sure I've ever fully made out all the words and I'm not sure how much it matters. The voice and sound of the words as part of the song are just as important as what he's actually saying- again, tone and texture. There's an explosion of noise, guitars, bass and harmonica, and the drums kicking up a storm. An electric guitar sandstorm. Shakers. 

There's something so unknowable about Spirit Of Eden, so mysterious, so difficult to pin down. The music is physical, its real but it also hangs in the air, slightly out of reach. It can't really be described as chill out or ambient- the bursts of guitar and noise are unsettling (the post- rock label comes from these parts- Spiritualized, Mogwai, Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Tortoise, Radiohead, Low and others were all listening to Spirit Of Eden at some point). You can listen to side one (or the whole album) many, many times and continue to find something new in it each time, a different sound or feel, a new angle, a part you hadn't focused on before or hadn't noticed. It seems like a different record sometimes to the one you'd listened to before. Mark Hollis was at full tilt on Spirit Of Eden, unleashed and exploring what they could do collectively, what they could achieve. Entirely unafraid to display his talents. 

Feel free to drop your own response to Don't be frightened to display your talents in the comment box. 

Oblique Saturdays

A series for Saturdays in 2026 inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas). Eno and Schmidt created them to be used to unblock creative impasses and approach problems from unexpected angles. Each week I'll turn over an Oblique Strategy card and post a song or songs inspired by the suggestion. 

Last week's Oblique Strategy suggestion was A very small object. It's centre.

I went all atomic with Quando Quango and Mark Kamins, Juan Moreno, and Massive Attack, all loosely tied together by Carlo Rovelli and quantum physics. Out in the Bagging Area community there were the usual array of fantastic suggestions- Newcleus from Michel Houellebecq's Petit Mort, Suzanne Vega from Trail Of Bread, They Might Be Giants from Rol, Chapterhouse and Badly Drawn Boy from Al G, Soft Cell from Chris, The Incredible String Band from Ernie and sneaking in at the end Mrs G with Tinie Tempah with a tribute to stars and teenagers. 

Here's Chapterhouse's very small object, swirling shoegaze from 1991.

Pearl

This week's card says this- Change instrument roles

The Roland TB- 303 is a bassline synthesiser, produced by the Roland Corporation in 1981 and designed to replace the bass guitar and to accompany the 808 drum machine. It was considered a commercial failure and discontinued in 1984. 

Over in Chicago a group called Phuture had a 303 and had been seeing what they could do with it, what the instruction manual didn't tell them. By abusing the machine they discovered they could do much more than make a synthesised bassline- they could change the sound completely, making a squelchy, liquid, otherworldly sound that became the foundation stone of what a couple of years later became known as acid house. 

Acid Trax

Phuture were DJ Pierre, Spanky and Herbert Jackson. Marshall Jefferson helped out with the production of  Acid Trax and in getting it released. Phuture had in turn built on the house sound that DJ Ron Hardy had been playing at Chicago's warehouse parties, the mayhem of those parties Hardy DJed at and the thump of the rhythm and the effect it had on the crowd. The acid squelch took it up to another level. When it was released in 1987 it made its way to the UK, to London, Manchester and Nottingham. That squelch, that distinctive, futuristic, face melting sound that warps its way through Acid Trax is what happens when someone changes instrument roles. And kick starts a revolution. 

Nashville's Luke Schneider has taken an instrument usually associated with country and western and the Grand Ole Opry, the pedal steel guitar, added some FX and changed the pedal steel's role completely- in Luke's hands the pedal steel is an ambient instrument, layers of drones and ringing sounds, an enveloping soundscape. This is from 2020's Altar Of Harmony, as good a place to start as any. 

Mundi Tuum Est

Feel free to drop your own responses to Change instrument roles into the comments box.