Edit Selection

Some recent edit and remix offerings today from a variety of Bagging Area repeat postees and appearances from Lou Reed, Timothy Leary, The Rev. Gary Davis and Jimmy Dean among the voices dredged up from old recordings. 

First up (and not one for the purists I'll wager) is Leo Zero with an edit of Lou Reed's Walk On The Wildside. A free download at Bandcamp, and as Leo says 'made with LOVE/ FOR FUN and for DJ sets'. Probably best to enjoy it for what it is, a dark disco/ late night Balearic version of Lou Reed's 1973 calling card. Lou would either love it or hate it. 

Cardiff's Secret Soul Society continue to ply edits and remixes from deep within the rich tapestry of popular music. Following recent Paul McCartney and Lulu inspired outings the new reggae edit Bukkle Up is a groover, very much one to keep. There's also a new this week, a Balearic disco spliced with dub edit called What About Dub? that sounds like the sort of thing the DJ at the bar in a cosmic/ kitsch sci fi film might be spinning as the hero/ heroine enters the night club. 

Find both at Bandcamp where there's loads more Secret Soul Society edits and remixes to explore. 

Dublin's 100 Poems likes to work in threes- his Balearic trilogy of 2024 has been followed by a trio of albums themed around Americana and the Old West, cowboy songs and country and blues. Last year there was the first of the three, Let The Horse Run Free, and then in late 2025 Rodeo Disco. Mike Wilson now completes the triplet with End Of The Trail, eight edits/ remixes/ versions of songs that take Johnny Cash, Timothy Leary, the Rev. Gary Davis, Bessie Jones, Alan Lomax, Planxty and Jimmy Dean and send them into altered states- cosmic country, Balearic Americana, blues and an undercurrent of dub. 

Three picks from the third of the series. This Record Is Not For You takes a Timothy Leary sample from 1966, Leary's album Turn On, Tune, Drop Out. Leary's advocacy of LSD as a way of life and a marker of a generation gap brought him a certain amount of notoriety. Leary's voice, calming saying that for anyone over the age of forty this record is not for you, is laid over some squelchy acid house and is unexpectedly supplemented by a banjo solo at four minutes, Mike freewheeling with an anything goes, whatever works for the song approach.

Rev. Gary Davis was a blues and gospel singer and player who pioneered a highly influential finger picking guitar style. Mike borrows Gary's song If I had My Way for an epic piece of sundown cosmic blues, Gary's voice echoing down the years from 1967 to 2026. Slow motion dub and FX drenched tune Big John features the voice of Jimmy Dean, American folklore from the days of mining and outpost towns. End Of The Trail can be found at Bandcamp, seven tracks plus an eighth that mixes them into one continuous piece with Elvis, The Clancy Brothers, Lightnin' Hopkins and Ennio Morricone thrown into the casserole pot for good measure. 

Secret Soul

Cal Gibson's Secret Soul Society has been drip feeding us with new tracks all summer, a series of dubby weird disco tunes blurring the boundaries of new music, edits and versions. The tracks below are all highly recommended, hazy and dubbed out soul/ dance music, old and new fused. I'll leave it for you to work out where the source material comes from. 

First, in mid- July- Situation Station, a low slung, machine funk song with a soulful vocal.

A couple of weeks after that, bubbling, summer sounding funk soul/ cosmic disco About2Believe, the singer telling us, 'You're about to believe/ In love again'. 

Then, in late July there was Emotional Dub, dub and disco spliced together, a slinky floor filler with choppy guitar, bubbling bass and killer vocal. 

A couple of days later in early August there was Lemonade All Day, trippy cosmic/ Balearic with chanting and FX 

A week on from that came Mountain Of Tears, a bass driven soul number, urgent and impassioned night time music, drums pushing and synth FX splashing around. 

In mid- August, Dub Sultanas, headband wearing guitar wranglers filtered into something darker and groovier. 

Last week, Dubbing In The City, slowed down groove, taut bass and fractured vocals with an oddness that gives it an edge- very tasty. 

All of these (and more) can be found at The Secret Soul Society Bandcamp page here. They work very well individually but probably best sequenced one after the other, a forty minute late summer dub/ disco/ soul compilation or mixtape. 

Nuclear Summer, Blame And Crunk Funk

Our accelerated 21st century post- Brexit and climate change culture continues. Keir Starmer resigned yesterday morning, his support rapidly shriveling up like that tomato I left on our garden table last night.Two years ago he was a new Labour Prime Minister with a huge majority in the House Of Commons and seemingly a mandate to bring in change. Now he's gone, widely reviled for reasons that aren't entirely clear- his vibe was off *. He was unable to communicate the good things this government have done and doubled down on the bad by, say, arresting hundreds of pensioners for protesting. In the end a huge parliamentary majority that should have given him the freedom to govern for five full years has to be tempered by the fact that he won only a fifth of the electorate at the 2024 general election. The big win two years ago was a Get The Tories Out vote in reality.

Sincerely, I hope Andy Burnham can galvanise people and turn things around. He's a genuinely popular figure (at least round here he is- and there aren't many of mainstream politicians with genuine popularity), has a relatable personality and a back story as Mayor of Greater Manchester that works. He needs to present some policies soon that hit the spot. There's no doubt the familiar right wing media will swing into anti- Burnham mode quickly.

Meanwhile we're baking under temperatures that are entirely beyond the average. Trump's view of Starmer's failure was that he failed on immigration and energy (Open North Sea Oil!' he typed, a view which is part of the problem). I hope his reflecting pool continues to filled with algae.

Some new music to soundtrack societal collapse. First, Daniel Avery remixing Fluke's Atom Bomb, a breath of fresh apocalyptic air- gorgeous synth chords, rattling drums, whispered vocals and big rumbling bass. The Nuclear Summer remix has Avery proving once again he's a master of this kind of thing, ambient techno and rave dynamics. Fluke are mining their back catalogue for updated versions and modern remixes with more to come. Music to soundtrack the shadow of the mushroom cloud. 

Second is OBOST, otherwise known as Bobby Langfield, a young man making music beyond his years. His newest track is Blame, four minutes of dancing synth melodies, the thud of the kick drum and a woozy vocal. In the the second half of blame the energy levels rise, arpeggios and piano blasting out while the voice carries an Arthur Russell- esque feel. Blame (JAB) strips the track down, more acidic, abstract and distorted. Blame is at Bandcamp for less than the cost of two pints of milk. 

Thirdly, Secret Soul Society have a two track EP out this Friday, a collaboration with Flash Atkins, that is aimed squarely at summer dancefloors even if dancing this week is likely to bring on heat exhaustion. Crunk Funk is lighter than air and loose at the seams, breathy and fresh, a lovely groove and insistent chords with a distant vocal. Sunrise, sunset- either will be improved by Crunk Funk. Get it at Bandcamp. 

* There are reasons: he didn't bring enough change quickly enough for people's liking; he was poor at presenting policy and telling a story; he was blank and flat when speaking in public; he U- turned several times which looked weak; some of his policies seemed to hit people Labour should be supporting; he lost left wing support to the Greens due to his pursuit of Reform- friendly policies; he made the disastrous Mandelson appointment; he became a lighting rod for right wing Facebook group politics (the Save Our Kids, flags and hotel mob, the 'two tier' policing critics, the free speechers who want to be able to promote racist views in public with impunity, the far right echo chamber that view him as a communist, the daily battering from the Express and Mail, The Telegraph and The Times). These things come with the territory but the hatred and venom people have for Starmer is a little bizarre.

Train Dreams And Undiscovered Shores

Secret Soul Society released a new EP two weeks ago on a Madrid based label Rare Wiri. Train Dreams has five tracks. The first, Take Me In, is a lovely slice of Balearic pop with warm padding drums, sunshine synths and a vocal declaring, 'something's happening in my heart'. The title track Train Dreams follows, pulsing Italo disco crossed with Kraftwerk style rhythms and bursts of synth noise and lasers. There's a remix of Train Dreams too by Popsneon which takes the train into cosmic disco territory. 

In the middle of the EP is Everybody Needs A Good Friend, a rather beautiful piece of electronic Balearica. The vocal, just two lines of lyric, might be familiar to some of you. Everybody Needs A Good Friend and the other four tracks on Train Dreams can be found at Rare Wiri's Bandcamp here.

Brighton's Higher Love Recordings have been quiet of late but return to action with an EP by Mass Density Human called The Undiscovered Shore- a trio of tracks based around the idea of coastlines, imaginary shores and the borderlands between sleep and being awake. Do You bumps in with some crashing drums but the synths and piano chords gradually take it to more chilled territories- heavy waves crashing on shores followed by smaller, gentler ones maybe. 

The Body is full of fluid, liquid bass and gently rippling synthlines, a voice occasionally muttering something, like hearing someone when you're half asleep. The Undiscovered Shore is all ambient beauty, layers of drones and notes falling like water droplets, seagulls squawking and then more piano. Another voice, this one talking about rescue, and six very lovely minutes of drift. You can get The Undiscovered Shore here. 

Keep The Mystique

The Secret Soul Society operate out of South Wales, the name for the music of Cal Gibson. Cal relocated to South Wales from Nottingham after spending much of the 2000s making music as half of Neon Heights. He picked up and plugged back in after some time away from music and now has a new album out on Hell Yeah!. Keep The Mystique is fifteen tracks long exploring a variety of styles and sounds, each track a contrast to the one that came before it. There's an off kilter nature to The Secret Soul Society, a wonky, psychedelic edge to the songs, music that draws from dub, house, jazz, soul, reggae, Afro- funk and various points in between. There are snippets of songs/ samples/ sounds dropped in and out that give the album a kaleidoscopic quality; there's always something always going on on the edges that makes the ears prick up. 

Keep The Mystique opens with a smooth one- two, the songs Cards On The Table and The Island gliding by. Third track Searching steps things up a gear, a slightly faster pace and dubby bassline pushing on, while a guitar twangs away and a voice repeats the line, 'I've been searching for you everywhere'. 

The second half of the album has a run of songs that struck chords with me, songs that are trippy, wigged out fun. Freak Scene (not a cover of the Dinosaur Jr song of the same name) is bouncy and percussive, equal parts tropical dance music and dubby house.

Whoop Whoop is a joy, several minutes of loopy, cosmic Balearica, a lighter than air feeling bottled and played over a driving two note synthbass, with splashes, whooshes and other found sound exotica dropped in and out. 

Bang The Bongo is bongos (obvs), rattling rhythms and hand drums joined by synths, keys and chanting. Keep The Mystique can be bought and listened to at Bandcamp. 
 

Forty Five Minutes Of Hardway Bros Remixes

After A Love From Outer Space at the Golden Lion in Todmorden last night and yesterday's ALFOS post I thought Sean Johnston in Hardway Bros mode would be a good subject for a Sunday mix. I first attempted it weeks ago but for some reason lost the mix- the lost mix is always the best version. Then, trying again more recently, I tried to bite off more than I could chew, including remixes old and new and some of Hardway Bros original music, while trying to keep it around forty five minutes (much of Sean's music, remixes and original, comes in at ten minutes long). I went back to the drawing board, decided to only use remixes this time around and sling together a bag of cosmic chug, house/ disco/ dub and indie- dance- there's a transition in this which is a bit untidy but I've left it as it is. There are so many more remixes that could have been included here. Something to come back to at a future date. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Hardway Bros Remixes

• The Secret Soul Society x Hardway Bros: Yo We've Landed (Hardway Bros Remix Redux)
• Islandman: Godless Ceremony (Hardway Bros Remix)
• Marshall Watson and Cole Odin: Just A Daydream Away (Hardway Bros Remix)
• Out Cold: Lovin' Arms (Hardway Bros Remix)
• Peak High: Was That All It Was (Hardway Bros Remix)
• Aimes: A Star... In The Sky (Hardway Bros Remix)

The Secret Soul Society Yo We've Landed came out in 2021, one of many remixes Sean did that year, Secret Soul's Cal Gibson's head spinning psychedelia bent into disco- dub shapes. 

Islandman's Godless Ceremony came out earlier this year, psychedelic Turkish folk/ dance music turned into wobbly, chiming indie- dance. 

Marshall Watson and Cole Odin's Just A Daydream Away came out just a few weeks ago, another slice of indie- dance Hardway remix heaven. 

Out Cold's Lovin' Arms came out back in 2013. Out Cold is Simon Aldred who was also Cherry Ghost. When I posted this remix about a decade ago Sean saw the post and said he'd forgotten he'd even done the remix. Classic house sound and feel on this one. 

Peak High's cover of the Jean Carne's disco classic Was That All It Was came out at the tail end of last year and I played it and both of Sean's remixes to death including on a car journey at Christmas where my daughter Eliza said she'd heard it, all three versions, so much she never wanted to hear it again. 

Aimes' A Star... In The Sky was a 2020 release about which I know very little other than it came out on 12" and Sean's remix kicks like a mule- dark, spaced out cosmic techno. 

Yo, We've Landed

We were in Liverpool for a couple of days at the end of last week, a city I know well having been a student there between 1988 and 1991 and being a fairly regular visitor ever since. We spent some time wandering round, looking at streets and places almost unchanged in the last three decades and other parts of the city pretty much unrecognisable. Liverpool has an edge to it, a stubbornness, and I like the fact that no matter how much gentrification takes place and how much money gets thrown at various parts of the city centre, it refuses to play ball completely. 

On Rodney Street there is a graveyard next to St. Andrew's Church containing this pyramid tomb, supposedly the last resting place of William MacKenzie who died in 1851. McKenzie was a gambler and according to legend he left instructions that he be buried sitting at a card table, a winning hand clutched in his deceased paw. Further stories say that his body was interred, an attempt to cheat the devil out of attaining his soul that he forfeited in a game of cards. Naturally, or rather supernaturally, the rumours persisted that his ghost haunts the graveyard and wanders round Rodney Street late at night. More info here . 

Yo, We've Landed, a collaboration between The Secret Soul Society and Hardway Bros has been released digitally with a Hardway Bros redux remix, a chugging, dubby, disco- tinged adventure, layers of noise like strata in rock formations- its all quite psychedelic and (in a good way) messy, head spinning sounds with a foot on the floor. Buy here.