Twenty One Minutes Of Two Minute Tracks

I had an idea that I would do a Sunday mix of all those short electronic/ ambient tracks that appear on albums, the intros and outros, the bridging tracks, found sounds, brief ambient pieces and short one minute ideas that never got worked up into a full track but that the artist clearly liked. I realised that to make it forty minutes long would require at least twenty tracks and time constraints this week meant that I started the mix but haven't got anywhere near forty minutes- it's just shy of twenty one minutes, fourteen tracks from a variety of sources. I need to give it more thought really and gather together some more and either do a part two or expand this one out but in the meantime, here it is...

Twenty One Minutes Of Two Minute Tracks

I decided early on that two minutes was the cut off (although there are a couple here which just tip over that time). I was going to go totally beatless but that didn't work out. It's almost completely without vocals too. I wasn't sure it all worked but playing it back last night I was pretty happy with it. An expanded edition/ part two is definitely on the cards. 

• A Man Called Adam: Easter Song (Gospel Oak FX)
• Two Lone Swordsmen: Tiny Reminder No. 1
• Four Tet: This Is For You
• Sewell And The Gong: MYND
• The Orb: Snowbow
• Ultramarine: A Year From Monday
• A Man Called Adam: Easter Song (Hi- Tech)
• M- Paths: Calm
• Polypores: Mystery Energy Score
• Aphex Twin: Avril 14th (reversed music not audio)
• Pandit Pam Pam: Interludio
• Daniel Avery: First Light
• Sydney Minsky Sargeant: Intro
• Andrew Weatherall: Intro

A Man Called Adam's Easter Song is one of their best, a triumphant piece of optimsitc, life affirming Balearica. In 2017 the duo put out a special edition on Bandcamp to celebrate the song's 20th birthday which came with two new very short versions, the found sound intro of Gospel Oak FX and the ambient with beats of Hi- Tech. Both appear on this mix. 

In 2000 Two Lone Swordsmen released their electronic triple disc opus Tiny Reminders, Weatherall and Tenniswood's pursuit of  techno/ bass purism followed through to its end. Each of the three disc opened with a burst of static/ quiet noise called Tiny Reminder and numbered 1, 2 and 3. 

Four Tet's Sixteen Ocean's was a 2020 highlight, three sides of vinyl that soundtracked those early days of lockdown in March/ April 2020 of that year. This Is For You is one of five short tracks on it- the others are Hi Hello, ISTM, 1993 Band Practice and Bubbles At Overlook 25th March 2019- any/ all of which I was going to include here and didn't.

Sewell And The Gong's Patron Saint Of Elswhere is one of my favourite albums of 2025, a Balearic  folk/ motorik beauty with MYND a short one minute fourteen seconds of sound sandwiched between much longer excursions. 

The Orb tend to do long tracks. Snowbow is from 2005's Okie Dokie It's The Orb On Kompakt, an album I only found recently and have been enjoying. Snowbow is the closing track, two minutes and fourteen seconds.

A Year From Monday gave me the idea for this mix. It's on an album of Ultramarine recordings from 1997/ 8 that sat unreleased until this year. I posted it a few Monday's ago and listening to it in the car I wondered how it would work with a load of other very short tracks around it. 

M- Paths' Calm was on their album Hope, released on Mighty Force in 2023, a rippling melody line and drums. 

Polypores released an album in June, Cosmically A Shambles. I posted a song from it on Friday. The slightly hyperactive and bleepy Mystery Energy Score is in the middle of the album and this mix. I couldn't decide if its energy was a good change of pace or not and nearly took it out. In the end I thought it just about worked.

Aphex Twin's Avril 14th is his most streamed track, a Satie like piano piece smothered in reverb. THis version, the music reversed not audio version, is from user18081971's Soundcloud page, widely acknowledged to be Richard D James' outlet for all manner of unreleased music. 

Pandit Pam Pam is from Sao Paulo, Brazil. Interludio is from Dot, an EP from January this year, six tracks recorded while caring for a young baby, Diogo. 

First Light is the opening track on Daniel Avery's Song For Alpha, a 2018 album that was the start of a run of outstanding albums that isn't over yet. One minute and forty seconds of wodnerful ambient drones. 

Sydney Minsky Sargeant's album Lunga came out last week, an autumn 2025 highlight. Intro is the opening track (obviously), a short ambient piece that eases us into Lunga. And out of this mix.

Andrew Weatherall's Intro was the very short first track on Convenanza. 'I seem to have got in with the wrong crowd', the voice says, setting Andrew's stall out. 

The Flightpath Estate And The Crescents

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fifty Four

I am 54 today- and all of a sudden the mid- fifties have arrived. I have tried to put together a number 54 based Sunday mix. It turns out 54 isn't a particularly popular musical number. As so often happens Mr Weatherall came to my rescue along with The Clash and a very famous and debauched New York nightclub and a blinding reggae song. This mix is as a result somewhat varied stylistically and gets even more random towards the end- maybe that's a metaphor for one's 50s.

Forty Five Minutes Of Fifty Four

• Grace Jones: Nightclubbing
• Tom Tom Club: Genius Of Love
• The Clash: Ivan Meets G.I. Joe
• Two Lone Swordsmen: Shack 54 (Joe Mckechnie Remix)
• Patrick Cowley and Sylvester: Menergy (Rich Lane 'Too Hard' Cotton Dub)
• Big Audio Dynamite II: The Globe (Studio 54 Remix)
• The Velvet Underground: I Can't Stand It (2014 version)
• The Rolling Stones: All Down The Line
• Toots And The Maytals: 54- 46 That's My Number

Studio 54 was a New York nightclub located at 254 West 54th Street, midtown Manhattan. It was converted from a theatre to a club in 1977 and for a while was the world's premier disco nightclub, a place with a famously loose approach to sex, drugs and extravagance. It had apparently the world's most difficult entry policy but once in 'the dancefloor was a democracy'. A list of Studio 54's celebrity clientele includes Grace Jones, Woody Allen, Bianca Jagger, Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol, Bowie, Cher, John Lennon, Diana Ross, Lou Reed, John Travolta, Margaret Trudeau, Divine, Farrah Fawcett, Faye Dunaway, Jack Nicolson, Liza Minelli, Rick James and many more. Some of those people were thusly shoehorned into my mix above. Chic famously were turned away at the door and went home and wrote Freak Out, a disco track which started with the phrase 'Fuck You!' chanted as the chorus instead of the eventual title. 

Grace Jones, a Studio 54 devotee, released her album Nightclubbing in 1981, an early 80sunk/ reggae/ post- punk/ new wave/ disco masterpiece, recorded at Compass Point in the Bahamas. The title track is a cover of Iggy Pop's 1977 song, an ode to numbed out nighttime adventures on the floor. It's Grace's birthday today as well- happy 76th birthday Grace.

Tom Tom Club's Genius Of Love is also from 1981, a brilliant slice of New York post- disco/ synth- pop/ art rap that nods its head to a cast of black musicians- James Brown, Sly and Robbie, Hamilton Bohannon, George Clinton, Bootsy Collins and Bob Marley- and was a big tune at Studio 54. Its creators, Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz only went a couple of times, they claim, preferring the Mudd Club or Danceteria. 

The Clash went to Studio 54 once and Joe Strummer said they were observed by the Warhol crowd like animals in a cage. Joe wrote The Beautiful People Are Ugly Too about the experience. Ivan Meets G.I. Joe is from Sandinista!, and includes the line 'so you're on the floor at 54', imagining the Cold War as a competition on the nightclub's dancefloor, a Soviet- America disco face off, sung by Topper Headon. It's not my favourite Clash song but it fits this mix. 

Shack 54 was on Two Lone Swordsmen's Wrong Meeting Part 2, a 2007 album with Weatherall and Tenniswood by this pint deep into live rock 'n' roll/ garage rockabilly territory. It was great fun, Andrew once again turning on a sixpence and wrong footing people who expected him to keep doing the same thing. This remix of Shack 54 by Joe Mckechnie is I think unreleased. 

Patrick Cowley and Sylvester were both Studio 54 attendees. For his Cotton Dub edit Rich Lane ramps up the campness and Hi NRG to the max on a song that wasn't exactly lacking in either. 

Big Audio Dynamite II's The Globe was the best single the second incarnation of the band released, a  1991 single that samples Mick's most well known Clash riff. It was a Mick Jones and Gary Stonnage co- write and produced by Mick and Andre Shapps (making both of them related to current Tory Minister Grant Shapps, a man I sincerely hope loses his seat and his deposit come election day).  The Studio 54 remix adds some disco strings and keys and has never been officially released but is on the bootleg series The B.A.D. Files. 

The Velvet Underground have Studio 54 connections via Lou Reed and Andy Warhol but there's a big disconnect between the sound of the Velvets and Studio 54 so really this was just an excuse to shoehorn in this 2014 version of a Lou reed song that should be played daily by everyone, Lou and Sterling taking the Bo Diddey beat and rhythm guitar to its logical limit. The part where Lou counts down from 8 is among my favourite moments on any song. 

Bianca Jagger once rode into Studio 54 on the back of a white horse, an eye- opening way to celebrate one's birthday (a party for Bianca thrown by fashion designer Halston). Bianca later said she didn't ride the horse to or in the club, she just sat on its back once it was already inside. I was going to say, with a knowing smirk, hey, we've all been there- but then I remembered that at the Golden Lion last November at the end of a night David Holmes played at the pub there was a horse at the bar having a pint with its owner, so actually, maybe we have all been there. Bianca was married to Mick from 1970 to 1978, a period The Stones made their final absolute classic album, 1973's Exile On Main Street from which All Down The Line is one of four superb songs that make up the album's fourth side. 

Toots And The Maytals released reggae classic 54- 46 Was My Number in 1968. 54- 46 was Toots' prison number when he was jailed for possession of marijuana and for the next 365 day trip around the sun, 54 is my number. 

Stay Down

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

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

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

We Discordians (Must Stick Apart)

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

Forty Six Minutes Of Twenty Three

Two months ago this weekend, the day before we were taking Eliza back to Liverpool for her final year in university, the three of us were sitting in a cafe in Didsbury village, one of our afternoon walk and a brew haunts. Eliza said, out of nowhere, 'I think we should all go and get a number 23 tattoo for Isaac'. Lou and I looked at each other and both said, 'yeah. ok'. It was very spontaneous, none of us ever really thought abut getting a tattoo before. Me and Eliza had joked about but very much in a 'we won't ever do this' kind of way. But at that moment it suddenly seemed like a good thing to do. Unfortunately the tattoo parlour in Sale couldn't fit us in on the day so we booked in for a month later- it felt like something the three of us should do together and Eliza didn't want to come back from Liverpool for a while. It also gave us some time to think about fonts and parts of the body.

The number 23 has become associated with Isaac. I've written about it before this year. He was 23 when he died and his birthday is the 23rd November (just a couple of weeks away now with the 2nd anniversary of his death a week later). In the last year the number 23 has kept appearing in front of me- on street signs, graffiti, electricity boxes, random tv countdown shows suddenly channel surfed onto, the only available table in a pub. I don't think it necessarily means anything- it's just something I've started noticing and when I see a 23 now it makes me think of him and smile. Getting a 23 tattoo might trigger the same reaction (and a month later, I'm happy to say it does). We got the tattoos done a month ago. Mine is pictured above, a type writer font on my forearm. Lou got a smaller 23 on her side and Eliza got an even smaller, fine line 23 on her upper arm. 

The number 23 has a rich history. I've written before as well about it's part in KLF mythology, with their interest in Discordianism and numerology. When Isaac died I was reading John Higgs' book about The KLF. A few weeks after he died I picked the book back up and the first chapter I read was about the significance of 23. I finished the chapter and put the book down, totally freaked about. I read it again the next day and it had a similar effect. When I was looking at fonts for my tattoo I thought about a KLF block 23 but it would very inky and take some time to do. I fancied a type writer font. On the morning we were due to go I suddenly wondered what 23 would look like in a factory/ Peter Saville font and started going through my various Factory art books. What, I asked myself, was Fac 23? A quick search later and I realised Fac 23 was the 7" release of Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division. Which caused me to stop in my tracks for a moment. In the end I didn't quite go full Peter Saville Fac font but it played a part in my thinking. We're all really glad we got them done. At the moment, all autumn chilliness and long sleeves, its often covered up, but when I see it, it makes me smile. The upcoming anniversaries are weighing quite heavily and I'll be glad to get November over with- but the tattoos feel like a positive and I'm not sure a year ago I'd thought that would be possible. 

This mix is 46 minutes of songs connected to the number 23. I was going to bring it in at 23 minutes but that felt too short so went for double 23. Two of the songs below were also released in full 23 minute versions which felt too long for a Sunday mix but they're here in shorter versions to represent their 23 minute long brothers. 

46 Minutes Of 23

• Chris Rotter And The Bad Meat Club: 86'd
• 10:40: Sleepwalker
• Local Psycho And The Hurdy Gurdy Orchestra: The Hurdy Gurdy Song (Mothers Of The New Stone Age Remix)
• 23 Skidoo: Coup
• Jah Division: Jah Will Tear Us Apart
• The Vendetta Suite: Eye In The Triangle
• Two Lone Swordsmen: 23rd Street
• Mogwai: U235
• Gorillaz: Aries
• Psychic TV: Godstar
• The KLF: 3am Eternal

Chris Rotter was the guitarist in the live band incarnation of Two Lone Swordsmen and played on and co- wrote songs on Andrew Weatherall's solo album A Pox On The Pioneers. I became friends with Chris online and then in real life. When Isaac died he wanted to record a song for Isaac. I asked him to do 86'd, a song I heard Andrew play on a radio show, a glorious chiming krauty instrumental. Chris went and re- recorded 86'd in new form, 23 minutes long. For reasons of space I've included the shorter one here. The full length 86'd (For Isaac) is here. 

Last December Jesse represented the entire 10:40 back catalogue as an advent calendar. This was the track for the 23rd December, the sleek psych and somewhat krauty Sleepwalker with Ben Lewis on guitar.

The KLF and the number 23 I've mentioned above. Read John Higgs' Chaos, Magic And The Band Who Burned A Million Pounds for more detail. Local Psycho And The Hurdy Gurdy Orchestra are ex- KLF Jimmy Cauty and ex- Pogue Jem Finer. Their hurdy gurdy, neolithic celebration drone came out on 12" came out earlier this year complete with a 23 minute mix. I've included the shorter remix here but the 23 minute version is the one really. 

23 Skidoo are here for obvious reasons. Coup is a block rocking post- punk/ punk funk track from 1984. In a further Andrew Weatherall connection, it was one of the songs on his 9 O' Clock Drop compilation from 2000. 

Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart, as I said above, was Fac 23. Factory's numbering system was central to their ethos. All Joy Division and New Order singles ended in 3. Rather than include the original I decided to put Jah Division's dub cover in- it fitted better. Jah Division released an EP of four dub covers of Joy Division songs  in 2004. If you ever see a vinyl copy, please give me a ring. 

The Vendetta Suite are from Northern Ireland, the work of Gary Irwin. In 2017 Gary released an EP titled Solar Lodge 23 from which this piece of cosmic dubbiness is taken. 

Two Lone Swordsmen- yes, them again- released their first record in 1996, a 12" that contained four tracks- Big Man On The Landing, Azzolini, The Branch Brothers and the one here, 23rd Street, a few minutes of abstract Swordsmen sounds. 

Mogwai's move into soundtrack work has paid off. This is from the soundtrack to Atomic, a bit of a cheat maybe numerically but 23's in there and the track fits.

Gorillaz have played with the number 23 frequently in their imagery and artwork. This song Aries was a single in 2020 and has the unmistakeable and melancholic/ uplifting sound of Peter Hook's bass at its heart.  

Psychic TV, Genesis P Orridge's experimental psychedelic/ acid house band had some interest in 23. In 1986 they began a series of gigs to be recorded and released, 23 in total, each played on the 23rd of a month for 23 consecutive months. Godstar is a single from 1985, a tribute to Rolling Stone Brian Jones.

The KLF's 3am Eternal was the second of their stadium house trilogy, released in 1991 (after a previous version in 1989 and a subsequent one in 1992). The version here, the 1991 single and chart topper, took this mix to 46 minutes. 

Weatherall Remix Friday Fifteen

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

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

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

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

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

Gone (First Night Without Charge)

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

Gone (Second Night Without Charge)

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

Weatherall Remix Friday Fourteen

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

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

Clarisse- C (Two Lone Swordsmen Hor Fen Mix)

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

Clarisse- C (Two Lone Swordsmen Double Mutator Mix)

Weatherall Remix Friday Thirteen

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

Come Together (Two Lone Swordsmen Mix)

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

The Oxford

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Weatherall Remix Friday Eleven

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

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

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

Sinking (Two Lone Swordsmen House Mix)

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

Sinking (Nautical Cosmic Break Mix)

Weatherall Remix Friday Ten

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

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

a [Untitled] (Two Lone Swordsmen Remix)

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

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

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

Weatherall Remix Friday Eight

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

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

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

Weatherall Remix Seven

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

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

Mescal (TLS Dub)

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

Forty Five Minutes Of Beth Orton

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

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

Forty Five Minutes Of Beth Orton

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The First Mission

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

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

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

Extended Branch Brothers

AW60

Today would have been Andrew Weatherall's 60th birthday. His absence is felt very strongly among his family and friends and in the corners of the culture he inhabited. His presence is there too I think, in the open minded spirit of adventure, of finding new music and doing things your own way. Fired up by youthful rebellion, the DIY spirit of punk and acid house and an interest, often obsession, in what was happening on the margins, he was a singular character. In the end, by the time he died in February 2020, he was approaching national treasure status. At the start he was an inexperienced DJ asked to bring his box of 'weird records' down to Shoom. Then he was a novice remixer asked to make something new from an indie rock 'n' roll record (in fact his remixes of Happy Mondays and That Petrol Emotion both pre- date Loaded, as do his remixes Word Of Mouth, Deep Joy and West India Company- the chronology is not entirely clear but all those were released before Loaded). In between 1989 and 2020 he took us on a ride from the Balearic network to techno, from Sabres to Swordsmen, from deep house to rockabilly and 60s garage to the multi- coloured cosmic chug of the 2010s, all of it underpinned by dub. He moved on, working quickly and always looking forwards. The way he became a master in not just one form of electronic music but several is largely unparalleled- not many of his peers could play several hours of dub one night, techno the next and house the third and do it well, brilliantly in fact. 

With Andrew you weren't just buying records either, you were getting into something deeper- he left clues scattered throughout his back catalogue, in song titles and remix names, references to books and artists that you might not pick up on until many years later. You also were not just buying a record. In 2007 he released Wrong Meeting, an album of rockabilly, garage rock and experimental rock 'n' roll with the man himself singing. The album came out on vinyl (at a time when virtually no one was buying vinyl never mind releasing new albums on it), in a box with an illustrated lyric booklet, a t- shirt and a hand signed print (a print of a Weatherall linocut of guitarist Chet Atkins from the cover of his Workshop album). 

There are a series of events taking place during April to celebrate his 60th birthday. Tonight at Fabric in London a host of names will play records/ CDs in several rooms, starting at 11pm and going through until dawn- David Holmes, Daniel Avery, Sean Johnston, Dave Congreave, Adrian Sherwood, Miss Kittin, Fantastic Twin, Radioactive Man, Ivan Smagghe, Manfredas, Optimo and Fi Maguire will all play to rooms full of friends and fans, trying to capture something of the spirit of the man in music. 

Later on this month, in a turn of events which still baffles me at times, I will be part of the birthday celebrations at The Golden Lion in Todmorden. On the Saturday afternoon and evening myself and four other fans/ DJs (Martin, Mark, Dan and Baz) will play support to Timothy J. Fairplay and Justin Robertson as The Flightpath Estate DJs. This blog and my repeated writing about Andrew Weatherall and his music led to this- I like to think in some way reflecting the spirit of Andrew, do what you want to do, create something you love, do it yourself. 

I've put together a mix of songs inspired by Andrew for today. There's so much variety in his life and work you could put together ten mixes and only scratch the surface. His radio shows at 6 Mix and NTS, his Music's Not For Everyone banner that took in goth, garage, rockabilly, 80s indie, cosmic blues and country, rock 'n' roll and punk, where endlessly inspiring and I've tried to reflect some of that in the hour of songs below with one of his songs in the middle. 

AW60 Mix

• The Triffids: Wide Open Road
• Chuck Prophet: Play That Song Again
• Forest Fire: In Shadows
• Grant Hart: You're The Reflection Of The Moon On The Water
• The Dream Syndicate: John Coltrane Stereo Blues
• Dennis Wilson: Carry Me Home
• The Replacements: Sadly Beautiful
• Two Lone Swordsmen: Get Out Of My Kingdom (Demo)
• Rowland S. Howard: She Cried
• White Williams: Route To Palm
• Rose City Band: In The Rain
• The Jesus And Mary Chain: Darklands
• Cowboys International: The 'No' Tune

Wide Open Road was on The Triffids' 1986 album Born Sandy Devotional, an album widely seen as the band's masterpiece. The song is on Andrew's The Black Notebooks YouTube playlists, Volume One of which you can find here. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. You'll find plenty in there to keep you going. 

Chuck Prophet was the guitarist in US roots rockers Green On Red. His solo career included a 2012 album called Temple Beautiful and this song is built around a cracking guitar riff and a load of good one liners- 'You go fight the power/ I'm fighting off a cold'. Andrew played it on one of his Music's Not For Everyone radio shows for NTS that year, a series that were a monthly treat and are missed beyond words, his voice, his wry sense of humour and his song selection. 

Forest Fire were an experimental rock band from New York whose second album Staring At The X came out in 2011. The song here, In Shadows, is superb and much played in my house. The way the rhythms, FXed guitars and vocals merge into one rush of sound hits me every time. Andrew played it on his third Music's Not For Everyone in 2011. 

Grant Hart, ex- Husker Du drummer and solo artist, features in Andrew's Black Notebooks and radio mixes. You're The Reflection Of The Moon On The Water is a blistering wall of guitars and drums with words inspired by the sayings of the Buddha and came out in 2009. Andrew played it while at 6 Mix in March 2010, a show he did with Fuck Buttons as guests. 

The Dream Syndicate's John Coltrane Stereo Blues is an eight minute epic, from their 1984 album Medicine Show. Andrew played it memorably while doing a MNFE set at Terraforma, a music festival held in Italy, in 2017. The fifty minute film of him DJing in sunglasses and 1940s work clothes to a crowd of young, beautifully lit Italians is here. The song appears alongside Fujiya and Miyagi and Moon Duo, sequencing only Andrew would attempt. 'I got some John Coltrane on the stereo baby/ Make you feel alright/ I got some white wine in the freezer mama/ I know what you like/ We gonna learn about love on a three ply rug'

Dennis Wilson's Carry Me Home was recorded in 1973 but didn't make it onto Holland, The Beach Boys album of that year. It is a broken, beautiful funeral blues for a soldier dying in Vietnam. Andrew produced Primal Scream's cover on their 1992 Dixie- Narco EP, ably assisted by Hugo Nicolson. 

Sadly Beautiful is a Paul Westerberg song from The Replacements' 1990 album All Shook Down, a song he wrote with Marianne Faithful in mind. She was supposed to sing it but that never happened so Paul recorded it for All Shook Down instead. By 1990 The Replacements were to all intents and purposes a Paul Westerberg solo project although Tommy Stimson plays bass on much of the record. Sadly Beautiful shows up in Andrew's Black Notebooks and on various tapes he made for friends in the early 90s along with songs from the previous Replacements album, 1989's Don't Tell A Soul. That album is not the group's best, marred by a glossy radio friendly production but some of the songs are classic Westerberg, Achin' To Be, Rock 'n' Roll Ghost and We'll Inherit The Earth among them. Talent Show is a song I've had a weird soft spot for for thirty- five years. 

Get Out Of My Kingdom was perhaps the pinnacle of the final incarnation of Two Lone Swordsmen, the live band, garage/ rock 'n' roll, Andrew on vocals version of the band. I saw them play at Sankey's Soap in 2008 supporting the Wrong Meeting album, the full live band tearing it up in a corner of the club. Sankey's was once the only thing you'd head into Ancoats for, a maze of streets and dilapidated buildings north of city centre Manchester. Andrew commented once that artists are the vanguard of gentrification. Now Ancoats is the place to live/ work/ socialise.

She Cried was on Rowland S. Howard's Teenage Snuff Film, a 1999 album. The former Birthday Party/ Bad Seed was joined by Mick Harvey. They covered Billy Idol's White Wedding on the album. She Cried is itself a cover of a 1961 melodrama single by Teddy Daryll and has been covered by others including Johnny Thunders, Del Shannon and David Hasselhoff (insert your own joke here). The Horrors also borrowed from it on Who Can Say in 2009. She Cried is in Andrew's Black Notebooks playlists. 

Route To Palm is by White Williams, a song that somehow combines both rockabilly and krautrock and is therefore perfectly Weatherall. White Williams is from New York and released the album Smoke in 2008 (on Domino). Andrew played it on his 2009 6 Mix, a legendary show in the Bagging Area which took in Wayne Walker, La Dusseldorf, Andrew's remix of Primal Scream's Uptown, The Glitter Band, his remix of David Holmes' I Heard Wonders and much more besides. Route To Palm turned up on FACT Mix 85 too. 

Rose City Band is one of three groups headed by cosmic guitarist/ singer Ripley Johnson- Wooden Shjips and Moon Duo are the other two. Ripley's music is all over Andrew's radio shows. In The Rain was played on Music's Not For Everyone in 2019. 

Darklands was the title track on The Jesus And Mary Chain's 1987 album and has been selected by Andrew on various occasions- when on tour in Australia and asked to compile his formative influences in 2018 and in an internet article called Five Songs For The End Of The World (or similar) which I can't find right now. 

The 'No' Tune was on a 1979 album by Cowboys International called The Original Sin, a band that included Keith Levene, Terry Chimes and Marco Pirroni in its number. The 'No' Tune was the theme to Andrew's Music's Not For Everyone shows, the chiming guitar line announcing the start of two hours of adventure, two hours of Andrew's Gnostic Sonics. As the guitar notes faded, The 'No' Tune's space lullaby would be replaced by Andrew's voice. 'Huddle round your devices, don your ceremonial robes and headgear...', he would advise, and we'd be off into new territory, music from the past and present sewn together in ways only he could do. 

As such, rather than have the two minutes and forty seconds of The 'No' Tune as an ending, in the spirit of Andrew it should be a beginning, the gateway to music new. Go and find something new today, something from the margins, the edges, the sidelines- and when you do, raise a glass to the man. Happy 60th birthday Andrew.  

An Hour Of Weatherall Covers

We all love a good cover version don't we? The reconstructing of a familiar song in a new form, the buzz of hearing someone do a song differently, irreverently or lovingly, and the nodding of the head to influences and inspirations. At times cover versions can also seem a bit lazy, a way out of writer's block or something thrown together for B-side at a late hour and under pressure, but when done well and with the right intent, they're a joy. 

In two weeks time it would have been Andrew Weatherall's 60th birthday had he lived. There are a series of events taking place nationally throughout April to celebrate this- a full on night at Fabric in London with a huge line up of DJ talent together with nights in Glasgow, Belfast and Todmorden, all places with strong Weatherall connections and crowds. I'll come back to the Todmorden one nearer the time (29th April) with more details but it does include a second ride out for The Flightpath Estate DJ team (which includes yours truly). I expect to run several Weatherall posts over the next few weeks- that's probably not much different to usual round here, he does tend to feature fairly often- and thought I'd kick off with this one, a mix for Sunday of cover versions Andrew either recorded as an artist himself or other other artists he remixed. It is not surprisingly a fairly eclectic bunch of songs and artists. It now occurs to me that I should have put the originals together as a mix too so maybe that will follow at some point a companion piece.

Fifty Five Minutes Of Andrew Weatherall Cover Versions

• Carry Me Home
• Only Love Can Break Your Heart (A Mix Of Two Halves)
• Witchi Tai To (2 Lone Swordsmen Remix)
• The Drum (Andrew Weatherall Remix)
• A Love From Outer Space (Version 2)
• Sex Beat
• Slip Inside This House
• Goodbye Johnny (Andrew Weatherall's Nyabinghi Noir Mix)
• Faux/ Whole Wide World

Carry Me Home is a cover of a Dennis Wilson song from 1973, a wracked funereal blues for a dying soldier in Vietnam that was written for the 1973 album Holland but was left off. 'Life is meant to live/ I'm afraid to die', he sings. Primal Scream's version which Andrew produced is from the Dixie- Narco EP, a very downbeat and beautiful way to pay homage. Andrew and Hugo Nicolson's mix of instruments and production is stunning, Duffy's electric piano at the start and the acoustic guitar and cello in the end section especially so. 

Only Love Can Break Your Heart is a Saint Etienne cover of a Neil Young song. I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that. Andrew's remix sent the song into a dubbed out bliss, Augustus Pablo- esque melodica in the first half (played by Pete Astor of The Weather Prophets), the Jean Binta Breeze dub poetry sample in the middle cutting the track in half, and then the song appearing in the second (along with the Jean 'cool and deadly' sample). 

Witchi Tai To was a 2007 single by X- Press 2, the Two Lone Swordsmen remix adding the live drums of their sound from that period and matching the Wrong Meeting albums of the same year. The original was a a 1971 single by Jim Pepper, a Native American singer and saxophonist who took a peyote chant his grandfather taught him and turned it into a hybrid jazz/ Native American song. X- Press 2's cover was sung by Tim de Laughter of The Polyphonic Spree. 

The Drum was a single for The Impossibles, an Edinburgh duo who made early 90s jangly indie- pop. The original is a Slapp Happy song from 1974. Weatherall's remix, from 1991, is a lesser known one from his early 90s hot streak, a tour de force of throwing whatever is at hand in the studio/ imagination at a remix and it working. Andrew was ably assisted by Hugo Nicolson on this one too. 

A Love From Outer Space was the calling card from the 2013 album by The Asphodells, the outfit he formed with Timothy J. Fairplay after they had bene working together on remixes and their own material and realised they had enough for an album. Andrew's vocals were a big feature of The Asphodells (following on from the Two Lone Swordsmen records of the previous few years where he stepped up to the mic for the first time since the early 80s). A Love From Outer Space also became the name of his traveling club night, with compadre Sean Johnstone, a night never knowingly exceeding 122 bpm. The original song is by late 80s one offs A.R. Kane, a duo of dreads who made spaced out dub/ dreampop. 

Sex Beat was a Two Lone Swordsmen single in 2004 and on the From The Double Gone Chapel album of the same year, a radical shift in sound and style after the pure electro of 2000's Tiny Reminders. Andrew and Keith Tenniswood becoming a garage band with Nick Burton on drums and Chris Mackin on guitar. Sex Beat was such a blast when it came out in 2004, an energetic swerve in the road to somewhere new. Sex Beat was on The Gun Club's 1981 debut Fire Of Love, a blues/ rockabilly/ Southern Gothic classic. Leader, singer and writer Jeffrey Lee Pierce pops up again in this mix in the form of Goodbye Johnny.

Slip Inside This House is a cover of The 3th Floor Elevators song from their 1967 album Easter Everywhere, the second song on Primal Scream's 1991 opus Screamadelica, a juddering statement of acid house intent after the rock n' roll opening of Moving On Up. Hypnotone's Tony Martin was involved in the production of this track too. It was sung by Throb. Bobby Gillespie is said to have bene suffering from 'acid house flu'.

Goodbye Johnny was on Primal Scream's 2013 album More Light. It came from a covers project that paid tribute to Jeffrey Lee Pierce. Weatherall's spaced out remix tips its hat to the Nyabinghi sound of African Head Charge, a big influence on Andrew. 

Faux/ Whole Wide World comes from a Radio One session from 2004. Faux was the first single ahead of From The Double Gone Chapel, a scuzzed up slice of electro- rockabilly, combining rapid programmed drums and fuzz guitars with Weatherall vocals and lyrics about the love of his life, Elizabeth Walker. As a touring band Two Lone Swordsmen had a habit of working Faux into Wreckless Eric's Whole Wide World, a peerless 1977 single. At the time Andrew was recommending the new album then just released by Eric, Bungalow Hi, a record Andrew described as 'like Duane Eddy meets Aphex Twin'. The recording here is ripped from a radio session, never officially released. There was a version on the Rotters Golf Club website for a while too, part of a three song session they recorded playing at the Bloc Weekender. Of all the lyrics that swirl around Andrew's world and outlook, 'I don't do faux', is as good as any. 

Find 'Em

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

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

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

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

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

Locked Swords

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

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

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

Half An Hour Of Calexico

Calexico's dusty, Tex- Mex, border town songs have been lighting up my world since the late 90s and although I've dipped in and out over the years I went back in again for 2018's The Thread That Binds. There's a new one this year I still haven't heard. Joey Burns and John Convertino are based in Tucson, Arizona. They started out in Giant Sand with Howe Gelb and then struck out on their own as Calexico in 1996. Since then they've made thirteen albums and dozens of singles and EPs. Their early records really mined the traditional Latino sounds, mariachi crossed with American indie. Listening to this last night I was struck by how they manage to do despair and joy equally, a feat not all bands can do- from the Mariachi party horns of Crystal Frontier to the hopelessness and loss of Not Even Stevie Nicks, they span the full range of human emotion. 

Half An Hour Of Calexico

• Untitled 3 (Virus Style Mix)
• Minas De Cobre (For Better Metal)
• Not Even Stevie Nicks
• The Black Light
• Track 32 (Corona)
• A History Of Lovers 
• End Of The World With You
• Dub Latino
• Crystal Frontier (Widescreen)
• Alone Again Or

Untitled 3 (Virus Style Mix) is a Two Lone Swordsmen remix from 2001. Calexico returned the favour remixing Tiny Reminders No. 3.

Minas De Cobre (For Better Metal) and The Black Light are both from their 1998 album, The Black Light, a seventeen song introduction to the Calexico border noir world. 

Not Even Stevie Nicks is one of the saddest songs I've ever heard. It and Dub Latina are from their 2003 album Feast Of Wire, their best album in many ways. Track 32 is a cover of Corona by Minutemen, San Pedro's ever inspirational 80s punk rock heroes and was a hidden extra on the CD version. 

A History Of Lovers is from the 2005 mini album they recorded with Iron And Wine, a beautiful country lament. 

End Of The World With You is from 2018's The Thread That Binds, an album that was in part a response to Trump and the right wing, anti- immigrant populism that he peddled while president. 

Crystal Frontier was a single in 2000, a trumpet led celebration of the people that live in the border areas between the US and Mexico and their shifting lives. In 2008 NASA beamed it into space to wake up the crew of the space shuttle. 

Alone Again Or is a cover of Love's 1967 classic, released as a single in 2003. 

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)