What Do The Stars Say To You

The new album by Chicago house and techno legend Ron Trent, What Do The Stars Say To You, is causing a bit of a stir and rightly so- it's a repeat play, engaging, innovative and enchanting record, one that already feels timeless. Across the album's ten tracks (fifteen on CD) Ron Trent uses the studio, electronics and a range of live instruments with a slew of guests and collaborators. Every track is stunning- the production is sumptuous, the synths, instruments and drums perfectly mixed. Taken together, it's a fluid, grown up, richly musical album that has space to breathe and a general sense of wellbeing, that when it's playing, things are ok. 

On an album where every track could be a favourite here's a handful of highlights. Admira, recorded with ambient/ Balearic artist Gigi Masin, starts out slow with drums and cymbals and is suddenly interrupted by discordant synths and a noodly leadline. Gradually it builds, layers of sounds gliding in silkily, hand drums pattering away, toplines picking out melodies from somewhere. By the five minute mark it's weightless, floating off and away. 

On Sphere, created with French violinist Jean- Luc Ponty, the sheer warmth of the production and the dazzling melody lines (violin and synth) hark back to the 80s but also make something that feels very now. It's got jazz and house in its grooves but also something of a smoothed out version of early 80s New York avant noise. 

It's followed by WARM, a sultry, softly padding piece of music with keyboards and guitars going off at different points and an undulating bassline. Nothing stays the same for long and it's all so fresh and lively, endlessly finding new ways to repeat itself. 

The album is full of contributions from others. As well as Ponty and Gigi Masin, there are tracks with Venecia, Brazilian duo Azymuth, Lars Bartkuhn and recent Glastonbury smash hits Khruangbin, and a host of 70s and 80s influences- Tangerine Dream, Herb Alpert, Jan Hammer, Grace Jones, Vangelis, Prince, early Kraftwerk and Dinosaur L all get mentioned by Trent. On Flos Potentia (Sugar, Cotton, Tobacco) Trent and Khruangbin kick up an Afrobeat storm, propulsive grooves and euphoric chords. 

Back in 1990 Ron released Altered States, a definitive piece of US techno, thirteen and a half minutes of kick drums, synth strings, basslines, hi hats and raw but gliding, futuristic techno. He has recorded and released hundreds of records since, a back catalogue deep and wide, but Altered States remains untouchable. 

Altered States

The Most Beautiful Girl In Hackney

Another Top Boy related post following yesterday's Fuck Buttons double bill. At the end of episode three, series one, Sully says to his young daughter, 'You're the most beautiful girl in Hackney y'know', a line I instantly recognised (Sully is played by rapper and grime artist Kano). It took me a moment to pinpoint where I'd heard it before...

Girl

Girl is the final song on Jamie Xx's solo album In Colour from 2015, a dizzying swirl of synths and beats and a voice, chopped up and distorted singing 'I want your love'. The album, seven years old now, is a peach, a thoroughly modern mish mash of samples, voices and songs, spanning the range from bedsit broken heart laptop ballads (like Loud Places) to massive club tunes (such as Gosh). As well as the line of dialogue from Top Boy Girl samples Brian Wilson and Freeze's I.O.U.

Loud Places, with vocals from his Xx bandmate Romy, was remixed by John Talabot twice. This one is the pick of the pair, a stunning ten minute remix that builds gradually but incessantly, synths and voices climbing euphorically, drums padding softly and then a part of Romy's vocal- 'Didn't I take you to/ Higher places, you can't reach without me?' The second half, after six minutes, takes off elsewhere with the bassline leading and Romy's vocal shifting to breathy mutterings about ecstasy and, in a kiss off moment, not being around when he/ she/ they come down. 

Loud Places (John Talabot's Higher Dub)

Sweet Love

We've been watching Top Boy recently, all four series, back to back. Set in a fictional north London housing estate in Hackney called Summerhouse and detailing the lives of its residents, Top Boy is centred mainly around two young men, Dushane and Sully, who make a living selling drugs. The first two series were on Channel 4 in 2011 and 2013. After that it was dropped and then picked up by rapper Drake and Netflix and two further series were made, one in 2019 and the fourth this year (with one more underway now). One of the episodes at the end of series one saw the tension rising, violence between drug gangs increasing and lives being ended or ruined, quickly and brutally, and the unmistakeable twinkling sounds of this track began to play, looped a little, fading in and out as the drama unfolded. 

Sweet Love For Planet Earth

Fuck Buttons released Sweet Love For Planet Earth on their Street Horsing album back in 2008, a monstrous piece of post rave/ post rock melodic noise, the sound of continents colliding and planets crashing into each other. It's a monumental piece of music, building to a chaotic conclusion. The same year they put out a 12" single of Colours Move with an Andrew Weatherall remix of Sweet Love... on the B-side. 

Sweet Love For Planet Earth (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

Weatherall keeps the strange and beautiful melodies and the sheets of noise while welding a huge rhythm underneath, a crunching kick drum and throbbing bassline and lets everything go on and on, in ever whirling circles, building the tension before a heart stopping pause and re- entry at four minutes forty. It's the far end of the arc of a curve he stated back in 1991 with his remix of Soon for My Bloody Valentine, noise refitted for weirded out dancefloors. Exhilarating stuff. 

Monday's Long Song

Out last year but new to me (via David Holmes playing it on the June edition of God's Waiting Room at NTS) is this vinyl only four track EP by Berlin's Alex Kassian. The long songs for today are both on the B-side, the sumptuous Spirit Of Eden. Long and lightheaded electronic joy, dub teetering into jazz/ deep house, beautiful melodies and floating production, Spirit Of Eden is the sort of thing that for the duration it spins, totally transports you somewhere else- and that's exactly what we want music to do sometimes isn't it?

The 12" follows Spirit Of Eden with a Bill Laswell dub which at eight and a half minutes is slightly longer and taken at a slower tempo with a lovely flute part that comes and goes as the refrain from the original drifts in and out. 

Half An Hour Of Spacemen 3

Pontins at Prestatyn, North Wales, has hosted all sorts of weekenders over the years from soul weekenders in the 80s to Northern Soul and Motown revival nights to an 80s weekender taking place there this very weekend, featuring in no particular order Chesney Hawkes, Black Lace, Aswad and Sonia (poor Aswad, how did they get mixed up in that?). To the best of my knowledge Spacemen 3 never played Pontins in Prestatyn but they did play a health spa in not too distant Chester in the late 80s with spectacular results (an event described in bassist Will Carruthers' book, Playing Bass With Three Left Hands), an evening where a group more familiar with opiates were introduced to ecstasy for the first time and played one of their best gigs. 

This Sunday half hour mix takes in Spacemen 3's dreamier, spacier, more ecstatic songs, less of the supercharged Stooges influenced sound and more of the 'lie back and think of Rugby' grooves, selected from their three albums- 1987's The Perfect Prescription, 1989's Playing With Fire and the final album 1991's Recurring (released after they'd split with Sonic Boom and J Spaceman unable to work together in the studio and taking a side of the album each), plus a lovely recent re- edit by Jesse Fahnestock's 10:40.  

Half An Hour Minutes Of Spacemen 3

• Ecstasy Symphony/ Transparent Radiation
• Just To See You Smile
• How Does It Feel? (10:40's Terrace Moonshine Dub)
• Big City (Everybody I Know Can Be Found Here)
• Ode To Street Hassle
• I Love You

Saturday Theme Sixteen

Today's Saturday theme is one of the great Theme records, a song which turned spring 1988 upside down- a joyous, ecstatic, sampledelic splash of neon colours, smiley face, acid house crossover mayhem. A song guaranteed to fill a dancefloor, at any occasion, still. Theme From S'Express is one of the best records of the 80s and if I was forced to put together a list of my favourite fifty singles (or something similar) it would undoubtedly feature highly. 

Theme From S'Express

Mark Moore and Pascal Gabriel constructed the track largely out of samples. Moore was a DJ, Gabriel a producer (who had recently co- written Bomb The Bass' hit Beat Dis, another sample- heavy smash in both the clubs and the charts). Moore turned up with a bag of records, they sequenced the parts they wanted onto cassette and turned everything up to ten. 

A few years ago at his A History Of Dubious Taste blog Jez pulled together the songs that provided Mark Moore with his source material which is where I got most of the mp3s I've used for what follows. I've attempted to sequenced the songs that S'Express sampled for Theme From S'Express into one continuous mix- it was a bit of a challenge, getting the sequence and the segues somewhere near right. It starts and finishes with some spoken word science fiction, goes all disco and New York, borrows from acts as diverse as Sam The Sham and Gil Scott Heron, some early 80s synthpop and the genuinely jaw dropping, X rated Tales Of Taboo by Karen Finley, a song that once heard is never forgotten. 

Theme From S'Express Samples Mix

• Laura Olsher: The Martian Monsters
• Rose Royce: Is It Love You're After?
• Peech Boys: Don't Make Me Wait
• TZ: I Got The Hots For You
• Gil Scott Heron and Brian Jackson: The Bottle
• Crystal Glass: Crystal World
• Alfredo de la Fe: Hot To Trot
• Sam The Sham And The Pharaohs: Oh, That's Bad, No That's Good
• Debbie Harry: Feel The Spin
• Karen Finley: Tales Of Taboo
• Stacey Q: Two Of Hearts
• Yazoo: Situation
• Gene Roddenbury: The Star Trek Dream

This Is Something

At the tail end of last year Sean Johnston released a cover of Willow's Song, the haunting, freaked out folk song from The Wicker Man, recording as The Suummerisle Trio. It came out as a 7" on Golden Lion Sounds, vinyl only but you can listen to it here. The Trio were/ are Sean, Duncan Grey and singer Sarah Rebecca. 

Sean's now expanded the trio to a six piece, pulling in Andy Bell on guitar, Jo Bartlett on vocals (from It's Jo And Danny), Kevin Sharkey (ex- Undertones and That Petrol Emotion) and Mick Somerset Ward on sax (Clock DVA, Crooked Man). On top of that line up he's got Rico Conning in on remix duties (ex- Torch Song, the early 80s electro- ambient outfit he started with William Orbit). The resulting song is a shift on again, into late 80s/ early 90s territory with a pulsing sequencer line, a thumping, propulsive groove, spacey sound and Jo's vocal soaring on top and the sax skronking away inside the mix, a sort of indie- dance/ disco/ acid house synthesis. The full extended mix is eight minutes, an end of the night anthem. The dub mix is a beauty too. Rico's remix ten minutes of Balearic splendour. It came out on 12" a couple of months ago and is now available digitally on Sean's new label Outre- Mer- you can listen and buy here. 

There Goes The Cure

I started bereavement counselling in April, a session a week for eight weeks. It came to an end yesterday with my final session. I didn’t go into counselling expecting that it could in some way ‘fix’ me- there’s no cure for bereavement, grief and loss. Isaac’s death will always be there and that’s that in a way, what we have to do is learn to live with it and try to find a way to rebuild our lives without him. Bereavement counselling also isn’t the type of counselling where there is a flash of light as everything shifts, or falls into place or suddenly a new path becomes clear- at least that’s my experience. It has been a weekly opportunity for an hour to talk about ‘it’- Isaac, grief and loss, life going on and all the other stuff that starts to bleed in- with someone who is trained to listen and to prompt and question (at times). It’s been useful as somewhere to drop all my emotional stuff once a week. I think I’ll miss it now it’s gone but am probably better equipped to manage without it. It has helped me untangle some of the thoughts, find my way through them- and my counsellor has been really good at helping me do that. 

Our bereavement counselling has been provided by MacMillan. Their counselling (staffed by volunteers mainly) is available for any adults who have suffered a bereavement, it doesn’t have to be cancer related. I don’t think this is widely known. The occupational health team connected to my workplace didn’t know this. This also confirms to me the state of affairs at the moment. My referral for counselling to our local health care trust brought me to an assessment quite quickly but I was then advised that an appointment for counselling through the NHS could take ‘up to three months’- they don’t have the staff or the budget to see anyone quicker than that unless they are suicidal. Charities like MacMillan step in to the gap of an underfunded and under resourced NHS.

One of the most unpleasant side effects of grief, particularly present back in the period from January through to April, was a series of flashbacks I suffered. When Isaac died the three of us were with him. The consultant who had seen many people die from Covid told us what would happen and it was largely as he described. In Isaac’s last hour we were sitting on his hospital bed with him. I was sitting facing him, holding his hands and looking at him. When the moment came I was right in front of him and with him, looking at him. For some time afterwards, I would unexpectedly get flashbacks to the moment he died. They started happening on Tuesdays- Tuesday was the day he died- and would often come when I was driving. For an instant I was back in the room, holding his hands and looking at his face. I would smell the room and feel the pain. They would pass fairly quickly but for the moment the flashback was present, it was deeply unsettling and very unpleasant. I started to dread Tuesday mornings. Once it got past 12.45pm (the time he died) I would be ok, it would pass, but then I’d be waiting for the next Tuesday. When I started counselling in April I described all of this in one of my early sessions (the woman I spoke to from occupational health at around that time said the flashbacks were 'rather concerning' and commonly associated with PTSD). A few weeks ago, on an evening in early May as I pulled onto the motorway to drive to Tuesday night 5- a- side, I had a horrific flashback, the full on ‘back in the room’ experience. It left me short of breath, completely overwhelming me, knocking the wind out of me. Luckily the motorway was quiet and it passed quickly, I focussed on the road and sort of pushed it away. When I pulled in at the car park I got my phone out and wrote it down as a note, just described what had happened. I talked about it at counselling two days later and last week we went back to it and discussed strategies for dealing with it. We talked about it again yesterday and the realisation I haven't had one now for some time and about how I'd deal with one if I did. I haven’t had one since that one in May. Maybe the counselling, the talking, the passing of time and the acceptance has helped. 

I don’t mind some of the aspects of grief. That sounds weird I know. As time goes on and the raw, physical pain lessens, redcues as a permanent feature of living, as a day to day emotional state There are times and triggers when the crashing waves of grief and loss still come. Visiting Isaac’s grave does it. When we go, the sheer enormity of what has happened, of him dying, hits me anew (not every time but most). There are little things that trigger it: a photo popping up in my social media memories; the memory of somewhere we went or something we did; an encounter with someone who we haven’t seen since he died or who didn’t know; a memory of him randomly crossing my mind. When it comes I let it happen, I don’t try to suppress it. I almost welcome the fact that even now, nearly seven months on, it can poleaxe me, take my breath away, cause me to gulp and well up. It provides a link to him. I can feel it and then come up out of it, almost like diving into water and then getting resurfacing as you get through the surface and breathe air again. My counsellor described finding something to ground yourself at these moments, something tangible. The pain feels real and then it passes. 

Counselling has helped me with all of this. There’s no cure for what’s happened. It becomes a matter of accepting it and finding ways of coping. I’m relieved the flashbacks seem to have gone for the moment. Some of the other physical symptoms remain- the tinnitus is still present first thing in the morning and at occasions where it’s silent and I suddenly notice that my ears are ringing. My jaw clenching and tooth grinding is still there but also lessened, less acute than before. Sleep is still a bit hit and miss at times. But we agreed yesterday at the end of my final session that I've made progress- the fact that other, day to day stuff has become a bit more pre- occupying suggest that I'm moving on in some way, thoughts of Isaac and the grief are not ever-present like they were. She said there's still a 'heaviness' about me but I've come a long way from the person who turned up at the first session back in April. And that is good. 

There Goes The Cure

This 1993 song by One Dove with Andrew Weatherall on magic dust sprinkling  and production duties suggested itself to me while writing this post. Listening to it as I finished tidying the post up I thought it might be too close to the bone, and lyrically it is almost too much... 

'One cut too many/ One more life to go... losing a shadow/ Losing another soul/ So many echoes/ He's gone'. 

Tears come, again. But it fits very well and with those pianos and the post acid house/ comedown production, and that part where the dubby bass pushes its way through especially, it also feels like dawn has come and there might be a way forward after all. 

The Chill Out Tent

There are a slew of interesting and musically wide ranging compilation albums hitting the shelves at the moment, both digital and physical releases, so much music that it feels difficult to keep up sometimes. In recent weeks I've been delving into various Various Artist albums- Luke Una presents E Soul Cultura, the Spun Out Agency's More Of That Frightful Oompty Bumpty Music, Paul Hillery's We Are The Children Of The Sun and The Chill Out Tent Volume 1 to name but four. Eventually I'll get round to posting something about each of these, but I'll start today with the last one- The Chill Out Tent Volume 1. 

The 1990s/ early 2000s really marred the chill out compilation CD. More often than not just an excuse for some identikit blandness to play in a bar while wearing bad sunglasses- it became a very debased concept, piles of double CDs destined for bargain bins in motorway service stations. The Chill Out Tent compilation, put together by the Chill Out Tent crew, is a very strong attempt to renew the concept with a twelve track album of Balearic/ dance/ dub/ reggae tracks, based around what they call 'acid house hippy'. There's so much to enjoy inside it the compilation- all exclusive to the album- from opening pair of songs onwards, starting out with the sitars and dub burblings of Calm's Summer Night Dream and the Uptown Top Ranking sampling of Turbotito's To Feel In Love. Balearic DJ and producer Chris Coco contributes remixes and versions on six of the twelve songs with his remix of Sauco's Sun Goddess and a collaboration with Hear And Now both already sounding like high summer and his remix of Projections Original Cell is drifting, ambient/ Balearic bliss (I've posted some of Projections music before here). The album finishes with a song from Mallorca by Joan Bibiloni, five minutes of sounds to watch the sun go down to- whistles, hand drums, Spanish guitar, synths. Nottingham's Balearic duo Coyote are on there too. Home Grown is a beauty, slowly edging forward with keys and padded drums, in no hurry to get to it's destination. 

The Chill Out Tent Volume 1 can be bought here, out in full at the start of July. 

Earlier this year Coyote released a new EP on French label Citizens Of Vice, two new tracks- As The Crow Flies and Steely Dad (song title of the year alert). It came with some remixes including this one of As The Crow Flies by Chris Coco, which has some of the most heart tugging, happy/ sad piano chords you'll have the pleasure of hearing today. Buy it here if you're so inclined.

Acid Solstice

I found an old mp3 player recently- not even an iPod but one produced by Creative- and wondered if it still worked. Charged it up, had a poke around inside the folders to see what was on it and then put it in the car to accompany my commute. It's a bit clunky but works fine, stays charged for a good while and will even let me delete files and add new songs. Driving on Saturday afternoon with Eliza in the car with me, this song came on and as the kick drum banged away, the juddering bassline came in and then the layers of acid/ techno wonkiness piled up increasingly filling the car with the sparse fullness of the song and then that stentorian vocal faded in, 'acid funk/ acid funk/ acid funk...' and the snare rattled like a rock on a metal roof, Eliza said, 'well, this is intense'. And I could only reply, 'Yes. It is'. 

Acid Funk (Scott Hardkiss Mix)

It's also ridiculously funky, absorbing, next level stuff from the Hardkiss family back in 1996. Hawke and God Within with Scott Hardkiss on remix duties. I imagine it could still cause mayhem at a club if dropped at the right time and for the right crowd. It came on again driving home last night, the sun beating down on the M60, and it sounded just as good, building and building, ever increasingly, yes, intense. If you want something to add a little edge to your morning routine, to get you moving as you make your tea/ coffee or get your packed lunch together, stick Acid Funk on for a few minutes. 

It's the summer solstice too, something to celebrate or at least to note. The longest day is always a little double edged- summer's only just arrived and in calendar terms we've already peaked. But happy solstice, if that's your thing. 

Monday's Long Song

Al MacKenzie is one half of Field Of Dreams (along with Chris Kentish), a Birmingham based duo who make music and put on club nights. Al has written and recorded a seven minute tribute to Andrew Weatherall, who supported their music, played at their nights and remixed their 2018 single Nothing Is Perfect. Sail On is a gorgeous way to spend seven minutes with synths bobbing about, a throbbing sequencer line, chuggy drums, a nod to Smokebelch, and eventually voice singing 'sail on' and a lovely wandering piano. It finshes with a horn and the sound of waves crashing on a beach. You can get it here, free or pay what you want (any monies raised are going to a charity for the homeless in Birmingham). Sail On is, I think you'll agree, rather lovely way to start the week.

Back in March Field Of Dreams released a single with a slew of accompanying remixes, the chunky, spine tingling, acidic, dancefloor monster You Feed Me. 

The remixes are well worth hanging around for with Bagging Area favourites Rude Audio and Justin Robertson on board. Rude Audio's remix is a sticky, sweltering version and with the bassline pushed up front has a New Order- esque feel.

Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s remix slows things down, cowbell and whooshes, a bit of darkness on the dancefloor. 

The full package- original mix, instrumental and edited versions plus the remixes above and another from Joey T- can be found at Bandcamp. 

Forty Minutes Of The Beastie Boys

It's easy to forget sometimes that the best and most influential band of the 90s weren't one of your Britpop suspects, not one of the grunge bands either or the millennial tension bands (Radiohead et al) but a trio from New York who started out as a punk band, found global fame as snotty cartoon rappers and then retreated, regrouped and made a run of albums that easily knock the crown off the heads of any of those implied above. From 1989's Paul's Boutique to Check Your Head in '92 and then Ill Communication (1994) and 1998's Hello Nasty, the Beastie Boys were a threeway rap/ punk machine, sampling liberally from their extensive record collections and firing off lyrics that were frequently brilliant, memorable and hilarious. 

Their cultural reach was enormous- old school trainers and tracksuit tops, 70s clothes, videos recreating 70s cop shows and sci fi/ disaster movies, the Grand Royale magazine (credited with the first recorded use of the word mullet to describe the haircut that despoiled the 80s and has become mystifyingly popular recently. It also published a wide ranging but very niche series of articles- from Bruce Lee and Lee Scratch Perry to ramen), human rights for the people of Tibet. They headlined Lollapalooza, toured arenas (with Mixmaster Mike and Money Mark on turntables and keys respectively) and could make an arena show feel like a both a gig and an event. They peppered their songs with arcane references and tips of the hat. Sure Shot, one of their finest moments, is built around a flute sample (from Jeremy Steig) and drops the names of Dr. John, Lee Dorsey, the Pelham 123, Kojak, John Woo, Rod Carew, Lee Perry and Vaughn Bode as well as apologising for their younger sexist selves and calling for an end to the disrespect of women. They were colossal, hugely influential and when Adam Yauch (MCA) died from cancer in 2012 it was the end of an era. Mike D and Ad- Rock called it a day, retiring the Beastie Boys name

This is just a sampling of some my favourite Beastie Boys songs, plenty of witty, amped up, danceable hip hop, some stoned funk rock, some wonky reggae and three blasts of punk rock. As the man in Root Down says, 'Oh my god, that's the funky shit!'

Forty Minutes Of The Beastie Boys

• Sure Shot
• Johnny Ryall
• Egg Man
• Super Disco Breakin'
• Root Down
• Something's Got To Give
• Looking Down The Barrell Of A Gun
• Dr Lee, PhD
• Mullethead
• Sabotage
• Time For Livin'
• Intergalactic 

Saturday Theme Fifteen

Back in 1989 E.J. Robinson (otherwise known as Marcello Catalano, an Italian producer and studio and label boss) recorded an Italo- house version of the theme from the Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise comedy/ drama Rain Man. If you didn't previously know you needed an Italo- house version of the theme from Rain Man in your life, you do now. This is a wonderful piece of late 80s music, various barriers being dissolved as the 90s hove into view. 

I've never seen Rain Man (in fact I realised recently with all the hype about the new Top Gun film I never seen Top Gun either. Switching briefly to a list of films starring Tom Cruise I now see that I've not seen a single Cruise film with the exception of The Colour Of Money. I am quite happy with this state of affairs). But this slice of '89 Italo house is magical, all Funky Drummer breakbeat, big synth chords, bongos, piano and a keyboard with the button marked panpipes pressed in. 

(Theme From) Rain Man (Dance Version)

Theme From Rain Man is one of the ten tracks on a 1989 compilation called Sueno! Essential Mediterranean Dancetrax, a moment in time captured. The album can be picked up really cheaply- Discogs currently has copies starting at 67p and copies from UK sellers are only a couple of quid- and is well worth it for the uptempo, holiday soundtracking, piano house contained within its grooves. A further note of interest is that the liner notes on the back of the sleeve are by Andrew Weatherall, then largely unknown, and legend has it the money he was paid for writing the sleeve notes paid for his first pair of Technics turntables and mixer. 

Chaos Energy And Bliss

I'm a big fan of Daniel Avery's ambient/ industrial techno. His run of albums from Song For Alpha in 2018 to Illusion Of Time (with Alessandro Cortini in 2020, just as the first lockdown kicked in) to Love + Light (also from 2020) and then last year's Together In Static have been as much part of my listening habits over the last few years as anyone else's. He recently announced the release in the autumn of his next one, Ultra Truth, which will include Lone Swordsman, his affecting, emotional tribute to Andrew Weatherall. The first taster for Ultra Energy came a few weeks ago with Chaos Energy, five minutes of heart stopping, intense, vibrant melodic techno. After two years of difficult times and pent up emotions, reflected in Daniel's music, uneasy and dark in places, this feels alive and celebratory. 

Yesterday the B-side to Chaos Energy came out digitally. Daniel says Bliss is 'shoegaze rave', made to play live, and driven by rapid, rattling drums and some of those synthlines that send shivers running up and down your central nervous system. Ultra Truth is out in November. 

I'm Living In The Eighties

Not too far from yesterday's Ministry and Adrian Sherwood post, today's songs come from Killing Joke and their 1984 single Eighties (from their fifth album Night Time). Eighties is a pulverising, semi- manic but tightly controlled assault, Jaz Coleman typically intense on vocals, and a post- punk bass, drums and guitar groove that would fill dance floors with a mess of hair, leather, beer and eyeliner. The 12" came with the Serious Dance Mix on the A-side. How hard are those drums?

Eighties (Serious Dance Mix)

The Killing Joke In Dub three CD pack is loaded with superb versions and remixes of Killing Joke's songs. The Voodoo Dub Mix of Eighties is still pretty fast and furious, emphasis on the voodoo more than the dub maybe. 

Eighties (Voodoo Dub Mix)

All Day

When I worked at HMV in the early 90s the shop's assistant manager and another colleague were both massive fans of Ministry, the American industrial/ metal band led by Al Jourgenson. Occasionally, when the boss was not in and it was getting close to closing time, they would clear the shop of the final few shoppers by putting some Ministry on and turning the volume up. Within minutes the shoppers would rush to the tills to pay for their items, the shop would empty, we could pull the shutters down and head home, another day in the retail industry successfully completed. 

In the early 80s Ministry started as a synth- pop outfit and evolved into full blown grinding industrial metal. Jourgenson also served time as the frontman and leader of Revolting Cocks and Lard and featured heavily in Lollapalooza in the early 90s. At some point in the mid 80s he crossed paths with Adrian Sherwood and Sherwood remixed All Day. Sherwood was working on Keith LeBlanc's solo album Major Malfunction at the same time as producing Ministry's Twitch and a lot of the rhythm tracks got shared between the two. All Day came out as a single in 1984 with Sherwood's remix coming out on Twitch in 1986. 

All Day Remix is a superb example of the cut and paste approach of both Jourgenson and Sherwood, with sampled voices, synths and juddering drum machines, plus that general sense of the tension and unease of the times, the mid- 80s of Reagan's America and Thatcher's Britain, and it's not a million miles from either New Order or Depeche Mode. 

All Day Remix

Nineteen

Today is my daughter Eliza's nineteenth birthday. She'll be spending it in Liverpool where there's a week of partying going on, end of  the first year university partying and birthday partying. I spent my nineteenth birthday in Liverpool too, back in May 1989 so there's funny circular/ history repeating itself thing going on for us. With everything that we've gone through since the end of last year, the fact that she's gone back to university and made a success of it is incredible in itself- we're very proud of her (obviously) and how she's dealt with things since Isaac died. Happy birthday Eliza, have a blast and hopefully you won't be too hungover when we arrive to take you out for tea tonight. 

One of our songs is Halo by Beyonce. Our shared vocal take on it, usually when in the car with us switching lead and backing vox effortlessly and intuitively, is probably the definitive version of the song. Unfortunately it remains unrecorded so here's the original from I Am... Sasha Fierce in 2008 instead. 

Halo

Back in May 1989 Dinosaur Jr had just released their cover version of The Cure's Just Like Heaven. Last year they released a live album, Emptiness At The Sinclair, recorded in Boston. The version of Just Like Heaven on it is a blistering, sonic assault, J Mascis' guitar and wah wah pedals feeling the heat while drawls his way through one of Robert Smiths' finest moments. 

Just Like Heaven (Live At The Sinclair)

Monday's Long Song

Rude Audio made one of my favourite tunes/  EPs of 2021, the summer sounding skank- chug of Railton Ruckus. They've now returned to do the summer of 2022 a massive favour with a new track and EP, Big Heat. The title track is six and a half minutes of chuggy electronic dub house, the metronomic drums pushing ever on while the synths rise and fall and the timbales clatter around. There's a terrifc piano line that gradually works its way to the front of things.Big Heat is a proper groover, ideal for dancing to in dark basements or back gardens. 

The EP comes loaded with a pair of remixes, an eight minute one from Bedford Falls Players and a slightly shorter Rich Lane remix. 

The Bedford Falls Players remix extends it out and strips it down, focussing on the rhythm track and those timbales, then bringing the acidic squiggle of the 303 to the fore. The remix gets split in the middle by some samples, Hollywood coming to South London, before cutting back to the action.

Rich goes more laid back, steel guitar and washes of bliss, and then all dubbed out. 

All three versions of Big Heat plus two further Rude Audio treats, Rudely Fresh and Dust Devil remixed by Al MacKenzie, can be bought at Bandcamp, forty minutes of dubbed out house sounds for summer for just £4. 

Forty Minutes Of Peaking Lights

Peaking Lights, husband/ wife duo from the US (variously San Francisco, Wisconsin, Los Angeles but now resident in Amsterdam according to Wiki), have been releasing albums since 2008, putting out a lo- fi, trippy, sun dappled type of psychedelic pop, heavily laced with dub. I first encountered them on their 2011 album 936 (Piccadilly Records record of the year I think) and then got the follow up Lucifer and its side version Lucifer In Dub. I've not kept up to date with everything they've released but what I have I love- their sound is a swirling, heady kaleidoscopic brew, the dubbier ones particularly hitting the spot. 

Beautiful Dub is from Lucifer In Dub, released in 2012. Tiger Eyes (Laid Back) and All The Sun That Shines were both on 936 which came with a bunch of remixes, including the one here by On U Sound's Adrian Sherwood. In 2015 they remixed four songs by Sinkane, his Sudanese electronic funk- pop splattered with their psychedelic dub. Beautiful Son is from Lucifer- John Talabot's remix is a gorgeous low key thumper from 2013. 

Forty Minutes of Peaking Lights

• Beautiful Dub
• Tiger Eyes (Laid Back) (Adrian Sherwood On U Sound Remix)
• All The Sun That Shines
• Yacha (Peaking Lights Mix)
• Beautiful Son (John Talabot's Acetate Dub)

Saturday Theme Fourteen

Saturday's theme today comes from the former bassist of Magazine and one time Bad Seed, Barry Adamson, a man whose solo back catalogue is littered with delights and treasures. In 1992, on his Soul Murder album, Adamson recorded his take on the James Bond Theme, a version that has been sent to Jamaica and infused with ska and a big band orchestra, a sample from the original 1962 John Barry and Monty Norman Bond theme and a spoken word vocal that imagine a world where Bond is from Kingston and Bond is black. 

007 A Fantasy Bond Theme

I know it's close to pop culture heresy but I've never been that fussed about the Bond films. Some of the 60s ones have a period charm- the suits are well cut, the women are beautiful and the villains villainous, but it quickly became a joke that wore increasingly thin. I like the voodoo nonsense of Live And Let Die, I must have watched that at an impressionable age on a wet Sunday afternoon at some point. The modern Bonds don't do much for me at all. Is it just me? Have I got Bond all wrong?