August And Augustus

Some songs for August on the 2nd day of the month. August is high summer in the UK, the month of summer holidays, those endless days as children when school had vanished, the sun shone and the possibilities were endless. September and everything it brings- change, the back to school rhythms, autumn- is weeks away. As a teacher I've kept these school days rhythms all my adult life and August always feels like this.

August is named after the Roman Emperor Augustus, the month it is said of his greatest triumphs (the conquest of Egypt among them). Augustus Pablo shares a name with the Emperor and while he may not have achieved the same imperial feats the Emperor Augustus did not record any seminal dub albums, the 1976 King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown among them. Is Jamaica's influence on music the equal of the Romans on the history of the world? All empires fall but dub will last forever. 

555 Dub Street

In 2023 PJ Harvey released I Inside The Old Year, Dying, an enigmatic, poetic and forbidding record and one that only she could have made- a triumph in many ways. The album's first single was this-

A Child's Question, August

Echo laden folk, piano, a guitar and drum and her voice, softer and more tender than sometimes. It feels as old as the hills. 

This one is from 2022 by Turkish composer Ozan Tekin. I know little about it or about Ozan- a minimalist pianist/ musician, born in Istanbul and resident in Cologne. This track starts out as a piano piece, slightly Satie- esque, and dissolves into distortion and feedback at the end. From an album called Anarya.

Knots (Ballad Of August) 

Shrag were a Brighton based five piece group, post punk/ c86 indie, who made three albums between 2003 and 2013. Sharp and raucous live wires with pointed and funny lyrics. 

Tights In August

Oblique Saturdays

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

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

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

Voodoo Ray

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On Islands

Out today- a new EP by Birds Of Pandaemonium called On Islands with an album on Sprechen to follow. On Islands is a dream- a swooning psychedelic and Balearic crossover dream, a drifting along the beach and loosing oneself in the night kind of dream. Chuggy drums, soft pads, stellar synths, a laid back vocal, hypnotic bass, handclaps, a child's spoken word part, a reference to Andrew Weatherall, orchestral strings... it's got it all. 

There are three remixes by Hardway Bros- the Stereo Odyssey, the Steppas Dub and the Hardway Bros Dub. All three are very good. The Stereo Odyssey is the place to start, a spaced out and interstellar version that goes straight to the Balearic/ indie- dance/ psychedelia sweet spot. The Steppas Dub is a fuzz and bass version with bells on and the Dub strips it back to bass, bleeps and rhythm, hints of strings and voice. Blissed out to the max.

On Islands is at Bandcamp. 

On Islands is a cover of a 1980 song by New Musik, a song that sounds weirdly contemporary for something that came out forty six years ago. New Musik were from South London, formed in 1977 and called it a day in 1982. The band look like they could all have been in Hot Chip.

Espana

Y viva Espana! We're off to Spain today for a few days, going to Granada, Nerja and Malaga. There are lots of songs with Spain or Spanish in their names in my collection. Let's go with cuatro songs for today's post. 

Hinds are a Spanish, all girl group with four albums to their name- the most recent, Viva Hinds, was one of my favourites of 2024. They covered The Clash's Spanish Bombs in 2020 in fine style. Joe Strummer's lyric dealt with the Spanish Civil War, 70s separatist Basque terrorism and mass tourism. 'The hillsides ring with 'free the people'/ Can I hear the echo of the days of '39?', Joe asks, harking back to the civil war and the days of one of his heroes, the poet Federico Garcia Lorca (murdered by Franco's forces in 1936). In the chorus Joe declares his love for Spain, 'Yo te quiero, oh mi corazón' ('I love you/ Oh my heart'). 

Spanish Bombs

In 1967 Jimi Hendrix's second album with The Experience had a song called Spanish Castle Magic on it, a glorious slice of '67 blues/ psychedelia, Jimi's guitar raw and raucous, the bass locked into the crunching guitar chords and doubling the riff, Mitch battering the drums. I don't think Jimi ever sang better than on this song.

Spanish Castle Magic

The Spanish Castle wasn't actually in Spain, it was a roadhouse on the outskirts of Seattle where a young Hendrix was sometimes found jamming with local groups. 

In 1999 Gorky's Zygotic Munki released their sixth album, Spanish Dance Troupe. The title track is gorgeous, absurdist, lilting Welsh psychedelic folk. This is Gorky's first appearance at Bagging Area which seems a bit of an oversight. 

Spanish Dance Troupe

Last for today, Galaxie 500 and the B-side to their debut single Tugboat from 1988. In King Of Spain a man inures himself from pain and hurt by becoming the King of Spain, safely isolated as a powerful man but he ends up alone and lonely. Galaxie 500 may have refined their songs and sound over the three years they were active after they released Tugboat/ King Of Spain but almost everything that made them so special is present on this single. 

King Of Spain

I've set posts up for the time I'm away so there'll be no break in service. Bagging Area's commitment to blogging knows few bounds.  

Dicky Two Times

Dicky Continental is one of Rich Thair's alter egos, a one man project away from his main band Red Snapper and Red Snapper's offshoot Number and his role as drummer and percussionist in the rejuvenated Sabres Of Paradise. Dicky Continental appeared on Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 2 with his Andrew Weatherall sampling Large Bongos, Andrew's voice appearing over some low fi dusty funk on side one, very much holding its own next to the previously unreleased version of  Sabres' track Lik Wid Nit Wit.

Dicky Continental have two new releases. The first is a single coming out in early August called Hostile Environment, ahead of an album called Queer The Pitch. Hostile Environment is a dubbed out gem with some typically cool percussion (conga and djembe), a sample from pirate radio, and Cardiff rapper/ poet Tia Zakura on vocals, a laid back and easy vocal style asking the right questions- 'Tell me what's the difference between existing and living?'

Recorded and produced at Buntys studio in Swansea and mixed in Hastings, listen and buy at Bandcamp. On the EP there will be a dub and an instrumental version to go with the vocal mix already available.

Meanwhile, The Secret Garden (Alex Vickers) have a track out called Weekend Away, remixed by Dicky Continental and featuring the vocals of Ioan Omar. Dicky's remix is a jazzy, summer sounding tune, keyboards to the fore and live drums and bass pushing it on. 'Call the collective', Ioan says, again like Tia above in a laid back vocal style- the tune and vocal flow press buttons that call Soul II Soul, Ballistic Brothers and Acid Jazz to mind. Find Dicky Continental's remix of Weekend Away at Bandcamp. 

Strangers On The Shore

In the 2010s gentrification pushed Michael Smith, his partner and their infant son out of London and down to the south coast, the family settling in St. Leonards- on- Sea, a down at heel town next to Hastings. Smith is an author and flaneur* who wrote The Giro Playboy and Unreal City. When he moved to St. Leonards they decided to open a wine shop/ bar and the local community of artists and characters adopted this as the place to be. Michael found himself with a very young son, in a town he didn't know, staring out at the English Channel and sometimes wondering what on earth he'd done. Then came Covid and lockdown. 

In time he turned this part of his life into a book, Strangers On The Shore, published last month by White Rabbit. It's not a novel, it's not exactly a memoir, it's informal in tone and traces his life in St. Leonards and much more besides. The strangers on the shore are often himself and the young Raf, killing the days, making a few pounds go as far as they will. The book heads from the decision to move to St. Leonards and the early days in the town into all sorts of areas- Aleister Crowley, Michael's disgust with end stage capitalism, gentrification, mobile phones, excursions into philosophy via Diogones and quantum physics (light particles and sausage dogs), owls, items that appear before him falling out of the cliff face, his realisation that there are things cannot be explained rationally, 'perfidious Albion on speed', signs and symbols, Raf's early life and how he sees the world, fatherhood... hopping from one vignette to another, all linked by Michael's distinctive voice and life in St. Leonards. A psychic flight of fancy grounded in the very real and every day aspects of life interrupted by a global and national emergency.

There are encounters with Andrew Weatherall, a dream encounter some months after Andrew died and some real ones too. In one of them Michael talks to Andrew in Weatherall's East London studio bunker, telling him how much the song Shine Like Stars means to him, Andrew tells Michael that he really should hear the unreleased remix of Shine Like Stars (released by Primal Scream after Andrew's death). 

Shine Like Stars (Andrew Weatherall Instrumental Remix)

Copies of Strangers On The Shore bought from Gnostic Sonics came with an exclusive print and a pamphlet which describes teenage Michael's life in the north east of England, his discovery of acid house (and acid) and his first meeting with Andrew. In the pamphlet Michael writes about Andrew, his craft and talent, and his abilities as a 'weather controller' (which comes from a Weatherall story in the early 90s about him being atop Silbury Hill, out of his mind on psychedelics and trying to control the weather). Michael books Andrew to play his bar in St. Leonards and the young Raf is introduced to the alchemy of a Weatherall DJ set and the power of dub. It's a evocative and very moving addition to the book, one of the best pieces of writing about Mr. Weatherall I've read. 

Back to Strangers On The Shore- Michael writes at one point that 'it's not easy trying to write your way out of a mid- life crisis'. I'll say no more but it's a highly affecting book, tender and funny, scabrous and rooted in very real life. St. Leonards becomes not just a 'rundown drinking town with a fishing problem' but the psychic motherlode. It's a book that stays with you after you've finished it, a book infused with 'magick with a K' (as Weatherall put it) a very human and readable memoir. 

In 2013 when Andrew Weatherall was Faber's artist in residence the company published Unreal City, Michael's second book. Andrew introduced himself to Michael and said he'd like to work with him. Together with Nina Walsh, Andrew created an ambient soundscape soundtrack for Michael to read Unreal City over, a spoken word/ ambient Weatherall album (which came in a beautiful special edition with annotated margins, a CD and a 10" single). 

In 2021 I strung all the different tracks together and uploaded them to Mixcloud. You can find it at Mixcloud here (with a comment from Michael himself and a link to more of his writings about the making of the album).  

Michael more recently recorded an EP with Ride bassist Steve Queralt, spoken word ruminations on modern life, mushrooms and Chaldean oracles with shimmering ambient backdrops. It's highly recommended as is the subsequent remix EP. Both are at Bandcamp. 

Michael's disgust with modern cities and 21st century lifestyles/ gentrification bleeds through on the track Glitches where he is flaneuring away in London and finds himself in a new part of the city, a re-developed hyper- capitalist shopping centre (Westfield in Stratford I think) surrounded by shops, flats and skyscrapers, glass and steel, cardboard cut out policemen in shop windows to ward off shoplifters, permanent bright lights and twenty four hour advertising selling a lifestyle that is for most people utterly unobtainable. Michael sees the city mutating in front of his/ our eyes into a megacity, people become permanent consumers, where the windows of shops selling suits promise that you are 'living the dream of a beautiful tomorrow'. As the track builds, Michael cuts to the chase, asking in his Hartlepudlian tones, 'What kind of a cunt's dream is this?'.

Indeed. 

* Flaneur- one who wanders aimlessly through city streets observing the surroundings and people with no specific direction or goal. I can quite easily slip into it myself.

Monday's Long Song

Coyote return with a new EP and more wisdom dispensed via well chosen vocal samples. Blue Bird is six minutes and forty four seconds of laid back ambient sounds, chilled bass and life advice-

'Focus on you/ People come and go/ If you don't control your mind,someone else will/ Sometimes the things that break your heart end up fixing your vision...'

In the second half it kicks up a bit, drums coming in and the bass pushing a little more, and there are choral backing vocals that coo like tiny angels. 

'Failure is a bruise, not a tattoo... no regrets just lessons... life is too short... the calmer you are the clearer you think'.

There's a Polcari remix, a dub, that strips it down to electronic drums, bass and those backing vocals and a third track, Ode To Penguin, abstract Balearic ornithological ambience, layers of detail that reveal a little more with each play. Coyote's Blue Bird EP is at Bandcamp.