Fragile Time

More music from Mighty Force, a label reborn in 2019 after a period of inaction and whose current mission statement reads 'We just release music we think is good'.

The latest album in the roll call of music which is good comes from Paddy Thorne, a twelve track opus called Fragile World. The techno of the first and second wave of Detroit artists rings down the line in Paddy's work, the futuristic and science fiction sound of drum machines, synths and keys, that emotive machine music. Back in 1988 Derrick May described techno as 'George Clinton and Kraftwerk stuck in an elevator' and that collision of Black American dance music crossed with European synthpop going upwards is very much at the heart of Fragile World. 

Highlights? They're all highlights... the fourth track Space Between Breathing is gorgeous, breakbeat techno with synth chords that pull at the heartstrings. Nine tracks in First Signals sounds like a series of communications from outer space, digital transmissions underpinned by dancing melody lines. The final track is Fragile, Still, a synthesized meditation on existence with a chuggy rhythm that suggests perpetual motion, departure and (I think) the possibility of escape. It's optimistic music, despite the times. 

Fragile World is at Mighty Force's Bandcamp. 

While you're there you could do worse than check in on fellow act D3 who released an album in late July called Time. D3's music is also techno. On the opening three tracks, there are thundering breakbeats and big synth chords. Trust takes a breather rhythmically, with bleeps and long chords and a whispered voice, before the breakbeat kicks in at one minute forty. Chill! slows things down, some sinister distorted chords and more veiled voices. Electro influences sit alongside the techno ones and again, as with Paddy Thorne (and other Mighty Force artists) there's a sense of futurism. Final track Time is an epic piece of breakbeat acid techno.

Techno has been around for four decades now but the sounds and possibilities of it are endless and Mighty Force don't appear to be merely retreading old ground or reviving old sounds. The possibility of the new is written all the way through both Time and Fragile World. 

Time is also at Bandcamp. 

Tower Of Babylon

Andy Bell (Ride/ GLOK) and Masal promo-ed a new album (Common Primitives) two months ago with a new track called The Morning Of The Trip. They've followed it recently with the next one, Tower Of Babylon. Andy plays guitar and with GLOK and maybe Masal too some synths/ keys. Masal are an Anglo- Turkish duo, Al Johnson and Oslem Simsek, who blend synths, found sounds and electronics with harp, theremin and Oslems's Turkish folk influences, a fairly unique and interesting coming together of three musicians.

That being said I sometimes get to the point where I listen to instrumental music- ambient/ cosmische/ shoegaze/ psychedelia- and am blown away by it and then come here to try to describe it and.... end up repeating myself, using the same old phrases and imagery. 

Tower Of Babylon has fluttering harp, a sharp and bumping rhythm, distorted guitars and/ or synths. The music builds and loops, breaks down and re- assembles. The harp returns and then the buzzing starts again, the drums return. It's a trip of its own making, a dreamlike detour. 

Oslem grew up in Turkey studying classical harp and when she moved to England met Johnson who found common ground in ambient/ electronics and world sounds. They supported Andy at a gig in 2020 and began to work together after that. In Turkish the word Masal means fairy tale or folk story which feels relevant to the music that they make. Al has referenced Pharoah Saunders and Vini Reilly as key influences (as well as a Turkish folk song Oslem remembered from growing up) on the forthcoming album, which comes out in October, nine tracks on vinyl or digital. 

Non- Konformism

Sunday night in Stockport at The Red Bull, an end of tour gig for Nuremberg's Konformer and a Before I Die party. Jason Boardman's Before I Die has become a must- purchase label, every release guaranteed to be first rate outsider and outlier music, the label capturing the stuff that happens in the margins and away from the bright lights. Putting on a label party in a Stockport pub on a Sunday night, just because, and filling the pub is testament to what he's put into BID over the last few years. 

There were DJs from 4 pm and by the time I arrived at around 6 pm J-Walk was on the decks spinning Sunday evening tunes. J-Walk released a 7" single on Before I Die earlier this year called Never Go Home- blissed out Spacemen 3 style indie on the A, King Tubby style dub on the B. It's one of the singles of the year- you can listen to it here and grab one of the four remaining copies of the vinyl if you're quick.

Before that in 2024 there was an album, Broken Beauty, made in Stockport. Tonight J-Walk steps out from behind the decks and plays a set of four songs so new no one has heard them yet, Martin on synth and guitar, FX pedals and vocals, finding a sweet spot where early 80s New Order met King Tubby. The four songs will fingers crossed end upon the next J-Walk release on Before I Die. 

Konformer are a three piece group from Nuremberg who have been in the UK for a tour playing grassroots venues with open minded bookers and crowds. Margate's Music Hall, The Golden Lion in Todmorden and Manchester Psyche Fest plus Bristol, Barrow in Furness, Deptford and Liverpool. By the time they open up at The Red Bull they are a well oiled machine, their heavy motorik grooves, layers of droning krauty keys and synths and Hooky- esque basslines rocking the pub's wood panelled walls,

Konformer's second album, Konformer II, came out in the summer and the band motor through the tracks from it, Mont Ventoux, Marseillel, Todmorden and the album's opening pair Konfectio Suite I and II. All instrumentals, no vocals to distract from the sound, the bass guitar leading with Kristian Krauss' synth/ keys adding the drones and cosmische textures. Mont Ventoux shimmers and pulses, drummer Andreas Berg absolutely on the beat and Rainer Ruder's bass climbing and looping round and round. At the end of the gig it's smiles all round and then trying to find a way home by public transport from Stockport on a Sunday night.

Unsteady

Jezebell are celebrating five years since they got together and started making tunes, an adventure born like many things out of lockdown. Darren and Jesse have made two albums are umpteen EPs in the time since 2021 and the fifth anniversary present is a track called Unsteady, out on Bandcamp last Friday. Traditionally, fifth anniversary presents are supposed to be wood- this one is digital. 

Unsteady is a buzz- synths squiggling and fizzing, arpeggios, dancing melody lines, thumping kick drum, nods to 80s Balearic house but filtered through a 2020s outlook. Jesse's piano playing (and he's not going to thank me for saying this) calls Bruce Hornsby's 1986 big hit to mind (this is a compliment by the way). But, that's just the way it is. 

Last year Jezebell released their second album, Jezebellearic Beats Volume 2, a twenty track smorgasbord of edits, remixes and original tracks. In March this year the album's closing track, Turn It Yes, was released as a single with remixes including this one by Hardway Bros where Sean turns everything up and sets the controls for the heart of a hypothetical cosmic dance floor, one where Underworld and Beatles wives are spinning round and round, locked into the dance.

'Language has the power to alter our perception/ A single word can change our reality/ And that word is yes'

Monday's Long Song

The town of Dover was without warning subjected to a march by a large group of black clad, balaclava wearing men on Saturday who blocked the roads and the port while chanting 'stop the boats', 'the country is ours' and 'England 'til I die'. Dozens of Blackshirts marching and making claim to the nation, its identity and its streets. Dangerous times we're living in. 

In a quirk of coincidence just a day before this event, this album came my way via reader and friend of the blog Spencer, a reliable source of leftfield, lesser known and outré music. From The Edge is an album about Dover and one that is part of a project to see Dover differently. 

From The Edge is a two track album by Richard Bundy and Anna Phoebe, each track around twenty minutes in length but made up I think of many shorter tracks. The tracks are inspired by Dover, the town, its buildings, history and atmosphere. Dover is a town on the edge, built into the cliff face of southern England, a gateway to Europe and also at times a barrier. The Dover Unlocked project, which From The Edge is a part of, is a work that is imagining and uncovering a different side of the town, its historic buildings- the castle, Napoleonic steps (the Grand Shaft) and others- and its people. 

Side one of From The Edge is called The Immersion and is a blending of guitars, bass, drums, piano, a DJ, Bundy on piano, keys and synths, strings and horns and sampled voices. A twenty two minute long piece that goes through several stages, ambient and found sound sections, piano led sections and string quartet parts (that reminded me of Durutti Column's 1984 classical piece Without Mercy). 

The other side, Unspiralling The Rock, kicks in with drums and synths, drones, layers of noise and then five minutes in flips the switch into the neo- classical strings again, a stitching together of experimental, classical and cinematic sounds. Half way through the band come back in and it turns into krauty cosmische before a long slow ending. Evocative, spellbinding and yes, from the edge. 

You can find From The Edge at Bandcamp. 

Forty Five Minutes Of White Label's Voices

In 2011 a bootleg album called Stolen Voices appeared by a Scottish trio who called themselves White Label. The album featured vocals from unreleased, lost or demo recordings with entirely new tracks recorded around them. The voices belonged to Jean Terrell of The Supremes, John Lennon, Todd Rundgren, Billy MacKenzie, Jimmy Scott, Billie Holiday, Jean King, David Bowie, John Martyn and Dennis Wilson. Stolen Voices was cheeky, unofficial, illegal and audacious and highly acclaimed. Eventually White Label were advised to stop selling the album via their website although by that point the horse had bolted. I first heard about it via Drew's Across The Kitchen Table blog. The stolen voices were given full new backing tracks, a sumptuous blend of soul, psychedelia, synth pop and house. 

By 2017 various musicians and artists had shown enough interest that the band could make a second album- Borrowed Voices- using officially sanctioned vocals or producing remixes. Borrowed Voices featured the voices of Paul Weller, Mark Eitzel, Aphty Khea, Billy MacKenzie (again), Hannah Peel and Emma Pollock among others and then in 2023 White Label put out Other Voices, an album with Weller (again), one of the last recordings Bim Sherman made, Linda Lewis, Jill O'Sullivan and Syann among the line up. Other Voices is a remix album that sounds like an early 70s psychedelic experiment where a crack orchestra, Laurel Canyon Americana, 60s soul and 90s ambient house had a baby. Lauren Laverne, Don Letts, Jarvis Cocker

This is a just under forty five minute selection of eleven tracks from the three albums, the kaleidoscopic and psychedelic sounds of White Label and a load of singers in one mix. It's very much a Sunday morning, staring into your coffee and ruminating selection of songs. 

Forty Five Minutes Of White Label's Voices 

• Paul
• Jean 1
• Still Moving (feat. Linda Lewis)
• Billy 2
• Mark
• Do You Believe (feat. Bim Sherman)
• Syann
• Aphty Khan
• The Sea's Out At Night (feat. Paul Weller)
• Turn Down The Noise (feat. Syann and Billy MacKenzie)
• Emma

Paul is from Borrowed Voices, the Paul being Paul Weller who showed an interest in White Label back when the bootleg Stolen Voices came out. The post- 22 Dreams Weller is a maverick, open to experimentation and recording in a bewildering array of styles. Paul (the track) is sophisticated 70s soul, Weller sounding very at home. 

Jean 1 is from Stolen Voices, a Northern Soul reworking of a vocal from a 1972 Supremes song produced by Jimmy Webb. Jean Terrell's voice was taken from a scratchy 7" single, recorded onto a c60 cassette and then dropped into the new track.

Still Moving is from Other Voices, Linda a veteran singer who has sung with Bowie and Basement Jaxx. Slow motion, widescreen Balearic pop. 

Billy 2 is Billy MacKenzie, the much missed Associates singer who died in 1997. Billy's voice is from an unreleased song, Tallahatchie Pass (posthumously released in 2022), a homage to the cinematic 60s country of Jimmy Webb and Glen Campbell. Billy 2 was on Borrowed Voices. 

Mark is Mark Eitzel, American singer songwriter from American Music Club. The song is We All Have To Find Our Own Way Out from Mark's 2012 album Don't Be A Stranger redone as orchestral soul/ folk. 

Bim Sherman's voice is on Do You Believe from the Other Voices album, a vocal from 2000, the year Bim died. On Do You Believe he is surrounded by subtle backing vocals and tripped out soulfulness. 

Syann and Aphty Khan are both from the Borrowed Voices album, Aphty's psychedelic- Greek funk and Syann's orchestral soul reworked/ remixed complementing each other very nicely. 

The Sea's Out At Night is the opening song on Other Voices, a Paul Weller song that is as far from The Jam as anything he's done- atmospheric and orchestral. The White Label pair Anth Brown and Tom Doyle wrote and produced a song on Weller's Fat Pop Volume 1 album (Glad Times). 

Turn Down The Noise is Dundee singer Syann, combined with the sampled vocals of Billy MacKenzie in dramatic 60s soul style. White Label's Steve Aungle first met Billy in 1979, when he was a drummer looking for a band. Steve's story is here in his own words. 

Emma is from Borrowed Voices, the Emma being Emma Pollock (solo artist and former Delgado). Her vocal is from her haunted torch song A Certain Compulsion, re- imagined here like the song from a Cold War spy thriller finale where a doomed pair of lovers have been trapped either side of the Berlin Wall. 

Oblique Saturdays

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

Last week's Oblique Strategy suggestion was Spectrum Analysis.

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

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

She's A Rainbow

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

How are bricks made? I asked the internet. 

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

Clay

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

Castles Made Of Sand

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

I Wash My Hair With Limes

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

Throw Some Water In

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

Summon The Fire

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

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

Killing Time

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