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 Always first steps. 

My steps took me up to Snapped Ankles, The Flaming Stars, Bocca Juniors and The Boo Radleys. The Bagging Area Oblique Saturdays squad excelled themselves with a bumper collection of songs and responses- from the top, The Babies (via Disco Spider), The Ventures (from Ernie), Caetano Veloso (Mmmmmmbop), New Kids On The Block (thank you Al G), Joe Jackson and his KORG drum machine (from John Medd), NKOTB and Public Service Broadcasting (Mrs G), New Age Steppers (from C), Mogwai (Beerfueled), The First Steps (courtesy of Rol), Stereo MCs (cheers Jase), early New Order (danke Walter), Chris and Cosey and Andrew Weatherall (both from Macdiddly), Mary Poppins (an unexpected one from Jake Sniper), The Incredible String Band (via The Swede), Smith and Mighty (from Khayem) and Acid Klaus (Chris ZenArcade's contribution). Amazing stuff, thank you all of you- and the first time that New Kids On The Block have ever darkened these doorways. 

I don't have any Caetano Veloso but have followed up Mmmmmmbop's suggestion and listened to Caetano's 1973 album Araçá Azul online during the week, an experimental album blurring tropicalia, psychedelia, musique concrete and samba and folk, a record that, as Mmmmmbop said, shakes a fist at the repressive Brazilian state and passive consumerist muzak. I do have this Gal Costa song from the same year, co- written by Caetano Veloso and from Gal's 1973 album India. 

Relance

This week's card, which I turned over on Wednesday evening, says this- What are you really thinking about just now?

And I'll be honest, it caught me unawares and startled me a bit. What was I really thinking about? Rather than sit on the suggesiton for a while as I sometimes do the card demanded an immediate response so I started typing almost straight away. 

I'd been going round the blogs and catching up with the daily posts from other music bloggers and one of the thoughts in my mind was what an incredible thing JC is doing at The Vinyl Villain, an 800 song countdown of songs that are important to him, a huge undertaking as a celebration of the upcoming 20th anniversary of The Vinyl Villain. 

I was thinking about going and finishing marking some essays on the use of propaganda in Nazi Germany that I'd brought home and which had a rapidly approaching deadline. 

I was thinking about the songs on Short Stories For Pauline, the Durutti Column album I'd been listening to in the car and which I was about to start writing about (for a piece that I posted two days ago). 

And I was thinking too about the fact that November is bearing down on us, just under six weeks away, and bringing with it on the 23rd what would have been Isaac's 28th birthday and a week later on the 30th what will be the fifth anniversary of his death and the moment I turned the card over I acknowledged to myself that I've been able to feel it physically again in recent weeks, that feeling of being a bit out of sorts and a bit aggy, a bit narked. The dull thud of grief sitting in my chest again. At least, I think that's what it is. I can usually recognise it now. 

So writing this Oblique Saturday's post started there and then with this rundown of what I was really thinking about 'just now'. 

Here's The Charlatans in summer 1995, thinkin' things over, needing a set of vows. 

Just When You're Thinkin' Things Over

What are you really thinking about just now? And do you have a song to go with it? As usual, feel free to drop it in the comment box. 

Can't Be Sure

I've recently become a member of a Whatsapp group album club started by one of my brothers who has a little time on his hands and thought it would be good to introduce a lot of his friends and family to each other (online though some of us have met in real life) and to music we might not have heard. Each week a member of group (chosen alphabetically) suggests an album to the group and the group members then have a week to listen to the album and provide some feedback- did they like it, what did they make of it and so on. 

My brother- let's call him Josh- occasionally intervenes if the group's gone quiet to 'drive engagement' and 'keep people interested' which is probably a good idea because we can all easily forget to reply to messages. I know I can. So far we've done Felt's Forever Breathes The Lonely Word, Sonic Youth's Sister (my suggestion, bit of an opinion splitter, noisy and unconventional in places), Tom Waits' Raindogs, Keith Jarrett's The Koln Concert (completely new to me and one I'll definitely come back to here both to listen to and here at the blog) and The Sundays 1990 album Reading, Writing And Arithmetic.

I haven't listened to The Sundays first album for a long time but still have a copy on vinyl so pulled it out and played it last Sunday night. Several members of the group were huge fans back in 1990 and were transported back to their sixth form days, The Sundays filling a particular gap in the indie world the aftermath of The Smiths splitting up. I remember going to indie nights at Liverpool University in the 1989/ 1990 period where half the girls present were dead ringers for Harriet Wheeler, the quiff/ long hair combination hairstyle, the Levis 501s cinched in at the waist with a brown leather belt, DM shoes. Looking like Harriet Wheeler, in 1989, was no bad thing at all. She had looks and voice that could melt you at twenty paces. 

I enjoyed listening to the album although it felt very time locked to me, very much part of 1990 and a very distinct kind of indie music that was being eclipsed by acid house and Manchester, which is where at that time my head was at. I kept waiting for The Sundays rhythm section to toughen up and kick in but on the whole it's not that kind of record. It's bookish, it's jangly, it knows the way to the library. The singles are all fantastic especially the debut, Can't Be Sure. 

Can't Be Sure

Tom toms, David Gavurin's chiming guitar straight out of the Johnny Marr songbook and Harriet's lovely voice singing of love, luck and money, England's miserable weather, England being as happy as England can be and how desire's a terrible thing. The words are striking, clearly meaningful to her, heartfelt and poetic. 'It's my life/ And though I can't be sure if I want any more/ It will come to me later', she concludes. 

The other singles are really strong- Here's Where The Story Ends and I Won- and I Kicked A Boy is a good song. At the end of side two the closing song Joy delivers a final punch, with Gavurin playing a Vini Reilly sounding guitar part, the bass and drums locked in and Harriet singing loud and clear on top. They push on at the end with a minute to go, the guitar, drums and bass all competing to be at the fore and Harriet repeating 'joy, joy, joy/ Work harder, harder, harder', and just when you think they could easily keep going, go round for a few more bars, really reach a crescendo, they kill it dead. 

Joy

Next week is Madvillainy by Madvillain, a 2004 rap record by MF DOOM and Madlib. An album as far as I know I have never heard.  

Short Stories

One of the best albums by The Durutti Column was recorded in 1983 and then shelved at Tony Wilson's request. Wilson, Vini Reilly's manager as well as his label boss at Factory, heard the track Duet and told Vini that this was what he should be pursuing and at Wilson's encouragement the planned album, due to be released on Factory Benelux and titled Short Stories For Pauline, was put to one side. The new album was Without Mercy, a two sided 12" release marrying neo- classical, Vini's guitar and electronics. 

Duet

Duet is the neo- classical track that caught Wilson's ear, a two instrument piece with Vini's piano playing and a viola, the sound of a late night bar in Belgium just before closing time, the patrons about to wend their ways home though the streets of Brussels. Duet is achingly pretty and with more than a dash of drama too. It was previously released as La Doleur on Lips That Would Kiss. 

Over the years many of the songs  that would have been on the unreleased Short Stories For Pauline turned up elsewhere- on B-sides, FBN CD compilations such as Lips That Would Kiss (some with alternate track names) and on the Durutti Column album Circuses And Bread, out in 1987. An enterprising DC fan could assembly a version of Short Stories... from their own collection and access to a C90 and tape recorder or CD burner. 

In 2012 Factory re- issue label FTM put out a new version of Short Stories, fourteen songs opening with At First Sight and ending with A Room In Southport. They'd all been released ebfore in one verison or another but on Short Stories... were rpesented together as intended for the first time. Across the songs, most of them instrumental, Vini and Bruce hit the heights, guitar parts and drums in melodic sync, a clear step on from the LC and Another Setting albums. Vini and Bruce sound confident and emboldened and the songs are filled out with piano, violin and trumpet, played by guest musicians from the recordings in Brussels, Blaine Reininger, Alain Lefebvre and Anne van den Troost. On Take Some Time Out Vini sings, something Wilson always tried to prevent him from doing, and sounds good, his voice having grown in confidence since the early albums. Take Some Time Out stands alongside much of the rest of Vini's 80s songs. As does this one, A Silence, which he sings on too...

A Silence

Tumbling Bruce Mitchell drums, Vini's chorus/ delayed guitar, a full and rich sound with viola and Vini's voice, a little low in the mix, 'You don't say what mean/ You don't mean what you say'. The songs rises and falls, Vini singing about dreams and love, Bruce as always playing for good of the song. It's got that Factory juxtaposition of sadness and happiness coming together at the same time. 

A Silence came out on the CD re- issue of Circuses And Bread in 2007 and as a longer instrumental track on an expanded version of Without Mercy. But I think it belongs best on Short Stories For Pauline, an album now rightfully restored alongside with the rest of Vini's Factory works and in its correct place. 

23rd September

Today, 23rd September, is the end of summer in astronomical terms and also the autumn equinox. Harvest festival time. The start of autumn. It's strangely non- autumnal here in Manchester, very mild, warm on many days, and the leaves are still green and are on the trees. The shifts in our seasons, weather and climate, seem increasingly pronounced. 

It is also 99 days until the end of the year, something you might or might not want to be counting. 

Derry musician/ producer outfit Autumns released an album in 2024 called Dyslexia Sound Source with a track on it titled 23 Summers which seems appropriate today.

23 Summers

Autumns make minimal ambient/ industrial, post- punk/ dub. 23 Summers is two minutes and thirty nine seconds of drones and static with a sax squawking somewhere in the distance, dissonance and noise as music. It's an interim track really, an interlude between two others. 

Earlier this year Autumns made a track with Belfast DJ/producer Black Bones, a thudding dark disco industrial delight called Cruising. A bassline so taut you could walk on it. Percussion to match. Someone yelling intermittently. Find it at Bandcamp.  

And because I tend to post it most autumns and because it's a total mood shift and contrast to the two above, here's Yo La Tengo's magnificent and beautiful Autumn Sweater, an indie rock hymn to escape and withdrawal. 

Autumn Sweater

'When I heard the knock on the door
I couldn't catch my breath
Is it too late to call this off?

We could slip away
Wouldn't that be better?
Me with nothing to say
And you in your autumn sweater'

Edit Selection

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Monday's Long Song

Last week Dr Rob at Ban Ban Ton Ton posted a review of a re- issue of a 2003 album by Pharoah Sanders and Bill Laswell, a four track album called With A Heartbeat. It was new to me and I clicked play after reading Rob's words.. The first track, Across Time, began to play and I sat there, entranced for the time it took to play out- seventeen minutes and six seconds. 

The album's core as the tile suggests is the human heartbeat. The resting heart rate pulse beat kicks in, the Pharoah Sanders sax drifts in over the top, a sound that goes all the way back to John Coltrane and the 1950s and Bill Laswell's expansive dub informed sound constructs a world around the two elements, the heart beat and the saxophone. A dub bassline comes in that pushes the track along and there are tabla to add percussive colour. The instruments drop in and out, sometimes leaving just the heartbeat. Sanders sax blows across the top for most of the track's running time, a signature sound riding its own wave, the free form melodic counterpoint to the bass, until at fourteen minutes a sitar picks up the lead. Across Time fades out with the sitar drone and then just the heartbeat. 

A trip through time, part spiritual jazz, part ambient dub, part future music, part meditation. There are three further excursions on the album- Morning Tala, Alankara (Beats Of The Heart) and Gamaka, but at the moment I'm stuck on Across Time. With A Heartbeat is at Bandcamp, out on vinyl for the first time. 

Half An Hour Of Lost Baggy

In 2015 Jon Savage put together a compilation called Perfect Motion- A Secret History Of Second Wave Psychedelia 1988- 1993. Jon pulled together the threads of guitar bands, rave outfits and pop groups who were creating a new wave of psychedelia, not a definitive survey but a snapshot. It very much chimed with my record collection with several Andrew Weatherall tracks, a backwards Stone Roses B-side, songs by The High and Shack, Dee Lite, Electronic, 808 State and Saint Etienne plus Joi, DHS, Northside and a bonkers Pet Shop Boys B-side.

In 2023 the label that released Perfect Motion, Caroline True Records, released a cassette only follow up, limited to just 100 copies, called Never Change- Baggy The Lost Tracks 1988- 1993. I never liked baggy as a descriptor but it's one that's was widely used at the time and has stuck. 

The cassette had an hour of music over two sides of a C60, sixteen songs sequenced together by John K with some extras spliced and mixed in (Loaded's famous sample from The Wild Angles opens up Side A). Some of them are fairly well known- World Of Twist, Stereo MCs and A Guy Called Gerald are all on Side A while Primal Scream and The Stone Roses are on Side B but there are also some very less well known artists and songs on the tape so Lost Tracks is a pretty accurate description. This is an uptempo stew of indie guitars, funky backbeats, a Rolling Stones cover, sampling, Hare Krishna chanting, acid house, Mancunian rap and Bruce Hornsby. 

Never Change Side A

• Sinister Groove: Perfect Person
• World Of Twist: She's A Rainbow
• The Apples: Eye Wonder
• Stereo MCs: What Is Soul?
• MC Buzz B: Never Change
• Joi Bangla Sound: Taj Ma House
• Baby Ford: I Love It
• A Guy Called Gerald: Hot Lemonade
• Sunsonic: Driveaway

Sinister Groove released a four track EP in 1991 on 12" vinyl. One of those very much lesser known EPs from the time. The band were previously known as Bounce The Mouse but sensibly changed the name (not that it made them any better known). Perfect Person is the second song on the EP, a perfectly pitched piece of 1991 guitar pop, funky drummer drums, chiming guitars and a northern sounding vocal. As far as I know they released nothing else. 

World Of Twist were an amazing band who released one album, Quality Street, that wrapped up indie, guitars, Northern Soul, northern psychedelia and a love of kitsch in one package. Their cover of The Stones She's A Rainbow was released, re- released, remixed and promoted in search of a hit. They split a few years later having promised much. 

The Apples were an indie dance band from Edinburgh who released Eye Wonder in 1991. Other than that, I know nothing. 

Stereo MCs would make it big supporting/ blowing the Happy Mondays off stage every night in 1992 and then crossing over with Connected. Before that they had two albums, Supernatural in 1990 and 33- 45- 78 in 1989 from which What Is Soul? is from. In 1989 they constructed their tracks from scratch, sampling records onto tape, pressing pause, winding the record back and letting it go again. Painstaking. Sample spotting fun- Eno and Byrne, Ben E. King, Van McCoy...

MC Buzz B (Shorn Braithwaite) was a rapper from Hulme, from a time when UK hip hop was very undeveloped. Never Change makes liberal use of Bruce Hornsby's That's The Way It Is and showcases Buzz B's positivity and inventiveness. Never Change is from the album Words Escape Me. 

Joi Bangla Sound were a DJ/ production duo, Farook and Haroon Shamsher, from Bradford. They took the sounds from their Bangladeshi upbringing and mashed them together with late 80s street sounds- house, sampling, rap- and released Taj Ma House as a white label in 1988. Desert Storm was NME single of the week in 1992 when that accolade meant something and they performed at WOMAD and signed to Peter Gabriel's label. They became festival regulars and played thousands of gigs in the 90s. Haroon died suddenly and unexpectedly in 1999 and Farook has since continued alone. 

Baby Ford is a UK acid house original, releasing singles including Oochy Koochy, Children Of The Revolution and Beach Bump. I Love It is from 1989 on the label of the day Rhythm King and the album Ford Trax. 

A Guy Called Gerald. You know who Gerald is. Co- writer of 808 State's Pacific State. Voodoo Ray. Emotions Electric. Some of the best and most important UK house singles of all time. Hot Lemonade was recorded in Manchester in 1989 and missed out on the kudos it deserved in that year's run of records that captured people's attention. 

Sunsonic were previously indie band The Flowerpot Men who left guitars for electronics in 1989 and made three singles and an album in 1990/ 1991. Driveaway was the third/ last. Their first single Kind Of Loving (1990) has a B- side called Innocent Man which is a lost ambient classic (but that's a different tape/ mix/ album entirely).