Your Shadow At Morning

They say good things come in threes and Tuesday into Wednesday this week added some fuel to that fire. On Tuesday night, after suggesting in yesterday's blogpost about The Fall, that a Manchester United win was unlikely verging on impossible, the dysfunctional crisis club from Old Trafford went and turned a nil- 2 half time scoreline into a 3-2 win against Roma. United hadn't won since early September. This caused me some pleasure which may all come crashing down when we play Aston Villa on Sunday but at the moment we've got to get our kicks were we find them. 

I realise that United winning isn't necessarily seen as a good thing by everyone but there were internet comments below the line in several places from fans of other clubs including Liverpool and Arsenal fans saying they were glad for Michael Carrick to finally get a win and agreeing with us that United's ownership model and executive management (racist Jim Ratcliffe et al) are bad news all round. 

Secondly, waking up to the news on Wednesday morning that Trump and MAGA have taken a massive hit in the U.S. midterm elections put a further spring in my step all day. Americans turned out in droves to reject Trump and his policies- the war against Iran, ICE, inflation, tariffs, the cost of living and a certain tone deafness about his projects have all been cited as motivating factors for disillusion and disgust. 'Pretend it's me on the ballot', he kept telling the MAGA faithful crowds at rallies. Looks like they did just that Donald. It's easy to say that incumbent presidents often get a kicking midterm. They do. But this was a kicking on a generational scale, a once every 20 or 30 years reversal. It turns out having a fantastic reflecting pool and plans for a gold plated ballroom and processional arch don't actually count for much with ordinary voters who are struggling to pay their weekly bills. The beginning of the end of Trump hopefully. 

Thirdly, in the middle of the day while on my lunch break I saw a link to a new remix of Durutti Column by Four Tet. A dream pairing for me. One of my favourite modern/ recent artists remixing one of my lifetime favourite artists (in a year when a new Durutti Column album was a most unexpected thing). Kieran Hebden takes Your Shadow At Morning from Renascent and adds some typically Four Tet sounds and moments to it, stretching it out over nine minutes, adding a springy Four Tet kick drum and highlighting Vini's guitar and voice. Your Shadow At Morning (Four Tet Rework) is out now to stream, and hopefully to buy, even more hopefully to buy physically, at some point in the future. What a treat. 

Random Fall Song Wednesday Two

Last Wednesday I posted a random song by The Fall. SWC from the wonderful No Badger Required blog said he wanted to join in and his random Fall song is here today. 

Did my random Fall selection this morning.  127 tracks....and the shuffle button selected.....

 

Jawbone and the Air-Rifle (Peel Session)

A song from Hex Enduction Hour, 1982. 

A gloriously lopsided, driving Fall track with one of those line-ups firing on all cylinders. Not a single, not one of the obvious gateway songs, just a fantastic slab of early-80s Fall weirdness with Mark E. Smith barking his way through the chaos.

 

And, in true Fall fashion, I hated it after thirty seconds, but loved it six months later....

Thanks SWC. Just to up the randomness I've posted the Peel Session version. 

If anyone else wants to see their own random Fall song in a future Wednesday slot, please let me know. I'll leave the selection method up to you. All you have to do is select a song by The Fall at random and send it to me and I'll post it here ith any words you'd like to accompany it. JC at The Vinyl Villain has also signed up to play Random Fall Song Wednesday. 

What are the chances of any of us randomly selecting the same Fall songs? 

Slim but not nil. About the same as United winning a game of football I reckon. Mark E Smith would be delighted with Manchester United's current travails. Despite growing up in red leaning Salford, he supported City, 'just to be contrary' and just because his dad was a United fan. 

Mark would probably be reveling in the cheating too. 

Ocean Sliding

Over at Paisley Dark there's a second EP of Tougher Than Disco coming out later this month- Marshall Watson's Tougher Than Disco 1 came out in mid- October with remixes by L.A. Dysto, Mr BC, Viper Patrol and Airsine. The second EP has two Marshall originals, Dance Machine and High On,with remixes from Cosmikuro, Jay- Son and Ian Vale plus a pair of remixes by 10:40. 

The first of the two 10:40 remixes is the Ocean Machine Mix, where Jesse pulls together Marshall's original elements- synths, drums, keys- in a different order and drops in one of his signature spoken word vocal samples (a speech about evolution and aesthetics, man's highest possible goals and achievements), and so creating a completely new, exhilarating version of the track that soars, always building and reaching higher. Underworld- esque. You can listen to it at Soundcloud. 

Marshall's original version of Dance Machine is at Bandcamp now, a chuggy beast with vocoder vocals. When the EP comes out you'll also be able to enjoy Jesse's second remix, the 10:40 Tube Ride Dub. 

Over at Eclectics, another electronic music label that always delivers, comes an EP by Ian Vale called Panopticon. The first track is Sliding, a seven minute acid house that really nags away when the bassline kicks at one minute ten seconds and then the synth chords at one thirty. 

The Statues remix of Sliding goes all dreamy, a Giorgio Moroder- esque take on the track that feels like summer has returned, and you're dancing in an Italian disco, in Rimini perhaps, with a terrace that looks out over the beach. Everyone is tanned and golden. Everyone feels great. 

There are two more tracks on Panopticon- Setback is an intense acid hit and the Blavatsky & Tolley X Rated Remix pushes further, stripped back, juddering and strobe lit. The vocal is definitely Not Safe For Work (in case you're reading this in the staff room or canteen and are tempted to hit play). 

 You can find Panopticon at Eclectics Bandcamp site here. 

Juan Atkins RIP

Not many people can say they played a key role in changing popular music and culture. Juan Atkins is one who definitely could. His death aged 64, just before a DJ gig in Mexico City on Saturday, was announced yesterday. Atkins was one of the Belleville Three, three Detroit DJs and producers who in the first half of the 1980s invented techno. 

The Belleville Three (Juan, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson) bonded over European electronic music (Kraftwerk, Depeche Mode), Black American funk (Parliament, Funkadelic), pioneering leftfield artists (Yellow Magic Orchestra) and a local radio station show by The Electrifying Mojo (Charles Johnson on WGPR). The Three bought turntables and synthesizers. Atkins was the first to buy turntables and taught the other two to DJ. At college he took a class called Future Studies where he learnt about the transition from an industrial society to a technological one. He then applied this to the music he was making. 

Juan Atkins formed Cybotron (early 80s electro- techno) with Rick Davis in 1981 and when they parted company he became Model 500 in 1985. Model 500's records are landmark Detroit techno releases. Whatever anyone else was doing in 1985, no one was doing anything more futuristic than this...

Time Space Transmat

Atkins also formed Metroplex in 1985, a record label to put out the work of other artists as well as his own. In the 2010s he formed Borderland with Moritz von Oswald, a German producer and resident of the Berlin scene (bizarrely Moritz is a descendant of Otto von Bismark, the man brought about German unification in 1871). They made two albums, one in 2013 and one in 2016. On the second they released this nine minute epic, sleek and futuristic machine music, the result of several decades of techno music crystallized and distilled...

Riod

Juan Atkins was often known as the Godfather of Techno- he merged science fiction, synth pop, cosmic Black American funk and futurism to create techno, a new form. This new type of music lit a fire in the USA and crossed the Atlantic, sending the UK and Europe into a spin in the late 80s, setting off a youth revolution that changed the culture forever. A founding father and giant of modern music. 

Juan Atkins RIP

Thirty Five Minutes Of Planet Mondo 80s

Rifling through a box of CDs recently which included a load of CDs I made back in the 00s and early 2010s (when I was in the habit of making compilation CDs  of songs downloaded from music blogs and printing off pictures for front covers and handwriting or typing out the tracklists and putting them in plastic wallets) I found one with a C60 Agfa cassette on the cover and this title- Planet Mondo Side 1 Sound Of The Crowd/ Planet Mondo Side 2 Creatures Of The Night. I'm guessing it dates from the late 00s. The tracklist looked good and I had a dim memory of it so I took it to the car for playing while we were driving around this week. 

Side 1 Sound Of The Crowd starts with a typically 80s Radio 1 style jingle- then Soft Cell's drums kick in and over the top a robotic voice says,'You are about to experience a Planet Mondo mix for The Vinyl Villain', as the sax starts wailing and Marc begins to sing. Which surprised me- I didn't remember this being a Vinyl Villain tie in. Maybe either JC at The Vinyl Villain or Planet Mondo remember more than I do.

This is a really good, one side of a C90 set, well selected and sequenced, mixed into one file, perfect for a trip back to a dark, electronic 80s dancefloor. 

Planet Mondo Side 1 Sound Of The Crowd

• Soft Cell: Memorabilia
• Simple Minds: I Travel (Remix)
• Pete Shelley: Homosapien
• Divine: Love Reaction
• The Human League: Empire State Human
• Cabaret Voltaire: Nag Nag Nag
• Fad Gadget: Back To Nature

Memorabilia came out in 1981 on Some Bizarre, Marc Almond and Dave Ball at their best- slightly over the top, drum machines and synths a go go and Marc doing his on- the- edge  lyrical thing. Their minimal synthwave aesthetic was pretty groundbreaking, art crossed with pop, and made them massively famous and successful for a while. 

I Travel was from Simple Minds' Empires And Dance album, a 1980 single that is as good as anything they did in that period. Moroder- esque synthlines and Derek Forbes' bass pushing everything on. 

Pete Shelley's Homosapien is a banger, released as a single in 1981, the former Buzzcock going electronic with The Human League's Martin Rushent on production. The lyrics made it a gay club favourite, a song that celebrates same sex love and stands against homophobia- 'The world is so wrong/ That I hope you'll be strong enough/ But I don't want to classify you like an animal in the zoo/ But it seems good to me to see that you're a homosapien too...' 

Divine's 1983 Love Reaction single starts out sounding like/ borrowing from Blue Monday (out earlier in 1983). Love Reaction's producer Bobby Orlando was a huge fan of New Order's famous single. Love Reaction turns into a Divine single with Blue Monday bursting through the seams. 

Empire State Human- early Human League, recorded in Sheffield in 1979 and the only single from their album Reproduction, an intersection of art, glam, synths and post- industrial modernism. Oakey's lyrics have been seen as outlining his pop star ambitions- 'I wanna be tall, tall, tall... fourteen stories high (at least)'. 

Nag Nag Nag was Cabaret Voltaire's 1980 calling card, uncompromising and industrial but futuristic. The group saw it as 60s psyche garage updated, Nuggets groups like The Thirteenth Floor Elevators and Red Krayola retooled for early 80s northern England. One of those records which captured the zeitgeist. 

Fad Gadget's Back To Nature is one of those songs too- utterly brilliant, compellingly bleak, minimal analogue synths and deadpan vocals, Cold War vibes on Canvey Sands. 

'Back to nature - burning bodies in the sun
Back to nature - just like lemmings, every one
Back to nature - capitalist aircraft fill the air
Back to nature - aerosol sun breaks on air

It's gonna rain all night
But we'll be alright
Under the geodesic dome
Infrared heater, just like home
Sitting in the shade of a rubber tree
I'll kiss you and you'll kiss me'

Side 2 Creatures Of The Night will follow next Sunday.

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 What wouldn't you do?

I went down a road of asking all the big musical questions and ended up with The Cramps asking about pussies and dogs and Buzzcocks asking why they can't touch it.  

Out in the Oblique Saturdays community there were a huge range of responses, a playlist with something for everyone. Al G went with Betty Boo, Spencer gave us Benedict Drew, Mrs G threw in Rage Against The Machine, Prue Leith offered up Tool (their second OS appearance), SRC gave us The Associates and their mantra for life ('If you can't do no good, then sucker, don't you do no harm'), Jase came with Mark Lanegan and Ecstasy, Passion And Pain, JC suggested Malcolm Middleton and Paul Haig, Rol offered Pet Shop Boys, Beerfeuled gave us Rick Astley, C suggested The Bangles and Frankie Valli, Ernie had Gina Birch's stilettos, Khayem arrived with Boney M and Half Man Half Biscuit (they don't often crop up together), The Swede dropped in with Frank Sinatra and Count Basie and Chris Yardley came with a fear of potholing and The Jesus And Mary Chain. 

Thank you everyone.

This week's card from Messrs Eno and Schmidt says this- You don't have to be ashamed of using your own ideas.

Thanks Brian and Peter. I'm not sure how to take that. The whole blogging lark is largely using my own ideas and churning out daily posts. Back in the mid- 2000s when I first started reading music blogs (the Golden Age of Music Blogging) I began frequenting The Vinyl Villain and Acid Ted, satisfying my twin searches for digital versions of 80s indie and 90s acid house. I used to frequent several blogs that are long gone- STX's Audio.Out was a goldmine for Weatherall and similar and Spoilt Victorian Child was good for guitars. Ripped In Glasgow was essential. Drew started up Across The Kitchen Table, London Lee's Crying All The Way To The Chip Shop was very good and Davy H's The Ghost Of Electricity was an eclectic source of tunes. Song For Toad. Seventeen Seconds. Dusty Sevens. Planet Mondo. There were others that I can't even remember the names of now. 

All of these people were writing music blogs and suitably inspired at the dawn of 2010 I thought I'd do the same, post a song a day for a year and see how it went. My own ideas included posting plenty of Andrew Weatherall, various Manchester and Factory related acts, and try to feature songs that had stories attached to them. There was a long running Friday series, Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night that began after a guest posting at The Vinyl Villain, where I wrote about Wayne Walker's classic 1956 song All I Can Do Is Cry. 

All I Can Do Is Cry

In the early days there was lots of 60s garage, regular Half Man Half Biscuit posts and a lot of Wild Billy Childish. The first Andrew Weatherall post and the very first Bagging Area post (1st January 2010) was pretty obtuse- an idiosyncratic and one off track from 2002 by Weatherall and Keith Tenniswood as The Black Balloons called Fowler's End. 

Fowler's End

But enough of this self- congratulatory navel gazing. Here are some other ideas...

A Good Idea

Sugar in 1992, Bob Mould churning up loud guitars with a summer drowning, channeling Debaser's bassline and taking Husker Du's wall of noise into the charts. 

The Better Idea 

It's Immaterial in 1986, a sumptuous and vivid backing track with one of those It's Immaterial half spoken word and half sung vocals about suffering and surviving. 

Jennifer Has Some Strange Ideas

Timothy J. Fairplay has made loads of really good solo records, vintage synths and drum machines with descriptions such as Stasi House and Dungeon Module. He's a lovely bloke too. Jennifer Has Some Strange Ideas is from an EP in Hoga Nord in 2017 called Mindfighter and is typically inventive and engaging analogue synth electro fun. 

Finally, Parquet Courts in 2012 with no ideas other than some rather lovely, shambling indie rock...

No Ideas

As ever, feel free to drop your own responses to the Oblique Strategy into the comment box- You don't have to be ashamed of using your own ideas.

Johatsu

Johatsu is a Japanese word which translates literally as 'evaporation', a word that describes those people in Japan who voluntarily, purposefully disappear from their lives, who leave their jobs and families and just vanish. It became a phenomenon in the 1960s and accelerated into the 1990s as Japanese society became increasingly debt reliant. Some people vanish on their own. Others employ the services of 'night movers', companies that exist to help people vanish without a trace. For whatever reason- debt, unhappiness, feeling trapped- thousands of Japanese people have deliberately disappeared. 

Johatsu is the title of David Harrow's new album, released this week. It's a beatless, ambient/ instrumental album created with piano, keys and modular synths, with layers of ringing drones, synth chords and notes, a full sound that lifts it beyond being ambient wallpaper. Some of the thirteen tracks on Johatsu evoke the feelings that the evaporated people might feel, before or after their act of self- disappearance. There's also a sense that these tracks are part of the ambient environment, a reflection of feeling and life and not merely the soundtrack to it. There's an unease about them, a disquiet, and also the suggestion of tension waiting to be released. Some of the titles are very Johatsu- As It Ends, The Night Movers, Between The Cracks, One Room, No Loyalty. Some are more oblique- Ace, Eel Pie. This is the album's opener, 60s...

No Loyalty comes towards the album's end, Japanese sounding instrumentation among the ambient analogue synths. In the end it's difficult to know where one's sympathies lie- with the disappearers, the Johatsu, or the people they leave behind. There aren't any easy answers. David doesn't provide any either but the thirteen tracks on Johatsu are highly evocative and a very complete piece of work. 

Johatsu is out on London label No Beats Aloud and can be found here.