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 You don't have to be ashamed of using your own ideas.

My lack of shame took me to Wayne Walker, The Black Balloons (Weatherall and Tenniswood), Sugar, It's Immaterial, Timothy J. Fairplay and Parquet Courts. 

The Oblique Saturdays collective came up with another set of eclectic, weird and wonderful suggestions: Leftfield and Toni Halliday (C); William Burroughs (Al G); The Streets (Mrs G); Courtney Barnett (Rol); Merle Haggard (Ernie); Culture (both The Swede and Chris Yardley); and XTC (John Medd and big apologies to Mr Medd whose Beatles suggestion I missed off the previous week's round up). 

This week's Oblique Strategies card says this- Change nothing and continue with immaculate consistency.

Sometimes I turn the card over and wish Mr Eno and Mr Schmidt would be a bit less fucking oblique. 

There are loads of songs about change, change as a force for personal or social improvement and about the possibilities of change. There are fewer about not changing. 

Stasis is the act of staying the same, of not changing. In 2016 Pye Corner Audio released an album called Stasis and at the heart of Stasis was a track called...

At The Heart Of Stasis

Gloomy ambience, modular synth drones, a hammering kick drum and then chords that evoke 70s sci fi crossed with Kraftwerk and Moroder's futurism. Which is what Ghost Box, the label he released it on, were all about. 

The word immaculate means only one thing in music- Madonna. In 1990 Madonna released The Immaculate Collection, her first greatest hits compilation, just at the peak of her Catholic Church baiting period, hence the title. She dedicated the album to The Pope, 'my divine inspiration'. This was apparently not a reference to John Paul II but to her brother Christoper, whose nickname was The Pope. I'm sure the confusion was intentional. The Catholic concept of the Immaculate Conception is that the Virgin Mary conceived without having sex, without the stain of the original sin of Adam and Eve.

Here's Keith Hudson with some righteous roots reggae...

Virgin Rock

The word Original takes us back to C's suggestion last week, Leftfield and Toni Halliday in 1995 and this superb piece of techno/ trip hop, a slow burning dubby odyssey...

Original

Back to Madonna. The Immaculate Collection was a greatest hits package starting with Holiday and working its way through her 80s hits and ending with two then new songs- Justify My Love and Rescue Me. Justify My Love is a great song, based on that Funky Drummer/ Public Enemy drum sample with Madonna in imperious mode. I've posted it twice in the last year, once in its own right and once as part of a Funky Drummer celebration mix. All of the songs on The Immaculate Collection were reworked by Shep Pettibone using QSound (a processor that gave sound a 3 dimensional effect). Some had new intros or were shortened. Into The Groove, Like A Prayer and Express Yourself were totally different versions. Borderline was the album version, pure pop and utterly irrepressible. 

Borderline

Borderline was written because Madge's first album was a bit short. Songwriter Reggie Davis wrote it for her while she was flat sitting for Jean Michel Basquiat. As one does. 

Feel free to drop your own responses to today's Oblique Strategy into the comment box- Change nothing and continue with immaculate consistency. 

The Green Lady

Once prints like Tretchikoff's Chinese Girl (or The Green Lady) were cheap, mass market art. Now, the popularity of vintage, Mid- Century Modern and kitsch mean that original copies from the 1950s and 60s in good condition are priced into three figures. Vladimir Tretchikoff painted it in 1952 and then a new version a year later. The original sold for just under £1 million at auction in 2013. The copy I photographed above was in Pear Mill in Stockport and if I'd had a spare £100 I might have bought it. 

In 1989 Mick Jones paid tribute to the painting, a copy of which hung on his Nan's wall in her flat- the flat with the balcony from which thirteen years earlier Joe Strummer wrote London's Burning. The Green Lady is on Megatop Phoenix, the last album by the original line up of Big Audio Dynamite.  

The Green Lady

'Dry your eyes Salome/ Mona Lisa too/ Lady in the picture frame/ My heart belongs to you'. 

Mick also sings the line, 'Window to the Orient... Nobody knows your name', but it seems we do now know who the Green Lady was- the model was Monika Sing- Lee, also known as Pon-Su-San, introduced to Tretchikoff by a Russian dancer Masha Arsenyeva. Pon-Su-San died in 2017 and presumably made nothing financially from being the face on a hundred thousand living room walls. 

This photo of The Clash in Mick's Nan's flat was taken by Pennie Smith and printed in the Before And After book. It's one of my favourite photos of the band- the contrast between their 1979 rock 'n' roll finery and glowering looks and Mick's Nan's wallpaper and belongings is perfect. 

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.