One of the highlights of our trip to Brussels last week was the Atomium. It was constructed for the 1958 World Trade Fair, a celebration of the Atomic Age and science generally (with a slice of the Cold War and the space race thrown in too). The Atomium is 335 feet tall, nine stainless steel spheres with connecting tubes and designed by Andre Waterkeyn, a modernist tribute to scientific progress and Belgian engineering skills- an atomic unit cell magnified 165 billion times, a feat of the post- war scientific world.
Now we live in a world where people don't believe in vaccinations any more.
The Atomium is on the outskirts of Brussels, a train/ tram ride to the north of the city (Brussels is very well served for comprehensive, cheap and efficient public transport). It's part of a park which also includes the Heysel stadium which as anyone familiar with football in the 1980s will know has a history and tragedy of its own.
The grounds from the World Trade Fair are still there and a few of the late 50s buildings and pavilions but the centrepiece is the Atomium, a mere 16 euros to enter. The view from the sphere at the top is impressive too. Above this there is a restaurant with space age tables and chairs.
Inside the Atomium is just as exciting as outside- the spheres house an exhibition filled with promo material, posters, leaflets, accounts and photos from the fair and the construction of the Atomium. Over 41 million people visited Expo 58. At this time the Second World War was only thirteen years in the past, rationing had only just ended in the UK, the world was still recovering from a collective trauma, Europe as much as anywhere- the Atomium must have seemed like the future had landed right in front of them, in Belgium.
As well as the museum some of the spheres are home to an installation of sound and light which were right up my straat.
Yes, it would be a great place to hold a party.
It's also ridiculously photogenic and viewed in 2026 beautifully retro- futuristic. I could have moved in and stayed for the rest of the week.
Mondays at this blog are usually designated as Monday's Long Song. This is eight minutes of Natural Transition by Atomic Moog, a French electronic duo, from an EP released in 2022 that works as an Atomium soundtrack in both band name and sound.
A few days ago I revisited Andrew Weatherall's 2nd January 2020 show for NTS, a largely ambient and instrumental two hour mix he famously described as 'dusting the ornaments on the mantelpiece of your mind'.
It's a deeply affecting two hours that sets off with Prana Crafter's guitar ambience and goes deep into the psychic world of sound with a perfectly selected and sequenced set with tracks from Vito Ricci, G.S. Schray, Machete Savane, Anu Luz, Luke Sanger, Karen Gwyer, Neptune, Stephen Legget, Ana Bogner, Constantine and Christos Sakerillaridis, Felsmann and Tiley, Dream Diary, Terry Riley and Don Cherry, Ryan Teague, D.A.R.F.D.H.S., Luca Bacchetti, and Darryl Parsons. The list of artists alone indicates the range and scope of the man's musical knowledge and crate digging. Sonic adventuring leading to catharsis.
Andrew didn't create a huge amount of ambient music but it's definitely there throughout his back catalogue, one of the many strands that made him. When you listen to the ambient tracks from his Sabres Of Paradise or two Lone Swordsmen days and then play some from later on, the solo and Woodleigh Research Facility years, there's a striking coherence, the drones and synth sounds all fitting together into one larger whole. At least, that's the way it seemed to me when I put some of them together in a fifty minute mix. It's not entirely ambient- Andrew was never far away from a drum machine or drum sample- but it's an ambient inspired mix for Sunday.
Andrew Weatherall and Michael Smith: The Deep Hum (At The Heart Of It All)
Two Lone Swordsmen: Hope We Never Surface
Two Lone Swordsmen: As Worldly Pleasures Wave Goodbye...
Two Lone Swordsmen: It's Not The Worst I've Ever Looked... Just The Most I've Ever Cared
Woodleigh Research Facility: Gardens Dub
Woodleigh Research Facility: Emancipation Garage
Woodleigh Research Facility: Alma Coogan
The Sabres Of Paradise: Chapel Street Market 9AM
The Crescents was originally only to be found on a small circulation promo CD in a tie in deal with a Japanese clothing brand from 2003, some otherwise unreleased Weatherall and Tenniswood tracks plus the A and B- side from Hidden Library 002 (a 7" release from 2002). It was then given its first vinyl release on Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 1 in 2024 and then when Rotters Golf Club put Still My World out on vinyl for Record Shop Day the same year. It's Andrew and Keith ambience and a very lovely track.
In 2013 as part of his artist in residence period at Faber and Faber Andrew collaborated with Hartlepudlian author Michael Smith on a version of Smith's novel Unreal City (a novel about modern life, art, commerce and London). Andrew and Nina Walsh put together a seven track soundtrack to accompany a new edition of the book with Andrew's annotations in the margins, a CD of the soundtrack and a 10" single. Andrew and Nina's ringing drones and Smith's East Yorkshire accent are made for each other. If you'd like to hear the whole Unreal City, you can find it at my Mixcloud where Michael popped in with a link to an article he'd written about making it.
1998's Stay Down seemed like a slightly subdued Two Lone Swordsmen album on release, twelve short pieces of sub- aquatic, downtempo, somewhere between ambient and underwater techno. It's grown over the years and has become my favorite TLS album, a full piece that has its own sound, ebb and flow, perfectly captured by its pair of deep sea divers on the cover. It's bookend by Hope We Never Surface and the lilting, gorgeous As Worldly Pleasures Wave Goodbye... (the latter is as good as any ambient electronic music made by anyone in the 90s, ambient music with dolphin chatter). A languid, strange and atmospheric album.
It's Not The Worst I've Ever Looked... Just the Most I've Ever Cared was on side six of 2000's Tiny Reminders, a three disc record that goes deep into bass, purism and experimentation. It's Not The Worst.. was the album's outlier, a three minute moment of calm, an acoustic guitar riff loop, some gentle synth sounds, a dusty rhythm, and acres of space.
Woodleigh Research Facility began life in Crystal Palace in 2015, Weatherall and Walsh recording in Youth's garden shed. The first results were an album, The Phoenix Suburb (And Other Stories), a double vinyl album in 2015 with Emancipation Garage the most ambient sounding track on the record. At some point in 2015 they sent Gardens Dub out to everyone who'd ordered the Moine Dubh series of 7" singles as an apology for the non- appearance of one of the singles- pressing plant problems I think.
Alma Coogan is an unreleased WRF track- it's on Youtube, a twelve minute ambient excursion which was done as part of the Faber residency. Andrew had worked again with Michael Smith to produce three tracks/ video poems about the English coast. In 2018 at Festival No. 6 WRF performed Alma Coogan as part of Andrew's Psychedelic Faber Social. WRF performed Alma Coogan live at a Durham literary festival where Andrew was a judge on the Gordon Burn Prize. Burn wrote Alma Coogan, a 1991 novel reprinted in 2004, set in an alternate world where Alma did not die of cancer in 1966 but lived to recount various seedy and unpleasant experiences in the entertainment industry, all based on real events, with the imagined Alma narrating the novel from retirement by the sea in 1986.
Sabres Of Paradise's second album Haunted Dancehall came out in 1994, a double disc masterpiece that followed the adventures of one Nicky Maguire. Side four concludes things in largely ambient style with Maguire at dawn in London as the city wakes up, first on Jacob Street and then at Chapel Street Market. The second of these is an Sabres at their ambient best, seagulls and wobbling synth sounds, Weatherall, Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns following Maguire through the streets, just a few steps behind.
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 Saturday's card said this- Cluster Analysis. And in response to the card I posted a track by West German group Cluster, 1976's Zum Wohl. What else could I do? Walter agreed- the band Cluster was is first response too but then said this-
My second thought reminded me that cluster analysis was a significant part of my profession. In terms of music, every mixtape and every playlist is a cluster of this kind—depending on the underlying intention. I opened a playlist in Spotify. The cluster was the release date of the songs. Coincidentally, 'Ndrangheta Allotment by Meatraffle was at the top of the list.
To which I spluttered a sort of half laugh. The process of writing a blog is often to start with a blank white page and to see where it goes. Often I have a clear idea of what a post is going to be about. There's a notebook next to the computer in which I keep a list of songs/ artists/ topics to write about. It gets added to endlessly and items are crossed out as they get covered. When the pages become a mess of crossings out and scribbles I turn over and start a new page, transferring anything from the old page not yet covered onto the new one.
Often a post comes together which isn't on the list so the list is a memory jogger and bank of intentions and ideas. And sometimes, I click on New Post on the dashboard and see what happens. But [blank white card] is more or less the starting point so on this occasion I'm not sure Eno and Schmidt's Oblique Strategy did very much in terms of firing the creative process.
I put the three words into the downloads folder search box and went for the first return in each case.
Pye Corner Audio from 2024- noise and fear, a synth drone underneath just about audible, hammer on metal- then at two minutes a synth chord emerges sounding like the most distorted guitar in the world, changing slightly and just when you're about to give up, the noise almost too much a little musical refrain appears and gradually- very gradually- comes to the fore. The sound of the last song being when the universe collapses.
A total change of sound- White Shirt is from Some Friendly, The Charlatans debut album, released in October 1990. Rob Collins' Hammond organ is the key instrument, that wheezy sound swirling and leading. Tim Burgess said the song was mainly inspired by Felt and also an attempt to shift Collins away from Deep Purple and The Beatles. 'When my white shirt lets me down', Tim sings, 'Like one we race against the wind'.
From Mogwai's 2014 album Rave Tapes, an album that has been overshadowed by ones they've made since- I'd always go to 2025's The Bad Fire, 2021's As The Love Continues, 2017's Every Country's Sun or 2016's soundtrack Atomic before putting Rave Tapes on. Guitars raging, a staccato riff, keys, pounding drums- Master Card is a sound hewn from granite.
Each of these three artists has been on these pages multiple times- maybe that was what Eno's card was hinting at, doing something completely different.
Feel free to play along and suggest your own Oblique Saturday responses in the comments box.
Another dip back into the world of late 80s alternative culture as filtered through the lens of Snub TV, an early evening independent music show of the kind that seems inconceivable now. In December 1988 The House Of Love were filmed playing live at Top Rank in Brighton- the seven minute clip opens with a ferocious take on Destroy the Heart, Terry Bickers' guitar and Guy Chadwick's vocals in some kind of war to be the most ragged and fraught. Bickers was a really talented guitarist, capable of slow burning shimmer and understated pyrotechnics. The clip then has an interview with a fresh faced Chadwick. The rest of the band look like they'd rather be anywhere else. Snub then cut back to the gig with Man To Child.
I loved The House Of Love, saw them live several times in the late 80s including one occasion at the Queen's Hall in Widnes just a few days before they kicked Terry out of the band, abandoning him at a service station as they were driving to Wales. Relations were fraught and Terry called Guy a breadhead and set fire to a £5 note and then drummer Pete Evans punched Terry in the face- I might be misremembering the details but it was along those lines. The first album, released on Creation in 1988, was possibly the last gasp of this kind of indie guitar music before acid house and indie dance came along the following year.
Throwing Muses were on Snub in 1988, filmed live at The Town And Country Club in Camden in May. There's a brief interview section at the start of this clip, step- sisters Kristin Hersh and Tanya Donelly, facing the questions and Kristin talking about feminism. The clip then goes to the gig, an intense performance of Downtown (a song from their 1988 album House Tornado). They were a powerful live band- they'd been going since 1981 so by '88 they were pretty seasoned performers.
Manic Depression is a cover of The Jimi Hendrix Experience song. This is a live instrumental version, no vocals- I've no idea where or when it's from but a version of the song was on 1992's Firepile EP.
Some more new electronic music for your enjoyment, from Mighty Force, from Paisley Dark and from Duncan Gray. I sometimes feel that writing about instrumental, electronic music leads to a certain amount of repetitive description, words like chug, synth, bass, cosmic, dark, dub and acidic re- arranged in various permutations. Needless to say, they don't always do the music justice.
J- Lower (Jeff Lowes) records for Mighty Force. His latest album, Quanta, came out two weeks ago, an eleven track tour de force built on warm, soft drum pads, thick bass and light, ascending melody lines. Opening track Hive sets the scene, a track that builds into something that soars and lifts. The eight minute wonder Astral Awakenings has the same warm synth and drum sounds, a gently prodding rhythm and insistent melodies. You can play the whole thing from start to finish or drop in on any of the eleven tracks and find something to warm the heart and stimulate the mind. Get Quanta at Bandcamp.
At Paisley Dark the latest EP comes via label boss John Paynter and co- producer Ben Lewis' A Space Age Freak Out complete with a full line up of remixes- Airsine, Cosmikuro, Hogt I Tak, Ben Hunt, Isis Moray, Keith Forrester, Plastic GRN, The Machine Soul and Viper Patrol are all present and correct.
The original track is Song Of Siraba, a six minute dark disco outing that thumps along, high grade acidic chug. Airsine strips it down and slows it down, a slow burning acid churn. Cosmikuro follows suit, faint hint of ghostly backing vocals and increasingly chunky bassline coming to the fore. Keith Forrester speeds it up, strobe light, high tempo. Viper Patrol go metallic chug, lasers and widescreen sci fi. Isis Moray turn up the distortion and overload the limiters. Find those remixes and the others, all eleven versions, at Paisley Dark's Bandcamp.
After Mighty Force in Exeter and Paisley Dark in Leeds we head to Slough where Duncan Gray is firmly back in the driving seat and releasing monthly tracks from his stockpile of recordings. In December he gave us Microfreaking, a seven minute throbber with synth and bass battling it out. January saw the release of Somebody Is Missing, a bassline and melodica heads down, slo mo, four four tribute to the departed, with a bass that never lets up- wonderful dubbed out disco. Right at the end of January Duncan dropped Do The Wrong Thing, a leftfield, off kilter delight that nods to Bowie and Iggy in West Berlin, Andrew Weatherall's Scrutton Street bunker and the never- ending thud of the four four kick drum. The wrong thing is most definitely the right thing.
We're off to Brussels today, an early morning flight to the Belgian capital for a half term break, three days and two nights. We haven't been to Brussels before but it looks like it has plenty to offer- preliminary research indicates no fewer than nineteen record shops as well as plenty of establishments serving Belgian beer and frites. Waffles. The Atomium. The European parliament. Lots of Art Nouveau, Art Deco and Modernist architecture and design to gaze at as well as art galleries and museums.
Also, some very local and musical connections. Brussels is the home of Factory Benelux and Le Disques Du Crepuscule, and the latter still operates out of the city re- issuing Factory albums. LDDC was set up in 1980 by Michel Duval and Annik Honore with James Nice taking over the running of the label more recently (James is the author of Shadowplayers, the definitive Factory biography).
In 1979 Le Disques Du Crepuscule released a cassette titled From Brussels With Love, a deluxe tape package in a plastic wallet with twenty one tracks including several by Factory artists- The Durutti Column, ACR, The Names and Martin Hannett- along with Brian Eno (an interview), Harold Budd, John Foxx, Michael Nyman and more.
The Durutti Column were on From Brussels With Love twice, Sleep Will Come and Piece For An Ideal. The second of those is just two minutes long, Vini's guitar ringing out loud and clear with piano and some percussion.
Factory's association with Brussels was pretty deep and Factory acts often played in the city, usually at Plan K, a five story arts venue in a former sugar refinery on, appropriately enough, Rue de Manchester. In 1979 Joy Division played there with Cabaret Voltaire and William Burroughs. Burroughs headlined- Ian Curtis approached Burroughs, a hero of his, for a chat. Burroughs told him to fuck off. Ian was suitably chastened apparently.
On 13th August 1981 Durutti Column were recorded playing live in Brussels, a gig which included Vini's song For Belgian Friends, one of my favourite DC songs. It was included on last year's expanded and remastered Return Of The Durutti Column re- issue, along with Conduct, Self- Portrait and Sketch For Summer. You can hear all those at Bandcamp and the live version of For Belgian Friends is here.
In 2020 Aficionado, the Manchester based, Balearica/ anything goes label, released a four track EP with a cover of For Belgian Friends by Dream Lovers as one of the quartet of songs, a sleepy, entrancing cover of the song that is worthy of standing alongside Vini's original.
Remembering Mr. Andrew Weatherall who died on this day six years ago and whose music, art, outlook and style affected my world so much: the remixes that began for me with the purchase of Loaded in February 1990 and the Weatherall/ Oakenfold Club Mix of Hallelujah by Happy Mondays a month or two earlier and then went on from there, the words Andy Weatherall Remix in brackets after a song being a guarantee in those early years of something you definitely hadn't heard before, even when you hadn't heard of the artist he was remixing; the music he made and produced first in Sabres Of Paradise and then Two Lone Swordsmen and solo; DJ sets at various venues around the north west of England; the perfectly selected compilation albums, Nine O'Clock Drop, Hyper City Force Tracks, Sci Fi Lo Fi, Watch The Ride; the interviews in the music press and magazines with opinions and arcane references, tales and stories, and of what's hot and what's not; the hour long mixes given to websites; the radio shows for the BBC and NTS with scores of artists and records to chase and tasters of forthcoming Weatherall related releases; the labels he created, Sabres Of Paradise, Emissions, Moine Dubh, Bird Scarer, with those handwritten press releases and lovingly designed artwork; the year he spent as Faber's artist in residence; the advice and references, signs and symbols, he dropped throughout what he was determined to avoid calling a career.
This is thirty minutes of music Andrew made circa 2007 (unbelievably, nearly twenty years ago now), the Two Lone Swordsmen live rock 'n' roll/ garage band, Weatherall at the microphone, solo album part of his inspired and wayward musical life, ably abetted by a cast of musicians including Keith Tenniswood, Chris Rotter, Tim Fairplay, Subway Lung, Nick Burton, Nina Walsh, Julian Wright, Steve Boardman and Gordon Mills, all of whom appeared at different times on Two Lone Swordsman's Wrong Meeting pair of albums and Andrew's Pox On The Pioneers.
