More At Ban Ban Ton Ton

I've continued writing some guest posts at Ban Ban Ton Ton, the Japan based Balearic blog run by Dr. Rob. I say Balearic, Ban Ban Ton Ton's remit runs far wider than that. Since the start of February this year I've written about these four albums.

Jason Boardman's second compilation of obscure post punk and dub cuts, music from the outer fringes of the early 1980s. ...And The Native Hipsters open the album with the surreally brilliant There Goes Concorde Again, low fi, DIY post- punk recored onto 4 track in a band member's bedroom. 

No One's Listening Anyone 2 is a trip back to a time of invention and inspiration, the swirling creativity that was thrown into the air by punk, giving everyone and anyone who had an idea the confidence to go out and have a go. It was also a period with an ever present threat of nuclear war, economic recession and warmongering, clinically insane leaders... hmmm... You can read my review of No- One's Listening Anyway 2 here. 

In March I reviewed the latest album by Craven Faults, an ambient outfit who make music inspired by the post- industrial landscape of northern England, a world of engine sheds, derelict mills, paths and cobbled streets walked by people from two hundred years ago. Craven Faults are dark and immersive, an experience. My review of Sidings is here. This is the fifteen minute long track Far Closes that ends the album. 

A moth ago I wrote about the latest album by Thought Leadership, a mysterious Stockport based guitarist who has released three album now, each one named after a suit from a deck of Tarot cards. The latest one is called IV Of Cups and indicates that Thought Leadership is showing no signs of running out of inspiration or ideas. IV Of Cups has ten new guitar led ambient/ instrumental pieces, all named Roman numerically from XXI to XXX. It's a joy of an album, inventive and hypnotic, some obvious influences worn on its sleeve but very much its own thing too. My review of IV Of Cups is here and the album can be found at Bandcamp with some vinyl still available here. 

Most recently, two days ago in fact, Rob posted my review of the new Pan* American album, Fly The Ocean In A Silver Plane, an ambient/ electric./ acoustic tribute to travel- physical travel by airplane and the kind of metaphorical travels we can make at home, transported by music to another place. It's also a response to the decline and death of Pan* American's parents so there's a third kind of travel involved and referred to, the passage from life to death. Fly The Ocean In A Silver Plane is by no means a depressing or downbeat album though, it's an album of possibilities and of taking flight. You can read my full review here and listen to the album at Bandcamp. 

Gorilla Head

At the end of March I went to see Ladytron play at Gorilla. The tickets were a gift, courtesy of friends who couldn't make it. I tend to think of Ladytron as a relatively recent band but they formed in Liverpool in 1999 and have released eight albums since 2001, the most recent a few weeks ago. Gorilla was rammed to the rafters, a little unpleasantly so. Once inside the venue (and it's a small venue anyway) the only way to move was if someone else moved. Making our way to the bar was a feat in itself and once there there was little chance of moving any further forward. 

The band played twenty songs, set up with the two female members, Helen Marnie and Mira Aroyo, at the front of the stage- Helen sings most of the songs, the archetypal cool front woman, and Mira playing synth/ guitar and singing on a handful of songs. When Mira sings they become more angular, sounding like a Bulgarian Stereolab. When Helen sings, they snap into sharp, futurist synthpop mode. 

Behind them founder member/ songwriter Daniel Hunt plays bass/ synths, there's a human drummer and another synth/ keys player. The songs from the new album Paradises follow in the electronic- synth pop vein they're known for and early on this single, Caught In The Blink Of An Eye, stands out- dramatic and urgent, slow burning synth with the drummer adding masses of extra oomph. 

Old favourites Seventeen (their breakthrough from 2002) and Destroy Everything You Touch (from 2005) are saved for the end of the set and the encore. There's some audience- band interaction, Daniel joking about the heat onstage making everything 'moist' and all the songs, new and old, are well received. Just wish it hadn't be so packed in there. 

More recent, closer to home and slightly less packed out, Justin Robertson appeared at Head last Thursday promoting his latest novel The MineralTail. Head is just up the road from me, a twenty minute walk to Stretford and is a bar/ space in a former branch of Barclays with the bar being the surviving bank counter and some of the late 60s modernist design features still intact. It's a low key and welcoming place with 70s geometric wallpaper and assorted pieces of furniture. 

Justin promoted his second novel The Trial Of Jonah at Head a year ago and returned with his third- The MineralTail, a cosmic tale of the greatest three piece rock 'n' roll band ever formed (in this case, a trio of a megalithic stone and two dogs), the greatest album ever made and the longest song ever recorded. Following on the heels of the semi- autobiographical time travelling story The Trial Of Jonah, it's an irreverent, freewheeling tribute to the redemptive powers of music and of sound. 

Justin reads a couple of passages and does an in- conversation with our host Stephen, who delves into the book's creation myth, the Buddha nature of dogs, 'Satan's flaccid jingles' and we take a headlong dive into the magical psychedelic world of pan pipes and bagpipe jazz.   

The MineralTail has an album to accompany it, the soundtrack to the novel. There's a fifteen minute sampler at Soundcloud- motorik space rock, ambient dub ritual and rocking cosmische. Listen here. 

Tape 05

The return after a thirteen year gap of Boards Of Canada last week caused a ripple in the internet continuum. It began with some VHS tapes and cryptic posters and then continued on Thursday with Tape 05. 

Boards Of Canada have often dealt with a certain sense of unease and Tape 05 fits in with that- ghostly synth sounds, the rattle of TV static, voices that you can't quite hear clearly, the feeling that something's not quite right, the ghosts of the recent past lingering- cults, 70s TV preachers, adverts for obsolete products, railway stations where trains no longer stop, news radio broadcasts from thirty or forty years ago somehow returning to the airwaves. Nostalgia, hauntology, psychgeography, a promised future that never arrived, all wrapped up in a three minute piece of ambient music. 

Back in 2005 Boards Of Canada released The Campfire Headphase. The Japanese edition of the album contained one extra track, Macquarie Ridge. It is ridiculously beautiful and affecting in a specific way that electronic music can be- waves and shimmers of synth, backwards drums, piano, the hint of choral voices- a kind of ethereal, psychedelic, elemental music.   

Monday's Long Song

Back to work after two weeks off and back to 1992 for today's regular weekly long song with an epic version and fine example of the art of the remix- Thrash and Greg Hunter taking Killing Joke's gothic/ post- punk 1980 single Requiem and turning it into something entirely new, an eleven minute trip down the river, a dub techno version of Apocalypse Now! and the mission to find Colonel Kurtz.

A Floating Leaf Always Reaches The Sea crosses borders and ignores boundaries, a constantly evolving, living entity with squelchy synths, bubbling bass, crunchy drums, dub echo and space and Geordie Walker's guitar beamed in like a transmission from a dying star. 

Requiem (A Floating Leaf Always Reaches The Sea Dub Mix)

Fifty Minutes Of A Mountain Of One

A Mountain Of One recently called time on the band, a four piece that in two bursts of activity, once in the 00s and then again in the 2020s, made some beautifully sunkissed psychedelic Balearica. They produced a sound that had a tinge of darkness to it, songs that had been left out in the sun too long and was now a little feverish, the result of a night out on holiday that ended up in a strange place that you could never find again. There are echoes of 70s and 80s bands, of weird Europop summer singles, of psychedelia and late 80s/ early 90s acid house, of guitar bands lost in the outer fields at summer festivals, yacht rock where the yacht is taking in water. 

The group put out three albums (2009's Institute Of Joy, 2022's existential Balearica Stars Planet Dust Me and a 2023 Ricardo Villalobos remix of SPDM), a compilation (2007's Collected Works) and various EPs and singles, which provide rich pickings for a mix- this one has a nice flow to it I think. 

Fifty Minutes Of A Mountain Of One

• Here Comes Nothing
• Innocent Reprise
• Surrender (Generalisation Dub)
• Star
• Star (GLOK Starlight Dub)
• Stars Planet Dust Me
• Ride (Time And Space Machine Remix)
• Can't Be Serious

Here Comes Nothing is from Collected Works, a 2007 CD that compiled the five songs from EP1 and the five from EP2 plus two extra ones- Here Comes Nothing and Brown Piano (which was also a single). Acoustic guitars and electric ones, swirly production, piano, wordless backing vocals- a heady stew. 

Innocent Reprise is from EP2, released in 2007- a psychedelic folk instrumental with a solid dance groove and some lovely guitar and electric piano melody lines. The choppy, fuzzy rhythm guitar part towards the end is nicely frazzled. 

Surrender was on 2022's Stars Planet Dust Me, an eight song, double vinyl downtempo masterpiece, one of my favourite records of that year. In 2024 Damian Harris remixed Surrender with his Midfield General hat on bringing some dubby funkiness. 

Star is from Stars Planet Dust Me, one of the key tracks on it. Laid back with a soulful vocal and an 80s Mediterranean beach bar piano part. Loafers, no socks, Euro- hippy braids and bracelets. Andy Bell's GLOK remix is a superb drawn out dub version, electronic drums and chuggy rhythms, the female backing vox recurring and the bass and FX reverberating all over the place. 

The Stars Planet Dust Me album's title track was an appropriately cosmic excursion, choral vocal and organ, very spaced out production and wide eyed questions. Proggy. 

Ride was a 2008 single and opening song on the Institute Of Joy album, and was remixed by Richard Norris during one of his Time And Space Machine phases. Ibizan acoustic guitars, rattling percussion and propulsive bass with Richard Norris setting the psychedelic space rock controls for the heart of the sun. 

Can't Be Serious is from EP1 from 2007, off kilter 80s Balearic pop with a distorted spiraling guitar solo, and a vocal that answers its own question. 

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 card said this- Use 'unqualified' people.

I came up with Mancunian punk group The Nosebleeds and their calling card Ain't Been To No Music School. The Smiths, Gang Of Four and Shane MacGowan and The Popes with Johnny Depp guesting on guitar all followed. The Bagging Area community was inspired to suggest Ed Harcourt's Kakistocarcy, Bob Dylan getting the pros in to nail Visions Of Johanna, Billy Bragg, Paul Bowles, Sparks, The Shaggs and Fire Engines- thank you to Brainlizard, Darren, Rol, Ernie, Walter and Chris and to JC from The Vinyl Villain who nominated himself for a pair of musical contributions he's made this year, once in live in LA and again on the forthcoming Broken Chanter album. 

This weeks Oblique Strategy is this- Tape your mouth.

I turned the card over on Wednesday evening. I ruminated a bit on the double meaning of tape- one could be to cover one's mouth with tape, to be censored or to self- censor, to keep the vocals out and focus on the instruments and the other could be the instruction to record one's mouth. These things percolated for a while and a few ideas floated towards the front of my mind and then on Thursday morning this miraculously appeared on the internet and it replaced all the other ideas that were simmering gently... 

Boots On The Ground is a collaboration between Massive Attack and Tom Waits, the first new music from either artist for a long time. If you're going to tape a mouth for a new song, a powerfully 2026 anti- war, anti- authoritarian song, then that mouth may as well be the that belongs to Tom Waits- his mouth sounds like no other.

The music- clacking rhythms, some very late period Massive Attack piano chords- is claustrophobic and tense. Then Tom Waits starts up, a voice as old as time, commenting on the growing militarisation of the police in the USA, the BLM protests of 2020 and the anti- ICE protests of this year, the murder of US citizens by ICE and by chance of timing, the repeated title phrase coinciding with Trump's illegal war on Iran, one in which he is so far out of his depth he cannot even see the shore any more. Waits recorded the vocal some time ago and Massive Attack, never a group to rush things, haven't got the track completed until now- when it transpires the moment is exactly right. 

Waits takes no prisoners. 'Fucking ass machine gun war... holler and burn down cities... federal pricks... air conditioned fuckstick loafers... killed a brown man... he rotted in the sand and all they found was his boots on the ground'

There's an unsettling pause partway through, Wait's breathing and a choral swell rising and the music twists and turns inside itself. Then Waits recovers his flow and the piano comes back in. In the seven minute version/ film of Boots On The Ground, there's an entire section after five minutes which is more or less just the sound of Tom Waits breathing at the microphone. Tape your mouth. 

Last weekend Massive Attack's 3D (Robert del Naja) was arrested while protesting in London against the ban on Palestine Action. 'A few hours in a police cell... is a small price to pay', he said later. 

Tape your mouth, say your piece.

Feel free to drop your own suggestions into the comment box. 

Five Go Mad For Friday

Some tracks from the corners of the internet you might not delve into to brighten up this Friday in April with little tying them together other than they all caught my eyes and ears recently. 

First, from January 2025, a German band called Magic Source releasing on Favourite Recordings, a label based in Paris- a funky jazz/ disco cover version of A Guy Called Gerald's Voodoo Ray. 

There's an argument that Voodoo Ray is the best British house/ dance record, the numero uno of UK dance music. Magic Source manage to bring a freshness to Voodoo Ray, a quirkiness that makes it bounce- the ooh ah ahh vocals, the funked up glockenspiels, the springy rhythm, the synth squiggle four minutes in, all in all a certain je ne sais quoi to a track that began life in the Crescents in Hulme in late 80s Manchester. 

Magic Source pair Voodoo Ray with Interplanetary Bounce, their own composition, light on its feet and looking to boogie. Find both at Bandcamp. 

Next, from Nottingham and the Coyote duo is an EP that goes heavy on their recent dub excursions. Nag Champa is three tracks, led by Fittest, a Balearic/ dub crossover with toasting, rolling hand drums and whistles. Nag Champa Dub follows, a Nyabinghi- inspired slow and low cut, psychedelic Jamaica with melodica. The final of the three is Teacher, less dub, more chilled Balearica, with one of those expertly selected vocal samples that Coyote are so good at finding- 'whatever resonates, resonates... no big deal... there's nothing you have to do, this is the wonderfulness of consciousness'. The Nag Champa EP is at Bandcamp. 

Thirdly, Coco Steel and Lovebomb put out this at the end of March, a full on acid party track, totally infectious and sonically superb. E1 AC1D0 is sheer joy- a rocking breakbeat, acid squelch, birdsong, female vocal, six minutes of summer come early. Find it here. 

Finally, another cover- Kenneth Bager and Le Bacoll with a dance/ Balearic cover of R.E.M.'s What's the Frequency, Kenneth? The first time I clicked on this I wasn't sure about it at all- and left it alone for some time. I can easily see that some R.E.M. fans may see it as sacrilege but it's grown on me, I can see it causing a fuss on certain dancefloors at certain times and I'm pretty sure Michael Stipe would be out there shaking his arse to it. 

This is the remixed version of Kenneth from the 2019 remix of Monster, a record that producer Scott Litt went back to and remixed. The 1994 version of Monster was full of guitars and Michael Stipe's voice was low in the mix, there was a sense of murkiness about some of the songs and as the group stepped out for their arena tour a vague feeling that the album hadn't quite nailed it. I don't think anyone in the band was especially keen for Litt to remix the record in 2019, or even asked for it, it was one of those things that just happened and was interesting enough. Weirdly, what maybe sounded off in 1994, sounds just fine now. But the companion version is an interesting listen regardless. 

Litt's version of Kenneth pushes everything to the fore, Stipe's vocal included, strips the guitars a bit and makes the drums louder. The rhythmic pull of Bill Berry's drums is odd on this version, he seems to be holding the song back rather than letting it go. 

What's The Frequency, Kenneth? (2019 Remix)