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 suggestion was Breathe more deeply.

My responses were some deeply heavy dub techno from Basic Channel and Deanne Day's Hardly Breathe, Weatherall and Harrow mid- 90s deep house/ techno. Both encouraging deeper breathing. The Oblique Saturdays crowd made some excellent and varied suggestions- Blu Cantrelle's Breath, Kylie's Breathe, Warren Zevon's French Inhaler, Thandi Ntuli and Carlos Nino's experimental breathing, Kate Bush, Serge and Jane engaging in deeper and heavier breathing, Massive Attack's Teardrop and Aggelein by Valium. Thank you Jake, Khayem, Rol, Ernie, Jase, Iggy, Walter and Scaley Pecker for your contributions. Here's Kylie from 1998 with a song that as Scaley observed has a touch of William Orbit's Ray Of Light production about it.

Breathe

This week's card say this- Abandon normal instruments.

Eno was surely a man who would gladly abandon normal instruments. At first I thought about Einsturzende Neubauten, Blixa Bargeld and co. using homemade instruments constructed from scrap metal and tools, wielding angle grinders, hammers and metal plates and with jackhammers drilling through the stage at the ICA. This is Kollaps, eight minutes of industrial and experimental sounds from West Berlin in 1981...

I also remembered Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns describing Sabres Of Paradise recording what would become Sabresonic in London in 1993 and they mic'ed up Gary banging a scaffolding pole with a wrench and shaking a tray of matches to create the drum and percussion sounds for Smokebelch. 

Smokebelch (Exit)

Back in October 1988 I went to a gig at Liverpool Royal Court, a triple bill headlined by Billy Bragg with support from Michelle Shocked. The first act on the bill were The Beatnigs, a San Francisco band who combined punk, industrial and hip hop and played the bonnet of a VW Beetle with metal chains, a rotary saw and a grinder. I don't have any Beatnigs recordings but Michael Franti and Rono Tse would go on to become The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy and reworked one of the songs from Beatnig days in the new band, a hip hop/ spoken word, alt/ industrial classic from 1992. 

Television, The Drug Of the Nation

Lastly I thought about Tom Waits and especially 1999's Mule Variations, an album which uses normal instruments- brass, violin, bass, guitars, harp, pump organ and also turntables and samples- but sounds like it was made in a junkyard using bits of metal and old car parts. What's he building in there?

Feel free to abandon normal instruments and give up your suggestions in the comment box

Am I Conscious Now?

Am I Conscious Now? is the latest release on Jason Boardman's Before I Die label, an album that gets its full release today. Hawksmoor (James McKeown) has been making music since 2017 and in that time has released thirteen albums and EPs. It's ambient with a side dose of cosmische/ krautrock, expansive and immersive and full of textures. 

For this latest work, James undertook some extensive experimentation and research with a psychedelic compound called 5- MeO-DMT, a substance found naturally in some plants and in the glands of toads found in the Colorado River. Many people who've used it describe it as producing a mystical experience and what Hawksmoor himself describes as a 'total psychological reset'. He adds, 'It completely changed my life, outlook and perspective'. Not something to be taken lightly then. Am I Conscious Now? is a musical/ ambient response to that experience.

Trying to describe ambient music sometimes feels like a fool's game at the best of times. 'Language doesn't really work', James/ Hawksmoor says about the use of psychedelics, 'it's everything and nothing'. He followed this by saying that his experiences with 5-MeO-DMT culminated with him feeling like he was reborn. 

The album is it goes without saying a bit of a trip, a haunting but beautiful record that works best as one single piece. There are drones and oscillations, the Moog and Organele M producing long sounds that rise and fall. Opener Amygdalla Opening is the entry, a two note drone, layers of synths combining to push and pull. Golden Dolphins follows, chords and chatter, single key notes and an acoustic guitar, the sound of dolphin squeals and whistles and a wordless human voice. It's either deep below the surface or very high above it. Waves of echo and elements of sound bouncing back and forth. Flooding A Maze (In Slow Motion) is golden guitar chords strummed slowly and dancing, ringing sounds, things shifting slightly as the track unfolds, a diagram or oil pattern slipping in and out of focus. Towards the end a bleep comes through, like someone far away trying to make contact. On Urdhva Hastasna (a Yoga pose, the raised hands pose) two guitars pick their way round each other, one a circling finger picked part and the other a counterpoint. Behind them, there's a hazy backdrop of cosmic synth sounds. Infinite Tapestry sounds ancient, what could be a dulcimer or some other archaic instrument pressed into psychedelic service, notes and drones and ringing sounds. Water droplets fall, the guitar returns, synth whooshes rush in, a track that has both motion and stillness- the sense of sitting still while the world moves around you. 

Side two offers more. Ti Kallisti has piano and reverb, ambience that suggests... I don't know, emptiness? Fulfillment? The past? Now? Adviata swims back towards the drones and the submersion sounds, a voice possibly appearing along with an Indian sounding guitar part. Clear Light breaks the surface and lets the light in- a voice singing an ah ah ah ah part, beamed in from an ashram in 1967, George Harrison drifting in to Hawksmoor's ambient world. Into The White Sun changes the sound and tone again, bass guitar notes, cosmische drones coming via Cluster or Harmonia, the pastoral kraut sounds of mid- 70s West Germany. Our trip ends with Astromeria, three minutes of ending, the bass guitar again prodding away, warm and woody, the synths like flares of light, blasts of horn and disembodied vocals, a landing, a coming round or coming to. 

As I said, writing about ambient music can sometimes feel like a fool's game, trying to describe sounds and the feelings they provoke. Some of what's written above might look like nonsense in the cold light of day and Am I Conscious Now? is much more than I can sum up in a few paragraphs. It feels like a profound and intense album, not the kind of ambient to put on in the background but a record to immerse yourself inside and be open to the effect it might have.  

You can buy or listen to it here. 

How We Gonna Kick It?

Sometimes I think that there is no finer sound than that of The Beastie Boys in full flight in the mid- 90s. Take Root Down for example...

Root Down

A Jimmy Smith bass loop, vinyl crackle and wah wah guitar and then the three Beasties chucking rhymes and lines around, referencing Dick Hyman, Sweetie Pie, The Meters, the Fruit of The Loom guys and Ad Rock's killer line in the first verse, 'Everybody know I'm known for dropping science'.

 Later on they break off for the immortal and ever usable line, 'Oh my God that's the funky shit!' before jumping straight back in with more verses, lines and imagery flashing by like a graffiti covered train- the NY subway system, the Zulu Nation, Grandmaster Flash, Kool Moe Dee and Bob Marley are all in there before they finish with a nod to their producer Mario C, 'That's a record, that's a record 'cause of Mario'. 

There's so much energy and innovation in those few minutes, the samples and the arrangement, the voices, the dynamics... they had it all. The Beastie Boys were a visual experience as well as an audio one- here's the video. 

The mid- 90s come flooding back watching that don't they? 

Root Down was released in May 1995 as an EP with various versions of the song and some live songs, including Something's Got To Give On It, a stoned and slow anti- war jam song, the three Beasties on guitar, bass and drums, all loose and funky. This is the studio version as found on 1994's seminal Ill Communication.

Something's Got To Give

The Humans Will Destroy Us

Le Carousel's second album has been a long time in the making and finally arrived last week, ten years after the first one. It was worth the wait. Belfast based producer, DJ and composer Phil Kieran, the man behind Le Carousel, has made one of 2026's best albums to date, a blend of electronics and guitars, drum machines and synths, cosmische, shoegaze, ambient, dark disco and psychedelia, that nods its head in sound and tone towards Andrew Weatherall and David Holmes and that asks some big questions that are particularly apposite- what's happening to us? Are we going to destroy the planet and ourselves? Are we going out by climate collapse or war? Is it too late to save ourselves? 

Light The Flare stutters into life, a drum machine, a grinding bassline and a wash of synths and then several layered voices, 'This ship's going  down/ Can anyone see?' Then comes a response- 'we're not alone'- as synth arpeggios splash across the top. 'There's always someone there'. This runs into Everyone Is Gone, a shoegaze/ psychedelic guitar piece with blasts of synth and keys. The Good One is a psychedelic cosmische glide- by, followed by Destroy Us,  where there's a touch of Spiritualized in the drone of the organ chords, a slow mo analogue song with hand drum percussion and shakers that builds gradually, multi- tracked vocals coming in, unfolding over six minutes, heading towards a fragile optimism and the counter- intuitive angelic vocal, 'destroy us'. The humans are asking for it. 

Side one ends with We're All Gonna Hurt, a dark disco/ acid house delight that first saw the dark of day last year, motorik drum machine beat with layers of Giorgio Morodor syths and keys and a ghostly male- female vocal pairing, 'I want to take you away/ This way/ Sooner or later/ We're all gonna hurt'. The machines and the voices sound like they could go on forever in an endless loop of dystopic disco delight.

Flip The Humans Will Destroy Us over and Echo Spiegel opens side two, spacey Vangelis Blade Runner chords and thumping club rhythms. Parabolic is all squelchy Space Echo and wobbly vintage synths. The analogue synths and warm widescreen production root these songs partly in 1970s West Germany and partly in the late 80s/ early 90s acid house/ Screamadelica days and it sits alongside David Holmes' Blind On A Galloping Horse too, another 2020s album made in Belfast that tries to get to grips with the state of the world around it. Rough Ending fades in gently, a lullaby that suddenly goes widescreen, a wall of synths and the ghost of Peter Hook's bass. 

Goodbye My Friends- we're getting close to the end now- is strummed guitar chords and more of those floating angelic vocals, wah wah synth and hissy drum machine, Spacemen 3 at the end of their journey, Screamdelica crashed and burned. Beautifully warm, embracing departure. The Humans Will Destroy Us concludes with You're Killing Me Inside- twinkling sounds, long organ chords, FX, acres of space, and a female voice backed by a male one, 'I love you/ You're the best thing/ I love you/ But you're killing me inside'. I don't think it's an individual they're singing too. It could be a lover or a partner but more likely, I think, it's us a species, it's all of us. 

What a way to go.

You can buy The Humans Will Destroy Us digitally at Bandcamp. I think all the vinyl's all gone but there might be some in shops. It is, I think you may have picked up by now, highly recommended. 

Innocent Reprise

A Mountain Of One have recently called it a day. The band, built around the core duo of Mo Morris and Zeben Jameson and joined by Leo Elstob, formed in London in 2005 and released music in two phases- the first between 2007 and 2010 and the second in 2019- 2023. In the late 00s they were part of a new Balearic scene, with the phrases yacht rock and cosmic disco frequently thrown in. Their music always had a dark edge to it, a slightly frazzled sun burnt psychedelia that kept them the right side of the soft rock/ yacht rock dividing line- for me anyway. Their 2022 album Stars Planet Dust Me was one of my favourites from that year, with its singles Dealer, Custard's Last Stand and various remixes (Andy Bell/ GLOK, Midfield General). 

In 2007 they released two EPs, titled EP1 and EP 2 and then collected them on a CD called Collected Works. EP2 is a trip, five tracks that come clad in a reflective gold sleeve and on side 1 Innocent Line and Innocent Reprise. 

Innocent Reprise

Birdsong, echoes, repeating guitar notes, then the tck-tck- tck- tck of a cymbal, a circling guitar riff beamed in from the late 60s/ late 80s and we're off on a ride. There's a flute and some organ and then some delicious backwards guitar. A deep and rich psychedelic stew, Balearic, yes, but it's not residing in the poolside cocktail lounge, but somewhere a little messier altogether. 

Monday's Long Songs

Spring has sprung recently- the days are getting longer, evenings are lighter and the sun was out last week and on Saturday, temperatures reaching mid- teens. At the weekend people were wearing shorts and sunglasses round south Manchester (it felt a little early in the year for shorts to me but each to his own). 

While searching for something else I found Music To Watch Seeds Grow by Brian d'Souza, released in February. The seven tracks are ambient, a musical accompaniment to research about how sunflowers interact below the soil. Apparently in nutrient rich soil competing sunflowers exhibit spatial awareness and show a sense of co- operation- they share rich soil, avoid competing and position themselves to benefit each other. 

'They deliberately root elsewhere to avoid conflict', Brian says, 'demonstrating that co- existence can be a stronger biological drive than dominance'. In other words, sunflowers reject the survival of the fittest. 

Brian turned this phenomenon into music. The final track on Music To Watch Seeds Grow is Hector's Sunflower, a nine minute piece of twinkling ambient music made by capturing biodata from his son's sunflower and turning it into sound via his own modular synth. And if that isn't a good way to start the week, I don't know what is. Listen to Hector's Sunflower here. The whole thing, Music to Watch Seeds Grow 007, is here. 

The sunflowers in my photo were in a neighbour's garden in 2022. Sunflowers have become part of the world of Isaac's death and his grave. In summer 2022 when sunflower season started I took some each time we visited him at the cemetery and they took on a some kind of meaning. The turn from winter to spring and the appearance of sunflowers in the shops is something I look forward to now each year. Someone left some Lego sunflowers at his grave last year and they're still there, adding a splash of colour through the grey of winter. 

I've just noticed too while writing this that today is the 23rd, a nice coincidence to go with Isaac's 23s. 

Back in 1994 Dutch duo Quazar were joined by Underworld's Karl Hyde, electronic trance from Utrecht and stream of consciousness words from Romford in perfect harmony for a sublime nine minutes. 

Sunflower

Humanity As An Act Of Resistance

David Holmes returned to NTS for his monthly God's Waiting Room last week, a two hour long show that sequences speeches and excerpts into his musical selections. The speeches include comments on Donald Trump's Middle East fiasco, Ted Cruz, the Epstein Files, bombing a girl's school in Tehran, the state of Israel, the blockade of Cuba, the lunatic Christian Maga fringe, ICE, Ram Dass, Howard Zinn and more. In between and around these there are songs from Shockheaded Peters, Aphex Twin, Little Annie, Country Joe and The Fish, Sandals and DSS, Primal Scream, Grian Chatten, and Habitat Ensemble. The full track list is here. 

Humanity As An Act Of Resistance can be listened to here. 

Some people say pop and politics shouldn't mix, but some people are wrong. Music is made by people who live in the real world, it isn't just entertainment. 

Grian Chatten's band Fontaines DC have contributed a song to the latest War Child album, Help 2 (a sequel to 1995's Help). War Child raises money to help children affected by warfare and conflict. Fontaines have covered Sinead O'Connor's Black Boys On Mopeds, a song that in 1990 highlighted Margaret Thatcher's hypocrisy. One of her hypocrisies. 

'England's not the mythical land of Madame George and roses/ It's the home of police who kill Black boys on mopeds.'

In 1990 Sinead sang it at the BBC on The Late Show. In 1989 police chased Nicholas Bramble. He was on a moped they suspected him of stealing- he hadn't stolen it, it belonged to him. As they chased him he careered off the road and crashed. He later died of his injuries. Colin Roach, a black man from Hackney, was arrested and died in a police station of a gunshot wound- the verdict was suicide but few believed this and a cover up was suspected. Calls for an inquiry were ignored. Both men are remembered in the song.