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 [blank white card]. I went into my downloads folder and selected at random the first songs that came up with those three words in the title- Blank Stare by Pye Corner Audio, White Shirt by The Charlatans and Master Card by Mogwai.
Liz Ard suggested the deep listening trilogy/ meditation on death, Triloge de la Mort by Eliane Radigue and in a weird coincidence, Radigue died a couple of days later aged 94. Koume, the third and final part is here. RIP Eliane Radigue.
Jase suggested, quite rightly, Going Blank Again by Ride (and that had been my second thought for the entire post but I went with my first). Ernie went for an index card related track by Khate and JC from The Vinyl Villain suggested The National's Blank Slate, The Associate's White Car in Germany and The Card Cheat by The Clash.
Today's Oblique Strategy card reads as follows...
Towards the insignificant
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'Cease to exist/ Givin' my goodbyes/ Drive my car/ Into the ocean...'
More from the Snub TV vaults. In 1989 Snub found On U Sound legend Bim Sherman in the studio, a rare TV appearance with Bim singing Power in 1989 (not the smash hit singleThe Power by Snap). Crunchy Skip McDonald, Doug Wimbish and Keith LeBlanc backing, Bonjo from African Head Charge on percussion, Sherwood at the desk and the golden vocals of Bim Sherman.
In 1983 Singers & Players released their third album on On U, an all star reggae collective with members of Roots Radics and Dub Syndicate, Prince Far I, Mikey Dread, Ashanti Roy and on A Matter Of Time, Bim Sherman's voice.
In 1989 Barry Adamson was ex- Magazine and ex- Bad Seed and striking out solo with his Moss Side Story. Snub filmed on location in Moss Side, Manchester, with parts of the Moss Side Story album and some interview sections with Barry over the top.
In non- Snub related news this weekend is The Golden Lion's 11th birthday. Joe Goddard plays at the Todmorden pub tonight and tomorrow David Holmes returns with a live set from Belfast's Deeply Armed on the running order too. Warming up Saturday before and around those two are The Flightpath Estate DJ team, all five of us in the house, with bags full of tunes and our standard attempt at sequencing them into some kind of coherent order.
I've written about the music of Pandit Pam Pam several times previously. Pandit Pam Pam is the name Eduardo Ramos uses for his music a style he describes as 'unsettling punky ambience' but it goes way beyond whatever you might think that sounds like.
Eduardo lives in Sao Paulo, is inspired by European electronic music but is also obviously very much affected by Brazilian and south American music- those two influences combine to give his music very distinct sound and flavour. At the start of January he released a two minute track called Pause Rafraichissant, a soundscape that fades in with some ambient drones and synth FX, a very subtle and detailed track that you can listen to in two ways- you can let it wash over you as a background ambiance, a calming audio presence or really listen to it, paying attention to the small changes in pitch and tone and the static that replaces it at the end. It's at Bandcamp here.
It has recently been carnival in Brazil, the Mardi Gras celebration that marks the beginning of Lent. Eduardo's wife Bianca and young children developed a love for an old song by Olodum, Farao Divindade Do Egito, a song about ancient Egyptian pharaohs and spirits. Eduardo took the song his family were dancing to and did an edit, turning it into 'a dark, Balearic, dubby dream'- his words and I can't find any better way to describe it. The Pandit Pam Pam Deep Into The Bowel Of A Dub is at Bandcamp here. It's an infectious and affecting listen and a bit of a groover too.
Eduardo's on a roll at the moment- out tomorrow is a new track he's done as Pandit Pam Pam together with Darkinari, a cover of a Colourbox song, Tarantula. The Pandit Pam Pam/ Darkinari version is a treat, a deep dub bassline and wandering trumpet doing a dance, entwined and interlocked, the bassline descending, the trumpet weaving. Eduardo says that it was inspired by Andrew Weatherall, that he keeps making tracks that he'd like to have played for him, hoping for some kind of cosmic validation from the man. I think that if Andrew were alive, he'd have played Tarantula on his much missed NTS show. Find it at Bandcamp- I love it, it's highly recommended.
There's another new one, Familinea, lined up for a March release, a six minute ambient beauty but we'll come back to that nearer the time.
Colourbox's original version of Tarantula came out in 1982, their debut single along with Breakdown on the A- side, on 4AD. It was reworked the following year with producer Mick Glossop. Vocals on both versions were by Debian Currie who left in '83, replaced by Lorita Grahame. Tarantula is post- punk/ synthpop, drawing from their love of reggae and dub and also industrial synth music, dystopic dub disco with a numbed out vocal from Debian. It was later covered by 4AD supergroup This Mortal Coil.
Colourbox went onto make a load of great records- their 1986 dub/ soul single Baby I Love You So and it's B-side Looks Like We're Shy One Horse are 80s peaks (and both much loved by Mr Weatherall), their 12" Official World Cup Theme/ Philip Glass single is a good one. Their self titled album, a 1983 mini- album and a 1985 full length one, both contain much to enjoy and in 1987 they joined forces with AR Kane for a one off single as M/A/R/R/S, Pump Up The Volume, a seminal moment in UK sample/ dance music culture.
Electric Dog House were a Joe Strummer one- off from his time in Los Angeles in the late 90s, a three piece band of Joe, ex- Damned drummer Rat Scabies and Seggs from The Ruts. Joe and Rat had met at a Ministry gig and then on Grosse Point Blanke and formed Electric Dog House recording a grand total of one song- Generations. It came out on an album also called Generations: A Punk Rock Look At Human Rights (Green Day, Bad Brains, some members of X and various other bands appear). The CD is front loaded- Joe, Rat and Seggs are track one and Generations also appeared as a CD single in promo form in 1997, presumably for radio stations. Electric Dog House don't even get a mention in Chris Salewicz's biography of Joe, Redemption Song, but the song did turn up on 001, a solo career retrospective from 2018.
The song is fantastic- rattling and alive sounding, the drums and bass bouncing round the overloaded mix, Joe's guitar all blurry and fuzzy, two or three chords and a wonderful vocal, Joe singing a typically Strummer- esque opening line, 'Back in the day/ even circles were squares', and including some more very Strummer sounding imagery- radio waves, telegraph keys, demonstrations, cities, wars and buying pyjamas for your four year old girl- with a refrain that summons up visions of LA smog, sunsets and highways, 'Let's go burning down the road'. The mix is muddy in places, the insturments pile up twoadrs the end with no separation between them, and some people would have applied more production to it, smoothed it out and given it a radio friendly punch. It would be worse for it.
The video is perfectly apt too- Joe, Rat and Seggs in the studio, grainy home video footage, marchers, Joe's 50s car cruising the streets, his England flag with the word Irie stenciled across the St. George's cross and messages about human rights.
The latest release on Tici Taci is a three track EP by LCBC, the combined talents of Lloyd Jones and Bob Salmond (who record separately as The Long Champs and Mr BC). On Magpie Eyes they purloin their song title (I'm presuming) from The Loft's legendary 1985 single Up The Hill And Down The Slope (and Dave Cavanagh's Creation records biography My Magpie Eyes Are Hungry For The Prize) and some influence from mid- 80s New Order- chugging rhythm, Hooky bassline and one finger synths playing off against the guitars.
There are two remixes, one by Black Fades and one from Rude Audio. Black Fades go even further into the heart of the chug, spaced out, dubby cosmische, New Order if they'd been produced not by Stephen Hague but by Justin Robertson.
Rude Audio take the Magpie Eyes down a South London dub route, stripping the track back to a skeletal electronic rhythm, some isolated topline melodies, whooshes, FX and the ghost of the bass. Addictive stuff.
While we're here it seems appropriate to head back to 1985 and The Loft. Up The Hill And Down The Slope is definitive early Creation, the group's second single, released on 7" and 12". Pete Astor's lyric pleads for a run in the music industry, 'Once around the fair/ So I know' despite knowing that it'll ruin him and the band, as the guitars jangle and riff. 'Please don't say no...'
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.
