Whippersnapper

The sheer quantity of new material coming from The Orb stable could be a bit overwhelming; alongside the Royal Familia album and the remixes version, the recent further adventures of The Orb remixes of other artists, the outstanding Sebidus album from Alex Paterson and Andy Falconer, not to mention the Chocolate Hills album from 2019, there's now another new album in the pipeline- Enter The Kettle from OSS. OSS is Orb Sound System (or On Sum Shit), a collaboration between Alex and Fil, friends from both being Killing Joke roadies way back and with Orb history dating back through various albums and gigs. The first taster for Enter The Kettle is Whippersnapper, a track that sounds like it started out in the same space as the Sebidus album, space travel and widescreen ambience, but on OSS Fil brings a tougher edge to the sound, a metallic, industrial ambient groove. 

The album isn't out until November and it seems a bit depressing to be looking and pre- ordering an album that far ahead, when summer will be long gone and winter in front of us, but I'm guessing that this is in large part due to the problems in getting vinyl pressed by the limited number of pressing plants available and the major labels block booking plants for their own releases.

The quantity of releases Alex has been putting out across the Orb board, to go back to the start of this post, would be too much of the quality wasn't high but the entire Orb operation is at the top of its game at the moment and OSS looks like being another genuine contender. 

All The People Gather

On 28th July i.e. two days ago, it was the thirty- fifth anniversary of the release of R.E.M.'s fourth album Lifes Rich Pageant (no apostrophe, Stipe's punctuation). I've been meaning to write a post about that album for some time and if I'd been better prepared it would have gone up on Wednesday but I didn't realise it was the anniversary until yesterday so, we are where we are, as people like to say. 

R.E.M. recorded Lifes Rich Pageant in Belmont, Indiana with Don Gehman at the producer's desk. The recording of the previous album Fables Of The Reconstruction (another album I've been meaning to write about but not got around to yet) was fraught with problems- recorded during a cold, damp winter in London with Joe Boyd producing and the band homesick, an album that took a while to grow on people. Some of the band were unhappy with it but its reputation has grown over the decades since its release. Lifes Rich pageant was well received from the start and a definite attempt to push on, gain more listeners, release an album which would drive the songs further into college rock radio and beyond. Gehman was best known for his work with John Cougar Mellencamp and his production and the directness of the songs are in stark contrast to the mystery and obliqueness of Murmur and Reckoning and the Southern storytelling lyrics of Fables. Stipe is to the point, writing lyrics that mean something and stand for something, six years into Reagan's America and everything that went with that. Buck, Mills and Berry meanwhile play harder and with a rockier edge, stripping back and away from the denser jangle of their early songs. The environment is a key theme along with the state of the nation and US foreign policy. Beginning with Begin The Begin, a song kicking off with heavy guitar notes and Stipe's lower register, an urgency that jumps out of the speakers, and words that point a finger- 'silence means security/ silence means approval'. The song finishes with 'let's begin again', a lyrical motif he comes back to on Coyahoga ('let's put our heads together/ And start a new country up'). The second song blasts straight out of the blocks and leaves no doubt where the band's politics are at... 'We are young despite the years/ We are concern/ We are hope despite the times'.

These Days

There's still some fairly obscure lines about rearranging scales, marching to the sea, slapping your hat on your head, but These Days, with Berry whacking the drums and Buck hitting the guitar strings hard, sounds like a group nailing their political colours to the mast. Stipe has said that he had some kind of breakdown in 1985 and when he began writing again he knew he had come out of his darkest, most depressive time- hence the songs for Pageant were inspired and forward looking. These Days is one of my favourite R.E.M. songs, a stark contrast to the songs of their first two albums but showing a band growing and changing while keeping their instincts and integrity intact. 

The third song is in many ways the quintessential IRS years R.E.M. song, Fall On Me, a yearning, melodic, accessible song with lines about either acid rain or oppression (depending on when and who was asked). Mike Mills and Stipe sing it almost as a duet, Mills voice to the fore. After that Coyahoga, a beautiful, rousing song about the Coyahoga river, once so polluted that the river actually burned, contrasting the then current state of the river with the theft of the land from the American Indians. Stipe manages to write a positive lament, if that's possible, an optimistic call to arms- take the land back. Four songs in and possibly the strongest opening four songs of any R.E.M. album, the band then show their range- Hyena, a pacey rocker first recorded for Fables but not used- listen to the demo and its difficult to disagree with Buck who said that leaving it off Fables showed that the group 'obviously didn't know what we were doing'. It fits the rockier sound of Pageant better though so maybe the decision was right in the end. 

Hyena (Demo)

Side two always seems slightly weaker to me. That's not to say the songs aren't good, they almost all are, but it just feels like the tempo drops a tad and the sequencing feels a bit random. The Flowers Of Guatemala is a wonderful, lilting folk rock tribute to the dead of that country, the genocide of the indigenous peoples and the USA's dirty wars in Latin America. What If We Give It Away (wistful jangle folk) and Just A Touch (fast, jumbled, feedback) are both fine but sound a bit jammed together. Swan Swan H is a civil war ballad. Lifes Rich Pageant closes with a cover of a daft 60s garage band song, Superman (by The Clique), sung by Mike Mills as Stipe wouldn't do it. It works really well, underlines what has gone before with a bit of bubblegum, a goofy contrast with the album's themes of change, politics, the environment, destruction of native peoples and their lands.

In the middle of all this on side two is I Believe, a song that sounds like it was written and recorded in the same instant as Begin The Begin and These Days, starting out with banjo and then suddenly Buck chiming in, Mills and Berry right on cue and fired up. Stipe, often asked by journalists what the songs were about and what he believed in, gives them what they want, a manifesto (of sorts)- 'when I was young and full of grace/ I spirited a rattlesnake' he lets fly, a startling opening couplet, before setting his beliefs out in full- 'I believe in coyotes and time as an abstract', 'the difference between what you want and what you need', 'trust in your calling... practice makes perfect... I believe in example/ I believe my throat hurts'. 

That's what you get for asking. 

I Believe

Three Card Trick

At the tail end of 1985 a band calling themselves The Clash released their sixth and final album, Cut The Crap. This version of the band, Clash Mk. II to some, was a post- Topper, post- Mick Jones version- Mick snarked that it took two guitarists to replace him following his unceremonious sacking by Joe and Paul. The two guitarists were Vince White and Nick Sheppard (Vince was actually Greg but re- christened by Paul Simonon who said Greg wasn't a rock 'n' roll enough name and threatened to quit). Drummer Pete Howard was the third unknown (replacing Terry Chimes who'd stepped in to replace Topper when they toured the States supporting Combat Rock and had chart hits, exposure and stadium gigs with The Who). The new version of The Clash had toured the west coast of the USA and were well received. Members of California punk bands have said the five man Clash were as good live as the original line up- but we can possibly take that with a small pinch of salt. If Paul had quit the group would have been over and maybe that would have been a neater ending, leaving Joe to lick his wounds and pour the songs he was writing into a solo album which is what Cut The Crap should have been. Defensive and angry Joe insisted the Clash Mk. II were going back to punk rock basics, cutting out the reggae and experimentation of Sandinista! and Combat Rock. Joe insisted anyone could write punk songs- despite the fact that almost all the music previously had been written by Mick. Joe, proving  a point to Mick who had frozen the band's assets legally,  wrote a song called We Are The Clash. 

In early 1985 the new Clah went into the recoding studio with abut twenty songs written, ready to record. Bernie Rhodes was back in the manager's chair and had been instrumental in Mick Jones' sacking for 'rock star posturing'. With little money to play with Bernie booked a studio in West Germany and an engineer (Michael Fayne) with affordability in mind and also because he had experience using drum machines. Either Joe or Bernie (or both) had decided they'd employ drum machines in response to and compete with Mick's experimental drum machines and sampling in the early stages of Big Audio Dynamite. Strummer's new songs and the demos of them (This Is England, Three Card Trick, Sex Mad Roar) were promising and Joe wanted them recorded quickly and with the new group, guitars to the fore. Rhodes became convinced he was no the band's producer and was on the cusp of a new genre combining cut ups and samples, drum machines, electro and Joe's voice on top. Paul rapidly lost interest. Bernie bullied drummer Pete Howard in the studio. Bernie wanted football crowds and massed chants on backing vocals, a nod to the busking tour the five men did the year before. Joe and Bernie clashed and apart from This Is England, which everyone agreed was a keeper, and the only song in the studio that all five members really contributed to. Bernie took over and Joe let him. Bernie filled all twenty four tracks on each song, cluttering the album and muddying the sound, the two guitarists contributing twin Les Paul guitar parts, drum machines clattering away and chanting choruses competing with samples and dialogue from the TV. Paul doesn't appear on it at all except in the inner sleeve photo. The cover is awful, a picture postcard punk/ collage. The press pulled it to pieces, the fans agreed on the whole, the band didn't like it- in 1986 Joe said he hated it. 

This Is England survived Cut The Crap, eventually re- admitted into a recent Clash compilation and Strummer himself claiming it as 'the last great Clash song'. But mainly what The Clash Mk. II proved was that Bernie had been a disaster and that Mick Jones was a/ the significant musical and song writing talent- Mick demonstrated this fully a month before the release of Cut The Crap with the debut B.A.D. album, a superb and easy sounding album full of drum machines, samples from films and catchy, relevant songs. 

Earlier this year Gerald Manns took Cut The Crap to pieces and rebooted it. Many of the songs from the album were available on bootlegs in a form more as Joe intended, from gigs and demos and Gerald and other fans claimed a decent Clash album existed inside Cut The Crap. Gerald has taken whatever versions he can get hold of as inspiration painstakingly, ripped Joe's vocals from Cut The Crap, cleaned them up and then reconstructed the songs. De- Berniated them, as he puts it. The reconstruction involved recreating Pete Howard's drum tracks using a drum machine/ programme that sounds like a real drummer and then rebuilding the guitars himself, playing along to what he can glean from the album. Gerald has since put his versions of the songs from Cut The Crap on Youtube, a reimagined version of the album along the lines of what could have been released if the Strummer/ Simonon, White/ Shepperd/ Howard group had recorded them as a band. They're worth a listen if nothing else and show what could have been if Joe had held his nerve and kept Bernie out of the studio (or if Paul had left as he threatened to and surely wanted to given his lack of involvement in the album, his loyalty to Joe the only thing keeping him in the band. If that had happened Joe and The Clash had ended there and then, Joe might have recorded these as his solo debut. The whole album is on Youtube but I'll offer a few highlights. 

Three Card Trick (Rebooted) rumbles nicely, Joe in good voice and the guitars slashing and burning, the sound of the 1985 five man Clash recreated at home. 

The Dictator (Rebooted) is another winner retrieved from the original album, Joe's voice audibly from an inferior source but sunk into a two guitar, straight ahead, heads down, retro punk sound. 

Ironically, This Is England (Rebooted) is the one that for me sounds least good, maybe because the version released in 1985 actually works and works well. This sounds smaller somehow and shows that drum machines and samples weren't necessarily the problem with Cut The Crap. I'll happily keep the original.  

The rest of the album is out there, you can find it all on Youtube if you're interested and I accept this is a very niche subject matter. You could argue that this entire enterprise is against the spirit of The Clash, who were always pressing forward and progressing in different directions, often many at the same time. But in the spirit of what things could have been like, it's worth giving the songs a go.

Joe and Paul went on to patch things up with Mick quickly and Joe produced and co- wrote the second B.A.D. album, No. 10 Upping Street, with Mick having tracked him down and apologising for sacking him. That album contained this, a song as good as anything either man wrote or recorded in the 1980s. 

V Thirteen (Extended)

Here We Go Forever

Mogwai's album As The Love Continues has been nominated for the Mercury Prize. I'm not sure I'd even clocked that the Mercury Prize was still going and apart from the publicity the nominees and winner get it's always seemed a very arbitrary thing, announcing one album a year as 'the winner' from a field that tries to include everything from avant- rock to folk to modern jazz to 21st century smart pop. But the announcement did encourage me to go back to the Mogwai album, one I played a lot when it came out back in February but not much since. If anything it sounded better, stronger, than it did first time around and for a band that have been around and releasing records since 1997 it's encouraging that their latest release stands alongside their earlier work. 

In some ways As The Love Continues doesn't break any new ground but it does bring together what they do very well, on the back of two previous albums that did the same (the soundtrack to Kin and 2017's Every Country's Sun were both first rate albums). Mainly instrumental, monumental, slowly building songs, with freak out climaxes and sections of beauty, the odd sung song (and I love the Mogwai songs with Stuart Braithwaite singing), the synths and vocoders becoming as integral as the guitars, and obtuse, laugh out loud song titles. This song, although admittedly not blessed with a funny title, is as good as any. 

Here We, Here We, Here We Go Forever

Go!!!

Back in 2010 Andrew Weatherall remixed Danish producer Trentemoller's track Silver Surfer, Ghost Rider, Go!!! At that point Timothy J. Fairplay was Andrew's studio right hand man, a partnership which would result in their album as The Asphodells (the superb Ruled By Passion, Destroyed By Lust, named after a shlocky gladiator porn movie). One of the key influences at the time, all over the Trentemoller remix, was the glam rock stomp, a wonderfully retro sound derived from twin sources- Big New Prinz by The Fall and Let's Get Together Again by The Glitter Band, 'the men in satin trousers it's ok to like' Andrew quipped after playing the song on one of his radio shows at the time (that's The Glitter Band not The Fall obviously). 

Big New Prinz is a remarkable piece of Brix- era Fall, built around Glitter Band drumming, some really grimy bass and vicious guitar lead lines, a song that developed from a 1982 song (Hip Priest) and was reworked for their 1988 I Am Kurious Oranj album, a record that combined some kind of tribute to William of Orange's ascension to the English throne in 1688 and the soundtrack to a Michael Clark ballet along with a version of Jerusalem. Meanwhile Mark riffs about rock records, drinking the long draft, big priests and the self referential refrain, 'He/ Is/ Not/... Appreciated'. 

Big New Prinz

Let's Get Together Again is 70s social club manna, a football chant and double drumkit stomp, sax and Les Paul. No mp3 I'm afraid but I've found it on Youtube- there's another clip on Youtube where they perform the song on Top Of The Pops and are introduced by a well known sex offender/ DJ but we don't need to see his face here.

Andrew and Tim channelled these sounds into the Trentemoller remix, one of those tracks you wish could loop endlessly whilst you go about you daily business. 

Silver Surfer, Ghost Rider, Go!!! (Andrew Weatherall Prinz Remix)

There is a second Weatherall/ Fairplay remix, the Sky 81 remix, which is less Glitter stomp and more echo- laden, submerged, Wobble era- PiL take on the original. Both remixes, the original and two other mixes can be bought here. And for completion's sake here are the twin heroes of the Trentmoller song, from the golden age of Marvel and the pens of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. 

Monday's Long Song

Martin Jenkins has been a regular postee at this blog over the last couple of years in his guise as Pye Corner Audio, his battery of synths responsible for some beautiful work on his own and as a remixer (not least the six Pye Corner remixes of the songs from Andy Bell's solo album of last year, a technicoloured, cosmische re-imagining of the songs). Now Martin has another alias, The House In The Woods, and a new album, The Spectral Corridor. The eight tracks contained within are all long songs, the shortest just under eight minutes and the longest coming in at ten minutes seventeen seconds. On The House In The Woods Bandcamp page The Spectral Corridor is described as 'a doom infused set of stygian sludge drone that calls to mind the faded hinterlands of early electronic music infused with modern menace' and if that doesn't set your pulse racing I don't know what will. The tracks on The Spectral Corridor are built around repetition and throbbing, sinister synth tones, and are not for the faint hearted, the opposite of chilled out ambient. It is like the soundtrack to a dystopian 70s sci fi/ horror programme shown late at night on BBC2 or those public information films where children die on pylons or in slurry pits on farmyards. It's beautifully done and has a refusal to go anywhere quickly, but lets the listener sink into the sounds and wallow in the murk. 

Spectral Corridor Part 3 is a menacing, slowly building nightmare which keeps on building, the humming noises increasing as a ghostly topline wavers in and out. It is quite possible it will freak your shit out. 

Quadratic is slightly less threatening, content to merely unsettle the listener, the sound of Tangerine Dream having a bad trip. You can listen to the whole album and buy it at Bandcamp. 

All Aboard

I woke up yesterday morning with the line from The KLF's Last Train To Trancentral running through my head, 'All aboard, all aboard, woah- oh'. In 1991 they performed it on Top Of The Pops, a peak KLF 'live' performance in many ways.

This remixed version from the Last Train To Trancentral Remix 12" is a beauty, the halfway point between the Chill Out album and The KLF's magnificent run of stadium house singles, six minutes of train sounds (horns sounding, level crossing bells ringing, engines and rolling stock rumbling over the tracks) and some of the samples that make up the proper version. Ambient stadium house. 

Last Train To Trancentral (Remix 1)

Valleys

A week in blistering heat in the Wye Valley does wonders- the lazily twisting River Wye, the hills and deep valleys of the Forest of Dean, houses dotted on the hillsides and built into steps cut out of the landscape, a wooden cabin shaded by the canopy of an oak tree, cold beers and long evenings... the only shame is five days wasn't long enough. I've never been to the Wye Valley before. It's a very distinctive part of the country and it really feels like a place on its own, a geographically unique area with beautiful countryside and an industrial heritage- iron, timber, mines, railways, ore, charcoal, wire and cable industries all thrived during the 19th and early 20th century.  Just a few miles drive and you hit the River Severn and various harboursides. 

Some valleys in song from the hard drive. Allez Allez were an early 80s Belgian New Wave produced by Martin Ware. 

Valley Of The Kings

Sinner DC are Swiss and Endless Valley came out in 2012 with various remixes, this one by Sonic Boom. 

Endless Valley (Sonic Boom MBC Version)

I Know You Know

I get sent quite a lot of emails from bands and artists who want me to listen to and write about their music and I just don't have the time or the energy to do that. Most of the emails get deleted. I remember seeing a documentary about John Peel and at one point he opens the boot of his car which is full of cassettes with letters and photocopied sheets attached to them, jiffy bags full of people's dreams. I'm not comparing myself to John Peel I hasten to add but the problem is the same even if the method of delivery has changed (and the quantity- I'm sure Peel got far more unsolicited tapes than I get emails). 

Occasionally an email gets me at the right moment for whatever reason and I follow through with it. Last week my inbox got a message from a Portland, Oregon group called Lore City about their forthcoming album Participation Mystique. This is I Know You Know, thumping drums, a swirl of FX, a drone underpinning it all and a declamatory vocal, half sung, half chanted. It sounds like the soundtrack to a ritual, dark psychedelia with some heavy historical weight attached to it.  

I replied to Lore City (Laura and Eric) and they emailed back, glad 'the sounds are resonating' with me, adding that whenever you (they) send an email 'into the void, it's always nice when the void writes back'. We tend to think of the internet as a place for communication and information but it's just as easily a void, a vast empty space with millions of people talking to themselves. Sending your music out via email to unknown recipients and blogging are both exercises in throwing words out into the void, in the hope that someone might respond. 

I Am The One is slower and slightly less intense than I Know You Know but no lesser for it- piano, atmosphere and drums and Laura's voice calling from somewhere else. Lore City's album, Participation Mystique, is out on Friday. You can get it here in various formats. 

There now follows a short break in transmission from Bagging Area towers. It looks like we picked the right week to get away to a different part of the country. See you at the end of the week. 

Lost And Found

Hugo Nicolson, the man who engineered/ co- produced most of Andrew Weatherall's early works and who joined Primal Scream to do all the electronic stuff live when they toured the world playing Screamadelica, has been working on new dance music sounds. The first fruits of this are the Lost And Found EP, a three track release led by the pumping, trancey, sunny day sound of Finally Fading (vocals by Jillian Cainghug). 

Second track Fly Pie is slightly less full on and more experimental/ cosmische, rippling synths and melodic toplines but the BMP count remains high. I can't find a video to embed for Fly Pie but you can find it the EP at Bandcamp for the price of less than a pint of lager at your local pub. Finally Fading has been remixed by fellow Los Angeleno David Harrow, the Flaneur Mix taking things more downtempo and stretching it out over eight minutes, the bassline burbling away, repetitious, hypnotic bliss. 

Hugo has also remixed South London Balearic chug kings Rude Audio which we will almost certainly come back to at some point this summer, a remix which I heard an early version of last year and which is on point (as the folk say). And while we're considering all things Hugo I'll take this moment to remind you of his album as Spark Sparkle- Crank- which came out last summer and full of experimental exotica, Beach Boys through the looking glass, soundtrack stuff. 

Punks Jump Up To Get Beat Down

Back in 2006 Scritti Politti, the working name for the group Green Gartside uses on and off and at that point hadn't used since 1999, released an album called White Bread Black Beer. It was minimalist but warm sounding, all the instruments played by Green, and a marriage of catchy songs with smart lyrics, full of references that whizz by over modern folky electric pop. 

One of the highlights was Dr Abernathy, acoustic guitars and reverb, some lovely jagged electric guitar stabs, a bit of whistling and lines taking in Greek mythology, Hegelian philosophy, the 18th century surgeon of the title, lines from 80s hip hop and meth amphetamine. It's a heady brew. The coda is gorgeous and concludes in fine, obscure style- 

'I stole a glance/ at circumstance/ It's way too big/ For them to figure/ Outside/ In the exercise yard/ The three winds blow/ The dear John/ It won't be long/ Round and round/ The punks jump up/ To get beat down/ All the days of my life/ Love'

Dr. Abernathy

I Heard You Looking

It's the last day of the school year today, the end of the toughest year in teaching I can remember, tough for multiple reasons, many Covid related. The last day of school when you're a kid is a day of celebration and release, the six weeks holiday stretching before you with all the promise of summer. It feels a bit like that this year, especially as the sun is shining and we've been promised/ threatened with a heatwave, but this summer it also just feels like a relief and an end- or at least a pause (I'll leave the opening up of Covid restrictions on Monday and government decision making and all that for the moment). 

This is a seven minute guitar led instrumental by Yo La Tengo from their Painful album in 1993, a masterpiece of US indie- rock/ shoegaze. I Heard You Looking is one of those bittersweet instrumentals, sweeping and evocative, a sound and playing that manages to say loads without needing a single word- late evenings, sun down, light fading, cars in the distance, credits roll, that sort of thing. 

I Heard You Looking

The Book Of Pleasures

Will Sergeant's memoir Bunnyman dropped through my letterbox yesterday, signed by the author himself and now sitting waiting for me to get stuck into, an account his childhood and formative years in Melling (a village on the outskirts of Liverpool, woolly back country for scousers) and the late 70s punk scene centred around Eric's. The book finishes just as Echo And The Bunnymen are about to break so I have a feeling there may be a second volume at some point. Once I've read it, I'll write a fuller post about it. 

In 2013 Will reunited with Bunny bassist Les Pattinson for a group called Poltergeist and armed with guitars, bass and a drummer, a four track and three decades of psychedelic exploration they set about recording an album of instrumentals. At the time Will said it was a return to his pre- punk hippy influences- Floyd, Can, Neu!- and also a reaction to the periodic frustrations of being essentially a hired hand in the band he formed. Ian McCulloch calls the shots in the reformed Bunnymen, decides what they play live and what happens in the studio- which sounds like despite the name on the sleeve most modern Echo And The Bunnymen albums are Mac solo albums and Will recreates his guitar parts on their classic songs on stage. No room to improvise or wig out. Which explains why Poltergeist sounds like it does. Will was in the same class at school as Les Pattinson and never fell out with him so it was obvious to get him in on bass for Poltergeist. This track from their album Your Mind Is A Box (Let Us Fill It With Wonder) unfolds slowly with a little drama and some introspection, a slice of 21st century scouseadelia. 

The Book Of Pleasures

This Is England, This Is How We Feel

The last few days have shown the worst of this country and the best too- the sadly predictable response by knuckle dragging racists to three young men missing penalties for England at Wembley on Sunday night, not to mention the behaviour of some of the fans in and around the stadium and central London, is profoundly depressing and enraging. 

The response by people in Withington, the part of South Manchester where I grew up, has been moving and uplifting, with heartfelt messages of thanks and inspiration left on the mural of Marcus Rashford which had been defaced by scumbags at some point on Sunday night. Marcus Rashford spent some of his childhood in Withington living close to Copson Street where the mural is (the picture below shows our visit last year). 

Marcus Rashford's own statement in response to events was powerful and moving, a statement of apology for missing a penalty (as if that were needed) and a defiant note against racism and intolerance. Teammate Tyrone Mings responded to Pritti Patel's shamelessness (denouncing racism this week, condemning the players for taking a stance against racism three weeks earlier), calling out her hypocrisy. It's easy to find events and the state of modern England dispiriting but the eloquence and defiance of the youth, both professional footballers and ordinary people interviewed on the news in Withington and elsewhere, is enough to make me hope for better in the future. One day the likes of Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson and Pritti Patel will be gone and the upcoming generation will I think make a better job of things than ours is. 

Back in 1985 as The Clash spluttered to a conclusion Joe Strummer wrote a state of the nation address, the last great Clash song, This Is England. Joe looks around and sees the collapse of industry and loss of jobs, war in the South Atlantic, jingoism, police brutality, violence and racism. 'This is England/  This is how we feel', he laments.  

This Is England

Kirsty MacColl and Billy Bragg both claimed not to be looking for a new England, just another girl. But I think we all know they wanted both. Is it wrong to wish on space hardware? Nope, whatever it takes I reckon.

A New England (Extended Version)

Double Dub

David Harrow, now a resident of Los Angeles teaching music, has had a wide and varied career in music from the early 80s onwards. Starting out with Psychic TV and Anne Clark and then in 1988 hooking up with the On U Sound collective before going onto work with Andrew Weatherall (as Blood Sugar and Deanne Day), making techno as Technova and future jazz/ drum 'n' bass as James Hardway and finding time somewhere in the mid 90s to write Billie Ray Martin's worldwide hit Your Loving Arms. He has been drip feeding music through Bandcamp recently, the most recent being a three track release called Melodica Session. Made up of three dub tracks- AtyipcalDub, GadgetDub and WaimeaDub- Melodica Session is a dub joy, modular synth rhythms and lovely, snaking melodica lines on top. Really smart modern dub from a man who has been steeped in it for several decades. Listen and buy here. You won't regret it, promise.  

Adrian Sherwood is On U Sound's mixing desk maestro and boss, the man for whom rhythm and delay is an artform. Sherwood's back catalogue as producer and remixer takes in some harder industrial sounds and a dash of mid- 80s electro too but it's the dub we're here for today. Back in 2010 the Test Pressing website kicked off a series of longer mixes in tribute to the great producers and began with a forty- five minute compilation of Sherwood tracks put together by Apiento and Tim H. I found the Sherwood one recently while digging around in the hard drive looking for something else and you'll be hard pressed to find a better soundtrack to three quarters of an hour today. 

The Producers Series Volume One

• African Head Charge: Pursuit
• Dub Syndicate: Ravi Shankar Pt. 1
• African Head Charge: Heading For Glory
• African Head Charge: No, Don't Follow Fashion
• Doctor Pablo: Doctor Who
• Creation Rebel: African Space
• African Head Charge: Dinosaur's Lament
• Dub Syndicate: Night Train
• African Head Charge: Throw It Away
• African Head Charge: Stebeni's Theme

Monday's Long Song

This is a perfect collision of acid- techno and post punk- Dublin's poetic young guitar slingers Fontaines DC remixed by Dave Clarke, a monstrous, takes no prisoners, seven minute white knuckle ride. When the distorted bass comes in on top for the final minute and a half it's likely to cause outbreaks of pogoing and body slamming.

Dave Clarke is a techno legend, nicknamed the baron of techno by John Peel back in the 90s. His 1994 releases Red 1 and Red 2 are monuments to hard, driving, percussive techno and his approach has always been to avoid the obvious route, shun the commercial aspects and keep your head down. I thought I had digital files of Red 1 and 2 but can't locate them at the moment. My vinyl copy purchased at the time came with a tear off cardboard strip, so you had to damage the sleeve to play the records.  This won't be everyone's cup of tea but there's a purism to this which is beautiful. 

I Heard Them Say

I don't have too much to say about tonight's football match- que sera sera. What the team has done so far and the way they've done it is almost enough on its own. Almost. One step further would be something else. Let's just try to enjoy it. 

Last weekend I posted a track by Mancunian techno artist Andy Stott and it received a very positive reaction. This is a jaw-dropping remix of Maps back in 2013, a remix that really takes you to places.

I Heard Them Say (Andy Stott Remix) 

In Your Way

Rikki Turner's San Pedro Collective are back with a new EP called Phase Two featuring the laid back, 70s acid jazz/ funk vibes of Time (originally out back in January) and a new song In Your Way (Calito's Way Remix). SPC are building a bigger sound if In Your Way is anything to go by, a clipped guitar part, big chords and some urgency, led by the voice of Jasmine Needham. The loose collection of characters and players Rikki is putting together are pushing the group in different directions, no stone unturned. 

Back in 2019 Rikki worked with Suddi Raval, formerly of Together (of Hardcore Uproar fame) and they found the motherlode with The Things You See, dark acid house dreamt up in the suburbs near Stockport. A bouncy, sinuous 808 bassline and a vocal from Millie McBean, club music from the darker corners of the dancefloor. 

Just in case you need a reminder of the range of Rikki's talent few years ago he led The Hurt who hit the mark with this epic, brooding, seductive tribute to the German capital, a song that gives me shivers whenever I go back to it. 

Slow Down Speedy

Back in 1992 LFO were the kings of bleep/ techno. This track was (I think) only released as part of a book with free CD (or CD with free book) series called Volume and manages to be both fast and slow (as the title suggests), dark Chicago house and Detroit techno re- envisaged in early 90s West Yorkshire. Bedroom technology and a deep mineshaft of imagination. 

Slow Down Speedy

Music For July

Well, I think we could all do with a lie down after that eh? To bring some calm after the Euro 20 semi- final last night and England making it to the final of an international tournament- not something I ever thought I'd type- here is Richard Norris' latest instalment of Music For Healing for July. It is a few days late due to his recent house move and lack of internet access- yes, these everyday problems affect everybody, even acid house/ ambient/ cosmische pioneers. Twenty minutes of chilled floatation sounds, a warm wash of background FX and piano. Listen and buy at Bandcamp. 

This is a further track from his outstanding recent album Hypnotic Response which I can't recommend enough. More foregrounded sounds than the Music For Healing releases but equally guaranteed to hit the spot/ transport you away from it all. 

Love's Got The World In Motion

If I ever thought (and I don't think I ever did) that popular culture- sport, music, film, fashion etc- existed in an escapist bubble outside society and politics then the last few weeks have really made it clear to me. When Euro 20 started I had a really hard time summoning up any enthusiasm for supporting England. Given their frequent and regular poor performances at major tournaments I have watched them play in since 1982 this could just be down to England tournament fatigue, but there's more to it than that and much of it is down to what's happened during the last few years. 

People like to say that the St George's cross flag was 'reclaimed' from the far right at Euro 96. That may be true but it feels like the far right have claimed it back over the last decade. England flags flying from cars and houses have coincided with the rise of an ugly strain of English nationalism that has been used to drive wedges between communities. The national anthem is a pointless dirge, a celebration of monarchy which I can't sing or feel any kinship to. The never-ending obsession with the Second World war is baffling- it's over, it ended seventy six years ago, really, get over it. The crowd at Wembley booing other nation's national anthems- something they've done for years- looks worse and worse every time it happens. The people booing England's players taking the knee are even worse (and worse than them are those people booing while at home watching on TV and then posting it on social media- grown men filming themselves booing young black men for taking a stance against racism but then cheering them when they score. It beggars belief). You can argue that taking the knee a gesture that doesn't achieve anything but booing people for taking a position against racism is surely showing support for racism. That's the funny thing about modern racists, they want the 'freedom' to be racist but object to being called racist. Johnson's populist government's incessant culture wars are all wrapped up in this kind of politics, button pushing and barrel scraping, appealing to the worst in people, dividing and conquering. The rest of the UK seems to be coming round to a position of wanting to reject England and that small minded version of Englishness, and who can blame them?

On the other hand, the team themselves seem to be a genuinely decent bunch of young men, from multi- cultural backgrounds, led by a manager who is thoughtful and considered. In Raheem Sterling they have a young man from a North London council estate who gets a disproportionate amount of criticism from the press which you can only conclude is due to his skin colour. In Marcus Rashford they have a young man from a South Manchester council estate who has provided more effective opposition to the government and it's policies over the last year than the actual leader of the opposition. In Gareth Southgate you have a man who wrote a much more effective response to and defence of the position the team have taken against racism than any other I've read (a Tory minister has apparently said they regard his statement as 'suspiciously well written'- in other words, he couldn't have written it, a mere footballer, which tells you what you need to know about how this government look down at people they see as beneath them). As the tournament has gone on, I've tried to ignore the flags, the anthem, the booing, the tabloid version of Englishness and just appreciate the matches As they've gone on into the knock out stages (and become more fun to watch) it's become easier to watch and support England, but there's a latent nastiness to Englishness at the moment that is difficult to block out completely.

Overthinking it? Possibly. But none of this stuff- music, football, life- happens in a vacuum and popular culture and pop culture are products of or reactions to the real world. Tonight, England (the team) play Denmark (themselves the true heroes of this tournament with the horrific scenes in opening weekend when Christian Eriksen suffered a heart attack on the pitch and then the rest of the team were given the choice playing the rest of the game then or the day after). For once the England team have a genuine chance of reaching a final. It would be daft not to try to enjoy it. 

Back in 1990 pop culture collided with football in a way it hadn't before. Not New Order's best song but the best England World Cup song and one of the memories of a summer that seemed to go on forever. 

World In Motion (Carabinieri Mix)

World In Motion (No Alla Violenza Mix)

Won't Make Love To Change Your Mind

Soho's Hippychick, a 1989 and 1990 single that eventually became a hit in 1991, is a lovely collision of various different aspects the second half of the 80s- a political lyric born of Thatcherism, the miner's strike, the police and the wider left wing causes of that decade (anti- apartheid, CND, the poll tax) coupled with an instantly recognisable sample by the 80s most celebrated indie guitar heroes and a crunchy Soul II Soul breakbeat. 

Soho, formed by Tim London (Brinkhurst), his girlfriend Jacqueline and her identical twin sister Pauline, wrote Hippychick as a blues but their drummer/ programmer Dukey D transformed it with the sampling of Johnny Marr's guitar riff from How Soon Is Now and the welding of that shuffling, kinetic drumbeat. The lyrics are from the viewpoint of a woman arrested at a demonstration by a policeman who happens to be her boyfriend and her telling him that it's over- 'I stopped loving you since the miner's strike'. It's an instant piece of dance pop with plenty of good lines and a lot of fun. Back in 1990 the sudden appearance of that guitar riff could cause dancefloor mayhem, the indie world and the dance world slamming together, and you can only imagine vindicated Johnny in his view that leaving The Smiths to make dance music was the right decision (and he got 25% of the song writing royalties).

Hippychick

The group were visually arresting too and their 1991 slots on Top Of The Pops were a riot of day glo colours, bouncing around and white denim/ long sleeved tees. Rather touchingly I read somewhere recently that Tim and Jacqueline finally got around to getting married last year. 

Monday's Long Song

This came out back in February which seems ages ago now but it suits the heat of summer much more than the chill of February. Parisienne artist Golden Bug, purveyor of electronic disco/ house, felt inspired to make a 60s/ 70s psychedelic acid track and contacted Lionel from The Liminanas to help out with vocals/ poetry and guitars. Then Golden Bug got three remixers on board, one being fellow Frenchman Pilooski and this nine minute, wigged out excursion was the result. 

The Superpitcher remix, Paris via Cologne, is well worth your spending a few of your euros on too. The whole Franco- German package, original track plus five remixes is here. Vinyl sadly sold out. 

Basic Stuff

More dub techno, this time of the 1990s variety and courtesy of the masters of the form Basic Channel. The Berlin duo were legendarily obsessive about production, mastering and sound quality and equally committed to minimalism in terms of sound and design. This one is from a  12" released in 1993 titled Q1.1, four tracks labelled Q1.1/I to IIII. This is the third, deep and sleek and cutting straight to the heart of things. 

Q1.1/III is here.

Luxury Problems

A few weeks ago an internet friend recommended I investigate the recordings of Andy Stott, a name I was aware of but hadn't heard anything by. Andy is Manchester based, a producer and musician who makes music that fits into the categories labelled dub techno, experimental and industrial ambient. His back catalogue is extensive- seven albums since 2007 and multiple singles and EPs plus more recordings as Andrea and in partnership with Miles Whittaker as Millie And Andrea. I was nodded towards 2012's Luxury Problems as the place to start and this is the title track from that album, Stott's music and the chopped up voice of his former piano teacher Alison Skidmore.

Luxury Problems

There's a lot going in the music, layers of precisely laid down sounds- rhythms, sudden bursts of melodies, grinding basslines, a vaguely menacing or unsettling edge, offset by the lightness of the vocals. It's very exact and urban feeling music, ideal for listening to through headphones, textures and feel- there's definitely something of the end of the night about it too. Very impressive and there's loads more to dig into which I suspect I shall enjoy doing over time. 

Quarterfinals

It's Friday and it's July. There are Euro 20 quarterfinals on over the weekend, including England Marxists taking on Ukraine tomorrow night, and the Tour de France is well under way. The sun has been shining and the summer holidays are within touching distance. 

Here's some music for tonight's Italy versus Belgium clash, a real heavyweight quarterfinal between a Belgium side packed with talent and well placed to win their first international trophy against a young, revitalised Italian team. In the Belgian end there's Rheinzand, Ghent's top of the table Balearic/ house/ disco outfit and a slice from their recently released remix album which features versions from the likes of Superpitcher, Skylab, In Flagranti and Chris Coco and this funky delight, a remix of Queen Of Dawn by Pete Herbert.

In the the curva sud for Italy we have Pop Will Eat Itself, the Black Country's grebo sampling kings who made the still fantastic sounding piano house tribute to Italia 90 and porn star turned politician Cicciolina. New Order get all the plaudits for making a credible/ good football record in the summer of 1990 and there's no doubt that World In Motion was a sign that things were changing, but Touched By The Hand Of Cicciolina is that summer's secret weapon, the supersub who scores the winner in injury time. 

Touched By The Hand Of Cicciolina (Extra Time Mix)

And for further extra time/ Friday fun Lorde's new single, Solar Power, has been spliced together with Loaded to make Lorded. It's the from Joe Muggs and it works. You can find it here . The original's no slouch either. 

After All This Talking

Glok (Andy Bell in dance/ electronic/ cosmische modes) has just announced a new album, out in September called Pattern Recognition. It feels a little depressing to be making plans for September by which point summer will be over and the new school year and autumn kicking in but that's how release schedules work. The first fruits of it are a wonderful new song, Maintaining The Machine, with Sinead O'Brien on vocals and Primal Scream's Simone Butler on bass. Synths washing back and forth, bubbling sounds, a lazy beat, double tracked vox, bathing in hypnotic and dreamy sonics. 

Sinead O'Brien is a Limerick based poet and musician. This is her last year on a poem set to song from an EP called Drowning In Blessings, called Most Modern Painting- a quick fire spoken word/ post- punk/ art rock face off that is 'a dialogue between the conscious and the unconscious, through dream recall, memory, the individual and the ego'. We're up for all of that aren't we?