You Can Walk Or You Can Run

Joy Division yesterday, New Order today. New Order in the 1980s were as good as it got, a pioneering, chaotic, independent, wilful, sullen and joyous collision of rock music and dance music, defiantly and stubbornly holding out in Manchester. Their run of singles from Ceremony to True Faith is almost perfect, and distinct from their albums from the same period (Movement to Technique, also containing multiple moments of perfection), a band who saw singles and albums as separate entities. The decision to carry on after Ian Curtis' death saw them edge forward nervously, unbalanced and unsure but embracing new technology and a new sound with a reluctant singer and temperamental equipment. The tensions in the group pulled them apart eventually but they produced some moments of absolute magic- Ceremony, In A Lonely Place, Procession, Everything's Gone Green, Dreams Never End, Temptation and Hurt, Your Silent Face, Ultraviolence, Leave Me Alone, Age Of Consent, Blue Monday, Thieves Like Us, Lonesome Tonight, almost all of Lowlife (Love Vigilantes, Elegia, This Time Of Night, Subculture, Sunrise, Face Up), The Perfect Kiss, Bizarre Love Triangle, bits of Brotherhood, True Faith, 1963, all of Technique... I once tried to pull together ten New Order songs for an ICA at The Vinyl Villain and I couldn't even cut it down to fifteen. 

In March 1986 they appeared on The Tube to perform their then new single State Of The Nation. I don't think State Of The Nation would be anyone's favourite New Order single, it feels like a bit of a stopgap, lacking in flashes of brilliance that the band were capable of previously, caught between the effervescence of the Lowlife era songs and the imperious splendour of True Faith. This performance on The Tube though is magnificent and demonstrates that even when they weren't quite at the very top of their songwriting game, they were still better than almost everyone else.

Across the front, three people who don't look like they should be in the same band- Bernard in his Next jumper and bleached jeans, spikey hair with shaved sides, still unable to play guitar and sing at the same time (this is not a criticism- New Order were better when he couldn't do both simultaneously). Gillian standing completely still, big hair and bright green top, electric guitar. Hooky in pre- acid house/ pre- Viking rock god smart clobber, probably from Commes des Garcons or similar, hair slicked back, bass at the very front of their sound. Stephen half hidden at the back, hitting syn drums and real kit, banks of synths around him, head nodding away as he plays metronomically. Even on a weaker song, they are superb and you don't want to take your eyes off them.

State Of The Nation was originally called Shame Of The Nation. When the group toured Japan the promoter of one of the gigs told them that the young Japanese women who followed groups around from venue to venue were 'the shame of the nation'. This phrase became the chorus of the song but changed to 'state' because to sounded better when sung. The song was recorded in Tokyo in April 1985 which possibly explains the slightly under par nature of it, recording while on tour between gigs and burning the candle at both ends. 

The B-side of the single had a different version, retitled Shame Of The Nation, recorded with producer John Robie (as two previous singles had been, Shellshock and the new version of Subculture). The main difference is the backing vocals, very much a Robie touch. This version was recorded in bursts between October '85 and April '86, in Manchester, New York and LA, which again may explain a lot. It's bright and toppy, aimed at the dancefloor but too soon to be soaking up the new looser, acid house sounds that would change dance music (and then guitar music) a couple of years later. 

Shame Of The Nation

To The Centre Of The City

There was a furore in Manchester recently when this gable end mural of Ian Curtis was painted over. The mural (by artist Akse) is/ was on Port Street on the edge of the city centre near newly refurbished/ gentrified Ancoats (I took this photo back in May). It was painted over with an advert for the new album by local rapper Aitch. Immediately social media was filled with people saying this was 'sacrilege' and a travesty. Aitch responded saying the painting was done without his knowledge, he wouldn't want to 'disrespect a local hero' in this way and he'd ensure it was put right. Akse has been asked to paint the portrait in 2020 in association with a music and wellbeing festival, Headstock, and Manchester City Council and the contact details for various mental health charities are/ were on the mural. 

There are hundreds of other places an advert for Aitch's album could have been painted, it seems a little odd his team decided to put it over the mural of Ian Curtis. Unless the resulting publicity was what they wanted (and got). On the other hand street art like this is by nature transitory and can't be expected to be around forever. I sometimes get a bit perturbed by the Ian Curtis death cult, something I realised writing this post I've written about before. It's been around since he died and the photographs of him from the time- all black and white, a far away look his eyes, the doomed romantic poet of post- punk frozen forever- add to it. The 2007 film Control further contributed to this view of Ian. In contrast all his former bandmates have written in their respective autobiographies about what a great laugh Ian was and how being in Joy Division was fun much of the time. Ian's epilepsy and its treatment seems to have been the trigger for much of his poor mental health, exacerbated by the domestic/ relationships situation he got into. The pressure of being in the band, performing while being ill and the feeling of letting everyone down must have played a part. Suicide though is never romantic. It leaves those left behind with more questions and than answers. The death of someone so young affects those left behind forever. I sometimes wonder about the continuing Ian Curtis industry, including murals like this (and the similar one in Macclesfield), and if they merely add to the myth or whether they help anyone suffering. I've no answer to that but I'm not always sure the Ian Curtis death cult is a healthy thing. 

A few days after the mural incident I saw Joy Division on the TV, on one of Guy Garvey's From The Vaults programmes (Sky Arts, Freeview). The episode was music clips from independent TV channels in 1978. The clip in question was Joy Division's first appearance on television on Granada, introduced by Tony Wilson, playing Shadowplay live down on Quay Street. The producer's decision to overlay the band with footage of the drive into the city was a fortuitous one. 

It's extraordinary stuff, four young men writing a new chapter in Manchester's musical history, setting into motion the wheels that would lead to Factory, the Hacienda, Madchester, World In Motion and whatever else you want to add to that list (the current construction boom that is changing the city so fast it's difficult to keep up, the museum- ification of that whole period too). As soon as the clip starts to play and Hooky's bassline rumbles in, inevitably thoughts of 'here are the young men/ the weight on their shoulders' or something similar roll in. The second verse of Shadowplay has the line like 'In the shadowplay acting out your own death knowing no more' and there it is again, Ian Curtis death myth, inescapable.

Shadowplay

Monday's Long Song

Bank holiday Monday at the end of August always feels like a bit of a last gasp affair, the last gasp of summer before September strikes with its new school year and change of the seasons. It's the last bank holiday before Christmas too, which has a certain grimness about it. Best to make the most if it and squeeze as much out of it as we can. 

This is brand new from Oliver Sim, remixed by bandmate and producer Jamie Xx, with some help from Floating Points. The Xx changed popular music in the late 00s, bringing a minimal, crisp, r'n b/ indie crossover into the mainstream and a sound which has been copied/ borrowed by many since. Oliver, bassist and co- singer with The Xx, has his solo album, Hideous Bastard, coming out soon. This remix of GMT is nine minutes forty seconds of deep, sinuous, murky but celebratory dance music, an entrancing soundscape that pushes and pulls in all directions, and swerves in another direction entirely halfway through, deep vocal hmmmms and hand drums ushering in strings and a massive juddering bassline leading into a long build up, electronics and synths, another breakdown, another build up and finally a long slow finish. 

Half An Hour Of Kids

A bit of a diversion from my Sunday mix series of (roughly) thirty minute mixes of tracks and songs by a single artist- today's mix is themed around the sound of children's voices/ children's choirs. Do not fear though, there are no St Winifred's School Choirs here, no Primary School end of year shows. This is I hope a bit further left of there. Sometimes the use of children's voices in songs can be quite unsettling, that combination of sweetly sung innocence and the feeling of something being lost. Sometimes they provide a higher register counterpoint. Sometimes they add to a sense of trippiness and dislocation. Sometimes they just sound good, a contrast to adult voices and instruments. Sometimes, as The Clash and Mickey Gallagher's kids prove, they're a joke to ensure that Sandinista! had six songs on each side, making thirty six songs in total. 

Thirty Minute Kids Mix

• Family Of God: Family Of God
• Frank Ocean, Mick Jones and Paul Simonon: Hero
• The Children Of Sunshine: It's A Long Way To Heaven
• The Avalanches Ft Jamie Xx, Neneh Cherry and Calypso: Wherever You Go
• Gorillaz: Dirty Harry
• Soul II Soul: Get A Life
• Poly High: Midnight Cowboy
• The Clash: Career Opportunities

It's only right I should give a nod of the head to David Holmes whose crate digging inspired some of this mix. He played the Poly High song on his Desert Island Disco on Lauren Laverne's 6 Mix show earlier this year, included the Family Of God track on a free CD that was given away with the NME in 2000 and put the Children Of Sunshine song on his superb Late Night Tales compilation from 2016. The Frank Ocean, Paul Simonon and Mick Jones song was a one off done with/ for Converse in 2014, produced by Diplo, with the West Los Angeles Children's Choir providing backup. The Avalanches song also has Mick Jones playing on it but this time piano not guitar, and samples The Voyager, NASA's tape for aliens, currently somewhere out there way further than any of us have ever been. The album We Will Always Love You came out in 2020. Gorillaz, Damon with Dangermouse, was released in 2005.  Soul II Soul's Get A Life was a huge hit in 1989 and includes Jazzy B's still excellent advice- 'Be selective, be objective, be an asset to the collective/ As you know, you got to get a life'. Something in that for all of us perhaps. 

Saturday Theme Twenty Three

Without wanting to delve too deeply into the box marked 'British children's TV of the 1960s and 70s nostalgia' today's theme will be well known to those of us who grew up in that period. Trumpton began in 1967 and each episode opened with this...

Clock And Chime Theme

A lovely little piece of music regardless of the Proustian rush currently hitting home hard, released on the 1971 album Songs From Chigley And Trumpton, music by Freddie Phillips and narration by Brian Cant. 

It would be remiss of me to mention Trumpton without posting this 1986 classic, Brian Cant getting named checked as part of the establishment that Nigel Blackwell is hoping the people of Chigley and Trumpton will overthrow- 'We've had Cant conformism since 1966/ And now subversion's in the air in the shape of flying bricks'. 

The Trumpton Riots

Turn Of The Screw

One of the summer's best singles has been Unloved's Turn Of The Screw, an urgent, driving piece of 60s psyche that flips its middle fingers to all and sundry while simultaneously recommending the use of psychedelics for better mental health. David Holmes wrote the song in lockdown, an ode to 'making changes in your life for the better- cutting toxicity out of your life and focussing on the important things, family, friends and music'. Amen to that brother Holmes. Where Unloved often simmer and burn slowly Turn Of The Screw is fast and punchy, Raven Violet's vocals slicing through. The album, titled The Pink Album, is out in early September, twenty two songs with Etienne Daho, Jon Spencer and Jarvis Cocker involved on guest vocals. 

There are some remixes too. Darren Price, formerly of Underworld, reworks the song into a tribal dub with glowering menace and krauty keyboards. Erol Alkan and Juan Ramos are also on the case. Buy them here. 

Meanwhile, at NTS radio, David Holmes is proving himself the heir to Andrew Weatherall's much missed Music's Not For Everyone. Holmes' God's waiting Room is a monthly affair, two hours of cinematic, psychedelic, ambient, freakery. The latest one from mid- August is here. 

Fleeting Future

French born, London based musician Pascal Bideau releases his music as Akusmi. His new album, Fleeting Future, arrived in my inbox promising 'minimalism, cosmic jazz and Fourth World influences'. Signed to Tonal Union, the album came out back in June. Akusmi pulls off a trick that sounds difficult on paper- fusing electronic music and jazz with Indonesian Gamelan. Some of those terms sound daunting, serious even, but Akusmi does his thing with deftness and a lightness of touch that shouldn't scare anyone away. This is rich music, full of textures, hypnotic but accessible, adventurous and fun. On Divine Moments Of Truth an acoustic guitar riff leads the way, soon joined by other instruments, a jazz feel with the repetition of electronica, building without ever reaching a crescendo and then fading suddenly.

On album closer Yurikamome skittering rhythms and stringed instruments form a base for a sax to play over, jubilant melodies flitting around, creating something both experimental and uplifting. Akusmi named the track after the Japanese monorail train which sweeps from Shinbashi to Toyosu and the music perfectly evokes that sense of momentum, of a train rattling along the tracks between cities.  

Wise Men Say Only Fools Rush In

We went to the cinema last week, the first time we'd been since pre- Covid. There's nothing quite like sitting in the dark and seeing a film on the big screen for that full immersive experience. The film we chose was Baz Luhrman's Elvis, a brash, hyperactive, high camp, historically inaccurate take on the life of Elvis Presley. It was great fun of course if an hour too long. Elvis' musical life splits into three stages for me- the raw, untamed brilliance of the Sun years followed by a succession of increasingly tame songs made to promote films he was starring in followed by a kind of renaissance- the '68 comeback special (the first heritage rock show?) and then the Vegas years (a mixture of sublime inspiration and utter schmaltz). Elvis released Can't Help Falling In Love in 1961 to accompany the film Blue Hawaii, a song which has a life of it's own- Elvis crooning with his heavenly backing choir, some emotional button pushing lines but some genuine beauty too. It was covered by UB40 and the supporters of several English football teams have made it their own too- hearing massed ranks of Sunderland fans singing it at Old Trafford once was quite a moment.

Can't Help Falling In Love

In 1997 Jason Spaceman was going through the recording of Spiritualized's then latest album, what would become Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space. He wrote and recorded the title track, a weightless, wracked and wasted piece of space pop/ rock, introduced by a deadpan Kate Radley, blending his own song with the melodies and words from Can't Help Falling In Love. Obviously, by the time the album was ready to be released, Spritualized's finest album, the Presley estate were not happy and the Elvis parts had to be removed. Bootlegs exist of course. As a song, it is almost too much.

Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space/ Can't Help Falling In Love 

Last summer Jesse Fahnestock was having his own blues and revisiting Ladies And Gentlemen... and in search of a musical outlet for this found himself playing the song everyday, focusing on the line 'getting strong today/ a giant step each day'. I'll let Jesse describe the next steps...

'A lot of my music is about touching the hem of Spiritualized/Spacemen's cloak anyway, so I decided I’d pick up the baton. I spent a couple of weeks at the piano writing my own melancholy folk song in the round, keeping the “fools rush in” and adding some hopeful sentimentality to try to pull myself out of my funk, some words about daring to be happy, taking a chance on love and life. I called it “A Giant Step”, but that title didn’t stick.

In parallel I’d been toying with the idea of sampling some archival footage of the West’s last great philosopher (and personal hero), Bertrand Russell. I didn’t have a song for what I’d found, so when I started producing “Giant Step” on the computer, I stuck Russell on the intro, just as a whim. And then suddenly I heard what Russell was saying in that clip … it was about acting “vigorously” in spite of one’s doubt, about how modern philosophy was there to help you dare to live, even without the certainty of religion.

Making music is full of serendipitous moments, but this was the best one I’ve had yet. The song is more appropriately called “The First Step” '

10:40's The First Step has now been released as one of the songs on Higher Love Vol. 2, a compilation on Brighton's Higher Love label. You can get it here. It's a slow burning, sombre and emotive piece of music, the voice of Bertrand Russell surrounded by the laid back groove and the spectral female voices that join whispering, 'fools rush in'. It's a different take again from the feelings Elvis provokes and from the ones summoned by Spiritualized, a new feeling, and it shows how music can transform itself, shift its shape over time, one person taking a song somewhere else. 

The rest of Higher Love Vol. 2 is uniformly superb too, from the skittering sunset vibes of Perry Granville to the blissed out twinkling of Joe Morris, the heady brew of Secret Soul Society and enormous symphonic, spinning, giddying sound of Mass Density Human, and plenty more besides- if you need a soundtrack for the dog days of August, you'll find one inside Higher Love Vol 2. 

Tak Tent Six

Tak Tent is an internet radio station broadcasting out of Scotland. Last year The Wire magazine included them in a round up of radio stations worth listening to. A couple of years ago I was asked if I'd like to submit an hours' worth of songs for transmission and since then have been back several times. Last week Tak Tent put out my sixth Bagging Area mix, one that is made up almost exclusively of songs from this year and all from artists that are very familiar to this blog. You can listen to it here. 

Tracklist

• Pye Corner Audio: Let’s Emerge Pt. 1
• Reinhard Vanbergen and Charlotte Caluwaerts: They Do Not Care
• Sheer Taft: Requiem For Pablo
• Mark Peters and Dot Allison: Switched On
• 10:40: Coat Check
• A Mountain of One: Star (Glok Starlight Dub)
• Perry Granville: Dexter In Dub (Bedford Falls Players Remix)
• Unknown Genre: Elevator Ride (The Orielles Ambient Remix)
• Coyote: Home Grown
• The Summerisle Six: This Is Something (Rico Conning Mix)

Monday's Long Songs: Guest Post

Another very welcome guest post from Dr. Rob, live and direct from Ban Ban Ton Ton/ Japan. 

Colin Angus, of The Shamen, charted Ron Trent`s Altered States in one of the U.K.`s rock music weeklies, around the time of the landmark 12`s initial release in 1990.* Angus said it was a tune that he`d heard played at the infamous, illegal RIP parties, held on London’s Clink Street.** A darker, definitely non-Balearic, but equally as important contemporary of the more widely celebrated acid house incubator / shrine, Shoom.

 Altered States

I immediately added the tune to my “wants” list, but it wasn’t until Dutch label, Djax-Up-Beats reissued the record in 1992, that I managed to find a copy. It was probably a Kris Needs review, in his Needs Must, Black Echoes, column, that alerted me to its recirculation. The hunt for it took me from Flying Records, in Kensington Market - where it was “Great track, but sorry, no mate” - to Fat Cat in Covent Garden, just off Seven Dials, which fast became my new favourite shop. 

Ron Trent produced Altered States when he was just 14.*** His father was a percussionist (who sat in with jazz legend, Max Roach), a DJ, and co-founder of one of Chicago`s first record pools. Ron had grown up surrounded by rhythm, often playing along with his dad, on congas and traps, to the latest releases at home. Boy, does that upbringing show. 

Created on a friend’s set up of TR-909, D50, and SB01, the track is all about the drums. A huge kick counters a super simple key refrain. Tiny snippets of snares tease. Hand-claps crash and crack like thunder. Start, stop, and then start and stop again. There’s a synth-line that’s surely inspired by Master C&J`s Dub Love, but it`s the genius mixing, and editing****, of these basic, bad ass, percussive elements that bash your body - the breakdowns more like beatdowns - and hypnotize your head. The irregular programmed patterns made to alternately march, and totally wig-out. Everything coming together and colliding with a crazy intensity, especially when showers of jazz cymbals join in. Somehow, subliminally, continually climbing, this dynamic constantly changing for the whole of the track`s 13-minute duration. Driving its timeless status, and laying the stripped-back raw, jacking, foundation for Cajmere`s Relief Records imprint, which revitalized house and techno in the mid-1990s - and the Green Velvet one`s own classic, Conniption Fit.

 Dub Love

Conniption Fit

Green Velvet's 1994 single Preacher Man is the definition of simple but effective and set techno floors on fire in the mid- 90s (and ever since). 

Preacher Man

Notes

*Probably Melody Maker, probably while talking to Push.

**Where The Shamen`s vocalist, Richard “Mr. C(helsea)” West, DJed. 

***The whole Afterlife E.P. is great. 

****Edits by the one an only Armando. 

Strummer Mix

Today would have been Joe Strummer's 70th birthday had he lived. In way of a tribute and celebration of the man, his music and this event I've put together not one Sunday mix but two. Both mixes are post- Clash solo songs. The first is twenty minutes of solo Joe rocking, motorcycle guitars and leather jackets, and the second, half an hour of Joe in global/ dubbed out mode. Happy 70th birthday Joe, wherever you are. 

Strummer Rockers Mix

• Johnny Appleseed
• Generations
• Trash City
• Coma Girl
• Burning Lights

Johnny Appleseed is from is second album with The Mescaleros, Global A Go- Go (it was also a single). Generations was a one off song recorded with Rat Scabies and Seggs from The Ruts as Electric Dog House and released on an album called Generations: A Punk Rock Look At Human Rights. Trash City was a 1988 7" single, Joe and Latino Rockabilly War, recorded when Joe was doing the soundtrack for the film Permanent Record. Coma Girl, a tribute to his daughter Lola and the Glastonbury festival, was on 2003's Streetcore, his last album, recorded with The Mescaleros and released posthumously. Burning Lights is just Joe and his Telecaster, one of the key songs of his post- Clash years, a rumination on being yesterday's man. It was in I Hired A Contract Killer, a 1990 film by Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki. 

Strummer Global/ Dubby Mix 

• Mango Street
• Sandpaper Blues
• Yalla Yalla
• Yalla Yalla (Norro's King Dub)
• At The Border, Guy
• X- Ray Style

Mango Street was one of the B-sides on Joe's Island Hopping 12", a single ahead of his first solo album Earthquake Weather, a largely instrumental version of the song Island Hopping. Sandpaper Blues and X- Ray Style were both on the first Mescaleros album, Rock Art And The X- Ray Style, Joe's return from the wilderness in 1990. Yalla Yalla, written and produced by Richard Norris was the first single from the same album. Norro's King Dub is from the 12", Richard Norris' dub of the song. At The Border, Guy is from Global A Go- Go. 

Saturday Theme Twenty Two

Back in 2020 Andrew Weatherall and Nina Walsh's Woodleigh Research Facility had a year long series of releases, an EP a month. The third, released in March 2020, came out only weeks after Andrew Weatherall had died. It was three tracks long, the second being Lottie's Theme. 

Lottie's Theme starts with a child, Lottie I think, saying 'Mum, says you have to and Dad says and Granny says and everybody says and the whole world says...' as a wash of industrial noise swirls in. Clanging drums and percussion take up and Lottie carries on, 'the computer says it, the TV says it...', as more noise and grinding bass pick up. 'The sun says it, the moon says it, everything says...' 

Nina has just released a four track EP of her own, Retrospective, four songs from the last twenty years bound together. The first song is a cover of Pink Military's Did You See Her, dating from the late 90s when Nina was recoding with Lol Hammond as Slab. Pink Military were faces on the Liverpool post- punk scene, Jayne Casey and a dozen or so members including various drummers that went off to Simply Red, Durutti Column, Slits and Siouxsie and The Banshees.

Three more tracks complete the EP- Lover Teacher has a grungy, fuzzy guitar riff (the fabled 60s Vox Invader guitar sold by WRF to Andy Bell ) and a harmonica, sounding like something from Laurel Canyon timeshifted into the mid 80s indie garage scene. Darkest Night is from the mid 00s, a blasted, small hours ballad, summoning the ghosts of early 70s Stones and their musical heirs. Don't Let The Bastards Grind You Down is a lament for another loss from Nina's world, Erick Legrand, with unearthly droning synths and guitar combining for several minutes before Nina's voice comes in for the last minute. The Retrospective EP can be bought here. 

Fast Car

These owl bird scarers don't work. The pigeons realise that they're inanimate and no threat and stroll around doing whatever they please. I like the look of them though, peering out down the valley to the Atlantic.

More late 80s/ early 90s action following Wednesday's L.U.P.O. post and yesterday's triple hip house selection and some more 80s dancehall reggae after last week's Barrington Levy post. In 1989 Foxy Brown covered Fast Car, a dancehall take on Tracy Chapman's 1988 smash hit, a livelier, vibrant version with a clattering drum track, keyboard stabs and cool vocal. 

Fast Car

It Takes Two To Make A Thing Go Right

Recently I've stopped reading the news (or listening to or watching it). It's just too grim. We are stuck in the middle of the tabloid silly season during a Conservative Party leadership election where both candidates are competing in a contest that resembles something more akin to Strictly Come Fascism, while the UK slides daily further into failed state territory. It's depressing. Sometimes it's better to just switch it off and allow yourself to be distracted. Here's some party music to do just that.

In 1988 Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock released a single that is a pinnacle of 80s rap, the sound of two men, a bag of records, two turntables and a microphone creating an utterly infectious piece of party music. It Takes Two samples Galactic Force Band for its intro and the Woo yeah! vocal hook from a 1972 single by Lyn Collins, Think (About It), produced by James Brown. 

It Takes Two

It Takes Two was so danceable that it was part of the sub- genre known as hip house. There are of course arguments about who invented hip house- both Tyree and The Beatmasters claim they were first. Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock were among the best but you can't do hip house without the following two records. 

I'll House You by The Jungle Brothers, also released in 1988, with Todd Terry at the control desk- crossover pumped up house rhythms, drawled rapping and samples from Royal House, Peech Boys, Malcolm X/ Public Enemy and Liquid Liquid. Inevitably causes mayhem at parties frequented by people of a certain age. 

I'll House You 

Doug Lazy's Let It Roll came out in early 1989. A rolling rhythm, cowbell, thundering bassline and Doug's vocal- another record that crossed over in the summer of 1989. 

Let It Roll

Heaven Or Hell

This cutting from the NME in 1990 came up on social media a few days ago, fifteen song recommendations from three DJs- Danny Rampling, Terry Farley and Andrew Weatherall- all played in Ibiza that summer, for readers to check out (well, fourteen actually as one of Mr Weatherall's is in fact a DJ set by Glenn Gunner, played at the Cafe del Mar, Lord Sabre listing the record label as 'fond memory'). 

Both Rampling and Weatherall recommend Heaven Or Hell by L.U.P.O. Released in 1990 Heaven Or Hell is a beauty, with a bouncy Italo bassline, Eurodance keyboards and synths and a sassy vocal from Cathy Adams. L.U.P.O. was German producer Lutz Ludwig, resident at Munich's P1 club turned house/ techno/ trance producer. 

Heaven Or Hell (Extended Mix)

Both Weatherall and Farley submit Raise by Bocca Juniors, a record they made- a little bit of self- promotion never did anyone any harm did it? 

Dark Farfisa

This came my way last week, a new release on Glasgow's 12th Isle label from Bruxula- an echo- drenched guitar, lovely descending bassline, house rhythms and a vocal from Brazillian singer Jerusa Leao. 12th Isle have been putting out electronic based records since 2016, and have a free flowing, borderless approach to their releases, described by one of the label's founders Fergus Clark as 'otherworldly and... escapist'. This EP, Dark Farfisa, typifies that. 

Bruxula is Cosmic JD, from Toronto, Canada with Jerusa Leao and a song, Palo Mo, that crosses the boundaries between club music for dancing and home music for listening with ease, slightly tripped out and with a very seductive groove. The EP is available at Bandcamp, digital and vinyl, out in full at the end of the month. Buy here. 

Monday's Long Song

Eleven minutes of early 90s guitar wrangling from Ride, Mark Gardener and Andy Bell twisting their guitars and FX pedals into all kinds of shapes and noises. If you can play twin guitar without any obvious verse/ chorus structure or words for more than ten minutes and keep it interesting and exciting, you've got something going for you, as the Ride boys prove here (especially as they were not long out of their teens when they recorded this).

Grasshopper was the B-side to the Leave Them All Behind 12", out on Creation in February 1992. Leave Them All Behind is an epic long song itself. 

Grasshopper 

Half An Hour Of A Man Called Adam

 
A Man Called Adam have been making wide eyed, chilled out dance music/ electronic pop since their first single in 1988 and their debut album, The Apple, in 1991. They are two of the stars of the documentary A Short Film About Chilling, Steve and Sally interviewed on the beach in Ibiza. Their Barefoot In the Head single is one of the mainstays of the period. They continued to record and release through the 90s and into the 2000s.  In recent years they've both gained doctorates- Sally Rodgers got her PhD for research the impact of recording technology on lyric forms and Steve Jones's PhD was in New Media. They worked with the British Museum, recorded a tribute to the unsung women of electronica and in 2019 released a new album Farmarama. 

That's all the biographical stuff. I bought The Apple in autumn 1991 and played it throughout the winter of that year, an album that sounds like the opposite of a British winter- fresh, widescreen, optimistic, technicoloured dance- pop, from the opening song/ title track to the sumptuous Chrono- Psionic Interface to the 60s/ 90s hippy/ Balearica of Bread, Love And Dreams. The seven minutes of Barefoot In The Head with its Rod McKuen and The San Sebastian Strings sample about 'putting a seashell to my ear'. Remixes by Andrew Weatherall followed. After that I bought their releases as and when I could, the Cafe del Mar compilations and second album Duende, songs like Estelle and Easter Song. The mix below is half an hour of summer bottled taking in ambient drones and found sounds, dubby acid house, loved up remixes and Balearic pop.

Half An Hour Of A Man Called Adam

• Easter Song (Speaking In Tongues Version)
• Easter Song (North Star Dub)
• The Book Of The Dead (British Museum Mix)
• Paul Valery At the Disco (Prins Thomas Remix)
• C.P.I. (Andrew Weatherall Godiva remix)
• Estelle
• Barefoot In The Head

A Man Called Adam have a new single out now, Ammomite (Hold On To That), an infectious modern piece of house music with a tough edge, inspired by the Jurassic coastline of the north east of England. You can buy it here. 

Saturday Theme Twenty One

A short hop back to last Sunday's post with a song that really could have featured on the half hour mix of The Charlatans that I put together and posted- Theme From 'The Wish', B-side of  1992 single Weirdo. Rob Collins switched from Hammond organ to electric piano and the band wrote this theme for a film that never happened, produced by Flood. Like a lot of their songs fro the Between 10th And 11th period it has a darkness underneath the dancey, psychedelic swirl. It later turned up on Metling Pot, a compilation of the band's time on Beggars Banquet that brought together the singles plus a few extras. 

Theme From 'The Wish'

The photo below was taken by my friend Meany (Ian Lawton) when The Charlatans played the Haigh Building, Liverpool Poly (8 March 1990, not long after debut single Indian Rope came out). He photographed lots of bands in Liverpool around this time and if I remember correctly photographed and interviewed Nirvana in McDonalds in Leeds. I was at The Charlatans gig but didn't know Meany at this point. Everything about the picture screams 1990- Tim's bowl haircut, anorak, flares, Kickers and long sleeved rave print t- shirt. Superb stuff. 

Edit: Meany thinks he may have taken the photo at the Boardwalk in Manchester which makes it 25th January 1990, same tour as the Liverpool Poly gig. 

Temple Head And Filthy

Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs have a very good sideline outside Saint Etienne, putting together themed compilation albums for Ace Records. Often these mine the rich seams of the 60s and 70s, unearthing forgotten album tracks and B-sides. Their most recent album is Fell From the Sun, a selection of 98BPM tracks from the summer of 1990 where the dance music revolution slowed down and a floaty, chilled out, modern psychedelia came in, records for the sunrise. 

Many of the songs on the album (double vinyl, single CD)  have been posted at this blog before- Primal Scream's Higher Than the Sun (produced and remixed by The Orb), Sheer Taft's Cascades, Saint Etienne's B-side Speedwell, One Dove's Fallen, BBG's Snappiness, the Jon and Vangelis/ Martin Luther King inspired Spiritual High by Moodswings, the Apocalypse Now! sampling Never Get Out Of The Boat by The Aloof and The Grid's Floatation. You'd be correct in seeing the hands, or the spirit, of Andrew Weatherall all over this compilation- Loaded was one of the records that kicked it off. There are quite a few I've never posted (one below and also Soul Family Sensation's I Don't Even Know If I Should Call You Baby, which is odd as I love it and was sure I'd written about it at some point). There are lesser known songs from Massonix, Elis Curry, History and Q- Tee and Critical Rhythm. It's a lovely snapshot of a time and a place (Britain in the summer of 1990), perfectly chiming with this period of hot and sunny weather we've been having. The sleeve photos and Bob's notes are spot on too, as you'd expect.

This is one of the songs on Fell From The Sun that I can't believe I've never posted here, Temple Head by Transglobal Underground. All the summer of 1990 elements are present- a unifiying, coming together 'Na na na/ Na na na' chant, that 98 BPM chuggy rhythm, loved up pianos and a 'watch the skies' vocal sample (from the film The Thing From Another World). The group signed to DeConstruction who re- released Temple Head on 12" the following year. 

Temple Head (Pacific Mix)

Fell From The Sun goes very well with another compilation covering the same period put together by Jon Savage and released in 2015, a double vinyl album called Perfect Motion- A Secret History Of Second Wave Psychedelia. Savage also saw it as a new (or neo) psychedelia and pulled together his snapshot of the 1988- 1993 period, a time when dance artists, guitar bands and pop groups with new technology and new drugs made music that seemed to promise endless possibility. Jon's compilation also has Saint Etienne (with Q-Tee, on their B-side Filthy) and Primal Scream (Slip Inside This House, itself a cover of freaked out 1960s psychedelia) and fellow guitar travellers Shack, Northside, The High and The Stone Roses (with one of their head-spinning backwards tracks, Full Fathom Five) alongside Deee- Lite, a Pet Shop Boys B-side, Weatherall's remix of Sly And Lovechild and his group Sabres Of Paradise's Clock Factory, rave from 808 State, DHS and Joi and DNA's remix of Electronic's Get The Message. A slightly wider ranging selection than Bob and Pete's but the two compilations sit side by side very well, two halves of the same pill.

Filthy was the B-side to the 1991 re- release of Saint Etienne's first single, their cover of Neil Young's Only Love Can Break Your Heart, a genuine lost classic. Riding in on a, yep, filthy bassline and a swamp rock guitar solo sampled from Afrique, South London rapper Q- Tee delivers a scene stealing vocal, rapping and singing. 'This is not a media hype', she drops huskily before the xylophone solo comes in. 

Filthy

Gone

More sad losses to the world of music this week with the deaths of Olivia Newton John, Lamont Dozier, Darryl Hunt and (slightly outside music) Raymond Briggs. All of them have work that will outlive them. 

Olivia Newton John, forever famous as Sandy in Grease and as such a formative influence on those of us who grew up in the 70s and 80s, died age 73. Her earlier career as a singer of country, soft rock and Dylan songs and her 80s success with singles such as Physical made her a part of the pop firmament. 

Lamont Dozier, as part of Motown's in house signwriting team along with Eddie and Brian Holland, wrote more great songs than almost anyone else I can think of. That song you love, that makes you hit the floor when it's played at a wedding or a party, that makes you turn up the radio and sing along- Lamont wrote it. This one, as performed by Martha And The Vandellas, for example...

Heat Wave

Darryl Hunt, bassist in The Pogues, died aged 72. He joined the band in 1986 when Cait O'Riordan left and played on If I Should Fall From Grace With God, Peace And Love and Hell's Ditch while Shane was still in The Pogues and then the post- Shane albums Waiting For Herb and Pogue Mahone. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah was a single in 1988, The Pogues in full on rocking mode. 

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah

Raymond Briggs was a writer and illustrator whose books had a massive impact on many of us. His Father Christmas books were brilliant for children in the 70s and 80, depicting Santa as a grumpy and contrary man who had the misfortune to work on Christmas Eve. We read it every year at Christmas. Even more than that though, Briggs wrote and illustrated When The Wind Blows, a horrific tale of nuclear destruction published in 1982, at the height of tension between Reagan's USA and the crumbling Soviet Union. For those of us growing up in the early 80s a nuclear war in Europe seemed like a possibility. Briggs' tale of a couple, Jim and Hilda, attempting to survive a nuclear attack, taking the doors of their hinges to construct an inner refuge shelter and eventually succumbing to radiation sickness, with bleeding gums, vomiting, diarrhoea, hair falling out and lesions, was terrifying to read and never forgotten. Threads, the Protect And Survive adverts and Frankie Goes To Hollywood's Two Tribes, When The Wind Blows- it's a wonder we ever got out of bed. 'Another sausage dear?'

RIP Olivia, Lamont, Darryl and Raymond. 

The Call Of Unknown Genre

Another release I've been playing catch up with- Unknown Genre, a collaboration between Hardway Bros and Emperor Machine for Berlin's Other Goodness record label. There are two tracks, both clocking in at over eight minutes, combining Sean Johnston and Andrew Meecham's love for propulsive, dancefloor facing, robotic, analogue synths. The first is Elevator Ride, a fast paced piece of ommpty bumpty business, hypnotic techno rhythms and sci fi synths. 

It's paired with Cthulhu Macala, which opens with 'a-ha a-ha' chanting and some big drums, a slower, grinding tempo and rhythm with all manner of wigged out sounds and a huge, distorted bassline. The vocals keep flitting back in ominously, summoned from somewhere down below. As anyone who was into role playing games and the surrounding culture for any period of time in the 1980s will know Cthulhu is a cosmic God, an anthropoid octopus being, created by H.P. Lovecraft, the old one of great power,  worshipped by cultists, who slumbers awaiting the time to return. 

Cthulhu first appeared in the 1928 short story The Call of Cthulhu, published in a pulp magazine called Weird Tales. I recall reading some Lovecraft borrowed from the local library circa 1984 and not being able to make head or tail of it. 

The EP is completed with a remix of Elevator Ride by Halifax group The Orielles. Elevator Ride (The Orielles Ambient Mix) is a bit of a revelation. They cut the running time in half and the tempo too, slowing things right down and finding inspiration in early 90s ambient techno. This remix wouldn't sound out of place on Warp's Artifical Intelligence compilation or on the Belgian R&S label, a seriously impressive remix from three youngsters not long out of their teens and better known for their ACR/ ESG style punk- funk grooves. 

Here I Come

Some 80s reggae/ dancehall for Tuesday from the mighty Barrington Levy. Here I Come is from his 1985 album of the same name, an infectious and lopsided earworm recorded at Channel One. The lyrics concern a young couple having a son and the subsequent changes to their lifestyle the child brings, both parties anxious about being tied down and wanting to go out and have some fun, the mother especially. 

In her autobiography Rememberings Sinead O'Connor writers about the song. 'It's [the lyrics are] sad' she writes, 'but you wanna leap in the air too, because of the way he uses his voice. When she says she dosn't want the child he doesn't use words. He just cries out, 'Shuddly- waddily- boop- diddly- diddly' and it says all the millions of thoughts and feelings a man would have in that few seconds better than even Oscar Wilde could have'. She's a smart cookie is Sinead. 

Here I Come

Monday's Long Song

Lesson No. 1 by Glenn Branca, was the first release on 99 Records in 1980, the legendary New York No Wave/ post- punk/ post disco label. Branca wanted multiple guitar players to perform as a guitar orchestra, marrying avant garde, minimalism and punk rock.

Lesson No. 1

There are hints of Love Will Tear Us Apart in Lesson No. 1, Salford and Macclesfield travelling across the Atlantic to downtown Manhattan. Over eight minutes the guitars and organ build on two note riffs, inspired partly by Steve Reich's minimalism. Eventually there are drums and crescendos and improvised strumming and while it sounds a bit academic on paper, it's a powerful, emotive, intense and liberating piece of music, the marriage of avant garde, minimalism and punk rock getting out of the chapel, into the wedding reception and beyond. It paved a path for much that came after, not least Sonic Youth (amusingly while auditioning guitarists Branca rejected Thurston Moore but later recruited Lee Ranaldo). 

Half An Hour Of The Charlatans

The Charlatans have weathered many, if not all, the storms that could be thrown at a band since their arrival in 1989 and still they keep moving. A Covid delayed thirtieth anniversary box set and tour has been completed this year and in September they play Manchester's New Century Hall as part of a week of celebrations for that venue where they'll play 1992's Between 10th And 11th in full plus 'all the hits'. Singer Tim Burgess regularly proves himself to be the nicest man on Twitter and his listening parties lit up lockdown back in 2020. They don't just rest on their laurels either- 2015's Modern Nature is among their best work and the follow up, Different Days, showed they still wanted to press forward. Tim's solo albums are full of ideas and good songs. None of this is what many would have expected from the five piece that stepped into the light in 1989 with Indian Rope. 

Todays'  thirty minute mix focusses on their swirly, heady, psychedelic side of the group's songs, a Hammond organ- led stew, with a couple of remixes thrown in, perfect for a bit of mellow/ wigging out on a Sunday. The Norman Cook remix is a 2016 Record Store Day release, a beautiful Balearic version of a song from Modern Nature. Come In Number 21 opened their third album, 1994's Up To Our Hips, produced by Steve Hillage- the 10: 40s edit here is somewhat unofficial. Opportunity is on debut Some Friendly (and thinking about this now I probably should have included Opportunity Three, the Flood produced remix and superior version). Another Rider Up In Flames is from Up To Our Hip. Chewing Gum Weekend is from Between 10th And 11th, the first album to feature guitarist Mark Collins. Imperial 109 is one two B-sides from their 1990 hit single The Only One I Know. Sproston Green closes Some Friendly and most of their gigs (the US single version I've included is slightly shorter, losing some of the long organ led intro- not the best version but it worked better here). Sproston Green is a small village near Middlewich, Cheshire, home to a couple of hundred people, a pub and a parish council noticeboard and not much else. The village has lost its signs on occasion, light fingered Charlatans fans taking it away from the side of the A54 in the dead of night. 

Half An Hour Of The Charlatans

• Trouble Understanding (Norman Cook Remix)
• Come In Number 21 (10:40's 21 With A Bullet Edit)
• Opportunity
• Another Rider Up In Flames
• Chewing Gum Weekend
• Imperial 109 (Edit)
• Sproston Green (US Version)

Saturday Theme Twenty

Two minutes and nine seconds of fuzz guitar and motorcycle engines from 1966, courtesy of Dave Allen And The Arrows. Dave Allen, fuzz guitarist, worked on the soundtracks of various teen and biker movies in the 60s, including The Wild Angels, the Peter Fonda and Nancy Sinatra film from which Andrew Weatherall took the famous sample that opens Primal Scream's Loaded (but that's another story).

Dave plugged his Fender Jazzmaster into a Mosrite Fuzzrite to make his guitar sound like a motorbike. In 1966 he had a regional hit in Texas and Ohio with Theme From The Wild Angels, retitled Blue's Theme in 1967 and re- released. Blue's Theme has more fuzz per square inch than any other record from that time, Link Wray included. It is fuzz incarnate, a surf/ garage/ psyche crossover that reeks of engine fumes, leather and grease. 

Blue's Theme

Switch On The Sky

One of the general truths of travel is that it doesn't really matter where or how far you go, you take yourself with you. Writer Neil Gaiman said as such ('wherever you go, you take yourself with you') and fellow writer Haruki Murakami said something similar ('no matter how far you travel, you can never get away from yourself'). All three of us had moments while we were on holiday where Isaac's death hit us in some way. Going to a very hot island four hours away by plane and spending the time on beaches and by the pool wouldn't have floated Isaac's boat at all- he didn't like beaches, would have found it much too hot, wasn't great on planes and getting him up an down all the steps from the hotel to the street below would have been difficult. In some ways that's why we chose to go somewhere like Gran Canaria- it being so different from the car and ferry, French campsite holidays we'd done with him was all part of our thinking. We're still getting used to being a family of three- being somewhere a long way from home where you don't know anyone compounds this in some ways. No one we met or spoke to knew what had happened to us or what we brought to Gran Canaria with us. Lou says there are times when she wants to tell people, 'we're not a family of three, we're a family of four', but dropping it into conversations is really difficult- there's no easy way to do it and it goes off like an explosion, leaving people wrong footed, shocked and apologetic.

Last Saturday, 30th July, was eight months to the day since he died and we all felt it at different time during the day. It never leaves you does it? Grief and loss always find ways to come out of nowhere and punch you again. It still sometimes feels like being winded, a physical pain in the chest. I felt it sitting on the balcony one evening, music playing through the crappy speaker I'd brought with me, sun shining on me, cold beer in hand, and then, suddenly and unexpectedly, a wallop of pain.

Lying on a sun lounger on the beach and thinking back to the room in Wythenshawe hospital in late November, it all seemed a bit unreal again, that we'd ended up where we were/ are, and being away without him briefly felt wrong. We went to one of the beachside cafes for a beer and some chips and some shade. As we sat down we all noticed the TV screen hanging over the ice cream counter, showing one of Isaac's favourite programmes- Mr Bean (and bizarrely one of his favourite episodes too, the barber shop one). Sitting drinking a pint of very cold beer (price 1€ 50) and watching Mr Bean made us all smile, pulling us out of the loss and the tears we'd all felt a few minutes before. In some way, via Mr Bean, he'd come with us. 

This song, Switch On The Sky, came out the day we flew. Mark Peters is a guitarist from Wigan. His Innerland album came out in December 2017, an instrumental/ ambient record with eight tracks all named after north- west landmarks. The following year a beatless ambient version was released and a remix album too called New Routes Out Of Innerland. All three were big favourites round here (you can listen buy at Mark's Bandcamp page). Switch On The Sky is the first single from the follow up, Red Sunset Dreams (out in September), and has Dot Allison (formerly of One Dove) on vocals. It's a gorgeous, slightly forlorn, gently psychedelic song with guitar, bass, pedal steel, synths, banjo and ukulele and masses of swirling reverb. If you buy the single at Bandcamp there's also a lovely hazy shoegaze/ dub reworking called Switched On. 

It's our 27th wedding anniversary today, another first to go through. We were young when we got married (Lou 23, me 25) and we had no idea what lay ahead of us or the circumstances we'd find ourselves in all these years later but that's the way life goes I suppose. Here are a pair of 27 songs to celebrate, both from favourite bands of mine. First, an A Certain Ratio song from 1991, the early 80s Factory post- punk funk being updated with something much more early 90s (but still laced with a tinge of Mancunian melancholy).

Twenty Seven Forever (Jon da Silva's Bubble Bath Mix)

Second, Half Man Half Biscuit and a song from their 2002 opus Cammell Laird Social Club, wherein Nigel's efforts at romance are repeatedly rebutted- 'I said '' would you like to go the zoo?''/ She said 'yeah bit not with you'/ 27 yards of dental floss and she still won't give me a smile/ I'm King Euphoria, she's Queen Victoria/ 27 yards of dental floss and she still won't give me a smile'

27 Yards Of Dental Floss

Happy anniversary Lou. 

Starlight

I've already written about A Mountain Of One's Stars Planets Dust Me, one of 2022's album highlights, a sun- baked, existential fever dream, Balearic cosmic dance spliced with prog and tripped out yacht rock. Some of it feels like the music you hear when you've nodded off on a sun-lounger and are just waking up, not quite sure where or when you are. The song Stars- all of this with a sunset bound guitar solo running through the middle of it- has been remixed and was released as a single at the end of July.

The pick of the three remixes is from Glok. Regular readers here will know that Glok is Ride's Andy Bell, a man currently responsible for two of this year's other best albums (his solo album Flicker and Glok's Pattern Recognition) and who has toured the UK and Europe twice already, once playing his solo Space Station set and once with Ride playing Nowhere. The Glok Starlight Dub is a delight, all echo laden vocals, chuggy drum machine rhythm and lots of space, stripped back Mediterranean dub.  

The Yo Miro remix is faster, smoother and sleeker, a poolside disco version. The Arveene Remix shuffles in, piano to the fore with hints of the Hill Street Blues theme and then the synth bassline starts to bubble away, a lush laidback groove. 

Wednesday's Long Song

We got back from Gran Canaria in the early hours on Monday night/ Tuesday morning, Manchester welcoming us with drizzle and road works in a reassuring kind of way. Ten days in Gran Canaria was very much what we all needed, sunshine every day and not very much to do other than slow right down and potter between the pool, the beach and places to eat and drink. Usually when we go on holiday we're taking days to go out and do and see things, visiting cities and historical or cultural sites (and record shops). In Puerto Rico there wasn't much of that- a fantastic array of cactuses aside- so we ground to a halt. Much of the time it was too hot to do very much at all, the mercury rising to the mid- to- high thirties most days. On the descent from 30, 000 feet into Las Palmas airport my right ear unblocked itself, the congestion around my sinuses shifting completely which was worth the holiday in itself (even if I can feel it returning as I type this). 

While we were away it seemed like there were a lot of interesting musical releases which I'll spend part of this week catching up with. One of them was this, a David Holmes remix of Orbital's Belfast, part of a 30th anniversary album the Hartnoll brothers have released to celebrate three decades of music called 30 Something. Belfast came out in 1991 on the III 12" along with the tracks LC1 and Satan. Belfast was named after the experience Orbital had playing in the city after Homes booked them to play at the Art College in Belfast in May 1990. David's remix doesn't radically alter the original, instead tweaking it, updating it from 1990 to 2022 and just making it a bit moreso. Twelve minutes of euphoric blissed out splendor (with a tinge of melancholy)

Here's the original from the III 12" single with the famous sample of soprano (singer not gangster) Emily Van Evera, a sampled voice that appeared on The Beloved's The Sun Rising a year previously. 

Belfast