Monday's Long Song

David Harrow, formerly resident of the On U Soundsystem house band now resident of Los Angeles, continues to write, record and release music. His most recent piece of work was a seven track album called By The River, inspired by the 'concrete lined trash tube known as the LA river'. David has often headed down to the river and a concrete amphitheatre near Frogtown to play and record modular synths outdoors. By The River takes parts of those recordings as its starting point and then heads out into a beautiful ambient, experimental space. Opening track Icelander is eight minutes of gorgeous drones, synth sounds, delay and filters and echo, and some piano notes dappled over the top. It floats and enchants and is as good a way to start Monday morning as any other I can think of. 

Icelander and the rest of By The River can be bought at Bandcamp. The following six tracks are just as good, from the twelve minute odyssey of Birdsongs to the distortion and gossamer haze of closer Across The Lavaflow. 

Half An Hour Of Can

There's a part of me that feels like whenever I post anything by Can I become the narrator of LCD Soundsystem's Losing My Edge...

'I'm losing my edge/The kids are coming up from behind/ I'm losing my edge to the kids from France and from London/ But I was there.... I was there in 1968/ I was there at the first Can show in Cologne...'

Can's music is so other, so different from so much else. It feels like it could only have been create din West Germnay in the late 60s, a period when the de- Nazification of the immediate post war years was seen as being completed (by the authorities) and the new war, a Cold War, was now a much bigger concern to both sides than what Uncle Dieter did during the war. The kids born in the FRG in the aftermath of World war Two grew up in the politically charged environs of the mid- to- late 60s, student protests across the western world against the war Vietnam and American imperialism, the decades long rising tide of anger in the US about civil rights, the events of Mai '68 in Paris, the spread of hippy ideals and music, long hair and casual attitudes to life, the Soviet invasion of Prague that shattered many European Communists... all this and in West Germany the actual front line of the Cold War and the increasing gnawing sensation that your teachers, university lecturers, neighbours, parents even, had not really told you what they did during the war. Drummer Jaki Liebezeit said by 1968  the prevailing attitude among the youth was 'don't trust anyone over thirty'. The musicians that became Can (and Neu! and Amon Duul and Kraftwerk and Popul Voh and Faust and all the other bands born in the same period but all sounding very distinct from each other eventually) were also concerned with rejecting not just pre- war German culture, the schlager pop and traditional German music tainted with Nazi- ism, but also the music coming from the USA. The new West German music needed to be progressive, modern, confrontational, a rejection of other influences and decidedly European. 

Can's music from their beginnings in 1968 to their ending in 1979 (and subsequent reunions) marries the avant garde with psychedelic rock and thanks largely to Liebezeit with a funk rhythm that is unmatched. The motorik beat, the seemingly endless, metronomic drumming, is Liebezeit's gift. The musicians that became Can with him- Holger Czukay, Irwin Schmidt and Michael Karoli plus the vocalists Micahel Mooney and then Damo Suzuki- seemed to make music without a leader, without a single dominant force, sharing the responsibilities for writing and playing together and they often sound like they're playing in a circle, facing each other, locked into the music. 

Half An Hour Of Can

• ... And More
• Moonshake
• Vitamin C
• Oh Yeah
• Future Days
• Mushroom
• Mother Sky (Pilooski Edit)

...And More is the b-side to their 1976 hit single I Want More, Can finding a sort of krautrock/ disco hybrid. The single was a UK hit, their only one, and led to an appearance on Top Of The Pops.

Moonshake is from 1973's Future Days album, also a single and a short, almost pop structured song on a an album of much lengthier experimental, more ambient tracks. Future Days is the title track from that album. 

Vitamin C is from Ege Bamyesi, released in 1972 and as good a starting point as any- it was mine. 

Oh Yeah and Mushroom are from 1971's Tago Mago, their second album and often held up as their masterpeice. It was they recorded in a castle near Cologne after Mooney left the group and they discovered Damo Suzuki busking. 

Mother Sky in its original form is fourteen minutes long and appeared on their 1970 album Soundtracks, after being recorded for a film called Deep End starring Jane Asher. Pilooski's edit is from 2007.

Damo Suzuki continues to tour, turning up in towns across the world and recruiting local musicians to back him on stage as his Sound Carriers. Every night a different line up, every gig different. Back in the late 00s I was out in Manchester for a few drinks with friends and we walked past Night And Day. As we passed the venue the door swung open and I looked in and could see Damo Suzuki on stage at the far end of the bar. 'Fucking hell', I said, 'That's Damo Suzuki'. At that moment three men came through the door, the one at the front saying, 'I wouldn't bother lads, it's shit'. 

On the other hand, my friend and brother- in- law Harvey played with Suzuki as a Sound Carrier in Leicester one night several years ago and still I think sees it as one of those incomparable nights.

Triumphe Der Liebe

Brand new and a Bandcamp exclusive, this is Triumphe der Liebe, seven minutes of dark Balaerica, a proper cosmic chugger, transporting the listener from the track's origins in Stourbridge to somewhere much further away. Triumphe der Liebe is the work of the mysterious Dirt Bogarde. Twinkles, hissing sounds, sci fi bleeps, wobbly synths, backing vocals covered in echo drifting in and out, all very cool. Buy it for one pound here. Highly recommended. 

You can find Triumphe der Liebe as the opening track on the latest Higher Love mix from Balearic Ultras, out a few days ago on Mixcloud along with music from the likes of Max Essa, Pilots of Peace, Breakbeat Convention, Vanity Project and Voice Of Art. Listen here. 

Out on Higher Love Recordings are Polish outfit Jazxing whose Pearls Of The Baltic Sea is one of the albums of the autumn round here. I posted their track Fala a few weeks ago, a gorgeous sax led, chilled groove. The rest of the album is equally good. Harbor Dub is very relaxed and, surprise surprise, dubby with a synth bassline deep enough to sink into. 

Shoegaze Dub chugs along beautifully, slo mo beats, keyboard chords, crashing drums and a warm guitar lick and no need to be anywhere in a hurry. 

Aftermath

The Comet Is Coming, an avant- jazz/ psychedelic/ electronic/ funk trio, came back in September with a new album that I'm only catching up with now. The three members- clarinetist and saxophonist King Shabaka, keyboard player Danalogue and drummer Betamax- hold nothing back, pushing everything as far as they and it can go. Back in 2016 Shabaka told The Quietus, 'Go as hard as possible within being musical' and they live up to that with their music. The new album, titled Hyper- Dimensional Expansion Beam, has a track on it called Aftermath, which starts out with fast synthbass, sounding like the theme to Stranger Things sped up and amped up, and then shifts deeper into 80s soundtrack territory, into the realms of Vangelis' Blade Runner or John Carpenter's Escape From New York, re- imagined and then taken further, synth and keyboard solos and runs rolling around on top. 

Back in 2019 their second album Trust In The Lifeforce Of The Deep Mystery came to my attention after I was tipped off by a friend about this track, Summon The Fire, a sax and drums led masterpiece, the rhythms and keys twisting around, long cinematic synth chords pushing buttons, and the horn parts suggesting something both euphoric and dystopic. 

Summon The Fire

Space Invaders

Part three of a new series, where reader Spencer sends me a suggestion for a song and I write about it. Two weeks ago we started with the DFA remix of Mars, Arizona by Jon Spencer's Blues Explosion and last week Motor Bass Get Phunked Up from La Funk Mob. Spencer sent the latest suggestion through a few days ago and now we are going thisaway...

Space Invaders Are Smoking Grass

I-f's Space Invaders Are Smoking Grass came out in 1998, Dutch electro courtesy of Ferenc E. van der Sluijs. I-f is short for Interr- Ference. What the Dutch don't know about smoking grass isn't worth knowing. Space Invaders Are Smoking Grass is sublime late 90s electro, a machine bassline that threatens to bust the speakers it buzzes so violently, lazer beam sound effects ricocheting around the place and those robotic vocals. The snare and hi- hats are right at the edge of things too, everything, in the classic Motorhead tradition, louder than everything else. Over at Youtube someone has left the comment, 'This track will be relevant until the end of time' and that is in no way an overestimation.

By the late 90s dance music had transformed and turned itself inside out on multiple occasions, splintering into scenes and genres, sub- scenes and sub- genres. Space Invaders Are Smoking Grass has a timelessness that doesn't root it in the late 90s, it could be from a decade earlier or later, it transcends. Catchy as you like, accessible and abrasive, and weirdly, despite being so robotic and mechanical, it has a very human centre to it too- space invaders have a human heart. I guess they'd have to, to enjoy smoking. 

All this is also turning into a potentially rather great longform mix- The Spencer Sessions maybe- with the songs from this series eventually skillfully/ clumsily sequenced together. 

Number In My Phone

The new Unloved album, The Pink Album, is a twenty song, ninety minute opus full of girl group drama and atmospherics, Wrecking Crew instrumental sounds, a 21st century take on the 60s sound. Number In My Phone started as a moment, David Holmes scrolling through his mobile and realising he had the phone number of someone who had died (Andrew Weatherall as it happens but then also that he had his sister's and parents' numbers too), still had voice recordings but that they were gone- 'Even though you passed on/ I've still got your number in my phone'. Unloved singer Jade Vincent took the line and worked it into a full lyric and the Unloved trio then took the Tales Of The Unexpected theme tune as a musical inspiration. 

Back in the early 90s David was part of The Disco Evangelists with Ashley Beedle, releasing De Niro, a progressive acid house thumper. Now, thirty years later Ashley has remixed Unloved in his Black Science Orchestra guise. Number In My Phone (Black Science Orchestra Remix) a lovely, slinky, bouncy take on the original, an acid bassline and some piano giving it a dancefloor groove. 

It's All Up To You

Pete Wylie and the latest version of The Mighty Wah! played at Night And Day in Manchester on Sunday night, a sold out gig at a small, capacity 250. Taking the stage in a red, white and blue Sex Pistols shirt and black hat he sees as pleased to see us as we are to see him. The stage at Night And Day is tucked into the corner at the back, really intimate as gig spaces go with the audience gathering round the front and the side as Wylie laughs off some technical issues, a repeating loop of feedback clearly audible which they can't get rid of and are just going to play over the top of. Pete starts singing the Johnny Thunders song You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory, and that's the cue for both me and Lou to start welling up. Then the band launch into Come Back and we're off into Wylie- land. He promised 'all the hits' and that's exactly what we get, an hour and a half of Wylie back catalogue interspersed with plenty of talk, Pete talking, telling stories, explaining the background to songs and cracking jokes- he says he's writing his memoir (his Mem- Wah) and if all he did was transcribe his between song chatter he'd have the first draft already done. The tales come thick and fast, and among others I can't recall now include the story of why The Story Of The Blues missed out on reaching number one, a misadventure involving backing tapes, the Musician's Union and Duran Duran, and a very funny anecdote where Wylie, Ian McCulloch, Julian Cope and Pete Burns all go to the same dole office to sign on in the late 70s. All four are asked what job they want. Burns, 'in full regalia', replies to the DHSS officer, 'shepherd'. 

There is a long explanation of the CIA and their attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro which inspired the song Better Scream, a 1980 single, and a blistering version of the song. The Day Margaret Thatcher Dies gets a big response (Pete says he was writing a song about Liz Truss but she'd resigned before he finished it). Free; Falling (In Love With You) from 2017's Pete Sounds has echoes of Neil Young and Crazy Horse. Sinful, prefaced as an 'all purpose protest song', is a massive sounding outsider anthem which segues into Bowie's Heroes halfway through and then back into Sinful. He talks movingly about Janice Long, a friend and a champion of Wah!, who died last year, and of Josie Jones and Andrew Weatherall, dedicating an emotive Four Eleven Forty Four to them, with Pete's daughter Mersey's backing vocals present virtually. Heart As Big As Liverpool, not necessarily a song you'd expect to get a rousing reception in Manchester, is played and sung along to, Pete saying it's about a feeling not a place (even though we know it's about a place too). Then we get a magnificent romp through The Story of The Blues, a roomful of middle aged men and women singing every word back to the band. The encore takes place immediately, the band staying on stage, as Pete says, because 'they can't arsed going down those little stairs and then back up again'. Seven Minutes To Midnight, all loud, ringing guitars and Cold War fear, fills the room.

Come Back (The Return Of The Randy Scouse Git)

Pete Wylie may not have a massive back catalogue but the songs he has written and that get played tonight cut through, striking chords and hitting home, emotive songs about life, love and social injustice. More power to him. Pete, Wah! and his songs should be much better known than they are. 

Live music has a huge effect on me at the moment- I've said before at various points this year how often I've cried in response to songs at gigs in the aftermath of Isaac's death. Live music transports me too, lifting me out of it everything. In a small room, with enthusiastic crowds and songs that mean something, drums and guitars and vocals filling the space up, somehow for a short period I'm somewhere else. Several times tonight Pete Wylie's songs trigger tears, making me well up and wipe my eyes. They're those sort of songs and we're in that sort of place. Today is Lou's birthday, tickets to the gig were part of the celebrations. We've had a rough few days and today will bring its own difficulties- it's her first birthday since Isaac died, and his birthday and the anniversary of his death are fast approaching. But we're trying to celebrate too and as Pete sings in Come Back, 'Well did you ever hear of hope?/ A small belief can mean/ You never walk alone/ And did you ever hear of faith? It's all up to you/ Yes, it's all up to you'. 

Happy birthday Lou. 

Monday's Long Song

On Saturday, the leaves all started to suddenly appear rust and gold among the green, the sort of sight that says proper autumn, beautiful spread of colour and crisp blue skies. Not for long though. On Sunday it rained heavily all day, the leaves turning to sludge in gutters and puddles. 

To add insult to injury, Boris Johnson returns too, a man removed only three and half months ago from office for lying and lawbreaking, now suddenly seemingly the answer to the Bizarro world of the Conservative Party and it's ongoing psychodrama that the rest of us are forced to live in. 

Here's some genuine beauty to compensate from Brighton's Higher Love label today and their recently released Vol. 2 compilation. The closing track is by Mass Density Human, a gorgeous twelve minute piece of music called Emulate which when you describe makes it sound like less than the sum of its parts- some long drawn out synth chords, a pulsing bassline, some electronic drums, a plinking sound, like a pipe being tapped with a metal tool. Emulate builds into something epic, space age and futuristic, music to soundtrack lives and moments, climbing ever upwards. As the track heads on into eight, nine, ten minutes, you start to wonder whether it can or even should ever end.  

Higher Love Vol 2 can be bought here. 

Forty Minutes Of Reunion Ride

The pair of albums Ride have made since they reformed- Weather Diaries from 2017 and 2019's This Is Not A Safe Place plus the four track Tomorrow's Shore EP from 2018- show a band who haven't reformed just to play the heritage rock circuit, hawking their three decades old back catalogue round to crowds who want a night of nostalgia (though they do that too, and one of the best gigs I've been to this year was the band's 30th anniversary of Nowhere tour at the Ritz back in April so please don't imagine I'm being a bit sneery about heritage rock although I appreciate I was a tad critical of Primal Scream's Screamadelica gig in July so maybe don't come here expecting consistency). 

Ride's re- union has produced a slew of good songs that stand alongside the older ones. At The Ritz six months ago after they'd played Nowhere, the second half as a mix of old and new, three re- union songs played alongside Twisterella, OX4 and Leave Them All Behind, and they all blended in perfectly, played by a band more than up for it, old tensions resolved and new sounds and kit allowing them to stretch out. The mix below is eight songs made since they reformed, three of which they played at The Ritz (Kill Switch, All I Want and Lannoy Point). 

Forty Minutes Of Ride

• Pulsar
• All I Want (GLOK Remix)
• Kill Switch
• Lannoy Point
• Future Love
• Catch You Dreaming
• R.I.D.E.
• Cali (album version)

Pulsar was the lead track on Tomorrow's Shore, a soaring piece of melodic space rock, as good as anything they've done. The EP was closed by Catch You Dreaming. All the reunion records have been produced by Erol Alkan and mixed by Alan Moulder

Lannoy Point opens Weather Diaries. All I Want is from that album too, here in GLOK remix form, Andy Bell remixing his own band. Cali is for me the album's highlight and their finest reunion song, six and a half minutes of blissed out, post- shoegaze guitar rock. It was a big part of the soundtrack to our summer holiday on the Atlantic coast of France that year too and always reminds me of the sand dunes, beaches and sunsets around Messanges, Bayonne and Biaritz. 

R.I.D.E., Kill Switch and Future Love are all from 2019's This Is Not A Safe Place album, Future Love in particular sounding like The Byrds reborn for the 21st century. 

Taking Cover In The Bunker Tonight

I've said it before here and I'll probably end up saying it again, Sandinista! may not be the best Clash album but it could well be their greatest achievement- thirty six tracks over six sides of vinyl, covering every conceivable style of music they could think of, self produced at various locations from Pluto Studio in Manchester to The Power Station in New York and Channel One in Kingston, Jamaica, with a range of guests and extra players (including but not only Ellen Foley, Norman Watt Roy, Mickey Gallagher, Tymon Dogg, Mikey Dread, Ivan Julian, Den Hegarty, Gary Barnacle, Lew Lewis and Style Scott) and the band believing they were getting one over on CBS by putting out six sides of vinyl at a pay no more than £5.99 price. 

Every side (well, almost every side, side six is admittedly an opinion splitter) has stone cold classic or genuine lost/ hidden gems and even a conservative estimate would say the following songs were essential Clash- The Magnificent Seven, Something About England, Rebel Waltz, The Crooked Beat, Somebody Got Murdered, One More Time and One More Dub, Up In Heaven (Not Only Here), Police On My Back, The Call Up, Washington Bullets, Broadway, Charlie Don't Surf, Kingston Advice and The Street Parade. Tucked away on side five is possible the most Sandinista!- esque of all the songs on Sandinista!

If Music Could Talk

The music is from recoding session done with Mikey Dread at Pluto in February 1980, an instrumental backing track called Shepherd's Delight (which re- appears in dub form at the very end of side six), clearly derived from juices flowing while they recorded Bankrobber in Manchester in the snow. Now moved to New York and inspired by the city, it's nightlife and the people that live there, Joe Strummer lays down an astonishing stream of consciousness talking blues, reeling in a cast including Bo Diddley, Errol Flynn, Joe Ely, Sir Isaac Newton, the sale of London Bridge to a town in Arizona, Buddy Holly and Elvis, a voodoo shaman and Samson, Fender guitars and Mexican suits, the drummer man, wall Street and Electric Ladyland. 'Let's hear what the drunk man's got to say', he exclaims at one point. Later on, Strummer ad libs into a conversation with a girl he bumps into in a bar and asks if she needs 'a cowboy in bus depot jeans'. 

Strummer, Jones and engineer Bill price split the vocals into the left and right channel, two Strummers at once. Sax comes from Clash friend Gary Barnacle, overdubbed in Wessex back in London later on and as the horn wails away and the dub backing thunders on, Joe's voice comes in from left and right, the sound of New York at night captured and of music talking. 

Becoming Strangers

This is a lovely dubby treat for Friday, the sort of thing that allows the mind to drift while it's playing, that eats up miles when driving, and feels like an imaginary soundtrack when walking with headphones on. Eight minutes of beautiful bass, looped and repeated, swirling FX and the ghost of a vocal layered somewhere in the middle. 

Becoming Strangers (Glok Remix) 

Becoming Strangers is by C.A.R., the musical outlet for Chloe Raunet, a French Canadian living in London.  Previously she was the singer in Battant, a London based synth post punk band from the 00s, with Timothy J. Fairplay on guitar. Battant broke up in 2011 after the tragically young death of multi- instrumentalist Joel Dever. Battant fell into Weatherall's world, initially from Lone Swordsman Keith Tenniswood who produced some early demos and then via Weatherall to Ivan Smagghe and the Kill The DJ label. Battant's first album is available at Bandcamp. 

Battant's single Kevin (1989) came out in 2007, a spiky, electric and lyrically hard hitting song about someone called Kevin. 

Kevin (1989)

Weatherall's remix slows it down, stretches it out, adds acres of space and kind of krautrock crossed with dub feel that he was working on back then- see also his remix of Doves from 2009. 

Kevin (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

Tim Fairplay went on to become Weatherall's in house engineer at Scrutton Street and together they made The Asphodells'  Ruled By Passion, Destroyed By Lust album, released in 2013, and a hatful of remixes including one of Glock'd by C.A.R. but given there are three songs and an album here today that's probably enough to be going on with. 

A Principle To Make Your Heart Invicible

In the midst of my mp3 player's shuffle mode while driving home recently (mainly a whole load of recent Polish Balearica from Jazxing/ Glok and Andy Bell/ Holmes and Unloved/ Rheinzand et al) a blast of 80s pop came on and it sounded like the clouds parting and skies opening, a genuinely uplifting and breath taking moment. 

At some point early in 1980 Green Gartside had a complete collapse before a gig where Scritti Politti were supporting The Gang Of Four (thought wrongly to be a heart attack it turned out to be a panic attack). He retreated to his parent's house in South Wales to recover and rethink everything. He'd lost interest in the independent and punk scenes, and listening to funk and soul, Chic, Aretha Franklin, early 60s pop, he realised pop music was what he wanted to make- real pop music made by humans with passion. For Green, this wasn't selling out, cashing in or dumbing down. 

It took a while to get the rest of Scritti around to his way of thinking but it happened. His sister's record collection, exposure to U.S. radio stations while in Florida with his parents and then hearing the new hip hop sounds coming out of New York shifted things further. Songs To Remember came out in 1982 on Rough Trade and then after moving to Virgin, in 1985 they released Cupid And Psyche 85. Which is where this song comes in...

Absolute

Absolute is a huge sounding, glossy, multi- coloured piece of 80s pop, a love song about a 'girl to make a dream come true' who can 'kiss away the meaning of the working day'. The synths swirl around, never quite feeling on solid ground while the cavernous mid- 80s drum sound booms and cracks. Green's vocal is sublime, Green singing as sweetly as he can, the lines not quite being exactly where you think they might be- they swim around a little, lighter than air, like that first flush of love maybe. Gorgeous stuff. 

Get Phunked Up

Long time reader Spencer's suggestion to send me a song which I then write about achieved lift off last week with the first song in this irregular series, Jon Spencer and his Blues Explosion twisted all over the place by DFA back in 2005- you can read that instalment here if you missed it. Spencer's followed it up with a huge slice of mid 90s Mo' Wax business from La Funk Mob, French downtempo, breakbeat action. 

Motor Bass Get Phunked Up

It's all about the piano and that huge, natural reverb sound they captured, a menacing and insistent call to the dancefloor, along with a jackhammer clang and some industrial clattering. Mechanical rhythms but definitely with a human at the controls. There's a perfectly executed breakdown just before two minutes, a breathy French girl muttering 'La Funk Mob, ça m'rend folle!' and then it all goes off, the hip hop drums and bassline cutting in,a stuttering beat building a head of steam. The hiss of cymbals. Heads bobbing up and down. Carpet getting worn out. House party music. Maison party music. Vive La Funk Mob!

Here You Come Again, Acting Like A Saviour

Nantwich, a small market town in Cheshire, has had an annual festival called Words And Music running since 2008. Ian McCulloch appeared at it in 2015 and the organisers convinced him to come back this year. My parents retired to Nantwich ten years ago and when I saw the gig advertised months ago, my brother and I jumped in early and bought a pair of tickets. Ian and his band played the Civic Hall, a room with capacity of just 500, so a close up and intimate gig. I was expecting it to be Ian and acoustic guitar and was very pleasantly surprised to see amps, keyboards and the Bunnymen's drumkit set up on stage when we arrived. The Civic Hall's stage is low with no barriers and the room is seated cabaret style, making it feel informal and like a one off. Ian and band arrive on stage just after nine, Ian all in black, wearing shades for the entire gig, and in good form, chatting between songs and telling stories with a table of drinks next to him and several different beverages at hand. The band are loose, nicely ragged in places and more than able to do Bunnymen songs justice. They play a mixture of Bunnymen and Ian's solo songs, and the opening three songs make a good statement of intent, beginning with 1989's Proud To Fall, followed by Rescue and then a lovely, groovy version of Bedbugs And Ballyhoo. 

Proud To Fall

They play Ian's cover of Leonard Cohen's Lover Lover Lover, recorded for his second solo album 1992's Mysterio, a song I saw him play when he toured to promote that almost exactly thirty years previously at Manchester University student union, a night he studiously ignored Bunnymen songs. 

Lover, Lover, Lover

All My Colours (Zimbo) gets an airing, the stage dark and the purple lights setting the lyrics off perfectly. He dips back into his solo debut Candleland with the title track, originally sung as a duet with Liz Fraser, Ian's voice a little raspier than it was in 1989. Seven Seas gets a huge cheer and some dancers moving to the front. Nothing Lasts Forever is played, a song which when I saw Echo And the Bunnymen play it at Manchester's Albert Hall back in February reduced me to a sobbing mess- it doesn't have quite the same, full on emotional impact on me tonight but I'm not completely dry eyed either. It breaks down in the middle and they segue into Walk On The Wild Side. Rust from 1999's second Bunnymen comeback album is Ian at his most reflective. Bring On The Dancing Horses is a highlight, wobbly synth sound, ringing guitars and streamlined groove filling the room, there's a dash through The Velvet Underground's I'm Waiting For The Man and eventually, inevitably, a finale of The Killing Moon.

Ian and the band return for an encore with Lips Like Sugar, a song fully reclaimed from 1987's self- titled, below par album (it's an album and a song I have a lot of love for but pales in comparison to the four that came before it and was a victim of 80s production, inter- band band tensions and a little disinterest from some parties). Then they disappear again. Just as it seems they've definitely decided not to come back for a second encore and half the crowd are putting coats on and beginning to head for the doors, they re- appear and give us a driving, fired up The Cutter. 

The Cutter

McCulloch is sixty two years old, he doesn't really have anything to prove. Echo And The Bunnymen have toured much of the year and were in North America in September. Playing gigs like this is good for him, a way of mixing it up a little I guess, and good for us, seeing him close up and clearly enjoying himself. 

I have tickets for Pete Wylie at Night And Day next Sunday, another scouse post- punk legend in a small venue. If someone can arrange for Julian Cope to play Sale Waterside or Stretford Public Hall the weekend after, I can complete a Crucial Three October hat trick. 

Monday's Long Song

Steve Queralt and Michael Smith's four track EP Sun Moon Town came out last Friday, four ambient/ drone/ soundscapes and spoken word. Steve is the bassist from Ride, Michael a writer whose Hartlepudlian tones will be familiar to people who heard and loved his 2013 Unreal City album with Andrew Weatherall. Sun Moon Town was recorded during lockdown, files bouncing back and forth between the two, the weirdness of those times reflected in the music. 

In A Wonderland is twelve minutes long, opening with birdsong and looming drones, Michael musing about waking up and having to face the day. A few minutes in Michael's young son provides a counter voice, reading a Lewis Carroll poem. Steve's music is anything but background, ebbing and flowing and full of ideas and invention. Michael has a tone which is in turn bemused, wearied, piss taking, resigned and occasionally hopeful, somewhere in between poetry and prose. On In A Wonderland he goes on to describe foraging for mushrooms in the woods. Steve's synths turn from ominous to optimistic and a lovely long, slow, twinkling fade. 

David Holmes At The Golden Lion: Recreated

A trip back in time to two weeks ago for today's Sunday mix and a much longer offering than usual. You might remember- I do- that on Saturday 1st October a group of us supported David Holmes at the Golden Lion in Todmorden and had quite the night. David came on at about nine and played a four hour set that took the proverbial roof off. Using the power of our memories (hazy, intermittent, vague and unreliable admittedly) and those people who had the presence of mind to use Shazam in the building at the time, we've attempted to put together David's setlist from that evening and then I've slung the ones we've been able to identify together in a one hour and forty seven minutes long, fifteen track mix, in roughly the order we recall them being played. It's missing a lot of tracks clearly- Holmes played for four hours- and it's not anywhere near as skillfully mixed but it's here to give a flavour, a short recreation of David at the Golden Lion a fortnight ago. I've listened to it a couple of times since finishing it midweek and it works for me- if I do say so myself. 

David Holmes at The Golden Lion recreated by The Flightpath Estate

• Alex Kassian: Spirit Of Eden (Bill Laswell Remix)
• Roberto Rodriguez: Mustat Varjot
• Carte De Sejour: Ouadou
• Axel Boman: Klinsmann
• Pete Wylie and The Oedipus Wrecks: Sinful (Tribal)
• Dornbirn 78: Dancing In The City
• Suuns: Up Past The Nursery (Ivan Smagghe Edit)
• Ettika: Ettika (Version Maxi Inedite)
• Hans Zimmer: Inception (Junkie XL Remix)
• John Talabot: Depak Ine
• The Blow Monkeys: La Passionara
• David Holmes: It's Over, If We Run Out Of Love (Darren Emerson Huffa remix)
• Unloved: Turn Of The Screw (Erol Alkan Rework)
• David Holmes and Keith Tenniswood: I Am Somebody
• Orbital: Belfast (David Holmes Remix)

Alex Kassian's Spirit Of Eden came out as a 12" last year, my favourite release from last year I've only discovered this year. The original and the Bill Laswell mixes are superb. Roberto Rodriguez's Mustat Varjot is from a 2012 compilation EP called On the Latch. Carte De Sejour is Italian disco/ funk from 1984. The vinyl rip included here is crackly as fuck but I think it actually adds to the fun. Klinsmann by Axel Boman, a tribute to a very well known German footballer perhaps, is from 2013. Sinful (Tribal Mix), one of the night's highlights, is a 1986 single remixed by Zeus B. Held- the definitive version. I'm going to see Pete Wylie a week today and if he plays Sinful I will be very happy. 

Dornbirn 78 released Dancing In The City in 2019, a cover of Marshall Hain's 1978 song. Ivan Smagghe's edit of Suun's Up Past The Nursery is from 2013. Ettika is French disco from 1985. John Talabot's Depak Ine came out on his 2012 album Fin. The Junkie XL remix of Hans Zimmer's theme from the film Inception is from 2010. La Passionara is a  Balearic classic from 1990 by The Blow Monkeys.

The Darren Emerson remix of David Holmes' It's Over, If We Run Out Of Love was part of a remix package from earlier this year, with Raven Violet on vocals. Raven also sings on Unloved's Turn Of The Screw, from The Pink Album, out shortly on vinyl and already available digitally. The Erol Alkan remix came out as part of an EP recently. David's track with former Lone Swordsman Keith Tenniswood is currently unreleased and appears here courtesy of a rip from Holmes' wonderful Desert Island Disco mix for Lauren Laverne back at the start of the year- it has the voice of Andrew Weatherall at the end talking about acid house as gnostic ceremony. The David Holmes remix of Orbital's Belfast was the 'one more tune' track at The Golden Lion and came out a couple of months ago as part of Orbital's 30 Something compilation. 

Maybe

I read an interview with Nick Cave where he spoke about the music he's been enjoying recently, the grown up pop music of the early 70s, songs like Wichita Lineman, Suspicious Minds, Always On My Mind, Galveston, By The Time I Get To Phoenix and artists like Elvis, Jimmy Webb, Kris Kristofferson and Glen Campbell. Nothign too groundbreaking there maybe but as Nick says 'big, classic, grand themes'. The interviewer, Sean O'Hagen, added, 'those songs still sound so ambitious- the lyrical sophistication, the melodies, the arrangements. They do seem to belong to another time, another world though...'.

It made me think of the songs Hifi Sean and David McAlmont have released this year (and the album that's due next year) which have something of that scale about them- the grand themes and the ambition- coupled with the feel of some of the music of the 90s when house music/ dance music infiltrated the mainstream, dance beats and orchestras were used side by side. Their record label are calling it 'a psychedelic electronic soul soundtrack'. Sean's programmed drums, production and the strings are magical and sumptuous, music to bathe in. David's vocals soar on top. 

In April they released  The Skin I'm In. I thought I'd posted it previously but apparently not. The sort of song that works its way under your skin, David singing of social injustice and racism.

Maybe  came out in June, a soaring, giddy, wide eyed song with the message that 'anyone can fall in love'. Music with grand themes and ambition. 

Waiting On A Train

A Certain Ratio are back, a new single out this week and an album called 1982 to follow in March next year. The single, Waiting On A Train, features the vocal talents of two ACR newcomers, both from Manchester- singer Ellen Beth Abdi and rapper Chunky. Ellen stepped into the space left by the sad loss of Denise Johnson (and it turns out is the daughter of a colleague of mine). The song shows a band who aren't content to rest on their post- punk laurels and repeat themselves. Waiting On A Train has a slow burning groove, funk bass and gritty guitar licks, wiggy synth squiggles and two very cool vocal parts, Ellen and Chunky taking turns to lead, Ellen's nonchalant, jazz tinged vocal and Chunky's laid back rap coming together around the refrain, 'It's so insane'. 

Th album follows next year. ACR say there are several reasons for calling the album 1982, none of which were steeped in nostalgia. Some the song titles - A Trip To Hulme, Tombo In M3 and Ballad Of ACR- do suggest a Manchester based record, no bad thing for band so connected to this city since the late 70s. Ellen appears on two more songs along with Emperor Machine (Andy Meecham). Last year ACR released three EPs, one of which featured collaborations with both Emperor Machine and Stretford's Chris Massey, dedicated to Andrew Weatherall. The track with Emperor Machine, titled Emperor Machine, was a masterclass in electronic funk, borrowing the stepped, punk funk rhythm from their own 1979 song Do The Du and updating it for now in fine style. 

Clichè

This popped up the other day, while I was scrolling/ searching for something else, a download only Andrew Weatherall remix from 2011. Weatherall employs that glam stomp he was fond of round that time (see also his remix of C.A.R. and Trentemoller among others), some distorted sci fi sounds beamed in from left and right and a wordless vocal part taken from the original track, all rhythmic and gutteral oohs  and ah ah ahs. 

The source material is Cliché by French outfit The Shoes with Cock 'n' Bull Kid along for the ride on this outing (Cock 'n' Bull Kid is/was Anita Blay who had two albums out 2010 and 2011 but according to Discogs nothing since). The Shoes are/ were Benjamin Labeau and Guillaume Briere (coincidentally that's the second Guillaume at this blog in two days, it's almost a Guillaume theme week). The Shoes seem to have called it a day in 2015. This remix is pretty infectious, a bit of an earworm, and fits nicely with the glam/ rockabilly sound he was playing at the end of the decade which mutated into ALFOS and The Asphodells. 

Cliché (Andrew Weatherall remix)

I've never heard the original of Shoes  until just now despite owning the Weatherall remix for over a decade. The glam stomp is there, Weatherall looped it and pushed it further up front, and the vocal parts belong to Cock 'n' Bull Kid but pitched shifted downwards for the remix. A good piece of turn of the 00s dance pop.

Geometry And Audio

Principles Of Geometry are a duo from Lille, France about whom I know very little. Guillaume Grusso and Jeremy Duval have been making electronic music since 2005, a smattering of albums, singles and remixes of other artists. A new album, their fifth, is imminent and the single First I Heard Colors was released last Friday. This Pye Corner Audio remix was what drew me in... 

It fades in gently, an ambient synth excursion that then snaps into focus. Pye Corner Audio's vintage drum machine starts thudding away, the synths pulse and twinkle and everything's gone 80s horror/ sci fi soundtrack meets acid house, John Carpenter lost on the floor in the strobe and dry ice. The remix and the original can be found at Bandcamp. The source track is shorter, minimal and abstract with a voice just about audible whispering 'everything begins at exactly the right time'. 

Mars, Arizona

Long time reader Spencer got in touch last week with a proposal- he picks a tune and sends it to me. I write about it. 'Start with how it makes you feel', he said, 'then it could be a memory... or the visceral sense of hearing it for the first time'. 

I said I was game, it's an interesting idea for an irregular series and we can see where it goes. Then he sent this, a remix of a 2005 Jon Spencer Blues Explosion song...

Mars, Arizona (DFA Remix)

I knew it but hadn't heard for years- I can't remember the first time I heard it but as I clicked play it came flooding back. At the point it came out DFA were riding the crest of a wave, reinventing post- punk and indie dance in a post Twin Towers New York (DFA was formed in 2001 after James Murphy and Tim Goldsworthy met while working on David Holmes' Let's Get Killed album. Murphy went on to put together LCD Soundsystem in 2002 and release their definitive and debut single Losing My Edge later that year). 

DFA don't do things by halves and don't spare the senses either. This is a ten minute slab of noisy mid 00s dancefloor action. It kicks in instantly with fuzz and static and then a crash of a piano falling over. Drums and shaker are dropped in and we have a groove, with more bent out of shape piano stabs and a gnarly bassline, the sort of bassline you can feel. It's tense and urgent but aimed at having fun, making people twitch and dance. 

The voice Jon Spencer eventually appears, singing/ howling his 21st century blues, 'I wanna tell you everything I'm thinking of/ Well I can't talk now with my mouth full of love'. The piano bangs away and the bassline writhes, a storm gathering, before the breakdown at five minutes thirty, a long piano chord fade out and then we're into the second half, the drums come back and a distorted synth sound takes over, knobs being turned all the way round the dial and back again and again and again... It's a glorious, hot, noisy mess, the soundtrack to nights of sticky floors, lost jackets, a pre- smoking ban world, missed buses, drunken kisses, ripped jeans, The Fall fed through a synth workshop in early 21st century Brooklyn. 

Monday's Long Song

The Orielles, teenage punk funk sensations from Halifax, have been living and recording in Manchester since 2020 and have undergone a major transformation for their third album Tableau. Their musical experimentation was made clear when they remixed Unknown Genre recently, turning in a remix that sounded like something that could have come out on Warp in the early 90s,  a wondrous slice of ambient techno/ IDM. 

This song, Beam/s, came out as a single/ taster at the end of August, a slow burning eight minutes that starts off like Sonic Youth and then heads into Broadcast territory and then further off again, accessible and experimental space rock. The band were involved in directing and producing the video too. They seem to have placed themselves in a class of one right now. 

On second single The Room, out last month, they tapped into a 90s downtempo/ lounge/ pop vibe, not too far from Saint Etienne but with a 21st century future jazz feel. The album came out last week. I haven't heard it yet will do soon.

Back in 2020 when their second album Disco Volador came out there was a fantastic remix of Bobbi's Second World by Confidence Man and then previously in 2017 they were remixed by Weatherall (twice) and Radioactive Man. The Confidence Man remix is all summer dance music vibes, dubby keyboard stabs echoing round and a hissy drum machine with vocals wafting around over the top and uplifting house piano. 

Bobbi's Second World (Confidence Man Remix)

Forty Five Minutes Of Justin Robertson

Justin Robertson is a DJ, producer, artist, writer and natty dresser and hat wearer who started out behind the counter at  Manchester's Eastern Bloc records shop while studying at the university and in Spice and Most Excellent was at the centre of two of the city's late 80s/ early 90s Balearic clubs. The mix below is based around his recent musical adventures, in his Deadstock 33s guise (which he adopted circa 2009) and his Formerlover project with his wife Sofia Hedblum (a trawl through his 90s back catalogue as Lionrock and his remixes for everyone who was anyone in the 90s would be a very different mix). Some of the tracks in this Sunday mix are among my favourites of the last few years, Justin finding a sound that pulls in dub, acid house, Nigerian house, post punk and dark pop. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Justin Robertson

• Formerlover: Correction Dub
• Formerlover: Discomfort (Dub)
• Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s and Brix Smith: Brix Goes Tubular (Dub Version)
• The Deadstock 33s: The Circular Path (Asphodells Remix)
• Daniel Avery and The Deadstock 33s: Magnetic
• Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s Feat. Formerlover: Dark Endless
• Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s: Numerical Discord Swap

Formerlover is a lockdown born project, Justin and his wife Sofia Hedblom, marrying Lagos beats, dub and a sleazy underbelly. Correction Dub came out on a Galactic Service Broadcasting compilation and Discomfort on Bandcamp in 2020. The Deadstock 33s and Brix Smith single is from only a few weeks ago, a 2022 treasure. The Asphodells remix of The Circular Path came out in 2013. The Daniel Avery and Deadstocks collaboration was a four track EP on Optimo in 2012. Dark Endless is from a compilation from earlier this year, put together by the Spun Out Agency called More Of That Frightful Oompty Boompty Music, the stand out track to these ears, nine minutes of dubby/ cosmic Balearica. Numerical Discord Swap was the A- side of a 7" on Paradise Palms in 2017, a fantastic slice of upfront acid disco. 

The Sky Without You

The opening track on Andy Bell's solo album Flicker is a three minute piece of sound, backwards guitars, washes of backwards vocals and some phased drones, that weird, looped weightlessness that comes when you reverse the tapes and run them backwards (Andy's inspiration was at least in part The Stone Roses who had a tendency to do this in 1988/ 89 with songs like Full Fathom Five and Guernica, a rush of pure sound that the band compared to driving out to Manchester airport and lying on the bonnet of the car at the end of the runway as jets took off overhead. While stoned). 

The Sky Without You

This song and several others have been remixed for a new EP along with two other new EPs, all out in November on vinyl and digitally. The Sky Without You has been remixed by David Holmes, a man who has played a big part in this blog virtually and in real life recently. Holmes' Radical Mycology Remix takes the original's backwards psychedelia and expands it outwards and inwards: outwards by doubling the length and layering more sounds, waves and rhythms, a snare drum and then at one minute twenty five soaring off with ripples and pulses, full on psych flight; inwards in that this is psychedelia as exploration within, head music. The video is a hallucinogenic feast too.  

The remixes come thick and fast after that, versions of songs from Flicker from Richard Norris, Claude Cooper, A Place To Bury Strangers, Maps and bdrmm. The vinyl's all gone but you can get the digital release here. 

As well as the remix EP there's a four track 10"/ digital EP of cover versions, the three already released covers of The Kinks, Pentangle and Arthur Russell (the latter two of which have been songs I've gone to often this year, songs to find solace inside) with a new one- Yoko Ono's Listen, the Snow Is Falling. The EP, Untitled Film Stills, is here.  The third EP of the set is acoustic versions of five of the songs from Flicker, The Grounding Process, and can be got here. 

The Pentangle cover is Light Flight, from their 1970 album Basket Of Light. To call this jazz/ folk seems to undersell it. Unique otherworldly, celtic jazz folk might be better and is still just a list of genres. In this clip Pentangle play live on a BBC special some in June 1970, when I was one month old. 

As C commented when I posted Andy's cover earlier this year the song was the theme tune to Take Three Girls, a BBC drama which ran from 1969 to 1971 following the lives of three young women flat sharing in London during the Swinging Sixties, the first BBC drama to be broadcast in colour. 

High Tide Low Tide

This song came out a year ago, the first taste of Rheinzand's second album. Written as a tentative celebration of emerging from the two years of Covid and lockdowns, a burst of optimism drenched in Rheinzand's signature Balearic dance pop, We'll Be Alright was the group's way of saying 'we made it through, we will be alright'. 

The second verse, sunny positivity tinged with sadness, sees Charlotte singing, 'To live without regret/ a chance to reset/ to live and fade to black/ take your moment back', and then soars upwards with, 'A little bit of fun/ Never killed anyone// High tide, low tide/ We'll be alright'. 

It's become a song that runs through my head often, one that lifts and cheers me, and admittedly leaves me a bit rueful on occasion- can you live without regret?- but which has become one of 'my songs'. I played it in the Golden Lion on Saturday night as the pub was filling up and things were heating up a bit in the evening and had a little internal moment. 

'This no man's land/ needs a footprint in the sand/ waves erase the shore/ time for letting go'. 

We'll Be Alright

Do You Hear Voices?

After their summer highlight Jezebellearic- nine minutes of warm sounds, waves lapping on the shore and the voice of Ibizan DJ Alfredo- Jezebell have returned for autumn with some electro, cunningly renamed as Jezebellectro. The title track, Jezebell Spirit, is six minute long tour de force, funky as a mosquito's tweeter, pummelling dancefloor electro, recasting a familiar song into new shapes. You can get the EP complete with another track Dumbell and a pair of remixes at Bandcamp. 

You'll probably recognise the source- underneath the pumping drums, rattling snare and fizzing synth lines is a Brian Eno and David Byrne ground breaker from 1981, polyrhythmic Afro- beats and the disturbing found voice of a TV preacher performing an exorcism. I bought My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts back in 1987 and it's an album that still holds a huge amount of power, the layers of electronics, sampled voices and drums and rhythms borrowed from African and Middle Eastern cultures. They encountered a certain amount of legal action at the time and since and have recently been accused of cultural appropriation but it remains a staggering, forward thinking, pioneering record. 

The Jezebell Spirit

Perry, Dexter, Lumux, Cleveland, Grain And Ships

Perry Granville continues to roll through 2022 at a rate of knots. Back in July he released Lumux and before that the still heavily played round here splendour of Dexter In Dub (and the joyous Bedford Falls Players remix). I've posted Dexter In Dub before and make no apology for putting it here again, six minutes of sunset seeking Balearica.

At the end of August Perry let Cleveland Sunday loose, a juddering acid house/ techno bleepfest complete with a supercharged Pete Bones mix that sets out for the outer limits. You can listen and buy at Bandcamp. Perry followed this with an end of September release called Grain Underground that wears Perry's formative influence of hip hop on its tracksuit top sleeve, a breakbeat led track with squiggly acid lines and cymbal splashes and melange of voices. Richard Sen provides a rib rattling remix, bassline and rimshots, and then after several minutes some gorgeous rippling synth lines while keeping the funk flowing. 

Back in 2020 Perry released Sailing Ships, a long, transportative, dancefloor oriented track with samples from U.S. TV news about the origins of house music, a screwed acidic bassline, some massive synth riffs, chopped up stuttering backing vocals and a thumping big drum track. 

The remix EP is about to make its appearance on vinyl, with some heavyweight names on remix duties- Hardway Bros meets Monkton Uptown (Sean Johnston and Duncan Gray) and Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s. You can order it here if the sound of that floats your boat/ sails your ship. 

Hey Joe, We Ought To Try And Turn The World Around

Sometimes, rarely but sometimes, everything comes together, the stars align and the streams cross and you find yourself at the centre of something magical. The offer of a DJ support slot months ago for the five of us that admin The Flightpath Estate, a Facebook group set up to share the music of Andrew Weatherall, at The Golden Lion in Todmorden with David Holmes headlining was something that seemed unreal. As the months and weeks ticked by it became increasingly more real and then suddenly it became imminent, a matter of having to pull together some music, burn some CDs and think about how it might actually work. 

The Golden Lion is a traditional pub in an old mill town, tucked in the hills on the Lancashire/ West Yorkshire border. Run by Richard Walker and his partner Gig it has a history of nights with DJs and bands plus excellent Thai food, a one off place that is now stitched into legend, Andrew Weatherall and Sean Johnston's ALFOS nights here especially so. An older gentleman (a retired teacher) standing at the DJ booth in the early evening told me, 'this place is a portal. Outside is Todmorden, in here it's another world'.

A quick guided tour of the equipment, the relief that CDs burned at home worked on the CDJs and then we got into the fun of starting to play to an almost empty pub at 2.30pm. Some familiar faces arrived- hello Claire and Si- and the afternoon drifted into evening, the five of us taking turns to play. Baz played his set including songs from The Pogues, The Animals, Chain And The Gang. Martin played rockabilly and folk. I played half an hour of dub (see Sunday's post) and then some Weatherall inspired songs plucked from his NTS radio shows and mixes, some Durutti Column, Coyote's Weatherall tribute The Outsider, Section 25, Joe Gideon And The Shark's Civilisation and this sublime, ghostly cover of Fun Boy Three/ The Go Go's Our Lips Are Sealed

Our Lips Are Sealed

Dan took over for some properly mixed leftfield dance music as the afternoon became early evening and then Mark 'Rude Audio' Ratcliff played, dubby dance filling the pub. At around eight, and who knows where the time went, we stated swapping on and off and then David Holmes arrived. I always assumed that Mark would be the one to do the immediately pre- Holmes part, building the warm up and then handing over. For reasons I still can't unpick, I ended up behind the decks just before David made his way to the DJ booth and began to sort his stuff out, the pub now full with expectant revellers. Mark had played Sabres Of Paradise Lik Wid Not Wit and then I put something else on and then as David continued to get set up, I played L.U.P.O.'s Heaven Or Hell, classic 1990 Balearic house, and then went into Song For Denise by Piano Fantasia, assuming he'd be then wanting to get playing straight away. 'Great track', David said to me, 'Stick another one'. 

No pressure there then. So I played Hardway Bros' Argonaut, a Come Together referencing feel good Balearic chugger inspired by a boat trip in Croatia Weatherall and Johnston played. And with that, a brief chat with Mr Holmes, and then I'm standing next to him as he starts to play. Which is not what I expected to happen when I set out earlier that day.  

Holmes' set was astonishing, a roof raising four hour set with non- stop dancing from an ecstatic crowd, with some choice remixes of his own music, some Afro- beat, some acid disco, some funked up French stuff and then somewhere in the middle (I lost track of time a bit it has to be said), a song to get a middle aged, leftfield crowd punching the air and singing along...

Sinful

It was quite a moment. Much later and much fun having been had dancing, David finished with his recent remix of Orbital's Belfast, twelve minutes of sweet 1990 euphoria written after the Hartnoll's played at Holmes' Sugar Sweet club in Belfast, at a time when a lot of artists swerved Northern Ireland. 

We left the pub at some point, making our way through the town and up the hill to the place we were staying, one of those nights that seemed to go on forever but was over so quickly, amazed and honoured not just to have been there but to have been part of it. I think we're all still buzzing slightly from the excitement while still unable to believe it actually happened. Serious life goals stuff. 

Monday's Long Song

The DJ gig at the Golden Lion was a huge amount of fun and exceeded expectations in lots of ways- full report to follow at some point this week. But I was also a little fragile yesterday and quite tired. 

A year ago Jon Hopkins released Music For Psychedelic Therapy, an ambient album that began in a cave in a forest in Ecuador. No beats, just acres of wide open space, delicate sound, slowly shifting synths and some echo- laden piano. On Sit Around The Fire, an eight minute meditation that starts with the sound of a waterfall and a ghostly synth choir, Jon samples a speech by American spiritual teacher and yoga guru Ram Dass, whose calm and matter of fact voice talking about life, love and being is just the sort of thing to listen to when you're feeling a little overcome. 

Sit Around The Fire

Forty Five Minutes Of Weatherdub

At the time of writing this I've no idea whether yesterday's DJ escapades at the Golden Lion in Todmorden were a triumph or a disaster or somewhere in between. I took a bag full of songs and tracks to play including a lot of Andrew Weatherall flavoured dub- remixes, his own productions, songs and poems that he sampled, songs he played out when DJing or on the radio which I thought might go down well on a Saturday afternoon in early October, a pre- David Holmes pint accompaniment. All the tracks below were in my digital record box.

Forty Five Minutes Of Weatherdub

• Jean Binta Breeze: Dubwise
• Dub Syndicate: Ravi Shankar Part 1
• Lark: Can I Colour In Your Hair (Andrew Weatherall Mix)
• Count Ossie and Mystic Revelation Of Rastafari: Poem
• The Sexual Objects: Sometimes (Weatherall Dub)
• Yabby You: Conquering Dub
• The Scientist: Lovers
• Misty In Roots: Introduction To Live At The Counter Eurovision
• Meatraffle: Meatraffle On the Moon (Andrew Weatherall Remix)
• Steve Mason: Boys Outside (Andrew Weatherall Dub 2)
• Andrew Weatherall: Kiyadub 45

Jean Binta Breeze's Dubwise poem came out on her 1991 album Tracks and was sampled by Weatherall on his legendary remix of Saint Etienne's Only Love Can Break Your Heart (he also sampled Jean from the same album for his earth shaking remixes Galliano's Skunk Funk, worthy of a separate post at some point soon I think).

Dub Syndicate, a mainstay of Adrian Sherwood's On U Sound label, released Tunes From The Missing Channel in 1985. Opening track Ravi Shankar Part 1 was a Weatherall favourite and is often mentioned in connection with the famous Boy's Own party held on a farm in East Grinstead in summer 1989, Andrew coming on to the decks to play at dawn as revellers welcomed the sun and Ravi Shankar's unmistakeable intro bounced around the West Sussex countryside. 

Lark were a London band led and fronted by Karl Bielek. Weatherall's dub remix of Can I Colour In Your Hair was finally released on 7" vinyl in 2018, years after being played on Weatherall's radio shows and in his mixes.

Count Ossie and Mystic Revelation Of Rastafari's album Grounation album came out in 1974, a masterpiece of spiritual dub. The line 'Ever since I was a youth/ I've always been searching for the truth' was sampled by Sabres Of Paradise for their mighty Ysaebud track, which came out on one sided 7" in 1997, after Sabres had split and Weatherall had gone on to Two Lone Swordsmen. The track was discovered by Andrew Curley on cassette while clearing out the drawers at HQ and was felt to be too good to lie unreleased so came out as S.O.P. rather as Sabres (licensing issues or some such detail). I'd like to thank Dr Rob of Ban Ban Ton Ton for enabling me to track down the source of the sample. Another piece of the jigsaw slotted into place.

The Sexual Objects are/ were a band formed by David Henderson (formerly of Scottish indie/ post- punkers Fire Engine and Nectarine No. 9). Weatherall's remix came out on a wonderful  piece of 10" vinyl along with remixes by Boards Of Canada and WAVNE, only 1000 copies pressed. 

Yabby You was another Weatherall favourite, from Kingston Jamaica, a singer and producer from the golden age of roots reggae and dub frequently played by Andrew and mentioned in interviews. The same came be said of The Scientist, a protege of King Tubby, whose dub albums in the 1980s were a big Weatherall touchstone. 

Misty in Roots are British dub reggae pioneers, from Southall, London. Their 1979 album Live St The Counter Eurovision is a key British reggae album. The Introduction to the album was sampled to massive effect by Andrew on his Ultrabass 2 remix of The Orb's Perpetual Dawn, 1991.

Meatraffle's Meatraffle On The Moon album came out in 2019, a still superb sounding dissection of life in Brexit Britain (and much more). The Weatherall remix is bass heavy meandering dub, a remix of the band's song about un- unionised moon workers and the evils of late stage capitalism. 

Steve Mason's Boys Outside album came out in 2010. Weatherall remixed the title track twice, the second is a dub of a dub. 

Kiyadub 45 was a one off two track 12" only dub release on the Byrd Out label (with Kiyadub 47 on the flipside), 500 copies only, recorded with Nina Walsh. Heavy electronic dub business.