Forever Held

New from the combined talents of Jon Hopkins and Olafur Arnalds is Forever Held, a track that is only three minutes and twenty one seconds long and yet manages to contain within it the entire history of the universe, from the very dawn of the beginning of time to the end of everything, via synths, orchestral strings (arrangement by Olafur) and keys, and some very faint drums, ending in a drawn out sigh. Weirdly and for reasons I'm not sure of, the version available to buy at Bandcamp is even shorter, just two minutes thirty eight. 

Forever Held was inspired by a collaboration between Jon and NASA, an immersive experience at NASA HQ in Washington DC. Apparently, it was also used as part of the opening track on the recent Coldplay album and they came on stage to it at Glastonbury last June. Fret not, they won't be mentioned here again. 

Intercommunications

A new Dub Syndicate/ Adrian Sherwood release was announced yesterday, a brand new set of versions built on the rhythm tracks from tapes recorded by Adrian and Style Scott in the period between 1989 and 1996- a set of new dubs of old tracks, Adrian at the mixing desk pushing and pulling those faders around to reshape Dub Syndicate once more. The first cut from is this, Intercommunications, a low key and low slung four minutes and forty seconds of On U dub splendour. Intercommunications makes time disappear- it could easily be three times as long and not lose any of its charms. 

The album- Obscured By Version- is out next February along with a five CD box set anthology of Dub Syndicate from '89- '96 called Out Here On The Perimeter and single disc re- issues of four albums, Stoned Immaculate, Strike The Balance, Echomania and Ital Breakfast. Obscured By Version is available at all the usual places including Bandcamp. 

Back in 1985 Dub Syndicate released Tunes From The Missing Channel, a heavy duty collision of On U dub, Jamaican dub, Sherwood's industrial/ sampling, Ashanti Roy from The Congos and contributions from Jah Wobble and Keith Levene. Nine slices of classic mid- 80s On U Sound. I was going to post Ravi Shankar Pt. 1 but I've done that before- instead, try this... 'something nice is going to happen to your ears', as the man says.

The Show Is Coming

J Saul Kane

My social media timelines were full on Monday night and Tuesday with tributes to J Saul Kane who has died aged just fifty five. He'd become quite reclusive in recent years and had more or less given up making music, concentrating on photography instead, but in the 1990s he was one of the founding fathers of what became known as trip hop. His music was dusty, atmospheric and beat heavy, sampled spaghetti Westerns, martial arts films and Brazilian football commentators and he was a DJ who knew how to fill and move a dancefloor, as J Saul Kane, Depth Charge and The Octagon Man. He was a pioneer and trailblazer. Trip hop seems reductive somehow- this is cinematic electronic funk a weird hybrid of hip hop and dance music (that's pretty much trip hop I guess but J Saul Kane's music never became dinner party music which was the fate of a lot of 90s trip hop). 

In 1994 I bought Shaolin Buddha Finger by Depth Charge, having heard the title track somewhere in Manchester after dark. A dark, swirling piece of electronic breakbeat with advice about how to attack a man using the titular digit, layers of samples and a massive buzzing bassline. The album Nine Deadly Venoms followed, an essential mid- 90s album and then the Legend Of The Golden Snake EP. 

Shaolin Buddha Finger

He was still producing great records into the 2000s. This one came out in 2004, a filthy, juddering blitz of beats, samples and undulating bass. 

Hi Voltage Man

Back in 1995 J Saul was one of a select group of artists who got to remix The Sabres Of Paradise. There were a pair of Depth Charge remixes of Tow Truck (from Haunted Dancehall). The Sabres original was an alternative James Bond theme if 007 had come from East London and sold second hand motors rather than lived life as an international spy. J Saul broke it down even further, a grinding bass heavy swim through the murk. 

Tow Truck (Depth Charge Mix II)

His music chimed with the trip hop artists and with the world of The Beastie Boys and Grand Royale and his influence on labels like Mo Wax and Ninja Tune was enormous. His passing is very sad news, especially having died so young. RIP J Saul Kane. 

Broken Beauty

Jason Boardman's Manchester based Before I Die label has become one of the ones to watch in 2023 and 2024, a small is beautiful aesthetic coupled with some very strong music, with Nuremberg's Konformer making one of last year's best albums and this year releases from Klangkollektor and Khartomb both raising the bar again. The latest release is from J- Walk (otherwise known a Martin Fisher/ Martin Brew), an album called Broken Beauty, made in a room in Stockport using cheap and long forgotten keyboards, guitars and amps, unplugging from the world, switching the Casios and Yamahas on and seeing what happens. The result is a ten track album that blends dub, post- punk experimentation, tropical rhythms, digi- dub and DIY culture. 

There is something special about Broken Beauty, something spontaneous but also something that can only come from a lifetime of soaking music up, steeping oneself in the culture and coming at making music anew. It also sounds like Martin had a lot of fun making it. This is Black Lion Passage, Stopfordian dub of the highest quality. 

You can find the album at Bandcamp, and if you're lucky there may be some vinyl copies left at some of the shops- Bandcamp have sold all of theirs. Pick any of the ten tracks and you'll find gold. This is Walking In The Sunshine, more superb sounding J- Walk tropical/ dub from the sunny streets of Stockport, a cover of the 1982 Balearic pop  song by Laid Back, the Danish duo of John Guldberg and Tim Stahl. 

Monday's Long Song

A remix from the end of October that I should have posted then but something else always nudged it a few days back and then suddenly it's Monday and, hey presto, it finds a home in the Monday long song slot. Max Essa and David Harks are The Clean Trip. Max has been making electronic music since the 90s, releasing on Warp and Manchester's Paper Recordings, plus the D.I.Y. Sound System. In July this year the duo released an EP as The Clean Trip, four chuggy, summer sounding tracks, dreamy/ blissed out Balearic sunset pop. You can find it here.  Two of the tracks got the remix treatment and this one has been getting repeat plays round the Bagging Area way, memories of summer and the warmth of the sun- Lobster Boys remixed by Hifi Sean, seven minutes and fifteen seconds of dubbed out, spaced out, end of the night, Italo cosmic disco splendour, with a gently sighing vocal.

Wasn't that a lovely way to spend some of your Monday in the dull, misty, murk of November? It's what Dr Rob at Ban Ban Ton Ton would call a chocolate milk and brandy kind of track. You can buy it plus a Takovoi remix of Magic Eyes at Bandcamp. 

Forty Five Minutes Of The Cure

The Cure's late 2024/ late career album Songs Of a Lost World is very much a gift that keeps giving and the recent televised gigs plus an hour of The Cure at the BBC had me going back to the band's music. That meant a Sunday mix was going to happen sooner or later and here it is, a selection centred around some of the best pop/ indie/ goth singles of the 1980s along with a few remixes and album tracks. Looking at the tracklist you might think that I've gone for some of the obvious choices- and you'd be right, I have- but there's a nice ebb and flow to it. A Cure Mix of deeper cuts might need to follow at some point in the future. I said recently that their music has meant more to me as time has gone on, and the way that Robert Smith has kept the band's integrity intact, and the quality of songs and albums so high, should be an inspiration to others about how to do it, how to grow old with your credibility and dignity in one piece. He stands up against immoral ticketing practices too, something some heritage rock acts should take note of. 

Forty Five Minutes Of The Cure

• Alone
• Pictures Of You (Extended Dub Mix)
• Shiver And Shake
• In Between Days
• The Caterpillar
• Lullaby
• Fascination Street (Extended Mix)
• A Forest
• Just Like Heaven

Alone came out at the end of September this year ahead of the album Songs Of A Lost World, a majestic crawl through Smithworld, the first new Cure song for sixteen years and one which delivers on all promises. Seven minutes long, the first half all glacial synths, Simon Gallup's bass and crashing drums and then at last, Robert Smith comes in with the line, 'this is the end of every song we sing', a heck of a way to announce your comeback. The album deals with endings, mortality, human frailties, loss- now all experienced for real as life has taken its toll. 

Pictures Of You came out in March 1990, a gloriously melancholic song that I find incredibly moving, especially since Isaac died. It was also on Mixed Up, a 1990 remix album, four sides of vinyl, that shifted The Cure's songs into the brave new world of the 1990s. The eight minute extended version of Fascination Street was also on Mixed Up and previously came out on the 12" of that single the year before, a nine minute recreation of a raucous band night out in New Orleans in 1985.

Shiver And Shake was on Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, the band's 1987 double album that saw them spread out musically and thematically- Velvets inspired rock, post punk pop, some goth gloom and some of the sunny South of France (where it was recorded) breaking through too. Shiver And Shake is spiteful, gnarly, fast paced proto- grunge/ rock- 'You're a waste of time/ You're just a babbling face'- that grinds away as Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me's penultimate song. The song that closes this mix is Just Like Heaven, sublime indie- pop, that nestles inside the centre of Kiss Me, a moment of sheer joy. 

In Between Days was a 1985 single. What is there to say about it? Superlative breezy mid- 80s pop, with hyperactive acoustic guitars, New Order- esque bass, and hooks aplenty. 

The Caterpillar is a wiggy, psychedelic single from 1984, a funny little song from the band when they were still a three piece.

Lullaby was a 1989 single, a creeped out goth rock single from a time when the indie rock world was transforming from the mid- 80s indie scene into something else, something more confident, more colourful. Robert Smith's spindly nightmare/ catchy but slightly disconcerting pop song might have seemed a bit out of place or out of time. Plucked violins, a whispered vocal about spiders- a top ten hit, obviously. 

A Forest was The Cure's first hit single from way back in 1980, a definitive early 80s post- punk song and one of The Cure's best moments. Shimmering, primordial gloom with the bass driving it forwards a Bob sings of existential dread/ a walk in the woods.  

V.A. Saturday

Last Saturday's various artists compilation album featured four ferocious 1950s rockabilly songs. Today's post comes from a connected place. Rock On was apparently the country's, maybe the world's, first collectors record shop, a vinyl goldmine dedicated to retro music- rock 'n' roll, rockabilly, blues, doo wop, 60s beat, soul, ska and reggae, jazz, 50s and 60s pop, more or less every type of music that was pressed onto black wax. It opened as a market stall at the back of the flea market on Portobello Road in August 1971. Rock On opened a shop on Golborne Road, near Portobello, a couple of years later and then a second stall in Soho market in 1974 and from there one in Camden too. In the mid- to- late 70s it played a key role in punk, a stop off for 7" singles for the movers and shakers (despite the punk's talk of '76 being Year Zero).  

In 2008 Ace Records put out a twenty eight track CD various artists compilation in tribute to Rock On, a line up of songs that were the soundtrack of the shop. The booklet has very detailed sleeve notes by Ted Carroll, an ever present in the shop from the early 70s. From the opening song to the last, the CD is very much a pre- punk party, a slew of songs from the likes of Vince Taylor, Link Wray, The Flamin' Groovies, Dr Feelgood, Waylon Jennings, Roky Erickson, Peter Holsapple, The Shangri La's, Charlie Feathers, Slim Harpo, Fats Domino, Don Covey and Joe Tex. This is just a handful of those for your Saturday morning pre- punk rave up.

Slim Harpo released Shake Your Hips on 7" in 1965, electrified Louisiana, mouth organ, clackety rhythms and clipped guitar, horns and Slim's raspy vocal. Mick Jagger was listening and taking notes. 

Shake Your Hips

Roky Erickson's Two Headed Dog came out in 1977, the version on Rock On a French release rather than the Doug Sahm produced Sponge EP version. Blistering acid guitar lead line, crunching chords, and Roky giving it the full Texan vocal. 'I've been working for the Kremlin with a two headed dog'.

Two Headed Dog

Waylon Jennings' Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way? came out in 1975, a gimlet eyed country song about the price paid for a career in the music business, Waylon reaching Nashville peddling that same old tune, rhinestone suits and shiny cars, and asking the question, 'are you sure Hank done it this way?'. A rhetorical question I think. Hank Williams did it his own way. 

Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way?

Lastly, some more rockabilly from 1957 by Peanuts Wilson and an Andrew Weatherall favourite from his rockabilly sets in the 00s too. 

Cast Iron Arm

Speaking of Mr Weatherall, this afternoon we are off to one of his spiritual homes, Todmorden's Golden Lion. Tonight is A Love From Outer Space, the night Andrew started in 2010 with Sean Johnston, a travelling cosmic disco that Sean has flown solo ever since. Me and my Flightpath Estate friends (Martin, Dan, Baz and Mark) are DJing at the pub from 2pm through until whenever Sean takes over. Upstairs this evening is a double header by the Stretford pairing of Psychederek and The Thief Of Time. It promises to be a lot of fun. 

Bounds

In 2020 I bought a double album by Craven Faults, Erratics And Nonconformities, six tracks of foreboding analogue ambient, modular synths, dark kosmische, made to accompany walks across post- industrial northern Britain, the soundtrack to abandoned foundries, stone walls, damp valleys, murky canal towpaths and moorland. It was hugely atmospheric and difficult to ignore, not the sort of ambient that becomes background music but foreground instrumental ambient, a very present sound. Sometimes it would leave me feeling totally enveloped by the sound, layers of recorded sound that bore a hole through me and left me feeling like something cathartic had happened. One evening listening to it it made me feel anxious and like the world was caving in. Full disclosure- this was after Isaac died and maybe is as much about how I was feeling as about the music, but I haven't been back to Craven Faults since. 

A new EP came out last month, four tracks that are intended to soundtrack a thirty seven minute trek across some part of northern England. Craven Faults is non- specific about the precise location but it's 'less than twenty miles north west of the city' (Leeds? Sheffield? Bradford?) and takes in the gathering dusk, a gritstone pillar destroyed by lightning, a tarn, and hillsides. The tracks- Long Stoop, Groups Hollows, Lampes Mosse and Waste & Demesne- vary from five minutes through to eighteen and are best encountered in one sitting, a kosmische but also earthbound trip where repetition is central and layers of analogue sound and drones build, with occasional sudden bursts of synth swooping in, like a flock of birds wheeling overhead. Buy Bounds at Bandcamp.

Won't Somebody Sign My Release?

Julian Cope's non- stop creative motion continues not just with a stream of albums but with his series of booklets called Cope's Notes. Each one focusses on a specific album or period, is packed with Julian's memories of the time and explanations of what he was doing and why he was doing it, along with photos, pages from notebooks and memorabilia, plus a CD of new/ extra/ unreleased materials. They are a treasure trove for the Cope fan. Cope's Notes #5 was a 48 page booklet and CD titled How I Wrote The Modern Antiquarian... And Why and was followed in the summer by Cope's Notes #6 Jehovakill. 

In 1991 Cope was at the crest of a wave. Peggy Suicide was a hit and a long world tour with a full band had seen some incredible performances. Julian was in creative overdrive and on finishing the tour was desperate to keep moving and head straight to record more songs. His band and roadies had become hyper fixated on krautrock the longer they'd been on the road and Julian was grabbing moments in hotel rooms with Dictaphones and portable recorders to get songs out of his head and onto tape. Cope's energies had been supercharged by the opposition to Thatcher's poll tax, his giant green alien outfit Sqwubbsy, not to mention his new and deeply felt attachment to Britain's neolithic past and in 1991 the birth of his daughter Albany. Jehovakill is a sequel to Peggy Suicide, the second part of a trilogy, and very much an album from a purple patch in Julian's recording history- even if Island disagreed and rejected the first version an eleven song album called Julian H. Cope, 'the most sonically unappealing album I've ever heard' according to managing director of the record label Marc Marot. Undeterred Julian, Donald Ross Skinner, Rooster Cosby and guitar tech Rizla Deutsch kept going, channeling krautrock, dark folk and pre- Christian themes into the sixteen track opus that is Jehovakill, a mysterious and occult record. Hugo Nicolson (Hugoth), 'fresh' from being Andrew Weatherall's engineer and co- producer of choice and Primal Scream's synth and samples operator on stage, plays synth. 

Rizla Deutsch by the way, fired a toy rocket into a hotel air con unit in Japan that got Cope banned from ever performing in the country again. 

The CD that comes with Cope's Notes #6 is full of nuggets and versions, some reocrded onto Walkmen, some at Holt Studios and Shaun Harvey's, one for a radio session in London, some while on tour in Chicago and Los Angeles. It's a mini- Jehovakill in its own right and finishes with a version of Upwards At 45 Degrees, a key Jehoakill song. This version was recorded live on stage at Elephant & Castle while preparing for the Jehovakill tour with a field recording of a downpour made on a beach in Lanzarote by Rooster. 

Upwards At 45 Degrees (Version)

There are still some copies of Cope's Notes #6 left at Head Heritage. 

The Storm Has Passed

There are all sorts of explanations going round for Trump's victory in the US presidential election last week, some that try to boil things down to very simple ones. As ever with history and current affairs, things are multi- causal; Trump offered something that Kamala couldn't- change. He strikes a chord with people who have been told that the economy has been doing better but whose grocery bills have risen by 20%. His swaggering, macho bluster finds favour with American men who could not bring themselves to vote for a woman (and a Black woman at that). There are many Americans who see Trump as an outsider, someone who tells it 'as it is' and they see him as giving the elite a kicking. Some Americans have not forgiven the half of the nation who elected a Black president, Barrack Obama, twice. The assassination attempt that brushed Trump's ear gave him the single most important image of the campaign. The weaponising of 'the war on woke' and identity politics seems to have been a factor, the anti- immigrant narrative too.  Kamala's warnings of impending fascism were dismissed. There are studies that suggest that in any democratic society there are approximately 30% of the adult population who are happy with authoritarianism, who want strong leaders who get things done and are content with limits and curbs on democracy. All these things and more may help explain last week. For many Americans a binary choice led them to Trump. One thing is sure- in 2016 people might not have known what they were getting. They cannot say that this time around. It's completely clear what Trump is- and people voted for it. He will have few brakes on him this time around. It will be fascinating and terrifying seeing what happens over the next four years, potentially watching a democracy unravel in real time.

One of my most played albums recently has been on Mighty Force, a label which has had a resurgence in recent years, and 2024 especially. I've written before about M- Paths, an ambient/ techno outfit on Mighty Force. M- Paths Submerge came out earlier this year. Now, Marcus from M- Paths has released an album as Reverb Delay. It's not a side project or an offshoot, M- Paths and Reverb Delay are different parts of Marcus' music. M- Paths are calming and chilled. Reverb Delay are less so. Reverb Delay are dub techno in the 90s tradition- thumping drums, faster bpms, less friendly maybe but totally  absorbing, an intense and metronomic ride, reminiscent of Basic Channel and the sound of Detroit techno artists like Carl Craig and Juan Atkins.

The album, The Storm Has Passed, is fourteen tracks long, and is in part about Trump and MAGA. Unfortunately the storm is not passed, it's in some ways not even begun, but Reverb Delay are here to soundtrack the end of 2024. It's sequenced as a proper album, a short intro with the sampled voice of Mario Silvio in 1964 speaking at a sit- in in Berkeley. Third track Eating Echo Chambers uses the voices of ground control and the Apollo mission as they approached the moon, rattling snares and a thumping kick, ominous synths and acres of dub space. 

It's followed by Embrace which is long, dark and hissy, Berlin basement techno. Horizontal Rain has rapid fire beats and salvos of synth noise. On Maldek a crazed voice bursts in, railing against Jimmy Carter and a one world government. Track 11, Weaponizing, is grimly prophetic, sampling a Trump supporter talking about Biden weaponizing the FBI and how Trump will win again before the thud of the kick drum and juddering synths take over. 

The final pair of tracks, She and Verb, keep the tension high, train- like drum tracks pounding ever onwards, synth chords, a disembodied voice bringing the human element to this machine music. The Storm Has Passed ends in spooky style with Verb, dub space, the crackle of radio static, underwater bleeps and bubbles, and just audible the recently declassified sound files of US navy pilots describing their efforts to keep up with UFOs they've spotted. It's highly recommended and you can listen and buy it at Bandcamp. 

And It Feels Like I'm Coming Home

I've had an LCD Soundsystem renaissance this year, starting back in the early summer, kickstarted by their performance at Glastonbury, and have found all sorts to revisit and enjoy in their music. By happy coincidence James Murphy has put the group back together again and the first fruits of LCD Soundsystem 2024 came out eleven days ago with a single called X- Ray Eyes. What does it sound like? It sounds very much like LCD Soundsystem- vintage synth arpeggios, hissing drum machines, dead pan vocals from James from a space somewhere between ennui and anxiety, No Wave dance music for the middle aged...

In 2005 LCD Soundsystem followed the release of three groundbreaking singles (Losing My Edge, Give It Up and Yeah) with a self titled debut album that gave us more of the same and took LCD into some new places too. The razor sharp New York post punk/ disco of Daft Punk Are Playing At My House opened the album and this song closed it, not what I was expecting when I first played it, a gorgeous, sleepy eyed sunset/ sunrise tune, drum machine in the echoey distance and big Balearic piano chords with James dewy eyed and coming down after all that strobe lit dancing and nervous energy- 'And it feels like it won't come on/ And it takes like you're full of love/ Still the time never to pay on/ Still the time never to pay on/ And it feels like it's coming home/ And it feels like it's full of love/ Still in time is the great release'

Great Release

Monday's Long Song

In July 1986 Factory Records held a festival to celebrate ten years since punk, the Festival Of The Tenth Summer (specifically it was to celebrate ten summers since the Sex Pistols played Manchester's Free Trade Hall on 4th June 1976, the gig that set it all off). There were ten events and the festival had its own Factory catalogue number- Fac 151. 

Between the 12th and 20th of July there were: a Peter Saville exhibition at the City Art Gallery; a fashion show at the Hacienda called 'clothes'; an exhibition by photographer Kevin Cummins at the Cornerhouse; a book with contributions from Richard Boon, Cath Carroll and other Factory/ Manchester associated writers; six music events held in different venues with groups including Margi Clarke, The Durutti Column at the town hall, The Bodines, James, Easterhouse, Happy Mondays and The Railway Children; a new music seminar in the Gay Traitor bar in the Hacienda; some merch including t- shirts, postcards, badge and a boiler suit designed by Saville; an exhibition of music related graphic design at Manchester Poly; some music related film screenings (Stop Making Sense, The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, Rude Boy, Pretty In Pink, the premiere of Sid And Nancy); and finally, G- Mex The Tenth Event, an all day festival in a former railway station that only a few years before had been a semi- derelict car park with The Fall, The Smiths and New Order at the top of a bill that included John Cooper Clarke, ACR, OMD, Sandie Shaw, John Cale, Margi Clarke, Pete Shelley, Luxuria and Wayne Fontana and The Mindbenders (!). 

New Order have a box set about to come out, an expanded edition of 1986's Brotherhood. I'm not trying to convince you to buy it. I won't be- I definitely don't have £179.99 for an expanded edition of Brotherhood. It looks fairly poor value for money (the album remastered on vinyl and CD, a handful of extras including some extended versions released elsewhere, some demos from Japan and a couple of previously unreleased mixes, plus a pair of DVDs of live appearances including - and this is the most interesting part of the box set- the G- Mex performance in full plus a set from New York in the summer of 1987 and some other live songs). Last week The Perfect Kiss at G- Mex was released onto YouTube. The whole gig will hopefully follow, New Order headlining the Festival Of The Tenth Summer, following all their contemporaries on stage with a climatic set that opens with Elegia (from Lowlife) and takes in several mid- 80s classics, and then Ceremony (with Ian McCulloch providing guest vocals) and finishing with Temptation. No encore. Eight songs in, we have New Order and the full nine minute majesty of The Perfect Kiss live. 

From the moment those synth drums come in its clear they're on it. Hooky gives a blast of bass. More drums, a rising sense of anticipation. Bernard eventually steps to the mic, and utters the immortal words, 'Vodka. Vodka. Vodka'. He stumbles around a little looking at his guitar, with a look on his face that says, 'what's this for?'. Hooky's bass takes the lead and Bernard finds the mic and the lyrics. Bernard's guitar break is as it should be, Stephen and Gillian have everything covered. At three minutes Bernard comes back for the second verse, some of which he misses completely, some of which he sings while cracking up laughing, presumably at his own words, and equally presumably the ones about staying at home and playing with his pleasure zone. At four thirty eight Hooky moves to the synth drums and hammers away, and then loses a drumstick which throws him for a moment. Stephen brings the frogs in. Bernard plays cowbell. I say plays- it's got little relation to the rest of the rhythm but he's giving it all his concentration. They all get it together for the ending which is huge, guitar, bass, drums, synths, frogs, the lot, steaming on to the conclusion. And towards the end, Bernard gets his vodka. More vodka. New Order in their full mid- 80s glory, battling with their sound and equipment while inventing new musical forms, totally unprofessional and sounding magnificent. 

The Perfect Kiss (12" Version)

Another Bagging Area Mix For Tak Tent Radio

I've done another mix for Tak Tent Radio, an internet radio station broadcasting out of Scotland for several years now and host to a wonderfully diverse and obscure selection of music. This is my twelfth mix for Tak Tent, an hour of tunes entirely music from 2024 and focussing very much on the dubwise sounds before pitching things up at the end with a pair of twisted dancefloor bangers. Listen to it at Tak Tent or at Mixcloud.

Tracklist

•          Coyote: OMG
•          Five Green Moons: One Lost Moon
•          The Jonny Halifax Invocation: The Mountain Dub
•          Richard Norris and Jon Carter: Ceefax (Jon Carter Due South Dub)
•          Puerto Montt City Orchestra: Hey You (10:40 Remix)
•          Pandit Pam Pam: Pass A Wish (Jezebell’s 50 Ways Mix)
•          100 Poems: Come, Hear Me Now
•          Fat White Family: Bullet Of Dignity (Beyond The Wizard’s Sleeve Remix)
•          Acid Klaus ft Philly Piper: Aerodromes (David Holmes Remix)

V.A. Saturday

Years ago, when this blog was but a babe, there was a long running Friday night feature called Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night, a weekly event which ran well into triple figures. I drank from the rockabilly pool for several years and then had to retire it- I'd got to the bottom of the glass. In some ways rockabilly is responsible for me beginning to blog in the first place. Way back in the 00s, probably 2007 or 2008 (a period now referred to as The Golden Age Of Music Blogs) I wrote a guest post at The Vinyl Villain for JC who had put out the call for guest writers. I dipped my toe in the blogging pond with this song by Wayne Walker from waaaay back in 1956...

All I Can Do Is Cry

Slapback echo, shuffling railway rhythms, single lead line and Wayne's love lorn vocal, 'Left my girl in Kansas City/ Left her standing in the rain...'

I'd first heard the song on an Andrew Weatherall BBC6 radio show and then tracked it down to a double CD various artists compilation put together by Keb Darge and Cut Chemist, Lost And Found (Rockabilly and Jump Blues). I already had a couple of rockabilly comps at this point, some early Elvis, a Johnny Burnette Trio album but from this point on I went in deeper. In 2010 Ace Records, a label who really know their stuff, put out a  VA compilation called A Rocket In My Pocket: The Soundtrack To A Hipster's Guide To Rockabilly Music, compiled by Max Decharne (writer, journalist, singer in The Flaming Stars and rockabilly aficionado). A Rocket In My Pocket is a goldmine of rock 'n' roll and rockabilly, twenty eight songs that showcase everything that is great about it. There are some well known names- Elvis, Wanda Jackson, Johnny Burnette and Charlie Feathers all feature- but there are some one offs here, some deep cuts, that once heard you'll never forget. It opens with this, How Can You Be Mean To Me, by Dale Vaughan from 1958, Memphis rockabilly with a unique vocal.

How Can You Be Mean To Me

There's also this, a truly deranged record by Jimmy And Johnny also from 1958, a song about missing out. 'My baby's in there and it's makin' me sad/ I hear her laughin' and it's makin' me mad'

I Can't Find The Door Knob

And there's the title track, another 1958 cut, this time from Jimmy Lloyd with barrel house piano, echo, a wonderfully gnarly guitar break in the middle, and Jimmy's promise of having a rocket in his pocket 'and the fuse is lit', not to mention' a rocket in my pocket and a roll in my jean'.  

I Got A Rocket In My Pocket

Hold My Hand Up

This EP comes out next week, a collaboration between Red Snapper and David Harrow. Red Snapper are riding the crest of a wave after last year's Live At The Moth Club and a tour. They're touring again next year. David Harrow is celebrating his sixtieth year by releasing music every month from his Los Angeles home- modular synth ambiance, dub, techno and whatever else he fancies. The EP, Tight Chest, was made in a sweet spot somewhere between London, Wales and LA and is led by this wonderful piece of dub flavoured music, Hold My Hand Up...

David's modular synths form the base layer. On top Red Snapper add Ali Friend's double bass, some sweetly drifting melodica, percussion and a sleepy eyed vocal, everything smothered in some lovely dub bass and delay. 

The other three tracks follow with similarly expansive feel. Modsnap has North African grooves, Rich Thair's bubbling percussion and an addictive rhythm. Lucky Strike is led by finger picked acoustic guitar, a loop of bass and Rich's signature drums, David's synths adding textures. Final song and title track Tight Chest glides in on synth twinkles and FX with the Red Snapper rhythm section bringing the jazz- dub vibes and at the mid- point more whispered vocals. The Tight Chest EP can be pre- ordered at Bandcamp with Hold My Hand Up ready to download straight away. 

Bring Your Spirit Down

I woke up yesterday morning with memories of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds in concert from the night before flashing through my sleepy mind. Then, straight away, I remembered the American election and reached for my phone and tapped the screen. A quick search and I said out loud, 'oh fuck', into the darkness. Trump was closing in on the required number of electoral college votes and was already streets ahead in the popular vote. Oh fuck.  It took the shine off my Nick Cave gig afterglow a little. 

I've been waiting for this gig since buying the tickets what seems like a year ago. The album Wild God has been close to the top of my listening since its release and I've been diving in and revisiting parts of Nick's back catalogue over the last few months. The venue- the AO Arena in Manchester- is a big metal barn and we had seats not standing tickets. I'd vastly have preferred to be standing but missed out on those tickets and navigating three middle aged men down to the front, carrying (vastly overpriced) drinks and going over the barrier seemed like a task too far. So seated we were. Nick came at 8.30pm, a six piece Bad Seeds with a four piece gospel choir behind them and opened as he and they meant to go on- full throttle, high energy, fully committed. The first song, Frogs, is one of the highpoints of Wild God, a massive sounding meditation on walking home in the rain on a Sunday morning, Cain and Abel, the abundance of life in the natural world with a Kris Kristofferson cameo, set to uplifting, swelling, awe inspiring music. Live it sounds even bigger. They follow it with the album's title track, Wild God, which is similarly massive, faster live than on disc, the rhythm section (Colin Greenwood from Radiohead on bass, Jim Sclavunos on a huge array of percussion and Larry Mullins on drums) filling the sound out enormously. There's a moment in Wild God where everyone pauses, before Nick and the choir launch in with the line, 'Bring your sprit down'. The cavernous space above us, heating ducts, air con and metal roof supports, are suddenly filled with this gigantic sound, the Bad Seeds, the choir and Nick all bringing their spirit down and pushing it out and up again. Two songs in and I'm almost overwhelmed. 

From there on there's nearly two and a half hours of music from the full spectrum of the Bad Seeds back catalogue. At most arena shows there's a chasm between band and audience, a pit with barriers to prevent anyone from getting too close. Nick doesn't do this- he welcomes the front rows of the standing section into the performance, prowling, dancing and running on a strip of stage bordering the barrier, leaning into the crowd, clasping people's hands, receiving notes from them, putting his microphone into someone's hand and then falling into a group of outstretched arms. On some songs he retreats to the piano but the front of the stage at the barrier is where he wants to be, taking part in what becomes part gig and part act of communion. It's a funny thing, this ex- punk rocker, ex- heroin addict, ex- nihilist, becoming such a people person, such beloved figure to so many- connections have been made that cross generations and he relishes it, the performance, the transference of energy, the to and fro. At one point he tells us/ one man in the front row, how the chorus of the next song goes and how to join in as if he's speaking to just one person. After the fervent applause dies down after some songs, there's absolute silence in the arena, a hush as everyone waits to see what happens next. 'I love you Nick', someone shouts out. 'I love you too', he replies. 'I love your husband as well'. 

There are emotive songs, songs that leave some of us in tears. Early on they play O Children (from 2004's Abattoir Blues/ The Lyre Of Orpheus). Nick explains it's origins, a song written after taking his young twin sons to the playground and watching them play while despairing at the state of the world and that the song is about the primal desire to protect your children. 'The song then followed me about for years', he continues, and obviously took on a newer meaning following Arthur Cave's death in 2015. Later on they play I Need You, possibly the bleakest of the songs written following Arthur's death, one that sometimes I deliberately play to put myself back into that space we were in when Isaac died, to reawaken that all consuming, physical feeling of grief, just to remind myself what it was like, just tto feel it again. I Need You has Nick and Suzie in the most banal of places- the supermarket- feeling the very worst of emotions- the death of your child- and concluding 'I need you/ Cause nothing really matters/ When the one you love is gone'. The arena is silent, Nick at the piano, reliving his grief. I'm in bits.  

But there are also life affirming songs of joy- Conversion and Joy (both from Wild God)- and there is tremendous, bone shaking rock 'n' roll, Cave jumping about like a man half his age, the man from The Birthday Party and the early Bad Seeds (who, let's be honest, wasn't expected to get this far or to venues this size). The 2024 Bad Seeds play From Her To Eternity like their lives depend on it, a song from forty years ago, amped up, 80s goth- punk energy, filthy swaggering junkyard blues. 

From Her To Eternity

They play Tupelo from 1985, Nick introducing it at length, an unholy combination of the birth of Elvis and a Biblical flood, 'Lookayonder/ Lookaynoder/ No birds do fly/ No fish do swim'. It's stunning, a swamp rock masterpiece. 

I could go on, describe every song for you and its effect, the transmission of energy between band and crowd, Warren Ellis in flight, his long straggly hair and beard trailing around him, switching from guitar to synth to violin (an instrument he plays as if it is the lead guitar). The mighty Jubilee Street with its drawn out lyrics about a girl called Bee and the thrilling gear change that takes us into the 'I'm transforming/ I'm vibrating' section. The enormous emotional whoomph of Final Rescue Attempt. The aching desolation of Long Dark Night. By the time we're reaching the business end everyone's at their fullest, the choir coming down to the front, and giving us the Bad Seeds big hitters, Red Right Hand, The Mercy Seat (which buzzes and snarls with menace), the Black Lives Matter inspired White Elephant from Carnage. Nick dedicates it to America, and there's a pregnant pause that suggests America really does some help. There is an encore which ends with the Brechtian, Weimar/ Greek tragedy of The Weeping Song, it's call and response vocals, and Nick leading the audience in the quick fire clapping section. His voice, several weeks into a tour, is superb and his performance is incredible (and avoids ever tipping into showbiz territory). 

The Weeping Song

As The Bad Seeds take their bow, the audience's love both visible and audible, Nick sits at the piano and with the band departing from the stage he sings Into My Arms, and hey, there we go again, more tears. 

In the song Joy, from Wild God, Nick describes a nocturnal visitation from a ghost who makes him 'jump up like a rabbit/ And fall down to my knees'. The ghost, 'a boy with giant sneakers and stars around his head', tells him, 'we've all had too much sorrow/ Now is the time for joy'. If this tour and the gigs are about anything it, it is exactly that, a rejection of sorrow and an embracing of joy and of living, of being alive, and the communal and transformative power of music. 

Joy

Stick that in your presidential election result. 

La Cassette

I missed The Emperor Machine's album that came out earlier this year, the nine song Island Boogie that is turning into an autumnal treat (it came out in July), vintage synths sounds, dub space, electro- disco, some early 80s punk- funk, generally good vibes all round.  As a result of missing the album I also missed a remix EP that came out in September where frequent Bagging Area visitors Hardway Bros provide two remakes of Wanna Pop With You, one a remix and one a dub. The cherry on the top of this particular pie though is the Tigerbalm remix of  La Cassette, the French language vocals courtesy of Severine Mouletin cut up and re- arranged, the bass throbbing like it's come directly from early 80s Manhattan and whooshing sounds adding a dub sci fi edge. It's brilliant, life affirming stuff. You can get it all here. 

Tigerbalm's International Love Affair was one of 2022's treats, a stew of global, dub and disco sounds aimed at the feet. The album was followed by a hefty remix package in 2023 which included a remix and a dub mix of Riad De Lister by The Emperor Machine where Rose Robinson (Tigerbalm) is sent spinning back to the proto house grooves of the mid 80s. The Special Extended Vocal Mix is a squelchy pleasure. 

All You Fascists Bound To Lose

Today the voting population of the United States of America have a big decision to make and frankly it's pretty terrifying that there seems to be a even chance that Donald Trump will be re- elected as president. The polls seem to suggest that something like 47% of Americans will be casting their vote for him with Kamala Harris on 48%. That's too close to call. 

That Trump is even allowed anywhere near the ballot paper is bewildering: he is a man who encouraged a coup by a violent mob of supporters when he lost the previous election; a convicted felon facing a possible prison sentence for paying hush money to an actor he had sex with; accused of sexual assault by over twenty women; has a string of charges against him for electoral offences from 2020; hid classified documents in the bathroom at his golf club; has made various threats during the election campaign that show he's unfit to run (to close down media outlets, to be a dictator 'on day one', to use the arms of the state to attack opponents and those who have wronged him, to use the military against citizens he describes as 'the enemy within', to hold 12, 000 'illegals' in camps while they await deportation, made racist remarks about Kamala Harris and falsely accused refugees of eating people's pet animals); threatened to execute Liz Cheney; the removal of abortion rights; the list goes on and on and on. In any sane world, Trump would have been cast out by the people, his party and the media, and his name would be nowhere near a ballot paper. 

Like all demagogues he uses people's grievances to further his own ends. He takes people's struggles in an economically difficult time and turns them into Us v Them. He paints his supporters and himself as victims. He thinks presidents should have unlimited power. The only other leaders he openly admires are dictators/ authoritarians. He publicly supports racists and racist groups. His own former staff describe him as fascist. 

People sometimes shrink from using the word fascist. It's too extreme, it's student politics, it's an exaggeration. Perhaps the culture around the fascist dictators of the 20th century is partly the reason-  Hitler was a fascist and this blinds us to modern equivalents. No one can be as bad as Hitler can they? Therefore, no one else can be a fascist. But Trump's actions and words are fascist- the demonisation of minorities, the talk of genetics and purity, the desire to have unlimited and unchallengeable power, the cult of the leader, the assaults on democracy, the rampant nationalism, the cosy relationship between big business and power- all these things are fascist. I think we should call it what it is. 

Only time will tell what happens and what the US and the world will look like in four years time if he wins. You could say that it doesn't matter but what happens in the US affects us all. I hope enough Americans take the opportunity and make the choice to reject him today but even if they do the sheer number who will have voted for him is concerning enough. What's more he will inevitably poison politics and democracy further by claiming the election was rigged and stolen- the undermining of democratic mores and institutions, more fascism. His ego is so fragile he cannot take being seen as a loser. He cannot lose an election, he must have been cheated. 

In 1944 Woody Guthrie wrote All You Fascists Bound To Lose, a song about Hitler and Mussolini and their impending defeat in the Second World War. In 2017 The Missin' Cousins, an American bluegrass/ country and western trio covered it, updating it for their own homegrown version and opening with the line, 'There's a fascist in The White House'. I hope America gets it right today and this song becomes consigned to the years 2017- 2021 and not the next four.

All You Fascists Bound To Lose 

Monday's Long Songs

The Cure's comeback with their latest/ last album Songs Of A Lost World was been one of last week's major musical news. On Friday night they played a live streamed gig at The Troxy and then on Saturday a similar one for Radio 2, a mix of songs from the new album and Cure classics. Both were stunning. 

In the 80s I wasn't a massive Cure fan. Things then were very tribal and The Cure fell on the other side of a line that sometimes seemed to be drawn between them and other bands. I liked many of their singles and bought Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me in 1987, a seventy five minute double album led by what may be their best single- Just Like Heaven- and crammed full of singular album tracks, but never went the full hog. Since then though their songs and music have become more and more important and I've found myself loving their songs more as time has gone than I ever did back in the day. Robert Smith's songs and voice, his sweet melancholy and  those post- punk guitars coupled with Simon Gallup's Hooky inspired basslines, have sounded more and more relevant. In early 2022, in the aftermath of Isaac's death, Pictures Of You became one of those songs that broke me into tiny grief stricken pieces. Watching the band on TV on Saturday night that song did it all over again. It's a song that I'm sure could reduce perfectly balanced and obscenely happy people to tears so it's impact on me isn't too surprising; it's got a sadness to it that is Smith's crowning moment- the song was written on finding some photos of his wife Mary in the ashes that were left after a house fire in the late 80s. For me, it's become about all the photos I have of Isaac, and that are now all we have of him, the photos and the memories. It's one of those songs.

Pictures Of You (Extended Dub Mix)

The new Cure album is the first for sixteen years, a majestic eight song swansong that places grief, loss, mortality and reflection at the centre of Robert Smith's late middle aged world. Both his parents and his brother died during the recording of the album and his thoughts on mortality are the centre piece of the record. The playing and the songs are all as good as anything anyone of that generation of bands has made in recent years, better than anyone else maybe. It's a beautiful, emotive album- black and white and shot through with all the shades of grey, desolate and windswept but magnificent and enveloping. It feels like a eulogy- in the best way, a celebration cut with loss. At the end is Endsong, a ten minute masterpiece, an exercise in closure and wonderful, bleak beauty. 

The Greatest Motherfucker You're Ever Gonna Meet

I spent Thursday night at New Century Hall in Manchester with John Grant, courtesy of my friend Darren. John Grant's solo career goes back to 2010 and his Queen Of Denmark album which was followed in 2013 by Pale Green Ghosts. This year he has released another, The Art Of The Lie, his sixth. There's a lot going on with John Grant, on stage, in his background and personal life, and in his songs. Growing up in some fairly conservative parts of the USA, his growing realisation he was gay brought conflict with his parents (his mother told him as she was dying he was a disappointment and in his song Daddy he sings 'You don't like what I am/I have come to understand What I am is a sin') and he spent much of his adult life struggling with anxiety, alcohol and drug issues. In 2012 he announced he was HIV positive, something he wrote about in the song Ernest Borgnine. 

The seriousness of some of his songs and the heavy duty nature of his life isn't necessarily reflected in his gigs. He takes the stage to Ennio Morricone in baseball cap, big sunglasses and carrying a keetar and launches into the mid- 80s MTV electro- funk of All That School For Nothing, a stream of consciousness single from earlier this year and after handing the keetar to a roadie sings the next two songs at the front of the stage with occasional slut drops. It's big and brash, a little camp, the three musicians around him on bass/ drums, synths and guitar creating a wall of  sound. There's an 808 suspended from a rack, various vintage synths including a Korg that John points out to us as if its a band member. 

He goes to the baby grand piano for a slower, more reflective set of songs including Daddy and the wonderful, with its lines ' I felt just like Sigourney Weaver/ When she had to kill all those aliens' and 'I felt just like Winona Ryder/ In that movie about vampires/ And she couldn't get that accent right/ And neither could that other guy'. He's a master at writing about big topics but coming in sideways, undercutting things with one liners and droll humour. After the piano section he starts wandering round the stage, switching on various bits of kit for the Vangelis- like majesty of Pale Green Ghosts and then the band re- appear and a very respectful audience get song after song from the current album and his back catalogue. It finishes, as all John Grant gigs probably should, with GMF...

GMF

Recorded in Iceland in 2013 after he moved there, with Sinead O'Connor on backing vocals, GMF is a loner/ outsider anthem, a dissection of his own anxieties and a song directed to a lover, 'I over analyse and over think things/ It's a nasty crutch', he sings- but the punch comes with the killer line, totally unexpected on first hearing it, 'But I am the greatest motherfucker you're ever gonna meet/ From the top of my head to the toes on my feet'. 

V.A. Saturday

Various artists Saturday reaches Northern Soul today. I'm sure that in the ultra obsessive world of Northern Soul that various artist compilations are if not absolutely verboten then at least frowned upon. A Northern DJ turning up with a bunch of various artists CDs would be laughed out of the building surely- these songs are to be listened and danced to on as God intended, on 7" vinyl, original pressings (re- presses permissible under certain circumstances). But in a world where the casual Northern Soul fan has limited resources and other genres of music to spend money on, original 7" singles from obscure 1960s and 70s labels are a luxury that must sometimes be foregone. 

In 1998 a Northern compilation called It'll Never Be Over For Me came out on EMI's Stateside label, on both CD and double vinyl. The twenty song compilation seems to me to be a cut above the rash of cheap, supermarket Northern Soul CD compilations that came out a decade or so ago, built on TV adverts suddenly deciding northern Soul was the best way to sell fried chicken and mortgages. It'll Never Be Over For Me has some familiar names including Timi Yuro, Irma Thomas and Dean Parrish, and this song by Dean, the last song played at Wigan Casino before it closed its doors for good in 1981...

I'm On My Way

How good is that? Gnarly lead guitar intro from 1967 (re- released in the UK in 1975) and then one of those thumping Northern rhythms, horns, Dean's vocal stop- start dynamics, buckets of echo and a rousing chorus.

It'll Never Be Over For me also has this solid gold banger from Chuck Wood also from 1967, opening with a blast and Chuck declaring 'huh!' and then immediately following with 'First time I called you girl/ They say you wasn't at home...'

Seven Days Too Long

Seven Days Too Long was famously covered by Dexys Midnight Runners in 1980, a 7" that has become as sought after as many Northern Soul 7" singles. 

I may sound like I'm being a bit snobbish about supermarket compilation CDs and I'm not (really). I have bought many, back in the days when supermarkets still sold CDs. One of them, Northern Soul: 20 Original Classics, is as good a way to spend 80 minutes as you're going to find during daylight hours, an album that may not be imaginative in its title but is accurate. R Dean Taylor. Dusty Springfield. Marlena Shaw. Gladys Knight and The Pips. The Impressions. Chris Clark. Frank Wilson...

Do I Love You? (Indeed I Do)

The Flirtations...

Nothing But A Heartache

Viva the cheap CD compilation album. Also, in this age of streaming and playlists, RIP the cheap compilation CD. 

Voyager

Marshall Watson featured earlier this week as one half of Causeway and their dance- goth/ synth pop song Dancing With Shadows. Marshall's a busy man though and as well as a solo tracks he's got an EP out today in collaboration with Cole Odin, Voyager, on Leng. Last year Marshall and Cole released Just A Daydream Away, one of my favourite releases from last year, a song adorned with an indie dance shimmer and some superb remixes by Hardway Bros and Joe Morris. 

Voyager marries Marshall's Balearic synths and hands in the air pianos with Cole's dub basslines and chilled dance/ psychedelia and  comes up with a song that makes the gloom and darkness of November wither away, an open minded, sky scraping, cosmic adventure with a piano riff that'll crack the sternest of faces. There are three mixes, the Original Mix, the Extended Guitar Mix and the Cosmic Rave Mix, and while all are exactly what you need today, the Cosmic Rave Mix is the one you need the most, the low slung bassline of the other two mixes replaced by a Patrick Cowley inspired sequencer that has setting the controls for the heart of the cosmos- and when that piano hits at two minutes twenty you'll be at the exact centre. You can find Voyager at Bandcamp. 

If you need a reminder of Just A Daydream Away's beautiful sun dappled, indie- dance splendour, here's the Space Flight Mix. The whole EP is here.