Forty Five Minutes Of Sunday Songs

It seemed too obvious for a while but then a few things came together and a Sunday mix of Sunday songs was staring me in the face. I managed to give it a kind of narrative too with a beginning and an end. Not to mention plenty of good music in the middle- Sunday likes its ambient and its electronics. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Sunday Songs

• Kris Kristofferson: Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down
• Kevin McCormick: Sunday Farmway
• Sabres Of Paradise: Blackfriars Sunday (Peel Session)
• 10:40: Sunday's Cool
• Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve: Sunday Morning Sun- g
• Sonic Youth: Sunday
• Perry Granville: Cleveland Sunday
• Justin Cudmore: Sunday Lemonade
• Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds: Frogs

Kris Kristofferson is the starting point for this mix. He died in September at the age of 88. Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down was written in 1969 and was been recorded and released by Johnny Cash and Ray Stevens. Kris' version is the best though. He wrote it and he lived it and felt it. 'Well I woke up Sunday mornin' with no way to hold my head that didn't hurt/ And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad, so I had one more for dessert'. Then he finds his cleanest dirty shirt and heads out. There are cigarettes, cans being kicked, frying chicken and 'the disappearing dreams of yesterday'. 

Kevin McCormick is from Manchester and in the early 80s made some wonderful but very lost and overlooked ambient guitar music. Thankfully, Kevin's albums have been rediscovered, dusted down and re- released recently and they are very much worth diving into. Sunday Farmway it from Sticklebacks and you can get it here. I reviewed the latest one, Passing Clouds, at Ban Ban Ton Ton last month- you can read that here. 

In March 1995 Sabres Of Paradise recorded a Peel Session that has never been officially released, three tracks also never appearing anywhere else- Duke On Berwick, Stanshall's Lament and the one here, Blackfriars Sunday, the sound of the Sabres Sunday service. Next year the reformed Sabres Of Paradise live band will perform at Primavera and then hopefully in the UK and elsewhere. 

Sunday's Cool was on of the tracks on 10:40's Transition Theory, one of my favourite albums of 2023. The album was intended as a whole piece, each track segueing into the next and containing the seeds of the next one. Removing Sunday's Cool from its moorings didn't feel completely right but it fits nicely into its new surroundings here too. 

Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve marry 60s psychedelia with acid house, Richard Norris and Erol Alkan experts at both. Sunday Morning Sun- g is from a fairly rare 12" from 2007.

'Sunday comes alone again/ A perfect day for a quiet friend', sang Thurston Moore and Sonic Youth in 1998. Sunday was the only single from A Thousand Leaves. Full on Sunday guitar vibes.

Perry Granville's Cleveland Sunday is from a 2022 EP, a take- no- prisoners acid thumper. Get it and a pair of remixes here. Sundays spent dancing and warding off the horrors of Monday morning. 

Justin Cudmore's Sunday Lemonade came out on New York label Throne Of Blood, as part of a series of releases in 2022 to celebrate their sixteenth birthday. Sunday Lemonade is all bleeps, filters and FX with a kick drum thundering away underneath. Messy Sunday mornings. 

Frogs came out this year, the second song ahead of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds' Wild God album. It has followed me round all year, soundtracking my daily life, one of this year's best songs and one of Nick's best too. In Frogs a couple (him and Susie I assume) are walking home in the Sunday rain, having heard the story of Cain and Abel. Nick becomes aware of the Sunday rain and the natural world around him, the sheer aliveness of everything, frogs in the gutter and Nick 'amazed of love and amazed of pain/ Amazed to be back in the water again'. Kris Kristofferson walks by kicking a can, in a shirt he hasn't washed for years, and there we are, back at the beginning. Happy Sunday.