Back in 2011 Azealia Banks announced her arrival into the musical world with the song 212, one of the songs that defined the 2010s. Since then she's become as well known for her political views, mental health issues and feuds with others, and there's no doubt some of her views are pretty extreme and (depending on your own political views) indefensible. But there's no denying the power of 212, the sheer energy in the track and the flow of Banks' delivery, a blur of lines that describe her youth in Harlem, her sexuality, race and power.
Last week Leo Zero put out an edit of 212, Azealia's voice chopped up and re- arranged over the very recognisable bass and synths of Once In A Lifetime. It's massive, exhilarating and sure to rock a party. Get it here.
Last year the five of us that make up the online Andrew Weatherall fan group that is The Flightpath Estate made an album and sold 1000 vinyl copies of it. It featured nine entirely new tracks from Weatherall associated artists and a then unreleased on vinyl Two Lone Swordsmen ambient track called The Crescents. Our album, Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Vol. 1, came out with our friends at The Golden Lion in Todmorden on Golden Lion Sounds and raised over £6, 000 for Andrew's chosen charities. It made the Piccadilly Records and Uncut end of year round ups, we had three tracks played on Lauren Laverne's 6 Music show as Compilation Of The Week, had a Piccadilly Records window takeover- it was all very exciting. The music was all uniformly superb with tracks by Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s, Timothy J. Fairplay, The Light Brigade (David Holmes), Rude Audio, 10:40, Richard Sen, Sons Of Slough and Hardway Bros, all recorded specifically for the album, and Andy Bell recorded an acoustic/ electric guitar cover of Smokebelch.
We named the album Vol. 1, partly chancing our arm collective arms in the hope that we might get to do a follow up. That album, Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Vol.2, is done, dusted, polished, shone and on its way to the pressing plant. The line up of artists and the music stands head and shoulders alongside Vol. 1's. In no particular order, Vol. 2 features a previously unreleased Sabres Of Paradise track, and new and exclusive music from Richard Fearless (of Death In Vegas), A Certain Ratio remixed by Number, Red Snapper, Richard Norris, David Harrow, Bedford Falls Players, Dicky Continental, the mysterious Unit 14, and a Two Lone Swordsmen cover by Sleaford Mods. Exciting eh?!
Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Vol. 2 will be available for pre- order tomorrow morning at 10 am from the Golden Lion Sounds Bandcamp page and from the Golden Lion Sounds online shop (via The Big Cartel). I'm giving Bagging Area readers a heads up today- I know some of you bought Vol. 1 and would imagine/ hope some of you will want to be online tomorrow, Tuesday 1st July, fingers poised over the Add To Cart button. There are 1000 copies for pre- order tomorrow with a further 500 going to selected record shops in late August when the album will get its full physical release.
We've been sitting on this for a couple of months and we're itching to get it out to people so they can enjoy the music as much as we have been. Mark has done a twenty- five minute mix of all the tracks which I'll share asap and I'll put the links up to order too. There'll be a few other bits of Vol. 2 news coming around over the summer- in the meantime...
David Holmes used the pseudonym The Light Brigade on Vol.1 and has this year putout a 12" on Mystic Arts under the name name. Shuffle The Deck came out on 12" and digitally in May, two tracks- the first was made with Lone Swordsman Keith Tenniswood and samples Andrew at its end, a rabble rousing acid house monster called Shuffle The Deck. The flipside, Only Love Can Save Us, was made in collaboration with Michael Andrews who David worked with on his Blind On A Galloping Horse album and is shimmering, heavenly electronic goodness. Get both here.
There's some big news coming tomorrow which some of you will want to act on- if you were one of the people that bought a certain compilation album last year, you might want to be back here bright and breezy on Monday morning. Full details to come in twenty four hours time.
It's the end of June tomorrow also, halfway through the year- I've no idea how the last six months have gone so quickly- but it seems like a good point to do a 2025 So Far Sunday Mix, not a definitive Best Of 2025, rather some of the tracks and songs I've enjoyed the most so far this year.
10:40 presents Retro Fit: An Alternative History (Lavender Mist)
Escape- Ism: Last Of The Sell Outs
Klangkollektor: Isle Of Stonsey
Four Tet: Into Dust (Still Falling)
Chigola is a five minute ambient techno intro to the latest Death In Vegas album Death Mask, an album which does not hold its techno punches and which is a machine music tour de force. Richard Fearless poured a lot into the making of Death Mask, some personal losses reflected and worked through. It's an overloaded and emotional trip. Chingola is few minutes of scene setting, calm before the storm.
Andy Bell's latest solo album Pinball Wanderer came out in February led by a cover of The Passions' I'm In Love With A German Film Star with Dot Allison and Michael Rother on board. The album's title track is an instrumental delight, a circling guitar part beamed from late 60s folk into Andy's 2025 motorik/ cosmsiche/ electric shoegaze.
Adrian Sherwood's four track dubplate 10" came out recently, led by title track The Grand Designer and has been on steady rotation round here ever since (though I missed out on the vinyl). Cold War Skank is a moody dub/ guitar workout.
Demise Of Love is a three man modern electronic meeting of Daniel Avery, Syd Minsky- Sergeant (Working Men's Club) and James Greenwood (Ghost Culture). They have, like Adrian Sherwood, released a four track 10" EP that merges acid house, some intense techno sounds, industrial noise and the flickers of what New Order could have been had they kept heading away from the light.
An Alternative History was written as an imaginary Stone Roses song, based on a blogpost by some blogger or other that imagined a world where the band didn't blow it but kept their heads and kept making music, avoiding the pitfalls of The Second Coming. Jesse's new Roses song came in three versions. Lavender Mist is the backwards one.
Escape- Ism is Ian Svenonius' latest revolutionary outfit, a duo aiming to rewrite modern culture/ indie- rock with stripped down, scuzzy guitar/ drum machine/ keys/ vocals. The album- Charge Of The Love Brigade- is one of my favorites so far this year, a thirty five minute manifesto. Last Of Sell Outs is the best song on it, a meditation on commerce, art and musical integrity and the price of selling out.
Klangkollektor is Lars Fischer from Numremberg. The EP Dubplates Vol 2, out on Manchester's Jason Boardman's Before I Die label, is a chilled Balearic dub masterclass ending with Isle Of Stonsey with pedal steel/ Hawaiian guitar sailing out into the cosmos.
Four Tet's latest single samples Mazzy Star to achingly beautiful effect, a Four Tet track that hits all the spots, capable of moving me to tears.
Back in February as part of my Soundtrack Saturday series I wrote abut Joe Strummer and his songs for the soundtrack to the Alex Cox film Walker. Joe's soundtrack work in the 80s and 90s requires further posts- both Sid And Nancy and Permanent Record benefited from bespoke Strummer solo songs and Joe contributed to other soundtracks too, Grosse Pointe Blank in 1997 and Black Hawk Down in 2001.
But today's post isn't a Joe Strummer post, it's a Mick Jones post. Coincidentally, Mick celebrated his 70th birthday this week, two days on 26th June- belated happy birthday Mick!
After splitting from The Clash in 1983 Mick formed Big Audio Dynamite and Mick's love of film formed a big part of the B.A.D. sound and world- the Spaghetti Western samples in Medicine Show and the entire lyric to E = MC2 was a tribute to director Nic Roeg (see my post about Performance also from February this year). Don Letts and Mick Jones were film obsessives and film references pepper the B.A.D. back catalogue.
In 1990 the original Big Audio Dynamite line up of Mick, Don, Dan Donovan, Leo Williams and Greg Dread recorded their final song together, Free, for the soundtrack of a film called Flashback. I've seen Flashback, we rented it on VHS at some point on an evening with nothing to do in 1990. Flashback was directed by Frank Amurri and stars Dennis Hopper and Kiefer Sutherland. Hopper is a 60s anarchist/ hippie who has been on the run for twenty years, accused of disconnecting Republican Vice President Spiro Agnew's train carriage. Kiefer Sutherland plays an FBI agent who has apprehended Hopper and has to take him back across the USA for trial. It's an action/ adventure/ comedy. As the unlikely duo make their way back to Washington it becomes clear that Sutherland's FBI agent character was raised in a hippy commune and used to go under the name Free. Hopper is partly playing a reprisal of his character from Easy Rider but two decades down the line- I've only seen the film once and it seemed entertaining enough at the time and if anyone can play a 60s survivor with a screw loose in 1990 it's Dennis Hopper.
B.A.D.'s song Free was only available on the soundtrack to the film (until it appeared on a CD compilation called Planet B.A.D. in 1995). There are two versions...
The Club Mix is seven minutes long and filled with acid house enthusiasm, a sampled voice opening the track saying, 'it should be kickin' in about now. Synths, big 1990 Italo piano chords, stuttering voices, and then Mick's vocal. The Club Mix spirals on and on, more samples from the film, more synths and acid house and then Hopper's character Huey saying, 'once we get out of the 80s the 90s are gonna make the 60s look like the 50s'.
Free was a Jones/ Dan Donovan co- write. The LP Version is more song based, with extra verses and more flow.
Flashback's soundtrack contained a mix of 60s legends and late 80s/ dawn of the 90s artists- Edie Brickell and R.E.M. rub shoulders with Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix, Flesh For Lulu with Jefferson Airplane, Canned Heat and Steppenwolf. Dylan's version of People Get Ready, a Curtis Mayfield cover, hasn't appeared anywhere else. The film (but not the soundtrack) contained a two more Big Audio Dynamite songs- The Bottom Line and C'Mon Every Beatbox.
The Bottom Line is one of Mick Jones' best songs, one of B.A.D.'s best. It was remixed for the film, Mick's melody and invention remaining intact but in truth its not the equal of the 1985 version, the 12" mix being the definitive take of the song.
After the original B.A.D. line up split, Mick carried on recruiting a new band and renaming them B.A.D. II. They re- recorded Free as Kickin' In for their Kool Aid album which was later reworked and re- released as The Globe. I think Mick was making it up as he went along at this point. Dan left shortly after. B.A.D. II have some really good moments- The Globe's title track for one, Rush for another.
In 1993 Mick and B.A.D. found their way onto the soundtrack to a film called Amongst Friends, a low budget New Jersey mobster/ friendship film directed by Rob Weiss. But that's a story for another Saturday.
Three years ago A Mountain Of One released an album called Stars Planets Dust Me, a kaleidoscopic swirl of Balearic, cosmische, spaced out synthpop and dub all wrapped up in a sunbaked, psychedelic sheen. I went back into it recently and it still sounds good, the sort of album that you have to play from start to finish, an entire piece and a bit of a trip. There's a lot going on under the shiny surface.
This track, Dealer, is deceptively poppy, shooting off from the start like an 80s car advert or cop show incidental music but then hitting a deeper groove, the vocal sounding increasingly intense as the music- bass, synths, guitars, drums- powers on. 'All night/ All in the night', he sings, on and on and then at six and a half minutes it stops, pauses and then re-starts, the vocal flipped backwards, sucking in on itself all the way through to the end.
David Harrow put out a release a month last year to celebrate his 60th birthday and his work rate remains prodigious- in May he released an eight track EP under his James Hardway guise and has followed it this month with an EP under his own name, five tracks collected under the title Platonic Solid. David does all sorts of music- dub, acid, techno, ambient. Platonic Solid is modular synth ambient, five pieces that span the gamut of ambient music- the opening track Dodecahedron is a languid seven minutes of gentle burblings, rising and falling synth chords and tinkles of piano, a lovely way to spend a few minutes sitting and thinking about not very much at all.
Hexahedron is livelier, with drum patterns and melody lines skittering about. Tetrahedron cuts the tempo, sounding like some of the Fourth World sounds of Brian Eno and John Hassell. Octahedron is more jittery, the modular synths dancing and what sounds like a clarinet floating around. As it plays imagery from the 1982 film Koyaanisqatsi flashes through my mind and then Platonic Solid finishes with Icosahedron, the synths and drums pitter pattering, glassy notes dropping in and out, a dub sense of space and everything being pushed along, all sorts of sounds bouncing around. It's all very evocative, experimental but accessible, five tracks that soundtrack something I can't quite put my finger on- the film playing right in front of us every day maybe. You can get Platonic Solid here.
Jezebell's album Jezebellearic Beats Vol. 1 was one of 2023's highlights, an irreverent, illicit, dancefloor oriented twenty track adventure, Darren and Jesse freewheeling through their record collections and making new music from old, a collection of edits, remixes and their own productions that took in Alfredo, Talking Heads, Max Berlins, Julian Cope and D:Ream among others but was also very much its own thing- Jezebell. Apart from anything else, it was all huge fun.
Now they're back with Jezebellearic Beats Vol. 2, released on 11th July. There's a new track at Bandcamp, Geo Metric a taster of what's to come. Geo Metric is a low slung, sleazy delight, throbbing with nightlife and basement parties- when the drums kick in at one minute thirty it spins. Like of much of the rest of Jezebellearic Beats Vol. 2, Geo Metric is long, over seven minutes, the track given space and time to unwind, the rhythms twisting round and round, bumping and grinding.
Just as on Vol. 1, Vol. 2 has twenty tracks. Some of them have been released before- if you've followed Jezebell you'll already know their remix of Warriors Of The Dystotheque's Fitzroy Avenue, Joe Duggan's Northern Irish accent spun out over Jezebell's electronics. You'll have heard their beautifully cosmic remixes of Pandit Pam Pam and Andrys y Xavi, appearing on Vol 2. back to back and sounding like they were made for each other. There's new version of Dancing (Not Fighting), a riotous slice of electronic music sampling Mick Jones screaming at bouncers live on stage with The Clash from Rude Boy and my favourite track from the Trading Places EP is present too, Siouxsie showing up at 6PM with the jeepers creepers. Some of the tracks are their own work- Hung and Donkey from their double entendre Cream Tease EP, Autostrada from the sleek krauty beats of the Weekend Machines EP along with their 2023 single The Knack plus their remixes of Perry Granville and Pete Bones.
There are new tracks too. As well as Geo Metric there is Japaneasy, a track with found sounds from Japan sitting inside its bullet train groove, percussion rattling and synths jabbing, all forward momentum. Red Black And Green is a slower take on the Jezebell sound and lit up by a stuttering synth sound, a synth doing an impression of a guitar, whoops in the background, electro and acid house bunking up. Perfect Din is built around some vocal samples, the hiss of the hi hat and a gnarly acid squiggle, the voices layered and looped- eventually jazz/ funk drums burst in and we're into new territory, Jezebellearic Afrobeat.
Jezebell have taken their sound out to crowds since Vol. 1 came out- they've played at The Social in London, at Pikes in Ibiza and at The Golden Lion in Todmorden. Jesse and Darren are musical sponges, soaking it all up and using it make new music and their own sound. Vol. 2 is twenty tracks long and most of the tracks are pretty long. It's a big piece of work. It can be taken track by track but works really well as a whole- one of the things about listening to Vol. 2 in on sitting is how well it does all work together, how their remixes, edits and own music has built into one coherent body of sound- insistent rhythms, nagging synth sounds, plenty of percussion, a sampledelic delight.
Where Vol. 2 really excels though is at the beginning and the end, a pair of tracks that bookend the album and sound like future Jezebell classics. The first, the album's opener, is Movimento Lento, a slow motion way into the Jezebell world, a sleazy drum track that feels like it's come from Serge Gainsbourg's apartment, the faint lick of wah wah guitar, a sleepy vocal sample, 'this is the greatest gift you're giving to yourself', and then some Beastie Boys, the stoned backing vocal refrain from 1992's Something's Got To Give... and heading back to that song via it's video, stealth bombers taking off and B- 52's dropping bombs on Vietnam, it does seem like we're stuck in a never ending loop. Movimento Lento is, as the kids say, a vibe.
Nineteen tracks later and Jezebellearic Beats Vol. 2 finishes with Turn It Yes. Electronic drums blip in and a echo laden voice emerges, 'language has the power to alter our perceptions...' The synths ripple, the sequencers sync and, 'the word is yes'. Uptempo and unashamedly optimistic, the topline wriggles around, messing with the synapses, the drums kick on and then Yoko Ono appears, talking about her conceptual artwork from The Indica Gallery in 1966, a ceiling painting, a ladder, a magnifying glass and a single word... Yes. It was famously an exhibition attended by John Lennon. he climbed the ladder and found the word and the pair were introduced as a result of that. Turn It Yes is all of that and more, the synths building like chiming indie- dance guitars, the drums kicking on and on and the two voices coming together, everything gliding on for the final few minutes before coming to an end, and again, that word... Yes.
Pre- order Jezebellearic Beats Vol. 2 here. You'd be daft not to- it's going to be a big part of the soundtrack to summer 2025.
Justin Robertson has been doing a mini- tour to promote the publication of his second novel, The Trial Of Jonah. He was at Head in Stretford last Thursday doing a reading, a Q&A with Stephen Molynoodles and then a DJ set. The novel tells the story of Jonah Plantaganet, a time travelling demon and cultural vampire, but also of Justin Robertson, a childhood in a small town in the Home Counties, a move to Manchester in the mid- 80s and a life in music and art. In the novel Jonah meets Roman legionaries, saves the life of John Lennon and turns The Beatles onto electronica, hangs out with King John after the Baron's rebellion of 1215- 1217, and zig zags through 20th century counter- culture. In the semi- autobiographical version of Justin's life, Jonah is entranced by the woodland near his childhood home, guided by an older relative into buying dub records, and bedazzled by the Hacienda in the mid- 80s. He also kidnaps Mike Pickering but I'm not sure we ever really got to the bottom of that particular story. I've not read the book yet so I may be mixing up some of the novel and what Justin talked about- but that seemed to be part of the point of it all.
Justin read two sections from the book and during the Q&A talked about everything that went into the writing of it and into Jonah- not least the struggle between originality versus influences and the act of creation as an act of possession. Stephen asked all the right questions and Justin is a relaxed and articulate interviewee, open, reflective and funny. Justin talked about the creation of music and the alchemy that comes from people who don't really know what they're doing but want to make music getting into a studio with machinery and equipment that enable them to do that and then misusing it, the genesis of both punk and acid house. Eventually we get to the phrase, 'it could have been worse', a very British response to things. You can buy The Trial Of Jonah here.
It's a fun evening, free and local. Justin sets up to begin playing and it's a Temple Of Wonders style set (a monthly radio show he does with a wide ranging musical policy). It's a work night, 11 PM, a lovely June evening, and Justin is playing proggy, folky psyche in a bar in Stretford.
Back in the early 90s Justin formed Lionrock with Mark Stagg and MC Buzz B and via Mike Pickering they signed to DeConstruction, one of the early/ mid- 90s key UK dance labels, one that put out records by K- Klass, Black Box, Bassheads, M- People and Kylie Minogue. Lionrock's first single was a self titled progressive house thumper with Justin's signature trumpets, a track that was inescapable in Manchester in 1992/ 1993.
Over at Ban Ban Ton Ton last week Dr. Rob wrote a post about various Sabres Of Paradise remixes, Selected Sabre Cuts. One of his selected cuts was the Sabres remix of Primal Scream's Jailbird, part of a 12" single released in June 1994.
Jailbird was the second single from the album Give Out But Don't Give Up, an album released in March 1994 that was it's fair to say, a tad divisive. In 1991 Primal Scream with some production and remix assistance from Andrew Weatherall and Hugo Nicolson as well contributions from The Orb and Jah Wobble released Screamadelica, an album that saw Primal Scream go day- glo acid house, long haired converts to the new sound (although the album contained some more trad Scream rock music too in the shape of the Jimmy miller produced Moving On Up and the strung out ballad Damaged). They followed it with the Screamadelica 12", Moving On Up plus the album's title track, a huge piece of symphonic wide screen acid house and a beautifully downbeat cover of Dennis Wilson's Carry Me Home. When the band returned in 1994 they had gone full on Rolling Stones, first with Rocks and then Jailbird (which opens Give Out...). The album came with a Confederate flag on the cover (a William Eggleston photo) and got the band the tag 'Dance Traitors'. Having rewritten what an indie guitar band could do on Screamadelica they went into reverse and indulged their Rolling Stone fantasies. At this point some of the Scream were living like Keith Richards and if you live like Keef long enough, you'll start writing like Keef.
I didn't take to Give Out But Don't Give Up when it came out. I was in the Dance Traitors camp although I liked Rocks just because it was so brazen. In 1994 I wasn't too fussed about bands who wanted to be in 1973. If I wanted to listen to Sticky Fingers I'd put Sticky Fingers on. Some years later I found it to be a better album than I did at the time but in 1994 it was too retro, too backwards looking.
The remixes on the other hand were where the action might be- after all Mr Weatherall had played such a key role on Screamdelica that surely the Weatherall remixes of any of the Give Out... tracks would be what we wanted. The Jailbird 12" was highly anticipated in this household and when I got it home and put it on, there was again, a sense of 'this is not what I expected..' about the pair of Sabres Of Paradise remixes clad in a bright red sleeve shot of Throb live on stage, guitar and crotch plus amp and Confederate flag. The first of the two Sabres remixes was this one...
The songs drumbeat looped up and running for thirty seconds, then a squiggly distorted noise, presumably Throb or Innes' guitar amp. Huge single descending piano notes, slowed right down and then some organ doing the same. An oscillating synth line kicks in, similar to the theme tune from The Sweeney (presumably where the remix title came from). This is Jailbird gone slow mo, out of it, no longer higher than the sun but very much damaged. We were indeed a long way from home.
The second remix (and the one Rob chose for his post last week) was a big one, nearly thirteen minutes long and where Andrew, Jagz and Gary went fully in with the dub...
The Dub Chapter 3 remix took some getting my head around too. Now, thirty- one years later, it's an example of Andrew's genius, his way of taking a song and deconstructing it completely, taking one or two elements from the original and constructing something entirely new from it (something he'd done on Screamadelica with Loaded and Come Together).
Dub Chapter 3 is long, dubbed out and full of production tricks that the three Sabres had been honing during '93/ 94. Echo, FX, rattling drum machine loops, a three note synth part, acres of time and space, whole galaxies of time and space, and eventually, half way through something from the original song turns up, not one of Throb's guitars but a snatch of Bobby's vocal used as a sound rather than a voice. It's an epic Sabres Of Paradise remix, with King Tubby and Lee Perry was the inspiration, a million miles from Screamdelica and a million miles from Jailbird too.
Further remixes were on the 12", one from Kris Needs and one by The Dust Brothers (later Chemical Brothers) and (I'm Gonna) Cry Myself Blind single had remixes from Portishead and Kris Needs again, but none of them go anywhere near what Sabres did with Dub Chapter 3. Stick it on a playlist/ CD/ mixtape along with the Sabres Gaelic dub remix of Peace Together's Be Still and the Squire Black Dove Rides Out version of One Dove's Breakdown, both ten minutes long and both from '93, and Sabres own productions Edge 6, Return Of Carter, Ysaebud and RSD, and you've got Sabres In Dub, a Sabres Of Paradise album that never was.
Cabaret Voltaire, Sheffield's pioneering industrial noise/ post- punk/ electro outfit, have announced a tour this November with gigs in their home town, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow and London and are promising a gig that will take in fifty years of CV music. They formed in Sheffield in 1973, Richard H. Kirk, Stephen Mallinder and Chris Watson and were a genuinely trailblazing band, innovative and influential. Some of you may have noted that founder member Richard H. Kirk is no longer with us. He died in 2021. The decision to tour without him (and Mallinder and Kirk had not worked together for some time when Richard was alive) has caused some dissent among the fanbase, some people saying that without him it's not Cabaret Voltaire while others and the two surviving members want to pay tribute with one last run around the block and blast the music out of big amps into small(ish) spaces. I guess you pays your money and you takes your choice. The gigs are sold out anyway.
Cabaret Voltaire were uncompromising. Initially they wanted their music to be difficult and to piss people off. They were happy with confrontation. They also wanted to make music without musical instruments and at first used reel to reel tapes, sound collages, oscillators and home- made kit. Later they brought traditional instruments in- bass guitar, guitar, clarinet. Their early punk/ post- punk connections with Joy Division and Factory, Rough Trade, Throbbing Gristle, Clock DVA and via their Sheffield recording studio Western Works brought them press, gigs and a record deal. Chris Watson left in 1981 and Mallinder and Kirk carried on as a duo, navigating the 80s and becoming more accessible, more commercial, eventually finding common ground with 80s synth based artists and the electronic/ acid house scene. You can find a potted history of the various twists and turns here. I thought a Cabaret Voltaire Sunday mix was well overdue and there's a lot of music to go at so this doesn't do much more than scratch the surface...
Yashar is from 1982, originally appearing on a CV double disc 12" pack. A year later John Robie's remix came out on Factory, one of Factory's key mid- 80s singles (Fac 82 on Factory, FBN 25 on Factory Benelux). The sample that opens it- 'there 70 billion people of Earth- where are they hiding?'- is from the American TV programme The Outer Limits, a 60s sci fi/ horror/ mystery show. Yashar then judders and skips through the next seven minutes, 80s industrial electro, horns, synths, the chanted title- amazing stuff.
Don't Argue was a 1987 single, produced by the group and Adrian Sherwood. The vocal sample is from a 1945 American propaganda film directed by Frank Capra at the dawn of the Cold War, a film called Your Job In Germany aimed at US soldiers stationed in post- war Germany. Don't Argue is as accessible as CV got in some ways, a fusion of industrial and synth- pop.
Don't Argue then appeared on Code, their album from the same year along with Thank You America. The Thank You America (Kevorkian Bonus Beats) were remixed by New York legend Francis Kevorkian, stuttering beats, handclaps, echo. Cold War dread and paranoia, fears about the USA and nuclear weapons- it's almost like we've gone nowhere since 1987...
Just Fascination was a 1983 single, the B-side to Crackdown. Some Cabs menace and unease but not coupled with funk/ dance rhythms, with sequencers and keys. The album The Crackdown came out on Some Bizarre, the duo making their way through the UK's independent record labels one by one. The vocals are getting clearer and clearer, more willing to be heard.
Sensoria came out in 1984, a single from the Micro- Phonies album. Sensoria is thumpy, crushing mid- 80s synth, pounding dancefloor energy, men and machines in sync. The poster for the single is one of the posters on Ferris Bueller's bedroom wall in the film about his day off.
Sex In Secret is from the very first Factory Records release in 1978- the first music release that is. Fac 1 was a Peter Saville poster. Fac 2 was a double pack of 7" singles, with music from Joy Division, The Durutti Column, John Dowie and the Cabs. It was re- released on 1990's Listen Up with Cabaret Voltaire, a cassette compilation out on Mute that pulled together tracks from various one off releases- NME cassettes, videos, flexi- discs and a couple of unreleased tracks.
Colours was from 1991, a seven track mini- album. By the early 90s Mallinder and Kirk were separated by distance, Kirk in Sheffield and Mallinder in London, and both threw themselves into acid house and solo/ collaborations. Kirk made the first Bleep Techno record as Sweet Exorcist along with DJ Richard Parrot, the mighty Testone 12", a definitive 1990 record. Colours is acid house, bleepy and light on its feet, a day glo version of the Cabaret Voltaire sound.
Today is the 21st of June, the summer solstice. The sun will rise in the UK at 3.42 am and won't set until 21.42 pm (later the further north you are). Marking the solstices is a nice tradition, a link to a much earlier time. Five years ago Rich Lane released a track for June 2020's summer solstice- we were all deep into lockdown in June 2020, the world was a very different place in all sorts of ways. Five years on that period is half- forgotten by many people and some don't want to be reminded of it. Rich's Solstice comes in four versions, 12", 7", ambient and instrumental. All/ any of them are highly recommended- the Ambient Mix comes with a dawn chorus, ethereal chanting, long synth chords, a shimmering drone and then Rich's sweetly sung vocals.
In February 2021 Belgian duo A Winged Victory For The Sullen released an album called Invisible Cities, a gorgeous and affecting thirteen track dark ambient/ neo- classical record which contained this short but emotive piece of music...
Most Saturdays this year I've been posting about film soundtracks. The solstice film that came to mind was the 1973 folk horror classic The Wicker Man although the climax (spoiler alert) in which Edward Woodward is burned alive inside a giant wicker man as the locals on the remote Scottish island of Summerisle dance around singing an old Middle English song Somer Is Icumen In is actually on May Day not Midsummer's Day but the pagan, folk high summer feel of the Wicker Man and its legendary soundtrack get it the nod today. The songs for the film were written and recorded by Paul Giovanni and Magnet and many of them were sung by the film's cast. Willow's Song is the best known, mesmerising, haunting, a siren's call and a lullaby (not to mention some erotica/ filth in the last verse, lines about a maid milking a bull, 'every stroke a bucketful'). Willow's Song is apparently not sung by actress Britt Ekland but by Rachel Verney.
Willow's Song has been covered by loads of artists- in the 90s Sneaker Pimps did a version and Doves recorded it as a B-side. Sean Johnston's Summerisle Trio recorded a version for a Golden Lion Sounds 7" single in 2021. Last year Katy J. Pearson recorded it and there was this very tasty Richard Norris remix, a dub folk crossover that hits all the solstice spots.
The Wicker Man's soundtrack was heavily built around versions of existing folk songs. The opening song (sung by actress Leslie Mackie) and the song Corn Rigs are arrangements of Robert Burns ballads, nursery rhymes crop up and old English, Scottish and Irish folk songs provide tunes and melodies for many of the instrumental parts of the soundtrack. For some early 70s innuendo and Summerisle discomfort here's the Summerisle pub faithful singing The Landlord's Daughter... Happy solstice.
My recent trip back to Ultramarine's 90s albums and the recent re- issue of some unreleased recordings from 1996 led me to Weird Gear, the second track on 1991's Every Man And Woman Is A Star, a song with vocals by Brendan Staunton and a very well deployed string sample from 1983...
The bouncy folk/ techno groove and Brendan's soulful vocal are a dream. The lyrics are from a Kevin Ayres song, There Is Loving Among Us from 1972 and Kevin's Whatevershebringswesing album.
The swirling strings sample is of course from The Cutter, the second single from Echo And The Bunnymen's third album Porcupine- the Bunnymen and producer Kingbird (Ian Broudie) pulled out all the stops with The Cutter, Eastern strings, scouse psychedelia growing from their post- punk dread and some of Ian's best lyrics, lines about the seventh floor, hurdles approaching, drops in the ocean, Sellotape and knives and being the happy loss. What's it all about? I don't know. It's exhilarating and anthemic stuff though.
This earlier demo version saw the light of day on the Never Stop 12", also from 1983, a wonderfully rattly version with trebly guitars courtesy of Will Sergeant but lacking those distinctive strings.
The release of new music by Four Tet is often the cause of much rejoicing at Bagging Area and the new track this week hits all the spots. Into Dust (Still Falling) is classic Four Tet- summer sounding, skippy drums, folky instrumentation, understated but emotive synths and keys, fresh and now but with a foot planted somewhere in the past- a past where rave and folk met...
Into Dust (Still Falling) samples the voice of Hope Sandoval (there's the foot in the past) from a Mazzy Star song, a voice that is always a welcome sound. Recently my friend Spencer sent me a link to a Hope Sandoval and The Warm Inventions track from 2017, a nine minute drone called Into The Trees, Hope playing a 1960s organ, holding long keyboard chords down and singing softly over the top. Colm O'Ciosoig, the other member of the group, plays tumbling drums in the background. It's magical stuff.
Hope and Colm formed The Warm Inventions as a side project from their two main bands, Mazzy Star and My Bloody Valentine. I hadn't heard the album Into The Trees is from, Until The Hunter, eleven songs recorded partly in a pair of Martello Towers in Dublin, spaces filled with round walls, no edges and a natural reverb.
In 2001 Hope and Colm released the first Warm Inventions album- Bavarian Fruit Bread, an album I do own. It's a quiet, hushed, folky, small hours album with some lovely songs. Like this one...
Alex Kassian is in a rich vein of musical form- the Berlin based producer and DJ struck gold in 2021 with a 12" titled Leave Your Life which contained the title track in two versions and on the flipside the magnificent Spirit Of Eden (which came with a beautiful Bill Laswell Dub). Following that Test Pressing released the Voices 12" and last year Alex's cover of Manuel Gottsching's E2- E4 which came with a pair of Mad Professor remixes.
Last month Alex released Orange Coloured Liquid, a reworking of Spooky's 1993 track. Alex has outdone himself again- Orange Coloured Liquid (Part I) and Part II are 2025's most Balearic moment, a sumptuous, mellow, lost in a trance version. Part I is powered by a breakbeat that keeps it grounded while the synths, keys, piano and pads do their utmost to soar. Part II is weightless and ambient, with strings and a harp.
The 12" and digital package come with a Placid Angles remix by John Beltran which shifts it again, the breakbeat back with a twinkling melody and the faintest echo of voices- it ends with a floaty synth string breakdown and fadeout that could happily play out for much, much longer. The EP finishes with the Spooky original from the duo's 1993 album Gargantuan. You can get the digital at Bandcamp.
Notts Balearic duo Coyote and Wisconsin psychedelicists couple Peaking Lights have teamed up for a three track 12" that has rapidly become one of my favourite releases of the summer. All three tracks are loaded with dub influences and blissed out psychedelia. Love Letters is a seven minutes long, Indra Dunis' vocals floating along on top of a shimmering haze...
On So Far Away the four go slower, deeper and even dreamier, the bass prodding gently, a wash of dub FX and some very sleepy vocals. Really lovely. The Coyote Dub Mix does exactly what it says, all delay, bass and warmth, a long weekend in LA with King Tubby looking out over the Pacific Ocean and wondering how far the sea goes...
In 2012 Peaking Lights released Lucifer In Dub, dubbed out version of their album Lucifer. It's long been a Bagging Area favourite, ambience and psychedelia down out with acres of space and endless repetition, the pop- psyche element underpinned by some serious dub styles. The highpoint is probably Beautiful Dub but I've posted that before so try this one today, the hypnotic and soothing door bell dubbings of Lo Dub High Dub.
In among the obituaries and remembrances for Sly Stone and Brian Wilson last week the news of the death of Douglas McCarthy slipped out. Douglas was vocalist in Nitzer Ebb and died at the very young age of 58. He was less well known than either Brian or Sly but Nitzer Ebb had a big impact in the 80s within a fairly niche world. Nitzer Ebb formed in Essex in 1982 and singed to Mute in 1986, making uncompromising and physical industrial/ EBM/ proto- house that demanded your attention. Their track Join In The Chant found its way to Ibiza and onto the legendary Balearic Beats Vol. 1 album alongside Thrashing Doves, Electro's Jibaro, The Woodentops, The Residents, Code 61 and Mandy Smith (among others).
Andrew Weatherall once said that the closest he came to finding God was dancing to Join In The Chant.
Let Your Body Learn, like Join In The Chant, came out in 1987, a single recorded at PWL with Phil Harding and then remixed at Hansa. There can't be many records that link the two worlds of PWL and Hansa.
LCD Soundsystem began an eight night residency at Brixton Academy last week, the New York art- dance, post- punkers continuing their habit of rolling into a city and taking it over for a week. If I hadn't been down to London for Sabres Of Paradise I might have thought about going, although I'd prefer it if James Murphy decided the next UK destination for a residency is a bit closer to home- Manchester would do fine.
In 2010 LCD Soundsystem released their third album This Is Happening, an album that at the time I remember feeling a little ambivalent about. It seemed quite stuck to the LCD template that Murphy and co. had established on Sound Of Silver three years earlier but it's grown on my over the years and songs like Drunk Girls, I Can Change and Pow Pow all worked their magic eventually. This Is Happening starts with this song...
Many of LCD's songs are builders. Dance Yrself Clean is very much a builder and at nearly nine minutes long there's a lot of time to build. The first three minutes are very slow and low, a sparse drum machine pattern, James' voice compressed and alone, some backing vocals joining in and the thud of a piano. The lyrics dissecting friendship gone wrong or maybe some soul searching. The song explodes in the third minute, synths and FX, and continues ever onward, James now on the floor and dancing himself clean.
Support at the second half of the residency comes from Working Men's Club, the Calder Valley's own electronic dance/ rock/ acid house/ post punkers, a group led by Syd Minsky- Sargeant. On Friday night Working Men's Club warmed up for those gigs with one at The Golden Lion, a much more intimate venue than Brixton Academy.
The pub is packed, the downstairs stage is low and where I'm standing over by the DJ booth it's difficult to see much, Syd's head and microphone, the occasional glimpse of the other members of the band. A stuttering synth loop kicks in and builds over several minutes, other loops kicking in, eventually all coming into sync and then we're off, a full on WMC sound- synths, bass, 303s and 808s and on top Syd's vocals, repeated loops of lines. There aren't any gaps between songs, one song seguing into the next, an hour long megamix. Working Men's Club sound like New Oder if they'd kept pushing and got tougher after Technique or maybe Joy Division in an alternative 1983, one where Ian didn't die but they'd gone fully synth and electronics anyway. WMC's second album, Fear Fear, came out in 2022 and was informed by lockdown and existential dread, Syd's fear writ large. 'When we talk of the times/ We talk in the past tense', rattles round the pub over some very heavy post- punk/ New Beat. There's a healthy dose of late 80s rave and its defiance, its anti- authoritarian stance- the refrain from the song John Cooper Clarke, 'We dance and we smile/ We laugh and we cry/ We play and we fight/ We live and we die', sounding anthemic.
Both Working Men's Club albums were mixed into single, twenty minute megamixes by Syd, versions of the albums and the live set. Megamix and Megamix II give you an idea of what the live set sounds like.
Live the songs are even more physical than they sound on disc, Syd a bobbing and frenetic presence at the front of the stage, conducting and waving his hand around as his stream of consciousness is thrown around the pub, the soundman applying layers of FX to the vocals. We get an hour and then they're off. On the basis of tonight, anyone with tickets for LCD Soundsystem should get there in good time.
Be My Guest was on WMC's self titled debut album, released in 2021, crunching drums and laser focused noisy guitars, Syd bursting out of a small town in West Yorkshire.
Syd is also a member of Demise Of Love, a trio made of him, Daniel Avery and Ghost Culture's James Greenwood. A four track 10" EP came out recently led by Strange Little Consequence which I posted in February. This song is also on the EP, Like I Loved You, a slow burning summer epic, some New Order gone interstellar synths, distorted vocals and a loud/ quiet dynamic that keeps the song shape- shifting.
Eliza is twenty two today. The picture above was a school photo taken in about 2008 at a guess, so quite some time ago. Eliza came home from university a year ago and got herself a job straight away, working at the day care centre that Isaac used to go to, working with adults with a variety of special needs and disabilities. It's not a job everyone can do. In March she handed her notice and booked herself flights to and from Bali, travelling solo, spending nearly four weeks backpacking. Since she came home she's been looking for work, applying for various jobs with all the hassle and frustrations that job hunting involves. She's stuck at it, been penniless for the last few weeks, and has recently found a job at an SEND school. Her resourcefulness is a good quality and she gets stuff done. Happy birthday Eliza. Enjoy it.
Twenty two is a funny age. Eliza joked (half- joked maybe) that she was having a quarter life crisis. I remember being twenty two and being a little adrift, university behind me and now being, as far as the world was concerned, an adult- but not really sure what I wanted to do or what the future might hold, feeling too young to start a professional career job, not having much money, living in a series of short term rented flats/ house shares. It's a tricky age I think.
In 1969 Iggy acknowledged twenty two's difficult status on the opening song of The Stooges's debut album, a song that sets out perfectly the band's modus operandi. Noise, distorted wah wah, sludgy riffs, primitive thumping drums and this- 'Last year I was twenty one/ Didn't have a lot of fun/ Now I'm gonna be twenty two/ Oh my and boo hoo'.
It's 1969. America is burning. Iggy's bored and sarcastic.
Ten years later Neil Young and Crazy Horse recorded one of their epics, Neil slipping back into the past to deliver a song about war, family, death and youth. I always assumed it was set in the time of the American Revolution, the 'red means run son' a reference to the British army and their red coats. The narrator's family have all fallen by the way, Daddy's gone, Neil's brother's out hunting in the mountains, Big John's been drinking since the river took Emmy Lou. There's just Neil, his Daddy's rifle in his arms and just turned twenty two, wondering what to do...
There are several other twenty two songs- Taylor Swift's 22, Lily Allen's 22 (same title, different tone), The Flaming Lips' When Yer Twenty Two and Bright Eyes' Land Locked Blues that contains the line, 'The world's got me dizzy again/ You'd think after twenty two years I'd be used to the spin'. Not really mate- twenty two is still ridiculously young. We'll finish with Billy Bragg and his 1985 calling card- 'I was twenty one years when I wrote this song/ I'm twenty two now but I won't be for long'.
The opening line is a borrow/ steal from Simon and Garfunkel's Leaves That Are Green, a 1966 song about lost love. Billy places A New England in the early 80s, Thatcher's Britain with youth unemployment, the bomb, the miner's strike and the Falklands War as his backdrop. Among all of that he doesn't even want to find a new England, he's just looking for another girl.
'I saw two shooting stars last night/ I wished on them/ But they were only satellites/ it's wrong to wish on space hardware/ I wish I wish I wish you cared'.
I'm not sure there are many better lines in popular music than that.
Brian Wilson’s death at the age of 82 came just days after Sly Stone’s at exactly the same age, another of the giants of the 60s departing from the stage. And there’s no doubt Brian Wilson was among the giants of that decade, the pop culture decade that played such a huge part in creating the world that we live in. Brian Wilson’s genius on those recordings the Beach Boys made in the 1960s is pretty much beyond compare. By the age of 21 he was producing mini- symphonies, elevating pop music (itself only a decade old) into an artform. His musical genius is evident in his songwriting, his skills at arrangement (his brothers' and bandmates' harmonies, the cream of LA's session musicians and entire orchestras), and his production (Good Vibrations, splicing together different recordings, the weirdly smooth but out of kilter psychedelic pop of songs like Surf’s Up and ‘Til I Die, the phased, magical sound of Feel Flows written by his brother Carl, the spooked eeriness of In My Room). Good Vibrations is a hymn to teenage emotions, love and lust as religion and mystery, something unknowable, the ultimate 60s pop song with theremin and harmonies, the most expensive single ever recorded at the time- and worth every cent.
He had another side to his genius too. Brian Wilson grew up in Inglewood and Hawthorne, those south Los Angeles suburbs that grew as the city sprawled in the 20th century, post- war America's economic boom fueling mass expansion of the cities, rows and rows of identical houses with driveways and gardens and picture windows. His father was a brute, physically and emotionally abusing Brian and his brothers Carl and Dennis. Despite those domestic difficulties Brian grew up in post war California, the place at the centre of the most advanced consumer society in history, a utopia where every (white) family owned their own perfect home, where everyone had a well-paid job for life, where everyone owned a TV and a car, where the shops were always full and the ocean was always blue, where the 20th century dream was a reality. Brian knew, and you can hear it in some of his earliest songs, that there was something wrong with this, that there was a hole in the American Dream, that utopia had an emptiness. The beach, the tan, the perfect smile, the ice cold Coke bottle with a straw, the surf, the girls, the little Deuce Coupe, the endless sunset and forever summer- it wasn’t the answer.
In 1963, following a run of singles most of which celebrated surfing, The Beach Boys released Be True To Your School. What could be more wholesome than that?
Flip the disc over and there’s Brian’s first real moment of fragility, the melancholy that emanates from much of his work, and maybe a sign of the mental health problems that affected him all his adult life. In My Room is an aching plea for solitude, a song about wanting to be away from the world and although the lyrics suggest his room is a place of safety, the minor key eerie beauty of the song suggests something else.
You’re So Good To Me, California Girls, Don’t Worry Baby, Wouldn’t It Be Nice, God Only Knows, Caroline No, I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times, I Know there’s An Answer/ Hang Onto Your Ego… all these songs have that at their core, a sadness, a searching quality, an answer to a question that you don't want to ask and can't be found.
This melancholy and emptiness inside Brian Wilson- no amount of 20th century consumerism can fill it and as Brian discovered LSD couldn’t fill it either. Nor could religion. Pet Sounds is a sumptuous, perfect pop album and also the sound of a man welling up, his eyes filled with tears but he’s not sure why.
In 1968 Brian invented pop culture’s first real moment of nostalgia, nostalgia for the early 60s, the desire to get back to a pre- Kennedy assassination, pre- Vietnam world where everything was simpler. ‘It’s automatic when I talk to old friends/ The conversation turns to girls/ We knew and their hair was long and soft/ And the beach was the place to be… let’s get back together and do it again’.
And then in 1971 called time on the whole thing...
In the 70s he struggled with mental and physical health problems. The other Beach Boys filled his absence with their own songwriting but he could still create absolute magic, his own version of psychedelia that mixed doo wop and barber shop quartets with 60s pop and tape effects. The albums Sunflower, Surf’s Up and Holland are peppered with Brian’s genius, with otherworldly songs that have a huge emotional power not least Surf’s Up, Sail On, Sailor and ‘Til I Die. There were various comebacks, upheavals, arguments, battles and re- unions, ill health and moments of resurrection. I never saw him play live but know people who did and who talk about it in terms of religious experience. A diagnosis of dementia in early 2024 meant that Brian's death was not unexpected but even so, what a loss.
