Forty Five Years Ago

Forty five years ago yesterday, 12th December 1980, The Clash released Sandinista! London Calling is the best Clash album, the received wisdom goes (and I can't really disagree), the punk purists might go for the self- titled debut and in terms of sales and going global Combat Rock brought the band to a mass audience and hit singles (eventually even a number 1, thanks to 1991's Levi's advert) but Sandinista! is for me the band's greatest achievement, a huge piece of work that shows how far and how fast they were moving, demonstrates their ambition and refusal to be boxed in by punk orthodoxy, their willfulness and sense of adventure and experimentation. Thirty six songs spread over six sides of vinyl recorded in London, Manchester, Jamaica and New York, it is, as Joe Strummer said in Westway To The World, 'a magnificent achievement, warts and all... I wouldn't change a thing about it'. The greatest triple album of them all. 

Releasing a triple album in mid- December might not have been the wisest move- print journalists with weekly deadlines struggled to get their heads around it or even listen to all of it. It got some poor reviews and adverse reactions but the band reveled in it. Joe liked to believe they were getting one over on CBS, a triple album for the price of a single one (although the band had to forego royalties on it until it hit 200, 000 sales in the UK and took a 50% cut everywhere else). Mick said it was an album for people who couldn't get to the record shops very often, people working on 'oil rigs or Arctic stations'. It is an album which gave up its rewards gradually, revealing something different on each and every listen. Some songs could be completely overlooked, unheard almost, until one day, they suddenly connected. 

It is Clash democracy at its height. Every member of the band has a lead vocal. All four members have song writing credits. It is self- produced, with London Calling's Bill Price mixing and Jerry Green engineering. Mikey Dread, who worked with them at Pluto in Manchester recording Bankrobber (arguably the genesis of Sandinista!) is on hand for the dub tracks (and they make up a good chunk of the album with much of side six and various other dub and reggae influenced songs). Mick's girlfriend Ellen Foley sings, Joe's old mate Tymon Dogg plays and sings, two Blockheads play (Norman Watt- Roy deputising for an absent Paul Simonon on some songs and Mickey Gallagher from the live gigs and London Calling plays keys), Voidoid Ivan Julien plays guitar and cartoonist Steve Bell contributed to the enclosed newspaper/ lyrics sheet The Armagideon Times. Even Mickey Gallagher's kids sing on two songs. It's a monster, bigger even than it sounds when described in writing. It's a mixtape, a compilation album by one band, an audio diary, a radio show, two and a half hours of music that skips from one genre to another with ease... 'it's triply outrageous', said Joe. 

It covers every style of music the band could throw at it and some more besides. Side one bounces into earshot as soon as the needle hits the groove, the rap- rock of The Magnificent Seven showing where they were at. Mick was inspired by the hip hop sounds he heard while in New York, by pirate radio and block parties. He began wearing baseball caps and Cazal 607 glasses. Joe's words are surreal and superb, a riot of phrases torn from newspapers with a cast including Martin Luther King, Karl Marx, Freidrich Engels, Mahatma Gandhi, Richard Nixon, Rin Tin Tin and Plato. The grind of work, Italian mobsters, TVs in cars, cheeseburgers, vacuum cleaners sucking up budgies, police brutality... it all flies by in a blur, a Joe Strummer live commentary while channel surfing. It's followed by Mick's tribute to UK indie labels Hitsville UK, a Motown backbeat and Ellen Foley on lead vox and then Joe's cover of Junco Partner, revived from 101'ers days with Style Scott on drums (future Dub Syndicate/ On U Sound). Topper sings the lead on Ivan Meets GI Joe, the Clash imaging a Cold War face off at Studio 54 (and if I'm honest the one song I could probably lose from Sandinista! without really missing it). The Leader, a two minute rockabilly rumble about the tabloid press and the Profumo affair comes next, the band crooning the chorus, 'Cos you gotta give the people something good to read/ On a Sunday. 

Something About England closes side one, a truly great achievement of a song, the history of the 20th century as seen through the eyes of a homeless man (Joe), trading lines and verses with Mick (as a man leaving the pub and tripping over 'a dirty overcoat'. The opening lines run as true in 2025 as they did in 1980, more so in fact- 'They say the immigrants steal the hubcaps of respected gentlemen/ They say it would be wine and roses/ If England were for Englishmen again'. I'm willing to bet that there's a significant number of middle aged men in this country who support Farage, Robinson, the flag and roundabout bullshit and rising tide of racism in this country while also claiming to be Clash fans. I wonder if they've heard Something About England. 

Something About England

Rap, disco, rockabilly, Gumbo blues, music hall, Motown... side 1 throws itself around like a radio station on shuffle mode. Side two picks up the baton and sprints. Rebel Waltz, a beautiful Joe Strummer lament for young men enlisted to wars and destined to never come home, drifts by, between sleep and wakefulness, waltz crossed with folk dub. Rebel Waltz is the spirit of Sandinista! bottled. Look Here, a cover of Mose Alison jazz passes by and then Paul's bass rumbles in with The Crooked Beat, a dub tribute to South London blues parties, Paul doing his best gap- toothed vocal. As The Crooked Beat dissolves in Mikey Dread dub FX, Mick's guitars squeal in, tyres screeching and engines racing, the sleek modern rock of Somebody Got Murdered, inspired by a sight Joe saw in New York, the straightest rock song on the whole album and a band at the height of their powers. Side 2 ends with the double punch of One More Time/ One More Dub, Clash dub reggae at its finest, Mikey Dread at the controls and Joe invoking the civil rights movement, 'One more time in the ghetto/ One more time to be free'.

Rebel Waltz

Put disc one back in its sleeve, make a brew and come back for disc two. The needle settles onto side three and we're back into New York rap/ funk Clash, Lightning Strikes (Not Once But Twice). Then there's another minor Clash gem, Mick's Up In Heaven (Not Only Here), a spiky punk rock song with a lovely lead guitar line and lyrics about 'the towers of London', crumbling tower blocks, social housing, unloved walkways, piss filled lifts, cages for families to live in. Three verses, no chorus, Mick sounding as good as he ever did. Corner Soul is more heartfelt Clash, off kilter reggae rock, Ellen Foley's voice underlining Strummer's. Let's Go Crazy is the result of the band thinking they could record in any style they wanted- in this case, gospel, bringing Caribbean church music and Notting Hill carnival into The Clash's world. If Music Could Talk is more dub but with Gary Barnacle's saxophone, two vocals, one in each channel, and the drums from Bankrobber. Side three ends with The Sound Of The Sinners, more gospel, Joe as the preacher singing call and response with the choir. Side 3 is Sandinista! to the max, The Clash throwing everything at the wall and seeing what would stick. It turns out, forty five years later, almost all of it sticks. 

Lightning Strikes (Not Once But Twice)

Side four is heavy duty Clash, all six songs complementing each other, a run of great and largely under acknowledged tunes. It kicks off with a cover of The Equals' Police On My Back, Mick singing breathlessly, and then we get the Midnight Log shuffle, rocking drums from the 1950s, harmonica, two minutes of pre- 60s murkiness. The Equaliser has Tymon Dogg's fiddle on top of serious dub grooves, Jamaican influences to the fore- one of those tunes that Sandinista! suddenly throws up as a lost gem. Three beauties follow- The Call Up, Washington Bullets and Broadway- sequenced together at the end of disc two, lost in the middle of Sandinista! Songs about conscription, the Cold War, Victor Jara's murder in Chile at the hands of US sponsored death squads, the FSLN (the socialists who overthrew the dictator Somoza in Nicaragua and then faced an uprising by armed guerrillas, the Contras, backed by Reagan's CIA, with Joe finding the album's title at the end of the song as he sings out, 'woah oh Sandinista!'. On Broadway Joe is lost and alone in a bar in New York at six in the morning. He sounds exhausted, as the band play a late night tune, somewhere between blues and jazz, a bit Tom Waitsian. You can hear Manhattan- the lights, the taxis, misted up windows and rain bouncing off pavements, pianos and jerky rhythms- and then it all clicks and snaps into focus, Joe eventually hitting the groove, 'I can't see the light... I can't see the light... give me a push give me a pull...' The song gives way to a burst of Mickey Gallagher's kids singing Guns Of Brixton before one of them says, snippily, 'that's enough singing now'. 

Broadway

Loads of bands would have left it there. Four sides of vinyl and Broadway works as a final song as well as any, a full stop, an ending. The Clash though had decided they were making a triple album. They obsessed over the number three- three discs, six sides, thirty six songs. Disc three steps up to the turntable and side five offers plenty more to discover, more lost gems, deep cuts and secret best songs. Lose This Skin is possibly the least Clash sounding song they ever recorded, Tymon Dogg's violinin the lead and Tymon on vocals. Someone once said it's the most skipped Clash song. Hmmm. Maybe. Charlie Don't Surf is next, inspired by Apocalypse Now! with a dubbed out, backwards intro, helicopter blades and gliding funk rock. Then there's Mensforth Hill, Sandinista's most out there song, Something About England played backwards with FX dropped in. No stone unturned in their quest for breaking new ground. No idea to daft to try. Junkie Slip is urgent and tense. Kingston Advice is more Clash dub reggae, a lost gem and one of their best dub tracks. The bass bumps, Topper's drumming swings, Joe sounds at his best. There's even better to come, tucked away at the end of side five is The Street Parade, a hymn to anonymity, a song about the joy of being lost in the crowd. On The Street Parade they invent some new kind of new musical genre, a Latin American/ Caribbean/ punk/ dub hybrid, joyous but with a edge of melancholy, horns, marimba, guitars and Topper's kick drum, with a rousing vocal from Joe and the sense that the band are saying, 'here we are, thirty songs in and we're still giving you something you've not heard before, are you still listening?'

The Street Parade

Side six is dub, Mick and Mikey going for it in the studio, Joe in the Spliff Bunker (a hideaway constructed from flight cases where he could write lyrics) and the clock ticking into the small hours. It starts with Version City, a strange song that opens with tapes slowing down and speeding up and a radio announcer and then what becomes a slightly haunting song, a bit of jazz and some blues. Living In Fame is a dub of If Music Could Talk with Mikey Dread toasting. Silicone On Sapphire is a dub of Washington Bullets, the rhythm track stretched and bent, the tune mangled and a voice dimly audible. It comes to a halt and Version Pardner rides in, a dub of Junco Partner (from side one), Style Scott back on drums. The kids, Luke and Ben Gallagher, appear for a brief run through  Career Opportunities. Two and a half hours have slipped by, thirty five songs, taking in rock, jazz, blues, gumbo, disco, rap, reggae, dub, gospel, punk and more besides, and the end has come- Sandinista! concludes with Shepherd's Delight, more dubbed out weirdness, noises and FX, tissue paper on a comb, the hint of a tune, the suggestion of the chords from 1977's Police And Thieves, a low key, mellow way to finish this mammoth undertaking and in some way, utterly fitting, totally 1980 Clash. Sandinista! runs out with a small burst of noise, fading away. Viva The Clash! Viva Sandinista! 

Silicone On Sapphire

Wildflower Glow

Richard Norris has a work ethic second to none, continually creating and producing new music. His latest venture- Moon Dust - is a project with Lol Hammond (of The Drum Club and Slab) and their sole release so far is a three track EP, a trio of versions of a track called The Glow. On the main version Lol plays piano and Richard produces, applying filters, sounds and layers of ambience. It's very much part of Richard's exploration of Deep Listening and ambient sounds, a furrow he's been ploughing for several years now. The two further versions are self explanatory and add more ambience and beauty to something already rather lovely- the Ambient Mix adds a warm drone as a backdrop and halves the piano while the Slowed + Reverb Mix drops an octave or two, slows it right down and adds acres of spacey reverb. Find The Glow at Bandcamp. 

Gulp are a Welsh two piece, Guto Pryce (a Super Furry Animal) and Lindsey Leven. Richard has remixed their single Wildflower, the duo's psychedelic folk pop repurposed as an Ibizan sundown moment, Balearic beats and bouncy bass, lovely piano chords, horns and Lindsay's vocal re- imagined as classic Balearica, everything coming together like peak A Man Called Adam. The EP with original, remix, instrumental and a Ben Chatwin mix is here. 

Back in 2018 Richard remixed Gulp's Morning Velvet Sky, a throbbing electronic disco folk extravaganza. The dub is a supercharged, percussive, repetitive delight. 

Morning Velvet Sky (Richard Norris Dub)

Mostly I Just Drift

Some ambient music for Thursday- very much the kind of sounds that are doing it for me at the moment. First, a new old track from Robin Guthrie and what he refers to as an orphan track, one that was recorded in 2012 for his album Fortune but that didn't end up on that album and was put to one side and forgotten about. Imagine having something as beautiful as Her Name Is Dulcinea sitting around unreleased for over a decade. The beauty of the Bandcamp model is that individual tracks can be released easily and sent out into the world. Her Name Is Dulcinea, all shimmering haze, celestial drones and cascading guitar lines, can be found here.  

Over in the USA ambient- Americana trio SUSS put out a new track at the start of November in collaboration with Six Missing (TJ Dumser), six minutes of fragile psychedelia called Old Mission- an after hours, dream state piece of music that unfolds at its own pace. Find it at Bandcamp. 

The day after Old Mission came out they slipped Traverse onto Bandcamp too, another piece of ambient country- Traverse is more Western sounding but still ambient. Find it here. There's something quite beguiling and totally cinematic about the idea of an ambient Western, cowboys and ranchers drifting around under darkening prairie skies, fires and coyotes and endless space while this music plays. Slow cinema, going nowhere, ruminative. Like The Durutti Column's Situationist cowboys/ philosophers... 

Cowboy 1: "What's your scene, man?"
Cowboy 2: "Realisation"
Cowboy 1: "Yeah? I guess that means pretty hard work with big books and piles of paper on a big table."
Cowboy 2: "Nope. I drift. Mostly I just drift."

More on that here. 

Spaced In

Mighty Force continue to put out top quality releases, a slew of them throughout the year and with no signs of letting up just because it's December and Christmas is coming. The latest is five new tracks from M- Paths, the work of Marcus Farley, an EP called Emotivated. The title track- Emotivated (Assemblage Mix)- is a beauty, rippling melodies, whooshes, synth arpeggios and the voice of JFK, the optimism of the early 60s and the space race as an act of altruism.

On A Mission belches in with a synth bass burp and skippy drums, a change of tone and pace, a robotic voice- darker and tougher. Shapes And Patterns mines the techno seam further, busy hi hats and synths that pan across the mix, rapid fire drums. Soaring In Ambience is true to its title, slowing down and blissing out, clouds of space dust passing by, many, many miles away. The EP closes with Tranquility Bass, drones and Kennedy again, chopped up and distorted, along with Apollo mission control. Eventually slo mo drums come in, that push on like pistons. 

Emotivated is at Mighty Force's Bandcamp and well worth your time and money. 

In November Mighty Force released the latest album by Virgo (Yasutaka Sato), a twelve track opus called Collision With Chronos. It's an album rides the space waves too, sci fi techno/ electonica, atmospheric synths and crunchy drums. Decadence is the shortest track on it, a sub- three minute interstellar burst of synths, minimal drums, FX and piano and rather lovely- especially when an angelic choir emerges through the skies. 

The whole album is recommended, as ever with Mighty Force, and you can find it here. 

Fidelity

I've written about The Durutti Column previously on fifty occasions- and that's not nearly enough- and usually about songs and records released during the lifespan of Factory Records. Tony Wilson and Vini were friends- Tony was a massive supporter of Vini and in the early 80s took him under his wing, managed him and put his records out. After Factory's demise Vini continued to make albums, often with long term drummer and friend Bruce Mitchell. The post- Factory albums are somewhat overlooked and undeservedly so- there's an embarrassment of riches contained within them, Vini (and Bruce) as creative as ever. 

In 1994 The Durutti Column released their first post- Factory album Sex And Death (out on Wilson's Factory Too label, bankrolled by London Records). Sex And Death opens with Anthony, a song for Wilson and contains the mighty Fado, inspired by Vini's love of Portuguese music. 

Two years after that came Fidelity, one of the band's peaks and largely unknown. It was released on Belgian Label Le Disques Du Crepuscule and is a gem, Vini in a room full of synths and drum machines- programmed drums and electronic textures are at the centre of Fidelity, with Vini's guitar playing the icing on the cake. He sings a little, his whisper drenched in reverb with Eley Rudge providing a stronger, more upfront vocal presence. Vini's trademark melancholy creeps in but there's optimism too and sonically a nod to 1990's Obey The Time (a largely electronic album, his last on Factory). 

If you only know Durutti Column on Factory, Fidelity is a good place to start exploring the wider Vini Reilly back catalogue. Vini's music remains resolutely out of time to me- it doesn't sound like any particular period. Fidelity doesn't bear much relation to 1996. I'm not sure it's timeless, more out of time, out of sync. A bit like the man himself maybe. 

The title track and opening song kicks in with a jolt- When The Levee Breaks, sampled and stuttering. Vini's guitar sounding most un- Vini like comes in, chords and texture. Later synths burst in and keys and then Eley's voice, singing the word from the title, while the drums crash around her and synths twinkle and burble. 

Fidelity

Monday's Long Song

Ten minutes and twenty five seconds from 1997 and the combined talents of Stereolab and Nurse With Wound. Simple Headphone Mind jumps straight in with Neu!- esque guitar and motorik drums and then some sounds and FX that spin and swirl around the music- that do indeed sound even better on headphones. 

Simple Headphone Mind

Those gorgeous guitar sounds were courtesy of guest David Kenny and the voice, dropped in to intone the title of the track, belongs to Nora Duus. It's a superbly done piece of space- kraut, all texture and groove, inventive and seductive and not a moment too long before dissolving into a distorted voice, the words 'milky white' slowing down to a stop. The 12" came in a sealed plastic pouch- only on opening it would the purchaser discover if they had black or yellow vinyl. There's an unopened one on Discogs listed for sale at £200 if you're feeling pre- Christmas flush and want some delicious 1997 grooves delivered to your door.

Three Hours At Yard In September

Back at the end of September Pye Corner Audio played at Yard in Cheetham Hill, a gig put on by Beautiful Burnouts. Support came from Shunt Voltage and three Flightpath Estate DJs- myself, Martin and Dan.  It's taken a while but we've finally recreated that night and it went up on The Flightpath Estate Mixcloud this week, three hours of music with our sets and two special minimixes- Shunt Voltage by Martin and Pye Corner Audio by Dan included- to give a flavour of what happened that night. It was a fantastic evening, one I won't forget- at one point, on stage sandwiched between Shunt Voltage and Pye Corner, I looked up to see the entire room looking in my direction, my fingers poised over the faders, ready to segue from James Holden to Daniel Avery and Jon Hopkins. You can listen to it here. 

Martin

• [0:00] Two Lone Swordsmen: The Crescents 
• [4:00] The Utopia Strong: Old Mathers
• [8:00] The Sabres Of Paradise: Edge 6 (Ambient) 

Adam

• [10:00] Durutti Column: Sketch for a Manchester summer 1989 
• [12:00] Cluster: Sowiesoso 

Dan

• [20:00] East Coast Love Affair: Xylocopa Violate 
• [25:00] Quadratschulz: Gestalt (Lowfish Remix) 

Martin

• [30:00] Black Bones: Take It Personal
• [34:00] Rude Audio: Mile On A Hill (Rich Lane Dub Remix) 

Adam

• [40:00] Peaking Lights: Midnight Dub 
• [46:00] Ambient Babestation Meltdown & Borai: Wait 

Dan

• [50:00] Coral D: Shock Front 
• [57:00] Shinichi Atobe: Whispers Into The Void 

Martin

• [1:02:00] Roe Deers: Move To The Beat (Edit) 
• [1:10:00] Richard Sen: Tough On Chug, Tough On The Causes Of Chug 

Adam

• [1:16:00] Khidja: Do You Know This Record Marius?

Shunt Voltage

• [1:21:00] Shunt Voltage: minimax by Martin

Adam

• [1:31:00] James Holden: Blackpool Late Eighties 
• [1:39:00] Daniel Avery: Glitter (Jon Hopkins Remix) 

Pye Corner Audio

• [1:46:00] Pye Corner Audio: minimix by Dan

Dan

• [2:06:00] David Harrow: AanDee 
• [2:12:00] Anatolian Weapons: Further Spiralling Down 
• [2:17:00] Phil Kieran: Artifical Analogue (Extended Dub)

Martin

• [2:24:00] Black Bones & Autumns: Cruising 
• [2:29:00] Richard Norris: Dim The Lights 

Adam

• [2:37:00] The Light Brigade: Shuffle The Deck 
• [2:42:00] Jamie XX & The Avalanches: All You Children 

Dan

• [2:46:00] Radioactive Man: The Clappers 

Martin

• [2:51:00] Caribou: Volume 

Adam

• [2:55:00] Jezebell: Turn It Yes 

Martin

• [3:02:00] Andy Bell: Smokebelch II 

Soundtrack Saturday

Back in January of this year I stated this weekly Saturday series, following year long ones from previous years- Saturday live (live performances) and VA Saturday (various artists compilations). Saturday Soundtrack is drawing to a close and I need to think of something new for 2026. 

Soundtrack Saturday started with Blade Runner and then went on to cover Wings Of Desire, Paris Texas, 20th Century Women, Walker, Lost In Translation, Performance, Bullitt, Midnight Cowboy, High Fidelity, Hill Street Blues, Miami Vice, The Rockford Files, Escape From New York, The Sheltering Sky, Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, Shopping, Absolute Beginners, Salvation, Repo Man, Trainspotting, The Beach, Flashback, The Wicker Man, Brian Eno on Jubilee, Heat and We Are As Gods, Ennio Morricone's Dollars trilogy, Sid And Nancy, Amongst Friends, Rockers, Mystery Train, Betty Blue, Goblin scoring Profondo Rosso, Suspiria and Zombi- Dawn Of The Dead, Butch Cassady And The Sundance Kid, Apocalypse Now!, The Clangers, Chris Massey's live re- scoring of silent films from 1920s Germany (The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari, Metropolis and Nosferatu), Brush Strokes, Out Of Sight, Down By Law, The Ipcress File, Nick Cave and Warren Ellis (The Road, The Assassination Of Jesse James BY The Coward Robert Ford and La Panthere De Neiges), various Western TV and film themes Rawhide, Bonanza, The High Chaparral and The Magnificent 7), On The Road and most recently Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid. 

You don't need me to tell you how great Blade Runner is and how perfectly Vangelis' music fitted with Ridley Scott's visuals. One of the joys of the Blade Runner soundtrack is the use of dialogue from the film on the OST album. Harrison Ford's voice adds a lot to the Vangelis' synths here, sci fi noir and symphonic drama in sync...

Blade Runner (Main Titles)

I think it's now pretty clear that Ford's Deckard isn't really the hero of Blade Runner. Deckard's job is to 'retire' replicants. In 2019, when the film is set (made in 1982 when 2019 seemed impossibly far away), most work has been outsourced to replicants, human seeming androids made with an expiry date. These replicants have reached a pint where the manufacturers can even give them memories, enabling them to believe they are human. Early on Deckard meets Rachael (played by Sean Young), a replicant who has no idea she is not human. Deckard falls in love with Rachael, further adding to the complications. 'Too bad she won't live forever', he is told at the end, mockingly. 'But then again, who does?'

What it means to be human is central to the film as is the question of the morality of creating beings that believe they are human and giving them the jobs that humans won't do. Pris, played by Darryl Hannah, is described as 'a basic pleasure model'. Roy Batty, played by Rutger Hauer, is the leader of a four replicant gang, AWOL on earth and needing to be retired. Batty and the other replicants are the real heroes of Blade Runner. At the film's end Batty demonstrates his humanity, saving Deckard despite the Blade Runner trying to kill him. Batty's monologue, partly improvised by Hauer, is legendary...

Tears In Rain

In 2013 Grumbling Fur released a song, The Ballad Of Roy Batty, a cosmic, choral, psychedelic song with Hauer's words sung by the band. It sounds like it could a bad idea on paper but actually works really well, the monologue's message- life is short, experiences are fleeting, we all die, make the most of it- as apt now as it was when a fictional character muttered it on film back in 1982. More in fact. 

Shadow People

The Liminanas, French beatnik/ rock 'n' roll/ psyche garage combo formed by Lionel and Marie, hit Band On The Wall on Wednesday night, expanded to a six piece band and full of everything you'd want from them- energy, long hair and beards, black jeans, high kicks, two chord songs, psychedelic freak outs and that eternally satisfying Mo Tucker drumbeat. 

There's not much in the way of a 'Bonjour' or 'Salut' from the stage. They shuffle on, plug in and blast off. Surrounding the band is a three sided screen onto which projections flash and flicker- black and white films, strobes, bright red effects, graphics running from left to right that give the impression sometimes of being inside a manic psychedelic biscuit tin. Centre stage Marie (either standing at an electronic drum kit or sitting at a minimal wood and plastic one, no cymbals just floor toms and a snare) powers away, the metronomic engine room and focus. Lionel plays guitar, sometimes stamping on pedals that add a huge roar to the sound. Next to him is a short haired lead guitarist who struts and prowls the front of the stage, high kicking, throwing shapes, playing the guitar behind his head, a Franco- Hendrix/ Wilco Johnson. A female bassist with a voluminous Afro and a long haired and bearded synth and keys player add depth and oomph and on the left there's a skinny man in a Western hat who handles most of the vocals while adding guitar and tambourine. They're a tremendous line up, sometimes four guitars cooking up a late 60s freak beat/ Velvets stew.

Early on they throw in Prisoner Of Beauty (sung by Bobby Gillespie on this year's album Faded), a growly psyche- pop masterpiece and then slalom between Faded and tier previous albums. J'adore Le Monde sounds epic, an early peak. Shadow People and The Gift, both from 2018's Shadow People album, rock in a summer of 1969 way. Istanbul Is Sleepy is psyche heaven, two chords, distortion Le Velvet Underground. 

Istanbul Is Sleepy

The Liminanas build to a conclusion, the guitarist strutting more and more, the guitars louder, the motorik beat harder, the light show increasingly intense. A cover of The Cramps song TV Set nearly blows fuses, three guitarists hitting the jagged chords with precision timing. It's all waves and smiles as they depart after Je Rentrais Par Le Bois... BB (from the album they made with Laurent Garnier in 2021, De Pelicula), played super heavy and ultra freak beat. 

They slot right back into their groove for the encore, finishing a three song set with a supercharged cover of Rocket USA, the two chord groove summoned and transported, a psyche- rock monolith- they could still be doing it now and we'd probably still be standing there, hypnotised by the sound and lights. Before that, there was El Beach, a massive amped up version, spoken word vocals, French beat poetry and 1966 guitars, one note piano, everyone shaking some action...

El Beach

Zahl

Aphex Twin's Soundcloud page- registered to user18081971- saw a spate of excitement and activity a few days ago when said owner, user18081971 (Richard D James/ Aphex Twin), uploaded a pair of new tracks, or rather two versions of one new track. The first was Zahl am1 live track 1. At first it was download enabled but he seems to have cut that and they're just at Soundcloud to stream. I got this one but not the other...

Zahl am1 live track 1

It's a very lovely thing indeed, a spongy sounding synth track, layers of sounds, a sort of reflective ambience but with a murky edge, beautiful but a little on edge with a long fade out. 

Zahl am1 live track 1c f760m1 unfinshd starts with the same synth chords and sounds, those spongy chords the basis of it, but it adds drums and stretches things further- the ambience is weirder but set against a pretty dynamic rhythm. The drums stop and then change pace halfway through too. You could probably actually dance to it. 

Where/ when they date from is anyone's guess. They seem to be fairly recent. Richard said that he 'got many requests for this one from a few years back' and that he thinks 'there's better mixes, will upload them if I find them'. To call these tracks sound design or sound construction is to do them as disservice- there's too much human emotion, too much soul poured into them for them to be that. 

Kittiwake

In mid- October The Swede post the title track from Bert Jansch's album Avocet in the Monday long song slot. It is indeed and long song, all eighteen minutes of it. The post is here. 

Avocet came out in 1979, a return to form for Jansch who had been a little out of sorts in the mid- 70s, living for a while in Los Angeles, returning home, splitting from his wife and then touring Australia and the Far East for several months. Together with violinist Martin Jenkins he toured Scandinavia and out there they began to develop some new ideas for songs. Once home they worked them up and recorded them as an album with Danny Thompson on board, bringing his innovative double bass playing. 

These became Avocet. The title track is eighteen minutes long, a tracks that shifts about and goes through phases, but always returning too the start. It's a sublime piece of modern folk music. There's nothing revivalist or twee about it- it two men creating new music at the end of a decade that had seen its fair share of changes. Avocet took up all of side one of the record. 

On side two there are five more songs, all named after British birds- Lapwing, Bittern, Kingfisher, Osprey (written by Jenkins) and Kittiwake. The songs, all entirely instrumental, start in folk but go off at tangents into neo- classical, skirt around jazz, drone and meditative. I hesitate to use the word ambient because they're not ambient at all- but you could slip them into an experimental ambient mix and they'd fit. The album was re- issued in 2016 and you can find it on Bandcamp with three extra live tracks recorded in Italy. 

Kittiwake is the closing track, vibrating double bass strings and Bert's tumbling guitar playing, inventive and melodic. Lovely. I think Vini Reilly may have been listening to Avocet. 

Kittiwake

There's probably a post to be written by someone better qualified than me about an alternative/ secret history of the late 70s, music made miles away from the spotlight of punk, New Wave, new pop and all the exciting stuff that was going on that thrilled so many people. Far from this there was Bert Jansch and Avocet (recorded in 1978, released in '79) and John Martyn's One World (two years earlier, 1977). There are probably others that fit in a similar category, unfashionable and out of the glare of publicity and popularity but still sounding good today.  

December

A day late with the December songs but better late than never. The obvious starting point is this one...

December

December was on Teenage Fanclub's 1991 album Bandwagonesque, a song about lost or unrequited love and 'wanting to assassinate December'. I know how they feel. 

Those guitars though... perfect. 

Creation labelmates Pacific, very much a forgotten Creation band, released a couple of albums and had a song on Doing It For The Kids. their 1990 album Inference was a compilation and probably the best entry point. This song came as one track on a split flexidisc cover mounted on The Catalogue, a music trade magazine. Indie pop with violin and doleful vocals. Very late 80s indie, rather endearing and about to be swept away by Manchester and by Creation releasing Screamadelica, Bandwagonesque and Loveless on the same day. 

December, With The Day 

Finally, from 2019 and Belfast's The Vendetta Suite is this two minute slice of nostalgic, psychedelic December...

Three Days In December

Monday's Long Song

Carlisle band The Lucid Dream split up in 2023. Their last album, The Deep End, was a 2020s psyche gem, with drum machines, samplers and guitars, hip hop influences as well as experimental Balearica. On the closing song, the closest thing on The Deep End to a conventional guitar band song, they sound like early Verve, windswept and blasted and washed up on a Cumbrian beach. Nine minutes of wonder for Monday morning on 1st December. 

High And Wild

This vinyl only single, SX1000, from 2018 is an absolute joy, the perfect collision of guitar band dynamics with acid house electronics- 808s, live bass, sirens- and some wonderful footage of late 80s/ early 90s raves. Rave on. 

Four Years

Four years today, at quarter to two in the afternoon, Isaac died at Wythenshawe hospital. He was 23. That it is four years seems barely possible- time goes so quickly in some ways. I can transport myself back into that room in the hospital very easily- it's probably not a good thing to do too often. In the time since he died I've noticed that the grief, the thing, the ball of darkness, the knot in the stomach and the ache in the chest, can replace him, engulfs him (and me)- he, Isaac, gets lost inside it. Which isn't right.

It's difficult to remember that sometimes because the loss takes over, but it should be about him, remembering him and who he was, the things we did and the things he said, the good times. We are able to do that now- we sent some time in a cafe yesterday laughing about the things he used to do, him and Eliza when they were both much younger and smiling at photos of the pair of them. It's nice to be able to do it but it becomes much harder in November. Anniversaries are still hard. I'll be glad to put this month behind me. 

Isaac touched many, many people when he was alive and he continues to do so even now, through photos and memories on social media. Photos previously unseen by us still appear. Short video clips Eliza made of him I've not seen before pop up. Sometimes on these clips he looks so close you could almost reach out and touch him. Recently a friend I've never met said this about him, 'His smile lit up many a soul, so many that he hadn't even met'. It is lovely to think of him having a long afterlife in photographs, still lighting up the lives of people all this time later. 

We played Sketch For Summer at Isaac's funeral, 17th December 2021. Vini's guitar playing and Martin's production never sounded better than on Sketch For Summer, the opening seconds of electronic birdsong and then the primitive drum machine entry and those guitars. Sketch For Winter is different but equally affecting and seems appropriate for today. 

Sketch For Winter

The Durutti Column's first album, The Return Of The Durutti Column has been re- issued recently, an album made by Vini Reilly and Martin Hannett in 1980, the pair put together by Tony Wilson. Hannett sat with his new toys, various digital echo and delay devices and a drum machine. Vini played bits of guitar but was largely ignored by Hannett who was deep into the new machinery. Occasionally parts were recorded. Eventually Vini walked out, frustrated and pissed off. Hannett completed the album and when Vini was presented with it, it sounded completely new to him- he didn't like it. Like Joy Division before him, he grew to love it, as Joy Division did with Martin's production on Unknown Pleasures. 

Sabres, Nicky Maguire And The White Hotel

Haunted Dancehall was the second Sabres Of Paradise album, released in November 1994. It was recorded as and should be listened to as a whole piece, a musical wander round the minds, music and influences of Andrew Weatherall, Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns. 

On the inner sleeves were extracts from a novel, also Haunted Dancehall, by James Woodbourne. The extracts follow a character called Maguire round London at night, a London noir novel taking in Battersea Bridge, Borough tube station, Soho, Berwick Street and a strip club on Dean Street*. In the final extract Maguire pulls some planks off the front of a boarded up cafe and steps inside...

Those of us that spent time in second hand books shops looking for Haunted Dancehall (back in the pre- internet age) found out fairly quickly that no- one had heard of it. Unsurprisingly really, as the novel didn't exist. Neither did James Woodbourne. The author of the text was Andrew Weatherall, using one of his many pseudonyms to create one of his many worlds and subcultures. 

On Wednesday night Sabres Of Paradise arrived in Salford to play at The White Hotel, the second stop on their week long tour of the UK, bringing those tracks from 1994 and 1995 to life on stage, Jagz and Gary with the 90s live band, Nick Abnett (bass), Rich Thair (percussion an drums) and Phil Mossman (guitar, keys, synth). While returning home from the gig, elated, in the murky black Mancunian night I wondered about whether  James Woodbourne could make a to return to the Haunted Dancehall...

Maguire was lost, no doubt about it, lost and a long way from home. The East End of London he knew very well, and Soho like the back of his hand, but he was now well out of his manor. He stepped off the train at Piccadilly, through the barrier and down the escalator. A quick pint in a pub across the road from the station, The Bull's Head he recalled now some days later, to settle the nerves and then he stepped back into night. He headed up Dale Street and round what locals called the Northern Quarter ('as if this northern town was somehow French', he snorted to himself). The backstreets seemed familiar, similar to some of the ones in London but dirtier and wet, always wet. He slipped down Shudehill and pausing to check his bearings turned right up Cheetham Hill Road. Ahead of him the tower and walls of the infamous Strangeways prison loomed out of the darkness. 

He was only five minutes from the city centre but this was a different world, vape shops and takeaways, a distinct lack of gentrification. Turning left- 'can it be down here?', he asked himself, 'a music venue round here?'- he saw concrete fences, barbed wire, yards with barking Alsatians, graffiti, urban dereliction and businesses that couldn't be totally law abiding. He could hear the thump of the bass now, up the road, and he continued, turning right past a few optimistically parked cars. Ahead of him, The White Hotel. 

Someone, Maguire thought, was having a laugh. This place was not a hotel, never had been and it wasn't white either. It looked like a rundown mechanics garage, single storey and unadorned, with a bouncer outside. Maguire approached the man sitting by the door. 'I'm on the list', Maguire muttered. The list was checked and indeed, Maguire was on it. 'Round the back', the doorman said. He walked round the building, past the smokers and through the door. Maguire entered The White Hotel. Colourbox were playing through the sound system, the dub bassline rattling round the building and gunshots echoing out. 

Looks Like We're Shy One Horse

Inside it was clear the venue was indeed once a mechanics garage. There was a hole in the wall covered in a sheet, the pit to work on the underneath of cars was still there and a roller shutter formed the back wall of the stage. The stage was only a couple feet high and there was no barrier between the stage and the crowd. The room had a pillar in the centre and a girder formed a cross, ready for some urban crucifixion. The DJ, one Alex Knight, was playing from inside a cage. Maguire moved inside the room and shuffled round the back. He waited. It smelt of damp, grease and beer. Nearby someone lit a spliff. The room was busy and still filling up. They all seemed to know each other. 

Colourbox faded into In The Nursery and as the symphonic strings played five figures took the stage, The Sabres Of Paradise, suited and booted. At the back of the stage, Jagz Kooner, behind a table full of boxes and mixers. Near the front Mossman, behatted, strapping his guitar on. The bassist, Abnett or something like that Maguire remembered, looked sharp, short hair, suit and tie and bass worn suitably low. They started up, a slow ambient intro, the guitar and synths kicking in gently, the sound moody and dark. Like the venue. Maguire nodded along. 

Mossman hit the riff and the song shifted, the drums kicked in and everything lurched, a James Bond theme but if Bond had been a proper wrong 'un, a small time hood rather than an international spy. The Sabres weren't playing the songs as Maguire remembered them, they were looser, dubbier, more drawn out with the bass loud and central. There were parts where Abnett pummelled his bass for ages, the noise filling the venue, a huge wall of distortion, then suddenly cutting it and the band back into the track. Maguire grinned to himself. All this on a wet Wednesday in an unloved corner of Salford.

Kooner hit a button or moved a fader or did something and the horns from Theme blared out. A cheer from the crowd and the nodding and shuffling increased, the hip hop drums thumping and the gnarly guitar hook caught in a whirl, going round and round. A pause and they slid into Edge 6. 'What a track', Maguire thought, 'and a fuckin' B-side too'. The drums shuffled, the bass pumped. The descending mournful keys at half speed. The spirit of King Tubby lurked somewhere in the room Maguire thought- maybe trapped in that fuckin' mechanic's pit. 

Years before Maguire had encountered Wilmot, chasing that trumpet line. It repeated its magic, the trumpet and the keys and snatches of a vocal, 'ai ai aiee'. Maguire hadn't expected to hear these songs played live, not three decades after the band split and, what was it now, nearly five years after the man that dreamt it all up had sadly left this world. But here he was, among two hundred and fifty other revellers, hearing Wilmot. The skank of Wilmot. Fuck. 

'Chase that tune, scour the shacks, pester the sound boys', Maguire recalled, a line from a book he once read.

On it went, the band now in their element, feeding off the crowd and playing the songs as if they were both brand new and centuries old. Kooner stopped between two of the songs and made a dedication to Mani, 'a fucking great musicians and a fucking great bloke', Jagz said and they began to play Smokebelch, the twinkles of the ambient, beatless version lighting up the darkness of the room. Abnett's bass and Burns' piano and oh, what a moment. Grown men with tears running down their faces. Even Maguire was moved. 

Clock Factory, many minutes of delicious weirdness located somewhere between ambient and industrial, a ticking of clocks and doomy chords, a track that somehow expands time and makes it stop. Maguire rubbed his chin. This was special, it made him think of things bigger than himself. Music and its power. Both beautiful and strange, he thought. 

There was a pause and then it got louder, thumping kick drums and whoops from the crowd, metallic clangs and throbbing bass, that Sabres collision of spectral melodies and thumping rhythms, everyone, band and crowd in the same place. Mossman waved his hands in the air, encouraging the crowd. Kooner conducted from the back, red shirt and black tie. 

Still Fighting started with long chords and tension, and then the release, the thump of the bass drum. That's the spirit, Maguire thought, that's it, they're still fighting. Crashing drums and early 90s synths, and then that two note whistle, the track betraying its origins, a remix of a remix, a version of a version, Don't Fight It, Feel It, Nicolson's topline refrain- doo doo doo dit dit- ricocheting round the space, this former industrial unit, God knows how many cars ended up in here, Cortinas, Datsuns, Fords, knackered vans and failed MOTs, oil and spanners all over the place, mechanics in dirty overalls- and now this epic piece of music filling it. Still fighting.

The Sabres took the applause and headed off stage, through the hole in the wall. A few minutes later they returned, as the crowd knew they would, cheers and hollers welcoming them. They went in for the kill, more Smokebelch, the David Holmes version, dancing piano lines and that enormous acid house squiggle, the drums battering the walls and the roller shutter. One of the venue's speakers was right behind Maguire and he could feel the music, the bass rippling his trousers and rattling his chest. Behind him a scouser was lost in his own world, his head in the bassbin. At the back a woman danced on a step against the wall, grinning, lost in the moment. In front of him people jumped up and down, danced and span. Then the breakdown and the drummer, Thair, on the snare, recreating Holmes' majorettes- then the bass bumping up and down and those Smokebelch melody lines riding the wave, on and on... Maguire had to pinch himself to check it was real, that he wasn't imagining it from his room in Limehouse, an armchair reverie. No, it was real and it was happening right in front of him. The Sabres stepped out from behind their machines, moved to the edge of the stage and arms around each other, took their bow, all smiles. 

Afterwards, in the outdoor area, the band milled around with punters and well wishers, taking in the Salford air and drizzle. Maguire overheard Jagz telling a fan that when they arrived he saw the graffiti and barbed wire and thought 'this is exactly where Sabres should be playing'. He looked on from a distance, pleased he'd made the effort. Maguire enjoyed the pursuit, the chasing of the tune. He contemplated the walk back to Piccadilly and wondered whether he could find somewhere on the way to have a drink. Maguire walked past the band and their fans and stepped into the street outside...

Smokebelch (David Homes Remix)

* The strip club on Dean Street was the home of the Sabres Of Paradise office, which operated on the first floor above the strip club. 

Thanks to Linda Gardiner for the photo of the band onstage.

Manchester Stockport Tokyo Ancoats

Ban Ban Ton Ton is Dr. Rob's Tokyo based music blog covers everything Balearic/ acid house and beyond. I've been writing guest reviews for some time. Two weeks ago I wrote about Ace Of Swords, the second album by Thought Leadership, a guitarist from Edgeley, Stockport. Stockport, people round here keep saying, is the new Berlin (a student of mine told me this week that Eccles is going to be the new Didsbury- I await this development patiently). 

Thought Leadership's music is entirely instrumental, just guitar FX pedals, some bass and synths and a drum machine- ambient, with detours on the latest album into Balearic Jazz. The spirit of Vini Reilly hovers close by. I loved the first album- Ill Of Pentacles- and love the second too, an album about to get a limited vinyl released on Be With Records. My review is at Ban Ban Ton Ton here. This is XVII, six and a half minutes of ambient soundscapes and echo and chorus laden guitar playing. 

Thought Leadership is shortly to find a home on a 12" by Jason Boardman's Before I Die label, a Manchester based independent with a growing back catalogue. Arrival features the guitar playing of Kevin McCormick (another ambient guitarist and another artist I've written about at Ban Ban Ton Ton). The 12" is going to include a Thought Leadership remix among its four tracks. More news to follow.  

A month before that post I wrote about Ein Null: Ten Years Of Sprechen, a celebration of a decade of music coming from Chris Massey's Manchester based label, an album that is packed with exclusives and one offs. A Certain Ratio appear with a track that you won't find anywhere else, the Martin Hannett referencing Faster But Slower, percussive Manc- funk noir. 

Ein Null includes tracks from The Utopia Strong, Psychederek, The Thief Of Time, Low Pulse, Lena C and Gina Breeze and Massey and Supernature's Walk... Now Walk. Lots to enjoy. My review is here. 

Yesterday Rob posted a piece to celebrate the soon coming 30th anniversary of Bugged Out, a 90s Manchester nightclub institution that spread its wings beyond its birthplace, a scuzzy former mill in Ancoats called Sankeys Soap. Bugged Out's 30th birthday includes the publication of a very nice looking book. As someone who attended Bugged Out nights at Sankeys on many occasions in the 94- 97 period including memorable nights that Andrew Weatherall and Carl Craig headlined, Rob asked me to pen some of my memories of the times which you can read here. The music on the post is heavy on mid- 90s techno, as Bugged Out at Sankeys was, with tracks from Daft Punk, The Chemical Brothers, Green Velvet, LFO, Dave Clark, Ron Trent, Carl Craig and Der Dritte Raum. This twenty minute documentary came out ten years ago for the 20th anniversary...

River Man

Nick Drake's music has been orbiting me recently. Sometimes the only way to deal with melancholy is to accept melancholy and Nick's music deals in that beautifully. River Man from his first album, 1969's Five Leaves Left, is a masterpiece, a sign that Nick Drake was a young man with many talents. The song is in 5/4 time, possibly the influence of Joao Gilberto. The lyrics- I'm not sure I fully get them but they're poetic and full of meaning maybe only to Nick, concerning Betty and some sadness she endures, autumn and the running out of time ('Said she hadn't heard the news/ Hadn't the time to choose/ A way to lose/ But she believes'). The river man is someone who the narrator is going to speak to, 'about the plan for lilac time' and 'about the ban on feeling free'. Mystery and enigma. 

At the end Nick switches it around and suggests the river man might answer and tell him 'all he knows/ about the way his river flows/ I don't suppose it's meant for me'. The river man could be time, could be God, could be nature. He (Nick) is searching for something. 

Musically its sublime, Joe Boyd's production and the playing both first rate. The moment the strings enter, one minute in, is superbly done, Boyd's production utterly sympathetic to the song and the performance...

This version is the Cambridge version, a demo from spring 1968, just Nick and acoustic guitar. It came out in 2004 for a compilation, Made To Love Magic, an album of outtakes and different versions. 

River Man (Cambridge Version)

In 2010 a diverse cast of singers and musicians paid tribute to Nick at the Barbican, a concert called Way To Blue, with a house band (featuring the recently departed Danny Thonpson on double bass) and a line up of singers including Green Gartside, Teddy Thompson, Vashti Bunyan, Robyn Hitchcock, Scott Matthews and Kate St. John. I watched some of it late last Friday night and found it a mixed bag. Nick's songs, the singing especially, are so him it's difficult for the singers to do something with them and as songs they're not necessarily suited to big rooms and grand gestures. The best one for me was Lisa Hannigan's Black Eyed Dog, Lisa stamping her foot and playing the harmonium- she found a new way to play the song and brought a different energy to it, a real physicality. 

Black Eyed Dog goes beyond melancholy, it's depression. Nick's version drowns in it. 

Black Eyed Dog 

Lisa Hannigan finds I think a defiance in the face of the black dog, she squares up to it, dares it to do its worst. It's a shame Nick Drake never lived to hear Lisa's version of the song. 

Holy Island

Sister Ray Davies are a duo from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, who have both played as session musicians in the kind of bands you'd imagine might inhabit Muscle Shoals. The music they make as Sister Ray Davies sounds nothing like that and the album they've just released was inspired by Holy Island, Lindisfarne, Northumbria, a place that is a very long way from Muscle Shoals in all sorts of ways. 

The Sister Ray Davies sound takes early 90s shoegaze and FX pedal psychedelia as its starting point, early Ride, Spacemen 3, Slowdive... the single Aidan  is a beauty, all shimmer, haze and slow burning guitar melodies, and a tribute to St. Aidan, the Irish monk who converted the Anglo- Saxons of Northumbria to Christianity and who died in 651 AD.

Big Ships, Viking ships presumably, followed, layers of sound, a shoegaze wall of guitars but with a driving rhythm pushing it on...

The album, Holy Island, is out now on Sonic Cathedral and you can get it at Bandcamp.

Jimmy Cliff

The good and the great continue to depart- Jimmy Cliff died yesterday at the age of 81. His voice, often described as mellifluous- I'll go for mesmerising and a joy to listen to- is one of the sounds of reggae for me. When I first began to buy reggae records, via covers by The Clash and interviews in the weekly music press, Jimmy Cliff and the soundtrack to The Harder They Come was one of my entry points. The soundtrack to that film is hit after hit. Jimmy sang the title track and recorded it specifically for the film, as well as Many Rivers To Cross and You Can Get It If You Really Want alongside songs from The Maytals, The Melodians, The Slickers and Desmond Decker. Jimmy played the lead role in the film too, Ivan. 

Way back in the early 90s I bought a Jimmy Cliff compilation at a record fair in Buxton which had these two songs on it...

Wild World

Vietnam

I was already familiar with Wild World due to the Maxi Priest cover version from 1988. Good as that is, Jimmy Cliff's version is sublime. Vietnam was called 'the best protest song I ever heard' by no less an authority than Bob Dylan. 

In 2012 Jimmy released a cover of Guns Of Brixton, Jimmy returning the tip of the trilby to Paul Simonon who references Ivan in the lyrics. Jimmy's version was produced by Tim Armstrong of Rancid, a massive Clash fan- Jimmy later covered a Rancid song too. 

'You see he feels like Ivan/ Born under the Brixton sun'

Guns Of Brixton

A life well lived and a giant of Jamaican music. Jimmy Cliff RIP.