Monday's Long Song

Luke Schneider, the pedal steel guitarist from Nashville who makes ambient- Americana, has a new album out later this month and this nearly ten minute long meditation came out last week ahead of it- For Dancing In Quiet Light. The pedal steel rings out over the top of a gorgeous ambient wash, layers of gentle drones pulsing and radiating. Find it at Bandcamp. 

Coincidentally I had this lined up to post, a much shorter one off track from September 2024 that I missed called midafternoon classic that leans more towards the Americana, the pedal steel joined by a nylon string guitar and some harmonica with the ambient that sounds exactly like its title suggests it should. 

Forty Seven Minutes Of Italian Library Music 1969- 1976

Today's post keeps my post- holiday Italian theme rolling with a forty seven minute mix courtesy of Heroin In Tahiti, created, mixed and posted back in summer 2012 and sent to me for my listening pleasure while I was in Italy by my friend Spencer. It is an esoteric and experimental but totally accessible way to spend three quarters of an hour, some splendid vintage Italian soundtrack music, oddities, space age/ sci fi sounds, analogue ambient, jazz- tinged sounds- there are Moogs and other synths, pianos, cellos, all kinds of percussion, double bass and a pervading sense of strangeness. You can listen to Musica Per Sonorizzazioni at Soundcloud and I can't think of a better way to enjoy your Sunday morning continental breakfast. Here's the tracklist...

• Amedeo Tommasi: Radiazioni
• Bruno Nicolai: Diffidenza
• Daniele Patucchi: La Dimostrazione
• Giuliano Sorgini: Fabbrica Spaziale
• Piero Umiliani: Danza Magica
• Silvano Chimenti: Colori
• Mario Nascimbene: Rito Pagano
• Gerardo Iacoucci: Alchemie & Alambics
• Amedeo Tommasi: Mondo Industriale
• Amedeo Tommasi: Bollicine
• Alessandro Alessandroni & Romolo Grano: Per Un Eroe Caduto
• Ennio Morricone: Alternance
• Armando Sciascia: Calm Sea
• Floriana Bozzalla: Vento Cosmico
• Giorgio Carnini: Diorama e Recitativo
• Piero Umiliani: Arabian Synthesizer
• Nico Fidenco: Industrial Feeling
• Bruno Nicolai: Giano
• Fabio Fabor: Caronte
• Amedeo Tommasi & Stefano Torossi: Superpotenza
• Romano Rizzati: Azimut
• Piero Umiliani:Pellegrinaggio al Totem
• Alessandro Alessandroni: SOS Spaziale
• Egisto Macchi: Chanson de la Nuit
• Guglielmo Papararo & Vittorio Montis: Jonosfera

Heroin In Tahiti are/ were an Italian occult psychedelic duo from Rome, active between 2010 and 2017 whose music crossed the borders between psyche, soundtracks, Morricone, prog, Beat poetry and Italian folklore- a style they called Spaghetti Wasteland. I haven't gone very far into their back catalogue yet but there are sounds worth further investigating here (their 2015 album Sun And Violence) and three other albums scattered round the internet too. This is Black Market from Sun And Violence, the sound of underground, psychedelic Roma. 

Soundtrack Saturday

Italian band Goblin have been releasing soundtracks since 1975 and still tour. Their music is a fusion of prog, metal and jazz- rock but don't let that put you off. They make the perfect musical accompaniment to the horror/ slasher/ suspense films that Italian director Dario Argento specialised in. Their debut was the score to Profondo Rosso in 1975, released as a half hour soundtrack album (and re- released in 2005 in an expanded format). The title track was released as a single and went to the top of the Italian charts, its vampy organ chords, rumbling, nimble bass, synth notes and crashing drums finding an audience in mid- 70s Italia and beyond. 

Profondo Rosso 

Death Dies is frenetic prog rock, the drums and horns battling with the guitars, a stop- start masterpiece. 

Death Dies

In 1977 Goblin provided the score to Suspiria- Mellotron, bazouki, tabla, Fender Rhodes, Moog synths, all finding space in the mix. DJ Shadow was surely listening two decades later. Suspiria is a supernatural thriller telling the story of a young American ballet dancer who takes up a place at a prestigious European dance academy but following a series of murders comes to the awful realisation that it is a front for a coven of witches. Don't you just hate it when that happens? 

Suspiria

Dario Argento's Zombi- Dawn Of The Dead came out in 1978, a re- edited version of George A. Romero's original zombie classic. Argento got Goblin in to re- score the film. There followed a slew of zombie films that claimed to be the sequel to Romero's original, an Italian movie sub- genre in itself- not a field I'm an expert in admittedly but Goblin's soundtracks and scores are fantastic. In 2018 this Zillas On Acid edit of Safari came out, Goblin re- tooled for the modern dancefloor, a delicious reworking that fills the dark corners. 

Safari (Zillas On Acid Edit)

Raise Your View Of Heaven

There's nothing like coming back to a grey northern English August to bring a holiday abruptly to an end but as people say, 'don't be sad it's over, be happy it happened'. Italy was a delight in every way from the busy streets of Napoli to the epic nature and scale of Pompeii, the Bay of Naples and everything around overshadowed by Mount Vesuvius, to the beauty of the Amalfi Coast and its seaside towns. The picture at the top of the post was our view for five days, across the valley from or accommodation on the hillside in Pukara, Tramonti, the road to Maori way below us. 

Naples is a busy city with an energy very much its own. It's also filled with reminders that their football club, SSC Napoli, won Serie A in June, only the fourth time they've done so. Two of the previous championships were in the 1980s and due to the feet and brains of Diego Maradona, a man who has attained the status of deity in Napoli. 

Rock Section (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

In 2014 Julian Cope wrote some music to go with the fictional bands in his novel One Three One, 'a time shifting, Gnostic hooligan, road novel', set partly at the Italia '90 World Cup. It's a brilliant and wild read. The fullest realisation of the music came with the track named after the book's main character, Rock Section, which came with an Andrew Weatherall remix as a result of Weatherall's status as artist in residence at Faber and Faber, a post created for him by Lee Brackstone. Weatherall and Cope- what's not to like?

Rock Section was credited to Dayglo Maradona (a cover of a 1979 song by the also fictional Skin Patrol). For that name alone, Cope is a genius. The remix is one of those ones from his purple patch in the 2010s with Tim Fairplay as assistant knob twiddler and engineer. Faber and Faber released 250 copies on white vinyl. It's very rare but there's a copy on Discogs currently priced at £164.95 (plus shipping). Synth arpeggios, motorik drum machine beats, endless forward progression.

I could write about Pompeii and Herculaneum at length- maybe at some point soon I will. Both are awe inspiring places and to stand in their streets, at the shop counters, in the entrance halls and rooms of the villas and houses, to walk up the steps of the theatre and stand in the Forum, is to feel a direct link with the people of two thousand years ago who were surely just like us in many ways. They worked, they went to the shops to buy bread, spent their money on entertainment and wine, and if they could afford it bought paintings and pictures for their walls. The sheer scale of Pompeii is on its own mind blowing. We spent four hours there, wandering round the streets of the city and found something to discover on every corner. 

After a couple of days on the outskirts of Napoli we rented a car and after a stop off at the two Roman sites drove south to the Amalfi coast. Driving in Italy is not for the faint hearted and the roads over the mountains to Amalfi are an experience in themselves. Maiori and Minori are seaside towns, popular with the Italians as holiday destinations and we loved both (Maiori was closest to us and our main base for five days). I could have stayed longer- much longer. Italy is a beautiful country. 

More to follow. In the meantime this record celebrated thirty five years since its release this week in 1990. Thirty five years is ridiculous isn't it? It sounds too modern, too recent, to be three and a half decades old. And if you want to really fry your head thirty five years before that, it was 1955- the dawn of rock 'n' roll. 

Raise was the debut release by Bocca Juniors (and there's another Napoli/ Maradona link- Bocca Juniors are the Argentinian club Diego played for before his move to Europe in 1982, first to Barcelona and then to Napoli). The musical Bocca Juniors were Andrew Weatherall, Terry Farley, Pete Heller and Hugo Nicholson with vocals by Anna Haigh and a rap by Protege. 

Raise (63 Steps To Heaven) (Redskin Rock Mix)

Raise is summer of 1990 writ large, a huge dance tune with massive piano riff (cribbed from Jesus On The Payroll by Thrashing Doves but I think that that riff was re- purposed and beefed up from elsewhere, a house record whose name I've temporarily forgotten). Weatherall wrote the lyrics, partly borrowing from Aleister Crowley- 'do what they wilt shall be the whole of the law'- and partly a stand up and be counted throw down, 'Raise your hands if you think you understand/ Raise your standards if you don't'. It's a fantastic, huge sounding, grin inducing record. Bocca Juniors would go on to make another single, Substance, in 1991 and then Andrew split, deciding to go it alone and 'not make records by committee', choosing a different, less well trod and less well lit path. Not the last time he did that.

 

A Italia

By the time this post is published I shall be in the air, flying to Italy for a week's holiday. The three of us are landing in Napoli later this morning, two days and nights there and then five on a hillside overlooking Maiori and the Amalfi coast. At some point we are going to Pompeii and Herculaneum. At several points we will be enjoying pizza, local produce (wine, tomatoes, lemon pastries) and the odd Negroni. As a result there will be no posts here for a week but don't worry, I'm filling today's post with a load of music for you to enjoy and explore while I'm away.

A week ago Daniel Avery announced the release of a new album in October, Tremor (out on Hallowe'en, the same night he plays New Century Hall in Manchester). In advance of Tremor Daniel gave us Rapture In Blue, a single with Cecile Believe on vocals and guitars from Andy Bell (whose music with Ride, GLOK and solo has been featured here regularly and who is currently treading the boards with Oasis). Rapture In Blue took a few plays to really get under my skin but now it's firmly there. It's a change of direction compared to what came before- slow mo 4AD goth/ techno pop. 

Also out last week is a new track from the reformed Factory Floor, Tell Me. Tough edged and propulsive, with thumping beats and acid synths, Tell Me is very much after dark music, with New Order's  Stephen Morris adding his expertise to the drum programming. Nic Void's vocal is at the intersection between human and robotic. At Bandcamp there's a short and extended version available . 

Rich Thair and Ali Friend's Number is a post- punk/ disco party outfit, the Red Snapper pair having the freedom to do something outside their main band. Back in 2019 they released an album called Binary. A few days ago they put the first single from a forthcoming album out, the funked up Le Boucle Nouveau. The drums are absolutely on it and the rhythm is irresistible. There are pianos and synth squiggles and a choral vocal. There's a Duncan Grey remix forthcoming and then an album- Pollinate- is due to follow on Ramrock Records. 

Two weeks ago Paisley Dark released an EP by Jay- Son, Tales Of Freedom, an original mix and five remixes- dark cosmic disco with laser beams firing and a gliding bassline. The remixes come from Ian Vale, Hogt I Tak, Viper Patrol, Keith Forrester and this one from Cosmikuro which throbs and thumps deliciously. The whole EP is here. 

Over at Mighty Force there is more acid techno out now courtesy of Byron Carignan and an album called Symmetrical Universe. The ten tracks burst with energy and acid techno, synths overloaded and basslines wiggling, and all manner of interstellar and galactic references in the track titles, tracks such as Nebula Groove, Astral Acid and Spacewave Symphony. Mighty Force don't ever put a foot wrong and this is yet another release that I'll be coming back to in months to come- get it here. 

Finally, something Italian to sign off with. In 2017 a compilation called Welcome To Paradise (Italian Dream House 89- 93) followed by second and third volumes a year later. The albums are chock full of the deep, rich, euphoric, sunrise/ sunset sound of Italo house, Italian producers and DJs making full use of the new technology that was arriving in the late 80s. This one is as good as any, a 1989 12" single by Morenas. Ciao!

Somnambulism

Her Life Was Saved By Rock & Roll

I've been listening to The Velvet Underground a lot recently, partly due to my 2025 dive into the Lou Reed solo back catalogue and partly due to them being one of the cornerstones of my record collection since the late 1980s. In 2017 the record company Verve released an album called The Velvet Underground 1969. This is not the self titled third Velvet Underground nor the much loved Live 1969 album but a twenty song, four sides of vinyl album pulling together the group's recordings from 1969, some of which made up the self titled third album, some of which came out on Loaded a year later, some of which didn't come out until the VU album in the mid- 80s, some of which were reworked and re- recorded as Lou Reed solo songs and some of which are/were unreleased off cuts and extras. 

1968- 1969 was a tumultuous time for the group. Reed wanted John Cale sacked after White Light/ White Heat. Lou wanted to be more recognition and success, Cale wanted to be more experimental. Lou's songs at the tail end of '68 were heading in a poppier direction, songs like Stephanie Says and Beginning To See The Light. John had a viola drone song, Hey Mr. Rain. Lou told Sterling Morrison and Mo Tucker that if Cale wasn't sacked he would dissolve the Velvets and though neither was happy with it they went along with Lou. Doug Yule was invited in as bassist and the group recorded The Velvet Underground, a gentle, after hours, chilled out affair with some of Lou's best songs- What Goes On, Jesus, Pale Blue Eyes, Some Kinda Love, Candy Says, Beginning To See The Light... It's an almost perfect album, brought down only slightly by The Murder Mystery which has two vocals running simultaneously in the two stereo channels and is messy. It's then redeemed by the Mo Tucker sung After Hours. 

The so called 'lost VU album' released in 2017 is filled with great VU songs that highlight what a superb band they were. There are some Cale moments which remind you why the first two VU albums are so good, the viola droning away on Hey Mr. Rain and some organ playing too. There is some stunningly primitive but brilliant Mo Tucker drumming and Doug Yule's playing shows why he was a key part of the Velvets in the 1968- 1970 period. Mainly, running all the way through from start to end, there is the magical guitar interplay of Lou Reed and Sterling Morrison. It's difficult sometimes to know where one starts and the other takes over, who is rhythm and who is lead or if they're both playing different rhythm parts. 

Foggy Notion, I Can't Stand It, Temptation Inside Your Heart, Stephanie Says, Beginning To See The Light, Ocean- all are present, all from different sources and all ending up on a variety of releases and all among the best songs of the period by anyone. There is also this, the full length version of Rock & Roll, the song which came out on Loaded in 1970 in slightly shorter form (4. 47 rather than the 5.15 on 1969), a song with the best choppy guitar riffs and rhythm playing, sheer joyousness in the singing and in the lyrics, the story of Jenny (but really Lou) whose life was saved by rock & roll.

Rock & Roll  (Original 1969 Mix)

Thee is also this song, Lou's tribute to Coney Island, the seaside resort at the end of the line in Brooklyn. In 1976 Lou would write and record an entire solo album about Coney Island, a love letter to his partner Rachel and to 'a Coney Island of the mind'. In 1969 Lou's first run at it is a two and half minute song, ragged guitars and the 'nice/ ice' rhyme he'd come back to in the 70s. There's a line about his childhood and parents- 'like a sister and brother/ who cling to each other/ when they realise their parents are mad'-  and then the guitars chop away as Lou and Doug croon the days of the week

Coney Island Steeplechase (2014 Mix)

Coney Island Steeplechase originally saw the light of day in 1986 on Another VU, a follow up to 1985's VU- two collections of unreleased Velvets songs that kick started the whole rediscovery of the group and played a huge part in creating the sound of the UK's indie scene. The Another VU version has very muffled, compressed vocals. The 2014 mix is much clearer and rattles along beautifully. Lou's songwriting at this point was at its VU peak and the 'lost 19769 album' is  wonderful collection of songs, an alternate view of the group that year- I wouldn't give up the third album in favour of it but 1969 is a welcome companion piece (even though the vinyl pressing is annoyingly much too quiet). 

It's Where He's From

Seeing Iggy Pop live at Manchester's Victoria Warehouse at the end of May has lived long in my memory. Two months on I can still get a little buzz of excitement from the thought of it and as Iggy has wended his way across Europe since then I get the same excitement from seeing clips of various gigs and festivals popping up in my social media. 

Iggy's solo career is perhaps the definition of uneven, wildly varying solo albums from the genius of 1977's The Idiot and Lust For Life to albums where he barely sounds interested or has unsympathetic bands bludgeoning songs to death. In between there are lots of Iggy albums that have some cherries and some stinkers and much in between. His 21st century solo albums run a similar gamut. 2016's Post Pop Depression felt like a late career high point, a top 5 solo Iggy album. 2001's Beat 'Em Up was uninspiring hard rock. In between he did a jazz album, an album sung mainly in French, a sixteen song album that saw him reunited with The Stooges on four songs including a song each with Peaches and Green Day, some reflective  crooning and story telling, and on 2023's Every Loser songs with musicians from Jane's Addiction and Guns 'N' Roses that try to cover every style he's played with on every previous album. 

This is a pick 'n' mix of 21st century solo Iggy Pop, not necessarily the best four, just four Iggy solo songs from the last quarter of a century plus a collaboration from this year that you might have missed from a few months ago. 

In 2003 Iggy released Skull Ring, a seventeen song monster with Green Day, Peaches and Sum 41 all in tow and seven songs recorded with a group Iggy put together called The Trolls. Sadly of the four musicians that formed The Trolls only two are still alive, guitarists Whitey Kirst and Pete Marshall. Bassist Mooseman was the victim of a drive by shooting, a case of mistaken identity and drummer Alex Kirst was killed in a hit-- and- run in 2011. 

The remaining four songs on Skull Ring were recorded with The Stooges, the first fruits of a re- union that led them to festival stages all over the world. The four songs on Skull Ring had Iggy with Scott Asheton and Ron Asheton, Minutemen's Mike Watt playing bass and Steve Mackay from Funhouse rejoining on sax. When Ron died in 2009 James Williamson rejoined. Scott died in 2014, Steve Mackay in 2015. The four songs were Little Electric Chair, Skull Ring, Dead Rock Star and Loser. 

Skull Ring

Sludgy guitar riffs, overloaded sound and Iggy chanting 'Skull rings/ Fast cars/ Hot chicks/ Money'. It's good enough and more than a little a little tongue in cheek. 

2009's Preliminaires was a quieter affair, jazz and blues and bossa nova, a definitive attempt to something completely different. On Les Feuilles Mortes (Autumn Leaves) Iggy covered a 1940s standard in the original French. It suits him. 

Les Feuilles Mortes

In 2016 Iggy released Post Pop Depression, an album written and recorded with Josh Homme (Queens Of The Stone Age) and Matt Helders (Arctic Monkeys) and followed it with a tour. The album was a big success, strong songs, well recorded and played by a band who knew how Iggy Pop should sound. Gardenia, Break Into Your Heart, Paraguay and American Valhalla all sounded like first rate Iggy Pop and Sunday saw him accepting his age and place in the bigger scheme of things as the band cranked out the best backing tracks he'd had for years. 

Sunday

In 2018 Iggy collaborated with Underworld on a four track EP, Teatime Dub Encounters. Both parties sounded like they given it their best shot and it was fun for the time it lasted. On Bells And Circles Iggy sings/ speaks about the golden days of the 1970s, when you could smoke on the plane rather than now when you just get told 'you can't do that'- and if it sounds a bit 'old man shouts at the clouds' thats because it is. 

Bells And Circles

There's probably a follow up post to this one about Iggy's various guest vocal appearances but for the moment can I just remind you that earlier this year, before he set off on tour, Iggy recorded a vocal with The Moonlandingz, a song called It's Where I'm From, and it still sounds like a 2025 highlight, Iggy's elder statesman melancholy hitting all the right spots.

 

Monday's Long Songs

This came out in 2023 but I only discovered it recently- not sure why it took me so long as I posted a Justin Robertson remix of a track from the same EP over a year ago. Sewell And The Gong is Matt Sewell, an illustrator, artist, ornithologist and author in his day job who had an acoustic guitar in his studio. Eventually he hooked up with multi- instrumentalist, producer and fellow traveler Chris Tate and began to put some of Matt's folk- inspired guitar parts down on tape and embellish them a little. The result was an EP, Tonight We Fly, beautifully done, psychedelic folk with this track- Better Words- as the fourth of four...

Better Words sounds like something very familiar even on first listening, there's something about the melodies and arrangement that hark back to something deep inside- themes from children's TV in the 70s maybe, some lost folk memory, a fusion of late 60s folk rock and 90s/ 2000s lo fi Balearica. All four tracks are lovely and can be found at Bandcamp. 

There's a remix EP with the previously mentioned Justin Robertson Deadstock 33s remix of Passing Oort Clouds too and then on the first of next month a seven track mini- album called Patron Saint Of Elsewhere with a pair of tracks already out including the eight minute Quiet Storm, more wonderful gently psychedelic folk with shimmering guitars, found sounds, FX, hand drums and somewhere deep inside it some voices. 

An Hour Of Sunshine From Glasgow And Two Hours Of Do!! You!! From Richard Sen

John Fenner of Glasgow did this mix recently and shared it, Cafe Del Muir, an hour and seven minutes of sunshine for a rainy day in Glasgow (or anywhere). It's a blend of old and new and some of the tunes John selected came via recommendations from this blog- it's nice to see the ripples that go out and come back. There's a couple that are new to me as well and so the ripples go back out again. You can find Cafe Dal Muir at Soundcloud. 

• The Chemical Brothers: One Too Many Mornings
• Four Tet: Loved
• Saint Etienne: Alone Together (Hove Lawns Sunset Mix)
• The Cure: Pictures Of You (Extended Dub Mix)
• The Vendetta Suite: Warehouse Rock (Timmy Stewart's Six Minutes To Sunrise Mix)
• Sinead O'Connor: You Made Me The Thief Of Your Heart
• The Main Stem: Since You Left (Prins Thomas Miks)
• 10:40: Kissed Again
• Bal5000: Bleu Infini
• The Blow Monkeys: Save Me (Neville Watson Dub)
• The Light Brigade: Only Love Can Save Us
• Orbital: Belfast (ANNA Ambient Mix)

On Friday Richard Sen hosted his weekly Do!! You!! radio show, two hours of top tunes from a man who knows his musical onions. Richard played three tracks from our forthcoming Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 2 album (and ave us a shout out) so if you're itching to hear three of the tracks from it- the unreleased version of Lik Wid Nit Wit by Sabres Of Paradise, Red Snapper's Qraqeb and Sleaford Mods cover of Two Lone Swordsmen's Sick When We Kiss (retitled as sick wen we x) then this is the place to do it until the vinyl copies start arriving on doormats and in porches. As well as those three Richard plays tons of other great tracks, including some classic trance, breakbeat, and some very deep cosmic disco. Listen here. 

Soundtrack Saturday

It's nearly the end of July so we're seven months into Soundtrack Saturday and I've not yet posted anything by Ennio Morricone, the composer, orchestrator and musician who is possibly the greatest film score/ soundtrack artist of all. Just listing some of his film works shows his importance and range- all of Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns, The Thing, The Mission, The Untouchables, Cinema Paradiso, The Battle of Algiers, Days Of Heaven, various Tarantino films, Once Upon A Time In America.... 

It is his scores for Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy that made him a household name, startling and instantly recognisable pieces of music that are as much part of the three films as any of the actors, scenery or action. The budgets were tight and there were insufficient funds for a full orchestra. Instead Morricone made use of sound effects (whip cracks, gunshots, whistling, voices) and unlikely instruments (Jew's harps, Fender guitars) to soundtrack the three Spaghetti Westerns- 1964's A Fistful Of Dollars, 1965's For A Few Dollars More and 1966's The Good, The Bad And The Ugly. It's probably fair to say more people have heard the theme tune and know the music than have seen all three films. They used to be classic late night television. I lapped them up, watching them over and over. Leone's films and dialogue and Morricone's soundtrack music crossed over into pop culture and music, sampled and borrowed/ stolen far and wide. 

This is a twenty five minute mix of music from Ennio Morricone's Dollars Trilogy, eight Morricone Spaghetti Western pieces plus a surprise cover version at the end. It may be among the most atmospheric and original twenty five minutes of music you press play on today. 

Twenty Five Minutes Of Ennio Morricone's Dollars Trilogy

• Watch Chimes (Carillon's Theme)
• The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
• A Fistful Of Dollars
• For A Few Dollars More
• Chapel Shoot Out
• The Ecstasy Of Gold
• The Strong
• Father Ramirez
• The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

The cover version at the end is Wythenshawe guitar slingers Johnny Marr and Billy Duffy in 1992 paying tribute to the famous guitar lines from the soundtrack to the film of the same name, recorded for an album in 1992 called Ruby Trax, commissioned, compiled and released to mark the fortieth birthday of the NME. 

Memories

A week of new music comes to a close today- this week's posts have featured KiF's Still Out, a pair of new tracks from 100 Poems, new singles from The Charlatans and The Orb, and Richard Sen's remixes of John Grant (from 2016 admittedly but unreleased until now). Today we start off with two new releases on Brighton's Higher Love. The first, out yesterday, is from Polish duo Jazxing whose Pearls Of The Baltic Sea album was one of 2022's best albums, a blur of dub, indie, cosmic disco, Balearica and pop. 

The new Jazxing single is Memories, a full on 80s pop song with a lyric looking back at youth. Imagine Cupid And Psyche era Scritti Politti glazed in honey but with a hefty slice of 2025 production, laced with a shot of regret and nostalgia. There is a much longer alternate version, the Full Disco Purrefection Mix, that breaks it down and stretches it out, starting with percussion, disco strings and some congas and then building, snatches of vocal drifting in, a choppy rhythm guitar, sequenced bassline and more synths. Memories is at Higher Love's Bandcamp. 

Out in early August on Higher Love is a single from Puerto Montt City Orchestra, And We'd Be So Happy. More nu disco/ Balearic musically, an insistent rhythm, prodding bassline, hints of guitar and piano, all very chilled and lovely and on top band member Tim's daughter's spoken word piece, more memories, describing days out to the seaside, the simple pleasures of amusement arcades, penny falls, piers, car picnics and having fun despite the rain as all the while the guitar line floats away on top. There's a second version of And We'd Be So Happy too, The Cruel Mistress Mix, that slows it down, adds some dub space and echoes of early 90s Saint Etienne. And We'd Be So Happy is sounding like one of the singles of the summer round these parts. It'll be at Higher Love on 6th August

Coming from a similar place but a bit hazier is an EP from ddwy called Beaming Backwards, four slices of dreamy electronic Balearica with a Cocteau Twins/ One Dove feel, ethereal but with a pulse running through it, more early 90s influences and sounds, the feel of those songs that made up Creation's 1991 Keeping The Faith compilation, bands like Hypnotone, Love Corporation and Sheer Taft. The title track is a joy, forwards momentum with some backwards sounds and a distant vocal. 

Stars, Stars is led by a very mid- 80s Cure/ Cocteaus/ New Order guitar line and then a low slung bass. Peak Smile pushes on, aiming for the dancefloor, with a bleepy topline and crunchy synths. The EP finsihes with Hueldro'r Haf, a hazy, blissed out song with piano and viola. Buy/ listen to the whole EP here.  Like me, you may keep going back to it. 

All These Things They're Just Disappointing

These Richard Sen remixes of John Grant's songs Disappointing and Voodoo Doll were done back in 2016 but not released until recently- why they weren't released is a bit of a mystery given how good they are. The Sen remix of Disappointing is classic ALFOS material, slow burning, chuggy and transportative, electronic dance music with an emotive core, John Grant's deep voice riding on top of the low slung groove, synth strings sweeping with some dark disco drama. 

Richard's remix of Voodoo Doll sets off with a squelch and kick drum, more synths, some backing vox and then John's descending vocal line. The breakdown, with acid burble, thudding kick drum and then the vocal re- entering, John singing 'break into my house and read my diary if you need some proof' are a joy. Happy- sad dance music of the best kind. 

There are instrumental versions of both remixes as well as the vocal ones. The whole package can be found at Bandcamp- it seems I've missed out on the vinyl though, which is as John himself notes, disappointing. 

These Are The Days

This pair of songs came out while I was away last week and I've been catching up in the last few days. First is a new one from The Charlatans, one of two new songs they performed at Manchester's Castlefield Bowl recently alongside a set of hits and favourites. We Are Love has the band in sunny side up mode, all warm organ chords, Johnny Marr-esque guitar picking and Tim being anthemic and euphoric, 'this is the place, these are the days'. 

An album of the same name is coming out in October. The band went back to Rockfield in Wales to record it, a studio with some deep memories for the group- organist and founder member Rob Collins died there on 21st July 1997, twenty eight years ago yesterday, while they were recording Tellin' Stories. Going back to go forward. That this group, thirty five years old are still so enthused about making new music and still with the fire in their bones after all this time is clearly a good thing.

Of a similar vintage are The Orb who also released a new track last week ahead of a new album. The single is Arabebonics, five minutes of kaleidoscopic ambient house/ North African fusion with a rap from Rrome Alone. 

The Orb and various Orb side projects (Sedibus, OSS) have been in fine form over the last few years and many of the people who helped Alex on those albums are here on the new one, Buddhist Hipsters- Andy Falconer from Sedibus along with Youth, Steve Hillage, Miquette Giraudy and Roger Eno. Hopefully Buddhist Hipsters will be an album that stands alongside Abolition of The Royal Familia, Enter The Kettle, Seti and The Heavens. 

This would seem to be the ideal point in time for an Orb remix of The Charlatans wouldn't it?

Feel The Steering Wheel

Ice Machines: The Album came out last week, ten tracks from five producers from Ireland with 100 Poems represented by a pair of new recordings- a cover of Warm Leatherette and a new track Komputer. Warm Leatherette is something of a foundational moment in post- punk/ synth- pop, Mute's Daniel Miller as The Normal and a 1978 single that set JG Ballard's 19973 novel Crash to bleak, squelchy, dystopian, industrial synth. It was originally the B-side of the single, T.V.O.D. being the lead track but it quickly become the one that gathered the most attention. 

Warm Leatherette

It's a track that I always want to play next to Fad Gadget's Back To Nature, a similarly singular groundbreaking record, again lo- fi industrial synth with a post- apocalyptic feel. 

Back To Nature

It's a brave song choice for a cover and Mike Wilson of 100 Poems takes a slightly different approach- the synths are still ominous and foreboding but the vocal (by Georgie) is more human, less detached. 

The second 100 Poems track is Komputer,a love song to the Commodore 64 and 8- bit home programming. The Commodore 64 was the best selling desktop computer of all time, an origin story for the modern world. Mike's track fizzes and buzzes, clunky graphics and the whir of the cassette machine re- animated while an American woman talks us through the joys and simplicity of home computing.

The ten track album Ice Machines can be found at Bandcamp, name your own price with all proceeds going to the Musical Youth Foundation. As well as the pair of 100 Poems tracks there are contributions from Circuit3, Empire State Human, PolyDROID and Amalgamated Wonders Of The World and covers of Simon and Garfunkel, The Carpenters and Depeche Mode. 

Monday's Long Song

KiF Productions are a two man team based in Devon who have recorded a homage to The KLF's legendary ambient house masterpiece Chill Out. The update is titled Still Out and transplants Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond's imaginary journey across the American south to a British road trip from North Yorkshire to North Devon the pair took in 2024. Tom and Will recorded Still Out after finding a copy of Chill Out in Tom's dad's record collection and put it together in a remote cottage in Devon, with no internet or mobile signal. They created an ambient audio collage, cutting and pasting found sounds and musical sounds, inspired not just by The KLF but by Philip Glass, Brian Eno, Andrew Weatherall, The Bomb Squad, Bill Evans and Virginia Astley. It's out at the end of the month, two long tracks either side of a record (the vinyl is long since sold out but the digital is available). 

The first is Swaledale To Blakeney Straits, a long ambient drone and the pips from the radio, a female voice wafts in and there's some crackle, a haze of ambient bliss, everything happening slowly. Organ. A finger picked acoustic guitar, birdsong. An excerpt of Richard Burton reading Under Milk Wood. More haze, more slow guitar notes. Then a car door opens and the engine starts and we're off, on the road... 

As in Chill Out there are trains passing by, the car waiting at a level crossing. Warbling and more drones. It's a very British sounding road trip, back roads through the countryside, all the while the ambient drone bathing everything in a warm light. Also as with Chill Out Elvis turns up. After quarter of an hour the ambient synths push to the fore, a gentle wordless choir and chanting voice make their way in, a flute appears and some very Sabres Of Paradise drums clank in, a rattling metallic echo. We shift through different phases, the journey south soundtracked by bubbling water and descending chimes. 

Side two/ track two is Laugharne Estuary To Welcombe Mouth, more wild birdsong and the car's tyres on the road, engine turning over, more Burton reading Dylan Thomas, gulls... then a bassline, some piano jazz and a sax, bleeps and whooshes, drums, double bass and a warm electric guitar for a minute or two, more drones, sunshine breaking though clouds... 

Still Out is more than just a homage to a thirty five year old album, it stands alone in its own right, two inventive and ever changing pieces of sound collage. There are films too to accompany the sounds, shot from inside the car. Everything can be found at KiF Productions' Bandcamp page. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Talking Heads And Friends

Update Sunday 10.00 am. The original version of this post received a sensitive content warning and was put behind a warning message. I think this is because in my description of Azealia Banks' 212, the final track in the mix, I used a word that starts with the letter C and then sounds like honey lingers. I'm reposting the post here with the offending word removed- partly just to see if it now gets through Google's censors. 

I started a Talking Heads Sunday mix a year ago and couldn't get it to work. The early stuff, New York art- rock didn't seem to sit well with some of the later stuff or the remixes/ edits etc I was trying to fit in. Many of the songs I was attempting to segue started and ended very suddenly which was tricky and the whole thing made me quite frustrated so I shelved it. Seeing Jerry Harrison and Adrian Belew play Remain In Light at The Ritz recently and the Leo Zero edit of Azealia Banks' 212 which splices Azealia's blinding debut single with Once In A Lifetime got me thinking I should try again. I've left out anything from their first three albums, much as I love all of them, and gone for a Talking Heads mix that is unashamedly dance music with some remixes, edits, side projects and solo works and covers- more an Inspired By Talking Heads mix than a strictly Talking Heads mix. I think it works now.

Forty Five Minutes Of Talking Heads And Friends Mix

• Jezebell: Swamp Shuffle
• David Byrne: My Big Hands (Fall Through The Cracks)
• Talking Heads: Burning Down The House (Pete Bones Remix)
• X- Press 2 and David Byrne: Lazy
• Rheinzand: Slippery People
• Tom Tom Club: Wordy Rappinghood
• Brian Eno and David Byrne: America Is Waiting
• Azealia Banks: 212 (Leo Zero Edit)

In August 2023 Jezebell released Jezebellearic Beats Vol. 1, the first full length album from Darren and Jesse, twenty tracks of 21st century pick and mix/ club culture dance music. It closed with Swamp Shuffle where David Byrne's 'high high high high high' chant (borrowed from Talking Heads song Swamp, off 1983 album Speaking In Tongues) surfaces and resurfaces. Speaking In Tongues doesn't get the respect it deserves I sometimes think- it's the last of the classic run of Talking Heads albums and has a very glossy commercial production, recorded (without Brian Eno unlike the previous three albums, a decision the rhythm section demanded) at Compass Point in the Bahamas, taking aim at the big charts with thumpers like Burning Down The House. It also has the sleeper song, the one that has over the decades seeped into wider popular culture, the wonderful This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody) which should be on this mix but isn't.

In 1981 David Byrne released an album, The Catherine Wheel, a score for a Twyla Tharp dance project of the same name. My Big Hands is a sign of where Byrne might go under his own steam, shimmering, juddering art- funk. He'd go there with the other three Heads too but already in 81 he was exploring outside the band. 

Burning Down The House was their breakthrough chart hit (as mentioned above), a song inspired by Chris Frantz shouting the title phrase over a riff the group were playing, himself inspired by Funkadelic and Parliament. This Pete Bones remix, pretty unofficial I think, streamlines it for modern dancefloors. Could be wrong but it isn't, it turns out right. 

Lazy is from 2002- I can't believe this track is already that old, an X- Press 2 single which Byrne sang on after he approached the duo to be his backing band. They turned him down, feeling they were unable to provide him with what he wanted but they got this song out of it, a gloriously catchy housed up 21st century Byrne. David has since then recored a version with an orchestra and played it live- he did it in his American Utopia tour in 2018, a tour I was lucky to see at a very memorable night at the Apollo.

Rheinzand are a Balearic dance act from Belgium who I love. Their debut album came out in 2020, an album released just as the world went into lockdown and with this cover of Slippery People on it, Ghent's finest rejigging Talking Heads into super sleek modern Balearic house/ disco. 

Tom Tom Club were Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz's side project, formed in 1981 because they were pissed off Byrne had gone off to do other things. They recruited a load of players including Adrian Belew, Steve Scales and Wally Badarou and made an album that chimed perfectly with 1981 New York's collision of rap, art, dance, graffiti, and fashion- Genius Of Love and Wordy Rappinghood were both hits which irked Byrne- proving Weymouth and Frantz's point that he should be sticking with them. Wordy Rappinghood was their debut single, a joyous thing with Tina's sisters Lani and Laura on backing vocals and utilising a typewriter, a Moroccan children's song and some French language lyrics about words. 

Also released in 1981 was David Byrne and Brian Eno's truly groundbreaking, visionary sampledelic, worldbeat, Afro Beat, found sound opus. Eno described the album as a 'vision of a psychedelic Africa', something that Adrian Sherwood and African Head Charge were taking note of in the UK. The album opens with America Is Waiting, a track that still sounds like it comes from the future while also rooted in turn of the 80s Cold War, moral majority, advent of Reagan paranoia. The voice is Ray Taliaferro, a US radio show host, taped off the radio.

Leo Zero's edit of Azealia Banks' 212 is one of the most exhilarating things I've heard recently, Azealia's celebration of youth, Harlem, sexuality, and her own prowess riding on top of Once In A Lifetime, some sirens and a rattling drum machine. As the kids say, it slaps. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Talking Heads And Friends

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Soundtrack Saturday

The last two soundtrack Saturdays have been post- Clash solo affairs, Big Audio Dynamite with the song Free from the film Flashback in 1990 and Joe Strummer's songs for Sid And Nancy in 1986. Today's soundtrack is Mick Jones in 1993 and a low budget 1993 film Amongst Friends. Directed by Rob Weiss the film tells the story of three childhood friends who get involved in low level drug dealing, nightclubs and local mobsters, shot on location around the Five Towns of Nassau County (Long Island and Queens). 

The soundtrack is a very 1993 blend of hip hop and alt- rock, with The Lemonheads, The Pharcyde, Bettie Serveert, Tone Loc and MC Lyte all rubbing shoulders, Mott The Hoople jammed in and three Mick Jones tracks not available anywhere else plus Big Audio Dynamite's Innocent Child. This one can be considered something of a lost Mick Jones solo gem, just Mick and a porta- studio, drum machine, understated electronics, softly sung and rather sweet.

Long Island

No Ennio is a soundtrack incidental music, some echo pedal guitar with synth and drum machine

No Ennio

BAD's Innocent Child is from the post- first line up years, Mick recruiting a new B.A.D., calling them Big Audio Dynamite II and carrying on. Innocent Child featured on the new BAD's 1990 album Kool Aid and then again on the reworked The Globe a year alter. Innocent Child is a heartfelt Jones song.

Innocent Child

It would be remiss of me to finish this post without The Pharcyde's Passin' Me By, one of 90s hip hop's best tracks- one of the best 90s tracks in any genre actually- and one that in 1993 I played to death. It samples Jimi Hendrix, Quincy Jones and Weather Report but the self- deprecating, unlucky in love lyrics and verbal flow are entirely the work of the four Pharcyders. If you don't play Passin' Me By at least five times today I will have failed. 

Passin' Me By

Endings and Beginnings

Today is a big day for me. I'm leaving my current workplace after a long term of service. I moved to a new job in a school in a former mill town north of Manchester back in 2001. I was thirty one. Isaac was three and Eliza had not been born. In 2008 the school was closed and new academy replaced it and I've been there ever since. I didn't plan on staying in one place for so long and within the school I've done several different jobs and held several different roles. Isaac died in November 2021 and in January 2022 I went back to work. I was off work for five weeks in total. I think part of going back to work was partly about getting some routine and familiarity back into my life, which had changed beyond all recognition. Going back was very difficult. I was on a reduced role and timetable. At times I wondered to myself, sometimes out loud, 'what the fuck am I doing?', but I kept going and my closest colleagues (some of whom I've worked with since 2001) were very helpful and supportive. I look back now at those first six months after he died and don't know how anyone manages in such a situation but you do find a way to put one foot in front of the other and keep moving. In the summer of 2022 I stepped down from my then role on the leadership team and went back to the job I was doing when I first arrived there in 2001, Head of History, which had a neat circularity to it if nothing else.

Without going into any detail and washing some very dirty laundry in public, my workplace has had a very rough time over the last five years, gone through a number of structural and leadership changes, changes that are still taking place, and it has been at times a very difficult place to work. Schools in challenging circumstances are hard work and working with good people alongside you is the thing that gets you through some days. I'm leaving behind a group of colleagues who are friends and who I've spent a lot of time with. We've been through a lot together. Thank you, you know who you are.

Should I Stay Or Should I Go

I knew a couple of years ago I needed a change, a new start, to be somewhere else, that something had to change and that it had to be change that I chose. We've had so much change forced on us since November 2021 and I wanted to be the one that made a decision, choosing to change my life. Getting out and getting a new job has taken me some time and while living with grief it's taken finding the energy to do it as well. A year ago I thought I was stuck, too old and too expensive compared to the younger and cheaper teachers that were being appointed ahead of me. At the end of May I was interviewed for my new job and got it. Sometimes you just have to wait for the right job, the right place, the right people, to fall into place. 

When I leave at 12.30 pm today I'm leaving a lot behind me and it's going to be a wrench in lots of ways. There will be tears and goodbyes and a sense of leaving something which has been a massive part of my life but also I am really looking forward to being somewhere else, closer to home (you have no idea how much I'm looking forward to not being on the M60 every day this winter), in new surroundings. When I got the phone call in May to offer me the job the sense of relief I felt was enormous, the proverbial weight being lifted. Today is an ending and a goodbye. I have a few weeks off and then a new beginning. Wish me luck. 

Beginning To See The Light (Alternative Version)

Blue Thunder

Blue Thunder is the opening song on Galaxie 500's second album On Fire, the first record I heard by them, my introduction to the band. As calling cards go it's a stunner- the slow burn of the guitars, the hushed sound and Dean Wareham's voice sounding like a man so world weary that 1989 and all its excitements should just disappear- 'Thinking of blue thunder/ Singing to myself'. In the second verse he sings of being on Route 128 and finishes with 'I'll drive so far away', the guitars, drums and bass coming together cinematically, the car's taillights vanishing into the horizon...

Blue Thunder

Galaxie 500 released Blue Thunder as a 12" and this version contains a sax part by Ralph Carney so explosive, so violent, so psychedelic jazz, that it should come with a jump- scare warning. First time heard, it was a total freak out/ WTF moment but after that I grew to love it. Blue Thunder sounds like a lament but the sax makes it something else, something more. 

Blue Thunder (with sax)

All being well our school trip comes to an end today, our coach crossing from Calais to Dover and then carrying its weary passengers- 55 teenagers and 7 staff- up the country and back to north- west England for the final day of the school year tomorrow. 

My World Has Grown Old

The Cure's Remixes Of A Lost World album is inevitably a mixed bag. It's out in multiple formats, twenty four remixes spread across triple CD, double and triple vinyl. I've already written about the Four Tet remix of Alone and the Orbital remix of Endsong, both of which are so good they make me wonder why Robert Smith hasn't done a full remix album or album with either the Hartnoll brothers and/ or Kieran Hebden. There's a Daniel Avery remix of Drone:Nodrone that hits all the goth- slo mo techno spots and a pumping Danny Briotet and Rico Conning remix that could close every indie/ goth disco night from now until the end of time. 

Mogwai, no strangers to expansive, dark emotional soundscapes bring themselves to Endsong, a stuttering noisy affair with a guitar line picked out on top, the band crawling slowly through a ten minute Cure shaped valley of despair, Smith's voice eventually drifting in, singing of being alone, left alone with nothing at the end of every song.

Colleen Cosmo Murphy takes a different approach, shifting the flow of the album (as sequenced on my double vinyl version) and has more in common with some of the dance/ Balearic remixes that The Cure last flirted with on Mixed Up back in 1990. Colleen's Electric Eden remix of And Nothing Is Forever adds a throbbing, sequenced dancefloor bassline, some twinkling synths and a ghostly choir, Robert's voice clear and loud on top- its a sunlit version of The Cure, very much a joyful and upward facing remix.  

Sprechen Fest

Chris Massey's Sprechen label started ten years ago, run out of a spare room at his home in Bolton. Since then it's had a decade of releases and parties, a record label that's become a home for life enhancing, psychedelic/ electronic music that is always interesting, always changing, never standing still. To celebrate this Sprechen are releasing an album called Ein Null: 10 Years Of Sprechen. The album has a really strong line up of artists- A Certain Ratio (with a track, Faster But Slower,  not available anywhere else), Bagging Area favourite Psychederek, The Utopia Strong (featuring former snooker champion Steve Davis), Lena C, PBR Streetgang, Gina Breeze, and Low Pulse. 

As well as this Norwegian producer Lindstrom has joined up with Chris' band The Thief Of Time on a song called Escape Into Neon- a title that sums up much of Sprechen's vibe- with an instrumental and vocal version of the song. The instrumental is available to listen to here, Lindstrom's Scandi-disco synths and The Thief Of Time's 80s indie- pop combining in a flare of light and arpeggios. Ein Null is out on vinyl and digitally and can be ordered here. 

The other track on Ein Null is Walk... Now Walk, a slow mo acid disco chug romp with vocals from RuPaul and Supernature that builds and builds without ever quite exploding, the tension kept in check. 

Also on Sprechen but back in June, was an EP from Ed Mahon called Recreations, a trio of edits and covers. The first is the Poolside Rerub of Voice Of Africa's classic Hoomba Hoomba, the original's beatific piano set over a 98 bpm chug and the chanted vocal fading in. 

Following that there's What You Deserve, a hard edged, uptempo early 80s number from the EBM/ Nitzer Ebb/ DAF sound- sweaty industrial proto- house with a vocal from Snem K. The EP is completed with a version of Corina's Temptation, originally out in 1991, and done by Ed with a vocal from Louise Spiteri, stripped back and full of end of the night/ under the stars love. Get Recreations here. 

Monday's Long Song

I've written before about Richard Norris' long running music For Healing series, a project he started back in 2020 with the specific intention (due to his own personal circumstances at the time) of making music that would work as medicine, an aural balm to block out stresses and to heal troubled psyches. 

I've also written before about how in the days after Isaac died I couldn't listen to any music but needed something to drown out the silence and to give me some relief from my then raging, grief- induced tinnitus. The first piece of music I could listen to was one of Richard's twenty minute long Music For Healing pieces. I contacted him some time after and told him about this and he said it was exactly what he wanted the music to do, to act as relief. He's continued to make these ambient pieces ever since, releasing them on the first of the month. 

This year's theme has been oceans and two weeks ago Oceans 7 dropped into my inbox, subtitled Still Water, recorded in Richard's Lewes studio. This one is a beauty, an ambient/ deep listening dive into warm seas, gentle drones and a treated piano. Press play, sit back, do nothing, float, reflect. Get it at Richard's Bandcamp. 

Ninety Minutes Of Psychedelic Dub From Rude Audio

Rude Audio's Mark Ratcliff is a fan of all things dub and many things psychedelic. He recently put together a psychedelic dub set, a ninety minute chugged up, dubbed out selection featuring some of Rude Audio's own recordings (with Dan Wainwright), some Duncan Gray, GLOK remixed by Hardway Bros meeting Monkton uptown, The Orb, a Richard Fearless remix of KXB, Future Sound Of London, Channel 15,  Tom Waits (!) and many more. Mark's very good at this kind of thing and with the temperatures in Amsterdam (where I am today, on a school trip) and at home in the UK due to top 30 degrees, this is an ideal soundtrack. You can listen at Soundcloud. 

If you're looking for a further Tom Waits/ dub interaction here's the mysterious B:dum B:dum and a punningly titled slice of deep dub, a sound that is all hiss, space and rhythm. B:dum B:dum were an early 90s Manchester outfit- members have since migrated into Marconi Union and Shunt Voltage. There's a 12" single isted on Discogs which contains four tracks, Istanbul, Angel, Check This and Good May Weep. I've no idea where this track came from. 

Tom Waits For No Man

Soundtrack Saturday

Alex Cox's 1986 film Sid And Nancy tells the story of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen, the doomed punk rock couple who destroyed themselves and each other. The two leads, Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb, do their best as the couple and manage to portray a relatively touching love story in the middle of all the noise and chaos of the Sex Pistols. John Lydon was hugely critical of the film and of Cox, its portrayal of the junkie lifestyle and of Johnny Rotten. Others agreed, saying it was wildly inaccurate and filled with artistic licence regarding the death of Nancy. 

It's a film which split opinion on release and ever since- some see it as a welcome corrective to punk nostalgia, 'abrasive, bratty and antisocial'. It's definitely compelling, not to mention wretched, squalid and off- putting. In 2016 Alex Cox said he was proud of aspects of it but the ending was too 'touchy- feely' and that he was more sympathetic to Lydon's point of view than he ever had been before. 

Alex Cox became aware of the contradictions of the film. He said the happy ending was 'sentimental and dishonest', and that they were trying to make a film that condemned Sid and Nancy for their decadence, that punk was a positive movement, it was forward looking and 'you can't be those things if you're 'a junkie rock star in a hotel room'. Asked if he was going to remake it how he would change it, Cox said he'd end with Sid 'dying in a pool of his own vomit'. So there you go. 

Let's leave the film and its problems aside and go to the soundtrack. Cox got Joe Strummer on board (something else Lydon was critical of, his dislike of Strummer and The Clash something Lydon can never leave alone). Joe wrote two songs for the film (and more unofficially and uncredited due to his then contract with Epic). Dan Wool of Pray For Rain was heavily involved as were The Pogues. There are no Pistols or Vicious songs on the soundtrack. Joe's film soundtrack work- Walker, Straight To Hell, When Pigs Fly, Permanent Record- began with Sid And Nancy and Love Kills was his first post- Clash release, a single in July 1986 to promote the film with uncredited guitar courtesy of Mick Jones (Joe and Mick had buried the hatchet by this point and made up). Love Kills is a song about junkie lovers, prison and murder.

Love Kills

Also on the soundtrack and the B-side of the 12" single was this Strummer song...

Dum Dum Club

The Pogues contributed Haunted, sung by Cait O'Riordan, a very lovely mid- 80s indie/ punk love song. 

Haunted