Coney Island Baby

Last year I had an intermittent, year long Lou Reed solo career project. In January 2025 I bought a copy of Berlin second hand for £5, an album I owned on cassette in the late 80s but hadn't heard for ages. Not long after I chanced upon a copy of Lou's self- titled debut. From there I zig- zagged through some of his 70s and 80s, buying albums on second hand vinyl as and when I saw them- this took me to Transformer (which I already had), Sally Can't Dance, Street Hassle and then 1982's The Blue Mask at which point I ran out of steam (and if I'm honest enthusiasm- diminishing returns kicks in during the 1980s until 1989's New York). 

A few weeks ago I was in a second hand record shop and flicking through the racks found a copy of Coney Island Baby, cheap and in good condition. Coney Island Baby came out in 1975 on RCA, Lou in the midst of a settled domestic situation with his partner and muse Rachel, a trans woman. The album is a well produced, rich sounding set of songs, a love letter to Rachel and to Coney Island (as I understand it, the Blackpool of New York). The album sounds rich, professional musicians playing in an expensive studio, well arranged songs with crisp, full bodied production. At the time, some critics sniped at it, Lou gone a bit soft, Lou losing his revolutionary self, Lou sounding like The Eagles. Soft rock Lou Reed. They have a point but fifty years distance has also added to Coney Island Baby especially in the context of some of what came later. It's not Berlin but it's not Mistrial either.

There are eight songs and they veer between sublime and ridiculous. It's a Lou Reed solo album- these became the parameters fairly early on. A Gift is ridiculous, Lou singing that he's a gift to the women of this world, over plodding mid- 70s rock. It may be tongue in cheek. It may be deadly serious. Charley's Girl is good, taut and funky, Lou at his speak- singing best. There's a six minute version of She's My Best Friend, a Velvet Underground song that at that point wasn't officially released and wouldn't be until 1986's VU. It's a decent version, some nice spiky guitars and vocals, but if you've heard The Velvets' version first then your palette has already been spoiled. 

Ooh Baby is a rocker, a song for Rachel and a real highlight, lyrics about topless dancers, Times Square, massage parlours and fluorescent lighting, and then a chorus of 'ooh baby ooh baby ooh baby ooh ooh ooh' and later 'ooh baby ooh baby shake your bones now mama ooh baby ooh baby walk it'. It's prime mid- 70s Lou Reed. 

Coney Island Baby ends with the title track, doo wop vocals and laid back guitar rock, Lou singing of the glory of love and how he just wants to play football for the coach (the coach was 'the straightest dude I ever knew', Lou explains). The song gathers and Lou explores friendships, two bit friends, how different people have peculiar taste and that 'the glory of love might see you through'. The backing vocals swell, the guitars squeal and Lou sings of being with his Coney Island baby (Rachel) and how he'd give the whole thing up for her. 

Coney Island Baby

A Walk Across Town

Walking through town recently- we always call the city centre of Manchester town- I came across three music- related artworks that caught my eye. This flyposter for the Massive Attack and Tom Waits single Boots On The Ground on Whitworth Street, posted onto the building which used to have the nightclub The Venue in its basement. The song caused a sensation when it was released back in April, Waits singing from the point of view of a US soldier, a grunt, cannon fodder for foreign wars. 'How much does every soldier weigh?', he/ the narrator asks at one point. I posted it back then but make no apology for its re- appearance so soon after. 

The soldier/ Waits rants about the politicians who send him to war, 'Federal pricks/ Hiding in the senate like a bloated ass tick/ Air conditioned fuckstick loafers/ Sitting in a room of army posters'. In the end the soldier kills 'a brown man' and all they found was his boots on the ground. It's powerful, visceral stuff. 

It's coming out on vinyl, £25 for a 12" single, which is somewhat expensive. On the other hand, it's one of the songs of the year so far. 

Up on the elevated tram station Deansgate Castlefield I saw this piece of graffiti, a local artist's tribute to Gary Mani Mounfield, the much loved and much missed bass player of The Stone Roses- 'I wanna be adored... RIP Mani'. 

I Wanna Be Adored opened the band's debut album, first heard by fans back in early May 1989- a long slow FX and feedback intro and then Mani digging out that bassline. Squire's guitars trickle in and when Reni kicks in on drums we're off, the late 60s re- figured for the late 80s with a huge dash of Roses arrogance. 'I don't have to sell my soul/ He's already in me', Ian sings softly, 'I wanna be adored'. By the time the song winds down four minutes later many of those new listeners were already in deep, a new favourite band.

I Wanna Be Adored

I walked a different way to the pub I was heading to, dropping behind G-Mex and heading up a back road behind the Great Northern Goods Warehouse and to my left was this huge mural, Gorillaz v MCR. Damon Albarn's crew played the Co- op Arena back in April and this piece of paintwork was done to coincide, a history of Manchester from the Roman settlement of the 1st century AD to the arrival of Gorillaz in 2026, sanctioned and approved by Albarn and Jamie Hewlett and done by artist SketchMcr. 

Three Gorillaz songs selected from my hard drive. The Speak It Mountains is from 2010's The Fall, first released as a download only release. The track is various speaking voices and FX, Damon indulging his experimental side. 

The Speak It Mountains

Mick Jones appeared playing guitar on two songs on The Fall, one of which was Amarillo (recorded in Amarillo, Texas, in October 2010). 

Amarillo

Damon Albarn's talent isn't in doubt. He can write and he can sing- he can irritate too sometimes but this is one of those songs where he really hits the spot and finds an emotional connection out on the road in the vast open spaces of the USA. 

The Gorillaz mural has an excerpt from the song Dare (from Demon Days, released over two decades ago now, in 2005), the memorable line provided by Happy Mondays/ Black Grape vocalist Shaun Ryder, 'It's coming up/ It's coming up/ It's dare'. 

Dare

Monday's Long Song

Mid- June brings more treats from Sprechen, this week in the shape of Richard Norris remixes of Birds Of Pandæmonium, a track called Days Go By. Indeed they do- it seems like only a few weeks ago it was the New Year and now we're almost half way through the year. Last July I was standing photographing this church in Ypres, my last school trip at my old workplace, as the evening sun hit it and that doesn't feel like it was eleven months ago either. 

But, back to the music, Days Go By comes with four versions, two remixes- a vocal and a dub of each. The Rooms Of Percussion Mix is long and low slung, a chuggy monster with a bassline that writhes and buckles, some tripped out FX and a reverb drenched vocal. Slo and lo psychedelic cosmische that sounds like it would have fitted perfectly in an Andrew Weatherall DJ set a decade ago. 

The Stripped Mix is every bit the equal, trippier too with backwards parts, FX spiraling round, a nagging thudding rhythm and guitars. Dark dub disco, ideal for mirrorball situations. All four versions can be bought/ listened to at Sprechen's Bandcamp. 

A Mix For Eliza

It's Eliza's birthday today. She arrived in the early hours of 14th June 2003 and turns twenty three today. This has been causing some distress- Isaac was twenty three when he died in November 2021 and in a week's time she'll be older than he ever was. It's a strange thing to get one's head around and has brought some emotions to the surface. In the years since he died we've made a thing out of the number twenty three. We've all got a 23 tattoo and it's has become a way we jointly remember him. I still spot 23s out in the wild all the time. This was the table we sat at recently, in a busy pub, the only one with seats left...

Birthdays have been tough since he died. I know I always find them tough, another anniversary to get through, another date he's missing for. Eliza's twenty third birthday has stirred a lot of grief related stuff up and these are things which I've learned you just have to go through, you have to feel the feelings and accept it for what it is. 

We're immensely proud of her and everything she's done and we will be celebrating today, just in a slightly different way from usual. 

This is a thirty minute mix of songs for her twenty third birthday. There's plenty of other music she likes but these are some of the ones that have become jointly ours.

Eliza's 23rd Birthday Mix

• The Stone Roses: Mersey Paradise
• The Charlatans: Can't Get Out Of Bed
• Ride: Cali
• New Order: Sub- culture (7" Version)
• Oasis: Supersonic
• The Kinks: Misty Water
• Half Man Half Biscuit: The Light At The End Of The Tunnel (Is The Light Of An Oncoming Train)
• Cheryl Cole: Fight For This Love

Mersey Paradise was the B-side to She Bangs The Drums back in 1989, when The Stone Roses were on their ascent and I was nineteen/. It's her favourite Roses song, one that we've sung along to in unison umpteen times in the car. The Mersey isn't far from where we live, we walk on its banks often. Upriver in Chorlton is where Ian Brown and John Squire lived when they wrote the song, maybe inspired by walks through Chorlton Ees and the water park and beyond that Didsbury where I grew up. Downstream it ends up in Liverpool where both she and I went to university, several decades apart. It's a been a constant presence in our lives in a way I only really realised while writing this. She missed The Stone Roses reunion, she was a bit too young and only really became interested a little later, something I regret a bit. 

We played North Country Boy at Isaac's funeral and it still retains a lot of power of as a song. I took Eliza to see The Charlatans a year ago at Castlefield Bowl and when they played it we both started sobbing. It's acted as a gateway into The Charlatans for her though and she has several of their songs on one of her playlists, often coming on straight after Mersey Paradise. Just When You're Thinkin' Things Over is one and their 1994 single Can't Get Out Of Bed is another. The album it's from, Up To Our Hips, got a bit of a mixed reception at the time- their star had waned a little in the press- but it sounds like a fine album today. 

Cali is from Ride's 2017 comeback album Weather Diaries, a gorgeous guitar song with end of summer lyrics and feel.It was one of the songs that got a lot of time in the car when we went to France in summer 2017, a long drive down to Messanges on the Atlantic coast near Biaritz. 

Sub- culture is one of those songs that cut through for her. I'm not sure where it came from- I've played it and many other New Order songs since before she was born so maybe it just seeped in by osmosis. There are various versions. My favorite is the Lowlife one but the one here is the 7" version from 1985, remixed by John Robie. 

Supersonic was Oasis' debut single back in 1994 back when they were just five likely lads from Burnage. Oasis are part of Eliza's generation's firmament, and last summer's re- union gave a lot of young people a chance to see them they wouldn't have had otherwise. We were going to go to Gallagher Hill last summer when they played Heaton Park but the Sunday evening when we were thinking about it it began raining heavily and we thought better of it. Probably should have gone- if you avoid doing things outside in Manchester due to rain you'd do very little. Supersonic is a blast, phased guitars and splintering notes over that early Oasis rhythm and a load of half- nonsense rhymes and typically Gallagher arrogance- 'I need to be myself/ I can't be no-- one else'.

Back when Eliza was much younger and going to dance classes every Tuesday night I'd take her and her friend Emma in the car, drop them and then an hour later pick them up. One of the routines of young children. For some reason, Misty Waters became a song they started singing along to, and it became an essential part of the Tuesday dance drop routine that we played Misty Water, the pair of them singing/ shouting along to the chorus. A 1968 hidden Ray Davies gem later covered by Billy Childish. 

Another car song from pre- teen years, The Light At The End Of The Tunnel (Is The Light Of An Oncoming Train), is a Half Man Half Biscuit classic, one of their greatest moments. We'd all sing the breakdown, anticipating it from the start of the song- 'No frills, handy for the hills/ That's the way you spell New Mills'. Imagine our joy when we did this actually driving through New Mills. 

The line about Eyam is evidence of Nigel Blackwell's genius- 'We both grew up in Eyam/ And strange as it may seem/ Neither of us thought we'd ever leave'. For the benefit of non- UK readers, the village of Eyam is in Derbyshire and had an outbreak of Bubonic Plague in the 17th century. Rather than risk spreading the plague the villagers sealed themselves in, an act of self- isolation that confined the disease but led to the deaths of 260 residents. 

Cheryl Cole's Fight For This Love sticks out like a sore thumb in this mix but back in 2009 when she was six it was the first pop song she really connected with and I clearly remember downloading it for her and burning it to CD. 

Happy birthday Eliza. X

Oblique Saturdays

A series for Saturdays in 2026 inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas). Eno and Schmidt created them to be used to unblock creative impasses and approach problems from unexpected angles. Each week I'll turn over an Oblique Strategy card and post a song or songs inspired by the suggestion. 

Last week's Oblique Strategy suggestion was Emphasise difference.

I responded to this with Iggy Pop's journey from 1973 to 1977, from Death Trip to Lust For Life and with The Clash who went from White Riot in 1976 to Death Is A Star in 1983. 

Someone pointed out this week when commenting on the race riots in Southampton and Belfast that they didn't think this was the kind of White Riot Joe Strummer was talking about which is indeed true. Joe would have been appalled by the rise of far right politics in the UK. But I digress...

The Bagging Area OS squad came up with some great replies emphasising difference- Martin Carthy covering Slade, Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood's very different voices, Thomas Dolby and Prefab Sprout, Talk Talk, Cindytalk, Rodney Allen's Happy Sad, Paula Abdul and a cartoon cat...

... Elvis, Propaganda, Donny and Marie Osmond, Tonio K, and Boogie Down Productions. Thanks everyone- Chris, Walter, C, Khayem, Ernie, The Swede, Jase, Al G, Rol and Beerfueled as ever for your considered contributions.

This week's card says this- Ghost Echoes.

Just a few days before I turned the card over I finished Patti Smith's memoir Just Kids. It was published in 2010 and I've no idea why I only got a copy recently but I'm glad I did. It's a beautiful, powerful and poetic account of her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe. Patti promised Robert she'd tell his story as he lay dying from complications due to AIDS. She attempted to do this with The Coral Sea but was often unable to get through a reading of the poem. Twenty years after his death, she felt able to write their story down. Her use of the written word is beautiful, as you might expect- she's a wordsmith if nothing else. The book is gripping, open and honest, with versions of their two childhoods and then their chance encounter in New York. She writes about her move to New York as a nineteen year old, an intense and slightly damaged young woman in love with Arthur Rimbaud, inspired by The Doors and Bob Dylan. Her early life in the city is a life of penury, of living hand to mouth and sometimes sleeping in doorways. Eventually she meets Robert (he rescues her from a predatory middle aged man who has taken her out for a meal and now expects something in return) and they live together as lovers and as artists, a completely bohemian life, inspiring each other. Robert is clearly struggling with his sexuality during this period and eventually they split but remain together. Their move to the Hotel Chelsea and the people they meet there changes both their lives and their relationship and their art. Just Kids tells their story up to the release of Horses, Patti finding her calling as a poet and then merging poetry with rock 'n' roll- and then to Robert's death in 1992. 

The copy I have has extra material at the book, and Robert Mapplethorpe's ghost is present there in photos and drawings, in poems and art. He haunts the pages as he undoubtedly still haunts Patti. In a sense though, in the pages that make up the bulk of the book, the story of Robert and Patti, he is very much alive; she brings him (and a lost world, New York in the late 60s and early 70s) to life. In the book, after speaking to a very ill Robert on the phone in 1992, a conversation she knows will be their last, she wakes up a few hours later and intuits his death.

Land (Part One: Horses Part Two: Land Of A Thousand Dances)

There is no shortage of songs with the word ghost in the title- step up The Gun Club, Andrew Weatherall, The White Stripes and Tegan and Sarah, Fine Yong Cannibals, The Fall and R. Dean Taylor, Daniel Avery, Broken Chanter, The Jam, Reverb Delay, Kristen Hersh, The Orb, Burning Spear, The Replacements, The Vendetta Suite,  Denise Sherwood, Hollie Cook, Trentemoller and The Style Council among others.... on and on we could go. 

This 2019 song from Circle Square though seems the one that has both ghosts and echoes contained within, Richard Norris and Martin Dubka's Ghost In The Machine,  a voice trapped inside a machine, echoing on and out for as long as the machine is plugged in.

Feel free to drop your own Ghost echoes into the comment box. 

Multiforms

Marconi Union's new album Multiforms: Ambient Transmissions Vol. 3 comes out today, six pieces of deep ambient music, each around eight minutes long, that form a single whole, each track merging itself into the next. The long slow opening into Multiforms I, drones and sound gently building, breaks at five minutes with a wordless voice and synths sounds that bend towards the light, a gentle ascent. Multiforms II drifts in with the sound of wind and then synth tones. The beatlessness and weightlessness continues as II segues into III, a movement with a piano line taking the lead, rising and falling over the drone. 

IV picks up and a rhythm kicks in, not a drum but something approaching a pulsebeat that propels us forwards, arpeggios gradually pulling clear of a distorted fuzz. Insistent and hypnotic. Multiforms V has layers of sound, more drones, an electric bass possibly, an oscillating topline and then a clear and rich ringing melody line, coming from I think a clarinet. The final part is VI, a return to blur and haze, ringing drones and long keening notes, Marconi Union bringing us through to the end slowly and a gentle, slightly melancholy conclusion. Trip over. 

The album is available at Just Music along with much of the rest of their back catalogue. There's a full length visualiser of Multiforms Vol. 3 to add to the immersive experience, the visuals to accompany the audio.

This is last year's Marconi Union album, their twelfth, Fear Of Never Landing- another full length immersive deep listening experience, very much an album to unplug from the world and surrender to for the time it plays.  

World Cup Theme

I wrote this post out and then nearly deleted it last night- well, most of it, I'd have left the music in, two tracks at the bottom of the post both named World Cup Theme. It seemed unnecessarily gloomy and a bit of a rant. What's the point in moaning about an international sporting tournament? If you don't like it, don't watch it, I told myself. I barely watched any of the last one, a one- man boycott that had no impact on anyone but me. 

The World Cup starts today, Mexico playing South Africa in Mexico City at 8pm our time. I'm struggling to find much enthusiasm for it. Once upon a time the World Cup seemed to have a magic of its own, players you'd never see on the TV, exotic sounding Brazilian players with one word names (Zico, Eder, Socrates), world class players appearing on our televisions in kits you only saw in photos in magazines- the specific blue of the Italy shirt, Brazil's dusty yellow, Argentina's blue and white stripes with black short and socks, Peru with a sash across the front of the shirt, Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands. Foreign players and national sides were a rarity, a once every few years treat. By the time of the USA '94 tournament we might have seen the top Italian sides play on Channel 4 on a Sunday afternoon but there was a scarcity to the World Cup that gave it a lustre, an experience no other sporting tournament offered. 

That special nature and a sort of vague purity that the World Cup had- no transfers, no money splashed buying the best players, sides made up of just those players who happen to have been born in the same nation state at around the same time- has been completely sullied by modern day FIFA. The 2018 World Cup was in Putin's Russia (he'd already annexed Crimea by this point). The last one was in Qatar, stadia constructed using modern day slave labour. This one is in Trump's USA as well as Canada and Mexico. The 2034 one is in Saudi Arabia. It's seems like FIFA are deliberately awarding the World Cup to authoritarian states. I look forward to China and North Korea co- hosting in 2038. 

FIFA's man in charge is Gianni Infantino, the man who gave Trump a specially created, just- for- him, FIFA peace prize to make up for those nasty people at Nobel not giving him theirs. Not long after he started bombing Iran. He's still at it, no closer to peace than he was in February. Sepp Blatter was a truly awful FIFA president but at least his only fault was he was on the make, taking backhanders for votes. Infantino makes Blatter look like a model leader. 

The ticket prices in the US are sky high, reflecting apparently the dynamic pricing model of the US sports market. They're having a half time show in the final. They've prevented some members of the Iranian squad and a Somali referee from entering the country. ICE will be present at the matches. They've expanded the tournament to forty eight teams which looks likely to increase the number of meaningless group stage matches, Infantino labouring under the illusion that more is better, that bigger is better. Cristiano Ronaldo had a red card rescinded so he can appear in the group stage games for Portugal- a decision made for commercial and television reasons, not sporting ones. 

I could go on. It all seems depressingly gaudy and corrupt, a TV show about a sport, an empty vessel celebrating the worst of the 21st century, late stage capitalism and authoritarian regimes. 

Maybe I'll get drawn in once it starts. 

In the meantime, good luck Mexico! I hope you go all the way, meeting Iran in the final. The thought of thousands of Mexican and Iranian fans celebrating on US soil makes me smile. Highly unlikely of course- underdogs never win the World Cup, it's always won by one of the top two or three sides. That counts both England and Scotland out too I think. 

A few weeks ago my friend Pandit Pam Pam, an ambient/ electronic artist from Sao Paulo, Brazil, put out a track titled World Cup Theme (Goalkeeper)- a lovely, spritely slice of instrumental synth music. You can listen to it here. 

It reminds me of this from 1986, Colourbox's Official World Cup Theme, one that like Pandit Pam Pam's was released to coincide with a World Cup held in Mexico. 

The Official Colourbox World Cup Theme

Let The Music Play

The Coral, the Wirral psychedelicists who have releasing records since their late teenage years in the early 00s are back with their thirteenth album, a nine song album called 388 (named after the Tascam 388 tape recorder they made the album on and also the type used by Lee Scratch Perry at Black Ark). The Lee Perry reference is apt because the first single- Let The Music Play- is a smokey, fuzzy skank, a nod of the pork pie hat to the rocksteady singles coming out of Jamaica in the 60s and to the tunes the band heard at a Wirral Youth club in the 90s. 

Let The Music Play is a joy, an echo drenched rocksteady rhythm and some high pitched harmonies, James Skelley opening the song with the lines,'Play that song again/ The one we used to smoke to/ When we were young'. There are wobbly horns, brushed drums all very natural and easy going. Music made by music lovers.  

The album follows in that feel by all accounts- I haven't heard it yet and it's currently a physical only release but on the basis of Let The Music Play it's gone straight onto my post- payday list of records to buy. 

The last couple of Coral albums have been concept albums- 2021's Coral Island and 2023's Sea Of Mirrors- and both blended cosmic scouse psychedelia with country and folk. Faceless Angel was the first single from Coral Island, Bo Diddley in West Kirby. 

Faceless Angel

Train Dreams And Undiscovered Shores

Secret Soul Society released a new EP two weeks ago on a Madrid based label Rare Wiri. Train Dreams has five tracks. The first, Take Me In, is a lovely slice of Balearic pop with warm padding drums, sunshine synths and a vocal declaring, 'something's happening in my heart'. The title track Train Dreams follows, pulsing Italo disco crossed with Kraftwerk style rhythms and bursts of synth noise and lasers. There's a remix of Train Dreams too by Popsneon which takes the train into cosmic disco territory. 

In the middle of the EP is Everybody Needs A Good Friend, a rather beautiful piece of electronic Balearica. The vocal, just two lines of lyric, might be familiar to some of you. Everybody Needs A Good Friend and the other four tracks on Train Dreams can be found at Rare Wiri's Bandcamp here.

Brighton's Higher Love Recordings have been quiet of late but return to action with an EP by Mass Density Human called The Undiscovered Shore- a trio of tracks based around the idea of coastlines, imaginary shores and the borderlands between sleep and being awake. Do You bumps in with some crashing drums but the synths and piano chords gradually take it to more chilled territories- heavy waves crashing on shores followed by smaller, gentler ones maybe. 

The Body is full of fluid, liquid bass and gently rippling synthlines, a voice occasionally muttering something, like hearing someone when you're half asleep. The Undiscovered Shore is all ambient beauty, layers of drones and notes falling like water droplets, seagulls squawking and then more piano. Another voice, this one talking about rescue, and six very lovely minutes of drift. You can get The Undiscovered Shore here. 

Monday's Long Song

Over the weekend I was suddenly struck the need to hear Tangled Up In Blue, one of Bob Dylan's finest songs- the words, the playing, the production and the singing, the way he paints so many vivid images of five minutes, the internal rhymes and the lovers crossing paths as the song shifts back and forth in time and across places, Delacroix and Montague Street, New Orleans and the great north woods. The ending, where Dylan returns to find the her, and he sings that all those people he used to know are an illusion to him now, 'some are mathematicians/ some are carpenters' wives', a line that always jumps out- mathematicians and carpenters' wives is so specific and so odd.

Having scratched my Tangled Up In Blue itch I sat down and listened to Blood On The Tracks all the way through. There's an argument thatit's Dylan's best album. It's definitely his best album of the 70s and after shedding fans and critical adoration with a run of albums in the first half of the decade (Self Portrait, New Morning, Dylan and Planet Waves all have their moments but none touch his 60s work or Blood On The Tracks) it can be viewed as a comeback with nine absolute top drawer Dylan songs (and Lily, Rosemary And The Jack Of Hearts which is fun but for me inessential). 

It's widely seen as an album that describes the breakdown of his marriage to Sarah Lowndes following an affair he had. Jakob Dylan says the album is 'about my parents'. Dylan denies that the album is autobiographical or confessional, saying in Chronicles Vol. 1 that all the songs were inspired by short stories by Chekhov (Anton Chekhov not Star Trek's Mr. Chekhov). I'm not sure Dylan is a completely reliable witness but then again, he's Bob Dylan, who are we to doubt him?

Four songs in to Side One of Blood On The comes the epic seven minutes and forty eight seconds of Idiot Wind. It starts off with a complaint about someone who has it in for him, 'planting stories in the press', and goes on from there, by turns reflective, indignant, vindictive and despairing. Some of it is aimed at a 'sweet lady', some at himself perhaps, the idiot wind that blows 'every time you move your mouth... it's a wonder that you still know how to breathe'. There's biblical imagery, fortune tellers, boxcars and lone soldiers, a chestnut mare and a priest wearing black on the seventh day. The idiot wind blows everyone away and eventually the nation, 'from the Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol' (and this is the mid- 70s of defeat in Vietnam, Nixon's disgrace and resignation so the idiot wind has blown all the way to the very top).

In the end though it blows on him and on her- 'Idiot wind/ Blowing through the buttons of our coats/ Blowing through the letters that we wrote/ Blowing through the dust upon our shelves/ We're idiots babe/ It's a wonder we can even feed ourselves'.

Idiot Wind

Forty Five Minutes Of Japanese Psyche

For the last two months Ernie of 27 Leggies and myself have been engaging in a long running duel- think Ridley Scott's masterful 1977 film The Duellists where Harvey Keitel and Keith Carradine engage in a long running feud during the Napoleonic Wars. 

Mine and Ernie's duel is not due to an imagined slight and a stain on an officer's honour- at least I don't think it is- but is a duel of Japanese psyche bands, a to and fro  between two music blogs, each raising the stakes slightly with a post featuring obscure Japanese rock bands playing psyche, acid, prog, punk, ambient, psychedelic, noise and jazz inflected rock. Ernie went last with a post in May celebrating Kuunatic. Today's Sunday mix is something of a post holder while I consider where to go next, forty five minutes of music made by a variety of Japanese psyche bands featured either here or at 27 Leggies. Three quarters of an hour of Japanese psyche may not be your Sunday morning cup of green tea but in the spirit of adventure and experimentation I offer it up anyway. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Japanese Psyche

• Boredoms: Free (End Of Session Version)
• Kikagaku Moyo: Zo No Senaka
• Bo Ningen: Triangle
• Kuunatic: Desert Empress Pt. 1
• Yura Yura Teikoku: Dekinai (Extended Remix)
• Kikagaku Moyo: Majupose
• Yura Yura Teikoku: Sweet Surrender (Remix)

Boredoms are from Osaka, a noise rock band who formed in 1986 and have a huge, rambling back catalogue. They formed a friendship with Sonic Youth and as a result got exposure in the USA and played 1994's traveling circus Lollapalooza. Free is a cover of a song by Phish,  a rather lovely and chilled ambient track that leads us gently into the mix...

... whereupon Kikagaku Moyo take over- heavy, overloaded psychedelic rock, drums and guitars, wah wah pedals and valve amps pushed to their limits, chanted vocals, sitar, theremin. Kikagaku Moyo formed in 2012 and went on hiatus in 2022, a decade of psyche. Zo No Senaka is a live recording, the band playing a wedding at Hasenheide near Innsbruck and the album recorded and given to the guests and helpers with a further 300 copies made available to fans via the band's website. 

Bo Ningen's Triangle is the fifteen minute closing track from a 2021 re- recording of the band's 2011 debut album, a rebuild. I shaved four minutes off the start here, so that Bo Ningen kick in where Kikagaku Moyo left off. Bo Ningen are a fearsome live band and have found many supporters in the UK and Europe. They've played with Damo Suzuki, Savages and Faust and Bobby Gillespie has sung with them. 

Kuunatic are an all female trio from Tokyo who make 'tribal, dramy, tale music' (their description not mine) with keys, bass and drums and three way vocals. Experimental prog and psyche merged with sci fi and Japanese folk while wearing robes and headdresses. What's not to like?

Yura Yura Teikoku (translation- the wobbling empire) formed in Tokyo in 1989, underground psychedelia but with a commercial edge that led them to New York's DFA who put out a 2007 EP with Dekinai on one side and Sweet Surrender on the other. Terrific James Murphy endorsed electro/ punk funk. 

Mata ne. 

Oblique Saturdays

A series for Saturdays in 2026 inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas). Eno and Schmidt created them to be used to unblock creative impasses and approach problems from unexpected angles. Each week I'll turn over an Oblique Strategy card and post a song or songs inspired by the suggestion. 

Last week's Oblique Strategy suggestion was What is the reality of the situation?

My Oblique responses were a new song from Mike D and The Aloof from 1994. The Bagging Area Oblique squad came up with some excellent suggestions. ilradz4evuh suggested a slew of Happy Mondays songs, all benefiting from the input of a producer (John Cale, Martin Hannett, Paul Oakenfold and Steve Osborne, Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth, and Sunny Levine and Howie B). Al G suggested Liverpool's The Real People (a band I saw twice back in the day, once in their home town and once at G- Mex supporting Pixies). This is the song Al G proposed, from The Real People's 1991 self- titled album...

The Truth

Rol went with Soul II Soul and The Beautiful South. Ernie plumbed for Gil Scott Heron's B Movie. JC came up with The Jam and Crass (a second Oblique Saturday showing for Crass) and Edinburgh's Sons Of The Descent. Over on social media Chris threw African Head Charge and Professor Stretch in. 

The variety of responses and the sheer range of songs thrown up by a short Brian Eno penned cryptic remark is ace. 

This week's Oblique Strategy card says this- Emphasise differences.

In 1973 Iggy Pop had a third roll of the dice with The Stooges, now Iggy and The Stooges. The monstrous groove of the original band had become something more akin to hard rock with the addition of new guitarist James Williamson. The failure of the first two albums, the debut and Funhouse, had seen the band spiral into chaos and addiction. They broke up, Iggy was on smack, Dave Alexander was an alcoholic. Singing as a solo artist with Colombia he moved to London with Williamson to make an album. Once there they failed to find a rhythm section that worked and so they flew former- Stooges the Asheton brothers over, with Ron reluctantly accepting he'd play the bass. With Bowie producing they recorded an album- Raw Power. 

Raw Power is a high octane blast of, well, raw power. From the opening frenzy of Search And Destroy it rattles and shakes, roars and thunders, proto- punk, one of those albums that inspired a thousand others. It ends with Death Trip...

Death Trip (1997 Iggy Pop remix)

'Sick boy sick boy going wrong/ Memory losing grip/ Girl I wanna take you out with me/ Come along on my death trip'

Iggy was on a one way trip at this point, heading towards the exit door. A death trip.

Incidentally, the version above is from Iggy's remixed/ remastered 1997 version, an opinion splitting version. Bowie's original 1973 version was often criticised for being muddy and unclear. Iggy redid it, in an attempt to compete with late 90s rock radio, everything pushed into the red but clarified for radio. Lots of people hated the new version- both Asheton brothers for two, Robert Quine and Don Fleming for two more and David Bowie himself. 

The Iggy mix does emphasise the differences, the distortion is audible but the instruments are separated and punchy. For two generations brought up on Bowie's 1973 mix though the wound up tension and ferocity of the original would always be the one. 

From Death Trip in 1973 to Lust For Life in 1977. 

Lust For Life

In between Iggy had finished off the second version of The Stooges on tour, the band and a bunch of bikers coming to blows while the band played (captured on Metallic K.O.). Iggy's drug issues deepened and he checked himself into a mental institution. Bowie rescued him, took him on the Station To Station tour and the pair then relocated to West Berlin in an attempt to wean themselves off their respective drug addictions (Bowie cocaine, Pop heroin). I guess it made some sense at the time but West Berlin was one of the strangest places in the world in 1977. Going there to get off drugs was a brave decision. It paid off. The made two of the best records of Iggy's and David's careers. Of anyone's careers in fact. The Idiot and Lust For Life (both should really be seen as part of Bowie's Berlin trilogy).

The road from Death Trip to Lust For Life is in itself an exercise in emphasising differences. Bowie and Pop were too, Bowie cerebral and arty, a megastar, a life as a work of art while Pop was a washed up rocker, an exercise in living as hard as you can all the time, primal.

'I'm worth a million in prizes/ I'm through with sleeping on the sidewalk/ No more beat my brains/ With liquor and drugs/ I got a lust For Life'.

Another way of emphasising differences is to look at where a band starts and where they finish. In the seven years between 1976 and 1983 The Clash went from this...

White Riot

...to this...

Death Is A Star

I'm not sure many bands ever traveled as far musically and stylistically as The Clash. Strummer, Jones, Simonon and Headon emphasising the difference, between White Riot and Death Is A Star, between ferocious two chord punk and impressionistic cinematic modern jazz. 

Feel free to drop your own emphasising differences suggestions in the comment box.

Lost Tapes In Dub

B:Dum B:Dum Sound* are a lesser known early 90s Mancunian act, a foursome who made dub infused with shots of post- punk and house. Their lost recordings are slowly but surely making their way onto the internet in various places. Last year a four track EP was released by Ramrock- The Lost Tapes EP is led by There Is No Question, a long slice of dubbed out digitalism with the gnomic vocals and lyrics of singer Gears. Do/ Don't, Only A Ghost and Mercy keep the flame burning with deep bass, hiss, space and echo and serious rhythms- dub you'll want to shuffle around to. The Lost Tapes EP is at Ramrock's Bandcamp. 

More recently in March this year B:Dum B:Dum's epic twelve track album SBG In Dub came out on the group's own Bdum Bdum Sound label. Experimental, spacey, rhythmic dub techno in a hundred shades of dark. Five tracks in a variety of versions from a time when Manchester was a bit burnt out from the long tail of Madchester and the Hacienda. In No State (4 To The Floorsteppa) is serious dub, an instrumental with rocking bass and drums. The Understated Mix is taken further, the vocals suggesting fellow Mancunians A Certain Ratio and a guitar line summoning Bernard Sumner's 80s playing. 

Turn The Silence Down (DubDisco) is dub and post- punk spliced together, basement music with alienated vocals from Gears and the samples/ programming giving the track an On U Sound/ industrial edge. Ancoats before it was gentrified. 

There are three versions of Mind Is A Temple, the Sainted mix pushing the bass to the fore and the hi hat riding the rhythm as whooshes and static echo the sonic palette of Berlin's Rhythm And Sound. Gears vocals appear again, like a voice singing from the radio drifting into the song. There are twelve tracks on SBG In Dub, all of which are worth your time and attention if lost Mancunian dub/ post- punk is the sort of thing you're into. Which of course it should be. Get SBG In Dub at Bandcamp. 

* I'm not sure how we're styling the band's name-  there are various versions including B:Dum B:Dum, bdum, bdum sound and B-Dum B-Dum. It all adds to the mystery and confusion. 

Giant Sized

Giant, the debut album by The Woodentops, came out forty years ago this week. It's a fantastic album, a slice of 1986 that is in some ways a unique sounding record, one that was a little out of step in 1986. It's indie but sounds little like the main indie attraction of 1986 (The Queen Is Dead) and had little in common with the other big indie hitters of that year- The Fall, Billy Bragg, R.E.M., The Housemartins, Husker Du and The Shop Assistants all made the NME's albums of 1986 with Giant pitching in at number 36*.

Rolo McGinty formed The Woodentops in South London in 1983 having spent some time in Liverpool playing bass with The Wild Swans and then joining The Jazz Butcher. The Liverpool connection s present with Frank de Freitas (brother of Bunnymen drummer Pete) playing bass in The Woodentops and them being joined by Simon Mawby, Alice Thompson and Benny Staples on drums. Staples added something different to the band- he played standing up and had a rack of hub caps that added a real bite tot he percussion and rhythms. Rolo strummed his acoustic guitar like he was trying to scrub several layers of it away and the use of acoustic instruments like marimba and accordion made them sound different. The songs were crafted, beautifully sung, hypnotic, upbeat and infectious. On disc they popped out of the speakers. Live they were twice the speed, hyper energetic and Rolo sang like his life depended on it. 

Good Thing

There isn't a bad song on Giant- Get It On, Good Thing and Give It Time are an uptempo and punchy opening trio, the swooning, rattling Love Train follows. Love Affair With Everyday Living sounds like nobody but The Woodentops. Travelling Man, Last Time, Everything Breaks make a strong final three songs. Their energy and speed hen playing live is caught brilliantly on Hypno- Beat, a live album released in 1987 with the band recorded playing at The Palace in Hollywood. It's been noted I think that was the night The Woodentops discovered ecstasy. The performance is most definitely ecstatic. 

The Woodentops found their way into the record box of the legendary Alfredo, a DJ playing records at Amnesia in Ibiza. Alfredo played whatever he liked- rock, soul, disco, early house, reggae, instrumentals, Belgian New Beat, ambient, New Age, anything that suited the mood of the outdoor dance floor and that people could enjoy under the stars. Why Why Why became part of the Balearic Beat, The Woodentops energy and dance rhythms fitting in with Alfredo's vision and spirit.  

Rolo posted on social media on Tuesday marking the fortieth anniversary of Giant's release and saying what a happy time it was for the band, hard work but great fun visiting countries they never imagined they'd play. He recounted being in a club in Kyoto, the Rubba Dub, and having an emotional moment standing looking at the band and road crew having the time of their lives on the dance floor and becoming teary eyed at the sight. 'The Giant tour... peak happiness all round', he wrote.  

Happy 40th birthday Giant. 

The Woodentops story didn't stop with Giant and it goes on still. Last year a revitalised Woodentops released Fruits Of The Deep and this week have put out a remix of one of the songs from the album, the Too Good To Stay (Night Club Mix)- funky, infectious, uplifting, danceable, indie rock.  Get it at Bandcamp.

* The NME's end of 1986 Albums of the Year is here and it's an interesting top ten showing that the NME's writers were of a fairly broad mind in the mid 80s. The indie ghetto they were famed for is not evident in the top 10 or the top 50. Prince topped the '86 chart and the top 10 found places for Mantronix, Run DMC, Paul Simon's Graceland, Cameo, Janet Jackson and Anita Baker as well as Sonic Youth (Evol at 4), The Fall (Bend Sinister at 7) and The Queen Is Dead (number 9). Melody Maker had The Beastie Boys at number 1 along with The Smiths, Prince, Elvis Costello, Throwing Muses, The The, R.E.M. and Big Audio Dynamite, with Giant coming in at number 16. 

River's Song

Richard Norris never stops, a endless flow of music coming from his monthly subscription at Bandcamp via his studio in Lewes. The latest piece of music is River's Song, the first fruits from a forthcoming album. Richard acquired some clips of 8mm film and then asked on social media for people to send him any further pieces of film they might have. The album, titled 8mm, is a musical response to those flickering images, past lives clicking and flickering by, captured by 1960s cine cameras on Kodak film. 

River's Song is a tremendously affecting and evocative piece of music, three minutes of treated piano/ keys very much in the Hauntology arena, the ghosts of people and lost places preserved on an obsolete film format several decades ago. River's Song is a version of lost futures idea of hauntology, as expounded by Jacques Derrida and Mark Fisher, captured in three minutes of piano. 

Second Of June

Back in 2024 The Jesus And Mary Chain returned with an album called Glasgow Eyes, one that sounded like the Reid brothers were enjoying the freedom of a creative spurt. Scuzzy synths, FX and drum machines were added to the guitars and it was a fairly intense and uncompromising record, one with a certain amount of swagger to it. Towards the end of the album was this song...

Second Of June

And it seemed most apt to post today. 

'There's a blood moon on the rise and murder in your eyes', Jim drawls as William strums an acoustic guitar and a drum machine patters away. 'Brother can you hear me calling you?' he carries on and then as if to remind everyone who they're listening to, in case they'd forgotten who was making this music, 'Face the sky/ Take cover before you die/ The Jesus and Mary Chain'. 

Monday's Long Songs

Sonic Youth's albums breakdown into three phases for me: the first phase is from 1982 to 1988 where they released increasingly inspired albums for indie labels SST (in the US) and Blast First (in the UK), culminating in Daydream Nation; the second is from 1990 when they signed to Geffen and released several albums that in one way or another were a response to being on a major label (Goo, Dirty and Experimental Jet Set, Trash And No Star); and then a long third phase from 1995's Washing Machine through to the end in 2009 with The Eternal. A big part of this third phase was the band becoming elder statesmen of indie- punk, no longer the youthful punks of the early 80s, and having to find ways to keep moving forwards without repeating themselves. They also were hugely affected by two events, the death by suicide of Kurt Cobain in 1994 and the Twin Towers attacks of 2001. 

Washing Machine was their ninth album and released not long after their headlining stint on the Lollapalooza tour. They'd had a period where they all explored side projects and Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon had a child, their daughter Coco. They decamped to Memphis, Tennessee to make Washing Machine, a most un- Sonic Youth place on the face of it, but they wanted to disconnect from the usual environment and surroundings and free themselves to make an album in a more relaxed way. 

Washing Machine opens with The Diamond Sea, a song that clocks in at just under twenty minutes (and a song they released as a single). In 1991- 2 Sonic Youth had toured with Neil Young and Crazy Horse and had been an influence on Neil releasing Weld, the feedback driven live album from the tour. In return, on The Diamond Sea Sonic Youth sound the most like Neil Young and Crazy Horse they ever would, the song a long ballad with overblown guitars and a very Neil opening line, both in the lyrics and Thurston's drawl- 'time takes it crazy toll'. The last line, and it's difficult not to hear the song as a tribute to Kurt Cobain in many ways, is another Neil Young sounding line- 'And love is running wild on the diamond sea'. 

In November 1995 the band were on tour again, playing Austin, Texas on the 15th. Towards the end of the set Thurston introduces the song by telling a story about the band playing Austin years before and meeting Terry Pearson who became their soundman from that point on. Then they fly into the song, Lee and Thurston's guitars wailing and roiling and Thurston singing like Neil Young. It's slightly shorter than the album version, just fourteen minutes, but it's a heck of a way to spend a quarter of an hour, the four Sonic Youthers locked in and on fire, a tremendous racket- the guitars blaze and glow like fireworks, coupled with a great tune and some emotional tension. And the re- entry after the feedback/ noise freak out section crescendo with Thurston back into the song's end section with the line 'time takes it's crazy toll' is fantastic. 

The Diamond Sea (Live in Austin, November 1995)

Neil Young released Weld in 1991, a double album of songs recorded during the long tour and a third disc called Arc made up entirely of feedback. During the tour Neil and Crazy Horse developed the songs, many of them becoming longer and longer and more feedback driven. He took to covering Blowing In The Wind and adding air raid siren FX. The first US led Gulf War was going on at the same time and Neil said the band would see news reports on CNN and then go on stage after 'watching this shit happen... singing songs about conflict'. He added, 'we couldn't just go out there and be entertainment'. 

Cortez the Killer is from 1975's Zuma, a tale of imperialism and slaughter extended for nearly ten minutes live in 1991. It's the song that kicks off disc two of Weld, Neil and Crazy Horse at their live best.

Cortez The Killer (Weld Version)

Humanity As An Act Of Resistance

David Holmes' regular slot at NTS, God's Waiting Room, has been transforming in recent times from the purely musical into something political, a two hour radio show with something to say- Humanity As An Act Of Resistance. David still plays music, searching the racks and digging in the crates for the obscure and overlooked- ambient jazz, cosmische, drones and rock 'n' roll- but he splices it all with excerpts from interviews, TV news, documentaries and spoken word. The last three episodes have all been subtitled Humanity As An Act Of Resistance: The Epstein Class. It's not always easy listening but it's a vital piece of reportage, pop and politics. The latest one is at Mixcloud here. 

The previous one, broadcast in April, includes two new tracks by The Five Techniques, a Holmes musical collective that put out a single he recorded with Paul Weller, a project running alongside Humanity As An Act Of Resistance. Resistance In The Dark was remixed by fellow Belfast artist Autumns. The remix EP is here, with the Autumns remix, an Arveene one and two versions by Alex Patchwork that are abstract dub/ drum 'n' bass, Paul Weller, Roisin El Charif and David Holmes spun into entirely new sonic spaces. 

There were two further and as yet unreleased tracks by The Five Techniques on the April edition of Humanity As An Act Of Resistance including one with Ian Svenonius on vocals- that show hasn't been uploaded to Mixcloud as far as I can see but anything with Ian Svenonius' involvement is going to be good. His Charge Of The Love Brigade album as Escape- ism was a 2025 highlight and back in 2011 he recorded the song which provided Andrew Weatherall with a banner and an entire ethos. 

Music's Not For Everyone

Oblique Saturdays

A series for Saturdays in 2026 inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas). Eno and Schmidt created them to be used to unblock creative impasses and approach problems from unexpected angles. Each week I'll turn over an Oblique Strategy card and post a song or songs inspired by the suggestion. 

Last week's Oblique Strategy suggestion was Humanise something free of error.  

My reactions to this were Farley Jackmaster Funk and Daryl Pandy's Love Can't Turn Around and Kurt Vile. From the Bagging Area Oblique Saturdays Squad came the following- Ebony Steel Band covering Kraftwerk (Ernie), Daft Punk's Human After All (Al G), anything by The Fall (JC), King Davis and The House Rockers and We All Make Mistakes (Rol) and R.E.M.'s Everybody Hurts (Walter). Here's Mark E. Smith and the 1979 iteration of The Fall with a tale of pharmaceutical misadventure.

Rowche Rumble

Today's Oblique Strategy card is this- What is the reality of the situation?

What is the reality of the situation? didn't do much for me at first, an oblique strategy that left me unresponsive. Maybe it was the heat, but it just didn't spark much in me. Eventually I got to this- the reality of the situation is that this is a music blog and part of what it does is help spread the word about new music. Mike D, former Beastie Boy and now solo artist, has released another single- What We Got, a song that harks back to the Beastie Boys sound of Check Your Head and Ill Communication but also sounds like something fresh and new. 

What we got? 'Retired MC/ Need a Plan B', Mike raps.  

What is the reality of the situation? also took me to this.

In 1994 The Aloof released their debut album Cover The Crime, a dub- techno lost classic by a group made up of two Sabres Of Paradise (Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns), a Red Snapper (Rich Thair), Ricky Barrow and Dean Thatcher. The third track on the album is this one...

Society

The vocal, a robotic/ reggae call and response, worked its way to the front of my mind while I pondered what to do with this Oblique Strategy card.

'Society... this is... reality... this is...society... this is... reality...'

Nine minutes of thundering drums, breakbeats, sirens and mid- 90s dub techno tension. 

Feel free to make your own responses to What is the reality of the situation? in the comment box.

Where Were You?

There was an article at The Guardian earlier this week about The Mekons and how they made their debut single Where Were You? It's here. The band formed in Leeds in 1976 inspired by seeing the Anarchy tour pitch up at the Polytechnic, the Sex Pistols and The Clash. Gang Of Four formed almost immediately, Mekons a little later. This was the key impact of the first flush of punk, the number of people standing and watching, knowing they wanted to do something and the seeing the Pistols and thinking 'I could do that'. 

There's a heartwarming comment in the below the line section where a reader recounts seeing The Mekons soundcheck and speaking to guitarist Tom Greenhalgh and asking him what the chords for Where Were You? were. Later on that evening during the gig as the band played the song, Tom shouted the chords out as he played them, the flame that was lit by the Pistols and The Clash and the Anarchy being handed on again. 

Where Were You?

The intro's clanging guitar chords and rattling drums are really special and then it all kicks in. As noted in the article by Jon Langford, the song is about male loneliness, an anti- macho lyric inspired partly by Buzzcocks. The songs goes off like a flare and later the lyrics and guitars/ drums have done everything they need to, it stops suddenly. 

There's loads more to The Mekons, they have become the longest lasting of the first wave of punk bands, surviving line up changes and fashions and diving into country and folk, 80s alternative and occasionally dub. In 1988 they released Ghosts Of American Astronauts, a sweetly sung 80s indie song with the still astonishing first line, 'Up in the hills above Bradford, outside the napalm factory/ Ghosts of American astronuats, glow in the headlight's beam'.

 

Renascent

The best news for ages came yesterday- a new Durutti Column single with an album to follow in July. Vini was very unwell following a series of strokes in 2012 which left him unable to play guitar for a long time and it looked like would be no new Durutti Column music. 

Liars came out on Wednesday, following some gnomic social media posts the night before. Long term cohort/ drummer/ friend/ manager Bruce Mitchell is on board as is Kier Stewart. The single is Liars, a dreamy, ambient piece with synths, choral backing vocals and some distinctive guitar playing on the top, layers of blissed out sounds and then, one minute in, Vini's voice, speaking softly. It's a total joy that there's some new Durutti music after sixteen years and when it didn't look possible for so long, and it's fantastic that Vini has got himself into a place where he's been well enough and confident enough to do it. Welcome back Vini and welcome back The Durutti Column. 

The album Renascent is out at the end of July in a variety of editions and formats. You can find them here. Vini's music has been resurgent in the last few years. Blood Orange sampled a piece of Durutti Column on this song from last year, The Field. 

Blood Orange, otherwise known as Devonte Heynes, was new to me until recently but he clearly has a large and devoted following judging by the YouTube numbers and comments and the song is rather lovely. 

The last time there was any new Durutti Column music was a 7" single in 2014, Free From All The Chaos, with singer Caoilfhionn Rose and a video filmed in and around Fletcher Moss gardens and the River Mersey in Didsbury, a place I know very well from childhood and since. 

What's The Meaning Of Life?

There's a Wordpress version of this blog, identical to this one which is hosted by Google Blogger. When I started in 2010 Google had a nasty habit of deleting entire blogs- every single post gone at the flick of a switch, usually under pressure from the DMCA (a 1998 US law to protect digital copyright). Google took down The Vinyl Villain in this way for copyright contraventions (posting songs). I use the Wordpress version of Bagging Area as a fallback and as a backup in case Google ever pulled the plug on this- that threat seems to have gone away, music blogs really aren't the enemy in modern music. I still back this blog up over there every day, it's probably prudent to have a backstop I think. 

But this isn't a post about that. The dashboard at Wordpress has added a box in the centre of the screen headed 'Daily Writing Prompt'. The first time I noticed this box the daily writing prompt was this...

'What's the meaning of life?'

Which is kind of a biggie isn't it? And presented as a quick writing prompt for a poor blogger lacking in inspiration. 

Soul II Soul grappled with it back in 1989 and Jazzie B found some answers- dreaming of your goals, positivity, elevating your mind, feel free to experiment, implement your ideas, feel the feeling, let your body take control.

Get A Life

Then the drop comes and Jazzie lets us have it...

'So there it is, work it out for yourself/ Be selective, be objective, be an asset to the collective/ Get a life'.

There's worse advice.

A year later Jane's Addiction closed their still superb sounding second album Ritual de lo Habitual with Classic Girl, a Perry Farrell love song for his partner and muse Casey Niccoli with some gorgeously restrained chiming chords played through a flange FX pedal. At the end Perry throws in 'They may say 'Those were the days'/ But in a way you know, for us, these are the days', and as I thought about Jazzie B's meaning of life, Perry's seemed equally well reasoned. 

I love Classic Girl, five minutes of music that just hits all the spots. 

Classic Girl

Two days ago, as this unreal heatwave hit us and we began to bake Wordpress offered this as a writing prompt- 'what's a moment that made you question reality?' 

This Could Be You, Us, Or Anybody

Broken Chanter's new album- This Could Be Us, You, Or Anybody Else- is in the grand tradition of Glaswegian guitar bands, lyrically downbeat but with an eye towards the future and musically stirring. The sense of despair David MacGregor feels about many aspects of modern life is palpable- the first song is called The Future Is Bright And I Don't Want It, a song for the present complete with rousing, ringing guitars. The sleeve notes outline a variety of progressive causes and end with a call for Scottish independence. The album's first single was A Year Without Summer (a song with synths and keys alongside the guitars, striking a different musical tone).

MacGregor's disappointment with the state of the world- right wing populists that want to divide us using the politics of envy and victimhood, techno- feudalism, social media as a force for disconnection rather than unity- is clear. But despite this, he urges empathy and protest, unity in the face of 21st century breakdown. On Piazzale Loreto the drums skip and the bass bounds, optimistic music (and with hand claps provided by the blog legend that is JC from The Vinyl Villain). Piazzale Loreto is the public square in Milan that Mussolini was hung in, suspended by his ankles, after being executed by Italian partisans in 1945. 

On To The Victims They Call Citizens the band rattle and shake like Talking Heads and closer to home, the ramshackle attempts by early Orange Juice to sound like Chic. Atrocity/ Adverts/ Idiocy is urgent indie- funk, the slashing angry guitars echoing those of Gang Of Four and on final song CENTRS Broken Chanter show they can do the sweeping and soaring tunes with vulnerable and melancholic vocals as well as anyone else and just as you think that's it, they kick up a real storm, a swirling noise of drums, guitars and synths as a crescendo and a finale; a call to arms and a call for unity, to come together while the world goes down in flames around us. 

You can listen to and buy This Could Be You, Us, Or Anyone Else at Chemikal Underground and at Bandcamp.