This compilation came out back in May but I missed it and have been catching up recently- Occupied Minds Vol. 1, an eighteen track multi- artist album from Belfast released in solidarity with the people of Palestine and raising funds for Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP). Many of the artists are new to me and the range of music is huge, from ambient to folk to techno and covering a range of emotional responses. This one, We Are! We Want!, is by The Light Brigade, who you might know is an alias David Holmes uses...
We Are! We Want! rides in subtly but gathers pace, rattling drums and metallic percussion and the wobble of synth bass. There are pauses and stabs of synth, the ever present rumble of the bass and some early 90s tension.
Over the top of this is the voice of James Baldwin, speaking about humanity and love, about the actions of individuals and what people choose to do and who they choose to be.
'What you’ve got to remember is what you’re looking at is also you. Everyone you’re looking at is also you. You could be that person. You could be that monster, you could be that cop. And you have to decide, in yourself, not to be'
Baldwin was talking about life in the USA in 1970 and the daily racism he and other black Americans faced. He was honest but optimistic- grace and humanity would save the world from despair he believed.
In some ways We Are! We Want! reminds of some of David's earliest work, tracks like Johnny Favourite and Four Boy One Girl Action and their sole release, the 1993 single The Hawaiian Death Stomp. Eleven minutes of early 90s progressive house/ techno spliced and an equally long, slowed down thumping, stompy dub. Moody, tribal and Sabres- esque.
The four boys were Holmes, Jagz Kooner, Gary Burns and Kris Needs. The girl was Patti Smith, sampled, fucking with the future.
Also on Occupied Minds is Timmy Stewart, Belfast producer, DJ and promoter who along with Aaron Black records as Black Bones. Timmy's track on Occupied Minds is The Right To Life, a rattly, spacey slice of 2026 dub techno.
In April Black Bones released a self titled album pulling together tracks they'd released on 7'', 10'' and 12''. It's here and highly recommended. In May they put out an EP/ 12'' single called Black Bones 008, four pieces of dark dance floor Balearica/ electronic edit mayhem that sound great in the mid- August sun. Listen/ buy here.
This 350 page hardback book came out recently, the work of the team at Disco Pogo (the people who used to be Jockey Slut, the 90s/ 00s Manchester based magazine that chronicled dance music and beyond). The book is a comprehensive look at the life and music of Andrew Weatherall. Back in 2020 Disco Pogo published a previous version of the book but this one is expanded with tons of new material (over 200 pages of new material) and interviews with insight and behind the scenes detail from those who knew and worked with Andrew- there is a lengthy section on his remixes with contributions from Hugo Nicolson, Jagz Kooner, Keith Tenniswood and Tim Fairplay, there is Justin Robertson writing about Andrew and his visual art, plus contributions from David Holmes, Daniel Avery and Bobby Gillespie among others, a chapter on the gear and instruments in the various studios Andrew occupied, and in depth accounts of the making of the Sabres Of Paradise albums, the Two Lone Swordsmen days, The Aspodells' Ruled By Passion Destroyed By Lust, the story of Convenanza, lots of photographs and posters, an oral history of the acid house years, a full discography and much more. It's beautifully designed and printed and looks incredible.
There is also a chapter on The Flightpath Estate, the edited transcript of an interview the five of us did a few months ago about our albums and the Weatherdrive and a Flightpath Estate guide to five Weatherall online mixes. I thought we might get half a page- turns out we got eight, with the sleeves of our pair of Sounds From The Flightpath Estate albums and a photo of us at The Golden Lion with Waka.
Mind blown.
Disco Pogo's Tribute To Andrew Weatherall is available here and also at many other places that sell books. At some point soon I hope to be able to share some news about a third volume of Sounds From The Flightpath Estate. We always thought we should aim for a trilogy and things are happening behind the scenes.
In the meantime, to accompany all of this here's a fifty minute mix of music Andrew made under his own name. He didn't release any music under his own name (other than remixes of other people's work) until 2006 when his manager suggested that putting out an EP of new music he'd recorded under his own name might help sell more copies. That EP, out twenty years ago, was The Bullet Catcher's Apprentice. He followed that with a solo album in 2009 (A Pox On The Pioneers) and then in the 2010s several albums and EPs using his own name. There's also a second solo album, I Laugh Myself To Sleep, that is unreleased (for various reasons) and which is something of a lost gem in the Weatherall back catalogue. Maybe one day...
Vorfreude 2 is from Andrew's album Qualia, out on Sweden's Hoga Nord label in 2017, eight instrumentals that combine steam powered drum machines, throbbing live bass, synths and keys, a very Weatherallian fusion of post- punk, dub and cosmische.
Privately Electrified is from A Pox On The Pioneers, the 2009 solo album that fused proper verse- and - chorus songs and singing, guitars (Chris Rotter in fine form), the doomed, lost causes of Victorian and Edwardian adventurers, and dub influenced indie/ post- punk. On Privately Electrified the synths, drums, guitars and vocals are all perfectly weighed and produced with Andrew's multi- tracked vocals and some glorious backing vox building and swelling to the ending where he sings and signs off with, 'Three bottles and a hundred tears show/ Just how drunk I am'.
The Moton 5.2 was one of four tracks on an EP for Pamela Records in February 2020. Chugging, slippery dark dub disco with hissing drums, synth squiggles and some dramtic keyboard chords. The Moton 5.2 is a version of the EPs lead track, The Moton, which I think was a pun on Pamela and Moton/ Tamla Motown. The track March Violets, also on the EP, was named after Philip Kerr's Weimar and Nazi era noir detective novels.
The Confidence Man was on 2016's Convenanza album, a nine track double vinyl work that drew on much of the music he'd made over the previous decades, from Screamadelica onwards, to create a definitive statement of some kind about where he was and what he was doing. There is dub and piano, electronics and guitars, songs that nod to what he was reading and also some big picture stuff (We Count The Stars, Kicking A River). The Confidence Man is a blast, there's some Clash in it, the Sandinista!/ Combat Rock era of the band, some post- punk too. 'From deep within, the chants begin', Andrew intones.
Convenanza was paired with a remix album, Consolamentum, with songs from the first remixed by a cast of friends and musical partners- Scott Fraser, Red Axes, Unloved, Justin Robertson, Solar Bears, Heretic, Timothy J. Fairplay, Sons Of Slough, Duncan Gray, Vox Low and Black Devil Disco Club all show up on the vinyl. The Emperor Machine remixed The Confidence Man in dub style on the digital release.
Unknown Plunderer was one of two tracks on a 12" whose release sadly coincided with Andrew's death in February 2020, another Weatherall and Nina Walsh excursion into leftfield dub. On the flipside was End Times Sound. Andy Bell of Ride and GLOK contributes guitar. Andy arranged to buy a guitar from Andrew and when he arrived at the studio played it for a while. Before he left, Andrew and Nina asked him to play along to some tracks they'd been working on- Andy's guitars also appeared on Unknown Plunderer/ End Times Sound and the 2018 Blue Bullet EP which includes the track Making Friends With The Invader (the Invader in the title is the guitar Andy bought from Andrew, a 1960s guitar with a built in speaker). All four tracks on those two EPs plus the two released on the Kiyadub EP in 2017 are cut from similar cloth and together make a very good half hour Andrew Weatherall mixtape/ album.
Feathers was the lead track on the 2006 EP The Bullet Catcher's Apprentice, a chunky, percussive instrumental with scratchy, clanging guitars and lead bass. The Bullet Catcher's Apprentice was the first thing Andrew did after Two Lone Swordsmen came to an end and represent Andrew dipping his toe back into the world. I think there was a bit of a sense of 'what next?' at the time, Andrew a little unsure of himself and where he fitted into the musical world of the mid- 00s (uncharacteristically maybe) and was a very welcome release. It also has the lost gem Edie Eleven, an 00s dance floor thumper with some great Balearic acoustic guitar, and the very funny and self-explanatory You Can't Do Disco Without A Strat. The Disco Pogo book and the music above show just what a singular and much missed talent he was.
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 Be less critical more often.
This took me to San Pedro's Minutemen and their 1984 album Double Nickels On The Dime. The Oblique Saturdays collective weighed in various critical/ non- critical suggestions- Bob Dylan's Don't Think Twice, It's Alright (Trail Of Bread), Lyle Lovett and A House (Ernie Goggins), Herbie Hancock and Miles Davis and the incredible self- taught shambling proto- punk/ indie of The Shaggs (Rongniss), Dodgy (John Medd), George Bean and The Runner Beans (Rol- deftly avoiding Alexander O'Neal), Boo Radleys (Al G), Whitney Houston (anonymous), and Mojo Nixon (Chris ZenArcade).
This weeks Oblique Strategy card reads simply this- Water.
For musicians in the studio I can picture numerous responses to this as they change their playing, use samples and found sounds. My response was much more literal songs with Water in the title. Ironically, given the multiple heatwaves we've had this summer, the falling water levels in reservoirs, drought warnings and scorched grass, there is no shortage of water at Bagging Area. This a selection of water songs, mainly lesser heard and less well known ones...
First up, Sordid Sound System, Los Angeles via Glasgow's Optimo and a 2022 EP Neon Noir- very persuasive electronic music, chunky and percussive with watery synths. The text accompanying the EP quotes Raymond Chandler-
'I drove on almost to Malibu and then parked and went and sat on a big rock that was inside somebody's wire fence. It was about half-tide and coming in. The air smelled of kelp and glowed like neon noir. I watched the water for a while and then I pulled a string of Bohemian glass imitation pearls out of my pocket and cut the knot at one end and slipped the pearls off one by one.
When I had them all loose in my left hand I held them like that for a while and thought. There wasn't really anything to think about. I was sure.
"To the Gods below," I said aloud. I flipped her pearls out into the water one by one. I was as hollow and empty as the spaces between stars."
Two from Factory. Kalima emerged from Swamp Children, becoming Kalima in 1983 and making several records, latin and jazz based excursions. Black Water is moody, slinky and cool and then the vocal comes in and lifts it up a level (from their 1986 album Night Time Shadows)...
The members of A Certain Ratio were deeply involved with Kalima. In 1981 ACR put out Water Line, a 12" that is the early ACR sound honed to perfection- taut but rubbery bass, skittery drums, otherworldly production, the sense of something being not quite right...
Andrew Weatherall and Michael Smith's Unreal City has been here fairly recently, a 2013 ambient/ soundtrack/ spoken word project, that found Andrew and Nina Walsh providing soundscapes for Michael to read passages from his book over.
On Water Music Michael finds his way into London from the Kent coast into the city and down some steps to the side of the Thames. Michael sees 'light on the water, lights from the Millenium dome... lights from the sugar factory at Silvertown...'...
Lastly, back to the recently departed William Orbit and his 1993 evergreen Water From A Vine Leaf. Water From A Vine Leaf was remixed by Underworld not once but three times, in total well over twenty minutes of 1993 trance house techno.
Part 1 is the go to- chopped up synth squiggles, synthetic horns, chunky drums, widescreen cinematic progressive house that deals in hypnosis and delivers euphoria.
Part 2 is a twelve minute trip into the Orbit/ Orton/ Underworld dreamworld, a spaced out, relatively stripped back bubbling psychedelic adventure- Beth's vocals are FXed and looped, the pace is slow, there are tropical birds, a very loose guitar line and layers of synths. Chilled restraint is the order of the day on Part 2.
I got home from our holiday in southern Spain to find my copy of the new Durutti Column album Renascent waiting for me- I'd streamed it a couple of times while away and had been both impressed and moved by it and that has been repeated with several plays of the vinyl version. The last Durutti Column album before Renascent was A Paean To Wilson back in 2010, a tribute to Tony Wilson, Vini's friend, sometime manager and label boss. More than that, Tony was a believer in Vini, a true advocate for the music of The Durutti Column. A Paean To Wilson was the 26th Durutti Column album and due to a series of strokes Vini suffered in 2010 and the long period since then where it was reported that Vini was unable to play guitar (certainly to a standard he was happy with) it looked like that was it, there would be no more Durutti Column. The news a couple of months ago of a new Durutti Column album and two songs that preceded it- Liars and Scammer- was therefore very well received. The fact that there would be a new Durutti Column at all was close to miraculous- that it should be so good...
While I was on holiday we dropped into the English language bookshop in Nerja where at the front of the shop by the till I found a Paul Preston book about the Spanish Civil War, a book called Comrades! that tells the story of the war through the stories of nine different people, from the fascist leader Franco to Dolores Ibarruri, the communist orator known as La Pasionaria (Paul Preston is the leading authority on the war and his general reader, The Spanish Civil War, is as good an introduction to and history of the war as you'll find). Comrades! includes a quote by Buenaventura Durruti, the anarchist- syndicalist leader of the anarchist militia the Durruti Column and the man whose name (mispelt) gave Tony Wilson the name for Vini's band. I've seen the quote before but as I flicked through the book, with Renascent playing, it jumped out at me...
'It is we who built these palaces and cities, here in Spain...and everywhere. We, the workers. We can build others to take their place. And better ones. We are not in the least afraid of ruins. We are going to inherit the earth; there is not the slightest doubt about that. The bourgeoisie might blast and ruin its own world before it leaves the stage of history.We carry a new world here, in our hearts'
James Nice, the man who project managed Renascent and who wrote A Life Of Reilly, a biography of Vini published in 2024, begins his book with the quote as well- 'we carry a new world in here, in our hearts'. Very Factory. Very Wilson. The Hacienda does not exist. The Hacienda must be built.
These things coming together as they did- the new album, Vini back in the press, the book (found and bought in Spain), the Durruti quote... it all seemed, well, very well timed. Wilson might have called it praxis* or something similar.
Renascent has a certain continuity with the Factory days. It has a Fac number, Fac 2.51 (as awarded by Wilson's son Oliver, steward of Factory Too) and the artwork is by 8vo who did much of the Durutti Column artwork back in the 80s. The music is a team effort, not just Vini but also Bruce Mitchell, Kier Stewart and Caoilfhionn Rose (a singer and pianist who has sung with Vini before).
The album is a thing of beauty, poignant and romantic, cut through with melancholy but also a success in the face of adversity. It was recorded sporadically, assembled over several years, from various sessions, gathering pace since 2021. At one point during Covid, producer/ Durutti Column member Kier Stewart and Vini's friend, manager and long term drummer Bruce Mitchell recorded it while sitting in a car, recording Vini through the window, due to lockdown restrictions.
Between them, they've created a ten song album that stands alongside previous Durutti albums. It drifts in slowly and gently with Echoes In The Memory, fragments of guitar chords and strumming shimmering in the light, over a wash of synths. The interplay of instruments sounds like memories flashing back and forth, a life flashing before our eyes, before it snaps into focus and finishes on one strummed chord.
Your Shadow In The Morning has Spanish sounding guitar notes, a familiar DC sound, some lovely echo and chorus FX, those melancholy notes Vini's been locating since the late 70s. Repeated listens bring them together as a song and a mood. Time Present And Time Past (and don't the song titles suggest so much) is a lilting guitar- led piece, notes and runs down the neck of the instrument countered by a twinkling acoustic topline, some bursts of electric guitar and a musical box melody dancing its way onward. Agonistes brings the first sign of vocals, some wordless backing vox by CaoilfhionnRose adorning Vini's guitar and Bruce's drums. Side one finishes with Liars, the first time Vini's voice is heard, 'I love you, I'm sorry', he repeats as sighs, drums, bass and guitars pad away.
Side two opens with Vapour In A Matchbox, a two minute instrumental piece, before one of the standouts, Your Shadow At Evening- Bruce on the front foot with the drums, some tension and groove, a line of feedback, swirling guitars and synths, some frustration and anger expressed alongside the melancholy and tenderness found elsewhere.
Sargasso Sea is sung and played by Caoilfhionn Rose. At point she sings, 'and I don't regret a single cigarette', a line that jumps out, almost a Reilly mission statement. It's followed by Scammer, Vini on vocals again over a typically Durutti Column melody, guitars and synths combining, piano notes and guitar notes trading places.
On the vinyl edition, the final song is For Friends Everywhere, a new orchestral arrangement of For Belgian Friends, one of Vini's most loved songs, originally released way back on the Factory Quartet EP. Woodwind, piano and strings, an arthouse cinema score version with a side order of Penguin Cafe Orchestra. The digital version of renascent includes an extra song (also available on flexi disc with some of the vinyl editions), All They See Is Fire, Vini's guitar with vocals from Lucas Elliot, another song that captures that Durutti Column feel, the longing and mystery that have been at the core of the Durutti Column for a long, long time now. It's a looking back for sure, a capturing of Vini's playing and his songs but it's looking forward too- or at least very happy to be in the present.
Who knows if they're will be any more new Durutti Column music. Maybe there will, maybe there won't- Renascent in itself is enough and as Buenventura Durruti said back in 1936, 'we carry a new world here, in our hearts'.
* Wilson was somewhat obsessed with praxis- the idea that you do things and then work out what they mean and why you did it afterwards. Sometimes the act of blogging seems to be very much an exercise in praxis.
This came up in my downloads folder while I was looking for something else and it made me wonder why I haven't posted it before- and there's no time like the present. Negativland were/ are a US group with a core of four members, Mark Hosler, David 'The Weatherman' Wills, Peter Conheim and Jon 'Wobbly' Weidecker. They have been making experimental music since 1979- sound collages, sample based music as well as tracks with conventional instruments. In the 80s they were on SST along with the cream of US indie- punk. They were very much a hardcore and underground concern until in 1991 they were sued by U2's record label Island Records.
In 1991 Negativland released an EP called U2. The sleeve had the letter U and the numeral 2 in big type and the word Negativland in very small print. Island believed the group were infringing U2's trademark at a time when the Dublin band's fanbase were waiting for the latest U2 album to hit the shops- Achtung Baby and that confused U2 fans might buy the Negativland record by mistake (and thus be accidentally exposed to underground experimental music- the horror!).
Island Records were also upset about the content of the track...
The track sampled radio DJ and TV host Casey Kasem, caught in off- air moments- Kasem reading out a dedication to a family who's dog, Snuggles, had died and Kasem declaring about the Irish band, 'these guys are from England, who gives a shit?'. There are other sampled voices too, radio phone ins, a man repeatedly saying 'bullshit' and Kasem saying he doesn't understand and wittering on about Top 40 radio, and various people saying 'fuck you'. Meanwhile Negativland play a primitive synth/ keys version of U2's massive 1987 hit, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For.
There was also this version of I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, the A Capella Mix, which goes further, coming back to the line 'the letter U and the numeral 2' and taking the piss out of Bono's lyrics, sampling Bono from the radio and U2's crashing drum sound, humming the vocal melody line to the song. Casey Kasem keeps flipping back in, 'I don't know what to do, I still haven't found it, I still haven't found it, I'm looking for it but I still haven't found what I'm looking for....'
The band found themselves both being sued and in the news. They withdrew the EP and deleted it. A year later their record label SST, who gave the band no support during the lawsuit, sued the band too. In 1992 two members of Negativland were able to interview U2's The Edge anonymously and posed some questions to the guitarist about fair use sampling before revealing themselves as members of Negativland. The Edge said the U2 themselves were unbothered about the record and the sampling, and that Island had largely pursued Negativland without the band's agreement. The whole story chimed with the then current debates about sampling and copyright, something that the record industry and artists were still getting to grips with.
I also found this and am not sure why I have it as I'm not a fan of the band or the song- a Leo Zero edit of I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, a far less irreverent version of the song than Negativland's.
U2's egos needed puncturing in 1991- the pomposity of The Joshua Tree and Rattle And Hum, Bono's 'rock 'n' roll stops the traffic' persona, their humourlessness and dour sincerity all rubbed many up the wrong way. Ironically the band had realised this themselves and the album they were about to release- Achtung Baby- used sampling, synths and dance rhythms and was at least partly inspired by the musical and cultural revolution of the 1988- 1991 period. Even Better Than The Real Thing came with Paul Oakenfold dance remixes and was played in clubs. It reinvented the band for the 90s. They discovered irony. I'm not a fan of U2 but there are parts of Achtung Baby that I could listen to if required and I think we can all agree that Johnny Cash's cover of One, released in 2000 on his Solitary Man album, is rather good.
I read Mike Joyce's autobiography The Drums on holiday- it was a quick read, I did much of it on the flight to Malaga and finished it by the pool the next day. Mike is engaging and open, conversational in tone, and saw the rise of The Smiths from the drum stool. It starts with a fairly conventional telling of his childhood in Fallowfield, south Manchester (just up the road from where I grew up but a decade earlier- there were lots of local references I recognised). His childhood is interrupted by a stay in hospital following a very nasty head injury and once recovered gets into the idea of playing the drums.
Eventually teenage Mike moves out of the family home and into a flat in the Crescents in Hulme, the 1960s housing development near Manchester city centre gone wrong. Streets in the sky and huge sweeping concrete blocks of flats. Flat roofed pubs. Poorly built, unmaintained and unloved. By the early 80s they were an alternative community for those who wanted to live 'elsewhere'. Rent wasn't paid. There were cockroaches in the flats. The council left those who lived there to it. It turned into an enclave for young/ youngish people who wanted somewhere cheap to live and who weren't too fussy and those original residents who were trapped there and couldn't get out. The Kitchen was a legendary post- club venue found in the Crescents, two flats knocked into one with DJs playing all night in the kitchen. They've been knocked down and replaced since.
Mike joins a punk band called Hoax after seeing an advert- he had no previous experience and offered merely his enthusiasm, a red drum kit and his drumming style- fast, faster or fastest- and then joined Victim, who toured and made a record, and played a memorable gig and night out with a bunch of anarchist hippies in Italy. The story changes when Mike joins the nascent Smiths, turning up to the audition (invited) on mushrooms and playing with Johnny Marr, the singer Steve and soon to be dismissed bassist Dale Hibbert. Johnny is impressed. They gel quickly and Mike is in awe of his bandmates, Johnny's abilities on the guitar and skills as a songwriter evident from the first meeting and the singer clearly odd but talented and different. Shortly after Andy Rourke joins on bass and they step up a gear.
Mike sees the four as connected by their Irish Catholic heritage, all four Smiths the children of Irish immigrants, all part of the Mancunian- Irish diaspora. His account of The Smiths rise from their rehearsal room on Portland Street (in Joe Moss' clothes shop Crazy Face) to the mad tours of the US in 1986 is genuinely great to read- in all happens quickly in a rush and they write, record and tour, write, record and tour and gain a huge and devoted following. None of this is news but he brings it to life vividly. He covers the difficulties too- their unmanageableness, the financial and contractual issues, Morrissey's quirks and behaviours but balances it with his love for the band, his bandmates, their songs and their uniqueness. He notes as well how the band's stubborn northern Englishness and vegetarianism makes them stand out like sore thumbs in the high octane world of the US music industry. This gets them into trouble when they don't do as expected. He writes glowingly of Morrissey as a frontman, vocalist and lyricist despite everything that went down in that court case. Mike also writes about Andy Rourke and his death from cancer in 2023. The two clearly had a strong bond and friendship. The book more or less ends after Morrissey's free concert in Wolverhampton, Mike and Andy and Craig Gannon backing Morrissey solo at a wild gig in December '89 and a couple of solo singles (Last Of The Famous International Playboys and Interesting Drug).
In a quirk of coincidence I'd attended a party where Mike was DJing just a few days before I read the book. Cork Of The North is a wine shop/ bar owned by DJ Tin Tin (Marc Hough). Marc is New Order's tour DJ and among other gigs DJed alongside Dave Haslam at Yellow at the Boardwalk in the 90s ( a night I attended regularly but I didn't know Marc then). Marc's son was in the same primary school class as my daughter Eliza so we've known each other since then. Marc held a party at the Heaton Moor branch of Cork Of The North a couple of weekends ago to celebrate the bar's tenth birthday and Mike Joyce was the headline DJ.
Mike played a most un- Smithslike set of dance music and disco and on the way out me and my brother cornered him for a photo...
Mike's obvious enthusiasm and joy at being in a photo with me (left) and Josh (right) is second only to his enthusiasm for being the drummer in The Smiths, as described in The Drums.
DJ Tin Tin played both before and after Mike and located the Sunday afternoon sweet spot with among others tracks by A Certain Ratio, A Guy Called Gerald, New Order, Deee- Lite, Bassomatic and this 1990 single from Depeche Mode which sounded superb in the Sunday afternoon sunshine...
I've been revisiting Alan Moore's Swamp Thing over the last few months. Between 1984 and 1987 Moore took over as the writer on the DC Comics series Swamp Thing. He was relatively unknown at the time, having done some writing on British comics (2000AD, Marvel UK) but the big time was the US comics industry and the twin giants of DC and Marvel. Swamp Thing was a minor character, way down the DC priorities and close to being cancelled. Moore took his developing and highly distinctive writing and outlook and plotted a run of thirty six comics that would take a man- monster into new areas and helped create comics that were marketed as being 'For Mature Readers'. Watchmen, Dark Knight et al started with Swamp Thing (and Frank Miller's run at Daredevil too).
Moore turned Swamp Thing into a true monster, a sentient plant creature, a swamp organism with a human consciousness. He then plotted a series that went into Southern Gothic, horror, science fiction and environmentalism, episodes of psychedelic and hallucinogenic exploration, an inter- speices love story between Swamp Thing and Abby Cable and a meditation on what it means to be human. At times the writing is so good, so strong, you could remove all the artwork and visuals and just print the words. The artwork, by a variety of comics artists including Stephen Bissette and John Totleben, becomes increasingly out there too, matching Moore's singular vision. In some issues the artwork spins around, the reader having to rotate the comic book to follow the story, with graphic renditions of the hallucinogenic trips, Swamp Thing's consciousness and cosmic, existential battles between heaven and hell.
The horror elements are truly horrific- there are traditional gothic horrors with werewolves and zombies and a terrifying creature with his head sewn on backwards and a scene at Mornington Crescent tube station that kept me awake for a while after reading it. There is an ecological strand, pioneering for comics in the mid- 80s, and the nuclear/ industrial poisoning of local small town America. Swamp Thing's partner Abby is arrested and he turns a city into a green wilderness in response, he visits the Parliament Of Trees, is blasted into space and bounces around other worlds and eventually returns to earth with the knowledge he needs- be aware of your power, be wary of anger.
There are music references all over the place. The character John Constantine is based physically on 80s Sting. The are issues with song titles as their titles- Loving The Alien, Another Green World. Abby's friend Chester is a 60s hippy fond of quoting Bob Dylan and blasting out The Grateful Dead.
Alan Moore has disowned most of his 80s comic book work. He deconstructed the form with Swamp Thing and then the superhero completely with Watchmen. He felt that everyone misunderstood want he was doing and that film studios and comic book companies missed his points completely. There's an interview here for more on that and also Moore on writing , literature, fiction, magic and nostalgia.
I'd like to think he retains some residue of love and affection for Swamp Thing, a forty year old comic book character that retains a lot of power when read today. You can pick up the anthologies, all six of them republished as Saga Of The Swamp Thing, cheaply second hand- very much worth a trip.
Another Monday, another Four Tet post- I come back to Kieran Hebden's music repeatedly at the moment and he keeps dropping new releases into the world. A few weeks ago he released a new album under his unpronounceable Wing Dings alias- ⣎⡇ꉺლ༽இ•̛)ྀ◞ ༎ຶ ༽ৣৢ؞ৢ؞ؖ ꉺლ, with eight equally unpronounceable tracks that I still haven't got around to writing about and then he goes and releases an new two track Four Tet EP at the end of July- Human Voice.
Human Voice and T246130ish Electribe Plaits came out on vinyl four months ago and made it onto Bandcamp a week ago. The second of the two, T246130ish Electribe Plaits, is the one for today, an eight and a half minutes long piece of electronic music that has all the trademark Four Tet sounds but still manages to do something new with them.
A low key first minute, a loop and a synth part, bleepy and brisk , that suddenly kick into a louder, new focus , pushed to the foregournd. Some long keening backdrop synth chords work their way in and Kieran keeps his hands busy, filtering and FXing. The beats keep the pace fairly fast but the music seems much slower- a trick Aphex Twin pulls off very well too- and the various layers and elements are subtly changing in emphasis as we go on. There's a pause at four twenty five where you think it might be over but the drums and synth wobble return and off we go again, swept along by the momentum. Unexpectedly and dissonantly it all dissolves into guitar feedback at the end.
Human Voice and T246130ish Electribe Plaits can both be bought, heard and downloaded over at Bandcamp.
I'll come back to the recent ⣎⡇ꉺლ༽இ•̛)ྀ◞ ༎ຶ ༽ৣৢ؞ৢ؞ؖ ꉺლ album another time.
On Friday news arrived of the death of William Orbit. He died on the 23rd of July aged 69 and leaves behind him a rich, wild and varied back catalogue of music that reaches from the early 80s underground to worldwide fame and success with Madonna and All Saints via some essential acid house and ambient records. His trademark sound- bubbling, liquid, in motion, widescreen and trippy, like staring at a sunflare- lit up a huge number of artists, his own music and production and remix work for others. In some ways 69 seems young but he packed a lot into those years and lived the life to go with it. Until recently he was still producing, reworking and revisiting his own music and releasing it as an album on Bandcamp titled WFO and an EP called Starbeam in 2021.
This fifty minute mix contains some of the big hitters from his back catalogue with that Orbit sound running right through the middle of it.
One Dove: Breakdown (William Orbit Stereo Odyssey)
William Orbit: Water From A Vine Leaf (Xylem Flow Mix)
Torch Song: P2E Remix
Les Negresses Verte: Zobi La Mouche (William Orbit Remix)
The Shamen: Hyperreal Orbit
Madonna: Ray Of Light (Liquid Mix)
Bassomatic: Fascinating Rhythm (Soul Odyssey Mix)
The Story of Light is an ambient classic from William's third album in his Strange Cargo series, Strange Cargo III, produced at Guerilla Studios while he was knee deep in the Guerilla Records label, one he set up with Dick O'Dell and John Gosling. Progressive dub house records clad in a distinctive camouflage sleeve. The Story of Light is bubbly and warm, a swirly sound with chunky drums and bass, pianos and guitars and a 'let your love shine on me' vocal refrain.
One Dove are no strangers to this blog, Morning Dove White and its singles being at the core of my musical life. Andrew Weatherall's production and William Orbit's remix on Breakdown are a perfect 1993 combination.
Water From A Vine Leaf was a single and also the centre piece of Strange Cargo III with Beth Orton on vocals. Epic, swirling, liquid ambient acid house. There were several essential remixes, Underworld's twelve minute thumper for one and the Xylem Flow mix I've included here by Spooky, as good as anything else that came out in '93. If you want a new version of Water From A Vine Leaf, San Francisco producer Marshall Watson has one here, his Endless Motion Edit.
Torch Song were Orbit's first outfit, an early 80s ambient/ electronic he formed with Laurie Mayer and Grant Gilbert. P2E Remix was featured on Andrew Weatherall's 200 compilation Nine O'Clock Drop which brought a number of early 80s bands back to the surface, A Certain Ratio, 400 Blows, Shriekback, Quando Quango, Chris & Cosey among them.
Les Negresses Vertes are/ were a French band, alternative rock/ folk from Paris- they were sometimes referred to as the French Pogues. Orbit's remix of Zobi La Mouche is a fantastic record, just the right amount of Balearic/ acid house edge added to the original- I played it not that long ago in one of our sets at The Golden Lion and it sounded superb on the Lion's sound system. Paul Oakenfold was listening- he borrowed some of it for his remix of Happy Mondays' WFL.
The Shamen's Hyperreal came out in 1990, a key moment for the group as they shifted from psychedelic guitars and samples to full on electronic. Massive techno- pop/ house with multiple remixes.
In 1997 William Orbit when overground with Madonna, becoming the producer on what's probably her best album, Ray Of Light. The title track along is a huge record, soaring, adult pop. Orbit sometimes went further in the studio than Madonna wanted him to, producing endless versions and remixes. The Liquid Mix is a wonderful synth- pop version of Ray Of Light. The song took four and a half months to create, Orbit returning to the multi tracks time and time again, adding, mixing, removing, remixing, playing guitar, manipulating sounds, repairing broken computers- all worth it in the end. His work with Madonna began when he remixed Justify My Love in 1990, a remix and song that are both such a key part of 1990.
Also in 1990 Bassomatic appeared on BBC 2's Dance Energy, miming to Fascinating Rhythm in front of a youthful and enthusiastic crowd.
Bassomatic was William Orbit's breakthrough, a late 80s/ early 90s house/ acid house collective that took him to the charts. Fascinating Rhythm is one of 1990's best singles, totally of its time but enduring too- chunky, optimistic pop with acid house and rap sewn into it. There's a bass heavy Renegade Soundwave remix I nearly included but this version, a piano led Balearic elegy felt right for he finale and to remember him by.
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 Don't be frightened to display your talents.
I wrote at some length about Talk Talk's 1988 album Spirit Of Eden, side one particularly, a three song suite that displays the talents of Mark Hollis and Tim Friese- Green, not to mention the other musicians that play on the songs- The Rainbow, Eden and Desire.
Out in the Oblique Saturdays community Walter suggested The Slits and their cover of I Heard It Through The Grapevine, Jase went for Daft Punk's Discovery, Rol firmly in the Dexys camp with Show Me, C with Hendrix doing Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock, Ernie playing his wildcard again with Splodgenessabounds and Michael Booth's Talking Bum, Al G with The Modern Lovers and Pablo Picasso (whose childhood home in Malaga I visited last week, first floor flat in the building below )...
... and Mrs G who went with PJ Harvey's 50 ft. Queenie.
I would like to hear PJ Harvey cover Pablo Picasso. I think she could take it to places new.
This week's card, turned over yesterday when I got back from Spain, is this- Be less critical more often.
I turned this over in my mind a couple of times and ended up with Minutemen, the 80s band from San Pedro, California, who were inspired by punk to get up and do something. Formed by childhood friends D. Boon and Mike Watt, Minutemen pulled in George Hurley on drums and wrote songs, made records and toured, all three incessantly until tragedy brought them to an end. Watt and Boon gave everything they did a lot of thought- they weighed up the meaning and value of things, of how to be a band and how to go about doing it the right way, how to relate to each other and to the world. They were critical of themselves and each other but also madly supportive and encouraging (of each other, of themselves, of other people). If the key message of punk was 'do it yourself', then they absorbed that fully, added a massive dose of work ethic ('if you're not playin', you're payin', they stated in their Jam Econo theory, driving round the US in a van playing gigs here, there and everywhere, seeing records as a way to promote their gigs, building a network and a community of like minded souls in every town they played) and worked out their political stance- anti- commercial, anti- rockist, independent.
Their music was everything except hardcore punk (despite being very much part of that world), an ultra- democratic sound (the bass and guitar stayed away from each other's areas). They were punk funk and folk punk, art rock and spoken word, unconventional and inspirational. They fused Wire, Pere Ubu, Bob Dylan, The Clash, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Pop Group, Gang Of Four, Captain Beefheart with the spirit and feel of 80s US indie- punk (contemporaries like Black Flag, Husker Du and Sonic Youth).
In 1984 they released their opus, Double Nickels On The Dime, a forty five song double vinyl masterpiece that saw each Minuteman select a side and the forth side collated from the remaining songs from the sessions (which they called the Chaff side- be less critical). It is a magnificent achievement, one of 80s punk's key albums.
By 1984 Minutemen were being less critical, were creating more songs, writing songs about anything that amused or interested them- Michael Jackson, Vietnam, racism, the poor, James Joyce and Ulysses and shit from an old notebook.
In their songwriting, D. Boon and Mike Watt had freed themselves from external criticism. If it was valid to them, it was worthy of writing a song about. Double Nickels is autobiographical, is left wing, is funny and passionate and inspirational. 'Our band', D. Boon sang in History Lesson Pt. II, 'could be your life'.
While writing Take 5, D Boon told Mike Watt his lyrics were 'too spacey'. Watt agreed and re- wrote them, responding to criticism in an egoless way and writing new lyrics that were 'more real'. He based them on a note he found from a friend's landlady complaining about a leaky shower.
'I hope we can rely on you not to use shower/ Hope we can rely on you not to use shower/ You're not keeping tub caulked/ Caused both downstairs bath ceilings and walls to be soggy/ Tub has to properly caulked prior to any shower/ Walls are drenched/ I'll refer plumber here/ Had to pay for two service calls/ Water drips from all around/ Kathy's ceiling, my ceiling/ Don't use shower/ Don't use shower'.
D. Boon died in December 1985 when the band's van, being driven by his girlfriend while he slept in the back, broke its rear axle, veered off the road and threw him from it killing him instantly. RIP D. Boon.
I'm not 100% sure how I'm connecting all of that with Be less critical more often but it's where my head went with the Oblique Strategy suggestion- and that's what this series is all about.
Feel free to drop your own responses into the comment box.
Time for my periodic posting of songs by The High, a late 80s/ early 90s Manchester band who were swept along on the wave of record company interest in all things Mancunian when the Hacienda, The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, Inspiral Carpets, 808 State and Factory blew up in the 1988- 1989.
The High were signer John Matthews (formerly of Turning Blue), guitarist Andy Couzens (an early/ foundational Stone Rose who quit suddenly in 1987 when manager Gareth Edwards and the John Squire and Ian Brown pairing announced all songwriting would be handled by them and therefore would be credited to Squire/ Brown. Andy was also in the pre- Roses groups The Patrol and The Waterfront with Squire and Brown), bassist Simon Davis and drummer Chris Goodwin (also in The Waterfront, then early Inspiral Carpets and also Buzzcocks F.O.C.). They signed to London Records in 1990 and released several singles and an album that year- the album was Somewhere Soon, one of the period's minor classics.
The first single was Box Set Go, a gem of a song with spiralling, chiming guitars, tumbling rhythms and softly sung vocals, one of the songs of summer 1990- dreamy psychedelic guitar pop.
Before the release of the album the group had recorded sessions with Martin Hannett including this version of Box Set Go- murkier and a little spikier. The full Hannett sessions came out for Record Shop Day in 2020.
Hannett was not a well man by 1989, had fallen out with Factory, produced Happy Modnays Bummed in '88 (to great acclaim) and various bands of the late 80s came looking for some of the Hannett magic. Hannett was as willful as ever. On one occasion he told drummer Chris Goodwin to start playing, set the tapes rolling and disappeared to the pub. Hannett pondered the problem that had caused him to walk out- two overhead ambient microphones- and suitably refreshed returned to the studio, placed a cigarette butt between them (Embassy No. 1, Hannett was very specific about such things), and then carried on with the session.
I saw them play at the Haigh Building at Liverpool Polytechnic in 1990, a gig that sticks in the memory. Not long after they turned up on Granada TV, one of Tony Wilson's much missed late night music shows, playing Box Set Go and several others.
The Early Years have released their third album in twenty years- Modern Moonlight. Their debut came out in 2006 and was followed by II in 2016, ten year gaps the norm for the band. The London based four piece take the cosmische and Mototik sounds of the West German guitar/ kraut groups and mix them with nods to Bowie, mid- 80s Creation (The Loft and The Weather Prophets), The Only Ones, Brian Eno (including some use of the Oblique Strategies cards...) and the shoegaze/ psychedelia of early Verve. First song A New Way Of Living bursts into life sounding like all of those at the same time, Roger Mackin's guitar a Heroes style drone.
On side two The Gift is a highlight, a song with a groove and a collision of guitars and disco, post punk/ punk funk, echoes of LCD Soundsystem, a heady dance floor brew.
Modern Moonlight finishes with Silver Lips (Champagne Eyes), a soaring cosmische ballad, Julian Cope's East Easy Rider gone for a glow up with a guest spot from singer Lorena Quantanilla (from Mexican duo Lorelle Meets The Obsolete).
The remaining seven songs match these three, a sublime marriage of guitars and synths, live drums and vocals, loops and drones and proper songs. One of the albums of the year- get it at Bandcamp and other reliable record shops.
This came out last week, a limited edition C60 cassette featuring the music of Matt Gunn, an hour of electronic adventuring titled Sound Tracks 1. Matt's music spans the range of electronica, from ambient to chug, synth pop and psychedelia, underpinned by the song based sensibilities of someone who spent their youth in guitar bands.
The eight tracks on Sound Works 1 are sequenced as a journey. Slip the tape into the car's tape deck and as you pull away from the curb the ambient synth twinkles fade in. By the time you've got to the main road the drums have kicked in and the bass is pushing. Sleeping Thru The Movie segues into Trapped Water, the topline melodies dancing and spinning, the chuggy rhythm matching the speed of your car. The drums fade out and the ambient soundscape reruns, sampled voices make you flinch, sounding like there's someone in the car with you. There's a change of tone, things get a bit spacier, more Orb- like with Ring Road Repeat. Choral voices chanting. Squiggles. The drums re- enter, the beat takes over again. Side one concludes with Tempestuous Days, a bumping piece of oompty boompty. The traffic jam you're stuck in melts away as the music fills the car.
Flip the cassette over, in and out of the car's tape deck, clunkity click. Side B starts with Safe Harbour Jazz and the sound of waves. Washes of synths fade in, a tugboat's horn and seagulls, a long and languid ambient piece that becomes Return To The Drohne, Eastern sounding melodies and crunching drums. Electronic psyche. You're on the move again now, slipping onto the ring road. More voices, repeating and urgent. Tinned Water comes next, laid back ambient house, a slo mo groove and stellar synth sounds. Things pick up with Tonky Redux, a shape shifting piece of music, slipping between acid house and chug, rolling drums and flickering sounds, chanting voices and distorted synth bass. You pull over, destination arrived at and sit in the driver's seat, hand on the ignition key, waiting for the tape to finish playing so you can turn the engine off.
Sound Tracks 1 is at Electric Wardrobe's Bandcamp.
The return of Beastie Boy Mike D is along with the return of the Durutti Column a massive musical highlight of 2026, both completely unexpected until a couple of months ago and both very welcome indeed. Mike's album Thank You is out at the end of August. So far he's put out four of the songs onto the internet- What We Got, Switch Up, True Colours and now Crypto.
Crypto is a blast, distorto vocals, a ton of echo, fuzz guitar, primitive drum machine beats, space invader samples, rumbling bass- he's not playing it safe or pulling any punches, this is Mike and his sons' band The 5D doing exactly what they want to do. There was more good news recently with the announcement of a gig in Manchester in October.
There's never a bad time to revisit the Beastie Boys so here's your bonus track from 2004's To The 5 Boroughs, an album the three Beastie Boys made that was very much a response to 9/11 and a love letter their home city and call for unity and community.
Spanish Monday long song orCanción larga del lunes en español (I hope that's correct, Google Translate can't always be relied upon).
This is from The Orb's Aubrey Mixes album, released and deleted the same day on 2nd December 1991. Bought by me on the day of release in Probe in Liverpool. The original version of Spanish Castles In Space (on Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld) was fifteen minutes long. This mix is a comparatively concise nine minutes, remixed by Youth and with bass by legendary session bassist Guy Pratt. Ambient house in excelsis with a more uptempo feel than some of the original mixes.
Some songs for August on the 2nd day of the month. August is high summer in the UK, the month of summer holidays, those endless days as children when school had vanished, the sun shone and the possibilities were endless. September and everything it brings- change, the back to school rhythms, autumn- is weeks away. As a teacher I've kept these school days rhythms all my adult life and August always feels like this.
August is named after the Roman Emperor Augustus, the month it is said of his greatest triumphs (the conquest of Egypt among them). Augustus Pablo shares a name with the Emperor and while he may not have achieved the same imperial feats the Emperor Augustus did not record any seminal dub albums, the 1976 King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown among them. Is Jamaica's influence on music the equal of the Romans on the history of the world? All empires fall but dub will last forever.
In 2023 PJ Harvey released I Inside The Old Year, Dying, an enigmatic, poetic and forbidding record and one that only she could have made- a triumph in many ways. The album's first single was this-
Echo laden folk, piano, a guitar and drum and her voice, softer and more tender than sometimes. It feels as old as the hills.
This one is from 2022 by Turkish composer Ozan Tekin. I know little about it or about Ozan- a minimalist pianist/ musician, born in Istanbul and resident in Cologne. This track starts out as a piano piece, slightly Satie- esque, and dissolves into distortion and feedback at the end. From an album called Anarya.
Shrag were a Brighton based five piece group, post punk/ c86 indie, who made three albums between 2003 and 2013. Sharp and raucous live wires with pointed and funny lyrics.
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 Change instrument roles.
I went with the change in using the Roland TB- 303 by Phuture and Marshall Jefferson that led to acid house and also with Luke Schneider's ambient pedal steel guitar. In the comment box it all kicked off with Ernie bringing the funky jazz bagpipe sound of Rufus Harley, SRC with Carlos Alomar and David Bowie in 1980, Le Petit Mort and possibly the ultimate Oblique Saturday sound of Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music, C with New Model Army, Rol with the brilliantly named Twat Union, and on social media Chris Zen Arcade with A Guy Called Gerald's Voodoo Ray, an otherworldly and seminal record that was probably influenced by Phuture's 303 experiments a couple of years earlier.
This week's card say this- Don't be frightened to display your talents.
In 1988 Talk Talk released Spirit Of Eden, a record which is very much a display of talent and vision. Mark Hollis, Lee Harris, Paul Webb and producer Tim Friese- Greene made the album at Wessex Studio in London in 1987 and 1988. It sounds nothing like anything else made in those years, existing in its own world and context and on its own terms. The songs that make up side one- The Rainbow, Eden and Desire- run into each other, instrumental passages from the end of one song becoming the next and as such it's best taken as one piece...
The short hand genre descriptions are usually post- rock, ambient, experimental, art rock combined with the influence of free jazz and folk but these labels don't really describe the three songs on side one of Spirit Of Eden. As Andrew Weatherall said, 'Don't get hung up on genres'. Spirit Of Eden is Spirit Of Eden
The three musicians (Hollis on guitar, organ, piano and melodica, Webb on bass and Harris on drums) plus Friese- Greene (harmonium, piano, guitar and production) were joined by umpteen other musicians who would be brought into the blacked out studio, in almost total darkness (oil projections and strobe lights were deployed to increase the disorientation). They were played the track as it was at that point through their headphones and asked to contribute. Under these circumstances there were presumably lots of takes and parts which were unused and unusable but what they coaxed out of the players and created between them is an astonishing piece of work.
The Rainbow opens with a burst of a horn and then strings, a saw and woodwind. Some piano notes waft in. It's all tone and texture, the start of something, improvised and loose but clearly the work of someone with a vision. We drift along, the darkness of the studio reflected in the sound. An electric guitar picks up and then a harmonica that cuts right through. Three minutes in, there are suddenly drums and a groove and Mark Hollis sings- 'Oh yeah, the world's turned upside down...'.
The Rainbow is nine minutes long. It stops and starts, unhurried despite the harmonica's attempts to drive it. The long end section fades into Eden, followed by bursts of noise, a wah wah guitar maybe, some feedback, and then a shift as Eden starts. Acoustic guitar, softer and gentler for a while but with the propulsion of drums, bass and a guitar riff. Hollis sings again, somewhere out in the wilds, somewhere in the darkness looking in. 'Everybody needs someone', he settles on.
The segue into Desire comes after seventeen minutes- organ, woodwind, a horn maybe- and then the guitar is back, clipped and woody. More piano. Not jazz but there's an echo of jazz of a kind in it and some of John Martyn's folk too. Hollis sings again over this freeform improvisational piece. I'm not sure I've ever fully made out all the words and I'm not sure how much it matters. The voice and sound of the words as part of the song are just as important as what he's actually saying- again, tone and texture. There's an explosion of noise, guitars, bass and harmonica, and the drums kicking up a storm. An electric guitar sandstorm. Shakers.
There's something so unknowable about Spirit Of Eden, so mysterious, so difficult to pin down. The music is physical, its real but it also hangs in the air, slightly out of reach. It can't really be described as chill out or ambient- the bursts of guitar and noise are unsettling (the post- rock label comes from these parts- Spiritualized, Mogwai, Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Tortoise, Radiohead, Low and others were all listening to Spirit Of Eden at some point). You can listen to side one (or the whole album) many, many times and continue to find something new in it each time, a different sound or feel, a new angle, a part you hadn't focused on before or hadn't noticed. It seems like a different record sometimes to the one you'd listened to before. Mark Hollis was at full tilt on Spirit Of Eden, unleashed and exploring what they could do collectively, what they could achieve. Entirely unafraid to display his talents.
Feel free to drop your own response to Don't be frightened to display your talents in the comment box.
Out today- a new EP by Birds Of Pandaemonium called On Islands with an album on Sprechen to follow. On Islands is a dream- a swooning psychedelic and Balearic crossover dream, a drifting along the beach and loosing oneself in the night kind of dream. Chuggy drums, soft pads, stellar synths, a laid back vocal, hypnotic bass, handclaps, a child's spoken word part, a reference to Andrew Weatherall, orchestral strings... it's got it all.
There are three remixes by Hardway Bros- the Stereo Odyssey, the Steppas Dub and the Hardway Bros Dub. All three are very good. The Stereo Odyssey is the place to start, a spaced out and interstellar version that goes straight to the Balearic/ indie- dance/ psychedelia sweet spot. The Steppas Dub is a fuzz and bass version with bells on and the Dub strips it back to bass, bleeps and rhythm, hints of strings and voice. Blissed out to the max.
On Islands is a cover of a 1980 song by New Musik, a song that sounds weirdly contemporary for something that came out forty six years ago. New Musik were from South London, formed in 1977 and called it a day in 1982. The band look like they could all have been in Hot Chip.
Y viva Espana! We're off to Spain today for a few days, going to Granada, Nerja and Malaga. There are lots of songs with Spain or Spanish in their names in my collection. Let's go with cuatro songs for today's post.
Hinds are a Spanish, all girl group with four albums to their name- the most recent, Viva Hinds, was one of my favourites of 2024. They covered The Clash's Spanish Bombs in 2020 in fine style. Joe Strummer's lyric dealt with the Spanish Civil War, 70s separatist Basque terrorism and mass tourism. 'The hillsides ring with 'free the people'/ Can I hear the echo of the days of '39?', Joe asks, harking back to the civil war and the days of one of his heroes, the poet Federico Garcia Lorca (murdered by Franco's forces in 1936). In the chorus Joe declares his love for Spain, 'Yo te quiero, oh mi corazón' ('I love you/ Oh my heart').
In 1967 Jimi Hendrix's second album with The Experience had a song called Spanish Castle Magic on it, a glorious slice of '67 blues/ psychedelia, Jimi's guitar raw and raucous, the bass locked into the crunching guitar chords and doubling the riff, Mitch battering the drums. I don't think Jimi ever sang better than on this song.
The Spanish Castle wasn't actually in Spain, it was a roadhouse on the outskirts of Seattle where a young Hendrix was sometimes found jamming with local groups.
In 1999 Gorky's Zygotic Munki released their sixth album, Spanish Dance Troupe. The title track is gorgeous, absurdist, lilting Welsh psychedelic folk. This is Gorky's first appearance at Bagging Area which seems a bit of an oversight.
Last for today, Galaxie 500 and the B-side to their debut single Tugboat from 1988. In King Of Spain a man inures himself from pain and hurt by becoming the King of Spain, safely isolated as a powerful man but he ends up alone and lonely. Galaxie 500 may have refined their songs and sound over the three years they were active after they released Tugboat/ King Of Spain but almost everything that made them so special is present on this single.
