The Way I Feel Is Like A Robin

The Totem Edit Bandcamp page is a treasure trove of delights, edits of a wide range of songs by Leo Zero and Justin Deighton. This one has been hitting the spot recently, six minutes of Balearic dancefloor folk called Feel. Free/ name your own price here. You'll thank me. I've been hitting play endlessly. 

Feel is a 2024 edit of The Way I Feel by Gordon Lightfoot, from Gordon's album, Lightfoot! in 1966. The guitar playing is beautiful, and Gordon's lyrics tell a story of loss- 'The way I feel is like a robin/ Whose babes have flown to come no more/ Like a tall oak tree along and crying/ When the birds have flown and the nest is bare'.

The Way I Feel

I have developed a thing about robins. The one above was photographed while we were queueing for a ride at Alton Towers back in March, just sitting there along side us. Robins have been associated with the dead for centuries. Some people think that robins appear to bring messages from the dead, that they are messengers between the living and the dead. I don't know if I was aware of this before Isaac died but I've become aware of it since. The idea that Isaac would choose to reveal himself to us in the form of a sweet little robin redbreast seems a little unlikely and I'm a pretty rational person. But when I see one, I think of him and it makes me smile. We saw one in the hedge at the cemetery once which was a bit of a moment. There was one that lived in the tree behind out garden in the spring. It often fluttered into our garden, zipping here and there, occasionally landing on the kitchen window sill, before flying back to the holly tree. 

One morning in April I was preparing for a job interview (I didn't get it, they appointed someone younger and cheaper, something that happened twice earlier this year), the robin sat on the sill while I was looking out. Later on, when I got out of my car at the interview, a robin was on the pavement looking in my direction (I know it wasn't the same robin- I told, you I'm a rational person). It's become a thing, like some other things have become things since Isaac died- the number 23 for one. I don't mind these things that have become things, in fact I like them. Anyway, all this is related loosely to today's post and Gordon Lightfoot's song about feeling like a robin and this photo of a robin which I've been saving since March for just such an opportunity. I didn't even make the connection between the song, the photo and robins until I started writing. Funny how that happens sometimes. 

Half Life

Three years ago Saint Etienne returned with an album called I've Been Trying To Tell You. It was largely well recieved but I think a bit of an opinion splitter too but I loved it- the album was steeped in the mists of memory and the recent past, based around the long gone optimism of the period 1997 to 2001. According to Bob Stanley it was about 'optimism, the late 90s and how memory is an unreliable narrator'. The songs are sample based, Pete Wiggs taking elements from unlikely sources from that time period- Natalie Imbruglia, Honeyz, Lighthouse Family, Samantha Mumba, Tasmin Archer and The Lightning Seeds- and combining them with found sounds and synths/ laptop programming. The songs are all drenched in a woozy haze, a slowness, fragments of a dream, a weird nostalgia for a period that feels disconnected from today despite being relatively recent. It also refused to draw any firm conclusions about that period- what was it? Were things getting better? Did it just feel that way because we were younger? 

Pond House

The album was followed by an Christmas EP, led by the magnificently wintry and melancholic Her Winter Coat. 

The EP also had this song, Lillehammer, an instrumental that takes the laptop ambience that forms the background to I've Been Trying To Tell You and breaks things further apart, the sound of dusk at 4pm in December. 

Lillehammer

Now Saint Etienne are about to release a new album, The Night, out this Friday. It's been preceded by a single, Half Life, which is the feel of the songs from I've Been Trying To Tell You and the Christmas EP but even more so. Half Life is less than two minutes long, an ambient Saint Etienne lost on the edge of town as darkness falls, far away from things. Sarah whispers. Washes of synth drift by. A mistreated piano plays an out of tune melody line. Bass bumps away slightly. On its own it floats by quickly, only just there. As part of an album I imagine it will be surrounded by similar songs, part of a late 2024 ambient Saint Etienne treat.

Monday's Long Song

Spacemen 3's Big City was released in January 1991, not long after the band broke up. Relations between Pete and Jason had grown increasingly strained and on the fourth and final Spacemen 3 album, Recurring, the two men had a side of the album each, barely even being in the studio at the same time. The sole song they appear on together is When Tomorrow Hits, a Mudhoney cover. Big City came in various lengths according to format and release- the album and 7" had a short, edited version, the 12" and CD singles had the longer eight and a half minutes one. And then there is this one, all glorious ten minutes and fifty one seconds of it

Big City (Everybody I Know Can Be Found Here)

Pete had been caught up in rave culture a little and the kick drum, throbbing bassline and synths all nod to acid house and dance music. Over the pulsing, blissed out music, and the psyche guitar line that runs through it, Pete whispers 'Big city/ Bright lights/ Cool people/ Everybody I know can be found here' and then 'let the good times roll', and most aptly, 'Waves of joy' and then finally, 'Yeah I love you too'. I played this song at The Golden Lion on Saturday afternoon- it sounded ace through the Lion's wonderful sound system. Later on, the pub packed out for David Holmes' latest appearance at the Lion, he played it too and with the volume pushed up for Saturday night and dancing, it sounded even better.

Forty Five More Minutes Of Blind On A Galloping Remix

Last Sunday's fifty minute mix of remixes of songs from David Holmes' Blind On A Galloping Horse album was well received and I promised a second volume. In an unplanned coincidence me, Dan and Martin played support to David at The Golden Lion yesterday afternoon, the third time we've warmed up for him and its a pleasure and honour every time. Heavenly commissioned and released so many Blind On A Galloping Horse remixes of that I could probably do a third volume. Given that I've still not included in either of these mixes the Rich Lane remix (which came about due to a connection made by a post at this blog), the Hardway Bros Meets Monkton remix and various others (Robin Wylie, Daniel Avery, Darren Emerson, Working Men's Club...), a volume three would seem to be the order of the day at some point. 

Last time I started slow, some ambient/ chilled remixes before ramping it up in the second half. This one kicks in quicker. Last time I didn't include any remixes of the same song- this time I have, both Yeah x 3 and Necessary Genius feature twice but I liked the way the two remixes of Yeah x 3 worked together and the Necessary Genius remixes are very different animals. 

Forty Five More Minutes Of Blind On A Galloping Remix

• Yeah x 3 (Sonic Boom and Panda Bear Reset Remix)
• Yeah x 3 (The Vendetta Suite Reason To Live Remix)
• Necessary Genius (Lovefingers Dub And Response)
• Too Muchroom (Hardway Bros Too Much Acid Dub)
• Stop Apologising (Cosmodelica Extended Mix)
• It's Over, If We Run Out Of Love (Lovefingers and Heidi Lawden High Tide Mix)
• Necessary Genius (Decius Remix)

Sonic Boom and Panda Bear's Reset album was a 60s pop/ psych bubblegum adventure, reworkings/ samples of 60s songs filtered through a 21st century bubblegum box of tricks. It was followed by an Adrian Sherwood dub of Reset that raised it up a notch. Sonic and Panda's version of Yeah x 3, the most 60s pop song on Blind On A Galloping Horse, is a whir of drum machine rhythms, layers of glassy psychedelia and Raven's space echo vocal on top. 

The Vendetta Suite is fellow Belfast producer/ DJ/ musician Gary Irwin. He remixed Yeah x 3 twice- the weightless ambient drift of Reason To Drift was on last's week mix. This one, the Reason To Live remix, is more direct, led by a pulsing bass and wall of synths. 

Lovefingers is Andrew Hogge, the owner of the ESP Institute label, a DJ, producer and promoter. His remix of Necessary Genius is a deep one, with rapid fire drums, pumped up bass and Raven's vocal chopped up and FXed, and a hypnotic, repeating piano line thunders away. David list of inspirations- Tony Wilson, Weatherall, Guy Stevens, Nina Simone, northern soul, Peter Meadon, rock 'n' roll, Rastafari, Bernadette Devlin, David Keenan, Sinead O'Connor and refugees among them- rattle by. 

The lyrics for Too Muchroom come from an Andrew Weatherall quote- 'if you're not living on the edge you're taking up too much room'. Andrew's influence is all over Blind On A Galloping Horse. There's a cover of Laugh Myself To Sleep from his unreleased second solo album (still unreleased due to a difference of opinion with engineer Steve Boardman who claimed co- writing credits and held the tapes/ hard drive hostage. Andrew's response was to say 'fuck him/ it' and move on, do the next thing. In a radio show he said he quite liked the idea of having an unreleased and legendary lost solo album. Appropriately Andrew's partner in The Asphodells, Tim Fairplay, played guitar on Laugh Myself To Sleep). Andrew's ALFOS partner Sean Johnston remixes Too Muchroom, one of several remixes Sean did of Galloping Horse songs. This one is exactly what it says it is- acid dub. The vocals are in there, twisted to pieces and just about audible. 

Cosmodelica is Colleen Murphy, New Yorker, DJ, producer and radio show host. Her Balearic Breakfast show and compilation albums are second to none. Her remix of Stop Apologising is like being dropped back into a scuzzy indie/ electro basement, dry ice and sticky floors, where the room smells of poppers and cigarettes and the crowd are ridiculously beautiful and elegantly wasted. 

Lovefingers makes a second appearance along with Heidi Lawden, and a remix of Its Over, If We Run Out Of Love, one of the songs that is the at the centre of Galloping Horse, heartbeat of the album. They did two, the Low Tide remix and this one, High Tide. Dark, repetitive acid disco. 

Necessary Genius returns for the ending, remixed by Decius, the London band made up of Fat White Family singer Lias Saoudi, brothers Liam and Luke May and Quinn Whalley from Warmduscher. Decius make brilliant, sweaty, sleazy, gay sauna acid house/ techno, tongues in cheeks, needles in the red and tempos pushed up high. They take Necessary Genius to its extreme here, the vocal reduced to staccato syllables and the drums galloping on and on. 

V.A. Saturday

As mentioned yesterday, Andrew Weatherall's Masterpiece is a king in the various artists world. The Masterpiece series comes out via Ministry Of Sound and has also featured compilations put together by Carl Craig, Giles Peterson , Goldie, Jazzie B, David Rodigan, Francoise K, Annie Nightingale and Fabio And Grooverider. Andrew's is an absolute joy, a masterclass in record selection, mixing and the art of pacing a set. There are two editions, one on vinyl and one on CD. 

The vinyl is much sought after now- the current asking price in Discogs starts at £150.00-, a twelve track, unmixed, triple disc version that starts with his remix of Grinderman's Heathen Child, has five further contemporary Weatherall remixes (Timothy J Fairplay, The Horrors, Woooden Shjips, Toddla T and Primal Scream's Uptown- at least two of these are all timers in the Weatherall remix pantheon). Alongside this he selects cuts from Andrew and Tim's Asphodells, Kaspar Bjork, Walls, Ajello, The Subs, Mario Vesta and an 80s indie/ dreampop classic from AR Kane, the song that gave his travelling cosmic disco its name- A Love From Outer Space. 

Masterpiece came out in 2012. ALFOS, the club night, started in 2010 (at The Drop, a basement in Stoke Newington). By 2012 Andrew and Sean had built a following, an ALFOS crew who travelled to Glasgow and Belfast for the nights out and the sound they were after had had time to develop, to brew. Masterpiece is a reflection of that, the 2012 ALFOS sound- a warm, embracing, inclusive, trippy,  cosmic disco, electro and dubby house records often pitched down to hit that 122 bpm sweet spot, 'an oasis of slowness in a world of increasing velocity', as Andrew put it. They played underground dance music alongside lost 80s gems, 70s krautrock, mid 80s Belgian New Beat, whatever tickled their musical fancy. Masterpiece is a six sides of vinyl/ three CD version of that. 

The three CD version goes further and deeper, three discs- Eleven O'Clock Drop, Twelve O'Clock Drop and One O'clock Drop (a nod to the lysergic adventures of his youth in Slough and Windsor and to his early 00s post- punk Nine O'Clock Drop compilation). The CD is perfection. Mixed live in his bunker. Andrew said at the time that if he made a mistake he had go back and start the entire mix over again. Thirty five tracks that in the truest sense of a DJ mix, take the listener on a journey. He was a one off. 

The vinyl was essential. The CD was too. I know some people* who decided against purchasing at the time because they didn't like the sleeve. I know people who bought both formats**. Here for your Saturday listening pleasure is one track from each of the three CDs, an eleven, twelve and one o' clock drop.

First, from disc one comes Walls, a London krautpop duo and a track from 2012 on German label Kompackt. On a perfectly judged and pitched disc, peppered with his own remixes and Apiento's The Orange Place (see yesterday's post) Walls slo- mo sci fi throb and distant vocal still stands out, Andrew's track selection never letting him down. 

Into Our Midst

From disc two this is Emperor Machine's remix of Sons And Daughters' Orion, Glasgow indie/ country punks Sons And Daughters fed through the cosmic blender by Emperor Machine for eleven minutes, a pulsating and intense with slowed down, slurred vocals.  

Orion (Emperor Machine Remix)

Finally, one from disc three and Toddla T's Watch Me Dance, guest vocals from Roots Manuva and remixed by Andrew himself. A truly deranged dance record. Pens with the thump of True Faith style drums, a robotic voice and then a huge, canal dredging bassline. Brain frying synth arpeggios flicker around, there are key changes, drops, echo- laden guitar chords, a female voice wailing 'oh, we have lost contoooool', and the sense of total dance floor mayhem. Released in the summer of 2011, Masterpiece became the only way to own this remix on vinyl after the warehouse the standalone 12s from that summer were stored in awaiting delivery went up in flames. It's not surprising- this record is too hot for a warehouse to contain it. Never let anyone tell you that remixes are not a valid artform.  

Watch Me Dance (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

* Hi Baz!

** Hi me!

Music For Warmer Climes

Friday 6th December. It doesn't get much less Balearic than northern England in early December, the same awful Christmas songs on rotation in every shop, pub and public place, dark all day and wet or cold- or wet and cold. Thankfully there are people out there releasing music to transport us from our wintry festive hell to somewhere much warmer. A Mediterranean round up for today, a trio of late 2024 Balearica transmissions.

We'll start with Cantoma and a single that came out at the end of November that has become a proper earworm for me. There were 250 hand numbered 7"  singles but alas they've all gone so it's digital only. First Nothing (Noche Espanola Remix) rumbles in with warm prodding bass and then some clipped, muted guitar notes, fluttering synths, long washes of synth chords, piano... It's a mid- tempo sundowner, the perfect shuffling, head nodding groove. On the flip Phil Mison provides an ambient mix, a gorgeous stripped back version. You can get both at Bandcamp. 

Over at Apiento's Bandcamp there's a new remix of his 2010 classic The Orange Place- it came out on vinyl in late November, the original version paired with Castro's Cosmic Orange Dub. You can get both digitally here. Castro's Cosmic Orange Dub is eight and a half minutes of downtempo Balearic splendour, ideal for home listening, a dubbed out version that gets quite intense, the rhythms picking up, FX swirling around and the eastern melody lines drifting in and out. The original mix is a much loved and much played track round these parts and was one I think I first heard on Andrew Weatherall's 2012 compilation Masterpiece (which hasn't featured in the Bagging Area V.A. Saturday slot yet but really should).

Lastly Mike Wilson's 100 Poems has lit up 2024 three times with a triptych of albums, all of which have featured at this blog. Today there's another new 100 Poems album, this one called Love because as Mike says 'love is what the world needs more than anything'. The album is out at Bandcamp today, a live album recorded at a showcase gig in Dublin in October. Mike released Song For Claire (Your Life Is Your Life) onto Soundcloud a few days ago- you can listen here. The song has taken on a new life for Mike since he recorded it as a tribute to a friend, Claire, who sadly died earlier this year. The words are from a Charles Bukowski poem called The Laughing Heart- 'Your life is your life/ Don't let it be clubbed into dank submission/ Be on the watch/ There are ways out/ There is light somewhere/ It may not be much light but/ It beats the darkness'. At this point in darkest December we could all do with a little light.  

Hey Joe! I Got The News Tonight

Pete Wylie's 1986 single Sinful is one of those records, one of those songs that is central to my musical DNA. It was the debut Pete Wylie single, the record company thinking that Pete's own name might lead to a hit rather than one of the increasing numbers of Wah! names Pete had used previously. You don't need me to tell you how great Sinful is or why it is. It just is. 

In the past I've posted the 12" mix, the Tribal Mix, a Zeus B Held production that thumps in for several minutes with widescreen production, throbbing bass, heartbeat kick drum synths, building and building and then sustaining the excitement . Today, here's the single mix, a song that reached number 13 in the UK charts. 

Sinful

A few days ago Pete posted a link to a newly discovered piece of film, Pete playing (miming) Sinful in Verona in 1986. Everything about this clip is a joy- Pete, Josie and the band in their black leather and big hair phase, an enormous stage with huge lighting rig, a packed to the rafters Roman colosseum of enthusiastic Italians clapping and waving, Josie's pop art guitar, the sense that everything is happening in some mid- 80s hyper- reality...

I'm a big fan too of the Sinful promotional appearance that took place on The Wogan Show in 1986, Pete giving it the full scouse rock star on early evening chat show vibes. A clip with fewer over- excited Italians but more dancing nuns.