Return To The Flightpath Estate

Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 2- more news! Our second album, complied by myself and my friends at The Flightpath Estate comes out on double vinyl at the end of the month. Pre- orders at Golden Lion Sounds have already seen over 700 copies sold and there are 500 set aside for sale over the counter at several UK record shops from late August including Piccadilly Records in Manchester and Stranger Than Paradise in Hackney. There are copies for sale at those shop's websites as well as at Bleep and Golden Lion Sounds. 

The Flightpath Estate began as a Facebook group back in 2013, me and Martin opening it up as a place to share Andrew Weatherall news and music. It became a group of several thousand people and the front page for an online resource of Andrew's mixes and shows, thousands of hours of them archived and available to listen to. That this fan group has grown to become a pair of actual records, both featuring entirely previously unreleased Weatherall tracks and otherwise new and exclusive music from such an array of talented people is proper 'pinch me' stuff. 

There are two launch parties imminent- the first is at Stranger Than Paradise a week today, Thursday 21st August, with some of The Flightpath Estate (most likely Mark/ Rude Audio and Baz) plus from 9pm until 11, Richard Fearless of Death In Vegas at the decks. It's free to attend and the album will be available to buy on the night. The first 50 copies will get a limited art print with their album, designed by Rusty and based on his sensational sleeve art for the record. For what it's worth, I'm very unlikely to be able to get down to London for this and already have serious FOMO about missing our album launch and Richard Fearless DJing. Please pop down if you're in the Hackney area, say hello to Baz and Mark, enjoy the night, buy an album. 

Just over a week later there's a northern launch at The Golden Lion in Todmorden, home of the best pub in the world and the record label that is putting Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 2 out. I will be at this one along with Martin, Dan and Baz, playing tracks from the album and whatever else we fancy in the backroom from 2pm until 8. Also taking place the same night is a collaboration between the Lion and The Gun, the now closed but legendary Hackney pub, with the Decius Soundsystem at the top of the bill. If you're in the Tod/ north west, come down and say hello. 

The album will be out by then- the official release date is 28th August but people that have pre- ordered may see their copies arriving a few days earlier that week. I got home from holiday recently to find my promo copy waiting for me and the sheer rush of excitement I got from looking at the sleeve, opening the gatefold and sliding the discs out was off the scale. Here I am with a ridiculously large looking left hand displaying Rusty's sleeve art...

And here we have my copies of Volumes 1 and 2 next to each other... and it's all well beyond what any of us thought this thing could be when we first started talking about the possibility of contacting a few of Andrew Weatherall's friends and seeing if they wanted to contribute a track to an album we were thinking of putting together. 

The ten tracks on Volume 2 are all superb- it more than stands up beside Volume 1. It kicks off with an unreleased Sabres Of Paradise track, Lick Wid Nit Wit, sitting in the vaults at Warp for thirty years, Andrew, Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns at the desk sliding faders, adding FX, playing instruments and writing music. Deep Jah Wobble inspired bass, the horns that would become Wilmot, rattling Sabres percussion, eleven minutes of mid- 90s Sabres groove ending with a cello. It's magnificent. Dicky Continental follows, Rich Thair's solo outfit marrying low fi, dusty jazzy funk with a snatch of Andrew's voice from Kiss FM radio, old and new spliced happily.

Side two goes hard with Unit 14 (an anonymous duo, our lips are sealed) hitting the techno sounds and spaces, a thumper that Andrew would surely have loved and then ten minutes of dub/ techno majesty from Richard Fearless, the sound of his recent album Death Mask diverted to the Flightpath Estate. 

On disc two LA resident and long time Weatherall cohort David Harrow blows the speakers with AanDee (fans of his and Andrew's Deanne Day alias will probably work out where that track title came from), a monster of a track, David switching his acid/ dub techno machines on and getting down to the core of things, a twisting, sinewy track with bleeps and bloops. Red Snapper's Qraqeb follows, frenetic and percussive, Rich's North African percussion hammering away while the synths and bass slide up and down, a track that jumps out of the speakers and keeps jumping. Side 3 finishes with A Certain Ratio. I've been listening to ACR and buying their records since 1987. They're one of the cornerstones of my musical DNA. Now they're on our record, with a track from their album last year (It All Comes Down To This) reworked Number, Rich Thair and Ali Friend's post-punk/ disco band. Estate Kings is sublime Manc noir, low slung and urban, the sound of driving round south Manchester late at night. 

Side 4 starts with Bedford Falls Players, the chuggy cosmic disco of In The Trees (It's Coming), synth stabs and space, voices from films and rumbling bass. Raising the tempo, Richard Norris' Brave Raver squelches in, drums and arpeggios, Norris happily in the space rave/ house/ Grid groove, the vocal from the breakdown all wide- eyed and open minded. Finally, it ends with Sleaford Mods and their cover of Two Lone Swordsmen's Sick When We Kiss, the UK grim duo breaking TLS down into urgent, post- punk and spluttering beats. 

Mark did a taster mix of the ten tracks, a twenty five minute sampler, which you can find here. Tangetially, Sabres Of Paradise re- issued their pair of 90s albums earlier this months, Sabresonic and Haunted Dancehall. Back in November 2023 The Flightpath Estate did a Sabresonic 30th anniversary night at The Golden Lion, a Q&A with Jagz and Gary, an airing of the recording of the Sabres Of Paradise live band playing at Herbal Tea Party in 1993 and a Jagz Kooner DJ set. Jagz and Gary held a similar event at Stranger Than Paradise last week. Friends of Sabres Sherman and Alex Knight both DJed and then Jagz played. That evening's sets were recorded and can be listened to here , nearly five hours of electronic music, an hour of red hot dub, acid house, some techno and more besides. 

Midnight Versions

Much of what I've posted here over the last month has been new music. It always used to seem that August was a bit of a quiet time, a dead zone in the music industry, nothing much released, everyone waiting for the big rush of autumn releases- but over the last month I've posted new music from Adrian Sherwood, Jezebell, Statues, The Lemonheads, The Charlatans, The Orb, ddwy, Jazxing, Puerto Montt City Orchestra, 100 Poems, Sewell And The Gong, Daniel Avery, Factory Floor, Number, Jay- Son, Byron Carignan, Luke Schneider, Florecer and senses remixed by GLOK. There's probably loads I've missed too and I've got several other new releases noted down to be posted in the upcoming days and weeks. 

All of this is a good thing obviously, new music to be enjoyed and absorbed, but it also possibly makes the posts a little perfunctory sometimes- there isn't always a lot of context or narrative, just me saying, 'here's some new music, I like it, I think you might like it too', and then some kind of attempt at describing said music. The sheer amount of new music also means that sometimes it feels like one listens to something new a lot for a few days and then move on to the next new thing and then on again, a flow that can feel like a flood, and there's a danger that stuff gets lost further upstream behind me/ us. 

This came out yesterday, a new version of a Daniel Avery single that came out two weeks ago. Rapture In Blue is the first single from his new album that comes out at the end of October (with a gig in Manchester the same night). It has Cecile Believe on vocals and guitar from Andy Bell and sounds better with each listen, a 2025 goth- pop/ dance rhapsody, a slow burning rush. The Rapture In Blue (Midnight Version), out at Bandcamp, is a re- imagined version,, made for darker corners and specifically for the club, to shake the floor in DJ sets- that doesn't stop it from sounding good at home though. The pop dynamics and mid- 80s film feel is dialed down and stripped back, with drums and bass toughened and isolated and Cecile's vocal isolated on top. There are whooshes, industrial clangs, shuddering synth breakdowns and stuttering vocal parts. I already like it as much as the original. I'm anticipating that as the album release draws nearer and more songs are released ahead of it, there may be more Midnight Versions too. 

Midnight occurs in thousands of song titles- a search of my downloads folder brings up hundreds. In May Peaking Lights and Coyote released an EP called Love Letters/ So Far Away, three beautifully hazy, dubby tracks. Back in 2012 Peaking Lights remixed their entire Lucifer album as a dub version and Midnight Dub is as good as anything they have done before or since. Gloriously blissed out, wonky dub- pop. 

Midnight Dub

Baltic Fleet is a one man band from Warrington, named after a famous waterfront pub in Liverpool. Paul Fleming played keys and synths for Echo And The Bunnymen and built up a repertoire of songs that he released as a self- titled debut album, Towers, in 2008, followed by Towers (2012), The Wilds (2013) and The Dear One (2016). Midnight Train is from Towers, a chiming, synth- led instrumental, the autobahns of mid- 70s West Germany crossing over to the M62. 

Midnight Train

Finally, a third midnight song, this one from 1987, a single by Creation group The Weather Prophets- Midnight Mile was the B-side to Why Does The Rain although by this point they'd jumped from Creation to Elevation, a Creation offshoot label that Alan McGee set up in conjunction with major label WEA- a major label funded indie that was supposed to benefit from better distribution, and hoped that the better sales would siphon money back to Creation to invest in other artists. 

Midnight Mile is very typical of the period between the end of The Smiths and the dawn of acid house/ indie dance, Pete Astor's '87 jangle- pop confessional produced by Lenny Kaye. 

Midnight Mile

Elevation eventually folded. WEA expected an instant return and hit singles, something The Weather Prophets didn't/ couldn't provide and singles by Primal Scream and Edwyn Collins didn't either. McGee later said setting up Elevation was the biggest mistake he made. Such was the indie scene in 1987 that bands who left the indie nest often lost their original fans who saw major label money as evidence of selling out.  Nowadays everyone and anyone can release songs immediately via Bandcamp (or other services), on their own and cut out the middle man/ record label completely- although the returns are pretty low and not everyone, or many, can make a living out of it. 

Breathy Drops/ Broken Heart

Florecer are a Californian duo who make dreamy, blissed out music that treads the beaches of Balearica. Their latest track is Breathy Drops, a tribute to the bioluminescence of the Pacific Ocean and about giving into the unknown- something they achieve with a few drums pads, some synths, a drip- drop melody and a whispery vocal, and an acoustic guitar. Label boss Chris Coco said it was a track he could imagine Alfredo playing if he was still on the decks at the Cafe del Mar and it does sound exactly like that. Lovely stuff- buy it here. 

The tonal flipside of Breathy Drops is this, a GLOK/ Andy Bell remix of have you ever had a broken heart? by senses (all lower case) that came out at the end of May and which I missed posting back then. 

Like Florecer's track there's a West coast USA connection but this feels like the dark side of the Pacific as opposed to Florecer's pastel/ dayglo haze. Andy did his remix while getting over some West Coast jetlag and the track sounds a bit woozy and jetlagged, slow mo drums and bass, slowly dripping guitar lines and the voice asking the question in the title over and over... You can buy the EP digitally and on green 10" vinyl here. 

Monday's Long Song

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

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

Forty Seven Minutes Of Italian Library Music 1969- 1976

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

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

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

Soundtrack Saturday

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

Profondo Rosso 

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

Death Dies

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

Suspiria

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

Safari (Zillas On Acid Edit)

Raise Your View Of Heaven

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

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

Rock Section (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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