My recent trip back to Ultramarine's 90s albums and the recent re- issue of some unreleased recordings from 1996 led me to Weird Gear, the second track on 1991's Every Man And Woman Is A Star, a song with vocals by Brendan Staunton and a very well deployed string sample from 1983...
The bouncy folk/ techno groove and Brendan's soulful vocal are a dream. The lyrics are from a Kevin Ayres song, There Is Loving Among Us from 1972 and Kevin's Whatevershebringswesing album.
The swirling strings sample is of course from The Cutter, the second single from Echo And The Bunnymen's third album Porcupine- the Bunnymen and producer Kingbird (Ian Broudie) pulled out all the stops with The Cutter, Eastern strings, scouse psychedelia growing from their post- punk dread and some of Ian's best lyrics, lines about the seventh floor, hurdles approaching, drops in the ocean, Sellotape and knives and being the happy loss. What's it all about? I don't know. It's exhilarating and anthemic stuff though.
This earlier demo version saw the light of day on the Never Stop 12", also from 1983, a wonderfully rattly version with trebly guitars courtesy of Will Sergeant but lacking those distinctive strings.
The release of new music by Four Tet is often the cause of much rejoicing at Bagging Area and the new track this week hits all the spots. Into Dust (Still Falling) is classic Four Tet- summer sounding, skippy drums, folky instrumentation, understated but emotive synths and keys, fresh and now but with a foot planted somewhere in the past- a past where rave and folk met...
Into Dust (Still Falling) samples the voice of Hope Sandoval (there's the foot in the past) from a Mazzy Star song, a voice that is always a welcome sound. Recently my friend Spencer sent me a link to a Hope Sandoval and The Warm Inventions track from 2017, a nine minute drone called Into The Trees, Hope playing a 1960s organ, holding long keyboard chords down and singing softly over the top. Colm O'Ciosoig, the other member of the group, plays tumbling drums in the background. It's magical stuff.
Hope and Colm formed The Warm Inventions as a side project from their two main bands, Mazzy Star and My Bloody Valentine. I hadn't heard the album Into The Trees is from, Until The Hunter, eleven songs recorded partly in a pair of Martello Towers in Dublin, spaces filled with round walls, no edges and a natural reverb.
In 2001 Hope and Colm released the first Warm Inventions album- Bavarian Fruit Bread, an album I do own. It's a quiet, hushed, folky, small hours album with some lovely songs. Like this one...
Alex Kassian is in a rich vein of musical form- the Berlin based producer and DJ struck gold in 2021 with a 12" titled Leave Your Life which contained the title track in two versions and on the flipside the magnificent Spirit Of Eden (which came with a beautiful Bill Laswell Dub). Following that Test Pressing released the Voices 12" and last year Alex's cover of Manuel Gottsching's E2- E4 which came with a pair of Mad Professor remixes.
Last month Alex released Orange Coloured Liquid, a reworking of Spooky's 1993 track. Alex has outdone himself again- Orange Coloured Liquid (Part I) and Part II are 2025's most Balearic moment, a sumptuous, mellow, lost in a trance version. Part I is powered by a breakbeat that keeps it grounded while the synths, keys, piano and pads do their utmost to soar. Part II is weightless and ambient, with strings and a harp.
The 12" and digital package come with a Placid Angles remix by John Beltran which shifts it again, the breakbeat back with a twinkling melody and the faintest echo of voices- it ends with a floaty synth string breakdown and fadeout that could happily play out for much, much longer. The EP finishes with the Spooky original from the duo's 1993 album Gargantuan. You can get the digital at Bandcamp.
Notts Balearic duo Coyote and Wisconsin psychedelicists couple Peaking Lights have teamed up for a three track 12" that has rapidly become one of my favourite releases of the summer. All three tracks are loaded with dub influences and blissed out psychedelia. Love Letters is a seven minutes long, Indra Dunis' vocals floating along on top of a shimmering haze...
On So Far Away the four go slower, deeper and even dreamier, the bass prodding gently, a wash of dub FX and some very sleepy vocals. Really lovely. The Coyote Dub Mix does exactly what it says, all delay, bass and warmth, a long weekend in LA with King Tubby looking out over the Pacific Ocean and wondering how far the sea goes...
In 2012 Peaking Lights released Lucifer In Dub, dubbed out version of their album Lucifer. It's long been a Bagging Area favourite, ambience and psychedelia down out with acres of space and endless repetition, the pop- psyche element underpinned by some serious dub styles. The highpoint is probably Beautiful Dub but I've posted that before so try this one today, the hypnotic and soothing door bell dubbings of Lo Dub High Dub.
In among the obituaries and remembrances for Sly Stone and Brian Wilson last week the news of the death of Douglas McCarthy slipped out. Douglas was vocalist in Nitzer Ebb and died at the very young age of 58. He was less well known than either Brian or Sly but Nitzer Ebb had a big impact in the 80s within a fairly niche world. Nitzer Ebb formed in Essex in 1982 and singed to Mute in 1986, making uncompromising and physical industrial/ EBM/ proto- house that demanded your attention. Their track Join In The Chant found its way to Ibiza and onto the legendary Balearic Beats Vol. 1 album alongside Thrashing Doves, Electro's Jibaro, The Woodentops, The Residents, Code 61 and Mandy Smith (among others).
Andrew Weatherall once said that the closest he came to finding God was dancing to Join In The Chant.
Let Your Body Learn, like Join In The Chant, came out in 1987, a single recorded at PWL with Phil Harding and then remixed at Hansa. There can't be many records that link the two worlds of PWL and Hansa.
LCD Soundsystem began an eight night residency at Brixton Academy last week, the New York art- dance, post- punkers continuing their habit of rolling into a city and taking it over for a week. If I hadn't been down to London for Sabres Of Paradise I might have thought about going, although I'd prefer it if James Murphy decided the next UK destination for a residency is a bit closer to home- Manchester would do fine.
In 2010 LCD Soundsystem released their third album This Is Happening, an album that at the time I remember feeling a little ambivalent about. It seemed quite stuck to the LCD template that Murphy and co. had established on Sound Of Silver three years earlier but it's grown on my over the years and songs like Drunk Girls, I Can Change and Pow Pow all worked their magic eventually. This Is Happening starts with this song...
Many of LCD's songs are builders. Dance Yrself Clean is very much a builder and at nearly nine minutes long there's a lot of time to build. The first three minutes are very slow and low, a sparse drum machine pattern, James' voice compressed and alone, some backing vocals joining in and the thud of a piano. The lyrics dissecting friendship gone wrong or maybe some soul searching. The song explodes in the third minute, synths and FX, and continues ever onward, James now on the floor and dancing himself clean.
Support at the second half of the residency comes from Working Men's Club, the Calder Valley's own electronic dance/ rock/ acid house/ post punkers, a group led by Syd Minsky- Sargeant. On Friday night Working Men's Club warmed up for those gigs with one at The Golden Lion, a much more intimate venue than Brixton Academy.
The pub is packed, the downstairs stage is low and where I'm standing over by the DJ booth it's difficult to see much, Syd's head and microphone, the occasional glimpse of the other members of the band. A stuttering synth loop kicks in and builds over several minutes, other loops kicking in, eventually all coming into sync and then we're off, a full on WMC sound- synths, bass, 303s and 808s and on top Syd's vocals, repeated loops of lines. There aren't any gaps between songs, one song seguing into the next, an hour long megamix. Working Men's Club sound like New Oder if they'd kept pushing and got tougher after Technique or maybe Joy Division in an alternative 1983, one where Ian didn't die but they'd gone fully synth and electronics anyway. WMC's second album, Fear Fear, came out in 2022 and was informed by lockdown and existential dread, Syd's fear writ large. 'When we talk of the times/ We talk in the past tense', rattles round the pub over some very heavy post- punk/ New Beat. There's a healthy dose of late 80s rave and its defiance, its anti- authoritarian stance- the refrain from the song John Cooper Clarke, 'We dance and we smile/ We laugh and we cry/ We play and we fight/ We live and we die', sounding anthemic.
Both Working Men's Club albums were mixed into single, twenty minute megamixes by Syd, versions of the albums and the live set. Megamix and Megamix II give you an idea of what the live set sounds like.
Live the songs are even more physical than they sound on disc, Syd a bobbing and frenetic presence at the front of the stage, conducting and waving his hand around as his stream of consciousness is thrown around the pub, the soundman applying layers of FX to the vocals. We get an hour and then they're off. On the basis of tonight, anyone with tickets for LCD Soundsystem should get there in good time.
Be My Guest was on WMC's self titled debut album, released in 2021, crunching drums and laser focused noisy guitars, Syd bursting out of a small town in West Yorkshire.
Syd is also a member of Demise Of Love, a trio made of him, Daniel Avery and Ghost Culture's James Greenwood. A four track 10" EP came out recently led by Strange Little Consequence which I posted in February. This song is also on the EP, Like I Loved You, a slow burning summer epic, some New Order gone interstellar synths, distorted vocals and a loud/ quiet dynamic that keeps the song shape- shifting.
Eliza is twenty two today. The picture above was a school photo taken in about 2008 at a guess, so quite some time ago. Eliza came home from university a year ago and got herself a job straight away, working at the day care centre that Isaac used to go to, working with adults with a variety of special needs and disabilities. It's not a job everyone can do. In March she handed her notice and booked herself flights to and from Bali, travelling solo, spending nearly four weeks backpacking. Since she came home she's been looking for work, applying for various jobs with all the hassle and frustrations that job hunting involves. She's stuck at it, been penniless for the last few weeks, and has recently found a job at an SEND school. Her resourcefulness is a good quality and she gets stuff done. Happy birthday Eliza. Enjoy it.
Twenty two is a funny age. Eliza joked (half- joked maybe) that she was having a quarter life crisis. I remember being twenty two and being a little adrift, university behind me and now being, as far as the world was concerned, an adult- but not really sure what I wanted to do or what the future might hold, feeling too young to start a professional career job, not having much money, living in a series of short term rented flats/ house shares. It's a tricky age I think.
In 1969 Iggy acknowledged twenty two's difficult status on the opening song of The Stooges's debut album, a song that sets out perfectly the band's modus operandi. Noise, distorted wah wah, sludgy riffs, primitive thumping drums and this- 'Last year I was twenty one/ Didn't have a lot of fun/ Now I'm gonna be twenty two/ Oh my and boo hoo'.
It's 1969. America is burning. Iggy's bored and sarcastic.
Ten years later Neil Young and Crazy Horse recorded one of their epics, Neil slipping back into the past to deliver a song about war, family, death and youth. I always assumed it was set in the time of the American Revolution, the 'red means run son' a reference to the British army and their red coats. The narrator's family have all fallen by the way, Daddy's gone, Neil's brother's out hunting in the mountains, Big John's been drinking since the river took Emmy Lou. There's just Neil, his Daddy's rifle in his arms and just turned twenty two, wondering what to do...
There are several other twenty two songs- Taylor Swift's 22, Lily Allen's 22 (same title, different tone), The Flaming Lips' When Yer Twenty Two and Bright Eyes' Land Locked Blues that contains the line, 'The world's got me dizzy again/ You'd think after twenty two years I'd be used to the spin'. Not really mate- twenty two is still ridiculously young. We'll finish with Billy Bragg and his 1985 calling card- 'I was twenty one years when I wrote this song/ I'm twenty two now but I won't be for long'.
The opening line is a borrow/ steal from Simon and Garfunkel's Leaves That Are Green, a 1966 song about lost love. Billy places A New England in the early 80s, Thatcher's Britain with youth unemployment, the bomb, the miner's strike and the Falklands War as his backdrop. Among all of that he doesn't even want to find a new England, he's just looking for another girl.
'I saw two shooting stars last night/ I wished on them/ But they were only satellites/ it's wrong to wish on space hardware/ I wish I wish I wish you cared'.
I'm not sure there are many better lines in popular music than that.
