Following Directions

New from Reverb Delay, following directions, a three track EP drawn from the archives, with an aversion to capital letters. Lots to enjoy here- machine techno in the Basic Channel/ Berlin vein with the feel of a lo- fi 90s Underworld. The first track, closing the gap, is all hiss and echo, the hint of a kick drum thudding away and a synth topline that sounds like an FXed wah wah guitar. At six twenty one the hiss suddenly drops out and its like stepping outside- then it re- appears, along with the hiss, and a car horn honking/ single keyboard note stab. 

Track two is berlin underground (u-bahn mix), starting with sounds from that transport line and then several minutes of swirling ambient noise, drones and more trains coming and going, a two note sound, everything eventually disappearing into hiss. Noise and sound as music. 

Finally, the title track, a computer generated voice intoning directions to the nightclub Tresor- hence following directions- and more deep, ambient techno, shadows of pulsing drums, dark synth sounds, radio static, more swirling drones, the voice explaining how to get to Tresor, endlessly, ... nineteen minutes of it and even that doesn't seem enough.

Get it at Bandcamp, free/ name your price. 

Echo Spiegel

Some music that sneaked out in December 2025 that I missed. From Belfast, Phil Kieran's Le Carousel released an EP called Echo Spiegel (translation- Sound Mirror), a squelchy psychedelic, Germanic disco number with a pair of remixes by Curses and a further one by Phil himself. The original is a lovely piece of electronic music, one that draws you in as it unfolds, repetition as a feature and an end in itself. 

Curses is DJ/ producer/ remixer Luca Venezia, resident of Berlin. He provides a pair of remixes. The Liquid Metal Remix is driven by a breakbeat and stripped back synth sounds, low slung fun and a churning, grimy bassline. The EP, all four versions, are available to listen to and buy at Bandcamp. It finishes with Phil's remix of his own track, the Phil Kieran Psychedelic Mix, a version that removes the rhythms and focuses on a Cluster like trip into the cosmische. 

Monday's Long Songs

Woodland Tales is a two track EP from Solipsism that came out a month ago. I was tipped off to it by a friend last week and have gone in deep a few times. There are two tracks- Forest Song and Bird Song, the former twenty one minutes long and the latter thirty six minutes. Forest Song is a slow moving ambient piece, uplifting drones and layers of sound that sound like the world waking up, the drones at times resembling a choir, as if the trees had learned to sing in unison. Bird Song is lighter and gentler, the drones ringing in a higher pitch, the choir more fractured. It feels like an epic dawn coming.

Woodland Tales is at Bandcamp, free/ pay what you want. 

Solipsism is Craig Murphy, an experimental musician from Glasgow, now resident in Malaga. There's more of his work at his Bandcamp site including most recently the hour long piece called Forever Sunrise. Solipsism is a lovely word to look at as well as to say. 

Many people will head back to work today. Good luck everyone, hope it isn't too difficult. I have a well-being day and we don't start back until tomorrow. Very civilised. Some of you might remember that last August I started work in a new college after twenty four years in my previous school. Starting somewhere completely new  in my mid- 50s and at 32 years into teaching felt like a big deal. A new place, new colleagues, new routines, a salary cut (but significantly closer to home). It took me a few weeks to get settled and I did briefly wonder if I'd done the right thing. But it has been a move I really needed to make and a change that has been nothing but positive. In fact, after the chaos and difficulties of my last place of employment, I find myself in the bizarre position of actually enjoying going to work now. This time last year, the first Monday in January would have been awful. As it is, even though I'm off today and don't start back until tomorrow, I'm not dreading it. Change can be good- it has to be the right change obviously- but I'm in a much better work position than I was a year ago. 

An Hour Of 2025 Dub/ Dance

A follow up to my New Year's Eve mix which was an ambient/ downtempo and largely instrumental hour of music. This one starts out dubby and then heads in Balearic and dance directions, getting increasingly thumpy with a three tune Belfast detour before finishing with the voice of Andrew Weatherall. As maybe all mixes should. 

There were a lot of things that I couldn't find room for here, not least Four Tet's Into Dust (Still Falling)- maybe there's time for one more 2025 mix next Sunday to see that year out. 

An Hour Of 2025 Dub/ Dance

• Adrian Sherwood: Spaghetti Best Western
• Soft Cotton County: The Future's Not What It Used To Be (Justin Robertson's Five Green Moons Remix)
• Rude Audio: No Sleep
• Escape- Ism: Last Of The Sellouts
• Daniel Avery ft. Cecile Believe: Rhapsody In Blue
• Jezebell: Movimento Lento
• Puerto Montt City Orchestra: ...And We'd Be So Happy
• Pandit Pam Pam: The Senator
• Le Carousel: We're All Gonna Hurt
• Factory Floor: Tell Me
• Black Bones: Voodoo
• The Light Brigade: Shuffle The Pack

Adrian Sherwood's The Collapse Of Everything was one of my favourite albums of 025, a solo album that becomes a mystical sonic adventure, Sherwood reaching out from dub into soundtrack territories and beyond. Spaghetti Best Western's guitars are worth the price of entry alone. 

Soft Cotton County's Coward Of The County Fair came out in January 2025, a single backed with a pair of Justin Robertson dubs (wearing his Five Green Moons hat- and the Five Green Moons Moon 2 album should have showed up here too). SCC are an indie/ dreampop/ shoegaze duo from Richmond- upon- Thames. This is lovely, laid back folk/ dub. 

Rude Audio are a South London dub/ dub techno specialists under the leadership of Mark Ratcliff. The Strange Phenomenon EP was a 2025 highlight, premium grade Dulwich dub. 

Escape- Ism's The Charge Of The Love Brigade was one of my 2025 peaks, a ten song trip inside Ian Svenonius' world, the last man in the business to sell out. 

Daniel Avery and Cecile Believe's Rhapsody In Blue was the most 80s teen drama, pop moment on Tremor (and came with a Midnight Version too, dirtier and tougher). It still hits the right spots now, six months after its release.

Jezebell's second album, Jezebellearic Beats Volume 2, pulled together some further remixes and productions together with some new material- this track, Movimento Lento, and the closer Turn It Yes, were a perfect pair of bookends. 

Puerto Montt City Orchestra's ...And We'd Be So Happy came out on Brighton's Higher Love label, the home of many fine modern Balearic releases. A spoken word family trip to the seaside in the pouring rain. 

Pandit Pam Pam is from Sao Paulo and makes uneasy ambient music. The Senator is the most dancefloor friendly thing in the Pandit Pam Pam back catalogue, dynamic and lively but still a little unpredictable and the horn that floats above the drums is a thing of beauty. 

Le Carousel is Phil Kieran from Belfast. We're All Gonna Hurt is full on, pulsing, electronic dance music, uplifting but shot through with heartbreak, like all the best dance music is. 

Factory Floor's 2025 return saw them come back with more bone shaking beats and face melting synths, on a pair of singles, Tell Me and Between You. Stephen Morris added some drum programming touches to Tell Me. Experimental, machine music with a random human heart. 

Black Bones are also from Belfast. They released an album across a variety of vinyl formats, dark industrial basement music- acidic, technoid, dubbed up Belfast rave. 

The Light Brigade are David Holmes and Keith Tenniswood. Shuffle The Pack is a righteous acid house record, a call to arms and positivity and very much part of Holmes' 'music as an act of resistance' vision that fades out leaving Andrew Weatherall's voice talking about music, smoke, coloured lights and acid house as gnostic ceremony. 

Oblique Saturdays

For the last three years I've had yearlong Saturday series running- last year was a year of film scores and soundtracks, Saturday Soundtrack, and before that Saturday Live (artists playing live) and VA Saturday (Various Artists compilations). I had a couple of ideas for 2026 and have settled on this- Oblique Saturdays.

In 1975 Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt came up with a set of cards designed to promote creativity and break moments of studio deadlock. Oblique Strategies were available for general sale on several occasions and in various editions. The most recent was in 2013. Each card contains a gnomic suggestion which must be interpreted to break a deadlock or resolve a dilemma. Various artists have gone public about their use of the Oblique Strategies cards- Eno himself during  Bowie's Berlin triptych, The B- 52s, LCD Soundsystem, Blixa Bargeld (a similar system of cards called Dave), Bauhaus, MGMT, Phoenix and, um, Coldplay. 

I was thinking about the Oblique Strategies a few months ago while reading an article about Eno and the words strategy and Saturday merged, suggesting this as a series. At some point before each Saturday I will go to the Oblique Strategies website, click onto it and reveal a card- without much thought, I will then post the song that first came to mind. I've no idea how this will play out, it's being done on the hoof. The first Oblique Saturday suggestion card I turned over was this...

Reverse 

In 1988 The Stone Roses discovered the joy of reversing the tapes of songs they'd recorded in the studio and they played around with them. Eventually this resulted in Don't Stop, for me one of the highlights of the debut album, Waterfall reversed with a new drum track and Ian Brown singing new words (the lyrics were written by John Squire listening to the backwards vocals of Waterfall and writing down what they suggested). The first backwards track they released was a B-side to Elephant Stone, Full Fathom Five.

Full Fathom Five

The sucking sound The Roses managed to obtain from their backwards guitars and drums is a trip, the whoosh and rush of music, the feel of and energy of gigs and clubs. On Full Fathom Five Ian's backwards vocals sound like a new language, the drums thump and skitter and it's like being in a bubble. 

Ian and John gave an interview at some point in the late 80s where they described driving out to the roads on the edge of Wythenshawe late at night, parking as close to Manchester Airport's runway as they could and lying on the bonnet of the car. They said that the whoosh of jets taking off directly overhead was the sound they were trying to replicate with the backwards tracks. Full Fathom Five is noise but it's noise as psychedelic sound/ music. 

If you reverse Full Fathom Five you'll find it's an alternate version of Elephant Stone. John Leckie encouraged them to experiment with reversed tapes and this would lead to several more experiments- Simone, Guernica and Don't Stop. Full Fathom Five is named after a Jackson Pollock painting- Elephant Stone was the first single to be housed in one of Squire's Pollock style paintings. 

Feel free to drop your own Reverse suggestions into the comment box. It would be interesting to see how other people interpret the oblique strategy. 

Poor Is The Man Whose Pleasures Depend On The Permission Of Another

Back to 1990 today  and a Madonna single that still packs a punch all these years later- thirty six years later. 

Justify My Love was released to promote Madonna's first compilation, The Immaculate Collection. Co- written by Madonna with Lenny Kravitz and Ingrid Chavez, with Kravitz producing and contributing, it was slightly overshadowed by the video which has implied S&M, flashes of nipples (female), same- sex scenes (male and female), females in charge of and in control of sexuality, bedroom stuff- MTV predictably banned it. It was issued as a commercially available video single which added to its transgressive appeal, too steamy to be shown on the TV- buy it and watch it yourself at home. It's ahead of its time in what it portrays, certainly in terms of mainstream pop (I guess Frankie Goes To Hollywood and some others had been there before but Madonna was global in 1990) and much of what is portrayed in the video is commonplace now in pop music and popular culture. As a promotional tool, a music video and a slice of 1990, it's very, very cool indeed. 

The song is a banger, riding in on the drumbeat that defined 1990 (on this occasion a Public Enemy sample rather than the actual Funky Drummer, the drums from 1988 track Security Of The First World, sped up slightly to 132 bpm. Public Enemy threatened to sue due to its unauthorised use. Kravitz denied taking it from PE, saying it was one of those beats that was just lying around. Public Enemy took it from somewhere etc etc). The rhythm is everything, it drives it. It's joined by a deep and burbling bassline, synth chords/ drones and Kravitz on backing vocals. Madonna takes the lead, speaking breathily, unleashing her 'inner freak'...

'I wanna kiss you in Paris/ I wanna hold your hand in Rome/ I wanna run naked in a rainstorm/ Make love in a train... cross country'

She's clearly never travelled cross country in the UK. No matter how much inner freak you'd unleashed you'd think twice, thrice, before shagging in the grim, rarely cleaned toilets on the trans- Pennine service (though I do not doubt that it has happened). 

Justify My Love

It's about dominance and pleasure, sexual fantasy and pleasure in connection to permission. It sounds fantastic, the production and drums are superb- its the best thing Lenny Kravitz has been connected to, it's Madonna in absolute control, of her music, her image, her sound, her music. It could still cause a storm on a dancefloor. It's a jam. 

There were remixes including one, The Beast Within Mix, which saw Madonna accused of anti- Semitism. 'It's ridiculous', she replied, 'People can say I'm an exhibitionist but no- one can ever accuse me of being a racist'. Of the remixes the one that we'll go with is William Orbit's...

Justify My Love (Orbit 12" Mix)

Seven minutes, drawn out intro, different drumbeat, a new shuffly rhythm, typically swirly, trippy Orbit production, an organ stab and bursts of guitar. Lovely stuff that would eventually lead to William Orbit working with Madonna more closely and what would become 1998's Ray Of Light album. 

Sixteen

Bagging Area is sixteen years old today. On the cusp of adulthood, at the age of majority, able to leave school, join the army, get married (with parental consent) and buy an aerosol in a shop. 

The world I started typing this stuff into- 1st January 2010- seems a very long way away in all kinds of ways. Back then I thought I'd do this for a year and see what happened. What happened was I just kept going and here we are, still going, 6, 296 posts later. 

Some sixteens from my record/ CD/ downloads collections...

In 1955 Tennessee Ernie Ford recorded Sixteen Tons, a song about the coal mining industry in the USA, being owned by the company, having to haul sixteen tons every day and every day ending up deeper in debt. A series of strikes and the growth of trade unions put an end to the practices of the truck system and debt bondage that Merle Travis describes in the song and that Ernie sings about. 

Sixteen Tons

In 1980 The Clash gave their European tour the name Sixteen Tons, the band comparing their situation with CBS to coal mining in the 1930s and 1940s, trapped by debt. The band kept gig and record prices as low as possible, the record company took it out of their royalties. 

Clash associate Don Letts released an album on the Late Night Tales series, Version Excursion, that included Sixteen Tons Of Dub, a dub version of Ernie's tune by OBF...

Sixteen Tons Of Dub

In 1983 Jazzateers released a 7" on Rough Trade, Show Me The Door and Sixteen Reasons. Glaswegian post- punk/ New Wave, with Ian Burgoyne and Keith Band as the core members and on this single with Paul Quinn on vocals. The band split and became Bourgie Bourgie and then reformed as Jazzateers.

Sixteen Reasons

Let It Be is The Replacements masterpiece, a 1984 album where it all came together for the band. On Sixteen Blue Paul Westerberg writes yet another anthem for teenage outsiders, one about empathy and sexual blurriness. His vocal on Sixteen Blue is maybe the best on the entire album, not least when he croaks and then goes full throttle with the line, 'Your age is the hardest age/ Everything drags and drags/ One day baby, maybe help you through/ Sixteen blue'.  There are entire teen/ rites of passage films that don't manage to nail what The Replacements do in three minutes here... 

Sixteen Blue

Oh look out, here's Iggy...

Sixteen

'Sweet sixteen in leather boots/ Body and soul I go crazy'. From Lust For Life, Iggy's second solo album and his second in 1977, the band sound totally on it, fully focussed and as one, straight ahead drug/ proto- punk rock with Bowie at the producer's desk. In 1982 a gaffer taped Iggy turned up on The Tube and did Sixteen for the early evening teatime crowd. I'm going to end this post here because I'm not sure it's going to get any better than this today.