Spooked

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. 

Nowhere To Nowhere And E2 To E4

More new music, guaranteed to put a spring in your step and a smile on your face- it did mine anyway- as spring springs, greenery is finally appearing on threadbare trees and there's an occasional glimpse of something called the sun. 

Psychederek lives in Stretford and has made some wonderful tracks in recent years- the Space Arcade EP, Test Card Girl and At The Mountains Of Madness can all be found at Bandcamp and are all worth digging into. Last week he announced the release of an EP titled Alt!, four tracks digitally and on vinyl (all available from early June). There are two to listen to now here, the first a six minute technicolour throb that starts like it's already been playing somewhere else for a while called Nowhere To Nowhere, a song for a psychedelic Stretford, choppy guitars, motorik drums, wired guitar and synth toplines, chunky percussion and  bumping one note bassline. The second is a cover of 808 State's Pacific, a song that I'm happy to hear in almost any version/ remix/ cover, a cover that sets out adrift on memory bliss, a tripped out mellowed out, slowed down, psyched out sunbaked cover with A Certain Ratio's Donald Johnson on drums. If the other two tracks on Alt! are as good, we have one of the EPs of the year looking at us. 

A month ago Psychederek released Tongue- Tied, a single cut from similar (tie dyed) cloth, starting out all laid back with drifting vox but then picking up the pace when the drums kick in. Tongue- Tied is at Bandcamp with a pair of excellent Moodymanc remixes to boot. 

That was to be the end of this post but I got in yesterday and a friend had tipped me off to this, Alex Kassian covering Manuel Gottsching's classic E2- E4, a twelve minute electronic ride into kosmiche/ Balearic/ cosmic disco from Berlin. If that's not enough there are two Mad Professor dub remixes (not available to listen to yet. The full release comes out in late May along with the 12" vinyl- and yes, I've missed out on the vinyl too. Listen etc here. Twelve minutes and twenty one seconds of your day you won't regret. 

Alex Kassian's Spirit Of Eden came out in 2021, one of my favourite releases from that year, a record I do not believe I will ever tire of, a track that sits in a space somewhere between the sun sinking into a melting Mediterranean sea, cosmic dub jazz and the theme tune to The Rockford Files. But miles better than that sounds. 

Spirit Of Eden

Bagging Area Tak Tent Mix Nine

My latest hour long mix for Tak Tent Radio went live at the weekend. Tak Tent have been broadcasting out of Scotland on the internet since June 2020, with a range of contributors including the legendary Richard Youngs. The latest Bagging Area mix is my ninth for Tak Tent and contains solely music from this year. You can listen to it here or directly at Mixcloud. Don't let them tell you there's no good new music any more. 

• Alex Kassian: Lifestream
• Marshall Watson: High Desert (Seahawks High Sky Remix)
• Whitelands: Setting Sun (AR Kane Initiation Dub)
• Dot Allison: Unchanged (GLOK Remix)
• Dicky Continental: Simon Says (Congagong rework)
• African Head Charge: Passing Clouds
• Coyote: After All These Years
• Steve Queralt and Michael Smith: Chaldean Oracle (GLOK Remix)
• Jo Sims: Bass- The Final Frontier (David Holmes Remix)
• Richard Norris: The Third Day
• JIM: Still River Flow (Generalisation Dub)

Fate's Faithful Punchline

A few weeks ago Nina Walsh rediscovered and shared a YouTube playlist made my Andrew Weatherall when he and Nina were doing Moine Dubh (the record label they formed to put out weird, off kilter folk music based in Crystal Palace). Nina said Andrew often forgot his usernames and passwords for YouTube and was constantly having to create new accounts- it's nice to know that's something that affects top DJs and producers as well as the rest of us. The playlist, Dubh Drops, is here and features an array of acts including Cheval Sombre, The Shadow Project, Hungry Ghosts, Amanda Palmer and Edward Ka- Spel, The Black Ryder, Dean Wareham, Rose City Band, The Carpenters and Negative Lovers. It also includes this gem by The Legendary Pink Dots...

Fate's Faithful Punchline

Led by finger picked acoustic guitar and Edward Ka- Spel's echo- drenched voice and eventually some strings, Fate's Faithful Punchline is moving, gorgeous and elegiac psychedelic folk. The Legendary Pink Dots are an Anglo- Dutch group, formed in London in 1980 and have since then released forty- seven albums, twenty- six live albums and forty- eight  compilations. And you thought The Fall were prolific. 

I included Fate's Faithful Punchline on my latest mix for Tak Tent Radio which went live at the weekend, an hour of songs that you can listen to here at Tak Tent or here at Mixcloud. Andrew Weatherall's fingerprints are to be found elsewhere in the mix in the form of his remix of The Impossibles from 1991 and a Beth Orton song he produced that was a B-side on the Someone's Daughter CD single. 

• Alex Kassian: Spirit Of Eden
• Martin Duffy: Promenading
• Eden Ahbez: Full Moon
• 10:40: Ninety- Now
• Coyote: Nothing Rests
• David Holmes: No- One Is Smarter Than History
• Gal Costa: Baby
• The Impossibles: The Drum (Andrew Weatherall Remix)
• A Certain Ratio: Houses In Motion (Version 1)
• Ultramarine: Stella
• Beth Orton: It’s This I Find I Am
• The Legendary Pink Dots: Fate’s Faithful Punchline

David Holmes At The Golden Lion: Recreated

A trip back in time to two weeks ago for today's Sunday mix and a much longer offering than usual. You might remember- I do- that on Saturday 1st October a group of us supported David Holmes at the Golden Lion in Todmorden and had quite the night. David came on at about nine and played a four hour set that took the proverbial roof off. Using the power of our memories (hazy, intermittent, vague and unreliable admittedly) and those people who had the presence of mind to use Shazam in the building at the time, we've attempted to put together David's setlist from that evening and then I've slung the ones we've been able to identify together in a one hour and forty seven minutes long, fifteen track mix, in roughly the order we recall them being played. It's missing a lot of tracks clearly- Holmes played for four hours- and it's not anywhere near as skillfully mixed but it's here to give a flavour, a short recreation of David at the Golden Lion a fortnight ago. I've listened to it a couple of times since finishing it midweek and it works for me- if I do say so myself. 

David Holmes at The Golden Lion recreated by The Flightpath Estate

• Alex Kassian: Spirit Of Eden (Bill Laswell Remix)
• Roberto Rodriguez: Mustat Varjot
• Carte De Sejour: Ouadou
• Axel Boman: Klinsmann
• Pete Wylie and The Oedipus Wrecks: Sinful (Tribal)
• Dornbirn 78: Dancing In The City
• Suuns: Up Past The Nursery (Ivan Smagghe Edit)
• Ettika: Ettika (Version Maxi Inedite)
• Hans Zimmer: Inception (Junkie XL Remix)
• John Talabot: Depak Ine
• The Blow Monkeys: La Passionara
• David Holmes: It's Over, If We Run Out Of Love (Darren Emerson Huffa remix)
• Unloved: Turn Of The Screw (Erol Alkan Rework)
• David Holmes and Keith Tenniswood: I Am Somebody
• Orbital: Belfast (David Holmes Remix)

Alex Kassian's Spirit Of Eden came out as a 12" last year, my favourite release from last year I've only discovered this year. The original and the Bill Laswell mixes are superb. Roberto Rodriguez's Mustat Varjot is from a 2012 compilation EP called On the Latch. Carte De Sejour is Italian disco/ funk from 1984. The vinyl rip included here is crackly as fuck but I think it actually adds to the fun. Klinsmann by Axel Boman, a tribute to a very well known German footballer perhaps, is from 2013. Sinful (Tribal Mix), one of the night's highlights, is a 1986 single remixed by Zeus B. Held- the definitive version. I'm going to see Pete Wylie a week today and if he plays Sinful I will be very happy. 

Dornbirn 78 released Dancing In The City in 2019, a cover of Marshall Hain's 1978 song. Ivan Smagghe's edit of Suun's Up Past The Nursery is from 2013. Ettika is French disco from 1985. John Talabot's Depak Ine came out on his 2012 album Fin. The Junkie XL remix of Hans Zimmer's theme from the film Inception is from 2010. La Passionara is a  Balearic classic from 1990 by The Blow Monkeys.

The Darren Emerson remix of David Holmes' It's Over, If We Run Out Of Love was part of a remix package from earlier this year, with Raven Violet on vocals. Raven also sings on Unloved's Turn Of The Screw, from The Pink Album, out shortly on vinyl and already available digitally. The Erol Alkan remix came out as part of an EP recently. David's track with former Lone Swordsman Keith Tenniswood is currently unreleased and appears here courtesy of a rip from Holmes' wonderful Desert Island Disco mix for Lauren Laverne back at the start of the year- it has the voice of Andrew Weatherall at the end talking about acid house as gnostic ceremony. The David Holmes remix of Orbital's Belfast was the 'one more tune' track at The Golden Lion and came out a couple of months ago as part of Orbital's 30 Something compilation. 

Monday's Long Song

Out last year but new to me (via David Holmes playing it on the June edition of God's Waiting Room at NTS) is this vinyl only four track EP by Berlin's Alex Kassian. The long songs for today are both on the B-side, the sumptuous Spirit Of Eden. Long and lightheaded electronic joy, dub teetering into jazz/ deep house, beautiful melodies and floating production, Spirit Of Eden is the sort of thing that for the duration it spins, totally transports you somewhere else- and that's exactly what we want music to do sometimes isn't it?

The 12" follows Spirit Of Eden with a Bill Laswell dub which at eight and a half minutes is slightly longer and taken at a slower tempo with a lovely flute part that comes and goes as the refrain from the original drifts in and out.