That's Amazing Grace

This is new from Dot Allison and Anton Newcombe, Dot's always entrancing, breathless voice floating over, around and within an acoustic guitar and psychedelic FX blur from the Brian Jonestown Massacre main man, combining as All Seeing Dolls. That's Amazing Grace sounds and feels like a dream that you haven't quite woken up from, that moment when you're stirring and half aware of the fuzzy dreamscape that you're inhabiting. There's an album to follow in February 2025. 

Anenome Dreams

Brian Jonestown Massacre played a gig in Manchester last week, part of a UK tour that seems to have gone down very well. It's the umpteenth time I've missed Anton Newcombe, either with BJM or L'épée in recent years. I don't have a huge amount of the BJM back catalogue but what I do have is very good. This song in particular, and I think this is a fairly widely held opinion, is an absolute beauty...

Anenome

Shimmering, tripped out, wiggy, late 60s style psyche rock of the highest order, an acoustic guitar, a  tambourine for rhythm, a lead guitar playing a weaving, winding acid topline and lyrics, sung in a wonderful drawl about a departure, a kiss off- 'You should be picking me up/ Instead you're dragging me down... Glad that you're not around/ Glad that you're not around'. Anenome was on Their Satanic Majesties' Second Request, a Rolling Stones baiting album recorded in 1995 and released in 1996. 

Anton formed L'épée with Lionel and Marie Limiñana and singer/ actor Emnanuelle Seigner (who sticks in my memory from the 1988 film Frantic which she starred in with Harrison Ford). An album, Diabolique, came out in 2019, ten songs reimagining The Velvet Underground if they'd been from Paris rather than New York. 

Dreams

Half An Hour Of The Limiñanas

The Limiñanas are Lionel and Marie Limiñana, a duo from Cabestany in the south of France, who play psyche/ garage/ pop dressed in black jeans and boots, with fuzz guitar, Mo Tucker style drums and tambourine and slightly stoned, Gauloise vocals. Over the course of nine albums and umpteen singles/ EPs they've steered their own course pulling in like minded souls along the way. Their music always feels like summer to me, the hot and sticky days of July and August, the air smelling of beer and cigarette smoke, sunglasses, tinny car stereos and the clink of beer bottles- so there's no better time to listen to thirty minutes of their music than in mid- January. C'est la vie. 

Half An Hour Of The Limiñanas 

• Garden Of Love
• The Gift (Anton Mix)
• The Ballad Of Linda L.
• Variation Sur 3 Bancs
• Devils Angels (Limiñanas Remix)
• Dimanche (Laurent Garnier Remix)
• Garden Of Love (Lundi Mouillé Mix)
• Liverpool (album version)

Garden Of Love was a 2016 single, a lovely piece of 21st century garage pop, Marie's vocal to the fore along with Peter Hook's mournful, elegiac bass playing that makes me feel weirdly homesick, even when I'm at home. Garden Of Love was remixed by Andrew Weatherall twice and released on clear 12" vinyl. Both mixes are great, the one here, Lundi Mouille (Wet Monday) is the slower, more downtempo one.  

Hooky turned up on The Gift in 2018 too, a single and song from their 2018 album Shadow People, their fifth album, ten songs where they really hit their stride and refined their sound. Anton Newcombe was on hand for a lot of the album and provided the mix for this version of The Gift. They formed a  one- off group with Anton and actress/ singer Emmanuelle Seigner and released an excellent album in 2019 that I've remembered about while typing this. I should have included one of their songs on this but it's too late now. 

The Ballad Of Linda L. is from a soundtrack to a documentary from last year about the life of Linda Lovelace, written and recorded with David Menke.

Variation Sur 3 Bancs was a collaboration with Golden Bug. A vinyl/ digital EP came out in 2021 with remixes by Pilooski, Superpitcher and Destino, French electronic/ Balearic catnip. 

Devils Angels is by Unloved, from their second album Heartbreak (2019) There was a remix EP with remixes by various folk including Weatherall, Jane Weaver and here, obvs, The Limiñanas.

Dimanche is also from Shadow People with singer, songwriter and author Bertrand Belin on vocals. It was remixed by French DJ and Hacienda veteran Laurent Garnier. The Limiñanas and Laurent released an album together in 2021, De Pelicula, a psyche French road trip/ noir which is highly recommended (even though I neglected to put anything from it on this mix).

Liverpool is from the band's 2013 album Costa Blanca with vocals from Mu (Muriel Margail)

Every Time I Hear Those Bells I Know It's All Over Now

More from Anton Newcombe's Berlin studio. Vermont/New York psych-rock pair The Vacant Lots make an electrified, punkish, two chord rumble- you know exactly where their music coming from and for the time the record is playing nothing else really matters , their 'minimal means maximum' aesthetic having taken them to both Sonic Boom and Alan Vega before they pitched up with Anton in Berlin. They've released an array of albums, singles and e.p.s since 2010, all clad in distinctive black and white op art sleeves. This song, Bells from the Exit e.p. and produced by Anton, came out in June. Loads more at Bandcamp.

The Sword

Brand new, totally retro and full of dirty guitars, Velvets rhythms and Gallic cool come L'Epée. Lou is a tribute to Lou Reed and sounds exactly like a tribute to Lou Reed should...



Back in May L'Epée released Dreams, an organ led shake and crawl yé-yé number with a video taking us through Paris in the 60s, from Montmartre to the Eiffel Tower, the banks of the Seine, pavement cafes and then heading out of town. L'Epée, a four piece made up of Anton Newcombe, Emmanuelle Seigner and Lionel and Marie Liminana sound like they should be blaring from a car's radio or through the half open window of a first floor flat.

The Gift

Some of my favourite songs from the last year or two have been by The Liminanas, a French pysch -rock duo with a knack for writing killer songs. The Gift has Peter Hook on guest bass and he hasn't sounded better in recent years than on this song. They recorded much of their album Shadow People in Berlin at Anton Newcombe's studio. This is his mix of the song (from the B-sides and rarities compilation I've Got Trouble In Mind Vol. 2).

The Gift (Anton Mix)

Shadow People

This is a new one from The Liminanas, a French duo whose stuff I've posted before- they did an excellent single last year with Hooky on bass (Garden Of Love). This one, Shadow People, has Emmanuelle Seigner on vocals, and has exactly the right amount of Gallic psychedelic buzz.

An e.p. called Istanbul Is Sleepy, recorded between their home in the South of France and Anton Newcombe's studio in Berlin is out in a couple of weeks with an album in 2018. The title track from the e.p. has been out since the end of September. It is a Velvets inspired blast and a total earworm. Le velours souterrain.

Bobby Selassie And Primal Jah

Primal Scream's Chaosmosis album from earlier this year didn't really do too much for me- it was alright but nothing special. This however is the best thing they've put their name to for a long time. Anton Newcombe of Brian Jonestown Massacre has remixed 100% Or Nothing into a nine and a half minutes long psychedelic dub odyssey, spaced out with dubby bass, disjointed backing vocals, a melodica wending its way through and lots of echo... echo... echo. It's coming out on limited edition clear vinyl on Friday. Really good.

Oh No He Loves Us

Tim Burgess' still-really-good-sounding album from last year Oh No! I Love You, co-written and recorded with Kurt Wagner from Lambchop, has already had some remixes released. I posted the Factory Floor and Andy Votel ones and there was a Django Django one I might have done too. Memory fails me at times. There are a few more just floating about the internet at the moment, and cos Tim loves us, they're free downloads. I'm still trying to convince people that Tim's solo album is worth their time- go on, give it a go.

Seahawks have done this slow, stately, ambientish one which hangs around very pleasantly for eleven minutes plus. Anton Newcombe from top underground rockers Brian Jonestown Massacre has done two, one of which- The Doors Of Then- is here. It is on a psychedelic tip.