Friday Trio

Three EPs for Friday from the electronic end of things, suitable for home listening and for playing out, for making the humanoid banana wiggle and writhe and flip his skin. First, from Belfast the new EP from The Vendetta Suite (Gary Irwin). Gary's musical history goes back to the early 90s, to David Holmes' Exploding Plastic Inevitable and then becoming Holmes' studio engineer. Gary, David and Timmy Stewart kept going as producers and DJs, illuminating nights in Belfast with acid house, dub and techno. Fast forward to 2021 and The Vendetta Suite released an album, The Kempe Stone Portal, and David's resulting remix of Purple Haze Yellow Sunshine stands out as one of the best remixes of the 2020s. Fast forward again and here we are in 2026, with The Vendetta Suite's Scrabo Electro, an EP that harks back to the halcyon days of mid- 80s electro, breakdance, B-  Boys and for Gary, teenage days in Newtownards. 

The original mix of Scrabo Electro is a body rockin' gem, squelches and 808s, 'uh uh uh' and burping bass. A Dub For Dave kicks down with a skanking version, underwater dub with Space Invaders sounds. Uprock At Digby's Disco goes full on electro and we finish with the Lead Mines Bonus Beats, scratching and slo mo fun. You can get all four versions at Bandcamp. 

Second, here's an EP from Photay from earlier this year- Always Cosmic is a four track EP led by Photay's remix of United Freedom Collective's Always Open, percussive, tribal, acid house with the distinctive vocals of Falle Nioke. Acid bassline and bleeps, Afro vocals, rattling breakbeat, deep and epic sounding psychedelic acid. 

The EP adds three more versions: an instrumental radio edit of the remix; Always Cosmic, a stripped down cosmische dub that sets the controls for deeper and further; and the pH Dub, wiggy, dark jazzy acid, the elements bent out of shape with some Balearic piano. Always Cosmic is at Bandcamp. 

Thirdly, out now on Barcelona label Adepta Editions is an EP from Ariadne's Labyrinth that I dropped into one of the recent Oblique Saturdays posts. Endless Corners has four tracks, a collision of classically trained piano and violin with rave and club culture. Opener Amble Eddy Song is a delight, dark bass and breakbeats with melodies dancing across the top. Missing Daydream is even better, Philip Glass crossed with 90s breakbeats, a heady trip into ambient techno.

Terminal Dot featured a few weeks ago. It's followed by Threads which rides in on bumping bass and a fractured drum break, urban and urgent, Ariadne's Labyrinth background in London's squat scene, classical training and love of Cuban and Brazilian rhythms in full flight. You can find Endless Corners at Bandcamp. 

Oblique Saturdays

A series for Saturdays in 2026 inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas). Eno and Schmidt created them to be used to unblock creative impasses and approach problems from unexpected angles. Each week I'll turn over an Oblique Strategy card and post a song or songs inspired by the suggestion. 

Last week's Oblique Strategy suggestion was Look closely at the most embarrassing details and amplify them. 

This took me to the Beastie Boys and their embarrassment at Fight For your Right, a song which defined them in a way they did not like. It led us to Paul's Boutique and the 90s Beastie Boys so it all turned out OK in the end. The Bagging Area OS squad played a blinder with the following- Johnny Cash and A Boy Named Sue (Ernie), Are We Not Men? by Devo (Anonliz), Slade's How Does It Feel (Jake Sniper), Elvis laughing his way through a performance of Are You Lonesome Tonight? at Vegas (C)...

... Magazine's A Song From Under The Floorboards and Radiohead's Creep (Trail Of Bread), The Animals' Story of Bo Diddley (Al G), Half Man Half Biscuit's Petty Sessions (Rol), and Feel Good Hit Of The Summer by Queens Of The Stone Age, Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana and Prefab Sprout's From Langley Park To Memphis (Chris ZenArcade).

There was an interview with David Byrne this week at The Guardian where he was asked if they used the Oblique Strategy cards in the studio when Talking Heads worked with Eno. Byrne said 'The box of cards were present. I don’t know if they were ever really used, but they contain clever ideas, to help you break out of any ruts or ingrained thinking.' 

Avoiding ruts and ingrained thinking, this week's Oblique Strategy suggestion is this- You can only make one dot at a time. 

As a massive fan of One Dove and Dot Allison, one Dot is all we need.

Fallen

Fallen originally came out on Soma, a Glasgow based record label. One Dove were a trio, Dot Allison, Ian Carmichael and Jim McKinven. When the group signed to Junior Boys Own, an enconter with Andrew Weatherall on a boat party in Rimini led to him producing their album, fresh from his successes  with Screamadelica. Weatherall's version of Fallen lifted it to new heights, Dot's voice over the fractured intro, gasps and timbales, 'I don't know why I'm telling you any of this, one thing is don't ever tell anyone I told you this, don't save me, forgive me, I was only thinking of you... just you'... and just like that anyone hearing it was hooked.

After One Dove folded Dot released a solo album that was trailed y this gorgeous piece of mid- 90s soul/ pop... 

Mo' Pop

The same album, Afterglow, had this song on it, Message Personnel which was remixed by Arab Strap, who slow it down and take the blissed out pop of the original and make it typically something a bit darker...

Message Personnel (Arab Strap Remix)

I think Kevin Shields is on guitar on that one too. I could go on posting Dot Allison tracks all day but I'll stop there.

Wire's 1978 debut had the song Dot Dash on it, two and a half minutes of post- punk brilliance and there's a guitar band from Washington D.C. named after that song who put out this in 2018 on an album called  Proto Retro...

World's Last Payphone

Dots also make me think of the printing process for comic books, the four colour process, using small dots of colour to create shades. Roy Lichtenstein took comic book imagery and dot printing and blew them up for his version of Pop Art, most famously with Whaam!

Paul Weller had a Whaam! Rickenbacker guitar which he used in The Jam and which I've seen in an exhibition but can't find my photo of it. Here's Paul with it...

Pete Wylie, a Bagging Area hero, had a Pow! guitar...

That guitar made a prime time Top Of The Pops appearance in 1986 when Pete's single Sinful hit the charts and his friend Josie Jones had the privilege of playing it (special mention for the dancing nuns, The Sisters of The Anfield Road)

Sinful is an all timer for me, one of those songs that I can always go back to and if forced to make a list of my X number of favourite songs, would absolutely be on it. 

Sinful (Tribal Mix)

Recently I was sent an EP by Ariadne's Labyrinth which is on my list of releases to write about at greater length but Eno's card and this track, Terminal Dot, came together at the right time- Terminal Dot fuses classical violins, a lovely string arrangement, with some thumping beats and distorted bass, a collision or rave and classical that works really well. 

The portrait of the woman at the top of this post was above the fireplace in a pub we were drinking in, after the Protex Blue gig in Sheffield last weekend. I don't know who she is but she's definitely had enough of the person painting her or boring her with their constant banging on. Withering disdain. 

Anyway, feel free to drop you own suggestions to You can only make one dot at a time in the comment box.