My World Has Grown Old

The Cure's Remixes Of A Lost World album is inevitably a mixed bag. It's out in multiple formats, twenty four remixes spread across triple CD, double and triple vinyl. I've already written about the Four Tet remix of Alone and the Orbital remix of Endsong, both of which are so good they make me wonder why Robert Smith hasn't done a full remix album or album with either the Hartnoll brothers and/ or Kieran Hebden. There's a Daniel Avery remix of Drone:Nodrone that hits all the goth- slo mo techno spots and a pumping Danny Briotet and Rico Conning remix that could close every indie/ goth disco night from now until the end of time. 

Mogwai, no strangers to expansive, dark emotional soundscapes bring themselves to Endsong, a stuttering noisy affair with a guitar line picked out on top, the band crawling slowly through a ten minute Cure shaped valley of despair, Smith's voice eventually drifting in, singing of being alone, left alone with nothing at the end of every song.

Colleen Cosmo Murphy takes a different approach, shifting the flow of the album (as sequenced on my double vinyl version) and has more in common with some of the dance/ Balearic remixes that The Cure last flirted with on Mixed Up back in 1990. Colleen's Electric Eden remix of And Nothing Is Forever adds a throbbing, sequenced dancefloor bassline, some twinkling synths and a ghostly choir, Robert's voice clear and loud on top- its a sunlit version of The Cure, very much a joyful and upward facing remix.  

Forty Five More Minutes Of Blind On A Galloping Remix

Last Sunday's fifty minute mix of remixes of songs from David Holmes' Blind On A Galloping Horse album was well received and I promised a second volume. In an unplanned coincidence me, Dan and Martin played support to David at The Golden Lion yesterday afternoon, the third time we've warmed up for him and its a pleasure and honour every time. Heavenly commissioned and released so many Blind On A Galloping Horse remixes of that I could probably do a third volume. Given that I've still not included in either of these mixes the Rich Lane remix (which came about due to a connection made by a post at this blog), the Hardway Bros Meets Monkton remix and various others (Robin Wylie, Daniel Avery, Darren Emerson, Working Men's Club...), a volume three would seem to be the order of the day at some point. 

Last time I started slow, some ambient/ chilled remixes before ramping it up in the second half. This one kicks in quicker. Last time I didn't include any remixes of the same song- this time I have, both Yeah x 3 and Necessary Genius feature twice but I liked the way the two remixes of Yeah x 3 worked together and the Necessary Genius remixes are very different animals. 

Forty Five More Minutes Of Blind On A Galloping Remix

• Yeah x 3 (Sonic Boom and Panda Bear Reset Remix)
• Yeah x 3 (The Vendetta Suite Reason To Live Remix)
• Necessary Genius (Lovefingers Dub And Response)
• Too Muchroom (Hardway Bros Too Much Acid Dub)
• Stop Apologising (Cosmodelica Extended Mix)
• It's Over, If We Run Out Of Love (Lovefingers and Heidi Lawden High Tide Mix)
• Necessary Genius (Decius Remix)

Sonic Boom and Panda Bear's Reset album was a 60s pop/ psych bubblegum adventure, reworkings/ samples of 60s songs filtered through a 21st century bubblegum box of tricks. It was followed by an Adrian Sherwood dub of Reset that raised it up a notch. Sonic and Panda's version of Yeah x 3, the most 60s pop song on Blind On A Galloping Horse, is a whir of drum machine rhythms, layers of glassy psychedelia and Raven's space echo vocal on top. 

The Vendetta Suite is fellow Belfast producer/ DJ/ musician Gary Irwin. He remixed Yeah x 3 twice- the weightless ambient drift of Reason To Drift was on last's week mix. This one, the Reason To Live remix, is more direct, led by a pulsing bass and wall of synths. 

Lovefingers is Andrew Hogge, the owner of the ESP Institute label, a DJ, producer and promoter. His remix of Necessary Genius is a deep one, with rapid fire drums, pumped up bass and Raven's vocal chopped up and FXed, and a hypnotic, repeating piano line thunders away. David list of inspirations- Tony Wilson, Weatherall, Guy Stevens, Nina Simone, northern soul, Peter Meadon, rock 'n' roll, Rastafari, Bernadette Devlin, David Keenan, Sinead O'Connor and refugees among them- rattle by. 

The lyrics for Too Muchroom come from an Andrew Weatherall quote- 'if you're not living on the edge you're taking up too much room'. Andrew's influence is all over Blind On A Galloping Horse. There's a cover of Laugh Myself To Sleep from his unreleased second solo album (still unreleased due to a difference of opinion with engineer Steve Boardman who claimed co- writing credits and held the tapes/ hard drive hostage. Andrew's response was to say 'fuck him/ it' and move on, do the next thing. In a radio show he said he quite liked the idea of having an unreleased and legendary lost solo album. Appropriately Andrew's partner in The Asphodells, Tim Fairplay, played guitar on Laugh Myself To Sleep). Andrew's ALFOS partner Sean Johnston remixes Too Muchroom, one of several remixes Sean did of Galloping Horse songs. This one is exactly what it says it is- acid dub. The vocals are in there, twisted to pieces and just about audible. 

Cosmodelica is Colleen Murphy, New Yorker, DJ, producer and radio show host. Her Balearic Breakfast show and compilation albums are second to none. Her remix of Stop Apologising is like being dropped back into a scuzzy indie/ electro basement, dry ice and sticky floors, where the room smells of poppers and cigarettes and the crowd are ridiculously beautiful and elegantly wasted. 

Lovefingers makes a second appearance along with Heidi Lawden, and a remix of Its Over, If We Run Out Of Love, one of the songs that is the at the centre of Galloping Horse, heartbeat of the album. They did two, the Low Tide remix and this one, High Tide. Dark, repetitive acid disco. 

Necessary Genius returns for the ending, remixed by Decius, the London band made up of Fat White Family singer Lias Saoudi, brothers Liam and Luke May and Quinn Whalley from Warmduscher. Decius make brilliant, sweaty, sleazy, gay sauna acid house/ techno, tongues in cheeks, needles in the red and tempos pushed up high. They take Necessary Genius to its extreme here, the vocal reduced to staccato syllables and the drums galloping on and on. 

V.A. Saturday

Colleen 'Cosmo' Murphy is a long standing DJ, radio host and presenter. She has compiled two compilations for Heavenly Records, Balearic Breakfast and the follow up Balearic Breakfast 2. The first was released in June 2022 and has long since sold out- second hand vinyl copies are currently well into three figures at Discogs. Balearic Breakfast finds the Balearic spirit wherever Colleen sees it- dance music, 80s electronic synth pop, deep house, ambient. The album starts with Joan Bibiloni, a very calming and chilled opener and then heads into Cantoma territory (Phil Mison, Cantoma's main man, is a Ibizan veteran). Linkwood Family, Mildlife, Lady Blackbird and Andrew Weatherall's Asphodells all show up before the album ends with first Caoifhionn Rose and then Mike Salta and Marty Mortale. At that point, all that's left to do is to go back to the beginning, with Joan Bibiloni and the ambient burblings and dreamlike state of Sa Fosc...

Sa Fosc

Balearic Breakfast 2 followed twelve months in June 2023, more of the same, a wonderfully selection of tracks from the corners of the musical world, the rarely known and lesser heard, a tracklist that includes Mental Remedy, Manolo's gorgeous Amalfi Drive, Gallo, Residentes Balearicos, Hard Feelings, Midlake and Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve, Lunar Dunes and Dip In The Pool. It's impossible to pick a best or favourite- they all work so well in slightly different ways. Try Lunar Dunes and the self- descriptive Moon Bathing. 

Moon Bathing

Stop Apologising

This is my what seems like weekly David Holmes post, the newest single from his forthcoming album arriving yesterday, a perfectly timed piece of words and music for those of us who feel up to their knees/ neck in things at the moment. Stop Apologising is three and a half minutes of pulsating electro- disco, glam stomp and rattling snares and Raven Violet singing of how overthinking, catastrophising, inaction and how we should all find the power and strength to live more freely. There's a nod to psychedelic therapy in there too. 

As with the three previous releases there are some remixes of Stop Apologising to push the song in a more thumpy, clubby direction. Horse Meat Disco weigh in with a pair of runaway, pumped up, stomping remixes directly aimed at the space near the glitterball. Colleen 'Cosmo' Murphy strips the song down into bassline and FX and clipped guitar, a  technicoloured funk version. All can be found here. 

The album, Blind On A Galloping Horse, comes out on 10th November and I'm calling it early, it's going to feature highly in end of year lists. Holmes is staking out some ground with the album lyrically, a  response to the current and recent insanities of the world, an album taking in the personal and the political, a record about inspiration and loss and trying to find a space in which to live. The three singles released over the last two years  have already taken in politics, populism and the power to resist it (Hope Is The Last Thing To Die), the collective strength and inspiration found in youth movements and subcultures (It's Over, If We Run Out Of Love) and a rollcall of the great innovators and artists of the recent past (Necessary Genius)- David's response to the internal and external world he and we live in, someone who has something to say and has found the words to say it. More power to him.