Ryuichi Sakamoto

Ryuichi Sakamoto died earlier this week aged seventy- one. He was a member of legendary Japanese group Yellow Magic Orchestra and a master in many areas of electronic music. He's probably best known in the UK for his soundtrack work- Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence and The Last Emperor (and The Sheltering Sky too to some extent), records that crossed over from the rather niche world of soundtrack albums into the popular consciousness. In the 80s soundtrack albums had an appeal to me that were a little at odds with the rest of my listening habits. I bought quite a few and found something in them that records by bands didn't offer. The Last Emperor was one of those albums. 

The Last Emperor (Main Theme)

R.I.P. Ryuichi Sakamoto. 

Here are a pair of bonus tracks from his vast back catalogue as tribute, that work well together as well as individually. First is Aqua, four minutes of Ryuichi playing piano, taken from his 2020 album Playing Piano For The Isolated, an artistic, poetic and emotional response to lockdown and isolation. 

Aqua

Second is a remix of Massive Attack from 2010, Fatalism, where Massive Attack's creeping 21st century unease is underpinned by some ghostly piano, fractured beats and chopped up, distorted vocal by guest singer Guy Garvey which eventually becomes clear and to the fore- an unearthly and singular remix. 

Fatalism (Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yukihiro Takahashi Remix)

AW60

Today would have been Andrew Weatherall's 60th birthday. His absence is felt very strongly among his family and friends and in the corners of the culture he inhabited. His presence is there too I think, in the open minded spirit of adventure, of finding new music and doing things your own way. Fired up by youthful rebellion, the DIY spirit of punk and acid house and an interest, often obsession, in what was happening on the margins, he was a singular character. In the end, by the time he died in February 2020, he was approaching national treasure status. At the start he was an inexperienced DJ asked to bring his box of 'weird records' down to Shoom. Then he was a novice remixer asked to make something new from an indie rock 'n' roll record (in fact his remixes of Happy Mondays and That Petrol Emotion both pre- date Loaded, as do his remixes Word Of Mouth, Deep Joy and West India Company- the chronology is not entirely clear but all those were released before Loaded). In between 1989 and 2020 he took us on a ride from the Balearic network to techno, from Sabres to Swordsmen, from deep house to rockabilly and 60s garage to the multi- coloured cosmic chug of the 2010s, all of it underpinned by dub. He moved on, working quickly and always looking forwards. The way he became a master in not just one form of electronic music but several is largely unparalleled- not many of his peers could play several hours of dub one night, techno the next and house the third and do it well, brilliantly in fact. 

With Andrew you weren't just buying records either, you were getting into something deeper- he left clues scattered throughout his back catalogue, in song titles and remix names, references to books and artists that you might not pick up on until many years later. You also were not just buying a record. In 2007 he released Wrong Meeting, an album of rockabilly, garage rock and experimental rock 'n' roll with the man himself singing. The album came out on vinyl (at a time when virtually no one was buying vinyl never mind releasing new albums on it), in a box with an illustrated lyric booklet, a t- shirt and a hand signed print (a print of a Weatherall linocut of guitarist Chet Atkins from the cover of his Workshop album). 

There are a series of events taking place during April to celebrate his 60th birthday. Tonight at Fabric in London a host of names will play records/ CDs in several rooms, starting at 11pm and going through until dawn- David Holmes, Daniel Avery, Sean Johnston, Dave Congreave, Adrian Sherwood, Miss Kittin, Fantastic Twin, Radioactive Man, Ivan Smagghe, Manfredas, Optimo and Fi Maguire will all play to rooms full of friends and fans, trying to capture something of the spirit of the man in music. 

Later on this month, in a turn of events which still baffles me at times, I will be part of the birthday celebrations at The Golden Lion in Todmorden. On the Saturday afternoon and evening myself and four other fans/ DJs (Martin, Mark, Dan and Baz) will play support to Timothy J. Fairplay and Justin Robertson as The Flightpath Estate DJs. This blog and my repeated writing about Andrew Weatherall and his music led to this- I like to think in some way reflecting the spirit of Andrew, do what you want to do, create something you love, do it yourself. 

I've put together a mix of songs inspired by Andrew for today. There's so much variety in his life and work you could put together ten mixes and only scratch the surface. His radio shows at 6 Mix and NTS, his Music's Not For Everyone banner that took in goth, garage, rockabilly, 80s indie, cosmic blues and country, rock 'n' roll and punk, where endlessly inspiring and I've tried to reflect some of that in the hour of songs below with one of his songs in the middle. 

AW60 Mix

• The Triffids: Wide Open Road
• Chuck Prophet: Play That Song Again
• Forest Fire: In Shadows
• Grant Hart: You're The Reflection Of The Moon On The Water
• The Dream Syndicate: John Coltrane Stereo Blues
• Dennis Wilson: Carry Me Home
• The Replacements: Sadly Beautiful
• Two Lone Swordsmen: Get Out Of My Kingdom (Demo)
• Rowland S. Howard: She Cried
• White Williams: Route To Palm
• Rose City Band: In The Rain
• The Jesus And Mary Chain: Darklands
• Cowboys International: The 'No' Tune

Wide Open Road was on The Triffids' 1986 album Born Sandy Devotional, an album widely seen as the band's masterpiece. The song is on Andrew's The Black Notebooks YouTube playlists, Volume One of which you can find here. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. You'll find plenty in there to keep you going. 

Chuck Prophet was the guitarist in US roots rockers Green On Red. His solo career included a 2012 album called Temple Beautiful and this song is built around a cracking guitar riff and a load of good one liners- 'You go fight the power/ I'm fighting off a cold'. Andrew played it on one of his Music's Not For Everyone radio shows for NTS that year, a series that were a monthly treat and are missed beyond words, his voice, his wry sense of humour and his song selection. 

Forest Fire were an experimental rock band from New York whose second album Staring At The X came out in 2011. The song here, In Shadows, is superb and much played in my house. The way the rhythms, FXed guitars and vocals merge into one rush of sound hits me every time. Andrew played it on his third Music's Not For Everyone in 2011. 

Grant Hart, ex- Husker Du drummer and solo artist, features in Andrew's Black Notebooks and radio mixes. You're The Reflection Of The Moon On The Water is a blistering wall of guitars and drums with words inspired by the sayings of the Buddha and came out in 2009. Andrew played it while at 6 Mix in March 2010, a show he did with Fuck Buttons as guests. 

The Dream Syndicate's John Coltrane Stereo Blues is an eight minute epic, from their 1984 album Medicine Show. Andrew played it memorably while doing a MNFE set at Terraforma, a music festival held in Italy, in 2017. The fifty minute film of him DJing in sunglasses and 1940s work clothes to a crowd of young, beautifully lit Italians is here. The song appears alongside Fujiya and Miyagi and Moon Duo, sequencing only Andrew would attempt. 'I got some John Coltrane on the stereo baby/ Make you feel alright/ I got some white wine in the freezer mama/ I know what you like/ We gonna learn about love on a three ply rug'

Dennis Wilson's Carry Me Home was recorded in 1973 but didn't make it onto Holland, The Beach Boys album of that year. It is a broken, beautiful funeral blues for a soldier dying in Vietnam. Andrew produced Primal Scream's cover on their 1992 Dixie- Narco EP, ably assisted by Hugo Nicolson. 

Sadly Beautiful is a Paul Westerberg song from The Replacements' 1990 album All Shook Down, a song he wrote with Marianne Faithful in mind. She was supposed to sing it but that never happened so Paul recorded it for All Shook Down instead. By 1990 The Replacements were to all intents and purposes a Paul Westerberg solo project although Tommy Stimson plays bass on much of the record. Sadly Beautiful shows up in Andrew's Black Notebooks and on various tapes he made for friends in the early 90s along with songs from the previous Replacements album, 1989's Don't Tell A Soul. That album is not the group's best, marred by a glossy radio friendly production but some of the songs are classic Westerberg, Achin' To Be, Rock 'n' Roll Ghost and We'll Inherit The Earth among them. Talent Show is a song I've had a weird soft spot for for thirty- five years. 

Get Out Of My Kingdom was perhaps the pinnacle of the final incarnation of Two Lone Swordsmen, the live band, garage/ rock 'n' roll, Andrew on vocals version of the band. I saw them play at Sankey's Soap in 2008 supporting the Wrong Meeting album, the full live band tearing it up in a corner of the club. Sankey's was once the only thing you'd head into Ancoats for, a maze of streets and dilapidated buildings north of city centre Manchester. Andrew commented once that artists are the vanguard of gentrification. Now Ancoats is the place to live/ work/ socialise.

She Cried was on Rowland S. Howard's Teenage Snuff Film, a 1999 album. The former Birthday Party/ Bad Seed was joined by Mick Harvey. They covered Billy Idol's White Wedding on the album. She Cried is itself a cover of a 1961 melodrama single by Teddy Daryll and has been covered by others including Johnny Thunders, Del Shannon and David Hasselhoff (insert your own joke here). The Horrors also borrowed from it on Who Can Say in 2009. She Cried is in Andrew's Black Notebooks playlists. 

Route To Palm is by White Williams, a song that somehow combines both rockabilly and krautrock and is therefore perfectly Weatherall. White Williams is from New York and released the album Smoke in 2008 (on Domino). Andrew played it on his 2009 6 Mix, a legendary show in the Bagging Area which took in Wayne Walker, La Dusseldorf, Andrew's remix of Primal Scream's Uptown, The Glitter Band, his remix of David Holmes' I Heard Wonders and much more besides. Route To Palm turned up on FACT Mix 85 too. 

Rose City Band is one of three groups headed by cosmic guitarist/ singer Ripley Johnson- Wooden Shjips and Moon Duo are the other two. Ripley's music is all over Andrew's radio shows. In The Rain was played on Music's Not For Everyone in 2019. 

Darklands was the title track on The Jesus And Mary Chain's 1987 album and has been selected by Andrew on various occasions- when on tour in Australia and asked to compile his formative influences in 2018 and in an internet article called Five Songs For The End Of The World (or similar) which I can't find right now. 

The 'No' Tune was on a 1979 album by Cowboys International called The Original Sin, a band that included Keith Levene, Terry Chimes and Marco Pirroni in its number. The 'No' Tune was the theme to Andrew's Music's Not For Everyone shows, the chiming guitar line announcing the start of two hours of adventure, two hours of Andrew's Gnostic Sonics. As the guitar notes faded, The 'No' Tune's space lullaby would be replaced by Andrew's voice. 'Huddle round your devices, don your ceremonial robes and headgear...', he would advise, and we'd be off into new territory, music from the past and present sewn together in ways only he could do. 

As such, rather than have the two minutes and forty seconds of The 'No' Tune as an ending, in the spirit of Andrew it should be a beginning, the gateway to music new. Go and find something new today, something from the margins, the edges, the sidelines- and when you do, raise a glass to the man. Happy 60th birthday Andrew.  

Backroom Sunrise

We spent a few days over the weekend up in the western Lake District, on the Cumbrian coast. This is a world away (if only twenty miles) from the tourist honeypots of Ambleside and Windermere. On the Saturday evening we went down to the beach at St. Bees just before sunset and saw the sun dipping behind the headland. The Isle of Mann was clearly visible on the horizon. 

The following day we headed to Ravenglass, a small village on the coast with a Roman bathhouse a little inland and an archaeological dig taking place. Two thousand years ago there was a Roman army camp and town inhabited by several thousand Roman and Roman- British people. We stopped at a spot overlooking the estuary and had our lunch on a bench in the sunshine.

All was well, with some very welcome spring warmth, our picnic, a new place to be and a great view. An old woman was hovering nearby, looking out at the two boats moored in the river. She said hello and pointed to the boat (in the pic above). She said her son and husband built it from scratch, had recently brought it back from Portugal and were giving it a spring clean up. We nodded and chatted while eating our sandwiches. 

'Have you been out in it much?' we asked. 'Oh yes, all weathers, very rough sometimes, over to Ireland. My son's been to the Caribbean in it', she replied. 'Once, we were off the coast of Ireland and my son shouted up, ''Don't come up on deck Mum''. There was a body in the sea. He called the coastguard. They said 'can you get it on your boat?'. We didn't want to do that obviously so we just stayed with it where it was until they arrived. They found a Romanian passport in his coat pocket. His head had been caved in so it became a murder inquiry. Sorry, I've interrupted your lunch haven't I?'

Yes. Yes, you have a little, yes. 

This came out at the end of March, nothing to do with boats or bodies or murder- but it is to do with sunrises, loveliness and chugging, throbbing cosmic acid Balearica. Backroom Sunrise is by Dirt Bogarde and is magnificent life enhancing, life affirming stuff, in the way that music and sunrises can be. You can buy it at Bandcamp. Dirt has more coming out later this month. 

Against The Backdrop

If you want some slow motion machine music, acid tinged, widescreen emotive techno on a Tuesday morning in early April- and why wouldn't you?- then you need look no further. Against The Backdrop is the closing track on a five track EP, The Long Tail by Inigo Kennedy, out at the end of last month and ticks all the boxes. The chugging rhythms and lovely lysergic acidic squiggle are almost enough on their own but when the deep synth string chords hit, the track provokes some serious moments. It would sound equally good pushed through a big sound system in a cavernous space, played on crappy car stereo speakers or through headphones while walking. 

Against The Backdrop and rest of The Long Tail can be bought at Bandcamp. It can also be found towards the end of the first hour of Daniel Avery's Morning After mix, recorded at Ramona in Manchester a couple of Sundays ago for a BBC Radio 6 weekend festival. You can listen to it here.

Monday's Long Song

James Holden's new album, Imagine This Is A High Dimensional Space Of All Possibilities, came out last Friday. I've not heard it in full yet but the second single from it which I posted a couple of weeks ago, Common Land, has been on regular repeat play round here and is firmly one of the year's highlights to date. Two Fridays ago a long, eight minute third single/ track came out ahead of the album- In The End You'll Know- written in almost one take in the studio on his wonky Prophet 600 synth.

In The End You'll Know is a lengthy ambient piece, twinkling synths and waves of sound, ebbs of space dust, gently joined by whooshing noises and a very distinct lysergic flow. At three minutes thirty eight seconds another more urgent and bubbling synthline comes in followed by drums and we're off into somewhere with more energy- still very trippy and bendy- but moving emphatically forwards.  Very lovely stuff indeed. 

Fifty Minutes Of ACR

In 1987 a friend made me a compilation tape which included two songs by Mancunian band A Certain Ratio- Shack Up and Do The Du. I've been listening to ACR ever since. They released their latest album, 1982, last Friday and it's fair to say the group have been re- energised in recent years, the result partly of a deal with Mute to re- issue all their albums. I'd been thinking of an ACR Sunday mix for some time and just as I ended up doing a pair of One Dove mixes a while back, I think I may need to come back to ACR for a second go. The mix here contains none of the punk- funk sound of their releases on Factory, the nervous, minimal, scratchy, demob suits and army shorts songs that made their reputation. Instead I've gone for a mix of dancefloor oriented songs spanning three decades.  The core trio of Jez Kerr, Martin Moscrop and Donald Johnson have regrouped several times since 1979, not least following the deaths of Rob Gretton in 1999 and singer Denise Johnson in 2020, but they're still creating and producing new music and are getting stronger and stronger. If they're playing near you, go and see them. ACR are a good night out guaranteed. 

Fifty Minutes Of ACR

• Dirty Boy
• Music Control
• Mello
• Be What You Wanna Be
• Night People
• Wedge (ACR Rework)
• Emperor Machine
• Taxi Guy
• Won't Stop Loving You (Bernard Sumner Remix)

Dirty Boy came out in 2018 ahead of the group's acr:set compilation, with vocals from Barry Adamson and the sampled voice of one- time mentor, manager and label boss Tony Wilson.

Music Control was a collaboration between ACR's alter ego Sir Horatio and Chris Massey, DJ, producer and promoter from Stretford, a squelchy collision of punk- funk, acid house and mutant disco.

Mello came out in 1992 on Rob Gretton's new label Rob's Records, a slice of loved up Mancunian house.  

Be What You Wanna Be is from 1990's acr: mcr, a renewal of the group's sound and fortunes. They left Factory for A&M but 1989's Good Together failed to shift many copies  (a shame as it's an album with much going for it). acr: mcr is wall to wall brilliance, from Spirit Dance to Good Together to Tribecca, rhythms and pianos inspired by the records playing in the Hacienda. Personnel changes at A&M saw them leave not long after for Rob's Records. I saw them at Manchester Academy in autumn 1991, a gig packed to the rafters and with a crowd up for it from the moment ACR appeared on stage. A few songs in my then girlfriend decided this was the ideal opportunity to have an argument and walk out of the venue.  

Night People was on one of three EPs ACR released in 2021, thirteen tracks, with no filler, following the comeback album Loco, on Mute, from the year before. Night People was on the third of the three, ACR: EPR, and has a swampy Bowie/ Iggy in Berlin groove. 

Wedge is by Number, Ali Friend and Rich Thair's spin off from Red Snapper, a 2020 punk funk trip. The two bands swapped remixes, this being ACR's remix of Number. Number's Binary album came out in April 2020 and probably got a little overlooked with everything else that was going on in spring 2020.

Emperor Machine was a collaboration between ACR and Emperor Machine (Andy Meacham, who found fame first time around in Bizarre Inc). The self- titled track was on EPC in 2021 and is supercharged mutant disco/ punk funk. 

Taxi Guy is the closing song on 2020's Loco album, an album that showed they were right back on it and fired up. Jazzy, samba grooves and a mass drumming finale. Their vie gigs over the last decade have sometimes finished with the group ending up leaving the stage and walking into the audience, drumming and blowing whistles, as happened at Gorilla in early 2020.

Won't Stop Loving You is a remix of a song from acr: mcr by Bernard Sumner from 1990. Sumner stripped the song back to Jez and Denise's vocals, whipcrack 808 drums and house piano. Something of a desert island disc for me. 

Saturday Live

Husker Du, live in 1985 at the Camden Palace. Fifty- seven minutes of melody, feedback and speed, verse/ chorus songs shredded and sandblasted with utter conviction. They blast their way on stage with New Day Rising, Grant's drums double fast, triple fast even, Greg Norton bouncing round the stage, his basslines so much more present than they sometimes were on the recordings and Bob Mould playing guitar and singing those three words like there is nothing else on earth that matters more at that moment. They then career intensely through their back catalogue of recent records, the Flip Your Wig and New Day Rising albums and the Metal Circus EP. Grant's It's Not Funny Anymore is followed with barely a pause by early song Everything Falls Apart and then The Girl Who Lives On Heaven Hill, Grant's song about a friend dying of cancer and alcoholism, trailed by Bob draining his amp of feedback. It's breathtaking stuff, song after song, walls of sheet metal noise, fast tempos and Grant throwing in drum parts that are almost jazz- hardcore punk jazz- but jazz all the same. 

Part of Husker Du's magnificence lies in their presentation, their punk taken to a fast, loud, noisy melodic extreme versus their demeanour. Bob, tall, short hair, t- shirt and jeans, eyes closed. Grant, long hair, a barefoot singing drummer. Greg, lanky, bouffant hair and handle bar moustache. They look unpunk, non- punk. To underline their rejection of the Stalinist approach to punk with which they had no truck, they play Ticket To Ride towards the end, the Beatles transformed into bright white noise but with those melodies at the heart of it. Two minutes later they're into Recurring Dreams, an epic by Husker Du standards, six minutes of wordless psychedelic punk rock, guitar strings bending and stretching. They soar into their cover of Eight Miles High, so high now they've cleared the ozone layer and entered escape velocity. Bob, still with a thousand yard stare to the back of the Palace, launches the three of them into Love Is All Around, the theme to the Mary Tyler Moore Show. Most of the audience look stunned, blown away. Credits roll. 

Big Companies, Large Tentacles

This is new from Edinburgh's Eyes Of Others, a one man outfit making music he describes as 'post- pub couldn't get tin the club'. It's definitely leftfield enough although the thump of the kick drum and the 303 acid squiggle both hint that there are clubs where this could be played. Big Companies, Large Tentacles is doomy and unsettling with a vocal suggesting a man at the end of his tether, with screaming and squealing in the background and mutterings about love and Freud's chaise longue. Organ from a horror film cuts in before the acid goes off at the three minute mark. The video does little to lessen the general unease,  existential dread and rising anxiety either. Happy Friday!

You can buy Big COmpanies, Large Tentacles, together with an instrumental version and Fantastic Man remix, at Bandcamp. Eyes Of Others album is due in May on Heavenly. 

Thrill Me

The recent Unloved album, Polychrome is a succinct addition to last year's The Pink Album, the murky, moody girl group/ Wrecking Crew/ Serge Gainsbourg noir sound bent a little further out of shape. From the jerky and disorientating 60s pop of I Did It to the slow motion melancholia/ drama of Thank You For Being A Friend, You Know, The One You Never Want To Say Goodbye To it's an album I've been back to often. A remix EP has been released with new versions that take the songs further and deeper. Justin Robertson's rocking dub version of Thrill Me (Towers Of Wonder Remix) is a delight, thumping echo- laden drums, spaced out FX and a bassline conjured up straight from King Tubby's stockpile of bass. Jade's voice competes with the sounds reverberating around the mixing desk. 

Manfredas takes I Did It and warps it into a very long and strange trip indeed, a six minute first half with percussion, drums, stuttering sounds and chopped up vocals, then a pause and an equally distorted, psychedelic second half with organ, whirring noises and echoes of vocals. 

In complete contrast to both Justin and Manfreda's remixes, London duo Raw Silk refit the album's title track Polychrome as sleek sci fi acid techno. 

Double Avery

As well as my ambient/ cosmische gig on Friday night I spent much of Sunday in two different venues enjoying DJ sets by Daniel Avery. The first was at Ramona on Swan Street, an indoor/ outdoor venue with a DJ booth inside a large teepee. The appearance, billed as The Morning After, was part of BBC Radio 6's weekend long festival in Manchester. Avery is riding high on the back of four albums since 2020 (Illusion Of Time, Love + Light, Together In Static and Ultra Truth) and a career high in the single Lone Swordsman (written and recorded in the immediate aftermath of Andrew Weatherall's death in February 2020). Lone Swordsman got an airing at Ramona and the chilled industrial ambient sounds were a part of the lunchtime set but by the time we'd finished our pizza he was upping the tempo and found a sweet spot of lovely 110 bpm thump, big warm basslines and fizzing topnotes, entrancing grooves- intense and hypnotic stuff.  

Daniel had agreed to play at Yes too, a venue a hop across town in a converted three storey Victorian house near the old Factory offices/ Paradise Factory building. Free entry and a five hour set from 5pm through to 10pm. Daylight raves are a thing now. We wandered across town, stopping off in Ancoats for a drink, in time to see him start his second set of the day, tipping his hat to the city by starting with Everything's Gone Green, New Order's 1981 classic melding of rock and dance. The crowd, a mix of the young and the middle aged, were onboard straight away and the room became a mass of dancing. He followed it fairly soon with Peak High's Was That All It Was, a disco/ chug/ Balearic highlight from the end of last year and not much later spun a very chunky edit of Primal Scream's Don't Fight It, Feel It, presumably his own work. Both venues were graced by what sounded like his own, as yet unreleased, remix of Depeche Mode along with lots of modern acid techno. Avery sets have plenty of thump- this is techno after all- but with peaks and troughs, moments of euphoria and release. 

We left around seven, it being Sunday and a school night (and having been out for several hours by this point). Somewhat amusingly, while on the dancefloor at Yes, clutching my pint and jigging around, I was approached by a woman who said hello and then asked if was 'Mr Turner'. I nodded. 'You teach my child', she said, and we both laughed, a little nervously. 

Lone Swordsman

Yard Gig

Friday night in Cheetham Hill, just north of Manchester city centre with Strangeways prison dominating the after dark skyline, is a part of the city that stubbornly refuses gentrification. A ten minute walk up the main road from the back of Victoria Station brings you to a relatively new Manchester gig/ event venue, The Yard. Friday night's bill saw Wigan guitarist Mark Peters and Manchester ambient techno three piece Marconi Union playing. Mark stepped up to the low stage, clips from 1950s Western films playing behind him, in line with the North West England meets the wide open spaces of the prairies psychogeography of his albums (2017's Innerlands and 2022's Red Sunset Dreams). 

With backing tracks playing through the laptop, Mark plays a wonderfully chilled set of tracks. The songs and his playing reflect the cosmische guitar sounds of Michael Rother, the delay and chorus fretboard work of Vini Reilly and his own ambient guitar styles. The opening song is a new one, Cinder Flower, and there are the windswept but beautiful soundscapes of Innerland songs Ashursts's Bridge, May Hill and Twenty Bridges. Alpenglow and Magic Hour, both from a just released EP, sound full and rich as the notes fill the converted 19th century building. Alpenglow is chiming krauty bliss, as if Neu! had been from Winstanley rather than Dusseldorf, and Magic Hour is indeed magical, understated but gently heroic, the spirit of early Verve intact. Towards the close of the set, just before Alpenglow, Dot Allison's voice drifts through the PA as her vocal from Switched On The Sky floats on top of Mark's guitar and then he soars into the spaced out version of the song, Switched On.

After a short break Manchester trio Marconi Union take the stage, three figures lined up behind a bank of keyboards, synths, laptop and machines. The laptop and synth stage right kick into life and the dark, brooding sounds fill the room, lots of texture and atmospherics but with melodies and purpose too- no floating ambient drift here, but tracks with intent. There is guitar centre stage, the notes another layer of sounds on top of the machine music, along with the sometimes mournful keys/ piano.

The films projected behind them- skyscrapers shot from below, a Manchester Metrolink tram gliding slowly past from left to right-  add to sense of motion. Everything happens without explanation. There's no chat between the songs. It's impressive and weighty stuff and the room, pretty close to being sold out, is an appreciative audience. This is Strata Alt, from May last year, giving a good idea of what they do. 

Back in 2011 they recorded a track called Weightless, an eight minute collaboration with sound therapist Lyz Cooper, field recordings, piano and guitar with tones specifically designed to induce a trancelike state and aid relaxation and sleep and reduce anxiety. It has been streamed millions of times on Youtube and if you want more there's a slowed down and stretched out ten hour version here. 

On my way home, through a sequence of events I won't bother to go into right now, I met my wife (out on a separate night out) and we ended up at a party on Swan Street in the city centre, a party in a former chip shop now cocktail bar, and were dancing until 2am, the oldest people in the room. Later on we were wandering the wet streets of Manchester city centre looking for a taxi in the rain. 

Monday's Long Song

Out last Friday and the title track from his album The Strand Cinema this is Phil Keiran's latest release- a tribute to an art deco cinema in Belfast. The Strand Cinema is six minutes and forty seconds of gorgeous instrumental music with echoes of the kosmsiche groups of early 70s West Germany, rippling synths and cinematic strings with layers of cello and violin, that make The Strand Cinema an immersive and emotive listen. The album can be bought here. 

An Hour Of Weatherall Covers

We all love a good cover version don't we? The reconstructing of a familiar song in a new form, the buzz of hearing someone do a song differently, irreverently or lovingly, and the nodding of the head to influences and inspirations. At times cover versions can also seem a bit lazy, a way out of writer's block or something thrown together for B-side at a late hour and under pressure, but when done well and with the right intent, they're a joy. 

In two weeks time it would have been Andrew Weatherall's 60th birthday had he lived. There are a series of events taking place nationally throughout April to celebrate this- a full on night at Fabric in London with a huge line up of DJ talent together with nights in Glasgow, Belfast and Todmorden, all places with strong Weatherall connections and crowds. I'll come back to the Todmorden one nearer the time (29th April) with more details but it does include a second ride out for The Flightpath Estate DJ team (which includes yours truly). I expect to run several Weatherall posts over the next few weeks- that's probably not much different to usual round here, he does tend to feature fairly often- and thought I'd kick off with this one, a mix for Sunday of cover versions Andrew either recorded as an artist himself or other other artists he remixed. It is not surprisingly a fairly eclectic bunch of songs and artists. It now occurs to me that I should have put the originals together as a mix too so maybe that will follow at some point a companion piece.

Fifty Five Minutes Of Andrew Weatherall Cover Versions

• Carry Me Home
• Only Love Can Break Your Heart (A Mix Of Two Halves)
• Witchi Tai To (2 Lone Swordsmen Remix)
• The Drum (Andrew Weatherall Remix)
• A Love From Outer Space (Version 2)
• Sex Beat
• Slip Inside This House
• Goodbye Johnny (Andrew Weatherall's Nyabinghi Noir Mix)
• Faux/ Whole Wide World

Carry Me Home is a cover of a Dennis Wilson song from 1973, a wracked funereal blues for a dying soldier in Vietnam that was written for the 1973 album Holland but was left off. 'Life is meant to live/ I'm afraid to die', he sings. Primal Scream's version which Andrew produced is from the Dixie- Narco EP, a very downbeat and beautiful way to pay homage. Andrew and Hugo Nicolson's mix of instruments and production is stunning, Duffy's electric piano at the start and the acoustic guitar and cello in the end section especially so. 

Only Love Can Break Your Heart is a Saint Etienne cover of a Neil Young song. I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that. Andrew's remix sent the song into a dubbed out bliss, Augustus Pablo- esque melodica in the first half (played by Pete Astor of The Weather Prophets), the Jean Binta Breeze dub poetry sample in the middle cutting the track in half, and then the song appearing in the second (along with the Jean 'cool and deadly' sample). 

Witchi Tai To was a 2007 single by X- Press 2, the Two Lone Swordsmen remix adding the live drums of their sound from that period and matching the Wrong Meeting albums of the same year. The original was a a 1971 single by Jim Pepper, a Native American singer and saxophonist who took a peyote chant his grandfather taught him and turned it into a hybrid jazz/ Native American song. X- Press 2's cover was sung by Tim de Laughter of The Polyphonic Spree. 

The Drum was a single for The Impossibles, an Edinburgh duo who made early 90s jangly indie- pop. The original is a Slapp Happy song from 1974. Weatherall's remix, from 1991, is a lesser known one from his early 90s hot streak, a tour de force of throwing whatever is at hand in the studio/ imagination at a remix and it working. Andrew was ably assisted by Hugo Nicolson on this one too. 

A Love From Outer Space was the calling card from the 2013 album by The Asphodells, the outfit he formed with Timothy J. Fairplay after they had bene working together on remixes and their own material and realised they had enough for an album. Andrew's vocals were a big feature of The Asphodells (following on from the Two Lone Swordsmen records of the previous few years where he stepped up to the mic for the first time since the early 80s). A Love From Outer Space also became the name of his traveling club night, with compadre Sean Johnstone, a night never knowingly exceeding 122 bpm. The original song is by late 80s one offs A.R. Kane, a duo of dreads who made spaced out dub/ dreampop. 

Sex Beat was a Two Lone Swordsmen single in 2004 and on the From The Double Gone Chapel album of the same year, a radical shift in sound and style after the pure electro of 2000's Tiny Reminders. Andrew and Keith Tenniswood becoming a garage band with Nick Burton on drums and Chris Mackin on guitar. Sex Beat was such a blast when it came out in 2004, an energetic swerve in the road to somewhere new. Sex Beat was on The Gun Club's 1981 debut Fire Of Love, a blues/ rockabilly/ Southern Gothic classic. Leader, singer and writer Jeffrey Lee Pierce pops up again in this mix in the form of Goodbye Johnny.

Slip Inside This House is a cover of The 3th Floor Elevators song from their 1967 album Easter Everywhere, the second song on Primal Scream's 1991 opus Screamadelica, a juddering statement of acid house intent after the rock n' roll opening of Moving On Up. Hypnotone's Tony Martin was involved in the production of this track too. It was sung by Throb. Bobby Gillespie is said to have bene suffering from 'acid house flu'.

Goodbye Johnny was on Primal Scream's 2013 album More Light. It came from a covers project that paid tribute to Jeffrey Lee Pierce. Weatherall's spaced out remix tips its hat to the Nyabinghi sound of African Head Charge, a big influence on Andrew. 

Faux/ Whole Wide World comes from a Radio One session from 2004. Faux was the first single ahead of From The Double Gone Chapel, a scuzzed up slice of electro- rockabilly, combining rapid programmed drums and fuzz guitars with Weatherall vocals and lyrics about the love of his life, Elizabeth Walker. As a touring band Two Lone Swordsmen had a habit of working Faux into Wreckless Eric's Whole Wide World, a peerless 1977 single. At the time Andrew was recommending the new album then just released by Eric, Bungalow Hi, a record Andrew described as 'like Duane Eddy meets Aphex Twin'. The recording here is ripped from a radio session, never officially released. There was a version on the Rotters Golf Club website for a while too, part of a three song session they recorded playing at the Bloc Weekender. Of all the lyrics that swirl around Andrew's world and outlook, 'I don't do faux', is as good as any. 

Saturday Live

Last month The Charlatans travelled across the USA with Ride playing a tour of double headers, each band taking it in turns to headline. While out there The Charlatans called in at KEXP, a radio station in Seattle and recorded a half hour live set. KEXP have a load of these up on the internet (Ride did one a few years ago in fact), a session which isn't quite a gig- there's no audience for starters- but which is filmed as the band play live. The sound is always good, the bands seem to enjoy it and the filming is revealing but unobtrusive. It's good to be able to see what the musicians are actually doing on each song. You get to marvel at Tim's jumper. 

The Charlatans play four songs at KEXP- the massive, crunching Chemical Brothers assisted 1997 single One To Another, the wheezy organ- led Weirdo and the subtle, funky ode to early 90s hedonism of Chewing Gum Weekend (both from 1992's Between 10th And 11th album, an album they played in full back in September at New Century Hall, a night which revealed the album to be a lost gem) and their 1990 breakthrough The Only One I Know. 

As a contrast, slipping back in time but still in front of TV cameras, here they are in 1996 playing at Channel 4's The White Room playing One To Another and Crashin' In in front of a youthful audience. The late and sadly missed Jon Brookes is on drums, kicking up a fearsome groove. Organ and keys are courtesy of Martin Duffy, standing in for the recently departed Rob Collins who died in a car crash that year. I think this clip was the first time Martin played with them outside a rehearsal room. A week later they played at Knebworth supporting Oasis. Duffy sadly died last year too. The Charlatans are a band who have known tragedy. The final minute of the clip has the band playing the end section of Crashin' In while Tim stands at the back of the stage, grinning at the sound his band are making. 

Me And Mr. Jones

This is the third of a run of posts featuring the music of Luke Vibert, courtesy of reader Spencer sending me a song each week for me to write about. We've got plans to change the nature of this collaboration a bit in the upcoming weeks so this may the end of one run of posts before the start of something new. The previous Luke Vibert posts were Disco Nasty, Luke in his Kerrier District guise, and last week's Doozit from a 2015 album called Bizaster. Today sees Luke as Plug and a track from an album from 1996, Drum 'n' Bass For Papa. 

Firstly I should probably say that this track was new to me, coming to me via the internet after a twenty- three gap. Secondly, I was never a big fan of drum 'n' bass. In the 90s dance music was a forward thinking and progressive musical form, constantly shifting and dividing, new genres and sub- genres spinning off from the centre. In that spirit I often felt I should go with the new, be open to the new forms- but drum 'n' bass never really clicked with me. I had/ have a couple of Goldie singles (inevitably), some 12" singles by Photek, maybe one or two other things but that's about it. 

Luke Vibert made so much music and in so many different musical styles under a slew of different names. His drum 'n' bass output on Blue Planet is highly regarded and Drum 'n' Bass For Papa featured highly in some of 1996 and 1997's end of year lists (it was released in the US in '97). Clicking play a week ago did made me wonder what I'd make of some mid- 90s drum 'n' bass, all these years later, a non- aficionado of the music.

Me And Mr. Jones

Luke's trademark sense of humour, love of off kilter and quirky samples is as much a part of his drum 'n' bass recordings as the rest of his work. Me And Mr. Jones starts out like cartoon horror, the shlocky sounds of 1970s Hammer House Of Horror- organ, echo, a spooky voice- and then the drums hit, rapid fire breakbeats, the jolting stop- start rhythm and deep sub- bass. The track twists and turns onwards, spitting out of the speakers as the staccato horror film strings sweep about in the background, piano runs drop in and a voice hums. The breakdown at the end, the breakbeat cutting out, brings in a a brief burst of 70s funk bass and then it's over. Luke takes two things that haven't been put together before and makes them seem like obvious bedfellows- amazingly it still sounds very fresh all these years later, a very leftfield exploration of sound and rhythms.

Lionrocking

Monday's posting of Saturday's Angels by If? and the mention of the Lionrock remix of that song clearly worked some kind of magic on my in- car mp3 player (or it was merely coincidence, you decide). Driving home last night Lionrock's 1992 self- titled debut single Lion Rock came up and soundtracked a very enjoyable six and a half minute section of my drive home. 

Lion Rock 

Lionrock was the name of Justin Robertson's 90s outfit, a group which started out very much in the progressive house area and then as the decade went on moved into ska and Big Beat. Joining Justin in Lionrock were MC Buzz B (Mancunian rapper Sean Braithwaite) and Mark Stagg (who was then replaced in 1995 by Roger Lyons). The track Lion Rock set out their signature sound, Justin Robertson's trusty horns, a thumping kick drum and occasional interruptions by tumbling timbales. 

They followed Lion Rock with Packet Of Peace, a similarly rushing progressive house thumper but with MC Buzz B vocal, his cool, conscious rap/ poem riding on top of the music- 'I'll leave my mind beneath the mat so you can let yourself in'.

Packet Of Peace (Edit) 

Packet of Peace came with a bunch of remixes. The group's own Lionrock remix, titled No More Fucking Trumpets, opens with a distorted voice intoning 'Lionrock sound system' and then some very '93 synth sounds. The drums kick in, the warm, fat bass starts pumping and we're off on a long old remix adventure, eight minutes of lovely, trancey '93 house. 

Packet Of Peace (No More Fucking Trumpets)

Lionrock were masters of the remix, providing excellent clubby versions of songs by Bjork (Big Time Sensuality), The Shamen (Boss Drum), Transglobal Underground (International Times) and The Grid (Rollercoaster) among others (plus the If? mentioned above). They also took a song from the much derided final Happy Mondays album (Yes Please!) and turned it into Lionrock gold with their remix of Sunshine And Love. But maybe these are all best left for another day.

Common Land

This was supposed to publish this morning as usual but I messed up the post settings so it's late- but better late than never.

This track came out last month but I only got around to listening to it recently. It's fair to say that it is so far up my street it is practically delivering itself through my letterbox. James Holden is a DJ and producer from Leicestershire (Market Bosworth to be exact, the town close to the site of the Battle of Bosworth that conclusively ended the 15th century Wars of the Roses). He hit the big time at the turn of the millennium with the trance single Horizons and then again with his legendary 2004 remix of The Sky Was Pink by Nathan Fake. He got tired of the life of the superstar DJ, and ten years ago headed back to the smaller stages and fields and has now returned to his roots, to the sounds of the early 90s and the records that first made an impression on him- The KLF, Orbital, Future Sound Of London, 808 State and pirate radio stations picked up through long wave radio. 

James has collected sounds from the English countryside, field recordings of birdsong, and they adorn the new single, Common Land. It opens with the very early 90s sounding synths and then drums kick in, the spirit of 808 Sate and FSOL conjured up for the 2020s. There is distorted, high pitched birdsong, repeating synth notes and then a sax part (by Christopher Duffin, a member of Xam Duo who I posted not too long ago). The more natural sounding birdsong chirrups and the sax wails, the euphoric synth notes repeat and eventually the drums come to a halt for a lovely rave ending, ready to be mixed into whatever is cued up to follow. 

Common Land references the Right To Roam protests of the 1930s, the Criminal Justice Bill protests of the mid- 90s and more recent protests about the use of land and its ownership such as the ban on camping in Dorset. He sees dance music has still having an anti- establishment power, that it can still be a force for good, bringing people together in a way which as he says, 'doesn't have to be a capitalist- entertainment- complex'. The forthcoming album, if all this wasn't enough, is called This Is A High- Dimensional Space Of All Possibilities, and I'm thoroughly looking forward to hearing it. 

Catch And Shake

I was watching the latest episodes of the Guy Garvey: From The Vaults series (on Sky Arts, we get it as part of our Freeview package- I've never paid for Sky anything, hitting Rupert Murdoch where it hurts every day). The series trawls through the ITV and regional networks archives of musical performances, some never previously seen, some only seen when transmitted. There are lots of clips from The Tube, Friday night teatime brilliance, and from a slew of other programmes such as Razzmatazz. The latest run has clips from 1982 (including a never before seen clip of Wah! miming The Story Of The Blues on a never broadcast pilot for a Granada music show hosted by Pauline Black of The Selector), 1984 and 1987. In 1987 with The Tube having ended Tyne Tees briefly tried to run an alternative TV chart show to rival Top Of The Pops. The Roxy was based from the studios The Tube had vacated and in the summer of 1987 attracted some big indie names- New Order did True Faith, The Jesus And Mary Chain mimed their way through Only Happy When It Rains and The Cure turned up to do Catch. 

Catch is a funny little song, the second single from their then just released album Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, a double vinyl packaged in a bright red/ orange sleeve, a close up of some lips. It came out at the end of May 1987, not long after I turned seventeen. I wasn't a huge fan of the group at the time but had a tape of Kiss Me and only a fool would deny the pleases of songs like Just Like Heaven and Why Can't I Be You? I had, until the other night, forgotten all about Catch

Catch

It's less than three minutes long, led by a violin and Robert Smith doo doo dooing his way in. The melody is achingly gorgeous, acoustic guitars and the snare drum rattle, there's a very summer sounding guitar solo and Smith's swooning, romantic vocal, 'I remember she always used to fall down a lot/ That girl was always falling/ Again and again/ I used to sometimes try to catch her/ But I never even caught her name'.  Appearing on The Roxy didn't seem to shift many extra copies of Catch and it peaked at number twenty- seven in the charts and it is overshadowed by the band's big songs from the mid- 80s to early 90s run of singles and albums but it really hit a spot for me recently. 

I then discovered that I own Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me on CD- I don't remember buying it but there was a period when CDs became much cheaper in bulk buy deals at HMV and Fopp and I think I picked it up as the third or fifth in a buy three/ five for a tenner deal. Catch is the second song on the album. At the other end of the album and in tone and sentiment is Shiver And Shake, the penultimate song on the album and messy tirade against a former lover/ bandmate with Hooky- esque bass, noisy guitars and crashing drums. Smith doesn't start singing until over halfway through, 'You're a waste of time/ Just a babbling face/ Just three sick holes that run like sores/ You're a fucking waste'. He does at least admit the object of this hatred, who he wants to smash to pieces, makes him shiver and shake when he thinks of how they make him hate. From the sweetest love song to violent hatred, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me covers the range of human emotions. 

Shiver And Shake

Monday's Long Song

We had a day out to the coast yesterday, driving to Thurstaston beach (above) and then on to West Kirkby on the Wirral peninsula. Just a change of scenery, some sea (even if it's very far away due to the tide being out) and a walk along a beach does the spirits the world of good. 

Saturday's Angels by If? circled back into my life over the weekend too, first when Khayem posted the Justin Robertson Most Excellent Remix at Dubhed on Saturday. I dug out my vinyl copy and then played it several times- again, an instant way to feel better. Saturday's Angels is a slice of 1990, upbeat, shuffly indie- dance pop. The Brain Mix, mixed by Mr Monday was on the 12", seven minutes plus of optimism, synth horns and wide eyed fun. 

Saturday's Angels (Brain Mix)

I was hoping I could also post the Most Excellent remix, one of Justin's best from that period with his signature horns and drums but I don't seem to have a digital copy to hand right now. Instead as a bonus Monday treat here's the group performing live on The Word, white jeans, tambourines and dancers on podiums as standard. 

If?'s Sean McLusky was a veteran of Subway Sect and The Jo- Boxers in the early 80s, the first band I ever saw play live (supporting Madness at the Apollo, 1983). By 1990 he was a London club promoter as well as one of the three behind If? (with Paul Wells and Rob Marche). The Brain was a seminal London acid house club in Soho and Love Ranch a legendary club night running in Leicester Square between 1991 and 1993. 

Records like Saturday's Angels are time capsules, capable of performing magic. Noel Coward's quote- 'strange how potent cheap music is'- carries so much truth. Songs that were recorded in a moment, not overthought or worried about or treated as great art, can gain an afterlife that vastly outweighs what they achieved in sales or recognition at the time. This song is one of them. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Sandinista!

I think I've said before that while Sandinista! may not be the greatest Clash album, it is their most adventurous, their most inventive and where the spirit of the band truly lies. Once they realised that they couldn't play 1977 and Garageland forever, they had to move on and that led them backwards into their record collections (rockabilly, blues, reggae, ska, dub) and forwards into the future (rap, hip hop, funk). They went from White Riot to Death Is A Star in six years, exploring everything they could along the way. Joe said in Westway To The World, that they went out to engage with the world in all its infinite variety (or something similar). They were never going to be stuck playing Borstal Breakout for the rest of their lives.

London Calling was the purest distillation of this, nineteen perfectly pitched slices of Clash. Sandinista! was The Clash doing whatever they wanted across the course of a year- 1980- starting with the recording of Bankrobber in Pluto Studio, Manchester and leading them back to London, to Jamaica and to New York. The idea that Sandinista! could have been a superb single disc album or double vinyl opus or a killer EP misses the point. Sandinista! is complete Clash. The roots of all of Joe's solo career, from his soundtracks to Earthquake Weather to the three albums with The Mescaleros are in Sandinista! as are the origins of Big Audio Dynamite. Fast forward to the 21st century and Mick and Paul turn up in Damon Albarn's touring version of Gorillaz, a band playing a hybrid, pick 'n' mix version of dub, pop, hip hop, funk, and whatever else- that's Sandinista! 

Forty Five Minutes Of Sandinista!

This is not an attempt to produce a perfect version of the album, a reduced version or a best of. It's some of Sandinista! mixed together, some of the lesser known songs and the ones where the spirit of Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, Topper Headon and the rest of the cast that contributed to the sessions can be found, a cast that takes in Mickey Gallagher and Norman Watt- Roy (The Blockheads), Tymon Dogg, Mikey Dread, Ellen Foley, Don Hegarty (Darts), Gary Barnacle, Ivan Julian (Voidoids), Style Scott, Pennie Smith and cartoonist Steve Bell. There's something about the songs too which lend themselves to being sequenced together, seguing from one to another.

• Mensforth Hill
• The Crooked Beat
• Broadway
• Rebel Waltz
• One More Time
• One More Dub
• The Street Parade
• Something About England
• Up In Heaven (Not Only Here)
• If Music Could Talk
• Washington Bullets

Mensforth Hill is Something About England played backwards, the tapes reversed and with bits of Joe's studio chatter from New York's Electric Ladyland dropped in, the whooshing and rushing effects fading in and out. On the album it sits between Charlie Don't Surf and Junkie Slip. Here it is a slow, experimental entry to forty five minutes of deep Clash.

The Crooked Beat is Paul Simonon's tribute to South London blues parties with a lovely wandering dub bassline. Recorded in September 1980 it was one of the last songs recorded for the album, produced by Mikey Dread who drops in some additional vocals at the end. 

Broadway is a Strummer masterpiece, a mellow, late night, jazz inflected song for the bars of NYC. Joe's lyrics concern a meeting with a homeless man and former boxer in New York, Joe riffing on the sights and sounds of the city at night, a Scorcese film set to music. 

Rebel Waltz is a true hidden gem in the group's back catalogue and the album's tracklist. The lyrics are pure Strummer, a dream of armies and the losses of war. The music is Mick experimenting with playing a waltz crossed with dub, recorded at Wessex in London. The Clash as a folk band, in the truest sense of the word.

One More Time and One More Dub have to be taken together, the superb Clash- reggae of the first half dubbed out by Mikey Dread for the second. Joe sings of the poverty of the ghettoes, the civil rights movement and the Watts riots of 1965.

The Street Parade is another lesser known gem, hidden away at the end of side five on vinyl. On release some listeners may have taken ages to get to side five. The Street Parade is about losing oneself in the crowd, Strummer disappearing into the mass. The music is gorgeous, Topper and Mick showing by this point they could turn their hand to anything and do it well, with horns and marimbas carrying a Latin feel.

Something About England is a key Strummer- Jones song, marrying English music hall with lyrics spanning the 20th century, the wars, the Depression, the rebuilding of the cities and the British class system, Joe and Mick trading verses in character. 'They say the immigrants steal the hubcaps/ Of respected gentlemen/ They say it would be wine and roses/ If England were for Englishmen again', Mick sings at the start, the racism of Farage and Braverman rooted in the late 70s. 

Up In Heaven (Not Only Here) is one of Sandinista!'s few out and out rock songs, a Mick Jones guitar song with ringing lead lines and crunching riffs. Mick sings of the tower blocks he grew up in and the lives of the people that live in them. 'The wives hate their husbands/ The husbands don't care'.

If Music Could Talk is a New York song that began in Manchester, jazz blues of late night bars and not one but two Joe vocals. The backing track was recorded at Pluto with Mikey Dread and then added to later, sax wailing and floating on top. Joe's words take in Bo Diddley, Errol Flynn, Isaac Newton and Samson. 

Washington Bullets seemed the perfect place to close (though I was tempted to put one of side six's dubs last) if only because it finishes with Joe singing the album's title over the organ as it fades out. Lyrically Joe casts his eye over the USA's foreign policy in the 20th century, Chile, Cuba and Nicaragua (and the USSR's too in Afghanistan and Tibet) with a mention for Victor Jara, the Chilean singer, poet, writer and activist murdered by the CIA backed coup in 1973. Musically it started as many songs did, Topper arriving in the studio first and messing around while engineer Bill Price pressed the record button. The others would turn up one by one and start overdubbing and soon, as Bill Price says, 'we had thirty- five songs'.