His Life In England

One of those treats that light up your life- got home yesterday, long day at work, exam season, had some tea, pottered round the kitchen loading the dishwasher and other mundane chores, went to the computer and opened up my emails and sitting in the middle of the unread pile in my Inbox was one from Heavenly Recordings that read, 'Dexys Midnight Runners Announce New Album LOVE/ My Life In England Pt. 1 single and video out now'

And on clicking on the link you find this blast of life affirming joy that is Kevin Rowland in full flight...

How much fun is that? The song, the singing and the video.

My Life In England Pt 1 is the story of Kevin's childhood, his Irish immigrant roots, his father and brother, the Irish community in Wolverhampton, rebel songs in social clubs and being taught to fight and love, and then on moving to North London discovering the joys of clothes, music and dancing. The song was originally recorded for a Dexys compilation in 2003, written by Kevin and Jim Patterson- the new version opens the new album, called Love because Kevin realised that all the songs one way or another were about love. It's produced by David Holmes, who had been wanting to work with the band since being eleven years old when his sister gave him a Walkman and his first cassette was Searching For The Young Soul Rebels and the first band he saw live. 

Back in 1985 Dexys released one of the great misunderstood albums of that decade, one that over time has grown to be recognised as a masterpiece. In 1997 after years out of print it was re- issued by Creation and Kevin renamed some of the songs including Listen to This, a song just packed to the brim with passion and feeling. 

I Love You (Listen To This)

Never Go Home

There's so much new music out there at the moment I don't feel like I can keep up with it, either as a listener/ fan or as a blogger. Jason Boardman's Before I Die label is at a point where every release is essential- this year the label has released Arrival and Kevin McCormick's One/ Common Place 12" and the Hawksmoor album Am I Conscious Now? which followed albums in 2025 by Klangkollektor and Sonnenspot. Now Before I Die has put out a 7" that is right up there alongside those other records, J- Walk's Never Go Home, produced in J- Walk's Stockport home studio. 

The A- side is a slice of late 80s indie indebted psychedelia, the sunglasses, repetition and Vox amps of Spacemen 3 and spirit of the pre- Screamadelica Creation records- some softly sung vocals, layers of guitars and keys, a woozy organ solo and hissy drums. It's a marvel. 

'You can never go home again/ There's no sense in trying'.

The B-side is Dub Never Go, a maximally dubbed out excursion with the Roland Space Echo in full effect and the ghost of King Tubby hovering around the room. The drums rattle and the bass bumps away, there's hiss and flutter, random bursts of distorted organ and acres and acres of echo. It's also a marvel. 

You can find it at Bandcamp, available digitally and (maybe) with some vinyl still available. 

Fifty Six

Today's post is brought to you in association with the number fifty six. The A56 runs past the top of our road and a mile up the road from us (heading towards Manchester city centre) it goes past the beautiful but empty Art Deco cinema in Stretford (formerly Stretford Essoldo, pictured above). 

The A56 starts out on Frodsham Street in Chester and heads east through Cheshire, past Warrington and Runcorn and then passes Lymm where it turns to Altrincham, then Sale and Stretford (it is at various points between Altrincham and Old Trafford called Chester Road, Cross Street and Washway Road). Then it runs through Gorse Hill to Old Trafford where Manchester United's ground lies to its left, skirts Hulme and when it hits town it becomes Deansgate. From there north to Salford and Bury and into Lancashire, to Colne and Nelson before reaching Skipton and eventually running out of tarmac in the village of Broughton, North Yorkshire. 

Fact 56 was A Factory Video, a various artists VHS video released by Factory in 1982, the starting point of what Tony Wilson believed would be a brave new artistic world for the record label. The Factory video production arm was Ikon (Brian Nicholson) and operated from the basement of the Factory HQ at 86 Palatine Road. For a while it was based in the cellar of Tony Wilson's house on Old Broadway, a house that in 1982 I walked past every day on the way home from school. Aged twelve, I wasn't really up to speed with what was going on in that cellar. Ikon ran their own video release series and Fact 56 was a compilation of some of those releases.  

It starts with New Horizon by Section 25. New Horizon is the final song on their 1981 album Always Now, a record produced by Martin Hannett and clad in one of Peter Saville's Factory artwork masterpieces. The advice Peter got from band member Larry Cassidy was 'something quite European, but psychedelic with some oriental influences'. 'After that', he said, 'I was on my own'. The sleeve opens like an envelope, marbled on the inside on specialist card with bold type on the front and die cut. 

Tony Wilson was right about the importance of videos and video art. Fact 56 was available to buy on VHS and Betamax. I would guess a lot of copies of both ended up in landfill in the 90s as the world went digital. There are two copies for sale on Discogs, one for £50 and one for 80 Euros which would suggest they're pretty scarce now. 

There isn't too much else about the number 56. It became a symbol of the Hungarian Uprising. Joe DiMaggio had a 56 game hitting streak. It means that I'm now closer to 60 than 50. 

This came out recently, nothing to do with 56, just something I wanted to share- Seu Jorge and Beck covering Nick Drake's River Man, a lush and very lovely bossa nova version of the song from Brazil and produced by former Beastie Boy producer Mario C. 

Tricky Kid

If we accept as truth that Tricky made some of the most uncompromising and influential music of the 1990s- as well as his part in Massive Attack's Blue Lines, his debut album Maxinquaye with the voice of co- singer Martina Topley- Bird rewrote what UK rap/ blues/dub/ sound system music could be like and was instrumental in the development of trip hop. He then made Pre- Millennium Tension and Nearly God, both seriously heavy albums. 

He's continued to release records, including 2020's Falls To Pieces and Fifteen Days (as Theis Thaws) and a new one comes out in July, Different When It's Silent. I haven't kept up with all his releases but the Theis Thaws single last year, Fly To Ceiling which had a David Holmes remix and another, Where Are You Lately, remixed by Radioactive Man, both got me listening to him again. 

I got a ticket for his gig at Factory International in Manchester on Saturday night and a group of us headed down. The gig was, well, it was odd, some aspects of it were downright perplexing. Tricky is an artist and known for being fairly idiosyncratic and uncompromising. We were in the seated venue of the Factory arts centre which felt very formal from the off (there's a hall downstairs which is also used for gigs which is standing which would have been better). 

The stage was dark, no spotlights. The three musicians at the back- a man on synths/ laptop, a drummer in the middle and a guitarist on the left- were all lit but the front of the stage where Tricky and two co- vocalists were, was in complete darkness. They stayed that way for the entire gig- not lights at all, just three shadowy figures either at the mic or moving back from it and waiting. The set was largely newer material and it was gripping stuff at times. The drummer (huge drum kit but only really used the snare, the floor tom and the kick) was good, the laptop/ synth operator did a lot of heavy lifting and the guitarist was on it, kicking up dirty, distorted punk riffs, slashing away when it needed it and playing quieter, single notes on the less intense songs. 

 Tricky did thank us after two or three of the songs but other than that there was little sense that we were involved in the gig. It felt more like a performance than a gig. At a gig, there's a shared experience, an energy between crowd and artist, a sense that the audience is part of it. It didn't feel like that. On some songs Tricky was barely present vocally. The two co- singers were great, very much in the sound and style of the songs he did with Martina in the 90s. Occasionally Tricky would rasp a few lines, approach the mic and gives us some of that half stoned/ half threatening magic. At times he was just a figure on stage in complete darkness. It's obviously his thing, they're his songs and it's his sound, he's in charge of it all- but a little more of him and maybe a flicker of spotlight or stage lights onto him would have been nice. 

Halfway though the guitarist kicked into the familiar wah wah intro to Black Steel and the tension and intensity grew and the audience responded with cheers and applause. Black Steel is a seminal 90s tune, one of those songs that rewired the culture for me, a new take on Public Enemy's song, an anti- government, anti- military, anti- authoritarian tune with ferocious guitars and bass and huge punk drums. It was a significant part of the reason I was at the gig. 

Black Steel

The singer on the right led it as the guitarist thrashed away and the drum got ready to explode, 'I got a letter from the government the other day/ Opened it and read it/ It said they were suckers'. I felt a jolt of excitement, a moment of electrification. Tricky wandered to the back of the stage, wandering round behind the drum riser. I expected he'd make his way back for the 'Many switch in, switch on, switch off ' lines', but he didn't. He came back after the song finished. A few songs later they played Overcome, the song that he shares with Massive Attack (Kormacoma on Protection) and again, a big moment for me and I'd imagine many of the audience. 

Overcome

'You sure you wanna be with me?/ I've nothing to give' is one of the bleakest opening lines in pop music and the song is one where love and sex merge with paranoia and dislocation, 'You're a couple/ 'specially when your bodies double/ Duplicate and then you wait/ For the next Kuwait'. It's dark and messy and reeks of the fug of weed. The band and singers play it perfectly. Then we go back to the newer songs, some of which gather steam, a few lines from Tricky here and there and then often just as it looks like the song's come together and going to fly, the guitarist and drummer locked in, they stop dead. 

Forty five minutes and they're done and head off. Tricky leads the band back on for an encore, three more songs. 'Come on Tricky!' someone shouts from the seats below us. Still no lights, it could be anyone centre stage. Afterwards, chatting to a few other people near the bar, they felt the same. A few are pissed off, wanted or expected a little more. Most people are fairly sanguine- 'it's Tricky, it's what he does'. He definitely can't be accused of becoming a heritage act living off former glories and giving it some showbiz moves.  

It was a little mystifying in a way and could have been so much more- some lights, some projections or films behind the band, a little bit more from the man himself. The band are really good and the sound is superb. The singers are great. It's up to him of course and god knows he's had to deal with some terrible stuff in his life but I was left with the feeling that Tricky was only partly there.

Seventy Minutes From GL11

Back in February Todmorden's Gold Lion pub celebrated its 11th birthday with a weekend of entertainment with Hot Chip's Joe Goddard on the Friday night and on Saturday Deeply Armed playing live upstairs and David Holmes downstairs. The afternoon also had us playing, The Flightpath Estate, from 2pm through until the evening. We had plans to recreate our entire set but for various reasons that hasn't happened but I'd pulled my parts of the set together and it occurred to me that rather than them sitting unused I may as well sequence them together as one piece and share them here. So this is a twelve song selection of what I played at The Golden Lion- Dan, Martin, Baz and Mark's tunes are all missing I'm afraid- keeping track of  what I played is hard enough- and maybe one day we'll sort the full setlist out and post it.

Adam's Flightpath Estate Set From GL11

• Arrival Ft. Kevin McCormick: Common Place (Thought Leadership Remix)
• Cluster: Zum Wohl
• Captain Beefheart and His Magic  Band: Observatory Crest
• Cowboy Junkies: Sweet Jane (Mojo Filter Junkie Re- Love)
• A Mountain Of One: Innocent Reprise
• Thurston Moore: Asperitas
• Warpaint: Disco// Very (Richard Norris Remix)
• X- Press 2: Witchi Tai To (Two Lone Swordsmen remix)
• Doves: Kingdom Of Rust (Prins Thomas Remix)
• Pandit Pam Pam: Tarantula
• Secret Soul Society: See You Dance Again
• Mark Lanegan: Ode To Sad Disco

Arrival's 12" single came out at the start of January, the year's first essential release for me, two tracks from the Stockport duo with the wonderful guitar playing of Kevin McCormick at their core. Thought Leadership, also a guitarist and also from Stockport, remixed Common Place pulling many different threads into one piece of music. 

Cluster's Zum Wohl is from their 1976 album Sowiesoso, a favourite of mine, an album where Cluster and Conny Plank regrouped in rural West Germany and made pastoral ambient electronic/ synth cosmische. 

Captain Beefheart's Observatory Crest made a late jump into my digital record box for the Lion's 11th birthday. I fond myself humming it in the week leading up to the event and it fell into the afternoon vibe I was aiming for. It came out in 1974 on his Bluejeans And Moonbeams album, an uncharacteristically accessible and mainstream sounding record for the good Captain. 

Cowboy Junkies' cover of Sweet Jane came out in 1988 on their majestic Trinity Sessions album. It gained Lou Reed's approval, the song done the way it should have been back when The Velvet Underground made Loaded. Cowboy Junkies have spent the last two week's touring the UK and they played Manchester last Sunday. I was really tempted to go but also tickets were £53 plus fees and it felt like a lot of money. Mojo Filter's Balearic edit is from 2015 and he doesn't do too much to it, just add a subtle electronic undercarriage and a bit of a sunset sheen. 

Innocent Reprise is from A Mountain Of One's EP2, originally out in 2007 and then compiled with EP1 as Collected Works. Lovely sunbaked Balearic folk. 

Asperitas is from an album Thurston Moore put out in early February this year, six long guitar instrumentals inspired by skyscapes of the British Isles, an album called Guitar Explorations Of Cloud Formations. Asperitas is several guitar parts, some controlled feedback and a primitive drum machine. It's a really good album ranging from chilled and krauty to noisy and if by any remote chance he's reading this, vinyl please Thurston. 

We played in rotation at GL11, three tracks each and then handing over to the next Flightpather. Richard Norris' remix of Warpaint came later on in the afternoon, the pub filling up a bit and I can't remember who went before me or what they played but it must have inspired me to turn the bpms up a little and go into dancier territory. Back in 2014 Warpaint were very much a going concern, their California post- punk/ dub sounds getting lots of attention. Richard's remix is one of his best- an indie rock gone Balearic monster.

Two Lone Swordsmen's remix of X- Press 2 is from 2006, Andrew Weatherall and Keith Tenniswood heading into the garage rock/ rockabilly sounds that would come to fruition on 2007's Wrong Meeting. Witchi Tai To is a Native American chant that Jim Pepper turned into a hit single in 1971. Recorded in 1969, peyote jazz fusion. 

Doves Kingdom Of Rust was from the 2006 album of the same name. The Prins Thomas remix of the song is a beauty, the guitars and bass circling round each other, Jimi's windswept vocal nailing a certain type of Mancunian melancholy with references to black birds and cooling towers and then the strings swoop in...

Pandit Pam Pam is from Sao Paulo. His cover of Colourbox's Tarantula came out in February this year. The wandering trumpet line and bubbling bass dance around each other.

Secret Soul Society's edit of Neil Young's 1992 song Harvest Moon dropped into my inbox a few weeks before GL11, the line 'I wanna see you dance again' going round and round, a dub/ disco version of 90s Neil Young.

Mark Lanegan's Ode To Sad Disco always works. New Order- esque dance/ rock from 2012's Blues Funeral, a throbbing sequencer bassline, synths and guitars and packed with very visual lyrical imagery- one of those songs that always hits the spot for me. 

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 Is there something missing?

I went for Todd Terry's 1996 remix of Everything but The Girl's Missing, Dub Syndicate, Joy Division's transition into New Order, Durutti Column, R.E.M. and The Clash. The Bagging Area Oblique Saturdays squad went into overdrive and came up with late period New Order without Hooky, The Verve without Nick McCabe, Elvis Costello, Janis Joplin (whose vocals were missing from a song she was supposed to record the day she died), Julian Cope and Peggy Suicide, The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu, Wire, The Stranglers, Tindersticks, The Bad Seeds, Andrew Weatherall's Music's Not For Everyone radio shows, Athletico Spizz and R. Missing. Thank you Chris, Beerfueledlad, Rol, Khayem, C, The Swede, JC and Walter. 

Peggy Suicide Is Misisng closes Julian Cope's 1992 opus Jehovakill, a forty two second burst of notes and noise and Cope, the Archdrude, singing, 'mother, mother, mother...' 

Peggy Suicide Is Missing

This weeks Oblique Strategy card says this- Don't break the silence.

At first I thought I'd turned a repeat Oblique Strategy card but on checking it just seemed familiar- I've had both Tape your mouth and Do nothing for as long as possible before, both of which at first felt like they come from a similar place. I wondered if I should choose again but then the word silence prompted me and this came to mind...

A Life Of Silence (Timothy J. Fairplay's Fall Of Shame Remix)

Released on Andrew Weatherall's Bird Scarer Records back in 2012, a vinyl only 12" series that ran to just seven releases, Tim (Andrew's engineer in the studio in the early 2010s and his partner in The Asphodells) remixed Scott Fraser's A Life Of Silence. Scott was one of the Scrutton Street Axis, one of several artists who took a room in Andrew Weatherall's Scrutton Street bunker complex near Brick Lane in London. They all had to vacate eventually as the forces of free market capitalism decided that an underground bunker complex containing several DJs, musicians and producers making relatively small scale music aimed at a few hundred souls was an inefficient use of property. 'Artists', Andrew said at the time, 'are the vanguard of gentrification'.

Tim's remix is a beauty, a nine minute electronic excursion into early New Order/ music for the Cold War territory, the chuggy drums, Hooky- esque bass, choppy guitars and cosmische synths all conjuring 21st century acid house and images of Warsaw Pact maneuvers, West Berlin and early 80s Manchester. Maybe that's just me. 

I could have left it there. Don't break the silence by adding to A Life Of Silence. There's loads more songs in my collection with silence in the title: The Asphodells only album had One Minute Silence on it,a  John Betjemen inspired lyric (also released for RSD as a vinyl only 12" with a Wooden Shjips remix); I've recently been reviewing and enjoying the new album by Lines Of Silence; Depeche Mode enjoy their silence; Television Personalities had an angry silence; Daniel Avery is Out Of Silence, Justin Robertson has a Cup Of Silence; and Duncan Gray has an imperfect silence. 

More conceptually I then thought of Bill Drummond, never a man to shy away from something grand and important. In 2005 he declared 21st November as No Music Day, a day of silence to draw attention to the cheapening of music as an art form.

'I decided I needed a day I could set aside to listen to no music whatsoever. Instead, I would be thinking about what I wanted and what I didn't want from music. Not to blindly – or should that be deafly – consume what was on offer. A day where I could develop ideas'. 

A day of silence in other words. He chose 21st November as it is the feast day of Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of music. 

Cecilia

Simon And Garfunkel's Cecilia, a hit from 1970 with home made, improvised percussion, banging a bench and looping it at a party then recreated in the studio with a piano stool and guitar cases. 

Bill promoted No Music Day for a few years with some take up in the UK press, BBC Scotland and further afield (Sao Paulo in Brazil and Linz in Austria both joined in). 

I don't know how much No Music Day achieved but like many of Bill Drummond's schemes, the concept is the thing. He does something and then he moves on. If music was being cheapened as an art form in 2005 it's even cheaper now- Spotify, Tik Tok et al and advertising use music as content, little more than the backing track to the product they are selling. Spotify's rates of pay for musicians are appalling. Mark Peters, a guitarist from Wigan whose music I've featured here a good few times, recently found out that a piece of his music was used by Facebook in India and had been streamed over 26 million times. For this he received a payment of £40. 

Mark's most recent release is Shadow Quarter, available at Bandcamp, four songs each one done in two versions. 

Feel free to make your own Don't break the silence suggestions in the comment box. 

Ambient Friday

Ambient music is enjoying something of a heyday. During lockdown many artists took a turn towards it, the restrictions of that time preventing people from meeting and possibly also some were sharing spaces where other members of their households were working from home meant that making quieter music was necessary. Ambient sounds, synth drones and long gentle pieces seemed to fit the unreality of lockdown too. Richard Norris had already begun making ambient music/ deep listening as part of his Music For Healing series, music designed to aid concentration, contemplation and mental health and his ambient series thrived during 2020/ 2021 and is still going strong today. Ambient music as therapy. Ambient music to replace tinnitus. Ambient music to aid relaxation. His latest monthly long ambient track, Patterns 5, came out a few days ago. It's here. 

There's an elemental aspect to ambient music too, a sense that it is connected to nature, that it can be a response to or soundtrack too the natural world. In his book Monolithic Undertow Harry Sword traces the long history of drone music, from Neolithic burial chambers in Malta to 20th century Ladbroke Grove and beyond. The drone is a central part of ambient and its appearance and reappearance throughout human history adds to this feeling that ambient music is not just elemental but a core part of the human musical experience. Brian Eno's conception of ambient music was formed while recovering from an accident, bedbound, and had been given a album of harp music. He put the record on the stereo and hobbled back to bed and then realised he'd left the volume too low. He was too tired to get out of bed and turn the volume knob and as he lay in his bed he tuned in to a new way of listening to music- low volume and a part of the household sounds, internal and external, rain falling and pattering on the window, the letterbox rattling, a dog barking down the street. Music that blended in and became the background to life. When recovered he went on to record a number of landmark ambient albums. This is from Ambient 4: On Land from 1982. 

Unfamiliar Wind (Leeks Hill)

Another spur to the creation of ambient music is the recent availability of cheap technology- copies vintage synthesisers and new machines at accessible prices means that buying a couple of synths and recording the sounds is easy. Making something interesting that other people want to listen to is maybe more difficult but the old punk instruction 'here's a chord, here's another, here's a third, now form a band!' is rewritten for ambient experimentation and musicians- 'here's a synth, here's another, here's a digital recorder, now make an ambient album!'.

All of this is a long winded preamble to two new ambient albums that are worthy of your attention.

Yulyseus is a Glaswegian ambient/ drone artist with a new album out today, Nothing Under Heaven. Ringing drones, layers of synth noise, the sound of a violin bow, field recordings, rand falling melodies that soar and swell, almost in sync with whatever you're doing- walking with headphones in, lying on the sofa and scrolling on your phone, washing up, driving, staring at the sun as it sets behind the trees in the park. It works as Eno's background music but is also totally rewarding when listened to closely. Yulyseus says that the album 'reflects an ongoing search for clarity and meaning in uncertain times' and it can definitely accompany that feeling even if the uncertain times are still there when the album is over. You can listen to or buy Nothing Under Heaven at Bandcamp. 

From Glasgow to Leicester. Harvey Sharman- Dunn's newest album is an ambient work called The River At Ælla's Stone, seven tracks recorded using a variety of analogue synths that trace a journey from the flood plain of the Soar Valley to the south coast of Malta and a Neolithic site called the Megalithic Temples, a site that predates Stonehenge, the world's oldest free standing stone buildings. Harvey has sequenced the seven tracks as a vinyl album, the first side starting with The River, bubbling synths and water droplets, leading into The Packhorse Bridge and then the heavier drones of Ælla's Stone, seven minutes of slowness. Side two ends with Mnajdra, an ambient response to the Neolithic temples of Malta (the starting point of Harry Sword's book). It's easy to imagine the drones and oscillations of Mnajdra as music created by our ancestors five thousand years ago. You can hear and/ or buy The River At Ælla's Stone at Bandcamp. 

No Coincidences

The latest album by Coyote came out recently, a six track album titled The Higher The Sky, The Deeper The Ocean. It follows three other six track albums they've released in the last few years (as well as numerous singles, 12"s and edits). Five of the six tracks feature very well chosen and apposite vocal samples, taken from a variety of sources, that are built into the Notts duo's music- Balearica, dub and ambient tunes that are always like a ray of warm sunshine. 

I reviewed The Higher The Sky, The Deeper The Ocean for Ban Ban Ton Ton where I got into the idea that what Coyote are doing with the voices that appear on their albums is making meaning or trying to find answers or make sense of the world/ life. The voices that they drop into their songs become lyrics in the same way I guess that actually writing the words for a song does for songwriters. The review is here and the album is available at Bandcamp, digital and vinyl. 

The album ends with No Coincidences, six minutes of music that have become one of my favourite songs of 2026. The lazy drumbeat, double bass (reminiscent of Danny Thompson's bass playing on Nick Drake, John Martyn and Pentangle records) and wash of sounds are intoxicating and the voice on top elevates it further. 'Life is a colour... there's no such things as coincidence... hurry up please it's time...'. 

In the review I linked the vocal sample, a repeated line  of 'hurry up please it's time, hurry please it's time', to T.S. Eliott's The Waste Land (the line appears in the poem, the barman trying to get drinkers out of his pub at last orders). Which felt a bit pretentious (I asked Rob at Ban Ban Ton Ton to feel free to tell me if it was a bit much) but I think we run the risk of pretentiousness form time to time in blogging and we just have to accept it. 

Anyway, it led me to think about what other songs have been inspired by The Waste Land and these three turned up. Pet Shop Boys' breakthrough single West End Girls is one of them, Neil Tennant finding inspiration in the streets on London as portrayed in the poem, the noise and strife of the city and the class struggle of those East End Boys and West End Girls. 

PJ Harvey's On Battleship Hill is also apparently partly inspired by The Waste Land, both commenting on the aftermath of the First World War and the slaughter of a generation of young men in the name of Western values. Polly pulls no punches. 

I found out too that Lana Del Rey's Do You Know There's A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd is possibly inspired by the poem, the search for meaning and themes of memory, loss and decay. And it's a rather dramatic and affecting song too. When I set out writing this post I didn't plan to end up with pet Shop Boys, PJ Harvey and Lana Del Rey and that just confirms what the voice in the Coyote song is saying. There's no such thing as coincidence. 

Introit To Left Hand Drive

Boards Of Canada's forthcoming album Inferno- out at the end of the month- has been preceded by a new track, or two tracks, or maybe three new tracks more accurately, because it seems to be three separate parts segued together. Introit/ Prophesy At 1420 MHz moves the Boards Of Canada sound again- all their albums seem to be connected but distinct too (the long gaps between releases gives plenty of time for the Sandison brothers to come up with a new approach, to shift the sound and feel, and to allow their influences to fully percolate). 

The Introit part is thirty seconds long (or ninety seconds possibly) starting with analogue synth oscillations and hand drums. At thirty seconds this fades out and something more ominous takes over, something more typically Boards Of Canada, the threat of something existential coming this way. Then at one minute thirty it changes again, becoming very different- a goth or darkwave guitar part, as if The Cure on downers or Berlin artist Curses suddenly turned up in the studio. The slow crawl of the drums and the gothcore sounds roll on and then a voice starts speaking, a deep, distorted voice claiming to be God and talking of subconsciousness and power, nature and super density. The long ending that follows God's part feels like the long slow fade out of a star going supernova (not that I have first hand experience of that). The visuals of the video suggest something along those lines. 

It's all pretty intriguing. 

 

In 2006, twenty years ago, Boards Of Canada released an EP called Trans Canada Highway, six tracks long (five BoC tracks and a remix of the first track on the EP, Dayvan Cowboy, by Odd Nosdam, an underground US hip hop producer/ visual artist). The two sides of vinyl of Trans Canada Highway are a fine way to spend half an hour, the tracks gradually revealing themselves with ambient, backwards guitar, loops of feedback, slowed down drums and heavy synth drones, all surrounded by that Boards Of Canada spaciousness. There's a less than a minute long ambient piece attached to the end at the end which suggests things heading elsewhere- but don't. The EP is intended to soundtrack a journey across part of Canada and it's a very floaty and abstract way to travel. 

Left Hand Drive

Switch Up

Most unexpected and very welcome news came last Friday with the sudden appearance of a solo single by Mike D, the first Beastie Boy to release any music since the death of MCA (Adam Yauch) fourteen years ago. Mike and Ad- Rock said at the time that the Beastie Boys could not go on without MCA, so the band ended there and then. 

Mike D's single Switch Up is a rush of prime musical fun, the sheer joy Mike gets from making music evident in the track- a squiggle of guitar, some chords and then the drums kick in, a rapid fire drum 'n' bass breakbeat, bouncing bassline and Mike's whiny NY drawl (not a criticism, I love the Beastie Boys whiny NY voices). The guitars are squally, the synths and noises ricochet about and there's some proper hip hop energy going on, Mike coming back time again to the song's title, 'Switch up!' among other phrases welcoming change. It slows down for the end, the rhythm and tempo cut in half and some strings swoop in. Good fun. 

The track was recorded with his two sons, Skylar and Davis, who play in a band called Very Nice Person. Mike popped up with Very Nice Person and his own group 5D in person last week at L.A.'s Plaza Nightclub and they did Beastie Boys track So What'cha Want, a song from 1992's Check Your Head, with explosive drums, organ, screechy guitars and three way vocal wordplay galore. 

So What'cha Want

Mike D's country album- Country Mike's Greatest Hits- was never officially released. Mike D recorded it as a joke for friends and gave it them for Christmas. Maybe a hundred copies exist, some on black vinyl and some on red. It has been bootlegged too but the quality is variable apparently. The YouTube upload below is from one of the genuine copies, the best faux- country album recorded by any of the Beastie Boys. 

Monday's Long Song

My April/ May 2026 Sonic Youth immersion continues- I can't enough of their music at the moment, inspired mainly reading Thurston Moore's Sonic Life and I've been going back into their 80s albums, 1986's EVOL and 1987's Sister especially. 

EVOL was their third full length album and the first with Steve Shelley on drums and as much as any of their records shows them moving from a fairly full on post- punk/ noise ascetic towards some tunes that could be decribed as pop (or at least informed by pop). The altenrate tunigns and unconventional structures are still there. They never really dealt in classic rock verse/ chorus/ verse/ chorus/ middle eight/ verse/ chorus, willfully creating whatever verse and chorus structure they wanted. But there are songs on EVOL that show tunes and melodies were becoming important to them. Kim Gordon called it a 'faux goth' record. 

EVOL has several songs that would qualify for a Sonic Youth best of- Shadow Of A Doubt and Starpower would both be contenders and in Expressway To Yr Skull one of their best songs, their first truly great song and one of the best of the 80s. Neil Young agreed. He called it 'a classic... incredibly good, so beautiful' and in 1990 invited them on tour (a tour that Thurston describes in detail in his memoir, their battles with the Neil Young and Crazy Horse road and sound crew a feature that pissed them off until Neil intervened). 

Expressway To Yr Skull (listed as Madonna, Sean And Me on EVOL's back cover) kicks in with clanging, wrecked guitar chords, wind blasted, sunglasses and hair blown away chords. Thurston eventually sings the opening verse, Brian Wilson on bad drugs, 'We're gonna kill the California girls' and then more obliquely, 'We're gonna fire the exploding load in the milkmaid maiden head'. They build, Thurston, Kim and Lee clanging up and down the necks of their guitars, noise and atonality but still with the musicality of outsider late 60s rock. 'Mystery train', he sings nodding to Greil Marcus and Elvis, 'Three way plane/ Expressway to your skull'.  They understood dynamics, the importance of tension and release, and there's a pause with the hum of amps and guitars, stretched out, before Thurston comes back in and drawls... 'to your skuuuuuuuulllll...'. 

There are different versions of Expressway. This one has a long fade out that takes it over six minutes. I've added another version of the song to the end of it, doubling its running time. Belgian artist Wixal recorded a cover of Expressway in 2007, part of a seven song EP of Sonic Youth covers, that he made after seeing Sonic Youth play a gig in Leuven. You can find it at Bandcamp. 

The Long Champs, a Weatherall approved Welsh cosmic/ ambient/ chug artist, took Wixal's cover and added a shimmering, padding ambient/ cosmische aura to it, sending Wixal's already blissed out cover of Sonic Youth's blasted alternative 80s art- rock into new places. I thought the two would work well as one thirteen minute piece- and happily they do.

Expressway To Yr Skull/ Expressway Long Champs Bonus Beats

Lloyd of The Long Champs has had a significant loss recently and this post is dedicated to him and to Delyth. 

While being inspired by Thurston's book I pulled my copy of Michael Azerrad's Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes From The American Indie Underground, 1981- 1991 off the shelf, a history of D.I.Y. US indie- punk from Black Flag to Beat Happening, published in 2001. My copy is hardback and I guess bought around 2002/ 3 when it was published in the UK. I opened the front cover and the first page had a scrawl in red pen all over it, done I remembered instantly when I left the book lying around and a young Isaac picked up a pen and opened the book and doodled away. It made me jump, this sudden contact with Isaac. 

When I skipped to the Sonic Youth chapter, he'd done the same over two pages there too. It made me smile- Isaac, gone four and a half years ago nearly now, scribbling over my book, suddenly there in front of me, or at least his marks were there in front of me, and the coincidence that reading Thurston Moore's book and listening to the records again had led me to this mark Isaac had made a quarter of a century ago in the Sonic Youth chapter struck me as, well, just a coincidence I guess. I could hear him speaking at that point too, a flashback, him unaware of what he'd done and laughing. Funnily, it also made me think it was pretty Sonic Youth, the home made, handwritten/ scrawled album sleeves, liner notes, gig posters and fanzines Thurston Moore was responsible for. 

'We're gonna find the meaning/ Of looking good/ And stay there as long as we think we should/ Mystery train/ Three way plane/ Expressway... to your skull'

Live: Lines Of Silence And The Utopia Strong

Halle St Peter's is a former church sitting in the middle of Ancoats, one of Manchester's regeneration success stories, a former post- industrial wasteland of derelict mills and an unloved retail park now buzzing with flats, restaurants and young people. The former church is now the rehearsal space for the Halle Orchestra and as a result the room is acoustically perfect. On Thursday night The Utopia Strong (pictured above) played there as part of their current UK tour with support at this gig from Lines Of Silence (whose new album I wrote about on Friday here). 

Lines Of Silence are a trio, Dave Little on guitar and FX pedals, Andrea on guitar, cymbal and vocals and Dave Clarkson on electronics. The Manchester/ Todmorden band have been around for years and their latest album, Lines Of Opposition!, is out on Sprechen, a Manchester label with a fine back catalogue (ACR, Psychederek, Lindstrom, The Utopia Strong, The Thief Of Time, Steve Cobby and Causeway have all released records on Sprechen). 

Lines Of Silence kick off with some pulsing, motorik krautrock, the drums and bass thumping away from the table of synths and FX on the right and the twin guitars channeling Michael Rother and Sterling Morrison, with recent single Lines In Opposition ringing out loud and clear. Mid- set they stretch out, a ten minute ambient/ drone epic, Andrea tapping the splash cymbal and Dave Little conjuring a storm of noise from his guitar. They stick with the drone/ soundscape tracks, longer, experimental cosmische tracks backed by trippy visuals and a 1950s film of some passengers on a bus finding themselves in some kind of existential trouble. The close to sold out crowd of over a hundred people respond warmly and Lines Of Silence have won some new fans. 

Lines Of Silence's album Lines In Opposition! is here. 

The Utopia Strong are also a  three piece who formed at Glastonbury Festival in 2018 - as everyone surely knows former six- time snooker world champion Steve Davies plays modular synth in the group. He sits at a table of synths, cables and wires, headphones on, concentrating intently. In the centre is Kavus Torabi, his shock of hair, velvet jacket and black jeans giving the impression he'd be equally at home playing in a spacerock band in Ladbroke Groove in the mid- 70s. Kavus plays harmonium, synth, electric guitar and bass and provides wordless vocals (he also plays with Gong). On the right is Michael J. York- synths, FX, bells, gong, snake charmer's pipe, clarinet and bagpipes. Yes, bagpipes. They play for forty minutes, a one track set that flows through several stages- there are long drone sections underpinned by ebbing and flowing modular synths with the harmonium swelling and wheezing followed by some distinctly separate pieces. At one point there is a section where Kavus stats chanting wordlessly, a two note choral sound over the ambient soundscape, and (especially in the setting of a church) it would surely be recognised by the members of a 13th century monastic order, devotional music. Later on, with the snake charmer's pipe winding a discordant melody into the sonic stew, we could be in the souk in North Africa at any time in the last thousand years. 

The Utopia Strong sound both ancient and modern with strong echoes of mid 70s Tangerine Dream. As Kavus straps on the bass guitar and prods away at a two note riff, swaying with his eyes closed and Steve Davies builds a wall of drone noise, and Michael drags his beaters round the gong's edge to add a growing ringing sound, it's easy to drift away, transported into a meditative state or begin dwelling on deeper matters and life choices. At others, when the music changes, you snap back into the room and consider what you've got to do in the morning- and at other times, the music is all there is, the enjoyment of the sound an end in itself. The set builds and towards the end Michael picks up the bagpipes and begins to play- not the cliched pipers in kilts type of bagpipe music, something much older and odder, a cosmische and psychedelic ritual. The encore sees Steve plug his leads back into the modular device while Kavus and Michael kneel on the stage floor, playing a various sized hand bells, the chiming and tapping a beautifully chilled out way to finish. 

This is from 2025's Doperider album, Harpies. 

The Utopia Strong are in Northampton tonight and then onto play Exeter, London, Deal, Luton, Glasgow, Huddersfield, Cambridge, St Leonards, Colchester and Leicester and if you can get to one of those gigs, I'd highly recommend it. 

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 Don't be afraid of things because they're easy to do.

I opted for a JFK response, his 1961 speech about doing things not because they are easy but because they are hard. Steinski and Mass Media, The Wedding Present and Lou Reed all provided me with Kennedy themed songs. 

The Bagging Area community came up with some inspired choices- PTVL went for Genesis P. Orridge with Richard Norris and Dave Ball as Jack The Tab, arguably the UK's first acid house record, Ernie went for Lowell George and Little Feat, Al G with Mansun, Rol (arriving late after some serious jet washing) with The Walker Brothers and Walter with Nick Drake and Vini Reilly.

This week's Oblique Strategy cards reads thus- Is there something missing?

A obvious choice and one which has been in my mind recently is this...

Todd Terry's remix of Missing was everywhere in 1996, inescapable and irresistible, a crossover hit that deserved to be massive. Missing is a mood in song form. 

I also thought of Dub Syndicate's 1985 album, the mighty Tunes From The Missing Channel, Adrian Sherwood and Style Scott's hugely influential dub album that opens with Ravi Shankar Pt. 1 and with Jah Wobble appearing too, goes about pushing dub into sci fi/ ambient dub territories.

Out And About

But there's more to this Oblique Strategy stuff than just going with the most obvious, word related choices. 

Is there something missing?

Stephen Morris, drummer in Joy Division and New Order and authentic nice chap, has described the three surviving members of Joy Division in the pub after Ian Curtis' funeral. They sat their nursing their pints, not knowing how to talk to each other about death, suicide and loss, young men on the cusp of something big that has been wrenched away from them. A planned American tour cancelled. The second half of 1980 suddenly looking very different from what they envisaged. 

'See you on Monday then', one of them said as he left. 

'Yep, see you on Monday'.

Because they didn't know what else to do, they reconvened at Joy Division's rehearsal space in Little Peter Street and tried to make music as a trio. In Jon Savage's oral history, This Searing Light, The Sun And Everything Else, they each talk about the difficulties of making music with something (or someone) missing. Ian Curtis, frontman and lyricist, the object of attention at gigs, 'one of those channels for the gestalt' (said Martin Hannett), the intense and distinctive singer who set them apart from their peers, was gone. It was more than just missing a singer- he was a mate too and he was the rehearsal room ears and the editor. When the band jammed, Ian would pick out the parts that were good, get them to play that bit but put it with this bit and repeat it. 

They struggled on obviously- we all know the story. Ceremony (the last Joy Division song) and Movement (the last record they made with Martin Hannett). Movement is a sound, post- punk songs with a Hannett tone, but it lacks tunes. Apart from Dreams Never End (sung by Hooky ironically), nothing on Movement sticks in the memory for long. It's an album I have to play to remember what it's like. 

Dreams Never End

In 1981 they appeared on Granada TV, sonically moving forward with Gillian Gilbert on board but visually, physically, they all behave like there's still something missing. This clip has them playing, tentatively, five songs from Movement and Ceremony. The crowd, all local fans, look like they know this too. There's an absence, the band and the audience both feel it. 

They got there in the end of course. Discos in New York and Everything's Gone Green showing them a way out. 

Everything's Gone Green

Vini Reilly, mentioned above, had his own response to the missing boy...

The Missing Boy

'There was a boy/ I almost knew him/ A glance exchanged/ Made me feel good/ Leaving some signs/ Now a legend'.

Other bands have struggled with missing members. Is there something missing?

In 1998 R.E.M. tried to regroup following Bill Berry's decision to leave the group (a brain aneurysm onstage during the Monster tour being a key part of his decision). Bill admitted last year in an interview that he 'didn't regret it at the time but... sort of regretted it later'. Michael Stipe, Mike Mills and Peter Buck experimented with vintage synths and drum machines and eventually made Up but it nearly broke them. Bill Berry wasn't just the drummer, he wrote songs too- the beautiful Perfect Circle for one and worldwide smash Everybody Hurts for another. Without Bill they were destabilised, nothing worked the same way. Michael Stipe memorably but none- too- convincingly commented, 'a dog with three legs is still a dog'.

Daysleeper

In 1985 The Clash, or what was left of them, released Cut The Crap. Topper Headon had gone in 1983 and Mick Jones was sacked by Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon (and Bernie Rhodes) in 1984. 'We fell to ego', Joe remarked. This Is England may well be up there with the rest of Joe's songs but the much of the rest of Cut The Crap most definitely has something missing. Mick Jones. Topper Headon. 

This Is England

Strummer's 1985 state of the nation address evokes strikes, unrest, police brutality, unemployment, divisive right wing politics, war in far off places, poverty, racism, protest, marches, football and asks 'when will we be free?'. 

Feel free to drop your own responses to Is there something missing? in the comment box. 

We Hold This Dear

Lines Of Silence, a Manchester/ Todmorden psyche- cosmische band played at Halle St. Peter's in Manchester last night supporting The Utopia Strong- full review to follow. A week ago Lines Of Silence released their second EP, Harmonise, for Sprechen, a radio edit of the kraut grooves of Lines In Opposition which kicks in with rapid fire motorik drumming, wobbly synth sounds and a chanted/ spoken incantation for a vocal. Guitar lines are beamed in straight from West Germany in the 70s and it all comes to an end with singer Andrea left alone intoning, 'we hold this dear'.

There are two remixes ahead of the imminent Lines Of Silence album, also called Lines In Opposition! The first is of album track Kinetik by Coventry's Stone Anthem, an industrial ambient version, with radio static, the threat of rumbling bass and fractured drums. Stretford's own, Psychederek, then completes the trio with his remix of Lines In Opposition, relocating Lines Of Silence into the cosmic chug machine with a driving post- punk bassline, bursts of synth and Andrea's vocal pushed to the fore.

Harmonise can be heard/ bought here.  

If you like that you should stick around for the album, Lines In Opposition!, eight slices of cosmic/ kraut that opens with the ambient drone and synth wiggle of Wolf, Klaus Dinger's Apache beat making its presence felt early on. Kinetik is a driving instrumental with fuzzed up guitars, the controls set for outer space but fast, and Come With Us (If You Want To...) is a psychedelic/ analogue dream. The ambient/ industrial drones re- appear on A Life Examined, a burst of transmission from distant places. Aesthetik counters it with blissed drones and FX, the guitars and synths eventually pulled in- sci fi for the FRG. Transcendental Radiation was the first single, released on the Radiate EP back in March, Moog cosmische with the space of dub. The album ends with the The Unity Drone, a spacey combination of drones, FX and melodies that feels like coming down.

Lines In Opposition! is here, on digital and vinyl- highly recommended and likely still be close to your turntables/ devices come the end of the year. 

Anatolian Edits

Anatolian Weapons is a prolific producer/ DJ from Athens, Greece whose music is wide and varied with self explanatory such as EPs called Immersive Greek Folk and Yellow Ambient Tracks sitting on his Bandcamp page. In 2022 he released Selected Acid Tracks which was one of my favourite releases of that year, long acid techno tracks to lose oneself in. 

Anatolian Weapons latest release is a four track EP titled Heart Of Asia, four edits that are inventive, engaging and funky as a mosquito's tweeter. The first one is an AW edit of Shamansky Beat's Heart Of Asia, chunky rhythms and Eastern/ Arabic sounds, very much in that early 90s Transglobal Underground vein of global dance/ acid house style and all the better for it. 

It's followed by an edit of Han'nya Shingyo by Japanese artist Soichi Terada, a rumbling, tumbling widescreen acid- global groove with synth stabs and chanted vocals. The AW edit of Rolling With Rai by Axis, a 1989 Ashley Beedle production, Algerian Rai crossed with hip hop beats and late 80s tribal house re- done for 2026.Lovely stuff. 

The fourth track is an edit of Tranquility Bass's ambient house/ downtempo/ trip hop classic They Came In Peace, eight and a half minutes of found sounds (birdsong and cicadas), ambient synths, breathing, blissed out chords, chopped up vocal samples, 'they came in peace for all mankind', and eventually, just prodding away deep in the background, the double bass riff. Perfect. 

Get Heart Of Asia at Bandcamp, free or pay what you want. 

The Mid- Week Special

Three newbie, one off single releases for mid- week to get you pumped up and in the mood for the local elections tomorrow, a soundtrack as you contemplate where to cast your vote. Maybe a more cosmic disco/ psychedelic approach to politics would benefit everybody at this stage in proceedings. It goes without saying that there is nothing remotely cosmic, psychedelic or Balearic about Nigel Farage and Reform and there's a lot to be said for voting with the sole intention of stopping Reform.

Pye Corner Audio tends to deal in dystopic, sci fi techno, acid and murky, subterranean ambient music. It's not all dark and edgy but much of it is. His latest track is very different and parallels the sunshine facing, optimistic sound of his forthcoming album (with Andy Bell's guitar on board), an album with track titles including My Shimmer, Euphoria, Rays Of Sunshine and Greet The Dawn. 

New track The Cool Breeze At Sunset came out on 1st May, an appropriately May Day sounding Balearic/ kosmische five minutes of music with percussive taps, wafty synths, some Mediterranean piano and whispery, almost jazzy 80s chord progressions. 

The Cool Breeze At Sunset is at Bandcamp, free or pay what you want. 

Brighton producer/ DJ Gordon Kaye follows his Galactic Ride single from last year with a new one, Garbage In Garbage Out. Uptempo cosmic disco with some lovely disco- birdsong screeches, a wobbly acid bassline and Gordon's daughter Gabriella singing. Nine minutes of heavenly, brightly lit psychedelic acid house. 

Garbage In Garbage Out is at Bandcamp. 

Jesse Fahnestock's music is always a pleasure, as part of Jezebell and on his own as 10:40. The latest 10:40 track is a one off edit, Winner. It kicks off with some very 10:40 synth sounds and a chunky drumbeat and then a familiar acoustic guitar riff, early 90s stoner folk/ hip hop mangled into new places. Get crazy with the Cheez Whiz. Soy un perdedor.

Get Winner at Bandcamp, free/ pay what you want. 

Ariadne is the name of a locomotive at Manchester Museum of Science and Industry, displayed in the newly re- opened Power Hall. Ariadne was constructed in the British Rail works in Gorton in 1954 and hauled carriages between Manchester and Sheffield until 1977 when the line closed and Ariadne was sold to the State Railways in The Netherlands (which is where this livery and eye catching double arrow logo are from). 

In Greek mythology Ariadne was the daughter of King Minos and Pasiphae. She helped Theseus escape from the labyrinth and the Minotaur by giving him a ball of wool which he used to retrace his steps. Later on Theseus abandoned her. 

Typical. 

Dionysus saw Ariadne sleeping and fell in love with her and they married. She became the mother of eleven children including Oenopion (who personifies wine) and Staphylus (who is associated with grapes). 

I spent some time seeing if I could connect any of this, all sparked by the photo I took in MOSI recently, with the music posted above but apart from some vague ideas about wine, partying, Mediterranean islands and the British and Dutch railway networks capacity for bringing people together I haven't really come up with anything. 

Gonna Keep It Underground

One of last month's books was Thurston Moore's memoir Sonic Youth, written during lockdown and published two years ago bit I only got around to it now. Thurston writes directly and economically but at length (Sonic Life is over four hundred pages). His memory is fantastic- he can vividly recall aspects of his life, gigs particularly. His life changed when his older brother exposing a very young Thurston to Louie Louie by The Kingsmen, the addictive joy of distorted guitar chords planting a seed that grew and grew in the pre- teen Thurston. He recounts his teenage years, the growing interest in leftfield and proto- punk bands in the early and mid 1970s. Tragedy strikes the Moore family with the sudden death of his father and the impact that has on himself and the family, Thurston briefly heading down a self destructive road of teenage delinquency. 

He writes of his teenage friendship with his best friend Harold and their trips to New York City in the mid- 70s to see the bands and singers they'd read about in magazines- the New York Dolls, The Ramones and Patti Smith- coupled with his first attempts at playing the guitar (inspired primarily by Ron Asheton's guitar sound on The Stooges and Funhouse). Thurston is above all a fan and his fandom, his love of bands and music and the associated culture- records, cassettes, posters, flyers, magazines, books, gigs- drips off every page. He loves experimental artists and noise, genuinely thrilled by artiness and one- off gigs that many people leave early from. 

His depiction of New York is also vividly drawn. Thurston moves there in 1978, looking to become part of the scene he's been tiptoeing into as an out of town punter. Pre- gentrification it was possible to rent an apartment in Lower Manhattan for less than $100 a month. Thurston notes the changes in the mid- 80s as bands, poets and artists and the various ethnic minority groups who live down there begin to get priced out by the arrival of people with money. For a while Thurston lives in a crime ridden but exciting post- punk playground where you had to watch your step- don't go out to buy cigarettes at 3 am he notes- but also where you could see Patti Smith and Ramones play at CBGBs and The Dead Boys at Max's Kansas City, the bands mere inches away from the crowd, where the fledgling New York noise of James Chance and Liquid Liquid rubbed shoulders with really obscure art- funk and punk rock. 

The early 80s scene which he gradually becomes a part of, first via his role as guitarist in The Coachmen and then by the beginnings of Sonic Youth (and playing as part of Glenn Branca's guitar orchestra), is filled with a vibrancy and energy and partly populated by people who become legendary in years to come- Madonna, Keith Haring, Jean- Michel Basquiat and The Beastie Boys are all doing their things in early 80s/ mid 80s Manhattan and in this creative maelstrom Thurston gives birth to Sonic Youth, meeting Kim Gordon and enrolling Lee Ranaldo. They go through several drummers before Steve Shelley takes up the drum seat permanently. 

Thurston's recall of these years, the details of gigs and recording studios, trips out of New York to play gigs elsewhere, several people crammed into vans with all their gear and no money, the connections made with similar bands doing similar things in other cities- Minutemen, Bad Brains, Black Flag- is incredible. He outlines Sonic Youth's artistic growth Sonic Youth as they hone their sound, the alternate tunings, with drumsticks and screwdrivers jammed into guitar necks, writing songs and lyrics, untutored and expressive, each album a step on from the previous one-  1986's Evol and 1987's Sister being breakthrough records and then the mighty Daydream Nation in 1988, putting the band on a level with the groups he moved to NY to see play. Sonic Youth's move to a major label and the 1991 tour with Nirvana brings the group to European festivals and big crowds and his friendship with Nirvana, Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love is central to several chapters. Kurt's death too. 

There's warts and all as well as the rush of being in a band on the rise- his own (sometimes bratty) behaviour and the tensions between bandmates and crew jammed together in confined quarters is alluded to if not detailed. There's also the whole Kim Gordon situation- Thurston and Kim split in 2013 after a 27 marriage and even longer time as bandmates. In 2013 Kim published her own book, Girl In A Band, a book that opens with Thurston and his betrayal and makes their relationship central to her view of things. Thurston's book deals with the split, his relationship with Eva Prinz that led to it, and the end of the band, right at the end of the book- literally a few paragraphs in the last chapter. It's too personal to speak about in public is his defence. The end of the marriage ended the band and it ends the book too. 

I enjoyed Sonic Life- Thurston writes well and he really brings 80s New York art rock scene, the downtown hip hop/ art- world crossover and Sonic Youth's career to life, and (sign of a good book) it sent me scurrying back to their records and his endless enthusiasm for music, bands and records is genuine and palpable. But one of the things that struck me about Sonic Life is that it's really not a book about the people in Thurston's life. Kim gets a part and their daughter Coco does towards the end, his teenage friendship with Harold too, but I don't feel like I came away knowing anything about what Lee Ranaldo or Steve Shelley were actually like as people despite Thurston spending decades playing with them. Really, Sonic Life is about music and its attendant culture and its transformative effect on Thurston- other people's music, via gigs and records and shared stages, and Sonic Youth's music, music made by a fan of music. 

Kotton Krown is from 1987's Sister, the album where they married their experimental art- noise to tunes and really nailed how to write affecting leftfield, post- punk, where they transcend their influences. The lyrics on Sister are personal but oblique, sung by Thurson and Kim intuitively. Someone called it 'the last great album of the Reagan era' which rings true. Distorted guitars as a response to trickle down economics. 

Kotton Krown

A year later Daydream Nation distilled the Sonic Youth sound and songwriting into one of the best albums of the 1980s. It's an exhilarating blast of energy and electricity, it led them to a major label and Goo and Dirty and giant festival stages but remains at heart an album made by kids with scruffy pumps and ripped jeans. 

Hey Joni

Monday's Long Song

Back in the late 90s and early 00s there was a lot of Americana/ singer- songwriter music going on and I did my fair share of it- Howe Gelb, Giant Sand, Bonnie Prince Billy, Calexico, Smog, Ryan Adams (now disgraced and to be fair I got out early with him), Iron And Wine... I'm sure there are more I've forgotten about. As a result I don't often feel like I need to dip my toes back into the sandy desert of Americana/ Alt- Country but occasionally a song or an album comes along that catches my ear. 

Recently it was Bill Callahan, formerly recording as Smog, who a few weeks ago released a new album- My Days Of 58. Bill is approaching 60 and the songs on this album were all written during the year he was 58. I'm 56 in a couple of weeks so can relate to the feeling of turning 60 being a big deal. Bill Callahan is wry, deadpan, at times bleakly funny and honest in his lyrics. This song came to me via the algorithm and I clicked play without expecting to be surprised too much...

Why Do Men Sing is very familiar- Bill's voice is especially familiar, homely and warm- and the acoustic guitars are close up and woody. The song unfolds over seven minutes, growing into something sprawling and veering on uncontrolled with high pitched backing vocals bleeding in, an electric guitar and piano adding to the sound, and Bill asking questions, meditating on middle age and masculinity and why men sing. Why do men sing? What is this place that you took me too? 

Horns join in and Bill impersonates Lou Reed as a response to his question- 'let it ride let it ride'. I don't know if we find a definitive answer to the question but it becomes less of a problem as the song plays, the singing of the song instead becoming an answer in itself. 

Back in April 2000- and doesn't that seem a long time ago?- Bill was still recording as Smog and he released Dongs Of Sevotion, an album title that still takes some beating. The second song on it was this...

Dress Sexy At My Funeral

Bill was twenty six years younger then (weren't we all), in his early thirties with decades ahead of him. His electric guitar has a similar Lou Reed tone and his voice is recognisably the same, a little softer perhaps, less worn. He tells his wife/ future widow to dress sexy at his funeral, to wear her blouse 'undone to here' and skirt cut 'up to here', to wink at the minister and to regale the mourners at the wake with tales of their sexual exploits- doing it on the beach and on the railroad tracks. A younger man's meditation on life and death and memory. In 2013 Bill was interviewed about the subject of death in his songs and he replied that he tried to avoid it but that it was ultimately 'the big joke at the end of existence'. Maybe that's why men (and women) sing. 

Fifty Minutes Of John Martyn

 I was putting together this mix of John Martyn songs earlier this week, something I'd decided would start with Small Hours and finish with the Talvin Singh mix of Something's Better, when I saw a news article reporting that Beverley Martyn had died aged 79. Beverley was surrounded by music and musicans from a young age, was tuaght guitar by Bert Jansch, played in bands, wrote songs with Nick Drake, Levon Helm, Loudon Wainwright III and Wilco Johnson, went out with a young Paul Simon, released a solo album in 2014 and in the 70s married John Martyn. They had two children and performed together but she acknowledged it put an end to her career at the time. John's vices- drink and drugs- led to Beverley getting out of the marriage eventually, with accusations of John's domestic abuse part of the reason for the break up. 

This song, John The Baptist, was on Beverley and John's 1970 album Stormbringer! RIP Beverley Martyn

John The Baptist (Unreleased Version)

John Martyn's music has crept up on me in recent years. Drew from Across The Kitchen Table, a long gone and much missed blog, was a big fan and his posting of John's songs over a period of several years in the 2010s got me interested and I've subsequently picked up albums as I've found them- Solid Air and One World were my starting points and just last week at a record stall I found a copy of Grace And Danger, the 1980 album made during the period John and Beverley were getting divorced. John had to pressure Island records boss Chris Blackwell into releasing it- Blackwell said it was too depressing but Martyn insisted, calling it catharsis as well as the most directly autobiographical record he'd made. 

John's music began steeped in blues and folk and then took in a variety of influences- jazz, blues, reggae, and his sound and use of alternate tunings, echo and delay pedals pushed some of his songs into the ambient and Balearic worlds. Vini Reilly has said Martyn's guitar playing was a big influence. In the 90s John's music took in trip hop among other sounds. He died in 2009, his death caused by life long abuse of drink and drugs.  

John Martyn was by all accounts a difficult man, trouble with a big T. Drink, drugs, unpleasant behaviour, accusations of domestic abuse. It's difficult sometimes to separate the artist and the music. Drew (mentioned above) has stories of as a younger man being a barman in a pub that became Martyn's local for a period and having to kick him out on the landlord's orders, a man whose music he loved conflicting with the person presenting in front of him. 

A folk and blues background, pioneering and experimental guitar playing, 80s sheen and ambient production, (One World was famously recorded outdoors and a flock of geese made it onto the album's final song, Small Hours, found sounds stitched into the music)- it's all here in the mix below, fifty minutes that only really gives a small glimpse into the man's music. 

Fifty Minutes Of John Martyn

• Small Hours
• All For The Love Of You
• Anna
• May You Never
• Solid Air
• Johnny Too Bad (Alternate Take 2)
• Over The Rainbow
• Sunshine's Better (Talvin Singh Mix)

Small Hours is the last song on 1977's One World, eight and a half minutes of ambient- folk, Martyn's Echoplex guitar, the subtle Moog playing of Stevie Winwood, some percussion and the audible sound of geese on a lake in the early hours of the morning. Ralph McTell called it a 'nighttime hymn'. If nothing else of his back catalogue survived, this song on its own would be enough. 

All For The Love Of You is a One World outtake, recorded at home in November 1976 but not released until a 2008 box set. Acoustic guitar and voice, beautifully played and sung, and ending with the sound of snoring. 

Anna is from 1978, a song recorded for an Australian film called In Search Of Anna and played live around that late 70s and early 80s, but only released (I think) as an Australian single. It's got a fuller, band sound, drums and electric guitars, a heady brew. 

May You Never and Solid Air are both from his much loved, best known album Solid Air, released in 1973. The title track was written for Nick Drake, a friend to both John and Beverley, who died the year after the album's release. Danny Thompson's bass playing is a treat, rich and woody and John's guitar playing and singing are superb, a real late night record. May You Never is his best known song, written in his early 20s but sounding like the work of someone much older and experienced, making use of the dropped D tuning. 

Johnny Too Bad is from Grace And Danger, a cover of a 1971 reggae song by The Slickers that made its way onto the soundtrack of The Harder They Come. This take came out on the deluxe CD edition of the album. John's guitar playing is choppy, reggae distorted by guitar FX pedals. 

Over The Rainbow was 1984 single and on that year's Sapphire album, recorded at Compass Point in the Bahamas with some help from Robert Palmer and an Anton Corbijn sleeve photograph. It's a cover of the famous Wizard Of Oz song, written by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg- I can never decide if I like it or not, the 80s synths, drums and keys sometimes too syrupy, too smooth but I included it here because occasionally it hits the spot for me. Sapphire's considered to be something of a lost classic after a couple of more mainstream ones. 

The Talvin Singh remixes of Sunshine's Better came out in 1996, a thirteen minute excursion into downtempo/ ambient/ Balearica and officially released on the Cafe Del Mar series (Volume IV). It's a perfect example of the art of the remix, testament to Talvin Singh's talent (and tabla playing), and one of Jose Padilla's sunset records. A blissed out, after hours psychedelic ambient classic.