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. 

Popper's Theme

Popper's Theme is the latest two track EP from 10:40, the second in the Retro Fit series. The first Retro Fit was inspired by The Stone Roses. This one is built around a sample of the voice of the singer in a  90s guitar band, played backwards. The first version of Popper's Theme is a heavy duty monster, layers of synths and that vocal sample over some chugged up drums. The groove is the thing- all in service of the groove. The second, the Broad Gauge Mix, is faster, more intense, more electronic, spikier and a little lairier. Both are just what January needs to perk things up a bit. You can find Popper's Theme at Bandcamp.

10:40's reworkings of 90s indie/ guitar bands goes back a few years. This is from 2020, a dubbed out version of early Verve, a B-side from the first Verve 12" All In The Mind. Before they became radio friendly everyman balladeers Verve (no The, just Verve) were wild psychonauts venturing deep into sound and space, Nick McCabe's wall of guitars a storm crossing a languid Hendrix with shoegaze, all tone, reverb and feedback with the bass and drums whipping up a storm. On the 10:40 version of Our Way To Fall- One Way To Go (10:40's So High It Hurts Edit)- Jesse re- imagines our Wigan psychedelic mystics as sleepy, bass- led psychedelic dub pioneers. The space rock guitars shimmer and Richard Ashcroft's voice echoes through the haze. It's a like bathing in sound. 

One Way To Go (10:40's So High It Hurts Edit)

An Hour Of 2025 Part Three

This is my third and final Sunday mix pulling together some of my favorite tracks from 2025 (the first one, ambient and instrumental, is here and the second, dub and dance, is here). This one starts out folky, strays from dub to cosmische and Balearic, and picks from the past too with two covers, some Stone Roses inspiration and Mazzy Star, songs borrowing from the years 1971, 1989, 1993 and 1999. Going back to go forwards. 

An Hour Of 2025 Part Three

• Joao Leao: One Of These Things First
• Sydney Minsky Sargeant: Summer Song
• Coyote: Battle Weary
• Stereolab: Flashes From Everywhere
• Psychederek: Thinkin' Bout U Pt. 4 (Jupiter/ Reprise)
• Saint Etienne: Alone Together (Hove Lawns Sunset Mix)
• Pale Blue Eyes: How Long Is Now (Richard Norris Remix)
• Red Snapper: Ban- Di- To
• Five Green Moons and Brix Smith: Boudica
• Raz and Afla: Windowlicker
• 10:40 Present Retro Fit: Lavender Mist
• Four Tet: Into Dust (Still Falling)

Joao Leao is a Brazillian- Canadian artist. This cover of a Nick Drake song came out on 7" in February on Toronto label Local Dish, a lovely, slightly tropical and ever so sweetly melancholic version of the original. 

Sydney Minsky Sargeant's solo album Lunga was a 2025 highlight, an album with some songs that date back to his teenage years growing up in Todmorden and the flipside to Syd's main job as leader of Working Men's Club. Lunga is downtempo, personal, acoustic guitar based with echoes of Syd Barrett in the singing and Nick Drake in the playing. Summer Song is reflective, a little lost, the sound of the end of summer. 

Notts Balearic veterans Coyote continue to drip feed new songs and tracks. 2025 saw a six track mini- album, Wailing To The Yellow Dawn, a collaboration with Peaking Lights and two singles including the one here, the dubbed out sounds of Battle Weary with the vocal sample iterating, 'Sufferin' is a poor man's crime'.  

Stereolab returned after a long gap with a new album, Instant Holograms On Metal Film, an album stuffed full of vintage synths, motorik rhythms, wit, invention and (crucially) good songs. Flashes From Everywhere starts out like an easy listening track and then goes krauty and flirts with being poppy. 

Stretford's Psychederek released the four track EP Thinkin' Bout U in August, four different versions of the song, covering everything from Pacific State style dance to broken down, beach bar Balearica (Pt. 4, the one I've included here), kind of proving there's no such thing as a definitive or final version. You can always find another way to do something. 

Saint Etienne released four versions/ remixes of Along Together (a track from 2024's The Night). The Hove Lawns Sunset mix re- imagines West Sussex as a Mediterranean island, slo mo beats and sunset by the pool vibes. Bob, Pete and Sarah then announced an album that would be their last and a tour this year that will be ditto. I think we'll miss them when they're gone.

Pale Blue Eyes are from Sheffield, an indie/ krauty trio. Richard remixed the song as a cosmische autobahn trip, soaring away from South Yorkshire and into 70s West Germany.

Red Snapper were all over my 2025. A tour in March to celerbate the 30th anniversary of Reeled And Skinned, a new album Barb And Feather, and an appearance on Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 2 with the percussion mayhem of Qraqeb. Ban- Di- To is amped up jump blues done 2025 style. 

Five Green Moons second album, Moon 2, was a second strong dub/ folk set from Justin Robertson, who is really in a purple patch at the moment. Brix Smith appears on Boudica. Surviving The Fall/ leading an uprising against the Romans- similarly troublesome I'd imagine. 

Raz and Afla released their cover of Aphex Town's Windowlicker, an Afro- futurist dancefloor bomb that repositions Aphex Twin somewhere new. 

Jesse Fahnestock's 10:40 released An Alternative History back in April, a track Jesse made inspired by a post here at Bagging Area where I imagined an alternate history of The Stone Roses, one where they didn't mess it up after June 1990 but kept going and recorded singles, EPs and albums all the way through the 90s culminating in a gig at Raglan Road scout hut in Sale, up the road from me, where Ian and John first rehearsed way back. You can read that post here. Jesse fired up his studio, sampled Ian and built a new/ imaginary Roses track. The third version, Lavender Mist, went all backwards and is named after Jackson Pollock's painting of the same name. For a while Jesse had the idea that I might provide the vocal but I bottled it. Probably for the best. My singing voice hasn't been the same since I gave up smoking. I always planned to include Lavender Mist on an end of year mix but Mani's death in November added an extra poignancy to everything Roses related. You may have seen the photos from the funeral of his former bandmates carrying his coffin out of Manchester cathedral. A very sad loss. 

Four Tet's Mazzy Star sampling Into Dust (Still Falling) was my favourite single of 2025, a lush and slinky tune that (as I said elsewhere) sounded like summer in the summer and sounds like winter in the here and now. Kieran Hebden can do little wrong for me- his album with William Tyler was as good an album as any other released in 2025 and as Four Tet has been on a roll of superb albums in the last decade with New Energy in 2017, Sixteen Oceans in 2020 and Three in 2024.  

An Hour Of Sunshine From Glasgow And Two Hours Of Do!! You!! From Richard Sen

John Fenner of Glasgow did this mix recently and shared it, Cafe Del Muir, an hour and seven minutes of sunshine for a rainy day in Glasgow (or anywhere). It's a blend of old and new and some of the tunes John selected came via recommendations from this blog- it's nice to see the ripples that go out and come back. There's a couple that are new to me as well and so the ripples go back out again. You can find Cafe Dal Muir at Soundcloud. 

• The Chemical Brothers: One Too Many Mornings
• Four Tet: Loved
• Saint Etienne: Alone Together (Hove Lawns Sunset Mix)
• The Cure: Pictures Of You (Extended Dub Mix)
• The Vendetta Suite: Warehouse Rock (Timmy Stewart's Six Minutes To Sunrise Mix)
• Sinead O'Connor: You Made Me The Thief Of Your Heart
• The Main Stem: Since You Left (Prins Thomas Miks)
• 10:40: Kissed Again
• Bal5000: Bleu Infini
• The Blow Monkeys: Save Me (Neville Watson Dub)
• The Light Brigade: Only Love Can Save Us
• Orbital: Belfast (ANNA Ambient Mix)

On Friday Richard Sen hosted his weekly Do!! You!! radio show, two hours of top tunes from a man who knows his musical onions. Richard played three tracks from our forthcoming Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 2 album (and ave us a shout out) so if you're itching to hear three of the tracks from it- the unreleased version of Lik Wid Nit Wit by Sabres Of Paradise, Red Snapper's Qraqeb and Sleaford Mods cover of Two Lone Swordsmen's Sick When We Kiss (retitled as sick wen we x) then this is the place to do it until the vinyl copies start arriving on doormats and in porches. As well as those three Richard plays tons of other great tracks, including some classic trance, breakbeat, and some very deep cosmic disco. Listen here. 

A Midsummer Mix: Forty Minutes Of 2025 So Far

There's some big news coming tomorrow which some of you will want to act on- if you were one of the people that bought a certain compilation album last year, you might want to be back here bright and breezy on Monday morning. Full details to come in twenty four hours time. 

It's the end of June tomorrow also, halfway through the year- I've no idea how the last six months have gone so quickly- but it seems like a good point to do a 2025 So Far Sunday Mix, not a definitive Best Of 2025, rather some of the tracks and songs I've enjoyed the most so far this year. 

A Midsummer Mix: Forty Minutes Of 2025 So Far

• Death In Vegas: Chingola
• Andy Bell: Pinball Wanderer
• Adrian Sherwood: Cold War Skank
• Demise Of Love: Carry The Blame
• 10:40 presents Retro Fit: An Alternative History (Lavender Mist)
• Escape- Ism: Last Of The Sell Outs
• Klangkollektor: Isle Of Stonsey
• Four Tet: Into Dust (Still Falling)

Chigola is a five minute ambient techno intro to the latest Death In Vegas album Death Mask, an album which does not hold its techno punches and which is a machine music tour de force. Richard Fearless poured a lot into the making of Death Mask, some personal losses reflected and worked through. It's an overloaded and emotional trip. Chingola is few minutes of scene setting, calm before the storm. 

Andy Bell's latest solo album Pinball Wanderer came out in February led by a cover of The Passions' I'm In Love With A German Film Star with Dot Allison and Michael Rother on board. The album's title track is an instrumental delight, a circling guitar part beamed from late 60s folk into Andy's 2025 motorik/ cosmsiche/ electric shoegaze. 

Adrian Sherwood's four track dubplate 10" came out recently, led by title track The Grand Designer and has been on steady rotation round here ever since (though I missed out on the vinyl). Cold War Skank is a moody dub/ guitar workout.

Demise Of Love is a three man modern electronic meeting of Daniel Avery, Syd Minsky- Sergeant (Working Men's Club) and James Greenwood (Ghost Culture). They have, like Adrian Sherwood, released a four track 10" EP that merges acid house, some intense techno sounds, industrial noise and the flickers of what New Order could have been had they kept heading away from the light. 

An Alternative History was written as an imaginary Stone Roses song, based on a blogpost by some blogger or other that imagined a world where the band didn't blow it but kept their heads and kept making music, avoiding the pitfalls of The Second Coming. Jesse's new Roses song came in three versions. Lavender Mist is the backwards one. 

Escape- Ism is Ian Svenonius' latest revolutionary outfit, a duo aiming to rewrite modern culture/ indie- rock with stripped down, scuzzy guitar/ drum machine/ keys/ vocals. The album- Charge Of The Love Brigade- is one of my favorites so far this year, a thirty five minute manifesto. Last Of Sell Outs is the best song on it, a meditation on commerce, art and musical integrity and the price of selling out. 

Klangkollektor is Lars Fischer from Numremberg. The EP Dubplates Vol 2, out on Manchester's Jason Boardman's Before I Die label, is a chilled Balearic dub masterclass ending with Isle Of Stonsey with pedal steel/ Hawaiian guitar sailing out into the cosmos. 

Four Tet's latest single samples Mazzy Star to achingly beautiful effect, a Four Tet track that hits all the spots, capable of moving me to tears. 

An Alternative Resurrection

A day late for an Easter Sunday resurrection but bank holiday Monday feels more appropriate- you might remember that in January 2024 I wrote a piece about an imagined alternative future for The Stone Roses, one where after the release of One Love in June 1990 they didn't blow it. You can re- read An Alternate History first if you want to. It was a post that seemed to download itself into my mind while out on a bike ride, a fully formed version of the 1990s where Ian, John, Mani and Reni had better advice, clearer heads and didn't get immediately bogged down in a post- Spike Island slump and court case, a world where they moved on, signed to Heavenly and released a series of singles and EPs, side stepping the drama and overbearing weight of delivering a second album. In my alternate history they end up at the millennium, back where they started in Sale, south Manchester, with an album that delivered on the promise the band had in that space between the release of Elephant Stone in October 1988 and then One Love/ Something's Burning in 1990. 

Elephant Stone

One of the spin offs from the post took place in Stockholm, Sweden. Scandinavia is a place rich in Roses lore. The band toured there in 1987, a bonding trip for the group and then they returned in 1990 for some warm up shows before the big definitive, generational statements at Spike Island and Glasgow Green. There was a memorable article in Q Magazine by Adrian Deevoy who took a trip with the band in their 1990 pomp, playing gigs, imbibing substances and dancing like fish (all doubled down on by United winning the European Cup Winner's Cup in Rotterdam as the interview and tour took place). 

The 2024 Stockholm spin off was from Jesse, the man behind 10:40, who read my post and was inspired to write a new/ lost Stone Roses track, titled An Alternative History. He sent it to me in the middle of last year and for a while there was a plan that I might sing on it but that came to naught (due to me it has to be said). Jesse released his three track EP yesterday, an Easter Sunday resurrection and also his birthday, three versions of his Stone Roses alternative history, under the banner 10:40 presents Retro Fit.

The original version is a five minute song that sounds like John Squire's next step in 1989, a song they band never quite finished perhaps- chorus pedal and chiming guitar, Reni's kick drum and snare and a very familiar voice coming through the line, straight outta Chorlton singing 'She's waiting...'. 

The lead version of the song on the EP is An Alternate History (Retro Fit Resurrection), an eight minute dance mix that spirals through time and space, landing back in the heady days of 89/ 90, the permanent summer of our youth- fringes, love beads, flares, long sleeved t- shirts, nights lost at the indie disco, clubbing and guitar bands clashing on the floor under the strobe light, maracas and wide eyed joy, Jesse's chiming guitar lines and 1990 shuffle lighting up the room... Ian's there, sucking in his cheeks and doing that loose limbed dance, 'There's a time and a place for everything/ I've got to get it through'....

Lavender Mist completes the EP, Squire's love of Jackson Pollock at the fore, evident on the sleeves of all those records and the titles of Roses B-sides Full Fathom Five and Guernica.

Lavender Mist is not just the Pollock Roses but the experimental, backwards tapes Roses too, a backwards effects version of An Alternative History to follow Don't Stop, Simone, Guernica and Full Fathom Five; a heavenly, spun out and blissed out version of the song with loops and echoes, Ian's voice spun backwards and the guitars reversed, the rhythms both forwards and backwards, everything a great, trippy whirl. Isn't it funny how you shine?

10:40 presents retro Fit: An Alternative History is here. Go get it, you'll love it. Tell Jesse I said hello. 

Forty Five Minutes Of The Beta Band

The Beta Band's reformation to play some gigs in the autumn and maybe make some new music is one of 2025's most cheering stories (in a year not exactly over- burdened with cheering stories admittedly). Sometimes people say that The Beat Band 'should have been massive' but it's a comment that makes me scratch my head and think 'in what world?'. 

It's difficult to imagine a world in which songs, the sheer number of ideas, the weight of experimentalism and out there nature of what they were trying to do, crossing over into the world of millions of albums sold and stadium gigs. Steve Mason, John MacLean, Robin Jones and Gordon Anderson and later bassist Richard Greentree were not making music for the masses- and they seemed ill equipped to deal with that anyway. Besides, somethings are best kept n a smaller scale. 

The Three EPs overshadowed everything they did subsequently, all three albums that followed felt like they failed to meet the expectations the Three EPs placed on them. Listened to now, they seem less burdened by that weight and there's a lot worth listening to in The Beta Band (1999), Hot Shots II (2001) and Heroes To Zeroes (2004). 

Forty Five Minutes Of The Beta Band

• Push It Out
• Dry The Rain
• Eclipse
• Assessment
• Inner Meets Me (10:40's Outer Hebrides Dub)
• The Cow's Wrong
• The Hard One (Manmousse Remix)
• Simple 
• Dr. Baker

Push It Out is the opening track on 1998's Los Amigos Del Beta Bandidos, the third of the three EPs that announced them as the late 90s flagbearers for genre busting low fi, experimental indie. Is indie the right word? It seems too small for The Beta Band. Attempting to dissect or explain what makes Push It Out and the other songs from the three EPs is pointless. You just have to listen to them and feel them. The pots and pans percussion, dub basslines, acoustic guitars, samples and space/ atmosphere is solely their own. Steve Mason's vocals- double tracked, doleful, oblique, melancholic- sound more and more like a man trying to work his way through the depths of depression. Dr. Baker is stunning, a song that tells the story of the titular figure, a man whose 'dog was dead and wife was dead/ misery planned inside his head', a song with Mason singing the line 'see me lost inside' over and over, that sounds like a long dark night of the soul and yet somehow makes it all seem OK. Genius. Not a word I use lightly. 

Dry The Rain I wrote about recently. If it's what they end up being remembered for, it's probably more than enough. 

Eclipse is from 2001's Hot Shots II, a song about questions. The album was a complete piece of work, minimal hip hop beats and their experimental sound refined with the help of producer Colin C- Swing Emmanuel. 

Assessment opened their third and final album Heroes To Zeroes, self produced and then mixed by Nigel Godrich. Over blistering ringing electric guitars Steve Mason sings 'I think I cracked my skull on the way down/ I think I lost my head when I lay down' and everything goes leftwards from there. The crunchy guitar breakdown in the middle is exhilarating and the pile on of instruments at the end, trumpets joining in, is a rush. Simple is also from Heores To Zeros, more lovely, expansive experimental indie with another lost and broken lyric from Mason- 'I tired to do my own thing/ But the problem with your own thing/ Is you end up on your own'. 

Their albums are all overshadowed by The Three EPs but there's gold in all of the three proper albums and this is one of the pieces of gold. And the video is unbelievable. No- one else was doing this sort of thing or doing it so effortlessly (it cost them the band though- they split owing the record company one million  quid, partly the result of making expensive arty videos).

Inner Meet Me is from the second EP, The Patty Patty Sound. Jesse Fahnestock's 10:40 Dub is exactly what it says it is. Jesse's a big fan and I think you can hear it in a lot of his work. This edit originally came out on Paisley Dark in May 2021. 

The Cow's Wrong is from their self- titled 1999 debut album, an album they legendarily slagged off to the music press. 'It's fucking awful', they told the NME, 'one of the worst records that'll come out this year'. Experimental pop, ambient drone, excursions into trip hop and cosmic balladry crossed with folky psychedelia and late 90s indie together with the mass of acclaim for The Three EPs  took its toll on its makers. It's better than its creators had us believe at the time but its also dense and abstract, a complex and ambitious album. They also got into legal trouble with Bonnie Tyler and Jim Steinman on The Hard One. The Cow's Wrong and The Hard One are both from The Beta Band (The Hard One Manmousse Remix came out as an extra track on an extra disc, an ambient- abstract hip hop version of the song). They were following their noses and taking risks and that's what artists should do. 

Powder Waxing

10:40 released an EP back in 2023 as Powder Wax Vol. 1, a dancefloor oriented track called Little Black Dress with vocals by S.A.A.R.A. There were three mixes. The Undressed Dub bent the original most out of shape with rattling drums, juddering synths and acres of space. Eventually the four four drums kicked in and a fragment of vocal remained among the swirls of FX.

Little Black Dress (Undressed Dub)

Now there's a follow up, Powder Wax Vol 2, two more tracks aimed at the floor and the lights, no nonsense, four four fun. Actually, lots of fun and nonsense is likely to be ignited by this pair of tracks. Beneath The Waves is quality machine funk, squelchy synth sounds, some 80s sci- fi chord changes, a snippet of voice that's been chopped up and the feeling that this could go on and on.... Second track Miracle Me comes in on thumping drums, bending synth sounds, stepped chords and a snare kicking away. There's more vocal on this one, 'I need you/ Deep inside', sung soulfully and housed up, while the synths and FX get wiggier. I could see this one filling floors and raising hands. 

Which handily, we'll get the chance to find out in person when Jesse and Darren bring their Jezebell takeover to The Golden Lion next month, on the 15th and 16th March. Me and Martin are taking part on the Sunday, playing tunes alongside Jesse and Darren, Adam Roberts, Kim Lana and FC Kahuna. The previous day/ night has a line up consisting of OBOST playing live and DJ sets from Stuart Alexander, Nessa Johnson, Martin Moscrop from ACR, Jamie Tolley and Jezebell finishing things off. It should be a lot of fun. 

Powder Wax Vol. 2 is out today and it should be available here. 

Fifty Minutes Of Edits Volume Two

Another Sunday mix of edits to follow the one from two weeks ago (here). The first one was quite thumpy. This one is more dubbed out, more blissed out and laid back, more drifty, featuring a similar and familiar cast of edit- creators. There's plenty of material unused sitting in my downloads folders too so volume three is only a matter of time. 

Fifty Minutes Of Edits Volume Two

• Nine Million Rainy Days (Los Lopez Edit)
• One Way To Go (10:40's So High It Hurts Edit)
• Inner Meet Me (10:40's Outer Hebrides Dub)
• Kate's Bush (Nocturnal Edit)
• Steppers Rock
• Totem Edits 19 Medicine
• Edit To The Siren
• Totem Edits 18 Air

The Los Lopez edit of The Jesus And Mary Chain's 9 Million Rainy Days first came my way well over a decade ago, 2013 I think, Jim and William's misanthropy/ existential despair set to an electronic throb. 'As far as I can tell/ I'm being dragged from here to hell/ All my time in hell is spent with you', Jim mutters (on 1987's Darklands originally). This is the diametric opposite of the feelings and sentiment expressed in the widescreen, gloriously romantic, panoramic love that propels the fourth track in this mix. 

Jesse Fahnestock is 10:40. He recut a very early Verve song, One Way To Go (a B-side to the Wigan quartet's first release, the magnificent sky scraping northern psychedelia of All In The Mind). Jesse looped it up and set the controls for the heart of the dub. On hearing it I said to Jesse he should re- edit all of the early Verve's music as dub extravaganzas- A Dub In Heaven. I'm still waiting. His edit of The Beta Band's Inner Meet Me came out on Paisley Dark in 2021, a song from The Patty Patty Sound, one of those unearthly EPs The Beta Band released in 1997/ 1998 when they looked like the future of leftfield music, a completely new way of doing things. 

Coyote's edit of Nocturn was one of my favourite records of 2022, a swooning, deep sea dive into the cosmos. Or something. Their Magic Wand edit releases, vinyl only, are always top drawer. I love the way it starts off with one beat and then switches tempo, like the speed selector being suddenly flipped from 33 to 45. Nocturn was on Kate's 2005 album Aerial. 'We stand in the Atlantic/ We become panoramic/ We tire of the city/ We tire of it all/ We long for that just something more'. Yep, I know that feeling.

Steppers Rock came out on the recently revived Eclectics label, based in Bournemouth and the start of what promises to be one to watch. 

Totem Edits are the work of Leo Zero and Justin Deighton, a weekly treasure trove. Last week they dropped a Balearic/ cowboy stomp edit of Big Audio Dynamite's  Medicine Show (an all timer of a song for me). Air (from a week earlier) is John Martyn's Solid Air recut beautifully. I've been in a John Martyn phase recently, Solid Air and One World. By all accounts a terrible and flawed person but the music...

Edit To The Siren performs the possibly sacrilegious feat of taking This Mortal Coil's Song To The Siren and turns it into a dubbed out/ late night Balearic treat. The work of In The Valley. Wobbly. 

NYE 2024 Mix

Staying in has been proclaimed as the new going out many times now. New Year's Eve is often the most overrated night out of the year but in the past we had fun going on NYE and I'm sure they'll be loads of people who do tonight. We have no plans to do anything major and hence will be in by the time 2025 comes around at midnight. In place of a crowded dance floor here's a Bagging Area NYE 2024 mix, starts out dubby, then goes Tricky, and then thumpy before calming down slightly and finishing with the return of a long gone 60s icon. 

Everything on it was released this year and it's quite David Holmes and Hardway Bros heavy (which probably explains a lot of what I've listened to this year). I wanted to find room for several other tracks but also wanted to keep it down to under 80 minutes for those of you who still burn things to CD to play in the car (that may just be me). I tried to fit Acid Klaus in but couldn't make it work, Hardway Bros' Murky didn't find a place (and should have) and there's one segue where it's a bit off- Audacity isn't really for mixing more sequencing, and sometimes my patience gets replaced by my 'it'll do' attitude. But if you want a shuffle to some chuggy, leftfield, acidic, dubby, thumpy and ultimately life affirming electronic music at some point tonight, it might do the trick. 

NYE24 Mix

• Red Snapper and David Harrow: Hold My Hand Up
• Theis Thaws: Fly To Ceiling (David Holmes Mix)
• Silvertooth: Shut Um Down (A Dub From Outer Space)
• Ammonite: You Don't Know Me (David Holmes Remix)
• C.A.R.: Anzu (Hardway Bros Remix)
• Peak High: Dance Hall Days (Hardway Bros Remix)
• Causeway: Dancing With Shadows (Marshall's Club Mix)
• Ben Hunt: Shimmering Lights (Rude Audio Remix)
• Lisa Moorish: Sylvia (David Holmes Remix)
• Raxon: Your Fault
• Puerto Montt City Orchestra: Hey You (10:40 Remix)
• 100 Poems: Dubmobalearicswithmybreaksman

David Harrow celebrated turning 60 in 2024 by releasing music every month. One of those releases was a four track EP called Tight Chest with jazz/ techno/ dub/ surf legends Red Snapper. This was the lead track, a wonderful piece of 2024 dubbiness that should have got more attention than it did. 

Theis Thaws was an album that saw the return of Tricky (Adrian Thaws) with French producer Mike Theis and singer Rosa Rocca- Serra. David Holmes' remix, as everyone said when it came out, was approximately three minutes too short but even at only three minutes eighteen seconds it packs a powerful if slightly paranoid punch. 

Silvertooth, from South London, released Shut Um Down in November, a cover of  Gil Scott Heron song, partly inspired by Sean Johnston's continuing ALFOS parties. It came in a variety of versions with two ALFOS aimed dubs- rolling pianos, chuggy dubby beats, and a lovely low slung groove.

Ammonite makes very ethereal music, layers of voice and gossamer drones. She remixed Holmes' Emotionally Clear into an ambient track. Holmes returned the favour by pumping Ammonite's You Don't Know Me up into an electronic banger. 

C.A.R.'s Anzu lit up late 2023. The remixes came out in 2024, courtesy of GLOK and Hardway Bros. Sean's Hardway Bros remixes have been in full flow for the last few years and the standard is uniformly high. This one and the Hardway Bros Dub were on heavy rotation at Bagging Area back at the start of the year.

Peak High's cover of Wang Chung's Dance Hall Days was a delight, coming after the equally superb Was That All It Was in 2023. The Hardway Bros remix dubs things down, turning the 80s pop down a bit, and finds that BPM sweet spot that Sean knows very well.

Causeway are on Chris Massey's Manchester label Sprechen but the duo (Marshall Watson and Alison Rae) are based in California,a world away from South Manchester. Dancing With Shadows is the 80s teen film anthem you missed, the sounds playing in the disco where Molly Ringwald has a revelation while dancing with the wrong boy. It came with a slew of remixes- the one here is Marshall's own. 

Ben Hunt's Shimmering Lights came out last month on Paisley Dark with a range of remixes, all of which hit the spot. Rude Audio remixes are often in the 98 BPM dub area. This one whacks it up and heads for end of the night Underworld vibes, the vocal sample, 'I see patterns in everything', twisting around like Karl Hyde in the mid- 90s. 

Lisa Moorish's comeback single in April was a beautiful electro- pop tribute to Sylvia Plath. David Holmes' remix did exactly what you'd want from a Holmes remix. 

Raxon's Your Fault was an autumn '24 highlight although I didn't catch on until later. It is fabulously wonky dance floor euphoria from Cologne, sounds shifting in and out, everything shifting and moving as if the floor is giving way. 

Puerto Montt City Orchestra's Hey You came out on Brighton's Higher Love label, the home of many, many good releases. It's a cover of 80s indie band 14 Iced Bears Hay Fever with original singer Rob Sekula returning to do the vocals. On the 10:40 remix Jesse sent this woozy 2024 c86 song through a Spiritualized filter, everyone involved laid back in the sun. 

100 Poems have released three albums this year, each one stuffed full of beautiful, brilliant tunes and a open minded anything goes attitude to making music and to life. Mike Wilson named the band after a collection of Seamus Heaney poems and the inscription on Heaney's headstone- 'walk on air against your better judgement'- is what the music is all about. On the third of the three albums, Balearic As A System Of Belief, Mike used the voice of Jim Morrison, a late 60s interview where he was talking about the future of music and how it would be electronic. And there may be a better way to see 2025 in than by listening to the utterances of the Lizard King repurposed for 2024/ 5 but I can't think of one at the moment. 

Happy New Year everyone- in or out, have a good one. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Sunday Songs

It seemed too obvious for a while but then a few things came together and a Sunday mix of Sunday songs was staring me in the face. I managed to give it a kind of narrative too with a beginning and an end. Not to mention plenty of good music in the middle- Sunday likes its ambient and its electronics. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Sunday Songs

• Kris Kristofferson: Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down
• Kevin McCormick: Sunday Farmway
• Sabres Of Paradise: Blackfriars Sunday (Peel Session)
• 10:40: Sunday's Cool
• Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve: Sunday Morning Sun- g
• Sonic Youth: Sunday
• Perry Granville: Cleveland Sunday
• Justin Cudmore: Sunday Lemonade
• Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds: Frogs

Kris Kristofferson is the starting point for this mix. He died in September at the age of 88. Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down was written in 1969 and was been recorded and released by Johnny Cash and Ray Stevens. Kris' version is the best though. He wrote it and he lived it and felt it. 'Well I woke up Sunday mornin' with no way to hold my head that didn't hurt/ And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad, so I had one more for dessert'. Then he finds his cleanest dirty shirt and heads out. There are cigarettes, cans being kicked, frying chicken and 'the disappearing dreams of yesterday'. 

Kevin McCormick is from Manchester and in the early 80s made some wonderful but very lost and overlooked ambient guitar music. Thankfully, Kevin's albums have been rediscovered, dusted down and re- released recently and they are very much worth diving into. Sunday Farmway it from Sticklebacks and you can get it here. I reviewed the latest one, Passing Clouds, at Ban Ban Ton Ton last month- you can read that here. 

In March 1995 Sabres Of Paradise recorded a Peel Session that has never been officially released, three tracks also never appearing anywhere else- Duke On Berwick, Stanshall's Lament and the one here, Blackfriars Sunday, the sound of the Sabres Sunday service. Next year the reformed Sabres Of Paradise live band will perform at Primavera and then hopefully in the UK and elsewhere. 

Sunday's Cool was on of the tracks on 10:40's Transition Theory, one of my favourite albums of 2023. The album was intended as a whole piece, each track segueing into the next and containing the seeds of the next one. Removing Sunday's Cool from its moorings didn't feel completely right but it fits nicely into its new surroundings here too. 

Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve marry 60s psychedelia with acid house, Richard Norris and Erol Alkan experts at both. Sunday Morning Sun- g is from a fairly rare 12" from 2007.

'Sunday comes alone again/ A perfect day for a quiet friend', sang Thurston Moore and Sonic Youth in 1998. Sunday was the only single from A Thousand Leaves. Full on Sunday guitar vibes.

Perry Granville's Cleveland Sunday is from a 2022 EP, a take- no- prisoners acid thumper. Get it and a pair of remixes here. Sundays spent dancing and warding off the horrors of Monday morning. 

Justin Cudmore's Sunday Lemonade came out on New York label Throne Of Blood, as part of a series of releases in 2022 to celebrate their sixteenth birthday. Sunday Lemonade is all bleeps, filters and FX with a kick drum thundering away underneath. Messy Sunday mornings. 

Frogs came out this year, the second song ahead of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds' Wild God album. It has followed me round all year, soundtracking my daily life, one of this year's best songs and one of Nick's best too. In Frogs a couple (him and Susie I assume) are walking home in the Sunday rain, having heard the story of Cain and Abel. Nick becomes aware of the Sunday rain and the natural world around him, the sheer aliveness of everything, frogs in the gutter and Nick 'amazed of love and amazed of pain/ Amazed to be back in the water again'. Kris Kristofferson walks by kicking a can, in a shirt he hasn't washed for years, and there we are, back at the beginning. Happy Sunday. 

Another Bagging Area Mix For Tak Tent Radio

I've done another mix for Tak Tent Radio, an internet radio station broadcasting out of Scotland for several years now and host to a wonderfully diverse and obscure selection of music. This is my twelfth mix for Tak Tent, an hour of tunes entirely music from 2024 and focussing very much on the dubwise sounds before pitching things up at the end with a pair of twisted dancefloor bangers. Listen to it at Tak Tent or at Mixcloud.

Tracklist

•          Coyote: OMG
•          Five Green Moons: One Lost Moon
•          The Jonny Halifax Invocation: The Mountain Dub
•          Richard Norris and Jon Carter: Ceefax (Jon Carter Due South Dub)
•          Puerto Montt City Orchestra: Hey You (10:40 Remix)
•          Pandit Pam Pam: Pass A Wish (Jezebell’s 50 Ways Mix)
•          100 Poems: Come, Hear Me Now
•          Fat White Family: Bullet Of Dignity (Beyond The Wizard’s Sleeve Remix)
•          Acid Klaus ft Philly Piper: Aerodromes (David Holmes Remix)

Fifty Minutes Of 10:40

I first heard the music of 10:40 three years ago when 10:40 (Jesse Fahnestock) shared his edit/ dub of Spacemen 3's How Does It Feel? in a few groups I'm a member of.

How Does It Feel? (10: 40's Terrace Moonshine Dub)

Jesse takes an already somnolent/ tripped out Pete Kember and co and filters him through a dub filter, everything stretched out and reverberating slowly. 

From there I dug into the 10:40 back catalogue and found a treasure trove of edits, dubs, original music, remixes, Balearic shufflers, chuggers, bangers and a lot of slow, repetitive psychedelia. Jesse's big influences- Andrew Weatherall, Hardkiss, Spacemen 3 and Spiritualized- all made use of repetition and the long groove. After a while Jesse got in touch and stated sharing tracks with me, both as 10: 40 and his partnership with Darren Bell as Jezebell. At the start of 2023 10:40 released Transition Theory, an album that is a full conceived piece of work, each track flowing beautifully into the next one. Jesse was one of the people we approached to be on Sounds From the Flightpath Estate Volume 1, a relative unknown next to some big hitters- David Holmes, Justin Robertson, Sean Johnstone, an unreleased Weatherall and Tenniswood track for crying out loud!- and his track Three Rings stands along side any of the others on the album. 

I thought it was time for a Sunday 10:40 mix. Once I started going through my folders and realised how much music Jesse has made my head swam a bit- so much music, what to include? In the end I went for a mix of slow and low, dubby electronic psychedelia, a world where it's permanently twenty to eleven. Maybe the bangers need a mix of their own. This was a tricky one to do in some ways and the tempo speeds up and slows down which maybe I should have fixed and shifted the sequence around to make it flow more evenly. And yes, that Spacemen 3 edit should really have been on it too.

10: 40's Bandcamp is here. 

Fifty Minutes Of 10: 40

• One Way To Go (10: 40's So High It Hurts Edit)
• Green Shoots
• Neighbors Dub
• Left Behind Blues
• Sea Quenched
• Kissed Again
• Iz Um
• Hey You (10: 40 Remix)
• Tumbling Down

One Way To Go was on the B-side of the first 12" Verve released, back in 1992 when the Wigan psychonauts were four young, straggly haired, psychedelic/ shoegaze noise explorers, a genuinely brilliant live band and hadn't yet been forced to add The to their name or become balladeers. All In The Mind was a calling card, a gauntlet thrown down. Jesse does a full on dubbed out treatment. I suggested to him once that he should remix and dub the entire early Verve back catalogue. I think he thought I was joking.

Last December Jesse re- presented the entire 10:40 back catalogue as an advent calendar, putting everything out there one more time before deleting it. Green Shoots was the behind 5th door, Neighbors Dub was 8th December's door, Sea Quenched the 18th, Iz Um was the 19th, and Left Behind Blues the 21st.

Kissed Again is an absolute beauty, the lead track on a three track EP that came out on Brighton's Higher Love label, the home of some truly wonderful modern Balearica. In September 2021 I described Kissed Again as ' a blissed out glide- by track from Jesse Fahnestock's 10:40 alias, an eight minute trip, with gently rising and falling synths, bubbling sounds, rolling piano chords, some acid squiggles and a sense of reaching an ending that'll leave you either grinning or slightly dewy eyed. Maybe both'. I'm sticking with that. 

Hey You is a cover  of 14 Iced Bears song Hey Fever by Puerto Montt City Orchestra with original singer Rob Sekula recording new vocals for the song. Jesse goes all Spiritualized, nearly eight minutes of trippy psychedelia.

Tumbling Down is the opener from Transition Theory and really, once you've let this mix paly through and ended on Tumbling Down you should cue up the album and go straight on through. 

Friday/ Saturday Bandcamp Bonanza

Bandcamp Friday yesterday dropped a ton of new music into my Inbox and while today is a day late in terms of the benefits the artists get from the monthly Bandcamp Friday (Bandcamp waive their fees for one day a month) it's still worth posting some of the highlights- and yesterday was packed full of highlights.

We'll start with a 10: 40 remix of Puerto Montt City orchestra, a song called Hey You, out on Brighton's Higher Love label. By his own admission Jesse's work as 10: 40 has been an ongoing mission to make music/ remixes that channel Spiritualized and this one takes that to the nth degree- cue up Jason Spaceman's Lay Back In The Sun either before or after this and enjoy the sun drenched, blissed out ride....

                                                 

The song is a cover of 14 Iced Bears' Hay Fever, an 80s indie classic. You can get buy the 10: 40 remix of Puerto Montt City Orchestra at Bandcamp.

Next, another murky, underground, radiophonic, analogue synth missive from Pye Corner Audio, the first one for a few months, this one titled Texture Reels. Four minutes and forty five seconds of subterranean, kosmische reel to reel intensity. Get it at Bandcamp, pay what you want. 

Thirdly, Emma. Matty Ducasse records as Skylab. His Skylab International offshoot released a new single onto Bandcamp yesterday, a cover of Hot Chocolate's Emma. Mat plays and produces, Zoe Filthy- Rich songs. The drum machine pitter patters, chunky machine rhythms. The synths ping and blip. Hot Chocolate's mid- 70s pop- soul hit is darker than you might think. Producer Mickie Most asked singer Errol Brown for 'darkness and depth'. Errol gave him lyrics about lost childhood and suicide, a film star 'who can't keep living on dreams no more'. Mat and Zoe dredge up all of the pain and darkness that Errol piled into his lyrics. The EP is at Bandcamp, remix, edit and instrumental.

Lastly, Richard Norris whose Oracle Sound dub project has become essential listening. Richard has recorded three albums of dubs, available digitally and on vinyl via his subscription service. Recently he hosted his friend Jon Carter, who DJed at the Heavenly Social in the 90s and recorded as Monkey Mafia as well as under his own name. Richard wanted to show Jon some new kit. They ended up making a dub track called Ceefax- rocking drums and bass, space echo, melodica and an Ampp Freq live dub machine. The results come in three parts- Ceefax, a Norris dub and a Carter dub. All three are at Bandcamp. As I keep typing. 

You can buy all the music above for less than the price of a pint of lager in central London (and some central Manchester pubs). And while the lager may look briefly colder and more enticing, the music will last longer. 

Trance Stance

Electric Blue Vision released one of late 2023's best EPs, Jesse Fahnestock and Emilia Harmony's genre blurring widescreen Balearic psyche- folk/ indie dance track Other Skies. It came with three remixes that pushed it into other spaces, courtesy of Balearic Ultras, Tambores En Benniras and Hardway Bros Meets Monkton Uptown. If you haven't got it, get it here. The debut Electric Blue Vision track was a self titled electronic swoon with Emilia's celestial vocals floating by and if you haven't got that one you should get that too here.  

Now, today, comes the latest Electric Blue Vision release, out on Electric Wardrobe Records. Trance Stance was inspired by Emilia's outline for a song, one about the thrill of seeking someone out across a crowded dancefloor, the excitement of, 'waiting all night long just to rock your body down'. The music is a slow burning groove, chugging drums and bass, swampy guitars and some bleeps and bloops. Jesse made a connection with Emilia's lyrics to Joan Jett And The Blackhearts 1981 smash single I Love Rock 'n' Roll, Jesse's first ever single purchase and a record that probably provides all kinds of Proustian rushes for those of us of a certain age. As a result, a snippet of Joan ended up in Trance Stance (which also nods its head in the direction Dexys). 

The smokey, late night club vibe of Trance Stance comes with three remixes, all of which spin the song off in new directions. The Time Machine Dropouts remix comes via Matt Gunn (Electric wardrobe's main man) and Chad Jackson, an irresistible phunked up version with loops of bass, a floor filling drum break and whooshes. San Francisco's Cole Odin hits the space rock buttons, a cosmic trip with the controls firmly set for going further. Lastly Jesse provides his own remix, done with his 10: 40 headgear on, the Haight Steppin Remix, stripped down, gnarly electronics with whistles. Trance Stance is at Electric Wardrobe Records here. 

Joan Jett had form for rocking up with well chosen cover versions. I Love Rock 'n' Roll was originally released by Arrows in 1975. While on tour with The Runaways a year later she saw Arrows perform it on TV. Joan recorded and released a version with a pair of Sex Pistols, Steve Jones and Paul Cook in 1979 but then re- recorded it with The Blackhearts in '81. In 1981 Joan followed her hit single with another one, her cover of Crimson And Clover, a song that is peerless in early 80s pop- rock. It was originally a 1968 hit for Tommy James And The Shondells, bubblegum psyche- pop. Joan's version is totally badass, as they say.

Crimson And Clover

NYE 23

Let's wave goodbye to 2023 with the final Sunday mix of the year, this one stretching out with an hour and thirteen minute's worth of tunes from this year, not exactly a Best Of 2023 (although these are among the best of this year) more of a Some Of 2023. A mixture of trippy, dubby electronic music, throbbing dance tunes, chuggy indie dance, Balearic pop and Dublin guitar slinging sturm und drang. 

Happy New Year. Have fun tonight however you're choosing to celebrate. Thank you to everyone who's come here this year, to read and comment. I don't think I write this thing with an audience in mind but it helps to know that there is one, and that the people that populate it and places like this one are defintely a community. The comments and responses, particularly to some of the more personal, grief related posts, are genuinely much appreciated and a real support. Thank you, all of you. 

Onwards into 24. 

2023 NYE Mix

• Aphex Twin: Blackbox Life Recorder 21f
• Four Tet: Three Drums
• Khidja: Do You Know This Record Marius?
• Psychederek: Test Card Girl
• 10:40: Little Black Dress (Undressed Dub)
• A Man Called Adam: The Girl With The Hole In Her Heart
• David Holmes: Stop Apologising (Horse Meat Disco Vocal Remix)
• Marshall Watson and Cole Odin: Just A Daydream Away (Hardway Bros Remix)
• Islandman: Godless Ceremony (Hardway Bros Remix)
• James Holden: Common Land
• JIM: Still River Flow
• Fontaines DC: 'Cello Song

Forty Six Minutes Of Twenty Three

Two months ago this weekend, the day before we were taking Eliza back to Liverpool for her final year in university, the three of us were sitting in a cafe in Didsbury village, one of our afternoon walk and a brew haunts. Eliza said, out of nowhere, 'I think we should all go and get a number 23 tattoo for Isaac'. Lou and I looked at each other and both said, 'yeah. ok'. It was very spontaneous, none of us ever really thought abut getting a tattoo before. Me and Eliza had joked about but very much in a 'we won't ever do this' kind of way. But at that moment it suddenly seemed like a good thing to do. Unfortunately the tattoo parlour in Sale couldn't fit us in on the day so we booked in for a month later- it felt like something the three of us should do together and Eliza didn't want to come back from Liverpool for a while. It also gave us some time to think about fonts and parts of the body.

The number 23 has become associated with Isaac. I've written about it before this year. He was 23 when he died and his birthday is the 23rd November (just a couple of weeks away now with the 2nd anniversary of his death a week later). In the last year the number 23 has kept appearing in front of me- on street signs, graffiti, electricity boxes, random tv countdown shows suddenly channel surfed onto, the only available table in a pub. I don't think it necessarily means anything- it's just something I've started noticing and when I see a 23 now it makes me think of him and smile. Getting a 23 tattoo might trigger the same reaction (and a month later, I'm happy to say it does). We got the tattoos done a month ago. Mine is pictured above, a type writer font on my forearm. Lou got a smaller 23 on her side and Eliza got an even smaller, fine line 23 on her upper arm. 

The number 23 has a rich history. I've written before as well about it's part in KLF mythology, with their interest in Discordianism and numerology. When Isaac died I was reading John Higgs' book about The KLF. A few weeks after he died I picked the book back up and the first chapter I read was about the significance of 23. I finished the chapter and put the book down, totally freaked about. I read it again the next day and it had a similar effect. When I was looking at fonts for my tattoo I thought about a KLF block 23 but it would very inky and take some time to do. I fancied a type writer font. On the morning we were due to go I suddenly wondered what 23 would look like in a factory/ Peter Saville font and started going through my various Factory art books. What, I asked myself, was Fac 23? A quick search later and I realised Fac 23 was the 7" release of Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division. Which caused me to stop in my tracks for a moment. In the end I didn't quite go full Peter Saville Fac font but it played a part in my thinking. We're all really glad we got them done. At the moment, all autumn chilliness and long sleeves, its often covered up, but when I see it, it makes me smile. The upcoming anniversaries are weighing quite heavily and I'll be glad to get November over with- but the tattoos feel like a positive and I'm not sure a year ago I'd thought that would be possible. 

This mix is 46 minutes of songs connected to the number 23. I was going to bring it in at 23 minutes but that felt too short so went for double 23. Two of the songs below were also released in full 23 minute versions which felt too long for a Sunday mix but they're here in shorter versions to represent their 23 minute long brothers. 

46 Minutes Of 23

• Chris Rotter And The Bad Meat Club: 86'd
• 10:40: Sleepwalker
• Local Psycho And The Hurdy Gurdy Orchestra: The Hurdy Gurdy Song (Mothers Of The New Stone Age Remix)
• 23 Skidoo: Coup
• Jah Division: Jah Will Tear Us Apart
• The Vendetta Suite: Eye In The Triangle
• Two Lone Swordsmen: 23rd Street
• Mogwai: U235
• Gorillaz: Aries
• Psychic TV: Godstar
• The KLF: 3am Eternal

Chris Rotter was the guitarist in the live band incarnation of Two Lone Swordsmen and played on and co- wrote songs on Andrew Weatherall's solo album A Pox On The Pioneers. I became friends with Chris online and then in real life. When Isaac died he wanted to record a song for Isaac. I asked him to do 86'd, a song I heard Andrew play on a radio show, a glorious chiming krauty instrumental. Chris went and re- recorded 86'd in new form, 23 minutes long. For reasons of space I've included the shorter one here. The full length 86'd (For Isaac) is here. 

Last December Jesse represented the entire 10:40 back catalogue as an advent calendar. This was the track for the 23rd December, the sleek psych and somewhat krauty Sleepwalker with Ben Lewis on guitar.

The KLF and the number 23 I've mentioned above. Read John Higgs' Chaos, Magic And The Band Who Burned A Million Pounds for more detail. Local Psycho And The Hurdy Gurdy Orchestra are ex- KLF Jimmy Cauty and ex- Pogue Jem Finer. Their hurdy gurdy, neolithic celebration drone came out on 12" came out earlier this year complete with a 23 minute mix. I've included the shorter remix here but the 23 minute version is the one really. 

23 Skidoo are here for obvious reasons. Coup is a block rocking post- punk/ punk funk track from 1984. In a further Andrew Weatherall connection, it was one of the songs on his 9 O' Clock Drop compilation from 2000. 

Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart, as I said above, was Fac 23. Factory's numbering system was central to their ethos. All Joy Division and New Order singles ended in 3. Rather than include the original I decided to put Jah Division's dub cover in- it fitted better. Jah Division released an EP of four dub covers of Joy Division songs  in 2004. If you ever see a vinyl copy, please give me a ring. 

The Vendetta Suite are from Northern Ireland, the work of Gary Irwin. In 2017 Gary released an EP titled Solar Lodge 23 from which this piece of cosmic dubbiness is taken. 

Two Lone Swordsmen- yes, them again- released their first record in 1996, a 12" that contained four tracks- Big Man On The Landing, Azzolini, The Branch Brothers and the one here, 23rd Street, a few minutes of abstract Swordsmen sounds. 

Mogwai's move into soundtrack work has paid off. This is from the soundtrack to Atomic, a bit of a cheat maybe numerically but 23's in there and the track fits.

Gorillaz have played with the number 23 frequently in their imagery and artwork. This song Aries was a single in 2020 and has the unmistakeable and melancholic/ uplifting sound of Peter Hook's bass at its heart.  

Psychic TV, Genesis P Orridge's experimental psychedelic/ acid house band had some interest in 23. In 1986 they began a series of gigs to be recorded and released, 23 in total, each played on the 23rd of a month for 23 consecutive months. Godstar is a single from 1985, a tribute to Rolling Stone Brian Jones.

The KLF's 3am Eternal was the second of their stadium house trilogy, released in 1991 (after a previous version in 1989 and a subsequent one in 1992). The version here, the 1991 single and chart topper, took this mix to 46 minutes. 

Forty Five Minutes of Speaking Voices

I had the misfortune recently to see an advert on TV with the voice of Alan Watts is being used to sell cruises for the Cunard shipping company. Watts was a writer, speaker and philosopher who did much in the 1950s and 60s to popularise Eastern philosophies in the west. His lectures and speeches have been widely available for a long time, not least since the rise of Youtube. His son tries to control the use of them through an Alan Watts website where they can be downloaded when paid for, so presumably Cunard paid for the use of Alan's voice rather than just ripping it from Youtube. The advert chops up Watts' speech and misses the end section entirely, not surprisingly, (knowingly) misrepresenting the message of the original, selling a luxury cruise on the high seas as the dream Watts speaks of. I'm not here to complain about advertising, it's a bit late in the day for that. Watts' voice and speeches are instantly recognisable and catnip for use in media where his message, accent and speaking voice and rhythms are striking and attention grabbing. 

I came across this clip this week too, writer Paul Bowles interviewed in 1970 about a trance dance and self mutilation he witnessed while resident in Morocco. Bowles left the USA in 1947 and settled in Tangier, recording local musicians and writing. His novel The Sheltering Sky came out in 1949, turned into an epic film by Bernardo Bertolucci in 1990 (I read the book and saw the film at the time and enjoyed both but don't remember much about either now so need to revisit). Bowles' speaking voice, like Alan Watts, very much lends itself to being set to music, not just the content but the tone and timbre and patterns of speech. Which led to think that speaking voices set to music would make a good longform mix.

The mix below is forty five minutes of speaking voices set to music, sometimes where voice and music have been specifically made for and recorded with each other and sometimes where the voice has been taken from earlier recordings and sampled. I could probably find enough to make a second at some point in the future. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Speaking Voices

• Jon Hopkins, Ram Dass and East Forest: Sit Around The Fire
• 10:40: The First Step
• Coyote: The Outsider
• David Holmes and Jon Hopkins ft. Stephen Rea: Elsewhere Anchises
• Rude Audio and Dan Wainwright: Be Love
• Steve Queralt and Michael Smith: Chaldean Oracle
• Steve Queralt and Michael Smith: Glitches (Flug 8 Remix)
• Fireflies and Joe Duggan: Leonard Cohen Knows

Sit Around The Fire is the closing track on Jon Hopkins 2022 Music For Psychedelic Therapy, the voice of guru and writer Ram Dass talking about spiritual discovery through sitting round the fire and staring at the flames, while Hopkins' slow piano chords and sound of wood burning and crackling drift by. 

The First Step came out on Higher Love Vol. 2 last year, a 10:40 track that borrows a Bertrand Russell interview and layers a slow burning groove and wash around it, growing in emotion with nods to Elvis and Spiritualized. Russell speaks of acting and of doing in spite of doubt and in the absence of religion.  Magical stuff. 

Coyote are masters of sampling voices and building beautiful Balearic songs around them. This one takes Alan Watts talking about artists, work, states of evolution and sane and insane societies, adds some lovely acoustic guitar, and pays tribute to Andrew Weatherall (who styled himself as The Outsider when writing for Boy's Own back in the late 80s). The Outsider is the last song on their 2021 album The Mystery Light, a highly recommended record. 

Elsewhere Anchises is from David Holmes' Late Night Tales, a stunning 2016 compilation album that pulled together nineteen songs of life and loss, spanning Buddy Holly and David Crosby to Eat Light Become Light and songs David made for the album. On Elsewhere Anchises actor Stephen Rea speaks the words of Seamus Heaney over David's ambient backdrop, the sound of something quite special taking place. 

Rude Audio and Dan Wainwright have released one of this year's best dub/ dub techno/ psychedelia albums, Psychedelic Science. Be Love opens the album with the voice of Ram Dass making his second appearance on this mix. 

Steve Queralt and Michael Smith released the four track EP Sun Moon Town last year, Ride bassist Steve writing and recording four very different pieces of music and Hartlepool born writer and flaneur Michael narrating his own tales of adventures and wanderings in the 21st century, a place and time that seems quite bewildering to him. The Flug 8 remix comes from this year's remix package, a dissection of late stage capitalism and advertising agency dreams you can dance to.  

Fireflies is one of Nina Walsh's musical outlets, a South London based collective. The voice is that of Joe Duggan, Derry born and resident of Crystal Palace. 'If anyone knows', Joe says, 'Leonard Cohen knows'. 

Little Black Dress

Back at the start of the year 10:40 released an album, Transition Theory, an eleven track trip through the Balearic/ dub/ downtempo fields with each track containing the seeds of the next. It was in some ways 10:40's definitive statement, a bringing together of the sounds its creator Jesse had been pursuing and refining for the previous few years. This is the album's opening piece, Tumbling Down, where long synth chords and crackles of electricity provide the backdrop to a voice that's just out of earshot. Some slow hand drums start up and various melody lines weave in and out. The album is here if you don't have it or haven't heard it. 

Out today, a sidestep from Transition Theory, shimmying towards the flashing lights and smoke of the dancefloor, is the newest release from 10:40- Little Black Dress, a three version release on Powder Wax Vol. 1 which promises 'pop disco cosmic disco dub'. Little Black Dress (Original Fit), with vocals from S.A.A.R.A, is a collision of the pop and the disco with the cosmic and dub disco, a sleek, modern, mirrorball moment with wobbly synths, lasers, thumping kick drum and pulsing bass. 

It's joined by10:40's Heavy Eyeliner Dub and Undressed Dub. The Heavy Eyeliner Dub takes Little Black Dress from the main room to the 80s goth/ cool wave room, a smaller space and darker too with someone hammering the dry ice machine. There's more hairspray and leather jackets out on the floor, everyone glancing around as S.A.A.R.A sings, 'You send shivers down my spine' and the synths stutter.

The Undressed Dub rattles and shakes, S.A.A.R.A's voice chopped up and echoed. The second half builds in intensity, the punters in the cosmic disco backroom, a smiley friendly space, flipping out to the wiggly synths, tumbling drums and bumping bass. 

The Powder Wax Vol. 1 EP is available at Bandcamp, pay what you like.  

Fate's Faithful Punchline

A few weeks ago Nina Walsh rediscovered and shared a YouTube playlist made my Andrew Weatherall when he and Nina were doing Moine Dubh (the record label they formed to put out weird, off kilter folk music based in Crystal Palace). Nina said Andrew often forgot his usernames and passwords for YouTube and was constantly having to create new accounts- it's nice to know that's something that affects top DJs and producers as well as the rest of us. The playlist, Dubh Drops, is here and features an array of acts including Cheval Sombre, The Shadow Project, Hungry Ghosts, Amanda Palmer and Edward Ka- Spel, The Black Ryder, Dean Wareham, Rose City Band, The Carpenters and Negative Lovers. It also includes this gem by The Legendary Pink Dots...

Fate's Faithful Punchline

Led by finger picked acoustic guitar and Edward Ka- Spel's echo- drenched voice and eventually some strings, Fate's Faithful Punchline is moving, gorgeous and elegiac psychedelic folk. The Legendary Pink Dots are an Anglo- Dutch group, formed in London in 1980 and have since then released forty- seven albums, twenty- six live albums and forty- eight  compilations. And you thought The Fall were prolific. 

I included Fate's Faithful Punchline on my latest mix for Tak Tent Radio which went live at the weekend, an hour of songs that you can listen to here at Tak Tent or here at Mixcloud. Andrew Weatherall's fingerprints are to be found elsewhere in the mix in the form of his remix of The Impossibles from 1991 and a Beth Orton song he produced that was a B-side on the Someone's Daughter CD single. 

• Alex Kassian: Spirit Of Eden
• Martin Duffy: Promenading
• Eden Ahbez: Full Moon
• 10:40: Ninety- Now
• Coyote: Nothing Rests
• David Holmes: No- One Is Smarter Than History
• Gal Costa: Baby
• The Impossibles: The Drum (Andrew Weatherall Remix)
• A Certain Ratio: Houses In Motion (Version 1)
• Ultramarine: Stella
• Beth Orton: It’s This I Find I Am
• The Legendary Pink Dots: Fate’s Faithful Punchline