Late To The Party

A new release from Irish artist Def Nettle and a song that pushes a lot of post- punk/ 80s alternative and indie buttons, The Party. Built on top of punchy drums and a prodding bassline, there's accordion and flecks of guitar and singer/ frontman/ songwriter Glen Brady singing of being late to the party, acrid smoke and moving on. Lots of echoes of The The, Fatima Mansions, The Cure and other literate 80s indie- pop. 

There's a remix by Andy Bell in his GLOK guise which strips the song down, adds throbbing electro bass and percussive clacks. Andy drops the accordion melody back in among blips and bleeps and the vocal comes back sounding even more alienated than before. It's a murky and dark but energising piece of music, the sort of thing you hear in the street late at night, suddenly coming out of a briefly open door that leads down some stairs to a basement club, where there are lights flashing and the unmistakable smell of dry ice. 

You can find The Party at Bandcamp. 

Fifty Minutes Of A Mountain Of One

A Mountain Of One recently called time on the band, a four piece that in two bursts of activity, once in the 00s and then again in the 2020s, made some beautifully sunkissed psychedelic Balearica. They produced a sound that had a tinge of darkness to it, songs that had been left out in the sun too long and was now a little feverish, the result of a night out on holiday that ended up in a strange place that you could never find again. There are echoes of 70s and 80s bands, of weird Europop summer singles, of psychedelia and late 80s/ early 90s acid house, of guitar bands lost in the outer fields at summer festivals, yacht rock where the yacht is taking in water. 

The group put out three albums (2009's Institute Of Joy, 2022's existential Balearica Stars Planet Dust Me and a 2023 Ricardo Villalobos remix of SPDM), a compilation (2007's Collected Works) and various EPs and singles, which provide rich pickings for a mix- this one has a nice flow to it I think. 

Fifty Minutes Of A Mountain Of One

• Here Comes Nothing
• Innocent Reprise
• Surrender (Generalisation Dub)
• Star
• Star (GLOK Starlight Dub)
• Stars Planet Dust Me
• Ride (Time And Space Machine Remix)
• Can't Be Serious

Here Comes Nothing is from Collected Works, a 2007 CD that compiled the five songs from EP1 and the five from EP2 plus two extra ones- Here Comes Nothing and Brown Piano (which was also a single). Acoustic guitars and electric ones, swirly production, piano, wordless backing vocals- a heady stew. 

Innocent Reprise is from EP2, released in 2007- a psychedelic folk instrumental with a solid dance groove and some lovely guitar and electric piano melody lines. The choppy, fuzzy rhythm guitar part towards the end is nicely frazzled. 

Surrender was on 2022's Stars Planet Dust Me, an eight song, double vinyl downtempo masterpiece, one of my favourite records of that year. In 2024 Damian Harris remixed Surrender with his Midfield General hat on bringing some dubby funkiness. 

Star is from Stars Planet Dust Me, one of the key tracks on it. Laid back with a soulful vocal and an 80s Mediterranean beach bar piano part. Loafers, no socks, Euro- hippy braids and bracelets. Andy Bell's GLOK remix is a superb drawn out dub version, electronic drums and chuggy rhythms, the female backing vox recurring and the bass and FX reverberating all over the place. 

The Stars Planet Dust Me album's title track was an appropriately cosmic excursion, choral vocal and organ, very spaced out production and wide eyed questions. Proggy. 

Ride was a 2008 single and opening song on the Institute Of Joy album, and was remixed by Richard Norris during one of his Time And Space Machine phases. Ibizan acoustic guitars, rattling percussion and propulsive bass with Richard Norris setting the psychedelic space rock controls for the heart of the sun. 

Can't Be Serious is from EP1 from 2007, off kilter 80s Balearic pop with a distorted spiraling guitar solo, and a vocal that answers its own question. 

Breathy Drops/ Broken Heart

Florecer are a Californian duo who make dreamy, blissed out music that treads the beaches of Balearica. Their latest track is Breathy Drops, a tribute to the bioluminescence of the Pacific Ocean and about giving into the unknown- something they achieve with a few drums pads, some synths, a drip- drop melody and a whispery vocal, and an acoustic guitar. Label boss Chris Coco said it was a track he could imagine Alfredo playing if he was still on the decks at the Cafe del Mar and it does sound exactly like that. Lovely stuff- buy it here. 

The tonal flipside of Breathy Drops is this, a GLOK/ Andy Bell remix of have you ever had a broken heart? by senses (all lower case) that came out at the end of May and which I missed posting back then. 

Like Florecer's track there's a West coast USA connection but this feels like the dark side of the Pacific as opposed to Florecer's pastel/ dayglo haze. Andy did his remix while getting over some West Coast jetlag and the track sounds a bit woozy and jetlagged, slow mo drums and bass, slowly dripping guitar lines and the voice asking the question in the title over and over... You can buy the EP digitally and on green 10" vinyl here. 

Passions

Ride/ GLOK guitarist/ writer/ singer Andy Bell has returned this week with a cover of I'm In Love With A German Film Star, the 1981 single by The Passions (retitled I'm In Love... by Andy). For the single Andy's got Dot Allison in on vocals, a song totally suited to Dot's style, and Michael Rother on guitar. It shimmers and floats, with fuzz guitars drifting in, and does all the things you'd want it to. 

The song comes ahead of an album, Andy's third solo album, out at the end of February- Pinball Wanderer. Andy's solo work outside Ride, two albums (The View From Halfway Down and Flicker) plus his GLOK albums and singles, have been some of my favourite releases of the last five years so I'm looking forward to this one. In his promo blurb to accompany the single Andy said that for the album he went less is more, 'less tracks, more atmosphere, less layers of instrumentation, more vibes.' What's more, if you go to Bandcamp, there is a 12"/ digital release of the single with remixes by Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s and GLOK (Andy as GLOK remixing Andy as Andy). All three remixes are top drawer. 

The Passions original is one of those songs that seems to exist in a world of its own. Released in January 1981, it was written by singer Barbara Gogan about Steve 'Roadent' Connelly, some time Clash and Sex Pistols roadie who had some minor roles in some German films. 

I'm In Love With A German Film Star

This is The Passions on Top Of The Pops, early 1981, singer Barbara the epitome of early 80s front woman cool. 

Fifty Minutes Of Blind On A Galloping Remix

A year ago David Holmes released Blind On A Galloping Horse, an album that over four sides of vinyl and seventy minutes of music pulled together many of the political, emotional, cultural and psychological strands that seemed to come together in 2023. Protest in the face useless governments, , self- reliance, a roll call of the lost, the ongoing influence and spirit of Andrew Weatherall, the voices of refugees, humanity and community, the need to find the space and peace to clear one's head from all the noise and clutter that is out there. A beacon maybe, a call to arms perhaps, a face looking back at you from the crowd. I've played it again several times recently and it still hits all those spots. 

The songs from Blind On A Galloping Horse have been remixed, a slew of like minded souls refitting David's songs and Raven Violet's vocals into new sounds and shapes. There are over thirty of them, every single one worth hearing. It seemed to me that as we approach the end of 2024, a year on from the Galloping Horse, a Sunday mix of some of those remixes was in order. 

I featured each song only once, avoiding multiple versions- there were multiple remixes of several of the songs and all of the highest quality. There's some real high tempo bangers too which I held back from until part way through this mix when Timmy Stewart raises the bpms after a slow burning first twenty five minutes, and when I think of the remixes that didn't make this mix- Heidi and Lovefingers, Rich Lane, Decius, Sonic Boom, X- Press 2, Cosmodelica, Skymas, Daniel Avery- I think a volume 2 might be in order some day. 

There's more Holmes available at NTS this week, David's monthly God's Waiting Room show, two hours of the best music money can buy- this month includes his new remix of Five Green Moons, Spiritualized, V/Z and Poly High School Band's version of Midnight Cowboy. Listen here. 

Fifty Minutes Of Blind On A Galloping Remix

• Emotionally Clear (Ammonite Remix)
• Yeah x 3 (The Vendetta Suite's Reason To Drift Remix)
• Blind On A Galloping Horse (Sons Of Slough)
• Agitprop 13 (GLOK Remix)
• Hope Is The Last Thing To Die (Timmy Stewart's 11th Hour Remix)
• It's Over, If We Run Out Of Love (Hardway Bros Live At SSL Dub)
• Stop Apologising (Horse Meat Disco Vocal Remix)
• Necessary Genius (Phil Kieran Vocal Remix)

Emotionally Clear is one of Blind's slower, more blissed out songs but with several questions at its heart- do you believe in the absence of evidence? Do you believe in unjust punishment? Do you believe in cognitive dissonance? On her Ammonite Remix Amy Spencer breaks the song down into its barest bones, a spectral, whispery, ambient gauze with Raven Violet's vocals looped, FXed and chopped up. 

The Vendetta Suite is Belfast's Gary Irwin, a veteran Holmes associate and the in house engineer at Exploding Plastic Inevitable studio and label. This remix, one of a pair, keeps the drifting, ambient feel going. The Vendetta Suite's album from 2021, The Kempe Portal Stone, is well worth your time and attention if you haven't heard it. 'Got my mind on freedom/ And one foot out the door', Raven coos, and then the line taken from David's track from a GLS 10" from 2021, 'love is a mystery'.

Sons Of Slough (Ian Weatherall and Duncan Gray) bring the dub to the album's title track, a dissection of the world and its madness sent to the dub section via rim shots, a slowed down bassline, melodica, and also stir in a deeply Power, Corruption And Lies-era New Order feel. 

Andy Bell in his GLOK guise took Agitprop 13 and kept things weird and experimental, bass and synth with rumbling rhythms and layers of backing vocals- it builds insistently, more and more coming to the foreground. 

Hope Is The Last Thing to Die was the opening shot of the Blind On A Galloping Horse album, released as a single back in September 2021, a response to the incompetence and idiocy of governments in the face of modern crises, Covid and climate change. It lit up autumn 2021 for me and has done so repeatedly since. Timmy Stewart, another Belfast connection who DJs and produces as Black Bones, turns David's protest song and call to resistance into something tough and metallic. The rat tat tat of the snare breaks through, like a pipe being tapped with a monkey wrench.  

Sean Johnston's remixes of It's Over, If We Run Out Of Love are among his best Hardway Bros remixes, that cosmic/ ALFOS groove spinning out onto the floor with a lovely, brain twisting distorted synth riff and disco arpeggios.

Stop Apologising is the most direct song on the album, a genuine three minute glam pop anthem, Raven singing of self reliance, the importance of being grounded and 'the wonders of psychedelic therapy'. Horse Meat Disco turn everything up to eleven, add an enormous glam disco stomp, Goldfrapp amped up to the max, big piano chords, and keep it all going and going and going... 'Stop apologising for things you never done/ Stop catastrophising put your feet back on the ground'. 

Necessary Genius is David's tribute to the misfits, artists, dreamers, outsiders and radicals who make the culture, a roll call of the great and good- Serge and Jane, John Coltrane, Angela Davis, Samuel Beckett, Ennio Morricone- and particularly some of those who we have lost in recent years- Terry Hall, Andrew Weatherall, Sinead O'Connor. Phil Kieran is another Northern Irish DJ, musician, producer and remixer and his remix of Necessary Genius is a blinder, full on basement club, messy dance floor music and the perfect fit for those people listed in the lyrics. 

More Flightpath And An Alliance

More Flightpath Estate news today. A couple of weeks ago the latest edition of Uncut hit the newsagent's shelves, a suited and booted Nick Cave resplendent on the cover and inside, with Wild God sitting pretty in the Uncut album of the year list. The magazine comes with a booklet, My Year In Music, in which a disparate group of leftfield musicians give us the lowdown on what they've been listening to in 2024- contributors include Thurston Moore, Gruff Rhys, Phil Manzanera, Anais Mitchell, Richard Thompson, Lawrence, Bill Callahan, Aiden Moffat, Joan Wasser, Bill Ryder- Jones, Isobel Campbell, Katy J Pearson and Andy Bell. In his piece Andy Bell talks about the Four Tet album 3 and Jamie Xx's In Waves, Beak>, Fontaines DC, Orbital and others. 

He then casually drops in this- ''Todmorden label (and absolute heroes) Golden Lion Sounds put out an excellent compilation called Sounds From the Flightpath Estate, a celebration of the spirit of Andrew Weatherall. Full disclosure: this is an album contributed to, but I wanted to highlight it because all the music is such high quality, notably, the Hardway Bros tracks 'Theme For Flightpath Estate''.

This tip of the Ride/ GLOK hat from Andy was very nice obviously and totally unexpected. Yesterday came the Piccadilly Records end of year lists, which are always published in beautiful booklet form, free to pick up from the shop or slipped into any order from them for the cost of 1 penny. When we had our album stocked briefly in Piccadilly Records back in April and had the window takeover event I think we quietly hoped that we might feature in Piccadilly's end of year list but certainly didn't expect it. Piccadilly's lists came out- the top 30 Collections (compilations and re- issues) is where our interest is and our album is placed at number 13. Ahead of us lie some big hitters and local heroes- not least Down To The Sea And Back, Luke Una, some siblings from Burnage, an excellent Jason Boardman compilation I reviewed for Ban Ban Ton Ton, Richard Norris, Galaxie 500, Aphex Twin and The Charlatans. Some decent company to keep! The whole list can be found here. 

This is all very exciting for us. A year ago we had most of the tracks that make up Sounds Of The Flightpath Estate Volume 1 sitting on our hard drives, a promise from Rotters Golf Club that we could have a then unreleased Weatherall and Tenniswood track and some ongoing discussions with Golden Lion Sounds about mastering and release dates. What's happened since has exceeded our hopes and expectations at every stage- and as a friend said yesterday, 'you've done this from scratch'. Back in the summer Waka from The Golden Lion said to me, 'imagine it, then create it'. That's the spirit of it I guess- and that's what we've done. And yes, we did call the album Volume 1 for a reason...

Andy Bell, who contributed his cover of Smokebelch that closes the album so appropriately, had an album out very recently, a collaboration with Timothy Clerkin with Andy in his experimental/ electronic GLOK guise. The pair met at Andrew's funeral and made a vague agreement to work together and then during lockdown began exchanging ideas and tracks, bouncing files back and forth. This has resulted in Alliance, a record that for me should be featuring in all the end of year lists, seven slices of experimental but laser focussed guitars x electronics. The music has some influences close to the surface- Aphex Twin, Death In Vegas, Boards Of Canada- but it transcends them at every turn. It is hypnotic, 21st century psychedelic and kosmische. Opener Empyrean kicks in with a huge distorted synth bass riff and then builds, waves of synths and chanted/ looped backing vox in layers. AmigA stutters on after it, tripped out and floating with acoustic guitars, rippling melodies and early shoegaze vocals. On Nothing Ever singer Du Blonde takes the reins, a scuzzed out indie- pop song, with the refrain 'nothing ever goes my way' circling round and round. Scattered is the sound of My Bloody Valentine in 1990 deciding to ditch the noise and FX pedals and dive full frontal into acid house, fed into the blender, with Andy's chopped up, spoken word, non sequiturs, scattered throughout- 'I was driving' and 'it's all too much' punctuated by 'need somebody' and 'scattered'.

The Witching Hour heads out further onto the floor, drums kicking in, the metronomic kick finding its rhythm, backwards guitars and a Wrote For Luck groove taking over. Then a massive bass guitar riff takes the lead. Swirling lights, strobes, light shows. E- Theme takes us to the end, a tinny guitar riff that could be from Ride's early EP/ Nowhere (actually played by Tim) and Aphex Twin vocal fragments, with a rising tide of synths. Magickal stuff- Andy some of the tracks took him into 'a Pagan, pre- Christian headspace... prehistoric rave' and this is a) a very good analogy and b) right up my strasse. You can listen and buy to the whole of Alliance here. 

Empyrean

Empyrean: relating to the heavens or the sky, the highest part of the heaven, thought by the ancients to be the realm of pure fire.

Last Friday night while chatting to Andy Bell after Ride's gig at New Century Hall he mentioned that underneath New Century there is a recording studio and that he'd been in there that morning with Timothy Clerkin, an artist/ DJ who used to be based in Manchester. A few years ago Timothy put out a 12" as Heretic which included an Andrew Weatherall remix. It was via Andrew that Timothy and Andy Bell met and Tim remixed Andy's GLOK track Dissident. Yesterday the first fruits of the GLOK/ Clerkin collaboration were released, a single- Empyrean- ahead of a seven track album in November called Alliance. Much of the album was done in lockdown, ideas and files bouncing back and forth between the pair, and then finsihed since.

Empyrean is equal parts GLOK and Timothy, a massive synth bassline that'll shake any morning cobwebs away with electronic drums coming in and hissing away, washes of synth chords and a vocal sample that sounds like it's come from Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Vol. 1. One of those tracks that you have to stick with and which then engulfs you a little, rewarding more with repeat plays. You can buy Empyrean in its full version and Radio Edit form at Bandcamp. The album is available for pre- order at Bandcamp too. 

 

An Hour Of Hardway Meets Monkton Uptown And Downtown

Hardway Bros (Sean Johnston) and Monkton (Duncan Gray) DJ and remix together. In both cases there's something about the partnership that pushes both to do something that's different from what each does on their own. Their remixes as Hardway Bros Meets Monkton reference the seminal Augustus Pablo album King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown and as a result you'd be right to expect lots of dub percolating through the sounds cooked up in the remix studio. Dub, bass, echo, melodica- all are present. So is plenty of glorious chug and the wide spaces of cosmic disco. Cosmic, psychedelic, dub disco. The remixes also tend to be long, usually going up towards ten minutes, so this mix was always going to be a long one. 

An Hour of Hardway Meets Monkton Uptown And Downtown

• Jack Butters: Shake It Off (Hardway Meets Monkton Uptown Version)
• Electric Blue Vision: Other Skies (Hardway Meets Monkton Uptown Version)
• Perry Granville: Sailing Ships (Hardway Meets Monkton Uptown Version)
• Fjordfunk: It's All Black (Hardway Meets Monkton Uptown)
• GLOK: That Time Of Night (Hardway Meets Monkton Uptown Dub)
• Psychederek: Screamadereka (Hardway Meets Monkton Uptown Downtown Remix)
• Phil Kieran and Green Velvet: Enjoy The Day (Hardway Meets Monkton Downtown Remix)

Jack Butters is from Stoke- on- Trent, a city fmaous for consisting of five towns, its historic past as the centre of pottery and ceramics, and for it's football team Stoke City (the old ground, the Victoria Ground, was a fairly fearsome awayday in the past). What Stoke should be famous for now is Jack's music, not least this dubbed out Hardway and Monkton remix. I heard this played by Sean at ALFOS at The Golden Lion last summer and it sounded immense.

Electric Blue Vision is Jesse Fahnestock of 10:40 and Jezebell with singer Emilia Harmony. Other Skies came out last November, a 2023 highlight with three great remixes- this one plus remixes by Tambores En Benirras and Balearic Ultras. Sean and Duncan's remix is more majestic melodica led dub, a complete reconstruction of Jesse and Emilia's song.

Perry Granville's Sailing Ships becomes a metallic- dub- by- way- of- post punk- and- acid house trip in the Hardway Bros and Monkton hands, noises rattling round and ricocheting as the bass pushes on and thunder rumbles. There are stuttering vocal sample and pulverising synths, drop outs and re- entries and always underpinning everything, huge, live sounding bass. 

Fjordfunk released It's All Back in 2020 on the Tici Taci label, an eleven minute cosmic disco tune remixed into an eleven minute cosmische dub disco tune by Hardway and Monkton with a squealing guitar line dropping in and out and an ultra- distorted voice saying things that are impossible to make out. 

GLOK is Ride's Andy Bell. Since 2019 Andy's released several albums and singles as GLOK, experimental cosmische/ synth songs and tracks. That Time Of Night was on 2021's Pattern Recognition and features the voice of Shiarra Bell, Andy's wife, talking about the pleasures of being lost on a dancefloor, 'just one person, one part of the whole mass of people.. the heat and the light and the flashing...'. Hardway and Monkton take the track and turn it into a sleek, propulsive, krauty trip, a keening guitar line running through it with a booming, metronomic kick drum.

Psychederek is from Stretford, just up the road from me, and has recently released one of this year's best EPs, Alt!. In August 2021 he released the Space Arcade 12" on Chris Massey's Sprechen label, with the very ace Screamadereka coming in double Hardway Monkton remix form- the Downtown remix and Disco Dub version. The Downtown Remix is a glorious sunlit thing in two halves, the first half dubby psyche and the second a chuggy, pacier, cosmische glide. 

Phil Kieran and Green Velvet's Enjoy The Day came out in late 2022. Phil is a Belfast based DJ and producer. Green Velvet is from Chicago. Enjoy The Day is full on, four four drums and techno bass, chopped up and FXed vocals, 'you got it', and a piano line that is the definition of happy/ sad. 

An Hour Of The Flightpath Estate AW61 Afternoon Set

This is my hour's set from last Saturday afternoon at AW61 at The Golden Lion, Todmorden, re- created at home. The photo above shows my view from the DJ booth as my set ended and the auction and raffle began- you may recognise some of the faces getting ready to bid on items from Andrew Weatherall's studio. 

Once we've got all the other sets and the evening's rotations recreated we can upload the entire thing but I thought I'd share mine in the meantime. It comes in at over an hour and I only played for an hour on the day- from memory, I mixed Biosphere's En- Trance out because the file seemed very quiet (even for an ambient track) and it is in the mix below too. I think I mixed out of Underworld's 8 Ball halfway through as well but just left it playing in full here because, really, what sort of person mixes out the second half of 8 Ball? I'd just faded the GLOK Starlight Dub of A Mountain Of One's Star in when Gig, the Golden Lion's legendary landlady, took the mic to start the auction (along with Lizzie and Sofia) so that track was left mostly unplayed- you'll have to imagine the auction and raffle taking place when you reach that point in my set (unless you were there in which case replay it in your mind). I played Emotionally Clear as the raffle ended and to provide my handover to Dan who was waiting in the wings. 

Adam's Flightpath Estate Afternoon Set At AW61

• Coyote: Western Revolution
• Durutti Column: Bordeaux Sequence
• Psychederek: Test Card Girl
• Four Tet: Loved
• Rick Cuevas: The Birds
• Biosphere: En- Trance
• Underworld: 8 Ball
• Wixel: Expressway To Yr Skull (Long Champs Bonus Beats)
• This Mortal Coil: Edit To The Siren
• Bjork: One Day
• James Holden: Common Land
• A Mountain Of One: Star (GLOK Starlight Dub)
• David Holmes and Raven Violet: Emotionally Clear

Western Revolution is Coyote's sublime edit of Gil Scott Heron's The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. I had half a mind to start with Lonely, which is from the same vinyl only EP out last year, Magic Wand Special Edition Vol. 2, but Mr Holmes played it the night before. 

Bordeaux Sequence was on The Durutti Column's 1987 album The Guitar And Other Machines, a moment of genuine beauty from Vini Reilly. It is a re- recorded version of Bordeaux from 1983's Another Setting. A couple of people in the room gave me a 'thank you for playing Durutti Column' look.

Psychederek is from Stretford, just up the road from me. Test Card Girl was a digital only single from 2023 and I'm not over it yet

Loved was a single from Four Tet, also from last year and is now the opening track on his Three album. Another 2023 song that has stuck around well into '24. 

The Birds is by Rick Cuevas, from a self - released, private pressing album called Symbolism that came out in 1984, an album described on Discogs as 'soft rock/ AOR'. I wouldn't necessarily call The Birds either- a friend once described it as 'Durutti Column on steroids' which I'm happier with. I'm fairly certain I only know of this song because of Andrew Weatherall referencing it in an interview or playing it on a radio show. 

Biosphere's En- Trance is ambient/ techno from Belgium in 1994, an album called Patashnik. It's just some synth drones and an acoustic guitar- I say 'just', it's much more than that obviously. Shame this WAV file I have is so quiet. 

Underworld's 8 Ball was on the soundtrack to The Beach, the Leonardo Di Caprio film from 2000. 8 Ball is a nine minute low key epic with fluid guitar playing and some of Karl's loveliest singing, lyrics about men with empty whiskey bottles and walkie talkies and flaming 8 ball tattoos on their arms, a man who eventually throws his arms around him. They gave this away to a soundtrack, a soundtrack where it was overshadowed a little by All Saints and Moby- most bands would kill for a tune this good and would make it a single or the track they built an album around. Someone in the Lion asked me what this was and took some convincing it was Karl on vocals.

Wixel are from Belgium (with hindsight, there's a bit of a Belgian theme running through this mix) and put out a cover of Sonic Youth's Expressway To Yr Skull in 2008, part of a seven track EP of Sonic Youth covers. The Long Champs edit turns it into a shimmering, semi -ambient haze that led to a couple of enquiries in the pub- and if you turn a couple of people onto something new to them, that's what it's all about isn't it. 

Edit To The Siren is an In The Valley edit of Song To The Siren, This Mortal Coil's signature cover of Tim Buckley's song. Someone once told me this was sacrilege but for me its got a dubby/ Balearic splendour and is perfect Saturday afternoon vibes. 

One Day is one of the key early Bjork solo songs, from 1993's Debut. The dubby bassline, house shimmer, Nellee Hooper's production and Bjork's delivery are all superb. 

Common Land was one of the tracks on James Holden's 2023 album Imagine This Is A High Dimensional Space Of All Possibilities, an album I still go back to a year later. The burbling synths, birdcall, techno- ish drums and warbling sax combine to create something very heady and transportative. It's also a tribute to the free party movement and early 90s rave and felt quite fitting for the Lion and Todmorden.

A Mountain of One's Stars Planets Dust Me was one of my favourite albums from 2022. Andy Bell's GLOK remix is a spaced out, sun- baked treat. 

Emotionally Clear is from David Holmes' Blind On A Galloping Horse, 2023's number one Bagging Area album. Seeing David Holmes bidding at the auction at AW61 from behind the decks will take some beating in 2024. 

Further Galloping Remixes

David Holmes' remix project continues to gather pace, an almost bewildering number of remixes of songs from his 2023 album Blind On A Galloping Horse being released (and this week Heavenly putting some of them out on vinyl). So far the roll call of artists who have taken David's songs from the album and reshaped them takes in Daniel Avery, Die Hexen and Ruth Bate, Timmy Stewart, Darren Emerson, Lovefingers and Heidi Lawden, Working Men's Club, Hardway Bros, Skymas, Decius, Phil Kieran, Robin Wylie, Lovefingers (again), Sonic Boom and Panda Bear, X- Press 2, Jordan Nocturne, The Vendetta Suite, Horse Meat Disco and Colleen Cosmo Murphy. Last week three new remixes saw the light of day, the first being Rich Lane's remix of Yeah x 3...

Rich's remix is an unashamedly acid house banger, the bassline burbling away with the instantly recognisable sound of the 303's drum settings, the 303 deployed to fine effect, while Raven sings of the power of positivity, personal freedom and that love is a mystery. There's a turning up of the heat in the last two minutes, acid bleeps at the fore, bassline pulsing and intensity rising. I'm particularly fond of this remix- this blog played a part in connecting David and Rich in the autumn of last year following a post in the aftermath of Sinead O'Connor's death which led to David suggesting Rich remix Yeah x 3. There's a Rich Lane Dub too which strips Raven back and pushes the acid even further to the front. 

Hardway Bros return to the remix frontline with a remix of Too Muchroom (Too Much Acid Dub), a heavy duty seven minute Sean Johnston dubbed out dance remix, the vocals turned into a ghostly echo whispering away behind the insistent throb of the bass and drums and bounce of the synths-'If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room'

Finally, for the moment, unless David has another slew of artists ready to further deconstruct his album, there is a GLOK remix of Agitprop 13. Andy Bell's recent GLOK remixes have been wide ranging affairs, taking the GLOK sound into deeper waters. This one is a slo mo pounder, disembodied and backwards vocals bouncing round the mix, synths as pulses, basement sounds (as his remix of C.A.R.'s Anzu at the tail end of last year stated) ending in a rather lovely and low key as the tinkling music box melody repeats to fade. 

Monday's Long Song

Andy Bell played a run of live gigs in 2022 and 2023 as Andy Bell Space Station, Andy on guitar and synth, occasional vocals, and a pair of decks for drums and other parts, playing versions of his solo songs and GLOK tracks, in some cases extended out way beyond the recorded versions. For a while at his Bandcamp page there were a limited run of CDs with three hours worth of music from the gigs available and also a zine, again limited and now sold out, which came with a download code to get hold of these tracks. Taken together or in chunks they are a superb document and stand as an album in their right, Andy's guitar playing very much spinning out in the kosmische area, shades of Michael Rother and late 80s John Squire (the floaty, trippy Squire rather than the heavier, bluesy Squire of The Second Coming) but also very much Andy Bell. 

I could post any of the twenty two tracks, very calming and chilled and a perfect way to ease into a Monday in January. Many of them play out beyond the ten minute mark-  Pattern Recognition comes in two parts, both over ten minutes, opener Melting Hours is fourteen minutes long, a combined version of Pulsing and Dissident clocks in at sixteen minutes and there are two versions of Spiral Away, a song that hits me in all the emotional places, that together reach twenty minutes. This one is First Wave Of Love, nine minutes thirty eight seconds, an extended ultra- kosmische instrumental version of Andy's 2020 single Loves Comes In Waves. 

First Wave Of Love

Shakedown

There's a school of thought that Smashing Pumpkins were a difficult band to like/ love (although they obviously had their fans, they were massive in the mid 90s) but that they had one solid gold song- and that song is great because it sounds like New Order, chiming guitars, motorik drumming, foreground melodic bassline and coming of age lyrics. 

1979

1979 came out in 1995 and sounds like Ceremony but if New Order had recorded it in 1987 rather than the wreckage of Joy Division in 1980. In an unexpected turn of events,  when New Order returned in 2001 with the album Get Ready, Billy Corgan turned up on vocals with Bernard on the song Turn My Way and played guitar with them as they toured that summer. In an interview from the time Stephen Morris was asked how it was going with Corgan on board. 'He's alright I suppose', Stephen replied to the journalist, which told its own story to this reader. 

In another unexpected turn of events Hardway Bros released two EPs on Monday, both out on Sean Johnston's Outre- Mer label, the first a four track EP titled My Friends and the second an EP of remixes. The My Friends EP covers the range of styles and has something for everyone: an eight minute Vietnam epic called Saigon, voices from Apocalypse Now!, congas from Sympathy For The Devil, synths from a Belgian New Beat basement; a fifteen minute wigged electronic trip called Hello My Friends; a hi hat and kick drum banger Functions For Machines; and a cover of 1979 with Duncan Gray on guitar and Sarah Rebecca on vocals, a smoothed out, gliding cover of Smashing Pumpkins with synths, guitars (courtesy of Duncan Gray) and pulsing drums. You can buy/ hear the My Friends EP here. 

The remixes EP sees a regular visitor to these pages, Andy Bell wearing his GLOK hat, bring his cosmische influences to 1979. There are two remixes, bookending the EP, the first a four minute reworking, the chords and synths filtered and chopped up. At the other end of the EP comes the second GLOK remix, the GLOK Remix Reprise, gentle, blissed out, guitar led remix, a little like Ride's Vapour Trail slowed down and played acoustically, with Sarah Rebecca's vocal shimmering on top, a very different reading of the song to Billy's mid- 90s rites of passage version. The first treat of 2024. 

In between Andy's pair of remixes are remixes by Warehouse Preservation Society, Djale and Tech Support which span chuggy dub, cosmic electronica and squiggly house. Get it here. 

Anzu

C.A.R. make a return with a single called Anzu, Chloe Raunet's vocal describing scenes of past life, youth, excess and living in the shadows, an electro pop topline with a somewhat darker undertow. It's a beguiling sound, one that grows as the single unfolds over five minutes.  

For the remix Andy Bell (wearing his GLOK hat) pushes the song further and deeper, way beyond where GLOK usually sit too with an anxiety inducing build up that keeps increasing the tension for over two minutes, a hiccup, a drone, skippity drums and a voice intoning 'basement sounds'. As the bassline weaves its way in, distorted way into the red, there's a drop out at two minutes twenty and then the bassline leads the way, even more messed up and mangled. Chloe's chopped up voice returns and then the drums and Andy sends it onwards into the darkest of dancefloors. Anzu (GLOK's Basement Sounds Mix, Arpless) is in a field of its own. You can buy both digitally here and there's a clear vinyl 7", only 50 copies pressed complete with tote bag and poster priced at £35.00.

Monday's Long Songs

Andy Bell's GLOK side project released a new album last week, eight versions of previously available songs played live in session for Electronic Sound. The album, Gateway Mechanics, is out at Bandcamp digitally and on bright yellow vinyl. He's on tour as GLOK at the moment. The versions on the live album are superb, the synths and guitars flying off over pre- recorded drums, Andy's cosmische/ motorik influences in full flow. This version of Dissident (from the first GLOK album of the same name, released in 2019) is twelve minutes of Michael Rother- esque guitars and pulsing sequencer lines, the fuzzbox seeing some action in the final few minutes. 

As a bonus, a  few weeks ago Andy and Masal put out a cover of Neu!'s Hallogallo, recorded at The Social in May this year, nine minutes of West German by way of Oxford bliss.

The Seagull

Today's boarded up pub is The Seagull, Crimdon Dene, on the outskirts of Hartlepool. We had a few days in a caravan up there in April- the pub sits at the entrance of the caravan site. When I posted this on a social media platform a friend (of a friend) commented that it was the pub he and his friends used to drink in when they were teenagers. There were a few pubs in the area that were open but The Seagull was by no means the only abandoned one. 

Author and film- maker Michael Smith is a son of Hartlepool. His books The Giro Playboy and Unreal City are highly recommended. In 2013 he recorded sections of Unreal City with Andrew Weatherall, his East Yorkshire tones perfect over Andrew and Nina Walsh's ambient backdrops. More recently he recorded an EP with Steve Queralt, bassist from Ride. The EP, Sun Moon Town, had four tracks, Steve's music ranging from swelling post rock to glitchy electronics to psychedelic dub. In July Steve and Michael released a further version of Sun Moon Town, eight new takes on the songs with remixes from GLOK, Nina Walsh, Flug 8 and Nandele together with four instrumentals. Sun Moon Town Versions is at Bandcamp.

Much of Michael's writing and spoken word material deals with a resigned bewilderment at the nature of 21st century capitalism and the effect it has on our cities. Michael is a flaneur, one who wanders the city observing, a stroller who meanders, something the tracks on Sun Moon Town demonstrate brilliantly. 

The Flug 8 remix of Glitches is a throbbing, pulsing electronic monster, nine minutes long with Michael talking about finding himself in a a new part of the city, a re-developed hyper- capitalist shopping centre (Westfield) surrounded by shops, flats and skyscrapers, glass and steel, cardboard cut out policemen in shop windows to ward off shoplifters. As the drums kick away and synths swell, Michael sees the city mutating into a megacity with million pound customers, where the windows of shops selling suits promise that you are 'living the dream of a beautiful tomorrow', leading Michael to ask, 'What kind of a cunt's dream is this?' before speculating about the end of the world, the euphoric techno coupled with/ playing against Michael's prose. Dance while the world ends. 

On In A Wonderland he describes a return to London and his memories of his old life there. Nina Walsh takes the original and fills it out for twelve minutes, a wash of ambient sound, strings and synths. Unfolding gradually the Wonk On The Gnosis Mix, Michaels' voice wanders flaneur style, ending up with the tale of mushroom picking with a chef as Nina's soundscape rising and falling. 

Steve's bandmate Andy Bell records as GLOK and contributes a remix. The GLOK remix of Chaldean Oracle is chiming, propulsive cosmische, synths and drum machines gliding away into an infinite distance, bassline pumping and as a child/ robot voice intones in German. 

On the Nandele remix of Vespertine warm synths and keys and pattering electronic drums form a glittering backdrop to Michael's ever compelling words, prose describing a moment of blissed out contentment and some 'strange magic'. 

Bagging Area Tak Tent Mix Nine

My latest hour long mix for Tak Tent Radio went live at the weekend. Tak Tent have been broadcasting out of Scotland on the internet since June 2020, with a range of contributors including the legendary Richard Youngs. The latest Bagging Area mix is my ninth for Tak Tent and contains solely music from this year. You can listen to it here or directly at Mixcloud. Don't let them tell you there's no good new music any more. 

• Alex Kassian: Lifestream
• Marshall Watson: High Desert (Seahawks High Sky Remix)
• Whitelands: Setting Sun (AR Kane Initiation Dub)
• Dot Allison: Unchanged (GLOK Remix)
• Dicky Continental: Simon Says (Congagong rework)
• African Head Charge: Passing Clouds
• Coyote: After All These Years
• Steve Queralt and Michael Smith: Chaldean Oracle (GLOK Remix)
• Jo Sims: Bass- The Final Frontier (David Holmes Remix)
• Richard Norris: The Third Day
• JIM: Still River Flow (Generalisation Dub)

Unchanged Changed

Dot Alison's new album, Consciousology, is out at the end of July and to date the only song available to listen to from it has been Unchanged. Andy Bell in Glok mode has remixed that song, a deeply mashed up, weirded out and dubby take on Unchanged, a sort of fractured folk/ dub/ psychedelia that makes everything feel like its happening very slowly but speeding up too with echo, dub bass, cymbal crashes, stuttering drums and Dot's voice floating in and around. It has a similar feel to Brendan Lynch's epic 1993 remix of Paul Weller's Kosmos and some of Adrian Sherwood's productions. 

The original version of Unchanged has Andy playing guitar alongside Dot, a song that manages to take in British folk music and The Velvet Underground.

Forty Five Minutes Of GLOK

Two disclaimers before getting into the body of this blog.

1. I had been trying to put together an Andy Bell mix for some time and couldn't get it right until I separated the Andy Bell material from the GLOK stuff. I'm still not sure that I've got it right but it's better than the earlier attempts.

2. Between putting this GLOK mix together and  writing this post I spent several hours in local pubs with predictable effects and then came home and wrote this. 

Andy Bell's music outside Ride has been a revelation to me in recent years. His connections with Andrew Weatherall and the tracks they recorded together, his initially anonymous, house and kraut influenced tracks as GLOK and then his solo albums have been some of my most played music. GLOK's cosmische, pulsing, never-ending waves of synths and guitars music have hit the spot in all sorts of ways. This is a selection not a Best Of, some GLOK tracks that hopefully work together as one piece. 

 Forty Five Minutes Of GLOK

• Pulsing (Ambient Version)
• Kolokol
• That Time Of Night (Edit)
• Somaside
• Pulsing (Citadel Version)
• Cloud Cover (Andrew Weatherall Remix)
• Memorial Device
• Indica (Pye Corner Audio Remix- GLOK Edit)

Pulsing and Kolokol are both from the intended to be anonymous debut GLOK album, released in July 2019. Pulsing later saw the light of day as an EP called The Citadel. Andrew Weatherall's urban ambient remix, harking back to Two Lone Swordsmen in some ways, came out on there an the subsequent album of remixes, Dissident Remixed. 

Somaside was sent out to everyone who bought the follow up album, 2021's Pattern recognition, which suffered from endless delays due to pressing problems and vinyl backlogs. Pattern Recognition is a superb album. The only reason that more of its tracks don't appear on this mix is that so may of them are so long that they'd use up so much time of my self- allocated thirty to forty minutes. 

Memorial Device is from Pattern Recognition and also the name of an imaginary Airdrie post punk group/ 21st century novel by David Keenan. 

Indica was on Andy's solo album The View From Half Way Down, the Bagging Area album of the year in 2020. Pye Corner Audio remixed the entire album superbly. The GLOK remix is Andy remixing a remix of himself. 

2022: A List

If you ever find yourself in the car park hell of Asda in Stockport, a car park split over two multi- storey sites linked by bridges and with different walkways to enter the supermarket, take some comfort from the fact that even in these unpromising conditions a moment of joy can still arrive- someone painted this little devil on the wall in a corner. This has nothing to do with the post that will follow, it's just a disconnected intro. 

As is traditional here is my end of year list, twenty two musical artefacts 2022 in list form, a list combining singles, albums and EPs into one countdown- you'll notice I've cheated, there are many more than twenty two releases contained within. In a year shot through with all kinds of personal difficulties caused by grief and bereavement following Isaac's death at the end of last year, music has been an area of solace and distraction for me and I have listened to and enjoyed a huge amount of new music this year. I know as well there are albums I haven't heard and should have- Working Men's Club and Fontaines DC come to mind- and hopefully I'll get to them eventually. So, with no further ado...

Number Twenty Two

Some albums that have made the year tick, in no particular order: 

• Coyote: Everything Moves Nothing Rests
• Sheer Taft: And Then There Were Four
• Société Étrange: Chance
• Gabe Gurnsey: Diablo
• Timothy J. Fairplay: Free Andromeda
• Half Man Half Biscuit: The Voltarol Years
• Rich Ruth: I Survived, It's Over
• Wet Leg: Wet Leg
• Red Snapper: Everybody Is Somebody
• Tigerbalm: International Love Affair
• Panda Bear and Sonic Boom: Reset
• The Order Of The 12: Lore Of The Land
• Spiritualized: Everything Was Beautiful
• Warrington- Runcorn New Town Development Plan: Districts, Roads, Open Space
• Jon Hopkins: Music For Psychedelic Therapy

Number Twenty One

Some singles and EPs that have been on rotation at the Bagging Area this year, again, in no particular order:

• Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s and Brix Smith: Brix Goes Tubular
• Sault: 10
• Phil Kieran and Green Velvet: Enjoy The Day Hardway Bros Meets Monkton
• BTCOP: Just A Disco especially the Lights On A Hill Mix
• Al McKenzie: Sail On
• Steve Queralt and Michael Smith: Sun Moon Town
• D: Ream: Pedestal (Jezebell's Dizzy Heights remix)
• Throne Of Blood EPs 1 to 4
• Matt Gunn: Disko Drohne EP and the massive remix package
• The Vendetta Stone remixes 12"
• Peak High: Was That All It Was Hardway Bros remixes
• Perry Granville: Lumux and Cleveland Sundays
• Confidence Man: Feels Like A Different Thing (Daniel Avery remix)
• Cantoma: Alive Remixes EP
• Unknown Genre: Elevator Ride
• Dirt Bogarde: Triumphe De Liebe and So Far Away
• Curses: Gina Lollobrigida
• Orbital and Sleaford Mods: Dirty Rat
• Hifi Sean and David McAlmont: All In The World (and just wait for the album that gets a full release next year, a stunning record- the title track alone is one of next year's best songs)

Number Twenty

Various albums by Various Artists

There have been a slew of great compilation albums this year, multi- artist releases containing umpteen gems and treasure- The Chill Out Tent Volume 1, a compilation from Warm titled Home complete with animal and bird sounds between the tracks, Spun Out's Oompty Boompty Music compilation, the Shelter Me compilation from Leeds based Paisley Dark label and the cream of this crop, Higher Love Volume 2 (from the Brighton label of the same name).

Number Nineteen

Fontan: Iriz

A 7" single released on Hoga Nord at the start of the year, a gorgeous spaced out, instrumental warm bath with slowly building drums. 

Number Eighteen

Boxheater Jackson: We Are One

Exeter's Mighty Force label has had quite a year. Boxheater Jackson's ten track album We Are One is a sublime set of chugging, optimistic, cosmic acid house. Also worth checking out on Mighty Force are Golden Donna's The Truth About Love, lovely washes of ambient techno, and the funky acid house/ indie- dance crossover Pro- Oxidant by Long Range Desert Group. 

Number Seventeen

Mark Peters with Dot Allison: Sundowning/ Richard Norris ambient remix

Mark's latest album, Red Sunset Dreams, is pointing away from Wigan and towards the wide open landscapes of the US. With Dot Allison on vocals Switch On The Sky was a highlight- and then Sundowning came out, shimmering instrumental floaty ambience with a superb pair of Richard Norris remixes. Dot also had a solo EP out with the final remix from Lee 'Scratch' Perry, a lovely dubby version of Love Died In Our Arms. 

Number Sixteen

The Orielles: Tableau

Tableau is one of the year's most unexpected treats, a double album spanning spoken word, dream pop, 60s jazz, indie and whatever else the trio decided they could turn their hands to. The recent Eyes Of Others' remix of Darkened Corners was superb spun out psychedelia and The Orielles own remix of Unknown Genre's Elevator Ride an unexpected visit to early 90s ambient techno. 

Number Fifteen

Anatolian Weapons: Selected Acid Tracks

Strong acid from Greece, 808s set to stun, seven tracks of mind bending stuff. Acid Research 63, Acid Research 20 and Desert Track 66 are the picks and so much more than their functional titles suggest. 

Number Fourteen

Rude Audio: Big Heat

A five track EP with typically brilliant tracks and remixes. Big Heat is a low slung, throbbing, dub techno groover, straight outta South London. 

Number Thirteen

Pye Corner Audio: Let's Emerge

The latest Pye Corner Audio album left the dystopic sounds of last year's Entangled Routes and looked towards the summer, as typified on the glorious Warmth Of The Sun single with Andy Bell adding guitar to the analogue synth ambience. Sonic Boom remixed three tracks from the album, released as an excellent EP, Let's Remerge. A PCA remix of Principles Of Geometry's First I Heard Color is in the same area. 

Number Twelve

Rhenizand: Atlantis Atlantis

More brilliant Belgian dance pop/ Balearic pop, an album that lights up any room it's played in. They can do no wrong for me. 

Number Eleven

Unloved: Turn Of The Screw/ Turn Of The Screw (Erol Alkan Rework)

The new Unloved album, The Pink Album, found David Holmes, Keefus Ciancia and Jade Vincent and their 60s Now! sound extended over four sides of vinyl, twenty two songs (with Raven Violet, Etienne Daho and Jarvis Cocker along for the ride). On songs like Mother's Been A Bad Girl the woozy, disturbed, reverb drenched sound hit the spot and on Turn Of The Screw they nailed it, a driving, urgent, psychedelic pop song with Raven Violet on vocals and in charge. The remixes were bang on too, Erol Alkan's remix of Turn Of The Screw especially (and it sounded huge when David spun it at the Golden Lion in October). There's' an exhibition of Julian House's sleeve art at The Social in London too if you're in that neck of the woods.

Number Ten 

10:40: three EPs

Jesse Fahnestock's 10:40 has one of 2022's ongoing delights, a slew of tracks and remixes from the start of the year to it's recent advent calendar end. Kissed Again, a gorgeous piece of emotional slow motion Balearic dance first came out in 2021 but was released this year by Brighton's Higher Love as an EP with the equally lovely Fin and Coat Check. Thickener (both versions) and The Knack (three versions) were both wonky dancefloor oriented thumpers.

Number Nine

The Summerisle Six: This Is Something/ This Is Something (Rico Conning Remix)

Sean Johnston's Wicker Man/ Todmorden inspired psyche folk/ indie dance side project grew from a trio to a sextet for this release (Andy Bell, Jo Bartlett, Duncan Gray, Kev Sharkey and Mick Somerset Ward all on board) for one of the year's best 12", an indie dance floor filler. Rico Conning's remix, a ten minute blissed out sunset journey, is the remix of the year.

Number Eight

Jazxing: Pearls Of The Baltic Sea

An album of Polish Balearica that appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Start with the sax led Fala and go from there. 

Number Seven

Michael Head and The Red Elastic Band: Dear Scott.

Mick Head's latest wonderfully crafted and written set of songs, tales of life lived and lives observed, with typically lovely melodies. 

Number Six

Daniel Avery: Chaos Energy

A double vinyl ambient/ industrial/ techno album- emotive and hard hitting human/ machine music. 

Number Five

Jezebell: Jezebellearica

A nine minute tribute to DJ Alfredo, the White Isle and an open minded approach to music, Jezebellearica was the song of the summer round here. Jezebell's The Knack, Dancing Not Fighting, Et Moi and Concurrence were all worth mentioning here too. 

Number Four

Decius: Vol 1

Decius's album is twelve tracks of heady, sleazy, minimal, techno, inspired by the proto- house of Ron Hardy, with it's tongue firmly in its cheek, single entrendres rubbing up against distorted synths and banging beats. I reviewed it for Ban Ban Ton Ton back in November. In a turn of events I wasn't expecting some of my review has been pulled out for the press release, where my words are directly below a quote from Iggy Pop. As a year end treat Decius have made an end of year mix available, a pay what you want deal, with many of the tracks from the album included in it. You can get it here. 

Number Three: EP |Of The Year

Andy Bell: Untitled Film Stills and I Am A Strange Loop

Andy Bell's Flicker came out at the start of the year, a beautiful and fully realised solo album with songs spanning the range of his influences- backwards tracks, guitar songs reprising the chord sequences from the earliest Ride records, cosmic instrumentals and straight ahead guitar pop. During the course of the year cover versions and remixes appeared, compiled in the autumn onto two four track 10" vinyl EPs (with a third of acoustic versions) and extras available digitally. Untitled Film Stills is a beautiful way to spend twenty minutes, his covers of Pentangle's Light Fight, Yoko Ono's Listen, The Snow Is Falling and The Kinks' The Way Love Used To Be all right up there and the small hours, quiet devastation of his cover of Arthur Russell's Our Last Night Together capable of bringing tears. The remixes EP is superb too with David Holmes Radical Mycology Remix of The Sky Without You and Richard Norris' lovely slowed down, string laden version of Something Like Love the standouts. 

Number Two: Album Of The Year

A Mountain Of One: Stars Planets Dust Me

Existential Balearica, yacht rock, symphonic dark pop- however I slice it this album has been the one I'v enjoyed and played more than any other in 2022. Bubbling synth basslines, FXed vocals, acoustic guitars, piano, tom tom drums, cosmic hippy questions with no answers, spaced out and widescreen sun baked music with Rolo from The Woodentops on board for good measure. The remixes of Star in the summer stretched things further still, the Glok remix linking this with Andy Bell (at number three).

Star (GLOK Starlight Dub)

Number One: Single Of The Year

David Holmes: It's Over, If We Run Out Of Love

It's Over, If We Run Out Of Love was released on Valentine's Day and has been there throughout the year for me, played daily at times. David's tribute to the youth movements of our youths- the mods, rockers, rastas, punks, soul boys, teds, ravers and clubbers- sung by Raven Violet is a triumph, its two note keyboard blast and boom- tish drums capable of lifting the spirits on the lowest of days and the lyrics- 'I remember back when we were young/ They said the people's day would surely come/ It's over now if we run out of love'- don't really need picking through. It's the best single/ song I've heard this year and hopefully at some point will, along with last year's Hope Is The Last Thing To Die, form the centrepieces of an album. But if not, on its own, it's more than enough. 

There was a remix a little while later, the song being toughened up and stretched out for late night revelry- Darren Emerson's Huffa Remix and the Hardway Bros one were the pick of the bunch for me. Holmes has had quite a year, his DJ gigs in small venues have been on fire- the Golden Lion in Todmorden was particularly memorable not least because I was on the turntables that evening and handed over to him, a chain of events a younger me would struggle to comprehend. Friends who went to his gig at the Social in London in February raved about it as did friends who saw him in Glasgow more recently. A few months ago David released a 7" on Hoga Nord, the motorik/  Joy Division glide of No One Is Smarter Than History another highlight of 2022 and his remix of The Vendetta Suite's Purple Haze, Yellow Sunrise is another 2022 peak as is his remix of Orbital's Belfast, thirty years after the original. You'll notice David appears elsewhere in this list as Unloved and with a remix of Andy Bell too. When you're on a roll, just keep on rolling. 

Forty Minutes Of Reunion Ride

The pair of albums Ride have made since they reformed- Weather Diaries from 2017 and 2019's This Is Not A Safe Place plus the four track Tomorrow's Shore EP from 2018- show a band who haven't reformed just to play the heritage rock circuit, hawking their three decades old back catalogue round to crowds who want a night of nostalgia (though they do that too, and one of the best gigs I've been to this year was the band's 30th anniversary of Nowhere tour at the Ritz back in April so please don't imagine I'm being a bit sneery about heritage rock although I appreciate I was a tad critical of Primal Scream's Screamadelica gig in July so maybe don't come here expecting consistency). 

Ride's re- union has produced a slew of good songs that stand alongside the older ones. At The Ritz six months ago after they'd played Nowhere, the second half as a mix of old and new, three re- union songs played alongside Twisterella, OX4 and Leave Them All Behind, and they all blended in perfectly, played by a band more than up for it, old tensions resolved and new sounds and kit allowing them to stretch out. The mix below is eight songs made since they reformed, three of which they played at The Ritz (Kill Switch, All I Want and Lannoy Point). 

Forty Minutes Of Ride

• Pulsar
• All I Want (GLOK Remix)
• Kill Switch
• Lannoy Point
• Future Love
• Catch You Dreaming
• R.I.D.E.
• Cali (album version)

Pulsar was the lead track on Tomorrow's Shore, a soaring piece of melodic space rock, as good as anything they've done. The EP was closed by Catch You Dreaming. All the reunion records have been produced by Erol Alkan and mixed by Alan Moulder

Lannoy Point opens Weather Diaries. All I Want is from that album too, here in GLOK remix form, Andy Bell remixing his own band. Cali is for me the album's highlight and their finest reunion song, six and a half minutes of blissed out, post- shoegaze guitar rock. It was a big part of the soundtrack to our summer holiday on the Atlantic coast of France that year too and always reminds me of the sand dunes, beaches and sunsets around Messanges, Bayonne and Biaritz. 

R.I.D.E., Kill Switch and Future Love are all from 2019's This Is Not A Safe Place album, Future Love in particular sounding like The Byrds reborn for the 21st century.