Forty Minutes Of Dreams

While searching through my music folders and files recently I was struck by the number of songs I had that have the word 'dream' or 'dreams' in the title. A rich source of songwriting inspiration. They say hearing about other people's dreams is really boring but I don't think that's always they case. My own dreams have become really vivid and at times quite disturbing in the three years since Isaac died (and also since I started taking statins for high cholesterol a year and a half ago). Waking up having dreamed of Isaac, him being there and talking to me, is always a startling way to start the day (or the middle of the night). It takes a moment for me to realise it was a dream and that he's not there. Sometimes that half asleep- half awake state can be really pleasant and attempting to go back to sleep to go back into a nice dream is something that I'm sure lots of us do. 

Whatever the reason for dreaming, the brain/ consciousness sifting through stuff and pulling things from the dim and distant past into our sleeping state along with bizarre and random, surreal situations, is a rich vein of inspiration for songwriters- both musically and lyrically. Ambient music often seems like an attempt to make music that can soundtrack dreams. The blur and fuzz of shoegaze and psychedelia likewise. As all this percolated through my head on the road coming home from work one evening last week it seemed that a dreams mix was in order. 

Forty Minutes Of Dreams

• Kevin McCormick & David Horridge: Glass Dream
• Kim Gordon: Dream Dollar
• Spatial Awareness: Dream Food (SA Dub)
• Suicide: Dream Baby Dream (Single Version)
• Lunar Dunes: Pharaoh's Dream
• Ride: Dreams Burn Down
• Mark Peters: Red Sunset Dreams
• Sheer: Mezcal Dream
• Spirea X: Chlorine Dream
• Blade Runner Soundtrack: Deckard's Dream

Kevin McCormick is a Mancunian guitarist who released several albums of minimal instrumental music in the early 80s. He met bassist David Horridge in the late 70s and in 1982 they recorded Light Patterns, a minimal, gently psychedelic/ ambient album. Largely ignored, the album and others by Kevin were re- released in 2021. Last year Kevin released a new album- Passing Clouds- which is lovely and can be found at Bandcamp. 

Kim Gordon's solo album from last year, The Collective, passed me by a bit but it's a powerful piece of work, a jolt of electricity, hip hop drums, noise and Kim's NY blank cool. 

Spatial Awareness released Dream Food as an EP last year, an electronic trippy delight with this dub as a dreamy counterpoint. 

Suicide's Dream Baby Dream is one of those songs, an all timer. It came out as a single in 1979, a repetitive synth, drum machine and vocal blur of brilliance, a song lost in its own state of warm, blissful ignorance, the synth patterns circling endlessly. A track that could be loped for an hour and not outstay its welcome. 

Lunar Dunes' Galaxsea originally came out in 2011, post- jazz, post- punk, dubby global tracks 'for truth seekers and interplanetary vacationers'. The band included former members of Cornershop and Transglobal Underground and took the 1960s and 70s West German bands as their inspiration. Pharoah's Dream is at the centre of Galaxsea and rattles along in a cosmische and future jazz way.

Dreams Burn Down was on Ride's 1990 debut album Nowhere, a shoegaze classic, crunching FX guitars, slow motion drums and typically youthful lyrics about lost or unrequited love. Live Dreams Burn Down is massive, a wall of sound and sensation. 

Mark Peters is a guitarist from Wigan. His solo albums, 2017's Innerland and 2022's Red Sunset Dreams, are big Bagging Area favourites. The title track of the second is a rippling ambient instrumental, the wide open spaces of the American West crossed with north west England psychedelia. 

Sheer is Sheer Taft who in 1990 made one of the era's best wobbly Balearic dance records, the mighty Cascades. In 2022 Sheer Taft, now residing in Spain rather than Glasgow, made a follow up, an album called ...And Then There Were Four, a Spaghetti Western album with Andrew Innes and the late Martin Duffy from Primal Scream on board.

Jim Beattie was a founder member of Primal Scream, leaving to form Spirea X who released an album in 1991, Fireblade Skies. The debut release was a single the year before, Chlorine Dream, guitars from The Byrds, attitude from Glasgow, drums and vocals from 1990. 

An expanded, full length version of the Blade Runner soundtrack, The Esper Edition, was unofficially released and has done the rounds as a bootleg for years. The film deals with all sorts of themes dreams being one of them. Deckard's Dream is one minute and ten seconds of Vangelis/ ambient sound. In the film Deckard dreams of a unicorn, the meaning of which has been argued about since the film's release in 1982. 

Forty Minutes Of Hypnotone

Last week Khayem at Dubhed posted a recreated 1997 mixtape which included a Hypnotone remix of The Lilac Time's Dreaming, a remix that did not go down well with Stephen Duffy at the time but as Khayem points out is 'pretty close' to 'Hypnotone's high water mark remix of Sheer Taft's Cascades (that remix of Cascades is a desert island disc for me). The post sent me into the Hypnotone's back catalogue and today's mix is the result, forty minutes of Hypnotone remixes and their own material to light up Sunday. 

Hypnotone were Tony Martin, a Manchester producer with Martin Mittler (bassist from Intastella and Laugh) and later Cordelia Ruddock (who Tony discovered at a fashion show). Hypnotone signed to Creation which led to work with Primal Scream and The Lilac Time, both Creation acts at the time. Their self- titled mini album from 1990 is a lost gem, an early 90s time capsule. 

Forty Minutes Of Hypnotone

• Dream Beam (Ben Chapman Remix)
• Hypnotonic
• Atlantis (Hypnotone Edit)
• Dreaming (Hypnowah Remix)
• Dreaming (Wave Station Remix)
• Cascades (Hypnotone Mix)
• Come Together (HypnotoneBrainMachineMix)
• Electraphonic

Dream Beam was the debut release, a 1990 12" on Creation from that point where Alan McGee wanted Creation to be a dance label and briefly did it very well indeed. The much missed Denise Johnson is on vocals, 'feel so high', sung over chilled dance bleepy house. I saw Hypnotone play live at Sefton Park in Liverpool in the summer of 1990, this track floating over the lake in the summer darkness, everyone very chilled as Denise's voice rang out. It was remixed twice, once by Danny Rampling and once by Ben Chapman, the latter being the pick of the pair for me, perfect 1991 dance music. The robotic voice repeating 'hypnotise us... hypnotise us...' is very hypnotic and as the track comes to a close the collapse into the final vocal message, 'I don't know if I'll ever see you again...' is a blast.

Hypnotonic, all piano house, rattling 808s and a very early 90s rap courtesy of Carlos (2 Supreme), was a 1991 single was recorded at Out Of The Blue in Manchester, a studio in the then semi- derelict Ancoats area, now part of the ever growing regeneration of central Manchester.  

Atlantis was a 1991 12" single by Sheer Taft, remixed by Tony. The Hypnotone remix of Cascades, also from 1991, is a genuine classic of the era, a record that was big everywhere from Ibiza to Manchester and in between. It appeared on the Creation dance compilation Keeping The Faith which is a definitive document of a time. 

Dreaming was a 1991 single by The Lilac Time, a pair of remixes that sound great today, dubby Balearic house- why Stephen Tin Tin Duffy didn't like it is a mystery. 

Come Together, Primal Scream's second Screamadelica- era single, is better known in its Weatherall and Farley remix forms but the Hypnotone remix is a belter too, harder and faster, distorted voices, thumping 808 kick drums, horns, bubbling bass, everything piling up in an ecstatic rush. It was on Keeping The Faith and released as a white label 12" along with the fourth and largely missed BBG remix of Come Together. Tony co- produced the cover of Slip Inside This House that appears on Scremadelica too. 

Electraphonic was on the second Hypnotone album, Ai, released in November 1991. 

Tak Tent Six

Tak Tent is an internet radio station broadcasting out of Scotland. Last year The Wire magazine included them in a round up of radio stations worth listening to. A couple of years ago I was asked if I'd like to submit an hours' worth of songs for transmission and since then have been back several times. Last week Tak Tent put out my sixth Bagging Area mix, one that is made up almost exclusively of songs from this year and all from artists that are very familiar to this blog. You can listen to it here. 

Tracklist

• Pye Corner Audio: Let’s Emerge Pt. 1
• Reinhard Vanbergen and Charlotte Caluwaerts: They Do Not Care
• Sheer Taft: Requiem For Pablo
• Mark Peters and Dot Allison: Switched On
• 10:40: Coat Check
• A Mountain of One: Star (Glok Starlight Dub)
• Perry Granville: Dexter In Dub (Bedford Falls Players Remix)
• Unknown Genre: Elevator Ride (The Orielles Ambient Remix)
• Coyote: Home Grown
• The Summerisle Six: This Is Something (Rico Conning Mix)

And Then There Were Four

One of 1990's most celebrated releases round this way was Sheer Taft's Cascades (together with the Hypnotone remix), a joyous, bubbling, magical piece of acid house released when Creation suddenly realised drum machines, samplers and synths could go alongside guitars and FX pedals. I've posted Cascades before, several times. Sheer Taft, sometimes shortened to Sheer, is the recording name for Thomas Taft, Glaswegian now resident in Spain. In 2018 Sheer found himself on the back end of a messy night involving the Spanish version of Pernod, Pacharan, and decided (having found the name ... And Then There Were Four) to start recording an album of spaghetti western inspired folk/ post- punk/ indie, with the intention of creating an album that could be a 1986 compilation tape made anew. With new partner Ed Chapman and friends/ Primal Screamers Martin Duffy, Andrew Innes and Darrin Mooney plus singer Justine Petty- Burrows and violinist Rachel Hewitt, the album took shape- the first Sheer Taft release for twenty five years. Duffy and Mooney manged to escape Spain just before lockdown hit in March 2020. Now, two and a half years later, the album is set to be released. The title and opening track, ... And Then There Were Four, is six minutes of Morricone inspired acoustic guitars, bells, horns and violin. The album follows in August- there are a few pre- orders of the vinyl edition at Bandcamp if you're quick. 

Isolation Mix Eight

An hour and five minutes of lockdown vibes and an attempt to lift the spirits and up the tempo a bit this week. This one is a global trawl of tunes taking in Dubwood Allstars and their splicing together of King Tubby, Dylan Thomas and Richard Burton, a classic 70s Lee Perry production from the Black Ark in Kingston, Jamaica, Moon Duo doing Black Sabbath in very laid back style, groove- based melodic noise from Scotland (Mogwai) and Norway (Mythologen), some funky 80s crossover dance pop from NYC, Natasha Khan and Toy as Sexwitch, Paris duo Acid Arab and South London's Rude Audio, all on a Middle Eastern tip, and early 90s Balearic dub house majesty from Sheer Taft (Glasgow) and Underworld (Essex). Bank holiday weekend. Take it easy. Stay safe.

Dubwood Allstars: Under Dubwood

Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry and Zap- Pow: Riverstone

Moon Duo: Planet Caravan

Mogwai: The Sun Smells Too Loud

Mythologen: Trust

Tom Tom Club: Wordy Rappinghood

Sexwitch: Ha Howa Ha Howa

Acid Arab: Club DZ

Rude Audio: Rumble On Arab Street

Sheer Taft: Cascades (Hypnotone Mix)

Underworld: M.E.

Cascades

I posted this song way back, one of my favourite records of the period 1990-91- Cascades (Hypnotone Mix) by Sheer Taft. It came out on Creation and was on the killer Creation dance comp Keeping The Faith. Cascades is an acid house influenced, hypnotic and trippy adventure from the imagination of Glasgow's Sheer Taft. I make no apologies for posting it again- you'll love it, if you don't know it already.

The picture above shows Sheer Taft with Bobby Gillespie at Glasgow Barrowlands in 1991, presumably at Primal Scream's gig there on the Screamadelica tour. The day before yesterday there was a comment left at the Wordpress version of this blog (which is just a back up version really, in case blogger ever pulled the plug on this one which has happened to other bloggers in the past). The comment was left by the man himself, Sheer Taft, in response to another anonymous comment asking if there was an earlier version of this song and how much input Hypnotone had. So Taft has helpfully cleared it up for us.

'The original version was recorded by myself (Sheer Taft) and Andrew Innes from Primal Scream in a flat in the east end of London.
We then recorded further versions of the same track at a studio in Fulham.
Hypnotone ie Tony Martin was involved along with me in remixing the track with a great deal of input by Thrash from the Orb answer a few suggestions from Brian Enough who was working in the same studio in Berwick Street at that time.'

Thanks Sheer Taft. It freaks me out a  little when the people who make the music comment on the blog but it's good too.

Cascades (Hypnotone Mix)

We are going away for the weekend, it being a Bank Holiday. We are camping. In a tent. With a load of other people. In tents. A few weeks ago when the sun was shining and the temperature was nudging 18 to 19 degrees, this looked like a brilliant idea. Now the wind is blowing, the night time temperature is close to zero, rain keeps sweeping in, and there was hail falling from the skies yesterday. It doesn't seem such a brilliant idea anymore. it seems a bit stupid. I'll let you know how we got on when we get back- supposedly on Monday. Have a good weekend.

Keeping It Peel

Today is the tenth anniversary of the death of John Peel. Webbie (from Football and Music) organises this internet event annually, paying tribute to Peel and his life and the music he loved. This track isn't from an actual Peel Session but it has John introducing the song on the radio,a bit of waffle in those familiar tones, and then Sheet Taft (Glasgow based, Creation Records, post-acid house outfit) and the long, languid, dubby and somewhat trippy Kali.

Kali

Atlantis

Sheer Taft, from Greenock, made one of 1991's most brilliant dance records- Cascades (posted before here at least once). Cascades is a sunny, druggy, bubbling delight, sent from Greenock to Camden via Ibiza. It is superb. The version that was on Creation Records classic 1991 dance compilation Keeping The Faith was mixed/remixed by another Creation dance act called Hypnotone (who have also been here before with Dream Beam, possibly twice). Sheer Taft were a duo- Thomas Taft and Ingrid Kudos- who had a second single a year later, an Italo piano house song with vocals from Mito and the writing is co-credited to Hypnotone. It's not as good as Cascades. But then, what is?

Atlantis

Sheer Taft also put out an album called Absolute Sheerness but I've never even seen a copy, never mind heard it. According to the internet Thomas Taft also did gig promotion, was a member of the extended Primal Scream family, disappeared to New Zealand for ten years and had a psychedelic rock band.

Sheer Taft 'Cascades' (Hypnotone mix)

A week or two ago I posted a couple of tracks from the 1991 Creation Records dance compilation Keeping The Faith. As chance would have it this came up on the mp3 player during this evening's trek down three motorways to get home. Sheer Taft, according to discogs, were Thomas Taft of Greenock and Ingrid Kudos. They released another single Atlantis (which I havn't got, and don't think I've ever heard) and an album Absolutely Sheer (ditto previous bracket). This is Cascades, remixed by previous postee Hypnotone. Dubby, electronic, Creation house. Sounds pretty good to these ears.

Cascades(Hypnotone mix).mp3