Forty Five Minutes Of Neo- Indie Dance

I was never a fan of the term indie- dance back in the 1989- 1992 heyday. It seemed reductive and a little sneery, music press shorthand for guitar bands suddenly getting onto the dancefloor and finding a remixer who could help them crossover. Much of the music was brilliant but the way it was portrayed and written about was not. There was an element of bandwagon jumping too. But those records- the remixes of Happy Mondays Wrote For Luck, Fool's Gold, Weatherall's 12" remixes of songs from Screamadelica and then of everybody else, Flowered Up, New Fast Automatic Daffodils, The Soup Dragons (ahead of the pack as singer Sean is always keen to point out, releasing I'm Free ahead of Primal Scream's Loaded)- still sound like sonic gold and can still fill a dance floor. 

There's been a renaissance of the sound, the shuffly drums, psychedelic guitars, extended length tracks, cosmic synth sounds and freewheeling spirit circling back into the world. Recently Das Druid, Marshall Watson and Cole Odin, several of Sean Johnston Hardway Bros remixes, Holy Youth Movement and others have been reinvigorating a sound that is now over three decades old. The temptation to throw some of them together into a Sunday mix, a revival of the sound of Thursday night indie nights at late 80s nightclubs but with a bunch of 21st century tracks, was too much. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Neo- Indie Dance

• Strange Fruit: Monopolar
• Das Druid: Freedom
• Holy Youth Movement: Better Together (Hardway Bros Cosmic Intervention Mix)
• Marshall Watson and Cole Odin: Just A Daydream Away (Space Flight Mix)
• Le Carousel: Echo Spiegel (Curses Liquid Metal Mix)
• Jagwar Ma: Come Save Me (Andrew Weatherall Remix)
• Psychederek: Thinkin' Bout U Pt. 2 (Venus)

Strange Fruit are an indie- dance/ psychedelic/ cosmische band from Jakarta. Their forthcoming album Drips comes with remixes- Hardway bros and Tom Furse from The Horrors- and four songs, all of which mine that seam that got us shaking our action at the point were the 80s became the 90s. Shuffly drums, burbling synths, cosmische production and blissed out vocals all present and correct.  

Das Druid are from Australia, a band who are open about their influences, describing their Das Druid EP as a 'love letter to the evolving spirit of the Madchester scene'. Rather than shy away from it, they've embraced the comparisons. The EP comes with Justin Robertson remixes (in his folk- dub Five Green Moons guise), a man who moved to Manchester in the mid- 80s specifically for the music (and the university), and one from South Manchester's own Ruf Dug. 

Holy Youth Movement are from Bristol, a five piece taking cues from Primal Scream and Underworld with Jagz Kooner at the controls. Sean Johnston's Hardway Bros provided two remixes, both of which are sprinkled with indie- dance dancefloor gold dust. 

San Francisco pairing Marshal Watson and Cole Odin's Just A Daydream Away were a 2023 highlight, an EP with various versions of a cosmic/ indie- dance song, smothered in a sheen of day glo early 90s via 2020s production that glides and shimmers. Hardway Bros weighed in with a pair of remixes of this one too. 

Le Carousel's The Humans Will Destroy us is already sounding like one of the albums of 2026, a ten track synths/ guitars celebration of/ farewell to humanity. Last year's single Echo Spiegel was remixed by Berlin based producer Curses who put a  chunky 1991 indie- dance break under Phil's psychedelic/ electronics and pushed it all to the fore. 

Jagwar Ma were an Australian psychedelic/ dance trio from 2012 who made two albums between 2013 and 2016. In 2011 they released Come Save Me as a single and it came with an Andrew Weatherall remix. Between 1989 and 1991 Andrew did as much as anyone to invent a new sound, guitars and dance beats, samples and sequencers. By 1992 he was keen to move on and to leave indie- dance behind. In 2013 he remixed Jagwar Ma following a jaunt to Australia, sticking a massive indie- dance breakbeat underneath the song and in so doing reinventing a sound that he invented twenty years previously, a decade ahead of some younger bands then re- discovering the sound. Weatherall absolutely shines as a remixer here. 

Psychederek is from Stretford, a young musician/ DJ with a growing and excellent back catalogue. The sound of a psychedelic Stretford. His Thinkin' Bout U single came out last year, four different versions with the Pt. 2 Venus mix built around that indie- dance shuffle. 

Echo Spiegel

Some music that sneaked out in December 2025 that I missed. From Belfast, Phil Kieran's Le Carousel released an EP called Echo Spiegel (translation- Sound Mirror), a squelchy psychedelic, Germanic disco number with a pair of remixes by Curses and a further one by Phil himself. The original is a lovely piece of electronic music, one that draws you in as it unfolds, repetition as a feature and an end in itself. 

Curses is DJ/ producer/ remixer Luca Venezia, resident of Berlin. He provides a pair of remixes. The Liquid Metal Remix is driven by a breakbeat and stripped back synth sounds, low slung fun and a churning, grimy bassline. The EP, all four versions, are available to listen to and buy at Bandcamp. It finishes with Phil's remix of his own track, the Phil Kieran Psychedelic Mix, a version that removes the rhythms and focuses on a Cluster like trip into the cosmische. 

Curses, Gina And The Day Your Life Will Change

Curses is a one man outfit based in Berlin, an 80s obsessive with a chilly New Wave/ post- punk sound, all urgency and paranoia, some Cold War dread along with some tough beats beamed in from Belgian New Beat or early acid house. A few years ago his cover version of The The's This Is The Day pricked my ears up, powered by a Hooky- esque bassline that you could dredge a canal with, some bleepy toplines and a vocal that always seems to me like he slightly misses his cue for the first line but makes it work anyway. 

This Is The Day

Last year Curses released a song on Dischi Autunno with vocals from Cici, a sparse, rhythmic, iced tribute to Italian actress and photojournalist Gina Lollobrigada. 

Gina was a high profile international star in the 1950s and 60s and has lived quite the life and aged 94 is still with us, the last of the superstars of the silver screen. She starred alongside Humphrey Bogart in Beat The Devil and Crossed Swords with Errol Flynn as well as films with Yul Brynner, Ernst Borgnine, Frank Sinatra, Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis. 

Curses has a new album out this month, Incarnadine, more pumped up dark disco and post- punk that sound like they've been mainlined straight from a Berlin of the 1920s/ 1980s transplanted into now. You can buy it here. If you dig around his Bandcamp site you'll also find a thirty eight track compilation album called Next Wave Acid Punx that explains everything, from Gina X to Yello and all points in between. 

In The Dark

Another slice of modern techno today, a 2017 release from Curses, a one man Berlin based American in exile who makes electronic, disco/ post- punk flecked rock 'n' roll. This remix is by Russian DJ/ producer Inga Mauer, who makes it even darker than it started, a tension filled five minutes.

Together In The Dark (Inga Mauer Remix)

Then I remembered that Inga also remixed yesterday's techno whizzkid Daniel Avery, a similarly intense and moody trip, with rim shots ricocheting around, clattering techno drums and a distant, disconnected voice. Fever Dream was originally released as part of the Slow Fade EP, four tracks of blurry ambient techno. 

Fever Dream (Inga Mauer Remix) 

Isolation Mix Four

A bit of a change again for this week's hour long isolation mix, this time a trip into more psychedelic and psyche areas, some guitars, a couple of cover versions, some remixes and a re-edit of an 80s alt- classic with an eye, a third eye maybe, on the cosmic and the blissed out. One of the segues is a little bit clumsy but I can live with it. I've had to move the host over to Mixcloud as I'd used up all my available space at Soundcloud without going to the paid for service.



Tracklist-
The Durutti Column: Otis

Wixel: Expressway To Yr Skull (Long Champs Bonus Beats)

Moon Duo: Stars Are The Light

Curses: This Is The Day

Le Volume Courbe: Rusty

Sonic Boom/ Spectrum: True Love Will Find You In The End

Mogwai: Party In The Dark

The Liminanas: The Gift (Anton Mix)

Goldfrapp v Spiritualized: Monster Love

Julian Cope: Heed Of Penetration and the City Dweller Head Remix by Hugo Nicholson

Edit Service 8 by It’s A Fine Line: The Story Of The Blues (Talkin’ Blues)

The Early Years: Complicity

Your Life Will Surely Change

I wasn't sure about this the first time I heard it but its grown on me massively, a cover version of The The's This Is The Day, Matt Johnson's 1983 single that never strays far from my stereo. This cover is by Curses, a New Yorker resident in Berlin releasing songs on a label based in Athens (Greece not Georgia). The doomy bassline churns along playing off against loud synths and a huge kick drum. There are splinters of guitar, some piano and the vocals are smothered in reverb, some distance away. A 2019 version of the 1980s post- punk, death disco sound, EBM, Belgian New Beat, industrial- all the underground genres.



Curses cover version is from a compilation put out by Lagasta to celebrate their tenth anniversary, fifteen cover versions including takes on Cities In Dust, West End Girls and Human Fly. Get it here from Bandcamp (name your price so no risk).

Curses

Curses is a Berlin based dj and producer. Curses are also a metal band and another Curses were a Canadian hardcore punk band. It is the Berlin Curses I am offering you today. Together In The Dark is a very Teutonic sounding song, precise drums, throbbing synth bass, a detached vocal and some bass borrowed from early 80s New Order.



This Inga Mauer remix is five minutes of dark, mystery laden, intense techno.



This song, Another View, came out in September 2017 and is knee deep in 80s influences. Possibly overly 80s influenced but I like it regardless.