Saturday Sessions

I love graffiti on the back of toilet doors, a subculture and demi- world of its own, full of cliches, randomness, artistry and insults. This door is the back of the cubicle in the men's toilet in The Eagle Inn, Salford, and frankly, your guess is as good as mine. 

Annie Nightingale's recent passing has bought a flood of much deserved tributes to her long career as  a DJ, from the 60s to the 2020s, and her constant championing of new music, underground music and the good deeds she often did for people- 'pay it forward', she often seems to have said to people who asked how they could return the favour she had just done for them. 

Annie was a friend of Andrew Weatherall's from the early days. She was part of the Primal Scream team (her son Alex was their manager in the 90s) when Weatherall's remixes and production broke them through from indie also rans to acid house rock 'n' roll stars. Andrew often sat in for Annie on Radio 1, providing guest mixes and shows for her. This one is from December 2008, just as Andrew was returning to the fray after  a couple of quiet years, his remixing and production back at his very best and his DJ sets full of invention and cosmic dance music- only thirty minutes long and without a second wasted. Funky, vibrant, cosmic dub- disco. The link below takes you to it at Mixcloud. 

Andrew Weatherall Mix For Annie Nightingale at Radio One December 2008

• Richard Gateaux - Runnin On Empty 
• They Came From The Stars - Moon Song (Holy Ghost Remix) 
• Richard Sen & Cazbee - AM:FM 
• Vincent Markowski - Dirty Capsule 
• Soft Rocks - Slowdown 
• Intaferon - Baby Pain

There are a slew of other mixes Andrew did for Annie at The Flightpath Estate's Mixcloud, Two Lone Swordsmen mixes and solo ones. This one dates from February 2000, Andrew mixing live from Rotters Gold Club, an hour of very eclectic, library, exotica and post punk. 

Andrew Weatherall Live From Rotters Golf Club For Annie Nightingale February 2000

Saturday Sessions

Keeping up with all the music that is being released is a full time job, one I don't always have the time to devote to it. There are albums and releases from last year I still need to explore. All the while, more and more music comes forth via the magic of the internet with radio shows, sessions and mixes. This is a round up of some recent shows and mixes, some I've enjoyed in full and some I've only got partway through and will go back to. If you listen to all of these today, you'll finish sometime this evening, exhausted maybe but replenished. 

First up is Justin Robertson and his bi- monthly Temple Of Wonders. This episode is fresh off the press, broadcast three days ago on 10th January, a two hour jaunt through Justin's record box taking in a typically eclectic range of music- psychedelia, dub, ambient, global, setting out with Pilot Voyager and concluding two hours and thirty eight tracks later with Tim Hardin. Listen at Mixcloud. 

On New Year's Eve Sean Johnston stayed home and broadcast to those staying in and to those who'd bene out and came back to find Sean still at the decks, seven hours and forty five minutes of chuggy cosmic ALFOS tunes, starting out quite slow and trippy and getting increasingly propulsive and dancey. Excellence as standard. Listen here. 

Jesse Fahnestock and Emilia Harmony's music was a repeat attraction at this blog last year, their Electric Blue Vision EP, Jesse's 10:40 album, a slew of Jezebell tracks and various other releases, lighting up 2023. Jesse and Emilia sat in with Brighton's Balearic Ultras and Music For Dreams playing music and chatting, an hour of laid back discussion, and perfectly pitched and seamlessly sequenced music, telling the stories of what lies behind the Electric Blue Vision EP. Both Jesse and Emilia have great voices for radio- it's a lovely way to spend an hour. Listen to it here. 

Lastly on New Year's Day Nina Walsh appeared on the long running Sonic Treasures radio show, Brother Joseph's Glasgow based radio show that transmits via radio Magnetic, a trove of the leftfield and eclectic, ambient, electronic and psychedelic. Nina played a perfectly sequenced two hours of music, some unreleased tracks done with Andrew Weatherall, plenty of music from her Fireflies band (as heard on Killing Eve), some WRF and some unreleased Andrew Weatherall remixes of Fireflies. Find it at Soundcloud. 

While we're talking about radio, transmissions and new music, the death of legendary radio DJ Annie Nightingale was announced yesterday. Annie was BBC 1's first female DJ and a tireless and endlessly energetic advocate for new music, leftfield sounds and underground music, not least much of the music that has featured here over the last fourteen years. She died aged 83. RIP Annie.