Six Thousand

Today marks post number six thousand at Bagging Area, which is a big number which ever way you slice it. To mark this here's something new and rather wonderful from perennial Bagging Area favorites Saint Etienne. 

At the tail end of last year Saint Etienne released an album called The Night, a record made for misty dawns and murky autumnal days, for headphones at three in the morning and for losing oneself in. Much of it was ambient and found sounds,along with a wash of synths, Sarah Cracknell's voice occasionally appearing out of the haze, suddenly something sharp and clear. It was not really like anything they'd done before, very much a mood piece, an album that you could play and that would act as background noise, every now and then catching your attention. As it might with the song Alone Together, a guitar plinking into life, a lazy laptop drumbeat ticking slowly away, some chords and then Sarah singing. It was very much the most fully formed song on The Night and even then still a very loose, whispery, gauze- like song.

Alone Together

For the record, I loved the album but can see why it split opinion anong the Saint Etienne fanbase. Now the group have remixed Alone Together, released next month as a four track CD/ digital EP and two track 12". There is a remix each from Pete Wiggs and Bob Stanley (Bob's with Augustin Bousfield), an extended version of the album track and a Cosmodelica remix by Colleen Cosmo Murphy. Bob's remix, the Hove Lawns Sunset Mix, is a thing of beauty, the sound of summer come early, terraces in the Med at sunset, long days and long shadows, a properly Balearic remix. Shuffly drums, clipped guitar, piano, Sarah and at three minutes some horns that parp away just so... the flutter of strings, the gentle throb of electronic bass, Spanish guitar. It's a summer holiday pressed onto black wax. The video was, I suspect, not filmed in Hove. 

V.A. Saturday

Bob Stanley (of Saint Etienne) is no stranger to the various artist compilation- sometimes it seems he's a one man compilation machine, firing out niche and obscure VA albums into the void to be picked up by the curious and adventurous. In 2020 along with Jason Wood he compiled a sixteen song album called Cafe Exil (New Adventures In European Music, 1972- 1980) that came out on Ace Records (themselves a deep and rich gold mine for compilation albums). Cafe Exil was the soundtrack for a new Mittel Europa, devoid of Anglo- American influence, the songs that could have been playing as David Bowie and Iggy Pop took their morning coffee in Cafe Exil in Kreuzberg, West Berlin (I love the fact that when Bowie and Iggy decided to leave the USA to kick cocaine they headed to one of the most extreme places in the world, half a city hemmed in by a wall and surrounded by a paranoid dictatorship). 

The motorik and the kosmische feature heavily as you'd expect- Cluster, Faust, Amon Duul, Popol Vuh- along with other sympathetic names- Soft Machine, Brian Eno, Toni Esposito, Annette Peacock- and some outliers- Jan Hammer Group. These two are among the stand outs. There's never a bad time to hear Michael Rother playing guitar is there?

Feuerland

Feuerland is originally from Rother's Flammende Herzen, a 1977 solo album that holds its own in the Rother back catalogue (and sounds as central to '77 as any of Bowie and Iggy's Berlin albums). Conny Plank produces, Jaki Liebezeit plays drums, Rother the synths and guitars. 

This one is by Steve Hillage, from his album Motivation Radio, also from '77, instrumental psychedelia/ prog. Iggy and Bowie would have been tapping their teaspoons along while this was playing in Cafe Exil, strong black coffee and pastries helping flush their systems clean. 

Octave Doctors

V.A. Saturday

This Saturday series is jumping around all over the place, a celebration of the various artists compilation album, something that when done well is as good as any 'proper' album. Recently I've posted Lenny' Kaye's mid- 60s garage and psyche rock extravaganza Nuggets, a pair of Andrew Weatherall collated compilations (9 O'Clock Drop and Force Tracks), the Detroit techno classic Retro Techno/ Emotions Electric and Colleen 'Cosmo's Murphy's Balearic Breakfasts. Today I offer you a Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs modern classic, their 2022 compilation Fell From The Sun, an album that is very specific in its parameters spanning a period lasting two years (1990- 1991) and solely tracks that are at 98 beats per minute. 

The lost in ecstasy face on the front cover, snapped at legendary London club Shoom, gives more than a hint at what's inside, fourteen slices of blissed out, shuffling, slightly woozy, indie- dance crossover/ straight dance music from the early 90s, a period where there seemed to be exciting, genre busting, record deck hogging 12" singles released weekly but also a time when tempos were suddenly cut, where the paced slowed and people took a breather before heading back to the floor. Bob and Pete were part of the scene, Saint Etienne releasing their own contribution to the scene in the form of their cover of Neil Young's Only Can Break Your Heart. Fell From The Sun opens with Primal Scream's Higher Than The Sun (Higher Than The Orb), a record that redefined Primal Scream as a band (something that Andrew Weatherall had already done not once but twice wit their previous two singles, Loaded and Come Together). If they'd stopped after Higher Than The Sun, it would have been enough, a sun dappled, sky scraping ode to becoming unlocked and going with the flow, of losing oneself in the moment. Bobby Gillespie isn't always the man I'd go to for lyrics but Higher Than The Sun is close to perfection, 'My brightest star's my inner light/ Let it guide me/ Experience and innocence bleed inside me/ Hallucinogens can open me or untie me/ I drift in inner space free of time/ I find a higher state of grace deep inside'. 

Higher Than The Sun (Higher Than The Orb Extended Mix)

Spaced out sounds and whispers swirl around, a faint pulse bumps in, and a rising synth line appears and then the rhythm gently kicks in, as Bobby coos 'I believe you get what you give', and then organ and drums and woooo sounds. Saxophone. Eight minutes of bliss. 

After that Bob and Pete guide us through a version of 1990- 91 at 98bp, stopping off for the mighty Cascades by Sheer Taft, The Grid's Floatation, Saint Etienne's glorious B-side Speedwell, One Dove, Transglobal Underground, BBGs Snappiness and The Aloof and finding room for a few lesser known gems- Elis Curry's U Make Me Feel, Massonix's Just A Little Bit More, History and Q- Tee's Afrika. 

The track titles alone conjure up the look of 1990- white Levi's, Travel Fox and Converse, long sleeved t-shirts, boys with centre partings and shoulder length hair, girls with short hair, dungarees, football shirts, Happy Mondays t- shirts, Spike Island and Kate Moss on the cover of The Face. 

Towards the end of the album are this pair of tracks. Firstly, I Don't Even Know If I Should Call You Baby by Soul Family Sensation, a British trio switched on by Chicago house in 1989. They split in 1992. Johnny Male went on to Republica. Guy Batson worked with Saint Etienne. Singer Jhelisa Anderson sang with The Shamen on LSI. None of them ever sounded better than on this song. 

I Don't Even Know If I Should Call You Baby

Fell From The Sun closes with Moodswings' Spiritual High, a cover of Donna Summer's State Of Independence, with a typically 1990 drum pattern, Chrissie Hynde, loved up synths and keys, bouncing bass, rattling rim shots, a wheezy organ, a choir, tumbling piano chords, and eventually, finally, Martin Luther King-  Grant Showbiz (a former Smiths and Billy Bragg roadie) and drummer James Hood creating a sound that is the very essence of that period between early spring 1990 and autumn 1991.

Spiritual High (The Moodfood Megamix)

Temple Head And Filthy

Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs have a very good sideline outside Saint Etienne, putting together themed compilation albums for Ace Records. Often these mine the rich seams of the 60s and 70s, unearthing forgotten album tracks and B-sides. Their most recent album is Fell From the Sun, a selection of 98BPM tracks from the summer of 1990 where the dance music revolution slowed down and a floaty, chilled out, modern psychedelia came in, records for the sunrise. 

Many of the songs on the album (double vinyl, single CD)  have been posted at this blog before- Primal Scream's Higher Than the Sun (produced and remixed by The Orb), Sheer Taft's Cascades, Saint Etienne's B-side Speedwell, One Dove's Fallen, BBG's Snappiness, the Jon and Vangelis/ Martin Luther King inspired Spiritual High by Moodswings, the Apocalypse Now! sampling Never Get Out Of The Boat by The Aloof and The Grid's Floatation. You'd be correct in seeing the hands, or the spirit, of Andrew Weatherall all over this compilation- Loaded was one of the records that kicked it off. There are quite a few I've never posted (one below and also Soul Family Sensation's I Don't Even Know If I Should Call You Baby, which is odd as I love it and was sure I'd written about it at some point). There are lesser known songs from Massonix, Elis Curry, History and Q- Tee and Critical Rhythm. It's a lovely snapshot of a time and a place (Britain in the summer of 1990), perfectly chiming with this period of hot and sunny weather we've been having. The sleeve photos and Bob's notes are spot on too, as you'd expect.

This is one of the songs on Fell From The Sun that I can't believe I've never posted here, Temple Head by Transglobal Underground. All the summer of 1990 elements are present- a unifiying, coming together 'Na na na/ Na na na' chant, that 98 BPM chuggy rhythm, loved up pianos and a 'watch the skies' vocal sample (from the film The Thing From Another World). The group signed to DeConstruction who re- released Temple Head on 12" the following year. 

Temple Head (Pacific Mix)

Fell From The Sun goes very well with another compilation covering the same period put together by Jon Savage and released in 2015, a double vinyl album called Perfect Motion- A Secret History Of Second Wave Psychedelia. Savage also saw it as a new (or neo) psychedelia and pulled together his snapshot of the 1988- 1993 period, a time when dance artists, guitar bands and pop groups with new technology and new drugs made music that seemed to promise endless possibility. Jon's compilation also has Saint Etienne (with Q-Tee, on their B-side Filthy) and Primal Scream (Slip Inside This House, itself a cover of freaked out 1960s psychedelia) and fellow guitar travellers Shack, Northside, The High and The Stone Roses (with one of their head-spinning backwards tracks, Full Fathom Five) alongside Deee- Lite, a Pet Shop Boys B-side, Weatherall's remix of Sly And Lovechild and his group Sabres Of Paradise's Clock Factory, rave from 808 State, DHS and Joi and DNA's remix of Electronic's Get The Message. A slightly wider ranging selection than Bob and Pete's but the two compilations sit side by side very well, two halves of the same pill.

Filthy was the B-side to the 1991 re- release of Saint Etienne's first single, their cover of Neil Young's Only Love Can Break Your Heart, a genuine lost classic. Riding in on a, yep, filthy bassline and a swamp rock guitar solo sampled from Afrique, South London rapper Q- Tee delivers a scene stealing vocal, rapping and singing. 'This is not a media hype', she drops huskily before the xylophone solo comes in. 

Filthy

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 132

Friday night in the Bagging Area Arms- I've emptied the ash trays in the smoking section (I gave up 7 months ago today folks), put some fresh nuts on the bar, stoked the fire. Gloria's just arrived made up and in her glad rags ready for new employment, Stan's on the door watching out for ne'erdowells. Just need some punters now- my round, who's in?

I've posted Peanuts Wilson's Cast Iron Arm before but I opened up Bob Stanley's Yeah, Yeah, Yeah yesterday and the first page is about that very record so I thought we could open 2014's rockabilly party with it, all the way from the 1950s- thumping rhythm, wild sax, comic voices and violent threats towards men and their intentions re: Peanuts' girl. As Bob says- impossible to get on vinyl but in the age of the internets it's available everywhere, all the time.

Cast Iron Arm

Spent The Summer Holed Up In A Room

A Christmas song for you- hey, it's the twelfth of December, in two weeks it'll all be over. In 1993 St Etienne joined up with The Charlatans' Tim Burgess to record this song, a festive Europop duet. St Etienne's own Bob Stanley was born on the 25th of December 1964. I'm hoping somebody has bought me Bob's new book Yeah Yeah Yeah for Christmas.

I Was Born On Christmas Day