Monday's Long Song

Another aurora borealis photo, a bit out of focus but I like the chimney pots in the corner. Today's long song is from 1991 and The Orb and the fifteen minute epic that closes the first half of the Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld album. 

Spanish Castles In Space (Lunar Orbit Five)

Much of the work that went into Ultraworld came from Alex Paterson and Jimmy Cauty's DJ sets at Paul Oaknefold's Land Of Oz nights at Heaven in London, the long layered multitrack sets with three decks and tape and CD players all linked up, BBC Radiophonic Workshop albums, dub records, sound effects records, NASA samples, very few drums and whatever else they could get their hands on. 

Spanish Castles In Space samples the love theme from Spartacus by Bill Evans, the narration from a Soviet Union field recordings album called Звуковые И Биоэлектрические Сигналы Рыб (Audio And Bioelectrical Signals Of Fishes apparently), and Crystal City by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and Glynis Jones. It is a long, chilled and very worthwhile trip. 

Forty Minutes Of Andrew Weatherall

It's day three of AW61 at The Golden Lion in Todmorden today, a day of dub and the Double Gone Chapel with Curley, Sherman and Nicky General bringing the dub and Rico, Louise and Waka bringing the Double Gone sounds. At the time of writing I don't know how yesterday went but let's assume it was really good and The Flightpath Estate DJs pulled it off in fine style.

Today's mix is a tribute to Andrew Weatherall, with a selection of tracks that feature samples of his voice, a lengthy tribute from Kenneth Bager and an unofficial and unreleased oddity ripped from a radio show. As well as being a top class DJ, remixer and producer Andrew was a great interviewee, eminently quotable and entertaining. Most of the tracks below feature snippets from interviews he did during the 2010s, the topics under discussion including the importance of Factory Records, his A Certain Ratio fixation, and whether acid house is in the end 'just a fucking disco'.

Forty Minutes Of Andrew Weatherall

• Prana Crafter: Starlight, Sing Us A Melody
• Sabres Of Paradise: Clock Factory (Joe Mckechnie North Star Edit)
• IWDG: In A Lonely Place (David Holmes Remix)
• BTCOP: Just A Disco (Lights On The Hills Mix)
• BTCOP: Just A Disco (Blavatsky and Tolley Mix)
• Kenneth Bager: Late Night Symphony (Tribute To Andrew Weatherall)
• BBC Radiophonic Workshop: Electricity, Language And Me

Prana Crafter released Morpho Mystic, a six track album in September 2020. The album is the work of William Sol, a psychedelic/ folk musician. Starlight, Sing Us A Melody is a few minutes of gently psyche acoustic and electric guitars with the voice of Mr Weatherall appearing at the end. 

Clock Factory was a fifteen minute excursion into spooked industrial ambience on Sabres Of Paradise's 1993 album Sabresonic. Joe Mckechnie's edit is entirely unofficial, Andrew's voice dropped in to a shorter version of Clock Factory. Joe is a Liverpool based DJ, producer and remixer, formerly a member of 80s Liverpool band Benny Profane whose name was all over the city's gig posters in Liverpool in the late 80s, regularly supporting bigger names and the touring indie bands who passed through venues such as the Mountford Hall, the Haigh Building and Planet X. 

IWDG is Ian Weatherall and Duncan Grey (also known as Sons Of Slough who played at The Golden Lion last night). In 2021 they covered New Order's In A Lonely Place, a tribute to Andrew and to Factory Records. David Holmes was one of the remixers, sampling Andrew's voice as well as singing Bernard's words. 

Just A Disco came out in November 2022, a track built around a quote from Andrew where he mused on whether coloured lights, dry ice and trance inducing music was just a fucking disco or whether it's something more than that- a gnostic ceremony he might have said with a smirk. The Lights On The Hill Mix is ten minutes of ambient/ Balearic gorgousness. The Blavatsky and Tolley Mix is much thumpier with the title rattling round and round. 

Kenneth Bager is headman at Music For Dreams in Copenhagen. His Late Night Symphony is from an EP released in 2022 called Stones And Steel and is a ten minute long tribute to Andrew- no voice on this one but a very lovely piece of wonky electronic music all the same. 

Electricity, Language And Me is a 2013 collaboration between the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and Andrew that remains unreleased. There are some unreleased remixes as well which I hope will see the light of day at some point. This is a short piece with Andrew providing a spoken word vocal, ripped from one of his NTS radio shows which were the gateway to so much music, both new and old. 

Saturday Theme Seven

Today's theme from Saturday is from 1969 and from Delia Derbyshire, the woman at the heart of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Delia's Theme is a little under one and a half minutes of Delia, a vintage synth and some oscillators. It was originally released on an album called Standard Music Library, sound effects and short pieces of music for radio and tv. If you ever see a copy in a  charity shop, snap it up for me please. 

Delia's Theme

Delia is much better known for this theme, a groundbreaking piece of tv music, built round that famous two note bassline with tons of reverb and some whooshing siren noises. Despite being very well known and instantly recognisable it's still a startling piece of music. 

Dr Who (End Theme)

State Sponsored Weirdness

The BBC Radiophonic Workshop is a thing of brilliance- all that time they spent with old synths and tapes and gizmos making weird noises, sound effects, incidental music and theme tunes. And paid for by the license fee- stick that The Daily Mail and other BBC critics. This clip shows the surviving members (sadly minus the late Delia Derbyshire above) playing the Doctor Who theme recently for the One Show. Although it doesn't need the sound clips from the TV series really. I can take or leave Doctor Who a lot of the time, but the thought of Peter Capaldi swearing his way through space and time could bring me in- 'fucking Dalek omnishambles' and 'fuckety bye you useless alien knobface', that sort of thing.



From 1976, Out Of This World

Delia's Theme

Today HMI arrive for a random single subject inspection. We shall repulse them with the quality of our provision, our tracking system and progress measuring and work sampling, our short, medium and long term plans, our intention to always strive to be outstanding. If that fails maybe I'll distract them with Delia Derbyshire and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

Delia's Theme

Meanwhile back at the underground studio/bunker complex, if you're into Astrolab Recordings and their chuggy chuggy sound (featuring Mr Weatherall, Mr Fairplay, Mr Avery, Mr Fraser, Mr Robertson and his Deadstock 33s and Mr Mugwump amongst others) then this compilation looks right up your alley.