More Flightpath And An Alliance

More Flightpath Estate news today. A couple of weeks ago the latest edition of Uncut hit the newsagent's shelves, a suited and booted Nick Cave resplendent on the cover and inside, with Wild God sitting pretty in the Uncut album of the year list. The magazine comes with a booklet, My Year In Music, in which a disparate group of leftfield musicians give us the lowdown on what they've been listening to in 2024- contributors include Thurston Moore, Gruff Rhys, Phil Manzanera, Anais Mitchell, Richard Thompson, Lawrence, Bill Callahan, Aiden Moffat, Joan Wasser, Bill Ryder- Jones, Isobel Campbell, Katy J Pearson and Andy Bell. In his piece Andy Bell talks about the Four Tet album 3 and Jamie Xx's In Waves, Beak>, Fontaines DC, Orbital and others. 

He then casually drops in this- ''Todmorden label (and absolute heroes) Golden Lion Sounds put out an excellent compilation called Sounds From the Flightpath Estate, a celebration of the spirit of Andrew Weatherall. Full disclosure: this is an album contributed to, but I wanted to highlight it because all the music is such high quality, notably, the Hardway Bros tracks 'Theme For Flightpath Estate''.

This tip of the Ride/ GLOK hat from Andy was very nice obviously and totally unexpected. Yesterday came the Piccadilly Records end of year lists, which are always published in beautiful booklet form, free to pick up from the shop or slipped into any order from them for the cost of 1 penny. When we had our album stocked briefly in Piccadilly Records back in April and had the window takeover event I think we quietly hoped that we might feature in Piccadilly's end of year list but certainly didn't expect it. Piccadilly's lists came out- the top 30 Collections (compilations and re- issues) is where our interest is and our album is placed at number 13. Ahead of us lie some big hitters and local heroes- not least Down To The Sea And Back, Luke Una, some siblings from Burnage, an excellent Jason Boardman compilation I reviewed for Ban Ban Ton Ton, Richard Norris, Galaxie 500, Aphex Twin and The Charlatans. Some decent company to keep! The whole list can be found here. 

This is all very exciting for us. A year ago we had most of the tracks that make up Sounds Of The Flightpath Estate Volume 1 sitting on our hard drives, a promise from Rotters Golf Club that we could have a then unreleased Weatherall and Tenniswood track and some ongoing discussions with Golden Lion Sounds about mastering and release dates. What's happened since has exceeded our hopes and expectations at every stage- and as a friend said yesterday, 'you've done this from scratch'. Back in the summer Waka from The Golden Lion said to me, 'imagine it, then create it'. That's the spirit of it I guess- and that's what we've done. And yes, we did call the album Volume 1 for a reason...

Andy Bell, who contributed his cover of Smokebelch that closes the album so appropriately, had an album out very recently, a collaboration with Timothy Clerkin with Andy in his experimental/ electronic GLOK guise. The pair met at Andrew's funeral and made a vague agreement to work together and then during lockdown began exchanging ideas and tracks, bouncing files back and forth. This has resulted in Alliance, a record that for me should be featuring in all the end of year lists, seven slices of experimental but laser focussed guitars x electronics. The music has some influences close to the surface- Aphex Twin, Death In Vegas, Boards Of Canada- but it transcends them at every turn. It is hypnotic, 21st century psychedelic and kosmische. Opener Empyrean kicks in with a huge distorted synth bass riff and then builds, waves of synths and chanted/ looped backing vox in layers. AmigA stutters on after it, tripped out and floating with acoustic guitars, rippling melodies and early shoegaze vocals. On Nothing Ever singer Du Blonde takes the reins, a scuzzed out indie- pop song, with the refrain 'nothing ever goes my way' circling round and round. Scattered is the sound of My Bloody Valentine in 1990 deciding to ditch the noise and FX pedals and dive full frontal into acid house, fed into the blender, with Andy's chopped up, spoken word, non sequiturs, scattered throughout- 'I was driving' and 'it's all too much' punctuated by 'need somebody' and 'scattered'.

The Witching Hour heads out further onto the floor, drums kicking in, the metronomic kick finding its rhythm, backwards guitars and a Wrote For Luck groove taking over. Then a massive bass guitar riff takes the lead. Swirling lights, strobes, light shows. E- Theme takes us to the end, a tinny guitar riff that could be from Ride's early EP/ Nowhere (actually played by Tim) and Aphex Twin vocal fragments, with a rising tide of synths. Magickal stuff- Andy some of the tracks took him into 'a Pagan, pre- Christian headspace... prehistoric rave' and this is a) a very good analogy and b) right up my strasse. You can listen and buy to the whole of Alliance here. 

Put Your Money In My Box

Acid Klaus played The Golden Lion, Todmorden, on Friday night, a launch party for a five track EP P.T.S.D. By Proxy that came out on Golden Lion Sounds last month, with a DJ set afterwards by Maxine Peake. Acid Klaus came on stage under the Lion's mirror ball and red lights to a busy and excitable crowd, the pub filled with people young and middle aged determined to have a party from the moment the first note was played. The recent EP was played in full, Adrian with hat pulled right down and collar of coat pulled right up and dark glasses too, on keys/ synth and vocoder, a poncho'd and behatted stand up drummer and twin vocalists who gave it all, Cat Rin stage left, singing in Welsh and English and Amelia Lace, centre stage, wearing a helmet. They powered their way through the songs from P.T.S.D. By Proxy, from the revved up synth pop call for revolution The Solution, to the Detroit techno sounds of Aerodromes, Amelia singing of cruising the council estates and having to get it right. Pour Some Wood On The Fire mixes Hi NRG and blurry acid house with Adrian on robotic vocals, and then abandoning the synth completely, leaving the stage and entering the heaving throng on the floor with microphone firmly clenched for Losing Our Way, his north Manchester vowels and the 303 ricocheting round the stone floor and walls. Adrian says the EP is 'dance music you can cry to', electronic sounds to frug around to while the world goes up in smoke. The last song is a riot, the twin vocalists chanting 'put your money in my box' while Adrian counters with the robotic 'heaven's for sale' and the crowd dance like no one's watching. Or cares about anyone who is. 

The EP is still available at Golden Lion Sounds, 10" on yellow vinyl. If you buy the vinyl you get a digital only remix of Aerodromes by David Holmes with a video filmed in the Golden Lion

Maxine Peake played records afterwards, the self described 'leftie luvvie' spinning Northern Soul 7" singles and floor fillers, psyche, indie, guitar bands, Motorhead and more. I had to run for the 11.36 train back to Manchester and found myself sitting on the train with a group of twenty- somethings who, on finding out I teach history for a living, asked me to tell them some history. There followed a long, rambling and probably incoherent monologue about the Spanish Civil War with multiple digressions. If you're reading this kids, thanks for humouring me/ looking after me. 

Aerodromes

The latest release on Golden Lion Sounds is an EP by Acid Klaus, available digitally and on 10" vinyl at the GLS Bandcamp page. P.T.S.D. By Proxy is five tracks of electronic mayhem, 'dance music you can cry to', according to Klaus mainman Adrian Flanagan (who comes to Acid Klaus via The Moonlandingz and The Eccentronic Research Council). Opening track The Solution doesn't pull any punches or warm you up gently- it pumps in immediately, electronic bump and grind with a robotic voice intoning, 'The solution/ Is revolution'. Philly Piper guests on track two, Aerodromes, pulsing bass, dancing synth toplines and Philly's FXed voice talking about the death of conversation and class struggle while returning to the chorus of, 'You gotta get it/ Get get get it right', a Hi NRG/ acid house collision, arpeggiators firing off all over the place. 

Pour Some Wood On The Fire brings vocals from Welsh singer/ songwriter Cat Rin. There's no let up in energy, the frenetic beats and sci fi synths blasting away. Losing Our Way has Roland 808 and the spoken word, Maxine Peake and Rosey PM despairing at the state of the world while the electronics bleep and bloop and the machine drums power ever forwards.  Hell Below features Lias Saoudi from Fat White Family on vocals, a slightly slower, mellower track, some minor chord melancholy futurism. 

There's a David Holmes remix of Aerodromes, exclusive to the digital package, with a video filmed in The Golden Lion (with some familiar faces in it), Homer fully on it with eight minutes of synapse twisting sounds, thumping drums, and not a little drama, the last song at the end of the night as the world burns. 

Seven And A Half Hours Of The Flightpath Estate At AW61

Yesterday saw the latest installment in the continuing adventures of our album, Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 1. Every step along the way has been a leap into the unknown and it has exceeded our expectations at every stage, from David Holmes saying 'yes' to Justin Robertson sending us the first piece of music to the rest of the tracks coming in to Andy Bell at the eleventh hour sending us his cover of Smokebelch to Rusty's beautiful artwork to the first run of 500 copies selling out in a day to Lauren Laverne playing some of the tracks on 6 Music and making it compilation of the week to the actual physical records arriving to it appearing on Piccadilly Records website a couple of weeks ago... on and on it's gone, jaw dropping at every turn. Last week when I went to see ACR at Soup I called in at Piccadilly Records and was massively excited to see our album in the racks. Then, entering the venue, the man in front of me had a copy in his carrier bag. Yesterday, another amazing moment- Piccadilly Records gave us a full window display. 

I've been buying records from this shop in three different city centre locations, since the late 80s. They are my first choice of shop for new music. To see thirty six copies of our album in the window was a fairly mind blowing experience. Me, Dan and Martin from The Flightpath Estate and Matt from The Golden Lion all attended- and here we are (left to right, Dan, me, Martin, Matt. Yes, Matt is bringing the average age down a bit). Twenty copies of the album went to Piccadilly but I believe they've all gone now. Ten went to Vinyl Exchange over the road (another shop I've been buying records from for decades). 

With this long running Sunday mix series I usually try to come in at around thirty to forty minutes, occasionally going up to an hour. Today's mix comfortably tops any and every Sunday mix for running time, seven and a half hours of tracks and songs played by us at The Golden Lion at AW61 at the start of April. We played from Saturday afternoon to evening, kicking off at about 2pm with Baz, taking an hour each (my set ended with the AW61 auction and raffle, the first time I've DJed to support an auction of Andrew Weatherall's belongings which included a mug, some cufflinks and his stash tin). At about 7pm we began to play back to back, three tracks each and then two each, rotating on and off. It was brilliant fun, a wonderful experience. The sets weren't recorded but we've done our best to re- create them since. It's not entirely as was played- there are a few things missing that are currently unreleased and which can't be distributed more widely just yet (including one that's missing that may well be one of the tracks for what will hopefully be Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 2 but I'll say no more about that at the moment). Also, in my three I played David Holmes' remix of Sylvia by Lisa Moorish. I hadn't been paying enough attention to notice that Mark had played it earlier so to avoid repetition I've taken that out and replaced it with David's remix of X- Press 2 (which I had in my bag and was planning on playing later but didn't). Some of our memories are a little sketchy in places but it's fairly close to what we played between 2pm and 9.30pm on Saturday 6th April at The Golden Lion in Todmorden before Sean Johnston and Duncan Gray took over and lifted the roof tiles.

The entire seven and a half hour set is at Mixcloud here. I have an mp3 of it which is a whopping 1GB file and too big to host at my usual file hosting service. I've uploaded into WeTransfer and it will be live for a week from today if you want to download it. I haven't managed to recreate the auction and raffle- that really was a 'you had to be there' thing. It took place between me playing A Mountain Of One's Star (GLOK Starlight Dub) and David Holmes' Emotionally Clear and you'll just have to use your imagination or your memory, but it looked like this...

The Flightpath Estate Live At AW61 

Barry

• Two Lone Swordsmen - The Crescents
• Barry Woolnough - Great Father Spirit In The Sky
• Manfred Mann - Just For Me
• Angel Corpus Christi - Dream Baby Dream
• Chris & Cosey - October (Love Song) (86 Version)
• The Prophets - Was Alive
• Minami Deutsch - Sunrise, Sunset
• Trash Kit - Every Second
• Tav Falco Panther Burns - Master Of Chaos
• White Williams - Route To Palm
• Noema - One (Kalabrese Re-Jam)
• Johnny Waleen - Mystery Train
• M&M Hardway Bros - Acid Edit
• Andy Bell - Smokebelch II

Martin

• Andrew Waite- Smokebelch (Final Fanfare Mix)
• Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Love Letter
• Joshua Idehen - Learn To Swim Pt 2
• Lee Perry - Future Of My Music
• groundsound - Trod
• Alev & Jas - A World Beyond
• Kreidler - Mount Mason
• Golden Bug ft The Liminanas - L'effet
• Mildlife - Chorus
• Two Lone Swordsmen - Get Out Of My Kingdom (unreleased demo) 
• Sorcerers - Yasuke In Roppongi
• Phil Kieran - Atlantic
• Leo Hellden & Rocket Mike - Strange
• Ashley Casselle - Wannabee (Andrew Weatherall unreleased remix)

Adam

• Coyote - Western Revolution
• Durutti Column - Bordeaux Sequence
• Psychederek - Test Card Girl
• Four Tet - Loved
• Rick Cuevas - The Birds
• Biosphere - En- Trance
• Underworld - 8 Ball
• Wixel plays Sonic Youth - Expressway To Yr Skull (Long Champs Bonus Beats)
• This Mortal Coil - Edit To The Siren
• Bjork - One Day
• James Holden - Common Land
• A Mountain Of One - Star (GLOK Starlight Dub)
• David Holmes and Raven Violet - Emotionally Clear

Dan

• Fragile X - Initial Conditions (0.506)
• Sabres Of Paradise - Duke of Earlsfield (LFO Mix)
• Toy - Dead & Gone (Andrew Weatherall Remix)
• Bedford Falls Players - Cosmosapien Revisited (The Long Champs Remix)
• Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s - Curtains Twitch On Peaks
• Jah Division - Heart And Soul Dub
• Adrian Roman - Thoughts Against Death
• MOY - Sunrise (live)
• Deutsche Wertarbeit - Auf Engelsflugein
• Golden Age - Lives Of Angels 
• Jah Division - Division Dub

Mark

• 100 Poems - Joyness Magnificent (We'll Find The Light Together)
• Zeb The Spy From Cairo - Alladin Dub
• Coyote (Featuring Rolo McGinty) - Marijuana
• 10:40 - The Engineer
• International Observer - Saturday Night In Camden Town
• Against All Logic - Cityfade
• Lisa Moorish - Sylvia (David Holmes Dub)
• Rude Audio - Swamp Ting (Unmastered/Unreleased - out in the next few months)
• Bedford Falls Players - Agent Cooper Coffee Dreams
• Supereal - Body Medusa (The Leftfield Dub Mix)
• Franz Ferdinand - Stand On The Horizon (Rude Audio's Massive Re-edit)
• Music For Swinging Mothers - Everyday
• David Bowie- Ashes to Ashes (speed garage bootleg)
• In Dada - Uptown (Crooked Man's Dubtown Mix)

Martin

• Domenic Cappello - Mushroom Waltz
• The Light Brigade - Human : Remains
• Andrew Weatherall - Liar With Wings (Mat Carter & Ian Weatherall Unreleased Remix)

Adam

• C.A.R. - Anzu
• Orbital, David Holmes and Mike Garry: Tonight In Belfast
• X-Press 2 ft. Kele Okoreke: Phasing You Out (David Holmes Remix)

Dan

• Psychederek - Tongue Tied (Moodymanc's Listen To Me Remix)
• Adrian Roman - I Think It’s Not You 
• Alter Ego - Beat the Bush (Ewan Pearson Slow Nrg Remix Edit)

Martin

• Man Power - Maybe Even Never
• Yuksek ft. Luedji Luna - Santas Almas Benditas (Red Axes Remix)
• Wah Together - I'm A Swimmer (Friends In Town Remix)

Dan

• Rude Audio - Running Wild
• Llewelyn - These Days (Don't Make Me Wait)
• Glok - That Time Of Night (Hardway Bros Meet Monkton Uptown Dub)

Martin

• New Order - Vanishing Point (Rich Lane Cotton Dub)
• Jain - Makeba (T-Bone Edit)

Mark

• Bedford Falls Players - Beautiful Chaos (Dub Mix)

Imagine It Create It

One of the treats of this week that keeps repeating has been the arrival of our album, Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 1, arriving in physical form through people's front doors. The first copies started to fall onto door mats a week ago and there's been a stream ever since. My copy arrived on Saturday morning an to say it's a been a thrill is an understatement. 

When I was younger records had a mystical power, they cast a spell and there was a ritual connected to playing them- the black vinyl and the way it crackled slightly when pulled out of the sleeve, the spiralling groove with the stylus sitting within it, the magical sounds that emanated from this piece of plastic via the arm of the record player and out of the speakers, the sleeve with art or photo on the front and the world of credits, track titles, sleeve notes, and thank yous on the back or inside. And even though DIY culture has been part of the musical world I've been inhabiting since I first started buying records (the philosophy that anyone can make a record was part of both punk and its aftermath and acid house), the idea that a twelve track album in a gatefold sleeve with an array of top quality tracks, all connected to Andrew Weatherall, with my name, picture and sleeve notes written by me would some exist as an actual physical artefact, is a little mind blowing still. That mystical power of black plastic and a cardboard sleeve still exists. It was there last Saturday when I opened the package and slid the album out, Personality Crisis's brilliant artwork in my hands, the gatefold opening up with my sleeve notes on the left and the credits and thanks you's on the right (and a dedication to Isaac too, another proper moment), the pair of discs inside paper inner sleeves... the magic is right there. 

The twelve tracks are all absurdly good, everyone involved has sent us music from their top drawer. The opening track is a Two Lone Swordsmen ambient track (not a genre they explored that in that much depth) from a CD promo issued solely in japan twenty years ago called Still My World. We managed to get Rotters Golf Club to license it for our album, something that still has me shaking my heard. Sons Of Slough, Ian Weatherall and Duncan Grey, follow with a chunky, chuggy monster called Red Machine, recorded live at their soundcheck at The Golden Lion last August. Timothy J. Fairplay's Centurion Version, closes side 1, Tim's own tribute to the planned follow up to his and Andrew's Ruled By Passion, Destroyed By Lust album (as The Aphodells), a rocking synth dub track. Flip the disc over and  you find Justin Robertson and his Deadstock 33s and a wired, tripped out dub ode to Todmorden and The Golden Lion, a very FXed vocal talking about happy valleys and UFOs (the Todmorden UFO society meets monthly upstairs at the pub. A friend who moved into the area and who attended a meeting was treated with deep suspicion by the regulars who thought he might be from the government). Curtains Twitch On Peaks is followed by the huge sounding Tough On Chug, Tough On The Causes Of Chug by Richard Sen, thumping, driving electronic music. Disc 2 kicks off with Rude Audio's sleek dub techno track Running Wild, driving bass, guitar, keys and rocking dubbed out drums. Jesse Fahnestock's 10:40 comes next, a circus organ riff transplanted from a fairground to acid house with Emilia Harmony's  blissed out, otherworldly vocal a siren call. Side 4 has Sean Johnston's Hardway Bros and the self- explanatory Theme For Flightpath Estate (how ace is that? We have our own theme??). Cosmic disco of the kind he plays at ALFOS with a nod to Andrew Weatherall's Walk of Shame within it. The Light Brigade come next (it's a pseudonym due to the artist being contracted Heavenly but the notes on the gatefold  credit the writing and production to David Holmes so you can probably make you onw mind up about who it is). Human : Remains sat unfinished and homeless on the shelf for twenty years before being dusted down, sharpened up and released on our album, a track that surges with krautrock drums and layers of synths, keys and bass. We finish with Andy Bell's cover of Smokebelch, a gorgeous, lilting cover version, Andy's fingers moving up and down the strings of his guitar audible, piano and guitars and FX, the perfect way to close the album. Andy began it on the day Andrew died in 2020 and finished it for our album back in October. As I've said and keep saying, a record full of moments that have had me/ us pinching ourselves at almost every stage, from the first week we had a 'yes' to our proposal to this week when the record arrived at our homes. 

The album's sold out online. There are some copies available from today at The Golden Lion, at AW61, a weekender to celebrate what would have been Andrew's 61st birthday. Tonight Radioactive Man and David Holmes will rock the Lion with Matt Hum and Rusty and Rotter. There are some copies due to land at Piccadilly Records soon and some more at London's Stranger Than Paradise Records. All these things make me shake my head and pinch myself again. Yes, I will be going to Piccadilly Records to photograph our album in the racks. 

In an interview many years ago Andrew Weatherall spoke of what he did being in the spirit of 'the grand amateur'. I think that's us too. Waka, the man who runs The Golden Lion, said on Facebook this week, 'Imagine it: create it'. And that's what we've done. 

I can't post any of the songs- we only got the license to put them out on vinyl, so there's no digital release. Some of you may have copies of the album. If you do, I hope you're enjoying it as much as we have been. We've already started contemplating the part of our album's title that says 'Volume 1'. 

Tim Fairplay posted his copy on Tuesday with the comment that the first band he ever saw live back in 1992 aged thirteen was Ride, on their Going Blank Again tour, adding it was kinda cool to ned up on the same album as Andy Bell. Both Tim and Andy have new material out elsewhere too. In February Tim released a six track EP/ cassette on Belgian label Pinkman called Convictions That Stick, six slices of Timwave electro, thunderous jacking grooves, squelchy synth sounds and strobe lit keys. It's here. 

Andy Bell and the other three members of Ride have just released their third album since reuniting, a twelve song monster called Interplay. It's got guitars and synths, a big sound made for playing live, nods to various 80s and 90s guitar bands and among the soaring chord sequences, towards the end, is this low key beauty, Essaouira, possibly a tribute to the Moroccan town that became a hippy haven in the 60s, with shuffling drums, samples, blissed out guitars and a dreamy, shimmering haze. 

Sounds From The Flightpath Estate

This is a big news announcement! In fact, that probably needs to be in capital letters to reflect the hugeness of this- THIS IS A BIG NEWS ANNOUNCEMENT! 

We, The Flightpath Estate, are releasing an album, double vinyl limited to 500 copies, Sounds Of The Flightpath Estate Volume 1, a ten track compilation of artists associated with Andrew Weatherall and the online group The Flightpath Estate (run by five of us and celebrating its tenth birthday this year). There are nine previously unreleased, newly recorded, exclusive to this album tracks and a Two Lone Swordsmen track that has only ever seen the light of day on a very limited promo CD in Japan. It's taken since last summer to pull all this together and there have been times when we have been pinching ourselves about the line up of artists, the quality of the music and the fact that this is going to be an actual record. 

The tracklist is hopefully enough to have some of you reaching for the pre- order links (which will go live tomorrow, Thursday 15th February) and getting your credit card out. 

• Two Lone Swordsmen: The Crescents
• Sons Of Slough: Red Machine (Live at The Golden Lion)
• Timothy J. Fairplay: Centurion Version
• Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s: Curtains Twitch On Peaks
• Richard Sen: Tough On Chug, Tough On the Causes Of Chug
• Rudio Audio: Running Wild
• 10: 40: Three Rings
• Hardway Bros: Theme For Flightpath Estate
• The Light Brigade: Human: Remains
• Andy Bell: Smokeblech II

Last summer while me, Martin and Dan were DJing at The Golden Lion we had a chat about a Flightpath Estate compilation album, the sort of chat which seemed like wishful thinking at the time but which sowed seeds with each of us. At first I was thinking of a compilation of already released tracks  but that seem to be fraught with complications- licensing tracks from various other labels seemed complex and potentially costly. A compilation of artists who are members of the group and who were friends/ partners/ colleagues/ fans of Andrew's but with previously unreleased music might be easier to pull off. I should point out that our experience of putting an album out was at that point extremely limited (of the five of us, Mark makes music as Rude Audio and has some experience releasing music but the rest of us- me, Dan, Martin and Baz- have close to zero). 

The following week we discussed it further and drew up a list of names to approach. Our list included David Holmes, Timothy J. Fairplay, Sean Johnston, Richard Sen, Justin Robertson and Sons Of Slough (Ian Weatherall and Duncan Gray), plus Rude Audio, Jesse from 10: 40 and a few others. We divided them up between us and started making contact, via social media messaging and email. The first name in the list, a well known Belfast based DJ and producer who may have the initials DH but who has to appear pseudonymously due to him being signed to a record label, said yes immediately. Once he was on board we felt we had a chance of getting this together. We contacted Waka and Matt at The Golden Lion, Todmorden, who not only run a pub/ live venue/ portal to another world, but also have a record label- Golden Lion Sounds. They were happy to put our at this point speculative album out. The other names on our list began to respond and say yes too. As summer turned into autumn we began to receive music: a track from the Belfast based DJ/ producer that he'd begun years earlier and now wanted to finish to give to us, a track that is seriously good; dubby music from Justin Robertson and Tim Fairplay, recorded specifically for the album; music from Richard Sen and from Hardway Bros (Sean sent us a track, then another version of it, then scrapped it and went back to the drawing board and sent us a Flightpath Estate theme tune); Sons Of Slough promised us a live track recorded at their gig at The Golden Lion last August; new music from 10: 40 and Rude Audio. All of it genuinely brilliant. 

We discussed getting an Andrew Weatherall or Two Lone Swordsmen track. Martin is one of the few people who owns a copy of Still My World, a promo CD released in Japan in 2003 tied into a clothing range and we all loved the ambient track The Crescents. He contacted Andrew's manager Pete Lawton and former Swordsman Keith Tenniswood, and we got their approval and blessing to use it, pending discovery of the master. Ian Weatherall gave us his approval, as did Lizzie, Andrew's partner. I contacted Andy Bell (of Ride and GLOK) and asked if he was interested. He replied to say he had a cover of Smokebelch that he started the day Andrew died but hadn't finished but to keep in touch. Then he went on tour to the USA with Ride. Our deadline for music was approaching (we were keen to have the tracks in our hands, compiled, and ready for mastering for vinyl by November '23 in an attempt to get the album out spring 2024).  I emailed Andy on the off chance and the following day he replied to say I'd given him the nudge he needed and he sent me his now completed, stunning cover of Smokebelch. Now we had ten tracks, and a clear idea of which ones should open and close the album (Two Lone Swordsmen and Andy Bell respectively). Dan contacted Rusty, an artist and designer who goes by the name of Personality Crisis, about sleeve art (and getting that back plus the gatefold inner was another genuinely amazing moment). I wrote some sleeve notes. We did the legal stuff. GLS got it mastered. Last week test pressings arrived at The Golden Lion. Now the sleeves are going to print and the records are going to press and with any luck we'll have them out in April (which happily will coincide with the AW61 celebrations at The Golden Lion). 

At times while doing this we've felt like a bunch of amateurs chancing our collective arm and making it up as we go along- but it turns out that things like this can actually happen. It's one of the most exciting things I've ever been involved in. It still makes me shake my head in disbelief that in a couple of months it will be an actual physical record with this line up of artists, available to buy. The artists who have donated their music, the people who've helped us out along the way with advice and contacts, the team at The Golden Lion, the enthusiasm from a very select group of people who've known about this until last night-  massive thanks to each and every one of you. 

Matt from The Golden Lion has done a twenty two minute promo mix of the ten tracks sequenced together, if you need any further inducement to part with your money. You can listen to it at Mixcloud- find it here. 

Our compilation album, Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 1, is available to pre- order tomorrow from Golden Lion Sounds and/ or the GLS Bandcamp. There will be 500 copies, no repress, no digital, vinyl only. Any proceeds from sales will go to The Lion and to Andrew's preferred charities (Crisis, Shelter and Thrombosis UK). Not only is it therefore a good thing for a good cause, it's actually a really good album.