Everyday

A couple of weeks ago a friend tipped me off to this single, Everyday, by Celeste, released in January and built around a very recognisable sample, Death In Vegas' Dirge- Dot's ah ah aaah, the guitar and bass. Celeste's voice is a bit special and when the drums kick in halfway through it takes off. The lyrics and Celeste's performance seem to suggest a problematic relationship, everything swirling around as Dirge kicks away behind her. Everyday was first released a year ago as a 7" single for Record Store Day 2024 but is now the first single from what will be her second album later this year. 

The song came to me at a time when I was rediscovering Death In Vegas main man Richard Fearless' 2019 album Deep Rave Memory, an eight track album that is a perfect encapsulation of what electro/ dub- techno/ techno can be. It's best heard as a whole, a dark trip, but the title track is my current favourite- kick drum in a shipping container, echo and space, a discordant filter, everything at odds with everything else for a little while and then it all comes into sync and a rippling melody dances on top- a melody that repeats and repeats, then gets replaced by a different one, and then again by another, the bleakly beautiful krauty techno driving onwards for nine, ten, eleven minutes, imprinting itself into your brain. 

Deep Rave Memory

Passions

Ride/ GLOK guitarist/ writer/ singer Andy Bell has returned this week with a cover of I'm In Love With A German Film Star, the 1981 single by The Passions (retitled I'm In Love... by Andy). For the single Andy's got Dot Allison in on vocals, a song totally suited to Dot's style, and Michael Rother on guitar. It shimmers and floats, with fuzz guitars drifting in, and does all the things you'd want it to. 

The song comes ahead of an album, Andy's third solo album, out at the end of February- Pinball Wanderer. Andy's solo work outside Ride, two albums (The View From Halfway Down and Flicker) plus his GLOK albums and singles, have been some of my favourite releases of the last five years so I'm looking forward to this one. In his promo blurb to accompany the single Andy said that for the album he went less is more, 'less tracks, more atmosphere, less layers of instrumentation, more vibes.' What's more, if you go to Bandcamp, there is a 12"/ digital release of the single with remixes by Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s and GLOK (Andy as GLOK remixing Andy as Andy). All three remixes are top drawer. 

The Passions original is one of those songs that seems to exist in a world of its own. Released in January 1981, it was written by singer Barbara Gogan about Steve 'Roadent' Connelly, some time Clash and Sex Pistols roadie who had some minor roles in some German films. 

I'm In Love With A German Film Star

This is The Passions on Top Of The Pops, early 1981, singer Barbara the epitome of early 80s front woman cool. 

That's Amazing Grace

This is new from Dot Allison and Anton Newcombe, Dot's always entrancing, breathless voice floating over, around and within an acoustic guitar and psychedelic FX blur from the Brian Jonestown Massacre main man, combining as All Seeing Dolls. That's Amazing Grace sounds and feels like a dream that you haven't quite woken up from, that moment when you're stirring and half aware of the fuzzy dreamscape that you're inhabiting. There's an album to follow in February 2025. 

Another Imaginary Album

Another imaginary album. Previously I speculated about the Andrew Weatherall, Jah Wobble and Sinead O’Connor album that could have followed Andrew’s remixes of Jah Wobble’s Invaders of You in 1992 and the album that he was lined up to produce for The Fall in 1993 but which didn’t happen, as well as a re- united Joe Strummer and Mick Jones album c.1989. Today’s imaginary album is another Weatherall one, this time one that existed for a while on paper but was never followed through. In 1994 following the artistic success of Sabres Of Paradise’s Haunted Dancehall, the record company, Warp, were keen on a follow up with Sabres and some hand picked guest vocalists. The Chemical Brothers and Leftfield had both made records with guest vocalists by this point, including Beth Orton, Tim Burgess, Toni Halliday, and John Lydon and Warp felt Sabres should be getting in on the action. In an interview with NME during this period, possibly the dance music page Vibes (which Andrew’s friend Sherman edited and wrote), Andrew mentioned that he was looking forward to working with Ice T. Jagz Kooner has confirmed that Ice T/ Tracy Morrow’s name was on a list of names of people that Warp were hoping would take to the microphone on this mooted Sabres Of Paradise plus friends album. 

At the Sabresonic 30th event at The Golden Lion last November Jagz and Gary Burns confirmed that a list of names was drawn up. Dot Allison and Bobby Gillespie were both on it, both singers with close connections to Andrew, Bobby via Andrew’s production on Screamadelica and Dot via Andrew’s post- Screamadelica production on One Dove’s Morning Dove White. There is a cassette that belongs to Chris from Soft Rocks, given to him by Andrew as a thank you along with a pile of records, that contains an unreleased Sabres Of Paradise track that goes by the title of Al Green (Revenge Of Dove). The track has that blissed out electronic dub sound that Andrew helped shape with One Dove, possibly even contains a One Dove sample, and although the cassette is not top quality in terms of sound, it’s a real shame it was never finished, it’s very much a lost Sabres track. I’d love to share it but I think doing so would get me into trouble.

Sirens

The tantalising thing about the track’s title is the possibility that alongside guest vocals from Ice T, Bobby Gillespie and Dot Allison, the Reverend Al Green would be making an appearance. Imagine something like Sirens, above from One Dove's Morning Dove White, with Al Green singing on it.

According to Jagz the next name pencilled in by Warp was that of Tom Waits. Tentative enquiries were being made and it was at this point that Andrew got cold feet, getting the fear about working with some of his heroes, and kiboshed the whole project, not willing to put himself in a studio with someone who he regarded as highly as Tom Waits, a hero of Andrew’s since his teenage years.

Heartattack And Vine

Again, close your eyes for a moment and try to imagine Tom Waits' growl and gravelly tones, his gutter poetry, over the top of some mid- 90s Sabres dub. Think of the remixes that could have come from this imaginary album.

Andrew was quite vocal in interviews in the second half of the 90s about dance acts using guest vocalists, in a disapproving way, so he may have had doubts from the start but sitting here three decades later, the prospect of a Sabres Of Paradise album with Tom Waits, Ice T, Al Green, Dot Allison and Bobby Gillespie all singing on it feels like a lost opportunity, one that will have to live in our imaginations only.  

Forty Minutes Of Mark Peters

Back in 2018 I discovered an album called Innerlands by Mark Peters, eight guitar led tracks that skirted the edges of shoegaze, ambient and cosmische, a record that was the first thing I reached for for a while, Mark's guitar taking the place of a voice. Mark is from Wigan and his music has a very strong sense of place. The front cover of Innelrands was an Ordnance Survey style map and the eight tracks were all named after very north west England sounding place names. His second solo album took that windswept, moorland sound to the great open spaces of the American south west. Since then two EPs have added further geographical refences to his back catalogue, with the Alps and Peter Street. Mark's playing builds on the sounds of other, earlier guitarists- there are shades of Vini Reilly, Michael Rother and closer to Mark's home, Nick McCabe. In the 00s he was the guitarist in Engineers, whose shoegaze/ dreampop can be heard in a variety of current bands. The mix below is a forty minute snapshot of music from his various releases since 2018 and makes a really good Sunday morning soundtrack. 

Forty Minutes Of Mark Peters

• Windy Arbour (Ambient Version)
• Switched On
• Twenty Bridges (Andi Otto Remix)
• Sundowning (Richard Norris Remix)
• Alpenglow
• #1 Peter St
• Ashurst's Beacon (Ambient Version)
• Gabriel's Ladder

Windy Arbour (Ambient Version) is from Ambient Innerlands, the drumless version of Innerlands released in 2019, an atmospheric wash of piano, ambient synth sounds and electric guitar. Ashurst's Beacon is the last track from Ambient Innerlands. Ashurst's Beacon is an 18th century tower constructed on top of a hill near Appley Bridge in Lancashire, constructed to warn of invasion by the French. 

Switched On was the longer, dubbier verison of Switch On The Sky, a summer 2022 single and track from the Red Sunset Dreams album which followed. Dot Allison provides the voice, a perfect match for Mark's guitars and synths. 

Twenty Bridges was on Innerlands. In 2019 a remix album, New Route Out Of Innerlands, came out, which included a remix by Ulrich Schnauss (formerly in Engineers) and this lovely piece of ambient/ sound collage by Hamburg's Andi Otto.

Sundowning was also on Red Sunset Dreams and also features the voice of Dot Allison. It came out as a single in October 2022 with this glorious Richard Norris remix, Mark's guitar relocated to sunset in the Balearics. There's also a superb live version of Sundowning you can buy here. 

Alpenglow was on The Magic Hour EP, a four track digital/ 10" on yellow vinyl release from exactly a year ago, March 2023. Two new tracks, Alpenglow and The Magic Hour paired with two remixes. Alpenglow shimmers and shines like sunshine on snow as some very motorik drums glide away underneath. 

#1 Peter St is from another four track EP, this one titled Progress and out earlier this year. The photo on the sleeve shows Manchester's new skyscraper skyline as seen from Windy Arbour, a hill at Billinge near Wigan. 

Gabriel's Ladder is from Innerlands, three minutes and thirty six seconds of guitar textures and melodies, an emotive soundscape. 

An Hour Of 2023 In Dub

While starting to consider the end of year lists of records, singles, albums, EPs and gigs it struck me that much of what I've listened to this year has been very dub oriented, the rhythms and sounds of Jamaica and its 2023 diaspora very much near the forefront of everything. As my list making began and the scribbling lengthened and grew, it seemed that a dub stop off in advance of the main event might be a good way to fill this Sunday's slot, an hour of dubby tunes to ease into the day as the week of the shortest days and longest nights approaches. There's loads missing that could have been included, not least the dubs of songs by JIM and Richard Norris' Oracle Sounds album, so this isn't definitive, it's just a version. 

An Hour Of 2023 In Dub

• Katy J. Pearson: Willow's Song (Richard Norris Ritual Mix)
• Rude Audio and Dan Wainwright: El Qasr Dub
• Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s: Lone Raver In Dub
• Sonic Boom and Panda Bear: Edge Of The Edge Dub
• Stinky Jim: Quiet Spillage (The Long Champs Remix)
• Unloved: Thrill me (Justin Robertson's Temple Of Wonders Remix)
• Whitelands: Setting Sun (AR Kane Initiation Dub)
• Electric Blue Vision: Other Skies (Hardway Bros Meet Monkton Uptown Version)
• Dot Allison: Unchanged (Glok Remix)
• African Head Charge: I Chant Too

Katy J. Pearson's cover of Willow's Song came out in several new versions as part of a five disc celebration of the 50th anniversary of The Wicker Man in June. Richard Norris' dub mix is seven minutes of peak 2023 dubiness, the bassline and Katy's voice and that haunting horn all pushed to the fore. Richard's Oracle Sounds Volume 1 has been one of 2023's highlights, an album of  first rate dub sounds and rhythms. Volume 2, due out in February, can be pre- ordered here. 

Rude Audio and Dan Wainwright's Psychedelic Science is one of 2023's best albums, a dub centred collision of South London and North Wales with Ram Dass, David Bowie, Ken Kesey and Ken Babbs and The Grateful Dead stirred into their dub stew. 

Lone Raver In Dub is one of Justin Robertson's from the vaults releases, out digitally as Part 4 of his Deadstock 33s Unreleased Volumes. Fast rocking dub from September 2023. 

Sonic Boom and Panda Bear's Reset album was remixed by Adrian Sherwood in full, the 60s bubblegum pop fed through the On U Sound dub machine to fine effect. Like Oracle Sounds Volume 1 an album that really reveals itself fully on vinyl. 

Stinky Jim's Social Awareness album came out as a follow up remix album in July, the original album remixed and dubbed out. Stinky Jim's dub comes all the way from Auckland, New Zealand, remixed in dub  style here by Welsh wizard The Long Champs. 

Unloved's Polychrome was a nine song album from early 23, a follow up to 2022's The Pink Album. The remixes followed a month later with Justin Robertson's taking the road to Scratch and Tubby, a rocking dub skank. 

Whitelands are a shoegaze band on Sonic Cathedral. In June a 10" single with remixes by returning shoegaze/ dreampop heroes AR Kane found its way into the wild, Rudy and Alex finding acres of dub space in among the wash of guitars. 

Electric Blue Vision, Jesse Fahnestock and Emilia Harmony, put out their Other Skies EP in November, an end of year hit in certain quarters of the internet, including this one. Hardway Bros and Monkton (Sean Johnston and Duncan Gray) often pull skanking rabbits out of dub hats when remixing together. This is among the year's best. 

Dot Allison's Consciousology, also on Sonic Cathedral, is an indie folk/ psyche/ dreamy meeting of melody and poetic lyrics. For this remix Andy Bell in GLOK guise found the dub heart of the song, somewhere in the similar cosmos as Brendan Lynch's 1993 remix of Paul Weller's Kosmos.

Aftican Head Charge's A Trip To Bolgatanga is a 2023 high spot, ten of the latest stop off points on Bonjo's four decade voyage with Adrian Sherwood.

Bagging Area Tak Tent Mix Nine

My latest hour long mix for Tak Tent Radio went live at the weekend. Tak Tent have been broadcasting out of Scotland on the internet since June 2020, with a range of contributors including the legendary Richard Youngs. The latest Bagging Area mix is my ninth for Tak Tent and contains solely music from this year. You can listen to it here or directly at Mixcloud. Don't let them tell you there's no good new music any more. 

• Alex Kassian: Lifestream
• Marshall Watson: High Desert (Seahawks High Sky Remix)
• Whitelands: Setting Sun (AR Kane Initiation Dub)
• Dot Allison: Unchanged (GLOK Remix)
• Dicky Continental: Simon Says (Congagong rework)
• African Head Charge: Passing Clouds
• Coyote: After All These Years
• Steve Queralt and Michael Smith: Chaldean Oracle (GLOK Remix)
• Jo Sims: Bass- The Final Frontier (David Holmes Remix)
• Richard Norris: The Third Day
• JIM: Still River Flow (Generalisation Dub)

Unchanged Changed

Dot Alison's new album, Consciousology, is out at the end of July and to date the only song available to listen to from it has been Unchanged. Andy Bell in Glok mode has remixed that song, a deeply mashed up, weirded out and dubby take on Unchanged, a sort of fractured folk/ dub/ psychedelia that makes everything feel like its happening very slowly but speeding up too with echo, dub bass, cymbal crashes, stuttering drums and Dot's voice floating in and around. It has a similar feel to Brendan Lynch's epic 1993 remix of Paul Weller's Kosmos and some of Adrian Sherwood's productions. 

The original version of Unchanged has Andy playing guitar alongside Dot, a song that manages to take in British folk music and The Velvet Underground.

Yard Gig

Friday night in Cheetham Hill, just north of Manchester city centre with Strangeways prison dominating the after dark skyline, is a part of the city that stubbornly refuses gentrification. A ten minute walk up the main road from the back of Victoria Station brings you to a relatively new Manchester gig/ event venue, The Yard. Friday night's bill saw Wigan guitarist Mark Peters and Manchester ambient techno three piece Marconi Union playing. Mark stepped up to the low stage, clips from 1950s Western films playing behind him, in line with the North West England meets the wide open spaces of the prairies psychogeography of his albums (2017's Innerlands and 2022's Red Sunset Dreams). 

With backing tracks playing through the laptop, Mark plays a wonderfully chilled set of tracks. The songs and his playing reflect the cosmische guitar sounds of Michael Rother, the delay and chorus fretboard work of Vini Reilly and his own ambient guitar styles. The opening song is a new one, Cinder Flower, and there are the windswept but beautiful soundscapes of Innerland songs Ashursts's Bridge, May Hill and Twenty Bridges. Alpenglow and Magic Hour, both from a just released EP, sound full and rich as the notes fill the converted 19th century building. Alpenglow is chiming krauty bliss, as if Neu! had been from Winstanley rather than Dusseldorf, and Magic Hour is indeed magical, understated but gently heroic, the spirit of early Verve intact. Towards the close of the set, just before Alpenglow, Dot Allison's voice drifts through the PA as her vocal from Switched On The Sky floats on top of Mark's guitar and then he soars into the spaced out version of the song, Switched On.

After a short break Manchester trio Marconi Union take the stage, three figures lined up behind a bank of keyboards, synths, laptop and machines. The laptop and synth stage right kick into life and the dark, brooding sounds fill the room, lots of texture and atmospherics but with melodies and purpose too- no floating ambient drift here, but tracks with intent. There is guitar centre stage, the notes another layer of sounds on top of the machine music, along with the sometimes mournful keys/ piano.

The films projected behind them- skyscrapers shot from below, a Manchester Metrolink tram gliding slowly past from left to right-  add to sense of motion. Everything happens without explanation. There's no chat between the songs. It's impressive and weighty stuff and the room, pretty close to being sold out, is an appreciative audience. This is Strata Alt, from May last year, giving a good idea of what they do. 

Back in 2011 they recorded a track called Weightless, an eight minute collaboration with sound therapist Lyz Cooper, field recordings, piano and guitar with tones specifically designed to induce a trancelike state and aid relaxation and sleep and reduce anxiety. It has been streamed millions of times on Youtube and if you want more there's a slowed down and stretched out ten hour version here. 

On my way home, through a sequence of events I won't bother to go into right now, I met my wife (out on a separate night out) and we ended up at a party on Swan Street in the city centre, a party in a former chip shop now cocktail bar, and were dancing until 2am, the oldest people in the room. Later on we were wandering the wet streets of Manchester city centre looking for a taxi in the rain. 

Forty More Minutes Of One Dove

Last Sunday's One Dove mix was popular with a slice of this blog's readership and included calls for a follow up mix so due to popular demand here is a further forty minutes of One Dove, a dubbed out and spaced out selection. 

One Dove Two

• Breakdown (William Orbit Stereo Odyssey)
• Breakdown (Squire Black Dove Rides Out)
• Jolene 
• Fallen (Darkest Hour)
• White Love (Higherwatha)

Breakdown came out as a single ahead of the album Morning Dove White in October 1993, the Stephen Hague mix being chosen by the record company to push it towards radio play but the real treasure was to be found in the remixes and versions, two of which I've included here. The first is one of two by William Orbit (the other being the Cellophane Boat Mix, named after an infamous boat party in Rimini). 

Squire Black Dove Rides Out is Sabres Of Paradise at their dubbiest, an epic remix that showed how far ahead Weatherall was in 1992. I wrote about it here  a couple of years ago, on a sample spotting tip (and finding Shades Of Rhythm and Tranquillity Bass within it). In 1993 I had Breakdown on cassette single, these remixes, the Stephen Hague single version and the Cellophane Boat mix on one tape which often soundtracked the long bus journey to my first teaching practice placement in Failsworth, North Manchester. I still have the cassingle, one of the few tapes that survived various culls over the years. The song in all its versions is burned into my subconscious, from 1993 to 2023, from being a trainee teacher to one now only two and a half years from being able to take his pension. 

Jolene was a superbly dubbed out and off kilter cover of Dolly Parton's 1973 single, which eventually saw the light of day in December 1993 on the 12" and CD single of Why Don't You Take Me.

Fallen (Darkest Hour) is the original, pre- Weatherall release when the band were Dove (the soap manufacturer didn't see the funny side of their name- I've no idea if Dove the soap manufacturers knew it was a drug reference or just didn't like their copyright being infringed. Either way Dove became One Dove). Fallen came out on Soma in 1991 with two other versions, Dawn and Dusk. Legend has it Dot managed to get Weatherall to listen to it, he proclaimed it record of the year and then offered to produce their album. 

White Love is also a key One Dove song, not least the ten minute Guitar Paradise version by Weatherall and Sabres. The version here came out in the US only and then in very limited numbers as a promo 12", a remix by Jon Williams for Hardkiss, a hypnotic remix complete with chanting monks and oil drum thump of the drums and a loop of Dot's vocals. There is another Hardkiss remix, the ten minute Scott Hardkiss Psychic Masturbation version of White Love but as I'm trying to keep these Sunday mixes at around thirty to forty minutes that is a remix for another day. 

Forty Minutes Of One Dove

After last week's Dot Allison mix I thought I should go back to the source and do a One Dove mix. One Dove's album Morning Dove White was finally released in October 1993 after a year of hold ups and wranglings about whose mixes and which versions should be on the final record, Stephen Hague's radio friendly sheen or Andrew Weatherall's lengthy dubby productions. We all know what history tells us about those kind of arguments. I bought it and played it a lot, an album that can transport me back to the flat I lived in then with a friend and the times we spent listening to it, the smell and hum of the gas fire, the ashtray filling up with cigarette butts. It sound-tracked our post- club arrivals back home, the winter of 1993- 94, a couple of break ups, us making our way into adult jobs, all that kind of stuff. I've listened to it ever since, an album that continues to give alternately shivers and a warm glow. Weatherall's production, on the back of Screamadelica, is expansive, restless, superbly chilled out but warped too and oddly timeless. The moody/ elegiac songs of Dot Allison, Jim McKinven and Ian Carmichael were clearly good to start with but once Weatherall and Hugo Nicolson got into the studio and began working on them they went somewhere else, sprinkled with the magic dust of the early 90s. Stephen Hague's mixes are possibly a little too shiny in places (and kept mainly for the CD version) but the vinyl is an album to rank alongside the best of the 90s. I once said here, many years ago, that it was brilliant but felt slightly flawed, like there was something missing. I'm not sure what that was or what I meant now. The album's cast included Weatherall's Sabres Of Paradise mates Gary Burns and Jagz Kooner, Jah Wobble's bass on There Goes The Cure, Phil Mossman (Sabres guitarist and future member of LCD Soundsystem) and Primal Scream's Andrew Innes. It's never been re- issued on vinyl. Copies on Discogs are currently starting at £80. Mine is most definitely not for sale. 

Putting together a One Dove mix without just sequencing a bunch of songs from Morning Dove White pointed me towards the remixes and B-sides. I couldn't find room on this mix for either Weatherall's majestic dubbed out odyssey, Breakdown (Squire Black Dove Rides Out) or their spaced out cover of Jolene- a second forty minute mix should happen at some point- and there are several Sabres remixes of Transient Truth not included below, the mighty Old Toys and Old Toys Dub are both stunners. The ten minute Guitar Paradise version of White Love looks like a glaring omission too. And if Fallen feels little like it was just tacked onto the end, then that's because it was. I just couldn't not include it in one version or another.

Forty Minutes Of One Dove

• Why Don't You Take Me
• Skanga
• Transient Truth (Squelch Mix)
• Transient Truth (Death Of A Disco Dancer)
• Why Don't You Take Me (Underworld Remix)
• Fallen (Nancy And Lee Mix) 7" Edit

Why Don't You Take Me is from Morning Dove White and was a single in December 1993, the now London Records owned Boy's Own label putting it out as the third single from the album and hoping for a hit. The Glaswegian dub reggae of Skanga was a B-side (along with Jolene, not included here). 

Transient Truth was also from Morning Dove White and released as an official 12" (with the Old Toys mixes) and a white label promo, both in 1992. The white label contained four Sabres Of Paradise remixes of the song, the two included here plus the Paradise Mix and the Sabres Fuzz Dub. I've no idea if the Death Of A Disco Dancer remix is a reference to The Smiths song of the same name. 

Underworld's remixes of Why Don't You Take Me are both up there with their best from the period, released on double blue vinyl along with a Secret Knowledge remix. Underworld's Up  2 Down remix is a long thumper. The one I've included here is dubbed out Underworld style and is magnificent. 

Fallen is where the One Dove story starts, Dot's breathless vocal and the ambient/ dub/ acid house music initially built around a Supertramp sample which led to legal action and the offending harmonica  being removed. Weatherall's remix for the 12" came with the title Nancy And Lee Mix, which sent many of us scurrying back to our parent's record collections looking for Sinatra and Hazlewood albums and singles. The version here is an edited one from a  February1992 7" single and I include just because it's such a great song it can even survive having four minutes chopped off it. 

Looking at all of the tracks I've left off this I think part two may have to come sooner rather than later. 

Forty Minutes Of Dot Allison

A Dot Allison mix for Sunday, entirely songs from the post- One Dove years (a One Dove mix is something for another Sunday I think, maybe quite soon). It was only when I started thinking about this mix properly that I realised how many songs she's sung on with other people since One Dove, not to mention her various solo albums (Afterglow in 1999, 2002's We Are Science done with Two Lone Swordsman Keith Tenniswood, 2007's folky singer songwriter Exaltation Of Larks and 2021's Heart Shaped Scars all exist in one format or another round here). In the end, once I decided to include the Lee Perry remix and her two songs with Wigan guitarist Mark Peters from last year, it turned into a fuzzy, hazy Balearic, leftfield kind of selection- I tried some of the songs from We Are Science but they just didn't fit with the mood.  

Forty Minutes of Dot Allison

• Switched On
• Love Died In Our Arms (Lee Scratch Perry Remix)
• Dirge (Adrian Sherwood Remix)
• Dirge
• Aftersun
• Sundowning (Richard Norris Remix)
• Mo' Pop
• Message Personnel (Arab Strap Remix)

Switched On and Sundowning are both from Mark Peters excellent 2022 album Red Sunset Dreams with Dot on vocals. Switched On is a version of Switch On The Sky, the first single from the album, and Richard Norris remixed Sundowning twice for a follow up single, one ambient and one with drums. 

Love Died In Our Arms was from a solo EP, Entangled, out a year ago. Lee Scratch Perry's remix was the final thing he worked on before his death. Dot had assumed Lee had died before being able to remix her song until she was contacted by Lee's widow and told otherwise. 

Dirge was on  the 1999 Death In Vegas album The Contino Sessions, the  opening song and a single too. Apologies if the Adrian Sherwood remix version in this mix is a bit quiet- from memory I downloaded it from the Death In Vegas MySpace page (!) circa 2007 and it's a low bitrate compared to everything else here. You may have to turn the volume up. 

Aftersun was recorded with Massive Attack in 2005 and included in the film Danny The Dog but not the CD soundtrack. It was available from Dot's website. 

Mo' Pop was on Dot's debut solo album Afterglow and a single too. It is late 90s soul- pop perfection, with a superb Henry Olsen bassline. Message Personnel was on Afterglow too and also a single, which came with this very nice Arab Strap remix. 

Monday Mix

A mix for Monday, my seventh for Tak Tent Radio who broadcast out of central Scotland with a range of contributors and guests. This one, has music from a lot of artists who have graced the pages of this blog this year- Mark Peters with Dot Allison remixed by Richard Norris, Pete Wylie and Wah! The Mongrel from 1991, Pye Corner Audio remixed by Sonic Boom, Andy Bell remixed by David Holmes, Gabe Gurnsey, Jazxing, Jezebell's recent edit of Laurie Anderson, Carly Simon, Dirt Bogarde and Boxheater Jackson. In short- starts ambient, goes Balaeric and ends up dancey. Listen here or here.

• Mark Peters and Dot Allison: Sundowning (Richard Norris Ambient Remix)
• Pete Wylie and Wah! The Mongrel: Don’t Lose Your Drums
• Pye Corner Audio: Warmth Of The Sun (Sonic Boom Remix)
• Andy Bell: The Sky Without You (David Holmes Radical Mycology remix)
• Gabe Gurnsey: To The Room
• Jazxing: Fala
• Jezebell: Re- birth (Edit)
• Carly Simon: Why (Extended 12” Mix)
• Dirt Bogarde: So Far Away
• Boxheater Jackson: Don’t Complicate

Sundowning

Mark Peters, guitarist/ multi- instrumentalist from the Wigan area, had a beautiful album out a few years ago called Innerland (follow by Ambient Innerland and then a remixes album called Routes Out Of Innerland too). Innerland was an album of guitar led instrumentals that sounded like windswept moorlands in the north west of England, captured as autumn turns to winter when dusk hits in late afternoon. 

Mark's new album, Red Sunset Dreams, came out recently and suggests more of the same but transplanted slightly further afield than West Lancashire, into the American West. On two of the songs Mark asked Dot Allison to add vocals- Sundowner and the previously posted Switch On The Sky. On Red Sunset Dreams there is banjo, pedal steel and ukulele as well as the guitars and synths. And on new single Sundowning there are a pair of Richard Norris remixes, one with drums and one without, that relocate Mark's music from Wigan and Arizona to the Balearics. Utterly gorgeous, slightly forlorn, floaty ambience. Buy it at Bandcamp.

Switch On The Sky

One of the general truths of travel is that it doesn't really matter where or how far you go, you take yourself with you. Writer Neil Gaiman said as such ('wherever you go, you take yourself with you') and fellow writer Haruki Murakami said something similar ('no matter how far you travel, you can never get away from yourself'). All three of us had moments while we were on holiday where Isaac's death hit us in some way. Going to a very hot island four hours away by plane and spending the time on beaches and by the pool wouldn't have floated Isaac's boat at all- he didn't like beaches, would have found it much too hot, wasn't great on planes and getting him up an down all the steps from the hotel to the street below would have been difficult. In some ways that's why we chose to go somewhere like Gran Canaria- it being so different from the car and ferry, French campsite holidays we'd done with him was all part of our thinking. We're still getting used to being a family of three- being somewhere a long way from home where you don't know anyone compounds this in some ways. No one we met or spoke to knew what had happened to us or what we brought to Gran Canaria with us. Lou says there are times when she wants to tell people, 'we're not a family of three, we're a family of four', but dropping it into conversations is really difficult- there's no easy way to do it and it goes off like an explosion, leaving people wrong footed, shocked and apologetic.

Last Saturday, 30th July, was eight months to the day since he died and we all felt it at different time during the day. It never leaves you does it? Grief and loss always find ways to come out of nowhere and punch you again. It still sometimes feels like being winded, a physical pain in the chest. I felt it sitting on the balcony one evening, music playing through the crappy speaker I'd brought with me, sun shining on me, cold beer in hand, and then, suddenly and unexpectedly, a wallop of pain.

Lying on a sun lounger on the beach and thinking back to the room in Wythenshawe hospital in late November, it all seemed a bit unreal again, that we'd ended up where we were/ are, and being away without him briefly felt wrong. We went to one of the beachside cafes for a beer and some chips and some shade. As we sat down we all noticed the TV screen hanging over the ice cream counter, showing one of Isaac's favourite programmes- Mr Bean (and bizarrely one of his favourite episodes too, the barber shop one). Sitting drinking a pint of very cold beer (price 1€ 50) and watching Mr Bean made us all smile, pulling us out of the loss and the tears we'd all felt a few minutes before. In some way, via Mr Bean, he'd come with us. 

This song, Switch On The Sky, came out the day we flew. Mark Peters is a guitarist from Wigan. His Innerland album came out in December 2017, an instrumental/ ambient record with eight tracks all named after north- west landmarks. The following year a beatless ambient version was released and a remix album too called New Routes Out Of Innerland. All three were big favourites round here (you can listen buy at Mark's Bandcamp page). Switch On The Sky is the first single from the follow up, Red Sunset Dreams (out in September), and has Dot Allison (formerly of One Dove) on vocals. It's a gorgeous, slightly forlorn, gently psychedelic song with guitar, bass, pedal steel, synths, banjo and ukulele and masses of swirling reverb. If you buy the single at Bandcamp there's also a lovely hazy shoegaze/ dub reworking called Switched On. 

It's our 27th wedding anniversary today, another first to go through. We were young when we got married (Lou 23, me 25) and we had no idea what lay ahead of us or the circumstances we'd find ourselves in all these years later but that's the way life goes I suppose. Here are a pair of 27 songs to celebrate, both from favourite bands of mine. First, an A Certain Ratio song from 1991, the early 80s Factory post- punk funk being updated with something much more early 90s (but still laced with a tinge of Mancunian melancholy).

Twenty Seven Forever (Jon da Silva's Bubble Bath Mix)

Second, Half Man Half Biscuit and a song from their 2002 opus Cammell Laird Social Club, wherein Nigel's efforts at romance are repeatedly rebutted- 'I said '' would you like to go the zoo?''/ She said 'yeah bit not with you'/ 27 yards of dental floss and she still won't give me a smile/ I'm King Euphoria, she's Queen Victoria/ 27 yards of dental floss and she still won't give me a smile'

27 Yards Of Dental Floss

Happy anniversary Lou. 

Love's Stubborn Ghost

It's a friend's 50th birthday today and we're off to Edale in Derbyshire for some walking in the Peaks and a few pints. A blast of early February Peak District weather on exposed hillsides should give us a jump start. 

A few thoughts on where I am with the aftermath of Isaac's death and grief. I'm trying to keep the blog largely music oriented but every now and then it helps to put things down in writing. Last week was really tough, it just seemed so gloomy all week and we were all very down. We went to a monumental masons last week to start the process of looking for a headstone. I'm not sure we've made any progress there. The whole thing seems to big to deal with at the moment- picking a stone and then text which will be literally written in stone and displayed in the cemetery for years, decades, centuries possibly, to come. The experience of going in and being shown catalogues and samples is very bizarre too, makes picking a headstone feel like buying a new sofa or a car. I don't think we have made any decisions yet, just narrowed down what we definitely don't want. These are not the things you expect to have to do as a parent and its only three months ago he was very much still alive and with us. 

On Sunday we took Eliza back to university in Liverpool, a return to normality for her but one which was causing some anxiety all round. The early part of this week we felt ok but both of us have an odd feeling growing about the house suddenly being just the two of us. Going to work has become a routine again although I feel a bit like I'm just going through the motions, semi- detached from everything else that's going on there. I just turn up to teach my lessons and then go again. Then on Thursday as I was walking to the car park a wall of grief hit me out of nowhere, triggered by one thought that fleeted across my mind out of nowhere, the feeling that life was Isaac was getting further away every day. He died on 30th November and it's February already. Time ticks on and every day is a step forward I suppose but every day is a step further away from him too. That's how it felt at that moment. 

The commute to work and back gives me time to dwell. Tuesday's are always hard. One thought on a Tuesday and in my head I'm right back in the room with him and the hours up to his death. It's all very vivid still. I can smell it and feel it. Those Nick Cave songs I was listening to last week are still reverberating round my head but I spent the first few days this week listening to Half Man Half Biscuit, Nigel Blackwell making me laugh out loud while driving. 

Music- I don't think anyone was expecting this. Dot Allison, formerly the voice of One Dove and a much revered figure round these parts, had an album out last year called Heart Shaped Scars. I haven't listened to it enough and need to get back into it. Yesterday a remix of Dot's Love Died In Our Arms was released digitally, the last remix done by the legendary Lee 'Scratch' Perry before he died in August last year, Dot's poetic indie- folk rejigged in a reggae style. Buy it at Bandcamp for a pound. 

Sell My Soul Back To Me

This came out in 2003, a sumptuous electronic song from the turn of the millennium adorned with the vocals of Dot Allison, one of those songs that can leave feeling happy or sad depending on your mood when hearing it (and also that confused happy-sad state).  King Of Woolworths was Jon Brooks who has more recently been releasing records as The Advisory Circle. The album Sell Me Back My Soul came from, L'illustration Musicale, also had contributions from Bob Stanley of St Etienne and Emma Pollock of The Delgados but I don't own a copy of it. Given the quality of  Sell My Soul Back To Me and effect it has on me I have no idea why I have never bought a copy especially as I've got almost everything else Dot has sung on. The video below is fan made from a film called The Cell, which I haven't seen. The photograph is by William Eggleston and is perfect in ways I cannot describe.

Dotty

I'd forgotten I even owned this- a remix of St Etienne's How We Used To Live by Dot Allison. Stretched and abstract, some drones, static and whirring noises, and some distance from from Bob, Sarah and Pete's usual sound. Nice though.

How We Used To Live (Dot Allison Mix)

The Small Hours Are Hard To Face

I've no doubt I will keep coming back to One Dove as long as I have the strength to lift the arm onto the vinyl or press play. Morning Dove White is one of the 90s high points, one of Weatherall's too. This was their poppiest moment, soft, sublime and enveloping- even Stephen Hague can't ruin it. It doesn't have as many of the gorgeous dub textures that are all over the album but it should have been a big hit. I don't remember seeing the video before, Dot and the boys miming in a pub/club. The bit where they get projected onto the pool table is a tad dated but no matter.

Residential

Tonight, while you are uncorking the wine and enjoying Friday night, I shall be enjoying/enduring the horrors of... the work residential. Hotel, meeting from 4 until 7, dinner, drinks and then another round of meetings on Saturday morning all the way through until 12.

As a result they will be no rockabilly tonight- I'm not having you grooving to the sounds of the Bagging Area Friday night while I'm suffering. I know that sounds selfish but that's the way it is.

Some songs recently appeared on Soundcloud- unfinished versions of songs for a second One Dove album, scrapped as the band split up while recording it. Shame. One Dove's Morning Dove White is a lost 90s gem, flawed maybe but a gem nonetheless.



If you go here there's a few more, tasters of what might have been.