2025 Mix For NYE

An hour long mix for New Year's Eve  featuring solely music released in 2025, ambient and largely instrumental although some voices creep in to the Keith Tenniswood remix of Deeply Armed's The Healing and Mogwai's God Gets You Back. 

I was going to do a second mix to go with it, a more uptempo, more vocals based hour long mix but time and circumstances conspired against me. It'll follow at the weekend hopefully. In the meantime this one gives some low key shimmer and emotion to the last day of the year. 

NYE Hour Long 2025 Ambient/ Instrumental Mix

• Death In Vegas: Lightning Bolt (Live at EartH, 2025)
• Jamie Lidell and Luke Schneider: The Story Of Your Life
• SUSS and Six Missing: Old Mission
• Robin Guthrie: Her Name Is Dulcinea
• Deeply Armed: The Healing (Keith Tenniswood Remix)
• Klangkollektor: Isle Of Stonsy
• Mogwai: God Gets You Back
• Andy Bell: Pinball Wanderer
• Sewell And The Gong: Communion Phase
• Kieran Hebden and William Tyler: Secret City
• Daniel Avery: Neon Pulse
• Moon Dust: The Glow (Slowed + Reverb)

The Death In Vegas track Lightning Bolt dates from 2011 and the Trans- Love Energies album but this version was recorded live when DIV played at EartH in Dalston this year, fragile, drifting ambience.

Jamie Lidell and Luke Schneider released A Companion For Spaces Between Dreams, Luke's pedal steel ambient- Americana crossed with Jamie's modular synths and tapes effects. Psychedelic inner voyage music. 

SUSS are also from the ambient- Americana/ cosmic country scene, a trio from New York. This song with Six Missing's electric guitar came out in November. 

Robin Guthrie occasionally tidies up his unreleased files/ shelves and releases music onto Bandcamp, tracks that didn't make albums released in the past- orphan tracks. Her Name Is Dulcinea is one of those, from 2012, that saw the light of day in November this year. Ambient shoegaze/ dream pop for which the word 'ethereal' seems a cliche but also very apt. 

Belfast's Deeply Armed released a 12" called The Healing in the spring complete with remixes by Death In Vegas, Andrew Innes with Brendan Lynch and lone swordsman Keith Tenniswood. The original is ghostly, shamanic psyche/ kraut. Keith strips it down with a primitive drum machine and heartbeat pulse. Low key beauty. 

Klangkollektor's Balearic/ dub instrumentals have been present in two releases in 2025- Dubtapes Volume 2 and The Stockport Tapes (recorded live at Bruk). Isle Of Stonsey adds pedal steel or Hawaiian guitar to the soundscape, a very chilled out, beatific excursion.

Mogwai's The Bad Fire opened with God Gets You Back, stellar guitar picking and FX that builds, going supernova in the second half when the synths, drums and vocals join in. 

Andy Bell's Pinball Wanderer album came out in February and has been played round here every month since. The title track marries late 60s acid folk guitar and cosmische rhythms with Andy's spacious, warm production. 

Sewell And The Gong's Patron Saint of Elsewhere has been one of my favourite records of 2025 and this track, Communion Phase, is as good as any from it- psychedelic, motorik and folky with an optimistic feel.   

Kieran Hebden and William Tyler's 41 Longfield Street Late 80s splices Kieran's laptop beats and productions with William's acoustic and electric guitars to make one of the most affecting albums of 2025- hypnotic, engaging, with an eye on the past (and on Kieran's Dad's record collection in the late 80s, alt- country and Nashville) but avoiding dewy- eyed nostalgia to create something entirely their own. 

Daniel Avery's Tremor album was a departure from his ambient techno of recent years and a swerve into channeling his early 90s industrial rock influences. He toured the album with a full band, guitarist, bassist and drummer kicking up a right old noise alongside his synths and machines. On the album's opener, Neon Pulse, he lulls us into a sense of ambient security, two minutes of gorgeous floaty sci fi synth ambience.

Moon Dust is yet another Richard Norris project this time with Lol Hammond from The Drum Club. Piano and FX, a slowed down and reverb laden way to drift out of this hour's worth of music. 

Death In Dalston

Death In Vegas' album Death Mask is one of 2025's highlights round this way, a techno tour de force spread over four sides of vinyl, imperious machine music with a human, emotional soul. Earlier this month Richard Fearless released an EP to close the year, two tracks recorded live at EartH in Dalston, London. COUM is a 2011 Trans- Love Energies era track reworked into the 2025 DIV set, huge sounding squeaky reversed synths and a big old Linn drum battling through a tense techno storm. 

On Lightning Bolt Fearless is in dubbier/ ambient territory, slow moving sounds, spacious and celestial. Both tracks can be bought digitally at Bandcamp and a two track 12" follows in January 

Back in 2011 when Trans- Love Energies was being released Death In Vegas turned up at Lauren Laverne's BBC 6 radio show and played two tracks, Your Loft My Acid and Medication. 

Death In Vegas Session 2011

A Midsummer Mix: Forty Minutes Of 2025 So Far

There's some big news coming tomorrow which some of you will want to act on- if you were one of the people that bought a certain compilation album last year, you might want to be back here bright and breezy on Monday morning. Full details to come in twenty four hours time. 

It's the end of June tomorrow also, halfway through the year- I've no idea how the last six months have gone so quickly- but it seems like a good point to do a 2025 So Far Sunday Mix, not a definitive Best Of 2025, rather some of the tracks and songs I've enjoyed the most so far this year. 

A Midsummer Mix: Forty Minutes Of 2025 So Far

• Death In Vegas: Chingola
• Andy Bell: Pinball Wanderer
• Adrian Sherwood: Cold War Skank
• Demise Of Love: Carry The Blame
• 10:40 presents Retro Fit: An Alternative History (Lavender Mist)
• Escape- Ism: Last Of The Sell Outs
• Klangkollektor: Isle Of Stonsey
• Four Tet: Into Dust (Still Falling)

Chigola is a five minute ambient techno intro to the latest Death In Vegas album Death Mask, an album which does not hold its techno punches and which is a machine music tour de force. Richard Fearless poured a lot into the making of Death Mask, some personal losses reflected and worked through. It's an overloaded and emotional trip. Chingola is few minutes of scene setting, calm before the storm. 

Andy Bell's latest solo album Pinball Wanderer came out in February led by a cover of The Passions' I'm In Love With A German Film Star with Dot Allison and Michael Rother on board. The album's title track is an instrumental delight, a circling guitar part beamed from late 60s folk into Andy's 2025 motorik/ cosmsiche/ electric shoegaze. 

Adrian Sherwood's four track dubplate 10" came out recently, led by title track The Grand Designer and has been on steady rotation round here ever since (though I missed out on the vinyl). Cold War Skank is a moody dub/ guitar workout.

Demise Of Love is a three man modern electronic meeting of Daniel Avery, Syd Minsky- Sergeant (Working Men's Club) and James Greenwood (Ghost Culture). They have, like Adrian Sherwood, released a four track 10" EP that merges acid house, some intense techno sounds, industrial noise and the flickers of what New Order could have been had they kept heading away from the light. 

An Alternative History was written as an imaginary Stone Roses song, based on a blogpost by some blogger or other that imagined a world where the band didn't blow it but kept their heads and kept making music, avoiding the pitfalls of The Second Coming. Jesse's new Roses song came in three versions. Lavender Mist is the backwards one. 

Escape- Ism is Ian Svenonius' latest revolutionary outfit, a duo aiming to rewrite modern culture/ indie- rock with stripped down, scuzzy guitar/ drum machine/ keys/ vocals. The album- Charge Of The Love Brigade- is one of my favorites so far this year, a thirty five minute manifesto. Last Of Sell Outs is the best song on it, a meditation on commerce, art and musical integrity and the price of selling out. 

Klangkollektor is Lars Fischer from Numremberg. The EP Dubplates Vol 2, out on Manchester's Jason Boardman's Before I Die label, is a chilled Balearic dub masterclass ending with Isle Of Stonsey with pedal steel/ Hawaiian guitar sailing out into the cosmos. 

Four Tet's latest single samples Mazzy Star to achingly beautiful effect, a Four Tet track that hits all the spots, capable of moving me to tears. 

AW62 And The Return Of Death In Vegas

Today is the first day of the AW62 at Todmorden's Golden Lion, a three day weekender to celebrate what would have been Andrew Weatherall's 62nd birthday (6th April, Sunday). The line up is a bit of a dream, kicking off tonight with Richard Fearless playing downstairs in the pub, ably supported by Rusty and Rotter, while Fantastic Twins play upstairs. On Saturday David Holmes headlines with Duncan Gray and Scott Fraser both playing, Matt Hum on before David. From 2pm on Saturday through until 8ish, me and my friends in The Flightpath Estate have the privilege of DJing for the afternoon and evening crowds- it's an honour and a joy. 

Sunday keeps the fun going with a Sherman and Curley dub set, a White Rabbit literary discussion (hosted by Lee Brackstone with the Flightpath's Martin joining the panel) and then to finish the weekend off, The Jonny Halifax Invocation playing live upstairs while Adrian Sherwood DJs downstairs. The evening events are all sold out but the Saturday and Sunday afternoon events and sessions are free- if you're in the area, come down and say hello, it'll be great. 

By way of happy coincidence Friday night's headliner Richard Fearless announced the release of a new Death In Vegas album a few days ago with the appearance of a new track- Death Mask. Fearless has been mining an increasingly intense and beautiful techno seam for over a decade now, going deeper and deeper into the techno- earth's core. 2011's Trans- Love Energies and 2016's Transmission albums, 2018's Honey 12", his pair of albums under his Fearless name- Deep Rave Memory and its ambient techno counterpart Future Rave Memory- plus various one off singles on his Drone label such as 2017's mighty Sweet Venus, have all lit up the Bagging Area stereo, streamlined machine music of the highest order that straddles the line between ice cold and emotional overload. Death Mask fits right into that techno continuum, seven minutes of rattly drum machines and thudding kick drum, dub's space echo, slightly anxiety inducing synths, a squeak that nibbles away at the upper end and the sweet rush of momentum. Music to engulf and to immerse oneself in...

The tracks were all recorded inside Richard's Metal Box, a shipping container overlooking the Thames in East London. If any music sounds like it was recorded inside a shipping container, it's the music on Death Mask. Death Mask and the squally and equally intense While My Machines Gently Weep are both available over at Bandcamp ahead of the rest of the nine track album, which comes out in early June. 

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

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. 

Forty Minutes Of Fearless And Vegas

I took this photo the other day by accident with my phone in my pocket. There were several and a couple of short videos too but this was the pick of the bunch- someone said, 'it's like you have a portal to another dimension in your pocket'. If only I'd known it was there all along. It looks very much like a record sleeve too, maybe one by The Cocteau Twins, definitely something on 4AD. Anyway, I like it but despite my best efforts haven't been able to recreate it. For now, the portal remains closed. 

How about some dystopian disco for your Sunday? Earlier this week Jesse questioned whether the new Ron Trent album is actually any good and rather than being the Balearic masterpiece it is being lauded as (not least here), it is actually more akin to the incidental music from 80s US cop shows, Miami Vice when it went soft or Magnum P.I. perhaps. I think with Balearic and ambient music there's always a danger of slipping over the line into bland New Age cocktail bar music but I guess everyone's line is in a different place. I've got a couple of Balearic compilations with songs and tracks where I can feel my younger self shaking his head and wondering what has happened. 

There's no danger of the music in today's mix being labelled soft focus, pastel anti- jazz. In recent years Richard Fearless, both solo and in his Death In Vegas guise, has made some very anxiety inducing, tense and dystopic ambient/ industrial/ minimal techno. Sheets of metal, cavernous reverb, subterranean synths, icily detached vocals from Sasha Grey, thick urban fog, night terrors, dancing in a damp deserted warehouse somewhere in East London with one lightbulb flickering on and off... it's all here. Plus Chris and Cosey, formerly of Throbbing Gristle, on remix duties and Richard's beautifully mournful piano house remix of Django Django. It's all very intense but also perfectly executed and very cathartic. 

Forty Minutes Of Richard Fearless And Death In Vegas

• Richard Fearless: Driving With Roedelius
• Richard Fearless: Earth Tapes
• Death In Vegas: Honey
• Death In Vegas: Consequences of Love (Chris And Cosey Remix)
• Death In Vegas: You Disco I Freak
• Django Django: Giant (Richard Fearless remix)
• Richard Fearless: Gamma Ray

The opening pair of tracks are from the recent Deep Rave Memory and Future Rave Memory albums. Consequences Of Love and You Disco I Freak were on 2016's Transmission album. Honey and Gamma Ray were standalone singles from 2018 and 2014 respectively. The Django Django remix dates from 2016 but was only released properly in 2020. 

Monday's Long Song

This artwork is on a footbridge over the Metrolink not far from here. It seems to be a spray can sketch of female anatomy as drawn by someone who has only been told what that might look like. It has a certain primitive quality that lifts it above your average genital based graffiti. In my opinion. 

Richard Fearless of Death In Vegas is still pursuing his ambient techno vison of the future, this time with Circuit Diagram, the collaboration renamed as Death Circuit. The eight and a half minutes of Strom Dub are sleek, sexy synth sounds, science fiction as it used to be. The B-side, Teeparty am Waldbrand (translation- teaparty at the forest fire), has a relentless kick drum and throbbing bass, disembodied voices and single minded intent. No surprise this music is coming out of Germany, Hamburg to be exact. Buy it at Bandcamp. 

Fearless

Sometimes albums from the recent past, the last year or so, are the ones that get forgotten about. One of 2019's albums that I've bene making time to go back to is Richard Fearless' Deep Rave Memory. Fearless has honed his sound in recent times, purifying everything down to a sleek, industrial blend of ambient acid techno. Death In Vegas moved in this direction in 2011 with the Trans- Love Energies album and then even moreso with 2016's Transmission, a double vinyl set of futuristic techno, Detroit via East London. His studio is a shipping container overlooking the Thames and London's Docklands area, a metal box filled with vinyl, computers and vintage gear. There's an article with pictures here. If environment and psychogeography affect the production of art- and I think they do- then this combination of shipping container, East London and the river must have played a role in the increasingly purified sound that has come out of Richard's imagination. Deep Rave Memory, the title track, is an eleven minute trip, a kick drum leading us in and and a discordant synth sound, two notes up and down, a wobbly siren sound behind it. An acidic topline comes to the fore. Four minutes in it all shifts, a siren synth refrain taking over before most of the elements drop out and then build again for an increasingly intense, sweetly melodic second half. 

In 2018 Richard put out Honey, a one off single with Sasha Grey, a song I've raved about before. You can find it at Bandcamp. The year before he released Sweet Venus, a limited 12" only release that seems to be coming from the same place. Sweet Venus starts with an erratic dancing synth line and a spray can hiss of percussion before a long, ghostly, distant chord comes into play. It came out on Fearless' own label, Drone. Label name and sound perfectly aligned. It all goes off just before three minutes, the drums accelerating, the track suddenly gathering momentum, a techno bullet train.

Working backwards in 2014 there were two 12" singles, Higher Electronic States and Gamma Ray. Gamma Ray is clearly part of this, an eight minute slice of tension and release, pattering drums, metallic hiss, more looping synth notes flitting about, bouncing around a shipping container above a river.  

Gamma Ray

Isolation Mix Seven

An hour and a minute of stitched together songs for Saturday. This one caused me a bit of a headache at times. It was an attempt I think at first to try to join some dots together in terms of feel or sounds, with a nod to Kraftwerk following Florian Schneider's death last week. There was an earlier version that went quite techno/dance for the last twenty minutes but I then went back and did the end section again. I'm still not sure I got it quite right, and think I may have tried to cover too many bases stylistically, but my self imposed deadline was approaching so 'publish and be damned', as the Duke of Wellington said. Although he wasn't dealing with the business of trying to get spaghetti westerns, indie dance, shoegaze and leftfield electronic music to sit together in one mix was he?

Ennio Morricone: Watch Chimes (From ‘For A Few Dollars More’)

David Sylvian and Robert Fripp: Endgame

Talk Talk: Life’s What You Make It

Saint Etienne: Kiss And Make Up (Midsummer Madness Mix)

Spacemen 3: Big City (Everyone I Know Can Be Found Here)

Beyond The Wizards Sleeve: Diagram Girl (Beyond The Wizards Sleeve Re- Animation)

My Bloody Valentine: Don’t Ask Why

Jon Hopkins and Kelly Lee Owens: Luminous Spaces

Kraftwerk: Numbers

Death In Vegas: Consequences Of Love (Chris and Cosey Remix)

Chris Carter: Moonlight

Simple Minds: Theme For Great Cities

Durutti Column: It’s Wonderful

I have a significant birthday fast approaching. A few months ago we had planned that today would be a day of celebrating with anyone who wanted to join us, starting with lunch and few beers in town and then a tram pub crawl southbound out of the city centre towards Sale, stopping off in Old Trafford (maybe) and Stretford (definitely) before some drinks locally in the evening. That obviously isn't happening. I'll have to re-schedule for my 51st. 

Honey

Back in June I posted a new single from Death In Vegas. Honey is a slow burning, pulsing techno track graced by Sasha Grey's seductive vocals. I'm still playing it now, still finding it one of those songs that gets right into me and makes me feel alive. In September it gained a video, mainly close ups of Sasha's face while she coos that she would die for you.



The Los Angeles photographer Blake Little covered people in honey for a series of pictures and a book called Preservation. Being draped in honey might be rather nice but it must have taken ages to get clean afterwards. More here.

Honey is a bit of a theme in art and music- warm, sticky and sweet, an everyday luxury. More honey?

The Los Angeles photographer Blake Little covered people in honey for a series of pictures and a book called Preservation (including the one above). More here. Being draped in honey might be rather nice I would have thought but it must have taken ages to get clean afterwards.

Jim and William Reid's Honey, like their Candy and Cindy, was a love song to a girl or a drug (or both). Here they are on The Tube, introduced by Paula Yates on Friday night in 1985, still with Bobby Gillespie playing the snare drum. Black leather, pale skin, feedback.



Earlier this year I posted another Scottish band's tribute to Honey, The Pastels whose Baby Honey is a wonderfully shambolic B-side from 1984. 

Baby Honey

There are plenty of other honeys on my hard drive- not sure that's a sentence that is going to keep me out of trouble- Johnny Burnett's Honey Hush, Lee Hazelwood's Silk 'n' Honey, Orange Juice's Simply Thrilled Honey, Martha Reeves and The Vandellas (We've Got) Honey Love, Duke Reid's What Makes Honey? and Prince Fattie and Hollie Cook's Milk And Honey but this one seems to round this off the best. Spacemen 3 were into honey (of course they were). It was the opening song on their 1989 album Playing With Fire, an album I have revisited a lot earlier this year. Honey is a Pete Kember song that opens with a blast of wobble, some descending chords and plucked guitar notes. The whispered vocal arrives a minute in and everything is stretched and phased, pleasantly distorted. 'Honey won't you take me home tonight?' Pete asks, 'the night is warm and the stars are bright'. Pete's meditation drifts on, blissfully and before fading out just before three minutes. 'Surely there ain't nothing we can't do'.

Honey

Honey Effect

This is the new single from Death In Vegas, Honey, with the blissful vocals of Sasha Grey over throbbing, minimal, mind altering techno. 'I would die... for you' Sasha whispers.



Richard Fearless has more or less devoted his music making over the last few years to this sound, stripping it back and purifying it. In 2015 he put out this eight minute song, Overview Effect. It followed 2 singles form the year before, all in similar groove. When you've got a sound this good, why do anything other than refine it?

I don't know why some get released as Richard Fearless and some as Death In Vegas, where Fearless ends and Vegas begins? Or the other way round...

Consequences Of Love

A skip back to Friday for today's post. After writing about Death In Vegas' You Disco I Freak a friend on social media pointed me towards this which somehow I had missed. Consequences Of Love remixed by ex-Throbbing Gristlers Chris and Cosey. TG seem to be one of the influences on the Transmission album (and on vocalist Sasha Grey) so it's fitting that they remix one of the songs from it and it's a very good job done indeed- throbbing synths and nagging melodies.

Freaked

The world that seems to be going madder as each day goes by. Watching the news is an exercise in seeing how low one's jaw can drop before spluttering 'whatthefuck whatthefuckingfuck didhejustsay?' One day we'll look back and laugh.

Death In Vegas released an album last year, Transmission, a record that fused minimal techno with the late 70s and early 80s synths, industrial ambient, and the breathy vocals of Sasha Grey. It is an intense, nocturnal, somewhat freaked out collection of songs, that throb and drone and pulse. It draws you in. It is very self contained. This one is especially trippy.

You Disco I Freak

Metal Dub

Death In Vegas have a new album called Transmission out very soon. DiV mainman Richard Fearless has moved back towards the backroom techno/acid area in the last couple of years. 2014's Gamma Ray single was an intense delight, 808s aloft. At the end of last year Fearless put out a song called Metal Dub which I think is going to be the opener on Transmission. It sounds like metal dub.



This remix by DJ Richard is a stripped back version with a kind of low key euphoria finishing with some lovely drones. Stunning.

Ein Fur Die Damen

At the turn of the century Death In Vegas made a couple of albums that were full of guest vocalists- Dot Allison, Paul Weller, Iggy Pop, Jim Reid, Liam Gallagher, and Bobby Gillespie for starters. Dance beats and production with a scuzzy rock glazing. In 2004 they went back to a duo and made a largely instrumental album called Satan's Circus which got slated almost everywhere. Which was a shame because it contained some good tunes, doffing their caps to Neu! and Kraftwerk (with one song called Sons Of Rother, the Neu! man mentioned by name) . After this one Richard Fearless disappeared off to New York, with a moustache and Black Acid before returning with 2011's excellent Trans Love Energies. This was the opener on Satan's Circus; live sounding drums, cosmiche keyboards and an all round West German groove.

Ein Fur Die Damen

Donna

Listening to Richard Fearless' new single Gamma Ray put me in mind of a track he put at the end of the Death In Vegas All Back To Mine compilation- Donna by MMM, high quality lysergic techno. And then, lo and behold, I clicked on a link to a Richard Fearless Q&A interview somewhere on the internet and there he was, still praising it and calling it the 'record he wished he'd made'. Inspired by Donna Summer's Our Love and crafted by  Erik Wiegand and Michael Fiedler in Berlin. Vorsprung durch technik.

Donna

Broken

Friday the 13th- I trust none of you put any store in superstition (it's bad luck to do so I think). Death In Vegas' breakthrough album The Contino Sessions has several good collaborations on it, Dot Allison and Iggy Pop standing out. I loved this record at the time but can't help but feel some of it sounds a little dated now. I think with this type of record it's the beats that date- until a time comes around that those drum programs become fashionable again. This song has vocals from Jim Reid, on Mary Chain hiatus, doing a fine line in self-loathing over a bunch of noise.

Broken Little Sister

Dirge Dub

I missed a comment left a month or so ago from a reader called J who was looking for this- Death In Vegas's Dirge (with the lovely Dot Allison on vox) remixed by dubmaster Adrian Sherwood. And though this may tip me towards the edge of the monthly bandwidth with Boxnet I'll stick it back up anyway. Dubbed out Monday nights.

Dirge (Adrian Sherwood Remix)

Fearless Toy

Toy have made an autumnal dash for the end of year lists with their highly enjoyable self-titled debut album, heavy on psychedelic guitars and motorik drumming and a dash of Mary Chain menace. In this remix Richard Fearless sets the controls for the heart of West Germany circa 1972, with some lovely Neu! style parts. Ist gut.

Left Myself Behind (Trans Love Energies Version)

What Augustus John would make of Toy or Fearless I don't know. I've just read a book about him. John was a bohemian portrait painter who rejected Edwardian England's formality, spending a year roaming England in a Romany caravan with his wife and mistress, who grew his hair and beard long, wearing a kerchief instead of a tie, and allowed his many children freedoms other children at the time didn't get, so it's nice to think so. I suspect even our most liberal Victorian and Edwardian forebears would struggle with some of the repetitive noises we listen to today but who knows. Wasn't Stravinsky pretty far out sonically?