Do The Right Thing

Some more new electronic music for your enjoyment, from Mighty Force, from Paisley Dark and from Duncan Gray. I sometimes feel that writing about instrumental, electronic music leads to a certain amount of repetitive description, words like chug, synth, bass, cosmic, dark, dub and acidic re- arranged in various permutations. Needless to say, they don't always do the music justice. 

J- Lower (Jeff Lowes) records for Mighty Force. His latest album, Quanta, came out two weeks ago, an eleven track tour de force built on warm, soft drum pads, thick bass and light, ascending melody lines. Opening track Hive sets the scene, a track that builds into something that soars and lifts. The eight minute wonder Astral Awakenings has the same warm synth and drum sounds, a gently prodding rhythm and insistent melodies. You can play the whole thing from start to finish or drop in on any of the eleven tracks and find something to warm the heart and stimulate the mind. Get Quanta at Bandcamp. 

At Paisley Dark the latest EP comes via label boss John Paynter and co- producer Ben Lewis' A Space Age Freak Out complete with a full line up of remixes- Airsine, Cosmikuro, Hogt I Tak, Ben Hunt, Isis Moray, Keith Forrester, Plastic GRN, The Machine Soul and Viper Patrol are all present and correct. 

The original track is Song Of Siraba, a six minute dark disco outing that thumps along, high grade acidic chug. Airsine strips it down and slows it down, a slow burning acid churn. Cosmikuro follows suit, faint hint of ghostly backing vocals and increasingly chunky bassline coming to the fore. Keith Forrester speeds it up, strobe light, high tempo. Viper Patrol go metallic chug, lasers and widescreen sci fi. Isis Moray turn up the distortion and overload the limiters. Find those remixes and the others, all eleven versions, at Paisley Dark's Bandcamp. 

After Mighty Force in Exeter and Paisley Dark in Leeds we head to Slough where Duncan Gray is firmly back in the driving seat and releasing monthly tracks from his stockpile of recordings. In December he gave us Microfreaking, a seven minute throbber with synth and bass battling it out. January saw the release of Somebody Is Missing, a bassline and melodica heads down, slo mo, four four tribute to the departed, with a bass that never lets up- wonderful dubbed out disco. Right at the end of January Duncan dropped Do The Wrong Thing, a leftfield, off kilter delight that nods to Bowie and Iggy in West Berlin, Andrew Weatherall's Scrutton Street bunker and the never- ending thud of the four four kick drum. The wrong thing is most definitely the right thing. 

From Slough To San Francisco

Out today, remixes of five tracks from Duncan Gray's Five Fathoms Full album which came out last year, a chuggy cosmic disco delight from the heart of Slough. Five Fathoms Further is the hundredth release on Tici Taci which is an achievement in itself. The remixes take Duncan's sound and colour palette as the starting point and head outwards. Meat Katie remix the title track, adding a vicious kick drum, a throbbing bassline and some haste to proceedings. 

Bagging Area favourites Number (an extra- curricular outfit for Red Snapper's Ali Friend and Rich Thair where they get to explore punk- funk/ dark disco) take on Hot Jupe and send it to early 80s New York, the rubber band bassline sounding like it's been listening to ESG and ACR and the sampled voice could straight from an NYC radio station. Lovely post- punk bump and grind.

Jack Butters remixes In The Attic, high calibre machine funk bringing distorto guitar, tabla and fuzz synth bass. Mr BC's version of Greenville heads for the cosmic- disco after party, widescreen, robotic synth action. Finally Justin Drake takes on Shark Bumps, thudding kick drum and rumbling bass suddenly lit up by synths and sparkles. There are excerpts at Soundcloud and the full Five Fathoms Further can be found at Tici Taci. 

Over in San Francisco DJ, musician and producer Cole Odin has launched a new project called Joy Theatre, a label and a production house for the Bay Area. The six track album opens up with an already released piece of music, the seven minute majesty that is Psychemagik's remix of Cole's Dawn's Approaching- blissed out SF cosmische that never stops giving with chuggy drums, angelic vocals, big piano chords. Cole wrote Dawn's Approaching as a tribute to Underworld's Rez and when the synth squiggle appears in the third minute you'll hear why. A welcome re- release. 

There are five further tracks on Joy Theatre. Babylon Black is a dark disco delight from two Bay Area producers, Buna Babillions and Corey Black. Evil Eyes is bass led party music. Jesse Fahnestock is well known round these parts as one half of Jezebell and all of 10:40. In the 90s Jesse lived in San Francisco and DJed at Bulletproof, an influence on Cole. Jesse appears on Joy Theatre under his own name, Jesse Black Fahnestock, with a track called Quienes Son, eight minutes of dub- disco with snakey horns working their way in and some of Jesse' signature production sounds. 

Over on side two there are more Bay Area tracks and artists- D- Freq by Sweetdique starts out like the theme from an 80s teen movie but when things have gone very dark indeed and then turns into a deep, slo mo joyride. The Arturian gives up Break Free, shimmering cosmic sounds with thudding drums and bass, flashes of synth blazing across the skies. Finally Jamel Lee closes the album with I Remember The Sun- the sound of children playing, deep house drums, synth chords always looking upwards and a spoken word vocal about the sunlight. 

Vinyl available here. 

Friday Triplet

A bumper post for Friday, several new and recent releases all worthy of your attention, all in the electronic music area- they say dance music is ephemeral by nature but much of it sticks around long after other things have faded away.

First, the first new music from Dirt Bogarde in a year, since the release of his debut album in October 2024. Pihkal is a single track inspired by Alexander T. Shulgin's 1995 book Pihkal- a chemical love story'. Shulgin and his wife Ann conducted in depth research into the use of psychedelic drugs and their effects on the human mind. He's also credited with introducing MDMA to psychologists in the 1970s as a therapeutic tool. Dirt takes the book as a starting point and builds an autumnal classic from it, a siren driven, thumping and electrifying piece of modern acid house- there are echoes of A Guy Called Gerald, Detroit techno, Orbital, 808 State and early 90s rave inside its five minutes but it also sounds utterly contemporary. 

One word review- banger! 

Buy/ listen/ enjoy at Bandcamp.

Over at Tici Taci Duncan Gray has been rebooting the machines and clearing the shelves. Two weeks ago he released Niemand, a seven minute foray into mirror ball chug, with rattling percussion, steel pan drums, a burst of descending bass and a range of synths and guitars that pull Niemand into some sweet spot where chug, psychedelia and dub meet, hug and frug. 

One word review- expansive!

Buy/ listen/ enjoy at Bandcamp. 

Down on the Kent coast things are happening with Michael Son Of Michael who has released the third of three EPs, the final installment in the Margate trilogy- Drifting Inland. The EP is inspired by those who have moved to the resort looking for the seaside dream and then... drifted inland. Four tracks: Cowbell Concerto is lively, rippling synths, four four beats, and some lovely synapse busting toplines; Sonido del Sureste is darker, inching away from the brighter lights, a little acidic and very insistent; Del Boy is a drive by track, gliding down coastal roads, drums and bass pushing on- there's a chopped up and FX vocal that chatters away on top; and New Signs Of Life judders in and then evolves into a gorgeous slice of Scandi- disco/ cosmische. 

One word review- Kentish kosmsiche! (I know, that's two words. I couldn't get Kentrock or Kentmische to work). 

Buy/ listen/ enjoy at Bandcamp. 

Fifty Five Minutes Of Bedford Falls Players

Apparently it's Sunday. It's difficult to tell what day it is at this time of year at the best of times, the period between Christmas and New Year, but it's been even harder this year. On Christmas Eve night I came with norovirus (I think) and have been wiped out ever since. I'll spare you the details but I was out of action all through the Christmas period. Lots of lovely food and drink in the kitchen and I've been on bread, water and rice. I can't remember the last time I had such an alcohol free Christmas but it would have been in the mid- 1980s. 

Today's Sunday mix features the work of Bedford Falls Players aka Mark Cooper. It's fitting for this time of year, if a week or two late, because the town of Bedford Falls is the fictional setting for It's A Wonderful Life, the Christmas film everyone goes to at some point. Also, deeply shamefully and embarrassingly, BFP have released at least three great tracks this year and I missed all of them out of my end of year list last week, an oversight for which I can only apologise. In any sane 2024 list the tracks Agent Cooper Coffee Dreams, Beautiful Chaos and Cosmic Cascade would all feature strongly. 

Bedford Falls Players music is giddy and effervescent, the spirit of late 80s and 90s dance music filtered through dub and techno with a real life affirming quality, a bounce and musicality that makes it  ajoy to listen to. Mark's remixes of other people, three contained below, are always outstanding too. In fact, his remixes of Matt Gunn's Learning Through Loops was one of my favourite tracks of 2023 so how I missed his music from this year's list is beyond me. All of the BFP back catalogue can be bought at Bandcamp. 

Fifty Five Minutes Of Bedford Falls Players

• Marmite Marimba
• Railton Ruckus (BFP Remix)
• Boatface (BFP Remix)
• Agent Cooper Coffee Dreams
• Learning Through Loops (BFP Remix)
• Cosmic Cascade
• Beautiful Chaos (Dub Mix)

Marmite Marimba is from the Three EP, a 2023 release. It starts out buzzing, like a machine glitching, and then the marimba melodies start to pick away on top. It rises and falls, rises and falls, stuttering bass and keys sliding in and out, crunching drums piling in, repeating itself but always shifting too. Lovely stuff. The BFP remix of Matt Gunn's Learning Through Loops is from the same EP. Almost exactly a year ago I said this about it- 'a gorgeous Balearic tune with squelchy bass, chuggy drums and a guitar part that sounds like something John Squire put down on tape at Battery Studios back in early 1989 when recording the Stone Roses debut lp and then never used. Over the top of this Mark has laid a vocal sample taken from TV, a voice talking about sound waves, binary problems in quantum systems, core computers, voodoo, 'shit like this', hidden variables, time travel, determinism, party tricks and the voice of Jesus. It's been played constantly round here, one of my favourite tracks of 2023, and you should all get on it'. I have no reason to change any of that one year later. 

Railton Ruckus is by Rude Audio, one of several remix exchanges between the two parties. Railton Road is/ was the front line in Brixton and was the title track of a 2021 Rude Audio EP. The BFP signature sounds, marimbas and percussion carrying the melodies working their way through it and then everything dropping out for dub space and timbales, Weatherall and Nicolson style c.1991. 

Boatface is by Duncan Gray from 2022. The BFP remix is a wonky Buzz Aldrin and the Beastie Boys sampling joy that could go on twice as long and not be too long. 

Agent Cooper Coffee Dreams came out earlier this year, Kyle MacLachlan goes cosmic disco, some Twin Peaks chords and a rattling drum machine. 

Cosmic Cascade is also from 2024, a nine minute ride into the cosmos with chunky drums, wobbly bass and twinkling, interstellar keys and synths. 

Beautiful Chaos (Dub Mix) came out in March '24, a tune that builds and builds, piano, keys, acid squiggles, washes of synth and more of those twinkling synths Mark does so well. The drop out at five minutes, sampled voice and then bass re- entry is worth the price of admission alone. It is stratospherically good and clearly should have been in my singles of 2024 list, somewhere towards the top end. My bad, as they say. 

Another Pleasant Valley Death Cult

Matt Gunn has appeared here before but in leftfield  electronic/ cosmic chug/ psychedelic dub disco mode. In his youth Matt played in guitar bands and it turns out there are occasions when the rock 'n' roll juices flow, the guitars get plugged in, the amps turned up and jams are kicked out. Last Friday Matt unleashed an album as The Matt Gunn Band into the festive hell of mid- December, an eight song slice of, as he puts it, 'songs about stuff using real instruments first, then tech', an album called Another Pleasant Valley Death Cult. The title alone should give you some idea of what to expect. 

Ego To Go Go kicks in with a drummer counting us in and then raw and dirty fuzz bass, psyche rock guitar chords, summer of '69 vibes, ah ah ah backing vocals and then growly lead vox. The kind of guitar rock that 00s bands inspired by the Mary Chain made- Crocodiles and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club both spring to mind. Different League is funked up indie with a killer bassline. What Do You Think Of Me Now? channels The Cramps- in fact, Lux and Poison Ivy are never far away on Another Pleasant Valley Death Cult- but with 70s punk vocals. Testing One Two is looser and more experimental, more post- punk. Crushed comes in with a repeating organ riff, then crunchy drums and an indie dance feel, recalling both That Petrol Emotion and Big Audio Dynamite, if they'd come from Windsor. Infiltrator starts with synths, the sort of sound Matt produces more usually, but then diverts with a driving, propulsive throbbing bass, FXed vocals and a surf guitar solo. Full Of Lies is slowed down, the dub influences seeping in, FX and bleeps, the guitars not turning up until a couple of minutes in. Another Pleasant Valley Death Cult finishes with Shock Value, an eight minute epic, again riding in on synths and then a sneered vocal, 'take this...', as the bass and drums crunch about. Matt sings of AC/ DC and voltage running through him. The psyched out section, backwards guitars over thumping drums, is a joy, the song switching back and forth and then building for the last few minutes, guitars, synths, FX, drums, throbbing bass, a hefty dose of the experimental early 90s indie/ guitar bands fed through dance remixes and producers reconstituted for late 2024. You can listen and buy at Bandcamp.

Not long ago  Matt released some cosmic chug for Tici Taci, a three track EP called The Ringmakers Of Saturn. I wrote about it here- and need no excuse to repost this Simon Sheldon and Monkton remix, a wonderful piece of skanking sci fi dub. 

Ringmakers And Repulsion

More new music to end the week, a pair of releases coming from different ends of the sonic scale but both providing a bit of a hit to the senses. 

First, a new EP from the multi- talented Matt Gunn, The Ringmakers Of Saturn, out today on Tici Taci. The lead track has electronics and guitar side by side, and blast off at one minute ten seconds, thumping bass, synths and FX and crunchy drums, cosmic disco heading out to the sixth planet. There are remixes- the Simon Sheldon and Monkton Version cuts straight to the chase, whooshes and pulsing bassline with that sci fi guitar line cutting through, dropping into a delicious dub halfway in. Tici Taci boss Duncan Gray provides the second remix, Dunc's All Action Edit, wobbly bass, ripples of sound and perpetual motion. 

The second burst of new music today comes from Leicester's Echolocation, a band who have been ploughing their furrow for over twenty years, a guitar/ drums/ bass/ brass/ synths/ spoken word band who possess a distinctive sound and singular view of the modern world that can be found on several albums and EPs. Their latest is called Repulsion, a four track EP. Opening song meta AF lulls you gently with tingles but then guitars clang in and vocalist Pete threatens, ' We're coming for ya/ We're gonna call you out'. The UK Of The A is slower but no less urgent, fuzz guitar and bass and the voice in the distance warning about echo chambers and doubt. The drums kick in and the tempo ramps up. Attention Grab cuts the menace slightly, organ/ keys at the fore while the nine minute title track has Harvey's ringing guitar line take the lead while the drums and bass rattling away and there's more unease and tension in the words, 'try to fit in... are you a team player?'. A wall of buzzing guitar crashes forwards and then drops back again, the band forging on, Pete still free associating, 'tolerance, forgiveness, compassion... repulsion'. 

You can get Repulsion and the rest of Echolocation's back catalogue at Bandcamp.  

Take Your Baby By The Hand

In 2022 Peak High released a single that was one the best of the year, the magnificent Was That All It Was, a cover of a 1979 disco/ soul song by Jean Carne. Peak High (Jim McCall) then sent his version to Sean Johnston who remixed it twice, the first time pulling all the ALFOS/ Patrick Cowley levers, synths and drum machines set for the cosmic disco/ chug heart of the sun, the second going early 90s Sheffield bleep house. Now they've done it again.

The new release is a cover of Wang Chung's 1983 hit Dance Hall Days, a song for summer and late nights, the sequencers and synths throbbing and pulsing. Don Gomez's sweet vocal sends the song closer to perfection. All the labels apply- cosmic disco, Italo, Balearic, chug house. Once again Sean is on remix duties, his Hardway Bros remix toughening up the drums and sending it to a sweatier, darker place, most likely a basement. 

The Peak High and Hardway Bros versions are at Bandcamp. The video for the original song was directed by Derek Jarman, with some of the footage from Jarman's father's home movies. The toddler is Derek. 

Sean is back in his remix partnership with Duncan Gray as Hardway Bros Meets Monkton very shortly, the pair remixing the latest song from the Tici Taci label, a superb EP from Uj Pa Gaz, coming all the way from Tirana in Albania. The Hardway Bros Meets Monkton Uptown remix of Roxy is a six minute dub version, bassline leading the way, very much Uptown. The original version of Roxy is a gorgeous, woozy slice of electronic music, laid back Adriatica. Also on the EP is The Cove, six slo mo minutes, percussion, chugging drums and a keening topline that pulls at the heartstrings. There's a clip of the remix of Roxy at Soundcloud  and one of Roxy here. More excellence from Tici Taci- the EP comes out on 31st July. 

Back in 2018 Uj Pa Gaz remixed Fujiya & Miyagi's brilliant ode to middle age and its attendant physical shortcomings, Extended Dance Mix. 

Extended Dance Mix (Uj Pa Gaz Remix)

While I'm here, can I remind you about Duncan Grey's full length album from earlier this year, Five Fathoms Full. It's twelve tracks of wall to wall supercharged ALFOS- style cosmic disco/ indie dance and hasn't been heard by nearly enough people. Find it here. 

Walk On Air Against Your Better Judgement

Some uptempo positivity for Friday and two new releases that should encourage some head nodding, foot tapping, beers in the garden and a general feeling that all is well. Back at the start of the year 100 Poems released a seven track album called Everything's Balearic When You Believe, an irrepressible album from the eternally upbeat Mike Wilson, the man behind 100 Poems. Mike is from Ireland and dropped the first 100 Poems album onto an unsuspecting internet, the sound of soul, psych, pop, funk, Balearic pop with a dash of acid house/ dance music. He followed it last week with a follow up, Everything's Possible When You Balearic, seven more slices of sun drenched sonics and forward facing music (six new songs and a rmeix of Tambores En Benirras' Generadora De Rayos). The album kicks off with applause, a crowd clapping and then long synth chords before a big voice takes us into Gettin' Down With George, 80s soul funk guitar licks and images of neon lit Top Of The Pops. 

All remaining five originals are filled with Mike's signature touches. Believe (Everything Is Possible) is a slow paced sundowner, two voices, one whispering, the other oohing, acoustic guitar, padding drums and horns- ascending, life affirming horns. 

Mike's song titles and sound are perfectly synced- Into The Light, When Night Begins To Shine, and Warm Breeze On Our Face (Like A Hot Summer Sigh) all sound like they should. It's got moments of joy, an album to play in the car with the sun out and the windows down. Available at Bandcamp at a Pay What You Want deal with any proceeds to Jigsaw and Shelter. 100 Poems is named after the collected poetry of Seamus Heaney, the most celebrated Irish poet and playwright. On his headstone is the epitaph, 'Walk on air against your better judgement', a line about throwing off inhibitions and abandoning caution, something which I think Mike does with each song he records. 

Also out recently, yesterday in fact, is the latest EP on Duncan Gray's Tici Taci- Tail Feather by Rule Six. There are two versions, the original version of Tail Feather and a Meat Katie remix. The first is a slow motion chugger with bass and guitar, rim shots and descending synth notes, squiggles and bounce. 

The Meat Katie Remix is lower slung and squelchier, ideal for playing an hour or two later than the first, when the floor's packed and everyone's forgotten themselves a little, inhibitions left behind and cares forgotten for a while.  

An Hour Of Hardway Meets Monkton Uptown And Downtown

Hardway Bros (Sean Johnston) and Monkton (Duncan Gray) DJ and remix together. In both cases there's something about the partnership that pushes both to do something that's different from what each does on their own. Their remixes as Hardway Bros Meets Monkton reference the seminal Augustus Pablo album King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown and as a result you'd be right to expect lots of dub percolating through the sounds cooked up in the remix studio. Dub, bass, echo, melodica- all are present. So is plenty of glorious chug and the wide spaces of cosmic disco. Cosmic, psychedelic, dub disco. The remixes also tend to be long, usually going up towards ten minutes, so this mix was always going to be a long one. 

An Hour of Hardway Meets Monkton Uptown And Downtown

• Jack Butters: Shake It Off (Hardway Meets Monkton Uptown Version)
• Electric Blue Vision: Other Skies (Hardway Meets Monkton Uptown Version)
• Perry Granville: Sailing Ships (Hardway Meets Monkton Uptown Version)
• Fjordfunk: It's All Black (Hardway Meets Monkton Uptown)
• GLOK: That Time Of Night (Hardway Meets Monkton Uptown Dub)
• Psychederek: Screamadereka (Hardway Meets Monkton Uptown Downtown Remix)
• Phil Kieran and Green Velvet: Enjoy The Day (Hardway Meets Monkton Downtown Remix)

Jack Butters is from Stoke- on- Trent, a city fmaous for consisting of five towns, its historic past as the centre of pottery and ceramics, and for it's football team Stoke City (the old ground, the Victoria Ground, was a fairly fearsome awayday in the past). What Stoke should be famous for now is Jack's music, not least this dubbed out Hardway and Monkton remix. I heard this played by Sean at ALFOS at The Golden Lion last summer and it sounded immense.

Electric Blue Vision is Jesse Fahnestock of 10:40 and Jezebell with singer Emilia Harmony. Other Skies came out last November, a 2023 highlight with three great remixes- this one plus remixes by Tambores En Benirras and Balearic Ultras. Sean and Duncan's remix is more majestic melodica led dub, a complete reconstruction of Jesse and Emilia's song.

Perry Granville's Sailing Ships becomes a metallic- dub- by- way- of- post punk- and- acid house trip in the Hardway Bros and Monkton hands, noises rattling round and ricocheting as the bass pushes on and thunder rumbles. There are stuttering vocal sample and pulverising synths, drop outs and re- entries and always underpinning everything, huge, live sounding bass. 

Fjordfunk released It's All Back in 2020 on the Tici Taci label, an eleven minute cosmic disco tune remixed into an eleven minute cosmische dub disco tune by Hardway and Monkton with a squealing guitar line dropping in and out and an ultra- distorted voice saying things that are impossible to make out. 

GLOK is Ride's Andy Bell. Since 2019 Andy's released several albums and singles as GLOK, experimental cosmische/ synth songs and tracks. That Time Of Night was on 2021's Pattern Recognition and features the voice of Shiarra Bell, Andy's wife, talking about the pleasures of being lost on a dancefloor, 'just one person, one part of the whole mass of people.. the heat and the light and the flashing...'. Hardway and Monkton take the track and turn it into a sleek, propulsive, krauty trip, a keening guitar line running through it with a booming, metronomic kick drum.

Psychederek is from Stretford, just up the road from me, and has recently released one of this year's best EPs, Alt!. In August 2021 he released the Space Arcade 12" on Chris Massey's Sprechen label, with the very ace Screamadereka coming in double Hardway Monkton remix form- the Downtown remix and Disco Dub version. The Downtown Remix is a glorious sunlit thing in two halves, the first half dubby psyche and the second a chuggy, pacier, cosmische glide. 

Phil Kieran and Green Velvet's Enjoy The Day came out in late 2022. Phil is a Belfast based DJ and producer. Green Velvet is from Chicago. Enjoy The Day is full on, four four drums and techno bass, chopped up and FXed vocals, 'you got it', and a piano line that is the definition of happy/ sad. 

Five Fathoms Full

Out today, Five Fathoms Full, a full length, twelve track album from Duncan Gray. It has soundtracked much of my weekly commute to work recently, a sleek, cosmische, dub disco album that chews up the miles and eases the low level pains of travelling on our roads. Everything is extended, all the tracks allowed to play out over six or seven minutes minimum, analogue synths, drum machines, basslines of both the dubby, Hooky and propulsive variety, guitars sent via FX pedals, the constant chugging ALFOS- esque disco groove that sends shards of flickering lights flashing round the space you're in, everything mastered by Rich Lane at Cotton Bud. There's loads to enjoy in Five Fathoms Full, as individual tracks and as a full album that unfolding over something close to one hundred minutes. The track titles alone promise a trip- Full Trip, Astronomy, Greenville, Medicinal, Shark Bumps, Hot Jupe, Two Cold Volts....

Duncan has put together a 57 minute DJ mix of the songs from the album as a taster and a musical experience in its own right. You can find that at Soundcloud. Full Fathom Five is available digitally at Bandcamp. 

If you missed it Duncan's back catalogue is full of moments of chuggy joy. In March 2022 he put out a collection titled Emergency Transmissions, eight slices of dub disco as played on Sean Johnston's lockdown Friday night EBS system. You can get that here. 

In 2015 Duncan was one of a handful of artists who saw their music released on Andrew Weatherall's vinyl only Bird Scarer label. Duncan's EP, No Safe Word, had four tracks including the acid joy of Kick Intrusion. 

Make It Burn

New from the mighty Tici Taci label comes this three track EP by Mr BC (known in his daily life as Bob Salmond), Make It Burn. There are three mixes/ remixes. The first is the Rave Mix, a seven minute joyride of New Order drums, pulsing sequencers, dive bombing, oscillating synths, stereo panning and squelch... more synths, more kick, more pulse

Label boss Duncan Gray provides the second version, his own remix, a stripped down version with an 80s Cure- at- the- disco bassline, a bouncy topline, synth strings, and after a build up of nearly three minutes, some glorious, life affirming, hands in the air pianos. 

The third version is a remix by Viper Patrol, a version led by some speaker rattling wobbly bass, and after another lengthy build up, more wondrous piano action that manages that trick that great music does- hedonism and dancing with a tinge of melancholy in the chords. 

Both Duncan and Mr BC also appear on the recent Shelter Me- In Crisis album on Paisley Dark, an eighteen track compilation released to raise money for homeless charities and doing a very good job of it. Duncan's The Remote Control Thief, Mr BC's Call To Arms and sixteen others can be found at Bandcamp. Other highlights include a very woozy track from Al Mackenzie, some juddering filth from Hunterbrau and Jezebell's Perfect Din. Today is Bandcamp Friday where more of the money goes to the artists, in this case to the Beats For Beds charity. 

Duncan is preparing for an album release later this year, a solo album currently going under the title Five Fathoms Full and it promises to be a bit special. More news as and when. Last November Duncan put together an eight hour mix to promote the Tici Taci Decade celebrations, ten years of the label with four compilations. It's a masterclass in the long form mix, kickin gin at 90 bpms and rising as Duncan puts it to the giddy heights of 120 bmps- if you like your music chuggy and slinky, electronic and bass- led with kick drums and cowbells and sliding into wonky disco/ house/ ALFOS kind of areas, then you could do a lot worse than click play on this tonight and let it unfold. It's here. 

Insanely Beautiful

Long time Bagging Area favourites Fluke are back, out of the blue and a long hiatus, with a new single called Insanely Beautiful. It has a big sound and production, Jon Fugler's vocals up front, 'just trying to do the best that we can do', over piano and a wall of synths and sound. It's a very welcome return to form that sits alongside their 90s work- Philly, Slid, Joni, Thumper, Electric Guitar, Slap It, Groovy Feeling, not to mention all those hyper- dancefloor oriented, wigged out remixes of people like Bjork and World Of Twist- without repeating themselves, and feels totally modern. 

If that wasn't enough one of my favourite remix teams, Hardway Bros  and Monkton aka Sean Johnston and Duncan Gray, are on hand to extend an already long track into an even longer one- the Hardway Bros Meets Monkton Uptown Mix is a chuggy, trippy, low slung groove with a bassline that finds the absolute centre of the sweet spot, a remix that goes on and on and on.....

Shelter Me

Out today on Paisley Dark is this eighteen track compilation Shelter Me- In Crisis, an album released to raise funds for the charity of the same name that aims to tackle the problem of homelessness. Paisley Dark is based in Leeds- if Leeds is anything like Manchester homelessness is an issue that seems to have reached crisis proportions. We live four miles south of the city centre in a residential, fairly leafy suburb- there are people living in tents in the corner of a site that has been cleared for renovation, for a while someone was living on a roundabout and there have been living out of tents in the woodlands down by the Mersey. In the city centre there is a community of scores of men living in the arcade by the town hall. This seems to be an issue that people just accept, yet another aspect of modern life where we seem to have reversed and where our politicians shrug and make excuses. The current government don't seem to care at all and have pursued policies that have made the situation worse and worse. 

There are eighteen different artists on the album, many of whom have been featured here in recent years- John Paynter has pulled in an all star cast and an A grade track selection for Shelter Me- In Crisis. Tronik Youth, Duncan Gray, Al Mackenzie, Cosmikuro, Hogt I Tak, Hunterbrau, James Rod, Ian Vale, Jezebell, Mr BC, Tecwaa, Warriors Of The Dystotheque and Joe Duggan (an Ed Mahon remix of their wonderful 2023 single Fitzroy Avenue), Shunt Voltage, Stylic and Keith Forrester and Mindbender have all graced these pages before and will do so again. All proceeds from the sales of the album will go directly to Shelter Me. You can buy it here. Not just good music but a purchase that will do some social good. 

Tronik Youth's Dance With Me is five and a half minutes of urgent, propulsive, cowbell laden acid house with a massively distorted vocal shouting, 'dance with me!' 

Al Mackenzie's A Morning On The Chase and Tecwaa's Whippy are at Soundcloud. Al Mackenzie's is a slinky slow burning chug. Tecwaa's Whippy is faster and darker, with rattling rim shots and a distant female vocal in the breakdown before everything goes strobe lit at three minutes. 

Duncan Gray's The Remote Control Thief is yet another top class Duncan Gray track, a buzzing synth bassline, dark house groove and acidic topline coming together beautifully. 

Beautiful Chaos

This is the most recent digital release from Bedford Falls Players, the name used the magnificent DJ/ producer/ musician Mark Cooper (whose Friday night radio show at The 365 is essential if you're staying in on a Friday night). Beautiful Chaos (Dub Mix) came out a month ago and caused a little stir when Mark Ratcliff played it at The Golden Lion on Saturday night. It's eight minutes of electronic cosmic disco from Maidenhead, a tune that twists and turns, that has a kick and an energy but also moments of titular beauty, twinkling synth lines, long chord washes, burbling bass, piano and keys, acid squiggles, the full shebang. Get it at Bandcamp for just £1.25. 

Mark has a thing for Twin Peaks. A few weeks ago I posted his recent epic Agent Cooper's Coffee Dreams along with Julee Cruise's song Falling and Angelo Badalamenti's Pink Room. Bedford Falls Players have previously released an EP on Night Noise called Moon (back in 2017), four more Twin Peaks related musical excursions including this remix of Chapter 3 of Agent Cooper's Black Lodge  Excursion by Duncan Gray. Moon is here. 

AW61

I can't remember who took this photo, maybe the wonderful Claire Dollers or possibly Neil Overall, Todmorden's Golden Lion illuminated by the heavens, a rainbow the least we could have expected for the AW61 weekender that happened last weekend. There's was so much that went on it's difficult to piece it all together, so many people gathered in one place to pay tribute to the departed Andrew Weatherall, to dance and enjoy the music of the various DJs and live acts, lots of people where we were able to put faces to names, lots of familiar faces from previous outings at The Lion, and many magic moments which could only take place in that particular pub in Todmorden. 

Friday 

Rotter and Rusty were in the DJ booth. Rusty designed the artwork for our Sounds From The Flightpath Estate album, a copy of which sat centre stage on the booth (as pictured here with me behind the decks on Saturday afternoon). 

Rotter and Rusty played all sorts- country, funk and soul, cosmic stuff- perfect Friday afternoon sounds. As afternoon turned into evening and the pub filled, Matt Hum took over downstairs, some heavy sounding electronics, superbly mixed and sequenced. Upstairs a capacity crowd filled the live room as Keith Tenniswood aka Radioactive Man and former Swordsman played behind a bank of kit, mixer, synths, drum machines, FX devices and kicked up a storm of electro/ techno, basslines thumping and filling the room. The room was heaving, dark and sweaty, the floor bouncing, the kind of space and music that are perfectly suited for each other. I've no idea what tracks Keith played. This one is from his self titled 2001 Radioactive Man album.

Gone Forever 

Downstairs Matt Hum handed over to David Holmes, a man who has played the Golden Lion several times recently. He hit the ground running, a set that started out with music for dancing to and kept it going for four hours, plenty of deviations into disco in the first half, the second half having some crossover with sets played last year (a Galloping Horse remix, Rich Lane's edit of Jackie by Sinead O'Connor) but filled with new tunes, 80s electro- pop and acid house, Can's I Want More and the giddy synth ecstasy of Figures by Absolute Body Control from 1983 standing out, reaching a crescendo after 1am, the pub's mirror ball spinning, red lights dancing around the stone walls, the place filled with dancers and revellers. 

Saturday 

We arrived at 2pm for our marathon Saturday afternoon and evening sessions, five Flightpath Estate DJs taking an hour each and then playing back to back, two or three tunes each in rotation. The sets weren't recorded but we aim to recreate them at some point. Baz went on first, chilled afternoon sounds building to an end with White Williams' Route To Palm (first heard on an Andrew Weatherall BBC 6 radio show in 2008) and Andy Bell's cover of Smokebelch from our album. Martin followed, his usual eclectic and inspired selection of tracks. I played from 4pm to 5pm. You spend so long preparing for these sessions, selecting tracks, planning what to play and what to put next to what, and it's over in a flash. My afternoon set was woozy electronic music, ambient sounds and spaced out stuff- Coyote, Durutti Column, Psychederek, Four Tet, Rick Cuevas, Biosphere, Underworld, The Long Champs/ Weval/ Sonic Youth threeway edit/ cover, an edit of Song To The Siren, Bjork and James Holden. I had just cued up GLOK's spaced out remix of Stars by A Mountain Of One when the auction and raffle began, Gig (the Golden Lion's legendary landlady) and Lizzie (partner of Andrew at the time of his death) auctioning a select set of Andrew Weatherall connected items, accompanied by Sofia Hedblom (dressed as a cupcake). 

Playing support act to this auction and raffle was a brilliant way to spend part of the weekend, bizarre and utterly Golden Lion. A mug from Andrew's studio was bid for and won by Moggieboy (Alan McGregor who used to write the superb Ripped In Glasgow blog, one of the inspirations for this blog back in 2009/ 2010). Among the lots there were a pair of Andrew's cufflinks, a Boy's Own bag with incense in it, a photograph taken by Lizzie and used for the sleeve of Andrew's The Bullet Catcher's Apprentice EP and a metal tin from Andrew's studio that used to contain his stash. The auction and raffle raised over £800 all of which went to Todmorden's Incredible Edible charity, a local urban gardening project growing, celebrating and  sharing locally grown food. As the raffle ended I put David Holmes' Emotionally Clear on and handed over to Dan. 

I missed most of Dan's set having moved to the restaurant area to get some food, a stomach lining being important ahead of the evening. Mark took over from Dan and played a customarily superb set of tracks, dubby and chuggy, pushing things up a gear. By a bit after 7pm we were ready to go back to back, four of us taking it in turns to entertain a by now busy and keen pub. Sons Of Slough played upstairs, an hour long live set with lots of new material. Downstairs we were pushing the tempos up a little- after Martin played a three, I went back and played Anzu by C.A.R., David Holmes' remix of Lisa Moorish's Sylvia (I think Mark played this earlier too, always a risk with so many people involved at the decks) and Orbital and Mike Garry's Tonight In Belfast, before handing over to Dan and then Mark and round again, but there were so many tracks that didn't get played sitting in my bag. Hearing The Light Brigade's Human : Remains pounding out of the sound system was a bit of a moment. In the run up to Sean Johnston and Duncan Gray taking over Dan, Martin and Mark nailed it, a blend of well known and obscure, Rich Lane's edit of New Order's Vanishing Point and Bedford Falls Players' Beautiful Chaos both pumping loud and clear through the speakers. 

After 9pm Sean and Duncan took over and took the roof off. Often when they play together they play a lot of dub but this set went to chunky, pumping and spaced out, ALFOS style sounds quickly, thumping drums, synths, lots of vocals and many tracks that people couldn't place. Radio Slave's recent remix of Fun Boy 3's The Lunatics (HaveTaking Over The Asylum) caused some mayhem. 

My memories are admittedly sketchy but at one point Sean dropped this monster from 1991 by LaTour, People Are Still Having Sex (possibly an edit of it)...

Vox Low's Something Is Wrong was played at some point and Awrite by Manakinz but there was so much going on its difficult to keep track. I spent some time down the front in the mass of dancers, a happy blur of faces and limbs. When the lights came on and people hugged and blinked and wiped the seat from their brows and grinned in the early hours of Sunday morning there was a pause and then Sean finished with one of his signature tunes from last years' ALFOS sets, Yame's As I Ran, a euphoric and giddy dancefloor gem from 2022, a squiggly topline, wayward synthlines and a section that breaks down into chanted vocals and then rattling snares driving back in and the synth melodies kicking back in. The sequenced bassline runs on and on, running round in your head long after the track has finished. 

As I Ran

Sunday

Remarkably there were still people back at the Golden Lion on Sunday for more, Curley on the decks all afternoon spinning ambient and some floor shaking dub and then Rico and Waka playing a Double Gone Chapel set of rockabilly, garage and punk. I was present for some of it, waiting around until I felt well enough to summon the strength to drive home. 

Quite the weekend. 

We had a blast, it was a great thing to be involved in and we, The Flightpath Estate team, all feel so honoured to be a part of it. Massive thanks to Waka, Gig and Matt at The Lion, Ian and Lizzie, all the DJs and acts. And a big thank you to the beautiful and brilliant Golden Lion crowd, all the dancers and fellow travellers. In no particular order and I know I'll miss someone out so apologies to anyone whose name should be here and isn't - Claire and Si, Annabel and Tessa, Rotter, Rusty, Emily, Sofia, Curley, Rico, Alan/ Moggie, Cat and Robert, Raphael, Dave Croft et al, James, John, Marc and Harriet and the Glasgow revellers, Ian, Hugh, Michael and the Liverpool contingent, Gill and Damo, Andrew and friends, Jono, Gary J, Dickie, Joanne and friends, Neil, Simon, Chris, Andy and Ruth, and all the people I bumped into on the floor, in the garden or around the decks whose names I can't recall right now. Thank you each and every one of you. 

Shakedown

There's a school of thought that Smashing Pumpkins were a difficult band to like/ love (although they obviously had their fans, they were massive in the mid 90s) but that they had one solid gold song- and that song is great because it sounds like New Order, chiming guitars, motorik drumming, foreground melodic bassline and coming of age lyrics. 

1979

1979 came out in 1995 and sounds like Ceremony but if New Order had recorded it in 1987 rather than the wreckage of Joy Division in 1980. In an unexpected turn of events,  when New Order returned in 2001 with the album Get Ready, Billy Corgan turned up on vocals with Bernard on the song Turn My Way and played guitar with them as they toured that summer. In an interview from the time Stephen Morris was asked how it was going with Corgan on board. 'He's alright I suppose', Stephen replied to the journalist, which told its own story to this reader. 

In another unexpected turn of events Hardway Bros released two EPs on Monday, both out on Sean Johnston's Outre- Mer label, the first a four track EP titled My Friends and the second an EP of remixes. The My Friends EP covers the range of styles and has something for everyone: an eight minute Vietnam epic called Saigon, voices from Apocalypse Now!, congas from Sympathy For The Devil, synths from a Belgian New Beat basement; a fifteen minute wigged electronic trip called Hello My Friends; a hi hat and kick drum banger Functions For Machines; and a cover of 1979 with Duncan Gray on guitar and Sarah Rebecca on vocals, a smoothed out, gliding cover of Smashing Pumpkins with synths, guitars (courtesy of Duncan Gray) and pulsing drums. You can buy/ hear the My Friends EP here. 

The remixes EP sees a regular visitor to these pages, Andy Bell wearing his GLOK hat, bring his cosmische influences to 1979. There are two remixes, bookending the EP, the first a four minute reworking, the chords and synths filtered and chopped up. At the other end of the EP comes the second GLOK remix, the GLOK Remix Reprise, gentle, blissed out, guitar led remix, a little like Ride's Vapour Trail slowed down and played acoustically, with Sarah Rebecca's vocal shimmering on top, a very different reading of the song to Billy's mid- 90s rites of passage version. The first treat of 2024. 

In between Andy's pair of remixes are remixes by Warehouse Preservation Society, Djale and Tech Support which span chuggy dub, cosmic electronica and squiggly house. Get it here. 

Mad Friday

Today is the first day of my two week Christmas holiday. It feels like it has been a long time coming and that suddenly Christmas is on top of us. Today is also Mad Friday, the day the pubs will take huge amounts over the bar as workplaces empty for the holiday and everyone is out drinking. Tomorrow morning will see many sore heads and discarded Christmas jumpers. To celebrate all of that here's a bumper post, rounding up several recent releases, two of which are coming out today- who puts out music on 22nd December? Matt Gunn and Duncan Grey for two. 

Matt Gunn's new release is the Sidestep EP, two tracks for those who want to celebrate the festive season with some chuggy, fizz bomb, 303 madness. Sidestep 303 is the sound of a swarm of bees inside a bass bin, the Roland's FX causing all manner of dancefloor mayhem likely to turn patches of carpet worn out and sticky. The second track, Blib Grunt, opens with chanting, which is then joined by a massive breakbeat. There's more synth knob twiddling loopiness, FX and filters, vocal samples and crunchy electronic excitement. Both are available here. 

Red Snapper's 2023 ends with a Moist remix of Suckerpunch, a track recorded and released on their excellent Live At The Moth Club album and now remixed by Moist. This is low slung and murky, a trip hop groove that churns, what could be slowed down horns, and as above, Mr Roland's 303 kicking up an intense storm. Natty Wylah provides the vocals. At Bandcamp there's a vocal version and an instrumental. 

Also out today and pushed into the Christmas rush is Tici Taci Decade Volume 4, the final compilation release celebrating ten years of Duncan Gray's Tici Taci label. Volumes 1 to 3 were uniformly superb, wall to wall sci/ disco/ house/ cosmic/ electronic chug. All four including Volume 4 can be found here. Volume 4 is at Bandcamp here. If you're looking for an intro to Tici Taci Decade Volume 4 or a soundtrack for your Mad Friday night, Duncan has helpfully done an hour long mix of all the tracks featured, all artists that have put out material on the label in recent years- Sons Of Slough, Fjordfunk, The Long Champs, Richard Sen, Rude Audio and Dan Wainwright, Martin Eve, Jack Butters, Craig Bratley, Mr BC, Boy Division and Duncan himself. It is the best hour long machine funk, indie dance, dub infused, nu disco mix you're likely to click play on today and I commend it to the house. Listen here. 

Saturday Live

Sons Of Slough, the duo of Duncan Gray and Ian Weatherall, were reborn in 2021 with an album called Bring Me Sunshine, seven new tracks of squelchy chuggy nu- disco/ acid house with a couple of remixes thrown in for good measure. Duncan and Ian had re- united previously that year to record a heartfelt cover of New Order's In A Lonely Place as IWDG, releasing it as a 12" for Record Shop Day with remixes by David Holmes, Hardway Bros and Keith Tenniswood. Following that burst of activity (and a remix of Primal Scream earlier this year) they played three gigs in 2023, one in their home town, one at The Golden Lion in August and one in late September at Convenanza in Carcasonne. If we apply New Order's standards of what constituted a global tour in the mid- 80s*, then that's a Sons Of Slough world tour achieved in 2023. 

An EP came out yesterday, three tracks recorded live completely as played at Convenanza, in the courtyard of the castle, straight from the sound desk with no overdubs. I saw them play at The Golden Lion, a night to remember with a full on performance from the duo and by all accounts Convenanza was even better. 

The first track is One Up From Five, thumping tom toms, an upfront bassline, a keening guitar line and some lovely melodica. A sleek, dark groove with a big dubby undertow. It's followed by Boston Crab, a six minute thumper, a more urgent track with an always rising, distorted bassline and some Detroit inflections, synth toplines dancing about, as the rhythm pushes on and on. 

The EP finishes with Without A Plan, a low rumble of bass and skittering percussion, whooshes and rushes, lights glancing off mirror balls and 21st century acid chug bouncing off the stone walls of a Medieval castle in south west France. There are some synth/ vocoder breakdowns that set pulses racing and ominous keyboard parts. When the vocoder resumes at four and a half minutes, there's a hint of Without A Plan turning into Man To Man Meets Man Parish's Male Stripper, a cheeky nod to the early 80s perhaps, chug and throb and heavily distorted robotic voice coming together perfectly. 

The latter two tracks were both filmed in this clip from the live gig in Slough in July.

Sons Of Slough (Live EP 2023) is available at Bandcamp and other digital retailers. They've got t- shirts too.

* The story, possibly apocryphal, is that Tony Wilson demanded a New Order world tour to bring some cash into the Factory coffers. Bernard was unwilling to tour but eventually relented telling the Factory boss, 'ok Tony ok, we'll do a world tour. The first gig's in Macclesfield, you choose the other three'.

Other Skies

Jesse Fahnestock and Emilia Harmony's new musical outfit Electric Blue Vision release a four track EP today on Brighton's Higher Love label, making a late dash for those lists that people are busy compiling at this point in the year. Jesse sent me a version of the original mix of Other Skies a while back and I was smitten from first play, the swirly organ intro and warm thud of bass joined by Emilia's whispery vocals, everything a lovely hazy shade of blue but tinged with some yellow and amber. 

Jesse has said he was aiming high with Other Skies, looking to Higher Than The Sun and One Dove's Fallen for inspiration. Other Skies has that widescreen, wide eyed ambient/ psychedelic feel, the drums and bass pushing it along but it has a sense of drift and yearning in the vocals too, Emilia singing, 'Can you help me to find my way? Do you know the way back home? I'm ready to go, I said I'm ready to go...'. It's late at night, the venue's closed and moved everyone left at the bar out onto the pavement, the streets are cold and lonely, home is calling. It's a lovely song and I can't recommend it enough. 

If you're not convinced by all of that, there are three remixes to turn your head. Balearic Ultras give it some heavy bass, drums and FX, filtering everything through a heat haze stripped back and minimal. The Tambores En Benirras remix goes for shimmer and shimmy, a slo mo thud of kick drum, twinkles of guitar and echoes all over the voices, a few lines isolated, 'up down spin me round', nodding in New Order's direction, and there's a piano line near the end that sends shivers up and down the central nervous system. Sean Johnston and Duncan Gray join forces again as Hardway Bros Meets Monkton Uptown, a dubbed out, melodica led stomp, percussion rattling round and Emilia looped into infinity. The bass of Wobble and the ghost of Augustus Pablo battling it out in other skies. 

You can (and should) buy the Other Skies EP is here. 

Walrus

Duncan Gray's latest track, available here for just £1, is a monster, an eight minute epic that slides in and then starts snarling, the bassline growling and showing its tusks. Walrus was recorded back in July and is out now. It sounds like it emerged from the sea to make its presence known, weighs half a ton and will return to the choppy waters as soon as it's finished with you. 

Duncan's label Tici Taci has been celebrating ten years in the business of releasing chuggy dancefloor based electronic/ dub/ slo mo/ cosmic tracks. By nature much of this kind of music is ephemeral, made for the dancefloor but not necessarily intended to last. It's remarkable how much of Volume 1 and Volume 2 has withstood ten years and still sounds fresh. The latest release, Volume 3, is tracks from more recent times, with many artists who have featured here in the last few years-  Welsh cosmiche/ indie dancers The Long Champs, Tirana's Balearic Uj Pa Gaz, Duncan and Ian Weatherall's own Sons Of Slough, the brilliantly named Boy Division, plus Field Of Dreams, Martin Eve and Jack Butters. You can buy Tici Taci Decade Volume 3 here. 

A couple of samples from Volume 3 to whet your whistle (but you could dip into any of the sixteen tracks and hit gold). This is Martin Eve's Night Train featuring the talents of Fluke's Jon Fugler. Martin is immune suppressed, has been seriously unwell and been isolating since Covid hit in 2020. His continued cheeriness in the face of this coupled with his righteous ire at the way some people have been left behind since the government deemed Covid to be over, is inspiring. For Martin and half a million people like him (and for us, who lost a son to Covid) it's not over. Night Train is a gorgeous slice of slinky chug- house to make the next seven minutes seem better.

Men Of Letters came out on The Long Champs album Straight To Audio, an album I raved about in 2020. Men Of Letters is a sunrise kind of moment, pattering drums and glistening guitar lines, everything heading upwards as the early morning mist burns off.