Fifty Minutes Of Edits Volume Two

Another Sunday mix of edits to follow the one from two weeks ago (here). The first one was quite thumpy. This one is more dubbed out, more blissed out and laid back, more drifty, featuring a similar and familiar cast of edit- creators. There's plenty of material unused sitting in my downloads folders too so volume three is only a matter of time. 

Fifty Minutes Of Edits Volume Two

• Nine Million Rainy Days (Los Lopez Edit)
• One Way To Go (10:40's So High It Hurts Edit)
• Inner Meet Me (10:40's Outer Hebrides Dub)
• Kate's Bush (Nocturnal Edit)
• Steppers Rock
• Totem Edits 19 Medicine
• Edit To The Siren
• Totem Edits 18 Air

The Los Lopez edit of The Jesus And Mary Chain's 9 Million Rainy Days first came my way well over a decade ago, 2013 I think, Jim and William's misanthropy/ existential despair set to an electronic throb. 'As far as I can tell/ I'm being dragged from here to hell/ All my time in hell is spent with you', Jim mutters (on 1987's Darklands originally). This is the diametric opposite of the feelings and sentiment expressed in the widescreen, gloriously romantic, panoramic love that propels the fourth track in this mix. 

Jesse Fahnestock is 10:40. He recut a very early Verve song, One Way To Go (a B-side to the Wigan quartet's first release, the magnificent sky scraping northern psychedelia of All In The Mind). Jesse looped it up and set the controls for the heart of the dub. On hearing it I said to Jesse he should re- edit all of the early Verve's music as dub extravaganzas- A Dub In Heaven. I'm still waiting. His edit of The Beta Band's Inner Meet Me came out on Paisley Dark in 2021, a song from The Patty Patty Sound, one of those unearthly EPs The Beta Band released in 1997/ 1998 when they looked like the future of leftfield music, a completely new way of doing things. 

Coyote's edit of Nocturn was one of my favourite records of 2022, a swooning, deep sea dive into the cosmos. Or something. Their Magic Wand edit releases, vinyl only, are always top drawer. I love the way it starts off with one beat and then switches tempo, like the speed selector being suddenly flipped from 33 to 45. Nocturn was on Kate's 2005 album Aerial. 'We stand in the Atlantic/ We become panoramic/ We tire of the city/ We tire of it all/ We long for that just something more'. Yep, I know that feeling.

Steppers Rock came out on the recently revived Eclectics label, based in Bournemouth and the start of what promises to be one to watch. 

Totem Edits are the work of Leo Zero and Justin Deighton, a weekly treasure trove. Last week they dropped a Balearic/ cowboy stomp edit of Big Audio Dynamite's  Medicine Show (an all timer of a song for me). Air (from a week earlier) is John Martyn's Solid Air recut beautifully. I've been in a John Martyn phase recently, Solid Air and One World. By all accounts a terrible and flawed person but the music...

Edit To The Siren performs the possibly sacrilegious feat of taking This Mortal Coil's Song To The Siren and turns it into a dubbed out/ late night Balearic treat. The work of In The Valley. Wobbly. 

Monday's Long Song

Jane Birkin died yesterday aged 76. She was a genuine counter culture superstar, an actress and singer and the voice of Je t'aime... Moi Non Plus, a 1969 show stopper of a single recorded with Serge Gainsbourg. In 1971 Serge recorded Historie De Melody Nelson, a thirty minute concept album about an affair between a middle aged man and a teenage girl (something that would be received very differently if released in 2023). The album is a tour de force musically. Jane takes centre stage on the cover and is present on vocals. The lush, orchestral sounds are coupled with grimy funk bass and superb sounding early '70s guitars, spoken word vocals and choral backing vox. There are few other albums from that time or since that sound much like it. This is Cargo Culte, the seven and a half minute finale, a sublime piece of groove and feel, the guitar as good as any electric guitar anyone else put down on tape.

Cargo Culte

Jane appears on this song, the much shorter Ballade De Melody Nelson, a duet with acoustic guitar and strings. 

Ballade De Melody Nelson

In 1997 David Holmes sampled the tile track Melody for Don't Die Just Yet. When it was released as single it came with some tasty remixes- this one by Mogwai for instance.

Don't Die Just Yet (Mogwai Mix)

In 1985 Jane covered Kate Bush's Mother Stands For Comfort, a song originally from Kate's Hounds Of Love

Mother Stands For Comfort

As well as continuing to make music and films, Jane was a French national and resident of Paris long after her relationship with Gainsbourg ended. She was an activist and campaigner for Amnesty International, migrant support groups and Aids charities. There isn't a bad photograph of her. RIP Jane Birkin. 

We Stand In The Atlantic

This came out in April 2022- Coyote's Balearic dub re- edit of Kate Bush's Nocturne, released on the Notts duo's Magic Wand label. It's stunning.

Starting out with a very slow drumbeat which a few seconds in shifts up a gear, as if changing the rpm selector from 33 to 45, Kate's voice stutters in and then her vocal in full over the most gorgeous drifting synths. Kate's lyrics are cosmic, loved up and luscious, singing of wanting more, of being one with it all, of floating, of being alone while standing in the sea, of becoming panoramic. An acoustic guitar begins to seep in, muted but there, and then it moves to the fore with a finger picked part, the stars and the sea and the dust all coming together in the lyrics and the music. There are still some copies of Coyote's edit on vinyl around in some parts of the internet- I found one recently. The original version of Nocturne appeared on Kate's 2005 album Aerial.