Forty Five Minutes Of Neo- Indie Dance

I was never a fan of the term indie- dance back in the 1989- 1992 heyday. It seemed reductive and a little sneery, music press shorthand for guitar bands suddenly getting onto the dancefloor and finding a remixer who could help them crossover. Much of the music was brilliant but the way it was portrayed and written about was not. There was an element of bandwagon jumping too. But those records- the remixes of Happy Mondays Wrote For Luck, Fool's Gold, Weatherall's 12" remixes of songs from Screamadelica and then of everybody else, Flowered Up, New Fast Automatic Daffodils, The Soup Dragons (ahead of the pack as singer Sean is always keen to point out, releasing I'm Free ahead of Primal Scream's Loaded)- still sound like sonic gold and can still fill a dance floor. 

There's been a renaissance of the sound, the shuffly drums, psychedelic guitars, extended length tracks, cosmic synth sounds and freewheeling spirit circling back into the world. Recently Das Druid, Marshall Watson and Cole Odin, several of Sean Johnston Hardway Bros remixes, Holy Youth Movement and others have been reinvigorating a sound that is now over three decades old. The temptation to throw some of them together into a Sunday mix, a revival of the sound of Thursday night indie nights at late 80s nightclubs but with a bunch of 21st century tracks, was too much. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Neo- Indie Dance

• Strange Fruit: Monopolar
• Das Druid: Freedom
• Holy Youth Movement: Better Together (Hardway Bros Cosmic Intervention Mix)
• Marshall Watson and Cole Odin: Just A Daydream Away (Space Flight Mix)
• Le Carousel: Echo Spiegel (Curses Liquid Metal Mix)
• Jagwar Ma: Come Save Me (Andrew Weatherall Remix)
• Psychederek: Thinkin' Bout U Pt. 2 (Venus)

Strange Fruit are an indie- dance/ psychedelic/ cosmische band from Jakarta. Their forthcoming album Drips comes with remixes- Hardway bros and Tom Furse from The Horrors- and four songs, all of which mine that seam that got us shaking our action at the point were the 80s became the 90s. Shuffly drums, burbling synths, cosmische production and blissed out vocals all present and correct.  

Das Druid are from Australia, a band who are open about their influences, describing their Das Druid EP as a 'love letter to the evolving spirit of the Madchester scene'. Rather than shy away from it, they've embraced the comparisons. The EP comes with Justin Robertson remixes (in his folk- dub Five Green Moons guise), a man who moved to Manchester in the mid- 80s specifically for the music (and the university), and one from South Manchester's own Ruf Dug. 

Holy Youth Movement are from Bristol, a five piece taking cues from Primal Scream and Underworld with Jagz Kooner at the controls. Sean Johnston's Hardway Bros provided two remixes, both of which are sprinkled with indie- dance dancefloor gold dust. 

San Francisco pairing Marshal Watson and Cole Odin's Just A Daydream Away were a 2023 highlight, an EP with various versions of a cosmic/ indie- dance song, smothered in a sheen of day glo early 90s via 2020s production that glides and shimmers. Hardway Bros weighed in with a pair of remixes of this one too. 

Le Carousel's The Humans Will Destroy us is already sounding like one of the albums of 2026, a ten track synths/ guitars celebration of/ farewell to humanity. Last year's single Echo Spiegel was remixed by Berlin based producer Curses who put a  chunky 1991 indie- dance break under Phil's psychedelic/ electronics and pushed it all to the fore. 

Jagwar Ma were an Australian psychedelic/ dance trio from 2012 who made two albums between 2013 and 2016. In 2011 they released Come Save Me as a single and it came with an Andrew Weatherall remix. Between 1989 and 1991 Andrew did as much as anyone to invent a new sound, guitars and dance beats, samples and sequencers. By 1992 he was keen to move on and to leave indie- dance behind. In 2013 he remixed Jagwar Ma following a jaunt to Australia, sticking a massive indie- dance breakbeat underneath the song and in so doing reinventing a sound that he invented twenty years previously, a decade ahead of some younger bands then re- discovering the sound. Weatherall absolutely shines as a remixer here. 

Psychederek is from Stretford, a young musician/ DJ with a growing and excellent back catalogue. The sound of a psychedelic Stretford. His Thinkin' Bout U single came out last year, four different versions with the Pt. 2 Venus mix built around that indie- dance shuffle. 

Iridescent

Indonesian five piece band Strange Fruit have an album out next month- Drips- which crosses the streams between cosmische, dreamy blissed out indie dance and shoegaze. The songs available so far, Iridescent and Monopolar, are floaty and chuggy, a splash landing in the sea where guitars meet electronics. Repetition as an end in itself, sun kissed vocal melodies, guitars and synths bathed in psychedelic light. Both of these should slow your circulation right down. 

Ahead of the rest of the album Strange Fruit have put out some remixes. Tom Furse of The Horrors takes Monopolar and slows it down, reverb soaked drums and FX with a heavy undertow. The vocals sound even more sleepy. 

Hardway Bros Sean Johnston has given Strange Fruit three new versions of Monopolar to play with- wisely they're releasing all three. The Hardway Bros Remix is a slo mo affair, an electronic squiggle riding on the top, a hypnotic and streamlined remix that glides off into the sunset. Jakarta via ALFOS. Sean's Live At The SSL Dub comes out shortly and is worth waiting for, a slowed down and laid back Hardway Bros version. 

Drips is out at Bandcamp. Find it here.  

Thrice Yes

'Language has the power to alter our perceptions... a single word can change our reality... and that word is yes!'

Jezebell's second album, Jezebellearic Beats Volume 2, came out last year, a twenty track, four sides of vinyl epic with remixes, edits, originals and five brand new recordings. The album's ultimate track was Turn It Yes, the song that maybe Jesse and Darren have been building up to all this time- rippling synths, rolling electronic drums and percussion, a vocal sample about language and reality and the word yes and a second vocal sample, one about a famous exhibition at The Indica Gallery in 1966 that proved to be a crucial part of the story of one of the most famous people of the 20th century. 

Today sees the release of a remix EP, Turn It Yes redone in three versions. Sean Johnston's Hardway Bros remix is straight out of Sean's top drawer, a thumping, pumping, uptempo glide by that threatens to turn into Underworld on several occasions- I can imagine Two Months Off and this remix being mixed in and out of each other, cutting from one to the other for ages. Sean keeps it going, the juddering kick drum and the words and the topline, all piling up, a never ending peak. The Parvale Remix is tougher still, a four four chug with everything- bpms, synths, rave bass- set to max. 

Justin Robertson is the third man, remixing Jezebell in his psychic folk dub, Five Green Moons mode, slowing Jezebell down, dubbing the bass, FX ricocheting, drums skanking, organ notes flaring like flashes of sunshine and that nagging key topline appearing and re- appearing and the vocals slurred and stoned... 'and that word is Yes'. Justin's on a roll right now and this one is right up there with his best work of recent times. 

You can find Turn It Yes Remixes Vol. 1 at Bandcamp. 

Justin can also be found remixing Brisbane band Das Druid. The Aussie three piece have been compared to the sound of late 80s/ early 90s Manchester, the swaggering indie- dance rolling drums, psychedelic guitar lines and euphoric, wide eyed spirit. On their Das EP there are three songs- Freedom, Less Than 3 and Incense- and if you slotted them into a Madchester/ indie dance playlist they'd be right at home, you'd barely hear the joins. The third of those three, Incense, also carries one of the next steps from those early 90s days, the spaced out swirl and psychedelic rock of Spiritualized and early Verve. 

Justin's Five Green Moons remix of Freedom comes in two versions, a remix and a dub, each eight minutes long, the spaced out dubness, FX and melodica and slo mo rhythms slipping and sliding through a Five Green Moons haze. As well as those two Das Druid are put through their paces by Ruf Dug, the Stoner Trance Version of Incense, a slow burning behemoth, distorted bass and grinding rhythm in contrast to the half whispered, starsailing vocal. The drums double up at three minutes and there's some wailing, an acid house, psychedelic stew. Intense. Incense. 'Two hands are better than one'.

The Das EP is also available at Bandcamp. 

Justin is in demand in the world of Magick Knives too where he's taken the Dungeon Jazz and Wizard Psych of their song Existence into his folk- dub netherworld, where the hills have eyes and the isles are being prepared for midsummer. Dislocated trumpets, disembodied vocals, spindly guitars and whirling organs. Get tripped out at Bandcamp. 

Monday's Long Songs

Back in July I wrote about Galactic Ride, a solo single from Gordon Kaye, a Brighton based DJ and producer who has been active in the Brighton music scene (and beyond) since the mid- 80s. This Friday Galactic Ride is released in a variety of versions including a brand new vocal version. Gordon originally saw Galactic Ride as a nine minute Cosmic Disco instrumental but his daughter Gabriella arranged a vocal for it and now its difficult to imagine it without it...

Chuggy cosmic/ Balearic that really moves when the bassline hits a minute in and Gabriella's vocal soars over the dreamy synth arpeggios. It sounded great back in the summer and has now returned in its orbit to light up late November. Galactic Ride is out this Friday- pre- order at Bandcamp. 

Out last week was a Hardway Bros remix of Le Carousel's We're All Gonna Hurt. The original version came out back in February this year and has been much played by Sean Johnston at ALFOS nights up and down the country. It seemed right therefore that Sean did a remix- which he ahs and it more than delivers the goods, with a heavy new breakbeat that kicks and a monstrous bassline is so huge it's almost a living breathing entity. The second half, the vocal surfacing with the line, 'Sooner or later/ We're all gonna hurt', as the synths bounce around, the pianos clang and the bassline buzzes, is genuinely thrilling. Nine minutes of electronic fun from Phil Kieran in Belfast. Get it at Bandcamp. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Cover Versions Part Two

Last Sunday's cover versions mix worked well enough for me to undertake a second. I started with Jah Divison and went from there, a succession of dub and reggae covers, wasn't happy with it and scrapped it and started again, setting off again with Jah Division but heading in a noisier, more guitar laden direction, all a bit more shambolic. Then it slows down and blisses out before kicking up a storm again for the finish. 

After I posted last Sunday's mix Steve from Andres y Xavi messaged me to say he had a series of cover version mixes called Under The Covers, up at Mixcloud. The latest, his ninth, covers a lot of ground from Lady Blackbird to The Droyds with Isaac Hayes, Bobby Womack and Jose Feliciano among the people sandwiched in between. Plenty to enjoy. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Cover Versions Part Two

• Jah Division: Dub Will Tear Us Apart
• The Fall: Mr Pharmacist
• The Jesus And Mary Chain: Surfin' USA
• Sonic Youth: I Know There's An Answer
• Sonic Youth: Computer Age
• Hardway Bros: 1979 GLOK Remix
• Andy Bell: Our Last Night Together
• The Liminanas: Ou Va La Chance
• The Vendetta Suite: Who Do You Love?
• Fontaines DC: 'Cello Song

Jah Division is a Russian reggae band, formed in Moscow in 1990. This is what it says in Wikipedia. It also say that the founder of Jah Division, Gera Morales, was the son of Leopold Morales, an associate of Che Guevara's. Elsewhere (Bandcamp) it says Jah Divison are from Brooklyn and their 2004 12" of four covers of Joy Division songs is their sole release. According to Bandcamp Jah Divison features members of Onieda and Home, began as a joke and the four tracks were recorded in the shadow of the Williamsburg Bridge. Take your pick. None of which stops Dub Will Tear Us Apart from being a genius cover version whoever recorded it. 

The Fall's Mr Pharmacist is a cover of a song by Los Angeles 60s psyche garage band The Other Half, a 1986 Fall single from the Brix period and produced by John Leckie. The original was on an early 80s Nuggets compilation. Mr Pharmacist was also on The Fall's Bend Sinister album, an opinion splitting album derided by Mark E. Smith and John Leckie.

Surfin' USA was a Darklands outtake, all feeedback, rough and rowdy drums, breaking glass, East Kilbride sneers and TV preachers. The Reid brothers knew how to cover a song. The original was a 1963 Beach Boys single...

... and I Know There's An Answer was a 1966 Beach Boys album song (from Pet Sounds). Sonic Youth's cover comes from 1989, recorded for a Brian Wilson tribute album released in 1990 and sung by Lee Renaldo- no one else could sing it according to Lee who says J. Mascis helped out in the studio too. Appropriately squally and rather wonderful. 

Sonic Youth also recorded a Neil Young cover in the same time frame for a Neil Young tribute album, The Bridge (a superb album). They chose a song from Neil's most misunderstood album, Trans. Like the Mary Chain, Sonic Youth instinctively know what makes a good cover version. Computer Age is a gem in the SY back catalogue. 

Sean Johnston's Outre Mer label is an outlet for Hardway Bros recordings. In January 2024 he released an EP called My Friends which included a cover of Smashing Pumpkins 1979 (a song which is itself pretty much a New Order tribute). A remix EP saw GLOK tackle 1979, and has a massively overloaded guitar sound that makes you check your speakers are OK. 

Andy Bell's covers EP Untitled Film Stills contains four covers- Our Last Together is an after hours beauty, impressionistic, woozy and moving. Well, it moves me. 

The Liminanas featured in last week's mix and they're back today with a song from this year's album Faded. Ou Va La Chance is a cover of a Francois Hardy song, closing the album in fine style.

The Vendetta Suite are from Belfast and their 2021 album The Kempe Stone Portal is packed with electronic, acid house, Balearic and cosmische sounds plus this slowed down, electronics and feedback rumble version of Bo Diddley's classic (also covered by The Mary Chain back in the 80s). The Vendetta Suite's Gary Irwin goes all the way back to David Holmes and Iain McCready's nights at Belfast's Art College in 1990 and has worked with Holmes on and off ever since. 

Fontaines DC's cover of 'Cello Song has featured in at least three previous Sunday mixes- a Nick Drake one, a Fontaines one and an end of 2023 mix. I make no apologies for its re- appearance here. They take Nick Drake's 1969 song, a beautiful poetic song and retune it, turning it into a modern rock 'n' roll thrill with Grian Chatten finding new meaning in Nick's words. Both versions, original and cover, struck me quite profoundly in the time since Isaac' died, these lines in particular...

'For the dreams that came to you when so young
They told of a life where spring is sprung

So forget this cruel world where I belong
I'll just sit and wait and sing my song

But while the Earth sinks to its grave
You sail to the sky on the crest of a wave'

And that's where we're ending today. 

God And Soul

A couple of edits/ remixes of past songs for those of you who are fans of them- I know some people consider some songs to be untouchable and to even attempt an edit or remix is sacrilege. This may be one such case but I love it, a dubbed out, tampered with version of God Only Knows by The Beach Boys from fifteen years ago that resurfaced recently when Brian Wilson made his final voyage...

God Only Knows (Michael Cook Re- Touch)

Much more recent is this Hardway Bros remix of Soul Train by 80s band Swans Way. Sean Johnston often does long and thumpy and this remix is both- eight minutes forty seconds long and filled with acid house drums, sirens and synths, acidic squiggles and the chant of 'it's alright' looped over and over.  

The remix can be purchased here. Sean talks of discovering Swans Way via a performance on Friday night fixture The Tube in 1984 and how they fitted in with he was into at the time- Dexys, The Bunnymen, Prefab Sprout, all of whom had as Sean says 'a sense of outsider glamour'. That live performance on The Tube is a time capsule, a small corner of the 80s captured on film...

Field Of Dreams

I've been excited about this EP for some time and it's finally out today. Hugo Nicolson is the man who learnt his trade engineering at On U Sound with Adrian Sherwood, went on to ably assist Andrew Weatherall on his groundbreaking early productions and remixes, and then produced several of Julian Cope's most significant albums (Peggy Suicide and Jehoavakill). He recently moved home from LA and has got an EP out today on Brighton's Higher Love label, a  label that knows its musical onions. Hugo's EP kicks off with his own track, the nine minute extravaganza that is Field Of Dreams. Chanting voices, a big kick drum, tumbling reverb- laden piano, and an amazing snaking horn line, the sound of the souk over a thumping four four. All manner of sonics follow- distorted, buzzing bass, rattling percussion, dancing synthlines... everything swirling around and swaying with those horns and the voices in unison. There's a four minute radio edit which does the job as a taster but you going to want the full nine minutes for maximum joy...

There are remixes, three of them from Bagging Area repeat offenders/ heavyweights David Holmes, Hardway Bros and Rude Audio. 

Holmes' remix judders and spins with an energy all of its own, the beats coming on strong and those chanting voices isolated before they're joined by a kaleidoscopic whirl of percussion and sounds, like being trapped on a rotating dancefloor, giddy and heady fun that threatens to tip over into madness. There's a pause at three and half minutes for a breather, a breakdown and some piano but those horns re- enter, summoning you back to the dance. The chanting section at five a a half minutes is equally hypnotic and then the horns work their magic again. A friend's partner said Holmes' remix made her heart race and made her feel a tad anxious and I can see what she means. 

The Hardway Bros Cosmic Interpolation Mix sets out as Hardway Bros remixes often do, a cosmic disco drum pattern and Sean's trademark s-p-a-c-e-d production. The chanting voices make an appearance in this remix too as Sean keeps things more linear, a propulsive and driving remix that gets on the train tracks and heads relentlessly across the expanses of the desert with the occasional bleepy breakdown and face melting synth whooshes. Like Holmes' remix, it doesn't do things by halves, both clocking in north of nine minutes. 

Rude Audio usually use ten minutes as the standard length for a remix. Surprisingly this one is closer to seven minutes, a blinding dub- dance version with bass that will shake your clothing and rattle your ribcage, synths that ricochet left and right and those chanting voices swirling around while the Arabian horn pulls us back into the dance. The entire EP is a trip, one of this year's best releases thus far, and should be soundtracking many an event. Build it and they will come. 

Hugo Nicolson's Field Of Dreams can be bought and heard at Bandcamp. 

Forty Five More Minutes Of Edits

In recent weeks I've done two Sunday mixes made up of edits. Part One is here and Part Two is here. Today is Part Three, another forty five minutes of edits, this one largely dancefloor oriented and with an 80s feel. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Edits Mix Three

• Can't Cope (Cotton Bud Re- Master)
• No- Thing
• M&M Hardway Bros
• Swamp Shuffle
• Never Let Me Down (Hunterbrau Edit)
• Jackie (Cotton Dub)
• Longed

Can't Cope is from Jezebell's Jezebellaeric Beats Vol. 1, a dubbed out and spaced out way to enter into the mix, our friend the Archdrude Julian H. Cope sent spinning even further out into the cosmos than he was previously. Safesurfer is from 1991's epic Peggy Suicide, the start of Julian's imperial period. Swamp Shuffle is also from Jezebellaeric Beats Vol. 1, the closing track, this time David Byrne, Tina Weymouth, Jerry Harrison and Chris Frantz given the treatment by Jesse and Darren. 

No- Thing is from Resident Rockers, the in- house edit team at Eclectics. Heroes. Twin Peaks. Moby. Acid. No- thing will keep us together. 

The M&M Hardway Bros edit takes Sleaford Mods Mork and Mindy, a song from 2020's Spare Ribs, with Billy Nomates on guest vocals, a tale of a childhood spent in colourless suburban council estates, Action Man and Cindy and mum and dad being out, long afternoons with nothing to do. Sean monkeyed about with it and turned it into an ALFOS at The Golden Lion moment. 

Hunterbrau's edit of Depeche Mode's 1987 classic Never Let Me Down came out on Paisley Dark, dark disco/ slowed down sleek goth.

Rich Lane's Cotton Dubs are second to none. His edit of Sinead O'Connor's Jackie (from her debut, the Lion And Then Cobra) repurposes Sinead with an 808 while losing none of her power. 

Longed is an edit of All Day Long from New Order's 1986 album Brotherhood. The chopped, looped and edited version here, largely instrumental, is from an intriguing project I was tipped off about on Bandcamp, a highly unofficial edit service by Follytechnic Music Library. Longed is from a collection of New Order edits called Ordered 86- 93 but there's waaaay more there than just one album of nine New Order edits. Have a dig around, see what you can unearth. 

NYE 2024 Mix

Staying in has been proclaimed as the new going out many times now. New Year's Eve is often the most overrated night out of the year but in the past we had fun going on NYE and I'm sure they'll be loads of people who do tonight. We have no plans to do anything major and hence will be in by the time 2025 comes around at midnight. In place of a crowded dance floor here's a Bagging Area NYE 2024 mix, starts out dubby, then goes Tricky, and then thumpy before calming down slightly and finishing with the return of a long gone 60s icon. 

Everything on it was released this year and it's quite David Holmes and Hardway Bros heavy (which probably explains a lot of what I've listened to this year). I wanted to find room for several other tracks but also wanted to keep it down to under 80 minutes for those of you who still burn things to CD to play in the car (that may just be me). I tried to fit Acid Klaus in but couldn't make it work, Hardway Bros' Murky didn't find a place (and should have) and there's one segue where it's a bit off- Audacity isn't really for mixing more sequencing, and sometimes my patience gets replaced by my 'it'll do' attitude. But if you want a shuffle to some chuggy, leftfield, acidic, dubby, thumpy and ultimately life affirming electronic music at some point tonight, it might do the trick. 

NYE24 Mix

• Red Snapper and David Harrow: Hold My Hand Up
• Theis Thaws: Fly To Ceiling (David Holmes Mix)
• Silvertooth: Shut Um Down (A Dub From Outer Space)
• Ammonite: You Don't Know Me (David Holmes Remix)
• C.A.R.: Anzu (Hardway Bros Remix)
• Peak High: Dance Hall Days (Hardway Bros Remix)
• Causeway: Dancing With Shadows (Marshall's Club Mix)
• Ben Hunt: Shimmering Lights (Rude Audio Remix)
• Lisa Moorish: Sylvia (David Holmes Remix)
• Raxon: Your Fault
• Puerto Montt City Orchestra: Hey You (10:40 Remix)
• 100 Poems: Dubmobalearicswithmybreaksman

David Harrow celebrated turning 60 in 2024 by releasing music every month. One of those releases was a four track EP called Tight Chest with jazz/ techno/ dub/ surf legends Red Snapper. This was the lead track, a wonderful piece of 2024 dubbiness that should have got more attention than it did. 

Theis Thaws was an album that saw the return of Tricky (Adrian Thaws) with French producer Mike Theis and singer Rosa Rocca- Serra. David Holmes' remix, as everyone said when it came out, was approximately three minutes too short but even at only three minutes eighteen seconds it packs a powerful if slightly paranoid punch. 

Silvertooth, from South London, released Shut Um Down in November, a cover of  Gil Scott Heron song, partly inspired by Sean Johnston's continuing ALFOS parties. It came in a variety of versions with two ALFOS aimed dubs- rolling pianos, chuggy dubby beats, and a lovely low slung groove.

Ammonite makes very ethereal music, layers of voice and gossamer drones. She remixed Holmes' Emotionally Clear into an ambient track. Holmes returned the favour by pumping Ammonite's You Don't Know Me up into an electronic banger. 

C.A.R.'s Anzu lit up late 2023. The remixes came out in 2024, courtesy of GLOK and Hardway Bros. Sean's Hardway Bros remixes have been in full flow for the last few years and the standard is uniformly high. This one and the Hardway Bros Dub were on heavy rotation at Bagging Area back at the start of the year.

Peak High's cover of Wang Chung's Dance Hall Days was a delight, coming after the equally superb Was That All It Was in 2023. The Hardway Bros remix dubs things down, turning the 80s pop down a bit, and finds that BPM sweet spot that Sean knows very well.

Causeway are on Chris Massey's Manchester label Sprechen but the duo (Marshall Watson and Alison Rae) are based in California,a world away from South Manchester. Dancing With Shadows is the 80s teen film anthem you missed, the sounds playing in the disco where Molly Ringwald has a revelation while dancing with the wrong boy. It came with a slew of remixes- the one here is Marshall's own. 

Ben Hunt's Shimmering Lights came out last month on Paisley Dark with a range of remixes, all of which hit the spot. Rude Audio remixes are often in the 98 BPM dub area. This one whacks it up and heads for end of the night Underworld vibes, the vocal sample, 'I see patterns in everything', twisting around like Karl Hyde in the mid- 90s. 

Lisa Moorish's comeback single in April was a beautiful electro- pop tribute to Sylvia Plath. David Holmes' remix did exactly what you'd want from a Holmes remix. 

Raxon's Your Fault was an autumn '24 highlight although I didn't catch on until later. It is fabulously wonky dance floor euphoria from Cologne, sounds shifting in and out, everything shifting and moving as if the floor is giving way. 

Puerto Montt City Orchestra's Hey You came out on Brighton's Higher Love label, the home of many, many good releases. It's a cover of 80s indie band 14 Iced Bears Hay Fever with original singer Rob Sekula returning to do the vocals. On the 10:40 remix Jesse sent this woozy 2024 c86 song through a Spiritualized filter, everyone involved laid back in the sun. 

100 Poems have released three albums this year, each one stuffed full of beautiful, brilliant tunes and a open minded anything goes attitude to making music and to life. Mike Wilson named the band after a collection of Seamus Heaney poems and the inscription on Heaney's headstone- 'walk on air against your better judgement'- is what the music is all about. On the third of the three albums, Balearic As A System Of Belief, Mike used the voice of Jim Morrison, a late 60s interview where he was talking about the future of music and how it would be electronic. And there may be a better way to see 2025 in than by listening to the utterances of the Lizard King repurposed for 2024/ 5 but I can't think of one at the moment. 

Happy New Year everyone- in or out, have a good one. 

Forty Five More Minutes Of Blind On A Galloping Remix

Last Sunday's fifty minute mix of remixes of songs from David Holmes' Blind On A Galloping Horse album was well received and I promised a second volume. In an unplanned coincidence me, Dan and Martin played support to David at The Golden Lion yesterday afternoon, the third time we've warmed up for him and its a pleasure and honour every time. Heavenly commissioned and released so many Blind On A Galloping Horse remixes of that I could probably do a third volume. Given that I've still not included in either of these mixes the Rich Lane remix (which came about due to a connection made by a post at this blog), the Hardway Bros Meets Monkton remix and various others (Robin Wylie, Daniel Avery, Darren Emerson, Working Men's Club...), a volume three would seem to be the order of the day at some point. 

Last time I started slow, some ambient/ chilled remixes before ramping it up in the second half. This one kicks in quicker. Last time I didn't include any remixes of the same song- this time I have, both Yeah x 3 and Necessary Genius feature twice but I liked the way the two remixes of Yeah x 3 worked together and the Necessary Genius remixes are very different animals. 

Forty Five More Minutes Of Blind On A Galloping Remix

• Yeah x 3 (Sonic Boom and Panda Bear Reset Remix)
• Yeah x 3 (The Vendetta Suite Reason To Live Remix)
• Necessary Genius (Lovefingers Dub And Response)
• Too Muchroom (Hardway Bros Too Much Acid Dub)
• Stop Apologising (Cosmodelica Extended Mix)
• It's Over, If We Run Out Of Love (Lovefingers and Heidi Lawden High Tide Mix)
• Necessary Genius (Decius Remix)

Sonic Boom and Panda Bear's Reset album was a 60s pop/ psych bubblegum adventure, reworkings/ samples of 60s songs filtered through a 21st century bubblegum box of tricks. It was followed by an Adrian Sherwood dub of Reset that raised it up a notch. Sonic and Panda's version of Yeah x 3, the most 60s pop song on Blind On A Galloping Horse, is a whir of drum machine rhythms, layers of glassy psychedelia and Raven's space echo vocal on top. 

The Vendetta Suite is fellow Belfast producer/ DJ/ musician Gary Irwin. He remixed Yeah x 3 twice- the weightless ambient drift of Reason To Drift was on last's week mix. This one, the Reason To Live remix, is more direct, led by a pulsing bass and wall of synths. 

Lovefingers is Andrew Hogge, the owner of the ESP Institute label, a DJ, producer and promoter. His remix of Necessary Genius is a deep one, with rapid fire drums, pumped up bass and Raven's vocal chopped up and FXed, and a hypnotic, repeating piano line thunders away. David list of inspirations- Tony Wilson, Weatherall, Guy Stevens, Nina Simone, northern soul, Peter Meadon, rock 'n' roll, Rastafari, Bernadette Devlin, David Keenan, Sinead O'Connor and refugees among them- rattle by. 

The lyrics for Too Muchroom come from an Andrew Weatherall quote- 'if you're not living on the edge you're taking up too much room'. Andrew's influence is all over Blind On A Galloping Horse. There's a cover of Laugh Myself To Sleep from his unreleased second solo album (still unreleased due to a difference of opinion with engineer Steve Boardman who claimed co- writing credits and held the tapes/ hard drive hostage. Andrew's response was to say 'fuck him/ it' and move on, do the next thing. In a radio show he said he quite liked the idea of having an unreleased and legendary lost solo album. Appropriately Andrew's partner in The Asphodells, Tim Fairplay, played guitar on Laugh Myself To Sleep). Andrew's ALFOS partner Sean Johnston remixes Too Muchroom, one of several remixes Sean did of Galloping Horse songs. This one is exactly what it says it is- acid dub. The vocals are in there, twisted to pieces and just about audible. 

Cosmodelica is Colleen Murphy, New Yorker, DJ, producer and radio show host. Her Balearic Breakfast show and compilation albums are second to none. Her remix of Stop Apologising is like being dropped back into a scuzzy indie/ electro basement, dry ice and sticky floors, where the room smells of poppers and cigarettes and the crowd are ridiculously beautiful and elegantly wasted. 

Lovefingers makes a second appearance along with Heidi Lawden, and a remix of Its Over, If We Run Out Of Love, one of the songs that is the at the centre of Galloping Horse, heartbeat of the album. They did two, the Low Tide remix and this one, High Tide. Dark, repetitive acid disco. 

Necessary Genius returns for the ending, remixed by Decius, the London band made up of Fat White Family singer Lias Saoudi, brothers Liam and Luke May and Quinn Whalley from Warmduscher. Decius make brilliant, sweaty, sleazy, gay sauna acid house/ techno, tongues in cheeks, needles in the red and tempos pushed up high. They take Necessary Genius to its extreme here, the vocal reduced to staccato syllables and the drums galloping on and on. 

Fifty Minutes Of Blind On A Galloping Remix

A year ago David Holmes released Blind On A Galloping Horse, an album that over four sides of vinyl and seventy minutes of music pulled together many of the political, emotional, cultural and psychological strands that seemed to come together in 2023. Protest in the face useless governments, , self- reliance, a roll call of the lost, the ongoing influence and spirit of Andrew Weatherall, the voices of refugees, humanity and community, the need to find the space and peace to clear one's head from all the noise and clutter that is out there. A beacon maybe, a call to arms perhaps, a face looking back at you from the crowd. I've played it again several times recently and it still hits all those spots. 

The songs from Blind On A Galloping Horse have been remixed, a slew of like minded souls refitting David's songs and Raven Violet's vocals into new sounds and shapes. There are over thirty of them, every single one worth hearing. It seemed to me that as we approach the end of 2024, a year on from the Galloping Horse, a Sunday mix of some of those remixes was in order. 

I featured each song only once, avoiding multiple versions- there were multiple remixes of several of the songs and all of the highest quality. There's some real high tempo bangers too which I held back from until part way through this mix when Timmy Stewart raises the bpms after a slow burning first twenty five minutes, and when I think of the remixes that didn't make this mix- Heidi and Lovefingers, Rich Lane, Decius, Sonic Boom, X- Press 2, Cosmodelica, Skymas, Daniel Avery- I think a volume 2 might be in order some day. 

There's more Holmes available at NTS this week, David's monthly God's Waiting Room show, two hours of the best music money can buy- this month includes his new remix of Five Green Moons, Spiritualized, V/Z and Poly High School Band's version of Midnight Cowboy. Listen here. 

Fifty Minutes Of Blind On A Galloping Remix

• Emotionally Clear (Ammonite Remix)
• Yeah x 3 (The Vendetta Suite's Reason To Drift Remix)
• Blind On A Galloping Horse (Sons Of Slough)
• Agitprop 13 (GLOK Remix)
• Hope Is The Last Thing To Die (Timmy Stewart's 11th Hour Remix)
• It's Over, If We Run Out Of Love (Hardway Bros Live At SSL Dub)
• Stop Apologising (Horse Meat Disco Vocal Remix)
• Necessary Genius (Phil Kieran Vocal Remix)

Emotionally Clear is one of Blind's slower, more blissed out songs but with several questions at its heart- do you believe in the absence of evidence? Do you believe in unjust punishment? Do you believe in cognitive dissonance? On her Ammonite Remix Amy Spencer breaks the song down into its barest bones, a spectral, whispery, ambient gauze with Raven Violet's vocals looped, FXed and chopped up. 

The Vendetta Suite is Belfast's Gary Irwin, a veteran Holmes associate and the in house engineer at Exploding Plastic Inevitable studio and label. This remix, one of a pair, keeps the drifting, ambient feel going. The Vendetta Suite's album from 2021, The Kempe Portal Stone, is well worth your time and attention if you haven't heard it. 'Got my mind on freedom/ And one foot out the door', Raven coos, and then the line taken from David's track from a GLS 10" from 2021, 'love is a mystery'.

Sons Of Slough (Ian Weatherall and Duncan Gray) bring the dub to the album's title track, a dissection of the world and its madness sent to the dub section via rim shots, a slowed down bassline, melodica, and also stir in a deeply Power, Corruption And Lies-era New Order feel. 

Andy Bell in his GLOK guise took Agitprop 13 and kept things weird and experimental, bass and synth with rumbling rhythms and layers of backing vocals- it builds insistently, more and more coming to the foreground. 

Hope Is The Last Thing to Die was the opening shot of the Blind On A Galloping Horse album, released as a single back in September 2021, a response to the incompetence and idiocy of governments in the face of modern crises, Covid and climate change. It lit up autumn 2021 for me and has done so repeatedly since. Timmy Stewart, another Belfast connection who DJs and produces as Black Bones, turns David's protest song and call to resistance into something tough and metallic. The rat tat tat of the snare breaks through, like a pipe being tapped with a monkey wrench.  

Sean Johnston's remixes of It's Over, If We Run Out Of Love are among his best Hardway Bros remixes, that cosmic/ ALFOS groove spinning out onto the floor with a lovely, brain twisting distorted synth riff and disco arpeggios.

Stop Apologising is the most direct song on the album, a genuine three minute glam pop anthem, Raven singing of self reliance, the importance of being grounded and 'the wonders of psychedelic therapy'. Horse Meat Disco turn everything up to eleven, add an enormous glam disco stomp, Goldfrapp amped up to the max, big piano chords, and keep it all going and going and going... 'Stop apologising for things you never done/ Stop catastrophising put your feet back on the ground'. 

Necessary Genius is David's tribute to the misfits, artists, dreamers, outsiders and radicals who make the culture, a roll call of the great and good- Serge and Jane, John Coltrane, Angela Davis, Samuel Beckett, Ennio Morricone- and particularly some of those who we have lost in recent years- Terry Hall, Andrew Weatherall, Sinead O'Connor. Phil Kieran is another Northern Irish DJ, musician, producer and remixer and his remix of Necessary Genius is a blinder, full on basement club, messy dance floor music and the perfect fit for those people listed in the lyrics. 

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. 

Murky, Dignity, Surrender

Sean Johnston as Hardway Bros has a new EP out, an unabashed return to house music sounds and a homage to Murk Records (Miami based, formed in 1991). On Murky Sean has called in the vocal talents of Beth Cassidy (of Section 25 and Sea Fever) and she adds a sensual edge to Sean's four four thump, wonky synths and rippling, melodic toplines. A robotic voice demands, 'come follow me bay- bee'. Beth's voice, much more human and sultry, instructs, 'P- L- E- A- S- E me', and 'you'll do it/ You'll say it/ You'll feel it...'. A song dedicated to the serious business of getting down and having fun. 

There's more. Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve, Richard Norris and Erol Alkan, are back in the remix game. Their seven minute re- animation of Fat White Family's Bullet Of Dignity is one of the best records of 2024 (vinyl edition limited to 300 copies out now). They've reworked Hardway Bros and Beth, cutting this item of clothing from very similar cloth, a piece of clothing that probably needs to be wrung out and hung up to dry- the Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve Re- Animation of Murky is eight minutes of squelchy synths, insistent rhythms, bongos, sci fi sounds, non- stop propulsion and bounce with Beth chanting away on top. Magical stuff. 

There's a stripped back Coral Way Dub too, named after a street near Miami Beach. All three versions are available digitally at Bandcamp for a few pounds. 

Back to Fat White Family- the Bullet Of Dignity 12" comes with an Acid Arab remix on the flipside, Lias and the boys reduced to a pared down groove, low slung and bottom heavy, Lias' voice joined by a Middle Eastern pipe, a snake charmer wrapped round the lyrics, 'You say you're just thirty one/ what's that in cannibal years/ You'll be the laziest one/ Since words came in pairs'.. 

Coming from a similar start point and heading in a vaguely similar direction are a pair of new remixes of A Mountain Of One. AMOO's album Stars Planets Dust Me was of my favourite releases of 2022 and these remixes add a further twist to the sun-baked, cosmic beauty of the original record. Damian Harris/ Midfield General's Generalisation Dub of Surrender has writhing bass, ticking snare and hi hat, phased vocals, and eventually house piano, and feels like the heat rising from the tarmac in the evening at the end of a hot day. 

It comes with a Jonny Rock remix of Make My Love Grow, frazzled, shattered, broken down dub. You can buy both here. 

V.A. Saturday

Back in 2013 Astro Lab Recordings released a double CD compilation called Treasure Hunting. At the time the whole A Love From Outer Space/ chuggy cosmic disco/ Golden Lion/ Scandi- Italo house thing was quite underground and some distance from the bright lights. The Golden Lion didn't even exist in its current form. I was just typing away at this blog in isolation, chasing Andrew Weatherall remixes and music by related artists, and I wasn't really plugged into at all apart from vicariously via the internet, and hadn't made any of the connections and friendships that I have now. Our kids were both young and weekend nights spent dancing until ungodly hours weren't really possible. Treasure Hunting was one of the ways that connected me to that sound, an eighteen track compilation that pulled me in because of the Andrew Weatherall remix of Timothy J. Fairplay's Blizzard/ Snowride. Other names on the CD were by artists I already had music by- Deadstock 33s (Justin Robertson), Daniel Avery (whose debut album Drone Logic came out that year and reconnected me with techno sounds), and some Weatherall associated names from the Scrutton Street axis- Scott Fraser and Hardway Bros- plus the odd name I recognised from mixes Andrew had done for various websites and clubs- Mugwump for instance.

Treasure Hunting is a superb set of tracks, all connected by the chuggy/ sci fi/ cosmic disco sound but many sounding pretty individual too. Across the rest of the CD there are first rate tracks by Marc Pinol, Toby Tobias, Ana Helder, DJ Kaos, Cage and Aviary and several more. There isn't a weak track on it and you can pick it up cheaply second hand. It's probably not a particularly sought after various artists compilation, I doubt it will be seen as a classic in years to come, but it's one that drew me into a sub- world I was looking in at, part of what I was hearing at a distance in 2013, the year coincidentally that Martin and myself started The Flightpath Estate. These three give an idea of the treasure contained within, starting with the 80s synths, bleeps and robotic voices of Marc Pinol's Monotony In Germany, then Mugwump's slower, spacious Belgian grooves on God Is Gracious and finishing with Hardway Bros and an exercise in sci fi, booty shaking hypnosis. More cowbell please. 

Monotony In Germany

God Is Gracious

The Prince In Outer Space

Sean Johnston/ Hardway Bros continues in rude health, DJing, remixing and making his own music. Shortly he will release an EP on Rekids, an EP called Murky, with vocals from Beth Cassidy and a Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve remix. To celebrate this Sean has done a ninety minute mix for House Of Rekids, a deep dive into thumpy, dark electronic music- don't let the slow start get you thinking this is a chilled out mix, it goes in deep quite quickly. Superb stuff from Sean, as ever. Listen to it at Soundcloud. 

Tracklist

• Luminodisco - Jazzclub 
• Rees - Früg (Edit) 
• A.B.Habibi  - Mother Africa 
• Innuendo - Kreaturen Der Nacht 
• Len - Steal My Sunshine (Version Idjut) 
• Roland Leesker -Let It All Go (feat. Dan Diamond) 
• Romare -Wolf's Teeth 
• Shakespeares Sister - Black Sky - Apiento Edit (Unreleased) 
• Toby Tobias - Get Wit Me 
• Jezebell - Weekend Machines 
• Phil Kieran - All Gonna Hurt (Unreleased) 
• Rafiki - Lofi Dreams 
• Crooked Man - YowYow 
• Session Victim - Screen Off /w Ras Stimulant 
• Timo Maas & Marc Werner - Barca Boys 
• Burglar Tom - Lonesome Tonight

And if you want more David Holmes returned to NTS this week for another two hour session with his long running God's Waiting Room series. The latest edition opens with the sublime sounds of Marvin Gaye and then goes full on into spiritual jazz, psychedelic soul and freaked out folk. Listen here.  

There's A Sound Of Distant Living

A couple of weeks ago JC/ The Vinyl Villain updated his run through 1979- a year he's saying may be music's best ever year- and one of the songs he posted was Japan's Life In Tokyo. I've become mildly obsessed with it ever since, playing it repeatedly. 

Life In Tokyo

Recorded with Giorgio Moroder, who co- wrote it with David Sylvian, it builds on Moroder's supercharged late 70s disco records with Donna Summer but with some very overt Roxy Music influences in there too. One of those records that bears repeat plays, keeps on giving, keeps rewarding in different ways- the synths, the bass, the lyrics, the production, the vocal. It's a superb slice of 1979 art- pop. 

Life In Tokyo (Long Version)

It was re- released several times, the record company looking for a hit and as each Japan album after 1979 came out, so did Life In Tokyo. In 1981, hot on the heels of Gentlemen Take Polaroids, Hansa released it on 12" with a seven minute extended remix and then again in 1982 after Tin Drum and two hit singles (Ghosts and Cantonese Boy) it was remixed and re- released for a third time. 

David Sylvian's lyrics are suitably impressionistic, with plenty of late 70s apathy- 'it seems so sentimental/ why should I care'- coupled with Ballardian existentialism- 'somewhere there's the sound of distant living/ locked up in high society/ it seems so artificial/ why should I care'- and then the chorus, 'oh oh oh life can be cruel/ life in Tokyo'.

In 2019 Sean Johnston wanted a version to play at ALFOS, a turbo charged edit with Japan, Moroder and Roxy Music crossed with a cosmic, sci fi Latin disco feel that goes on and on for nine minutes. So he made one.

Life In Tokyo (Hardway Bros Re- edit)

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. 

Monday's Long Songs

This came via a tip off from Dan of The Flightpath Estate, an imminent release on Jason Boardman's Before I Die label- Dub Tapes Volume 1 by Klangkollektor. There are three tracks to listen to at their Bandcamp page and a further four due when the album releases in full later this week. Sumptuous, deep, richly textured dub with a smattering of ambient techno and a splash of the Balearic feel. 

Klangkollektor is Lars Fischer, drummer from Nuremberg's psychedelic Cumbia band Trak Trak. All three tracks released so far are long- Lake Lounge comes in at just under ten minutes, a dub experiment, all space, echo, rattles and rhythm and some tinkling piano. The six minutes forty seconds of Midnight Express is laid back and bubbly, a trip into an absorbing dreamworld. Globulus is seven minutes plus of spacious, atmospheric dub with a piano line picked out on the top. You can listen and buy here. There must be something going on in Nuremberg- Before I Die released another Nuremberg act's album last year, Konformer's self titled debut, an album that opened with the superb Noris Noir.

There was a remix EP with this remix from Sean Johnston. There's no point trying to describe it, it does exactly what it says on the tin and should be felt rather than read about. 

Konformer (Hardway Bros Techno Remix)

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.....

Anzu

One of my favourite singles of last year came out in mid- December- it got a bit overlooked as a result but has grown and grown as 2024 has gone on, taking up more and more of my listening time. Anzu by C.A.R. is electro- pop perfection, throbbing acid house/ dance pop. It has wobbling synths, a smokey vocal telling tales of adventures in a pub now lost to market forces, singer Chloe weaving lines of personal history, hedonism and squalor into something quite moving. There's a darkness in the song, a yearning, and then the synths change, there are rippling toplines and chord changes and everything surges forwards. Drums thump in and Chloe picks up her theme, 'walls close in... guerrilla shadows, hopped on having fun'. Totally infectious and emotive dance music. 

When it was released back in December it came with a GLOK remix, Andy Bell stripping it down and building it around a two word phrase from the lyric, 'basement sounds'. Last week a pair of Hardway Bros remixes came out, pushing Anzu further on into the disco. The Hardway Bros Remix is crunchy and cosmic, a four four stomper for souls dancing under the mirror ball or in the kitchen, Chloe's vocal on top of Sean's shimmering synths and arpeggios. Seven and a half minutes and not a second too long. 

There's a second version too, the Hardway Bros Conqueror Dub, all wobbly oscillations, signature Sean synth sounds, funky drums, acid squiggles and heavy bottom end, Chloe still there singing of 'cigarette smoke' and giving half glimpses of the past. Buy them both here. 

Further Galloping Remixes

David Holmes' remix project continues to gather pace, an almost bewildering number of remixes of songs from his 2023 album Blind On A Galloping Horse being released (and this week Heavenly putting some of them out on vinyl). So far the roll call of artists who have taken David's songs from the album and reshaped them takes in Daniel Avery, Die Hexen and Ruth Bate, Timmy Stewart, Darren Emerson, Lovefingers and Heidi Lawden, Working Men's Club, Hardway Bros, Skymas, Decius, Phil Kieran, Robin Wylie, Lovefingers (again), Sonic Boom and Panda Bear, X- Press 2, Jordan Nocturne, The Vendetta Suite, Horse Meat Disco and Colleen Cosmo Murphy. Last week three new remixes saw the light of day, the first being Rich Lane's remix of Yeah x 3...

Rich's remix is an unashamedly acid house banger, the bassline burbling away with the instantly recognisable sound of the 303's drum settings, the 303 deployed to fine effect, while Raven sings of the power of positivity, personal freedom and that love is a mystery. There's a turning up of the heat in the last two minutes, acid bleeps at the fore, bassline pulsing and intensity rising. I'm particularly fond of this remix- this blog played a part in connecting David and Rich in the autumn of last year following a post in the aftermath of Sinead O'Connor's death which led to David suggesting Rich remix Yeah x 3. There's a Rich Lane Dub too which strips Raven back and pushes the acid even further to the front. 

Hardway Bros return to the remix frontline with a remix of Too Muchroom (Too Much Acid Dub), a heavy duty seven minute Sean Johnston dubbed out dance remix, the vocals turned into a ghostly echo whispering away behind the insistent throb of the bass and drums and bounce of the synths-'If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room'

Finally, for the moment, unless David has another slew of artists ready to further deconstruct his album, there is a GLOK remix of Agitprop 13. Andy Bell's recent GLOK remixes have been wide ranging affairs, taking the GLOK sound into deeper waters. This one is a slo mo pounder, disembodied and backwards vocals bouncing round the mix, synths as pulses, basement sounds (as his remix of C.A.R.'s Anzu at the tail end of last year stated) ending in a rather lovely and low key as the tinkling music box melody repeats to fade.