October

October already- 2025 continues to hurtle by. Some October songs for the first of the month, a blogging October fest. 

First, wonderful electronic pop by Chris And Cosey, originally released in 1983 but here in its 1986 version, two former members of Throbbing Gristle making something light and lilting but profound too. 

'You took my hands on the stairs/ No one was around/ You said we could be lovers/ I just had to say the word...'

October (Love Song) '86 Version

Fast forward to 1991 and Neil and Chris, the Pet Shop Boys, released their October symphony, a song inspired by Neil Tennant reading a book about the Russian revolution and a composer writing a symphony celebrating the October revolution that brought the Bolsheviks to power. Written in the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall and break up of the USSR Neil has his composer wondering if the symphony if the work is still valid. Johnny Marr contributes some lovely little bursts of guitar. 

'So much confusion when autumn comes around/ What to do about October?'

My October Symphony

In October 2000 The Gentle Waves released October's Sky as part of an EP, Falling From Grace. Brass, organ, an off kilter rhythm and sound and Isobel Campbell's softly sung vocals on top, a slightly off centre love song. 

'When will we stop feeling haunted?/ For our ancient love must die/ Never have the stars shone brighter/ Underneath October's sky'

October's Sky

Lastly, from April this year, Maria Somerville's October Moon- drifting in with ambient drones and noise, recorded in Conamara and Dublin in 2021, gradually becoming a song, acoustic guitar and a vocal so soft and blurred its only half there, a song blown apart by the wind... 

The lyrics are difficult to make out, maybe 'I look away/ Somewhere I can...' 

October Moon

Lightning Coming Out of The Speakers

The news came through on Tuesday night that Mark Lanegan had died aged 57 at his home in Ireland. Mark Lanegan is one of those people who had been around in one form or another since the early 90s and whose music had come in and out of my musical radar but when I heard him, he often hit really deep. From his grunge band Screaming Trees to his time with Queens Of The Stone Age to his various solo albums and his records duetting with Isobel Campbell he was always a huge presence, especially his voice- sometimes a deep raspy growl, sometimes an emotional soulful baritone- that sounded like a force of nature, vocal chords as old as time. 

It was a voice that told of a life lived too. His recent autobiography is a tale of childhood descent into alcoholism, theft, robbery, heroin addiction, guilt over his role in Kurt Cobain's suicide and his getting clean after an intervention by Courtney Love as well as his continuing adventures in music. He wrote a second book about his near death brush with Covid in 2021. Neither book is for the faint hearted although his description of Liam Gallagher, who he encountered when Screaming Trees toured with Oasis in the 90s, is hilarious, not to mention dismissive of Gallagher Junior. 'Where I was from', Mark writes, 'he [Liam] wouldn't have lasted a week behaving as he did. One day they'd simply disappear, their mangled body discovered years later, haphazardly tossed into a shallow grave somewhere deep in the woods'.

Rather than offer up one song I pulled a few from different albums and put them together into a thirty minute mix, a range of styles and sounds all centred around his voice, that I've titled HOney Just Gets Me Stoned after a vocal line in the remix Andrew Weatherall did of Beehive. Ode To Sad Disco is a particular favourite, a switch in 2012 from writing on the guitar to writing with a drum machine and synth that led to a beautiful and mournful piece of New Order- esque electronics. Snake Song is a cover of a Townes Van Zandt song, Bombed is desolate short song sung with his then wife Wendy. Hit The City is a crunching, distorted industrial blues with co- vocals by PJ Harvey.

R.I.P. Mark Lanegan. 

Honey Just Gets Me Stoned

• Isobel Cambell and Mark Lanegan: Snake Song
• Mark Lanegan Band: Bombed
• Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan: Keep Me In Mind, Sweetheart
• Mark Lanegan Band: Hit The City
• Mark Lanegan: Ode To Sad Disco
• Mark Lanegan: Old Swan (Pye Corner Audio Remix)
• Mark Lanegan: Beehive (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

October's Sky

I took this photo outside the front of work on Tuesday night, late September skies in north west England. It took me by surprise a little- it had bene a wet, grey day and suddenly this light show was going on in front of us. It also made me think of how people in the Middle Ages must have been convinced of the existence of a god who resided in the clouds when huge streaks of heavenly light burst through the clouds like this. 

Back in 2000, twenty one years ago, singer/ cellist Isobel Campbell branched out from Belle And Sebastian and recorded as The Gentle Waves. This song came on a four track EP called Falling From Grace, a single to support her album Swansong For You. October's Sky is a bit under three minutes long and comes in quickly with a descending piano part and a cacophonous brass/ woodwind riff that jars at first but soon becomes hypnotic. Isobel sings softly on top- all very left of centre 60s pop/ exotica territory and none the worse for it. 

October's Sky

I'm Not Scared Of The Dark

I hardly ever listen to this kind of thing anymore. I suppose that in the early 00s there was so much good alt-country/noir/whatever you want to call it, after I while I just got a bit bored of the whole sound. Isobel Campbell and ex-Sreaming Tree Mark Lanegan do it so well and three albums later it's not running out of steam. From last year's album Hawk this is Come Undone, and it's totally mesmerising, with brilliant backing and the voices wrap themselves around each other beautifully. Plus, it still amuses me that a former member of Belle And Sebastian is mucking about with Mark Lanegan, and is telling him what to do.

Come Undone.mp3