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. 

An Hour Of 2025 Dub/ Dance

A follow up to my New Year's Eve mix which was an ambient/ downtempo and largely instrumental hour of music. This one starts out dubby and then heads in Balearic and dance directions, getting increasingly thumpy with a three tune Belfast detour before finishing with the voice of Andrew Weatherall. As maybe all mixes should. 

There were a lot of things that I couldn't find room for here, not least Four Tet's Into Dust (Still Falling)- maybe there's time for one more 2025 mix next Sunday to see that year out. 

An Hour Of 2025 Dub/ Dance

• Adrian Sherwood: Spaghetti Best Western
• Soft Cotton County: The Future's Not What It Used To Be (Justin Robertson's Five Green Moons Remix)
• Rude Audio: No Sleep
• Escape- Ism: Last Of The Sellouts
• Daniel Avery ft. Cecile Believe: Rhapsody In Blue
• Jezebell: Movimento Lento
• Puerto Montt City Orchestra: ...And We'd Be So Happy
• Pandit Pam Pam: The Senator
• Le Carousel: We're All Gonna Hurt
• Factory Floor: Tell Me
• Black Bones: Voodoo
• The Light Brigade: Shuffle The Pack

Adrian Sherwood's The Collapse Of Everything was one of my favourite albums of 025, a solo album that becomes a mystical sonic adventure, Sherwood reaching out from dub into soundtrack territories and beyond. Spaghetti Best Western's guitars are worth the price of entry alone. 

Soft Cotton County's Coward Of The County Fair came out in January 2025, a single backed with a pair of Justin Robertson dubs (wearing his Five Green Moons hat- and the Five Green Moons Moon 2 album should have showed up here too). SCC are an indie/ dreampop/ shoegaze duo from Richmond- upon- Thames. This is lovely, laid back folk/ dub. 

Rude Audio are a South London dub/ dub techno specialists under the leadership of Mark Ratcliff. The Strange Phenomenon EP was a 2025 highlight, premium grade Dulwich dub. 

Escape- Ism's The Charge Of The Love Brigade was one of my 2025 peaks, a ten song trip inside Ian Svenonius' world, the last man in the business to sell out. 

Daniel Avery and Cecile Believe's Rhapsody In Blue was the most 80s teen drama, pop moment on Tremor (and came with a Midnight Version too, dirtier and tougher). It still hits the right spots now, six months after its release.

Jezebell's second album, Jezebellearic Beats Volume 2, pulled together some further remixes and productions together with some new material- this track, Movimento Lento, and the closer Turn It Yes, were a perfect pair of bookends. 

Puerto Montt City Orchestra's ...And We'd Be So Happy came out on Brighton's Higher Love label, the home of many fine modern Balearic releases. A spoken word family trip to the seaside in the pouring rain. 

Pandit Pam Pam is from Sao Paulo and makes uneasy ambient music. The Senator is the most dancefloor friendly thing in the Pandit Pam Pam back catalogue, dynamic and lively but still a little unpredictable and the horn that floats above the drums is a thing of beauty. 

Le Carousel is Phil Kieran from Belfast. We're All Gonna Hurt is full on, pulsing, electronic dance music, uplifting but shot through with heartbreak, like all the best dance music is. 

Factory Floor's 2025 return saw them come back with more bone shaking beats and face melting synths, on a pair of singles, Tell Me and Between You. Stephen Morris added some drum programming touches to Tell Me. Experimental, machine music with a random human heart. 

Black Bones are also from Belfast. They released an album across a variety of vinyl formats, dark industrial basement music- acidic, technoid, dubbed up Belfast rave. 

The Light Brigade are David Holmes and Keith Tenniswood. Shuffle The Pack is a righteous acid house record, a call to arms and positivity and very much part of Holmes' 'music as an act of resistance' vision that fades out leaving Andrew Weatherall's voice talking about music, smoke, coloured lights and acid house as gnostic ceremony. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Talking Heads And Friends

Update Sunday 10.00 am. The original version of this post received a sensitive content warning and was put behind a warning message. I think this is because in my description of Azealia Banks' 212, the final track in the mix, I used a word that starts with the letter C and then sounds like honey lingers. I'm reposting the post here with the offending word removed- partly just to see if it now gets through Google's censors. 

I started a Talking Heads Sunday mix a year ago and couldn't get it to work. The early stuff, New York art- rock didn't seem to sit well with some of the later stuff or the remixes/ edits etc I was trying to fit in. Many of the songs I was attempting to segue started and ended very suddenly which was tricky and the whole thing made me quite frustrated so I shelved it. Seeing Jerry Harrison and Adrian Belew play Remain In Light at The Ritz recently and the Leo Zero edit of Azealia Banks' 212 which splices Azealia's blinding debut single with Once In A Lifetime got me thinking I should try again. I've left out anything from their first three albums, much as I love all of them, and gone for a Talking Heads mix that is unashamedly dance music with some remixes, edits, side projects and solo works and covers- more an Inspired By Talking Heads mix than a strictly Talking Heads mix. I think it works now.

Forty Five Minutes Of Talking Heads And Friends Mix

• Jezebell: Swamp Shuffle
• David Byrne: My Big Hands (Fall Through The Cracks)
• Talking Heads: Burning Down The House (Pete Bones Remix)
• X- Press 2 and David Byrne: Lazy
• Rheinzand: Slippery People
• Tom Tom Club: Wordy Rappinghood
• Brian Eno and David Byrne: America Is Waiting
• Azealia Banks: 212 (Leo Zero Edit)

In August 2023 Jezebell released Jezebellearic Beats Vol. 1, the first full length album from Darren and Jesse, twenty tracks of 21st century pick and mix/ club culture dance music. It closed with Swamp Shuffle where David Byrne's 'high high high high high' chant (borrowed from Talking Heads song Swamp, off 1983 album Speaking In Tongues) surfaces and resurfaces. Speaking In Tongues doesn't get the respect it deserves I sometimes think- it's the last of the classic run of Talking Heads albums and has a very glossy commercial production, recorded (without Brian Eno unlike the previous three albums, a decision the rhythm section demanded) at Compass Point in the Bahamas, taking aim at the big charts with thumpers like Burning Down The House. It also has the sleeper song, the one that has over the decades seeped into wider popular culture, the wonderful This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody) which should be on this mix but isn't.

In 1981 David Byrne released an album, The Catherine Wheel, a score for a Twyla Tharp dance project of the same name. My Big Hands is a sign of where Byrne might go under his own steam, shimmering, juddering art- funk. He'd go there with the other three Heads too but already in 81 he was exploring outside the band. 

Burning Down The House was their breakthrough chart hit (as mentioned above), a song inspired by Chris Frantz shouting the title phrase over a riff the group were playing, himself inspired by Funkadelic and Parliament. This Pete Bones remix, pretty unofficial I think, streamlines it for modern dancefloors. Could be wrong but it isn't, it turns out right. 

Lazy is from 2002- I can't believe this track is already that old, an X- Press 2 single which Byrne sang on after he approached the duo to be his backing band. They turned him down, feeling they were unable to provide him with what he wanted but they got this song out of it, a gloriously catchy housed up 21st century Byrne. David has since then recored a version with an orchestra and played it live- he did it in his American Utopia tour in 2018, a tour I was lucky to see at a very memorable night at the Apollo.

Rheinzand are a Balearic dance act from Belgium who I love. Their debut album came out in 2020, an album released just as the world went into lockdown and with this cover of Slippery People on it, Ghent's finest rejigging Talking Heads into super sleek modern Balearic house/ disco. 

Tom Tom Club were Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz's side project, formed in 1981 because they were pissed off Byrne had gone off to do other things. They recruited a load of players including Adrian Belew, Steve Scales and Wally Badarou and made an album that chimed perfectly with 1981 New York's collision of rap, art, dance, graffiti, and fashion- Genius Of Love and Wordy Rappinghood were both hits which irked Byrne- proving Weymouth and Frantz's point that he should be sticking with them. Wordy Rappinghood was their debut single, a joyous thing with Tina's sisters Lani and Laura on backing vocals and utilising a typewriter, a Moroccan children's song and some French language lyrics about words. 

Also released in 1981 was David Byrne and Brian Eno's truly groundbreaking, visionary sampledelic, worldbeat, Afro Beat, found sound opus. Eno described the album as a 'vision of a psychedelic Africa', something that Adrian Sherwood and African Head Charge were taking note of in the UK. The album opens with America Is Waiting, a track that still sounds like it comes from the future while also rooted in turn of the 80s Cold War, moral majority, advent of Reagan paranoia. The voice is Ray Taliaferro, a US radio show host, taped off the radio.

Leo Zero's edit of Azealia Banks' 212 is one of the most exhilarating things I've heard recently, Azealia's celebration of youth, Harlem, sexuality, and her own prowess riding on top of Once In A Lifetime, some sirens and a rattling drum machine. As the kids say, it slaps. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Talking Heads And Friends

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European Tour

I'm off on a school trip today, away for the next six days with six colleagues and fifty five teenagers, on a three country tour of Europe. We're getting the ferry from Hull later today, a night crossing to Rotterdam and then we're in Amsterdam until Monday. Our itinerary includes the Anne Frank house, the Herzongenbusch concentration camp near Vught, a canal cruise and some time in Amsterdam. From there we head to Ypres and the First World War battlefields and cemeteries, the Menin Gate, the Flanders Field Museum, Passchendaele and some chocolate shops. We're also crossing into France to go the Somme. It's a trip I've done before and well worth it, an unforgettable experience for our young people and a good way to finish the school year. Weather forecast is good- too good maybe. I really hope the coach air con is working.

Here's some music from our first destination, the Netherlands. Speedy J is a Dutch producer from Rotterdam whose Ginger and G- Spot albums, both on Warp in the mid-- 90s, were superb spacey, trancey Dutch techno. Pepper was on Ginger.

Pepper

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a review of the new Jezebell album, Jezebalearic Beats Volume 2, a twenty track journey through Darren and Jesse's worlds starting with the slow mo, wigged out Serge Gainsbourg languor of Movimento Lento and then taking in various Jezebell remixes- Andys y Xavi, Pandit Pam Pam, Perry Granville, Pete Bones, Warriors Of The Dystotheque with Joe Duggan and Ian Vale.

As well as those tracks there are some previously released Jezebell hits- The Knack, Concurrence, Trading Places 6am, (Dancing) Not Fighting- and several brand new ones that build to the finale, an epic slice of dancefloor optimism with Yoko Ono in the mix. This is a reminder that you're going to want this album and that you'll end up playing it a lot. Get it here. 

It Says Yes

Jezebell's album Jezebellearic Beats Vol. 1 was one of 2023's highlights, an irreverent, illicit, dancefloor oriented twenty track adventure, Darren and Jesse freewheeling through their record collections and making new music from old, a collection of edits, remixes and their own productions that took in Alfredo, Talking Heads, Max Berlins, Julian Cope and D:Ream among others but was also very much its own thing- Jezebell. Apart from anything else, it was all huge fun.  

Now they're back with Jezebellearic Beats Vol. 2, released on 11th July. There's a new track at Bandcamp, Geo Metric a taster of what's to come. Geo Metric is a low slung, sleazy delight, throbbing with nightlife and basement parties- when the drums kick in at one minute thirty it spins. Like of much of the rest of Jezebellearic Beats Vol. 2, Geo Metric is long, over seven minutes, the track given space and time to unwind, the rhythms twisting round and round, bumping and grinding. 

Just as on Vol. 1, Vol. 2 has twenty tracks. Some of them have been released before- if you've followed Jezebell you'll already know their remix of Warriors Of The Dystotheque's Fitzroy Avenue, Joe Duggan's Northern Irish accent spun out over Jezebell's electronics. You'll have heard their beautifully cosmic remixes of Pandit Pam Pam and Andrys y Xavi, appearing on Vol 2. back to back and sounding like they were made for each other. There's new version of Dancing (Not Fighting), a riotous slice of electronic music sampling Mick Jones screaming at bouncers live on stage with The Clash from Rude Boy and my favourite track from the Trading Places EP is present too, Siouxsie showing up at 6PM with the jeepers creepers. Some of the tracks are their own work- Hung and Donkey from their double entendre Cream Tease EP, Autostrada from the sleek krauty beats of the Weekend Machines EP along with their 2023 single The Knack plus their remixes of Perry Granville and Pete Bones. 

There are new tracks too. As well as Geo Metric there is Japaneasy, a track with found sounds from Japan sitting inside its bullet train groove, percussion rattling and synths jabbing, all forward momentum. Red Black And Green is a slower take on the Jezebell sound and lit up by a stuttering synth sound, a synth doing an impression of a guitar, whoops in the background, electro and acid house bunking up. Perfect Din is built around some vocal samples, the hiss of the hi hat and a gnarly acid squiggle, the voices layered and looped- eventually jazz/ funk drums burst in and we're into new territory, Jezebellearic Afrobeat. 

Jezebell have taken their sound out to crowds since Vol. 1 came out- they've played at The Social in London, at  Pikes in Ibiza and at The Golden Lion in Todmorden. Jesse and Darren are musical sponges, soaking it all up and using it make new music and their own sound. Vol. 2 is twenty tracks long and most of the tracks are pretty long. It's a big piece of work. It can be taken track by track but works really well as a whole- one of the things about listening to Vol. 2 in on sitting is how well it does all work together, how their remixes, edits and own music has built into one coherent body of sound- insistent rhythms, nagging synth sounds, plenty of percussion, a sampledelic delight. 

Where Vol. 2 really excels though is at the beginning and the end,  a pair of tracks that bookend the album and sound like future Jezebell classics. The first, the album's opener, is Movimento Lento, a slow motion way into the Jezebell world, a sleazy drum track that feels like it's come from Serge Gainsbourg's apartment, the faint lick of wah wah guitar, a sleepy vocal sample, 'this is the greatest gift you're giving to yourself', and then some Beastie Boys, the stoned backing vocal refrain from 1992's Something's Got To Give... and heading back to that song via it's video, stealth bombers taking off and B- 52's dropping bombs on Vietnam, it does seem like we're stuck in a never ending loop. Movimento Lento is, as the kids say, a vibe.

Nineteen tracks later and Jezebellearic Beats Vol. 2 finishes with Turn It Yes. Electronic drums blip in and a echo laden voice emerges, 'language has the power to alter our perceptions...' The synths ripple, the sequencers sync and, 'the word is yes'. Uptempo and unashamedly optimistic, the topline wriggles around messing with the synapses, the drums kick on and then Yoko Ono appears, talking about her conceptual artwork from The Indica Gallery in 1966, a ceiling painting, a ladder, a magnifying glass and a single word... Yes. It was famously an exhibition attended by John Lennon. he climbed the ladder and found the word and the pair were introduced as a result of that. Turn It Yes is all of that and more, the synths building like chiming indie- dance guitars, the drums kicking on and on and the two voices coming together, everything gliding on for the final few minutes before coming to an end, and again, that word... Yes. 

Pre- order Jezebellearic Beats Vol. 2 here. You'd be daft not to- it's going to be a big part of the soundtrack to summer 2025. 

An Hour Of The Jezebell Takeover

Last weekend's Jezebell Takeover at The Golden Lion in Todmorden was a lot of fun, two days of DJs and a live act playing to a full house. Saturday kicked off with Nessa Johnston getting things into gear quickly and setting the pace for everyone who followed. ACR's Martin Moscrop played a set that took in dub and disco, including a low slung dubbed out cover of Born Slippy, and at just after 8pm OBOST played a live set. 

OBOST is Bobby Langfield, ridiculously young, still in his teens- synths, keys, laptops, a microphone and an hour of uptempo electronic music that sounds like it has decades of experience behind it. Jamie Tolley took over at 9 and took things up a notch again, bpms and energy levels rising. At one point he dropped As I Ran by Yame, a bit of an ALFOS at The Lion moment last year and the pub erupted. The Jezebell headliners took over at 10, Jesse first and then Darren. The floor was packed, a mix of youth and older dancers...

I had to run for a late train back to Manchester so missed the last our of Darren's set but was back in the pub on Sunday afternoon where Jesse and Darren were starting proceedings off. Maybe they'd stayed up and played straight through. My guest slot was at 4pm and I had a few technical difficulties at first- I accidentally cued up a track from Jesse's USB instead of mine, then the right hand deck got stuck in an emergency loop and things took a little while for me to sort. Eventually Martin Moscrop turned the deck off and on again and as usual with piece of IT support advice it did the trick. Adam Roberts, due to play after me, was also official photographer. All the photos here are his and if nothing else he made me look like I know what I'm doing. 

I came off the decks feeling it had been a bit of a nightmare- technical issues, trying to cram too much into an hour- but looking at it now, a week later, it seems ok. The link below is the set recreated at home.

Bagging Area At The Jezebell Takeover

• Moon Duo: In A Cloud
• Durutti Column: For Belgian Friends
• The Charlatans: Trouble Understanding (Norman Cook Remix)
• The Beta Band: I Know
• Dub Syndicate: Right Back To Your Soul
• Soft Cotton County: The Future's Not What It Used To Be (Five Green Moons Remix)
• David Holmes: Blind On A Galloping Horse (Sons Of Slough Remix)
• Totem Edit 12: Feel
• Mogwai: The Sun Smells Too loud
• Orbital, David Holmes, DJ Helen and Mike Garry: Tonight In Belfast

Adam Roberts followed me, four four house and disco action and then Kim Lana. We had to leave so missed the remaining Sunday night fun, Stuart Alexander and then FC Kahuna, both of whom were outstanding by all accounts, Jesse saying Dan Kahuna was the weekend's highlight. Some hardy souls were back in The Lion on the Monday for St Patrick's Day celebrations, a live band and unplanned karaoke session. There's a second Jezebell Takeover planned for September. 

Jesse's been uploading recordings of some of the sets. His Saturday night hour is here and his Sunday afternoon set is here. 

I hadn't met Jesse or Darren before despite having had a several years strong online connection. It's always brilliant when people turn out to be as lovely in real life as they appear online and the crowd they drew to the Lion- regulars and newcomers- was testament to what they've built together as Jezebell. More power to them. 

Forty Minutes Of Jezebell

A Jezebell mix for this Sunday to go with their weekend takeover at The Golden Lion in Todmorden with the emphasis on dancing. Jesse and Darren's music, edits and remixes have been one of post- 2021's joys starting with Thrill Me in November 2021, taking in various EPs and singles, an album and most recently Cream Tease (wordplay and sexual innuendo are a Jezebell speciality. Personally, I'm not a fan of innuendo- if I see one in my writing I whip it out, straight away*). 

Forty Minutes Of Jezebell

• Bibbles (Pots And Pans Mix)
• Re- birth
• Perfect Din
• Citric
• We All Need (Jezebell's Ghost Train Mix)
• The Jezebell Spirit
• Darren's Theme

Bibbles is by Brighton Balearica duo Andres Y Xavi, a single on Higher Ground in February 2024. Jezebell did three remixes, the Pots And Pans Mix being my favourite, all manner of whirrs and clicks and abstract rhythm sounds.

Re- birth first saw the light of day on the Diavol edit label and then on Jezebellearic Beats Vol. 1, a shimmering, shuffling, woozy piece of edit work. 

Perfect Din is from Shelter Me, a compilation released in April 2024 to raise funds for Crisis, a homelessness charity. 

Citirc was one of four tracks released as the Weekend Machines EP, machine funk for cyborgs to strut their stuff to. Hand claps, hi hats, guitar riffs, synths, all synced up for endless, beautiful repetition.

We All Need is one of the songs on A Certain Ratio's It All Comes Down To This album, one of 2024's best records. Jezebell's Ghost Train Mix came about when ACR's Martin Moscrop was record shopping in Berlin and found and bought a copy of Jezebellearic Beats Vol. 1. 

The Jezebell Spirit takes one of the key tracks from David Byrne and Brian Eno's groundbreaking 1981 album My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts and Jezebells it, the 808 cracking away under the sampled American TV preacher. My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts is a seminal album, a record streets ahead of almost everyone else in the early 80s. 

Darren's Theme is from Cream Tease, a track and EP with its tongue firmly in its cheek and possibly its trousers undone as well. A snatch of vocal from Karen Finley's Tales Of Taboo, a 1986 song with a lyric that could be described as sexually explicit. 

* Thanks are due to Kenneth Williams for this joke obviously

Over At Ban Ban Ton Ton And At The Golden Lion

I've been reviewing records over at Ban Ban Ton Ton again, Dr Rob's Japan based Balearic and electronic music one stop, most recently on Monday of this week when the newest Coyote mini- album came out. Coyote (Timm and Ampo) have been in a rich vein of form in the last few years, releasing a slew of 12" singles, albums, six track mini- albums, edits and remixes. In May there's the prospect of a collaboration EP with Peaking Lights, a 12" called Love Letters on their own Is This Balearic ? label. In the meantime, hot on the heels of last year's six track mini- album Hurry Up And Live, comes Wailing At The Yellow Dawn- a record which evokes all sorts of things but mainly for me music as a soundtrack to dreaming. My review at Ban Ban Ton Ton is here. 

A week before that I reviewed an album by Thought Leadership, an album called Ill Of Pentacles that is about to get a vinyl release on Be With Records. I knew it was familiar and realised while listening to it that my friend Spencer sent me a link to it last year when it was released as digital and on cassette- getting re- acquainted with it second time around was even better. Thought Leadership is a mysterious musician living in Edgeley, Stockport armed with nothing  more than a guitar, some FX pedals, a drum machine and a home studio. The music, ten tracks of it, is entirely instrumental, FX affected pieces of guitar music with occasional drum machine backing. It's a wonderful album, still available at Bandcamp. The most obvious comparison in sound is Vini Reilly but other post- punk and indie guitarists are in there too- John McGeoch, Robin Guthrie, Johnny Marr and Maurice Deebank of Felt. My full review is here. There's a second album too, Ace Of Swords which was recorded in the middle of last year, at Bandcamp. 

It put me in mind of another Mancunian guitarist whose music I reviewed for Ban Ban Ton Ton, a pair of  re- releases from the early 80s by Kevin McCormick together with a new one called Passing Clouds. I wrote about Passing Clouds last October and I didn't share it but you can find it here. This is It's Been A Long Time...

Meanwhile, over in Todmorden at The Golden Lion Jezebell have a weekend takeover, a line up of DJs, musicians and chancers playing on Saturday and Sunday. The DJs are Darren and Jesse (from Jezebell), Jamie Tolley, Martin Moscrop from ACR, Nessa Johnston, Stuart Alexander, Kim Lana, Adam Roberts and FC Kahuna. The musician playing live is OBOST (Bobby Langfield). The chancer is me. I'm on at 4pm on Sunday afternoon, playing after Jesse's afternoon set. 

Both days should be great fun, the Sunday session maybe a bit more chilled than the Saturday, it's free all weekend and it'll be great to finally meet Jesse and Darren after featuring so much of their music here since 2021 and only ever chatting online. 

Out a couple of weeks on Berlin's Nein Records is an EP by Parvale (Ian Vale and Neil Parnell) with the track Breaker City complete with Jezebell's Nice And Slow Remix, a cut 'n' paste, jerky breakbeat anthem for dancefloor action. The EP is here. 

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. 

Fifty Five Minute Edit Mix

There have been a lot of really good edits out in the wild over the last few years and the thought of slinging a bunch of them together into a Sunday mix became irresistible. In the fifty five minutes below you'll find various artists from the last sixty years of popular culture re- edited and rejigged into new shapes including Gil Scott Heron, Gordon Lightfoot, The Residents, Voice Of Africa, Monsoon, Siouxsie and The Banshees and Les Negresses Vertes. This mix is only part of the story- volume 2 (and maybe 3) will follow shortly. 

Fifty Five Minute Edit Mix

• Western Revolution
• Totem Edits 12- Feel
• Resident Rockers
• Totem Edits 03- Hoomba
• Lonely
• Trading Places (6PM)
• Arabian Knights
• Totem Edits 14- Zombi

Western Revolution was  released on 12" vinyl only, part of Coyote's Magic Wand Special Editions Volume 2, along with Lonely and two other edits (Love Home and Luca). Western Revolution is a live sounding, laid back groove with the unmistakeable voice of Gil Scott Heron advising us about the results of the revolution and theta there will be 'no re- run, brothers and sisters, the revolution will be live'. Lonely picks up where Monsoon's 1981 single Ever So Lonely left off and extends it out.

Totem Edits have become fairly essential recently, a page at Bandcamp for the edit work of Leo Zero and Justin Deighton (with plenty of input from Sean Johnston). One to watch. I posted Feel fairly recently, lovely drawn out funky folk built around a 1967 Gordon Lightfoot song, The Way  Feel. Totem Edit 03 has Voice Of Africa's 1990 Balearic beat smash Hoomba Hoomba close to its core. Totem Edits 14 is one of my favourite recent edits from the pair, a wonderfully absorbing version of Les Negresses Vertes' 1989 French punk/ folk/ Balearic song Zobi La Mouche. 

Resident Rockers is part of a two track EP on the recently reinvigorated Eclectics label, San Francisco avant garde/ art punk rockers/ giant eyeball headgear wearers The Residents bent into new shapes by someone very familiar to this blog. Find Eclectics and the EP here. 

Jezebell are masters of the edit, a sample forming the basis of a completely new track, something old being reworked into something new. Trading Places was a six track pair of EPs from 2023, split into two parts, daytime and nighttime versions. In the 6PM take Siouxsie Sioux's Peek- A- Boo gets reworked and taken for a spin round the floor. 

In 2015 Mojo Filter, an edit veteran, took The Banshees 1981 single Arabian Knights, Siouxsie's post punk psychedelia re- jigged into new shapes. Going from Peek- A- Boo to Arabian Knights seemed like too good an opportunity to miss. 

Alfredo

On Christmas Eve news of the death of Alfredo Fiorito started to come through via social media and an outpouring of remembrances, thanks and sorrow for a man who did as much as any to change the musical culture in the 1980s and afterwards. Alfredo may not be a household name but he was very much a person who, playing records in Ibiza in a time before it became what it is today, altered the landscape. 

Alfredo left Argentina in 1976, fleeing the military junta who were responsible for thousands of left wing and counter- culture figures being disappeared (murdered). He pitched up in Madrid and then Ibiza where he got a job collecting glasses and serving drinks at Amnesia, a club with an open air dance floor where partygoers could dance under the stars until the following day. He saw the twin turntables and mixer and after a bit of playing around, instinctively understood the power of playing music and mixing tracks into one another. He took on the role of Amnesia's DJ and began to play a mixture of records he liked that took the revellers on a journey, in his own words' telling a story with music'. 80s pop, soft rock, leftfield indie, Belgian New Beat, the nascent house music records, reggae, disco, funk, electro- a seamless blend of music united by not much more than Alfredo's ears and the heady euphoria of mid- 80s Ibiza. 

Amnesia and Ibiza was a playground- working class British kids rubbed shoulders with Italian princesses and pop stars, locals and holiday makers. The lack of snobbery in the playlist was reflected on the dance floor. At least, so I'm told. 

This played a key part in inventing acid house in the UK. One of the versions of the acid house origin story is that four London DJs visited Amnesia and when they returned to London, they were determined to do what Alfredo was doing in  Amnesia but in London. Danny Rampling, Paul Oakenfold, Nicky Holloway and Johnny Walker took Alfredo's spirit and record collection and created London's acid house scene. People from the north will give you a different version of the birth of acid house but there's no doubt that Alfredo gave the four London DJs a vision under the stars at Amnesia that they took home with them. 

In 2022 Jezebell (Darren Bell and Jesse Fahnestock) released a track called Jezebellearica, Alfredo's voice put centre stage in an eight minute tribute to the man, with soft drums, washes of synth, nods to various 80s songs, and Alfredo talking about music, the role of the DJ, freedom, the all ages, mixed race crowd, 'real nightlife people' and how that to make people dance 'you have to tell them a story'. Find it here. 

By the late 80s Alfredo's DJ sets incorporated a range of records that didn't necessarily seem like they had much in common but worked together as a whole, repurposing tracks. British indie bands that didn't quite fit into the NME/ Melody Maker controlled indie world at home found themselves rapturously received under the night skies at Amnesia- The Woodentops, Fini Tribe, Nitzer Ebb and Thrashing Doves (Jesus On The Payroll is below) all found a place in Alfredo's sets along with oddball, reclusive avant garde types from the USA such as The Residents (Kaw Liga is below). 

Jesus On The Payroll (Street Groove)

Kaw Liga (Prairie Mix)

The anything goes spirit of Alfredo's Amnesia sets is very much something that influenced me, at several degrees of separation- I never went to Amnesia, never danced under the stars  or sat at the Cafe Del Mar at sunset but what happened there filtered through and the way that walls came down in the late 80s, the blurring of genres and boundaries, affected a lot of us hugely. Over at Ban Ban Ton Ton you can read an interview Dr Rob did with Alfredo in 2014 where Alfredo took us through a Top 25 Amnesia Classics. Read it here. 

Alfredo had a stroke in 2021 and had been unwell ever since. Several times online fund raisers were set up to help pay for his care and rehabilitation. When he died, aged 71, his reputation as The Father of the Balearic Beat had long since been established, the sounds he played and records he selected forty years ago sending ripples out into the world. RIP Alfredo. 

Christmasville

A Certain Ratio have had quite a year. They put out one of 2024's best albums, It All Comes Down To This, an album as good as any in their back catalogue. They followed it with a standalone 7" single, Clockwork Orange, in July and a limited edition vinyl only live recording of the band playing at Kendall Calling, the band playing at Tim Burgess' Tim Peaks Diner, a career spanning nine song album. In mid- December released a new four track 12"/ digital EP called Christmasville. The EP came with a brand new song, Now And Forever, ACR's song for Christmas, and three new remixes, all of which take the ACR sound into new places. 

Jane Weaver's rework of Where You Coming From is a cosmische/ analogue synth psyche delight. Emperor Machine remixes Out From Under into a nine minute electronic funk workout. Jezebell take the third remix slot- Jezebell and ACR hooked up via Martin Moscrop finding a copy of Jezebell's Jezebalearic Beats Vol. 1 album while record shopping in Berlin and approaching Jesse and Darren. Jezebell's Ghost Train Mix of We All Need is six minutes of smouldering electro/ Balearica, dance floor beats, menacing bass and swirling FX. The bright orange vinyl has all gone but you can get the digital here. 

A Certain Ratio weren't finished for the year with the Christmasville EP though. On Monday they put out their gig at New Century Hall in Manchester on 17th May as a live album, all of It All Comes Down To This played live in front of a home crowd (including me). You can find It All Comes Down To This Live St New Century here. I'm assuming that's the end of 2024's ACR activity but there's still five days to go, so who knows, anything could happen. 

Another Bagging Area Mix For Tak Tent Radio

I've done another mix for Tak Tent Radio, an internet radio station broadcasting out of Scotland for several years now and host to a wonderfully diverse and obscure selection of music. This is my twelfth mix for Tak Tent, an hour of tunes entirely music from 2024 and focussing very much on the dubwise sounds before pitching things up at the end with a pair of twisted dancefloor bangers. Listen to it at Tak Tent or at Mixcloud.

Tracklist

•          Coyote: OMG
•          Five Green Moons: One Lost Moon
•          The Jonny Halifax Invocation: The Mountain Dub
•          Richard Norris and Jon Carter: Ceefax (Jon Carter Due South Dub)
•          Puerto Montt City Orchestra: Hey You (10:40 Remix)
•          Pandit Pam Pam: Pass A Wish (Jezebell’s 50 Ways Mix)
•          100 Poems: Come, Hear Me Now
•          Fat White Family: Bullet Of Dignity (Beyond The Wizard’s Sleeve Remix)
•          Acid Klaus ft Philly Piper: Aerodromes (David Holmes Remix)

Cream Tease

What does Wednesday bring? It brings four slices of X rated, road tested, dance floor bangers from Jezebell, Jesse and Darren blurring the boundaries of edit/ remix/ new music and in single entendre mode. Cream Tease opens with Hung and ends with Donkey with The Big Time and Darren's Theme sandwiched in between. Hung is slo mo and crunchy, a grinder. There are voices chanting half way through, flickers of call and response. The Big Time kicks on, faster and harder, streamlined and in full flow, Visage taken for a whirl around the floor, pulses raised with an arena level breakdown and power chords, spinning so fast now we're barely in control. 

Darren's Theme is more basic, a reducer- late 80s jack rhythms, a siren, and a snatch of vocal from Karen Finley's Tales Of Taboo, snarling 'oh let me suck your...'. Later on the reply comes. Karen Finley's Tales Of Taboo is so X rated that even listening to it in the car on your own, you feel like you should be apologising to somebody for what they can hear. Just a two second sample from it carries the same illicit surge. 

Tales Of Taboo (Radio Mix)

Don't let the part in brackets fool you. That isn't a daytime radio friendly version. 

Cream Tease finishes itself off with Donkey, an edit/ mashed up version of Don Quichotte, high camp/ Europop 1984 single by French outfit Magazine 60, the vocals flipping between French and English, Jesse and Darren demonstrating there are no stones they will leave unturned in their endless search for the goods. Get your Cream Tease at Bandcamp. 

Pass A Wish And Take Me To The House

Out today on Brighton's always reliable Higher Love label is one of my favourite EPs of the summer, Pandit Pam Pam's Pass A Wish with a pair of Jezebell remixes. Pandit Pam Pam is an electronic musician from Sao Paulo whose album Camburi came out in July (and featured some guest spots from Henry Olsen, formerly the bass player for Primal Scream in their late 80s/ early 90s pomp and before that part of Nico's touring band in the 80s). I wrote about Camburi here. Eduardo, one of the two men behind Pandit Pam Pam also puts music out on his Boston Medical Group label and has sent me music from time to time, including releases by Feriasdasferias. On Pass A Wish Eduardo in Sao Paulo gets remixed by my favourite remix/ edit pair Jezebell, Jesse (in Stockholm) and Darren (in London). 

Pass A Wish is a dreamy, floaty four minutes of music, built around a fluttering rhythm and with horns hinting at its Brazilian origins and surroundings. The synths bubble away and a female voice drifts on top, somewhere between singing and talking. It nods in the direction of A Man Called Adam's 1990/ 1991 sound- yep, that good. 

The pair of Jezebell remixes both transport Pass A Wish elsewhere. Jezebell's 50 Ways Remix presumably tips its hat at Paul Simon's 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover (whose drum break has been sampled widely, not least by one Andrew Weatherall on his head spinning remix of Love Corporation's Give Me Some Love). The drums give it a funky, constant motion while the synths and voice swirl around the rhythm and the chopped up horn drops in and out. Very cool indeed. 

Jezebell's Leave Your Lover Mix is sleek and chuggy, a different rhythm and feel, more night time with handclaps and percussion leading the charge, the horn chopped up and FXed even more, everything pushed a little further into the cosmos. The Pass A Wish EP is available at Bandcamp from today. You know what to do. 

Also out today is the latest release from teenage wonderkid OBOST. Take Me To The House was one of the standouts on OBOST's debut album (released at the start of this year), a shimmering, multi- coloured slice of electronic euphoria, rising and falling synths and four four drums. On the new EP the original is reworked into Take Me To The Basement, a slowed down version with a juddering rhythm and fizzing synths. 

There's a remix too by Tronik Youth, a much beatier, more percussive version, with a no nonsense kick drum, pulsing synthlines and heading straight to the heart of the dancefloor. The EP is out today and again, available at Bandcamp. 

More Weekend Machines

At the end of May Jezebell released a track on The Ransom Note, the single minded dancefloor action of Weekend Machines. For much of the last eighteen months Jesse and Darren have created a Balearic soundtrack- their album Jezeballearic Beats Volume 1 borrowed the original Balearic Beats album's cover art, they sampled at length a monologue by legendary Ibiza DJ Alfredo, they pulled together samples and edits and rebuilt songs by Talking Heads, Siouxsie Sioux and Kajagoogoo, they purloined the 1988 Balearic classic Jibaro and Belgian underground classic from 1987 Max Berlin's' Elle Et Moi and on Jezeblue and Trading Places reimagined the Mediterranean sounds for 2023 into 2024. All this and more. A Balearic masterclass. 

They're now edging away from this, away from the poolside and beach and towards the darkness of the strobe lit basement, music with the sole purpose of finding a groove and making people dance. The EP's lead and title track, Weekend Machines, has one of those acid 303 basslines that you could happily allow to play forever, providing some bottom end to everything you do. On top, the synths and arpeggios dance around. Beneath, the drum machine power on. The vocal samples, distorted robotic voices, tell of the coming of the machines. Enough already, as they say- just get on the floor.

The remaining three tracks on the EP don't let up. Autostrada is a motorik hymn to the Italian motorway system, a futuristic 80s journey from Rome to Milan, drum machine rhythms clocking up the miles on the tarmac, a sample by Italo house pioneers Mr Flagio providing the spark for Jezebell's krauty machine music. Citric is bumpier, a bouncing rhythm and bassline switching the flow from four four to shuffle, with gnarly guitars and synths. The EP finishes with a remix of the title track by Shubostar, cosmic DJ/ producer from South Korea  but currently in Berlin. Her remix slows the pace slightly, drops the pitch and pulls the bass to the fore, and then achieves lift off with sci fi synth chords and bleeps, an 80s space TV soundtrack crossed with underground outer space chug. 

All of which, without wanting to get too '80s TV nostalgia' on you, led to me thinking about Erin Gray as Col. Wilma Deering in Buck Rogers In The 25th Century...

What's up Buck?

You can get the EP at Bandcamp. 

Weekend Machines

Jezebell have been pushing their way into the Balearic/ acid house world over the last two years, especially so in the last 12 months. Their album Jezebelearic Beats Vol 1. caused a fuss when it came out digitally last summer and again with the vinyl release this spring. The vinyl release has slightly fewer tracks than the digital and runs in a different order, the sequencing of four sides of vinyl an artform in itself. Since my copy of the album arrived it's been semi- resident on my turntable, an opportunity to enjoy the album all over again. From the languid, Ibizan beats of Jezebellaeric (with a voice over from the legendary DJ Alfredo) to the ten minute blissed out feel of Jezeblue, the album is filled with a laid back, coastal feel. It also has plenty of moments where the tempos rise, the beats get thumpier and the feel is more intense, more dance floor oriented- Swamp Shuffle finds Jezebell leading Byrne, Frantz, Harrison and Weymouth for a dizzying spin under the mirror ball. 

Man 2.0's Red Shift, remixed by Darren and Jesse as the Jezebell Inner Child Mix, is an electronic maelstrom. Jezebell's Trading Places (3 PM) is a mid- paced, mid- afternoon warm up, the sound of a few liveners sunk and the head spinning a little. If you're quick there are a handful of copies of the album left at Bandcamp. 

Jezebell have been at it in real life too- Jesse and Darren played a Jezebell DJ set at The Evil Acid Baron's Weekender in Devon last weekend and in June Darren and guests host a Jezebell takeover at The Golden Lion in Todmorden. 

Jezebell have a new track out today, a seven minute banger with the self explanatory title Weekend Machines. Described in their own words as a 'late- night, strobe- lit, smoke- machine, low- ceiling, eyes- closed, spring- loaded, acid house avalanche' Weekend Machines is a hairpin turn away from the beach and poolside sounds in favour of something darker, thumpier, and more direct, an injection of electricity and intensity- four four drums, definitely machine made, wobbling synth sounds, chugging bass that pushes, acid house mayhem, and a distorted voice that wriggles into the ears and the brain, a voice that ends up repeating one word- 'machines'. It's the next step. You can listen to or buy this room- shaker here. 

An Hour For Tak Tent Radio

Last Sunday Tak Tent Radio hosted an hour long mix of mine, my tenth for the radio station. You can listen to it at Mixcloud and or at Tak Tent. It's mainly made up of music from 2023 with a couple of older (but still fairly recent) ones, almost all having featured at this blog at some point in the past. The Jezebell track is unavailable elsewhere and was sent out to people who pre- ordered the double vinyl edition of Jezebellearic Beats Vol 1(and although Jesse and Darren said the track would never be made available from them they were happy for other people to share it- I thought this mix was a good place for it and luckily Jesse and Darren agree). The Khidja track has become a minor Bagging Area obsession- this is the third mix its appeared on, previously making it onto my end of 2023 mix and the David Holmes at The Golden Lion one a few weeks ago.  

• CLAIR: Body Blossom (Extended Mix)
• Psychederek: Test Card Girl
• Andy Bell and Masal: Tidal Love Conversation In That Familiar Golden Orchard (Edit)
• Coyote: We Got Lost
• Justin Robertson’s Deadstock 33s: Golden Twilight 23
• Cole Odin: Dawn’s Approaching (Psychemagik Remix)
• Jezebell: A Dangerous Side
• C.A.R.: Anzu
• Khidja: Do You Know This Record Marius?
• Bedford Falls Players: Marmite Marimba
• Four Tet: Bubbles At Overlook 25th March 2019

 

Bibbles

Andres y Xavi are a duo from Brighton whose Sounds From The Secret Bar was a slo mo, slow burn, Balearic/ downtempo double album summer 2021 highlight. They followed it a few singles/ remixes including Bibbles, out in the middle of last year. Andres y Xavi asked Jezebell to remix Bibbles and Jezebell went to town creating not just one but three remixes of the original, each remix one containing the seeds of the next. 

The first is Bibbles (Pots And Pans Mix), an abstracted, stuttering take with whirring, ticking, clanking and clicking sounds over the drums. Jezebell say its not a million miles from vintage DJ Shadow and I'd add Clock Factory (from Sabresonic) and some 90s Warp records as reference points. It's endlessly inventive, a remix that keeps surprising as it twists and splutters to its endpoint, a chopped up vocal sounding like the baa baaing of electronic sheep. 

Bibbles (Bubble And Squeak Mix) is a step up in tempo from Pots And Pans. It sets out from a similar point but streamlines itself fairly quickly, coalescing into an insistent synth riff and slo mo drums with lasers flashing and a human voice lost somewhere inside it, a remix that combines spaced out with a hefty thump. 

Bibbles (Baubles And Beads Mix) completes the triptych, a six minute work out with a nod to mid- 80s hip hop grooves, some thundering bass, some 60s organ and those electronic sheep back again, this time accompanied by cowbell. Floor shaking action. 

The Bibbles remix package came out yesterday and you can hear it and purchase from Higher Love here.