Grown Up Fun

Matt Gunn has featured here before, his various solo works taking in chuggy cosmische, dubbed out shoegaze, psyche rock and psychedelia. Always interesting, always groovy, always tuneful. Matt has got a new EP out under the name Freedom For Adults, the result of him catching up with an old friend from a band they were both in three decades ago, meeting at the end of 2025 and recording some new material. His friend, Ram Orion, was on temporary respite from his adopted country. They met in Todmorden, a place where the stars align and the channels cross, and then again in the Malvern Hills and then went back to Windsor where they wrote and recorded four songs- Freedom For An Adult, Thanks For The Offer, Zonkey Or Zorse and Your Tomorrow.

The first of those, Freedom For An Adult, is a slippery funky number with echoes of Talking Heads (the big, post- Eno Talking Heads), chanted vocals and synth bass with sinuous guitar lines. Thanks For The Offer comes in with cowbell and then buzzsaw guitars over dance beats, sounding like an indie- dance band crossing over on an early 90s Top Of The Pops, wide eyed and baggy trousered. Zonkey Or Zorse is slower with a cowboy bounce, woodblock and a loping gait, and vocals that sound like they've been beamed in from one of the 80s/ early 90s Creation band. Your Tomorrow is psychedelic indie- pop, infused with the spirit of possibility that the acid house revolution offered and the guitar band/ sampling sound pioneered by B.A.D. among others. The EP, Freedom For Adults OK! finishes with an Airsine remix of Thanks For The Offer that goes all 2020s ALFOS mirrorball chug. 

You can find Freedom For Adults OK! at Electric Wardrobe Records Bandcamp. There's loads of more Matt Gunn recordings, EPs singles, remixes and albums at Bandcamp. 

Three years ago Matt released an album called Mostly Fiction which included Learning Thru Loops, a stunning piece of electronic music that sets sail for the cosmos, and via the magic of bleeps and synths, piano and arpeggios and drum machines, arrives far away but bang on time. 

Friday Dub Disco Party

Earlier this year Matt Gunn released an EP titled Nowhere, three tracks long and led by the long drifting dubby electronics/ guitars of Something Ain't Wrong If Something Ain't Right- a track that sounded a little like early Verve produced by Adrian Sherwood. Matt's finishing the year with a new EP, four tracks brought together as Electric Dub Cuts. Big Static has a digital reggae bounce, long slow synth chords and the kind of space and feel of The Orb. Wicker Dub is credited to Gordon and Gunn, a seven minute odyssey with chopped up voices from TV adverts, an oompty sounding kick drum, the kind of bassline that gets a nervous system response and synths that prickle the skin and make the hairs on the nape of your neck stand up. 

The third track- Someone Else's Dream (Matt Gunn Dub Mix) by Electric Wood- is a woozy, bluesy, late night howl with a thumping dub rhythm. Electric Dub Cuts concludes with Dub Electric- eight minutes long and the sort of dubbed out indie dance that used to take up all of side B of a 12" single, the results of a guitar band sent spinning into the cosmos by a talented remixer. Lovely stuff. Get all four over at Matt Gunn's Bandcamp treasure trove. 

Out on Duncan Gray's Tici Taci today is the latest EP from Uj Pa Gaz, four tracks out of Tirana, Albania. It's an Adriatic delight, the blissed out feel of Balearica crossed with the chuggy Tici Taci sound and something else, the Tirana magic ingredient. Outerdubelic is expansive and led by a wonderful guitar topline over twinkling synths and chunky drums. Simple Brain is cut from similar cloth, optimistic and forward thinking psychedelic dance music, long synth chords and bursts of acidic squiggle. 

Dissimilar Function is a slo mo treat, a heady, dancing under the stars kind of track, an acid undertow with a two note refrain that splatters itself across the mix, grin inducing, ecstatic stuff. ALFOS via Albania. Shok cuts the tempos again and shuffles in, a voice buried somewhere in the, keys and synths, maybe a guitar, chuggy drums, sunsets... wonderful. Get it at Tici Taci. 

Edit: due to an admin error the release of Outerdubelic is delayed by a few weeks. There are some clips of each track at Soundcloud.

In Leeds Paisley Dark continues to put out high quality releases. The latest comes from Viper Patrol, a wonky acid/ dark disco track called Dancing Voices. The original comes with two remixes, one by  Cosmikuro and one by A Space Age Freak Out. Cosmikuro heads for the darker edges of the dancefloor, shimmering shards of guitar and funky clipped riffs lighting the way. A Space Age Freak Out freaks out, a psyche dub extravaganza. 

The second track is Def Charge- more dark disco with a trippy edge. The remixes of this one come from Ian Vale and Airsine. Ian Vale's is bass heavy and percussive. Airsine's is propulsive and insistent, punctuated by rippling synths and shouts. The whole package is at Bandcamp. 

Nowhere

Matt Gunn's latest EP, a three track wonder called Nowhere, came out last Friday. Matt said that while recording it he just 'let all the influences come out and just hit record'. The first track is eight minutes of dub/ shoegaze splendour called Somthing Ain't Wrong If Something Ain't Right, an electronic drumbeat crawl with currents of guitar drippled all over the place, FX and blurred, multi- tracked vocals singing a hymn to a feeling. Eventually a bassline hits. Think Nick McCabe in 1992 playing along with The Orb at an after party as the sun comes up and you're in the right area.

Second track NoWerk takes Dusseldorf as its launchpad, a Kling Klang inspired six minutes of machine music. Again, the vocals are buried in the track, within earshot but almost out of reach. Squelchy rhythms and clean keyboard topline melodies. 

The third track is The Third Wave, almost nine minutes long and not a second wasted, more FXed guitars, more shimmering psychedelia in no hurry to get anywhere quickly. Two and a half minutes in drums and electronic strings show up, some electric piano, more sun dazzled guitar lines. Some time spent in ambient psychedelics contemplating... stuff. 

Nowhere is here. Highly recommended. 

Fifty Five Minutes Of Bedford Falls Players

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

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

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

Fifty Five Minutes Of Bedford Falls Players

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shapes And Patterns And Burning Floors

Let's end the working week, the last full week before the Christmas holiday, and the end of the school term with some more new music- both electronic but with a world of difference between them. First is a track from M- Paths who I first encountered at Mighty Force, with a really impressive pair of albums. This new one is self- released, a four minute burst of Aphex Twin inspired ambient electro/ techno called Shapes and Patterns that has rapid, rattling drums, dancing synths and repetitive melodic passages interrupted by bursts of bass, the music never settling for long but constantly twisting and turning.

Out today on the ever wonderful Tici Taci is a new EP from Jack Butters, an original called Floor Burner and a pair of remixes. The vocal sample, 'I think it's time to make the floor burn', should leave no one in any doubt about why this track exists. Drums and synths judder and chug, the bassline descends, wobbly FX fire off all over the place. 

The remixes come from Rule Six and The Time Machine Drop Outs. Rule Six go for the low slung, slow burn, the bassline pumping on as the synths and FX glitter around it. Time Machine Drop Outs are Matt Gunn (see yesterday's post) and Chad Jackson (of the Hacienda and hearing drummers getting wicked among other things). The tempo is low, the guitar is funky, the floor is burned. 

Another Pleasant Valley Death Cult

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

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

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

Ringmakers And Repulsion

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

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

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

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

Vapour Trails And Dub Clones

Some new music to brighten up Thursday. Two weeks ago Matt Gunn released a new track, Dub Clone Rising, ten minutes of early 90s beats and distorted synth sounds, cosmic dub, like a remix of a remix of a guitar band that you bought on 12" in Our Price in 1991 after reading a review in NME or Melody Maker. You can listen and buy at Bandcamp.

Newly out on Coyote's Is It Balearic? label is a four track EP from Wrekin Havoc with super smooth vocals from Greg Bird and remixes courtesy of Wolfy and Gold Suite. There are two songs, both grounded in the 1980s but built for 2024. Vapour Trails is melancholic 80s pop sliced with Italo disco, lyrically making the suggestion that we should stop, look, and take care of things- the vibe is an episode of Top Of The Pops from 1987 you've never seen and without the shrieking presenters and all the inanity. Gold Suite's remix turns the summer feel up, a Balearic remix for long hot evenings (not that we've had any really yet so far up here). 

The second track is Broken Wings and sounds tailor made for dance floor out on one of the Mediterranean islands with the hint of some acid in there too. Seductive stuff. Woolfy brings his Californian touch, stripping it back and adding a more electronic groove to proceedings. It's a vinyl release and I can't find any digital to share but there are some clips to listen to at Juno. 

Back in 2021 Coyote and Woolfy collaborated on their Return To Life EP, a five track. On Save Me Coyote provided the slow mo Balearic beats and Woolfy the blue- eyed soul vocals. 

Music From Two Mats

The first day of March is the first day of meteorological spring, the emergence from winter. It feels like it's been a long winter, the dark mornings and evenings hanging around for a long time. I've been unwell this week, spending two days off work and in bed. And last week I did this to my finger (ring finger, left hand)...

That x- ray shows my dislocated finger, done playing football when the ball struck my hand end on. Straight away I knew it was bad, not an injury I would just run off. I got to A&E at Wythenshawe at just after 10pm last Tuesday night and was told there was an eight hour wait, that I'd be better off going home, trying to sleep and coming back at 8am the next morning. The following morning a very nice A&E nurse sent me for an x- ray (above), diagnosed a dislocated finger and brought in the gas and air for me to inhale while she pulled my finger back into socket. 'Ooh, I felt a click, did you?', she said at one point. I can confirm that gas and air is first rate as a pain killer and can make a patient feel quite light headed. Also that yes, I felt a click too. A visit to hand clinic last Thursday saw me leave with a splint. It's been badly bruised, swollen, various shades of purple and painful ever since. But obviously better than it was in that x- ray where two thirds of my finger are very much not where they should be. 

This week on Tuesday morning I took yet more painkillers and felt nauseous straight away. I went to work and got on with things and took more pain killers near lunchtime. Later on I was sick in my classroom bin (thankfully not in front of any of my classes- memorable for them maybe but not something that I'd choose to happen). Whether I've overdone the pain killers or picked up a bug that the medicines I've been taking reacted with I don't know, but by the time I got home on Tuesday evening I was done in and spend most of Wednesday and much of Thursday in bed. I'm also currently taking an anti- histamine for my chronic sinusitis and eustachian tube dysfunction (long standing and ongoing, possibly an after effect of Covid, possibly an allergic reaction to something) and statins (inherited high cholesterol, diagnosed last summer). Pills 'n' thrills and bellyache, as the Happy Mondays had it on their album of 1990.  

Enough of my moaning- today is therefore not just the first day of spring but the first day I've felt any better this week so here are two different recent releases from varying ends of the electronic music spectrum. First, some calming and beautiful ambient/ modern classical music from Mat Ducasse. Mat was once Matty Skylab, one of the four people in Skylab along with Howie B, Masayuko Kudo and Toshio Nakanishi. Their back catalogue is full of weird and wonderful electronic delights, experimental mid- 90s trip hop and electronica. In recent years Mat's solo recordings have been excursions into deep listening, ambient soundscapes. His latest release is two versions of Song For David, a track recorded in memory of a friend who died of prostate cancer. Both versions, one with bells and the other without, are sublime, with oscillations, washes of synth, long chords and brightly hued ambience. You can find Song For David here. 

In 1997 Mat Ducasse remixed this song along with William Orbit, Psyche Rock, by French pair Pierre Henry and Michel Colombier, a song oringally from 1967, a leftfield, rocking late 90s update on mid 60s Franco- psychedelia. 

It provides a nice link to Elexperimental by Matt Gunn, a four track EP that came out yesterday, described by Matt as 'akin to Kraftwerk and LCD with a bass after a night on the sauce'. This is music that is vibrant and up for it, music that thumps out of speakers and blows the dust away. Golden Graham is breakbeats and fuzzed up synths over a white knuckle bassline, kicking and jerking around. Bingo's Crime (with Louis Gordon)is electronic funk and long keyboard chords beamed in from Dusseldorf four decades ago, bleeps riding on top. Third track, Drive Thru Century, starts with the sound of cars spinning their wheels and revving their engines, a souped up take on Autobahn, then more drum machines and synths/ keys from West Germany, a lovely padding bassline and the sound of the future, then, now. The EP finishes with We Are Ninja, in collaboration with Toffeetronic, mid 80s electro- pop, fizzing, bubbling synths, needle scratches and a vocal chanting the title. Lots of fun, something for everyone and also tracks that never quite do what you expect them to do. Buy the Elexperimental EP here. 

Mad Friday

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

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

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

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

Dirt Bogarde And Bedford Falls

Some mid- December dancefloor action for Friday, mid- advent chug and throb of Balearica and acid house. I'm desperately resisting the urge to type the word 'madvent'- and have failed. 

Back in April I clicked play on Heavy Blotter by Dirt Bogarde and was hit hard by it, nine minutes of  speaker rattling acid house thump, tingles down my spine and overloaded senses. In June I played it at the Golden Lion, the Lion's sound system magnifying it to the power of ten. Since then Dirt has released monthly transmissions via Bandcamp, the latest coming out today. Out Into The Gap is another slide sideways, Dirt not content to repeat himself- low slung and squelchy, a dark drive through the city at night as seen through the windows of the back seat of a car. There's some Detroit in this one, Carl Craig circa Landcruising maybe, synth flutters and chords on top and a second half that punches back in, drums and synths going off all the place. Out In To The Gap is at Dirt's Bandcamp today. 

Straight outta Windsor, Matt Gunn's label Electric Wardrobe Records is set to release a three track EP from Bedford Falls Players today, two BFP tracks and a Bedford Falls remix of Matt. Bedford Falls Players is Mark Cooper, DJ and producer, a man who really knows his stuff. The first track, Marmite Marimba, is a beauty, full of buzzing, fizzing sounds plus the titular instrument weaving a melody line on top. At two and a half minutes it suddenly bursts into ecstatic noise and then drops out into bass and then more marimba. Spellbinding stuff, musical sculpture really as much as music. 

Matt Gunn's Learning Through Loops came out in April this year, a Mark Cooper, the man behind Bedford Falls Players, remixed the title track and sent me a version of it months ago, another track I played at The Golden Lion in June. I fell for it the first time I played it and it's lost none of its impact, a gorgeous Balearic tune with squelchy bass, chuggy drums and a guitar part that sounds like something John Squire put down on tape at Battery Studios back in early 1989 when recording the Stone Roses debut lp and then never used. Over the top of this Mark has laid a vocal sample taken from TV, a voice talking about sound waves, binary problems in quantum systems, core computers, voodoo, 'shit like this', hidden variables, time travel, determinism, party tricks and the voice of Jesus. It's been played constantly round here, one of my favourite tracks of 2023, and you should all get on it. 

The third track on the EP is Matt's remix of BFP's Chug Hug, heavy duty chugging rhythm, gnarly guitars, bursts of synth and a surge in the second half as it all comes together for the climb to the peak. There are some clips of all three tracks at Soundcloud and I'll link to Bandcamp and Youtube later on today as and when things go live. Electric Wardrobe Records and the Three EP can be found here. Bedford Falls Players have a link to this time of year, something you'll no doubt be aware of if you've seen It's A Wonderful Life. 

Mostly Remixes

Matt Gunn's album Mostly Fiction came out earlier this year, ten tracks of electronic goodness that closes with the rippling, bleepy, ambient euphoria of Learning Through Loops. 

The first of a set of remix EPs came out at the start of the month- Mostly Remixed 1 features a pair of remixes, the first an Al Mackenzie remix of Learning Through Loops and the second a Matt Gunn remix of the epic Space Drohne. Al hits the button marked 'thumper', the drums kicking in from the off with blasts of synth, rumbling bass, rattling percussion, rising chords and eventually sirens and melodica- a widescreen/ sci fi/ house remix that make rainy summer days feel good. Find it at Bandcamp. 

Play it alongside this for maximum fun- Bass- The Final Frontier (David Holmes remix), one of 2023's best remixes so far, a seven minute David Holmes remix of Jo Sims, one of four songs from an EP that came out on Pamela records in July. I wrote about the EP at Ban Ban Ton Ton last month.  

Matt's remix of Space Drohne, the Floor Mix, is eight minutes of action in a similar sphere, drum machines, space synths, rave synths, breakbeats, synth arpeggios, synth bass, the machinery of Behringer, Roland and Moog in full effect. 

Al Mackenzie is a member of D: Ream and also puts out work under his own name. His latest release, a two track EP called Hold Your Own, came out on Field Of Dreams at the start of August. Get it here. The title track is my pick of the pair, nine minutes of thumpy, wiggy acid house. Music that sounds good in the dark. 

Download all the above and stick them all together in one playlist/ on one CD for maximum enjoyment, a late summer mixtape. 

Bad Toys

I posted Matt Gunn’s Learning Through Loops, a track from his album Mostly Fiction, a week ago, last Monday. Coincidentally, the following Friday Matt released a new EP called Bad Toys, containing two new tracks Sun Mobil and Wonky Tonka. Both are jammed full of those lovely, feel good, uptempo, summer sounds, the sort of songs you like to imagine you might hear in the hour before sunset at Glastonbury, not on the main stage but somewhere further afield, one of the stages/ tents at the fringes of the festival. Again, not necessarily coincidentally, quite a few people I know are heading to Somerset today or already there. 

Sun Mobil rides in with a bounce, an urgent drum sample and repeating synth part, the bassline thumping in after thirty seconds. There are long waves of synth chords and a choppy rhythm guitar followed by a lovely, sunlit lead guitar. A squiggly acid topline enters and starts to do its work. Then there's a piano breakdown at four minutes, sending everything higher followed by a vocal, lines about chasing the warmth of summer, ‘Come on and find the sunshine/ Come on and find the sun’. It repeats and then everything crashes back in- drums, bass, guitar, synths, joined by a long, keening melody line.

Wonky Tonka is even giddier, a buzzing synth part, sirens, bumping rhythm and vocal sample, A funked up guitar part moves to the foreground and then the whole thing switches, percussion and drum breaks and a fully wigged out distorted synth sound, rising and falling. The way Matt keeps switching between the different sections has a bit of an old school hip hop vibe, the DJ cutting back and forth between the breakdown from two different records to keep the party going, the decks and speakers powered by electricity from the street lights. On it goes, the funky guitar riff cutting in and out and the twitchy synth part twisting itself round and round. Get Bad Toys here. 

Monday's Long Song

Matt Gunn released an album back in April titled Mostly Fiction, an album I missed at the time and only found recently. It's nine tracks of cosmic and sonic adventuring, full of sounds from the machines of Moog, Behringer and Roland. This is the closing track, an eight minute sweet spot, a glide by of synths, electronic drums and FX called Learning Through Loops. The piano run that kicks in at three and a half minutes is spine tingling and the subsequent five minutes are pretty transcendent. Buy Mostly Fiction here. 

Transition Theory

In June 2015 Andrew Weatherall did a mix for Resident Advisor, RA.470 (with music from amongst others Flash Atkins, Duncan Gray and Vox Low). One of the questions they asked him in the mini- interview to go with the mix was as follows-

'Can you tell us the idea behind the mix?'

'The idea', Weatherall replied with typical wit, 'was to sequence some records together without the joins being too apparent.'

On the new 10:40 album Transition Theory (out next Tuesday on Valentine's Day) Jesse Fahnestock has pursued this idea into full album territory. A DJ mix is all about great tracks, the transitions between them and the flow of the overall whole. Jesse's started there, moved into making individual tracks and then turned it into a concept album. He's worried that he's releasing his best work at a time when people don't listen to whole albums any more but those who are interested will listen to Transition Theory as it is intended- an eleven track, uninterrupted whole- and those that don't, will miss out.  

Transition Theory opens with the slow motion, electronic haze of Tumbling Down, the distant and distorted voice of jazz pianist Keith Jarrett just faintly audible. As an introduction, it's seductive and glides in gently, percussion and a descending guitar line backgrounded by layers of ambient noise and FX. Over the next four songs, the transition theory makes itself clear as one song segues into another, the later features of one track becoming the first elements of the next. Ninety- Now picks up where Tumbling Down's drums left off but now joined by a backwards guitar chord and then some chuggy synths, building insistently. Ninety- Now's dancing melody fades into The Engineer, a sturdy groove picking up. It's all about momentum now. As The Engineer winds down, Picking Flowers sets off with the same synth arpeggio but then quickly starts to go elsewhere, transitioning into a blissed out two minute build up and then breaking down into something slinky and very European sounding. Picking Flowers then becomes Jimmy Ripp, the stuttering rhythm bent into a new form with a wave of juddering synths. 

From the opening notes that played twenty eight minutes earlier 10:40 has slipped and slid through five tracks, each one an extension of the previous one, new ideas bouncing around each time but all linked. At this point the album pauses. If it were a record or a tape we'd turn it over and put side two on, drop the needle or press play. Sunday's Cool bounces in, a chunky mid- set tune with a voice hidden somewhere under the beats. Regime Shift Dub busts Sunday's Cool's drums up, the tempo halved and dub's sense of space and atmosphere slugging it out with the former track's melodies. 'I can't stop it now', a voice says, 'I can't stop it now', the sense of flow and direction seemingly effortless and easy. We're working our way to the conclusion now, the distorted dubbed out synths morphing into Smoke The Demon. Side two is becoming a serious trip, glitched and fractured, trippy and hypnotic, psychedelic electronic music finding some space in between the loosest, most wigged out parts of indie- dance, the trippy edges of house music and with techno's intensity, the area Weatherall, Hardkiss, Underworld and others made their own three decades ago. At The Turning Of The Tide flows in on the oscillating synths of the previous track and features the voices of Emilia Harmony and Matt Gunn, reverbed and disembodied, drifting in and out of the twinkling synths and chuggy rhythms, the gothic spirit of basement clubs, hairspray and black leather now a presence. Thundering bass and drums see the song out and into the ringing bells of The Mountain, a track that breaks apart beautifully into an ambient dubby spacescape. Final track Mantis glides in as The Mountain finishes, the programmed drums now stepping things up, bass and guitar atmospherics (courtesy of Matt Gunn) the bedrock for a topline of sci fi bleeps. Onwards it goes with drums and washes of sound, bleeps and phasers pushing forwards for nearly eight minutes. 

You can buy Transition Theory here, the eleven tracks available singly, as an album and also with a twelfth track, the hour long album as one continuous mix. There was some indication Jesse's 10:40 was heading in this direction with his mix for Higher Love last year, an hour of music with a similar flow, feel and transitions found in there among Cowboy Junkies, Rich Lane, The Charlatans, Matt Gunn, Kusht, Yarni, Cosmikuro, MAKS, Hugh Masekela, Primal Scream and several 10:40s tracks. I've posted it before- you can find it at Mixcloud or below. You can use it to kill the time between now and Tuesday.

Higher Love 10: 40 Mix

NYE: A Mix For Dancing

New Year's Eve- I'm not sure what we're going to do tonight. New Year's Eve is a strange night at the best of times (unless you're young and in a club where all that happens is that the countdown to midnight is a brief interruption to a night of dancing). The reflective, verging on maudlin, aspects of it are too easily summoned at the moment but celebrating it feels odd too. Caught in no man's land.

But, still, Happy New Year to everyone who comes here for the music and the words, thank you for your comments and support, it means a lot. I hope you're having a good time tonight whether you're choosing to do something or nothing. See you all in 2023 for more of the same. 

This is a mix I put together of tracks from 2022, made for dancing to. It's what I'd want to hear as the clock ticked towards midnight, if happened to find myself in a sweaty basement with a good sound system and a strobe light tonight- you never know, it could happen. Sean Johnston's work features heavily, turning up on four of the tracks. There are a couple of transitions where things are a little skewwhiff (one of them skewwhiff in a way I quite like, the beats and noises piling up messily and then clearing) and the BPMs may be a little out but I think the track selection is good enough. A bunch of dance records sequenced together for an hour and a quarter, with a slow spaced out ambient start, a dubby ending and plenty of dancers in between. Happy new year.

NYE 2022 Dance Mix

• Space Ghost: 4 AM
• Long Range Desert Group: Adjustment Notice
• Rude Audio: Big Heat
• The Summerisle Six: This Is Something (Dub Mix)
• Peak High: Was That All It Was (Hardway Bros Bleep Dub)
• David Holmes: It's Over, If We Run Out Of Love (Hardway Bros Remix)
• Unloved: Turn Of The Screw (Erol Alkan Rework)
• The Orielles: Darkened Corners (Eyes Of Others Remix)
• Phil Kieran and Green Velvet: Enjoy The Day (Hardway Bros Meet Monkton Downtown Remix)
• Matt Gunn: Disko Drohne
• Cantoma ft. Quinn Lamont Luke: Alive (Conrad's Vacant Lot Remix)
• 10:40: Hawaii (Big Wave Dub)

Disco Drohne

This is a new release from the Paisley Dark label, a Leeds based record label pumping electronic psychedelia and various other leftfield sounds into the ether. Matt Gunn has produced a three track EP called Disco Drohne, chockfull of dark, insistent dancefloor sounds, the music for 'a disco at the end of the universe'. On the title track there's a stoned sounding voice talking about '74 and the beginnings of disco, some acid squiggles, whooshing sounds, a chunky 303 drum track, the space of dub techno and a bassline to cause trouble. 

Alternative version Lost In The Dronhe goes spaced out, the comedown after the blast off, with a swirl of guitars, FX and synths- all still pretty intense-  and when joined by a piano part from the left hand side of the keyboard and some harmonica and then a guitar solo it all really goes off into inner space. I Am The Energy is robotic voices and jackhammer beats. Fourth track, the hidden Disco Drohne (Outro) is a full on psychedelic stew, a whirlpool of sounds and FX. If there is a disco at the end of the universe, this is what they're playing in the back room.

Buy it at Bandcamp.