Oblique Saturdays

A series for Saturdays in 2026 inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas). Eno and Schmidt created them to be used to unblock creative impasses and approach problems from unexpected angles. Each week I'll turn over an Oblique Strategy card and post a song or songs inspired by the suggestion. 

Last week's Oblique Strategy suggestion was Is there something missing?

I went for Todd Terry's 1996 remix of Everything but The Girl's Missing, Dub Syndicate, Joy Division's transition into New Order, Durutti Column, R.E.M. and The Clash. The Bagging Area Oblique Saturdays squad went into overdrive and came up with late period New Order without Hooky, The Verve without Nick McCabe, Elvis Costello, Janis Joplin (whose vocals were missing from a song she was supposed to record the day she died), Julian Cope and Peggy Suicide, The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu, Wire, The Stranglers, Tindersticks, The Bad Seeds, Andrew Weatherall's Music's Not For Everyone radio shows, Athletico Spizz and R. Missing. Thank you Chris, Beerfueledlad, Rol, Khayem, C, The Swede, JC and Walter. 

Peggy Suicide Is Misisng closes Julian Cope's 1992 opus Jehovakill, a forty two second burst of notes and noise and Cope, the Archdrude, singing, 'mother, mother, mother...' 

Peggy Suicide Is Missing

This weeks Oblique Strategy card says this- Don't break the silence.

At first I thought I'd turned a repeat Oblique Strategy card but on checking it just seemed familiar- I've had both Tape your mouth and Do nothing for as long as possible before, both of which at first felt like they come from a similar place. I wondered if I should choose again but then the word silence prompted me and this came to mind...

A Life Of Silence (Timothy J. Fairplay's Fall Of Shame Remix)

Released on Andrew Weatherall's Bird Scarer Records back in 2012, a vinyl only 12" series that ran to just seven releases, Tim (Andrew's engineer in the studio in the early 2010s and his partner in The Asphodells) remixed Scott Fraser's A Life Of Silence. Scott was one of the Scrutton Street Axis, one of several artists who took a room in Andrew Weatherall's Scrutton Street bunker complex near Brick Lane in London. They all had to vacate eventually as the forces of free market capitalism decided that an underground bunker complex containing several DJs, musicians and producers making relatively small scale music aimed at a few hundred souls was an inefficient use of property. 'Artists', Andrew said at the time, 'are the vanguard of gentrification'.

Tim's remix is a beauty, a nine minute electronic excursion into early New Order/ music for the Cold War territory, the chuggy drums, Hooky- esque bass, choppy guitars and cosmische synths all conjuring 21st century acid house and images of Warsaw Pact maneuvers, West Berlin and early 80s Manchester. Maybe that's just me. 

I could have left it there. Don't break the silence by adding to A Life Of Silence. There's loads more songs in my collection with silence in the title: The Asphodells only album had One Minute Silence on it,a  John Betjemen inspired lyric (also released for RSD as a vinyl only 12" with a Wooden Shjips remix); I've recently been reviewing and enjoying the new album by Lines Of Silence; Depeche Mode enjoy their silence; Television Personalities had an angry silence; Daniel Avery is Out Of Silence, Justin Robertson has a Cup Of Silence; and Duncan Gray has an imperfect silence. 

More conceptually I then thought of Bill Drummond, never a man to shy away from something grand and important. In 2005 he declared 21st November as No Music Day, a day of silence to draw attention to the cheapening of music as an art form.

'I decided I needed a day I could set aside to listen to no music whatsoever. Instead, I would be thinking about what I wanted and what I didn't want from music. Not to blindly – or should that be deafly – consume what was on offer. A day where I could develop ideas'. 

A day of silence in other words. He chose 21st November as it is the feast day of Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of music. 

Cecilia

Simon And Garfunkel's Cecilia, a hit from 1970 with home made, improvised percussion, banging a bench and looping it at a party then recreated in the studio with a piano stool and guitar cases. 

Bill promoted No Music Day for a few years with some take up in the UK press, BBC Scotland and further afield (Sao Paulo in Brazil and Linz in Austria both joined in). 

I don't know how much No Music Day achieved but like many of Bill Drummond's schemes, the concept is the thing. He does something and then he moves on. If music was being cheapened as an art form in 2005 it's even cheaper now- Spotify, Tik Tok et al and advertising use music as content, little more than the backing track to the product they are selling. Spotify's rates of pay for musicians are appalling. Mark Peters, a guitarist from Wigan whose music I've featured here a good few times, recently found out that a piece of his music was used by Facebook in India and had been streamed over 26 million times. For this he received a payment of £40. 

Mark's most recent release is Shadow Quarter, available at Bandcamp, four songs each one done in two versions. 

Feel free to make your own Don't break the silence suggestions in the comment box. 

Shadow Quarter

Mark Peters has made some of my favourite records/ music of the last few years. Back in 2017 he released Innerland, an album of ambient/ instrumental guitar music built on the psychogeography of north west England. It was followed by two more Innerland albums- a fully ambient/ drumless version and a remix album. In 2022 Mark released his second solo album, Red Sunset Dreams- the guitars and synths shifted the landscape from Wigan to the expanse of the grasslands of North America, although I got the feeling that these were prairies of the mind as much as the real ones. Dot Allison sang on two of the tracks including the single Sundowning, a beautiful guitar- led lament which also came with a pair of Richard Norris remixes. In 2023 he put out the EP The Magic Hour which shifted the psychogeographic angle to the Balearics and to Cologne.  

Sundowning was also released as an eight minute live version, Mark backed with a band, recorded at The Band Room, North Yorkshire. All of Mark's solo back catalogue is available here. 

Mark's back with an EP called Shadow Quarter. He's put the guitars aside for most of the eight tracks and moved to piano and keys. The EP opens with Sunset Pulse, an upbeat cosmische piece of music, piano chords, drums and shakers. Motion Code goes further into the West German psyche, throbbing motorik bass and drums and more pianos and keys. Third track Headlight Nocturne is slower, more reflective, a pitter- pattering drum machine, gentle electric piano and washes/ waves of synth. Title track Shadow Quarter goes back to the cosmische with ripples of synth, a slowed down drumbeat and piano topline, sounding like the soundtrack to a journey. 

The second half of the EP is ambient versions of the four tracks, the drums removed and the Eno/ Cluster feel even more to the fore. It's a really engaging EP and highly recommended. You can listen/buy at Bandcamp.

Forty Minutes Of Dreams

While searching through my music folders and files recently I was struck by the number of songs I had that have the word 'dream' or 'dreams' in the title. A rich source of songwriting inspiration. They say hearing about other people's dreams is really boring but I don't think that's always they case. My own dreams have become really vivid and at times quite disturbing in the three years since Isaac died (and also since I started taking statins for high cholesterol a year and a half ago). Waking up having dreamed of Isaac, him being there and talking to me, is always a startling way to start the day (or the middle of the night). It takes a moment for me to realise it was a dream and that he's not there. Sometimes that half asleep- half awake state can be really pleasant and attempting to go back to sleep to go back into a nice dream is something that I'm sure lots of us do. 

Whatever the reason for dreaming, the brain/ consciousness sifting through stuff and pulling things from the dim and distant past into our sleeping state along with bizarre and random, surreal situations, is a rich vein of inspiration for songwriters- both musically and lyrically. Ambient music often seems like an attempt to make music that can soundtrack dreams. The blur and fuzz of shoegaze and psychedelia likewise. As all this percolated through my head on the road coming home from work one evening last week it seemed that a dreams mix was in order. 

Forty Minutes Of Dreams

• Kevin McCormick & David Horridge: Glass Dream
• Kim Gordon: Dream Dollar
• Spatial Awareness: Dream Food (SA Dub)
• Suicide: Dream Baby Dream (Single Version)
• Lunar Dunes: Pharaoh's Dream
• Ride: Dreams Burn Down
• Mark Peters: Red Sunset Dreams
• Sheer: Mezcal Dream
• Spirea X: Chlorine Dream
• Blade Runner Soundtrack: Deckard's Dream

Kevin McCormick is a Mancunian guitarist who released several albums of minimal instrumental music in the early 80s. He met bassist David Horridge in the late 70s and in 1982 they recorded Light Patterns, a minimal, gently psychedelic/ ambient album. Largely ignored, the album and others by Kevin were re- released in 2021. Last year Kevin released a new album- Passing Clouds- which is lovely and can be found at Bandcamp. 

Kim Gordon's solo album from last year, The Collective, passed me by a bit but it's a powerful piece of work, a jolt of electricity, hip hop drums, noise and Kim's NY blank cool. 

Spatial Awareness released Dream Food as an EP last year, an electronic trippy delight with this dub as a dreamy counterpoint. 

Suicide's Dream Baby Dream is one of those songs, an all timer. It came out as a single in 1979, a repetitive synth, drum machine and vocal blur of brilliance, a song lost in its own state of warm, blissful ignorance, the synth patterns circling endlessly. A track that could be loped for an hour and not outstay its welcome. 

Lunar Dunes' Galaxsea originally came out in 2011, post- jazz, post- punk, dubby global tracks 'for truth seekers and interplanetary vacationers'. The band included former members of Cornershop and Transglobal Underground and took the 1960s and 70s West German bands as their inspiration. Pharoah's Dream is at the centre of Galaxsea and rattles along in a cosmische and future jazz way.

Dreams Burn Down was on Ride's 1990 debut album Nowhere, a shoegaze classic, crunching FX guitars, slow motion drums and typically youthful lyrics about lost or unrequited love. Live Dreams Burn Down is massive, a wall of sound and sensation. 

Mark Peters is a guitarist from Wigan. His solo albums, 2017's Innerland and 2022's Red Sunset Dreams, are big Bagging Area favourites. The title track of the second is a rippling ambient instrumental, the wide open spaces of the American West crossed with north west England psychedelia. 

Sheer is Sheer Taft who in 1990 made one of the era's best wobbly Balearic dance records, the mighty Cascades. In 2022 Sheer Taft, now residing in Spain rather than Glasgow, made a follow up, an album called ...And Then There Were Four, a Spaghetti Western album with Andrew Innes and the late Martin Duffy from Primal Scream on board.

Jim Beattie was a founder member of Primal Scream, leaving to form Spirea X who released an album in 1991, Fireblade Skies. The debut release was a single the year before, Chlorine Dream, guitars from The Byrds, attitude from Glasgow, drums and vocals from 1990. 

An expanded, full length version of the Blade Runner soundtrack, The Esper Edition, was unofficially released and has done the rounds as a bootleg for years. The film deals with all sorts of themes dreams being one of them. Deckard's Dream is one minute and ten seconds of Vangelis/ ambient sound. In the film Deckard dreams of a unicorn, the meaning of which has been argued about since the film's release in 1982. 

Forty Minutes Of Mark Peters

Back in 2018 I discovered an album called Innerlands by Mark Peters, eight guitar led tracks that skirted the edges of shoegaze, ambient and cosmische, a record that was the first thing I reached for for a while, Mark's guitar taking the place of a voice. Mark is from Wigan and his music has a very strong sense of place. The front cover of Innelrands was an Ordnance Survey style map and the eight tracks were all named after very north west England sounding place names. His second solo album took that windswept, moorland sound to the great open spaces of the American south west. Since then two EPs have added further geographical refences to his back catalogue, with the Alps and Peter Street. Mark's playing builds on the sounds of other, earlier guitarists- there are shades of Vini Reilly, Michael Rother and closer to Mark's home, Nick McCabe. In the 00s he was the guitarist in Engineers, whose shoegaze/ dreampop can be heard in a variety of current bands. The mix below is a forty minute snapshot of music from his various releases since 2018 and makes a really good Sunday morning soundtrack. 

Forty Minutes Of Mark Peters

• Windy Arbour (Ambient Version)
• Switched On
• Twenty Bridges (Andi Otto Remix)
• Sundowning (Richard Norris Remix)
• Alpenglow
• #1 Peter St
• Ashurst's Beacon (Ambient Version)
• Gabriel's Ladder

Windy Arbour (Ambient Version) is from Ambient Innerlands, the drumless version of Innerlands released in 2019, an atmospheric wash of piano, ambient synth sounds and electric guitar. Ashurst's Beacon is the last track from Ambient Innerlands. Ashurst's Beacon is an 18th century tower constructed on top of a hill near Appley Bridge in Lancashire, constructed to warn of invasion by the French. 

Switched On was the longer, dubbier verison of Switch On The Sky, a summer 2022 single and track from the Red Sunset Dreams album which followed. Dot Allison provides the voice, a perfect match for Mark's guitars and synths. 

Twenty Bridges was on Innerlands. In 2019 a remix album, New Route Out Of Innerlands, came out, which included a remix by Ulrich Schnauss (formerly in Engineers) and this lovely piece of ambient/ sound collage by Hamburg's Andi Otto.

Sundowning was also on Red Sunset Dreams and also features the voice of Dot Allison. It came out as a single in October 2022 with this glorious Richard Norris remix, Mark's guitar relocated to sunset in the Balearics. There's also a superb live version of Sundowning you can buy here. 

Alpenglow was on The Magic Hour EP, a four track digital/ 10" on yellow vinyl release from exactly a year ago, March 2023. Two new tracks, Alpenglow and The Magic Hour paired with two remixes. Alpenglow shimmers and shines like sunshine on snow as some very motorik drums glide away underneath. 

#1 Peter St is from another four track EP, this one titled Progress and out earlier this year. The photo on the sleeve shows Manchester's new skyscraper skyline as seen from Windy Arbour, a hill at Billinge near Wigan. 

Gabriel's Ladder is from Innerlands, three minutes and thirty six seconds of guitar textures and melodies, an emotive soundscape. 

Progress

Progress is the new  EP from Wigan guitarist Mark Peters, four instrumentals recorded between September 2022 and September 2023. Mark's work is frequently related to place, to psychogeography- his Innerland album from 2018 contained eight ambient/ cosmische guitar and synth songs named after north west locations- Ashurst's Beacon, Mann Island, Shaley Brow among others. His second album- Red Sunset Dreams- was inspired by the wide open spaces of the American West and an imaginary landscape of Americana and pedal steel guitars but merged with some Wigan shoegaze. This version of the song Sundowning was recorded live in Yorkshire last year, a stunning, atmospheric eight minute take on the song. 

The new EP takes inspiration from sunrises over Pennine hills and a view of Manchester from the distance, a city built on mills and steam power now reinventing itself as a modern, post- industrial city, a city with an ever increasing number of skyscrapers visible from miles around, and with questions about progress being asked. 

Cinder Flower is slow paced, with a chiming guitar lead line in no hurry to get to its ending. As ever, there are echoes of Vini Reilly's guitar playing in Mark's and the clean, unfussy playing of Michael Rother. Guitar Fumes, Car Films opens with a synth and then a rising and falling melody line, guitar with chorus and reverb pedals, and drum machine clattering away. Golden Circle Game slows things down, a cinematic piece of music with a 1950s twang to the guitar. The final track, #1 Peter Street, is a gorgeous lament, string bending and echo, Mark's cross pollination of Americana and cosmische at a peak. 

Progress can be heard and bought at Bandcamp. 

Monday's Long Song

Sundowning originally appeared on Mark Peter's album from last year Red Sunset Dreams, a song with Dot Allison on vocals, and then in remixed by Richard Norris form on The Magic Hour EP from March this year. Now it's out as a live version, eight minutes of dappled guitar lines, reverb, melodies flowing with occasional bursts of something heavier. I saw Mark support Marconi Union at Yard in Cheetham Hill earlier this year, playing solo with backing tracks and Sundowning was a highlight, Dot's vocals floating through the PA with Mark's playing. This version was recorded live at The Band Room in Farndale, Yorkshire in April with Dean Roby playing bass guitar, giving this version some hefty bottom end and the drums from Richard Norris' remix. Mark's Wigan guitar heritage is evident- the feedback and wall of guitar from three minutes on could be Nick McCabe with Verve in the early 90s. 

Sundowning refers to the state of confusion dementia patients enter into, occurring in late afternoon and evening. You can buy the live version at Bandcamp- all proceeds from the sales will go to Dementia UK. The Magic Hour with Richard Norris' remix, two new, non- album tracks Alpen Glow and The Magic Hour and a track with BJ Cole remixed by Dawn Chorus and The Infallible Sea is here. It's out on yellow 10" vinyl and is worth every penny. 

Twenty

Twenty years ago today our daughter Eliza was born, arriving at five to four in the morning. I'd like to say she was kicking and screaming and causing a fuss but she was the most chilled baby. One of the nurses in the maternity ward said at only a few hours old, how alert she was. She's had a lot to put up with recently and continues to attack life with the alertness, wit and zest she's had since she was very small. All parents want to be proud of their children but Eliza truly continues to make us proud, every day. Happy birthday Eliza- have fun tonight. Slay.

This song is a twenty, from Mark Peters' beautiful 2017 album Innerland. This is Twenty Bridges in remixed form, remixed by German producer and DJ Andi Otto, with Mark's guitar FXed and reworked and Andi's self built instrument, the sensor extended cello bow, added. 

Twenty Bridges (Andi Otto Remix)

Eliza wouldn't be much fussed by that piece of music- sorry Mark and Andi- she has a tendency to say that any of this kind of music I have on is 'just a load of weird noises' and calls it 'ambient shit'. This is much more up her street, Beyoncé twenty years ago with her debut solo song built around a Chi- Lites sample, performing Crazy In Love in July 2003 (when Eliza was a month old). When Beyoncé performs, it's a full performance, she doesn't hold back. 

Yard Gig

Friday night in Cheetham Hill, just north of Manchester city centre with Strangeways prison dominating the after dark skyline, is a part of the city that stubbornly refuses gentrification. A ten minute walk up the main road from the back of Victoria Station brings you to a relatively new Manchester gig/ event venue, The Yard. Friday night's bill saw Wigan guitarist Mark Peters and Manchester ambient techno three piece Marconi Union playing. Mark stepped up to the low stage, clips from 1950s Western films playing behind him, in line with the North West England meets the wide open spaces of the prairies psychogeography of his albums (2017's Innerlands and 2022's Red Sunset Dreams). 

With backing tracks playing through the laptop, Mark plays a wonderfully chilled set of tracks. The songs and his playing reflect the cosmische guitar sounds of Michael Rother, the delay and chorus fretboard work of Vini Reilly and his own ambient guitar styles. The opening song is a new one, Cinder Flower, and there are the windswept but beautiful soundscapes of Innerland songs Ashursts's Bridge, May Hill and Twenty Bridges. Alpenglow and Magic Hour, both from a just released EP, sound full and rich as the notes fill the converted 19th century building. Alpenglow is chiming krauty bliss, as if Neu! had been from Winstanley rather than Dusseldorf, and Magic Hour is indeed magical, understated but gently heroic, the spirit of early Verve intact. Towards the close of the set, just before Alpenglow, Dot Allison's voice drifts through the PA as her vocal from Switched On The Sky floats on top of Mark's guitar and then he soars into the spaced out version of the song, Switched On.

After a short break Manchester trio Marconi Union take the stage, three figures lined up behind a bank of keyboards, synths, laptop and machines. The laptop and synth stage right kick into life and the dark, brooding sounds fill the room, lots of texture and atmospherics but with melodies and purpose too- no floating ambient drift here, but tracks with intent. There is guitar centre stage, the notes another layer of sounds on top of the machine music, along with the sometimes mournful keys/ piano.

The films projected behind them- skyscrapers shot from below, a Manchester Metrolink tram gliding slowly past from left to right-  add to sense of motion. Everything happens without explanation. There's no chat between the songs. It's impressive and weighty stuff and the room, pretty close to being sold out, is an appreciative audience. This is Strata Alt, from May last year, giving a good idea of what they do. 

Back in 2011 they recorded a track called Weightless, an eight minute collaboration with sound therapist Lyz Cooper, field recordings, piano and guitar with tones specifically designed to induce a trancelike state and aid relaxation and sleep and reduce anxiety. It has been streamed millions of times on Youtube and if you want more there's a slowed down and stretched out ten hour version here. 

On my way home, through a sequence of events I won't bother to go into right now, I met my wife (out on a separate night out) and we ended up at a party on Swan Street in the city centre, a party in a former chip shop now cocktail bar, and were dancing until 2am, the oldest people in the room. Later on we were wandering the wet streets of Manchester city centre looking for a taxi in the rain. 

Alpenglow

Mark Peters continues following last year's Red Sunset Dreams album with an EP out at the end of March. This song, Alpenglow, is out already to get you hooked, a trippy, lush guitar scape from the north west of England, Wigan on psychedelics fed through a krautrock FX pedal. It's lovely, melodic, driving instrumental music.

The EP will come with another new one, Magic Hour, written two decades ago using gear borrowed from Nick McCabe but only seeing daylight now. Richard Norris' beautifully Balearic remix of Sundowning (out last year, Dot Allison on vox) and a Dawn Chorus And The Infallible Sea remix of Silver River with BJ Cole on board. You can order it from Bandcamp. 

Forty Minutes Of Dot Allison

A Dot Allison mix for Sunday, entirely songs from the post- One Dove years (a One Dove mix is something for another Sunday I think, maybe quite soon). It was only when I started thinking about this mix properly that I realised how many songs she's sung on with other people since One Dove, not to mention her various solo albums (Afterglow in 1999, 2002's We Are Science done with Two Lone Swordsman Keith Tenniswood, 2007's folky singer songwriter Exaltation Of Larks and 2021's Heart Shaped Scars all exist in one format or another round here). In the end, once I decided to include the Lee Perry remix and her two songs with Wigan guitarist Mark Peters from last year, it turned into a fuzzy, hazy Balearic, leftfield kind of selection- I tried some of the songs from We Are Science but they just didn't fit with the mood.  

Forty Minutes of Dot Allison

• Switched On
• Love Died In Our Arms (Lee Scratch Perry Remix)
• Dirge (Adrian Sherwood Remix)
• Dirge
• Aftersun
• Sundowning (Richard Norris Remix)
• Mo' Pop
• Message Personnel (Arab Strap Remix)

Switched On and Sundowning are both from Mark Peters excellent 2022 album Red Sunset Dreams with Dot on vocals. Switched On is a version of Switch On The Sky, the first single from the album, and Richard Norris remixed Sundowning twice for a follow up single, one ambient and one with drums. 

Love Died In Our Arms was from a solo EP, Entangled, out a year ago. Lee Scratch Perry's remix was the final thing he worked on before his death. Dot had assumed Lee had died before being able to remix her song until she was contacted by Lee's widow and told otherwise. 

Dirge was on  the 1999 Death In Vegas album The Contino Sessions, the  opening song and a single too. Apologies if the Adrian Sherwood remix version in this mix is a bit quiet- from memory I downloaded it from the Death In Vegas MySpace page (!) circa 2007 and it's a low bitrate compared to everything else here. You may have to turn the volume up. 

Aftersun was recorded with Massive Attack in 2005 and included in the film Danny The Dog but not the CD soundtrack. It was available from Dot's website. 

Mo' Pop was on Dot's debut solo album Afterglow and a single too. It is late 90s soul- pop perfection, with a superb Henry Olsen bassline. Message Personnel was on Afterglow too and also a single, which came with this very nice Arab Strap remix. 

Monday Mix

A mix for Monday, my seventh for Tak Tent Radio who broadcast out of central Scotland with a range of contributors and guests. This one, has music from a lot of artists who have graced the pages of this blog this year- Mark Peters with Dot Allison remixed by Richard Norris, Pete Wylie and Wah! The Mongrel from 1991, Pye Corner Audio remixed by Sonic Boom, Andy Bell remixed by David Holmes, Gabe Gurnsey, Jazxing, Jezebell's recent edit of Laurie Anderson, Carly Simon, Dirt Bogarde and Boxheater Jackson. In short- starts ambient, goes Balaeric and ends up dancey. Listen here or here.

• Mark Peters and Dot Allison: Sundowning (Richard Norris Ambient Remix)
• Pete Wylie and Wah! The Mongrel: Don’t Lose Your Drums
• Pye Corner Audio: Warmth Of The Sun (Sonic Boom Remix)
• Andy Bell: The Sky Without You (David Holmes Radical Mycology remix)
• Gabe Gurnsey: To The Room
• Jazxing: Fala
• Jezebell: Re- birth (Edit)
• Carly Simon: Why (Extended 12” Mix)
• Dirt Bogarde: So Far Away
• Boxheater Jackson: Don’t Complicate

Sundowning

Mark Peters, guitarist/ multi- instrumentalist from the Wigan area, had a beautiful album out a few years ago called Innerland (follow by Ambient Innerland and then a remixes album called Routes Out Of Innerland too). Innerland was an album of guitar led instrumentals that sounded like windswept moorlands in the north west of England, captured as autumn turns to winter when dusk hits in late afternoon. 

Mark's new album, Red Sunset Dreams, came out recently and suggests more of the same but transplanted slightly further afield than West Lancashire, into the American West. On two of the songs Mark asked Dot Allison to add vocals- Sundowner and the previously posted Switch On The Sky. On Red Sunset Dreams there is banjo, pedal steel and ukulele as well as the guitars and synths. And on new single Sundowning there are a pair of Richard Norris remixes, one with drums and one without, that relocate Mark's music from Wigan and Arizona to the Balearics. Utterly gorgeous, slightly forlorn, floaty ambience. Buy it at Bandcamp.

Tak Tent Six

Tak Tent is an internet radio station broadcasting out of Scotland. Last year The Wire magazine included them in a round up of radio stations worth listening to. A couple of years ago I was asked if I'd like to submit an hours' worth of songs for transmission and since then have been back several times. Last week Tak Tent put out my sixth Bagging Area mix, one that is made up almost exclusively of songs from this year and all from artists that are very familiar to this blog. You can listen to it here. 

Tracklist

• Pye Corner Audio: Let’s Emerge Pt. 1
• Reinhard Vanbergen and Charlotte Caluwaerts: They Do Not Care
• Sheer Taft: Requiem For Pablo
• Mark Peters and Dot Allison: Switched On
• 10:40: Coat Check
• A Mountain of One: Star (Glok Starlight Dub)
• Perry Granville: Dexter In Dub (Bedford Falls Players Remix)
• Unknown Genre: Elevator Ride (The Orielles Ambient Remix)
• Coyote: Home Grown
• The Summerisle Six: This Is Something (Rico Conning Mix)

Switch On The Sky

One of the general truths of travel is that it doesn't really matter where or how far you go, you take yourself with you. Writer Neil Gaiman said as such ('wherever you go, you take yourself with you') and fellow writer Haruki Murakami said something similar ('no matter how far you travel, you can never get away from yourself'). All three of us had moments while we were on holiday where Isaac's death hit us in some way. Going to a very hot island four hours away by plane and spending the time on beaches and by the pool wouldn't have floated Isaac's boat at all- he didn't like beaches, would have found it much too hot, wasn't great on planes and getting him up an down all the steps from the hotel to the street below would have been difficult. In some ways that's why we chose to go somewhere like Gran Canaria- it being so different from the car and ferry, French campsite holidays we'd done with him was all part of our thinking. We're still getting used to being a family of three- being somewhere a long way from home where you don't know anyone compounds this in some ways. No one we met or spoke to knew what had happened to us or what we brought to Gran Canaria with us. Lou says there are times when she wants to tell people, 'we're not a family of three, we're a family of four', but dropping it into conversations is really difficult- there's no easy way to do it and it goes off like an explosion, leaving people wrong footed, shocked and apologetic.

Last Saturday, 30th July, was eight months to the day since he died and we all felt it at different time during the day. It never leaves you does it? Grief and loss always find ways to come out of nowhere and punch you again. It still sometimes feels like being winded, a physical pain in the chest. I felt it sitting on the balcony one evening, music playing through the crappy speaker I'd brought with me, sun shining on me, cold beer in hand, and then, suddenly and unexpectedly, a wallop of pain.

Lying on a sun lounger on the beach and thinking back to the room in Wythenshawe hospital in late November, it all seemed a bit unreal again, that we'd ended up where we were/ are, and being away without him briefly felt wrong. We went to one of the beachside cafes for a beer and some chips and some shade. As we sat down we all noticed the TV screen hanging over the ice cream counter, showing one of Isaac's favourite programmes- Mr Bean (and bizarrely one of his favourite episodes too, the barber shop one). Sitting drinking a pint of very cold beer (price 1€ 50) and watching Mr Bean made us all smile, pulling us out of the loss and the tears we'd all felt a few minutes before. In some way, via Mr Bean, he'd come with us. 

This song, Switch On The Sky, came out the day we flew. Mark Peters is a guitarist from Wigan. His Innerland album came out in December 2017, an instrumental/ ambient record with eight tracks all named after north- west landmarks. The following year a beatless ambient version was released and a remix album too called New Routes Out Of Innerland. All three were big favourites round here (you can listen buy at Mark's Bandcamp page). Switch On The Sky is the first single from the follow up, Red Sunset Dreams (out in September), and has Dot Allison (formerly of One Dove) on vocals. It's a gorgeous, slightly forlorn, gently psychedelic song with guitar, bass, pedal steel, synths, banjo and ukulele and masses of swirling reverb. If you buy the single at Bandcamp there's also a lovely hazy shoegaze/ dub reworking called Switched On. 

It's our 27th wedding anniversary today, another first to go through. We were young when we got married (Lou 23, me 25) and we had no idea what lay ahead of us or the circumstances we'd find ourselves in all these years later but that's the way life goes I suppose. Here are a pair of 27 songs to celebrate, both from favourite bands of mine. First, an A Certain Ratio song from 1991, the early 80s Factory post- punk funk being updated with something much more early 90s (but still laced with a tinge of Mancunian melancholy).

Twenty Seven Forever (Jon da Silva's Bubble Bath Mix)

Second, Half Man Half Biscuit and a song from their 2002 opus Cammell Laird Social Club, wherein Nigel's efforts at romance are repeatedly rebutted- 'I said '' would you like to go the zoo?''/ She said 'yeah bit not with you'/ 27 yards of dental floss and she still won't give me a smile/ I'm King Euphoria, she's Queen Victoria/ 27 yards of dental floss and she still won't give me a smile'

27 Yards Of Dental Floss

Happy anniversary Lou. 

A Lockdown Mix

An hour and four minutes of music for lockdown. This lockdown hasn't been any fun at all. The novelty of the first lockdown has been absent and in the two darkest months of the year, it's been difficult. There are at least some glimmers of light now, the vaccines, the numbers starting to come down but I don't have much confidence Johnson will make the right call on Monday and fear that he is in thrall to the voices on the right wing who want to unlock everything as soon as possible. No one wants to stay in lockdown any longer than necessary but I think many of us would rather soldier on for another month or two with a very gradual loosening than open up quickly, chuck away all the gains and end up with another surge in cases and lockdown four in April. 

It's easy to be overwhelmed when faced with all this, all these problems and issues that are beyond our control. As Richard Norris said recently, 'music is the answer'. This is a mix I put together recently, starting out with some street sounds from the BBC's extensive online archive and a bit of Blade Runner, some drones and spoken word, something from Luke Schneider's astonishing steel pedal ambient album, more ambient music with guitars and pianos and synths and then a second half that opens up and lets the light in, a bit of optimism before the strings and drama of Two Lone Swordsmen remixed by In The Nursery. It's at Mixcloud. 

• Romanian street sounds (morning in Bucharest)/ Leon’s Voight Kampf Test
• Andrew Weatherall and Michael Smith: Estuary Embers
• Luke Schneider: Anteludium
• Mark Peters: Ashurst’s Beacon (ambient version)
• Daniel Avery and Alessandro Cortini: Illusion Of Time (Teodor Wolgers Rework)
• Smoke Test: Regress
• Ganser: Bags For Life (GLOK Remix)
• The Primitive Painter: Invisible Landscapes
• Underground System: Bella Ciao (Laguna Mix by Gigi Masin)
• Seahawks: Sky Is You (Pye Corner Audio Head Tek Remix)
• Two Lone Swordsmen: In The Nursery Visit Glenn Street

Solstice

Trying to keep the habit of lockdown walking going hasn't been easy especially in the last month. Working late, getting home in the dark and then forcing myself to go out at 9pm, even if it's just a circuit round the block takes a bit of effort when it's wet and cold out and warm inside. It's been important to look for little celebrations this year, moments of light to cheer the spirits slightly. Today is the winter solstice and that seems like something worth marking, the darkest of all the days but the turning point too, when it starts getting a little bit lighter for longer every day. 

Mark Peters album from 2018 Innerlands was an instrumental journey through the landscape and place names of the north west of England. He followed it with an ambient version, all the drums taken off and just the synths, chiming guitars and atmospherics. Both are winter solstice sounding to me. This track, Ashurst's Beacon, closes both albums. 

Ashurst's Beacon (Ambient Version)

Here's the flipside. Exactly six months ago Rich Lane released a gorgeous summer song to mark the summer solstice, a song for the longest day- slow motion, Balearic synthpop. Get it at Bandcamp. Rich has released several pieces of new music throughout 2020 and it's all worth exploring. 

Isolation Mix Two

A second Bagging Area mix for lockdown, an hour of tunes starting out ambient, taking a turn toward the Balearics and some fizzing electronics before the jetstream sends it back into more ambient, melancholic lands with waves and seagulls. Having the time and space to think about putting these together is one of the upsides of social distancing and isolation.

Private Mountain: Coming Back Home v Eric Cantona ‘When the seagulls follow the trawler…

Nils Frahm: Over There, It’s Raining

Steven Leggett: Bathhouse

Seahawks: Rainbow Sun

Peaking Lights: Beautiful Dub

Circle Sky: Ghost In The Machine

The Neil Cowley Trio: Echo Nebula (Vessels Remix)

Fila Brazillia: Midnight Friends

Mark Peters: Jacob’s Ladder (Ambient Innerlands Version)

Jan van den Broeke: Memories

A Man Called Adam: Easter Song (Gospel Oak FX)

Bjorn Torske: First Movement

Winterland

It was Christmas Eve babe and... here's Mark Peters, the guitar and synth shoegaze/ambient maestro behind the Innerland albums and he has a four track single out called Winterland. The lead track is a lovely, atmospheric Yuletide thing called The Box Of Delights.



Versions of Silent Night and Jingle Bells follow with chiming guitars and sleigh bells and then a superb Maps remix of The Box Of Delights. Well worth £3.00 of your money.

This, The Specials on Top Of The Pops on December 18th 1980, is the only acceptable appearance of Christmas jumpers I can think of. Do Nothing.



Happy Christmas to you all, have a good one, whatever you're doing and whoever it is with.

Shaley Brow

Back in April I discovered one of the best albums of 2018, Mark Peter's instrumental tribute to north west England, an eight song record called Innerland, a journey through the landscape and place names of this part of the world. I've been coming back to it regularly ever since. It fits in really well with Richard Norris' pair of Abstractions albums, sundry Durutti Column records, Pye Corner Audio's last couple, the new one from GLOK and The Orb's early 90s ambient dub masterpieces. Mark has just released Innerland in a new form, stripping the drums and percussion off and leaving just the guitar parts, the synths and the keyboards. It's gorgeous, magical, transporting, very autumnal and somewhat haunting too. I wish I'd been on to it when it was released in a very limited 250 run on vinyl.

New Routes

It's only a matter of weeks, days really, since I discovered Mark Peters' Innerland album- a record that has barely left my turntable- and now it's been followed by a remixed version, released last Friday, titled New Routes Out Of Innerland. Which is good news for exploring more new music and hearing new versions of his ambient- comische- Northern- shoegaze but will likely be bad news for my bank balance. The eight guitar led instrumentals on Innerland have been reworked by a variety of people- Andi Otto, Olga Wojciechowska, Brian Case, Moon Gangs, Odd Nosdam, E Ruscha V and Jefre Canta-Ledesma- but the remix of choice right now is this one by Ulrich Schnauss.



All the remixers above are worth investigating further if you've the time (and the money). If you're fond of the works of Tangerine Dream and sci-fi soundtracks you'll probably enjoy this album by Moon Gangs (a pseudonym for pianist William Young).



Delving further I found this album by E Rushka V, bubbling synths and a melodic, sunny side up disposition, beamed in from Los Angeles.