I Know So Many People Who Think They Can Do It Alone

Today's post comes from the box of CDs that have come cover mounted on music magazines over the years. I scooped this one up a while ago, and wasn't sure that I'd ever even listened to it- and it contains two recent Bagging Area postees in shape of Saint Etienne and The Liminanas. The CD came free with Mojo in June 2012, a Beach Boys/ Pet Sounds cover story with articles on Rufus Wainwright, My Bloody Valentine, Sandy Denny, Buzzcocks and Michael Kiwanuka all also trailed on the cover along with the return of Public Image Limited and (gulp) Rush. The free CD is Pet Sounds related.

It's more than related, it's a bespoke re- recording of Pet Sounds in full with Saint Etienne, Magnetic North, The Sand Band, Tim Burgess, Jeffrey Lewis, The Neil Cowley Trio, Tom McRae, The Flaming Lips, The Liminanas, Jodie Marie, Gaz Coombes, Human Don't Be Angry, Here We Go Magic and Superimposers. Some of these names mean as little to me now as they did in 2012. 

Pet Sounds is such a heavyweight, canonical album but with such a lighter than air sound that I guess it could be difficult to know how to go about doing a cover one of its thirteen teenage symphonies, Brian Wilson's beautiful melodic songs, those sing song vocals and Tony Asher's perfectly weighed words, lyrics that stand as some kind of mid- 60s poetic pop highpoint. Many of the artists take the standard route and stay pretty faithful to the source material. Saint Etienne open up with Wouldn't It Be Nice...

Wouldn't It Be Nice 

It's very sugary, the first minute or so just Sarah's voice and some backing vocals. The band come in, easy listening style before building into a bit of a 60s swirl. 

Tim Burgess, at that point releasing his excellent Oh No I Love You solo album, covers Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder), acoustic guitar, a ton of reverb, and musical box melodies- pretty, also very faithful to the original. The fade out and ending is lovely. 

Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)

The Neil Cowley Trio (who I've featured before in remixed form) cover Let's Go Away For A While, modern jazz style, piano and rattling snare drum. 

Let's Go Away For A While

The Flaming Lips come along to rip things up a bit, the ones who don't hand in a standard cover, but go with distorted guitars, a psychedelic haze and wobbling synths, Wayne warbling the famous words, 'I may not always love you/ But as long as there are stars above/ You never need to doubt it/ God only knows what I'd be without you...' A lovely, frazzled, drift towards the centre of the sun. 

God Only Knows

The Liminanas, French psyche/ beat duo take on I Know There's An Answer, with authentic 60s groove and heavily accented vox- they sound like they're having fun, dropping out in the middle and then thundering back in and adding what sounds like a theremin twanging away. Hang on to your ego. 

 I Know There's An Answer

The Griffin

Back in June when looking for inspiration in my downloads folders I rediscovered Spacebound Tapes, a four track EP of remixes of tracks by Neil Cowley. I can't remember where I first heard Neil Cowley (or the Neil Cowley Trio as was then) but there's a good chance Andrew Weatherall was involved, probably via his Music's Not For Everyone show at NTS, a monthly two hour gateway into unheard music, both old and new. Neil Cowley is a pianist, composer and electronic artist from London. During the 90s he played keyboards for Brand New Heavies and Zero 7 and has played as a session musician. Between 2006 and 2018 the Neil Cowley Trio released seven albums. Of the four remixes on the Spacebound Tapes EP these two really stand out.

Weightless (Rival Consoles Remix)

Rival Consoles makes gorgeous electronic, ambient, shoegaze, minimal techno music, analogue synths and pattering drum machines with chiming melodies and sudden changes of direction, not too far from the place Jon Hopkins operates in. I bought the 2018 Rival Consoles album Persona when it came out and played it a lot but haven't got any of the three he's released since then which I'm sure is my loss and something to rectify. His remix of Weightless is aptly titled, the notes and rhythms dancing in  weightless fashion, with echoes of piano and the sound of  a thousand insects chirruping. 

Echo Nebula (Vessels Remix)

Vessels are from Leeds, post rock and techno, electronics in a band with synths and FX alongside guitar and drums. Their remix of Echo Nebula sets out with a distorted drum and echo. A wonderfully wobbly synthline rides in on top with a another, less audible sitting underneath. The various drum patterns and sequences start to pile up in layers, gathering heat and light. Again, very well titled, the track suggesting sound waves echoing their way down a long narrow chasm or splattering their way across the inky black expanse of space. 

The abandoned pub at the top is one of a series of photos I've taken this year of derelict pubs. The Griffin is in Frizington in the western Lake District. This is not the world of Wordsworth, national parks and tourist honeypots such as Ambleside- the western Lakes is the working part of the area, industrial (or post- industrial). It's some time since anyone pulled a pint at The Griffin. 

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

Echo Nebula

When I posted the Rival Consoles remix of The Neil Cowley Trio's Weightless last week a reader called Adverse Camper advised me that the remix of Echo Nebula by Vessels on the same ep (Spacebound Tapes) was really good too. And Adverse Camper is absolutely spot on, it is. It buzzes and fizzes, building in bursts, little melodies shining through, before the classical piano emerges at the end. The 12" is long since sold out but this track will cost you just £1 at Bandcamp or you could splash out on the whole 4 track ep for a whopping £3 if you're feeling flush.

Weightless

In his most recent Music's Not For Everyone radio show Weatherall played this track, released back in February. Neil Cowley made an album called Spacebound Apes, a sci fi exploration based loosely around Arthur C Clarke's 1956 novel The City And The Stars. This remix by Rival Consoles is a joy, a beautiful, lighter than air piece of music that sounds like music made by human machines.