Let The Horse Run Free

Seamus Heaney has been in the air around me recently- an article at The Atlantic by Caitlin Flanagan, our trip to Belfast two weeks ago, Mike Wilson's 100 Poems, and the quote on Heaney's gravestone that inspired me when we were looking for pointers about how to go about Isaac's gravestone ('walk on air against your better judgement'). I bought a copy of 100 Poems second hand, a self- explanatory selection of Heaney's poems chosen by the Heaney family with the plan that I'd read one a day. I haven't started yet, but will soon. It's always interesting when a second hand book comes with a handwritten inscription...

Questions eh? What happened to Sophie and James? Why did Sophie get rid of this book? Or did someone else? If nothing else, it gives the book a life, a past. 

By coincidence Mike Wilson's 100 Poems have a new album out. Mike named his musical project after Heaney's poetry collection and, a fellow Irishman, is a fan of Heaney's work. Mike took the 'walk on air against your better judgement' as an inspiration for his music, the casting off of concerns and doubts  and just going for it, creating, making music. Last year 100 Poems released three albums, all of which contain some wonderful music, music that lit up 2024- blissed out Balearica, tunes for sundown and sun up, spaced out dub and wide eyed electronic songs. He followed those three with a live album this year. You can find them all at the 100 Poems Bandcamp. 

Yesterday Mike put the first fruits of his latest album onto YouTube a song called My Wicked Son, with an album- Let The Horse Run Free- out tomorrow. Not content to stand still Mike's dug out the acoustic instruments, guitars, fiddles and banjo, and taken inspiration from the Old West, an album of electronic beats crossed with country, cosmic/ Balearic Americana. It's also an album that deals with personal issues, stands up squarely to the past, to the black dog of depression and mental health issues. When the album goes onto Bandcamp tomorrow, any proceeds will go to mental health charities, seven songs are infused with Mike's wide screen sound and attitude. 

Opener My Wicked Son sets Mike's new stall out- distorted vocals, a backdrop of fuzz and FX, the vocal snapping into focus as the singer tells of being on the road again. Harmonica fades in, a guitar squeals, the singer asks for mercy and the bluesy cowboy stomp kicks in. As the drums kick and pound, a synth appears, a 303 whooshes in, the saloon bar piano player picks out a one fingered melody, everything all at once... a song destined for dance floors. 

The album's title track follows, the lonesome wail of a steam train, hand drums and then a slow motion groove with guitars, After the breakdown things go left, the acid and the cowboy yodel playing off against each other, synths building up a head of steam, an eight minute rodeo. Johnny Plays Guitar is a torch song, female vocal and burbling acid house balladry, the Johnny Guitar of the song a nod to the 1954 Joan Crawford film. 

She Don't Want Me Know combines a chuggy stomp and echo- drenched banjo and a croaky vocal from an old timer. It comes after The Ballad Of Josey Wales, a song littered with film samples in the way early Big Audio Dynamite songs were. Sister Rave pounds in with thumping late 60s drums and a vintage sounding vocal, the sound of 60s soul crossed with an acidic 303, hands raised in celebration. At the end we left on Big Dub Candy Mountain, the squelch of the bottom end countered by cowboy blues, Mike updating a 1928 Harry McClintock song, the lyrics from the view of a hobo eternally on the road looking for paradise, a song reverberating down the railway tracks from a hundred years ago to now. 

Walk On Air Against Your Better Judgement

Some uptempo positivity for Friday and two new releases that should encourage some head nodding, foot tapping, beers in the garden and a general feeling that all is well. Back at the start of the year 100 Poems released a seven track album called Everything's Balearic When You Believe, an irrepressible album from the eternally upbeat Mike Wilson, the man behind 100 Poems. Mike is from Ireland and dropped the first 100 Poems album onto an unsuspecting internet, the sound of soul, psych, pop, funk, Balearic pop with a dash of acid house/ dance music. He followed it last week with a follow up, Everything's Possible When You Balearic, seven more slices of sun drenched sonics and forward facing music (six new songs and a rmeix of Tambores En Benirras' Generadora De Rayos). The album kicks off with applause, a crowd clapping and then long synth chords before a big voice takes us into Gettin' Down With George, 80s soul funk guitar licks and images of neon lit Top Of The Pops. 

All remaining five originals are filled with Mike's signature touches. Believe (Everything Is Possible) is a slow paced sundowner, two voices, one whispering, the other oohing, acoustic guitar, padding drums and horns- ascending, life affirming horns. 

Mike's song titles and sound are perfectly synced- Into The Light, When Night Begins To Shine, and Warm Breeze On Our Face (Like A Hot Summer Sigh) all sound like they should. It's got moments of joy, an album to play in the car with the sun out and the windows down. Available at Bandcamp at a Pay What You Want deal with any proceeds to Jigsaw and Shelter. 100 Poems is named after the collected poetry of Seamus Heaney, the most celebrated Irish poet and playwright. On his headstone is the epitaph, 'Walk on air against your better judgement', a line about throwing off inhibitions and abandoning caution, something which I think Mike does with each song he records. 

Also out recently, yesterday in fact, is the latest EP on Duncan Gray's Tici Taci- Tail Feather by Rule Six. There are two versions, the original version of Tail Feather and a Meat Katie remix. The first is a slow motion chugger with bass and guitar, rim shots and descending synth notes, squiggles and bounce. 

The Meat Katie Remix is lower slung and squelchier, ideal for playing an hour or two later than the first, when the floor's packed and everyone's forgotten themselves a little, inhibitions left behind and cares forgotten for a while.  

Forty Five Minutes of Speaking Voices

I had the misfortune recently to see an advert on TV with the voice of Alan Watts is being used to sell cruises for the Cunard shipping company. Watts was a writer, speaker and philosopher who did much in the 1950s and 60s to popularise Eastern philosophies in the west. His lectures and speeches have been widely available for a long time, not least since the rise of Youtube. His son tries to control the use of them through an Alan Watts website where they can be downloaded when paid for, so presumably Cunard paid for the use of Alan's voice rather than just ripping it from Youtube. The advert chops up Watts' speech and misses the end section entirely, not surprisingly, (knowingly) misrepresenting the message of the original, selling a luxury cruise on the high seas as the dream Watts speaks of. I'm not here to complain about advertising, it's a bit late in the day for that. Watts' voice and speeches are instantly recognisable and catnip for use in media where his message, accent and speaking voice and rhythms are striking and attention grabbing. 

I came across this clip this week too, writer Paul Bowles interviewed in 1970 about a trance dance and self mutilation he witnessed while resident in Morocco. Bowles left the USA in 1947 and settled in Tangier, recording local musicians and writing. His novel The Sheltering Sky came out in 1949, turned into an epic film by Bernardo Bertolucci in 1990 (I read the book and saw the film at the time and enjoyed both but don't remember much about either now so need to revisit). Bowles' speaking voice, like Alan Watts, very much lends itself to being set to music, not just the content but the tone and timbre and patterns of speech. Which led to think that speaking voices set to music would make a good longform mix.

The mix below is forty five minutes of speaking voices set to music, sometimes where voice and music have been specifically made for and recorded with each other and sometimes where the voice has been taken from earlier recordings and sampled. I could probably find enough to make a second at some point in the future. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Speaking Voices

• Jon Hopkins, Ram Dass and East Forest: Sit Around The Fire
• 10:40: The First Step
• Coyote: The Outsider
• David Holmes and Jon Hopkins ft. Stephen Rea: Elsewhere Anchises
• Rude Audio and Dan Wainwright: Be Love
• Steve Queralt and Michael Smith: Chaldean Oracle
• Steve Queralt and Michael Smith: Glitches (Flug 8 Remix)
• Fireflies and Joe Duggan: Leonard Cohen Knows

Sit Around The Fire is the closing track on Jon Hopkins 2022 Music For Psychedelic Therapy, the voice of guru and writer Ram Dass talking about spiritual discovery through sitting round the fire and staring at the flames, while Hopkins' slow piano chords and sound of wood burning and crackling drift by. 

The First Step came out on Higher Love Vol. 2 last year, a 10:40 track that borrows a Bertrand Russell interview and layers a slow burning groove and wash around it, growing in emotion with nods to Elvis and Spiritualized. Russell speaks of acting and of doing in spite of doubt and in the absence of religion.  Magical stuff. 

Coyote are masters of sampling voices and building beautiful Balearic songs around them. This one takes Alan Watts talking about artists, work, states of evolution and sane and insane societies, adds some lovely acoustic guitar, and pays tribute to Andrew Weatherall (who styled himself as The Outsider when writing for Boy's Own back in the late 80s). The Outsider is the last song on their 2021 album The Mystery Light, a highly recommended record. 

Elsewhere Anchises is from David Holmes' Late Night Tales, a stunning 2016 compilation album that pulled together nineteen songs of life and loss, spanning Buddy Holly and David Crosby to Eat Light Become Light and songs David made for the album. On Elsewhere Anchises actor Stephen Rea speaks the words of Seamus Heaney over David's ambient backdrop, the sound of something quite special taking place. 

Rude Audio and Dan Wainwright have released one of this year's best dub/ dub techno/ psychedelia albums, Psychedelic Science. Be Love opens the album with the voice of Ram Dass making his second appearance on this mix. 

Steve Queralt and Michael Smith released the four track EP Sun Moon Town last year, Ride bassist Steve writing and recording four very different pieces of music and Hartlepool born writer and flaneur Michael narrating his own tales of adventures and wanderings in the 21st century, a place and time that seems quite bewildering to him. The Flug 8 remix comes from this year's remix package, a dissection of late stage capitalism and advertising agency dreams you can dance to.  

Fireflies is one of Nina Walsh's musical outlets, a South London based collective. The voice is that of Joe Duggan, Derry born and resident of Crystal Palace. 'If anyone knows', Joe says, 'Leonard Cohen knows'.