The Custom 88

The tidal wave of new music continues today with a four track EP on Tici Taci from BTCop and Rude Audio- I've been waiting for this one to be released for some time, it contains two new tracks and two remixes all from the top drawer. The Custom 88 has a pair of new BTCop tracks- Sabre 540 and the self referential B.T.C.o.P. with a Rude Audio remix of each. Sabre 540 is a slow starting, ambient wash of sounds and whispers, a full two minutes of build up before a drum makes an appearance, backwards sounds and enveloping melody lines dragging the listener in ever deeper. Truly gorgeous ambient house. 

The Rude Audio remix adds the thump of a kick drum, a juddering synth line and the space of dub techno, turning Sabres 540 into an entirely different beast- it blasts off at one minute eighteen with some classic Rude Audio rhythms, with the melody lines and synth strings adding some twinkle to the euphoric, widescreen dub- chug. 

B.T.C.o.P. is a heavy duty and slightly moody track, with thundering bass and drums, slo mo dancefloor stuff with vocals that swirl around at the edges of the mix. It thumps onwards gathering pace and intensity, breaking down and taking off again. The Rude Audio remix takes the dubbier parts, loops them, messes around with them and then springs into a rapid chug a minute in. Rude Audio don't tend to do things by halves or in small doses and the remix of B.T.C.o.P. sticks at it for nine minutes, the thumping rhythms, long synth chords and sparkling melodies, pushing and pulling at each other.  Likely to cause dancers to wear the carpet out at parties. 

The Custom 88 EP is out today at Tici Taci and you should be able to find it here. I'll update the link later on today and add any YouTube versions if they materialise. 

Edit: no Bandcamp for this one but you can buy at Juno. 

The BTCop tracks and Rude Audio remixes are represented at Brother Joseph's Sonic Treasures radio show, three hours of top quality music broadcasting out of Glasgow earlier this week. Joseph kicks off with the first part opening with Therapy? as remixed by Sabres Of Paradise and working his way through to Coyote with Rude Audio's remix of Sabres 540 visited along the way. Stephen Haldane takes the middle slot, an Andrew Weatherall dub- slanted selection (including The Asphodells, Andrew's remix of Steve Mason, the TLS dub of Saint Etienne's Heart Failed (In The Back Of A Taxi) and an Unloved remix) and then Joseph returns to the mix with more BTCop/ Rude Audio, the recent David Harrow and Little Annie smash (again remixed by Rude Audio) among others. It's a fine way to spend three hours of listening time. You can hear it here. 

Edge Of The Edge

Brother Joseph's Sonic Treasures is a repeated listening highlight, broadcasting on Radio Magnetic from Glasgow, Brother Joseph in the mix joined by Stephen Haldane and an all star cast of guests- David Holmes, Sonic Boom, Nina Walsh, Andy Bell/ Glok and Chris Rotter have all spun in guest mixes. 

Sonic Boom has recently released an album, Reset, with Panda Bear, a collaboration combining their love of early 60s pop with their own psychedelia. In making Reset they sampled various artists from the Kennedy/ Kodachrome years and constructed their own songs around the samples- The Troggs, Eddie Cochrane, The Everley Brothers, The Drifters and Randy And The Rainbows all turn up in the songs, recognisable but submerged too. The effect is a brightly coloured, woozy, layered, head spinner of an album where everything sounds both new and old at the same time. The loops and samples make the songs exist in circles, spinning permanently on a Sonic Boom/ Panda Bear jukebox- the appear, play and disappear, one after another, harmonies and handclaps and reverb drenched drum tracks rotating, seemingly forever. This one Edge Of The Edge , sampling Randy And The Rainbows' 1963 song Denise, sounds like the most early 60s Beach Boys song since the Beach Boys themselves were an early 60s band. 

Brother Joseph invited Sonic Boom back to Sonic Treasures and Sonic put together a Reset mix, the source songs and the Sonic/ Panda songs together in a seamless fifty two minutes. The full four hour show with Brother Joseph playing an hour of ambient/ psyche/ country with some new Chris Rotter magic, Stephen Haldane with a half hour delight including Django Django, Andrew Weatherall and Syd Barrett, Sonic Boom's Reset mix and then Joseph back for the outro section is at Soundcloud. 

Sonic Treasures For Isaac

Brother Joseph's Sonic Treasures went out two weekends ago, a six hour radio show on Radio Magnetic and dedicated to Isaac. I wrote yesterday about the tribute to Isaac in the first half hour recorded by Brother Joseph. That opening section of the show includes two of my favourite songs, Otis by The Durutti Column and the Beatless Mix of Smokebelch by The Sabres Of Paradise, and hearing them in the show and in the immediate aftermath of everything we are going through was deeply moving. 

Joseph uploaded the show (in seven sections) to Soundcloud yesterday. You can listen to it here. 

After the tribute to Isaac there is some mighty dub from Stephen Haldane, some ambience, psychedelia and cosmic splendour from Joseph, lots of those dreamy pedal steel guitars and analogue synth sounds, more from Stephen and then Chris Mackin's guest mix which starts with his special reworked version of 86'd for Isaac and then Chris' song selection, a beautiful mix of ambient and western taking in Gene Clark, Dennis Wilson, Link Wray and Chris Bell among others. Here's Chris' handwritten tracklist. 

Chris signed off with a quote from Nick Cave, no stranger to grief and loss. Nick's son Arthur died in 2015. Nick wrote a lengthy piece on his blog about grief (I glanced at it a few days ago but haven't read it in full yet, it seems too soon. I will though). He finished with this and Chris put it in his message for his mix- 'In time there is a way, not out of grief, but deep within it'. 

Sitting here now, typing this, that seems hopeful. While writing this post last night I found an interview with Nick Cave from 2017 and in it there was something that resonated very strongly with me-

''A lot is said about grief, especially the conventional wisdom that you do it alone. I personally have found that not to be the case. The goodwill we received after Arthur’s death from people who I did not know, especially through social media, people who liked my music and kind of reached out, was extraordinary...'' I've definitely found this to be true. 

More Treasures

On Sunday I posted David Holmes' set for Brother Joseph's Sonic Treasures, a radio station beaming delights out of Glasgow. October's show opened with a ninety minute mix from Glok (Andy Bell, guitarist and singer from Ride and more recently a solo artist responsible for some of the best songs of the last couple of years). Glok is a sleek, kosmische, synth based outlet for Andy's music. The first Glok album- Dissident- came out in 2019 and the follow up called Pattern Recognition is due this year (currently another victim of the crisis affecting vinyl pressing plants). Andy's mix for Sonic Treasures is a perfect way into the Glok world, gliding between several Glok tracks (Day Three, Invocation, Kolokol, Closer, Pulsing), Andy's Indica (remixed by Pye Corner Audio and then remixed by Glok- yes, Andy remixing a remix of himself), his Glok remix of Hermann Kristofersson from earlier this year, an unreleased Andy Bell song called Drone, some sublime ambient techno courtesy of The Primitive Painter, Freur's Doot- Doot (proto- Underworld from 1983), Roisin Murphy, Sensate Focus and Porter Ricks. It's a lovely trip, chilled and hypnotic. Find it at Soundcloud. 

Glok's return with Pattern Recognition was led back in March with the release of That Time Of Night, a warm, throbbing synths and electronic shimmer, the voice of Shiarra celebrating the collective experience of losing yourself in the crowd and on the floor- 'in the heat and the light and the flashing/ Being a small part of the whole crowd of people'. The version below is an edit, the full length one is nine minutes long and together with a Darren Emerson remix can be gotten here. 

The entire six hour broadcast of Brother Joseph's Sonic Treasures for October- Glok, Joseph, Stephen Haldane and David Holmes- can be found at Soundcloud, handily chunked into seven sections.