Midnight Versions

Much of what I've posted here over the last month has been new music. It always used to seem that August was a bit of a quiet time, a dead zone in the music industry, nothing much released, everyone waiting for the big rush of autumn releases- but over the last month I've posted new music from Adrian Sherwood, Jezebell, Statues, The Lemonheads, The Charlatans, The Orb, ddwy, Jazxing, Puerto Montt City Orchestra, 100 Poems, Sewell And The Gong, Daniel Avery, Factory Floor, Number, Jay- Son, Byron Carignan, Luke Schneider, Florecer and senses remixed by GLOK. There's probably loads I've missed too and I've got several other new releases noted down to be posted in the upcoming days and weeks. 

All of this is a good thing obviously, new music to be enjoyed and absorbed, but it also possibly makes the posts a little perfunctory sometimes- there isn't always a lot of context or narrative, just me saying, 'here's some new music, I like it, I think you might like it too', and then some kind of attempt at describing said music. The sheer amount of new music also means that sometimes it feels like one listens to something new a lot for a few days and then move on to the next new thing and then on again, a flow that can feel like a flood, and there's a danger that stuff gets lost further upstream behind me/ us. 

This came out yesterday, a new version of a Daniel Avery single that came out two weeks ago. Rapture In Blue is the first single from his new album that comes out at the end of October (with a gig in Manchester the same night). It has Cecile Believe on vocals and guitar from Andy Bell and sounds better with each listen, a 2025 goth- pop/ dance rhapsody, a slow burning rush. The Rapture In Blue (Midnight Version), out at Bandcamp, is a re- imagined version,, made for darker corners and specifically for the club, to shake the floor in DJ sets- that doesn't stop it from sounding good at home though. The pop dynamics and mid- 80s film feel is dialed down and stripped back, with drums and bass toughened and isolated and Cecile's vocal isolated on top. There are whooshes, industrial clangs, shuddering synth breakdowns and stuttering vocal parts. I already like it as much as the original. I'm anticipating that as the album release draws nearer and more songs are released ahead of it, there may be more Midnight Versions too. 

Midnight occurs in thousands of song titles- a search of my downloads folder brings up hundreds. In May Peaking Lights and Coyote released an EP called Love Letters/ So Far Away, three beautifully hazy, dubby tracks. Back in 2012 Peaking Lights remixed their entire Lucifer album as a dub version and Midnight Dub is as good as anything they have done before or since. Gloriously blissed out, wonky dub- pop. 

Midnight Dub

Baltic Fleet is a one man band from Warrington, named after a famous waterfront pub in Liverpool. Paul Fleming played keys and synths for Echo And The Bunnymen and built up a repertoire of songs that he released as a self- titled debut album, Towers, in 2008, followed by Towers (2012), The Wilds (2013) and The Dear One (2016). Midnight Train is from Towers, a chiming, synth- led instrumental, the autobahns of mid- 70s West Germany crossing over to the M62. 

Midnight Train

Finally, a third midnight song, this one from 1987, a single by Creation group The Weather Prophets- Midnight Mile was the B-side to Why Does The Rain although by this point they'd jumped from Creation to Elevation, a Creation offshoot label that Alan McGee set up in conjunction with major label WEA- a major label funded indie that was supposed to benefit from better distribution, and hoped that the better sales would siphon money back to Creation to invest in other artists. 

Midnight Mile is very typical of the period between the end of The Smiths and the dawn of acid house/ indie dance, Pete Astor's '87 jangle- pop confessional produced by Lenny Kaye. 

Midnight Mile

Elevation eventually folded. WEA expected an instant return and hit singles, something The Weather Prophets didn't/ couldn't provide and singles by Primal Scream and Edwyn Collins didn't either. McGee later said setting up Elevation was the biggest mistake he made. Such was the indie scene in 1987 that bands who left the indie nest often lost their original fans who saw major label money as evidence of selling out.  Nowadays everyone and anyone can release songs immediately via Bandcamp (or other services), on their own and cut out the middle man/ record label completely- although the returns are pretty low and not everyone, or many, can make a living out of it. 

So Far Away

Notts Balearic duo Coyote and Wisconsin psychedelicists couple Peaking Lights have teamed up for a three track 12" that has rapidly become one of my favourite releases of the summer. All three tracks are loaded with dub influences and blissed out psychedelia. Love Letters is a seven minutes long, Indra Dunis' vocals floating along on top of a shimmering haze...

On So Far Away the four go slower, deeper and even dreamier, the bass prodding gently, a wash of dub FX and some very sleepy vocals. Really lovely. The Coyote Dub Mix does exactly what it says, all delay, bass and warmth, a long weekend in LA with King Tubby looking out over the Pacific Ocean and wondering how far the sea goes...

In 2012 Peaking Lights released Lucifer In Dub, dubbed out version of their album Lucifer. It's long been a Bagging Area favourite, ambience and psychedelia down out with acres of space and endless repetition, the pop- psyche element underpinned by some serious dub styles. The highpoint is probably Beautiful Dub but I've posted that before so try this one today, the hypnotic and soothing door bell dubbings of Lo Dub High Dub. 

Lo Dub High Dub

Wish We Were Together

I have a list of new music to write about that fills a page of my notebook and as I work my way through it, more new music arrives. This is a good thing, the endless rush of new sounds and songs, constant motion and novelty. This one arrived in my inbox a couple of days ago, new from Peaking Lights, a song called Mental. You can buy the download here. 

Mental is a tumbling cascade of psyche pop, spiralling keys and guitars over primitive 60s drums and the voice of singer Indra Dunis, the space and echo of dub but with the day glo hues of psychedelia. Indra and husband Aaron Coyes started out in Wisconsin, went to Los Angeles, then to Amsterdam and are now back in California. There is something very Californian about this song to me- at least it seems so to me, someone who admittedly has never been to California. 

Forty Minutes Of Peaking Lights

Peaking Lights, husband/ wife duo from the US (variously San Francisco, Wisconsin, Los Angeles but now resident in Amsterdam according to Wiki), have been releasing albums since 2008, putting out a lo- fi, trippy, sun dappled type of psychedelic pop, heavily laced with dub. I first encountered them on their 2011 album 936 (Piccadilly Records record of the year I think) and then got the follow up Lucifer and its side version Lucifer In Dub. I've not kept up to date with everything they've released but what I have I love- their sound is a swirling, heady kaleidoscopic brew, the dubbier ones particularly hitting the spot. 

Beautiful Dub is from Lucifer In Dub, released in 2012. Tiger Eyes (Laid Back) and All The Sun That Shines were both on 936 which came with a bunch of remixes, including the one here by On U Sound's Adrian Sherwood. In 2015 they remixed four songs by Sinkane, his Sudanese electronic funk- pop splattered with their psychedelic dub. Beautiful Son is from Lucifer- John Talabot's remix is a gorgeous low key thumper from 2013. 

Forty Minutes of Peaking Lights

• Beautiful Dub
• Tiger Eyes (Laid Back) (Adrian Sherwood On U Sound Remix)
• All The Sun That Shines
• Yacha (Peaking Lights Mix)
• Beautiful Son (John Talabot's Acetate Dub)

Cosmic Soul Cosmic Dub

From Cosmic Silence in Belgium yesterday to Cosmic Soul and Cosmick Dub from Germany and the USA today. Nhii, Munich born and New York based, is a DJ and producer who builds some of his tracks around North African sounds, the superb Impermanence EP being a case in point. This one is much more club oriented, a synth based slow burner, dark and groovy. 

Cosmic Soul

Peaking Lights have been featured here before several times, a husband/ wife duo who met in San Francisco, moved to rural Wisconsin and then back to California. Lucifer, released in 2012, is a back catalogue highlight, a technicolour swirl of psyche/ shoegaze/ motorik/ synth/ dub. They reworked Lucifer into Lucifer In Dub as a companion album, a head spinning, sleepy headed blur of clattering percussion, dubbed out basslines and echo. 

Cosmick Dub

Escape

The new album from husband and wife duo Peaking Lights, a thirteen song psychedelic dub pop trip with layers of tape loops, FX, compression and the dreamily drifting vocals of Indra making for a very pleasant way to escape. Opener Dharma sets the tone for an album of Californian sunshine with the haze and half light of the rehearsal room/ studio. Third song EVP is propulsive, escapist dance pop with drones and processed backing vocals. The Damned is the early 80s crossed with Mediterranean Euro-pop. Dreams has delayed guitars and a dub bounce. By the end and final song Change Always Comes we're deep into proggy, sail away territory, floating out on piano and waves of gentle noise.

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

Beautiful Dub

I've posted this song before but occasionally it re- appears in my brain out of nowhere or pops up on an old compilation CD and takes me away for a few minutes. Peaking Lights, a husband- wife duo from Wisconsin, put out an album in 2012 called Lucifer, a swirly psychedelic pop record that brightened the corners. They followed it with Lucifer In Dub, self- explanatory really, dubbed out re-workings of their own songs. The stand out was their dub of Beautiful Son, a song written for their then newborn baby Mikko. This is just under seven minutes of lush, warm, psychedelic dub, the aural equivalent of sunshine on a rainy day, to quote a completely different song .

Beautiful Dub

U'huh

I was ploughing through a pile of cds behind the cd player in the kitchen, the spirit of Marie Kondo having entered this house while I was out at work. Most of them were either magazine freebies or mixes I'd burned myself, so inevitably some were keepers and some sent into the bin awaiting their place in landfill. I kept a Piccadilly Records 2017 sampler with an interesting looking tracklist and buried in the middle of it was this.

U'huh

U'huh is by Sinkane (who made an e.p. back in 2015, four remixes of his songs by Peaking Lights, that was one of my favourite records of that year). Sinkane is Ahmed Gallab, a Sudanese- American, who combines Sudanese pop with whatever takes his fancy- dub, kraut, jazz, electronic music. U'huh is a joyful East African song with upbeat horns and a vocal saying that despite everything 'we're gonna be alright'. Watching the news currently I wish I shared his optimism.

This is from the Mean Dub e.p. which I highly recommend if you haven't got it, four of Sinkane's songs sent through the Peaking Lights dub blender.

Galley Boys (Peaking Lights Dub Mix)

Little Flower

Now that the sun has appeared, suddenly and in a blaze of heat and light, this four track ep that Peaking lights put out back in February makes perfect sense. The lead song, Little Flower, has a spoken/chanted vocal by Chloe Sevigny and the music is pure psychedelic-dub- tropical- disco with the emphasis on upbeat repetition. The second track Conga Blue has a similar vibe with a heavily vocodered backing vocal. There's loads going on to lift the spirits.

Little Flower

New Year's Eve

Right then, New Year's Eve, an over-rated excuse for an enforced piss up if ever there was one. But staying in watching Jools, waiting for the clock to run down, is no good either.

Like many of you (us, the whinging, metropolitan, liberal elite out to deny the democratic voice of the British people) I won't be too unhappy to see the back of 2016, a downer of a year in many ways. 2017 promises more of the same (in the shape of Trump if nothing else). All we can do is continue to rage against the dying of the light with good music, people we like and trust and a hope that things may get better. To celebrate seeing the back of the year here's some tunes....

Durutti Column first, the combined talents of Vini Reilly and Martin Hannett, and a song to see the winter out- it's getting a bit brighter every day and has been since December 21st. That's something to cheer about.

Sketch For Winter

Some more guitars, this time the squealing, distorted and overloaded kind courtesy of James Williamson and Mr James Osterberg's Stooges. The start of this song is phenomenal, like the engineer pressed the record button a fraction too late but the band went for it anyway.

Search And Destroy (Mono)

Now some proper four-on-the-floor house music from Chicago in 1987. It contains a spoken word section that has some of the best kiss off threats to the other girl ever recorded (see below)

You Used To Hold Me (Kenny Jammin' Jason and Fast Eddie Smith Mix)

It's all about midnight, count it down. There, done.

Peaking Lights with some chilled out midnight dub sounds to ease 2017 in.

Midnight Dub

And to finish, because all nights should finish with this...

Come Together (Weatherall Mix)


Spoken word section from You Used To Hold Me...

Now honey let me tell you something about my man.
You know he's a good looking sweet lil' thing.
That man knows how to satisfy a woman
You know what I'm talking about?
Girlfriend let me tell you,
He bought me this fur coat
A brand new car and this 24 carat gold diamond ring
Ain't it pretty?
Girfriend you know how it is,
When you got a good man,
You start doin' things like wearing those high heel shoes
And the lace pocket with the garter belt,
And putting on that sweet smellin' seductive perfume.
Hm hmm
But you know what?
I'm gonna have to put some lame brain in check honey
Cause she got her locks on my man.
But baby I ain't givin up on this here good thing not for nobody.
Cause what that dorky chick got wouldn't satisfy a cheese stick let alone my baby
She better take her big long haired butt and move on 'cause he's mine all mine

This Is My List

Here is my list, self indulgent as Drew says, but fun to do. I've enjoyed more new music during 2015 than any in recent years. These are the albums and songs/singles that have struck a chord with me and that have stuck with me since their release.

Albums

12. Mbongwana Star 'From Kinshasa'
Traditional African forms coupled with electronics. Still startling.

11. Mick Jones 'Ex Libris'
Vinyl only, six track instrumental.

10. MonoLife 'Phrenology'
The skull from Hull with some cracking old school dance music.

9. The Orb 'Moonbuilding 2703AD'
A return to form, four very long pieces full of ambient buzz.

8. Le Volume Courbe 'I Wish Dee Dee Ramone Was Here With Me'
Contains two of my favourite songs of this year- The House and Rusty.

7. Steve Cobby 'Everliving'
It could have been 'Revolutions' as well. Both are full of sumptuous electronic tunes and ideas.

6. Gwenno 'Y Dyad Olaf'
Perfect psychedelic pop sung in Welsh (except for the one sung in Cornish).

5. Crocodiles 'Boys'
Dirty, sexy, brash guitars from San Diego. If you haven't heard Foolin' Around, click play now.



4. Moon Duo 'Shadows Of The Sun'
Loads of uptempo two chord motorik psyche but with In A Cloud they had one of the year's most beautiful, almost Balearic guitar moments.

3. Sexwitch 'Sexwitch'.
Six covers recorded by Natasha Khan, Toy and Dan Carey. The intense stomp of the Middle Eastern songs take some beating and Natasha's vocals are superbly focused while also slightly unhinged. Possessed and obsessive.

2. The Charlatans 'Modern Nature'.
Recorded after the death of drummer Jon Brookes, a band back on form and determined to celebrate life with some of the best, soaring songs of the year- So Oh and Come Home Baby especially.

1. Jamie Xx 'In Colour'
A history of dance music from house to grime, emotionally charged from start to finish, with moments of ecstasy, clarity and genuine beauty. I'm still playing it from start to finish.



Singles/Songs
The hand and influence of Mr Weatherall is all over this section. That's just the way it's been this year. Both lists show I've been veering far more towards dance/electronics this year. A top seventeen for no real reason.

17. Noel Gallagher 'In The Heat Of The Moment' Andrew Weatherall Remix
It came out last year online but was released on vinyl in April. Glorious remix.

16. Dubrobots 'Forever'
This Cardiff based producer sent me two versions of this massively dub influenced song. Still rattling my ribcage.

15. Public Service Broadcasting 'Gagarin' Richard Norris Remix
The album did nothing for me but this remix, full of Spanish acoustic guitars, sent Yuri to Ibiza.

14. jennylee 'Never'
Warpaint's foxy bassist with an early 80s single that pushed the right buttons.

13. Gwenno 'Chwyldro' Andrew Weatherall Remix
Further, stranger, slower.

12. Unloved 'Guilty Of Love'
David Holmes' new project taking in 60s/70s filmscores with a girl group vibe. Also had two long dubby Weatherall remixes.

11.  Vox Low 'Cast Upward Through the Waves, A Ruby Glow
Strange stuff from a French duo finding weird spaces between rock and dance.

10. Heretic 'Pollux' Andrew Weatherall Remix
I'm getting repetitive strain from typing those three words- this one took early New Order and merged it with some sparse electronics and a spooky vocal refrain.

9. Timothy J. Fairplay
Timothy J released several superb four track e.p.s this year, full of vintage synths- Stories Of Prison, Love And Columbium, No News From New York. Take your pick. Together they'd make a potential album of the year.

8. Paresse 'Rosita'.
Super smooth stuff from Scandinavia. Wraps your ears up all warm.

7. Haunted Doorbell 'Unconnected Thoughts On Jacking'
I'm cheating here- Fairplay again, this time with Matilda Tristam. Four outstanding instrumentals joining the various dots. The e.p. and title track gave us the song title of the year. Beautiful Sheffield is exactly as it sounds.

6. Patti Yang Group 'I'm Ready'
Chris Rotter, Matty Skylab and Patti Yang with a thumping piece of hymnal house. Do you want a free download?



5. Jamie Xx 'Loud Places' John Talabot's Higher Dub
I posted this last week. It's stunningly good, reworking an album highlight into something else with mesmerising, euphoric peaks.

4. C.A.R. 'Glock'd' Asphodells Remix
Super glam stomp, a massive wobbly bass, dirty guitars, French accented vocals; the sound of the future.

3. Sinkane x Peaking Lights 'Mean Dub'
This ten minute dub version of Yacha was the sound of my summer. All four tracks on the reworked dub e.p. were top quality stuff but Yacha is something else entirely and from somewhere else entirely too. Fast dub.



2. Pearl's Cab Ride 'Sunrise' (MonoLife Extended  Trip)
A Humberside funk and soul sixpiece taken on a long trip by MonoLife- trumpet, distorted vocal, two note bass, drifting but always moving forwards. Beautiful.



1. Mike Garry and Joe Duddell 'St Anthony: An Ode to Anthony H Wilson'
This came out in August, an emotional tribute to Mr Manchester set to Joe Duddell's Your Silent Face inspired strings, full of Mike Garry's poetic references to the city and its sounds. All proceeds go to The Christie so if you haven't bought it yet, there's another reason to do so. Almost inevitably, there's a Weatherall remix on the other side (which isn't too shabby either. In fact it's very, very good). Still prone to move me after umpteen listens.

Mean

One of my favourite records of this summer has been the Peaking Lights remix of Sinkane's Yacha, which I posted a few months back. Ten minutes long, a beautiful collision of Sudan via Brooklyn versus a Wisconsin version of Jamaica. Despite being a dub mix it's pretty fast, fully coloured in and with a vocal that swims above the rhythm and melody. A proper earworm and a dancer too. Peaking Lights have remixed three other songs from Sinkane's Mean Love album and they all came out on an ep yesterday. As an aside, when did records start being released on Fridays?

Hold Tight is bass led with a stacatto beat and dubby percussion. Galley Boys starts with a dog barking and then rides on for a seven minutes, buckets of echo and delay. How We Be is a bass led beast, funky and insistent. Four forward thinking songs, boundaries removed, fully worked out for the head and the feet.

Yacha

This remix of Sinkane by Peaking Lights was recommended by Alexis Petridis in the newspaper last week. It's a sweltering piece of summery goodness, ten minutes of uptempo, busy fun with a non-stop vocal coming via Sudan and the Caribbean. Party music.

Breakdown

This new song from Peaking Lights came out in August ahead of a new album Cosmic Logic next month. On first listen I wasn't too sure- some of the swirling, dubby, kaleidoscopic parts of their sound have disappeared. This is more straightforwardly electronic, more 80s. It's growing on me now though.

Peaking Lights are one of those bands where I think the remixes are often better than the originals. The dub version of the last lp and the John Talabot remix of Beautiful Son are my favourites of theirs by a long way.

Lit Up

Tim Burgess remixed by Peaking Lights. This is hot off the press and sounding very nice indeed, gorgeous summer pianos, a stomping electronic beat and Tim's vocals. It won't cool you down but will put a smile on your face as you cross wearily back to the fridge for something cold. Eight minutes and fifty three seconds of lovely stuff and you can listen to it here.

Beautiful

The dub version of the last Peaking Lights album (Lucifer and Lucifer In Dub) have both been near my stereo recently. The one in the video above is called Beautiful Dub and that's exactly what it is. There was a download only e.p. of remixes too (Lucifer Re-Lit) of which Jon Talabot's re-working of the same song (Beautiful Son) was, again, beautiful. Eight minutes of hi-hat, piano and bass, with echoey blissed out, sunny day vocals.



Beautiful Son (John Talabot's Acetate Dub)

Horror Show

Nope, I don't know what's going on with Salvador Dali's trousers either (particularly the crotch area) although Gala seems to have got it going on. Tight trousered enthusiasts The Horrors have set a load of remixers loose on their 2011 album Skying, most of them doing exactly what remixers should. The digital release came out this week- two Weatherall mixes (the previously released remix of Wild Eyed and a new bleepy one of Moving Further Away). Other equally good highlights are present from Daniel Avery, Peaking Lights, Andy Blake and Blanck Mass (one half of Olympians Fuck Buttons). All well worth downloading from Beatport or somewhere similar. You can listen below.




The Higher physical boxset comes out in March- four pieces of vinyl, two cds,a dvd and one previously worn winklepicker. With a price tag of fifty quid. Which is, y'know, quite a lot of money.

Lights Out

I found this on the internet- Wooden Shjips remixed by Peaking Lights, a kind of super- hippy, analogue-long hair, face-off. It'll either appeal or send you running for the hills.

Lights Out (Peaking Lights Remix)

Note to self; too many hyphens.

Wooden Shjips Versus Peaking Lights

Soundcloud have another free download for you here, Lights Out by Wooden Shjips (San Franciscan long haired drone rockers) remixed by Peaking Lights (husband and wife psychedelic dub via a Fisher Price mixing desk). Yummy.