The Humans Will Destroy Us

Le Carousel's second album has been a long time in the making and finally arrived last week, ten years after the first one. It was worth the wait. Belfast based producer, DJ and composer Phil Kieran, the man behind Le Carousel, has made one of 2026's best albums to date, a blend of electronics and guitars, drum machines and synths, cosmische, shoegaze, ambient, dark disco and psychedelia, that nods its head in sound and tone towards Andrew Weatherall and David Holmes and that asks some big questions that are particularly apposite- what's happening to us? Are we going to destroy the planet and ourselves? Are we going out by climate collapse or war? Is it too late to save ourselves? 

Light The Flare stutters into life, a drum machine, a grinding bassline and a wash of synths and then several layered voices, 'This ship's going  down/ Can anyone see?' Then comes a response- 'we're not alone'- as synth arpeggios splash across the top. 'There's always someone there'. This runs into Everyone Is Gone, a shoegaze/ psychedelic guitar piece with blasts of synth and keys. The Good One is a psychedelic cosmische glide- by, followed by Destroy Us,  where there's a touch of Spiritualized in the drone of the organ chords, a slow mo analogue song with hand drum percussion and shakers that builds gradually, multi- tracked vocals coming in, unfolding over six minutes, heading towards a fragile optimism and the counter- intuitive angelic vocal, 'destroy us'. The humans are asking for it. 

Side one ends with We're All Gonna Hurt, a dark disco/ acid house delight that first saw the dark of day last year, motorik drum machine beat with layers of Giorgio Morodor syths and keys and a ghostly male- female vocal pairing, 'I want to take you away/ This way/ Sooner or later/ We're all gonna hurt'. The machines and the voices sound like they could go on forever in an endless loop of dystopic disco delight.

Flip The Humans Will Destroy Us over and Echo Spiegel opens side two, spacey Vangelis Blade Runner chords and thumping club rhythms. Parabolic is all squelchy Space Echo and wobbly vintage synths. The analogue synths and warm widescreen production root these songs partly in 1970s West Germany and partly in the late 80s/ early 90s acid house/ Screamadelica days and it sits alongside David Holmes' Blind On A Galloping Horse too, another 2020s album made in Belfast that tries to get to grips with the state of the world around it. Rough Ending fades in gently, a lullaby that suddenly goes widescreen, a wall of synths and the ghost of Peter Hook's bass. 

Goodbye My Friends- we're getting close to the end now- is strummed guitar chords and more of those floating angelic vocals, wah wah synth and hissy drum machine, Spacemen 3 at the end of their journey, Screamdelica crashed and burned. Beautifully warm, embracing departure. The Humans Will Destroy Us concludes with You're Killing Me Inside- twinkling sounds, long organ chords, FX, acres of space, and a female voice backed by a male one, 'I love you/ You're the best thing/ I love you/ But you're killing me inside'. I don't think it's an individual they're singing too. It could be a lover or a partner but more likely, I think, it's us a species, it's all of us. 

What a way to go.

You can buy The Humans Will Destroy Us digitally at Bandcamp. I think all the vinyl's all gone but there might be some in shops. It is, I think you may have picked up by now, highly recommended. 

Forty Minutes Of Music For Sunday

Today's mix is just some music that seemed to fall together well. I was rediscovering some tunes from five years ago, some of them by ambient/ Balearic duo Seahawks*, and started weaving them and some much more recent tracks into one piece. No theme, just some music, mainly ambient or in the ambient area, I like and that strikes a chord with me right now. 

Forty Minutes Of Music For February 2026

• Seahawks: Islands
• Kevin McCormick: Passing Clouds
• Hawksmoor: Storm Bird- Storm Dreamer
• Le Carousel: Echo Spiegel (Psychedelic Mix)
• Private Agenda: Malanai Ascending (Seahawks Remix)
• Thurston Moore: Asperitas
• Boards Of Canada: Olson Version 3 (Peel Session)
• Olodum: Farao Divindade Do Ogito (Pandit Pam Pam Deep Into The Bowel Of A Dub)
• Maria Somerville: October Moon

Islands is from Seahawks 2014 album Paradise Freaks, a beautiful piece of music that comes in at under two minutes long but which says and suggests so much in that time. It's the final track on Paradise Freaks, a short closer after an hour of longer tracks that seems to sum the whole album up. 

Kevin McCormick is a guitarist from Manchester, who should be better known than he is, whose early 80s recordings were recently re- issued and who plays on the 12" from Arrival that came out on Before I Die last month, a highly recommended release. Passing Clouds is from October 2024, a guitar meditation on sky watching.

Hawksmoor's Am I Conscious Now? will be out on Before I Die soon and is going to be one of the best ambient releases of 2026. Last year a two track EP called Life Aboard The International Space Station came out, reprising two unreleased tracks from 2021- one of them was this one, named after a JG Ballard short story. Storm Bird- Storm Dreamer is several guitars, acoustic and electric, playing together.  

Le Carousel is Phil Kieran from Belfast. Next month he's going to release one of 2026's best post- Weatherall/ electronic albums, The Humans Will Destroy Us. Last year's WE're All Gonna Hurt was a big tune round Bagging Area way and Echo Spiegel came out right at the end of last year. Phil's own Psychedelic Mix is an ambient/ psychedelic journey, four minutes of beatless, floaty, slightly trippy synths that spin further and further with each passing bar.

Private Agenda are a duo split between London and Amsterdam. Their six track mini- album Submersion came out in May 2021- remixes of material from their Ilse de Reve album. Seahawks created something spectacularly otherwordly with their remix of Malanai Ascending. Malanai it turns out is a gently cooling breeze found in coastal parts of Hawaii which makes perfect sense when you listen to the music. 

Thurston Moore's Asperitas came out last Monday, a ten minute guitar instrumental with drum machine taken from a six track album of instrumentals based on the skies as seen in England, wales and Ireland. All six tracks are named after types of cloud. Asperitas is a total joy, thudding primitive drum machine and Thurston's chilled, repetitive and evocative guitar parts. 

Now I'm looking at the tracks I've chosen for this mix and wondering if there is a theme after all, one I wasn't even aware of as I was pulling the tracks together- islands, clouds, skies, storms, breezes... 

I've been on a Boards Of Canada binge recently and their Peel Session, released by Warp in 2019 but recorded for Peel back in 1999, has been on repeat. Olson is one of four tracks from the session, the one that made the most sense in this mix.

My friend in Sao Paulo Eduardo records as Pandit Pam Pam and has been featured at this blog several times. Last month he sent me two new tracks, one out at the end of the month and also this one, an edit of a song celebrating the Pharaohs and deities of ancient Egypt. Eduardo said his wife was listening to it and his kids loved it too and it drew him in, and with carnival approaching he did a new version, something dark, danceable and dubby. Mardi Gras is on Tuesday next week, 17th February, and the carnival started over this weekend- it seemed apt to put it into this mix.

Maria Somerville's album Luster came out last year and I slept on it a bit, not really appreciating it, or just giving it enough time, until recently. It's an album inspired by the mythic and the real, the wild coastal landscape of Connemara, Ireland, a mystical swirling record that blurs ambient, early 80s 4AD and dreampop. Another subliminal nature nature- how strange that this only became apparent after pulling the tracks together and I began writing about them.

* Maybe this was subliminal influence from the Superbowl, not a sporting event I take any interest in, but Seattle Seahawks were in the Superbowl- the final I think we call it in most other sports- and they beat the New England Patriots 29- 13. I didn't know that until I looked it up. The main interest in the Superbowl from my end over here was that trump didn't go 'because it was too far away', and the half time entertainment was by Bad Bunny who sang entirely in Spanish (he's from Puerta Rico) and this was widely viewed as an anti- Trump, anti- MAGA performance especially when he announced 'I love America' and began listing countries from South, Central and North America while his dancers carried their flags. Trump predictably said that it was, 'absolutely terrible, one of the worst EVER!' and added 'no one understands a word this guy is saying'. Trump is a cunt.

Echo Spiegel

Some music that sneaked out in December 2025 that I missed. From Belfast, Phil Kieran's Le Carousel released an EP called Echo Spiegel (translation- Sound Mirror), a squelchy psychedelic, Germanic disco number with a pair of remixes by Curses and a further one by Phil himself. The original is a lovely piece of electronic music, one that draws you in as it unfolds, repetition as a feature and an end in itself. 

Curses is DJ/ producer/ remixer Luca Venezia, resident of Berlin. He provides a pair of remixes. The Liquid Metal Remix is driven by a breakbeat and stripped back synth sounds, low slung fun and a churning, grimy bassline. The EP, all four versions, are available to listen to and buy at Bandcamp. It finishes with Phil's remix of his own track, the Phil Kieran Psychedelic Mix, a version that removes the rhythms and focuses on a Cluster like trip into the cosmische. 

Monday's Long Songs

Back in July I wrote about Galactic Ride, a solo single from Gordon Kaye, a Brighton based DJ and producer who has been active in the Brighton music scene (and beyond) since the mid- 80s. This Friday Galactic Ride is released in a variety of versions including a brand new vocal version. Gordon originally saw Galactic Ride as a nine minute Cosmic Disco instrumental but his daughter Gabriella arranged a vocal for it and now its difficult to imagine it without it...

Chuggy cosmic/ Balearic that really moves when the bassline hits a minute in and Gabriella's vocal soars over the dreamy synth arpeggios. It sounded great back in the summer and has now returned in its orbit to light up late November. Galactic Ride is out this Friday- pre- order at Bandcamp. 

Out last week was a Hardway Bros remix of Le Carousel's We're All Gonna Hurt. The original version came out back in February this year and has been much played by Sean Johnston at ALFOS nights up and down the country. It seemed right therefore that Sean did a remix- which he ahs and it more than delivers the goods, with a heavy new breakbeat that kicks and a monstrous bassline is so huge it's almost a living breathing entity. The second half, the vocal surfacing with the line, 'Sooner or later/ We're all gonna hurt', as the synths bounce around, the pianos clang and the bassline buzzes, is genuinely thrilling. Nine minutes of electronic fun from Phil Kieran in Belfast. Get it at Bandcamp. 

Monday's Long Songs

Escaped From New York is one of two tracks on a recent EP from Belfast's Phil Kieran, a seven and a half minute synth throbber, the sequenced bassline pumping away, drums crashing around and layers of John Carpenter indebted synths, sirens and keys bringing some epic drama. 

Escaped From New York is paired with its seven minute sibling, It's All Gone Wrong, which kicks in at thirty seconds going properly haywire, synths buzzing and fizzing over crunching rhythms. 'It's all gone wrong', the growly voice says, but if this is wrong, who wants to be right? Get the EP at Bandcamp. 

We're All Gonna Hurt

This was released while we were in Belfast last week, a new track by Belfast resident and DJ/ producer/ musician/ composer Phil Kieran in his Le Carousel guise. We're All Gonna Hurt is eight minutes of sleek, propulsive, cosmische electronic music, the sound of the future we all imagined when we were kids- pulsing basslines, rippling synths, machine arpeggios, melancholic and blissed out futuristic disco music. The vocals are provided by Jolene O'Hara and Jess Brien. Buy at Bandcamp. 

This one came out last year- I missed it somehow- and it kicks hard, 303 driven robotic funk with blank eyed vocals from Cynthia Sley, Out Of My Mind.

Fifty Minutes Of Blind On A Galloping Remix

A year ago David Holmes released Blind On A Galloping Horse, an album that over four sides of vinyl and seventy minutes of music pulled together many of the political, emotional, cultural and psychological strands that seemed to come together in 2023. Protest in the face useless governments, , self- reliance, a roll call of the lost, the ongoing influence and spirit of Andrew Weatherall, the voices of refugees, humanity and community, the need to find the space and peace to clear one's head from all the noise and clutter that is out there. A beacon maybe, a call to arms perhaps, a face looking back at you from the crowd. I've played it again several times recently and it still hits all those spots. 

The songs from Blind On A Galloping Horse have been remixed, a slew of like minded souls refitting David's songs and Raven Violet's vocals into new sounds and shapes. There are over thirty of them, every single one worth hearing. It seemed to me that as we approach the end of 2024, a year on from the Galloping Horse, a Sunday mix of some of those remixes was in order. 

I featured each song only once, avoiding multiple versions- there were multiple remixes of several of the songs and all of the highest quality. There's some real high tempo bangers too which I held back from until part way through this mix when Timmy Stewart raises the bpms after a slow burning first twenty five minutes, and when I think of the remixes that didn't make this mix- Heidi and Lovefingers, Rich Lane, Decius, Sonic Boom, X- Press 2, Cosmodelica, Skymas, Daniel Avery- I think a volume 2 might be in order some day. 

There's more Holmes available at NTS this week, David's monthly God's Waiting Room show, two hours of the best music money can buy- this month includes his new remix of Five Green Moons, Spiritualized, V/Z and Poly High School Band's version of Midnight Cowboy. Listen here. 

Fifty Minutes Of Blind On A Galloping Remix

• Emotionally Clear (Ammonite Remix)
• Yeah x 3 (The Vendetta Suite's Reason To Drift Remix)
• Blind On A Galloping Horse (Sons Of Slough)
• Agitprop 13 (GLOK Remix)
• Hope Is The Last Thing To Die (Timmy Stewart's 11th Hour Remix)
• It's Over, If We Run Out Of Love (Hardway Bros Live At SSL Dub)
• Stop Apologising (Horse Meat Disco Vocal Remix)
• Necessary Genius (Phil Kieran Vocal Remix)

Emotionally Clear is one of Blind's slower, more blissed out songs but with several questions at its heart- do you believe in the absence of evidence? Do you believe in unjust punishment? Do you believe in cognitive dissonance? On her Ammonite Remix Amy Spencer breaks the song down into its barest bones, a spectral, whispery, ambient gauze with Raven Violet's vocals looped, FXed and chopped up. 

The Vendetta Suite is Belfast's Gary Irwin, a veteran Holmes associate and the in house engineer at Exploding Plastic Inevitable studio and label. This remix, one of a pair, keeps the drifting, ambient feel going. The Vendetta Suite's album from 2021, The Kempe Portal Stone, is well worth your time and attention if you haven't heard it. 'Got my mind on freedom/ And one foot out the door', Raven coos, and then the line taken from David's track from a GLS 10" from 2021, 'love is a mystery'.

Sons Of Slough (Ian Weatherall and Duncan Gray) bring the dub to the album's title track, a dissection of the world and its madness sent to the dub section via rim shots, a slowed down bassline, melodica, and also stir in a deeply Power, Corruption And Lies-era New Order feel. 

Andy Bell in his GLOK guise took Agitprop 13 and kept things weird and experimental, bass and synth with rumbling rhythms and layers of backing vocals- it builds insistently, more and more coming to the foreground. 

Hope Is The Last Thing to Die was the opening shot of the Blind On A Galloping Horse album, released as a single back in September 2021, a response to the incompetence and idiocy of governments in the face of modern crises, Covid and climate change. It lit up autumn 2021 for me and has done so repeatedly since. Timmy Stewart, another Belfast connection who DJs and produces as Black Bones, turns David's protest song and call to resistance into something tough and metallic. The rat tat tat of the snare breaks through, like a pipe being tapped with a monkey wrench.  

Sean Johnston's remixes of It's Over, If We Run Out Of Love are among his best Hardway Bros remixes, that cosmic/ ALFOS groove spinning out onto the floor with a lovely, brain twisting distorted synth riff and disco arpeggios.

Stop Apologising is the most direct song on the album, a genuine three minute glam pop anthem, Raven singing of self reliance, the importance of being grounded and 'the wonders of psychedelic therapy'. Horse Meat Disco turn everything up to eleven, add an enormous glam disco stomp, Goldfrapp amped up to the max, big piano chords, and keep it all going and going and going... 'Stop apologising for things you never done/ Stop catastrophising put your feet back on the ground'. 

Necessary Genius is David's tribute to the misfits, artists, dreamers, outsiders and radicals who make the culture, a roll call of the great and good- Serge and Jane, John Coltrane, Angela Davis, Samuel Beckett, Ennio Morricone- and particularly some of those who we have lost in recent years- Terry Hall, Andrew Weatherall, Sinead O'Connor. Phil Kieran is another Northern Irish DJ, musician, producer and remixer and his remix of Necessary Genius is a blinder, full on basement club, messy dance floor music and the perfect fit for those people listed in the lyrics. 

An Hour Of Hardway Meets Monkton Uptown And Downtown

Hardway Bros (Sean Johnston) and Monkton (Duncan Gray) DJ and remix together. In both cases there's something about the partnership that pushes both to do something that's different from what each does on their own. Their remixes as Hardway Bros Meets Monkton reference the seminal Augustus Pablo album King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown and as a result you'd be right to expect lots of dub percolating through the sounds cooked up in the remix studio. Dub, bass, echo, melodica- all are present. So is plenty of glorious chug and the wide spaces of cosmic disco. Cosmic, psychedelic, dub disco. The remixes also tend to be long, usually going up towards ten minutes, so this mix was always going to be a long one. 

An Hour of Hardway Meets Monkton Uptown And Downtown

• Jack Butters: Shake It Off (Hardway Meets Monkton Uptown Version)
• Electric Blue Vision: Other Skies (Hardway Meets Monkton Uptown Version)
• Perry Granville: Sailing Ships (Hardway Meets Monkton Uptown Version)
• Fjordfunk: It's All Black (Hardway Meets Monkton Uptown)
• GLOK: That Time Of Night (Hardway Meets Monkton Uptown Dub)
• Psychederek: Screamadereka (Hardway Meets Monkton Uptown Downtown Remix)
• Phil Kieran and Green Velvet: Enjoy The Day (Hardway Meets Monkton Downtown Remix)

Jack Butters is from Stoke- on- Trent, a city fmaous for consisting of five towns, its historic past as the centre of pottery and ceramics, and for it's football team Stoke City (the old ground, the Victoria Ground, was a fairly fearsome awayday in the past). What Stoke should be famous for now is Jack's music, not least this dubbed out Hardway and Monkton remix. I heard this played by Sean at ALFOS at The Golden Lion last summer and it sounded immense.

Electric Blue Vision is Jesse Fahnestock of 10:40 and Jezebell with singer Emilia Harmony. Other Skies came out last November, a 2023 highlight with three great remixes- this one plus remixes by Tambores En Benirras and Balearic Ultras. Sean and Duncan's remix is more majestic melodica led dub, a complete reconstruction of Jesse and Emilia's song.

Perry Granville's Sailing Ships becomes a metallic- dub- by- way- of- post punk- and- acid house trip in the Hardway Bros and Monkton hands, noises rattling round and ricocheting as the bass pushes on and thunder rumbles. There are stuttering vocal sample and pulverising synths, drop outs and re- entries and always underpinning everything, huge, live sounding bass. 

Fjordfunk released It's All Back in 2020 on the Tici Taci label, an eleven minute cosmic disco tune remixed into an eleven minute cosmische dub disco tune by Hardway and Monkton with a squealing guitar line dropping in and out and an ultra- distorted voice saying things that are impossible to make out. 

GLOK is Ride's Andy Bell. Since 2019 Andy's released several albums and singles as GLOK, experimental cosmische/ synth songs and tracks. That Time Of Night was on 2021's Pattern Recognition and features the voice of Shiarra Bell, Andy's wife, talking about the pleasures of being lost on a dancefloor, 'just one person, one part of the whole mass of people.. the heat and the light and the flashing...'. Hardway and Monkton take the track and turn it into a sleek, propulsive, krauty trip, a keening guitar line running through it with a booming, metronomic kick drum.

Psychederek is from Stretford, just up the road from me, and has recently released one of this year's best EPs, Alt!. In August 2021 he released the Space Arcade 12" on Chris Massey's Sprechen label, with the very ace Screamadereka coming in double Hardway Monkton remix form- the Downtown remix and Disco Dub version. The Downtown Remix is a glorious sunlit thing in two halves, the first half dubby psyche and the second a chuggy, pacier, cosmische glide. 

Phil Kieran and Green Velvet's Enjoy The Day came out in late 2022. Phil is a Belfast based DJ and producer. Green Velvet is from Chicago. Enjoy The Day is full on, four four drums and techno bass, chopped up and FXed vocals, 'you got it', and a piano line that is the definition of happy/ sad. 

2023: My Year In Music

2023 has been a year of 23s for me in many ways. I've written before about the number and its occurrence, its relationship to us since Isaac died and the tattoos the three of us got done in October. This is my end of year post, a list pulling together what has been the best of 2023 for me. Inevitably there are 23 entries (but much more than 23 artists, singles and albums) and as I was writing it I realised that today is 23rd December (I planned to post this today before thinking about what date it would be). I have heard so much new music this year and so much of it has been really good- my long list of albums of the year came to thirty albums without much thought, a new album for every ten days of the year. And while much of this year has been a real struggle with grief and the long aftermath of Isaac's death, I've had some great nights out at events that were (almost) entirely about the music- the grief never goes away, it sits inside me or hovers above me but music- recorded music, live music- often has the power to transport me in a way nothing else does. 

This is a list of my favourite musical things of this year. It's not objective. I haven't heard everything I should have done and I'm sure there are records that I'd love if I had more time and more money. Usually I find something early into the new year that instantly screams 'best of last year' to me. Also, ranking art and declaring one album 'better' than another is inherently subjective but end of year lists are fun and looking back and putting it all into one place is a good way to mark the end of the year. The year of 23. 

Twenty Three: Venue Of The Year

No contest here- The Golden Lion in Todmorden and a fitting place to start the list. I've enjoyed several superb nights out at The Lion this year with the honour of DJing on a few occasions. ALFOS in June was very hot and memorable, David Holmes' album launch party in November was a 2023 highlight, Dan Donovan’s Casbah Club in August (sadly Paul Simonon was unable to attend), our Sabresonic celebration and Q&A with Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns and Jagz’s DJ set (videos of the Q&A to follow shortly), the Tici Taci Party in August with Sean Johnston and Duncan Gray DJing downstairs after a blistering set from Sons Of Slough upstairs, Red Snapper rattling the fittings in November and the legendary, untouchable AW60 in April with a beautiful cast of artists and revellers and a huge headlining set from Justin Robertson. 

Twenty Two: Label Of The Year

There are lots of independent labels putting out loads of good music, keeping things in house and small scale- not that there's anything small scale about the music- with digital and physical releases. These three have kept me busy all year with singles, EPs and albums, one offs and compilations- a three way tie for first place. Leeds based label Paisley Dark has put out releases by Warriors of The Dysthoteque, Jay- Son, The Machine Soul, Hogt I Tak and James Rod, all top notch electronic psychedelia. Duncan Gray's Tici Taci has had a year long celebration of ten years in the business with a tenth birthday party at the Golden Lion, a series of compilations, Decades Volumes 1 to 4 with outstanding new releases from The Long Champs' 'Nostalgia For The Future', Jack Butters' ‘Shake It Off’ and singles and EPs from Mystic Thug, Uj Pa Gaz, Viper Patrol and Mr BC. Along with those two is Exeter's Mighty Force, the label that back in the early 90s put out Aphex Twin's first 12" single, reborn for the digital age. Mighty Force have sent all of these into the ether and all are excellent electronic music- Yorkshire Machines ‘Firing Up’, ‘Fluffy Inside’ by Nylon Corners, M- Paths' ‘Hope’ AP Organism's EP ‘Space Docks And Moon Rocks’ David Harrow's ‘Jitter’ and ‘Described Spaces’ by KAMS. Long may all three labels continue.

Twenty One: Gig Of The Year

I had the pleasure to see some great gigs this year, several of which lived long in the memory. Spiritualized at Manchester's New Century Hall were genuinely breathtaking. Red Snapper at the Golden Lion kicked up a storm of cosmic jazz, trip hop and downtempo. Eyes Of Others at The Castle on Oldham Street were great, another great Heavenly Records artist. Chris Rotter and Andy Bell's two man set on Saturday afternoon at AW60 playing songs from Andrew Weatherall's A Pox On The Pioneers was a gem. 

But the win goes to A Certain Ratio who I saw live three times this year. They toured twice, released a superb new album, 1982, and an EP, celebrating 45 years of making music and they're still forging ahead with new music and ideas. Their gig at New Century Hall earlier on this year, the free one outdoors at Factory International in June and the two set 45^th anniversary celebration at Band On The Wall at the start of this month were all brilliant, a dance floor blend of youth and experience, post- punk/ punk funk/ jazz funk, the old and the new. 

Twenty: Compilation Of The Year

I've already mentioned Tici Raci's four volumes of Decade, several hours of chuggy sci fi, nu disco, house, techno sparkle. Aficionado's 25 Of Aficionado is a celebration of a Manchester institution, the anything goes, genre free spirit of Jason Boardman and Moonboots pressed onto four sides of vinyl is right up there with Colleen Murphy's Balearic Breakfast Volume 2 not far behind. But the stand out compilation of the year was Richard Sen's Dream The Dream: UK Techno, House And Breakbeat 1990- 1994, a perfectly pulled together and superbly sequenced set of tracks from the early 90s that show what a fertile period that was and how much was going on in the underground. 

Dream Frequency: Dream The Dream

Nineteen: Edits Of The Year

Some of my favourite tracks of this year have been edits- do edits count as new music? Or old music? New versions of old music, rejigged for the dancefloor. Jezebell's Jezebalearic Beats Vol 1 is a masterclass in this area and will appear further on in this list. Jezebell's Diavol Edits Vol 7 as a four track joy. Beyonder's Present Case Edits Vol 1 was a stunner, not least Hardway Bros edit of Sleaford Mods' Mork And Mindy, the M&M Acid Edit. Peza's Rock The Spectre, a layering of Joe Strummer's vocal from Rock the Casbah over Mystic Thug also hit the spot for me. But just pipping all of these for me were the pair of edits on the A- side of a recent vinyl only 12" by Coyote, their reworking of Monsoon's Ever So Lonely as Lonely and Gil Scott Heron as Western Revolution lighting up December for me.  

Eighteen: Andy Bell

Pretty soon from here there will be some proper lists and less wittering from me but first Andy Bell who at first glance seemed to have had a quiet year after all his solo albums and GLOK activity in 2020- 2022. Even so he put in a tour, released a lovely ambient/ free jazz mini- album with Masal, Tidal Love Numbers, and a ten minute live cover version of Neu!'s Hallogallo (also with Masal), a live in session album for Electronic Sound called Gateway Mechanics wearing his GLOK hat, two sides of soaring kosmische electronics and guitars, a bunch of remixes for other artists and put out a fanzine, Volume, Fuzz And Delay (which contained my review of his gig at Gulliver's in April 2022. Which, as the man on The Fast Show used to say, was nice). The fanzine came with a download code for three hours of live recordings from Andy's Space Station gigs, live versions of songs from his solo albums and as GLOK, all of which are stunning. 

Seventeen: EPs Of The Year

All of these were essential listening for me at various points this year, all of them somewhere between the single and the album, with Sons Of Slough's chug and cosmic wallop recorded live at Convenanza in September,  Jezebell's messy day and night out in the sun with Siouxsie on Trading Places, the three remixes of Unloved's Polychrome album, Justin Robertson's rocking dub especially, and at the top the wondrous Magic Hour EP by Wigan's Mark Peters, resplendent on 10" yellow vinyl.

• 11. Whitelands ‘Remixes’ 
• 10: Steve Queralt and Michael Smith ‘Sun Moon Town Versions’
• 9: Yorkshire Machines ‘Firing Up’
• 8: Woodleigh Research Facility: Apparently Solo 4 Borderlands
• 7: Sons Of Slough ‘Live at The Castle’
• 6: Chug Norris ‘Dark and Sweaty’
• 5: Richard Sen ‘Dream the Dream’ remixes
• 4: Andy Bell and Masal ‘Tidal Love Numbers’
• 3: Jezebell ‘Trading Places’
• 2: Unloved ‘Polychrome’ Remixes
• 1: Mark Peters ‘The Magic Hour’ EP

Sixteen: Albums Of The Year Numbers 30 to 8

• 30: Laurel Halo 'Atlas'
• 29. Red Snapper 'Live At The Moth Club' 
• 28: Young Fathers 'Young Fathers'
• 27: Dicky Continental ‘Uh?’
• 26: House of All 'House Of All'
• 25: Goat 'Medicine'
• 24: Boxheater Jackson ‘Indigenous State Of Mind’
• 23: Konformer ‘Konformer’
• 22: A Certain Ratio: 1982
• 21: Slowdive ‘Everything Is Alive’
• 20: The Coral ‘Sea Of Mirrors’
• 19: David Harrow ‘Rare Earth Technology’
• 18: Steve Cobby ‘The New Law Of Righteousness’
• 17: HiFi Sean and David McAlmont ‘Happy Ending’
• 16: Woodleigh Research Facility ‘Phonox Nights’
• 15: Andy Bell ‘Gateway Mechanics’
• 14: The Thief Of Time ‘Where Do I Belong?’
• 13: Coyote ‘I Hear A New World’
• 12. Grian Chatten ‘Chaos For The Fly’
• 11: Rude Audio and Dan Wainwright ‘Psychedelic Science’
• 10: Jezebell ‘Jezebellearic Beats Volume 1’
• 9: Richard Norris ‘Oracle Sound Volume 1’
• 8: Yo La Tengo ‘This Stupid World’

Fifteen: Singles Of The Year Numbers 23 to 8

• 23: Four Tet ‘Three Drums’
• 22: Woodentops ‘Ride A Cloud’ and Coyote remix
• 21: Hurdy Gurdy and the Local Psycho ‘The Hurdy Gurdy Song’
• 20: X- Press 2 ‘Phasing You Out’ David Holmes remix
• 19: Rude Audio ‘The Grinning’
• 18: Warriors Of The Dysthoteque and Joe Duggan ‘Fitzroy Avenue’
• 17: Dicky Continental ‘Simon Says’ Congagong Rework’
• 16: Dot Allison ‘Unchanged’ GLOK Remix
• 15: JIM ‘Phoenix’ Crooked Man Remixes
• 14: Flamingods ‘Dreams (On The Strip)’
• 13: Islandman ‘Godless Ceremony’ plus the Hardway Bros Remix
• 12: A Man Called Adam ‘The Girl With A Hole In Her Heart’
• 11: Aphex Twin ‘Black Box Recorder 21f’
• 10: Psychederek ‘Test Card Girl’
• 9: Jo Sims ‘Bass- The Final Frontier’ David Holmes remix
• 8: Katy J Pearson ‘Willow’s Song’ Richard Norris remix

Fourteen: Album Of The Year #7 Eyes Of Others ‘Eyes Of Others’

Eyes Of Others debut album is a heady collage of electronics, synthpop, dub, acid house, early New Order and John Bryden's singular world view.   

Thirteen: Album Of The Year #6  African Head Charge ‘A Trip To Bolgatanga’

Bonjo and Sherwood back on the African Head Charge express, ten songs built over Bonjo's drumming, chanting and dub. 

Twelve: Album Of The Year #5 10:40 ‘Transition Theory’

I first heard Jesse Fahnestock's music a couple of years ago, an edit of Spacemen 3. This album, a complete piece of work, each track containing the seeds of the next one, an eleven song trip through the 10:40 world roaming in the spaces between ambient house, chuggy electronics, indie dance, psychedelia, bleepy dub and atmospherics, floating in inner/ outer space.  

Eleven: Album Of The Year #4 JIM ‘Loves Makes Magic’

Surprise of the year for me, a Balearic song based album that lit up summer- the hot, sunny summer we didn't really get this year. 

Ten: Album Of The Year #3 Sonic Boom and Panda Bear ‘Reset In Dub’ by Adrian Sherwood

Sherwood and the On U Sound collective proving they've lost none of their power, sending Sonic Boom and Panda Bear into echo heaven. 

Nine: Album Of The Year #2 James Holden ‘Imagine This Is a High Dimensional Space Of All Possibilities’

This album came out in March, an album that is endlessly innovative and entrancing. Holden recorded it partly as a memory of 90s rave and the free party movement but it works way beyond nostalgia, twelve tracks that never become predictable, never settle, always looking to twist and move somewhere else, melodies and squiggles, birdsong and synths. I played it again recently and it sounded as fresh as it did in March. 

Eight: Single Of The Year #7 Cole Odin and Marshall Watson ‘Just A Daydream Away’ versions plus Hardway Bros remix

Shimmering indie dance from the West Coast of the USA, in two versions, both equally great and a wonderful Hardway Bros remix serving up ten minutes of cosmic indie chug (a trick Sean repeated with remixes of Holy Youth Movement and Islandman's Godless Ceremony. 

Seven: Single Of The Year #6 Electric Blue Vision ‘Other Skies’ plus remixes

Jesse Fahnestock has been on fire in 23, a flood of music and ideas (see above, number 13). Other Skies is a song that has that magic, the magic that transports and transcends, Emilia Harmony's vocal about being lost and going home a key part of it. The remixes, all three of them, sent it into new places with the Hardway Bros and Monkton's dub version bringing the bass and melodica front and centre. 

Six: Single Of The Year #5 Khidja ‘Do You Know This Record Marius?

Two weeks ago this wouldn't have been here but it shoved its way in and won't let go- trippy, spinning electronic psychedelia from Romania that has been on a loop at home and in the car. 

Five: Single Of The Year #4 Dirt Bogarde ‘Heavy Blotter’

Dirt has provided several tracks this year that have pushed me forwards but this one has an oomph, an electric charge and a big acid house sound that rattles my speakers and hits me in the chest. 

Four: Single Of The Year #3 Matt Gunn ‘Learning By Loops’ Bedford Falls Players Remix

I wrote about this last week, a remix that has been in my ears since the early summer, and one I'm not remotely tired of hearing. A crunch of drums, long vocal sample about binary systems, time travel, the voice of Jesus and shit like this with a ringing guitar part looped in and out. 

Three: Sinead O'Connor and Single Of The Year #3 David Holmes 'Necessary Genius'

There have been a lot of high profile deaths this year, the losses of David Crosby, Tom Verlaine, Bobby Charlton, Jane Birkin, Steve Mackey, Spot, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Mark Stewart, Andy Rourke and Shane McGowan all moments of sadness. But Sinead's death in July was shocking and brought a wave of heartfelt tributes and genuine bereavement from many, her death, coming a year after the loss of her youngest son Shane. I read her book Rememberings last year and the knowledge that Shane would die after the book was written made reading it very moving. 

Back in July when I posted my own tribute to her I included a link to an edit Rich Lane did of Sinead's song Jackie. A friend sent my blogpost to David Holmes who in response sent me the track he played at his own tribute to Sinead at NTS radio, his remix of Orbital's Belfast with Sinead's vocal from Nothing Compares 2U over the top. David also then got in touch with Rich and asked for a copy of Jackie to play when DJing (which he did and which David played at The Golden Lion in November, a moment that made me smile when it came over the sound system and I thought about how it got there). David also then asked Rich to do a remix for him which should be coming out soon. Sinead's face was on the art for David's Necessary Genius single and a print included with the Blind On A Galloping Horse album. She's been a presence all over the second half of 2023, a beautiful and fearless soul and it seemed right to include her in this list. Hopefully the album she recorded with David Holmes will see the light of day eventually. 

Necessary Genius was close to the top in my list of singles of 2023, a rollcall of talent and inspiration with glorious synths and drum machines. But it missed out to this...

Two: Single Of The Year- Fontaines DC 'Cello Song'

I thought long and hard about this, about whether I really think a cover version should be my single of the year and whether given almost all the music above is electronic, a rock 'n' roll rumble in the top spot is right- but in the end it is the song I've gone back to time and time again. Nick Drake's original is my favourite song of his, a song of acoustic and poetic beauty, and in some ways the words have become associated with Isaac for me in the two years since he died. Fontaines DC take the song and do something new with it, a squeal of feedback, a rockabilly drumbeat, acres of Dublin street swagger and Grian Chatten's deep hit of voice breathing new meaning into Nick's words. Back in July I put together a forty minute mix of Nick Drake songs which opened with Nick's version and closed with Fontaines. Here it is again. 

Forty Minutes Of Nick Drake

One: Album Of The Year- David Holmes 'Blind On A Galloping Horse'

The album I've been waiting for since the first single from it appeared in 2021, Hope Is The Last Thing To Die. Fourteen songs long, seventy minutes of music, a proper album from start to finish with contributions from Keith Tenniswood and Tim Fairplay, the voice of Raven Violet and the spirits of Andrew Weatherall and Sinead O'Connor. Songs that take in the personal and the political, the emotional and the righteous, the psychedelic and the electronic, over four sides of vinyl housed in a beautifully designed sleeve. Everything we wanted and more and as someone said to me, exactly the album we needed at exactly the right time. 

There were a slew of remixes to support the singles, all of them worth hearing and some of them right up there with the best music released this year, a case of more is sometimes more. Shout outs to Sonic Boom and Panda Bear's remix of Yeah x 3 and both Vendetta Suite's versions of the same song, Colleen Murphy's acid disco remixes of Stop Apologising, and the remixes of Necessary Genius by Decius (a riot in a sweaty basement), Lovefingers (a slowed down piano dub groove) and especially Phil Kieran's eight minute electronic kraut hammer remix. 

Necessary Genius (Phil Kieran Remix Vocal)

Sabresonic At Thirty

Big news announcement! Sit down, hold tight. Sabres Of Paradise, the early 90s dub techno trio of Andrew Weatherall, Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns, released their album Sabresonic thirty years ago (the exact release date is a matter of some debate but we're settling on 11th September 1993).

Over at The Flightpath Estate, the Andrew Weatherall Facebook group we set up nine years ago, the admin team (Martin, Dan, Mark, Baz and me) have had some discussions about things that have seemed ridiculous to us and have then actually started to take shape and happen. One of these is under wraps for the moment but the other is taking place three weeks today. Martin had the idea of holding a Sabresonic 30th birthday listening party at The Golden Lion in Todmorden and of inviting Jagz Kooner to do a Q&A session with him DJing after. We knocked it around a bit, a few calls were made and amazingly the Sabresonic 30th Anniversary party is happening at The Golden Lion on Friday 3rd  November. The event is free. Jagz is going to have a chat/ answer a few questions about Sabres of Paradise, the making of the album Sabresonic, working with Andrew, the Sabres remixes from the period and whatever else comes up, we'll listen to the music and open it up to the floor. The Q&A part of the evening is going to be hosted by someone new to the David Frost/ Graham Norton role (that would be me). Fingers crossed eh?

Back in 1994 Sabres remixed James and the results came out as a two track, half hour epic titled Jam J. On Andrew's residency at Kiss FM he played an early version/ remix of what became Jam J. This was never released but has been ripped from that Kiss FM broadcast, a Sabres remix of James' Honest Joe. It contains all sorts of signature Sabres sounds, the Weatherall/ Kooner/ Burns team working their magic with seven minutes of 1993 four- four dub techno, Mr Booth et al bent into all kind of new shapes (with a Kiss FM ident annoyingly appearing in the middle).  

Honest Joe (Unreleased Sabres Of Paradise Remix from Kiss FM Radio Mix)

November at The Golden Lion looks increasingly like the month of dreams. The night after the Sabresonic 30th party Red Snapper are playing. The following Friday David Holmes is DJing, a launchpad for his forthcoming album Blind On A Galloping Horse. On Sunday 19th November Manchester's Aficionado team of Jason Boardman and Moonboots host at 25th anniversary bash. That's just four of the highlights. David Holmes' recent single Necessary Genius was followed two weeks ago by a remix package, David and Raven Violet's song reworked by Skymas, Phil Keiran, Decius, Robin Wylie and Lovefingers. They've taken some time to worm their way into me but now all the different versions offer up something new and different. Lovefingers slows the song down, sticks a big, reverb heavy piano part into it and samples snippets of the people in David and Raven's list (a bit of Loaded, a brief snippet of Sinead, some Morricone). Decius do their Decius thing, chopping up a bit of vocal, raisng the tempo and making it very intense. Phil Kieran stretches the song out, bringing the synths to the fore and eventually hitting the button marked 'massive I Feel Love sequencer'. Find them all here. 

Monday's Long Song

Out last Friday and the title track from his album The Strand Cinema this is Phil Keiran's latest release- a tribute to an art deco cinema in Belfast. The Strand Cinema is six minutes and forty seconds of gorgeous instrumental music with echoes of the kosmsiche groups of early 70s West Germany, rippling synths and cinematic strings with layers of cello and violin, that make The Strand Cinema an immersive and emotive listen. The album can be bought here. 

NYE: A Mix For Dancing

New Year's Eve- I'm not sure what we're going to do tonight. New Year's Eve is a strange night at the best of times (unless you're young and in a club where all that happens is that the countdown to midnight is a brief interruption to a night of dancing). The reflective, verging on maudlin, aspects of it are too easily summoned at the moment but celebrating it feels odd too. Caught in no man's land.

But, still, Happy New Year to everyone who comes here for the music and the words, thank you for your comments and support, it means a lot. I hope you're having a good time tonight whether you're choosing to do something or nothing. See you all in 2023 for more of the same. 

This is a mix I put together of tracks from 2022, made for dancing to. It's what I'd want to hear as the clock ticked towards midnight, if happened to find myself in a sweaty basement with a good sound system and a strobe light tonight- you never know, it could happen. Sean Johnston's work features heavily, turning up on four of the tracks. There are a couple of transitions where things are a little skewwhiff (one of them skewwhiff in a way I quite like, the beats and noises piling up messily and then clearing) and the BPMs may be a little out but I think the track selection is good enough. A bunch of dance records sequenced together for an hour and a quarter, with a slow spaced out ambient start, a dubby ending and plenty of dancers in between. Happy new year.

NYE 2022 Dance Mix

• Space Ghost: 4 AM
• Long Range Desert Group: Adjustment Notice
• Rude Audio: Big Heat
• The Summerisle Six: This Is Something (Dub Mix)
• Peak High: Was That All It Was (Hardway Bros Bleep Dub)
• David Holmes: It's Over, If We Run Out Of Love (Hardway Bros Remix)
• Unloved: Turn Of The Screw (Erol Alkan Rework)
• The Orielles: Darkened Corners (Eyes Of Others Remix)
• Phil Kieran and Green Velvet: Enjoy The Day (Hardway Bros Meet Monkton Downtown Remix)
• Matt Gunn: Disko Drohne
• Cantoma ft. Quinn Lamont Luke: Alive (Conrad's Vacant Lot Remix)
• 10:40: Hawaii (Big Wave Dub)

Enjoy The Day

This came out last Friday- Enjoy The Day (Hardway Bros Meets Monkton Downtown Remix)- a four way collaboration that sounds like it should be filling floors at discerning discotheques near you as the December party season gets underway. The original track is by Phil Kieran and Green Velvet and here is remixed by the combined force of Hardway Bros and Monkton. The deep, dark groove and hedonistic vocal are one thing but the Italo piano that comes in is something else entirely, a gloriously happy/ sad, bittersweet refrain. The 808 rattles away, there is acres of lovely echo and space and the longer it plays, the better it gets. A pulsing, squiggly acid line pushes its way to the fore and rhythm gets tougher. Buy here and then rinse and repeat, as they say.  

Forty Five Minutes Of Homer

David Holmes is in a purple patch, two singles of wonky indie dance brilliance (Hope Is The Last Thing To Die in 2021 and It's Over, If We Run If Of Love this year, both with Raven Violet on vocals) with a follow up 7" out on Hoga Nord later this year, two Unloved albums mining that 60s Now! sound and another due in the autumn, not to mention some stunning remixes. Throwing all of these together with a couple of choice songs from his past that fit in with those seemed an obvious Sunday half hour mix. The main problem was what to leave out- in the end there were several Unloved songs, some of the remixes of the two recent singles, some songs from his solo albums and a smattering of Andrew Weatherall remixes (of I Heard Wonders and Unloved's Devils Angels) that I couldn't fit in so a Holmes Mix Two may have to follow at some point.

Forty Five Minutes Of David Holmes

• David Holmes: Hope Is The Last Thing To Die
• David Holmes: I Heard Wonders
• David Holmes: 69 Police
• Unloved: When A Woman Is Around
• Phil Kieran: Think Too Much (Unloved Remix)
• The Vendetta Suite: Purple Haze, Yellow Sunrise (David Holmes Remix)
• Unloved: Mother's Been A Bad Girl
• David Holmes and Steve Jones: The Reiki Healer From County Down
• David Holmes: It's Over, If We Run Out Of Love

 

Monday's Long Song

David Holmes' Unloved project is a 60s via the 21st century sound, L.A. girl groups and Jack Nitzsche filtered through his thirty year DJ/ production/ soundtrack career. To date Unloved are two albums in, several singles and remixes, and a large part of the soundtrack of BBC's Killing Eve. There's a nine track remix e.p. available with reworkings of the song Why Not by Gwenno, Phil Keiran, Hardway Bros and The Vendetta Suite plus this, almost nine minutes of throb, echo and mystery via Richard Sen (there's a remix and a dub version).



Phil Kieran's remix is shorter, just shy of six minutes, but it's a blast, a funked up 60s spy film bassline, some horns, clattering percussion and a mad, driving energy. Occasionally it surfaces, vocals drifting in, before everything submits again to the pulse of the rhythm.



The Hardway Bros, Vendetta Suite and Gwenno remixes, it goes without saying, are all excellent too. Buy the whole package at Bandcamp. There's a limited four track vinyl release too which may well be sold out.

Find Love

Do you like Andrew Weatherall remixes? Good, so do I. Here's a new one...



That's a floaty, repetitive and spacey version, not an unpleasant experience at all. There's a pretty cosmic Roman Flugel remix too if you want to double your fun...