No Coincidences

The latest album by Coyote came out recently, a six track album titled The Higher The Sky, The Deeper The Ocean. It follows three other six track albums they've released in the last few years (as well as numerous singles, 12"s and edits). Five of the six tracks feature very well chosen and apposite vocal samples, taken from a variety of sources, that are built into the Notts duo's music- Balearica, dub and ambient tunes that are always like a ray of warm sunshine. 

I reviewed The Higher The Sky, The Deeper The Ocean for Ban Ban Ton Ton where I got into the idea that what Coyote are doing with the voices that appear on their albums is making meaning or trying to find answers or make sense of the world/ life. The voices that they drop into their songs become lyrics in the same way I guess that actually writing the words for a song does for songwriters. The review is here and the album is available at Bandcamp, digital and vinyl. 

The album ends with No Coincidences, six minutes of music that have become one of my favourite songs of 2026. The lazy drumbeat, double bass (reminiscent of Danny Thompson's bass playing on Nick Drake, John Martyn and Pentangle records) and wash of sounds are intoxicating and the voice on top elevates it further. 'Life is a colour... there's no such things as coincidence... hurry up please it's time...'. 

In the review I linked the vocal sample, a repeated line  of 'hurry up please it's time, hurry please it's time', to T.S. Eliott's The Waste Land (the line appears in the poem, the barman trying to get drinkers out of his pub at last orders). Which felt a bit pretentious (I asked Rob at Ban Ban Ton Ton to feel free to tell me if it was a bit much) but I think we run the risk of pretentiousness form time to time in blogging and we just have to accept it. 

Anyway, it led me to think about what other songs have been inspired by The Waste Land and these three turned up. Pet Shop Boys' breakthrough single West End Girls is one of them, Neil Tennant finding inspiration in the streets on London as portrayed in the poem, the noise and strife of the city and the class struggle of those East End Boys and West End Girls. 

PJ Harvey's On Battleship Hill is also apparently partly inspired by The Waste Land, both commenting on the aftermath of the First World War and the slaughter of a generation of young men in the name of Western values. Polly pulls no punches. 

I found out too that Lana Del Rey's Do You Know There's A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd is possibly inspired by the poem, the search for meaning and themes of memory, loss and decay. And it's a rather dramatic and affecting song too. When I set out writing this post I didn't plan to end up with pet Shop Boys, PJ Harvey and Lana Del Rey and that just confirms what the voice in the Coyote song is saying. There's no such thing as coincidence. 

Lightning Coming Out of The Speakers

The news came through on Tuesday night that Mark Lanegan had died aged 57 at his home in Ireland. Mark Lanegan is one of those people who had been around in one form or another since the early 90s and whose music had come in and out of my musical radar but when I heard him, he often hit really deep. From his grunge band Screaming Trees to his time with Queens Of The Stone Age to his various solo albums and his records duetting with Isobel Campbell he was always a huge presence, especially his voice- sometimes a deep raspy growl, sometimes an emotional soulful baritone- that sounded like a force of nature, vocal chords as old as time. 

It was a voice that told of a life lived too. His recent autobiography is a tale of childhood descent into alcoholism, theft, robbery, heroin addiction, guilt over his role in Kurt Cobain's suicide and his getting clean after an intervention by Courtney Love as well as his continuing adventures in music. He wrote a second book about his near death brush with Covid in 2021. Neither book is for the faint hearted although his description of Liam Gallagher, who he encountered when Screaming Trees toured with Oasis in the 90s, is hilarious, not to mention dismissive of Gallagher Junior. 'Where I was from', Mark writes, 'he [Liam] wouldn't have lasted a week behaving as he did. One day they'd simply disappear, their mangled body discovered years later, haphazardly tossed into a shallow grave somewhere deep in the woods'.

Rather than offer up one song I pulled a few from different albums and put them together into a thirty minute mix, a range of styles and sounds all centred around his voice, that I've titled HOney Just Gets Me Stoned after a vocal line in the remix Andrew Weatherall did of Beehive. Ode To Sad Disco is a particular favourite, a switch in 2012 from writing on the guitar to writing with a drum machine and synth that led to a beautiful and mournful piece of New Order- esque electronics. Snake Song is a cover of a Townes Van Zandt song, Bombed is desolate short song sung with his then wife Wendy. Hit The City is a crunching, distorted industrial blues with co- vocals by PJ Harvey.

R.I.P. Mark Lanegan. 

Honey Just Gets Me Stoned

• Isobel Cambell and Mark Lanegan: Snake Song
• Mark Lanegan Band: Bombed
• Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan: Keep Me In Mind, Sweetheart
• Mark Lanegan Band: Hit The City
• Mark Lanegan: Ode To Sad Disco
• Mark Lanegan: Old Swan (Pye Corner Audio Remix)
• Mark Lanegan: Beehive (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

I Just Want To Sit Here And Watch You Undress

PJ Harvey turned up at The Vinyl Villain yesterday and I'd been meaning to post this since before my computer went down. I haven't got anything like all of Polly's albums but I'm content to drop in and out and recently played her 2000 album Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea, an album inspired by New York that famously won the always slightly pointless Mercury Prize. This Is Love is my favourite song off it, direct, upfront and confident from the off with a driving Stooges, Heartbreakers guitar riff and that attention grabbing opening couplet. There isn't any doubt evident here, Polly knows exactly what she's feeling and exactly what she wants.

93

Having posted songs by Bjork and Sabres Of Paradise in the last few days, both from 1993, it struck me that that year looks like an interesting one, a really good one. I kind of took it for granted at the time. Looking at John Peel's Festive 50 and the NME's end of year list as a couple of starting points there's a lot of variety and several different scenes going on. There's a Jon Savage compilation album that came out a year ago- Perpetual Motion 1988-1993- which celebrates (in his view) a new kind of psychedelia characterised by indie-dance, house and  rave. Savage is currently promoting his new book 1966. I don't think '93 was quite as revolutionary as '66 and it doesn't fit into Tony Wilson's 1955-1966-1977-1988 cycle either but there was a lot going on and more good music than you could shake a stick at.

Bjork's Debut was fully dancefloor informed, making the switch from skittery, post-punk indie to house seem completely smooth and obvious, engineered by Nellee Hooper's production skills (honed with Massive Attack and Soul II Soul). I've been soaking up Debut on the way to work this week- there's not a weak song on it and it's a completely alive album, full of fun and interesting, ear-catching sounds, and on half of the songs four-to-the-floor beats that keep it fresh and propelled. Andrew Weatherall put out out Sabresonic, his first fully formed album outside his production work on other group's albums. Sabres Of Paradise preceded the album with the peerless, mighty Smokebelch II 12". One Dove's Morning Dove White also came out in 1993, a Weatherall produced lost classic, a morning-after/coming-down album much loved round here and by other bloggers. Orbital's untitled 'green' album came out with Chime, Satan and Belfast as its centrepieces. Leftfield and John Lydon firebombed Los Angeles. Ultramarine's United Kingdoms drifted in and out beautifully. Underworld's dubnobasswithmyheadman was released in January 1994, but presumably worked on to perfection through '93. There are a multitude of other first rate house singles and records in '93 too- Secret Knowledge's Sugar Daddy for one, Disco Evangelists' De Niro for another, Jaydee's Plastic Dreams for one more. I'm sure other people can suggest others I've missed. Even the chartbound dance pop was properly good- Sub Sub's Ain't No Love. Maybe what was happening in retrospect was the last gasp of acid house as it had started in 1988, five years of innovation and ecstasy, just starting to peter out as dance music split into a hundred sub-groups. Portishead, Tricky and trip hop were just around the corner. Drum and bass too.

Peel's list and the NME's both have placings for the last gasps of grunge and alt-rock- Nirvana, Sugar, The Breeders, The Lemonheads, Grant Lee Buffalo, Afghan Whigs, Hole and Dinosaur Jr. The Fall have a mere ten songs in the Festive 50 and The Infotainment Scan in the NME's albums of the year. New Order came back from hiatus with Republic, not a classic album but it's got Regret on it. St Etienne's So Tough refined their sound- Avenue, You're In A Bad, Hobart Paving. Paul Weller cemented his revival with Wild Wood. Teenage Fanclub, Tindersticks and The The put out good records. PJ Harvey chucked in Rid Of Me. Suede's debut, Blur's Modern Life Is Rubbish, Boo Radleys' Giant Steps, the Manics Gold Against The Soul, The Verve's A Storm In Heaven, Elastica and Pulp are all in there, signposting what was going to happen with Britpop but those records all have some spark and imagination about them and, Blur apart, none of the retro homogeneity of what came a year or two later. Cypress Hill, The Goats and The Pharcyde made albums that showed that hip hop still had life in it too. There'll be loads more below the surface. I'm sure there are a lot of years you could re-look at and discover a similar diversity of sound, style and invention but 1993 seems to have it spades and somewhat under the radar too in being thought of one of those 'classic' years.

Some music. I don't think I've ever posted PJ Harvey before, which is pretty poor of me.



More Bjork too, cos I'm in the mood...