It's day three of AW61 at The Golden Lion in Todmorden today, a day of dub and the Double Gone Chapel with Curley, Sherman and Nicky General bringing the dub and Rico, Louise and Waka bringing the Double Gone sounds. At the time of writing I don't know how yesterday went but let's assume it was really good and The Flightpath Estate DJs pulled it off in fine style.
Today's mix is a tribute to Andrew Weatherall, with a selection of tracks that feature samples of his voice, a lengthy tribute from Kenneth Bager and an unofficial and unreleased oddity ripped from a radio show. As well as being a top class DJ, remixer and producer Andrew was a great interviewee, eminently quotable and entertaining. Most of the tracks below feature snippets from interviews he did during the 2010s, the topics under discussion including the importance of Factory Records, his A Certain Ratio fixation, and whether acid house is in the end 'just a fucking disco'.
Forty Minutes Of Andrew Weatherall
- Prana Crafter: Starlight, Sing Us A Melody
- Sabres Of Paradise: Clock Factory (Joe Mckechnie North Star Edit)
- IWDG: In A Lonely Place (David Holmes Remix)
- BTCOP: Just A Disco (Lights On The Hills Mix)
- BTCOP: Just A Disco (Blavatsky and Tolley Mix)
- Kenneth Bager: Late Night Symphony (Tribute To Andrew Weatherall)
- BBC Radiophonic Workshop: Electricity, Language And Me
Prana Crafter released Morpho Mystic, a six track album in September 2020. The album is the work of William Sol, a psychedelic/ folk musician. Starlight, Sing Us A Melody is a few minutes of gently psyche acoustic and electric guitars with the voice of Mr Weatherall appearing at the end.
Clock Factory was a fifteen minute excursion into spooked industrial ambience on Sabres Of Paradise's 1993 album Sabresonic. Joe Mckechnie's edit is entirely unofficial, Andrew's voice dropped in to a shorter version of Clock Factory. Joe is a Liverpool based DJ, producer and remixer, formerly a member of 80s Liverpool band Benny Profane whose name was all over the city's gig posters in Liverpool in the late 80s, regularly supporting bigger names and the touring indie bands who passed through venues such as the Mountford Hall, the Haigh Building and Planet X.
IWDG is Ian Weatherall and Duncan Grey (also known as Sons Of Slough who played at The Golden Lion last night). In 2021 they covered New Order's In A Lonely Place, a tribute to Andrew and to Factory Records. David Holmes was one of the remixers, sampling Andrew's voice as well as singing Bernard's words.
Just A Disco came out in November 2022, a track built around a quote from Andrew where he mused on whether coloured lights, dry ice and trance inducing music was just a fucking disco or whether it's something more than that- a gnostic ceremony he might have said with a smirk. The Lights On The Hill Mix is ten minutes of ambient/ Balearic gorgousness. The Blavatsky and Tolley Mix is much thumpier with the title rattling round and round.
Kenneth Bager is headman at Music For Dreams in Copenhagen. His Late Night Symphony is from an EP released in 2022 called Stones And Steel and is a ten minute long tribute to Andrew- no voice on this one but a very lovely piece of wonky electronic music all the same.
Electricity, Language And Me is a 2013 collaboration between the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and Andrew that remains unreleased. There are some unreleased remixes as well which I hope will see the light of day at some point. This is a short piece with Andrew providing a spoken word vocal, ripped from one of his NTS radio shows which were the gateway to so much music, both new and old.