Seventy Minutes From GL11

Back in February Todmorden's Gold Lion pub celebrated its 11th birthday with a weekend of entertainment with Hot Chip's Joe Goddard on the Friday night and on Saturday Deeply Armed playing live upstairs and David Holmes downstairs. The afternoon also had us playing, The Flightpath Estate, from 2pm through until the evening. We had plans to recreate our entire set but for various reasons that hasn't happened but I'd pulled my parts of the set together and it occurred to me that rather than them sitting unused I may as well sequence them together as one piece and share them here. So this is a twelve song selection of what I played at The Golden Lion- Dan, Martin, Baz and Mark's tunes are all missing I'm afraid- keeping track of  what I played is hard enough- and maybe one day we'll sort the full setlist out and post it.

Adam's Flightpath Estate Set From GL11

• Arrival Ft. Kevin McCormick: Common Place (Thought Leadership Remix)
• Cluster: Zum Wohl
• Captain Beefheart and His Magic  Band: Observatory Crest
• Cowboy Junkies: Sweet Jane (Mojo Filter Junkie Re- Love)
• A Mountain Of One: Innocent Reprise
• Thurston Moore: Asperitas
• Warpaint: Disco// Very (Richard Norris Remix)
• X- Press 2: Witchi Tai To (Two Lone Swordsmen remix)
• Doves: Kingdom Of Rust (Prins Thomas Remix)
• Pandit Pam Pam: Tarantula
• Secret Soul Society: See You Dance Again
• Mark Lanegan: Ode To Sad Disco

Arrival's 12" single came out at the start of January, the year's first essential release for me, two tracks from the Stockport duo with the wonderful guitar playing of Kevin McCormick at their core. Thought Leadership, also a guitarist and also from Stockport, remixed Common Place pulling many different threads into one piece of music. 

Cluster's Zum Wohl is from their 1976 album Sowiesoso, a favourite of mine, an album where Cluster and Conny Plank regrouped in rural West Germany and made pastoral ambient electronic/ synth cosmische. 

Captain Beefheart's Observatory Crest made a late jump into my digital record box for the Lion's 11th birthday. I fond myself humming it in the week leading up to the event and it fell into the afternoon vibe I was aiming for. It came out in 1974 on his Bluejeans And Moonbeams album, an uncharacteristically accessible and mainstream sounding record for the good Captain. 

Cowboy Junkies' cover of Sweet Jane came out in 1988 on their majestic Trinity Sessions album. It gained Lou Reed's approval, the song done the way it should have been back when The Velvet Underground made Loaded. Cowboy Junkies have spent the last two week's touring the UK and they played Manchester last Sunday. I was really tempted to go but also tickets were £53 plus fees and it felt like a lot of money. Mojo Filter's Balearic edit is from 2015 and he doesn't do too much to it, just add a subtle electronic undercarriage and a bit of a sunset sheen. 

Innocent Reprise is from A Mountain Of One's EP2, originally out in 2007 and then compiled with EP1 as Collected Works. Lovely sunbaked Balearic folk. 

Asperitas is from an album Thurston Moore put out in early February this year, six long guitar instrumentals inspired by skyscapes of the British Isles, an album called Guitar Explorations Of Cloud Formations. Asperitas is several guitar parts, some controlled feedback and a primitive drum machine. It's a really good album ranging from chilled and krauty to noisy and if by any remote chance he's reading this, vinyl please Thurston. 

We played in rotation at GL11, three tracks each and then handing over to the next Flightpather. Richard Norris' remix of Warpaint came later on in the afternoon, the pub filling up a bit and I can't remember who went before me or what they played but it must have inspired me to turn the bpms up a little and go into dancier territory. Back in 2014 Warpaint were very much a going concern, their California post- punk/ dub sounds getting lots of attention. Richard's remix is one of his best- an indie rock gone Balearic monster.

Two Lone Swordsmen's remix of X- Press 2 is from 2006, Andrew Weatherall and Keith Tenniswood heading into the garage rock/ rockabilly sounds that would come to fruition on 2007's Wrong Meeting. Witchi Tai To is a Native American chant that Jim Pepper turned into a hit single in 1971. Recorded in 1969, peyote jazz fusion. 

Doves Kingdom Of Rust was from the 2006 album of the same name. The Prins Thomas remix of the song is a beauty, the guitars and bass circling round each other, Jimi's windswept vocal nailing a certain type of Mancunian melancholy with references to black birds and cooling towers and then the strings swoop in...

Pandit Pam Pam is from Sao Paulo. His cover of Colourbox's Tarantula came out in February this year. The wandering trumpet line and bubbling bass dance around each other.

Secret Soul Society's edit of Neil Young's 1992 song Harvest Moon dropped into my inbox a few weeks before GL11, the line 'I wanna see you dance again' going round and round, a dub/ disco version of 90s Neil Young.

Mark Lanegan's Ode To Sad Disco always works. New Order- esque dance/ rock from 2012's Blues Funeral, a throbbing sequencer bassline, synths and guitars and packed with very visual lyrical imagery- one of those songs that always hits the spot for me. 

The Flightpath Estate At The Social

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This was last Saturday night at The Social where Acid House Chancers hosted a tribute to Andrew Weatherall on what would have been his 63rd birthday with a line up spread across the venue's two floors. 

The Flightpath Estate had been asked to play a few months ago and the prospect of playing The Social was pretty exciting. The Social is on Little Portland Street, just north of Oxford Street and a stone's throw from Soho. Dan and Martin couldn't make it and Mark was also playing as Rude Audio, so me and Baz travelled south to represent on the decks. We were on downstairs, a club space with a dancefloor, DJ booth and bar area. When I arrived there were already a good number of people downstairs, Stuart D. Alexander at the decks and Jenny Leamon taking over from 5.15 pm. Jenny had a crowd up and dancing before 6 pm, something that caused me some pre- gig nerves with visions of clearing the floor, playing the wrong tunes and various technical mistakes all running through my mind. 

I shouldn't have worried. I got the obligatory minor technical fuck up out of the way early on and then we were off and in a groove. As the room filled up the energy levels kept rising, more people arrived to dance with some familiar faces from gigs at The Golden Lion, and it was a total blast- one of those times when you're completely caught in the moment and wish you could revisit, soak up and enjoy. It just flew by. 

                                             

This was the scene looking out from the booth- red lights, dry ice, a blur of dancers... the most mayhem we've ever caused on a dancefloor. Alex Knight, formerly of Sabresonic and Fat Cat records and the Sabres Of Paradise tour DJ, took over from us, playing a seamless set with some Weatherall and Sabres inspired mid- 90s techno. 

Our set wasn't recorded but I've recreated it since and it's available to download below or you can find it at The Flightpath Estate's Mixcloud is you prefer to stream. What a night we had. 

The Flightpath Estate At The Social

• The Light Brigade: Shuffle The Deck
• SOP: Ysaebud (From The Vaults)
• Bim Sherman: World Dub
• The Clash: Ghetto Defendant
• Coyote ft Daniel Gidlund: Butterflies
• Paul Weller: Kosmos (Lynch Mob Bonus Beats)
• New Order: Your Silent Face
• Doves: Kingdom Of Rust (Prins Thomas Diskomiks)
• Mark Lanegan: Ode To Sad Disco
• Le Carousel: We're All Gonna Hurt
• Unloved: Turn Of The Screw
• Fontaines DC: A Hero's Death (Soulwax Remix)
• Bedford Falls Players: Fool's Gold- en
• The Pogues: A Rainy Night In Soho

The Light Brigade is David Holmes and guests/ collaborators. On Shuffle The Deck it's former Swordsman Keith Tenniswood and a floor shaking, civil rights leader sampling tune, opening with a rousing speech- 'It's time for a new course, a new coalition, a new leadership... somebody gotta rise above race, rise about sex... Don't cry 'bout what you don't have, use what ya got... Our time has come!', and after several minutes of bass- led oompty boompty finishing with Andrew's musings on acid house as gnostic ceremony, music, coloured lights and smoke.

SOP was Sabres Of Paradise, a one off, one sided 7" single from 1996 with a righteous vocal sample from Count Ossie and Mystic Revelation Of Rastafari- 'Ever since I was a youth/ I've always been searching for the truth'. 

Bim Sherman and Adrian Sherwood's Ghetto Dub album came out in 1988 and due to all kinds of legal complications over the late Bim Sherman's back catalogue has remained out of print. A German label have unlocked some of the problems and re- pressing of Ghetto Dub is out shortly on Week- End Records. 

Ghetto Defendant is from Combat Rock, The Clash and Allen Ginsburg rocking out in dub reggae style, Strummer lamenting the drug addiction and heroin pity that prevents civil resistance'. Paul Simonon's bassline and Topper's drum keep the song grounded in reggae/ dub groove. A late Clash classic. 

Coyote's Butterflies is a moment of Balearic calm, from a forthcoming 12" with vocals by Daniel Gidlund. Last Saturday night it slowed things down a little and gave the dancers a breather.  

Playing at The Social was a big deal. In the 90s I'd read about the first Heavenly Social nights at The Albany pub, accounts in the music press of exhilarating music and wanton debauchery, Weatherall, The Chemical Brothers, Tim Burgess, the Heavenly and Creation crews, a cast of thousands. One of those accounts was of people flipping out to Andrew playing Brendan Lynch's version of Paul Weller's Kosmos, a dub/ trip hop/ jazz noise fest that scrambled minds as it squawked and ricocheted on a Sunday evening. I'd been to The Social on Little Portland Street before but only as a punter so to actually take to the decks was a big moment. Playing Kosmos was a nod to all of that. 

New Order's Your Silent Face is one of the great New Order songs and therefore one of the great songs. It provoked a few moments of emotion on Saturday night, Hooky's bass, those one finger keyboard notes and everyone waiting for Bernard's kiss off last line 'So why don't you piss off'. It was released in 1983 on Power, Corruption And Lies and is one of those New Order songs that really should have been a single, had New Order in the 80s operated along the lines other less obtuse bands at more conventional record companies did. 

Doves' Kingdom Of Rust remixed by Scandi- disco legend Prins Thomas is one of those tunes that always gets people asking what it is (or Shazaming it on their phones). A hypnotic, locked in groove, bass and drums circling, guitars picking out little melody lines and then sweeping strings joining in with Jimi's vocals- glorious Mancunian melancholy. 

Mark Lanegan's Ode To Sad Disco is a New Order- esque song from man usually more associated with grunge and gnarly blues rock. The synths and guitars are heavenly and Mark's imagery is memorable- subterranean eyes, the factory line, a mountain of nails, a white horse that drowned on parade, an Arcadian twist and a hollow headed morning all stand out. The 'mountain of nails' mentioned in the second verse links rather nicely to the 'kingdom of rust' and 'ocean of trust' in the Doves song too I've just noticed. 

Le Carousel's The Humans Will Destroy Us is already one of 2026's best and most prescient albums and We're All Gonna Hurt is its emotional centre and heartbeat, a Giorgio Morodor via Belfast acid house banger, dance music that is up and happy but sad and broken. 'Sooner or later/ We're all gonna hurt'.

Unloved's Turn Of The Screw came out on 2022's The Pink Album, David Holmes' beat group joined by Raven Violet for a 1960s in the 2020s song with a philosophy and attitude to admire. 

A Hero's Death was from Fontaines DC's second album and was remixed by Soulwax in 2021, the clanging guitars replaced by stripped back Balearic dance- cowbell and bass- with Grian Chatten's Dublin street poetry riding on top. 

Fools Gold- en is by Berkshire's Bedford Falls Players, a crowd pleasing mashing together of The Stone Roses and Rockers Revenge that hits all the spots and really gathers pace in its last few minutes, the bass and drums tumbling and thumping, a looped Reni and Mani doubling and powering on. 

Finishing our set with A Rainy Night In Soho, just a few hundred yards north of Soho, felt right. A Rainy Night In Soho is from the 1986 Poguetry In Motion EP, one of Shane MacGowan's most loved songs that ends with one of his best verses- 'Now the song is nearly over/ We may never find out what it means/ Still there's a light I hold before me/ You're the measure of my dreams/ The measure of my dreams'. 

Armed And Eleven

Last weekend was The Golden Lion's 11th birthday, a weekend of musical events to celebrate the 11 years since Gig and Waka took the Todmorden pub and turned it into something much more than a pub- 'ceci n'est pas une pub' is painted onto the side of the building. On Friday night Joe Goddard from Hot Chip played and on Saturday there was a Belfast themed takeover with David Holmes headlining downstairs and the band Deeply Armed playing upstairs. Around these two we got to play again, the Flightpath Estate DJs from 2pm downstairs and then either side of the band upstairs.

We played a bagful of tunes and maybe at some point we'll recreate at least part of the several hours long set and share it here. There was a section in the middle where I played Richard Norris' remix of Warpaint (Disco// Very), the Two Lone Swordsmen remix of X- Press 2's Witchi Tai To and then this...

Kingdom Of Rust (Prins Thomas Diskomiks)

... which had a few people reaching for the Shazam app on their phone. It's a wonderful Prins Thomas version, the drums and bass winding their way round and round and a guitar picking out single notes, building over several minutes, the guitars and strings gradually joining, the sound becoming richer and fuller but all the while following the groove. Those trademark, world weary Doves vocals arrive halfway through. A glorious eight minutes of music. 

Deeply Armed flew over from Belfast, a band with a one single behind them, some serious remix action (Keith Tenniswood, Richard Fearless) and an album recorded and ready to go. They took to the stage at 9.30 playing to a full room, singer Michael brandishing a tambourine and giving the Ian Brown stare into the middle distance of the room. Around him the band kick up a motorik groove, synths and guitar/ bass conjuring a blissed, psychedelic sound- repetition, garage band chord changes, Spacemen 3 tempo, and the street menace of early Happy Mondays evident too on some of the first half of the nine song set. On last year's single The Healing it all comes together into one krauty/ Velvets drone...

Downstairs fellow Belfast native David Holmes is kicking up a storm. We miss the first part of his set due to playing before and after the band but after the Deeply Armed have finished and everyone has moved downstairs- Holmes v The Flightpath Estate, it's no contest- I make my way down and into the maelstrom of a packed Golden Lion, dancers everywhere, the red lights bouncing off the mirrorball and a Holmes set that takes in Crooked Man, the Leftside Wobble edit of Tomorrow Never Knows, All Seeing I and much more. 

An Hour Of Sunshine From Glasgow And Two Hours Of Do!! You!! From Richard Sen

John Fenner of Glasgow did this mix recently and shared it, Cafe Del Muir, an hour and seven minutes of sunshine for a rainy day in Glasgow (or anywhere). It's a blend of old and new and some of the tunes John selected came via recommendations from this blog- it's nice to see the ripples that go out and come back. There's a couple that are new to me as well and so the ripples go back out again. You can find Cafe Dal Muir at Soundcloud. 

• The Chemical Brothers: One Too Many Mornings
• Four Tet: Loved
• Saint Etienne: Alone Together (Hove Lawns Sunset Mix)
• The Cure: Pictures Of You (Extended Dub Mix)
• The Vendetta Suite: Warehouse Rock (Timmy Stewart's Six Minutes To Sunrise Mix)
• Sinead O'Connor: You Made Me The Thief Of Your Heart
• The Main Stem: Since You Left (Prins Thomas Miks)
• 10:40: Kissed Again
• Bal5000: Bleu Infini
• The Blow Monkeys: Save Me (Neville Watson Dub)
• The Light Brigade: Only Love Can Save Us
• Orbital: Belfast (ANNA Ambient Mix)

On Friday Richard Sen hosted his weekly Do!! You!! radio show, two hours of top tunes from a man who knows his musical onions. Richard played three tracks from our forthcoming Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 2 album (and ave us a shout out) so if you're itching to hear three of the tracks from it- the unreleased version of Lik Wid Nit Wit by Sabres Of Paradise, Red Snapper's Qraqeb and Sleaford Mods cover of Two Lone Swordsmen's Sick When We Kiss (retitled as sick wen we x) then this is the place to do it until the vinyl copies start arriving on doormats and in porches. As well as those three Richard plays tons of other great tracks, including some classic trance, breakbeat, and some very deep cosmic disco. Listen here. 

Monday's Long Song

Mid- January; reasons to be optimistic. We are halfway what can be a long and miserable month (although having got through November and December, January has felt like a relief for me this year, a definite sense of stepping through a door and leaving the end of last year and all its anniversaries behind us). Christmas and New Year seem seem a distant memory. There are a couple of minutes of extra daylight every day. When I walked to the car park at work at four thirty last Friday it was still daylight, just about. There are some green daffodil shoots in the garden. In two weeks we'll be in February and spring will be on the horizon. 

Some positive music to celebrate with. This track, cosmic Scandi- house from Oslo, dates from 2017 and was released on Prins Thomas' Full Pupp label, a label he set up to focus solely on Norwegian talent. Laars, the artist behind this 12", is Lars Christian and this is seven minutes of delightful, happy/ sad cosmic Scandi- house. It kicks off with a chunky, chuggy rhythm, some big distorto synth bass and any number of twinkling melody lines dancing about on top, builds beautifully for several minutes, breaks down in the middle in a lovely way and then brings it all back, wiggy and insistent. Makes me think Oslo must be a great place for a party. 

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Forty Five Minutes Of Prins Thomas

Forty five minutes of Scandi space disco/ psychedelic house from Norwegian DJ and producer Prins Thomas to ease you into Sunday. His remixes/ diskomiks are a rich vein of music and his own releases are well worth exploring too (along with his records with Lindstrom). The mix below is little more than a sampler but it turned out really well (if I do say so myself), a dizzying mix of electronic sounds, cosmic disco, Balearic/ ambient styles and some quite intense dance music.  

Forty Five Minutes Of Prins Thomas

• Prins Thomas: Gran Paradiso
• Rusty: Everything's Gonna Change (Prins Thomas Diskomiks)
• Dungen: Achmed Flyger (Version 2)
• Daniele Baldelli and DJ Rocca: Space Scribble (Prins Thomas Remix)
• The Orb: Alpine (Prins Thomas Short Yoga Break Version)
• Deo' Jorge: Sparking Plugs (Prins Thomas Diskomiks)
• Quixote: Before I Started To Dance (Prins Thomas Diskomiks)

Gran Paradiso is from Prins Thomas' Italia Uno EP, twisting, giddy psychedelic acid- ambient, released in 2013. 

Rusty's Everything's Gonna Change came out in 1989 and then again in 1992, Italo house that was big, nay massive, in Sasha's DJ sets. Prins Thomas' remix from 2013 is a smooth, sultry, lush ride. 

Dungen are a Swedish band who make pastoral psychedelia, long guitar epics. In 2017 Prins Thomas remixed songs from their Haxan album, ending up with an entire new album, ten songs sent into new directions. His version of Achmed Flyger is bubbling bass- led psyche.

Italian legends Daniele Baldelli and DJ Rocca's Space Scribble came out in 2011 with Prins Thomas' remix on the B- side of the 12". Daniele is one of Italian music's innovators, one of the originators of the cosmic disco scene and sound. Space Scribble is a huge piece of electronic music, seriously good stuff. 

The Orb's Alpine dates from 2016 and the Moonbuilding 2703 album. Prins Thomas provided three remixes of the track, including the one here which is said to be ideal for a short yoga break. I've never done yoga so can't really comment. 

Deo' Jorge's Sparking Plugs came out in 2021, part of an EP called Robotic Souls which also contained a cosmic Hardway Bros remix which was big round these parts. Prins Thomas' remix is very good indeed, finding a Balearic/ cosmic disco sweet spot and spinning it around for nine and a half minutes. 

Quixote are a French group about whom I know very little. Discogs says they make leftfield, krautrock, nu- disco and that's good enough for me. Before I Started To Dance came out in 2008. For his remix Prins Thomas added bass, guitar, omnichord, melodica, synth, drums and percussion- a little bit more than just sticking a new drumbeat underneath the song. Hummed backing vocals, acoustic guitar, a driving bass, some jangle, thumping rhythm and then some harmonised vox, extended on and on. Lovely stuff. 

Forty Minutes Of The Orb

Dr. Alex Paterson has been in a rich vein of form in recent years  with The Orb and various side projects rediscovering and revisiting the sounds and elements that made The Orb so good in the 90s- widescreen ambient dub house liberally peppered with vocal samples and the feel of the weightlessness of space. It seemed only right to stitch some of these together into a forty minute mix, the only problem being Orb songs are sometimes of such a length that it could easily have been a three song mix. It was only once I started putting it together I realised that some of the Orb's recent works have a particularly current resonance...

Forty Minutes Of The Orb

• Dohnavùr: New Objectivity (The Orb's Rest And Be Thankful Mix)
• Sedibus: Toi 1338b (Edit)
• OSS: Wow Picasso!
• The Orb: Ital Orb
• The Orb: Alpine (Prins Thomas Short Yoga Break Version)
• The Orb: The Weekend It Rained Forever- Oseberg Buddha Mix (The Ravens Have Left The Tower)

Dohnavùr are a Scottish duo on the excellent Castles In Space label. The Orb's remix is on a remix package that came out in January this year. 

Sedibus is Alex and original Orb man Andy Falconer. Their album The Heavens came out in May 2021 and was one of the records that sound-tracked last summer for me. 

OSS (Orb Sound System) are Alex and Fil Le Gonidec. Enter The Kettle, a six track album, came out in either November 2021 or July 2022 depending on whether you got the digital or the endlessly delayed vinyl. 

Alpine was a single from 2016 with the Prins Thomas mixes following shortly after. At this point The Orb were Alex and Thomas Fehlmann (who has since departed). 

Ital Orb and The Weekend It Rained Forever are both from the album which was one of the sounds of the first lockdown, released just a couple weeks after the country shut down- March 2020's Abolition Of The Royal Familia. On Abolition Of The Royal Familia The Orb were Alex and Michael Rendell with contributions from Roger Eno the lovely piano on The Weekend...), Youth, Steve Hillage, David Harrow, Gaudi, Miquette Giraudy and Nick Burton and it sounded then and still sounds now like a 21st century Orb classic. Have the ravens taken flight yet?

Half An Hour Of A Man Called Adam

 
A Man Called Adam have been making wide eyed, chilled out dance music/ electronic pop since their first single in 1988 and their debut album, The Apple, in 1991. They are two of the stars of the documentary A Short Film About Chilling, Steve and Sally interviewed on the beach in Ibiza. Their Barefoot In the Head single is one of the mainstays of the period. They continued to record and release through the 90s and into the 2000s.  In recent years they've both gained doctorates- Sally Rodgers got her PhD for research the impact of recording technology on lyric forms and Steve Jones's PhD was in New Media. They worked with the British Museum, recorded a tribute to the unsung women of electronica and in 2019 released a new album Farmarama. 

That's all the biographical stuff. I bought The Apple in autumn 1991 and played it throughout the winter of that year, an album that sounds like the opposite of a British winter- fresh, widescreen, optimistic, technicoloured dance- pop, from the opening song/ title track to the sumptuous Chrono- Psionic Interface to the 60s/ 90s hippy/ Balearica of Bread, Love And Dreams. The seven minutes of Barefoot In The Head with its Rod McKuen and The San Sebastian Strings sample about 'putting a seashell to my ear'. Remixes by Andrew Weatherall followed. After that I bought their releases as and when I could, the Cafe del Mar compilations and second album Duende, songs like Estelle and Easter Song. The mix below is half an hour of summer bottled taking in ambient drones and found sounds, dubby acid house, loved up remixes and Balearic pop.

Half An Hour Of A Man Called Adam

• Easter Song (Speaking In Tongues Version)
• Easter Song (North Star Dub)
• The Book Of The Dead (British Museum Mix)
• Paul Valery At the Disco (Prins Thomas Remix)
• C.P.I. (Andrew Weatherall Godiva remix)
• Estelle
• Barefoot In The Head

A Man Called Adam have a new single out now, Ammomite (Hold On To That), an infectious modern piece of house music with a tough edge, inspired by the Jurassic coastline of the north east of England. You can buy it here. 

Monday's Long Song

I posted the Hardway Bros remix of Sparking Plugs by Deo'Jorge last week (the post is here) and at that point hadn't heard the Prins Thomas remix of the same track. Nine and a half minutes of dark, entrancing, sinuous, Scandi- disco is what I'm saying. 

Prins Thomas remixes, often titled Diskomiks, are a joy- wiggy, pulsing and inventive versions. His soaring Diskomiks of Kingdom Of Rust by Doves is always a pleasure to hear as is his spaced out bouncy remix of Seahawks with Tim Burgess on vocals, there's a stunning take oo Terr's Tale Of Devotion, a very long one of Kelly Lee Owens's Bird from last year and A Man Called Adam's Paul Valery At The Disco. This one of Alpine by The Orb is very good too, a track I thought was pretty recent but is already five years old.

Alpine (Prins Thomas Diskomiks)

Sally At The Disco

Last year A Man Called Adam returned from the Balearic wilderness with their excellent Farmarama album. Various songs have been remixed, reworked and dubbed out, by Sally and Steve themselves and by others including Prins Thomas. Covid and lockdown put paid to the original plans for release but now the entire package is out, eighteen remixes and dubs plus a fifty minute mixtape pulling them all together. The full release is at Bandcamp. The Prins Thomas remix is characteristically inventive and sprightly, a snaking guitar line, some analogue synths, Sally's part spoken, part sung vocal and a complex, twisting rhythm. 

The PV Lash Up of the same song, Paul Valery At The Disco, is a giddy floorfiller, a thumping house drumbeat and wonderfully silly keyboard part guaranteed to have you both dancing and smiling. 

Earlier this year Sally recorded a vocal for a new song written by Balearic militants Leo Mas and Fabrice. This Unspoken Love had summer written all over it- now in the darker days of autumn it's still working its magic. The dub version, also available at Bandcamp, a a dark, insistent house chugger pointing its face towards the night skies. 

Monday's Long Song

Kelly Lee Owens remixed by Prins Thomas in 2018, a seventeen minute Diskomiks that stretches her song Bird out into new places and new shapes. Six minutes in the kick drum takes over as everything else falls away. There's a wobbly bass note and then some ace bongo/congas work and then it all starts to build again. The last minute or so has some moody, reflective strings to round the journey off. Long and worth investing in. If you're short of time or attention span there's an eight minute edit version, which is still pretty long.



Kelly has a new album out in May, Inner Life, and trailed it last week with the whip-crack smart techno of Melt! Her debut album in 2017 was one of my favourites of that year. I played it recently to see if it still was (and it is). Modern, moving, intense electronic music. Promises to be a good 'un.

Gran Paradiso

It's so dark at the moment- dark in the mornings, dark from the late afternoon and murky throughout the day- that some musical sunshine is required to try to burn though the gloom. This track came out in 2017, a blast of Italo, cosmic Balearica with a touch of acid thrown in. Prins Thomas did an official edit of a Rusty track called Everything's Gonna Change and when that was released by Hell Yeah Recordings he added two extras, one of which was this one, Gran Paradiso. Straight from the off a blaze warm and loud washes of synth, drum pads and some chirruping sounds with a spluttering synthesised bassline coming in. Four minutes of summer.

Gran Paradiso

Monday Long Song

I found this on Friday night, an ALFOS road tested release fresh out on Phantasy. Terr is a Brazilian born, Berlin based DJ and producer. Her original track Tale Of Devotion is a wide eyed homage to the disco-synths of Georgio Moroder, a seven minute pulsing joyride with swooping strings. The Prins Thomas Diskomiks is nine minutes and four seconds of undulating cosmic disco with Terr's vocal layered over some wild synth action, guaranteed to pick you up and spin you round. Single of the week (as they used to do in the NME/Melody Maker).

Häxan

Prins Thomas, Norwegian producer and DJ, has been on these pages twice since last Friday, remixing A Man Called Adam and Doves. In 2017 he released an album titled Häxan which comprised a series of recordings he'd made while completely reconstructing an album made by Swedish psych-rock band Dungen. They had recorded the songs originally to accompany a 1926 film called The Adventures Of Prince Achmed. Thomas took the analogue tapes an d rebuilt them from the bottom up, sometimes keeping little of the original track, largely removing the heavier guitar parts, adding his own instruments and loops, building something new out of something else (in his own words the album was 'Recorded, Remixed, Rearranged, Chopped, Screwed, Glued And Partially Reproduced With Love By Prins Thomas'). Over the ten songs on Häxan (Swedish for witch apparently) Prins Thomas conjures up extended proggy cosmic instrumentals, space rock heading outwards. Try this one.

Achmed Flyger (Version 1)

Grow The Revolution

This graffiti appeared on a footbridge that crosses the M61 a little while ago. The photograph was taken by someone I follow on Twitter, Paul Wright. I drive underneath it every day on the way to and from work but haven't been able to photograph it due to my hands being needed to drive and it being dangerous and all that, so I'm glad Paul got a shot of it (and I hope he doesn't mind me using it here). On the other side of the bridge, heading away from Manchester, there is another piece of graffiti by the same writer that reads 'burn fuel don't care we all breathe the same air', something I think about often as my car goes underneath it.

Wilmslow's favourite sons Doves are back and are playing some festivals this summer. They're playing Heaton Park in June but going to see them there would mean shelling out for a Noel Gallagher gig, something which I'm reluctant to do. After that they're in Glasgow and at Bearded Theory Festival, Tramlines in Sheffield, Kendal Calling and Somerset House in London (all during term time). A smaller gig somewhere in Manchester would be nice (I'd settle for Castlefield Bowl if need be).

Doves have been well served by remixes in the past.  The original version of Black And White Town from 2005 is an uptempo northern soul inspired stomper. David Holmes slows it right down, puts the descending bassline at the centre with some organ, with the vocals in the distance occasionally, echoing in.

Black And White Town (David Holmes Remix)

Their last album was Kingdom Of Rust in 2009 with various remixes surrounding it across various single releases including this monster from Andrew Weatherall, a bass heavy version, kicking off with shouts and reverb, and then a crunchy drumbeat, a remix that crackles with electricity and ideas. This remix was a sign that Weatherall was finding his groove again, the start of a purple patch that has lasted a decade now.

Compulsion (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

There was also this eight minute gem, a Diskomiks of the title track by Prins Thomas, a 12" promo of which I found in a local charity shop yesterday for £1.99 and which sounded really good in the early April sunshine.

Lose Yourself

A Man Called Adam's new album Farmarama is proving to be a popular one round here, four sides of joy and fun, both reflecting their late 80s Balearic origins and sounding pretty current too- laptop beats, BBC Radiophonic Workshop melodies and Sally's impressionistic lyrics. The closing song is this one, Paul Valery At The Disco, the one I keep skipping the needle back to the start of...



Paul Valery was a French poet, writer and philosopher- 'poems are never finished, just abandoned' is his most famous quote (see also: 'poetry is to prose as dancing is to walking'). The track Sally and Steve have married his name to is a trippy disco tinged thumper which Sally said was inspired by the death of David Mancuso, his New York club The Loft and his party philosophy, Paul Valery dropped in for good measure. A song that extols the virtues of dancing, living and losing yourself on the dancefloor.

There's a remix 12" coming out for Record Shop Day including a Prins Thomas version of this which means I may have to venture into the vinyl scrum in Piccadilly Records after all.

Lovesick

This track combines two of my current musical favourites, Scandinavian dance music and the remixes of Keiran Hebden as Four Tet. Lovesick (Four Tet Remix), by Prins Thomas and Christabelle, was originally a 2010 release, and is now part of a massive three hour, three cd mixed set (or double vinyl) celebrating twenty five years of Prins Thomas. Slow motion 21st century Norwegian disco.

Arpa

There's something glum about early December, the lights and trees are too soon, the relentless terrible songs when the event is still over 3 weeks away and there's a lot to get through before you can step off the work wheel for a while. It's wet and dark and cold. This song came out in September last year, some Scandi-disco from Bjorn Torske and Prin Thomas. Torske and Thomas are both veteran producers and DJs in the Norwegian house scene where disco drums, space synth melodies and a krautrock devotion to repetition are to the fore. Just what is needed to beat the December blues.

Arpa (12" version)

Apne Slusa

Scandinavia has been producing some very good house and electronic music for some time now- classy stuff with a smidgeon of disco, warm electronics, chuggy basslines, pitter-pattering drums, a gentle slow motion throb. I've written several times about Paresse (from Stockholm) whose sound I love and who makes very evocative balm for the ears and brain. Norwegian DJ and producer Prins Thomas has been doing his thing for well over a decade, honing his sound, always inventive, precise and absorbing. This long but never dull track came out in 2014 and is here today to welcome in February. I think everyone's glad to see the back of January 2016.

Apne Slusa (Lang Versjon)

Look At The Sun

This is just the sort of thing for a Sunday morning, a blissed out, sun drenched song from Seahawks with Tim Burgess on vocals. When I first saw The Charlatans at a tiny venue in 1989 doing Indian Rope I wouldn't have put much money on Tim Burgess still being around twenty-five years later but here he is, a survivor as has been said many times before, and doing stuff that is much better than many of his contemporaries are currently doing.



There is also a very nice Prins Thomas remix if you fancy a version with a bit more shimmy shimmy.



The Seahawks album is out in September, which might be a little too late to do much looking at the sun. Mind you, we spent two weeks in the Loire valley in August and we didn't see too much sun there. This was the view from our tent more than once. Our neighbours were flooded out and started digging a levee before they were moved.

When the sun did come out it was lovely- this is the Medieval bridge at Beaugency. The Loire valley is beautiful and we met lots of very nice people on the campsite. French roads are amazing for cycling on- great condition, little traffic and motorists that don't try to run you off the road. It's just good to be away from home sometimes, especially when the wine, cheese and bread are so cheap.

The Loire valley is beautiful and we met lots of very nice people on the campsite. French roads are amazing for cycling on- great condition, little traffic and motorists that don't try to run you off the road. It's just good to be away from home sometimes, especially when the wine, cheese and bread are so cheap. We found the time to do a bit of exploring. This is Grande Pierre, a menhir in a farmer's corn field in the middle of nowhere, north of Blois. Not everyone in our party got on the prehistoric tip. Our eldest refused to get out of the car to look at it and child number two was fairly unimpressed. 'It's just a stone in a field'.

And this is Special Sport, my favourite shop in the village of Mer. In France the shops open at about 9.30 and stay open as late as midday. Then everyone shuts up shop and takes a two and a half hour lunch break before ambling back to work at around three, going through until about half six. No-one looks particularly stressed out, no-one rushes anywhere, things get done eventually. I think they may be onto something. Although I'm not sure Special Sport has survived the recession.