Three Hours Of The Flightpath Estate At Goo

In early December 2025 The Flightpath Estate DJs played warm up for Daniel Avery and Richard Fearless' Goo at The Golden Lion. Martin, Dan and myself played in rotation, three tracks on and then off. For a part of our set Mr Avery and Mr Fearless were sitting at a table near the DJ booth eating some fine Thai food, which added a little edge to our tune selection and mixing. 

At 9pm the Goo pair arrived in the booth, Richard with an enormous box of records, and took over, going on to to play one of the best sets I've heard for a long time, four hours of huge dub techno/ techno/ acid to an ecstatic crowd of revelers. Hopefully, their set will show up at some point. Both sets were recorded so the link below contains us doing it live, mistakes and everything. 'Play some ambient stuff', was the brief, and that's how we started out- we got a bit beatier as the three hours passed. We were on a high after finishing, the excitement of warming up for Avery and Fearless and pulling off what felt like a good set giving us a real buzz. Our three hour set can be listened to at Mixcloud. 

Tracklist

Adam Pye Corner Audio: A Winter Drone For Christmas Daniel Avery: Neon Pulse Mystic Institute: Ob-Selon Mi-Nos (Repainted By Global Communication) Dan Daniel Avery & Alessandro Cortini: At First Sight Bola: Forcasa 1 Death In Vegas: Chingola Martin Bomb The Bass: Darkheart (Sabres Mix) bdrmm: Alps (Nathan Fake Remix) Held By Trees: In The Trees (Ambient) Adam Aphex Twin: Zahl Am1 Live Track 1 Arrival feat. Kevin McCormick: Common Place (Thought Leadership Remix) The Durutti Column: Fidelity Dan Skull: Crash Pugilist: Conversion Autechre: Lowride Martin abu AMA: B!n Ladens Funeral Fiesta Saint Abdullah & Eomac: Organs Without Borders Craig Bratley: Take Me To Bedford Or Lose Me Forever Adam Kieran Hebden and William Tyler: Secret City Bert Jansch: Kittiwake Sewell & the Gong: Communion Phase Dan Jonny From Space: Level Skip Conforce: Void Boards Of Canada: Hi Scores Martin Moby: Go (Jam & Spoon In Dub Mix) International Noise Orchestra: Come Together Eskimo Twins: Elegy Adam GLOK: Dissident (Leaf Edit) James Holden: Blackpool Late Eighties

Death In Dalston

Death In Vegas' album Death Mask is one of 2025's highlights round this way, a techno tour de force spread over four sides of vinyl, imperious machine music with a human, emotional soul. Earlier this month Richard Fearless released an EP to close the year, two tracks recorded live at EartH in Dalston, London. COUM is a 2011 Trans- Love Energies era track reworked into the 2025 DIV set, huge sounding squeaky reversed synths and a big old Linn drum battling through a tense techno storm. 

On Lightning Bolt Fearless is in dubbier/ ambient territory, slow moving sounds, spacious and celestial. Both tracks can be bought digitally at Bandcamp and a two track 12" follows in January 

Back in 2011 when Trans- Love Energies was being released Death In Vegas turned up at Lauren Laverne's BBC 6 radio show and played two tracks, Your Loft My Acid and Medication. 

Death In Vegas Session 2011

Wednesday Trio

Some mid- week electronic/ dance music/ techno to shake the speakers and rattle the window frames- in three parts. 

First up Boy Division and their new single, Lazarus, a slice of laser beam focused, Italo disco/ cosmic chug. A resurrection one might say. The production is slick, the guitars neatly post- New Order, the piano straight out of Rimini and the controls set for the heart of A Love From Outer Space, a space the Boy Division chaps know very well. Out now on Tici Taci. 

Next, South London dub/ house/ chug suppliers Rude Audio have a new EP out at the end of October, seven tracks and forty five minutes of excellence titled Strange Phenomena. It's led by an advance party, the seven minute long MGB1, and sees Rude Audio slide out of the dubbed out shadows to the strobe lit dancefloor with some gorgeously lit up wonky leftfield disco.  The video is worth sticking around for too. 

Lastly we go back to Belfast and Deeply Armed, a trio I posted a couple of weeks ago. Their debut single The Healing is a 2025 must have, and on release earlier this year came with a couple of remixes (Andrew Innes with Brendan Lynch and former Swordsman Keith Tenniswood). The Richard Fearless remix came out recently. The Death In Vegas main man doesn't so much remix The Healing as completely strip it down and rebuild it. Driven by one of Fearless' thumping kick drums, the ghostlier elements of the original song forma  backdrop of synth waves. Matches on a tea tray percussion. Deeply distorted acid squelch. Reverb and delay. A certain amount of techno disquiet. Lovely stuff indeed. 

Four Hours And Twenty Minutes Of Rude Audio And Richard Fearless AT STP

Apologies if it feels a bit like every third post at Bagging Area at the moment is related to Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 2 but there's been quite a lot going on. On Tuesday this week BBC 6 played the previously unreleased Sabres Of Paradise track Lick Wid Nit Wit, a track that has been sitting undisturbed in the vaults at Warp for three decades and which is out now on our album, Jagz Kooner, Gary Burns and Andrew Weatherall at the mixing desk with twelve minutes of sinuous dub/ downtempo, a serious Jah Wobble- esque bassline and the prototype Wilmot horns running through it. 

Jamz Supernova was sitting in for Lauren Laverne and played it in full- leading to a flurry of sales from the Golden Lion Sounds website and Bandcamp. The numbers available online are dwindling fast and soon the only copies available will be those in record shops- Stranger Than Paradise, Piccadilly Records, Phonica, Shake The Foundations and Lovebeat. The power of national radio! The photo above was sent to me by a friend who happened to be driving and tuning in at the time- he pulled over the took the picture and sent it to me. The radio show can be caught at the BBC 6 website for the next twenty four days here. Jamz plays Sabres about two hours and five minutes in but there are several references given to it, The Golden Lion and our album throughout. 

Two weeks earlier there was a lunch party at Stranger Than Paradise in Hackney with The Flightpath's own Baz and Rude Audio/ Mark Ratcliff at the decks and then a three hour set by Richard Fearless. STP have uploaded the recording of Mark and Richard's sets at their Soundcloud page, four hours and eighteen minutes of top quality music kicking off with some very dubwise selections from Mark, then gathering pace with some electronic chuggery and spaced out weirdness. Fearless arrives with a masterclass in DJing- the selections, the flow, the mixing, its superb stuff. He does dub techno, slow and low, and crunchy distorted acid/ dub/ techno tomfoolery, robot funk, thumpy techno and more besides. You can listen here. 

The Healing

Deeply Armed are a trio from Belfast who released a debut single earlier this year- The Healing. They have the support of Scottish author David Keenan who writes about them at their website where he and they promise 'Neu! tripping on a Northern Soul loop with Sonic Boom setting the controls for the heart of the sun'. The Healing is six minutes of magic that go a long way to meeting that description, shimmering analogue synths, a very mid- 70s West German motorik groove, some noise and distortion and eventually a guitar riff that pulls at the heartstrings. As the guitar gets you, the voices come in, singer Michael and sisters Sinead and Mairead all singing round one mic. The drummer messes with the groove, shifting to a military rat- a- tat- tat before dropping back in and the voices and synths combine, conjuring that late night, low lit, basement flat feel.

There are remixes, one from Andrew Innes and Brendan Lynch, one from Lone Swordsman Keith Tenniswood and most recently Richard Fearless of Death In Vegas. On the Born To Go Mix Innes and Lynch pump it up, turbo- charging the groove and the bass and pulling the backing vox to the fore, the motorik going to the go- go and coming in at under three minutes for those lovers of short 7" single length songs.

Keith Tenniswood strips The Healing down, a blip and a bloop over a low fi drum machine and padding bass, some synth wobble and glockenspiel. Hazy and spaced out, there's a warm glow about Keith's  eight minutes mix. It cold go on for longer and it'd be no problem at all. All three versions can be bought at Bandcamp, digital and 12" vinyl. 

The Richard Fearless isn't out until 5th September but is a ten minute machine music remake, very much in the vein of Fearless' recent releases, his Death Mask album from earlier this year and his Haywired track on Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 2. 

 

Twenty Five Minutes Of Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 2

Our second album, Sounds From The Flightpath Estate, went on sale for pre- orders last week (as announced here on Monday and on various Flightpath Estate social media platforms). We are pressing 1500 copies. We did 1000 of Volume 1 and sold them all, something that still amazes me although it shouldn't- the music was so good it should have been no surprise we'd sell out. Flightpath and Rude Audio main man Mark Ratcliff has done a taster mix of all ten tracks for Volume 2, deftly sequenced and mixed, with the unreleased Sabres Of Paradise track making its presence known more than once. 

The unreleased version of Lick Wid Nit Wit stands alongside anything else Sabres recorded and released. It got it sole airing when Andrew Weatherall played it as part of his legendary 1993 Essential Mix at the BBC and even then that version is not the same as the one we have. 

As well as that track Mark has mixed in the nine other brand new tracks, music by Richard Fearless, Red Snapper, A Certain Ratio re-worked by Number, David Harrow, Bedford Falls Players, Dicky Continental, Richard Norris, Unit 14 and a cover of Two Lone Swordsmen's Sick When We Kiss by Sleaford Mods. Mark's mix, featuring excerpts from all ten tracks, can be found here. Mark has adeptly brought together mid- 90s dub/ techno skank, 21st century machine techno, Manc noir, North African percussion, chuggy cosmische, thumpy acid house, clattering Notts post- punk and much more into one sequence- you can play guess which track is which.

Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 2, double vinyl clad in a beautiful sleeve courtesy of Personality Crisis, can be pre- ordered from Golden Lion Sounds and/ or the GLS Bandcamp. There are still some copies left but don't hang around- as with Volume 1 there will be no repress. When they're gone, they're gone. 

AW62

AW62 was last weekend, a proper gathering of the clans at The Golden Lion in Todmorden, an 18th century stone walled pub nestled into a gap between a hill and the canal, to celebrate the life of Andrew Weatherall on what would have been his 62nd birthday. Andrew's brother Ian, one of the event's key movers, said that it was planned as a party that had 'everything except Andrew'. The line up of DJs and acts was testament to the spirit of the man, a diverse and exceptional bunch of DJs, writers, artists, producers, publishers and bands. 

Some highlights from a weekend packed full of them- this is necessarily a highly selective account drawn from my at times unreliable memories. Everyone who attended will have their own version and highlights but these were some of mine. 

Friday night saw Richard Fearless DJing in the downstairs bar, a vinyl techno masterclass- minimal, sleek, machine music, emotive and huge sounding on the pub's recently upgraded sound system, causing quite a stir among the crowd and packing the space in front of the DJ booth out with dancers. 

I took this picture while Fearless was playing. It may not be in focus or even a vaguely coherent picture but it sums the night up quite well from where I was standing. 

Saturday night was split between upstairs and downstairs. Upstairs Duncan Gray played a house set and then Scott Fraser took over at midnight. Downstairs David Holmes headlined, picking up where Matt Hum left off. David has played The Golden Lion often in recent years. He changes his set every time, saying he doesn't plan it too much, just goes with the flow and the feel in the pub. His set on Saturday night was out of this world, a huge range of dance music, from spangly chuggers to amped up noise, breakbeats and the sudden switching to huge piano tracks. Towards the end of his set, a 2 am finish, I was stuck in a corner by the door, just enjoying the music and the volume. Joe Strummer's voice came out of the speakers, his famous 'people can do anything...' speech from a radio show followed by ecstatic synth noise (an unreleased Holmes and Matty Skylab track, David said afterwards). There was a pause at 2am and then two or three more tunes, one a rumbly, garage band guitar song, one an explosion of synth chords, a wall of noise, and then finishing with the huge, extended Leftside Wobble remix of Tomorrow Never Knows, The Beatles most experimental, most progressive song filling the pub and scrambling heads. Thoughts were indeed laid down and voids were very much surrendered to. 

Saturday afternoon was our turn to play again, The Flightpath Estate DJs given the privilege of being part of the proceedings. Me, Baz, Martin, Dan and Mark played throughout the afternoon and into the evening. At one point I looked out into the space in front of the booth and saw author David Keenan and White Rabbit Books publisher Lee Brackstone  dancing and singing along to a song I was playing, the magnificent One Of Those Things by Dexys, from 1985 (a song even Kevin Rowland eventually had to accept he'd ripped off from Warren Zevon's Werewolves Of London). 

One Of Those Things

I spoke to David Keenan at some point, excitedly telling him about the experience I had reading Xstabeth a few years ago, a book which at several points blew my mind a little. This photo has me and David, me somewhat out of focus, mind probably still blown. 

Saturday afternoon also saw the fabled raffle and auction, Claire Doll's hard work and creativity raising  thousands of pounds for charity, Weatherdolls and Sabres cross stitch and a box of records found in Andrew's lock up when it was cleared out, promo copies of the David Holmes remix of Smokebelch and other delights. Golden Lion landlady Gig conducted the auction action in her own inimitable style. Holmes bid for and won this Gnostic Sonics banner.

Sunday saw the crowds, fans, punters and artists drawn back to the pub and its beer garden, bathed in early April sunshine. Andrew's friends Sherman and Curley played dub and ambient sounds the whole afternoon. Meanwhile the Sunday afternoon literary event came in three parts- a Lee Brackstone hosted discussion with Andrew's partner of seventeen years Lizzie Walker, Two Lone Swordsman guitarist Chris Rotter, Ian Weatherall and The Flightpath's own Martin Brannagan, Lee asking the questions which included 'when did you first meet Andrew?' which drew a range of funny responses. 

The second part was Lee and David Keenan, an interview and a reading from his new book Volcanic Tongue. The third was Keenan interviewing  Adrian Sherwood, a fascinating half hour with one of Andrew's heroes, the main man of UK dub whose reminiscences and thoughts could and should fill a book. David Keenan (and David Holmes, sitting on the front row) unpicking all sorts of aspects of On U Sound and Sherwood's music and career and the nature of dub. Genuinely amazing to sit in on and as much a part of the weekend as the DJs and music. 

Adrian Sherwood The Producers Series #1

This hour long Sherwood mix comes from the Test Pressing blog, published back in 2010. The tracklist can be found at Test Pressing- Creation Rebel, African Head Charge, Dub Syndicate and Doctor Pablo all feature. 

Sunday night finished with the twin attack of The Jonny Halifax Invocation playing live upstairs and Sherwood DJing downstairs. Criminally I missed both- having been at The Lion since Friday night, suffering from a distinct lack of sleep and having to drive home at some point that night, I called it a day at around 6 pm. 

Everyone involved in AW62 should give themselves a well earned pat on the back and maybe have a bit of a lie down- Waka and Gig at The Golden Lion, Ian Weatherall, Claire, Lizzie and Curley with the raffle and auction and merch, all the DJs and bands, Lee and David bringing the literature angle (books and writing were as big for Mr Weatherall as music was). It was a brilliant weekend and event- heart warming and inclusive, packed with energising and exciting music, and filled with great people. The Lion always draws a lovely bunch of punters and AW62 was no exception. And when the lie down is over and everyone's recovered, more please next year...

AW62 And The Return Of Death In Vegas

Today is the first day of the AW62 at Todmorden's Golden Lion, a three day weekender to celebrate what would have been Andrew Weatherall's 62nd birthday (6th April, Sunday). The line up is a bit of a dream, kicking off tonight with Richard Fearless playing downstairs in the pub, ably supported by Rusty and Rotter, while Fantastic Twins play upstairs. On Saturday David Holmes headlines with Duncan Gray and Scott Fraser both playing, Matt Hum on before David. From 2pm on Saturday through until 8ish, me and my friends in The Flightpath Estate have the privilege of DJing for the afternoon and evening crowds- it's an honour and a joy. 

Sunday keeps the fun going with a Sherman and Curley dub set, a White Rabbit literary discussion (hosted by Lee Brackstone with the Flightpath's Martin joining the panel) and then to finish the weekend off, The Jonny Halifax Invocation playing live upstairs while Adrian Sherwood DJs downstairs. The evening events are all sold out but the Saturday and Sunday afternoon events and sessions are free- if you're in the area, come down and say hello, it'll be great. 

By way of happy coincidence Friday night's headliner Richard Fearless announced the release of a new Death In Vegas album a few days ago with the appearance of a new track- Death Mask. Fearless has been mining an increasingly intense and beautiful techno seam for over a decade now, going deeper and deeper into the techno- earth's core. 2011's Trans- Love Energies and 2016's Transmission albums, 2018's Honey 12", his pair of albums under his Fearless name- Deep Rave Memory and its ambient techno counterpart Future Rave Memory- plus various one off singles on his Drone label such as 2017's mighty Sweet Venus, have all lit up the Bagging Area stereo, streamlined machine music of the highest order that straddles the line between ice cold and emotional overload. Death Mask fits right into that techno continuum, seven minutes of rattly drum machines and thudding kick drum, dub's space echo, slightly anxiety inducing synths, a squeak that nibbles away at the upper end and the sweet rush of momentum. Music to engulf and to immerse oneself in...

The tracks were all recorded inside Richard's Metal Box, a shipping container overlooking the Thames in East London. If any music sounds like it was recorded inside a shipping container, it's the music on Death Mask. Death Mask and the squally and equally intense While My Machines Gently Weep are both available over at Bandcamp ahead of the rest of the nine track album, which comes out in early June. 

Everyday

A couple of weeks ago a friend tipped me off to this single, Everyday, by Celeste, released in January and built around a very recognisable sample, Death In Vegas' Dirge- Dot's ah ah aaah, the guitar and bass. Celeste's voice is a bit special and when the drums kick in halfway through it takes off. The lyrics and Celeste's performance seem to suggest a problematic relationship, everything swirling around as Dirge kicks away behind her. Everyday was first released a year ago as a 7" single for Record Store Day 2024 but is now the first single from what will be her second album later this year. 

The song came to me at a time when I was rediscovering Death In Vegas main man Richard Fearless' 2019 album Deep Rave Memory, an eight track album that is a perfect encapsulation of what electro/ dub- techno/ techno can be. It's best heard as a whole, a dark trip, but the title track is my current favourite- kick drum in a shipping container, echo and space, a discordant filter, everything at odds with everything else for a little while and then it all comes into sync and a rippling melody dances on top- a melody that repeats and repeats, then gets replaced by a different one, and then again by another, the bleakly beautiful krauty techno driving onwards for nine, ten, eleven minutes, imprinting itself into your brain. 

Deep Rave Memory

Forty Minutes Of Fearless And Vegas

I took this photo the other day by accident with my phone in my pocket. There were several and a couple of short videos too but this was the pick of the bunch- someone said, 'it's like you have a portal to another dimension in your pocket'. If only I'd known it was there all along. It looks very much like a record sleeve too, maybe one by The Cocteau Twins, definitely something on 4AD. Anyway, I like it but despite my best efforts haven't been able to recreate it. For now, the portal remains closed. 

How about some dystopian disco for your Sunday? Earlier this week Jesse questioned whether the new Ron Trent album is actually any good and rather than being the Balearic masterpiece it is being lauded as (not least here), it is actually more akin to the incidental music from 80s US cop shows, Miami Vice when it went soft or Magnum P.I. perhaps. I think with Balearic and ambient music there's always a danger of slipping over the line into bland New Age cocktail bar music but I guess everyone's line is in a different place. I've got a couple of Balearic compilations with songs and tracks where I can feel my younger self shaking his head and wondering what has happened. 

There's no danger of the music in today's mix being labelled soft focus, pastel anti- jazz. In recent years Richard Fearless, both solo and in his Death In Vegas guise, has made some very anxiety inducing, tense and dystopic ambient/ industrial/ minimal techno. Sheets of metal, cavernous reverb, subterranean synths, icily detached vocals from Sasha Grey, thick urban fog, night terrors, dancing in a damp deserted warehouse somewhere in East London with one lightbulb flickering on and off... it's all here. Plus Chris and Cosey, formerly of Throbbing Gristle, on remix duties and Richard's beautifully mournful piano house remix of Django Django. It's all very intense but also perfectly executed and very cathartic. 

Forty Minutes Of Richard Fearless And Death In Vegas

• Richard Fearless: Driving With Roedelius
• Richard Fearless: Earth Tapes
• Death In Vegas: Honey
• Death In Vegas: Consequences of Love (Chris And Cosey Remix)
• Death In Vegas: You Disco I Freak
• Django Django: Giant (Richard Fearless remix)
• Richard Fearless: Gamma Ray

The opening pair of tracks are from the recent Deep Rave Memory and Future Rave Memory albums. Consequences Of Love and You Disco I Freak were on 2016's Transmission album. Honey and Gamma Ray were standalone singles from 2018 and 2014 respectively. The Django Django remix dates from 2016 but was only released properly in 2020. 

Chapel Cottage, Sweet Venus

Chapel Cottage by Thee Church Ov Acid House remixed by Richard Fearless, dub techno from Hamburg rejigged in East London, out last week. Cavernous echo, drums, distorted squeaks, rattling percussion, whooshing noises, reverb- laden screams, long synth sounds- subterranean rave soundtrack. Buy it at Bandcamp.

While I'm posting Ricard Fearless again it would be remiss of me not to remind of this record from 2017, Sweet Venus, which came out on vinyl (300 copies only). Sweet Venus is to my ears one of the finest pieces of electronic music released this decade/ century, deep and beautiful, building, circling, loopy acid dub techno with some gorgeous keening drones. The build up to the hi- hats joining in at two minutes forty five is almost worth the price of admission alone and the final couple of minutes, everything synced in and pulsing forward is a joy. 

Monday's Long Song

Richard Fearless's new album, an ambient/ industrial tour de force called Future Rave Memory, came out on Friday. It's a largely drumless re- imagining of his 2019 Deep Rave Memory which was itself an intense and detailed techno journey into the city at night. If anything Future Rave Memory is even more so- hard edged, single minded, white light and dark drones with long building passages where time seems to disappear. It's both heavy and weightless and the perfect soundtrack for a world where our leaders are corrupt and have abandoned any pretence of acting in our best interests. Tamas is the opener to the album, thirteen minutes long, slow motion drones and dissonance, a sort of metallic fog. 

Future Rave Memory

Back in 2019 Richard Fearless put out an album called Deep Rave Memory, a purist's vision of ambient techno recorded inside an actual metal box overlooking the Thames. Sparse, austere, transcendent, hypnotic synth sounds, industrial textures and on some of the tracks with some truly pounding drums. It was/ is a perfect slice of modernist machine music- gnarly, physical and in places beautiful. A while ago I heard a rumour that there was going to be a companion version, an abstract, ambient version with drums and percussion removed so that what would remain would be the washes of dark synths, the melodies, an emotional bath for ambient, industrial fans. This new version,  called Future Rave Memory, is out in November with the vinyl to follow in December. This is Our Acid House, a fifteen minute trip through the murky psychogeography of London's docklands, all shadows, electricity, dark water and murk. 

Tak Tent Two

Back in Lockdown Two I put together a second mix for Tak Tent Radio, an internet radio station based in Scotland who broadcast my first mix for them back in October (here). The second one, which I cleverly titled Tak Tent Two, went live yesterday. It is an hour of instrumental sounds, ambient, Balearic, minimal techno, shoegaze whatnot- which is pretty much where my musical head has been for the last year.

Tak Tent Two is here. Hopefully it might enhance your Sunday morning in Lockdown Three. 

• Death Circuit: Strom Dub
• Jose Padilla: Agua
• Richard Norris: Cloud Surfing
• Richard Fearless: Driving With Rodelius
• Pye Corner Audio: Phase B
• Future Beat Alliance: Beginner’s Mind
• Joe Morris: Firefly Island (Gallo Isola Acida Mix)
• The Long Champs: Straight To Audio
• Apiento and Co: The Light Machine
• Andy Bell: Heat Haze On Weyland Road

Giant

As well as the unreleased Andrew Weatherall remix they put out at the end of October, London/ Scotland art- rockers Django Django released some remixes back in 2016 for Record Shop Day including ones by Tim Burgess, Peaking Lights and Richard Fearless. I only discovered this e.p. recently having gone looking for the Weatherall one and it seems that this is the first time these have been available digitally, the RSD release being a 500 copies only vinyl release. The Richard Fearless remix is a peach, a repetitive, piano- house, post- acid house banger, built around two repeated parts- the first an ascending keyboard riff over thumping machine drums and the second a piano part pinched from the glory days that sends you to that happy/ sad place on the edge of the dancefloor, hedonism and a vague sense of regret in equal measure. Fearless switches between the two perfectly. 

Monday's Long Song

This artwork is on a footbridge over the Metrolink not far from here. It seems to be a spray can sketch of female anatomy as drawn by someone who has only been told what that might look like. It has a certain primitive quality that lifts it above your average genital based graffiti. In my opinion. 

Richard Fearless of Death In Vegas is still pursuing his ambient techno vison of the future, this time with Circuit Diagram, the collaboration renamed as Death Circuit. The eight and a half minutes of Strom Dub are sleek, sexy synth sounds, science fiction as it used to be. The B-side, Teeparty am Waldbrand (translation- teaparty at the forest fire), has a relentless kick drum and throbbing bass, disembodied voices and single minded intent. No surprise this music is coming out of Germany, Hamburg to be exact. Buy it at Bandcamp. 

Fearless

Sometimes albums from the recent past, the last year or so, are the ones that get forgotten about. One of 2019's albums that I've bene making time to go back to is Richard Fearless' Deep Rave Memory. Fearless has honed his sound in recent times, purifying everything down to a sleek, industrial blend of ambient acid techno. Death In Vegas moved in this direction in 2011 with the Trans- Love Energies album and then even moreso with 2016's Transmission, a double vinyl set of futuristic techno, Detroit via East London. His studio is a shipping container overlooking the Thames and London's Docklands area, a metal box filled with vinyl, computers and vintage gear. There's an article with pictures here. If environment and psychogeography affect the production of art- and I think they do- then this combination of shipping container, East London and the river must have played a role in the increasingly purified sound that has come out of Richard's imagination. Deep Rave Memory, the title track, is an eleven minute trip, a kick drum leading us in and and a discordant synth sound, two notes up and down, a wobbly siren sound behind it. An acidic topline comes to the fore. Four minutes in it all shifts, a siren synth refrain taking over before most of the elements drop out and then build again for an increasingly intense, sweetly melodic second half. 

In 2018 Richard put out Honey, a one off single with Sasha Grey, a song I've raved about before. You can find it at Bandcamp. The year before he released Sweet Venus, a limited 12" only release that seems to be coming from the same place. Sweet Venus starts with an erratic dancing synth line and a spray can hiss of percussion before a long, ghostly, distant chord comes into play. It came out on Fearless' own label, Drone. Label name and sound perfectly aligned. It all goes off just before three minutes, the drums accelerating, the track suddenly gathering momentum, a techno bullet train.

Working backwards in 2014 there were two 12" singles, Higher Electronic States and Gamma Ray. Gamma Ray is clearly part of this, an eight minute slice of tension and release, pattering drums, metallic hiss, more looping synth notes flitting about, bouncing around a shipping container above a river.  

Gamma Ray

Ballardian Dreams

Sunday always seems ideal for the long mix, the Sabbath lending itself to the extended DJ mix. Today's is from Richard Fearless and a mix titled Ballardian Dreams. In 1971 JG Ballard said 'Everything is becoming science fiction. From the margins of an almost invisible literature has sprung the intact reality of the 20th century'. He also said 'civilised life is based on a huge number of illusions in which we collaborate willingly. The trouble is we forget after a while they are illusions and we are deeply shocked when reality is torn down around us'. Both seem pertinent in some way.

For this mix Richard Fearless has mined the influences that went into his recent Deep Rave Memory album and seemlessly stitched together ninety minutes of electro, acid, techno, EBM and industrial musics, all glide by of synths, drones, robot voices, squelchy bass, machine drums and unmistakable superfast flicker of the strobe.

Twenty Nineteen: An End Of Year List

I read an article recently that claimed that making end of year lists was merely an attempt to forestall death, that ranking and ordering things is for people who have an unnatural fear of death and who must be constantly trying to leave things in order before they go. A bit dark perhaps. A similar argument says that making lists is an attempt to place order on a chaotic and uncontrollable world- and one glimpse at the news will confirm that the world is both those things and getting more so- and people (men mainly) feel that if they can rank their albums/books/films then they have at least controlled a part of that world. So, with all those things being as they are, here's my end of year list. It doesn't seem to have much in common with the end of year lists I've read in the 'proper' music press or websites- so I must be out of step with what's really the best of the 2019. All I can offer you is what I've loved the most this year and some examples to sample.

Singles/songs/remixes/e.p.
There's a lot of chuggy, cosmic, Balearic, ALFOS style releases in this list, a top 30 for 2019, a golden year for music that evokes outer space, Mediterranean beaches and/or basement clubs thick with dry ice.

1. Silver Apples Edge Of Wonder (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

Released for Record Shop Day in April this remix is nine minutes of total joy, a dream turned into sound- the pitter patter drum machine giving gentle propulsion, the bouncy keyboard riff and metallic sounds echoing round and round and the softly sung vocal- 'waves, waves, Neptune's metronomes... relentless heartbeat of the sea'.



2. A close second was this three track release from Pines In The Sun, Albanian Balearica via Brighton. I know next to nothing about them but the wordless, sunshine shimmer of Sun and the gorgeous sprawl of Zig Zag Sea (plus Duncan Gray's remix of the latter) soundtracked much of my summer.



3. Apiento's single Things We Do For Love came out back at the start of the year, a slow motion dance floor shaped ode with synth bass and whispered vocals. My main regret is not being quick enough to get a copy of the limited run of 7"s.



4 and 5. A Certain Ratio have spent the year celebrating their fortieth anniversary and released this pair of superb songs, one a previously unreleased cover version from 1980 that was intended to be voiced by Grace Jones, the dark funk of House In Motion and the other a very Mancunian remix of their Dirty Boy single (featuring Barry Adamson and the voice of Tony Wilson), remixed by Chris Massey. The Dirty Boy remix in particular has floated my boat.





From this point onward there are a slew of singles, remixes and e.p.s that I've enjoyed this year, loads of brilliant music showing that 2019 has been a really good year. The next dozen or so especially  have all been on heavy rotation.

6. Moon Duo Lost Heads
7. Meatraffle Meatraffle On The Moon (Andrew Weatherall Remix)
8. Four Tet Teenage Birdsong
9. A Mountain Of Rimowa A.M.O.R. e.p.
10. Plaid Maru (Orbital Remix)
11. Hardway Bros Chateau Comtal
12. Scott Fraser and Louise Quinn Together More
13. Four Tet Anna Painting
14. GLOK Dissident
15. Roisin Murphy Incapable (plus the pair of incredible Crooked Man remixes/dubs)
16. Craig Bratley Message To The Outpost e.p.
17. Field Of Dreams No 303
18. Fjordfunk Exile (including the Hardway Bros remix)
19. The Comet Is Coming Summon The Fire
20. Ride Future Love
21. A Man Called Adam Paul Valery St The Disco (Prins Thomas Remix)
22. KH Only Human
23. Shape Of Space Manifesto
24. Warriors Of The Dystotheque Things In The Shadows (Tronik Youth Remix)
25. ⣎⡇ꉺლ༽இ•̛)ྀ◞ ༎ຶ ༽ৣৢ؞ৢ؞ؖ ꉺლ e.p.
26. Shunt Voltage Link Up/ See It In Your Eyes
27. Boy Division Hot Pants
28. Dan Wainwright Keep Me Hangin' On (with Hardway Bros dub remix)
29. Duncan Gray Much Much Worse/ Where Clock Goes
30. Terr Tales Of Devotion (including the Prins Thomas Diskomiks)

Four Tet/Kieran Hebden has had a particularly good 2019, always innovative and entrancing and producing some of the best moments in a variety of guises and across a series of releases, including a live album recorded at Ally Pally in the summer that I've only just started listening to.

Edit: just realised I forgot San Pedro whose e.p. in June was a blast and should be in the list above somewhere.

Albums
I've bought and listened to what seems like an enormous amount of albums this year. The internet and streaming has made individual songs the focus again, a return to the halcyon days of the 7" and 12" single and their B-sides, and occasionally people write about the death of the album and the forty/seventy minute format (depending on whether its a vinyl album or CD). Looking through my pile of records and CDs and lists of downloads the album looks in really good health to me. There's more breadth to my album list, a wider variety of sounds and styles. I've fallen into an ambient/drone wormhole many times this year, a wonderful place to stay for extended periods. Psychedelia and cosmic psych rock has been at the front of the pile a lot. These are in no particular order, the first eight I genuinely couldn't pick between in terms of a favourite or a ranking, they're all the albums of the year.

Glok Dissident
Andy Bell (the guitarist from Ride) released the surprise of the year, a rich, gorgeous flotation through cosmic psychedelia, motorik drums and West German sounds, awash with floaty, dreamy synths and guitars. From the Tron-esque sleeve to the luminous green vinyl to the grooves contained within everything about this album was spot on.



Richard Norris Abstractions Vol. 1
Richard Norris has been exploring ambient music throughout 2019 (and before). This year he has released a pair of albums, Abstractions Vol. 1 and 2, filled with extended repetitive sounds, loops of melody, chimes and washes, drones, ambient noise, waves of reassuring sounds- deep listening. This year has been a car crash in many ways. The whole Brexit debacle, the constant noise and feelings of loss of control over our politics and culture, the sense of loss and the feeling that we're being driven over the edge by fanatics. This album has helped me switch off from it. I can put this on and it works in a calming way that nothing else does. If there's an N.H.S. left in five years time, this pair of albums should be available on prescription.



Meatraffle Bastard Music
Bastard Music is a strange record, surreal, bold and in places very funny. A vision of dystopia set to a ramshackle beat and some memorable melodies. Lyrically it deals with everything- nationalism, the exploitation of workers, Brexit, living in London versus living in the country, immigration, the price of renting, sexism, science fiction, activism, everything... but it's never overbearing or humourless and the lyrics and vocals force you to listen to it rather than just have it on. Musically it's lo fi synthy disco, horns and Pulp Fiction guitars, home made rhythms, reggae and post punk. In some ways Bastard Music makes no sense and in others it makes more sense than any other album released in 2019. It's an amazing record in lots of ways not least in the the song Meatraffle On The Moon, one of the very best things I've heard this year- a song that really should be up at the top of the singles list with Silver Apples and Pines In The Sun- a dub pop exploration of  human workers enslaved and working on the moon, their comradeship and valiant attempts to survive with only the meatraffle to look forward to. Semi- stoned drums, a snaking horn, dub bass and the ace vocals.



Moon Duo Stars Are The Light
My favourite guitar/synth/drums psych- rock explorers put out their latest album in September, Stars Are The Light, and have found a new love of disco and dance music and ecstatic grooves. It's still clearly the work of the band who made the darker, heavier Occult Architecture albums but now with their faces turned to the sun. The synths and drums dance around, the rhythms are aimed at the feet and lighter than before and the twin vocals are airy and optimistic. Their live show in October was an immersive psychedelic experience. I don't think there's an album I've bought this year that I've listened to more than this one.



Steve Cobby Sweet Jesus
One man cottage industry from Hull, Steve Cobby dropped Sweet Jesus onto the internet live back in the summer, twelve songs recorded in his shed, taking in cool Balearic vibes, lush instrumentals, downtempo funk and synths and lots of acoustic guitars. The opening song, As Good As Gold, inspired by Led Zep's third album acoustic guitar picking folkiness in mid- Wales with added mellotron, has been one of my favourite tunes of 2019 and one that I keep going back to. There's something about it that really hits the spot in a way I can't quite put my finger on.



Rich Ruth Calming Signals
This album from Nashville resident Rich Ruth is often described as ambient but it's not ambient in the rain- falling- while- lying- in- bed- with- the- volume- slightly- too- low Brian Eno sense. It's an instrumental album, nine songs that take in minimalism, repetition and drones, a beautiful soaring, squawking saxophone, built around synths and guitars. On first listen you're never quite sure where it's going to go next and in places it is utterly gorgeous.



Richard Fearless Deep Rave Memory
This only came out recently so I'm still getting to know it but it is a perfectly paced and sequenced, intricately constructed techno journey. Completely absorbing and in places edge- of- your- seat tense, taut techno but with some beautiful melodic passages and some pulsing, calming tracks too.



Underworld Drift Series 1 Sampler
I've mentioned this project and album twice recently so don't intend to say much else. The best Underworld album for ages. Try this one...



These eighteen too, roughly in the order that they're listed in below. A bumper year for the long player round here.

L'epee Diabolique
Steve Mason About The Light
A Man Called Adam Farmarama
Bob Mould Sunshine Rock
Private Mountain Blue Mountain
Mark Peters Ambient Innerland
Stiletti Ana Ab Ovo
WH Lung Incidental Music
Rude Audio Street Light Interference
Kungens Män Chef
Acid Arab Jdid
Solange When I Get Home
Plaid Polymers
Rose City Band Rose City Band
Jane Weaver Loops In The Secret Society
Joe Morris Exotic Language
Lana del Rey Norman Fucking Rockwell
Mythologen Antisocial Background Music 2017- 2019

Deep Rave Memory

This is out today, new from Richard Fearless, an eight track album under his own name. If the title track is anything to go by it promises to be a techno- soul classic, 303s and whipcrack snares, melodic toplines, dark spiralling synths and kosmiche expansion. The title alone is a gift. Twelve minutes of twisting, laser light brilliance.