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Showing posts with label rude audio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rude audio. Show all posts

Tuesday, 24 February 2026

Magpie Eyes

The latest release on Tici Taci is a three track EP by LCBC, the combined talents of Lloyd Jones and Bob Salmond (who record separately as The Long Champs and Mr BC). On Magpie Eyes they purloin their song title (I'm presuming) from The Loft's legendary 1985 single Up The Hill And Down The Slope (and Dave Cavanagh's Creation records biography My Magpie Eyes Are Hungry For The Prize) and some influence from mid- 80s New Order- chugging rhythm, Hooky bassline and one finger synths playing off against the guitars. 

There are two remixes, one by Black Fades and one from Rude Audio. Black Fades go even further into the heart of the chug, spaced out, dubby cosmische, New Order if they'd been produced not by Stephen Hague but by Justin Robertson. 


Rude Audio take the Magpie Eyes down a South London dub route, stripping the track back to a skeletal electronic rhythm, some isolated topline melodies, whooshes, FX and the ghost of the bass. Addictive stuff. 



While we're here it seems appropriate to head back to 1985 and The Loft. Up The Hill And Down The Slope is definitive early Creation, the group's second single, released on 7" and 12". Pete Astor's lyric pleads for a run in the music industry, 'Once around the fair/ So I know' despite knowing that it'll ruin him and the band, as the guitars jangle and riff. 'Please don't say no...'

Sunday, 4 January 2026

An Hour Of 2025 Dub/ Dance

A follow up to my New Year's Eve mix which was an ambient/ downtempo and largely instrumental hour of music. This one starts out dubby and then heads in Balearic and dance directions, getting increasingly thumpy with a three tune Belfast detour before finishing with the voice of Andrew Weatherall. As maybe all mixes should. 

There were a lot of things that I couldn't find room for here, not least Four Tet's Into Dust (Still Falling)- maybe there's time for one more 2025 mix next Sunday to see that year out. 

An Hour Of 2025 Dub/ Dance

  • Adrian Sherwood: Spaghetti Best Western
  • Soft Cotton County: The Future's Not What It Used To Be (Justin Robertson's Five Green Moons Remix)
  • Rude Audio: No Sleep
  • Escape- Ism: Last Of The Sellouts
  • Daniel Avery ft. Cecile Believe: Rhapsody In Blue
  • Jezebell: Movimento Lento
  • Puerto Montt City Orchestra: ...And We'd Be So Happy
  • Pandit Pam Pam: The Senator
  • Le Carousel: We're All Gonna Hurt
  • Factory Floor: Tell Me
  • Black Bones: Voodoo
  • The Light Brigade: Shuffle The Pack

Adrian Sherwood's The Collapse Of Everything was one of my favourite albums of 025, a solo album that becomes a mystical sonic adventure, Sherwood reaching out from dub into soundtrack territories and beyond. Spaghetti Best Western's guitars are worth the price of entry alone. 

Soft Cotton County's Coward Of The County Fair came out in January 2025, a single backed with a pair of Justin Robertson dubs (wearing his Five Green Moons hat- and the Five Green Moons Moon 2 album should have showed up here too). SCC are an indie/ dreampop/ shoegaze duo from Richmond- upon- Thames. This is lovely, laid back folk/ dub. 

Rude Audio are a South London dub/ dub techno specialists under the leadership of Mark Ratcliff. The Strange Phenomenon EP was a 2025 highlight, premium grade Dulwich dub. 

Escape- Ism's The Charge Of The Love Brigade was one of my 2025 peaks, a ten song trip inside Ian Svenonius' world, the last man in the business to sell out. 

Daniel Avery and Cecile Believe's Rhapsody In Blue was the most 80s teen drama, pop moment on Tremor (and came with a Midnight Version too, dirtier and tougher). It still hits the right spots now, six months after its release.

Jezebell's second album, Jezebellearic Beats Volume 2, pulled together some further remixes and productions together with some new material- this track, Movimento Lento, and the closer Turn It Yes, were a perfect pair of bookends. 

Puerto Montt City Orchestra's ...And We'd Be So Happy came out on Brighton's Higher Love label, the home of many fine modern Balearic releases. A spoken word family trip to the seaside in the pouring rain. 

Pandit Pam Pam is from Sao Paulo and makes uneasy ambient music. The Senator is the most dancefloor friendly thing in the Pandit Pam Pam back catalogue, dynamic and lively but still a little unpredictable and the horn that floats above the drums is a thing of beauty. 

Le Carousel is Phil Kieran from Belfast. We're All Gonna Hurt is full on, pulsing, electronic dance music, uplifting but shot through with heartbreak, like all the best dance music is. 

Factory Floor's 2025 return saw them come back with more bone shaking beats and face melting synths, on a pair of singles, Tell Me and Between You. Stephen Morris added some drum programming touches to Tell Me. Experimental, machine music with a random human heart. 

Black Bones are also from Belfast. They released an album across a variety of vinyl formats, dark industrial basement music- acidic, technoid, dubbed up Belfast rave. 

The Light Brigade are David Holmes and Keith Tenniswood. Shuffle The Pack is a righteous acid house record, a call to arms and positivity and very much part of Holmes' 'music as an act of resistance' vision that fades out leaving Andrew Weatherall's voice talking about music, smoke, coloured lights and acid house as gnostic ceremony. 


Tuesday, 21 October 2025

Strange Phenomena

Rude Audio, South London dub- chug specialists, are back with a seven track EP to brighten and enliven late October. Opening track MGB1 bounces in, mind bending space disco destined for dance floor action.  North Star Dub is in familiar Rude Audio territory, Sabres style dubbiness, fat bass, chuggy drums and echoing rim shots. Swamp Ting goes further and deeper, downtempo bass and groove with lots going on on top- strings and synths and percussion ricocheting around. No Sleep is shorter, synth judders and whooshes, snatches of chopped up voices, whispers and echoes. Milo On A Hill is even more discombobulated, dubbed out and weirded out, picking up pace and the groove in its second half, the synths and drums sounding like the theme to a 90s sci fi you never watched at the time but binged in the small hours recently. 

Nobix is punctuated by a voice declaring, 'I had a dream last night... when I woke up I remembered it', and then, 'it's gone'. 

Much of this EP sounds like that vocal suggests- memories of a night out, thumping bass and drums, speakers rattling, a haze of people talking and dancing, glasses chinking, noises from the street bleeding in when the door opens, synths and mirror balls. The EP finishes with a Rich Lane remix of Milo On A Hill, slowed down and with some killer dub bounce and melodica. Strange Phenomena, highly recommended. Get it at Bandcamp

Wednesday, 10 September 2025

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. 



Sunday, 7 September 2025

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

Sunday, 13 July 2025

Ninety Minutes Of Psychedelic Dub From Rude Audio

Rude Audio's Mark Ratcliff is a fan of all things dub and many things psychedelic. He recently put together a psychedelic dub set, a ninety minute chugged up, dubbed out selection featuring some of Rude Audio's own recordings (with Dan Wainwright), some Duncan Gray, GLOK remixed by Hardway Bros meeting Monkton uptown, The Orb, a Richard Fearless remix of KXB, Future Sound Of London, Channel 15,  Tom Waits (!) and many more. Mark's very good at this kind of thing and with the temperatures in Amsterdam (where I am today, on a school trip) and at home in the UK due to top 30 degrees, this is an ideal soundtrack. You can listen at Soundcloud

If you're looking for a further Tom Waits/ dub interaction here's the mysterious B:dum B:dum and a punningly titled slice of deep dub, a sound that is all hiss, space and rhythm. B:dum B:dum were an early 90s Manchester outfit- members have since migrated into Marconi Union and Shunt Voltage. There's a 12" single isted on Discogs which contains four tracks, Istanbul, Angel, Check This and Good May Weep. I've no idea where this track came from. 

Tom Waits For No Man


Friday, 9 May 2025

Underground Deception

A week of mainly new releases reaches a conclusion today with a new EP from Stash Magnetic, a London based duo who promise Electronic Dark Wave Techno Psychedelic. Underground Deception delivers on all of those fronts with an eight minute Moog synth adventure, analogue sounds, rolling rhythms and voices from the netherworld. I'd be tempted to add space/ psyche/ space- goth to the list. 

Friend of this blog Rude Audio turn up on remix duties, a relatively short by Rude Audio standards seven minute excursion, the South London dub styling brought into contact with Stash Magnetic's galaxy bound wanderings. Space dub with a side order of goth- disco in the vocals. I first encountered this remix in Rude Audio's car, driving from Hebden Bridge to Todmorden back in April, just as the sun was going down- the perfect setting for it but my guess is it'll work fine wherever you are right now.  

The third track is Stash Magnetic's own edit- the Panic In The Chillout Room Mix. Panic in the chillout room is something nobody looks forward to. Thankfully the edit goes largely with the chillout rather than the panic, slowing things down and finding some further space in the grooves. A dirty guitar riff crunches its way in, an alien invader looking for somewhere to rest. 

You can hear/ buy Underground Deception at Bandcamp

Friday, 28 February 2025

Field Of Dreams

I've been excited about this EP for some time and it's finally out today. Hugo Nicolson is the man who learnt his trade engineering at On U Sound with Adrian Sherwood, went on to ably assist Andrew Weatherall on his groundbreaking early productions and remixes, and then produced several of Julian Cope's most significant albums (Peggy Suicide and Jehoavakill). He recently moved home from LA and has got an EP out today on Brighton's Higher Love label, a  label that knows its musical onions. Hugo's EP kicks off with his own track, the nine minute extravaganza that is Field Of Dreams. Chanting voices, a big kick drum, tumbling reverb- laden piano, and an amazing snaking horn line, the sound of the souk over a thumping four four. All manner of sonics follow- distorted, buzzing bass, rattling percussion, dancing synthlines... everything swirling around and swaying with those horns and the voices in unison. There's a four minute radio edit which does the job as a taster but you going to want the full nine minutes for maximum joy...


There are remixes, three of them from Bagging Area repeat offenders/ heavyweights David Holmes, Hardway Bros and Rude Audio. 

Holmes' remix judders and spins with an energy all of its own, the beats coming on strong and those chanting voices isolated before they're joined by a kaleidoscopic whirl of percussion and sounds, like being trapped on a rotating dancefloor, giddy and heady fun that threatens to tip over into madness. There's a pause at three and half minutes for a breather, a breakdown and some piano but those horns re- enter, summoning you back to the dance. The chanting section at five a a half minutes is equally hypnotic and then the horns work their magic again. A friend's partner said Holmes' remix made her heart race and made her feel a tad anxious and I can see what she means. 

The Hardway Bros Cosmic Interpolation Mix sets out as Hardway Bros remixes often do, a cosmic disco drum pattern and Sean's trademark s-p-a-c-e-d production. The chanting voices make an appearance in this remix too as Sean keeps things more linear, a propulsive and driving remix that gets on the train tracks and heads relentlessly across the expanses of the desert with the occasional bleepy breakdown and face melting synth whooshes. Like Holmes' remix, it doesn't do things by halves, both clocking in north of nine minutes. 

Rude Audio usually use ten minutes as the standard length for a remix. Surprisingly this one is closer to seven minutes, a blinding dub- dance version with bass that will shake your clothing and rattle your ribcage, synths that ricochet left and right and those chanting voices swirling around while the Arabian horn pulls us back into the dance. The entire EP is a trip, one of this year's best releases thus far, and should be soundtracking many an event. Build it and they will come. 

Hugo Nicolson's Field Of Dreams can be bought and heard at Bandcamp

Tuesday, 31 December 2024

NYE 2024 Mix

Staying in has been proclaimed as the new going out many times now. New Year's Eve is often the most overrated night out of the year but in the past we had fun going on NYE and I'm sure they'll be loads of people who do tonight. We have no plans to do anything major and hence will be in by the time 2025 comes around at midnight. In place of a crowded dance floor here's a Bagging Area NYE 2024 mix, starts out dubby, then goes Tricky, and then thumpy before calming down slightly and finishing with the return of a long gone 60s icon. 

Everything on it was released this year and it's quite David Holmes and Hardway Bros heavy (which probably explains a lot of what I've listened to this year). I wanted to find room for several other tracks but also wanted to keep it down to under 80 minutes for those of you who still burn things to CD to play in the car (that may just be me). I tried to fit Acid Klaus in but couldn't make it work, Hardway Bros' Murky didn't find a place (and should have) and there's one segue where it's a bit off- Audacity isn't really for mixing more sequencing, and sometimes my patience gets replaced by my 'it'll do' attitude. But if you want a shuffle to some chuggy, leftfield, acidic, dubby, thumpy and ultimately life affirming electronic music at some point tonight, it might do the trick. 

NYE24 Mix

  • Red Snapper and David Harrow: Hold My Hand Up
  • Theis Thaws: Fly To Ceiling (David Holmes Mix)
  • Silvertooth: Shut Um Down (A Dub From Outer Space)
  • Ammonite: You Don't Know Me (David Holmes Remix)
  • C.A.R.: Anzu (Hardway Bros Remix)
  • Peak High: Dance Hall Days (Hardway Bros Remix)
  • Causeway: Dancing With Shadows (Marshall's Club Mix)
  • Ben Hunt: Shimmering Lights (Rude Audio Remix)
  • Lisa Moorish: Sylvia (David Holmes Remix)
  • Raxon: Your Fault
  • Puerto Montt City Orchestra: Hey You (10:40 Remix)
  • 100 Poems: Dubmobalearicswithmybreaksman

David Harrow celebrated turning 60 in 2024 by releasing music every month. One of those releases was a four track EP called Tight Chest with jazz/ techno/ dub/ surf legends Red Snapper. This was the lead track, a wonderful piece of 2024 dubbiness that should have got more attention than it did. 

Theis Thaws was an album that saw the return of Tricky (Adrian Thaws) with French producer Mike Theis and singer Rosa Rocca- Serra. David Holmes' remix, as everyone said when it came out, was approximately three minutes too short but even at only three minutes eighteen seconds it packs a powerful if slightly paranoid punch. 

Silvertooth, from South London, released Shut Um Down in November, a cover of  Gil Scott Heron song, partly inspired by Sean Johnston's continuing ALFOS parties. It came in a variety of versions with two ALFOS aimed dubs- rolling pianos, chuggy dubby beats, and a lovely low slung groove.

Ammonite makes very ethereal music, layers of voice and gossamer drones. She remixed Holmes' Emotionally Clear into an ambient track. Holmes returned the favour by pumping Ammonite's You Don't Know Me up into an electronic banger. 

C.A.R.'s Anzu lit up late 2023. The remixes came out in 2024, courtesy of GLOK and Hardway Bros. Sean's Hardway Bros remixes have been in full flow for the last few years and the standard is uniformly high. This one and the Hardway Bros Dub were on heavy rotation at Bagging Area back at the start of the year.

Peak High's cover of Wang Chung's Dance Hall Days was a delight, coming after the equally superb Was That All It Was in 2023. The Hardway Bros remix dubs things down, turning the 80s pop down a bit, and finds that BPM sweet spot that Sean knows very well.

Causeway are on Chris Massey's Manchester label Sprechen but the duo (Marshall Watson and Alison Rae) are based in California,a world away from South Manchester. Dancing With Shadows is the 80s teen film anthem you missed, the sounds playing in the disco where Molly Ringwald has a revelation while dancing with the wrong boy. It came with a slew of remixes- the one here is Marshall's own. 

Ben Hunt's Shimmering Lights came out last month on Paisley Dark with a range of remixes, all of which hit the spot. Rude Audio remixes are often in the 98 BPM dub area. This one whacks it up and heads for end of the night Underworld vibes, the vocal sample, 'I see patterns in everything', twisting around like Karl Hyde in the mid- 90s. 

Lisa Moorish's comeback single in April was a beautiful electro- pop tribute to Sylvia Plath. David Holmes' remix did exactly what you'd want from a Holmes remix. 

Raxon's Your Fault was an autumn '24 highlight although I didn't catch on until later. It is fabulously wonky dance floor euphoria from Cologne, sounds shifting in and out, everything shifting and moving as if the floor is giving way. 

Puerto Montt City Orchestra's Hey You came out on Brighton's Higher Love label, the home of many, many good releases. It's a cover of 80s indie band 14 Iced Bears Hay Fever with original singer Rob Sekula returning to do the vocals. On the 10:40 remix Jesse sent this woozy 2024 c86 song through a Spiritualized filter, everyone involved laid back in the sun. 

100 Poems have released three albums this year, each one stuffed full of beautiful, brilliant tunes and a open minded anything goes attitude to making music and to life. Mike Wilson named the band after a collection of Seamus Heaney poems and the inscription on Heaney's headstone- 'walk on air against your better judgement'- is what the music is all about. On the third of the three albums, Balearic As A System Of Belief, Mike used the voice of Jim Morrison, a late 60s interview where he was talking about the future of music and how it would be electronic. And there may be a better way to see 2025 in than by listening to the utterances of the Lizard King repurposed for 2024/ 5 but I can't think of one at the moment. 

Happy New Year everyone- in or out, have a good one. 


Sunday, 29 December 2024

Fifty Five Minutes Of Bedford Falls Players

Apparently it's Sunday. It's difficult to tell what day it is at this time of year at the best of times, the period between Christmas and New Year, but it's been even harder this year. On Christmas Eve night I came with norovirus (I think) and have been wiped out ever since. I'll spare you the details but I was out of action all through the Christmas period. Lots of lovely food and drink in the kitchen and I've been on bread, water and rice. I can't remember the last time I had such an alcohol free Christmas but it would have been in the mid- 1980s. 

Today's Sunday mix features the work of Bedford Falls Players aka Mark Cooper. It's fitting for this time of year, if a week or two late, because the town of Bedford Falls is the fictional setting for It's A Wonderful Life, the Christmas film everyone goes to at some point. Also, deeply shamefully and embarrassingly, BFP have released at least three great tracks this year and I missed all of them out of my end of year list last week, an oversight for which I can only apologise. In any sane 2024 list the tracks Agent Cooper Coffee Dreams, Beautiful Chaos and Cosmic Cascade would all feature strongly. 

Bedford Falls Players music is giddy and effervescent, the spirit of late 80s and 90s dance music filtered through dub and techno with a real life affirming quality, a bounce and musicality that makes it  ajoy to listen to. Mark's remixes of other people, three contained below, are always outstanding too. In fact, his remixes of Matt Gunn's Learning Through Loops was one of my favourite tracks of 2023 so how I missed his music from this year's list is beyond me. All of the BFP back catalogue can be bought at Bandcamp

Fifty Five Minutes Of Bedford Falls Players

  • Marmite Marimba
  • Railton Ruckus (BFP Remix)
  • Boatface (BFP Remix)
  • Agent Cooper Coffee Dreams
  • Learning Through Loops (BFP Remix)
  • Cosmic Cascade
  • Beautiful Chaos (Dub Mix)

Marmite Marimba is from the Three EP, a 2023 release. It starts out buzzing, like a machine glitching, and then the marimba melodies start to pick away on top. It rises and falls, rises and falls, stuttering bass and keys sliding in and out, crunching drums piling in, repeating itself but always shifting too. Lovely stuff. The BFP remix of Matt Gunn's Learning Through Loops is from the same EP. Almost exactly a year ago I said this about it- 'a gorgeous Balearic tune with squelchy bass, chuggy drums and a guitar part that sounds like something John Squire put down on tape at Battery Studios back in early 1989 when recording the Stone Roses debut lp and then never used. Over the top of this Mark has laid a vocal sample taken from TV, a voice talking about sound waves, binary problems in quantum systems, core computers, voodoo, 'shit like this', hidden variables, time travel, determinism, party tricks and the voice of Jesus. It's been played constantly round here, one of my favourite tracks of 2023, and you should all get on it'. I have no reason to change any of that one year later. 

Railton Ruckus is by Rude Audio, one of several remix exchanges between the two parties. Railton Road is/ was the front line in Brixton and was the title track of a 2021 Rude Audio EP. The BFP signature sounds, marimbas and percussion carrying the melodies working their way through it and then everything dropping out for dub space and timbales, Weatherall and Nicolson style c.1991. 

Boatface is by Duncan Gray from 2022. The BFP remix is a wonky Buzz Aldrin and the Beastie Boys sampling joy that could go on twice as long and not be too long. 

Agent Cooper Coffee Dreams came out earlier this year, Kyle MacLachlan goes cosmic disco, some Twin Peaks chords and a rattling drum machine. 

Cosmic Cascade is also from 2024, a nine minute ride into the cosmos with chunky drums, wobbly bass and twinkling, interstellar keys and synths. 

Beautiful Chaos (Dub Mix) came out in March '24, a tune that builds and builds, piano, keys, acid squiggles, washes of synth and more of those twinkling synths Mark does so well. The drop out at five minutes, sampled voice and then bass re- entry is worth the price of admission alone. It is stratospherically good and clearly should have been in my singles of 2024 list, somewhere towards the top end. My bad, as they say. 

Sunday, 15 December 2024

2024 In Dub

The list making has started. Some of my blogging compadres have already pressed the Best Of 2024 button. At some point before Christmas I will post an end of year review and list. In the meantime, here's some of 2024's highest quality dubwise sounds wrapped up in an hourlong mix- there's much more that could have fitted into this mix too but in the end I wanted to keep it to under sixty minutes. Repetitive, bass heavy, echo- laden and spacious sounds for Sunday. 

2024 In Dub

  • Coyote: Living In Heaven
  • BTCOP: Sabre 540 (Rude Audio Remix)
  • Five Green Moons: Garbage Van Exhaust
  • Uj Pa Gaz: Roxy (Hardway Bros Meets Monkton Uptown)
  • David Harrow and Little Annie: End Of Times (Rude Audio's Immutable Remix)
  • Hugo Nicolson and David Harrow: Revolvalution (Dan Wainwright and Rude Audio VIP Remix)
  • Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s: In Minus Shadows
  • The Woodentops: Dream On (Rolo's Dub)
  • Richard Norris: Fever Dub
  • Coyote: OMG

In early December Coyote released a dub 12", two huge dub tracks,Living In Heaven and OMG,  that are in their own description 'light as a feather- heavy as lead'. 

Living in Heaven sounds like it be from side six of Sandinista!, a massive compliment in this household- it also has a touch of the Sabres Of Paradise Ysaebud single. Rattling bassline, echo and vocal sample. Coyote add some strings. Lovely deep stuff

Rude Audio's remix of BTCOP's Sabres 540 came out on Tici Taci in February, a remix that Rude Audio's Mark Ratcliff thinks his among his best work. He's right. 

Five Green Moons is Justin Robertson's latest venture, a post- punk/ pagan dub excursion, an eleven track album that continues to reveal new depths with each play. Justin appears later on too, with a track from the EP he released on the excellent Pamela label in April, four tracks all to some extent infused with dub. 

Uj Pa Gaz is from Tirana, Albania, a Tici Taci recording artist, producer and DJ. Roxy came out in late July and appears here in Hardway Bros Meets Monkton Uptown remix , heavy duty dub action from Sean Johnston and Duncan Gray. There is a very beguiling Middle Eastern melody line that plays out from the start, tumbling percussion, rimshots, delay and the deep hit of dub bass.

David Harrow has turned sixty this year and has celebrated with a release every month, a treasure trove of music emanating from his LA studio. His EP with On U legend Little Annie, the New York post- punk/ dub poet, had the original version of End Of Times, an instrumental, an acapella, and six remixes, two by Rude Audio- the Immutable and Protean Remixes. The Immutable is the dubbier of the two, a dubbed out rhythm underpinning Little Annie's poetry, 'this is not a happy hour'.

And Rude Audio turn up again, their third appearance here, now with the assistance of the wonderful Dan Wainwright. They took a track recorded by two former Andrew Weatherall cohorts- David Harrow and Hugo Nicolson and spun out into psychedelic dub complete with a brain melting ukulele solo. There are Sabres Of Paradise sounds scattered throughout it.

The Woodentops released a new album in April this year, Fruits From The Deep, a deep and rewarding trip under the sea. Dream On was one of the highlights, remixed in dub style by main Woodentop Rolo McGinty. Dream On (Rolo's Dub) starts and ends with an airplane taking off. Flying off to somewhere warm seems like a dream right now. 

Richard Norris' Bandcamp subscription service rewards on a monthly basis, a project that started with his Music For Healing ambient project but has blossomed into other areas, not least his Oracle Sound series of albums. Oracle Sound is (currently) three albums of superb, home grown dub. Fever Dub is from 2024's Oracle Sound Volume Three. 

Friday, 13 December 2024

Shimmering Lights

The 12th of December is possibly leaving it late for delivering old school style acid house/ wonky techno monsters into the world but this is a time for gifts and giving and Paisley Dark are offering a brand new EP of the finest quality today- its not free, you'll have to pay for it, but its worth every penny. Ben Hunt's Shimmering Lights is deliberately nodding its head   towards classic, early 90s Underworld. The monstrous wobbling 303 bass and synapse bothering synths are one thing- the vocal sample, 'I see patterns in everything/ Everything everything', is another. Cowgirl here we come. It really kicks up and off after the midpoint, everything coming together...

Shimmering Lights comes with six remixes courtesy of Mindbender, Cosmikuro, Ben himself with label boss John Paynter, Rude Audio, Keith Forrester, and Airsine. Mindbender hits the settings marked 'sci trance'. Ben and John's Space Age Freak Out twists the original even more and adds a synth whistle. Keith Forrester strips things down for an acid techno ride. Airsine cuts the tempo for early set chug. 

The Cosmikuro remix really stood out for me, a beautifully handled trip from the a Leeds based electronic psychedelicist, found sounds taking the Shimmering Lights out into the forest, the 'everything everything' sample at the centre along with that bassline and a big old kick drum prodding onwards. Lysergic delights. The other one that I've been clicking replay on is from South London's Rude Audio remix. Rude Audio take us on a dubwise excursion in their remixes, but here Mark goes for early 90s dancefloor adverting, bringing the thump of acid house early and aiming for the lasers, the dry ice and the strobe. Rude Audio four four dub techno with timbales and 303 mayhem. Get the Shimmering Lights EP here.

Leeds to Sao Paulo is a journey of 5, 978 miles according to the internet. In Sao Paulo lives Pandit Pam Pam, a Brazilian musician/ producer who has lit up 2024 with an album, singles and remixes (by Jezebell). Earlier this week Pandit Pam Pam released his now annual Christmas single- fear not, this is no novelty Christmas song but some lovely, chilled, slightly woozy electronica. Equipe Exploratoria Papai Natal III is blissed out, southern hemisphere Four Tet and will do very nicely for winding down on a Friday night. 



Sunday, 6 October 2024

Fifty Minutes Of Rude Audio

Rude Audio are a shadowy South London musical collective, specialists in dub techno and sleek chuggy cosmic disco. Based around the core of producer Mark Ratcliff, they've been pushing music my way for some time after I stumbled across some tracks in 2017. Since then Mark has become a friend, one of The Flightpath Estate team, and someone I've shared a DJ booth with on several occasions. Mark can actually do all the technical stuff, beat matching and mixing, and it's a pleasure to watch him play records/ CDs. Especially when in the middle of a set when he'll do something like randomly drop in Walk On by Neil Young from 1973's On The Beach amidst a bunch of dubby dance music and cosmic disco tunes. 

Mark's music as Rude Audio has been picking up the right kind of support in recent times. Andrew Weatherall was playing it in 2019 and early 2020. Don Letts has featured Rude Audio tracks in his sets. David Holmes played his and Dan Wainwright's recent remix of Hugo Nicolson and David Harrow at NTS last week, a show you can listen to here. Much of the Rude Audio back catalogue and the tracks below plus the ones mentioned but not included in the mix can all be found at the Rude Audio Bandcamp

Fifty Minutes Of Rude Audio

  • Revolvalution (Dan Wainwright And Rude Audio VIP Remix)
  • Early Morning
  • Big Heat
  • Big Heat (Bedford Falls Players Remix)
  • Railton Ruckus (Bedford Falls Players Remix)
  • Rumble On Arab Street
  • The Grinning

Revolvalution came out on Higher Ground recently, a seven track EP from the combined talents of Hugo Nicolson and David Harrow- both former Andrew Weatherall right hand men. Rude Audio and Dan Wainwright turned in two very long dubbed out, Sabres style remixes, the VIP the further out there of the pair. Dub bass. Space echo. Bubbles. Backwards ukulele. Dan and Rude Audio have worked together a lot, most extensively on their Psychedelic Science album from 2023, an eight track dub odyssey with Ram Das, The Grateful Dead and David Bowie all featuring as part of their blissed out, widescreen vision. The VIP Remix has the ability to make you feel like you've been up all night and imbibing even if you haven't. 

Early Morning, another Dan Wainwright and Rude Audio collaboration, came out in 2021 on Tici Taci. Slo- mo dub splendour. 

Big Heat was the title track of a 2022 EP that came with two remixes, one by the superb Bedford falls Players, and one from Rich Lane. It also featured Rudely Fresh and an Al McKenzie (from D:Ream) remix of Dust Devil. Big Heat turns up the tempos and the heat, a throbbing, chugging dub techno delight with squelchy bass. Rude Audio have tunes to spare and there are several digital/ CD EPs with B-sides and extra tracks that could easily have made the cut here- but then this mix would have been three hours long. The Bedford Falls Players remix is a joy, full of some of BFP man Mark Cooper's signature sounds and touches, a remix that keeps giving and keeps rewarding.

Bedford Falls Players also remixed the title track from the Railton Ruckus EP, from 2021 (a track also remixed by Hugo Nicolson). Railton Road runs between Brixton and Herne Hill. In the 1970s and 80s the Brixton end was the front line, a hotbed of radicalism, activism, squats, and bass culture. 

Rude Audio have a long standing interest in Middle Eastern sounds and scales. Rumble On Arab Street came out on the Rude Redux EP in 2018 and then again in remixed form on Street Light Interference. The tracks on Rude Redux were the ones that first really captured my attention, To The Sun, To The Half Moon and Pipeline Screaming along with Rumble On Arab Street. 

The Grinning was a vinyl only 7" release on Golden Lion Sounds in 2023, a split single backed with Richard Norris and Findlay Brown. It is a rumbling, tumbling, thumpy piece of dub techno with echo- laden timbales and intense synths quiggles, the musical equivalent of being blinded by the strobe (in a nice way). 

Tuesday, 24 September 2024

Revolvalution

Hugo Nicolson and David Harrow are both former Andrew Weatherall collaborators. Hugo was Andrew's number one studio right hand and engineer on almost all the early remixes and on the Screamadelica- era Primal Scream songs and One Dove's Morning Dove White album and attendant singles, the words 'ably assisted by Hugo Nicolson' appearing on the sleeve notes of a multitude of Weatherall remixes and productions. David Harrow worked with Andrew a few years later, writing, recording and producing with Andrew as Blood Sugar, Deanne Day and Planet 4 Folk Quartet and releasing in his own right as Technova on the Sabres Of Paradise label. They've come together (arf!) now to release a mammoth, genre busting seven track EP on Brighton's Higher Love- two versions of the track Revolvalution and a slew of mighty remixes. 

Revolvalution is a ten minute epic, a sampledelic, kaleidoscopic riot of electronic psychedelia, with sounds whizzing by in a blur of arpeggios, fizzing synths, lasers, and cartoon- like snatches of voices, underpinned by a non- stop sequencer bassline and four- four drums. Occasionally it shifts, a key change and bass drop accompanied by whoops, and then another shift, a breakdown into squiggles and snares, and then that bassline comes back in, Moroder banging at the door and a helium voice chanting. 

David Harrow provides two of the remixes, the heavy and acidic Square Circle Remix and the percussive, deep dub Circle Squared Remix. Rule Six bring their own take with their remix, some disco stylings and mirror ball action and a sprung bassline straight from the early 80s. 

Hugo and David both spent significant periods of time with Adrian Sherwood and On U Sound, a large part of the reason Andrew was so keen to work with them I'm sure. It's no surprise therefore that dub is present and correct on the EP. Rude Audio and Dan Wainwright put out an album together last year, the dub splendour of Psychedelic Science, and they bring a pair of dub remixes of Revolvalution, cutting the tempo and finding the echo and the space. The Original Remix is a ten minute psychedelic dub excursion, with an opening four minutes of bass, reverberations and FX, that eventually falls apart into a raga, with a lovely sitar solo, shakers and blips and boings. The bass comes back, the rhythm picks up, the springs and whoops return, a Hawaiian guitar glides on top, tropical birds call- its all very lovely and very early 90s Weatherall in spirit.

The Rude Audio and Dan Wainwright VIP Remix is slower and lower, supremely spaced out, with a lazy hip hop drum break, loads of delay and echo, and a reel to reel feel that goes on and on. Grin inducing, head nodding stuff. 



Friday, 23 February 2024

The Custom 88

The tidal wave of new music continues today with a four track EP on Tici Taci from BTCop and Rude Audio- I've been waiting for this one to be released for some time, it contains two new tracks and two remixes all from the top drawer. The Custom 88 has a pair of new BTCop tracks- Sabre 540 and the self referential B.T.C.o.P. with a Rude Audio remix of each. Sabre 540 is a slow starting, ambient wash of sounds and whispers, a full two minutes of build up before a drum makes an appearance, backwards sounds and enveloping melody lines dragging the listener in ever deeper. Truly gorgeous ambient house. 

The Rude Audio remix adds the thump of a kick drum, a juddering synth line and the space of dub techno, turning Sabres 540 into an entirely different beast- it blasts off at one minute eighteen with some classic Rude Audio rhythms, with the melody lines and synth strings adding some twinkle to the euphoric, widescreen dub- chug. 

B.T.C.o.P. is a heavy duty and slightly moody track, with thundering bass and drums, slo mo dancefloor stuff with vocals that swirl around at the edges of the mix. It thumps onwards gathering pace and intensity, breaking down and taking off again. The Rude Audio remix takes the dubbier parts, loops them, messes around with them and then springs into a rapid chug a minute in. Rude Audio don't tend to do things by halves or in small doses and the remix of B.T.C.o.P. sticks at it for nine minutes, the thumping rhythms, long synth chords and sparkling melodies, pushing and pulling at each other.  Likely to cause dancers to wear the carpet out at parties. 

The Custom 88 EP is out today at Tici Taci and you should be able to find it here. I'll update the link later on today and add any YouTube versions if they materialise. 

Edit: no Bandcamp for this one but you can buy at Juno

The BTCop tracks and Rude Audio remixes are represented at Brother Joseph's Sonic Treasures radio show, three hours of top quality music broadcasting out of Glasgow earlier this week. Joseph kicks off with the first part opening with Therapy? as remixed by Sabres Of Paradise and working his way through to Coyote with Rude Audio's remix of Sabres 540 visited along the way. Stephen Haldane takes the middle slot, an Andrew Weatherall dub- slanted selection (including The Asphodells, Andrew's remix of Steve Mason, the TLS dub of Saint Etienne's Heart Failed (In The Back Of A Taxi) and an Unloved remix) and then Joseph returns to the mix with more BTCop/ Rude Audio, the recent David Harrow and Little Annie smash (again remixed by Rude Audio) among others. It's a fine way to spend three hours of listening time. You can hear it here

Sunday, 17 December 2023

An Hour Of 2023 In Dub

While starting to consider the end of year lists of records, singles, albums, EPs and gigs it struck me that much of what I've listened to this year has been very dub oriented, the rhythms and sounds of Jamaica and its 2023 diaspora very much near the forefront of everything. As my list making began and the scribbling lengthened and grew, it seemed that a dub stop off in advance of the main event might be a good way to fill this Sunday's slot, an hour of dubby tunes to ease into the day as the week of the shortest days and longest nights approaches. There's loads missing that could have been included, not least the dubs of songs by JIM and Richard Norris' Oracle Sounds album, so this isn't definitive, it's just a version. 

An Hour Of 2023 In Dub

  • Katy J. Pearson: Willow's Song (Richard Norris Ritual Mix)
  • Rude Audio and Dan Wainwright: El Qasr Dub
  • Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s: Lone Raver In Dub
  • Sonic Boom and Panda Bear: Edge Of The Edge Dub
  • Stinky Jim: Quiet Spillage (The Long Champs Remix)
  • Unloved: Thrill me (Justin Robertson's Temple Of Wonders Remix)
  • Whitelands: Setting Sun (AR Kane Initiation Dub)
  • Electric Blue Vision: Other Skies (Hardway Bros Meet Monkton Uptown Version)
  • Dot Allison: Unchanged (Glok Remix)
  • African Head Charge: I Chant Too

Katy J. Pearson's cover of Willow's Song came out in several new versions as part of a five disc celebration of the 50th anniversary of The Wicker Man in June. Richard Norris' dub mix is seven minutes of peak 2023 dubiness, the bassline and Katy's voice and that haunting horn all pushed to the fore. Richard's Oracle Sounds Volume 1 has been one of 2023's highlights, an album of  first rate dub sounds and rhythms. Volume 2, due out in February, can be pre- ordered here

Rude Audio and Dan Wainwright's Psychedelic Science is one of 2023's best albums, a dub centred collision of South London and North Wales with Ram Dass, David Bowie, Ken Kesey and Ken Babbs and The Grateful Dead stirred into their dub stew. 

Lone Raver In Dub is one of Justin Robertson's from the vaults releases, out digitally as Part 4 of his Deadstock 33s Unreleased Volumes. Fast rocking dub from September 2023. 

Sonic Boom and Panda Bear's Reset album was remixed by Adrian Sherwood in full, the 60s bubblegum pop fed through the On U Sound dub machine to fine effect. Like Oracle Sounds Volume 1 an album that really reveals itself fully on vinyl. 

Stinky Jim's Social Awareness album came out as a follow up remix album in July, the original album remixed and dubbed out. Stinky Jim's dub comes all the way from Auckland, New Zealand, remixed in dub  style here by Welsh wizard The Long Champs. 

Unloved's Polychrome was a nine song album from early 23, a follow up to 2022's The Pink Album. The remixes followed a month later with Justin Robertson's taking the road to Scratch and Tubby, a rocking dub skank. 

Whitelands are a shoegaze band on Sonic Cathedral. In June a 10" single with remixes by returning shoegaze/ dreampop heroes AR Kane found its way into the wild, Rudy and Alex finding acres of dub space in among the wash of guitars. 

Electric Blue Vision, Jesse Fahnestock and Emilia Harmony, put out their Other Skies EP in November, an end of year hit in certain quarters of the internet, including this one. Hardway Bros and Monkton (Sean Johnston and Duncan Gray) often pull skanking rabbits out of dub hats when remixing together. This is among the year's best. 

Dot Allison's Consciousology, also on Sonic Cathedral, is an indie folk/ psyche/ dreamy meeting of melody and poetic lyrics. For this remix Andy Bell in GLOK guise found the dub heart of the song, somewhere in the similar cosmos as Brendan Lynch's 1993 remix of Paul Weller's Kosmos.

Aftican Head Charge's A Trip To Bolgatanga is a 2023 high spot, ten of the latest stop off points on Bonjo's four decade voyage with Adrian Sherwood.

Wednesday, 15 November 2023

Disco Renegade

I've been meaning to post this pair of tracks, original mix and remix, for some time and one of the songs mentioned in yesterday's David Holmes post- specifically something he played during his DJ set at The Golden Lion- has given me the nudge and a link to it. See if you can spot it.

MSOM's Disco Renegade came out in October, a five minute slice of dance floor action courtesy of MSOM's Michael Mikkelson, slowed down cosmic disco from the top drawer, with pulsing synths and timbales.

Rude Audio's Mash Up remix stretches the fun out for an extra few minutes, pushing some of the sounds to the fore and giving it more echo, more space and room. Both versions are available here for just £3. 


Sunday, 8 October 2023

Forty Five Minutes of Speaking Voices

I had the misfortune recently to see an advert on TV with the voice of Alan Watts is being used to sell cruises for the Cunard shipping company. Watts was a writer, speaker and philosopher who did much in the 1950s and 60s to popularise Eastern philosophies in the west. His lectures and speeches have been widely available for a long time, not least since the rise of Youtube. His son tries to control the use of them through an Alan Watts website where they can be downloaded when paid for, so presumably Cunard paid for the use of Alan's voice rather than just ripping it from Youtube. The advert chops up Watts' speech and misses the end section entirely, not surprisingly, (knowingly) misrepresenting the message of the original, selling a luxury cruise on the high seas as the dream Watts speaks of. I'm not here to complain about advertising, it's a bit late in the day for that. Watts' voice and speeches are instantly recognisable and catnip for use in media where his message, accent and speaking voice and rhythms are striking and attention grabbing. 

I came across this clip this week too, writer Paul Bowles interviewed in 1970 about a trance dance and self mutilation he witnessed while resident in Morocco. Bowles left the USA in 1947 and settled in Tangier, recording local musicians and writing. His novel The Sheltering Sky came out in 1949, turned into an epic film by Bernardo Bertolucci in 1990 (I read the book and saw the film at the time and enjoyed both but don't remember much about either now so need to revisit). Bowles' speaking voice, like Alan Watts, very much lends itself to being set to music, not just the content but the tone and timbre and patterns of speech. Which led to think that speaking voices set to music would make a good longform mix.

The mix below is forty five minutes of speaking voices set to music, sometimes where voice and music have been specifically made for and recorded with each other and sometimes where the voice has been taken from earlier recordings and sampled. I could probably find enough to make a second at some point in the future. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Speaking Voices

  • Jon Hopkins, Ram Dass and East Forest: Sit Around The Fire
  • 10:40: The First Step
  • Coyote: The Outsider
  • David Holmes and Jon Hopkins ft. Stephen Rea: Elsewhere Anchises
  • Rude Audio and Dan Wainwright: Be Love
  • Steve Queralt and Michael Smith: Chaldean Oracle
  • Steve Queralt and Michael Smith: Glitches (Flug 8 Remix)
  • Fireflies and Joe Duggan: Leonard Cohen Knows
Sit Around The Fire is the closing track on Jon Hopkins 2022 Music For Psychedelic Therapy, the voice of guru and writer Ram Dass talking about spiritual discovery through sitting round the fire and staring at the flames, while Hopkins' slow piano chords and sound of wood burning and crackling drift by. 

The First Step came out on Higher Love Vol. 2 last year, a 10:40 track that borrows a Bertrand Russell interview and layers a slow burning groove and wash around it, growing in emotion with nods to Elvis and Spiritualized. Russell speaks of acting and of doing in spite of doubt and in the absence of religion.  Magical stuff. 

Coyote are masters of sampling voices and building beautiful Balearic songs around them. This one takes Alan Watts talking about artists, work, states of evolution and sane and insane societies, adds some lovely acoustic guitar, and pays tribute to Andrew Weatherall (who styled himself as The Outsider when writing for Boy's Own back in the late 80s). The Outsider is the last song on their 2021 album The Mystery Light, a highly recommended record. 

Elsewhere Anchises is from David Holmes' Late Night Tales, a stunning 2016 compilation album that pulled together nineteen songs of life and loss, spanning Buddy Holly and David Crosby to Eat Light Become Light and songs David made for the album. On Elsewhere Anchises actor Stephen Rea speaks the words of Seamus Heaney over David's ambient backdrop, the sound of something quite special taking place. 

Rude Audio and Dan Wainwright have released one of this year's best dub/ dub techno/ psychedelia albums, Psychedelic Science. Be Love opens the album with the voice of Ram Dass making his second appearance on this mix. 

Steve Queralt and Michael Smith released the four track EP Sun Moon Town last year, Ride bassist Steve writing and recording four very different pieces of music and Hartlepool born writer and flaneur Michael narrating his own tales of adventures and wanderings in the 21st century, a place and time that seems quite bewildering to him. The Flug 8 remix comes from this year's remix package, a dissection of late stage capitalism and advertising agency dreams you can dance to.  

Fireflies is one of Nina Walsh's musical outlets, a South London based collective. The voice is that of Joe Duggan, Derry born and resident of Crystal Palace. 'If anyone knows', Joe says, 'Leonard Cohen knows'. 

Thursday, 20 July 2023

Social Awareness

Last year New Zealand dub purveyor Stinky Jim (Jim Pinkney) released Spacial Awareness, a twelve track remix and dub excursion that left few stones unturned- I reviewed it here. Jim has been busy enlisting remixers to his cause and to celebrate his birthday two days ago, Tuesday, he released the remix album available digitally and hopefully on vinyl too soon. Social Awareness has sixteen remixes and dub versions, new takes on the tracks from Spatial Awareness. 

This one is by regular visitors to these pages Rude Audio. Sand Gestures (Rude Audio Remix) continues in the same vein as Mark's recent outstanding dub album with Dan Wainwright, Psychedelic Science, an album which blurred the lines between dub, The Grateful Dead, Ram Dass, The Merry Pranksters and David Bowie. Never one for brevity Mark's Rude Audio remix is ten minutes thirty seconds of bass, bubbling synths, rimshots, echo and tripped out forwards progression. There's an insistent synth squiggle that weaves its way to the front and pushes along with the rhythm. Click play and then let it run on and on. 

Another highlight is The Long Champs remix of Quiet Spillage, six minutes of electrifying dub sounds, woozy organ, descending bass and a twisted horn part- I love the breakdown at the end, everything dropping out to leave the kick drum rattling/ thumping away. The original version of Quiet Spillage is a delight, a funky exotica/ dub crossover, music for cocktails and grooving. 

Quiet Spillage

The sixteen track Social Awareness including remixes and dubs by Solar Tropics, Amamelia, Tim Prebble, Seekers International, Jefferson Belt and Strange Flesh among others is at Bandcamp. Happy belated birthday Stinky Jim. 




Monday, 5 June 2023

Monday's Long Songs

Last Friday saw the release of Rude Audio and Dan Wainwright's new album Psychedelic Science. Mark and Dan recorded it holed up in North Wales and brought into being an album which marries dub with 60s psychedelia and the voices of American guru Ram Dass and Ken Kesey's bus driver Ken Babbs'. Not only do they manage to pull those seemingly disparate ingredients together into a cohesive whole but Psychedelic Science is already sounding like one of the albums of the summer. 

The album opens with Be Love, a slo- mo, blissed out dub groove with the voice of Ram Dass setting the scene for what follows over the next eight songs, an eight minute excursion that sounds like waking up after you've had exactly the right amount of sleep to find the sun shining and the day ahead looking good.

Over the course of the next six songs Mark and Dan take their chunky, cosmic dub to new places- from the bassline led, sci fi cover of The Grateful Dead's Fire On The Mountain to the chuggy bounce of The Fever and the off kilter, bass rumble of El Qasr. They cover Bowie's Heroes, a spoken word dub cover no less, with Ken Babbs from the Electric Kool Aid Acid Test on vocals. 

Control has a lovely snaking melody, chopped up vocals and wandering bass. On the spaced out Talking To The Sun Dan sings, his voice cut through the glorious fug. Finally, they reach some of kind of conclusion with the closing track, the twenty minute Patience Dub (A Prog Odyssey), the kind of thing that in lesser hands would be too much. Mark and Dan make a twenty minute track seem, if anything, too short. Music to be enveloped by and to drift away to. Buy Psychedelic Science digitally or on CD at Bandcamp