One Dream Is Over Another One Begins

Simeon Coxe of Silver Apples has died aged 82. In the late 60s he pioneered a form of electronic music that has become massively influential. Using homemade synths, a salvaged 1940s oscillator and a visionary sense of what he could do Simeon made a new type of music, music we take for granted today, but which in the late 60s and early 70s was like a very quiet, hypnotic revolution. Just Simeon's voice, some synth lines and keyboards, basslines triggered by his own controllers and foot  pedals (all cased in boxes bought from army surplus) and a drummer. The lyrics are like little lysergic haikus, transmissions from out there. Gently psychedelic, space age pop music and optimistic, open ended futurism. Try these two for size.

Oscillations

Seagreen Serenades

Without Silver Apples Spacemen 3, Spectrum, Broadcast, Stereolab and Portishead would all have sounded very different. Andrew Weatherall was a fan- in fact it may have been due to him playing them or mentioning them in an interview that I first heard them. In 2019 Weatherall remixed Edge Of Wonder, a song from the 2016 Clinging To A Dream album. Weatherall's wheezy drum machine sets us off on a nine minute journey, melodies dancing about and a bumpity bassline carrying the song. Simeon sings a hymn to the oceans, a meditation on the waves, the lines chopped up and re- arranged

'Waves
Neptune's metronome
Relentless heartbeat of the sea
One dream is over
Another one begins
Lingering on the edge of wonder'

Edge Of Wonder (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

R.I.P. Simeon.

Questo Amore Segreto

I haven't had the time or the inclination this week to put together an Isolation Mix. The end of the school year brought a lot of jobs to do and working from home has eaten up a lot of time. Instead I offer you a brand new song from some Balearic legends and a long mix from one of them from 2016.

Leo Mas and Fabrice are a pair of Italian DJs and producers who found their way to Ibiza in the 80s and have been quietly making gentle waves ever since, playing records at Amnesia from '85 onward and making Italo/Balearic records when the mood takes them. They have recently hooked up with Sally Rodgers, one half of A Man Called Adam, for a single called This Unspoken Love. The song opens up like a lost Pet Shop Boys classic before heading into cosmic disco territory, analogue synths and a pulsing bass and warm drum pads pushing it into the night sky. Perfect for that start of the summer holiday feeling.



In 2016 Leo Mas assembled an eighty minute mix for Proper Magazine, titled Fine Dust. Ambient, chilled out sounds, waves of synth and long chords, Mediterranean songs, beach tunes, drifting soundscapes, the full shebang- free download too.

Proper · Leo Mas : Fine Dust

Life Comes In Phases Take The Good With The Bad

Back in the mid- 90s when the Beastie Boys were the best band in the world they release a run of albums- Check Your Head, Ill Communication, Hello Nasty- that were effortlessly brilliant. Mixing rap, funk, punk, dub, scratching and sampling with live instruments, adding Money Mark on keys and their own particular, cockeyed worldview- anything from science fiction films, late 60s/ early 70s fashions, golf visors, ramen, the mullet hairstyle, Lee Perry- they had a golden streak where it seemed like everything they did was a brilliant idea and that you were in on the joke even if you only got 25% of the references. Anyone else from the same period that could be considered for the 'best band in the world' title had nothing on the Beastie Boys.

Their golden phase was heralded in 1989 by the album they made when they took themselves away from Def Jam and off to Los Angeles and re- thought everything they did. Hooking up with the Dust Brothers (the real Dust Brothers) they rented a villa with a pool and the owners wardrobes, stuffed full of 70s clothing, and made Paul's Boutique. This album showed they were not the one- joke frat boys of Licensed To Ill and that they were not going to be one hit wonders. Paul's Boutique is a rich, complex- but- simple, layered record, samples from one hundred and five different records sprinkled over backing tracks The Dust Brothers had already created. On top of this multi- coloured, vibrant album where songs are constructed with split second timing, the three Beasties placed their three way rhymes, adding another layer to an already dense record. Not that it sounds too dense, it's all done with amazing beats, a sense of humour, innovation and a lightness of touch that draw you in from the moment the needle finds the groove (and this is very much an album that should be listened to on vinyl).

Looking Down The Barrel Of A Gun is one of the most straight ahead songs on  Paul's Boutique, a dusty rock drum beat (borrowed from Michael Viner's Incredible Bongo Band and their song Last Bongo In Belgium) rumbles away for a couple bars before the heavy guitar riff comes in, sounding like it's on a turntable that is slowing down, and then the Beasties and their whining NYC rapping and smothered in echo describing the stupidity of violence...

'Rolling down the hill snowball getting bigger
An explosion in the chamber the hammer from the trigger...'

There's a Pink Floyd sample in there, the piano chord from Time, clanging away. The super heavy Black Sabbath rock vibes continue through til the tension snaps at one minute fifty...

'Looking down the barrel of a gun
Son of a gun son of a bitch
Getting paid getting rich'

A pause, then the drums beat doubles and a guitar chord crashes in- both stolen from Mississippi Queen by Mountain- and the second half gets underway. Rambo, Bruce Willis, Son Of Sam and Clockwork Orange get name checked and the crunching riff and rolling drums carry us through...

'You’re a headless chicken chasin’ a sucker freebasing
Looking for a fist to put your face in
Get hip don’t slip knuckle heads
Racism is schism on the serious tip'

The vocals finish at that point but there's still a seriously deranged guitar riff to deal with, circling down the plughole, before the drum beat comes to dead stop.

Looking Down The Barrel Of A Gun