Forty Five Minutes Of Beyond The Beta Band

I saw the reformed Beta Band at the Apollo last night- review to follow in a day or two. I posted a Beta Band Sunday mix back in March when the re- union was announced and the tickets went up for sale and I've previously posted a Steve Mason solo mix too. To complete a Beta Band hat-trick of Sunday mixes today's mix is an after The Beta Band mix, forty five minutes of songs from after they split, with Steve mason well represented in various guises and also The Aliens, the band Robin Jones and John MacLean formed after the four Betas called it a day in 2004. 

The Beat Band split up in 2004 and embarked on a farewell tour. Between forming in 1996 and splitting in 2004 they had followed their artistic and cultural noses, making music that spanned the groundbreaking Three EPS and then three further albums that all suffered a little in comparison to the initial trio of EPs. 

In 2004 they owed their record label Parlophone £1.2 million. There was enough money in the bank to pay each member a month's wages (£1000 each). On top of this there was a £120, 000 debt to the taxman, to be split four ways. Parlophone wrote the debt off (EMI signed Robbie Williams the same month for £80 million so money wasn't in short supply at major record companies in the early 00s). The Beta Band spent the money on art- records and recording, videos and films, gigs and touring. In an interview in March Steve Mason said 'We never wanted to be rock stars or make lots of money. Our ambitions were solely artistic and we pushed ourselves to the last minute. Then we split up. But how many bands can say the spent £1./2 million on art?'

Steve Mason went solo under a variety of names- first as King Biscuit Time, then as Black Affair and Good Face and has made five albums under his own name. The Aliens have blazed their own trail, in the 00s and the late 2010s with three albums and EPs and singles. Gordon Anderson records as Lone Pigeon. Between them they've made over a dozen albums since splitting The Beta Band, all of them filled with the same pioneering, willful and artistic spirit that was the core of their starting point in 1996- folk, psychedelia, electronics, samples and found sounds, weird pop, electro, post- rock... few stones left unturned. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Beyond The Beta Band

• King Biscuit Time: I Walk The Earth
• The Aliens: Sunlamp Show
• Alien Stadium: The Visitations
• Steve Mason: America Is Your Boyfriend (Tim Goldsworthy Remix)
• Black Affair: Tak! Attack!
• Emiliana Torrini and Steve Mason: I Go Out
• Steve Mason: Boys Outside (Andrew Weatherall Dub 2)
• The Aliens: Bobby's Song

King Biscuit Time was a Steve Mason solo project from before The Beta Band split, so the appearance of I walk The Earth here is a bit of a bending of the rules but whatever. It's got all the familiar Mason sounds and styles- acoustic guitars, hip hop drums and his melancholic and doleful vocals. 

Gordon Lone Pigeon joined his former Beta Bandmates Robin and John in The Aliens after The Beta Band split. The Aliens released Astronomy For Dogs in 2007 and then Luna a year later. Sunlamp Show is from the latter, a song that sounds like The Beach Boys after a week in a cottage in the Scottish highlands on happy drugs. Madcap psychedelia. The ten minute Bobby's Song closes this mix but opened Luna, an epic Lone Pigeon song. Robot Man from Astronomy For Dogs sat on this mix for a while but I took it out. Not sure why. 

Alien Stadium was Steve Mason and the late Martin Duffy, Primal Scream's keyboard wizard with Brendan Lynch on drum programming. They released Livin' In Elizabethan Times in 2017, widescreen and symphonic sci fi inspired songs about aliens destroying the planet. One of those EPs that makes you wish they'd done more. 

Black Affair was a Mason solo project, 80s electro from 2008, three singles and an album Pleasure Pressure Point. 

Tim Goldsworthy's remix of Steve Mason's America Is Your Boyfriend was a song on a four track EP called Coup D'Etat, three new songs and the remix and originally from 2019's About The Light. Tim Goldsworthy was in UNCLE with James Lavelle and then LCD Soundsystem (before a big fall out with James Murphy. He also produced David Holmes' Let's Get Killed.

I Go Out was a one off collaboration between Steve and Emiliana Torrini along with Toy, produced by Dan Carey and released on 7" single on Carey's Speedy Wunderground label in 2013. Six minutes of driving krauty joy, recorded and mixed in a day.

Boys Outside was a Mason solo album ,a soft and acoustic, folk-ish songs that came from a period of serious poor mental health. Andrew Weatherall did two remixes, a pair of dubs that still sound like some of his best remix work. There was talk of an album with Andrew producing or a remixing the entire Boys Outside album but it never happened more's the pity. there were some Dennis Bovell dub remixes too but I couldn't find them. Funny how digital files just vanish sometimes. 

Weatherall Remix Friday Six

When I started this series the idea was to focus on some lesser known Andrew Weatherall remixes, the less celebrated or widely known ones. That's pretty subjective and my idea of less well known may be different from yours or from the man in the streets. I'm also jumping around in a fairly haphazard fashion rather than working in any logical order. When I posted my Hardway Bros mix last Sunday Cal Gibson, the man behind The Secret Soul Society, left a comment saying 'Sean [Hardway Bros] works on advice from Mr. Weatherall when remixing: pick 3 or 4 elements from the original and go from there'. 

Andrew's remixes from c.2009 onwards are cases in point, where usually either with Timothy J. Fairplay or Nina Walsh as studio engineer/ assistant, he'd select a few of those elements from the source track and add his own, extending them out for several minutes longer than the original. In 2012 he remixed Brighton five piece Toy, a group who were already fairly psychedelic/ krauty/ shoegaze. 

Andrew sent Toy further into motorik, cosmische, 1970s West German heaven than they'd previously been- a buzzing synth/ organ riff, a meandering, wobbling synth part, and maybe some distorted guitars are joined by Andrew's echo- clap drum track, cavernous space and FX. A two finger keyboard part that picks out a melody at three minutes in and at five minutes a very Michael Rother- esque lead guitar line takes up the foreground. Delightfully absorbing, head nodding, transportative stuff, that glides on and on towards eight minutes before ending. 

Dead And Gone (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

Half An Hour Of Steve Mason

The subject of today's thirty minute mix is Steve Mason, the man whose doleful  vocals defined the songs of The Beta Band when they suddenly appeared back in 1998. Since they broke up he's recorded as King Biscuit Time and Black Affair and made four albums under his own name- Boys Outside, Monkey Minds In The Devil's Time, Meet The Humans and About The Light, every one of them chock full of great songs. In the first lockdown Steve stated on Twitter that he was going to start a chat show and asked followers to suggest what it should be called. I replied quickly that it should be called 'Meet The Human' which Steve declared the winner and replied to me to say I'd be on the guestlist when he next came through Manchester. It's not happened yet but I'm still hopeful. 

The songs that make up the thirty- three minutes below are taken from his solo albums/ singles, taking in anger and politics, existential dread, depression, celebratory anthems, a dubbed out Weatherall remix and a song that is utterly desolate and which always moves me. Alive is the opener to 2016's Meet The Humans. Fight Them Back, from 2013's Monkey Minds In The Devil's Time, with the sampled voices of Tony Blair and David Icke was written out of frustration and disgust at the political situation and in the aftermath of the riots of 2011, a song urging revolution and taking to the streets. I think he later said he regretted the violence in the lyrics but there's no doubting it's a powerful piece of indie/hip hop/ agitprop. I Go Out was a one off single, fantastic driving psyche- pop with Emiliana Torrini and Steve on co- vocals and Brighton psyche rockers Toy kicking up a storm behind them. Boys Outside, was a stripped back, melancholic, at times fragile album tackling Steve's own experiences of depression. Weatherall's pair of dub remixes of the title track are both superb and push the song somewhere else entirely. Walking Away From Love is from 2019's About The Light, infections guitar pop driven by a Bo Diddley riff. America Is Your Boyfriend came from the same album, with the remix released on an EP called Coup D'etat, remixed by Tim Goldsworthy (who was in UNKLE and LCD Soundsystem). 

Come To Me is from Monkey Minds In The Devil's Time, a gorgeous, metronomic, heartbreaking song that offers redemption (or maybe comfort) in some form. I'm not sure whether it's about loss or depression and think it can be read either way. Many years ago this blog and several others had regular comments and contributions from a reader based in Leeds who went by the name of Dick Van Dyke. His contributions were frequently hilarious, often insightful, and many times better than the original post they were attached to. Dick (not his real name) suffered the devastating and sudden loss of his wife. A few of us were in contact with him via email for a while but things drifted as they often do and I haven't heard from him for some time now. I hope he's still out there and that he and his daughter are OK. I once posted Come To Me for him- it seemed to fit with how he was describing the loss and grief he was experiencing and I thought it might help him in some way. The opening lines 'This is about the rest of us/ the ones you left behind' struck me then (and still do now) and the chorus too- 'and when you come to me/ in the dead of night/ and I convince myself it will be alright/ and when you hold me close/ as the night unfolds/ and I convince myself how we'll grow old'. 

Now of course I've experienced my own loss. Isaac died five months ago yesterday. The grief and the sense of loss are still as present today as they were on 30th November 2021 but here we are five months on. Come To Me has the ability to completely undo me. It was able to do this back in 2013 and it really does it to me now but there's catharsis in listening to it. I'm not even sure it is a song about loss and the verses aren't entirely clear to me but it's become a song about loss for me- it was back then and it is now- and posting it today seems fitting for Dick van Dyke (wherever he is) and for Isaac. 

Half An Hour Of Steve Mason

• Alive
• Fight Them Back
• I Go Out
• Boys Outside (Andrew Weatherall Dub 2)
• Walking Away From Love
• America Is Your Boyfriend (Tim Goldsworthy Remix)
• Come To Me

Isolation Mix Ten

I started compiling this one in my head when the sun was shining and it was hot enough to sit in the garden at night until it went dark without the need for a coat or sweatshirt. Since I started actually putting it together the sun has vanished and the temperature has halved but I've ploughed on anyway. It's a ten song mix with sunshine and balmy nights in mind from the political/ absurdist post- punk/ dub of Meatraffle, the finger picked acoustic guitar and Mellotron magic of Steve Cobby, some chuggy Scandi- disco/house, 80s heroes The Woodentops, a blissed out re- edit of Brian Eno, Andrew Weatherall spinning Toy into a chilled krautrock groove, some Belgian New Beat from 1989 and Grace Jones backed by Sly and Robbie.

Meatraffle: Meatraffle On The Moon

Steve Cobby: As Good As Gold

The Woodentops: Give It Time (Adrian Sherwood Mix)

Brian Eno: Another Green World (The Blue Realm) Mojo Filter Edit

Fjordfunk: Exile (Hardway Bros Remix)

LAARS: None (Full Pupp)

Paresse: Rosarita

Chayell: Don’t Even Think About It

Toy: Dead And Gone (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

Grace Jones: Walking In The Rain

Dead And Gone

Toy, Brighton based psych indie-rock five- piece, have a new album out soon, a selection of cover versions including their take on the Pet Shops Boys own cover of Always On My Mind. Their 2015 album with Natasha Khan as Sexwitch was one of that year's highlights, six psyche and folk songs from the Middle East via Sussex. Back in 2012 they released their eponymous debut, an album which had one track that stood head and shoulders above the rest- Dead And Gone, a seven minute sweep of euphoric guitars, softly sung vox and motorik drums. The build up in the fourth minute, breakdown and then guitar re-entry at 5.25 is heart-stopping.

Dead And Gone

It was remixed by Andrew Weatherall. He uses that hissy, steam powered drum machine he's so fond of and strips it all back, bass and wonky, whooshing noises, drones and synths from West Germany of the early 1970s, to make something utterly hypnotic and captivating.

Dead And Gone (Andrew Weatherall remix)

I'm Still Believing

The spirit and sound of 80s indie, proper indie mind, seems to be alive and well in this new song from Toy- the guitars are brittle, the vocals remind me of Lawrence from Felt and Pete Astor, all very Creation. Rather good and very catchy too. Even the press shot for the album has been done to look like a cassette inlay. It's got me wondering what happened to my suede jacket.

Sexwitch

Sometimes, something really good happens when you least expect it. The new Natasha Khan project pricked my ears up when I first read about it a few weeks back, then Drew recommended it and Walter posted it recently too. The first time I listened to it on a stream it blew me away. Sexwitch are Natasha Khan, Dan Carey and some of Toy. The band name alone gives you an idea of what you're going to get. Over six songs the album unfolds with some dark and thundering grooves, bass and drums well to the fore, jagged shards of guitar and Natasha's vocals, chanting and controlled but also letting go with shrieks and screams. 'I addicted him, he addicted me' she intones, which captures the feel as well as anything. Four of the songs are Middle Eastern or North African in origin, the lyrics translated into English, and these are the ones that really move, that make this record connect, where the thumping, voodoo magic happens. A sexy, psychedelic stew.

Fell From The Sun

This song continues the (unintentional) sun/clouds theme I've been riffing on here recently- Toy and Jane Weaver with an excellent slice of psyche-folk (released for RSD 2015). The guitars remind me a bit of Ocean by The Velvet Underground, and a few other things I can't quite put my finger on. Understated and restrained.

If you haven't got Jane Weaver's album from last year, The Silver Globe, please go out and get it right now.

Packing

We had friends round for tea and a couple of glasses of wine each and we're now trying to pack to go on holiday tomorrow. And I'm mucking about on the internet.

I missed this absolute gem of a song and only discovered it by accident earlier today- from last year, Emiliana Torrini and Steve Mason, noisy and way up there. The noise, I've just discovered, is provided by Toy.



And this, a remix of Lana Del Rey's Video Games by Dreadzone's Greg Dread. Lovely.



Right. How many pairs of shorts do I need?

Edit: I've ripped both of these- would you like them?

I Go Out

Lana Dub Rey

Mix

I did a mix for a new website called Cooking Up A Quiet Storm. There are a whole bunch of top notch mixes there, some by people familiar to these pages and the blogs over on the right hand side of your computer screen. If you like mine, or anyone else's, there are two things you could do- leave a comment there, and maybe also volunteer to do a mix yourself. I'm sure Mark would appreciate it.

My mix looks like this...

My Bloody Valentine - Don't Ask Why/Warpaint - Love Is To Die/Public Service Broadcasting - Everest/Big Audio Dynamite - V Thirteen/Toy - Dead and Gone (Andrew Weatherall Remix)/Brian Eno - Another Green World (The Blue Realm mix)/The Orb v Lisa Stansfield - Time To Make You Mine/The Asphodells - Beglammered/Kolsh- Der Alte/Glass Candy - Warm In The Winter

Fearless Toy

Toy have made an autumnal dash for the end of year lists with their highly enjoyable self-titled debut album, heavy on psychedelic guitars and motorik drumming and a dash of Mary Chain menace. In this remix Richard Fearless sets the controls for the heart of West Germany circa 1972, with some lovely Neu! style parts. Ist gut.

Left Myself Behind (Trans Love Energies Version)

What Augustus John would make of Toy or Fearless I don't know. I've just read a book about him. John was a bohemian portrait painter who rejected Edwardian England's formality, spending a year roaming England in a Romany caravan with his wife and mistress, who grew his hair and beard long, wearing a kerchief instead of a tie, and allowed his many children freedoms other children at the time didn't get, so it's nice to think so. I suspect even our most liberal Victorian and Edwardian forebears would struggle with some of the repetitive noises we listen to today but who knows. Wasn't Stravinsky pretty far out sonically?

Breton Shirt And Remix

As well as prehistoric sites I like a Breton shirt (as modelled here by Pablo Picasso). I could've blown most of the holiday budget on stripey marinierres. When I got in on Tuesday night amongst all the bank statements, junk mail and demands for money was a postcard from the postman to tell me I had a parcel undelivered. I got it yesterday from the sorting office. London longhairs Toy remixed by Andrew Weatherall on 12" vinyl. It made coming home worthwhile, a beautiful, throbbing, krauty number, really, really nice and totally cool. Limited to 1000 copies and I'm guessing the other 999 have all been sold so posting this is OK isn't it?

Dead And Gone (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

Toy Story

Toy, five kids with long hair and skinny jeans, play that repetitive, psychey, ever-so-slightly trippy, guitar and organ music which has had people comparing them to The Horrors and Joy Division. In exchange for your email address Heavenly Recordings will let you have a free two track download. Meanwhile over at Soundcloud you can download a Hardway Bros remix that takes the repetition even further. I think this may be up some peoples' alleys.