Forty Five Minutes Of Autumn Songs

Some songs with the word Autumn in the title for a Sunday mix in late September, a day ahead of the autumn equinox- tomorrow, Monday 22nd September at 7.22 pm, a day which marks the end of astronomical summer and the onset of astronomical autumn. Buckle up. Winter's coming. 

Autumn definitely seems to bring out the melancholy and downbeat in songwriters- the songs on my hard drive in the mix below are firmly in that camp- it's OK to wallow in that sometimes and I think by the time we get to the end there's some catharsis.

Forty Five Minutes Of Autumn

• The Small Faces: The Autumn Stone
• Lee Hazlewood: My Autumn's Done Come
• Jaymay: Autumn Fallin'
• Pacific: Autumn Island
• Yo La Tengo: Autumn Sweater
• Higamos Hogamos: Harold/ Autumn Equinox Sunset
• The Prisners Dream: Autumn Days
• East Village: Black Autumn
• Marcel Slettern: Autumn
• Brian Eno: Dunwich Beach, Autumn 1960
• Coldcut : Autumn Leaves (The Irresistible Force Remix)

The Small Faces song The Autumn Stone is from their later period when they'd shed their initial skin and become a little more hippy, a little more reflective, they sound a bit... earthier and woodier. Written by Steve Marriot and recorded in September 1968, The Autumn Stone is a ballad with a beautiful slow glow. The Small Faces were such a great band weren't they.

Lee Hazlewood's autumn isn't just seasonal, it's a lifetime thing sung by a man who seemed to be permanently found in the autumn of his life. This song was the flip side to Sand, a 1966 7" single. 

Jaymay is an American singer/ songwriter, an indie/ folk artist, whose song You Better Run was a music blog song back in the early 2010s golden days of music blogging. Her 2007 album of the same name, Autumn Fallin' is a lovely pun for those on the US side of the Atlantic. 

Pacific were on minor Creation records band in 1990. Their song Jetstream was a favourite with me and a friend who went into a flat share in 1992, a song that sampled the sinking of the Belgrano. Autumn Island was on their 1990 album Inference which is probably Creation's least heard album, undeservedly so but in 1990 Creation had many other irons in the fire and some bands just fell through the cracks. 

Yo La Tengo's Autumn Sweater is one of my favourite songs by anyone, ever. Everything about it- the words, the singing, the drumming, the tone, the feel, the longing to be gone, to be moving on... it's all just perfect. 'We could slip away/ Wouldn't that be better/Me with nothing to say/ And you in your autumn sweater'. 

Higamos Hogamos are/ were Hackney based Steve Webster and various assistants and collaborators. I first heard them when Andrew Weatherall played some krauty/ cosmische tracks by them on a radio show in the dim and distant past- I think I followed up by going to the Higamos Hogamos MySpace page (which dates it). The track on this mix comes in two parts, the first half a lovely experimental instrumental and the second a field recording of the autumn equinox at sunset. 

The Prisners Dream (sic) were one of those American garage rock bands who made the grand total of one sole 7" single, released on Rene Records in 1967. They came from Canonsberg, Pennsylvania. Autumn Days is a gorgeously melancholic folk rock song, backed with You're The One I Really Love. Autumn Days was on a double album compilation from a couple of years ago called Ghost Riders, seventeen songs for a North American road trip with sleeve notes by Sonic Boom. I reviewed it at Ban Ban Ton Ton in 2022 and it's a record I still recommend highly. The Prisners were all between 17 and 19 years old when they recorded the song and sound utterly bereft, a state of being before they've even reached adulthood. 

East Village were on Heavenly, caught out in that short period between late 80s indie and early 90s indie- dance. Their album Drop Out has been re- issued several times, on each occasion to rave reviews. They made little in the way of waves at the time but every time Drop Out comes out again they attract a few new followers. 

Marcel Slettern is from Athens, Georgia,an electronic producer, writer and visual artist who goes for the single word title here- autumn, a few minutes of piano playing. I have no idea why or how this song ended up on my hard drive or where it came from but I'm glad it did. 

Brian Eno's Dunwich Beach, Autumn, 1960 is from his 1982 album On Land, a landmark ambient album. Dunwich was a Suffolk port that feel into the sea due to coastal erosion. It's one of those Eno ambient tracks which is absolutely beyond compare. 

Coldcut's cover of the jazz standard Autumn Leaves has been released in various versions and at various times. None of the versions quite matches The Irresistible Force's remix, a Balearic masterpiece and one which provides an ending that takes us to a better place. 

Saturday Shows

A pair of long form mixes for Saturday, one very recent and one slightly older. First up is David Holmes back at NTS for his monthly two hour residency, God's Waiting Room. The most recent edition went out last week and is available to listen to at Mixcloud. David's shows have been required listening for some time and this one is right up there with his best, a perfectly selected and sequenced two hours with music crossing genres and boundaries, an ambient, jazzy, blurry haze in the opening section that gradually takes focus in some fine electronic sounds, heads into dubbier areas and finishes with Imelda May's You Don't Get To Be Racist And Irish, a point being made to some people in Dublin. Along the way he weaves in music from Cosmic Neighbourhood, Dean Hurley, Laurel Halo, Wailing Souls, The Circling Sun and Khidja. 

David recently named Laurel Halo's album Atlas as one of his albums of the year and it's easy to see why- the track he plays on God's Waiting Room, also Atlas, is beautiful, drifting, weightless cosmic ambience from Los Angeles.

The second mix, once you've digested all of that, is from Coldcut and Mixmaster Morris, released in November 2021, a twenty nine track depth study of ambient and neo- classical recordings with artists including A Winged Victory For The Sullen, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Skee Mask, Sigur Ros, Steve Roach, Laraaji, Yak Herder and as a finale a new version of Coldcut's Autumn Leaves, retitled as Autumn Leaves Return by Irrisitible Force x Coldcut. The album, @0, is available as a compilation of single tracks and as an hour and sixteen minute long mix here. @0 is a weighty and contemplative way to spend eighty minutes but ultimately cathartic and optimistic. 

Extra Bank Holiday Monday's Long Song

A very long song, or rather a mix of eight different songs, seamlessly joined together (including one, Massif, clocking in at seven minutes and another Medley #2 reaching nearly twelve), from a live DJ performance at The Brain in 1990. Live At The Brain 1990 was recently unearthed and pressed up on vinyl, the forty five minute long track is from The Irresistible Force aka Mixmaster Morris and Ramjac Corporation aka Paul Chivers. The pair present an ambient/ acid house masterclass, with drum machines, synths, programmed sounds, samples, keys and sequencers employed to create non- stop, semi- improvised, acid house/ rave/ psychedelia. IT pulses and flows, melodies and rhythms rolling on top of each other, sampled voices dropped in and out- 'This is joy that I'm feeling'. Live At The Brain 1990 is a time capsule, a life affirming slice at a point when the future was real and being made in front of your eyes. 

The Brain was a pioneering acid house night promoted by Sean McClusky (ex- Jo Boxers and IF?) and artist Mark Wigan, on Wardour Street in Soho, running between 1989 and 1992. The list of people who played there is a who's who of British club culture at the turn of the 90s- Weatherall, Orbital, Leftfield, The Shamen, Graeme Park, Norman Cook, A Guy Called Gerald among them- and the roll call of people who frequented it as customers equally impressive- Boy George, Gilles Peterson, Neneh Cherry, Paul Oakenfold, Mark Moore, Tim Simenon, The pre- Chemical Chemical Brothers, various members of Primal Scream, Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses, Rankin, John Galliano, Sheryl Garrett, George Michael, Christy Turlington, Matt Dillon and so on.... 

Autumn Leaves

While digging around the hard drive looking for yesterday's Coldcut meets The Orb collaboration I found this.

Autumn Leaves (Irresistible Force Mix)

Coldcut released Autumn Leaves in 1993. Mixmaster Morris remixed it into Balearic ambient bliss- waves lapping on the beach, strings and slow motion bleeps and then a vocal floating in on the breeze, 'but I miss you most of all my darling/when autumn leaves start to fall'. Autumn Leaves was written in 1945 by Yves Montand and Irene Joachim, a jazz and pop standard recorded by a host of artists from Nat King Cole to The Everley Brothers, Doris Day to Bing Crosby.

Then I remembered the photo I took and used for a blogpost last year and thought it would be perfect for this song. Round here the leaves have started to fall this last week, covering the pavement with faded greens and browns, rusty yellows and golds before the rain and feet turn them all to mush.

Autumn Leaves

My diary tells me it is now officially autumn. This Coldcut track remixed by the Irresistible Force and produced by Mixmaster Morris is a wonderful sprawling piece of ambient house (some use the phrase chill out but I can't bring myself to do it). At first it doesn't sound that autumnal but as it unwinds and the vocal comes in, the sense of seasons changing and the sun diminishing becomes overpowering.

Autumn Leaves (Irresistible Force Full Length Mix)