Forty Minutes Of Andrew Weatherall Remixes For Convenanza

The Convenanza festival held at Carcasonne in south west France is in its third day today, the first festival since 2019 and the first since Andrew Weatherall died in February 2020. Convenanza started as an Andrew Weatherall and friends three day festival held inside the walls of the Medieval castle, organised by Bernie Fabre with a hand picked line up reflecting Weatherall's singular and eclectic worldview- acid house, dub, space rock, gnostic sonics, leftfield literature, artists painting the castle walls in trippy yellow stripes and performances from Andrew as DJ and as Woodleigh Research Facility with sets over the years from the likes of Silver Apples, The Liminanas, Red Axes, Baris K and Curses. This year the three nights have seen headlining sets by David Holmes with support including Glok, Ian Svenonius, The Utopia Strong, Manfredas and Sean Johnston/ ALFOS. I've never been to Convenanza, it's the wrong time of year for a teacher to be flying to south west France for a weekend of debauchery, but one day I shall no longer be bound by school holidays and if Bernie still puts Convenanza on, I shall be there. In the meantime I live Convenanza vicariously through updates from friends who are there. In tribute to the festival and Andrew Weatherall todays forty minute mix is a Convenanza friendly set of Weatherall remixes from the last decade, the hissy drum machine, space echo, arpeggiator and sequencers all deployed, setting the controls for the heart of le sol.

Forty Minutes Of Andrew Weatherall Remixes

• Group Rhoda: King (The Asphodells Remix)
• Richard Sen: Songs Of Pressure (The Asphodells Remix)
• The Venetians: Son Sur Son (Andrew Weatherall Edition Uno)
• Silver Apples: Edge Of Wonder (Andrew Weatherall Remix)
• Heretic: Pollux (Andrew Weatherall Remix)
• The Twilight Sad: Videograms (Andrew Weatherall Remix)
• Andrew Weatherall: Intro

We are making our own pilgrimage today, to Childhood Wood on the edge of Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire. The MPS Society, the charity who look after children and adults born with the set of genetic diseases, have a piece of woodland where they invite families to plant a tree in memory of those who have died. We're going there today to plant an oak sapling for Isaac and to see him added to the memory board. Another moment of grief and remembrance in a year full of them. 

Not Sleeping

The Twilight Sad's No One Can Ever Know came out in 2012 and is about to be re- issued. It came with the line that it had been 'anti- produced' by Andrew Weatherall. I was never absolutely sure what this meant but according to the internet he gave the group some advice about analogue synths and some words of wisdom. He had apparently been lined up to produce the album but for whatever reason this didn't happen. Several years later, in 2018, a remix by Andrew of their song Videograms appeared, a seven minute piston- powered drum machine excursion with a huge synth riff and early 980s New Order/ Depeche Mode vibe. Lovely stuff.



Back to 2012. No One Can Ever Know was paired with a vinyl only remix album release, nine reworkings of the songs from the album by sympathetic remixers such as Liars, Com Truise, The Horrors and Optimo. The remixes are club based, pushing the darker, more industrial sound the band were experimenting with further. Tom Furse of The Horrors took them to a sleek, cosmische place, somewhere in the spiritual vicinity of West Germany in the 1970s.

Not Sleeping (The Horrors Dub Mix)

JD Twitch fired up the kick drum and sent them out onto the floor in the early hours.

Alphabet (JD Twitch/Optimo Remix)

Videograms

Unless he sneaks something out between today and New Year's Eve this looks like being the final Andrew Weatherall remix and release of 2018, a seven minute re-working of Scottish post-punkers The Twilight Sad. Weatherall adds that metronomic drum machine and sends the whole thing  through an FX box called 'Early/Mid 80s New Order'. A friend aptly described this as Widescreen Goth. I just hope there will be a proper 12" release because it's a fine example of the art of the remix (you can buy it as a download but somehow that's not quite enough).



While we're talking about New Order the two warring parties of the group have managed to put together plans for a deluxe version of Movement (out next year, currently being advertised at upwards of £100. No, I won't be buying it). Movement was New Order's painful first album, recorded in the wake of Ian Curtis' suicide with Martin Hannett not necessarily always making things easier but making them sound better, and the three surviving members plus Gillian Gilbert trying to work out how to not sound like Joy Division. Bernard famously can't stand it and while some might agree it's not their best work it also has plenty going for it, some wonderful interplay between the fantastic sounding guitars, bass and drums not least.

The double cd is packaged in a nice box, with the original album on vinyl with the 12" singles from the subsequent months of 1980 and into 1981- both versions of Ceremony, Everything's Gone Green and Temptation- and a DVD. I have all the vinyl and don't need to buy it again. The cd (which if available separately I would shell out for) has all the extras- the Western Works demos, the Cargo demos (both of which give an idea of how Movement would have sounded without Hannett) and some other its and bobs. The DVD has the live performances- Hurrah's in New York in 1980 and at the Peppermint Lounge, same city, 1981 (one or both possibly attended by friend and reader Echorich, maybe he'll confirm in the comments) and two TV appearances (Celebration at Granada Studios and At The Riverside from BBC2).

The Western Works demos have been available for some time as a bootleg and online. Western Works was a studio in Sheffield, home to Cabaret Voltaire. On September 7th 1980 New Order spent the night there recording songs for what would become Movement with all three surviving members taking turns singing (Hooky on Dreams Never End, Bernard on Homage and Stephen on Ceremony and Truth). It's an interesting artefact, a group trying to work out how to make it work and fairly easy to find online but here's the then slower version of what would become the album's opener.

Dreams Never End Mix One