Interzone

This came out back at the end of June and I've only really got around to it now but it's paying off now the nights are getting darker noticeably earlier and this year's dystopia enters autumn. Minimal and motorik dance rock in a monochrome sleeve from The Vacant Lots, a two man New York based band who take that cold, chilly Suicide sound and add dead- eyed vocals and fuzz guitars to it. This album, their third, was recorded using Alan Vega's Arp synth and with it's title nods to both William Burroughs and Joy Division. Eight songs in half an hour- then go back to the start and play it again.

Isolation Mix Twelve

I'm not sure that the title of these mixes holds true any more but onward we go. This week's hour of music is coming from the punk and post- punk world and the long tail that snakes from the plugging of a guitar into an amplifier and someone with something to say stepping up to the microphone. Some Spaghetti Western as an intro, some friendship, some politics, some anger, some exhilaration, some questions, some disillusionment, some psychedelic exploration and some optimism to end with.

In History Lesson Part 2 D. Boon explains his friendship with Mike Watt, the importance of punk in changing their lives, the singers and players in the bands that inspired him and, in the first line, the essence of punk as he experienced it.

'Our band could be your life
Real names'd be proof
Me and Mike Watt played for years
Punk rock changed our lives

We learned punk rock in Hollywood
Drove up from Pedro
We were fucking corn dogs
We'd go drink and pogo

Mr. Narrator
This is Bob Dylan to me
My story could be his songs
I'm his soldier child

Our band is scientist rock
But I was E. Bloom and Richard Hell
Joe Strummer and John Doe
Me and Mike Watt, playing guitar'

Ennio Morricone: For A Few Dollars More

Minutemen: History Lesson Part 2

Joe Strummer/Electric Dog House: Generations

X: In This House That I Call Home

The Replacements: Can’t Hardly Wait (Tim Outtake Version)

Husker Du: Keep Hanging On

The Redskins: Kick Over The Statues

The Woodentops: Why (Live)

The Vacant Lots: Bells

The Third Sound: For A While

Spacemen 3: Revolution

Poltergeist: Your Mind Is A Box (Let Us Fill It With Wonder)

Echo And The Bunnymen: Ocean Rain (Alt Version)

Pete Wylie: Sinful

Carbon/Silicon: Big Surprise

Every Time I Hear Those Bells I Know It's All Over Now

More from Anton Newcombe's Berlin studio. Vermont/New York psych-rock pair The Vacant Lots make an electrified, punkish, two chord rumble- you know exactly where their music coming from and for the time the record is playing nothing else really matters , their 'minimal means maximum' aesthetic having taken them to both Sonic Boom and Alan Vega before they pitched up with Anton in Berlin. They've released an array of albums, singles and e.p.s since 2010, all clad in distinctive black and white op art sleeves. This song, Bells from the Exit e.p. and produced by Anton, came out in June. Loads more at Bandcamp.