Fifty Minutes Of Edits Volume Two

Another Sunday mix of edits to follow the one from two weeks ago (here). The first one was quite thumpy. This one is more dubbed out, more blissed out and laid back, more drifty, featuring a similar and familiar cast of edit- creators. There's plenty of material unused sitting in my downloads folders too so volume three is only a matter of time. 

Fifty Minutes Of Edits Volume Two

• Nine Million Rainy Days (Los Lopez Edit)
• One Way To Go (10:40's So High It Hurts Edit)
• Inner Meet Me (10:40's Outer Hebrides Dub)
• Kate's Bush (Nocturnal Edit)
• Steppers Rock
• Totem Edits 19 Medicine
• Edit To The Siren
• Totem Edits 18 Air

The Los Lopez edit of The Jesus And Mary Chain's 9 Million Rainy Days first came my way well over a decade ago, 2013 I think, Jim and William's misanthropy/ existential despair set to an electronic throb. 'As far as I can tell/ I'm being dragged from here to hell/ All my time in hell is spent with you', Jim mutters (on 1987's Darklands originally). This is the diametric opposite of the feelings and sentiment expressed in the widescreen, gloriously romantic, panoramic love that propels the fourth track in this mix. 

Jesse Fahnestock is 10:40. He recut a very early Verve song, One Way To Go (a B-side to the Wigan quartet's first release, the magnificent sky scraping northern psychedelia of All In The Mind). Jesse looped it up and set the controls for the heart of the dub. On hearing it I said to Jesse he should re- edit all of the early Verve's music as dub extravaganzas- A Dub In Heaven. I'm still waiting. His edit of The Beta Band's Inner Meet Me came out on Paisley Dark in 2021, a song from The Patty Patty Sound, one of those unearthly EPs The Beta Band released in 1997/ 1998 when they looked like the future of leftfield music, a completely new way of doing things. 

Coyote's edit of Nocturn was one of my favourite records of 2022, a swooning, deep sea dive into the cosmos. Or something. Their Magic Wand edit releases, vinyl only, are always top drawer. I love the way it starts off with one beat and then switches tempo, like the speed selector being suddenly flipped from 33 to 45. Nocturn was on Kate's 2005 album Aerial. 'We stand in the Atlantic/ We become panoramic/ We tire of the city/ We tire of it all/ We long for that just something more'. Yep, I know that feeling.

Steppers Rock came out on the recently revived Eclectics label, based in Bournemouth and the start of what promises to be one to watch. 

Totem Edits are the work of Leo Zero and Justin Deighton, a weekly treasure trove. Last week they dropped a Balearic/ cowboy stomp edit of Big Audio Dynamite's  Medicine Show (an all timer of a song for me). Air (from a week earlier) is John Martyn's Solid Air recut beautifully. I've been in a John Martyn phase recently, Solid Air and One World. By all accounts a terrible and flawed person but the music...

Edit To The Siren performs the possibly sacrilegious feat of taking This Mortal Coil's Song To The Siren and turns it into a dubbed out/ late night Balearic treat. The work of In The Valley. Wobbly. 

An Hour Of The Flightpath Estate AW61 Afternoon Set

This is my hour's set from last Saturday afternoon at AW61 at The Golden Lion, Todmorden, re- created at home. The photo above shows my view from the DJ booth as my set ended and the auction and raffle began- you may recognise some of the faces getting ready to bid on items from Andrew Weatherall's studio. 

Once we've got all the other sets and the evening's rotations recreated we can upload the entire thing but I thought I'd share mine in the meantime. It comes in at over an hour and I only played for an hour on the day- from memory, I mixed Biosphere's En- Trance out because the file seemed very quiet (even for an ambient track) and it is in the mix below too. I think I mixed out of Underworld's 8 Ball halfway through as well but just left it playing in full here because, really, what sort of person mixes out the second half of 8 Ball? I'd just faded the GLOK Starlight Dub of A Mountain Of One's Star in when Gig, the Golden Lion's legendary landlady, took the mic to start the auction (along with Lizzie and Sofia) so that track was left mostly unplayed- you'll have to imagine the auction and raffle taking place when you reach that point in my set (unless you were there in which case replay it in your mind). I played Emotionally Clear as the raffle ended and to provide my handover to Dan who was waiting in the wings. 

Adam's Flightpath Estate Afternoon Set At AW61

• Coyote: Western Revolution
• Durutti Column: Bordeaux Sequence
• Psychederek: Test Card Girl
• Four Tet: Loved
• Rick Cuevas: The Birds
• Biosphere: En- Trance
• Underworld: 8 Ball
• Wixel: Expressway To Yr Skull (Long Champs Bonus Beats)
• This Mortal Coil: Edit To The Siren
• Bjork: One Day
• James Holden: Common Land
• A Mountain Of One: Star (GLOK Starlight Dub)
• David Holmes and Raven Violet: Emotionally Clear

Western Revolution is Coyote's sublime edit of Gil Scott Heron's The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. I had half a mind to start with Lonely, which is from the same vinyl only EP out last year, Magic Wand Special Edition Vol. 2, but Mr Holmes played it the night before. 

Bordeaux Sequence was on The Durutti Column's 1987 album The Guitar And Other Machines, a moment of genuine beauty from Vini Reilly. It is a re- recorded version of Bordeaux from 1983's Another Setting. A couple of people in the room gave me a 'thank you for playing Durutti Column' look.

Psychederek is from Stretford, just up the road from me. Test Card Girl was a digital only single from 2023 and I'm not over it yet

Loved was a single from Four Tet, also from last year and is now the opening track on his Three album. Another 2023 song that has stuck around well into '24. 

The Birds is by Rick Cuevas, from a self - released, private pressing album called Symbolism that came out in 1984, an album described on Discogs as 'soft rock/ AOR'. I wouldn't necessarily call The Birds either- a friend once described it as 'Durutti Column on steroids' which I'm happier with. I'm fairly certain I only know of this song because of Andrew Weatherall referencing it in an interview or playing it on a radio show. 

Biosphere's En- Trance is ambient/ techno from Belgium in 1994, an album called Patashnik. It's just some synth drones and an acoustic guitar- I say 'just', it's much more than that obviously. Shame this WAV file I have is so quiet. 

Underworld's 8 Ball was on the soundtrack to The Beach, the Leonardo Di Caprio film from 2000. 8 Ball is a nine minute low key epic with fluid guitar playing and some of Karl's loveliest singing, lyrics about men with empty whiskey bottles and walkie talkies and flaming 8 ball tattoos on their arms, a man who eventually throws his arms around him. They gave this away to a soundtrack, a soundtrack where it was overshadowed a little by All Saints and Moby- most bands would kill for a tune this good and would make it a single or the track they built an album around. Someone in the Lion asked me what this was and took some convincing it was Karl on vocals.

Wixel are from Belgium (with hindsight, there's a bit of a Belgian theme running through this mix) and put out a cover of Sonic Youth's Expressway To Yr Skull in 2008, part of a seven track EP of Sonic Youth covers. The Long Champs edit turns it into a shimmering, semi -ambient haze that led to a couple of enquiries in the pub- and if you turn a couple of people onto something new to them, that's what it's all about isn't it. 

Edit To The Siren is an In The Valley edit of Song To The Siren, This Mortal Coil's signature cover of Tim Buckley's song. Someone once told me this was sacrilege but for me its got a dubby/ Balearic splendour and is perfect Saturday afternoon vibes. 

One Day is one of the key early Bjork solo songs, from 1993's Debut. The dubby bassline, house shimmer, Nellee Hooper's production and Bjork's delivery are all superb. 

Common Land was one of the tracks on James Holden's 2023 album Imagine This Is A High Dimensional Space Of All Possibilities, an album I still go back to a year later. The burbling synths, birdcall, techno- ish drums and warbling sax combine to create something very heady and transportative. It's also a tribute to the free party movement and early 90s rave and felt quite fitting for the Lion and Todmorden.

A Mountain of One's Stars Planets Dust Me was one of my favourite albums from 2022. Andy Bell's GLOK remix is a spaced out, sun- baked treat. 

Emotionally Clear is from David Holmes' Blind On A Galloping Horse, 2023's number one Bagging Area album. Seeing David Holmes bidding at the auction at AW61 from behind the decks will take some beating in 2024. 

Swim To Me

The days are very strange at the moment. Wake up early, everything crashes back in a millisecond later. The anxious knot reappears in the stomach, the tightness in the chest. The realisation that emotional pain can be so physical, so bodily present. Lie in bed for ages because it seems better than facing the day. Then the morning disappears, you shake yourself into doing something and then suddenly it's going dark. Evening stretches out and it's bedtime. Repeat.

The funeral was attended by huge numbers of people, the wake too, and we gave him the send off he deserved. It was all consuming but now it's done- the planning, organisation and the detail and the tenseness of waiting for it- we're left the dealing with the absence of him. And Christmas less than a week away. I've only just really twigged that it's December. Time seemed to pause on the last day of November and now someone's unclicked the pause button and it's the 20th December. 

My unplanned Elizabeth Fraser vocal trip took me down to the inevitable end of that road yesterday when I played Song To The Siren, a three minute and thirty second wave of sadness and loss. 

Song To The Siren

This re- edited version by In The Valley is depending on your point of view either a crime or a beautifully Balearic, slightly dubby re- imagining of This Mortal Coil's cover of Tim Buckley's song. I'm going with the latter. 

Edit To The Siren

Something About Love For Glory

Drifting through the Freeview channels a couple of weekends ago I found the old BBC2 programme Sounds Of The Sixties and in my slightly red wine affected haze a black and white performance by Tim Buckley, originally from Late Night Line Up in 1968.

Such a strange combination of instruments and sounds- Buckley's folk guitar, the jazz chords and runs of the guitarist along with the rhythm section of double bass and congas. On top, Buckley's voice with those detours he takes into yodelling. The TV says the song is called I'm Coming Home but the song as it appeared on his 1969 album was called Happy Time. I found it very odd but entrancing when it was on and as soon as it finished I rewound the TV and watched it again, unexpectedly drawn in by Tim Buckley's psychedelic jazz- folk fusion.

This song, from 1967, is a bit less startling but still pretty hypnotic, a three and a half minute swirl, the words and the voice tumbling over the music (piano, acoustic guitar, drums), no chorus or hooks to speak of, just this acoustic psychedelic flow

Phantasmagoria In Two

Sail To Me

The This Mortal Coil cover version I posted on Tuesday, a genuine 80s indie classic from Ivo Watts-Russell, Liz Fraser and Robin Guthrie, has been re-edited by In The Valley. You might think that the TMC original is so peerless that it should never be tinkered with. In fact, In The Valley says on his/her/their Soundcloud page 'They told me not to touch the classics, but I did'. And it is worth it, taking the spectral qualities of the Guthrie and Fraser song and marrying it to a Balearic reggae feel. You'll be playing this several times this morning alone (and there's a download button too).

Theatre De La Mer

After a few years of holding the annual Convenanza festival inside the castle at Carcasonne this year's Convenanza moved to the coast and and the port town of Sete. Convenanza is a three day festival organised by Bernie Fabre with a line up of artists chosen by Andrew Weatherall and Bernie- this year's festival at Sete took place in the outdoor theatre shown above, the Theatre de la Mer where the backdrop is the Mediterranean Sea. I can't get to the south of France for a weekend during term time but I have online sources who were there and provided a running commentary of pictures, clips, tunes and reports over the weekend. The line up for this year looked like this...

As the weekend wound down one of my social media friends was raving about the impact this song had when played in the theatre outdoors after dark. It's a lovely Balearic chugger from 2012 by Coyote with a vocal by Gavin Gordon, the sort of song that takes you up and brings you down...

Minamoto

There's a very good acid tinged remix by Sean Johnston as well, the half of A Love From Outer Space that isn't Mr Weatherall. The same roving reporter on the dockside also pointed us towards this one by Norway's Laars, a mid-paced dj set track that goes a bit loopy in the middle and seems to have set hairs on the back of the neck on end and arms in the air...

The ALFOS dj set, Weatherall and Johnston back to back, on Friday night closed with This Mortal Coil's spine-tingling cover of Song To The Siren, Liz Fraser's voice drifting out from the theatre to the sea, 'Long afloat on shipless oceans, I did all my best to smile'....

Song To The Siren

Swim To Me, Let Me Enfold You

Beautiful live version of the Starsailor's death trip song; it keeps vanishing from Youtube so watch while it's hot. The album version is less folky, more...twinkly and disorientating. But this is superb too- entrancing and with the original line about being as puzzled as the oyster, which he later changed to 'as a new born child' after someone laughed at it. I'm not a big fan of the rest of his output but this song is entrancing. Quite appropriate really.

Sail To Me, Let Me Enfold You

Or Song To The Siren Slight Return. A reader, plasticsun, left a comment at the This Mortal Coil post the other day recommending Scottish folkie James Yorkston's cover version of Tim Buckley's song. So here it is. It used to be a free download at Yorkston's website and was also a B-side to a 7" single. It's very folkie, with fiddle and a plaintive vocal, and is really quite affecting.

Song To The Siren (James Yorkston)

Til Your Singing Eyes And Fingers

But my favourite cover of Song To The Siren is by Half Man Half Biscuit, who treat it like a standard indie guitar song with chords, guitar, drums and bass. Nigel only makes one irreverent suggestion to the lyrics during the 'was I hare, when you were fox?' line. Oh, and there's a fantastic sting in the tail- Vatican Broadside, thirty seconds tacked on the end concerning the Pope and Slipknot, with copious swearing.

Song To The Siren/Vatican Broadside (Peel Session)

I Did All My Best To Smile

The most famous cover version of Tim Buckley's Song To The Siren (and there are many) was by This Mortal Coil, a 4AD band. Described on wiki as a 'gothic dream pop supergroup' This Mortal Coil were label boss Ivo Watts-Russell and John Fryer, with a rotating cast of 4AD musicians including The Cocteau Twins Liz Fraser and Robin Guthrie. Song To the Siren was just Guthrie and Fraser. It was a massive independent hit in 80s Britain and deservedly so. It's a ghostly, spectral, 'gothic dream pop' cover version that surely even people that don't like The Cocteau Twins must be impressed by.

Song To The Siren (This Mortal Coil)

Long Afloat On Shipless Oceans

This is the first post in a mini-series that will last at least four posts. I can see you're excited. Tim Buckley's Song To The Siren is one of those legendary songs that in the pre-internet age you could read references to for years before actually hearing. Once heard you might go.. Uh? It's certainly an acquired taste and there isn't much else in his back catalogue I can listen to in the same way (feel free to make suggestions). Tim yodels. There's no other way to put it. But this song is a beauty- sparse, almost non-existent backing but there's some weird phased, reverb heavy guitar in there too, Tim's voice and a stunning death trip lyric.

Written in 1967 Tim Buckley struggled to record a version he was happy with, with the consequence that Pat Boone released the first version of it. Buckley performed it on The Monkees tv show in a folk style, before releasing it on his 1970 Starsailor lp. It also underwent lyric changes between recorded versions ('I'm as puzzled as the oyster' became 'I'm as puzzled as the new born child'). In the end, it's one of those songs which is impossible to describe satisfactorily, which will always be incomprehensible to some people, and which others will never get tired of hearing or get to the bottom of.

A friend of mine once described buying a Tim Buckley cassette years ago and drifting off to sleep with it on, only to be awakened by what he thought was a man swallowing a mewling kitten.

Song To The Siren