Oblique Saturdays

A series for Saturdays in 2026 inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas). Eno and Schmidt created them to be used to unblock creative impasses and approach problems from unexpected angles. Each week I'll turn over an Oblique Strategy card and post a song or songs inspired by the suggestion. 

Last week's Oblique Strategy card said Abandon normal instruments.

I conjured up Einsturzende Neubauten, Sabres Of Paradise, The Beatnigs and Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy and Tom Waits, a variety of power tools, car bonnets, chains, grinders and bits of metal being used in place of or alongside normal instruments. The Bagging Area community offered a slew of suggestions- Split Lip Rayfield, Nana Benz du Togo, Kraftwerk, Shane Parrish, Thirteenth Floor Elevators, Split Enz, Gruff Rhys and Tony da Gattora, Gasper Nali, Tools You Can Trust and Matthew Herbert. This is Gasper Nali playing on the shores of Lake Malawi. Thanks to Chris, anonymous, Swanditch, Al G, C, Rol, Weareliz, Ernie and Charity Chic for their  contributions. 

This week's Oblique Strategy is this- Do nothing for as long as possible

And part of me did wonder about just leaving the post there and doing nothing further. 

But while that seemed conceptually correct it didn't bring any music into play. I can imagine in the studio musicians turning that card over and it becoming a Mexican standoff. Who breaks first? The drummer? The guitarist? I think bass players could stay out of things for a while, their patience levels are quite high. How long could you keep a track/ song going without doing anything?

The Specials released Do Nothing as a single in 1980, a slightly downtempo song for the band, a Lynval Golding and Jerry Dammers co- write about stasis, nothing ever changing, a life without meaning, police harassment- 'I walk and walk and do nothing' 

Do Nothing

It also gave us the only acceptable appearance of Christmas jumpers. The Specials were not a Do nothing for as long as possible type of band- everyone was very active all the time, all playing at the same time. 

There are quite a lot of songs where the band pause, the silence and a tease, a doing nothing, a moment of tension, before they crash back in. I'm not sure what the longest one is- mostly they aren't able to do nothing for as long as possible for very long. The pause in the extended freak out at the end of I Am The Resurrection is a good example...

I Am The Resurrection

The song started as a joke, Mani playing the bass riff to taxman backwards. Eventually Reni suggested working it up into a song. Ian and John found lyrical inspiration on a church noticeboard in Chorlton and when they got the song figured out Ian suggested the other three should keep playing, a funky/ Hendrix outro that could keep going and going. The do nothing for as long as possible part comes at 5.21 and lasts four seconds. Maybe that was as long as John, Mani and Reni could manage.

It's a good song for tomorrow too- Easter Sunday and resurrections are famously linked. 

Underworld's Second Hand is a ten minute ride, the synths set up and playing and repeating for nine minutes- once those loops are in motion there isn't much to do, the odd tweak here and there for Rick Smith and Darren Emerson, occasionally bring an element in or out, higher or lower in the mix. Karl Hyde is very much not doing very much at all, just the odd delay FXed guitar part. One of my favourite Underworld tracks, an absolute joy.

There a loads of songs about nothing or with nothing in the title. In 1992 Sandals, a London beat poetry/ dub/ progressive house/ acid jazz four piece put out Nothing (with Leftfield assisting on programming, keys and production), a funky, laid back, stoned groove with state of the world lyrics- worth remembering when one turns on the news at the moment, we were despairing about war and US foreign policy in the early 90s as well as in 2026 (and in the 60s and 70s and 80s and 00s...)

Nothing (Extended Version)

'Old man what have you done?' a voice asks over and over. The reply, 'Nothing'. 

Feel free to drop your do nothing for as long as possible suggestions in the comment box. I'm sure you can come up with more apt ones than I have. 

It's Where He's From

Seeing Iggy Pop live at Manchester's Victoria Warehouse at the end of May has lived long in my memory. Two months on I can still get a little buzz of excitement from the thought of it and as Iggy has wended his way across Europe since then I get the same excitement from seeing clips of various gigs and festivals popping up in my social media. 

Iggy's solo career is perhaps the definition of uneven, wildly varying solo albums from the genius of 1977's The Idiot and Lust For Life to albums where he barely sounds interested or has unsympathetic bands bludgeoning songs to death. In between there are lots of Iggy albums that have some cherries and some stinkers and much in between. His 21st century solo albums run a similar gamut. 2016's Post Pop Depression felt like a late career high point, a top 5 solo Iggy album. 2001's Beat 'Em Up was uninspiring hard rock. In between he did a jazz album, an album sung mainly in French, a sixteen song album that saw him reunited with The Stooges on four songs including a song each with Peaches and Green Day, some reflective  crooning and story telling, and on 2023's Every Loser songs with musicians from Jane's Addiction and Guns 'N' Roses that try to cover every style he's played with on every previous album. 

This is a pick 'n' mix of 21st century solo Iggy Pop, not necessarily the best four, just four Iggy solo songs from the last quarter of a century plus a collaboration from this year that you might have missed from a few months ago. 

In 2003 Iggy released Skull Ring, a seventeen song monster with Green Day, Peaches and Sum 41 all in tow and seven songs recorded with a group Iggy put together called The Trolls. Sadly of the four musicians that formed The Trolls only two are still alive, guitarists Whitey Kirst and Pete Marshall. Bassist Mooseman was the victim of a drive by shooting, a case of mistaken identity and drummer Alex Kirst was killed in a hit-- and- run in 2011. 

The remaining four songs on Skull Ring were recorded with The Stooges, the first fruits of a re- union that led them to festival stages all over the world. The four songs on Skull Ring had Iggy with Scott Asheton and Ron Asheton, Minutemen's Mike Watt playing bass and Steve Mackay from Funhouse rejoining on sax. When Ron died in 2009 James Williamson rejoined. Scott died in 2014, Steve Mackay in 2015. The four songs were Little Electric Chair, Skull Ring, Dead Rock Star and Loser. 

Skull Ring

Sludgy guitar riffs, overloaded sound and Iggy chanting 'Skull rings/ Fast cars/ Hot chicks/ Money'. It's good enough and more than a little a little tongue in cheek. 

2009's Preliminaires was a quieter affair, jazz and blues and bossa nova, a definitive attempt to something completely different. On Les Feuilles Mortes (Autumn Leaves) Iggy covered a 1940s standard in the original French. It suits him. 

Les Feuilles Mortes

In 2016 Iggy released Post Pop Depression, an album written and recorded with Josh Homme (Queens Of The Stone Age) and Matt Helders (Arctic Monkeys) and followed it with a tour. The album was a big success, strong songs, well recorded and played by a band who knew how Iggy Pop should sound. Gardenia, Break Into Your Heart, Paraguay and American Valhalla all sounded like first rate Iggy Pop and Sunday saw him accepting his age and place in the bigger scheme of things as the band cranked out the best backing tracks he'd had for years. 

Sunday

In 2018 Iggy collaborated with Underworld on a four track EP, Teatime Dub Encounters. Both parties sounded like they given it their best shot and it was fun for the time it lasted. On Bells And Circles Iggy sings/ speaks about the golden days of the 1970s, when you could smoke on the plane rather than now when you just get told 'you can't do that'- and if it sounds a bit 'old man shouts at the clouds' thats because it is. 

Bells And Circles

There's probably a follow up post to this one about Iggy's various guest vocal appearances but for the moment can I just remind you that earlier this year, before he set off on tour, Iggy recorded a vocal with The Moonlandingz, a song called It's Where I'm From, and it still sounds like a 2025 highlight, Iggy's elder statesman melancholy hitting all the right spots.

 

Soundtrack Saturday

Eliza's recent three week trip to Bali coincided with the 2000 film The Beach being shown on TV last weekend (she said they screened it at the beach cinema in Bali, to an audience of western twenty somethings in paradise- someone in charge of the film programming has got a sense of humour given how the film turns out for the main characters). 

The Beach is a 90s classic, a novel by Alex Garland turned into a film with something of an all star cast- directed by Danny Boyle and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tilda Swinton and Robert Carlyle along with a slew of recognisable faces. The story is about the search for an earthly paradise where western travelers can live idyllically, everyone seeking some kind of turn of the millennium spirituality, that ends in violence, betrayal, shark attacks, cannabis farmers and the breakup of the island community. On release the film received mixed reviews, some of the book's commentary and subtleties lost on the big screen but that's often the way. No one in the film, despite being beautiful, tanned and photogenic, is particularly nice and in the end they all seem to largely get what they deserve. 

But the film isn't really what we're here for on Saturdays, it's the soundtrack and the soundtrack has got plenty going for it. As well as a complete score by Angelo Badalamenti, there is this song, the gorgeous number one single and comeback for All Saints, the William Orbit produced Pure Shores...

Pure Shores

Orbit's liquid production style is all over the song, a relation to Madonna's Ray Of Light from two years previously, a dreamy, ambient sheen with tons of delay and FX. 

The soundtrack is crammed with late 90s names, mainly from the dance world- Leftfield, Moby, Asian Dub Foundation, Faithless and Orbital all appear along with the Hardfloor's blinding remix of Mory Kante's Ye Ke Ye Ke. Blur and Barry Adamson both crop up and Brutal by the recently reformed New Order (their comeback album Get Ready didn't come out until 2001). Brutal is perfectly serviceable New Order I guess but also a bit  of a smoothed out, edges sanded down version of the group.

The hidden gem of The Beach soundtrack is by Underworld, their eight minute masterpiece 8 Ball one of their best songs. Crunchy/ radio static percussion, a guitar riff and Karl's multi- tracked vocals, a medication on a homeless man using an empty whisky bottle as a walkie talkie and with a flaming 8 ball tattooed on his arm. The song builds gently, the 4- 4 rhythms rattling onward and bursts of feedback juddering out against the shimmering, ambient backdrop. Eventually, after a wonderful breakdown and finger picking guitar part, Karl meets a man who 'threw his arms around me' and they laughed and laughed. It's beautifully done and very affecting. 

8 Ball

James Lavelle and DJ Shadow's Unkle are also on the soundtrack, at the end as everything goes to pot. Lonely Soul was one of the standouts on the 1998 Psyence Fiction album, a record with some serious special guests- Thom Yorke, Badly Drawn Boy, Kool G Rap, Mike D, Mark Hollis and Richard Ashcroft. It was listening to The Verve's A Northern Soul that sparked the idea for the album in Lavelle and Ashcroft and Unkle recorded Lonely Soul in 1996. 

Lonely Soul

Shadow's foreboding samples, drums, and production, the sense of space, the edge of darkness feel, all make Lonely Soul a bit of a late 90s classic. Wil Malone's cinematic strings fill the second half. Then there's Ashcroft's lyrics and vocal, streets ahead of much of the songs he recorded for Urban Hymns, the sound of a long dark night filled with drama. 

Monday's Long Song

In 2018- 2019 Rick Smith and Karl Hyde decided 'out of boredom' to write and release new/ previously unreleased Underworld material on a weekly basis, every Thursday. They wanted to disrupt the write/ album/ tour schedule and do something more instinctive and responsive. It could have gone horribly wrong. Instead, Drift (as it became known) saw them produce the best material of their post- 1990s career. At the end of it they cherry picked ten tracks and compiled them as Drift Series 1 Sampler, an album that is the best they've done since, as I said opined before, the 90s. It closed with the ten minute track Custard Speedtalk, a track that sounds like classic Underworld, all straight lines and railway rhythms, Cowgirl synth squiggles and Karl's overheard fragments of conversation- 'I can't be soft at work/ They'd eat me alive'- and stream of consciousness emotions- 'You're really good at making people feel good/ You don't realise what a mess you're in/ Listen to yourself...'

Custard Speedtalk

By happy coincidence, last week Underworld announced a new album, Strawberry Hotel, a record they've been drip feeding tracks from for the last year- denver luna and And The Colour Red have already signposted where Karl and Rick are at. On Friday they put Black Poppies onto the streaming services and now we've got another what looks like essential album for 2024 ahead of us.

An Hour Of Midsummer Ambience

Today's mix is inspired by the music Martin and I played last Saturday might at Soup with Contours and Marconi Union, sixty minutes of largely ambient music with a tendency towards the cosmic and the odd detour into dub, on this day, the mid point of 2024- how did we get to 30th June so quickly? It seems like only recently it was New Year. The picture is from December last year and an Anglo- Saxon cross in the churchyard of St. Edward's church in Leek, Staffordshire (my Dad's hometown and home to the local delicacy, the Staffordshire oatcake). Anyway, midsummer, late nights, warm days, ambient bliss, dub bass. What more could you ask for?

An Hour Of Midsummer Ambience

• Underworld: Dark And Long (Most 'Ospitable Mix)
• Khartomb: Swahili Lullaby (Synkro's Balearic Dub Mix)
• M- Paths: Emerge
• Sabres Of Paradise: Chapel Street Market 9am
• Zoe: Moonsister (Lunar Dub 1)
• William Orbit: The Story Of Light
• Coyote: Every Forest Tells A Story
• The Woodentops: Dream On (Balearic Ultras Brooking Bass Remix)
• Andy Bell: Smokebelch II
• African Head Charge: Dub For The Spirits
• Sedibus: SETI Part 3

Dark And Long opened Underworld's 1994 album dubnobasswithmyheadman. The single version came with four different mixes, the ambient Most 'Ospitable one being a thing of great beauty. 

Khartomb's 1983 single Swahili Lullaby, post- punk dub,  has recently been re- issued by Jason Boardman's Before I Die label along with this ambient/ Balearic remix courtesy of Stockport producer Synkro. 

M- Paths album Submerge came out on Mighty Force earlier this year, one in a long line of outstanding releases from the reborn Exeter label. Emerge is the final track, piano and synths combining to give the feel of surfacing from underwater to feel the warm hit of sun on your face. 

Chapel Street 9am was on Sabres Of Paradise's 1994 album Haunted Dancehall, Weatherall, Burns and Kooner creating a morning walk through the streets of London after a night at the titular nightclub, electronic seagulls yapping overhead and the gumshoe Maguire heading home. 

Zoe had a huge hit with her song Sunshine On A Rainy Day, a pop- rave classic from summer 1991. The Orb and Youth were involved and The Orb remixed her song Moonsister for the 12".

William Orbit's Strange Cargo 3 is a lost ambient/ global/ dub gem from 1993. The Story Of Light is a blissed out ambient peak.

Coyote released Every Forest tells A Story earlier this year, another spoken word vocal sample layered over laid back ambient/ Balearic music. 

The Woodentops released their album Fruits Of The Deep in April and a single Dream On a few weeks before with this floaty remix by Brighton's Balearic Ultras. 

Andy Bell's cover of Sabres Of Paradise Smokebelch II is from our album Sounds Of The Flightpath Estate Volume 1. In a chain of events that still leaves me scratching my chin, we had almost every track ready for mastering and I emailed Andy (he'd been on tour in the US with Ride) to see if he had anything for us. The following day he sent me Smokebelch, saying I'd inspired him to finish it. He started it the day Andrew died and completed it for our album, inspired by Andrew. Coincidentally, our album made Piccadilly Records mid- year top 25 collections round up a few days ago. 

Dub For The Spirits came out on African Head Charge's Churchical Chant Of The Iyabinghi, an album of previously unreleased tracks and dubs from their 1990 classic Songs Of Praise. Every home should have one.

Sedibus's SETI (The Search For Extra- Terrestrial Intelligence) came out at the start of the year and I'm still going back to it, a lovely mix of synths, samples and 'real' instruments and an endless, questing vision of outer space as a place to find something else/ yourself. 

V.A. Saturday

Boy's Own began in 1987, four friends inspired by records, clubbing and clothes (and football)- they started a fanzine inspired by Peter Hooton's Liverpool based fanzine The End. Andrew Weatherall, Cymon Eckel, Terry Farley and Steven Hall had come together through connections in the Windsor/ Slough area and via Paul Oakenfold began hitting the early acid house clubs. Boy's Own ran for several years as a very funny, sharp and hipper- than- you fanzine, the 'acid house parish magazine'. I never saw a copy at the time but did pick up a few issues of The End. Eventually Boy's Own became a record label too and a band, Bocca Juniors, grew out of it releasing two singles, the first the superb Raise and a second, Substance. Boy's Own Recordings put out a series of the period's defining 12" singles, records by Less Stress, Jah Wobble, One Dove and LSK as well as their own Bocca Juniors singles. Eventually Andrew Weatherall moved on and did something different, as he was wont to do any times over the subsequent decades- he had a knack for knowing when to switch course or change lanes. 

In 1992 Farley and Hall created a spin off label, Junior Boy's Own which stated by putting out a run of essential 12" singles, some of the key dance music/ house/ techno releases of the mid- 1990s and then moving into the brave new world of dance acts making albums. The Chemical Brothers started on Junior Boy's Own and Underworld released their three 90s albums on the label, dubnobasswithmyheadman, Second Toughest In the Infants and Beaucoup Fish. In 1994 they compiled a various artists compilation that pulled together some of the records from those first few years, tracks that in some ways are the sound of the period- if you went clubbing in 1993/ 1994 you would have been dancing at some point in those long nights to some or all of Fire Island, X- Press 2, Underworld, Outrage, Roach Motel and The Dust Brothers. The influence of New York house, gay club culture and UK techno is here. The emerging sound of what would become Big Beat and the Heavenly Sunday Social scene can be found here too, not least in the massive sirens and crashing hip hop drums of Song To The Siren, The Dust Brothers' calling card. 

Song To The Siren

X- Press 2 released London X- Press in 1993, a percussive, relentless house groove and some funky guitar, synth sabs, thumping bass and that 'raise your hands' sample accompanied by sirens. 

London X- Press

Roach Motel were Pete Heller and Terry Farley, funky, early 90s house, deep, soulful, influenced by New York's club sound. Would still rock a dancefloor today. 

Movin' On

Underworld appeared on Junior Boys Own Collection twice, once as themselves (with Rez) and once as Lemon Interrupt. It originally appeared as 1992 12" with Eclipse but Bigmouth eclipsed Eclipse, a huge ten minute long Underworld drum track with head spinning lead harmonica on top, a swampy, chuggy, uplifting, funky, shot of 1992, Darren Emerson pushing Rick Smith and Karl Hyde into new places. 

Big Mouth

The Junior Boy's Own Collection sleeve was a very knowing mid- 90s thing too, portraits of various faces done as 1940s cigarette cards- Michael Caine, Tommy Cooper, Pete Townsend, Phil Daniels in Quadrophenia, Captain Scarlet, Al Pacino, Norman Wisdom, Sid James, Marlon Brando, Travis Bickle, Mick Jagger, Patrick McNee, Sean Connery, Terry Thomas, W.C. Fields and Zachary Smith. 

V.A. Saturday

Following on from Wednesday's post about Penguin Cafe Orchestra's Music For A Found Harmonium, today's various artist compilation is the 1994 that made it widely available to the clubbing generation, Cafe del Mar Volumen Uno, a double album compiled by legendary DJ from the titular beach front cafe, Jose Padilla. The Cafe del Mar series ran and ran, up to Volumen Veintitres (Volume 23- there's that number again) plus some Best Ofs, Dreams, something called the Chillhouse Mixes plus some anniversary editions. It spawned the chill out genre, double CD sets to stick on while relaxing at home in the mid- 90s. We shouldn't lay the blame for all of this at the Cafe del Mar series- what came after is not the fault of those who came first- and besides Volume 1 of Cafe del Mar is a genuinely brilliant compilation, a VA classic, a perfect selection of tracks. Volumen Dos was very fine too and the subsequent ones all feature some really good tracks- you can get up to Volumen Cinco before running into diminishing returns. 

Volumen Uno is very much an ambient/ ambient house affair, with some definitive tracks, utterly essential whether heard watching the sun go down on the White Isle or coming up after a night out that ended up in a car park in Wigan in winter. It opens with Jose's own Agua, found sounds, hand drums, pan pipes and then a warm bubble bath of synths. It's followed by William Orbit's The Story of Light, six minutes of weightless drift, house rhythms eventually kicking in, chimes, wordless vocals- global ambient.

The Story Of Light

Sabres Of Paradise close side one with Smokebelch (Beatless Mix). I've written about this track before, one of those songs that has soundtracked my life in all sorts of ways- we played it at the graveside when we buried Isaac. When we did the Sabresonic Q&A at The Golden Lion in November Jagz and Gary spoke about the making of the track. It feels like it's a fundamental part of me.

Side two has Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Sun Electric's Sundance (like standing in warm rain) and Leftfield's mighty Fanfare Of Life, ambient/ dub in excelsis. Side three gives us Sisterlove's Balearic meditation The Hypnotist and then Second Hand by Underworld. This track was trailed on the sleeve as exclusive to the compilation. Underworld were at the very top of their game in 1994 and Second Hand is as good as anything else they did, nine minutes of that Underworld synth sound repeating, another wobbling synth on top, a third chirruping, a little guitar motif, everything building very gradually, no rush to hit the runway too soon. At five minutes there's a slight change, a pause almost (although everything keeps playing), some tension, the anticipation that something's about to happen, and then at six minutes twenty the kick drum starts thumping, a snare and whooosh, off we go. 

Second Hand

Side three finishes with Ver Vlads' Crazy Ivan, all drama and stormclouds. Then we're onto side four with A Man Called Adam's wondrous Estelle, Obiman's On The Rocks and finally Tabula Rasa's Sunset At The Cafe Del Mar takes us home, a track that is less a piece of music and more a feeling pressed onto vinyl, that ends with a guitar loop and the sound of waves lapping on to the shore.  

Sunset At The Cafe Del Mar

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. 

Monday's Long Song

Underworld's latest single came out last week, an eight minute epic that contains everything that is good about them, a song that sounds like classic Underworld, more of the same perhaps but when your same is this good why not give more of it? Denver Luna opens with warm and wobbly synths and Karl's voice, layered and FXed declaring 'strawberry jam girl'. There's a pause, an inhalation of breath maybe and then a kick drum kicks in... and we're off. 

What follows is brightly coloured forward momentum, a psychedelic blur of synths, drums, rushing, whooshing sounds and Karl's endless lists and non- sequiturs, occasional breakdowns and re- entries and the sound of a duo who haven't given up but are moving onwards. The Drift project seemed to re- energise them, find a new way to be Underworld and now they are right back in the groove. I sometimes think of their music as being like a train, one of those Japanese bullet trains, speeding through the night, lights flashing past in the blackness of the windows, speed and progression, rushing forth and going somewhere, very linear music. This is all of that and more. The acapella section in the fifth minute, Karl's multi- tracked voices symphonic, on the borderland between melancholy and euphoria, is superb. 

'Sleeping girl/ Kiss the animal... siren siren... stonewashed jean man... pizza sermon... the satellite is coming... reflection flection inflection connection...'

Saturday Live

I keep coming back to Underworld, one way or another they've kept reappearing in my musical orbit over the last year. Not that they often went far away previously. They seemed like prime candidates for this regular Saturday series, an electronic/ dance music act who have been blowing away live audiences for the best part of three decades. Back in the 90s when dance music started to play live and some of those acts quickly grew to become festival size- Orbital, The Chemical Brothers, Prodigy, Leftfield, The Orb among them- but none more capable of moving a crowd than Underworld. They've kept that up, even after the departure of Darren Emerson in 2000 (who played a massive part in giving them the sound and rhythms that connected with a bigger audience following the release of dubnobasswithmyheadman... in 1994) and in recent years they've filmed and recorded a huge number of their live shows. Back in 2000, following the triple whammy of 90s Underworld albums- dubnobass..., Second Toughest In The Infants and Beaucoup Fish- they released a live CD/ DVD, a recording of a show in Brussels in May 1999, titled Everything Everything. It is a superb document of them at that point, seamless dance music, crunching beats, Underworld's gliding metronomic rhythms, Karl's stream of consciousness lyrics, a  massive light show and visuals, the crowd feeding off the energy on stage and Underworld feeding off that energy in front of them. 

After the ambient, building intro they segue into Juanita and then Cups, Push Upstairs, Pearl's Girl, Jumbo, King Of Snake, the inevitable Born Slippy NUXX, Rez/ Cowgirl (the source of the album's title) and finishing with Moaner, ninety minutes of breathless, thumping trancey progressive house. The show in Brussels was Darren Emerson's last with Underworld. It's a fitting finale. 

Underworld have been in the habit of giving all sorts of goodies away via their website. At the very start of this year they made a live track available as a free download, Eight Ball, recorded live in Tokyo in 2022. I shared it earlier this year but am reposting it here, a song that has survived its appearance on the soundtrack to The Beach to become one of their best songs, a long drawn out, shimmering opening section, a dull four four kick drum, gentle wash of FX and Karl's soft singing voice, some guitar, layers of sounds gathering and pulsing, a long drawn out glide of a song. 

Eight Ball (Live In Tokyo, 2022)

Forty Minutes Of Depeche Mode

I recently watched 101, D.A. Pennebaker's documentary film from 1989 that showed the group preparing to play the 101st gig and final leg of their world tour the year before. It was good fun, a time capsule peak into the world of 1988, with a van of radio competition winners travelling to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena to see DM with live snippets of the group interspersed. 

It's fair to say that I'm a fan of some of Depeche Mode's songs rather than an outright fan of the band. Their story is interesting, electro- pop boys from Basildon who survive the departure of their songwriter becoming a pop sensation and then a stadium size electronic rock group. The death of Andy Fletcher last year showed a fairly unique aspect of the group too- Fletcher was the man who made the group work but whose contributions weren't predominantly musical. For the mix below I've concentrated on the late 80s/ early 90s era of the group, mainly singles with some remixes. I seem to have omitted Personal Jesus which is an error on my part. 

Forty Minutes Of Depeche Mode

• Happiest Girl (Orbital Mix)
• Never Let Me Down Again (Tsangarides Mix)
• I Feel You (7" version)
• Enjoy The Silence (Rich Lane A&E Cotton Dub)
• Blasphemous Rumours
• Barrel Of A Gun (Underworld Soft Mix)

From 1990 The Orb's remix of Happiest Girl confusingly titled as the Orbital Mix (how both The Orb and Orbital mist have wished the other had chosen a different name). The remix is typically Orb- like, downtempo ambient house with Dave Gahan's words on top. As well as a 12" single in 1990, it came out on The Orb's compilation of their own remixes in 1996, alongside a welter of other remixes- Pop Will Eat Itself, Erasure, Killing Joke, Primal Scream, Yello, Innersphere and Wir all feature. 

Never Let Me Down is a throbbing, growling, druggy electro- rock single from 1987 and from their Music For The Masses album. The Tsangarides mix is from the 12", a remix by Chris Tsangarides. My favourite DM song, one that has worked its way into my musical world in recent years. 

I Feel You was a 1993 single, screeching tyres, glitter stomp and blues guitar riff. 

Enjoy The Silence was a 1990 single and from their massive 1991 album Violator. Synths, monochrome gloom, a lush darkness made for those sunset moments in stadia round the world- along with Personal Jesus it's the 90s Mode in excelsis. The version here is a re- edit by Stoke- on - Trent's Rich Lane, a man who knows his way round a re- edit better than most. 

Blasphemous Rumours came out in 1984, a song about suicide, survival and religion that baited the religious, including those in the band. The crunchy synth sound and industrial drums show the way ahead. 

Barrel Of A Gun was a single in 1997, the lead song for their Ultra album. Underworld's remixes, three of them, showed the two sides of late 90s Underworld- the Hard Mix is nine minutes of thumping, hard and fast drums that don't let up. The Soft mix (included here) is Underworld in dreamy, floaty mode and proof that Underworld were still capable of great remixes and of creating some lovely, low key, intimate moments.

On And On

This is newly out, On And On (Again), a collaboration between Daniel Avery and Confidence Man, five minutes of bouncy techno/ rave pop which sounds tailor made for summer, a track that will light up everything from barbecues to festivals. 

Last year Daniel remixed Confidence Man's Feels Like A Different Thing, a chunky breakbeat driven track with sirens and distorted synth sounds and one fragment of vocal looped up, 'You know I love it'- an altogether heavier, slightly darker affair. 

Feels Like A Different Thing (Daniel Avery Remix)

In a similar area Underworld have a new single out too, a full on thumper from Karl and Rick, Karl intoning, 'And the colour red', as the drums kick up a storm, the bass pumps away and the synth squiggles flicker in and out. 

Forty Minutes Of One Dove

After last week's Dot Allison mix I thought I should go back to the source and do a One Dove mix. One Dove's album Morning Dove White was finally released in October 1993 after a year of hold ups and wranglings about whose mixes and which versions should be on the final record, Stephen Hague's radio friendly sheen or Andrew Weatherall's lengthy dubby productions. We all know what history tells us about those kind of arguments. I bought it and played it a lot, an album that can transport me back to the flat I lived in then with a friend and the times we spent listening to it, the smell and hum of the gas fire, the ashtray filling up with cigarette butts. It sound-tracked our post- club arrivals back home, the winter of 1993- 94, a couple of break ups, us making our way into adult jobs, all that kind of stuff. I've listened to it ever since, an album that continues to give alternately shivers and a warm glow. Weatherall's production, on the back of Screamadelica, is expansive, restless, superbly chilled out but warped too and oddly timeless. The moody/ elegiac songs of Dot Allison, Jim McKinven and Ian Carmichael were clearly good to start with but once Weatherall and Hugo Nicolson got into the studio and began working on them they went somewhere else, sprinkled with the magic dust of the early 90s. Stephen Hague's mixes are possibly a little too shiny in places (and kept mainly for the CD version) but the vinyl is an album to rank alongside the best of the 90s. I once said here, many years ago, that it was brilliant but felt slightly flawed, like there was something missing. I'm not sure what that was or what I meant now. The album's cast included Weatherall's Sabres Of Paradise mates Gary Burns and Jagz Kooner, Jah Wobble's bass on There Goes The Cure, Phil Mossman (Sabres guitarist and future member of LCD Soundsystem) and Primal Scream's Andrew Innes. It's never been re- issued on vinyl. Copies on Discogs are currently starting at £80. Mine is most definitely not for sale. 

Putting together a One Dove mix without just sequencing a bunch of songs from Morning Dove White pointed me towards the remixes and B-sides. I couldn't find room on this mix for either Weatherall's majestic dubbed out odyssey, Breakdown (Squire Black Dove Rides Out) or their spaced out cover of Jolene- a second forty minute mix should happen at some point- and there are several Sabres remixes of Transient Truth not included below, the mighty Old Toys and Old Toys Dub are both stunners. The ten minute Guitar Paradise version of White Love looks like a glaring omission too. And if Fallen feels little like it was just tacked onto the end, then that's because it was. I just couldn't not include it in one version or another.

Forty Minutes Of One Dove

• Why Don't You Take Me
• Skanga
• Transient Truth (Squelch Mix)
• Transient Truth (Death Of A Disco Dancer)
• Why Don't You Take Me (Underworld Remix)
• Fallen (Nancy And Lee Mix) 7" Edit

Why Don't You Take Me is from Morning Dove White and was a single in December 1993, the now London Records owned Boy's Own label putting it out as the third single from the album and hoping for a hit. The Glaswegian dub reggae of Skanga was a B-side (along with Jolene, not included here). 

Transient Truth was also from Morning Dove White and released as an official 12" (with the Old Toys mixes) and a white label promo, both in 1992. The white label contained four Sabres Of Paradise remixes of the song, the two included here plus the Paradise Mix and the Sabres Fuzz Dub. I've no idea if the Death Of A Disco Dancer remix is a reference to The Smiths song of the same name. 

Underworld's remixes of Why Don't You Take Me are both up there with their best from the period, released on double blue vinyl along with a Secret Knowledge remix. Underworld's Up  2 Down remix is a long thumper. The one I've included here is dubbed out Underworld style and is magnificent. 

Fallen is where the One Dove story starts, Dot's breathless vocal and the ambient/ dub/ acid house music initially built around a Supertramp sample which led to legal action and the offending harmonica  being removed. Weatherall's remix for the 12" came with the title Nancy And Lee Mix, which sent many of us scurrying back to our parent's record collections looking for Sinatra and Hazlewood albums and singles. The version here is an edited one from a  February1992 7" single and I include just because it's such a great song it can even survive having four minutes chopped off it. 

Looking at all of the tracks I've left off this I think part two may have to come sooner rather than later. 

Water

John Medd is the author of the Are We There Yet?, a blog I have been visiting for years, a treasure trove of music, photography, art, reports on travels and adventures and slices of life. John has set himself the target of using the first post of each month in 2023 to set himself a photography challenge. On 1st January he went for numbers and posted three photos all depicting the number one (here). He sent me a message to ask if I'd like to join in and I said I would. February's theme is water. The water above is the reservoir at Rivington Pike, part of the West Pennine Moors near Bolton and Chorley (although it could easily in that picture be part of a Scandi- noir or gothic horror. Don't go into the woods. Or near the reservoir). 

Despite being inland we're blessed with water round here although it's fairly industrial in nature. I thought for John's water themed first of the month post I'd give you a short tour of the waterways we have near us. The Manchester ship canal runs from not far north of here to meet the Mersey and then onto Liverpool, the gateway to the world during the Industrial Revolution. Again to the north of us, a short walk away, is one of Manchester's three rivers, the Mersey. We can walk along the Mersey in either direction. Heading east the river runs to its source in Stockport, disappearing under the Mersey shopping centre. The point shown here is under the M60 near Northenden. 

Manchester's other two great rivers are the Irwell and the Medlock. This is the Medlock as it runs through the southern edge of the city centre, the dirty old town of legend caught on camera. 

This is the Irwell running past Peel Park in Salford, behind the university, a point where the river is wide and slow. Historically it marks the boundary between Manchester and Salford. It runs west where it feeds into the ship canal. The picture here was taken last September, when everything was a bit greener than it is now.

Half a mile to our east we have the Bridgewater Canal, an extension of the first canal in the world (which can be found at Worsley) built by the Duke of Bridgewater to transport his coal to Castlefield to sell. The Industrial Revolution was born there, Manchester's entire reason for being kick started by coal (and then cotton). Today the canal seems pretty clean and is used by narrow boats. When I walk down the towpath I often wonder about the pleasures and drawbacks of living on a narrow boat (storing thousands of records and books being the chief drawback). This photo is also from last summer. 

Today's water theme gives me a chance to extend my recent immersion into the world of Underworld in the 90s. In 1993 they remixed William Orbit's Water From A Vine Leaf, an epic track even before Darren Emerson got his hands on it. Part 1 is twelve minutes long, massive chunky drums and a synth horn sample, the bassline coming to the fore at points and then the piano riff leading the way. In the second half the piano becomes a tinkling topline, Beth Orton's vocal appears and it's all very much perfect 90s progressive house. 

Water From A Vine Leaf (Underwater Mix Part 1)

Part 2 starts out slow, Beth's voice chopped up and a stuttering synth part dropping in and out. Gradually it slips into a groove, the elements building up in layers, Karl Hyde's guitar on top, but it's a very chilled and dubbed out affair

Water From A Vine Leaf (Underwater Mix Part 2)

Back In The Underworld

Back to Underworld after last week's run of posts. I can't get enough at the moment, their music soundtracking my daily commute. In 1992 this pair of Underworld/ Darren Emerson remixes were released, long progressive house thumpers, some trademark Underworld sounds and styles pulsing through the grooves. 

108 Grand were Ben Chapman and Dee Vaz. Darren remixed Te Quiro twice, this one being the longer of the pair coming in at a shade under ten minutes, powerful, driving proto- trance that builds and builds, a proper dancing track with a funked up bassline and full on piano/ synth repeating topline.

Te Quiero (Darren Emerson Underworld Remix)

Eagle's Prey were John Kennedy, Lee Grainge and Paul Coleman. Darren's remix of Tonto's Drum is in a similar vein, chunky drums, a sampled squeak at the top end, moody synth bass and a male voice intoning, give it to them... give it to them', the sort of combination of sounds that in a dark room filled with dry ice caused shivers down spines. Karl Hyde's clipped guitar chords and the female vocal add to the tension. The track (as above) builds and builds, breaking down partly at four minutes forty with the drums then crashing back in. The piano house breakdown at six fifty gives a pause for breath, an arms in the air moment and then Darren starts to bring it back, everything more intense and on it goes, nine minutes, ten minutes, eleven... 

Tonto's Drum (Darren Emerson Remix)

Black Sky

I've fallen deep into an Underworld wormhole this week. Apologies to anyone coming here for variety but I'm sticking with Underworld today but in remix rather than original form. In 1992 they remixed Shakespear's Sister not once but twice. The remixes appeared on two different CD singles (Hello and Goodbye Cruel World) and on vinyl (two 12" promos, both  currently expensive second hand). 

Black Sky (Dub Extravaganza Pt. 1) is relatively short by Underworld remix standards, clocking in at under six minutes and keeps some of the song (although clearly aimed at clubs), Marcella Detroit's vocal largely intact, with disco synth strings stabs to the fore. The rhythm's chunky and gets chunkier, and the last couple of minutes go pretty wonky. 

Black Sky (Dub Extravanga Pt. 1)

Dub Extravanga Pt. 2 is where the real action is, Darren Emerson's thumping drums kicking in and building for several minutes, gradually bringing in other elements- rising synths, a heavy clang, a squeak, whooshing noises, eventually a fragment of vocal- before hitting a juddering breakdown at five and a half minutes, and then rebuilding as we head over the ten minute mark. Darren and Rick Smith were all over this kind of thing back in the early/ mid 90s, their remixes purpose built for nights in clubs were six minute intros and ten minute long dark, tranced out, progressive house/ techno was exactly what the doctor ordered as the smoke belched and the strobe flickered. 

Black Sky (Dub Extravanga Pt. 2)

Skyscraper...

Back to Monday's postees Underworld. Mmm... Skyscraper I Love You is a standout track on dubnobasswithmyheadman, the second track in riding in on thumping tom toms, the sounds pulling you in as if descending from the clouds and then Karl takes the vocal reins with his found fragments of conversation, 'thirty thousand feet above the earth/ It's a beautiful thing'. The track goes on, rolling and tumbling, thirteen minutes of progressive dance music with stream of consciousness poetry, Elvis, porn dogs sniffing the wind, Jesus, Chris on crutches, whipped cream and God on the phone. Epic is a word often used with Underworld and it is entirely appropriate- but there's a darkness coupled with a beautiful melodicism in their epic sound constructions, all welded to the dancefloor by Darren Emerson's rhythms. 

The 12" of Mmm... Skyscraper I Love You came with two different versions. Jam Scraper has fewer vocals, and is more acid house, with a bleepy intro, long synth chords, and some of Karl's guitar lines further forward. One of those Underworld tracks where everything happens slowly but at pace. It was originally intended to be the one on dubnobasswithmyheadman and it's clear to see why they reverted to the original version, it's more song oriented, more of an album track, but Jam Scraper is a fine version, a flight in of its own right and a track to lose yourself in. 

Mmm... Skyscraper I Love You (Jam Scraper)

The enigmatic song title it turns out was staring us in the face for years. A while back a friend pointed it out to me. In 1981 Pennie Smith published a book of photographs she took while on tour with The Clash, The Clash: Before And After. It is the stuff rock 'n' roll dreams are made of. And on the wall in the photo of Mick Jones below, bequiffed and smoking while tuning his Les Paul, is some graffiti... 

Monday's Long Song

I'm a big fan of Underworld. Their 1993 third album dubnobasswithmyheadman... was on the stereo constantly during that year and rarely been less than interesting or great ever since. They changed following the departure of Darren Emerson in 2001 and occasionally dipped off my radar but 2016's Barbara Barbara, We Face A Shining Future album and then especially the year long Drift project, a track a week for a year during 2018- 2019, brought me back on board. The Drift Series 1 Sampler Edition album is as good an Underworld album as any they've released since their 90s heyday of dubnobass, Second Toughest In The Infants and Beaucoup Fish. Their remixes are a story in themselves, thundering, ten minute techno/ dance reworks of Bjork, One Dove, Shakespeare's Sister, Saint Etienne, Orbital, William Orbit, Spooky, Dreadzone and Massive Attack. 

In 2000 they had a track on the soundtrack to the Leonardo di Caprio film The Beach, a film based on Alex Garland's novel about trouble in paradise. Alongside an All Saints/ William Orbit classic, a new one from the then recently reformed New Order (the song, Brutal, is nothing much to get excited about if truth be told), a Leftfield track that led to an expensive lawsuit over an OMD sample and an original score by Angelo Badalamenti (who sadly died last year). Underworld's 8 Ball is a minor classic, one of the last Underworld songs to be written and recorded with Darren Emerson still part of the group. It's a step away from the banging techno of Born Slippy NUXX that brought them international fame on the soundtrack of Trainspotting. 

8 Ball has some chilled out guitar, a niggling Geiger counter rhythm, a warm bassline and Karl Hyde singing about people he's seen on the street- a man using a whiskey flask as a walkie talkie, a man with a flaming 8 ball tattoo. Karl's guitar solo at just under five minutes is a moment of gorgeousness. The rhythm comes back in, there's some piano, and then a man throws his arms around him and they laugh, happy while waiting for a train into the city.

8 Ball

This live version was made available through the Underworld website at the start of the year, from a gig at Tokyo Garden Theatre. 

8 Ball (Live in Tokyo)

An Hour Of Björk

A month ago Khayem did a fairly definitive recreation of a Björk mixtape centred around her 1993 solo debut Debut. I'd been planning on doing a Björk Sunday mix here for some time and almost shelved the idea but a few days ago decided to go ahead. Debut and its surrounding singles and remixes are massively important songs and records for me, so resonant of a time in my life where it seems looking back like it was perpetual weekend. In Big Time Sensuality she sings, 'I don't know my future after this weekend/ And I don't want to', a line summing up how life felt. Almost everywhere we went Björk's songs were being played, stitched into the fabric of mid- 90s nightlife. When my then flatmate brought Debut home we played it constantly, the album seeping into our every day life. If I had to draw up a list of the albums which mean the most to me, Debut would be on it. It's hugely innovative too, Björk and producer Nellee Hooper inspired by the previous few years changes and freedoms, the sounds and rhythms, creating something self contained, optimistic, joyous and life affirming, a record in love with itself and with endless possibility. 

I've expanded the mix below beyond Debut but there's nothing post- 1997, it's all 20th century Björk. Her output from the 21st century can be obtuse and bewildering at times (and incredible at others), and it needs a mix of its own. My Sunday mixes have tended to be between thirty and forty five minutes long, the ideal length for a trip out (or one side of a tape, subconsciously maybe). Once I started this one it just kept getting longer and having reached the forty minute mark I couldn't leave off Underworld's marathon remix of Human Behaviour so what we have here is an hour of Björk Guðmundsdóttir, her unique vision and singing accompanied by a cast of like minded collaborators- the production of Nellee Hooper is an essential part of Debut and Graham Massey of 808 State played a pivotal role in her solo adventures beyond the Sugarcubes as the 80s became the 90s. Listening back to this last night I was struck by how good everything here still sounds, from the giddy skipping pop- acid house of Big Time Sensuality to the dislocating oddness of The Black Dog's version of The Anchor Song. She's brilliant and we're lucky to have her.  

An Hour Of  Björk

• One Day (Sabres of Paradise Endorphin Mix)
• Ooops
• Big Time Sensuality (Fluke Minimix)
• Violently Happy (Fluke Well Tempered Mix)
• There's More To Life Than This (Recorded Live In The Milk Bar Toilets)
• Hyperballad
• Venus As A Boy (7" Dream Mix)
• Army Of Me
• The Anchor Song (The Black Dog Mix)
• QMart
• Human Behaviour (Underworld Remix 110BPM)
• You've Been Flirting Again (Icelandic Version)

One Day was remixed not once but three times by Andrew Weatherall's Sabres Of Paradise. All three are superb, increasing in length, intensity and tempo. There was a 10" single with two of the remixes, the Endorphin Mix and the Springs Eternal Mix titled Björk Cut By Sabres, and then a six track compilation in 1994 called The Best Mixes From The Debut Album For People Who Don't Buy White Labels which rounded up all three Sabres remixes, the twelve minute Underworld monster and the two Black Dog remixes. I included The Black Dog's remix of The Anchor Song here too although it could easily have been the one of Come To Me. Such is the embarrassment of riches of Björk all six remixes could have/ should have been included here.

In 1991 808 State released ex:el, one of the period's  best dance albums although it tends to get a bit overlooked now. Björk's co- wrote and sang on two songs, the magnificent, slow burning sex- techno of Ooops and QMart. This sparked a long running song- writing partnership with 808's Graham Massey. Björk had loved 808 State's 1989 album 90 and phoned them up out of the blue looking for some help with drum programming. She flew to Manchester the next day. The 808 State boys showed Björk round the sights and clubs of Manchester and wrote and recorded at various studios in the area. 

Big Time Sensuality is off Debut, a song about being in love with going out and dancing, the sheer giddiness and delight evident in her vocal. The video, filmed in black and white on the back of a flatbed truck with Björk in a long silver dress is so of the time too. This song as much as any reminds me of 1993/4- it was played constantly in the flat I lived in, the remixes played in every club around town and me and Lou pretty much met on the dancefloor while it was being spun at Paradise Factory in Manchester. The Fluke Minimix is the version for me but there are some other remixes that hit the spot too, not least Justin Robertson's (not included here). Fluke also remixed Violently Happy (two versions) another single from Debut. 

Two more songs from Debut are on the mix- There's More To Life Than This is an astonishing song from an album full of them, full of manic Björk energy, and the jaw dropping moment she records the sound of the Milk Bar, running from the dance floor to the toilets, closing the door and then coming out again. I also love the way she sings 'ghetto blaster'. Venus As A Boy, the second single from Debut, is absurdly good, marrying post- club ambient sounds with tabla. The version here is the 7" Dream Mix, a mix by Mick Hucknall and Gota Yashiki. This marks the only appearance of the Simply Red singer at this blog. 

Hyperballad is from her second solo album Post, released in 1995, an exhilarating fusion of folk, acid house and synth pop. Hyperballad swoops in and out, as if the song is dropping from a height and shooting then back up again, head spinning production and vision. Post has several such moments- Possibly Maybe should possibly, maybe, also have been included on this mix.

Army Of Me came out in 1995, the lead single from Post. It's her most streamed song on Spotify which suggests its her most popular song. Björk and Graham Massey wrote Army Of Me in a terraced house in Gatley that belonged to a mate of Massey's and had a home studio set up. Gatley's not that far from here, I pass through often on my bike. The idea of Björk popping out from one of the houses to nip to the shop in the mid- 90s in a break from writing is bizarre and amusing. From such humble, suburban beginnings does great music appear- Army Of Me is a force of nature, the bassline alone more a landslide than a musical element and the pulverising industrial drums contain a sample from Led Zeppelin's John Bonham. The final song on this mix, You've Been Flirting Again (Icelandic Version) was on the Army Of Me CD single, the orchestral strings bringing things to a dramatic conclusion. 

Tak Tent Mix Pour Lundi

No long song today, a mix instead. Tak Tent Radio is an internet radio station broadcasting out of Scotland with mixes and shows from an array of contributors and regular guests. Some time ago I was asked if I'd like to provide an hour of music for Tak Tent and have since been back four times. The latest Bagging Area Tak Tent mix went up on Saturday and can be found here. More ambient, instrumental and Balearic sounds segued together in a way that I hope is pleasing and semi- competent. I've posted quite a few of the tracks in the mix here in recent times. 

• Underworld: Dark & Long (Most ‘Ospitable Mix)
• David Holmes and Jon Hopkins featuring Stephen Rea: Elsewhere Anchises
• William Alfred Sergeant: Circles
• Chris Carter: Poptone
• William Orbit: Wordsworth
• Sonic Boom/ Spectrum: True Love Will Find You In The End
• Steve Cobby: 45ft. Tide
• Gabriel Yared: C’est Le Vent, Betty
• Andy Bell: When The Lights Go Down
• The Vendetta Suite: Purple Haze, Yellow Sunrise (David Holmes Remix)
• Projections: Original Cell (Coyote Deep State Remix)
• Coyote: The Outsider

For some reason while putting it together the Gabriel Yared track suggested itself to me- I have no idea why. C'est Le Vent, Betty is from the soundtrack to the film Betty Blue. I'm sure you remember Betty Blue...

Betty Blue was released in 1988, directed by Jean- Jacques Beineix and starring Beatrice Dalle as Betty and Jean- Hugues Anglade as Zorg. Zorg lives in a beach house on the coast, making a living as a handyman while trying to become a writer. Betty arrives and turns his life upside down, setting fire to a beach house, stabbing a customer at a pizzeria with a fork and a sharp, painful descent into depression and hospitalisation. The film's first half, all young love and impulsiveness, sex and bohemian lifestyle, contrast sharply with the horrors of the second half. According to the director the film's two stars became very much intertwined, a relationship that went beyond acting. 'We didn't know if they were in the movie anymore', he said. Which puts the film's opening scene, a lengthy sex scene, in a different light. The soundtrack was by Gabriel Yared, a Lebanese composer and pianist and works as a listen in its own right. As well as the track on my mix above, this pair are a good way to start the week. 

Betty Et Zorg

37.2 le Matin