Forty Six Minutes Of Hope Sandoval

Hope Sandoval has one of those voices. It almost goes without saying. She sounds as if she's halfway between sleep and being awake, an effortless, soothing, narcotic tone, a heavy lidded half sigh. Born to Mexican- American parents, who split up when she was young, Hope struggled at school and dropped out, largely spending her teens at home listening to records. 

Hope and Dave Roback (who died of cancer in 2020) formed Mazzy Star in 1988 when the band they were in, Opal, lost its singer. Mazzy Star went on hiatus in 1997 and Hope formed The Warm Inventions with My Bloody Valentine's drum Colm O'Ciosoig, releasing three album. Mazzy Star reunited in 2016. Hope's voice has featured on loads of records with other people- The Chemical Brothers, Mercury Rev, Bert Jansch, The Jesus And Mary Chain, Massive Attack, Death In Vegas, Vetiver, Air and Le Volume Courbe have all benefited from her vocals. I could have done this mix twice given the sheer number of songs by her two bands and all those guest appearances. 

Forty Six Minutes Of Hope Sandoval

• Hope Sandoval and The Warm Inventions: Into The Trees
• Hope Sandoval and The Warm Inventions: Suzanne
• The Chemical Brothers with Hope Sandoval: Asleep From Day
• Hope Sandoval and The Warm Inventions: Wild Roses
• Hope Sandoval and The Warm Inventions: On The Low
• Mazzy Star: Blue Flower
• Mercury Rev with Hope Sandoval: Big Boss Man
• Mazzy Star: Fade Into You
• Mazzy Star: Five String Serenade
• Mazzy Star: Happy

Into The Trees is a long piece of music from her third album as Hope Sandoval and The Warm Inventions from 2016, Until The Hunter. Hope and My Bloody Valentine's drummer Colm O'Ciosoig recorded the album in various locations including a Martello Tower in Dublin, which had a natural reverb caused by the circular Napoleonic period room of the tower. Hope plays organ, a two chord drone and Colm plays gentle tumbling drums. Hope sings gently over the top and it all goes on softly and slowly for nine minutes.

Suzanne is from the first Warm Inventions album, Bavarian Fruit Bread, released in 2001. Hope and Colm recruited several guests for the album, including Bert Jansch. It came out a month after the 9/ 11 attacks and like all albums released in the wake of that event, it seemed to have something to say on the matter even though it was clearly recorded months prior to it. The fragile, narcotic tone of the album, a numbed out response to the world, minimal and spooked. It's difficult not to associate Hope's Suzanne with Leonard Cohen's Suzanne. On The Low is also from Bavarian Fruit Bread, an album that opens with a cover of The Jesus And Mary Chain's Drop. I vividly remember buying it on release in November 2001 and playing it on a Sunday evening while getting mentally prepared for the week ahead at work and the two sides/ twelve songs being quite the Sunday night experience. 

In 1999 The Chemical Brothers put out Surrender, probably their third album and for me their most complete and satisfying record. It came packed with guest vocalists- Bernard Sumner, Noel Gallagher, Jonathan Donahue and Hope Sandoval. Hope's vocal on Asleep From Day is the perfect accompaniment to the album's most blissed out track, a song that sounds like the space between sleep and dreams.

Wild Roses is from the second Warm Inventions album, from 2009- Through The Devil Softly. It had a slightly fuller sound than the first album, a fleshed out band feel, partly possibly due to its recording being interrupted by Colm going on tour with My Bloody Valentine. The arrangements are more complex and intricate, there's a lot more going on. Still as beguiling and bewitching as ever and Hope's voice still sounds like the one you want to hear as you're drifting off to sleep. 

Blue Flower is from Mazzy Star's debut, She Hangs Brightly, from 1990. Hope and Dave Roback formed Mazzy Star as the previous band they were in, Opal, broke up and Blue Flower carried over. It's a cover of a Slapp Happy song from 1972. Mazzy Star released it as their first single in August 1990. It's far more guitar/ third Velvets album sounding than the dreamy sound they developed into- in fact it could easily be on The Mary Chain's Darklands. 

Big Boss Man is from a 2019 album Mercury Rev recorded, a cover/ re- imagining of Bobby Gentry's The Delta Sweete album from 1968. Mercury Rev enlisted a cast of female vocalists including Hope and Rachel Goswell, Latitia Sadier, Vashti Bunyan, Lucinda Williams and Beth Orton.

Fade Into You is from 1993's So Tonight That I Might See, Mazzy Star's second album. You don't need to me tell you how great Fade Into You is- one oft he best indie/ dreampop songs of the 1990s/ all time. Inexplicably good- Hope's voice, the acoustic guitars, the electric guitar topline, the brushed drums, the sense that the song is really just one huge sigh, the feeling of dissolving into another person that comes with young love. 

Five String Serenade is also from So Tonight That I Might See- an album that blurs the lines between country, indie, psychedelia and dreampop, everything soaked in a narcotic, hallucinogenic gauze. It was written by Arthur Lee of Love. 

Happy is from 1996's Among My Swan, Mazzy Star flirting with the mainstream, MTV, Batman soundtracks and all the rest that fame and a hit single, Fade Into You, brings. 

Yes, I should have included Paradise Circus, the song she did with Massive Attack and also should  have finished this mix with Sometimes Always, the song she sang with The Jesus and Mary Chain in 1994. To make up for its absence, here's Hope and Reids live in TV in the mid- 90s. 

An Hour Of Sunshine From Glasgow And Two Hours Of Do!! You!! From Richard Sen

John Fenner of Glasgow did this mix recently and shared it, Cafe Del Muir, an hour and seven minutes of sunshine for a rainy day in Glasgow (or anywhere). It's a blend of old and new and some of the tunes John selected came via recommendations from this blog- it's nice to see the ripples that go out and come back. There's a couple that are new to me as well and so the ripples go back out again. You can find Cafe Dal Muir at Soundcloud. 

• The Chemical Brothers: One Too Many Mornings
• Four Tet: Loved
• Saint Etienne: Alone Together (Hove Lawns Sunset Mix)
• The Cure: Pictures Of You (Extended Dub Mix)
• The Vendetta Suite: Warehouse Rock (Timmy Stewart's Six Minutes To Sunrise Mix)
• Sinead O'Connor: You Made Me The Thief Of Your Heart
• The Main Stem: Since You Left (Prins Thomas Miks)
• 10:40: Kissed Again
• Bal5000: Bleu Infini
• The Blow Monkeys: Save Me (Neville Watson Dub)
• The Light Brigade: Only Love Can Save Us
• Orbital: Belfast (ANNA Ambient Mix)

On Friday Richard Sen hosted his weekly Do!! You!! radio show, two hours of top tunes from a man who knows his musical onions. Richard played three tracks from our forthcoming Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 2 album (and ave us a shout out) so if you're itching to hear three of the tracks from it- the unreleased version of Lik Wid Nit Wit by Sabres Of Paradise, Red Snapper's Qraqeb and Sleaford Mods cover of Two Lone Swordsmen's Sick When We Kiss (retitled as sick wen we x) then this is the place to do it until the vinyl copies start arriving on doormats and in porches. As well as those three Richard plays tons of other great tracks, including some classic trance, breakbeat, and some very deep cosmic disco. Listen here. 

Ourika

Bagging Area's adventures in Morocco part two. Day two in Marrakech saw us up early for a trip to the Atlas Mountains, the ridge of snow capped mountains that separate the Sahara Desert from the sea, spanning Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. The part we went to, Ourika, is about 40 km south of Marrakech, and gave us a good idea of the spread of the city out through its suburbs to the mountains, the swarm of traffic giving way to emptier roads. Driving in Morocco, especially in Marrakech but also out beyond the city can be a bit hair raising, motorbikes and scooters weaving in and out among cars and busses, pedestrians stepping out into roads and onto zebra crossings no- one seems to intend to stop for, cars overtaking constantly and everyone honking their horn as often as possible. Once out into the countryside our minibus took us to the foothills of the mountains, heading for the Ourika Valley, beginning to climb and wind our way through Berber villages. Funnily, the only piece of Western pop music we heard all week came on the local radio station as we began to climb the road pictured above, the van's tinny speakers and ever more spectacular scenery making Mr Bowie seem even more otherworldly than usual...

Ashes To Ashes

We stopped on the way for a break. Any taxi ride out of Marrakesh built in a break that involved us admiring a view and then visiting a shop where Berber products were offered to us- pottery, textiles, jewelry, Argon oil. We then re- boarded our bus and headed further into the mountains.

We were up early for the trip, our guide keen to get us to the waterfall as early as possible so it would be quiet. It was worth the early start. We began climbing the route following our guide, a scramble up rocks and mountain paths, over rickety foot bridges and through villages and houses built into the hillsides, all set up for tourists coming through several times a day. 

The local people are the Berber people, who speak a different language to the people in Marrakech (Shilha is the local dialect). They've eked an existence out in the mountains for centuries and today are pretty reliant on tourism. The climb eventually brought us to the waterfall and an opportunity to sit down, drink more mint tea and enjoy the mountain view. 

Our descent took us back to the village and lunch at a riverside restaurant. Yes, it felt touristy but hey, we were tourists, and it was quite an experience, sitting on cushions beside the fast flowing Ourika River, eating the wonderful food while a pair of local musicians played. Across the way, the parking of the minibuses and vans over the river from us was fairly alarming, their back ends hanging out over the drop to the river, Italian Job style. 

                                             

This is Goul El Hak El Mont Kayna by Moroccan singer Najat Aatabou, a song from 1992. If you click play and let it run you'll recognise the riff that comes hits at fifty seconds, an instant blast of Moroccan music that ended up with Ed and Tom Chemical settling out of court after they borrowed it for their song Galvanize. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Mercury Rev

Mercury Rev had a brief flurry of fame/ renown in 1989- 1991, often in conjunction with fellow travellers The Flaming Lips. In 1993 founder member David Baker left the group and Jonathan Donohue and Sean Grasshopper Mackowiac carried on, playing experimental psychedelic rock until they collapsed in 1996/7. Grasshopper retreated to a Jesuit guest house in upstate New York while Donahue sat around listening to children's music and playing melodies on a piano. He was invited to play with The Chemical Brothers on the track that became The Private Psychedelic Reel and when he returned to the US contacted Grasshopper and from all the wreckage- debt, psychedelic and experimental rock that made them a cult band but seemed to be bus constantly hurtling out of control, drugs, lost members and management, depression, broken relationships- they regrouped in the Catskill Mountains pulled the songs that became Deserter's Songs into being. Deserter's Songs is one of the best albums of the 90s, a heartfelt, concise, weirdly affecting record that harks back to the songs of the 1930s and '40s. It also featured a pair of musicians from The Band, Levon Helm and Garth Hudson. Garth died two weeks ago, the last survivor of the men who made Big Pink. 

RIP Garth Hudson.

Last year Mercury Rev released an album called Born Horses, an album I bought and which divides me- half of it I don't like at all, easy listening pastiche with Donahue abandoning his upper register  singing for something deeper and half of it I really like, a few genuinely revelatory songs a bout birds and horses that are like nothing else. 

For this Sunday mix I've focussed mainly on the years 1998- 2004 and the trio of albums they made in those years- Deserter's Songs, 2001's stunning All Is Dream and 2004's mixed bag The Secret Migration. These three, well the first two, are albums that everyone should own and which bear repeat playing. I don't know if the end of the century/ millennium things was a factor in their creation but it seems like a good story, that pre- millennial uncertainty fed into Deserter's Songs, sent them back into America's weird past, and the new century gifted them All Is Dream. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Mercury Rev

• The Dark Is Rising
• Holes
• Observatory Crest
• Endlessly
• Tides Of The Moon
• Diamonds
• Opus 40
• Delta Blues Bottleneck Sun (Chemical Brothers Remix)
• Dream On

The Dark Is Rising is the opening song on 2001's All Is Dream, a song infused with both fragility and strength, in those huge Hollywood strings, a piccolo and Donahue's so human voice. It's a late night, freak- you- out song that in some ways has become mixed up with my feelings about Isaac's death, my grief and especially those mornings when I wake up having dreamt about him. 'I dreamed of you on my farm/ I dreamed of you in my arms/ But my dreams are always wrong', are the lines that hit me. 'I always dreamed I'd love you/ I never dreamed I'd lose you' too. A friend who has been through a similar experienced pointed me to the end of the song though and the last line- 'In my dreams I'm always strong'- and I started to see it differently. Tides Of The Moon is from the same album, an album that closes with the seven minutes epic Hercules which I tried to fit in here too and failed. 

Holes opens Deserter's Songs, a truly stunning piece of music, orchestral pop with a saw wobbling its way through it and Donahue's voice and lyrics, not least the break down and extraordinary moment where he sings, 'Holes/ Dug by little moles/ Angry jealous spies/ Got telephones for eyes', and makes it sound deeply profound. 'How does that old song go?'

Observatory Crest is a cover of a 1974 Captain Beefheart song, recorded for a 2001 Peel Session and included on the 2006 compilation Stillness Breathes, complete with birdsong. 

Endlessly is from Deserter's Songs too. I could have included Goddess On A Hiway instead. Both are highlights from an album packed with them. Endlessly seemed to fit with the feel better, the sound of the 1940s cinema/ 1890s theatre/ psychedelic Willy Wonka/ late 90s alt- rock crossover. 

Opus 40 is also from Deserter's Songs, possibly its peak, tripped out psychedelic/ silver screen freakery with the line, 'I'm alive she cried but I don't know what it means', as fine an eleven word summation of the human condition as any.  

Diamonds is from The Secret Migration, released in January 2005, an album that flirted with Tolkien- esque imagery and which was probably a few songs too long, a song of nature, love and devotion.

Delta Blues Bottleneck Stomp was an upbeat way to end Deserter's Song (apart from the hidden track that came after it), a joyous harpsichord/ piano riff that sounded like they'd heard it on a late 80s house record and repurposed it for an album recorded in the woods of upstate New York by men dressed in late 19th century clothes with two former members of The Band. The Chemical Brothers repaid the favour Donahue had done for them on The Private Psychedelic Reel by remixing it, one of their best. 

Donahue also sang on Dream On, the closing song from The Chemical Brothers' 1997 album Surrender, an album not short of guest vocalists- Bernard Sumner, Noel Gallagher and Hope Sandoval all show up. Dream On is a sleepy, half asleep, blissed out and gently building psychedelic finale, and in some way completes this mix by going back to the start, a dream sequence. It also has a false ending and after a period of silence the song wakes up again briefly.

Forty Five Minutes Of Tim Burgess

Tim Burgess is an instantly recognisable figure as frontman, singer and lyricist of The Charlatans, the young man with the pudding bowl haircut of Indian Rope and The Only One I Know who has weathered the fads, phases and storms of the music industry and life and who still looks barely a day older than he did back in 1990. Outside The Charlatans he's written three books (including the brilliantly titled Tim Book Two), all three showing him to be a considered, thoughtful and witty writer. He has made six solo albums, from 2003's countryfied I Believe to the synths and FXed sax of Same Language, Different Worlds with Peter Gordon, with songs written and recorded with Lambchop's Kurt Wagner in between. He has a record label O Genesis which has put out solo albums by members of Factory Floor, by Martin Duffy and by The Membranes, among others. There is, it is fair to say, more to him than met the eye when he first shook his fringe with The Charlatans in January 1989. 

Today's mix is a selection of Tim Burgess solo/ with others/ outside The Charlatans that starts out with some gloriously frazzled, hazy ambient drift and ends with some block rocking beats and industrial thump. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Tim Burgess

• Stoned Alone Again Or (Seahawks Remix)
• Tobacco Fields
• Another Version Of The Truth
• Hours (Tandy Love Remix)
• Begin (Carter Tutti Remix)
• The Economy II (Prince Fatty Remix)
• Life Is Sweet (Album Version)
• White (Factory Floor- Gabe Gurnsey Remix)

Stoned Alone Again Or was a 2012 one off 12" single, remixed by Seahawks as a ten minute ambient epic, indie rock taken as far away from its roots as it can go. Seahawks are ambient/ Balearic duo Jon Tye and Pete Fowler, who have released umpteen albums and singles since 2010- I recommend Escape Hatch, Starways and Paradise Freaks as good starting points. 

Tobacco Fields is from Tim's 2012 solo album Oh No I Love You. It is a beauty, with barroom piano, a frazzled vocal and an ambient backdrop, co- written with Kurt Wagner. 

Another Version Of The Truth was on As I Was Now, a solo album recorded between Christmas and New Year in 2008 but not released until 2018- music that is experimental, krauty and pop. The group for the album consisted of My Bloody Valentine's bassist Debbie Goodge, Josh Haywood from The Horrors, Martin Duffy and Ladyhawke. 

Hours was on Oh No I Love You. Some editions of the CD came with a disc of remixes- the Tandy Love remix is by Andy Votel. Others on the second disc were by Tom Furse of The Horrors and Gabe Gurnsey of Factory Floor, whose remix finishes this mix. At the time Nik Void of Factory Floor was Tim's partner.

Begin is from Same Language, Different Worlds, an album made with New York avant garde composer Peter Gordon, a member of the legendary Love Of Life Orchestra. Begin was remixed by Carter Tutti, Chris Carter and Cosey Tutti of Throbbing Gristle/ Chris and Cosey fame/ infamy. Oh Men, also on the album, was remixed by Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert, Peaking Lights, Grumbling Fur and Carter Tutti- that's quite the line up. 

The Economy II is also from Oh No I Love You, dubbed out in 2013 by the superb Prince Fatty.

In 1995 The Chemical Brothers released their debut album Exit Planet Dust. Tim had been a regular at The Social, the Sunday afternoon/ evening party thrown weekly by Heavenly Records and Tom and Ed at The Albany on Great Portland Street. Tim sang on Life Is Sweet, a song which became the album's second single. On an album not short of bangers, Life Is Sweet still stands out- a furious synth riff, crunching beats, whooshes, sirens and a dirty bassline, and Tim's vocal, a celebration of mid- 90s hedonism. The Chemical Brothers returned the favour by working with The Charlatans on 1997's Tellin' Stories, most notably on One To Another.

Forty Minutes Of Spiritualized

I've been going back through some of this year's albums and playing them again. Spiritualized's Everything Was Beautiful is one of them, the second part of Jason's double offering to go with 2018's And Nothing Hurt. Both still sound like a real return to form, the guitars, horns and rhythms all exactly as they should be and Jason's spaceman voice more wracked than ever. Today's mix is a bunch of Spiritualized songs and remixes, not quite chosen randomly from my hard rive but definitely not intended as a best of, more of a set of songs that flow together. The back catalogue is so deep and wide that I have a feeling I could compile multiple Spiritualized mixes and not get near a definitive one- so it is just what it is, a set of songs that sound good together. 

Forty Minutes Of Spiritualized

• Goldfrapp: Monster Love (Goldfrapp Vs Spiritualized)
• Spiritualized: I Think I'm In Love (Chemical Brothers Vocal Remix)
• Spiritualized: Come Together (Live At the Royal Albert Hall)
• Spiritualized: The Mainline Song
• Cut Copy: Free Your Mind (Spiritualized Version)
• LFO: Tied Up (Spiritualized Electric Mainline Remix)
• Spiritualized: Ladies And Gentlemen, We Are Floating In Space (Original Unreleased Mix)

Goldfrapp v Spiritualized was one of the B-sides from a Goldfrapp CD single, Happiness, in 2008. 

The Chemical Brothers remix of I Think I'm In Love came out in 1997, one of the Ladies And Gentlemen, We Are Floating In Space singles. Spiritualized Live At The Royal Albert Hall is from the same year, a full on space rock extravaganza

The Mainline Song is from this year's Everything Is Beautiful. 

Jason's remix of the Cut Copy song came out in 2013, with a new vocal from Jason and guitars, organ, noise and repetition combining to produce what is essentially a new Spiritualized song.  

The remix of LFO, nine minutes of soundwaves, drones and oscillating ambient techno bliss is from 1994. 

The unreleased original mix of the title track of Ladies and Gentlemen... dates from 1997 and fell foul of the Elvis Presley estate who didn't like the borrowing of a line from Can't Help Falling In Love With You. More fool them. 

Forty Minutes Of The Flaming Lips

'The Flaming Lips', it says at Wikipedia, 'are an American psychedelic rock band formed in 1983 from Oklahoma City. I suppose psychedelic rock band covers them but they're much, much more too, they're the sort of band who have an idea- let's come on stage in a giant bubble and roll out over the audience, let's have confetti cannons, and dancing skeletons, let's do a twenty three track album with Miley Cyrus, let's record an album with instrumentals, drum machines and the most gorgeous, existential acoustic guitar pop song of the 21st century- and then just do it. I haven't followed their entire career, there are gaps in my collection but what I have I love. Psychedelic music is, I think, supposed to be expansive- in terms of sound, ambition and minds and Wayne Coyne and the musicians, dancing aliens and skeletons, fellow travellers and merry pranksters are very much on a long trip of expansion and adventure. 

The bulk of the songs here are taken from the trio of albums they recorded between 1999 and 2006 with Dave Fridmann producing. 

Forty Minutes Of The Flaming Lips

• The Observer
• Approaching Pavonis Mons By Balloon (Utopia Planitia)
• Pompeii Am Gotterdammerung
• She Don't Use Jelly
• Silver Trembling Hands
• Ego Tripping At The Gates Of Hell
• The W.A.N.D.
• Race For The Prize
• Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Part 1
• The Golden Path
• Do You Realise??

The Observer and Race For The Prize are both from 1999's The Soft Bulletin, an album that shifted their sound from alt- rock into something else, a lush, wide eyed, tripped out, expansive, late 20th century Pet Sounds psychedelia. Race For The Prize,a song about two scientists competing to do good for the whole of mankind, is a song that is always associated with Isaac for me for various reasons that I may come back to at some point in the next few weeks.

Approaching Pavonis Mons By Balloon, Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots and Ego Tripping At The Gates Of Hell are all from Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, their 2002 masterpiece, a maybe/ maybe not concept album about a Japanese girl fighting giant robots, space, life and death, mortality, gravity, the precarious nature of existence, love, survival and pretty much everything in between. They do this with a mixture of lighter than air pop songs, instrumentals and electronic/ acoustic melancholic joy, reaching a climax with Do You Realise?? a universal secular hymn to human existence.  

The W.A.N.D. and Pompeii Am Gotterdamerung are from 2006's At war Wit The Mystics. The W.A.N.D. is Black Sabbath at the indie disco, pure exhilaration. W.A.N.D stands for The Will Always Negates Defeat. 

She Don't Use Jelly is a 1993 single, a U.S. indie rock ode to idiosyncrasy. She don't use jelly (jam for those of us in the U.K.)- she uses vaseline. 

Silver Trembling Hands is motorik psyche from their 2009 album Embryonic.

The Golden Path is not a Flaming Lips song but singer Wayne Coyne with The Chemical Brothers, released on Tom and Ed's first greatest hits CD in 2003. Over thumping, pulsing, festival dance music Wayne talks about a meeting with a mysterious spectre, the afterlife and his lack of belief in a heaven and hell, worlds in opposite duality before breaking down at the end and pleading to be forgiven.  

When I See Your Eyes Arrive

Back in 1998 as the decade and century rushed to a conclusion people started fretting about Y2K, the millennium bug and aeroplanes dropping out of the sky. Mercury Rev had been a minor US alt- rock band with some major drug problems and poor sales and were about to be dropped. Their manager left and the drummer followed. Jonathan Donahue slipped into depression and took refuge in childhood favourites, fairy tales set to classical music. From this chaos and dissolution came Deserter's Songs, an album that turned out to be one of 1998's best records. 

Holed up in the Catskill Mountains, writing on a piano and reconnecting with guitarist Grasshopper, sharing studio time with The Flaming Lips (a band Donahue was a member of at the same time) they began to record the songs that would become Deserter's Songs, a fragile, melodic, gently wasted album, filled with acts of leaving, with ghosts and farewells. They both assumed this would be Mercury Rev's last throw of the dice. Somehow during the sessions the band/ duo signed to V2 and the money that followed allowed them to complete the album, filling the songs out with Dave Fridman, adding strings, horns, woodwind. This song, originally written by Donahue back in 1989, was found on an old cassette and reworked...

Goddess On A Hiway

There's a back to the land/ get our heads together in the country/ Bob Dylan after his motorcycle crash feel to Deserter's Songs. Add in to the fin de siecle vibe circulating by 1998, replacing all that mid 90s confidence. 'I got us on a highway/ I got us in a car', Jonathan sings, leaving somewhere. Later on in the songs it's about her, 'the goddess on a highway/ goddess in a car', leaving. 'And I know it ain't gonna last'. The rest of the album sounds similarly blasted and wrecked, the sound of some people trying to hold it together- Holes, Tonite It Shows, Opus 40, Hudson Line. At the end the final song opens with what sounds like a house music piano riff being played on a harpsichord, the final splendour of Delta Sun Bottleneck Stomp. 

Before he started writing the songs for the album Donahue had been approached by The Chemical Brothers to play on what would become The Private Psychedelic Reel. At a time when he'd more or less given up and hit the bottom, the request and recording re- energised him. In the UK, Deserter's Songs was then championed by Tom and Ed, especially in the NME and Melody Maker, and it all took off. The NME made it album of the year, the monthlies gave it five stars. The Chemical Brothers provided a remix adding their crunching 90s swirl of FX and beats to Mercury Rev's 19th century chamber music- and picking out the word that is the opposite of the album's main lyrical themes- 'hello...' 

Delta Sun Bottleneck Stomp (The Chemical Brothers Remix)

Tristessa

On Saturday night while The Chemical Brothers were block rocking the Other Stage at Glastonbury talk on Twitter turned to the then Dust Brothers 1994 Xmas Dust Up, a cassette given away free with the NME in December 1994. The tape was mixed by Ed and Tom, a window rattling, volume- all-the-way-up, seven song mixtape.

Side 1
The Dust Brothers- Leave Home
Bonus Beats Orchestra- Bonus Beats
The Prodigy- Voodoo People (Dust Brothers Remix)
Depth Charge- Shaolin Buddha Finger

Side 2
Renegade Soundwave- Renegade Soundwave (Leftfield remix)
Strange Brew- One Summer ('Lektrik Dawn Dub)
Manic Street Preachers- La Tristessa Durera



Just looking at the sleeve and reading the tracklist transports me back to this cassette causing difficulties for the speakers in a red Nissan Micra back in 94/95- it used to get played a lot for a while.

Bonus Beats Orchestra was Tom and Ed Dust/Chemical under another name. Depth Charge were ace, the 9 Deadly Venoms album was trip hop and big beat before either really got going, and chock full of samples from martial arts films and horror movies. I've posted Renegade Soundwave before and the Leftfield remix is particularly good. Strange Brew were a duo from Manchester, one half of whom, Jake Purdy, lived down our street when we were kids. We'd long lost touch by the mid 90s but used to knock around in a gang all the time in the mid 80s. Funny to have a little childhood, local connection with a free NME cassette. Helpfully someone has transferred their copy of the tape digitally and uploaded it to Youtube. The beats sound quite timelocked but as a whole this still sounds fairly fresh I think.





The Dust Brothers would become The Chemical Brothers not long afterwards. Their remix of La Tristessa Durera was done while still Dust and isn't subtle-  squealing noises from the start, various samples from Ed and Tom's pile of odds and ends, lots of sirens and James' vocal. La Tristessa Durera- the sadness endures forever- was written by Richie taking the point of view of a war veteran wheeled out once a year on Poppy Day as a 'cenotaph souvenir', poverty causing him to sell his medal. It is one of the best early Manics songs, showing behind the eyeliner, shock quotes and bluster there was some genuine talent.

La Tristessa Durera (From A Scream To A Sigh) (Chemical [Dust] Brothers Remix)

And May You Always Have No Shoes

With No Shoes, the opening song from the Charlatans 1997 album Tellin' Stories, has been buzzing around my head recently. It's a song that is blatantly in thrall to mid 90s rock 'n' roll, a post-Britpop shuffle and with Gallagher-esque vocal tics. It opens with some harmonica and a burst of wah-wah guitar and then drum loops supplied by a Chemical Brother (Tom Rowlands I think). Stoned and groovey. The album was released following the death of Rob Collins but he played on much of it.

With No Shoes

I'm sure I read somewhere that Tim's lyrics were inspired by The Stone Roses legendary 1989 intro tape, a trippy and slightly menacing piece of music- a rolling bassline, lolloping drum loop and screeching sound (all sampled from a 1987 hip hop record, Small Time Hustler by Dismasters). It apparently also contains a voice whispering 'with no shoes'. It is a valuable addition to your ever-growing mp3 collection.

The Stone Roses 1989 Intro Track

Small Time Hustler

Which also gives me an excuse to post this picture of Ian, Mani and Reni on that tour of 1989, when they were capable of blowing ecstatic heads wide open and also of turning up to play to audiences of a couple of dozen.

Life Is Sweet

Today is the first day of my summer holidays- school finished yesterday and now seven weeks off beckons, with a fortnight in France coming up. I'm starting a completely new role in September so will have to go in for a few days here and there but still, seven weeks off.



This Chemical Brothers with Tim Burgess song from Exit Planet Dust has been getting repeated plays round here this week- cracking rhythm and noise and Tim's nasal vocal. Tim went on to work with Ed and Tom several times, best perhaps on The Charlatans' One To Another single.

Go Brothers Go

The new Chemical Brothers album (Born In The Echoes) is out today and being praised as a return to form. This single, Go, came out at the start of May and has already been viewed close to five million times on Youtube which would suggest they're got a pretty healthy surviving fanbase. Go is funky, synthy and fun with Q Tip providing the hip-house vocals- the album also has Beck, St Vincent and Cate Le Bon on microphone duties.



I was in the car the other day and Block Rockin' Beats came on. It's the most blindingly obvious Chemical Brothers song (Hey Boy Hey Girl excepted maybe). Massive breakbeat. Big borrowed bassline. Hip hop vocal sample from Schoolly D. SIRENS! Totally in your face. No subtlety. No nuance. It's completely stupid. And brilliant.

Block Rockin' Beats

Due to ongoing issues with Boxnet this is via Mediafire but I seem to recall people having some problems with it before. Is Mediafire any use?

Bring The Pain

I was never too  fussed about Wu Tang Clan. Nothing against them, I just fell out with hip hop around this time. And it seemed like I needed a wallchart to keep track of all the members and their offshoots and solo projects. But I bought a 12" of Method Man and Mary J Blige doing You're All I Need (To Get By) and the B-side was this Chemical Brothers remix of Bring The Pain. When I mentioned this remix to my hip hop obsessed sibling he said 'What the fuck's a chemical brother?'

Bring The Pain (Chemical Brothers Remix)

Kylie's Gonna Work It Out

Kylie Minogue's Slow remixed by The Chemical Brothers. What does it sound like? Exactly like Kylie remixed by The Chemical Brothers should.

Typing the words Kylie and Minogue into Google Image are a surefire way to lose some time.

Slow (Chemical Brothers Remix)

Sunshine Underground

Back to work. Harrumph.

I spent some of last week listening to The Chemical Brothers 1999 album Surrender while driving here and there in the car. Dance music can date easily, especially dance music from fourteen years ago- drum sounds, pre-sets, software- all can often quickly sound like that year. On reflection I didn't think Surrender had dated much at all, and in some ways I was never a massive Chemical Brothers fan, but there are some belters on it (if we ignore Noel Gallagher's umpteenth attempt to re-write Tomorrow Never Knows and the still a little over-familiar Hey Boy, Hey Girl). The guest spots work - Bernard Sumner, Hope Sandoval, Jonathan Donahue from Mercury Rev, the co-write with Missy Elliott- sounding like songs actually written together and not just guest vocal moments. This song is eight and a half minutes of 60s psychedelia crossed with 90s dance mayhem, building with several arms-in-the-air moments and though it may be Private Psychedelic Reel part 2 it is still a blindingly good track.

The Sunshine Underground

Don't Fight Control

Claude Flight's 1925 linocut Speed.

The Chemical Brothers (with Bernard Sumner on vocals) jemmied together with Primal Scream (with Denise Johnson on vocals). As mash ups go this is a tad obvious but good nonetheless. Whether it's any use to you first thing on a Tuesday January morning I don't know. You might need to save it for the small hours at the weekend when you've had a couple.

Don't Fight Control

Vortex

Vortex by Cyril Power.

And a connection to yesterday's postees The Charlatans, whose front man Tim Burgess was invited to sing with The Chemical Brothers on their Exit Planet Dust album- stands up pretty well I think. Some Chemical Brothers stuff has dated a bit to my ears, the huge drums and so on but this is good. A song that sounds like it's title and looks like this linocut.

Life Is Sweet

Two Today

Bagging Area is two years old today. Thanks to everyone who comes here and takes the time to read my piffle and special thanks to those who leave comments, frequently (you know who you are, as they used to say) or infrequently- it's the comments that make it worthwhile really. Otherwise it's just me blathering into the internet wind. Mrs Swiss says she prefers reading the comments to my posts.

Let's see if I can keep this going into 2013. The song by is The Charlatans (or Charlatans UK if you're an American reader) and one of their most successful moments where, with The Chemical Brothers' assistance, they married a Stonesy shuffle and piano to a housey undercarriage and Tim's stream-of-consciousness lyrics.

One To Another

Drew Me Loving To Your Isle

Not actually a cover version of Tim Buckley's song, but a dance track that borrows the song's name, here's The Dust (later Chemical) Brothers' Song To The Siren. Released in 1992 it was Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons first release. This is a fairly full on, ten minute plus remix by Andrew Weatherall's Sabres Of Paradise. Good luck finding a vinyl copy if you haven't got one.

Song To The Siren (Full Sabre Mix)

Half Way There

Today I am half way through growing a moustache for November. Movember aims to raise money for men's health charities (including prostate cancer) by growing a moustache. It was initiated by someone at work and I signed up, along with a dozen or so others. I'm not usually one for such work-based hilarity but I was intrigued and did wonder what it'd look like. Half the time I forget it's there until I catch sight of myself or get a slightly odd look from someone. Mrs Swiss told me last week I looked like a '70s cop'. Hmm, a cool, slightly Beastie Boys' Sabotage, mean streets of New York or San Francisco 70s cop maybe I thought. More likely I reckon she had Juliet Bravo in mind. She can't stand it. Bagging Area favourites Andrew Weatherall and Billy Childish are confirmed men of moustaches so I hope I can hold onto a shred of dignity. Not that either would mean anything to anyone at work.

Tache tune- The Chemical Brothers and Bernard Sumner with their 1999 single Out Of Control, one of their best, containing the line 'Or maybe you think my moustache is too much'.

Out Of Control.mp3