From Belfast

Something else from 2025 that I missed and was sent last week by a friend- a cover of Orbital's Belfast by Spanish artist Pepe Link. You might think that a cover of Belfast is entirely unnecessary at this stage in proceedings but I think this casts doubt on that thought...

It's chiller than chilled, totally inappropriate for this Arctic blast we've been experiencing recently. The trumpet line, played by Pepe Navarro, is gorgeous. It crosses the line into easy listening I guess but on occasion that's a line worth crossing. 

In 2024 Orbital came back with their own new version, Tonight In Belfast, together with DJ Helen and David Holmes and Mike Garry's words- a celebration, a eulogy, a love letter- at the heart of a new take on Belfast. 

Yep, that still has the capacity to move me. 

In 2018 Orbital came back with an album, Monsters Exist, that was led by this track, Tiny Foldable Cities, that showed the Hartnoll brothers still had the chops and the capacity to surprise. Tiny Foldable Cities is as good as anything they've done since their golden years in the 90s. 

Tiny Foldable Cities

Forty Five Minutes Of New Order- ish

I heard Your Silent Face on Friday night- not for the first time obviously- and it floored me once again. There's something about it that is very special- the rippling Kraftwerk inspired keys and synths, Hooky's bass and the mechanical drumming, Bernard's serious lyrics completely undercut by the 'why don't you piss off line', the way it gloriously skips between euphoria and melancholy. It's much more than all of that, one of those songs that is way more than the sum of the parts. It inspired me to start a New Order mix for my Sunday series but then I changed tack almost immediately. Rather than just sequence of load of my favourite New Order songs (almost all of which would be from the 1980s) I thought it might be more interesting or more fun to do a Your Silent Face/ New Order inspired mix and see where it took me. It took me here...

Forty Five Minutes Of New Order- ish

• New Order: Your Silent Face
• Galaxie 500: Ceremony
• Gorillaz ft. Peter Hook and Georgia: Aries
• The Liminanas and Peter Hook: Garden Of Love
• Ian McCulloch: Faith And Healing
• The Times: Manchester 5.32
• Ride: Last Frontier
• New Order: Isolation
• Mike Garry and Joe Duddell: St. Anthony: An Ode To Anthony H. Wilson (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

Your Silent Face opens side two of Power, Corruption And Lies, New Order's second album, released in May 1983. It's now seen as a New Order classic, a landmark album, the fusing of dance and rock, light and shade, a band stepping out of the shadows of Joy Division and the first NO album Movement. Your Silent Face had the working title KW1 (the Kraftwerk one). Funny story about New Order and Kraftwerk- the Dusseldorff robots visited New Order in their Cheetham Hill rehearsal space/ HQ and sat open mouthed as the band showed them the kit they used to make Blue Monday. 'You made that record using... this?' 

Galaxie 500's cover of Ceremony is a beauty, a slowed down, slow burning version, ringing feedback, the guitars gathering in intensity, and Dean's upper register voice smothered in echo. Ceremony was New Order's first single (and in a way, Joy Division's last). It was released as a 12" in 1981, twice, with different sleeves and slightly different versions. Galaxie 500's version came out as a B-side on their Blue Thunder 12" in 1990. At the time the nine year gap between 1981 and 1990 was an eon, the 1981 world and 1990 world two totally different eras- for New Order as much as anyone. 

Gorillaz got Hooky to play bass as part of their Song Machine project in 2020. Aries is I think the best 'New Order' song of the 21st century. Murdoc, Noodles, 2D and Russel Hobbs/ Damon Albarn together with Hooky's bass totally nailed what NO should be sounding like now. 

Four years before Gorillaz got Peter Hook to sling his four string guitar around he hooked up with French duo The Liminanas. Garden Of Love is (again) a great 21st century 'New Order' song, slightly fragile, slightly woozy, psychedelic garage rock, the bassline wending its way to the fore and staying there. 

Ian McCulloch's Faith And Healing is virtually a New Order cover- it sounds so much like a off cut from Technique he probably should have given them writing credits. It came out as a single in 1989, taken from Mac's solo debut Candleland. 

The Times was one of Creation mainstay Ed Ball's projects. In 1990 as The Times he released Manchester as a single, a hymn to a city at the centre of a youth explosion. Hooky's mentioned in the lyrics. It's also a tribute to the sound New Order had on 1985's Lowlife. It couldn't be more Lowlife unless it came wrapped in a tracing paper sleeve. I sometimes it think skirts the line between ridiculous and brilliant. I can imagine it making some people cringe but I think it has charm. Once, driving through France it came on the car stereo on one of the mix CDs I'd burned for the trip and made me briefly, stupidly homesick. I got over it- I mean we were on holiday in France for fuck's sake.  

Last Frontier was on last year's Ride album, Interplay. It's an Andy Bell song, soaring, chiming guitars and on the money drums. It sounds like a close cousin of Regret (the last truly great New Order single, released back in 1993. Although actually, I'm happy to listen to arguments for Crystal, released in August 2001). 

Isolation is a Joy Division song, from their second/ final album Closer. It's a stunning song, the collision of electronic drums and real ones genuinely thrilling, along with the synth and bass. Ian's words are bleak, a man at the end of his tether. This version is by New Order, recorded for a John Peel session in 1998. They still play it live- they did it at Wythenshawe Park last August. 

Mike Garry and Joe Duddell's St. Anthony: An Ode To Anthony H. Wilson is a song I come back to often, Mike's A to Z of Manchester music endlessly listenable and at times very moving. For his remix Andrew Weatherall, a huge fan of Factory, turned the song into a nine minute Weatherall tour de force, complete with a version of the Your Silent Face bassline. Which is where I came in. 

An Hour Of The Jezebell Takeover

Last weekend's Jezebell Takeover at The Golden Lion in Todmorden was a lot of fun, two days of DJs and a live act playing to a full house. Saturday kicked off with Nessa Johnston getting things into gear quickly and setting the pace for everyone who followed. ACR's Martin Moscrop played a set that took in dub and disco, including a low slung dubbed out cover of Born Slippy, and at just after 8pm OBOST played a live set. 

OBOST is Bobby Langfield, ridiculously young, still in his teens- synths, keys, laptops, a microphone and an hour of uptempo electronic music that sounds like it has decades of experience behind it. Jamie Tolley took over at 9 and took things up a notch again, bpms and energy levels rising. At one point he dropped As I Ran by Yame, a bit of an ALFOS at The Lion moment last year and the pub erupted. The Jezebell headliners took over at 10, Jesse first and then Darren. The floor was packed, a mix of youth and older dancers...

I had to run for a late train back to Manchester so missed the last our of Darren's set but was back in the pub on Sunday afternoon where Jesse and Darren were starting proceedings off. Maybe they'd stayed up and played straight through. My guest slot was at 4pm and I had a few technical difficulties at first- I accidentally cued up a track from Jesse's USB instead of mine, then the right hand deck got stuck in an emergency loop and things took a little while for me to sort. Eventually Martin Moscrop turned the deck off and on again and as usual with piece of IT support advice it did the trick. Adam Roberts, due to play after me, was also official photographer. All the photos here are his and if nothing else he made me look like I know what I'm doing. 

I came off the decks feeling it had been a bit of a nightmare- technical issues, trying to cram too much into an hour- but looking at it now, a week later, it seems ok. The link below is the set recreated at home.

Bagging Area At The Jezebell Takeover

• Moon Duo: In A Cloud
• Durutti Column: For Belgian Friends
• The Charlatans: Trouble Understanding (Norman Cook Remix)
• The Beta Band: I Know
• Dub Syndicate: Right Back To Your Soul
• Soft Cotton County: The Future's Not What It Used To Be (Five Green Moons Remix)
• David Holmes: Blind On A Galloping Horse (Sons Of Slough Remix)
• Totem Edit 12: Feel
• Mogwai: The Sun Smells Too loud
• Orbital, David Holmes, DJ Helen and Mike Garry: Tonight In Belfast

Adam Roberts followed me, four four house and disco action and then Kim Lana. We had to leave so missed the remaining Sunday night fun, Stuart Alexander and then FC Kahuna, both of whom were outstanding by all accounts, Jesse saying Dan Kahuna was the weekend's highlight. Some hardy souls were back in The Lion on the Monday for St Patrick's Day celebrations, a live band and unplanned karaoke session. There's a second Jezebell Takeover planned for September. 

Jesse's been uploading recordings of some of the sets. His Saturday night hour is here and his Sunday afternoon set is here. 

I hadn't met Jesse or Darren before despite having had a several years strong online connection. It's always brilliant when people turn out to be as lovely in real life as they appear online and the crowd they drew to the Lion- regulars and newcomers- was testament to what they've built together as Jezebell. More power to them. 

The Bagging Area 2024 End Of Year Lists

The end of year list is a bit of an indulgence but also a good way to look back, revisit albums and songs and enjoy again the music that's made my year. People like lists. The exact positions are very arbitrary. What does it matter if I think something was the 26th or 27th best album of the year? It doesn't. But pulling together my favourite releases of the calendar year is always a fun thing to do and a good way to draw a line under the year. Last year I wrote a massive piece with multiple sections, categories, sub- categories and sub- lists, the total number of releases heading up towards three figures. I must have had more time to think about it and to write it last year than I do now. This year I've slim- lined it to two lists, one for albums and one for singles/ EPs/ remixes, each numbering thirty. 

Some years feel like singles years and some feel like album years- 2024 has been a big year for albums, some big hitters and 80s/ 90s bands and artists with big comebacks. I like to think I keep up with new music to some extent and the number of 'old' artists in this list makes me wonder how accurate that is, whether I'm kidding myself about that. But, as they say, it is what it is. Inevitably I will have missed something out from one of these two lists, if not both. Equally inevitably, I will buy an album in the new year that came out in 2024 which should have been in  the top 30. Nothing is ever fixed. Maybe that's the way it should be, a constantly fluid and shifting list. 

Singles, EPs and remixes

30 Silvertooth: Shut Um Down (A Dub From Outer Space)

29 The Liminanas and Bertand Belin: J'Adore Le Monde

28 Richard Norris: Weatherall's Last Stand

27 Jezebell: Weekend Machines EP

26 Causeway: Dancing With Shadows

25 Hinds with Grian Chatten: Stranger

24 David Harrow and Hugo Nicolson: Revolvalution EP and Rude Audio Remixes

23 Cole Odin and Marshall Watson: Voyager

22 Mick Harvey: When We Were Beautiful And Young

21 Electric Blue Vision: Trance Stance

20 BTCOP: The Custom 88 EP and Rude Audio Remixes

19 Mildlife: Return To Centauri

18 Puerto Montt City Orchestra: Hey You (10:40 Remix)

17 Pandit Pam Pam: Pass A Wish EP

16 Theis Thaws: Fly To Ceiling (David Holmes Remix)

15 Ammomite: You Don't Know Me (David Holmes Remix)

14 Ride: Last Frontier

13 C.A.R.: Anzu (Hardway Bros Remixes)

12 Acid Klaus: PTSD By Proxy EP

11 Raxon: Your Fault

10 Peak High: Dance Hall Days

9 Psychederek: Alt! EP

8 Iraini Mancini: Undo The Blue (Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve Re- animation)

7 Lisa Moorish: Sylvia (David Holmes Remix)

6 A Certain Ratio: It All Comes Down To This

5 Galliano: Cabin Fever Dub

A limited edition 7" single that was a very timely release with its line, 'don't want to take my country back man/ Want to take my country forwards', arriving to coincide with the Farage race riots in the summer, Galliano making a return to action and being a voice of reason. The song sampled Andrew Weatherall's remix of the band from 1992's Skunk Funk and borrowed Joe Strummer's vocal phrasings from This Is Radio Clash, and was a very unexpected treat. 

4 Amyl and The Sniffers: Big Dreams

As was this, a single ahead of the Melbourne pub punk's third album that showed a different side to the band. Over a picked, circling guitar riff and some spacious production Amy sang a punk rock torch song for all those people stuck in dead end towns and dead end jobs amid a cost of living crisis who want to get out and realise they're another year older and still stuck. The video for Big Dreams, with the band on motorbikes in the desert, was pure rock 'n' roll cool. 

3 Alex Kassian: E2- E4 (A Reference To E2- E4 By Manuel Gottsching)/ Mad Professor remixes

Twelve minutes and twenty one seconds of perfection- pulsing spaced out synths lines that lit up the summer. Not that summer really happened in the north of the UK this year. But when E2- E4 played it felt like it did. 

2 Orbital, David Holmes, DJ Helen and Mike Garry: Tonight In Belfast

Tonight In Belfast, Mike Garry's beautifully moving poem and voice over David Holmes' remix of Orbital's Belfast, a re- imagining of the Hartnoll brothers 1991 masterpiece is as good as anything else released this yea. It could easily be my number one. David remixed Belfast for the Orbital 30 project, updating it for the 2020s. DJ Helen got Mike Garry to speak his Tonight poem over the top. Mike's words speak to me in all sorts of ways. When I first heard it, so many of the lines for me were about Isaac, it seemed almost like he'd written it for me. Transcendent and emotional, everything music can/ should be. Magical. 

'Tonight I want to paint pictures of you/ Write poems and songs and novels all about you/I wanna hold you up so high you're gonna need a spacesuit'

'I love to speak your name aloud/ Simply 'cos I love its sound/ It feels like I'm kinda calling yer/ It feels like I'm kinda talking to ya/ It feels like I'm trying to break through/ You know across this divide'

'I'll tell you what/ Let's slip beyond the confines of this world/Let's forget every single thing we've learned/ Let's rewrite the way this world can turn'

1 Fat White Family: Bullet Of Dignity (Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve Re- Animation)

This came out in June, a 12" remix of one of the songs from Fat White Family's latest album Forgiveness Is Yours. The Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve Remix takes Bullet Of Dignity, already a fucked up, sordid and groovy number and spins it further, kicking off with percussion, timbales, early 90s kick drum and then a squelchy bassline that oozes dance floor action. It builds, echoes rattling around and the rhythm gathering steam, some piano stabs and then finally, after a drop out and pause, Lias' vocal comes in, a blur of standout lines and attention grabbing phrases- 'You say you're just thirty one/ What's that in cannibal years?' I have no idea what it's about but it keeps giving with imagery, lines about fatal caricatures and suicidal cassettes, words walking in pairs, and how the dialogue's dubbed. There's a Middle Eastern/ North African guitar line that appears and re- appears. At five minutes it takes off even further, the groove and rhythms bouncing around, moving ever forwards. 

Bullet Of Dignity (Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve Re- Animation)

There are a couple of singles that should really be heading up the singles list but they're both going to appear as part of the albums near the top end of this second list, as much for variety as anything. 

Albums

Edit: I've forgotten to include any of 100 Poems brilliant trio of albums from this year- I knew I'd forget something! Out of the three the most recent, Balearic As A System Of Belief, just about edges it. Album number 31. 

30 The Jesus And Mary Chain: Glasgow Eyes

29 Fat White Family: Forgiveness Is Yours

28 Reverb Delay: The Storm Has Passed

27 SubDan: Inhale, Exhale, Repeat

26 Duncan Gray: Five Fathoms Full

25 Saint Etienne: The Night

24 Richard Norris: Oracle Sound Volume Three

23 Khruangbin: A La Sala

22 Mick Head and The Red Elastic Band: Loophole

21 The Woodentops: Fruits Of the Deep

20 Dirt Bogarde: Love, Sweat And Beers

19 M- Paths: Submerge

18 Coyote: Hurry Up And Live

17 Klangkollektor: Dub Tapes Volume 1

16 Various Artists: Virtual Dreams Volume II (Ambient Explorations In The House And techno Age, Japan 1993- 1999

15 David Holmes: Blind On A Galloping Horse Remixes

14 Fontaines DC: Romance

13 Richard Sen: India Man

12 A Certain Ratio: It All Comes Down To This

11 J- Walk: Broken Beauty

10 Five Green Moons: Moon One

9 Sedibus: Seti

8 Underworld: Strawberry Hotel

7 Four Tet: 3

6 Jamie Xx: In Waves

5 The Cure: Songs Of A Lost World

I had no idea, along with thousands of other people I imagine, that what I really needed in late 2024 was a new album from The Cure. The opener, Alone, released as a single in the autumn, was an exercise in majestic beauty and beautiful gloom, a three minute instrumental intro and then Robert Smith singing as well as he ever has, about life, love, loss, mortality, and 'the end of every song we sing'. Stunning. The album continued in that vein for the next seven songs, meditations on aging and loss, ending inevitably with Endsong.

4 GLOK/ Timothy Clerkin: Alliance

Electronics and guitars, swirling, woozy modern psychedelia recorded remotely after the pair met at Andrew Weatherall's funeral. A collision of early 90s sounds and 2024 trippiness. For some time it was all I played, a totally addictive seven track album. 

3 Bill Ryder- Jones: Iechyd Da

This could easily be album of the year, a January release that I keep returning to. Beautiful songs with acoustic guitars, pianos and grand, sweeping strings, a children's choir from a Birkenhead primary school, Mick Head reading Ulysses, a Gal Costa sample, and amazing stirring production- and then Bill's battered and beaten voice, sounding like a man who's reached the end of the road, has nowhere left to go, broken. The pain he sings about is from experience, the death of his brother as a child (Daniel fell off a cliff while they pair where on holiday, his family forever scarred) and mental health issues ever since. 

Nothing To Be Done

In the end though he gets there and we do with him- 'I'm still lost/ But I know love/ I know loss/ But I chose love'.

2 Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds: Wild God

Wild God was a step into the light, a conscious decision by Nick Cave to choose joy over sorrow- a line that appears in the song Joy where Nick is visited late at night by a ghost, a boy with giant sneakers and laughing stars around his head, who tells him, 'we've all had too much sorrow/ now is the time for joy'. It shakes me when I hear it. 

By this song, the fourth on the album, its clear we've stepped into a new Cave world. The first song, Song Of The Lake, explodes orchestrally Nick muttering 'never mind, never mind...'. It's follow by Wild God, with its heart stopping cry of 'bring your spirit down'. That is followed by Frogs, easily one of the best songs of this year and one of Cave's best, a song where Nick walks home on a Sunday in the rain, amazed at the wonders of the world around him- frogs in the gutter, the rain, Kris Kristofferson. The band sound reborn too. The previous albums were so grief stricken and spectral it was difficult for them to find a way in, Warren Ellis's synths were the core of the sound. Final Rescue Attempt tells of Nick being saved by a woman, and how after that, 'nothing really hurt again/ nothing ever really hurt/ not even real pain'. It's extraordinary stuff, magical, life affirming songs. By the end of side two, when former partner Anita Lane's voice appears (from Nick's answer phone. She died in 2021), we've gone through the wringer and come out the other side, the sheer joie de vivre evident throughout, no more so than in the fade out to Conversion where Nick and the choir sing/ shout, 'Stop! You're beautiful!', at each other.

Both Frogs and Wild God could have been near the top end of the singles list- I've not listened to any songs more than either of those two all year- but now they're fully part of the album as a whole, an album that when I put it on, I play all the way through and one I imagine I'll still be playing long into the future. 

Joy

1 Various Artists: Sounds From The Flightpath Estate

What else could it be? I did wonder whether I could/ should put the album me, Martin, Dan, Mark and Baz pulled together into my list, if doing it was a bit much. But in the end, it has been the album of the year for me. This time last year we were receiving tracks from the artists we'd approached, music from Justin Robertson, David Holmes, Timothy J Fairplay, Richard Sen, Hardway Bros, Sons Of Slough, Rude Audio and 10:40. Andy Bell's cover of Smokebelch arriving at the last minute was the cherry on top. An unreleased Two Lone Swordsmen track too.  

We knew we had something good, all the music was so strong, everyone had really responded so well to us (a bunch of unknowns let's be honest). But we did not expect what then happened. Selling out 500 vinyl copies in a day. Repressing 500 more and selling all of them too. Three of the tracks being played on Lauren Laverne's 6 Music show. Having the window display in Piccadilly Records. 

Giving a copy to Paul Simonon at The Golden Lion was as memorable and surreal as anything else that happened in 2024. Appearing in two end of year lists (Piccadilly records and Uncut). All of it has been unreal and yet, there it is, it happened. It would have been nothing without the music though- from the chunky cosmic chug of Sons Of Slough (recorded live at The Golden Lion) to Tim Fairplay's centurion dub, Justin's weird folk/ dub collision and Richard Sen's massive sounding Tough On Chug, Tough On The Causes Of Chug, the dub techno of Rude Audio and 10:40's fairground swirl, Hardway Bros writing our own theme, Theme For Flightpath Estate, and Holmes' magnificent Human: Remains, to Andy's gorgeous cover of Smokebelch, it's a brilliant and beautiful thing and it's my album of the year. To everyone involved, all the artists, my Flightpath friends, Waka, Gig and Matt at the Golden Lion and GLS, Andrew Liles, Rusty for his incredible sleeve art, and the memory of Andrew Weatherall (for whom it is a tribute)- thank you. 

Did someone say Volume 2? Sequels are hard....

Twenty One

Eliza, our daughter, is twenty one today. We had the party last weekend at a venue in Altrincham because today she is at the Gottwood festival in Anglesey. Coincidentally Sean Johnston is playing Gottwood, doing A Love From Outer Space, the travelling cosmic disco he and Andrew Weatherall started in 2010. I've told Eliza she must attend ALFOS as part of her birthday celebrations, a cross generational handing on of the torch or something. A couple of her friends asked what ALFOS is. '110 BPM chuggy cosmic disco', I told them, which they seemed to find quite amusing in a 'what's the old man on about?' kind of way. 

A few weeks ago Eliza told me I had to do a speech at her twenty first. I gave it some thought and then, capitalising on her love of Mancunian poetry I decided to do it based on Mike Garry's St Anthony: An Ode To Anthony H. Wilson. Eliza loves Mancunian poetry, Mike Garry's poem and also Tony Walsh's This Is The Place. Despite Eliza's concerns that my poem would be 'cringe' I wrote and read it out anyway, an A- to Z of Eliza set to Mike Garry's structure, cadence and style. Apologies to Mike.

It finished, as Mike's does, with 'Talk to me of all these things and there's one thing that's for certain/ That I'll see the face and I'll hear the voice of Eliza Ramona Turner'. Not a dry eye in the house. Including mine. 

St. Anthony: An Ode To Tony Wilson (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

When she was born a nurse looked at her in her cot as travelled in a lift up to the next floor in Wythenshawe hospital. Eliza was wide awake and looking round. The nurse said to us, 'that is the most alert baby I have ever seen'. And that's kind of how she's been ever since. 

Happy birthday Eliza. You've been through more than any twenty one should have to in recent years and have come through it with your love of life intact. Enjoy Gottwood, enjoy ALFOS. Sean, if she turns up wrecked and harangues you endlessly, please accept my apologies. I don't know where she gets it from. 

Forty Minutes of Belfast

This occurred to me as an idea a few weeks ago. I've been playing Orbital and Mike Garry's Tonight In Belfast a lot, it's become one of those songs for me. The idea of segueing different versions of Belfast together popped into my mind driving home from work. I did wonder if it might be too much, an overload of Belfast but there are some things you can't have too much of. I toyed with some kind of Easter mix for today, and almost went with all the versions of A Man Called Adam's fabulous Easter Song but on Friday (Good Friday) this mix came back to me and I thought I'd resurrect it for today. Roll that stone away and immerse yourself in Belfast. Happy Easter. 

Forty Minutes Of Belfast

• Belfast
• Belfast/Wasted
• Tonight In Belfast
• Nothing Compares 2 Belfast

Orbital released Belfast in January 1991, one of three tracks on their III EP along with Satan and LC1. Belfast was discovered by David Holmes and Ian McCready after they booked the Hartnoll brothers to play their Space Base night in May 1990. Orbital left a tape with the track on, later on named after the city they had a great visit to and night out in. The vocal sample, also widely heard in The Beloved's Sun Rising single that year, is of soprano Emily Van Evera, singing O Euchari. The chiming synths, bubbling bass and operatic vocal combine to produce something genuinely moving, ecstatic and otherworldly- one of British house/ dance music's great moments.  

Belfast/ Wasted features the voice of Gavin Fulton, available on the CD/ booklet series Volume (Volume 3, 1992). It then came out as a single in 1995 and then on the Wasted best of compilation. Gavin's vocal takes the track into a new area. 

Tonight In Belfast has the voice of Mancunian poet Mike Garry, speaking the words to his poem Tonight. It's one of the best and most affecting single tracks I've heard this year, Mike's words perfectly accompanied by David Holmes' magnificent and euphoric remix of Belfast from Orbital's 30 project, their thirtieth anniversary box set. Mike's words and Orbital's music came together on the suggestion of DJ Helen. Mike's words come over like a eulogy, a hymn to a lost love- sometimes I find it difficult to hear it without thinking of Isaac. 

'Tonight

I just wanna paint pictures of you

Write poems and songs just about you

I wanna hold you up so high you're gonna need a spacesuit

I love to speak your name aloud

Simply because I love its sound

And it feels like I'm kinda calling you

It feels like I'm kina talking to you

It feels like I'm trying to break through

You know across this divide

I'll tell you what

Let's slip beyond the confines of this world

Let's forget every single thing we've learned

Let's rewrite the way this world does turn'

Nothing Compares 2 Belfast is from David Holmes' NTS show that he did in tribute and in memory of Sinead O'Connor following her death last year, Belfast with Nothing Compares 2U, with Sinead's voice at the end speaking directly and openly in the way she did. 

Miles And Miles And Miles And Miles

In some ways this track seems almost too easy. 

Take Orbital's Belfast, a track that in 1991 defined blissed out, emotive, euphoric, hairs on the back of the neck standing up house/ techno, get David Holmes to give it a sweeping, majestic, emotional  2022 remix and then in 2024, courtesy of DJ Helen, get poet Mike Garry to perform a new poem over it, one filled with those affecting, heartfelt and every day lines he's so good at. 

Lines like, 'I wanna hold you up so high/ You're gonna need a space suit', and, 'I wanna write your name across an empty beach at low tide', and, 'And it feels like I'm kinda calling you/ It feels like I'm trying to break through/ You know across this divide/ Cos we live such separate lives'. Tonight In Belfast- it's almost too easy but it works so very, very well. 

Basking

Stockport sits six miles south of Manchester (and only a ten minute train ride from Piccadilly). It is a town that has until recently stubbornly refused attempts at regeneration and gentrification- and in some ways that has been part of its charm. Over the last few of years the market hall and Underbank area have undergone a change, with shops and bars opening, a food hall, an upturn in fortunes attracting a different, newer crowd. Opposite the railway station a new plaza area has been created with a bar, Bask, opening a year ago. Bask runs all sorts of events as well as serving food and drink among them acoustic nights, late nights at the weekend with DJs and a regular Wednesday night slot called Express Yourself. On Wednesday this week, 31st May, it had Manchester poet Mike Garry performing. There was a full line up of support, starting with Matt Jacques, a singer songwriter with acoustic guitar telling tales of bandit country (North Reddish, a short bus ride away), his intention to haunt his wife if he dies first and a cover of Don't Think Twice, It's Alright. There were three poets (and sadly I don't know their names but all were were excellent): a young woman with personal poetry about her body and autism; a young man with laugh out loud funny poems about getting the number 50 bus from East Didsbury to Salford and middle aged men who say nothing's happened in Manchester since Factory, that the old days were better and that Beetham Tower is too tall; and a male poet with poetry filled with righteous anger, about politics, givng up watching the news for reasons of self- preservation, life, near death and the NHS. There was a stand up comic whose main theme was being a worrier and the things to worry about and lastly the excellent Test Card Girl, a one woman act, keys and vocals playing synth/ folk. The event was hosted by David Scott, a Manchester radio and Twitter who has recently published an alternative history of Manchester since the 90s titled Mancunians (which I'm half way through and enjoying a lot- he is ten years or so younger than me so sees the city and its culture in a different way which is always a good thing to expose yourself to. The range of contributors to the book is varied and interesting too).

Mike Garry is Manchester's foremost wordsmith, a performance poet and librarian who always puts on a good show, who can veer skillfully from funny to hard hitting to emotive and back again. His best known works are Gorton Girls Know All The Words To Songs By Chaka Khan and (mainly) his tribute to Tony Wilson, St Anthony- An Ode To Anthony H. Wilson. Mike gives us ninety minutes tonight and in a small venue like this shows he's capable of bringing the house down. There's no need to ask people to be quiet while he's on- everyone is silent while he speaks and sings. At times, between poems, to keep the flow and the mood going Mike finishes a poem and asks/ instructs us not to clap, as he moves straight into his next work, giving a sense that it's all part of a bigger piece, a life's work. He opens by approaching the mic and singing, lines about it being a very cold sea and a very deep sea. He then segues into a poem about immigration, migrants and their children crossing the Channel and the lack of humanity that's seen in the tone of the debate about these people, undertaking huge risks. He talks about football, and his love/ hate relationship with the BBC (and the money they offered him to write something for the Beeb's coverage of today's all Manchester cup final- at first he wanted to refuse it, as a United fan unable to write about City. The money he tells us soon changed his mind- he reads a poem about the sky being blood red but then switches it so it's sky blue). He reads and performs a mixture of old poems and new ones, some so new the only place they exist is on his phone. He can fire off words at a million miles an hour and stop suddenly, delivering heavy truths and slices of life. Mike jokes with us that he's become obsessed with death and that his poems are mainly now about death- and they may be so, but really they are about life, and loss (which becomes part of life as you age), and they are celebrations of life and lives. 

When Mike kicks into St. Anthony I find myself, seated near the back, mouthing the words to myself as he says them. It's a poem that often moves me when I listen to the recorded version and it doesn't fail to do so tonight. His next poem floors me and Lou, a poem called Son, written for his son who now lives in New Zealand, with lines about him being so far away, wanting to see him and wanting to hug him. Given our situation with Isaac's death eighteen months ago almost to the day, it has a predictable effect on us both, both in tears as Mike speaks. He stretches the evening out, pushing the time limit and giving us more, the audience of a hundred or so lapping up every word. At the finale, he gathers his things from the stage- books, phone, coat- packs into his bag and puts his jacket on, all the while still reciting his lines and then with no little drama delivers the last line and walking off the stage and exiting into the toilet laving the room briefly silent and then in applause.

I've seen Mike four times in recent years, once at the old Granada Studio building for the launch of the St. Anthony single in 2015, once at a free, open air event in Altrincham a few years ago, attended by a few dozen people and most recently supporting John Cooper Clarke at the Bridgewater Hall in 2022. The performance at Bask this week outdid them all- spellbinding stuff from a master of his craft. 

St. Anthony- An Ode To Anthony H. Wilson

I Wanna Be Your Vacuum Cleaner

I went to see John Cooper Clarke at the rarefied environs of the Bridgewater Hall on Thursday night, an evening of poetry compered by legendary former- Clash road manager Johnny Green, resplendent in suit and thick rimmed glasses. Johnny kicked us off with the first poet, Luke Wright. Luke has published upteen poems and performed up and down the country and on radio. His poem These Boots Aren’t Made For Walking is funny, the Cooper Clarke influence evident in the rapid fire rhymes. He talks about being a parent and the sneering condescension of his ten year old son towards him (‘it’s like living with Stewart Lee’ he quipped) and counters this with the joys of watching children learning to read. He is funny and sharp and in Dad Reins, moving. He explains the background to and then recites his poem inspired by French situationists The Oulipo who demanded restrictions and constraints be placed on artforms rather than absolute free expression. His poem, Ron’s Knock Off Shop, written using only one vowel, O, a tale of London and Bolton is funny and clever (but not too clever). Luke was inspired by JCC aged 17 and his influence is evident but Luke Wright has a style and tone of his own too, honed from a young age from his home in Colchester, Essex.

Manchester’s own Mike Garry performs a poetic tour de force, an emotive set with tributes to his Mum, to the primary school teacher who taught him to read and to dream, and his famous, tearjerking tribute to Tony Wilson, St Anthony. I’ve seen Mike Garry twice before but here, on the big stage with the perfect acoustics of a chamber orchestra’s home, he is in a class of his own. Very much a home town hero, he reads God Is A Manc and breaks off with asides and comments, then dropping straight back into the poem. 

Garry often wanders away from the mic, singing lines of poetry and songs as preludes to the next poem and he gazes upwards, as if seeking inspiration from on high. His poems are honest, real and heartfelt, written from experience of growing up in south Manchester in the 70s and 80s, littered with references to this town and its people (‘Gorton girls know all the words to songs by Chaka Khan’), occasionally sentimental and always affecting. I always find St Anthony moving, especially when listening to the Weatherall remix where Andrew Weatheralll, 80s New Order, Factory and Manchester’s cultural history get bound together in rhyme- it often moves me. In my current emotional state, hearing and seeing Mike perform the poem leaves me wiping my eyes. 

John Cooper Clarke appears after the interval, big cap, long hair, shades and the tightest jeans in the building and launches into his familiar rapid fire, motoric performance poetry, from the streets of Salford (Higher Broughton to be exact) in the late 70s to his recent elevation to national treasure status. The between poem asides, jokes and commentary are as much part of the act as the poems and he doesn’t disappoint- it's a well honed act, clinging to the microphone with his knock kneed stance, firing straight into Hire Car and then Get Back On Drugs You Fat Fuck. He veers between newer stuff and his classics, (I Married) A Monster From Outer Space followed by Bedblocker Blues- age is clearly on his mind as he plays the nations venues after two years of gigs delayed by Covid aged 73.

Beasley Street is rattled out and then followed by the updated Beasley Boulevard, the late 70s slum life contrasted with 2020s gentrification. He reads poems about cars and pies and slows down the pace slightly with I’ve Fallen In Love With My Wife. Throughout the show he frequently flips into a New Yoik accent, this inspired by the films of his youth and the huge tip of the that that came his way when The Sopranos came calling and used his poetry over the end of one of the episodes of the box set, binge TV proto-series. 

The poem in question, Evidently Chicken Town closes the set,

‘The fucking pies are fucking old
The fucking chips are fucking cold
The fucking beer is fucking flat
The fucking flats have fucking rats
The fucking clocks are fucking wrong
The fucking days are fucking long
It fucking gets you fucking down
Evidently chicken town’

There is an encore, which occurs after the briefest of exits- ‘I was gonna milk it’, he says, ‘but there were stairs off the stage’- and gives us Twat, the laugh out loud funny stream of bile, line after line of invective building to the one word finale before finishing with the flipside of Twat, the Yin to Twat’s Yang, I Wanna Be Yours. 

I Wanna Be Yours

Handily, Jezebell (Jesse Fahnestock and Darren Bell) have just done an edit of Evidently Chicken Town, a murky, thumping acid stew poured onto and around John Cooper Clarke. You can get it from Paisley Dark here. 

Monday's Long Song

Tony Wilson, later on Anthony H. Wilson, died on this day in 2007. His gravestone in Southern Cemetery, Chorlton- cum- Hardy, as pictured above, reads-

Broadcaster
Cultural Catalyst

1950- 2007

It was designed by Peter Saville and Ben Kelly (of course) and stands out among the ones around it, all in black, in the same way Wilson did when he was alive. In the film 24 Hour Party People Wilson, played by Steve Coogan, says he suffers from 'an excess of civic pride' and there's no doubt Tony was utterly committed to improving Manchester and Salford, to changing things- a record label founded on revolutionary lines with equally revolutionary design principles, a nightclub, a long line of bands and artists who made art first and commerce second. All these things changed the city partly because he saw no reason to 'fuck off down to London', but to do it here, and partly because (eventually) the nightclub brought people to the city (as revellers, as students, as workers), who stayed and helped the city grow. The nightclub inspired the building of bars and flats and the regeneration of warehouses, new places for people, that have a look, a design aesthetic, a knowing modernism. And so on. Not all these things are solely due to Tony Wilson but they are at least partly due to him.

There's been a tendency since he died to lionise him. While he was alive, especially in the 80s and early 90s, he was sometimes a divisive figure. That twat off the telly. Smug. Too clever for his own good. By all accounts he was capable of falling out with people, his friends, easily and without warning. Tony I'm sure would be amused by the ascension to sainthood he has achieved after death and I think he'd love it as well. 'When you have to choose between the truth and the legend, print the legend', he is supposed to have said. This quote comes from 24 Hour Party People as well. The legend becomes the truth. So it goes.

In 2015 this stunning record was released, Mike Garry's poem about Tony, a figure he knew from growing up, from seeing him on the TV and from his works, set to music by Joe Duddell, based on New Order's Your Silent Face, and then remixed by Andrew Weatherall. It remains one of the best records of the last decade, a nine minute tribute, moving and uplifting and elegiac.

St. Anthony: An Ode To Anthony H. Wilson (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

Isolation Mix Three

It's over halfway through April already. The weeks seem to be flying by even though some of the days seem very long. This is Isolation Mix Three. I thought I'd do something different from the ambient, blissed out, opiated sounds of the first two mixes and this mix is something that I first wrote about doing in a post here about three years ago. This is an hour and three minutes of spoken word and poetry and music. Andrew Weatherall features in various guises and with various poets, the Beat Generation and The Clash are represented, there's some reggae and the unmistakable voice of John Cooper Clarke.

Jack Kerouac/Joe Strummer: MacDougal Street Blues

John Cooper Clarke: Twat

Misty In Roots: Introduction to Live At The Counter Eurovision

Linton Kwesi Johnson: Inglan Is A Bitch

The Clash (and Allen Ginsberg): Ghetto Defendant (Extended Version)

Allen Ginsberg/ Tom Waits: Closing Time/America

Andrew Weatherall and Michael Smith: The Deep Hum (At The Heart Of It All)

Joe Gideon and The Shark: Civilisation

Woodleigh Research Facility and Joe Duggan: Downhill

Fireflies and Joe Duggan: Leonard Cohen Knows

BP Fallon and David Holmes: Henry McCullough (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

Mike Garry and Joe Duddell: St Anthony: An Ode To Anthony H Wilson (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

Allen Ginsberg: I Am A Victim Of Telephone

Wilson

Tony Wilson died ten years ago today. His legacy is all over this city and (probably) in your record collections and on your hard drives. Manchester and pop culture is a poorer place without him. I've posted Mike Garry and Joe Duddell's tribute to Tony before but Mike Garry's words about him and the world he was part of are always worth hearing again.

This Is My List

Here is my list, self indulgent as Drew says, but fun to do. I've enjoyed more new music during 2015 than any in recent years. These are the albums and songs/singles that have struck a chord with me and that have stuck with me since their release.

Albums

12. Mbongwana Star 'From Kinshasa'
Traditional African forms coupled with electronics. Still startling.

11. Mick Jones 'Ex Libris'
Vinyl only, six track instrumental.

10. MonoLife 'Phrenology'
The skull from Hull with some cracking old school dance music.

9. The Orb 'Moonbuilding 2703AD'
A return to form, four very long pieces full of ambient buzz.

8. Le Volume Courbe 'I Wish Dee Dee Ramone Was Here With Me'
Contains two of my favourite songs of this year- The House and Rusty.

7. Steve Cobby 'Everliving'
It could have been 'Revolutions' as well. Both are full of sumptuous electronic tunes and ideas.

6. Gwenno 'Y Dyad Olaf'
Perfect psychedelic pop sung in Welsh (except for the one sung in Cornish).

5. Crocodiles 'Boys'
Dirty, sexy, brash guitars from San Diego. If you haven't heard Foolin' Around, click play now.



4. Moon Duo 'Shadows Of The Sun'
Loads of uptempo two chord motorik psyche but with In A Cloud they had one of the year's most beautiful, almost Balearic guitar moments.

3. Sexwitch 'Sexwitch'.
Six covers recorded by Natasha Khan, Toy and Dan Carey. The intense stomp of the Middle Eastern songs take some beating and Natasha's vocals are superbly focused while also slightly unhinged. Possessed and obsessive.

2. The Charlatans 'Modern Nature'.
Recorded after the death of drummer Jon Brookes, a band back on form and determined to celebrate life with some of the best, soaring songs of the year- So Oh and Come Home Baby especially.

1. Jamie Xx 'In Colour'
A history of dance music from house to grime, emotionally charged from start to finish, with moments of ecstasy, clarity and genuine beauty. I'm still playing it from start to finish.



Singles/Songs
The hand and influence of Mr Weatherall is all over this section. That's just the way it's been this year. Both lists show I've been veering far more towards dance/electronics this year. A top seventeen for no real reason.

17. Noel Gallagher 'In The Heat Of The Moment' Andrew Weatherall Remix
It came out last year online but was released on vinyl in April. Glorious remix.

16. Dubrobots 'Forever'
This Cardiff based producer sent me two versions of this massively dub influenced song. Still rattling my ribcage.

15. Public Service Broadcasting 'Gagarin' Richard Norris Remix
The album did nothing for me but this remix, full of Spanish acoustic guitars, sent Yuri to Ibiza.

14. jennylee 'Never'
Warpaint's foxy bassist with an early 80s single that pushed the right buttons.

13. Gwenno 'Chwyldro' Andrew Weatherall Remix
Further, stranger, slower.

12. Unloved 'Guilty Of Love'
David Holmes' new project taking in 60s/70s filmscores with a girl group vibe. Also had two long dubby Weatherall remixes.

11.  Vox Low 'Cast Upward Through the Waves, A Ruby Glow
Strange stuff from a French duo finding weird spaces between rock and dance.

10. Heretic 'Pollux' Andrew Weatherall Remix
I'm getting repetitive strain from typing those three words- this one took early New Order and merged it with some sparse electronics and a spooky vocal refrain.

9. Timothy J. Fairplay
Timothy J released several superb four track e.p.s this year, full of vintage synths- Stories Of Prison, Love And Columbium, No News From New York. Take your pick. Together they'd make a potential album of the year.

8. Paresse 'Rosita'.
Super smooth stuff from Scandinavia. Wraps your ears up all warm.

7. Haunted Doorbell 'Unconnected Thoughts On Jacking'
I'm cheating here- Fairplay again, this time with Matilda Tristam. Four outstanding instrumentals joining the various dots. The e.p. and title track gave us the song title of the year. Beautiful Sheffield is exactly as it sounds.

6. Patti Yang Group 'I'm Ready'
Chris Rotter, Matty Skylab and Patti Yang with a thumping piece of hymnal house. Do you want a free download?



5. Jamie Xx 'Loud Places' John Talabot's Higher Dub
I posted this last week. It's stunningly good, reworking an album highlight into something else with mesmerising, euphoric peaks.

4. C.A.R. 'Glock'd' Asphodells Remix
Super glam stomp, a massive wobbly bass, dirty guitars, French accented vocals; the sound of the future.

3. Sinkane x Peaking Lights 'Mean Dub'
This ten minute dub version of Yacha was the sound of my summer. All four tracks on the reworked dub e.p. were top quality stuff but Yacha is something else entirely and from somewhere else entirely too. Fast dub.



2. Pearl's Cab Ride 'Sunrise' (MonoLife Extended  Trip)
A Humberside funk and soul sixpiece taken on a long trip by MonoLife- trumpet, distorted vocal, two note bass, drifting but always moving forwards. Beautiful.



1. Mike Garry and Joe Duddell 'St Anthony: An Ode to Anthony H Wilson'
This came out in August, an emotional tribute to Mr Manchester set to Joe Duddell's Your Silent Face inspired strings, full of Mike Garry's poetic references to the city and its sounds. All proceeds go to The Christie so if you haven't bought it yet, there's another reason to do so. Almost inevitably, there's a Weatherall remix on the other side (which isn't too shabby either. In fact it's very, very good). Still prone to move me after umpteen listens.

Granada

I went to the launch event for the St Anthony single on Friday night- it was a ticketed event before you go imagining I'm some kind of mover or shaker. It was held in the old Granada TV studios, Wilson's place of work. After a screening of the video and some brief interview clips Mike Garry performs several of his distinctively Mancunian poems with Joe Duddell and a string quartet, finishing with St Anthony- An Ode To Anthony H Wilson. His poetry is hard edged, honest, human and real and often comes loaded with a punchline, making you both laugh and cry and his delivery is a performance- rapid fire rhymes and sudden stops. The Wilson tribute especially is moving, heartfelt without ever becoming sentimental- much like the man himself. At ten the doors to one of the filming studios opens and the thump of house music begins. Mike Pickering plays what turns out to be a blinding set followed at midnight by Bobby Langley who starts out with the Andrew Weatherall remix of St Anthony, this new version of Your Silent Face booming out with Mike Garry's voice. Manchester vibes are very much in the area.

You can buy the single in a variety of formats here with proceeds to The Christie and their continuing fight against cancer. Do you want to hear the Andrew Weatherall remix? Thought you might...


Mike Garry & Joe Duddell - St Anthony: An Ode to Anthony H Wilson - Andrew Weatherall Remix on MUZU.TV.

Anthony

This has appeared today on the eight anniversary of his death- a poetic tribute to Anthony H Wilson and the modern Manchester he was instrumental in creating. The poem was written by Mike Garry and then set to music by Joe Duddell (an orchestral version of New Order's Your Silent Face). The video has a variety of people you'll recognise lip-synching the words. I have to say, it pushes a lot of my buttons. New Order played it over the PA at their Jodrell Bank gig and Hooky played at his recent gig in Macclesfield. Several months ago a clip of Andrew Weatherall playing a dance version of this at the A Love From Outer Space festival at Carcasonne Castle was on Youtube (although I can't find it right now). That very Weatherall remix of this is on the B-side of the 12", out in a couple of weeks, with all proceeds to the Christie. How many more reasons do you need to buy it?