Five Go Mad For Friday

Some tracks from the corners of the internet you might not delve into to brighten up this Friday in April with little tying them together other than they all caught my eyes and ears recently. 

First, from January 2025, a German band called Magic Source releasing on Favourite Recordings, a label based in Paris- a funky jazz/ disco cover version of A Guy Called Gerald's Voodoo Ray. 

There's an argument that Voodoo Ray is the best British house/ dance record, the numero uno of UK dance music. Magic Source manage to bring a freshness to Voodoo Ray, a quirkiness that makes it bounce- the ooh ah ahh vocals, the funked up glockenspiels, the springy rhythm, the synth squiggle four minutes in, all in all a certain je ne sais quoi to a track that began life in the Crescents in Hulme in late 80s Manchester. 

Magic Source pair Voodoo Ray with Interplanetary Bounce, their own composition, light on its feet and looking to boogie. Find both at Bandcamp. 

Next, from Nottingham and the Coyote duo is an EP that goes heavy on their recent dub excursions. Nag Champa is three tracks, led by Fittest, a Balearic/ dub crossover with toasting, rolling hand drums and whistles. Nag Champa Dub follows, a Nyabinghi- inspired slow and low cut, psychedelic Jamaica with melodica. The final of the three is Teacher, less dub, more chilled Balearica, with one of those expertly selected vocal samples that Coyote are so good at finding- 'whatever resonates, resonates... no big deal... there's nothing you have to do, this is the wonderfulness of consciousness'. The Nag Champa EP is at Bandcamp. 

Thirdly, Coco Steel and Lovebomb put out this at the end of March, a full on acid party track, totally infectious and sonically superb. E1 AC1D0 is sheer joy- a rocking breakbeat, acid squelch, birdsong, female vocal, six minutes of summer come early. Find it here. 

Finally, another cover- Kenneth Bager and Le Bacoll with a dance/ Balearic cover of R.E.M.'s What's the Frequency, Kenneth? The first time I clicked on this I wasn't sure about it at all- and left it alone for some time. I can easily see that some R.E.M. fans may see it as sacrilege but it's grown on me, I can see it causing a fuss on certain dancefloors at certain times and I'm pretty sure Michael Stipe would be out there shaking his arse to it. 

This is the remixed version of Kenneth from the 2019 remix of Monster, a record that producer Scott Litt went back to and remixed. The 1994 version of Monster was full of guitars and Michael Stipe's voice was low in the mix, there was a sense of murkiness about some of the songs and as the group stepped out for their arena tour a vague feeling that the album hadn't quite nailed it. I don't think anyone in the band was especially keen for Litt to remix the record in 2019, or even asked for it, it was one of those things that just happened and was interesting enough. Weirdly, what maybe sounded off in 1994, sounds just fine now. But the companion version is an interesting listen regardless. 

Litt's version of Kenneth pushes everything to the fore, Stipe's vocal included, strips the guitars a bit and makes the drums louder. The rhythmic pull of Bill Berry's drums is odd on this version, he seems to be holding the song back rather than letting it go. 

What's The Frequency, Kenneth? (2019 Remix)

Nowhere To Nowhere And E2 To E4

More new music, guaranteed to put a spring in your step and a smile on your face- it did mine anyway- as spring springs, greenery is finally appearing on threadbare trees and there's an occasional glimpse of something called the sun. 

Psychederek lives in Stretford and has made some wonderful tracks in recent years- the Space Arcade EP, Test Card Girl and At The Mountains Of Madness can all be found at Bandcamp and are all worth digging into. Last week he announced the release of an EP titled Alt!, four tracks digitally and on vinyl (all available from early June). There are two to listen to now here, the first a six minute technicolour throb that starts like it's already been playing somewhere else for a while called Nowhere To Nowhere, a song for a psychedelic Stretford, choppy guitars, motorik drums, wired guitar and synth toplines, chunky percussion and  bumping one note bassline. The second is a cover of 808 State's Pacific, a song that I'm happy to hear in almost any version/ remix/ cover, a cover that sets out adrift on memory bliss, a tripped out mellowed out, slowed down, psyched out sunbaked cover with A Certain Ratio's Donald Johnson on drums. If the other two tracks on Alt! are as good, we have one of the EPs of the year looking at us. 

A month ago Psychederek released Tongue- Tied, a single cut from similar (tie dyed) cloth, starting out all laid back with drifting vox but then picking up the pace when the drums kick in. Tongue- Tied is at Bandcamp with a pair of excellent Moodymanc remixes to boot. 

That was to be the end of this post but I got in yesterday and a friend had tipped me off to this, Alex Kassian covering Manuel Gottsching's classic E2- E4, a twelve minute electronic ride into kosmiche/ Balearic/ cosmic disco from Berlin. If that's not enough there are two Mad Professor dub remixes (not available to listen to yet. The full release comes out in late May along with the 12" vinyl- and yes, I've missed out on the vinyl too. Listen etc here. Twelve minutes and twenty one seconds of your day you won't regret. 

Alex Kassian's Spirit Of Eden came out in 2021, one of my favourite releases from that year, a record I do not believe I will ever tire of, a track that sits in a space somewhere between the sun sinking into a melting Mediterranean sea, cosmic dub jazz and the theme tune to The Rockford Files. But miles better than that sounds. 

Spirit Of Eden

Saturday Live

More gold from the vaults of Tony Wilson's late 80s Granada TV programme The Other Side Of Midnight. This episode went out on 6th November 1988, Manchester at the centre of a culture storm based around Fac 51, the Hacienda. For this episode the hardcore Hacienda crowd have decamped a short distance south to Victoria Baths on Hathersage Road. In the first section Tony Wilson presents (in a rubber wetsuit) an item about waterproof cameras and rubber wear, occasionally and knowingly dropping in the word acid. The very tall Manchester face and clothes shop owner Richard Creme models some rubberwear. Wilson promotes North: The Sound Of The Dance Underground, a compilation album put together by Mike Pickering, that sounds like November 1988 as much as anything else does. 

Then we cut to the real business, A Guy Called Gerald playing live, the mighty Voodoo Ray bouncing round the Victorian baths, assisted by Graham Massey of 808 State. In the pool, as the bass drum kicks, clubbers frolic on inflatables. After another awkward interview Gerald returns and then part two starts at 12.52, dancing, smoke machines, whistles and cavernous bass. Pete Waterman is interviewed poolside, discussing clubs, music and acid house, and then we go back to the dancers and some water aerobics, Wilson gamely trying to pull everything together. You're left with the slightly frustrating sense that the real party is elsewhere, off camera or happened once the cameras were turned off. DJ Graeme Park shows up by the pool, answering questions about the music and attempts to ban it and then we cut back to the dancers. A snapshot of a time and place, the podium dancers throwing their arms around and showing once again that in the late 80s the crowd are the real stars. 

This is one of the tracks from North: The Sound Of The Dance Underground, House Fantaz- ee by D C B (a Mike Pickering alias). The big hitters on the album were/ are Voodoo Ray, T- Coy's Carino and Annette's Dream 17, three tracks that still have the power to move today but the rest of the album still has plenty to commend it, thirty five years on, late '88 bottled. 

House Fantaz- ee 

Saturday Live

Last Saturday's Saturday Live slot had Happy Mondays in seriously fine form on Tony Wilson's legendary Granada TV music programme The Other Side Of Midnight. Wilson had a certain amount of sway by the late 80s but his bosses were still pushing his music programmes to the late night slots, out of harm's way. The Other Side Of Midnight ran from June 1988 through to July 1989. The end of series party, broadcast on 23rd July 1989, was filmed at the Quay Street studios, Wilson introducing the show and the set transformed into a full blown 061 rave. Wilson tries to flog a OSM t- shirt and then we're into T- Coy, the Mancunian/ Latin house trio of Mike Pickering, Simon Topping (ex- ACR) and Ritchie Close, and their superb Carino. As was often the case at the time, the crowd are the stars as much as those on stage, the shots of the dancers bringing 1989 right back. 

T- Coy are followed by A Guy Called Gerald and and the British house record that beats all others, Voodoo Ray. Then we have the Mondays, Shaun slurring instructions in broadest Salfordian, 'turn it up, I said I like that, turn it up'. Later on they play Wrote For Luck, the corwd full of hair being grown out, whistles being blown and limbs waving. This all took place on an afternoon at the bottom end of Castlefield. 

Saturday Live

If we're accepting that a DJ playing records in a club- selecting a set that builds, mixing and cutting between decks, adding FX and making something new out of existing older music- is a live performance as much as a band playing a gig with instruments (and I am) then DJ sets qualify for this series as much as any other kind of live show. The only cheat with this post is that the set was not played live in front of an audience but is a recreation of those live club sets. In this case, this is an attempt to recreate the DJ sets by JD Twitch from Pure in Edinburgh back in the early 90s. This was originally released on cassette in 2021 and has just recently come out digitally as two downloads, forty five minutes each, and titled Raise Your Hands If You Understand. 

Twitch's set here is ninety minutes of sublime ambient house/ ecstatic electronic music, a counterpoint to the faster, more hardcore sounds played elsewhere at the time. Twitch sees this as E- Musik, a spacey blend of ambient, house, new age, utopian, tripped out, edge of trance, turning tribal music. The first half opens with a long ten minute wash of warm synths, joined after a while by a voice and then a eventually a heartbeat tempo drum kicks in. 'Come together in peace and harmony', the voice says as the rhythms pick up a little, the bass throbs and piano runs tinkle in. It's wonderfully evocative and progressive stuff. The two halves of the tape are available at a Free/ Pay What You Like deal but any money raised is going to the Glasgow food bank so every little helps. The cassette version from two years ago currently change hands for somewhere in the region of £30. You can get them here. 

Ten years ago JD Twitch turned up at the Parisienne website I'm A Cliche, a music label that gave away free edits. Twitch's gnarly, stompy, acidic version of Bill Callaghan's America was a highlight, the gritty guitar line running through it like an oil spill in a river.

Edit Service 22 (JD Twitch)

As half of Optimo Twitch remixed Jeremy Deller's version of Voodoo Ray. In 2013 Deller exhibited at the Venice Biennale, part of his ongoing exploration of rave culture. Twitch's remix of Voodoo Ray is a joy filled, hands- in- the- air version, the sleeve emblazoned with the hook from the vocal sample, 'Ooh- oo- hoo- ah ha ha yeah'.

Voodoo Ray (Optimo Remix)

Andy Barker

Sad news came out from 808 State's social media sites at the weekend with the announcement of the death of Andy Barker. 808 State were a key group in the late 80s/ early 90s for lots of people including those who were coming at dance music from the indie/ guitar direction. They were a way in to a purer, 'proper' form of dance music. Their single Pacific opened doors and minds. Their 1989 album 90 and the follow up Ex: El were both essential records, proof that dance music could work at album length. Their Spinmasters radio show was an on- air riot. At Factory Records mini- festival/ memorial to Martin Hannett at Heaton Park in summer 1991 they were third on the bill, appearing as the afternoon turned into evening and lit the place up and filling the park with ecstatic noise. In 2019 they showed they were still cutting it three decades on with their Transmission Suite album. 

Pacific appeared in multiple versions ('about 42' according to Graham Massey) and pre- dated Andy's arrival in the group. Co- written by Massey, Martin Price (owner of Eastern Bloc records) and Gerald Simpson and not released after Gerald left 808 State- subsequently the cause of some rancour and dispute- Pacific has as much claim to be the sound of Manchester as anything by any of the guitar bands, the floaty intro complete with bird song, crunchy techno drums, Detroit synths, wobbly bassline and that sax, was everywhere in '89/ 90- clubs, bedrooms, car stereos- and tribe uniting record. Interesting fact I learnt from Twitter; Hawaii's dialing code is 808. Hawaii is 'the Pacific State'. 

RIP Andy Barker

Pacific 202

I Like That, Turn It Up

Yargo have appeared in my social media timelines a couple of times recently so it's time to revisit them here. I've written about them before, a band barely known outside Manchester but who really should have been bigger. There's a dearth of decent pictures on the internet too and while searching for an image for this post I found the one above, a ticket for a 1990 gig at Manchester International 1 where they were supported by Rig (who I wrote about at the start of this year here and who had my mate Darren on guitar).

Yargo were a four piece who defied pigeonholing mixing blues, soul, funk and reggae, and a singer (Basil Clarke) with the voice of an angel. Several of them had previously been in Biting Tongues, another unsung Manchester band. This song, from the album Bodybeat, has brushed drums and jazzy guitar licks before moving into a sort of dub/film soundtrack area.

Another Moss Side Night

In 1988 they put out a single with singer Zoe Griffin called The Love Revolution (Manchester, 1988- 'ten thousand people committing no crime... we're dancing away'). Basil's voice floats over an ACR style house groove on this very nice Justin Robertson remix.

The Love Revolution (Justin Robertson's Scream Team Remix)

They received their most widespread coverage in 1989 when their song The Other Side Of Midnight was used as the theme tune to Tony Wilson's late night Granada music TV show of the same name. As well as some legendary appearances by some definitive Manchester guitar bands OSM enabled Tony to broadcast a party from Victoria Baths soundtracked by A Guy Called Gerald (starting at 6.15 with Voodoo Ray).



And from the end of the series in July 89 a stunning show from the old Granada Studios building, a live rave with Gerald again, T-Coy (Mike Pickering and ex-ACR man Simon Topping) and the Happy Mondays at their chaotic peak. But you know,  it's 1989, the crowd are the real stars.

Emotion Electric

There's more to A Guy Called Gerald than Voodoo Ray y'know, as this wondrous 1989 track amply proves. Inspired by Detroit, made in Manchester.

Emotion Electric

Dream Slumber

Dream Slumber is a remix of Annette by T-Coy. In other words Mike Pickering and Simon Topping remixing themselves. It's a fantastic piece of 1988 Mancunian acid house that could fit in with both Drew's Friday series and by Pickering's association with Factory my 2015 Factory Friday series. The sequenced bassline is a dream and the record glides towards it's stuttering sample conclusion... 'that's a baaaaaad record'.

Dream Slumber (T Coy Mix)

Midnight

I found this twenty four minute time capsule while looking for this morning's Yargo clip- a special edition of Tony Wilson's The Other Side Of Midnight TV show from the summer of 1989. Mike Pickering's T-Coy, A Guy Called Gerald and Happy Mondays playing live down at Granada Studios. A party, as Wilson says, with the emphasis on part-E. As ever, the crowd (their clothes, hairstyles and dancing) are the real stars.

Brass Shaker

Some sort of unholy trinity of artists going on here mixing up a classic house-acid brass delight. To clarify- Jeremy Deller's acid brass cover version of Voodoo Ray remixed by Optimo's JD Twitch, out on vinyl on Monday. And worth every penny I'd say.

Monday Voodoo

A Guy Called Gerald's 1988 hit Voodoo Ray sounds like it came from another planet. It came from Hulme, which in the mid-to-late 80s was a kind of other planet. Space bass, odd plinks and plonks, voodoo vocal, completely timeless, totally unique.

Voodoo Ray