Late To The Party

A new release from Irish artist Def Nettle and a song that pushes a lot of post- punk/ 80s alternative and indie buttons, The Party. Built on top of punchy drums and a prodding bassline, there's accordion and flecks of guitar and singer/ frontman/ songwriter Glen Brady singing of being late to the party, acrid smoke and moving on. Lots of echoes of The The, Fatima Mansions, The Cure and other literate 80s indie- pop. 

There's a remix by Andy Bell in his GLOK guise which strips the song down, adds throbbing electro bass and percussive clacks. Andy drops the accordion melody back in among blips and bleeps and the vocal comes back sounding even more alienated than before. It's a murky and dark but energising piece of music, the sort of thing you hear in the street late at night, suddenly coming out of a briefly open door that leads down some stairs to a basement club, where there are lights flashing and the unmistakable smell of dry ice. 

You can find The Party at Bandcamp. 

Fifty Minutes Of A Mountain Of One

A Mountain Of One recently called time on the band, a four piece that in two bursts of activity, once in the 00s and then again in the 2020s, made some beautifully sunkissed psychedelic Balearica. They produced a sound that had a tinge of darkness to it, songs that had been left out in the sun too long and was now a little feverish, the result of a night out on holiday that ended up in a strange place that you could never find again. There are echoes of 70s and 80s bands, of weird Europop summer singles, of psychedelia and late 80s/ early 90s acid house, of guitar bands lost in the outer fields at summer festivals, yacht rock where the yacht is taking in water. 

The group put out three albums (2009's Institute Of Joy, 2022's existential Balearica Stars Planet Dust Me and a 2023 Ricardo Villalobos remix of SPDM), a compilation (2007's Collected Works) and various EPs and singles, which provide rich pickings for a mix- this one has a nice flow to it I think. 

Fifty Minutes Of A Mountain Of One

• Here Comes Nothing
• Innocent Reprise
• Surrender (Generalisation Dub)
• Star
• Star (GLOK Starlight Dub)
• Stars Planet Dust Me
• Ride (Time And Space Machine Remix)
• Can't Be Serious

Here Comes Nothing is from Collected Works, a 2007 CD that compiled the five songs from EP1 and the five from EP2 plus two extra ones- Here Comes Nothing and Brown Piano (which was also a single). Acoustic guitars and electric ones, swirly production, piano, wordless backing vocals- a heady stew. 

Innocent Reprise is from EP2, released in 2007- a psychedelic folk instrumental with a solid dance groove and some lovely guitar and electric piano melody lines. The choppy, fuzzy rhythm guitar part towards the end is nicely frazzled. 

Surrender was on 2022's Stars Planet Dust Me, an eight song, double vinyl downtempo masterpiece, one of my favourite records of that year. In 2024 Damian Harris remixed Surrender with his Midfield General hat on bringing some dubby funkiness. 

Star is from Stars Planet Dust Me, one of the key tracks on it. Laid back with a soulful vocal and an 80s Mediterranean beach bar piano part. Loafers, no socks, Euro- hippy braids and bracelets. Andy Bell's GLOK remix is a superb drawn out dub version, electronic drums and chuggy rhythms, the female backing vox recurring and the bass and FX reverberating all over the place. 

The Stars Planet Dust Me album's title track was an appropriately cosmic excursion, choral vocal and organ, very spaced out production and wide eyed questions. Proggy. 

Ride was a 2008 single and opening song on the Institute Of Joy album, and was remixed by Richard Norris during one of his Time And Space Machine phases. Ibizan acoustic guitars, rattling percussion and propulsive bass with Richard Norris setting the psychedelic space rock controls for the heart of the sun. 

Can't Be Serious is from EP1 from 2007, off kilter 80s Balearic pop with a distorted spiraling guitar solo, and a vocal that answers its own question. 

Cycle Whim

A pair of unrelated but spring- like new recent releases for early April. First is a single from Hot Chip's Alexis Taylor's new solo album with Green Gartside on backing vocals (and when Green joins in on the chorus he soars). On A Whim is from Paris In The Spring and is sumptuous, buttery electro- pop packed with hooks and melodies and going straight to the heart. Guaranteed to make you smile. 

Out last week on the spring equinox and from an album that will be released on the summer equinox comes Cycle, the first offering from the latest Pye Corner Audio album and with Ride/ GLOK's Andy Bell on guitars and PCA's Martyn Jenkins singing for the first time. The pair collaborated previously on 2022's Let's Emerge, a post- lockdown response to the early 2020s world. Cycle is from More Songs About The Sun, a glorious synthpop/ cosmische song welcoming the coming of springtime and full of the promise of summer.  

2025 Mix For NYE

An hour long mix for New Year's Eve  featuring solely music released in 2025, ambient and largely instrumental although some voices creep in to the Keith Tenniswood remix of Deeply Armed's The Healing and Mogwai's God Gets You Back. 

I was going to do a second mix to go with it, a more uptempo, more vocals based hour long mix but time and circumstances conspired against me. It'll follow at the weekend hopefully. In the meantime this one gives some low key shimmer and emotion to the last day of the year. 

NYE Hour Long 2025 Ambient/ Instrumental Mix

• Death In Vegas: Lightning Bolt (Live at EartH, 2025)
• Jamie Lidell and Luke Schneider: The Story Of Your Life
• SUSS and Six Missing: Old Mission
• Robin Guthrie: Her Name Is Dulcinea
• Deeply Armed: The Healing (Keith Tenniswood Remix)
• Klangkollektor: Isle Of Stonsy
• Mogwai: God Gets You Back
• Andy Bell: Pinball Wanderer
• Sewell And The Gong: Communion Phase
• Kieran Hebden and William Tyler: Secret City
• Daniel Avery: Neon Pulse
• Moon Dust: The Glow (Slowed + Reverb)

The Death In Vegas track Lightning Bolt dates from 2011 and the Trans- Love Energies album but this version was recorded live when DIV played at EartH in Dalston this year, fragile, drifting ambience.

Jamie Lidell and Luke Schneider released A Companion For Spaces Between Dreams, Luke's pedal steel ambient- Americana crossed with Jamie's modular synths and tapes effects. Psychedelic inner voyage music. 

SUSS are also from the ambient- Americana/ cosmic country scene, a trio from New York. This song with Six Missing's electric guitar came out in November. 

Robin Guthrie occasionally tidies up his unreleased files/ shelves and releases music onto Bandcamp, tracks that didn't make albums released in the past- orphan tracks. Her Name Is Dulcinea is one of those, from 2012, that saw the light of day in November this year. Ambient shoegaze/ dream pop for which the word 'ethereal' seems a cliche but also very apt. 

Belfast's Deeply Armed released a 12" called The Healing in the spring complete with remixes by Death In Vegas, Andrew Innes with Brendan Lynch and lone swordsman Keith Tenniswood. The original is ghostly, shamanic psyche/ kraut. Keith strips it down with a primitive drum machine and heartbeat pulse. Low key beauty. 

Klangkollektor's Balearic/ dub instrumentals have been present in two releases in 2025- Dubtapes Volume 2 and The Stockport Tapes (recorded live at Bruk). Isle Of Stonsey adds pedal steel or Hawaiian guitar to the soundscape, a very chilled out, beatific excursion.

Mogwai's The Bad Fire opened with God Gets You Back, stellar guitar picking and FX that builds, going supernova in the second half when the synths, drums and vocals join in. 

Andy Bell's Pinball Wanderer album came out in February and has been played round here every month since. The title track marries late 60s acid folk guitar and cosmische rhythms with Andy's spacious, warm production. 

Sewell And The Gong's Patron Saint of Elsewhere has been one of my favourite records of 2025 and this track, Communion Phase, is as good as any from it- psychedelic, motorik and folky with an optimistic feel.   

Kieran Hebden and William Tyler's 41 Longfield Street Late 80s splices Kieran's laptop beats and productions with William's acoustic and electric guitars to make one of the most affecting albums of 2025- hypnotic, engaging, with an eye on the past (and on Kieran's Dad's record collection in the late 80s, alt- country and Nashville) but avoiding dewy- eyed nostalgia to create something entirely their own. 

Daniel Avery's Tremor album was a departure from his ambient techno of recent years and a swerve into channeling his early 90s industrial rock influences. He toured the album with a full band, guitarist, bassist and drummer kicking up a right old noise alongside his synths and machines. On the album's opener, Neon Pulse, he lulls us into a sense of ambient security, two minutes of gorgeous floaty sci fi synth ambience.

Moon Dust is yet another Richard Norris project this time with Lol Hammond from The Drum Club. Piano and FX, a slowed down and reverb laden way to drift out of this hour's worth of music. 

Bagging Area End of Year List 2025

Today marks the fifteenth Bagging Area end of year list- let's get the album above out of the way first. Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 2, put together by myself, Martin, Dan, Baz and Mark with sleeve art by Rusty and released on Golden Lion Sounds, came out in the summer. It opens with a previously unreleased Sabres Of Paradise track, the full length, thirteen minute techno skank of Lik Wid Nit Wit, and then goes on to showcase brand new tracks by Dicky Continental, Unit 14, Richard Fearless, A Certain Ratio and Number, Red Snapper, Richard Norris, David Harrow, Bedford Falls Players and a cover of Two Lone Swordsmen's Sick When We Kiss by Sleaford Mods. 

Piccadilly Records put it at number 12 in their Top 30 Collections in their end of year booklet (sandwiched between Pink Floyd and The Fall). If you take out the re- issues and just include the compilations, we came in third. Phonica, a very fine record shop in Soho, put it at number five in their compilations chart. It still makes me shake my head in disbelief sometimes that we have accomplished it- the quality of the music is so high, everyone involved is at their very best. 

The entire enterprise is a tribute to Andrew Weatherall, his music, life and work, and given that Andrew's standards were so high, it's no surprise that the people he worked with and who are inspired by him- like the artists on Volume 2 (and Volume 1)- are all also people who produce and create such good music. There are a handful of copies in some record shops- Piccadilly, Stranger Than Paradise, Phonica- and there might still be a few at Golden Lion Sounds but it's close to selling out its entire run of 1500 copies and once they're gone, they're gone. 

Another compilation album I've enjoyed this year is Sean Johnston's A Love From Outer Space, a celebration of the travelling cosmic disco started by Sean and Andrew Weatherall in 2010 and still going boldly to this day. The album starts with a Neville Watson dub of The Blow Monkeys and takes in Phil Kieran (remixed by Andrew), Laars, Secret Circuit, Duncan Gray, Das Komplex, Brioski and many more. Cosmic chug, never knowingly exceeding 113 bpm. 

The third compilation album that has rocked 2025 is Ein Null: 10 Years Of Sprechen, a ten track round up of the Manchester label's artists with new tracks from A Certain Ratio, Psychederek, The Thief Of Time, The Utopia Strong and more. 

The best new old music of 2025 includes Husker Du's The Miracle Year: 1985, a huge live album showing Husker Du at their mid- 80s peak, on fire. I loved R.E.M.'s re- released Radio Free Europe EP which included the semi- legendary Mitch Easter Dub Mix. The Richard Sen remixes of John Grant, sitting unreleased since 2017, finally saw the light of day. My year started with Bob Dylan and the film A Complete Unknown and I've been dipping in and out of Dylan all year as a result. I haven't committed to the latest edition of The Bootleg Series, Volume 18, but have played his 1962 song Rocks And Gravel repeatedly (unreleased in 1962 and part of this year's Bootleg Series Through The Open Window, 1953- 1962). The Return Of The Durutti Column, a comprehensive and remastered re- issue of the 1980 Durutti Column debut is stunning too. Aphex Twin's continued visits into his vaults saw him put Zahl am1 live track 1 up on Soundcloud, a typically brilliant AFX track. Volcanic Tongue, a compilation of obscure, outsider bands from David Keenan's label of the same name was a winner too, with 20 slices of eclectic, underground music dating from 1968 to 2013. 

Albums of 2025

All of these abums have been somewhere near my various listening devices this year and all are albums I'll come back to again- Reverb Delay's The Ghosts Of Dawn, David Harrow's Accelerated Life, a pair of albums from 100 Poems, Rodeo Disco and Let The Horse Run Free, Evan Dando's Love Chant, Sonar// Radar's Weak Sun, Sonnenspot's Sonnenspot, SubDan's Innerleben, Anywhere by Causeway, Red Snapper's Barb And Feather, Decius Vol. II (Splendour & Obedience), Daniel Avery's Tremor, Five Green Moons' very recently released and probably should be in my top ten Moon 2, Rose City Band's Sol y Sombra, Dub Syndicate's Obscured By Version, The Orb's Buddhist Hipsters, Faded by The Liminanas, the vinyl releases of Thought Leadership's Ill Of Pentacles and Ace Of Swords albums, Coyote's Wailing To The Yellow Dawn, Half Man Half Biscuit's All Asimov And No Fresh Air, Jezebell's Jezebellearic Beats Volume 2, KiF's Still Out, Warrington- Runcorn New Town Development Plan's Public Works And Utilities, Tortoise's Touch, Pye Corner Audio's Where Things Are Hollow and Stereolab's marvelous comeback Instant Holograms On Metal Film.

10 Death In Vegas: Death Mask

Four sides of emotional and purist machine techno from Richard Fearless- side four in particular with Your Love and the title track is an immersive, psychedelic techno trip. 

9 Dean Wareham: That's The Price Of Loving Me

On the former Galaxie 500 songwriter, singer and guitarist's fourth solo album, he got back with producer Kramer and they caught Dean at his best- reverb drenched guitars, a dreamy production and a set of reflective, witty and wise songs. Understated but I kept coming back to it. 

8 Mogwai: The Bad Fire

Released at the start of the year, Mogwai are always an essential listen and this album is as good as any they've made- walls of guitars, huge melodies, songs that scrape away and soar. Some members of the band were going through tough times when it was recorded and you can hear the catharsis in the grooves of the album. Fanzine Made Of Flesh may be song title of the year too (although Half Man Half Biscuit's Horror Clowns Are Dickheads runs it close). 

7 Syd Minsky Sargeant: Lunga

Syd's solo album, a switch from the tough, electronic beats and rhythms of Working Men's Club, is a folky, downbeat treasure trove of song, with Nick Drake and Syd Barrett both sounding like they're there inside the songs. Try Long Roads for a taster of Lunga's delights...

6 Adrian Sherwood: The Collapse Of Everything

Adrian Sherwood doesn't release many albums under his own name and on the basis of The Collapse Of Everything he should do it more often. Dub is the foundation (as ever) but The Collapse Of Everything rolls and tumbles between all kinds of sounds and genres, a free flow of sound and texture with a supporting cast including Brian Eno, Keith Le Blanc and Doug Wimbish, and mostly sounds cinematic, like it's the soundtrack to something. An On U Soundtrack. 

5 Escape- Ism: Charge Of The Love Brigade

Ian Svenonius and Sandi Denton's fourth album is short and sweet, just ten songs and just a little over thirty minutes long but it's been near my turntable since its release in March. Minimal sounds, fuzz guitar, vintage synth drones and hissy drum machine, lyrics pared back to key ideas and delivered with drop dead insouciance- on Last Of The Sellouts Ian is both tongue in cheek and deadly serious. One Of The Greats performs the same dead pan trick. On Fire In Malibu he sounds like he's been tipped over the edge. For a while I thought this might be my favourite album of 2025. 

4 Brian Eno and Beatie Wolfe: Liminal

The third of a trilogy recorded by Eno and Wolfe, Liminal is a joy, Liminal is an album that melds songs with ambience and comes up with something very beautiful- the soundtrack to a dream, a simple sounding but very deep record. 

3 Sewell And The Gong: The Patron Saint Of Elsewhere

I've listened to Sewell And The Gong as much as any other artist this year and the album, Patron Saint Of Elsewhere, could easily have topped this list. Seven tracks with pastoral roots, folk melodies and motorik rhythms, bridging the space between the bucolic and the cosmic. Sumptuous and wondrous and a little frayed at the edges.

2 Kieran Hebden and William Tyler: 41 Longfield Street Late 80s

41 Longfield Street Late 80s is a wonderful record- William Tyler's guitar playing and Kieran Hebden's ambient laptop production complementing each other and bouncing off each other, from the extended free form cover version of Lyle Lovett's If I Had A Boat, to the more Four Tet sounds of Spider Ballad through to the album's closer, the intense distortion and acoustic guitars of Secret City, it never lets up and keeps giving.

1 Andy Bell: Pinball Wanderer

Andy Bell bounces around from Ride to GLOK to his solo records, finding time to record with a slew of other artists, and spent much of 2025 on the road with Oasis. In February he released Pinball Wanderer, the title a nod to his musical ricochets, an eight song album that he completed under the influence of extreme jet lag. Dot Allison and Michael Rother appear on his cover of The Passions' I'm In Love With A German Film Star. On Apple Green UFO he channels The Stone Roses, a song they should have written after they made Something's Burning and elsewhere he travels cosmische. His guitar playing is lighter than air, krauty and glistening, and on the title track he transports the spirit of Bert Jansch and Pentangle from the late 60s to 2025, folk melodies married with 21st century psychedelia and shuffly drums. 

Pinball Wanderer

Singles/ Tracks/EPs of 2025

I've tried to not just repeat tracks from the albums in the list above in order to make this list a standalone one. All of these singles/ EPs/ one off releases were of note in 2025...

Hugo Nicolson's Black Stick, M- Paths' Emotivated, Matt Gunn's Nowhere, Dirt Bogarde's Pihkel, a clutch of Richard Norris releases including his remix of Pale Blue Eyes' How Long Is Now and his remix of Wildflower by Gulp, Puerto Montt City Orchestra's And We'd Be So Happy, Florecer's Breathy Drops, Statues' The Pilina Experiment, several Pye Corner Audio tracks including Galaxies and the Matrix EP and Saint Etienne's Glad. 

And here's 25 for 25...

25 Factory Floor: Between You

24 The Moonlandingz ft. Iggy Pop: It's Where I'm From

23 Andy Bell ft. Dot Allison and Michael Rother: I'm In Love... (Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s Remix and Dub)

22 10:40: An Alternative History

21 Joao Leao: One Of These Things First

20 Raz and Alfa: Windowlicker

19 Rude Audio: Strange Phenomena EP

18 Factory Floor: Tell Me 

17 Psychederek: Thinkin' Bout U

16 Pandit Pam Pam: The Senator

15  Le Carousel: We're All Gonna Hurt

14 Saint Etienne: Alone Together Remix EP

13/ 12 Various remixes of The Cure's Songs For A Lost World but especially the Four Tet remix of Alone and the Orbital remix of Endsong

11 Daniel Avery ft. Cecile Believe: Rapture In Blue (Midnight Version)

10 Coyote: Battle Weary

9 Adrian Sherwood: The Grand Designer EP

8 Coyote and Peaking Lights: Love Letters/ So Far Away

7 Deeply Armed: The Healing (plus the remixes by Keith Tenniswood and Richard Fearless) 

6 Sewell And The Gong: Quiet Storm Remixes (Ruf Dug, Chris Coco)

5 Alex Kassian x Spooky: Orange Coloured Liquid

4 Black Bones: Album Sampler (this release is some kind of blending of an EP, an album, a compilation of 12" singles- whatever it is it's fantastic)

3 Klangkollektor: Dubtapes Volume Two

2 The Light Brigade: Shuffle The Deck

1 Four Tet: Into Dust (Still Falling)

Sheer joy from Four Tet, sampling/ reworking a Mazzy Star song. It was released in June and it lit up summer. It's still doing it in the depths of winter, Hope Sandoval's voice spinning against Kieran Hebden's skippy rhythms- emotive, trippy, endlessly rewarding. If you buy it on 12" there's a stripped down, subtler version of the B-side which hits a slightly different spot.  

I've probably missed something and there will inevitably be a record, track or album I pick up on in early 2026 which should be part of one of these lists. The nature of lists is that they're incomplete. Hopefully 2026 will continue to throw up more great music and more pop culture for us to listen to, dance to, obsess over and dissect. And maybe there will be a Sounds From the Flightpath Estate Volume 3...

Forty Five Minutes Of Cover Versions Part Two

Last Sunday's cover versions mix worked well enough for me to undertake a second. I started with Jah Divison and went from there, a succession of dub and reggae covers, wasn't happy with it and scrapped it and started again, setting off again with Jah Division but heading in a noisier, more guitar laden direction, all a bit more shambolic. Then it slows down and blisses out before kicking up a storm again for the finish. 

After I posted last Sunday's mix Steve from Andres y Xavi messaged me to say he had a series of cover version mixes called Under The Covers, up at Mixcloud. The latest, his ninth, covers a lot of ground from Lady Blackbird to The Droyds with Isaac Hayes, Bobby Womack and Jose Feliciano among the people sandwiched in between. Plenty to enjoy. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Cover Versions Part Two

• Jah Division: Dub Will Tear Us Apart
• The Fall: Mr Pharmacist
• The Jesus And Mary Chain: Surfin' USA
• Sonic Youth: I Know There's An Answer
• Sonic Youth: Computer Age
• Hardway Bros: 1979 GLOK Remix
• Andy Bell: Our Last Night Together
• The Liminanas: Ou Va La Chance
• The Vendetta Suite: Who Do You Love?
• Fontaines DC: 'Cello Song

Jah Division is a Russian reggae band, formed in Moscow in 1990. This is what it says in Wikipedia. It also say that the founder of Jah Division, Gera Morales, was the son of Leopold Morales, an associate of Che Guevara's. Elsewhere (Bandcamp) it says Jah Divison are from Brooklyn and their 2004 12" of four covers of Joy Division songs is their sole release. According to Bandcamp Jah Divison features members of Onieda and Home, began as a joke and the four tracks were recorded in the shadow of the Williamsburg Bridge. Take your pick. None of which stops Dub Will Tear Us Apart from being a genius cover version whoever recorded it. 

The Fall's Mr Pharmacist is a cover of a song by Los Angeles 60s psyche garage band The Other Half, a 1986 Fall single from the Brix period and produced by John Leckie. The original was on an early 80s Nuggets compilation. Mr Pharmacist was also on The Fall's Bend Sinister album, an opinion splitting album derided by Mark E. Smith and John Leckie.

Surfin' USA was a Darklands outtake, all feeedback, rough and rowdy drums, breaking glass, East Kilbride sneers and TV preachers. The Reid brothers knew how to cover a song. The original was a 1963 Beach Boys single...

... and I Know There's An Answer was a 1966 Beach Boys album song (from Pet Sounds). Sonic Youth's cover comes from 1989, recorded for a Brian Wilson tribute album released in 1990 and sung by Lee Renaldo- no one else could sing it according to Lee who says J. Mascis helped out in the studio too. Appropriately squally and rather wonderful. 

Sonic Youth also recorded a Neil Young cover in the same time frame for a Neil Young tribute album, The Bridge (a superb album). They chose a song from Neil's most misunderstood album, Trans. Like the Mary Chain, Sonic Youth instinctively know what makes a good cover version. Computer Age is a gem in the SY back catalogue. 

Sean Johnston's Outre Mer label is an outlet for Hardway Bros recordings. In January 2024 he released an EP called My Friends which included a cover of Smashing Pumpkins 1979 (a song which is itself pretty much a New Order tribute). A remix EP saw GLOK tackle 1979, and has a massively overloaded guitar sound that makes you check your speakers are OK. 

Andy Bell's covers EP Untitled Film Stills contains four covers- Our Last Together is an after hours beauty, impressionistic, woozy and moving. Well, it moves me. 

The Liminanas featured in last week's mix and they're back today with a song from this year's album Faded. Ou Va La Chance is a cover of a Francois Hardy song, closing the album in fine style.

The Vendetta Suite are from Belfast and their 2021 album The Kempe Stone Portal is packed with electronic, acid house, Balearic and cosmische sounds plus this slowed down, electronics and feedback rumble version of Bo Diddley's classic (also covered by The Mary Chain back in the 80s). The Vendetta Suite's Gary Irwin goes all the way back to David Holmes and Iain McCready's nights at Belfast's Art College in 1990 and has worked with Holmes on and off ever since. 

Fontaines DC's cover of 'Cello Song has featured in at least three previous Sunday mixes- a Nick Drake one, a Fontaines one and an end of 2023 mix. I make no apologies for its re- appearance here. They take Nick Drake's 1969 song, a beautiful poetic song and retune it, turning it into a modern rock 'n' roll thrill with Grian Chatten finding new meaning in Nick's words. Both versions, original and cover, struck me quite profoundly in the time since Isaac' died, these lines in particular...

'For the dreams that came to you when so young
They told of a life where spring is sprung

So forget this cruel world where I belong
I'll just sit and wait and sing my song

But while the Earth sinks to its grave
You sail to the sky on the crest of a wave'

And that's where we're ending today. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Cover Versions

I held back from doing this for ages, a mix just containing cover versions, because it felt a bit lazy, a bit uninspired but the recent covers of Nick Drake by Joao Leao and The Velvet Underground by Thurston Moore twisted my arm into it. There are potentially more cover versions mixes to come. All these are relatively recent, although now I think about it Rowland S. Howard's Pop Crimes album came out in 2009 which is sixteen years ago and Calexico's in 2003 which is twenty two years ago- but the rest are all fairly recent. This mix leans towards the garage/ psyche/ guitar side of things. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Cover Versions

• Andy Bell: Smokebelch
• Joao Leao: One Of These Things First
• Calexico: Alone Again Or
• Rowland S. Howard: Life's What You Make It
• Moon Duo: Planet Caravan
• Moon Duo: No Fun
• The Liminanas: Angles And Devils
• Thurston Moore: Temptation Inside Your Heart

Andy Bell's cover of The Sabres Of Paradise's Smokebelch was begun on the day of Andrew Weatherall's death, 17th February 2020, and finished in late summer/ early autumn 2023 when I emailed Andy to ask him if he had a track for our then unreleased pipe dream album Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 1. Andy's reply contained the completed cover and as soon as we listened to it, we knew it would close the album. Smokebelch itself began life as a cover version of L.B. Bad's New Age Of Faith.

Joao Leao's bossa nova flecked cover of Nick Drake's One Of These Things First, a song from Nick's 1971 album Bryter Later, came out as a 7" single on Toronto's Local Dish label and was posted here two weeks ago. 

Calexico's cover of Love's 1967 classic Alone Again Or doesn't stray too far from the original- Calexico were surely destined to cover it through with their combination of desert indie and mariachi horns. I thought I had a dub version of Alone Again Or- it sounded superb, dub groove, those horns and a snatch of vocal but I must have dreamt it. 

Rowland S. Howard's Pop Crimes was the former Birthday Party guitarist's second solo album. He was undergoing treatment for liver cancer at the time and died two months after it was released. Under those circumstances Talk Talk's Life's What You Make (second line, 'can't escape it') takes on a different meaning. Rowland's guitar playing- in fact just the way he held and approached the guitar- is pretty unique. His roiling guitar lines and feedback, the metallic clang and grim vocal delivery take the song into new places- which is what a cover version should do really. 

Moon Duo are represented twice here. First their cover of Black Sabbath's Planet Caravan was a summer 2020 release, their version of the 1970 original a chilled and weightless cosmic take. Their version of The Stooges' No Fun is from a 2018 12" single with Alan Vega's Jukebox Babe on the other side. Sonic Boom produced it. Again, a blank eyed, calmed down take on Iggy's 1969 proto- punk classic. 

The Liminanas released a compilation of singles and other rarities in 2015, I've Got Trouble In Mind Vol. 2 which included this cover version of Angels And Devils, an Echo And The Bunnymen B-side. The Liminanas, French psyche/ garage band par excellence, take The Bunnymen's Mo Tucker stomp and turn it Gallic. 

Thurston Moore's cover of The Velvet Underground's Temptation Inside Your Heart came out in September, a song he's been playing live for some time, MBV bassist Debbie Goodge plays the bass (as she does when Thurston plays live). Lou Reed's song first saw the light of dark on the 1985 outtakes album VU and has been a favorite of mine since the late 80s. Thurston more than does it justice.

Forty Minutes Of Folkishness

Today's Sunday mix is an inspired by or 'ish' mix, forty minutes of music that is folk adjacent or inspired- the melodies, the playing, a cover of a late 60s, English folk rock classic, an edit of a 60s folk song, some other songs that just feel like they're in the folk music vernacular. Most of the songs on the mix are from this year, the rest from fairly recently.  For want of a better phrase, they've all got a folk vibe. 

There's plenty more music sitting in my downloads and music folders that fall within the boundaries of this- Richard Norris and Dot Allison both come to mind so a part two may follow.

Forty Minutes Of Folkishness

• Luke Schneider: midafternoon classic
• Matt Deighton: Tannis Root
• Coyote: The Outsider
• Andy Bell: Pinball Wanderer
• Andy Bell: Light Flight
• Sydney Minski Sargeant: Long Roads
• Totem Edits 12: Feel
• Sewell And The Gong: Passing Oort Clouds
• Four Tet: Into Dust (Still Falling)

Luke Schneider is from Nashville, a pedal steel guitarist and part of the ambient Americana scene. midafternoon classic came out last year, a couple of minutes of ambient/ folk with nylon strings, pedal steel and harmonica. His latest four track release came out two days ago and can be found here. 

Matt Deighton's Villager is a 1995 folk gem, much overlooked at the time. Tannis Root is a few minutes of acoustic guitar and some woodwind, lovely modern instrumental folk inspired music that came out on Moonboot's Moments In Time compilation. 

Coyote's The Outsider was the closing song on their 2021 album The Mystery Light, an acoustic guitar sequence and the vice of mystic/ writer/ speaker/ philosopher Alan Watts. The Coyote duo were nodding their heads at Andrew Weatherall too, who wrote under the pseudonym The Outsider in the Boy's Own fanzine and who was exactly what Watts is talking about, 'you don't have to join, you don't have to play the game...'

Andy Bell's Pinball Wanderer came out at the start of this year. The title track is lit up by a late 60s folk rock guitar melody, some shuffly acoustic guitars and a sense that Fairport Convention and The Stone Roses in 1989 got in a room together. On his 2022 covers EP Untitled Film Stills, Andy covered songs by Yoko Ono, The Kinks, Arthur Russell and Pentangle. Light Flight was from Pentangle's 1969 folk- rock album Basket Of Light, an album that pushed them into the charts. Light Flight was also the theme tune to BBC 1's Take Three Girls, a late 60s/ early 70s drama about three young women sharing a flat in London. 

I wrote about Sydney Minski Sargeant's forthcoming solo album Lunga last week. The single Long Roads is folk indebted, echoes of Nick Drake and Syd Barrett in the playing and singing. Lunga promises to be one of autumn's highlights. 

Totem Edit is Leo Elstob and Justin Deighton. On Feel they take Gordon Lightfoot's 1967 song The Way I Feel and turn it into a 2025 folk/ Balearic groove. I've played this out and it always gets a response. 

Sewell And The Gong's recent album Patron Saint Of Elsewhere is one of late summer 2025's best, a lovely fusion of folk, drones, pastoral melodies, motorik drums and samples. Previously, in 2023, Sewell released a four track EP called Tonight We Fly and Passing Oort Clouds is a beautiful, folk inspired instrumental, looped melodies, acoustic guitars and a gently prodding rhythm. Oort clouds are (possibly) a giant spherical shell surrounding the sun, the stars and the Kuiper Belt, a bubble made of icy comet like objects. 

Four Tet's Into Dust (Still Falling) came out earlier this summer and has been getting regular plays round here ever since, the Mazzy Star sample and vocal sinking into Four Tet's folky melodies and skippy drum track, Hope Sandoval's melancholy playing off against Keiran Hebden's propulsion.

Breathy Drops/ Broken Heart

Florecer are a Californian duo who make dreamy, blissed out music that treads the beaches of Balearica. Their latest track is Breathy Drops, a tribute to the bioluminescence of the Pacific Ocean and about giving into the unknown- something they achieve with a few drums pads, some synths, a drip- drop melody and a whispery vocal, and an acoustic guitar. Label boss Chris Coco said it was a track he could imagine Alfredo playing if he was still on the decks at the Cafe del Mar and it does sound exactly like that. Lovely stuff- buy it here. 

The tonal flipside of Breathy Drops is this, a GLOK/ Andy Bell remix of have you ever had a broken heart? by senses (all lower case) that came out at the end of May and which I missed posting back then. 

Like Florecer's track there's a West coast USA connection but this feels like the dark side of the Pacific as opposed to Florecer's pastel/ dayglo haze. Andy did his remix while getting over some West Coast jetlag and the track sounds a bit woozy and jetlagged, slow mo drums and bass, slowly dripping guitar lines and the voice asking the question in the title over and over... You can buy the EP digitally and on green 10" vinyl here. 

A Italia

By the time this post is published I shall be in the air, flying to Italy for a week's holiday. The three of us are landing in Napoli later this morning, two days and nights there and then five on a hillside overlooking Maiori and the Amalfi coast. At some point we are going to Pompeii and Herculaneum. At several points we will be enjoying pizza, local produce (wine, tomatoes, lemon pastries) and the odd Negroni. As a result there will be no posts here for a week but don't worry, I'm filling today's post with a load of music for you to enjoy and explore while I'm away.

A week ago Daniel Avery announced the release of a new album in October, Tremor (out on Hallowe'en, the same night he plays New Century Hall in Manchester). In advance of Tremor Daniel gave us Rapture In Blue, a single with Cecile Believe on vocals and guitars from Andy Bell (whose music with Ride, GLOK and solo has been featured here regularly and who is currently treading the boards with Oasis). Rapture In Blue took a few plays to really get under my skin but now it's firmly there. It's a change of direction compared to what came before- slow mo 4AD goth/ techno pop. 

Also out last week is a new track from the reformed Factory Floor, Tell Me. Tough edged and propulsive, with thumping beats and acid synths, Tell Me is very much after dark music, with New Order's  Stephen Morris adding his expertise to the drum programming. Nic Void's vocal is at the intersection between human and robotic. At Bandcamp there's a short and extended version available . 

Rich Thair and Ali Friend's Number is a post- punk/ disco party outfit, the Red Snapper pair having the freedom to do something outside their main band. Back in 2019 they released an album called Binary. A few days ago they put the first single from a forthcoming album out, the funked up Le Boucle Nouveau. The drums are absolutely on it and the rhythm is irresistible. There are pianos and synth squiggles and a choral vocal. There's a Duncan Grey remix forthcoming and then an album- Pollinate- is due to follow on Ramrock Records. 

Two weeks ago Paisley Dark released an EP by Jay- Son, Tales Of Freedom, an original mix and five remixes- dark cosmic disco with laser beams firing and a gliding bassline. The remixes come from Ian Vale, Hogt I Tak, Viper Patrol, Keith Forrester and this one from Cosmikuro which throbs and thumps deliciously. The whole EP is here. 

Over at Mighty Force there is more acid techno out now courtesy of Byron Carignan and an album called Symmetrical Universe. The ten tracks burst with energy and acid techno, synths overloaded and basslines wiggling, and all manner of interstellar and galactic references in the track titles, tracks such as Nebula Groove, Astral Acid and Spacewave Symphony. Mighty Force don't ever put a foot wrong and this is yet another release that I'll be coming back to in months to come- get it here. 

Finally, something Italian to sign off with. In 2017 a compilation called Welcome To Paradise (Italian Dream House 89- 93) followed by second and third volumes a year later. The albums are chock full of the deep, rich, euphoric, sunrise/ sunset sound of Italo house, Italian producers and DJs making full use of the new technology that was arriving in the late 80s. This one is as good as any, a 1989 12" single by Morenas. Ciao!

Somnambulism

A Midsummer Mix: Forty Minutes Of 2025 So Far

There's some big news coming tomorrow which some of you will want to act on- if you were one of the people that bought a certain compilation album last year, you might want to be back here bright and breezy on Monday morning. Full details to come in twenty four hours time. 

It's the end of June tomorrow also, halfway through the year- I've no idea how the last six months have gone so quickly- but it seems like a good point to do a 2025 So Far Sunday Mix, not a definitive Best Of 2025, rather some of the tracks and songs I've enjoyed the most so far this year. 

A Midsummer Mix: Forty Minutes Of 2025 So Far

• Death In Vegas: Chingola
• Andy Bell: Pinball Wanderer
• Adrian Sherwood: Cold War Skank
• Demise Of Love: Carry The Blame
• 10:40 presents Retro Fit: An Alternative History (Lavender Mist)
• Escape- Ism: Last Of The Sell Outs
• Klangkollektor: Isle Of Stonsey
• Four Tet: Into Dust (Still Falling)

Chigola is a five minute ambient techno intro to the latest Death In Vegas album Death Mask, an album which does not hold its techno punches and which is a machine music tour de force. Richard Fearless poured a lot into the making of Death Mask, some personal losses reflected and worked through. It's an overloaded and emotional trip. Chingola is few minutes of scene setting, calm before the storm. 

Andy Bell's latest solo album Pinball Wanderer came out in February led by a cover of The Passions' I'm In Love With A German Film Star with Dot Allison and Michael Rother on board. The album's title track is an instrumental delight, a circling guitar part beamed from late 60s folk into Andy's 2025 motorik/ cosmsiche/ electric shoegaze. 

Adrian Sherwood's four track dubplate 10" came out recently, led by title track The Grand Designer and has been on steady rotation round here ever since (though I missed out on the vinyl). Cold War Skank is a moody dub/ guitar workout.

Demise Of Love is a three man modern electronic meeting of Daniel Avery, Syd Minsky- Sergeant (Working Men's Club) and James Greenwood (Ghost Culture). They have, like Adrian Sherwood, released a four track 10" EP that merges acid house, some intense techno sounds, industrial noise and the flickers of what New Order could have been had they kept heading away from the light. 

An Alternative History was written as an imaginary Stone Roses song, based on a blogpost by some blogger or other that imagined a world where the band didn't blow it but kept their heads and kept making music, avoiding the pitfalls of The Second Coming. Jesse's new Roses song came in three versions. Lavender Mist is the backwards one. 

Escape- Ism is Ian Svenonius' latest revolutionary outfit, a duo aiming to rewrite modern culture/ indie- rock with stripped down, scuzzy guitar/ drum machine/ keys/ vocals. The album- Charge Of The Love Brigade- is one of my favorites so far this year, a thirty five minute manifesto. Last Of Sell Outs is the best song on it, a meditation on commerce, art and musical integrity and the price of selling out. 

Klangkollektor is Lars Fischer from Numremberg. The EP Dubplates Vol 2, out on Manchester's Jason Boardman's Before I Die label, is a chilled Balearic dub masterclass ending with Isle Of Stonsey with pedal steel/ Hawaiian guitar sailing out into the cosmos. 

Four Tet's latest single samples Mazzy Star to achingly beautiful effect, a Four Tet track that hits all the spots, capable of moving me to tears. 

Apple Green UFO

Andy Bell's new solo album Pinball Wanderer, his third in recent years, comes out tomorrow. It's been trailed by his cosmische cover of The Passion's I'm In Love With A German Film Star, a cover that has vocals by Dot Allison and guitar by Michael Rother, and more recently by an eight and a half minute track called Apple Green UFO. 

Apple Green UFO is a groove, a psychedelic monster, starting out funky and swampy like an offcut from The Stone Roses' Second Coming, but one that outdoes most of the songs that ended up on that album, or the 1990 B-side Something's Burning spliced with Can at their grooviest, with a guitar solo in the middle that is a murky, fuzzed up delight. There's a recurring organ/ horn part that gurgles away too, adding to the fun. Andy says the song started as an acoustic Led Zeppelin groove and then turned into a version of Histoire de Melody Nelson by Serge Gainsbourg. After hitting play repeatedly I can confirm that Apple Green UFO sounds like it does indeed carry the seeds of all these things inside it but still comes up smelling like something new. The album, out tomorrow,  promises to be a big part of the soundtrack to spring 2025. 

Passions

Ride/ GLOK guitarist/ writer/ singer Andy Bell has returned this week with a cover of I'm In Love With A German Film Star, the 1981 single by The Passions (retitled I'm In Love... by Andy). For the single Andy's got Dot Allison in on vocals, a song totally suited to Dot's style, and Michael Rother on guitar. It shimmers and floats, with fuzz guitars drifting in, and does all the things you'd want it to. 

The song comes ahead of an album, Andy's third solo album, out at the end of February- Pinball Wanderer. Andy's solo work outside Ride, two albums (The View From Halfway Down and Flicker) plus his GLOK albums and singles, have been some of my favourite releases of the last five years so I'm looking forward to this one. In his promo blurb to accompany the single Andy said that for the album he went less is more, 'less tracks, more atmosphere, less layers of instrumentation, more vibes.' What's more, if you go to Bandcamp, there is a 12"/ digital release of the single with remixes by Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s and GLOK (Andy as GLOK remixing Andy as Andy). All three remixes are top drawer. 

The Passions original is one of those songs that seems to exist in a world of its own. Released in January 1981, it was written by singer Barbara Gogan about Steve 'Roadent' Connelly, some time Clash and Sex Pistols roadie who had some minor roles in some German films. 

I'm In Love With A German Film Star

This is The Passions on Top Of The Pops, early 1981, singer Barbara the epitome of early 80s front woman cool. 

Fifty Minutes Of Blind On A Galloping Remix

A year ago David Holmes released Blind On A Galloping Horse, an album that over four sides of vinyl and seventy minutes of music pulled together many of the political, emotional, cultural and psychological strands that seemed to come together in 2023. Protest in the face useless governments, , self- reliance, a roll call of the lost, the ongoing influence and spirit of Andrew Weatherall, the voices of refugees, humanity and community, the need to find the space and peace to clear one's head from all the noise and clutter that is out there. A beacon maybe, a call to arms perhaps, a face looking back at you from the crowd. I've played it again several times recently and it still hits all those spots. 

The songs from Blind On A Galloping Horse have been remixed, a slew of like minded souls refitting David's songs and Raven Violet's vocals into new sounds and shapes. There are over thirty of them, every single one worth hearing. It seemed to me that as we approach the end of 2024, a year on from the Galloping Horse, a Sunday mix of some of those remixes was in order. 

I featured each song only once, avoiding multiple versions- there were multiple remixes of several of the songs and all of the highest quality. There's some real high tempo bangers too which I held back from until part way through this mix when Timmy Stewart raises the bpms after a slow burning first twenty five minutes, and when I think of the remixes that didn't make this mix- Heidi and Lovefingers, Rich Lane, Decius, Sonic Boom, X- Press 2, Cosmodelica, Skymas, Daniel Avery- I think a volume 2 might be in order some day. 

There's more Holmes available at NTS this week, David's monthly God's Waiting Room show, two hours of the best music money can buy- this month includes his new remix of Five Green Moons, Spiritualized, V/Z and Poly High School Band's version of Midnight Cowboy. Listen here. 

Fifty Minutes Of Blind On A Galloping Remix

• Emotionally Clear (Ammonite Remix)
• Yeah x 3 (The Vendetta Suite's Reason To Drift Remix)
• Blind On A Galloping Horse (Sons Of Slough)
• Agitprop 13 (GLOK Remix)
• Hope Is The Last Thing To Die (Timmy Stewart's 11th Hour Remix)
• It's Over, If We Run Out Of Love (Hardway Bros Live At SSL Dub)
• Stop Apologising (Horse Meat Disco Vocal Remix)
• Necessary Genius (Phil Kieran Vocal Remix)

Emotionally Clear is one of Blind's slower, more blissed out songs but with several questions at its heart- do you believe in the absence of evidence? Do you believe in unjust punishment? Do you believe in cognitive dissonance? On her Ammonite Remix Amy Spencer breaks the song down into its barest bones, a spectral, whispery, ambient gauze with Raven Violet's vocals looped, FXed and chopped up. 

The Vendetta Suite is Belfast's Gary Irwin, a veteran Holmes associate and the in house engineer at Exploding Plastic Inevitable studio and label. This remix, one of a pair, keeps the drifting, ambient feel going. The Vendetta Suite's album from 2021, The Kempe Portal Stone, is well worth your time and attention if you haven't heard it. 'Got my mind on freedom/ And one foot out the door', Raven coos, and then the line taken from David's track from a GLS 10" from 2021, 'love is a mystery'.

Sons Of Slough (Ian Weatherall and Duncan Gray) bring the dub to the album's title track, a dissection of the world and its madness sent to the dub section via rim shots, a slowed down bassline, melodica, and also stir in a deeply Power, Corruption And Lies-era New Order feel. 

Andy Bell in his GLOK guise took Agitprop 13 and kept things weird and experimental, bass and synth with rumbling rhythms and layers of backing vocals- it builds insistently, more and more coming to the foreground. 

Hope Is The Last Thing to Die was the opening shot of the Blind On A Galloping Horse album, released as a single back in September 2021, a response to the incompetence and idiocy of governments in the face of modern crises, Covid and climate change. It lit up autumn 2021 for me and has done so repeatedly since. Timmy Stewart, another Belfast connection who DJs and produces as Black Bones, turns David's protest song and call to resistance into something tough and metallic. The rat tat tat of the snare breaks through, like a pipe being tapped with a monkey wrench.  

Sean Johnston's remixes of It's Over, If We Run Out Of Love are among his best Hardway Bros remixes, that cosmic/ ALFOS groove spinning out onto the floor with a lovely, brain twisting distorted synth riff and disco arpeggios.

Stop Apologising is the most direct song on the album, a genuine three minute glam pop anthem, Raven singing of self reliance, the importance of being grounded and 'the wonders of psychedelic therapy'. Horse Meat Disco turn everything up to eleven, add an enormous glam disco stomp, Goldfrapp amped up to the max, big piano chords, and keep it all going and going and going... 'Stop apologising for things you never done/ Stop catastrophising put your feet back on the ground'. 

Necessary Genius is David's tribute to the misfits, artists, dreamers, outsiders and radicals who make the culture, a roll call of the great and good- Serge and Jane, John Coltrane, Angela Davis, Samuel Beckett, Ennio Morricone- and particularly some of those who we have lost in recent years- Terry Hall, Andrew Weatherall, Sinead O'Connor. Phil Kieran is another Northern Irish DJ, musician, producer and remixer and his remix of Necessary Genius is a blinder, full on basement club, messy dance floor music and the perfect fit for those people listed in the lyrics. 

More Flightpath And An Alliance

More Flightpath Estate news today. A couple of weeks ago the latest edition of Uncut hit the newsagent's shelves, a suited and booted Nick Cave resplendent on the cover and inside, with Wild God sitting pretty in the Uncut album of the year list. The magazine comes with a booklet, My Year In Music, in which a disparate group of leftfield musicians give us the lowdown on what they've been listening to in 2024- contributors include Thurston Moore, Gruff Rhys, Phil Manzanera, Anais Mitchell, Richard Thompson, Lawrence, Bill Callahan, Aiden Moffat, Joan Wasser, Bill Ryder- Jones, Isobel Campbell, Katy J Pearson and Andy Bell. In his piece Andy Bell talks about the Four Tet album 3 and Jamie Xx's In Waves, Beak>, Fontaines DC, Orbital and others. 

He then casually drops in this- ''Todmorden label (and absolute heroes) Golden Lion Sounds put out an excellent compilation called Sounds From the Flightpath Estate, a celebration of the spirit of Andrew Weatherall. Full disclosure: this is an album contributed to, but I wanted to highlight it because all the music is such high quality, notably, the Hardway Bros tracks 'Theme For Flightpath Estate''.

This tip of the Ride/ GLOK hat from Andy was very nice obviously and totally unexpected. Yesterday came the Piccadilly Records end of year lists, which are always published in beautiful booklet form, free to pick up from the shop or slipped into any order from them for the cost of 1 penny. When we had our album stocked briefly in Piccadilly Records back in April and had the window takeover event I think we quietly hoped that we might feature in Piccadilly's end of year list but certainly didn't expect it. Piccadilly's lists came out- the top 30 Collections (compilations and re- issues) is where our interest is and our album is placed at number 13. Ahead of us lie some big hitters and local heroes- not least Down To The Sea And Back, Luke Una, some siblings from Burnage, an excellent Jason Boardman compilation I reviewed for Ban Ban Ton Ton, Richard Norris, Galaxie 500, Aphex Twin and The Charlatans. Some decent company to keep! The whole list can be found here. 

This is all very exciting for us. A year ago we had most of the tracks that make up Sounds Of The Flightpath Estate Volume 1 sitting on our hard drives, a promise from Rotters Golf Club that we could have a then unreleased Weatherall and Tenniswood track and some ongoing discussions with Golden Lion Sounds about mastering and release dates. What's happened since has exceeded our hopes and expectations at every stage- and as a friend said yesterday, 'you've done this from scratch'. Back in the summer Waka from The Golden Lion said to me, 'imagine it, then create it'. That's the spirit of it I guess- and that's what we've done. And yes, we did call the album Volume 1 for a reason...

Andy Bell, who contributed his cover of Smokebelch that closes the album so appropriately, had an album out very recently, a collaboration with Timothy Clerkin with Andy in his experimental/ electronic GLOK guise. The pair met at Andrew's funeral and made a vague agreement to work together and then during lockdown began exchanging ideas and tracks, bouncing files back and forth. This has resulted in Alliance, a record that for me should be featuring in all the end of year lists, seven slices of experimental but laser focussed guitars x electronics. The music has some influences close to the surface- Aphex Twin, Death In Vegas, Boards Of Canada- but it transcends them at every turn. It is hypnotic, 21st century psychedelic and kosmische. Opener Empyrean kicks in with a huge distorted synth bass riff and then builds, waves of synths and chanted/ looped backing vox in layers. AmigA stutters on after it, tripped out and floating with acoustic guitars, rippling melodies and early shoegaze vocals. On Nothing Ever singer Du Blonde takes the reins, a scuzzed out indie- pop song, with the refrain 'nothing ever goes my way' circling round and round. Scattered is the sound of My Bloody Valentine in 1990 deciding to ditch the noise and FX pedals and dive full frontal into acid house, fed into the blender, with Andy's chopped up, spoken word, non sequiturs, scattered throughout- 'I was driving' and 'it's all too much' punctuated by 'need somebody' and 'scattered'.

The Witching Hour heads out further onto the floor, drums kicking in, the metronomic kick finding its rhythm, backwards guitars and a Wrote For Luck groove taking over. Then a massive bass guitar riff takes the lead. Swirling lights, strobes, light shows. E- Theme takes us to the end, a tinny guitar riff that could be from Ride's early EP/ Nowhere (actually played by Tim) and Aphex Twin vocal fragments, with a rising tide of synths. Magickal stuff- Andy some of the tracks took him into 'a Pagan, pre- Christian headspace... prehistoric rave' and this is a) a very good analogy and b) right up my strasse. You can listen and buy to the whole of Alliance here. 

Noise Inject

This is the flipside to yesterday's post, the solo album In Waves from Jamie Xx and its sonic effervescence, exuberance and sheer joie de vivre. Pye Corner Audio's Martyn Jenkins operates from a much murkier place, regularly releasing single tracks onto Bandcamp that sound like postcards from a subterranean world, one where daylight rarely reaches and dark, ominous analogue synths, drones, radio static and hissing drum machines evoke some dystopic otherworld- a dark rave where everyone's dancing on their own. The latest missive from Pye Corner Audio came out last Friday- Noise Inject- and can be found at Bandcamp, a pay what you like deal. Click play/ download and let its five minutes of spectral, gloomy rave come down. I love it by the way- none of this is a criticism. 

Martyn's tracks often have highly evocative titles, names that conjure up exactly what the track is going to sound like- Mayday Acid, Rotational Squelch, Quarry Rave, Murk, Fictional Drilling, Eaten From The Inside, Five Years In The Dark, Social Dissonance and Skip Function all give you some idea of what to expect. The exception to these dystopian sounding soundtracks was the album that came out in July 2022, Let's Emerge and its single Warmth Of The Sun. Let's Emerge is a ten track vinyl/ digital album, a response to Covid, lockdowns and isolation, with Martyn writing music to capture a 'collective sigh of relief... new beginnings and a sense of hope'. Andy Bell played guitar on five of the tracks and a shared love of Spacemen 3, tremolo guitars and The Beach Boys were part of the inspiration. A few months later former- Spaceman 3 man Sonic Boom remixed three of the tracks including this one...

Warmth Of The Sun (Sonic Boom Remix)

Empyrean

Empyrean: relating to the heavens or the sky, the highest part of the heaven, thought by the ancients to be the realm of pure fire.

Last Friday night while chatting to Andy Bell after Ride's gig at New Century Hall he mentioned that underneath New Century there is a recording studio and that he'd been in there that morning with Timothy Clerkin, an artist/ DJ who used to be based in Manchester. A few years ago Timothy put out a 12" as Heretic which included an Andrew Weatherall remix. It was via Andrew that Timothy and Andy Bell met and Tim remixed Andy's GLOK track Dissident. Yesterday the first fruits of the GLOK/ Clerkin collaboration were released, a single- Empyrean- ahead of a seven track album in November called Alliance. Much of the album was done in lockdown, ideas and files bouncing back and forth between the pair, and then finsihed since.

Empyrean is equal parts GLOK and Timothy, a massive synth bassline that'll shake any morning cobwebs away with electronic drums coming in and hissing away, washes of synth chords and a vocal sample that sounds like it's come from Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Vol. 1. One of those tracks that you have to stick with and which then engulfs you a little, rewarding more with repeat plays. You can buy Empyrean in its full version and Radio Edit form at Bandcamp. The album is available for pre- order at Bandcamp too. 

 

Ride Live At New Century Hall And A Forty Five Minute Mix

I saw Ride at New Century Hall on Friday night- they are a superb live band right now, powerful and punchy, light and shade both represented, noise and melody. In an interview Andy Bell once said that his vision for the band came to him when at home listening to The Beatles while his mum was vacuuming, that blend of 60s melodies (with twin vocals) and a wall of noise and fuzz. Tonight they have plenty of all of that. They open with Monaco from this year's Interplay album, straight ahead modern rock with a glossy sheen, Mark Gardener centre stage and in good voice. They finish the main set an hour later with Seagull, the huge shoegaze tour de force that opened Nowhere in 1990, the song where they transcended their MBV and JAMC influences.

In between there are songs from almost every point in their back catalogue- new ones like the sweeping, Byrdsy Last Frontier and anthemic Peace Sign with its spirit of 1969/ 1989 chorus, 'Give me a peace sign/ Throw your hands in the air/ Give me a peace sign/ Let me know you're there' stand out.  Future Love from 2019's This Is Not A Safe Place album. The crushing, wall of noise teen angst of Dreams Burn Down. 1992's Cool Your Boots, the Withnail And I sample kicking it off and the band powering into it, Loz and Steve proving they were indie rock's secret best rhythm section, Andy's squally guitar at the centre of the storm. The last two are Seagull and before that Vapour Trail, Andy's epic, romantic song from 1990 that closed their debut Nowhere, the crowd singing the cello part, a sea of middle aged shoegazers and indie kids la la la la- ing as the band wind down and stop, grinning at us and each other. 

The encore spans the years again, in reverse. Light In A Quiet Room followed by Leave Them All Behind, twin guitars and vocals, distortion and thunderous drums, the one where they left all their peers behind. Then Chelsea Girl, from their first EP, the red roses one on Creation when they (and we) were barely out of our teens, young and full of dreams. 

After the gig we have a chat with Andy Bell in the bar downstairs. I thanked him for giving us his cover version of Smokebelch for our Sounds Of The Flightpath Estate Volume 1 album and said he was honoured to be part of it. 

In October 2022 I put together a mix of Ride songs from the re- union years. You can find it here. To complement it I've done an early years for today's Sunday mix, from the first EP to Going Blank Again, singles, album songs and EP tracks/ B-sides. Two sides of a c90 tape. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Early Ride

• Cool Your Boots
• Seagull
• Sennen
• Like A Daydream
• Dreams Burn Down
• Taste
• Leave Them All Behind
• Vapour Trail
• Chelsea Girl

Cool Your Boots is from 1992's Going Blank Again. The album was very much a step on from the debut Nowhere, confident and wide screen, shoegaze but buffed up. Leave Them All Behind is a single from the same album- it reached number nine in the charts and got them onto Top Of The Pops. On release it had a statement feel, Ride are back and have left the others behind. Hammond organ intro, Mark and Andy on twin vocals, tumbling rhythms and endless guitars (especially in the full nine minute version).

Seagull opens Nowhere, the fastest song on the album and a ferocious piece of indie guitar rock. Nowhere is in some ways a classic debut from that period, 1988- 1993- eight songs in forty minutes with ebb and flow, a sound that permeates every song, a sleeve image that hints at what lies inside, a self contained piece of art. Dreams Burn Down comes from the same album (and was the A-side on the Fall EP, out in October 1990 with three new B-sides, the third of four four song 12" EPs, a run of records and songs that stand alongside Nowhere) . Vapour Trail is the last song- 12 string guitar intro with a repeating chord pattern that keeps resurfacing throughout the song, Loz's brilliant on- the- note drums, Andy's voice and love song lyrics and then the two minute coda with cello. A proper last song on the album feel. 

Taste was on the Fall EP, a new song along with Here And Now and Nowhere (the title track from the album that wasn't on the album). Three minutes of noisy indie rock with a vaguely euphoric vocal. 

Sennen was on Ride's EP Today Forever, four new songs released in March 1991. A video album was made for the EP, each song getting its own video. The video for Sennen is exactly what some of us looked like in 1990/ 1991- fringes, long sleeved t- shirts, baggy jeans, hooped tops, desert boots. The song is all strummed guitars and a stop start rhythm, stoned harmonised vocals, the Byrds the morning after a night at Phuture. 'The memory fades away', Mark and Andy murmur, the vocals themselves sounding like a memory fading. Sennen is I assume named after Sennen Cove in Cornwall. 

Chelsea Girl is from the Ride EP, released in January 1990. A new decade. The first song on the first release on Creation to make the proper charts. The first Ride song most of us heard. A two and a half minute thrashy marriage of noise and pop, the Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine in there for sure, but its own thing too. 

An Hour Of Midsummer Ambience

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

An Hour Of Midsummer Ambience

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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