Oblique Saturdays

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

Last week's Oblique Strategy suggestion was Don't be afraid of things because they're easy to do.

I opted for a JFK response, his 1961 speech about doing things not because they are easy but because they are hard. Steinski and Mass Media, The Wedding Present and Lou Reed all provided me with Kennedy themed songs. 

The Bagging Area community came up with some inspired choices- PTVL went for Genesis P. Orridge with Richard Norris and Dave Ball as Jack The Tab, arguably the UK's first acid house record, Ernie went for Lowell George and Little Feat, Al G with Mansun, Rol (arriving late after some serious jet washing) with The Walker Brothers and Walter with Nick Drake and Vini Reilly.

This week's Oblique Strategy cards reads thus- Is there something missing?

A obvious choice and one which has been in my mind recently is this...

Todd Terry's remix of Missing was everywhere in 1996, inescapable and irresistible, a crossover hit that deserved to be massive. Missing is a mood in song form. 

I also thought of Dub Syndicate's 1985 album, the mighty Tunes From The Missing Channel, Adrian Sherwood and Style Scott's hugely influential dub album that opens with Ravi Shankar Pt. 1 and with Jah Wobble appearing too, goes about pushing dub into sci fi/ ambient dub territories.

Out And About

But there's more to this Oblique Strategy stuff than just going with the most obvious, word related choices. 

Is there something missing?

Stephen Morris, drummer in Joy Division and New Order and authentic nice chap, has described the three surviving members of Joy Division in the pub after Ian Curtis' funeral. They sat their nursing their pints, not knowing how to talk to each other about death, suicide and loss, young men on the cusp of something big that has been wrenched away from them. A planned American tour cancelled. The second half of 1980 suddenly looking very different from what they envisaged. 

'See you on Monday then', one of them said as he left. 

'Yep, see you on Monday'.

Because they didn't know what else to do, they reconvened at Joy Division's rehearsal space in Little Peter Street and tried to make music as a trio. In Jon Savage's oral history, This Searing Light, The Sun And Everything Else, they each talk about the difficulties of making music with something (or someone) missing. Ian Curtis, frontman and lyricist, the object of attention at gigs, 'one of those channels for the gestalt' (said Martin Hannett), the intense and distinctive singer who set them apart from their peers, was gone. It was more than just missing a singer- he was a mate too and he was the rehearsal room ears and the editor. When the band jammed, Ian would pick out the parts that were good, get them to play that bit but put it with this bit and repeat it. 

They struggled on obviously- we all know the story. Ceremony (the last Joy Division song) and Movement (the last record they made with Martin Hannett). Movement is a sound, post- punk songs with a Hannett tone, but it lacks tunes. Apart from Dreams Never End (sung by Hooky ironically), nothing on Movement sticks in the memory for long. It's an album I have to play to remember what it's like. 

Dreams Never End

In 1981 they appeared on Granada TV, sonically moving forward with Gillian Gilbert on board but visually, physically, they all behave like there's still something missing. This clip has them playing, tentatively, five songs from Movement and Ceremony. The crowd, all local fans, look like they know this too. There's an absence, the band and the audience both feel it. 

They got there in the end of course. Discos in New York and Everything's Gone Green showing them a way out. 

Everything's Gone Green

Vini Reilly, mentioned above, had his own response to the missing boy...

The Missing Boy

'There was a boy/ I almost knew him/ A glance exchanged/ Made me feel good/ Leaving some signs/ Now a legend'.

Other bands have struggled with missing members. Is there something missing?

In 1998 R.E.M. tried to regroup following Bill Berry's decision to leave the group (a brain aneurysm onstage during the Monster tour being a key part of his decision). Bill admitted last year in an interview that he 'didn't regret it at the time but... sort of regretted it later'. Michael Stipe, Mike Mills and Peter Buck experimented with vintage synths and drum machines and eventually made Up but it nearly broke them. Bill Berry wasn't just the drummer, he wrote songs too- the beautiful Perfect Circle for one and worldwide smash Everybody Hurts for another. Without Bill they were destabilised, nothing worked the same way. Michael Stipe memorably but none- too- convincingly commented, 'a dog with three legs is still a dog'.

Daysleeper

In 1985 The Clash, or what was left of them, released Cut The Crap. Topper Headon had gone in 1983 and Mick Jones was sacked by Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon (and Bernie Rhodes) in 1984. 'We fell to ego', Joe remarked. This Is England may well be up there with the rest of Joe's songs but the much of the rest of Cut The Crap most definitely has something missing. Mick Jones. Topper Headon. 

This Is England

Strummer's 1985 state of the nation address evokes strikes, unrest, police brutality, unemployment, divisive right wing politics, war in far off places, poverty, racism, protest, marches, football and asks 'when will we be free?'. 

Feel free to drop your own responses to Is there something missing? in the comment box. 

To Brussels With Love

We're off to Brussels today, an early morning flight to the Belgian capital for a half term break, three days and two nights. We haven't been to Brussels before but it looks like it has plenty to offer- preliminary research indicates no fewer than nineteen record shops as well as plenty of establishments serving Belgian beer and frites. Waffles. The Atomium. The European parliament. Lots of Art Nouveau, Art Deco and Modernist architecture and design to gaze at as well as art galleries and museums. 

Also, some very local and musical connections. Brussels is the home of Factory Benelux and Le Disques Du Crepuscule, and the latter still operates out of the city re- issuing Factory albums. LDDC was set up in 1980 by Michel Duval and Annik Honore with James Nice taking over the running of the label more recently (James is the author of Shadowplayers, the definitive Factory biography). 

In 1979 Le Disques Du Crepuscule released a cassette titled From Brussels With Love, a deluxe tape package in a plastic wallet with twenty one tracks including several by Factory artists- The Durutti Column, ACR, The Names and Martin Hannett- along with Brian Eno (an interview), Harold Budd, John Foxx, Michael Nyman and more. 

The Durutti Column were on From Brussels With Love twice, Sleep Will Come and Piece For An Ideal. The second of those is just two minutes long, Vini's guitar ringing out loud and clear with piano and some percussion. 

Piece For An Ideal

Factory's association with Brussels was pretty deep and Factory acts often played in the city, usually at Plan K, a five story arts venue in a former sugar refinery on, appropriately enough, Rue de Manchester. In 1979 Joy Division played there with Cabaret Voltaire and William Burroughs. Burroughs headlined- Ian Curtis approached Burroughs, a hero of his, for a chat. Burroughs told him to fuck off. Ian was suitably chastened apparently. 

On 13th August 1981 Durutti Column were recorded playing live in Brussels, a gig which included Vini's song For Belgian Friends, one of my favourite DC songs. It was included on last year's expanded and remastered Return Of  The Durutti Column re- issue, along with Conduct, Self- Portrait and Sketch For Summer. You can hear all those at Bandcamp and the live version of For Belgian Friends is here. 

In 1983 The Durutti Column were filmed playing For Belgian Friends live in Madrid, Vini and Bruce Mitchell in sparkling form. 

In 2020 Aficionado, the Manchester based, Balearica/ anything goes label, released a four track EP with a cover of For Belgian Friends by Dream Lovers as one of the quartet of songs, a sleepy, entrancing cover of the song that is worthy of standing alongside Vini's original. 

Forty Minutes Of January And February Songs

A month ago I had the idea that at the end of January I'd put together a January mix, songs with January in the title or lyrics, and then maybe repeat throughout the rest of the months of the year. For one reason and another it didn't happen and now it's February. No problem, I thought, I'll just roll January and February together, and do that. It turns out I have not very many January songs and even fewer February ones- the only February songs I could find were Lou Reed's Xmas In February and Billy Bragg's 14th Of February and neither really fitted with the vibe I started the mix with. I extended February's reach into Valentine's Day and that, no surprise, made it much easier. All of which is a long winded way of saying here's a forty minute mix of songs about January and February. 

Forty Minutes Of January And February Songs

• The Orb: Perpetual Dawn (January Mix 3)
• M- Paths: January Song
• The Durutti Column: Requiem For A Father
• My Bloody Valentine: Soon
• Lizzy Mercier Descloux: My Funny Valentine
• Charlotte Gainsbourg: Deadly Valentine
• New Order: 1963
• Half Man Half Biscuit: Epiphany (Peel Session)

Perpetual Dawn is an Orb classic, remixed twice by Andrew Weatherall in fine style. For their album Aubrey Mixes: The Ultraworld Excursions, released and deleted on the same day in 1991 The Orb remixed songs from Beyond The Ultraworld, finding new shapes and sounds for seven essential early Orb tracks including the January Mix 3 version of Perpetual Dawn- early 90s ambient house at its best.

M- Paths release ambient/ electronic music, sometimes for Mighty Force and sometimes on their own label. Now down to the core figure of Marcus Farley, who also records as Reverb Delay, this track came out a year ago, at the start of January 2025, an archival M- Paths recording for the new year.

Tony Wilson, TV presenter and founder of Factory Records, was also from 1978 the manager and friend of Vini Reilly. When the original band version of The Durutti Column split in 1978 Wilson decided that the future for Durutti was Vini Reilly and whoever else was around but that Reilly was such a talent that he should make Durutti Column his own. Wilson also decided that he would put all Durutti Column records out on Factory and that he would manage DC/ Vini along with fellow Factory founder Alan Erasmus. Wilson formed a management company on the 24th January 1978 and called it The Movement Of The 24th January, borrowing the name from the Situationist students who formed their own International Movement on 22nd March at Nanterre University 1968 (Mouvement 22 du Mars). Here is a copy of the letterhead Wilson designed for his company...

Requiem For A Father is from The Return Of The Durutti Column, the debut album released in January 1980, Vini's guitar playing and Martin Hannett's echo and delay devices and synths in perfect harmony, Vini playing a song for his Dad and Hannett making a rhythm out of a digital machine that sounds like a cat purring close up. 

My Bloody Valentine have been never very far away this year to date, their songs soundtracking much of January 2026. Soon is from Loveless in 1991, a track that did things with guitars that genuinely hadn't really been done before. Kevin Shields' guitars following Vini Reilly's is exactly where my head is at right now. 

Valentine's Day is less than a week away lovebirds. 

Lizzy Mercier Descloux was a French punk, friends with Patti Smith and Richard Hell, published Rock News and moved to New York where she set up ZE records with her partner Michael Esteban. Lizzy released several albums, minimalist punk/ No Wave, wrote poetry and painted, retired to Corsica to write books and lived a full and varied life. She died in 2004. Her cover of My Funny Valentine, the Hart and Rogers song, is from her 1986 album One For The Soul which had Chet Baker guesting on some of the tracks including this one. 

Sticking with French artists, Charlotte Gainsbourg released Rest in 2017, her fifth solo album and one that dealt with the death of her father Serge and alcohol addiction. Deadly Valentine was a single and is dramatic synth pop with a lively throbbing bassline and feathery vocals.

1963 is from the B-side to 1987's New Order single True Faith, a giant in their back catalogue. 1963 could have been a single in its own right. Bernard's lyrics are peculiar/ awful (delete according to taste). 'It was January/ 1963/ When Johnny came home with a gift for me'. Bernard once spun a line that the song was about JFK and Marilyn Monroe arranging for Lee Harvey Oswald to shoot Jackie Kennedy so they could get together but Oswald shooting the wrong person. Bernard may not have been entirely serious- Marilyn died in 1962 so at the very least his chronology's off. Producer Stephen Hague thought it was about domestic abuse. Whatever the lyrics deal with, the music is New Order 1987 magnificence.

Half Man Half Biscuit recorded Epiphany for a Peel Session. It starts out with Nigel Blackwell narrating a chance occurrence on a Friday in July that then unfolds in surreal Blackwell style taking in Dictionary Corner, black apes gibbering on dark lawns, a lime Dyson, a date in Parbold (near Wigan), a crossed telephone line, a sickly foal, a straggle haired girl called Karen Henderson, songs recorded for a a hospice, bus outings, Billing Aquadrome and busking at Embankment Tube before concluding 'January the 6th. Epiphany'. 

One Christmas For Your Thoughts

In December 1981 Belgian label Les Disques Du Crepuscule out out a compilaiton album called Chantons Noel, aimed at the niche post- punk/ ambient/ experimental/ neo- classical Christmas market of record buyers. Among the thirteen artists were some very obscure names- Swinging Buildings and Soft Verdict were both Belgian bands and groups like The Names and Thick Pigeon only ever really bothered Factory completists. Paul Haig and Cabaret Voltaire, Michael Nyman and ex- ACR singer Simon Topping all featured as did Aztec Camera. 

At the end of side 1 is this song by The Durutti Column (Durutti Column have been present quite a lot at Bagging Area recently). Vini's guitars sound as good as they ever did, minor sevenths, little runs up and down the neck and the chorus and delay FX pedals working their magic as the drum machine pads away somewhere in the background. 

Happy Christmas everyone. 

One Christmas For Your Thoughts

Fifty Minute Midwinter Mix

A mix for the winter solstice, the longest night and shortest day, and to celebrate the fact that we'll start to get a little more daylight every day. Songs with winter in the title are plentiful and there are quite a few that didn't make it into this mix for various reasons- I wanted to keep this mix largely ambient/ ambient inspired (although that goes a bit off piste in places as you can see from the tracklisting below). Aztec Camera's Walk Out To Winter, The Bangles/ Simon and Garfunkel's Hazy Shade Of Winter and Teenage Fanclub's Winter just didn't fit and A Certain Ratio's ten minute drone epic Winter Hill was too long and cutting it down/ fading it out didn't seem right. 

Fifty Minute Midwinter Mix

• Joanna Brouk: Winter Chimes
• Pye Corner Audio: A Winter Drone For Christmas
• SUSS: Winter Light
• The Durutti Column: Sketch For Winter
• Trentemoller: While The Cold Winter Waiting
• Michael Head And The Red Elastic Band: Winter Turns To Spring
• Stockholm Monsters: Winter
• The Pictish Trail: Winter Home Disco
• Saint Etienne: Her Winter Coat
• Neil Young and Crazy Horse: Winterlong
• Vashti Bunyan: Winter Is Blue
• Glass Candy: Warm In The Winter

Winter Chimes is from a 1980 Joanna Brouk album, The Space Between. It is atmospheric and enchanting, just chimes and piano sitting somewhere in the space where ambient crosses into New Age.

Pye Corner Audio's Winter Drone For Christmas- the title is exactly what it is- is from Christmas Eve 2023, five minutes of low key synth loveliness. 

Winter Light is from Promise, the 2020 album by SUSS, an ambient Americana trio from New York. Highly recommended.  

Sketch For Winter is from The Durutti Column's 1980 album, The Return Of The Durutti Column album, Vini Reilly's debut long player. Vini was pushed into Cargo Studios in Rochdale by Tony Wilson during a period when he was suffering from severe depression. Tony thought it might save Vini. In the studio was Martin Hannett and a van load of new equipment. The album, Fact 14, was housed in a Situationist inspired sandpaper sleeve, and contains ten tracks of Vini playing guitar and Martin playing 'switches' (as the sleevenotes say). It's recently been remastered and re- issued and sounds better than ever, a foundational album for Factory and UK post- punk (not that it sounds post- punk but it is- Vini says, doing what he did could only have happened in the space that opened up after punk). 

Trentemoller's 2006 album The Last Resort was the Danish producer's debut, an electronic album that sounds very live.

Michael Head and The Red Elastic Band's Adios Senor Pussycat still sounds like one of the best albums of 2017 and of that entire decade. Winter Turns To Spring is Mick on piano and singing, a change of sound from the rich, full band scouse folk rock that makes up most of the album. 

Stockholm Monsters were from Burnage and signed to Factory. Winter is from 1984's Alma Mater, a record produced by Peter Hook and largely ignored in 1984, one of those albums that is a lost gem. A dark, monochrome sound, led by the bass guitar, very poetic and very Factory. 

The Pictish Trail is Johnny Lynch, who operates out of a caravan on the Isle Of Eigg, Scotland and was part of the Fence Collective and the man behind Fence Records, an open minded, folk influenced label started by Lynch and King Creosote. Winter Home Disco kicks in with a drum machine but the folk and psyche follow quickly. A rather beautiful song from 2008 which all of a sudden seems a long time ago. 

Her Winter Coat was a 2021 single by Saint Etienne, Pete Wiggs creating a Christmas sounding song without going full Xmas cheese. Icy and quietly epic.

Neil Young and Crazy Horse's Winterlong came out on Decade,a  triple lp compilation from 1977 that was only the start of Neil's career long trawl through his unreleased vaults and shelved projects. Thinking about it, I'm pretty sure I heard the Pixies cover of Winterlong, released on a 1989 tribute album called The Bridge, before I heard Neil's. Neil and Crazy Horse recorded Winterlong in 1973 at Neil's Broken Arrow Ranch. It is perfect in the way only Neil and Crazy Horse can sound- slightly frazzled, slightly out of tune, ragged and dreamy and psychedelic, searching for something- love, fulfillment- before concluding, 'it's all an illusion anyway'. 

Vashti Bunyan's Winter Is Blue is lyrically dark- winter and loss of love, life having no meaning. The guitars and arrangement are deceptively jaunty, a trick folk music often pulls. This is the Immediate version, recorded it for Andrew Loog Oldham's label in 1967 and unreleased until 2007. Vashti re- recorded it for her 1970 album Just Another Diamond Day, a record so poorly received that she packed it all in and went to Scotland by horse and cart and then to Ireland for several decades before its rediscovery in the 21st century. 

Warm In The Winter is a joy- Glass Candy released it as a single on Italians Do It Better in 2013. Giddy synth pop, a song in love with life and with itself, 'Crazy like a monkey/ Happy like a new year'. Partway through Ida sings, 'You're beautiful. You came from heaven. We love you!' and the synth arpeggios build, and the song skips and swoops, and the darkness gets pushed out and, once again, winter passes. Happy solstice. 

Mostly I Just Drift

Some ambient music for Thursday- very much the kind of sounds that are doing it for me at the moment. First, a new old track from Robin Guthrie and what he refers to as an orphan track, one that was recorded in 2012 for his album Fortune but that didn't end up on that album and was put to one side and forgotten about. Imagine having something as beautiful as Her Name Is Dulcinea sitting around unreleased for over a decade. The beauty of the Bandcamp model is that individual tracks can be released easily and sent out into the world. Her Name Is Dulcinea, all shimmering haze, celestial drones and cascading guitar lines, can be found here.  

Over in the USA ambient- Americana trio SUSS put out a new track at the start of November in collaboration with Six Missing (TJ Dumser), six minutes of fragile psychedelia called Old Mission- an after hours, dream state piece of music that unfolds at its own pace. Find it at Bandcamp. 

The day after Old Mission came out they slipped Traverse onto Bandcamp too, another piece of ambient country- Traverse is more Western sounding but still ambient. Find it here. There's something quite beguiling and totally cinematic about the idea of an ambient Western, cowboys and ranchers drifting around under darkening prairie skies, fires and coyotes and endless space while this music plays. Slow cinema, going nowhere, ruminative. Like The Durutti Column's Situationist cowboys/ philosophers... 

Cowboy 1: "What's your scene, man?"
Cowboy 2: "Realisation"
Cowboy 1: "Yeah? I guess that means pretty hard work with big books and piles of paper on a big table."
Cowboy 2: "Nope. I drift. Mostly I just drift."

More on that here. 

Fidelity

I've written about The Durutti Column previously on fifty occasions- and that's not nearly enough- and usually about songs and records released during the lifespan of Factory Records. Tony Wilson and Vini were friends- Tony was a massive supporter of Vini and in the early 80s took him under his wing, managed him and put his records out. After Factory's demise Vini continued to make albums, often with long term drummer and friend Bruce Mitchell. The post- Factory albums are somewhat overlooked and undeservedly so- there's an embarrassment of riches contained within them, Vini (and Bruce) as creative as ever. 

In 1994 The Durutti Column released their first post- Factory album Sex And Death (out on Wilson's Factory Too label, bankrolled by London Records). Sex And Death opens with Anthony, a song for Wilson and contains the mighty Fado, inspired by Vini's love of Portuguese music. 

Two years after that came Fidelity, one of the band's peaks and largely unknown. It was released on Belgian Label Le Disques Du Crepuscule and is a gem, Vini in a room full of synths and drum machines- programmed drums and electronic textures are at the centre of Fidelity, with Vini's guitar playing the icing on the cake. He sings a little, his whisper drenched in reverb with Eley Rudge providing a stronger, more upfront vocal presence. Vini's trademark melancholy creeps in but there's optimism too and sonically a nod to 1990's Obey The Time (a largely electronic album, his last on Factory). 

If you only know Durutti Column on Factory, Fidelity is a good place to start exploring the wider Vini Reilly back catalogue. Vini's music remains resolutely out of time to me- it doesn't sound like any particular period. Fidelity doesn't bear much relation to 1996. I'm not sure it's timeless, more out of time, out of sync. A bit like the man himself maybe. 

The title track and opening song kicks in with a jolt- When The Levee Breaks, sampled and stuttering. Vini's guitar sounding most un- Vini like comes in, chords and texture. Later synths burst in and keys and then Eley's voice, singing the word from the title, while the drums crash around her and synths twinkle and burble. 

Fidelity

Four Years

Four years today, at quarter to two in the afternoon, Isaac died at Wythenshawe hospital. He was 23. That it is four years seems barely possible- time goes so quickly in some ways. I can transport myself back into that room in the hospital very easily- it's probably not a good thing to do too often. In the time since he died I've noticed that the grief, the thing, the ball of darkness, the knot in the stomach and the ache in the chest, can replace him, engulfs him (and me)- he, Isaac, gets lost inside it. Which isn't right.

It's difficult to remember that sometimes because the loss takes over, but it should be about him, remembering him and who he was, the things we did and the things he said, the good times. We are able to do that now- we sent some time in a cafe yesterday laughing about the things he used to do, him and Eliza when they were both much younger and smiling at photos of the pair of them. It's nice to be able to do it but it becomes much harder in November. Anniversaries are still hard. I'll be glad to put this month behind me. 

Isaac touched many, many people when he was alive and he continues to do so even now, through photos and memories on social media. Photos previously unseen by us still appear. Short video clips Eliza made of him I've not seen before pop up. Sometimes on these clips he looks so close you could almost reach out and touch him. Recently a friend I've never met said this about him, 'His smile lit up many a soul, so many that he hadn't even met'. It is lovely to think of him having a long afterlife in photographs, still lighting up the lives of people all this time later. 

We played Sketch For Summer at Isaac's funeral, 17th December 2021. Vini's guitar playing and Martin's production never sounded better than on Sketch For Summer, the opening seconds of electronic birdsong and then the primitive drum machine entry and those guitars. Sketch For Winter is different but equally affecting and seems appropriate for today. 

Sketch For Winter

The Durutti Column's first album, The Return Of The Durutti Column has been re- issued recently, an album made by Vini Reilly and Martin Hannett in 1980, the pair put together by Tony Wilson. Hannett sat with his new toys, various digital echo and delay devices and a drum machine. Vini played bits of guitar but was largely ignored by Hannett who was deep into the new machinery. Occasionally parts were recorded. Eventually Vini walked out, frustrated and pissed off. Hannett completed the album and when Vini was presented with it, it sounded completely new to him- he didn't like it. Like Joy Division before him, he grew to love it, as Joy Division did with Martin's production on Unknown Pleasures. 

Thirty Minutes Of Ambient Guitar Music

I'm not sure what it says about where my head is at right now but I'm being drawn back once again to the sounds of Vini Reilly's guitar and with that to the idea that guitars can make ambient music. A couple of albums have come my way in the last year that slot right into this- Kevin McCormick's Passing Clouds and Thought Leadership's Ill Of Pentacles. It may be no coincidence that both of the guitarists behind these albums are from the Manchester area (Kevin is now residing in Mobberley, a village not far south of Manchester and whoever Thought Leadership is lives in Edgeley, Stockport). Vini Reilly's guitar and echo and chorus pedals have been making their hard to pin down but spellbinding sounds since the late 70s when he was placed into a room with Martin Hannett and they came up with The Return Of the Durutti Column. I first heard Durutti Column's music in 1987 and it's been close to my stereo ever since. Vini has retired, his health poor since having three strokes back in the late 00s but his legacy as one of Factory Records' true geniuses is secure. 

This mix pulls together some Durutti Column songs ('silly little tunes', according to Vini) along with Kevin McCormick and Thought Leadership and the former Cocteau Twin Robin Guthrie who has been releasing ambient guitar tracks onto his Bandcamp page for some time. A chilled and slightly melancholic autumnal ambient guitar mix for late September 2025. 

The world is a shitshow and a bin fire. Trump and Netanyahu lie and deceive from the stage at the United Nations. Farage lies about immigrants. Starmer follows Farage down a path that can only be a dead end. Racists hoist flags from lampposts and paint roundabouts. Life seems to get a little bit worse every day. But we still have music- and we will have it long after Trump, Netanyahu, Farage and all the rest of them have shuffled off the stage and disappeared. 

Thirty Minutes Of Ambient Guitar Music

• Durutti Column: Sketch For A Manchester Summer 1989
• Robin Guthrie: Mountain
• Kevin McCormick: It's Been A Long Time
• Kevin McCormick: Alone In A Crowd
• Thought Leadership: III
• Durutti Column: A Room In Southport
• Durutti Column: Royal Infirmary
• Michael Hix: Pure Land

Sketch For A Manchester Summer starts with the rain falling, taped from the door of Vini's West Didsbury home thirty six years ago. It rains quite a lot in Manchester- you might have heard. The synth that bubbles away with the rain is joined by Vini's guitar and for a couple of minutes a rainy Mancunian summer is the only place to be. The song is tucked away on an album of rarities, sessions and unreleased recordings, The Sporadic Recordings- some of them were done at Sporadic Studios, Manchester. CD only, now fairly rare. 

Robin Guthrie's guitar lit up Cocteau Twins and for the last few years he's released all sorts of music onto his Bandcamp page, including lots of ambient guitar pieces. Montain was recorded in Brittany, France in 2022, a track Robin refers to as an 'orphaned track', one which didn't find a place at the time. Released on Bandcamp a year ago, September 2024.

Kevin McCormick made several albums of guitar music in Manchester in the late 70s and early 80s. His work was lost for decades and then rediscovered and re- issued in 2021 on the Smiling C label. In 2024 Kevin released a new album, Passing Clouds, one I can't recommend enough. It's Been A Long Time is from it. Alone In A Crowd is from an album recorded with David Horridge, Sticklebacks, polished at Stockport's Strawberry Studios after initial recordings on Kevin's  four track home studio. 

Thought Leadership's Ill Of Pentacles came out on cassette and digital in 2024 and then on vinyl via Be With this year (all gone, I missed out too). It's a wonderful album, recorded at home in Edgeley, Stockport and other than that there's very little information. It was recorded in January 2024 with guitar, pedals and drum machine and the tracks are numbered I to X. 

Snowflake is from Short Stories For Pauline, a lost Durutti Column album recorded in November 1983 that could/ should have been Vini's fourth on Factory. A Tony Wilson A&R oversight saw it shelved in favour of Without Mercy (the song Duet from Short Stories was expanded into Without Mercy). Tony got it wrong- Short Stories is a Durutti Column masterpiece that finally saw the light of day on Factory Benelux in 2012. Worth the wait. 

Royal Infirmary is from 1986's Circuses And Bread, Vini and drummer/ manager/ friend Bruce Mitchell joined by John Metcalfe on viola and Tim Kellett on trumpet. The piano/ guitar interplay on Royal Infirmary is next level Durutti Column beauty. 

Michael Hix released an album as Wonderful Aspiration Of The Source, a guitar only ambient/ cosmic instrumental ten track album that came out two weeks ago. Hix is one of the founders of Nashville Ambient Ensemble. Find it here. 

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. 

Ambient Christmas

I've avoided Christmas music here this year largely but today I thought I'd treat you to an ambient mix for Christmas Eve. I said last week that for me ambient music and found sounds do carry a very wintry and Christmassy feel- the half heard conversations and hum of background noise of shops and pubs, bells and drones, and the constant half dusk of December. This mix is all of that, mostly ambient, and a little bit more. 

Forty Minute Ambient Christmas Mix

• Pye Corner Audio: A Winter Drone For Christmas
• Pye Corner Audio: Omnichord Omnishambles (At Xmas)
• Pye Corner Audio: Satan's Slay
• Durutti Column: One Christmas For Your Thoughts
• Saint Etienne: Lillehammer
• The Vendetta Suite: Christmas In Cologne
• Pandit Pam Pam: Equipe Exploratoria Papai Natal III
• Pye Corner Audio: Get Thee Behind Me Santa

Pye Corner Audio releases new music onto his Bandcamp page monthly, ambient/ drone/ acid tracks that are free/ pay what you want. Martyn Jenkins (Mr Pye Corner Audio) has recorded four Christmas tracks, all included in this mix, the opening three forming a long slow ambient fade in and the fourth a long slow drone fade out. It's worth noting that Omnichord Omnishambles was PCA's Christmas 2020 track, the omnishambles being a reference to the then chaotic government of Boris Johnson and the bewildering, populist, bullshit decision making of the government during Covid and Christmas in 2020.

Durutti Column's One Christmas For Your Thoughts is from 1981 and a compilation called Chansons Noel on Crepescule (along with other early 80s post- punk heroes such as Aztec Camera, Paul Haig, Simon Topping and Cabaret Voltaire). Vini and his guitar never sounded better. 

Saint Etienne's Xmas 2021 EP was a four track CD only release that followed hot on the heels of their I've Been Trying To Tell You album. Lillehammer is a gorgeous wintry instrumental, named after the Norwegian ski resort which hosted the 1994 Winter Olympics. The lead song on the single was Her Winter Coat, Pete and Bob's music a low key, mini- winter epic, synths and sleigh bells, and Sarah in spoken word mode. 

The Vendetta Suite is Gary Irwin from Belfast, a veteran of the city's acid house scene. In 2021 he released an album called The Kempe Stone Portal with Christmas In Cologne on it, a song that first appeared in 2019's The Wheel Turns EP. Cosmische Christmas. 

Pandit Pam Pam is from Sao Paulo, Brazil. He released an album this year which should have made yesterday's list and an EP that did, plus his third Christmas release. The Natal III EP also contains a ten minute long track that should have been on this mix but I wanted to keep it to forty minutes, the brilliantly titled Santa Crying And Depressed On 26th Because He Is Concerned About The Coming Years, As He Is Technically An Illegal Immigrant And The Political Landscape Is Changing. You can find that here. 

Happy Christmas. 

Time Takes A While

Three years ago today we buried Isaac at Dunham cemetery. The recent anniversaries- his 26th birthday on 23rd November, the third anniversary of his death on the 3oth November- were heavy and gruelling, the weeks of build up as they loomed over us and then the days themselves. The anniversary of his funeral is a bit different, it doesn't feel as heavy somehow although I had a couple of twinges yesterday when it bumped up against my emotions. 

I was down at the cemetery on Sunday, just popping by to say hello and check the flowers were all still ok. It struck me that we've developed all sorts of little acts of remembrance in the three years since his funeral. The weekly visits to see him (and now when we go it doesn't feel like we're going to see him- at first it felt awful, a bottomless hole of grief, standing in a wind and rain blasted field staring at his plot, but the more we've been the more it's changed): the replacing of the flowers; the way that when they're in season I always want to have sunflowers in the vase next to him; the bringing back of trinkets and mementos from holidays for his grave; the association with the number 23; the thing with robins I wrote about last week; the busses that go past on the road in the distance; even the electricity pylons that cross overhead very close by and the pigs that live in the field behind the cemetery have become part of the whole. When we go to the grave I always touch his name on the headstone before leaving. All these have become mixed up in his death and in his grave. I'm not a religious person but I understand why people light candles in cathedrals. Acts of remembrance and little rituals that bring some kind of comfort. 

We played some songs for him at the funeral- North Country Boy by The Charlatans as we entered the chapel, You And Me Song by The Wannadies (Eliza's choice), Sketch For Summer by Durutti Column as a slideshow of photographs of him played, and then at the graveside Race For The Prize by The Flaming Lips and the Beatless mix of Sabres Of Paradise's Smokebelch. 

Isaac's Funeral Mix

I can listen to them all now, something I wasn't sure I'd be able to do three years ago- You And Me Song has the capacity to move me to tears and North Country Boy still packs a powerful punch but when I hear them I want to listen to them play in full, I don't reach for the off button. Three years on from that day it does feel like a lot of time has passed while seeming like it was just yesterday too. 

In 2023 Daniel Avery followed his Ultra Truth album with a seven track collection of B-sides and bonus material which included this beautiful piece of weightless ambient techno...

Time Takes A While

Vexations, Meaning, Purpose

More music from a CD that came free with a magazine, this time (again) Mojo in 2020. The disc, titled The Cold Open, was a collection of tracks acting as a sampler for Belgian label Le Discques De Crepescule  Factory Benelux and took in several Factory related artists- Section 25, The Other Two, Shadowplay, Stephen Mallinder- plus some Factory adjacent acts- Paul Haig, LoneLady covering New Order's Cries And Whispers, Pauline Murray- and a bunch of others. Tucked away at the end are two low key and moving pieces of music. Firstly, Alan Marks playing Erik Satie's Vexations...

Vexations

Satie never performed Vexations in his lifetime- it only came to light in 1949. On the manuscript Satie left the note, 'in order to play the motif 840 times in succession, it would be advisable to prepare oneself beforehand and in the deepest silence, by serious immobilities'. Since the 1960s therefore it has been interpreted that the music on the sheet must be played 840 times but this may not be what Satie intended. I'll leave that decision up to you. 

The second piece of music is a recording of The Durutti Column playing at the Rescue Rooms in Nottingham in 2004, Vini playing guitar for a few minutes in his own inimitable style. No day is ever worse for having a little Durutti Column in it. 

Meaning + Purpose (Live)

I saw The Durutti Column live a few times in the 00s, once at The Comedy Store in Deansgate Locks, Manchester (27th April 2003 according to the internet). Vini came on stage with a ghetto blaster, made a joke about telling jokes in a comedy club, and then played along to a tape backing.  After a couple of songs he was joined by Bruce Mitchell on drums and a keyboard player, possibly Kier Stewart. The venue, not a large one, was only half full. 

In December 2003 and again in April 2005 we saw them at Manchester Academy 3, a small room at the university student union that used to be called The Hop And Grape. Vini was in explosive form, building in volume and noise as the gig unfolded. I found this photo on the internet a while ago from the December 2003 gig. We saw Vini and DC play on a couple of other occasions too I think. At the time, like many things, we took it for granted that Vini would be playing small venues in Manchester to small but appreciative crowds of fans and that we'd be able to stand and watch him conjure up magic from his guitar. 

An Hour Of The Flightpath Estate AW61 Afternoon Set

This is my hour's set from last Saturday afternoon at AW61 at The Golden Lion, Todmorden, re- created at home. The photo above shows my view from the DJ booth as my set ended and the auction and raffle began- you may recognise some of the faces getting ready to bid on items from Andrew Weatherall's studio. 

Once we've got all the other sets and the evening's rotations recreated we can upload the entire thing but I thought I'd share mine in the meantime. It comes in at over an hour and I only played for an hour on the day- from memory, I mixed Biosphere's En- Trance out because the file seemed very quiet (even for an ambient track) and it is in the mix below too. I think I mixed out of Underworld's 8 Ball halfway through as well but just left it playing in full here because, really, what sort of person mixes out the second half of 8 Ball? I'd just faded the GLOK Starlight Dub of A Mountain Of One's Star in when Gig, the Golden Lion's legendary landlady, took the mic to start the auction (along with Lizzie and Sofia) so that track was left mostly unplayed- you'll have to imagine the auction and raffle taking place when you reach that point in my set (unless you were there in which case replay it in your mind). I played Emotionally Clear as the raffle ended and to provide my handover to Dan who was waiting in the wings. 

Adam's Flightpath Estate Afternoon Set At AW61

• Coyote: Western Revolution
• Durutti Column: Bordeaux Sequence
• Psychederek: Test Card Girl
• Four Tet: Loved
• Rick Cuevas: The Birds
• Biosphere: En- Trance
• Underworld: 8 Ball
• Wixel: Expressway To Yr Skull (Long Champs Bonus Beats)
• This Mortal Coil: Edit To The Siren
• Bjork: One Day
• James Holden: Common Land
• A Mountain Of One: Star (GLOK Starlight Dub)
• David Holmes and Raven Violet: Emotionally Clear

Western Revolution is Coyote's sublime edit of Gil Scott Heron's The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. I had half a mind to start with Lonely, which is from the same vinyl only EP out last year, Magic Wand Special Edition Vol. 2, but Mr Holmes played it the night before. 

Bordeaux Sequence was on The Durutti Column's 1987 album The Guitar And Other Machines, a moment of genuine beauty from Vini Reilly. It is a re- recorded version of Bordeaux from 1983's Another Setting. A couple of people in the room gave me a 'thank you for playing Durutti Column' look.

Psychederek is from Stretford, just up the road from me. Test Card Girl was a digital only single from 2023 and I'm not over it yet

Loved was a single from Four Tet, also from last year and is now the opening track on his Three album. Another 2023 song that has stuck around well into '24. 

The Birds is by Rick Cuevas, from a self - released, private pressing album called Symbolism that came out in 1984, an album described on Discogs as 'soft rock/ AOR'. I wouldn't necessarily call The Birds either- a friend once described it as 'Durutti Column on steroids' which I'm happier with. I'm fairly certain I only know of this song because of Andrew Weatherall referencing it in an interview or playing it on a radio show. 

Biosphere's En- Trance is ambient/ techno from Belgium in 1994, an album called Patashnik. It's just some synth drones and an acoustic guitar- I say 'just', it's much more than that obviously. Shame this WAV file I have is so quiet. 

Underworld's 8 Ball was on the soundtrack to The Beach, the Leonardo Di Caprio film from 2000. 8 Ball is a nine minute low key epic with fluid guitar playing and some of Karl's loveliest singing, lyrics about men with empty whiskey bottles and walkie talkies and flaming 8 ball tattoos on their arms, a man who eventually throws his arms around him. They gave this away to a soundtrack, a soundtrack where it was overshadowed a little by All Saints and Moby- most bands would kill for a tune this good and would make it a single or the track they built an album around. Someone in the Lion asked me what this was and took some convincing it was Karl on vocals.

Wixel are from Belgium (with hindsight, there's a bit of a Belgian theme running through this mix) and put out a cover of Sonic Youth's Expressway To Yr Skull in 2008, part of a seven track EP of Sonic Youth covers. The Long Champs edit turns it into a shimmering, semi -ambient haze that led to a couple of enquiries in the pub- and if you turn a couple of people onto something new to them, that's what it's all about isn't it. 

Edit To The Siren is an In The Valley edit of Song To The Siren, This Mortal Coil's signature cover of Tim Buckley's song. Someone once told me this was sacrilege but for me its got a dubby/ Balearic splendour and is perfect Saturday afternoon vibes. 

One Day is one of the key early Bjork solo songs, from 1993's Debut. The dubby bassline, house shimmer, Nellee Hooper's production and Bjork's delivery are all superb. 

Common Land was one of the tracks on James Holden's 2023 album Imagine This Is A High Dimensional Space Of All Possibilities, an album I still go back to a year later. The burbling synths, birdcall, techno- ish drums and warbling sax combine to create something very heady and transportative. It's also a tribute to the free party movement and early 90s rave and felt quite fitting for the Lion and Todmorden.

A Mountain of One's Stars Planets Dust Me was one of my favourite albums from 2022. Andy Bell's GLOK remix is a spaced out, sun- baked treat. 

Emotionally Clear is from David Holmes' Blind On A Galloping Horse, 2023's number one Bagging Area album. Seeing David Holmes bidding at the auction at AW61 from behind the decks will take some beating in 2024. 

Saturday Live

I took this photo nearly two years ago today. I found it in my folder recently and knew exactly where and when I took it. I had returned to work following Isaac's death six weeks earlier and was on reduced hours, arriving home earlier than usual every day. On this day, 8th January 2022, I got home and went for a walk, ending up at Sale Water Park as the sun went down (about 4.30pm). At that point I took this photo, I looked at the sunset, the barren line of trees, the bleakness of mid- winter and my feelings of shock and grief. Everything felt empty. If the universe decided to swallow me up right there and then, gone in an instant, pop, nothing left, I'd have been quite happy. Or at least resigned to it. I can remember thinking it quite vividly. I wasn't going to do anything about it, I wasn't going to do anything silly, I just felt like if the universe had decided to end at that moment (or end me), it wouldn't have bothered me. 

And here we are now two years later. Things do change. 

For most of last year Saturday posts were Saturday live, bands, artists, musicians playing live on TV or at gigs. I haven't done one since November and toyed with dropping it but I have a few more that were on my list of unwritten posts and this one has some moments of beauty and genius from one of Manchester's greatest musicians and still a fairly unsung hero, Vini Reilly. There are lots of Durutti Column gigs and performances on the internet and some released as official recordings too. 

This one is Domo Arigato, The Durutti Column live at Shinagawa, Tokyo on 25th April 1985, Vini on guitar, keys and vocals, Bruce Mitchell on drums, John Metcalfe on violin and Tim Kellett on trumpet. It was released on VHS and CD (as FACD 144), a nine song set opening with Sketch For Summer and Sketch For Dawn and closing with For Belgian Friends and The Missing Boy, fifty five minutes of peak DC, Vini's playing exceptional and elegiac. The coming together of guitar, drums, trumpet and violin on Little Mercy, four songs in, is something else. An expanded edition of Domo Arigato came out in 2017, a three CD plus DVD box containing the full gig, remastered versions, extra tracks with a previously unreleased performance from Tokyo Loft Club in 1984. It's not possible to have too much Durutti Column. 

This one is three years later, Durutti Column live in Portugal, a favourite haunt of Vini and Bruce, this time an hour and a quarter's worth of music, sixteen songs with Andy Connell (ex- ACR and Swing Out Sister on keys and sampler). 

Who would want to be swallowed up by the universe standing by a suburban water park at sunset when these things exist in the world?

I've posted this clip before, a stunning performance of Bordeaux Sequence at Manchester Cathedral in 1985, one of my favourite DC songs, clips and performances. Everything about it is completely special. 

Three songs to download here, all from the expanded three CD version of The Guitar And Other Machines (originally released on Factory in 1987 and then re- issued in 2017), one from a gig at The Bottom Line in New York in October 1986 and two from WOMAD in August 1988. 

When The World (Live At The Bottom Line 1987)

Tomorrow (Live at WOMAD 1988)

Bordeaux Sequence (Live at WOMAD 1988)

Fourteen

New Year's Day is also Bagging Area's blogging birthday, this blog born kicking and squealing into the internet fourteen years ago today, 1st January 2010. I had no idea when I started that I'd still be doing this in 2024 but it's proved to be a habit that sticks. There was an interesting article about blogging by Simon Reynolds at The Guardian a week ago which struck many chords. Here are a handful of fourteens to mark the occasion.

Fourteen Again was one of the standouts from Rheinzand's debut, self titled album from 2020, an album packed full with chuggy, spangly, trippy, disco/ Balearic/ house delights. There's a wobbly synth sound and long keening drone that sit on top of the wiggly arpeggios and four four beat that send it into cosmic disco, a long build up before singer Charlotte begins the chant, 'I wish I was fourteen again...', everything becoming quite heady and intense. 

Fourteen Again

After the album there was a hefty remix package with Fourteen Again being retuned by fellow Belgians Borokov Borokov, a very wigged out take on the original. 

Fourteen Again (Borokov Borokov Remix)

Factory Records is a recurring part of Bagging Area posts. Fac 14 was the debut Durutti Column album, The Return Of The Durutti Column, one of my favourite albums. If you ever see a copy with the sandpaper sleeve at a reasonable price, let me know (ditto one of the cassette copies in the big boxes that factory used to do). Sketch For Winter seemed appropriate, Vini and Martin Hannett at Cargo in Rochdale and Strawberry in Stockport creating magic. 

Sketch For Winter

Forty Minutes For Christmas Eve

I haven't really felt much Christmas joy so far this year and all of a sudden it's Christmas Eve and I need to try to get into the spirit a little. Therefore, today's Sunday mix is a Christmas special, a little under forty minutes of Yuletide tunes to sing around the Christmas tree. Admittedly The Jesus And Mary Chain aren't particularly full of Christmas cheer but a little noise and self- loathing is all part of the season isn't it? 

The picture, 'cos I know you're asking, is from a nativity scene that gets erected every Christmas about half a mile up the road from here. It's full of the Joyeux Noël spirit and is a feast for the eyes. 

Forty Minutes For Christmas Eve

• Durutti Column: One Christmas Your Thoughts
• The Sugarcubes: Birthday (Christmas Eve)
• Basement 5: Last White Christmas
• The Vendetta Suite: Christmas In Cologne
• Low: Just Like Christmas
• Johnny Marr: Free Christmas
• Sonic Boom: I Wish It Was Like Christmas Every Day (A Little Bit Deeper)
• The Fall: Xmas With Simon
• Saint Etienne: Her Winter Coat

One Christmas For Your Thoughts was originally released as part of a 1981 compilation, Chantons Noel, on Crepescule along with other festive tunes by artists including Aztec Camera, Paul Haig, Simon Topping, and Cabaret Voltaire. It then became an extra track on the various CD re- issues of LC, the 1981 Durutti Column classic- LC stands for Lotta Continua, the struggle continues. This is a particularly lovely piece of Vini Reilly guitar playing and let's face it, there's never a bad time to listen to Vini.

Basement 5's Last White Christmas came out in December 1980, dub/ punk produced by Martin Hannett. Post- punk dread as standard.  

Birthday was a single by The Sugarcubes, their breakthrough record. In 1988 Jim and William Reid remixed it three times, each one with a Christmas title- Eve, Day and Present. Scuzzy Christmas sounds. Side A of the 12" is double grooved so when putting the needle on the record it was always a lottery as to which version you'd get. 

Christmas In Cologne is on The Vendetta Suite's December 2019 EP The Wheel Turns, a festive krautrock treat from Belfast's Gary Irwin, Christmas a la La Dusseldorf.

Just Like Christmas has become one of the few seasonal songs I'll actively seek out around Christmas, the  Minnesotan three piece releasing it as part of an eight song Christmas album in 1999. Sleighbells, Velvets drums and sweetly sung lyrics about driving from Stockholm to Oslo, it starting to snow and it feeling like Christmas. 

Johnny Marr's Free Christmas was given away free from Johnny's website back in 2011. Chiming guitars, acoustic guitars, baritone guitars and some choral voices with Mr Marr wishing listeners a happy Christmas. 

Sonic Boom's 2020 Christmas song was a reworking of another of his songs from the All Things Being Equal album and has Galaxie 500/ Luna's Dean and Britta helping out on vocals. Christmas as repetitive, trippy drones and a song specifically for a Christmas we all spent in Covid enforced isolation. 

Xmas With Simon was the B-side to 1990's High Tension Line single. The Simon in question is Simon Wolstencroft, ex- Fall drummer who I bumped into at the Unknown Territories gig last weekend. Shame I didn't have the presence of mind to get a photo with him. The caption would have written itself. 

Saint Etienne's Her Winter Coat was a December 2021 single, a rather beautiful Pete Wiggs song and production, a wintry blur of synths, sleighbells with the distinct air of melancholy. Just like Christmas. 

Forty Minutes Of Fac

In the 1980s Factory Records was the best record label in the world. Based on Palatine Road, a stone's throw from where I grew up, managed as a Marxist art project, bankrolled by New Order and home to a bunch of sullen, wilful experimental artists who famously signed no contracts and owned all their music, it put out record after record, almost none of which were hits. Today's mix is a small selection of the magnificence that came out of Factory in the mid- 80s (deliberately leaving out New Order), a period where the combined talents clustered around the table at 86 Palatine Road produced such life affirming and ground breaking music. 

Forty Minutes Of Fac

• Cabaret Voltaire: Yashar (John Robie Remix)
• Quando Quango: Genius
• Stockholm Monsters: All At Once
• Section 25: Looking From A Hilltop (Megamix)
• Marcel King: Reach For Love
• A Certain Ratio: Mickey Way (The Candy Bar)
• Durutti Column: For Belgian Friends

Yashar (John Robie Remix) by Cabaret Voltaire is Fac 82. Cabaret Voltaire released just this single 12" for Factory. 

Genius by Quando Quango is Fact 137. Quando Quango were formed in Rotterdam by Mike Pickering with Hillegonda Rietveld and Reinier Rietveld with former ACR singer Simon Topping joining on percussion. 

All At Once by Stockholm Monsters is Fac 107. Stockholm Monsters are the best band to come out of Burnage. 

Looking From A Hilltop (Megamix) by Section 25 is Fac 108, released in 1984, and still sounds like the future. It was produced by Donald Johnson of ACR and Bernard Sumner of New Order as Be Music. 

Reach For Love by Marcel King is FBN 43, released in 1985, and should have been number one in every country in the world. Also produced by Bernard Sumner and Donald Johnson. 

Mickey Way (The Candy Bar) by A Certain Ratio is Fac 168 from 1986. It was also on the album Force, ACR's last album for Factory (Fact 166). 

For Belgian Friends is by Durutti Column and first appeared on A Factory Quartet, Fact 24, in 1980 and then on Valuable Passages, a Durutti Column compilation from 1986 Fac 164. Donald Johnson plays drums. Vini Reilly is one of the true geniuses to be found on Palatine Road during the period. He still lives nearby. 

Changing Places

There was an interview with Vini Reilly in The Guardian last week, a sombre and melancholic appreciation of the man and his talent. Vini talks about his traumatic past and how future Durutti Column drummer, manger and Manchester legend Bruce Mitchell saved him. Factory records, its home on 86 Palatine Road not far from where Vini lived then and now, had several people in its orbit that could be described as geniuses- Ian Curtis, Martin Hannett and Peter Saville all have a claim to the word. Vini is in that group too, his guitar playing and approach to music different from everyone else operating in the same spheres. Vini's view is if you go to Spain you can find flamenco guitarists playing in small bars 'in Cordoba and those guys will make me look stupid'. He casually dismisses his own song Otis as 'just messing about'. 

We are free to disagree with Vini of course, and to praise him and his music. 

In 1983 Anne Clark recruited Vini to play on her record, an album called Changing Places. The first side was recorded with David Harrow, Anne's poetry and voice on top of David's New Wave electronica. Vini played on the five songs on side B. Apparently he got the train from Piccadilly to Euston with his guitar, went straight to Denmark Street studios, played guitar for the five songs- beautiful, fragile, haunting, lighter- than- air guitar- and then got the train back to Manchester. A day's work for Vini but as this song has it, the echoes remain forever. 

Echoes Remain Forever

In 1991 Factory held a festival in Heaton Park to commemorate Martin Hannett. The Sunday line up was very Factory oriented. It was a warm and sunny day, everyone in a good mood. There were people coming over and through the fence, security unable or unwilling to stop them. Duruttti Column played mid- afternoon. They played Fado, a song that wouldn't be released in studio form until 1994's Sex And Death album. The music Vini, Bruce and keyboard player Kier Stewart conjured up that afternoon was a genuine form of magic.

One Christmas

In 1981 Durutti Column released their second album LC, the first with drummer Bruce Mitchell on board and a record packed with seminal Vini Reilly songs, The Missing Boy, Sketch For Dawn I and II, Jacqueline among them. It had come out less than a year after the Factory Quartet compilation, a double album containing three Vini gems in the shape of For Belgian Friends, For Mimi and Self- portrait. When you're hot you're hot. The addition of Bruce had shaped the sound further, a real drummer and sympathetic player who became a life long friend for Vini (and co- manager with Tony Wilson). 

Factory were sometimes in the habit of handing recordings to other labels to release. Joy Division's Atmosphere/ Dead Souls single first saw the light of day on French label Sordide Sentimentale, at Ian Curtis' insistence. Several Durutti Column recordings around this time came out on Le Disques De Crepuescule. Around the same time a Durutti Column single was given to Sordide Sentimentale to release, Danny backed with Enigma, two further moments of Reilly genius. I don't use the word genius lightly but it seems that Factory was blessed in the late 70s and early 80s with several people who can genuinely lay claim to that word and who coalesced around the label- Vini for one, Martin Hannett another, Peter Saville perhaps and Ian Curtis too. 

In December 1981 a Durutti Column song titled One Christmas For Your Thoughts turned up on an album called Chantons Noel- Ghosts Of Christmas Past, a compilation which included offerings by Aztec Camera, The Names, Paul Haig, Cabaret Voltaire, ex- ACR singer Simon Topping, Thick Pigeon and Michael Nyman. Vini's song, at least two electric guitars with electronic drums backing him, is a bit of a minor/ lost classic with some gorgeous runs down the fretboard and repeating melodies and phrases that ebb and flow during the song's course. 

One Christmas For Your Thoughts

Happy Christmas to you all, whatever you're doing, wherever you are and whoever you're with. Have a good one. See you shortly for more of the same.