September Songs

Few months mark the start of something new as much as 1st September does, a real change in the seasons, change of mood, new phase of the year,  the whole back to school routine (which as someone who has worked in education since the early 90s is very much part of my annual rhythm). 

In 1984 Ian McCulloch tested the water for a solo career with a single released under his own name, outside the Bunnymen with a cover of Kurt Weill's September Song. Weill's song looks forward to autumn coming...

'But it's a long, long while from May to December
And the days grow short when you reach September
And the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame
And I haven't got time for waiting game

And the days dwindle down to a precious few
September, November
And these few precious days I'd spend with you'

September Song (Long Version)

In 1987 David Sylvian released a solo album, Secrets Of The Beehive which had this song to open it, one minute and seventeen seconds of David and piano. For David, the inevitability of September and the changes it brings are shot through with melancholy...

'The sun shines high above, the sounds of laughter
The birds swoop down upon the crosses of old grey churches
We say that we're in love while secretly wishing for rain
Sipping Coke and playing games

September's here again'

September

Much more recently, in 2021, Chris Coco and George Solar released September On The Island, a tribute to Ibiza after all the tourists have gone home...

September On The Island (Dub Version)

Soundtrack Saturday

When packing for Marrakech recently I thought about re- reading The Sheltering Sky, Paul Bowles' 1949 novel The Sheltering Sky. Bowles moved to North Africa in 1947 and lived there in Tangier the rest of his life, eventually dying in 1999 aged 88. The Sheltering Sky is the story of  New York couple who move to North Africa in an attempt to resolve marital difficulties. I read it in 1990 when the Bernardo Bertolucci film version came out, filmed on location in Morocco, Algeria and Niger. From memory it doesn't end well for the couple, Port and Kit Moresby, and there's a load of existential despair and alienation in the book and the film that I thought maybe I didn't need to take with me on my trip to Morocco. 

The film starred John Malkovich and Debra Winger. Port and Kit, travelling with their friend Tunner, pitch up in the Sahara in 1947, Tunner saying that they're probably the 'first tourists they've had here since the war'. 'We're not tourists', Kit replies, 'we're travelers'. I haven't seen the film since 1990 either. The Sheltering Sky received mixed reviews and Paul Bowles wasn't a fan. It did come with a Ryuichi Sakamoto score- The Sheltering Sky Theme is not remotely North African, no Sahara desert guitars or Berber instruments here, but a sweeping, cinematic film theme instead.   

In 1983 Sakamoto provided the soundtrack and score for Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, a World War II prisoner of war drama starring David Bowie. Sakamoto's main theme for the film was a tour de force and the main title theme gained a David Sylvian vocal, a new title and was released as a single. Sylvian and Sakamoto created an early 80s synth- pop/ soundtrack masterpiece with Forbidden Colours, melody and counter- melody and gorgeous synthwork. 

Forbidden Colours

Monday's Long Song

In 1993 David Sylvian and Robert Fripp released a single- Jean The Birdman- across two CDs with different B-sides on the pair. CD Two came with Endgame, a beautiful, understated acoustic song, and the ten minute and fourteen second wonder that is Earthbound/ Starblind. Effectively, it's two songs stuck together. The first half is David singing over acoustic guitar, close and melodic with lyrics about magic and nature and a woman who is 'giving me questions and quizzical looks/ She tears up my papers and burns all my books', someone who has 'been through this world before'. At four minutes seventeen seconds the second half starts, six minutes of Frippertronics, the conjuring of ambient guitar soundscapes. The first half is earthbound I guess and the second half is starblind. 

Earthbound/ Starblind

There's A Sound Of Distant Living

A couple of weeks ago JC/ The Vinyl Villain updated his run through 1979- a year he's saying may be music's best ever year- and one of the songs he posted was Japan's Life In Tokyo. I've become mildly obsessed with it ever since, playing it repeatedly. 

Life In Tokyo

Recorded with Giorgio Moroder, who co- wrote it with David Sylvian, it builds on Moroder's supercharged late 70s disco records with Donna Summer but with some very overt Roxy Music influences in there too. One of those records that bears repeat plays, keeps on giving, keeps rewarding in different ways- the synths, the bass, the lyrics, the production, the vocal. It's a superb slice of 1979 art- pop. 

Life In Tokyo (Long Version)

It was re- released several times, the record company looking for a hit and as each Japan album after 1979 came out, so did Life In Tokyo. In 1981, hot on the heels of Gentlemen Take Polaroids, Hansa released it on 12" with a seven minute extended remix and then again in 1982 after Tin Drum and two hit singles (Ghosts and Cantonese Boy) it was remixed and re- released for a third time. 

David Sylvian's lyrics are suitably impressionistic, with plenty of late 70s apathy- 'it seems so sentimental/ why should I care'- coupled with Ballardian existentialism- 'somewhere there's the sound of distant living/ locked up in high society/ it seems so artificial/ why should I care'- and then the chorus, 'oh oh oh life can be cruel/ life in Tokyo'.

In 2019 Sean Johnston wanted a version to play at ALFOS, a turbo charged edit with Japan, Moroder and Roxy Music crossed with a cosmic, sci fi Latin disco feel that goes on and on for nine minutes. So he made one.

Life In Tokyo (Hardway Bros Re- edit)

Isolation Mix Seven

An hour and a minute of stitched together songs for Saturday. This one caused me a bit of a headache at times. It was an attempt I think at first to try to join some dots together in terms of feel or sounds, with a nod to Kraftwerk following Florian Schneider's death last week. There was an earlier version that went quite techno/dance for the last twenty minutes but I then went back and did the end section again. I'm still not sure I got it quite right, and think I may have tried to cover too many bases stylistically, but my self imposed deadline was approaching so 'publish and be damned', as the Duke of Wellington said. Although he wasn't dealing with the business of trying to get spaghetti westerns, indie dance, shoegaze and leftfield electronic music to sit together in one mix was he?

Ennio Morricone: Watch Chimes (From ‘For A Few Dollars More’)

David Sylvian and Robert Fripp: Endgame

Talk Talk: Life’s What You Make It

Saint Etienne: Kiss And Make Up (Midsummer Madness Mix)

Spacemen 3: Big City (Everyone I Know Can Be Found Here)

Beyond The Wizards Sleeve: Diagram Girl (Beyond The Wizards Sleeve Re- Animation)

My Bloody Valentine: Don’t Ask Why

Jon Hopkins and Kelly Lee Owens: Luminous Spaces

Kraftwerk: Numbers

Death In Vegas: Consequences Of Love (Chris and Cosey Remix)

Chris Carter: Moonlight

Simple Minds: Theme For Great Cities

Durutti Column: It’s Wonderful

I have a significant birthday fast approaching. A few months ago we had planned that today would be a day of celebrating with anyone who wanted to join us, starting with lunch and few beers in town and then a tram pub crawl southbound out of the city centre towards Sale, stopping off in Old Trafford (maybe) and Stretford (definitely) before some drinks locally in the evening. That obviously isn't happening. I'll have to re-schedule for my 51st. 

Monday's Long Songs

David Sylvian's name has popped up in a few places recently, largely unconnected I think (although these things usually end up being connected somehow). I read about his solo albums in Rob Young's Electric Eden book, a long meandering trawl through British folk music and how in the 80s various people- Sylvian, Talk Talk, Cope- reconnected with visionary folk music in one way or another. Then, having moved on and semi- forgot about it he came back via social media and then came up in conversation with a friend who's a big Bowie fan when talking about Fripp. I dug a little into Youtube but didn't buy anything and again moved on. Then last week digging around Richard Norris' Soundcloud page, a proper treasure trove of tracks, remixes and versions, I found his 1993 remix of Sylvian and Fripp. Richard took the original track, Darshan (The Road To Graceland), a seventeen minute epic and remixed it, shaving a minute off in the process. An ambient opening section followed by a long, funky, experimental art- pop journey with a '93 house beat.



Sylvian and Fripp the turned up a few days ago at Echorich's place (linked on yesterday's post) with the dreamy two and half minutes of Endgame, ambient opening and then acoustic guitar and voice, which has sent me scurrying down a rabbithole. The Richard Norris remix of Darshan came out on a CD mini- album, only three songs long but well over forty minutes long in total. Richard Norris's remix, the original version and this ten minute ambient psychedelic swirl re-construction from the Future Sound Of London. Float on. Ambient special as i-D noted in '93.