Fifty Five Minute Edit Mix

There have been a lot of really good edits out in the wild over the last few years and the thought of slinging a bunch of them together into a Sunday mix became irresistible. In the fifty five minutes below you'll find various artists from the last sixty years of popular culture re- edited and rejigged into new shapes including Gil Scott Heron, Gordon Lightfoot, The Residents, Voice Of Africa, Monsoon, Siouxsie and The Banshees and Les Negresses Vertes. This mix is only part of the story- volume 2 (and maybe 3) will follow shortly. 

Fifty Five Minute Edit Mix

• Western Revolution
• Totem Edits 12- Feel
• Resident Rockers
• Totem Edits 03- Hoomba
• Lonely
• Trading Places (6PM)
• Arabian Knights
• Totem Edits 14- Zombi

Western Revolution was  released on 12" vinyl only, part of Coyote's Magic Wand Special Editions Volume 2, along with Lonely and two other edits (Love Home and Luca). Western Revolution is a live sounding, laid back groove with the unmistakeable voice of Gil Scott Heron advising us about the results of the revolution and theta there will be 'no re- run, brothers and sisters, the revolution will be live'. Lonely picks up where Monsoon's 1981 single Ever So Lonely left off and extends it out.

Totem Edits have become fairly essential recently, a page at Bandcamp for the edit work of Leo Zero and Justin Deighton (with plenty of input from Sean Johnston). One to watch. I posted Feel fairly recently, lovely drawn out funky folk built around a 1967 Gordon Lightfoot song, The Way  Feel. Totem Edit 03 has Voice Of Africa's 1990 Balearic beat smash Hoomba Hoomba close to its core. Totem Edits 14 is one of my favourite recent edits from the pair, a wonderfully absorbing version of Les Negresses Vertes' 1989 French punk/ folk/ Balearic song Zobi La Mouche. 

Resident Rockers is part of a two track EP on the recently reinvigorated Eclectics label, San Francisco avant garde/ art punk rockers/ giant eyeball headgear wearers The Residents bent into new shapes by someone very familiar to this blog. Find Eclectics and the EP here. 

Jezebell are masters of the edit, a sample forming the basis of a completely new track, something old being reworked into something new. Trading Places was a six track pair of EPs from 2023, split into two parts, daytime and nighttime versions. In the 6PM take Siouxsie Sioux's Peek- A- Boo gets reworked and taken for a spin round the floor. 

In 2015 Mojo Filter, an edit veteran, took The Banshees 1981 single Arabian Knights, Siouxsie's post punk psychedelia re- jigged into new shapes. Going from Peek- A- Boo to Arabian Knights seemed like too good an opportunity to miss. 

Forty Minutes Of The Xx

Over the course of three Xx albums, a bunch of remixes and various solo releases The Xx defined some of what the 2010's would sound like, the three members conjuring up a minimalist and distinctive sound, a hint of indie- rock, reflective/ melancholic vocals by the front pair of Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim, and Jamie Xx's beats and laptop bringing in a sound from London's club scene and underground. I missed their debut album, the Mercury prize win and their media exposure putting me off (like the fool I can be sometimes about such things) and only really caught up with their second album and then especially Jamie Xx's solo album In Colour. Now, I find their music hugely affecting. Revisiting Jamie's Gil Scott Heron remix album recently sent hares running in my mind and hence today's mix. In the end, the real problem was choosing what to put in and what to leave out.

Forty Minutes Of The Xx

• Gil Scott Heron and Jamie Xx: I'll Take Care Of You
• Jamie Xx ft. Romy: Loud Places
• Jamie Xx: All Under One Roof Raving
• The Xx: Chained (John Talabot and Pional Blinded Remix)
• The Xx: VCR
• The Xx: VCR (Four Tet Remix)
• Jamie Xx: Let's Do It Again
• Jamie Xx: Gosh

In 2011 Jamie Xx remixed all of Gil Scott Heron's 2010 album, I'm New Here (it turned out to be Gil's final album). The new version, We're New Here, is full of Jamie's signature production techniques and is full of life and the joy of making sound. The album was Jamie's first full solo production, much of it created while on tour with The Xx. He said wanted it to sound like something you'd hear on pirate radio, 'a different genres... convoluted and mixed up'.  Post- dubstep apparently. 

Loud Places is the stand out from Jamie Xx's 2015 album In Colour, a record that was deservedly praised in the end of 2015 lists. This song, with Xx bandmate Romy on vocals, a song about memories,  connections, the solace found in crowds, intimacy, missing someone when they've gone, all those kinds of things. John Talabot's remix of Loud Places, the Higher Dub, is among my favourite records of the last ten years and that I didn't put it on this mix is a mystery to me too.

All Under One Roof Raving was released as a single in 2014, a celebration of nightclubs, music, scenes, youth culture, London and clothing. It samples crowd noises and voices from the 1999 film Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore, the list of brands at the end of the song 

John Talabot and Pionel's remix of Chained came out in 2013, the Spanish producers pushing the source track (from The Xx's 2012 album Coexist) into less minimal territories, the vocals from Romy and Oliver Sim ducking and diving around each other.

VCR was on The Xx's self titled debut album, released in 2010, which suddenly seems like a long time ago. The minimal sound, spacious production, woodblock percussion, single guitar line and melancholic twin vocals demonstrating what made their first album so good. 

The Four Tet remix of VCR is among Kieran Hebden's best work. Yep, that good. 

Let's Do It Again was the first new track from Jamie since 2020's I Don't Know, a 2022 track designed to sound irresistible in fields and festivals. This is the radio edit, a four minute condensed journey through peaks and troughs, samples and synth arpeggios and an anthemic vocal. It was at least partly a response to emerging from lockdown and being able to do things communally again. 

Gosh is the opening track on In Colour, a deep house/ future garage/ pirate radio single that leaps out of the speakers. 'Oh my gosh', the vocal sample exclaims, 'Oh my gosh/ Easy easy/ Hold it down, hold it down' and you know exactly what he means. 

The Revolution Will Be Live

Today's post is post number 5, 555 which is an achievement and numerologically pleasing, all those fives lined up. 

I reviewed two Coyote releases for Ban Ban Ton Ton earlier this week, a post you can read here if you're interested. The review focussed on the forthcoming six track mini- album Hurry Up And Live and a vinyl only release, a 12" containing four Coyote edits. One of the four was featured earlier this year, an refit of Ever So Lonely by Monsoon, and one of my most played tracks of this year). The 1982 original is a dreamy sitar- led pop song with wonderful vocals from Sheila Chandra. 

The second edit is a superb update of a Gil Scott Heron song retitled Western Revolution, Gil's spoken word poetry describing the revolution required by people in the west, the first revolution taking place in the mind and second with action. The lazy groove and gently drifting tune is pure Coyote brilliance. 

Not included in my Coyote roundup at Ban Ban Ton Ton is this piece of sun baked Balearica with Woodentop Rolo McGinty on vocals and acoustic guitar, a heady, catchy and very summer sounding song celebrating the specific delights of partaking in the smoking of the weed in the shade on hot days. Listen/  buy here. 

Saturday Theme Sixteen

Today's Saturday theme is one of the great Theme records, a song which turned spring 1988 upside down- a joyous, ecstatic, sampledelic splash of neon colours, smiley face, acid house crossover mayhem. A song guaranteed to fill a dancefloor, at any occasion, still. Theme From S'Express is one of the best records of the 80s and if I was forced to put together a list of my favourite fifty singles (or something similar) it would undoubtedly feature highly. 

Theme From S'Express

Mark Moore and Pascal Gabriel constructed the track largely out of samples. Moore was a DJ, Gabriel a producer (who had recently co- written Bomb The Bass' hit Beat Dis, another sample- heavy smash in both the clubs and the charts). Moore turned up with a bag of records, they sequenced the parts they wanted onto cassette and turned everything up to ten. 

A few years ago at his A History Of Dubious Taste blog Jez pulled together the songs that provided Mark Moore with his source material which is where I got most of the mp3s I've used for what follows. I've attempted to sequenced the songs that S'Express sampled for Theme From S'Express into one continuous mix- it was a bit of a challenge, getting the sequence and the segues somewhere near right. It starts and finishes with some spoken word science fiction, goes all disco and New York, borrows from acts as diverse as Sam The Sham and Gil Scott Heron, some early 80s synthpop and the genuinely jaw dropping, X rated Tales Of Taboo by Karen Finley, a song that once heard is never forgotten. 

Theme From S'Express Samples Mix

• Laura Olsher: The Martian Monsters
• Rose Royce: Is It Love You're After?
• Peech Boys: Don't Make Me Wait
• TZ: I Got The Hots For You
• Gil Scott Heron and Brian Jackson: The Bottle
• Crystal Glass: Crystal World
• Alfredo de la Fe: Hot To Trot
• Sam The Sham And The Pharaohs: Oh, That's Bad, No That's Good
• Debbie Harry: Feel The Spin
• Karen Finley: Tales Of Taboo
• Stacey Q: Two Of Hearts
• Yazoo: Situation
• Gene Roddenbury: The Star Trek Dream

I'll Take Care Of U

Since my car was condemned to the scrapyard I've been driving a different car to work. Ok, alright, I've been driving my mother in law's car to work. It has a CD player so I've switched from my in-car mp3 player and the world of shuffle to grabbing some cds from the pile next to the stereo waiting to be filed and working my way through albums instead. One of them is Jamie Xx's remixed version of Gil Scott Heron's I'm New Here, released back in 2011 as We're New Here. Jamie kept the vocals and reworked the music entirely, sampling some of Gil's older vocals too. The closing song, I'll Take Care Of U, an old Brook Benton song, is one of the best and the one that most successfully takes Gil's vocals somewhere else (London pirate radio).

I'll Take Care Of You