Lay Down Dot

There's lots of new music around as we head into February. I have a list in my notebook that's a page long, all of which I intend to write about here. Today's new music is a pair of releases that came out at the end of January from opposite hemispheres. First up is Eduardo, my friend from Sao Paulo, Brazil, who records as Pandit Pam Pam. His latest is a six track mini- album titled Dot. Pandit Pam Pam's previous EP, Ar, was a musical response to the poor quality of air in Sao Paulo. Dot  was originally lined up to be on that EP but Eduardo was persuaded to leave it off and make something new with Dot as the starting point. Eduardo has a young baby and his recording is to some extent built around the baby's needs as the second track- Recorded With Diogo In My Arms- makes clear. 

Dot, the title track, doesn't appear until five tracks into the EP. Shuffling drums, echo, a rippling melody on top, bags of atmosphere, and then at nearly two minutes in a female voice drifts in and out again. It's a gorgeous piece of music, calling to mind a fractured version of One Dove or Death In Vegas gone ambient. 

The rest of the EP is equally beautiful, from ambient opener Samba De Longe to the eight minute modular synth/ sleeping babe track mentioned above, the skittery ambience of Fot and even more hazy Interludio. The EP ends with Guitar 2- background buzz of static, wash of FX and picked guitar notes creating a very blissed out, blurred out track that stretches time. You can listen and buy at Bandcamp. Highly recommended for small hours and headphones listening. 

Back in the UK comes an EP from Velvett called Lay Down. Velvett are Jo Sims and Natali Williams. Lay Down starts out ambient but drums kick in and then Natali's vocal, both suggesting mid- 90s trip hop is in the ether again (Kruder and Dorfmeister were featured here only a few days ago). Slowed down late night sounds. 

There are remixes, one from Warehouse Preservation Society which toughens up the rhythms and stretches it out into something darker, and one from Dicky Continental (Red Snapper's Rich Thair) which builds slowly, drums and strings, and snatches of the original mix flitting in and out, Rich cutting from one element to another. The trip hop vibe continues. 

There's also a Velvett club mix, the Rubber Dub Club Mix which suddenly switches everything into gay disco mode, bouncing bassline, whooshes, and Hi NRG sequencers. You can find the whole EP at Bandcamp.  

Forty Five Minutes Of David Holmes Remixes

Summer has finally gatecrashed its way into northern England and we've had the sudden appearance of the aurora borealis all over the country (I missed this on Friday night, having gone to bed. I woke up on Saturday morning to everyone else's photos of the northern lights on display in the skies all over the nation). It's been too nice to spend too long sitting indoors in front of a computer screen so this mix was a little thrown together in a rush but it's turned out quite well- a selection of remixes of other artists by David Holmes from the last few years.

Forty Five Minutes Of David Holmes Remixes

• Andy Bell: The Sky Without You (David Holmes Radical Mycology Remix)
• The Vendetta Suite: Purple Haze, Yellow Sunrise (David Holmes Remix)
• Jo Sims: Bass- The Final Frontier (David Holmes Remix)
• Orbital: Belfast (David Holmes Remix)
• Lisa Moorish: Sylvia (David Holmes Remix)
• X- Press 2 ft. Kele Okereke: Phasing You Out (David Holmes Remix)

The Sky Without You was the opener on Andy Bell's solo album Flicker, released in 2022, a blur of backwards guitars and reversed vocals inspired by the backwards songs The Stone Roses recorded in 1989- Don't Stop, Guernica, Full Fathom Five, Simone (in fact, there's the germ of an idea for another mix...). David's remix came out on 10" vinyl and digital in October 2022, a remix inspired by microdosing during lockdown in Belfast. The I Am A Strange Loop EP also came with remixes by Richard Norris, bdrmm, A Place To Bury Strangers and Claude Cooper- even among that company Holmes' remix stands out.

The Vendetta Suite is Gary Irwin, a stalwart of the Belfast club and music world. The album The Kempe Stone Portal came out in 2021, with some remixes following a year later including David's remix of Purple Haze, Yellow Sunrise which is a psychedelic/ acid house monster, a huge sounding record that fills any space it's played in, a genuinely transportative piece of music.

Jo Sims' Bass- The Final Frontier came out on Pamela Records last year, Holmes' remix one of '23's highlights. Space house. 

David's remix of Belfast was done for Orbital's 30soemthing album, a celebration of three decades of Orbital. The original was recorded after the Hartnoll brothers played at David's club in Belfast in May 1990. The even more recent version with Mike Garry, Tonight In Belfast, is one of 2024's highlights. 

Lisa Moorish's Sylvia came out in spring 2024, a song recorded as a tribute to writer Sylvia Plath. In April we stayed in Heptonstall while attending the AW61 celebrations in Todmorden. Sylvia is buried in the graveyard at Heptonstall, that's her grave in the picture above (with Ted Hughes' name scrubbed off by Sylvia's fans). Her grave has hundreds of pens sticking out of the soil, left by visitors. Holmes' remix is crunchy acid house, and was played at AW61 by Mark and then not long after by me (duh!).

X- Press 2's Phasing You Out is from their 2023 album Thee, a return to form by Rocky and Diesel, with former Bloc Party singer Kele Okereke on guest vocals. Holmes' remix is a full on, city scape sounding record, ending in a sea of sirens and traffic after several minutes of busy, high tempo drums. Makes it quite difficult to sequence/ mix but it had to go on this mix as I really like it. 

Pamela One To Four

Pamela Records is a London based label with to date only four release to its name (three already out and one to come shortly), run by Dave Jarvis and Darren House. Pamela is a sister label to Moton Records (and hence the joke of the name, which I think is Tamla Motown pun). Pamela 001 was one of the last releases by Andrew Weatherall before his untimely death in February 2020- in fact if memory serves Pamela 001 arrived on my door mat just a few days after Andrew's death. The EP has four Andrew Weatherall and Nina Walsh tracks, led by the track The Moton 5 (another Motown. Jackson 5 pun I'm guessing). The Moton 5 is a slinky number built around a deeply chuggy groove and some machine based noises, occasional bursts of timpani and synth chord key changes, and a huge descending, slightly Eastern sounding synth string part. 

The other three tracks on Pamela 001 show how high Andrew's quality control was- all three are the equal of the lead track and all stand alongside anything else Andrew recorded under his own name. Slap And Slide has the inclusion of a burst of slap bass, something fairly rare in Weatherall world. March Violets sees the return of Andrew's steam powered drum machine and some very WRF bleeps and FX (and is named after one of the novels in Philip Kerr's Berlin Noir trilogy,highly recommended if you fancy some detective fiction set in Germany in the 1930s). The Moton 5.2 finishes the EP off, a further deconstruction of the lead track, uberchug, chug as a way of life. 

Pamela 002 didn't appear until three years later, in the summer of 2023, a four track EP by Jo Sims titled Bass- The Final Frontier. It came with a David Holmes remix that was one of my favourite pieces of music from last year, seven minutes and twelve seconds of wobbly, slo mo, supercharged sci fi acid house. 

The flipside of the 12" had two further tracks, Demons Of Dance and Mumbo Jumbo. The former is a bass led beast, a fuzzed up electro crawl. The latter is a wiggy and spaced out treat pushed onwards by a rattling drum track. 

Pamela 003 followed a few months later, an EP from Anthony Teasdale called Tango de la Boca. Once again, four tracks across two sides of a 12" single, with the title track a chunky, sundown moment with a rippling piano line.

The EP also featured A Pavement In Palma and Deep In The Forest Something Stared and was completed by the Balearic sounds of It's 5am Somewhere. 

Pamela 004 is next, four tracks from Justin Robertson. I pulled together a fifty minute mix of Justin's recordings as Deadstock 33s a few Sundays ago (it's here) and by happy coincidence his Pamela EP comes out at the start of April. Justin's EP keeps the standards high, not just of the Pamela back catalogue but of his own releases and recordings from recent years. There's plenty of wired dub basslines, chuggy drums and spacey FX, a wonderful four track, twenty five minute release. Opener In Minus Shadows is a dubby delight with a front foot bassline and some guitar that could come from an early New Order record. The distorted effect on the voice makes the vocal sounds like its been beamed in from some other world, and is a close cousin of the track Justin gave us for The Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 1. The snares rattle and echo while the kick drum thuds away. It's followed by Endless Motorcade, propelled by a faster, pumping drumbeat, with revving engines and a foreground synth bassline. Sci fi bleeps and FX swirl around. Cup Of Silence follows, basement chug, thumping kick drum, melodica, shakers, flutters of flute and more disembodied vocals. The dub bass returns, a Sabres Of Paradise style speaker shaker. Of Ghosts rounds things off in fine style, drum machine gainfully employed and plenty of squelch and filters bouncing around. Washes of synth chords come in, again recalling early 80s New Order, the promise of an imaginary Factory electronic dub offshoot from 1983, and then bleeps riding over it all. 

An Hour Of Music Inspired By David Holmes At The Golden Lion In November 2023

Last November I wrote a post about the launch party held at The Golden Lion for David Holmes and Raven Violet's album Blind On A Galloping Horse, a memorable night in all sorts of ways. Refresh your memory here if you like. Not long afterwards Jeff Barrett of Heavenly Recordings got in touch out of the blue. Heavenly have just launched  a zine, HVN zine, a beautifully put together and produced magazine with art, photos, lists, articles and ephemera by and from various people at Heavenly. Physical products are nice and the production of an A5 zine in a digital world feels like something worthwhile. HVN zine 1 was published in the autumn with the second lined up for January 2024. Jeff said that some people from Heavenly were at The Golden Lion that night, one of them had read my blogpost and said I captured the vibe of the night and could he publish it in HVN zine 2. Which I didn't need to think about for very long, obviously. 

You can buy it at Heavenly's Bandcamp for the princely sum of 50p or get it free with any purchase from them. It's a beautifully put together magazine, lovely to look, nice paper stock (these things are important) and made by people, who care about pop culture and more besides. 

Today's mix is an approximation, a version of some of what David played at The Golden Lion back in November. It's inspired by rather than an attempt to recreate- some of the tracks may not be the actual ones played but it pulls some of what happened that night together. 

An Hour Of Music Inspired By David Holmes At The Golden Lion November 2023

• Golden Bug ft. The Liminanas: Variations sur 3 Bancs
• Jo Sims: Bass- The Final Frontier (David Holmes Remix)
• Prince: Sign O' The Times
• Khidja: Do You Know This Record Marius?
• Roe Deers ft. Wolfstream: Can't Remember
• Pete Shelley: Homosapien
• Decius: Masculine Encounter
• David Holmes and Raven Violet: Yeah x 3
• Sinead O'Connor: Jackie (Rich Lane Edit)
• Roberto Rodriguez: Mustat Varjot
• Radio Slave Vs Audion: Mouth To Mouth

Variations sur 3 Bancs, a collaboration between Golden Bug and The Liminanas came out in 2021. The EP came with remixes by Pilooski and Superpitcher and this one, the original mix. This wasn't the first record David played that night, he played some spaced out sax jazz but this came on fairly early. 

Jo Sims Bass- The Final Frontier was a 2023 release on Pamela Records. One of my favourite 12"s of last year, for what it's worth. David's remix is supercharged sci fi house.

Prince's Sign O' The Times was a 1987 single and the title track of the studio album of the same name, a Fairlight synth, simple drum machine and clipped, blues guitar riff and Prince's take on the issues troubling the USA in the 80s- gangs, drugs, AIDS, poverty, space shuttle explosions, hurricanes, nuclear war. 

Khidja's Do You Know This Record Marius? came out in 2023 as part of an EP called Transmissions 1. I'm not anywhere near bored of it yet. I'm not 100% sure that this is the Khidja track David played at The Lion but he's played it twice at NTS since then so I think there's a good chance it is. 

Roe Deers and Wolfstream's Can't Remember came out in 2022, on an album I reviewed at Ban Ban Ton Ton. I'm not sure if this is the track David played but it fits in this mix well enough.

Pete Shelley's Homosapien was a 1981 single, a groundbreaking solo single for the former Buzzcock. I don't think this is the Pete Shelley song David played, I'm sure I would remember if this had been pumping out of the Lion's sound system, but I've got it digitally and again, it fits in pretty well here. 

Decius' album Decius Vol 1 was one of 2022's highlights, a basement/ bathhouse/sauna riot of electronic sounds and beats. I don't think Masculine Encounter II was the track David played but I can't remember which one he did play- just as likely it was off one of the three 2023 Decius Trax EPs.

Yeah x 3 is from David's Blind On A Galloping horse album, a hymn to positivity, family, friends and life and love set to a kosmische/ pop electronic/ Spector musical backing. There were a bunch of excellent remixes by X- Press 2, The Vendetta Suite, Panda Bear and Sonic Boom and Jordan Nocturne. 

Jackie was on Sinead's 1987 debut album The Lion And The Cobra, a song narrated by a ghost, written when Sinead was just fifteen. Rich did his edit to play at a gig. David heard it when I posted it here following Sinead's tragic death last year. 

Mustat Varjo is from 2012 and a House Of Disco four track compilation titled On The Latch. Classic 2010s nu house/ disco/ dance music, finding itself somewhere in the space between ecstasy and melancholy.

Radio Slave remixed/ re-worked Audion's 2006  minimal techno floor filler last year and it goes on and on, tension building, bassline buzzing, freakiness freaking, for over ten minutes. 

Bagging Area Tak Tent Mix Nine

My latest hour long mix for Tak Tent Radio went live at the weekend. Tak Tent have been broadcasting out of Scotland on the internet since June 2020, with a range of contributors including the legendary Richard Youngs. The latest Bagging Area mix is my ninth for Tak Tent and contains solely music from this year. You can listen to it here or directly at Mixcloud. Don't let them tell you there's no good new music any more. 

• Alex Kassian: Lifestream
• Marshall Watson: High Desert (Seahawks High Sky Remix)
• Whitelands: Setting Sun (AR Kane Initiation Dub)
• Dot Allison: Unchanged (GLOK Remix)
• Dicky Continental: Simon Says (Congagong rework)
• African Head Charge: Passing Clouds
• Coyote: After All These Years
• Steve Queralt and Michael Smith: Chaldean Oracle (GLOK Remix)
• Jo Sims: Bass- The Final Frontier (David Holmes Remix)
• Richard Norris: The Third Day
• JIM: Still River Flow (Generalisation Dub)

Mostly Remixes

Matt Gunn's album Mostly Fiction came out earlier this year, ten tracks of electronic goodness that closes with the rippling, bleepy, ambient euphoria of Learning Through Loops. 

The first of a set of remix EPs came out at the start of the month- Mostly Remixed 1 features a pair of remixes, the first an Al Mackenzie remix of Learning Through Loops and the second a Matt Gunn remix of the epic Space Drohne. Al hits the button marked 'thumper', the drums kicking in from the off with blasts of synth, rumbling bass, rattling percussion, rising chords and eventually sirens and melodica- a widescreen/ sci fi/ house remix that make rainy summer days feel good. Find it at Bandcamp. 

Play it alongside this for maximum fun- Bass- The Final Frontier (David Holmes remix), one of 2023's best remixes so far, a seven minute David Holmes remix of Jo Sims, one of four songs from an EP that came out on Pamela records in July. I wrote about the EP at Ban Ban Ton Ton last month.  

Matt's remix of Space Drohne, the Floor Mix, is eight minutes of action in a similar sphere, drum machines, space synths, rave synths, breakbeats, synth arpeggios, synth bass, the machinery of Behringer, Roland and Moog in full effect. 

Al Mackenzie is a member of D: Ream and also puts out work under his own name. His latest release, a two track EP called Hold Your Own, came out on Field Of Dreams at the start of August. Get it here. The title track is my pick of the pair, nine minutes of thumpy, wiggy acid house. Music that sounds good in the dark. 

Download all the above and stick them all together in one playlist/ on one CD for maximum enjoyment, a late summer mixtape. 

Split

Dicky Continental, the new musical vehicle for Red Snapper's drummer Rich Thair, has an album out on Acid Jazz. Un... is a distinctive album, a very urban sounding marriage of light and shade, with some mid- 90s trip hop vibes going on and dub influences and production. Recorded at Rich's studio in South Wales, his intention was to work quickly, acting on simple ideas, ones that came first and weren't overworked- most of the eleven songs are three to four minutes long, tracks moving by quickly and then its on to the next one. It sounds very much like it was made using a 'first thought best' philosophy, it has a freshness and a directness to its grooves despite some of it being shrouded in some dark atmospherics and textures. Un... is an album for late night listening, for drives round after dark, moody and overcast but with sultry and soulful moments too. 

Evolution 2 is a mid- paced smoky crawl, horns and the chatter and hubbub of voices. Chico Flores is named after the Spanish footballer, centre back for Swansea City between 2012 and 2014, three minutes of tripped out disco funk. Pike has a off kilter accordion or organ line, a ticking cymbal and discordant noises. Final song Hammersmith is all spooked synth sounds, a drum machine on the edge, and some Sabres Of Paradise menace working its way in. This one is Split , a slightly dislocated song for the small hours, piano, then drums and a blurry, backwards sound that throws it off kilter, with Jo Sims' soulful but half asleep vocals layered on top. 

Un... is at Bandcamp. 

Make Them Disappear

Dicky Continental is the new project from Red Snapper's Rich Thair, eleven new tracks based on the idea that first thought is often best and that simple ideas beat complicated ones. This song, Make Them Disappear, is sketchy and scratchy, blurry atmospherics, sounds conjured up from the dusk in the Welsh countryside and a slow motion drumbeat, an undergrowth of synths and organ and vocals from Jo Sims, a soulful croon of, 'I'll take all your troubles/ make them disappear'. The album Un... is out on Acid Jazz in April.