No Coincidences

The latest album by Coyote came out recently, a six track album titled The Higher The Sky, The Deeper The Ocean. It follows three other six track albums they've released in the last few years (as well as numerous singles, 12"s and edits). Five of the six tracks feature very well chosen and apposite vocal samples, taken from a variety of sources, that are built into the Notts duo's music- Balearica, dub and ambient tunes that are always like a ray of warm sunshine. 

I reviewed The Higher The Sky, The Deeper The Ocean for Ban Ban Ton Ton where I got into the idea that what Coyote are doing with the voices that appear on their albums is making meaning or trying to find answers or make sense of the world/ life. The voices that they drop into their songs become lyrics in the same way I guess that actually writing the words for a song does for songwriters. The review is here and the album is available at Bandcamp, digital and vinyl. 

The album ends with No Coincidences, six minutes of music that have become one of my favourite songs of 2026. The lazy drumbeat, double bass (reminiscent of Danny Thompson's bass playing on Nick Drake, John Martyn and Pentangle records) and wash of sounds are intoxicating and the voice on top elevates it further. 'Life is a colour... there's no such things as coincidence... hurry up please it's time...'. 

In the review I linked the vocal sample, a repeated line  of 'hurry up please it's time, hurry please it's time', to T.S. Eliott's The Waste Land (the line appears in the poem, the barman trying to get drinkers out of his pub at last orders). Which felt a bit pretentious (I asked Rob at Ban Ban Ton Ton to feel free to tell me if it was a bit much) but I think we run the risk of pretentiousness form time to time in blogging and we just have to accept it. 

Anyway, it led me to think about what other songs have been inspired by The Waste Land and these three turned up. Pet Shop Boys' breakthrough single West End Girls is one of them, Neil Tennant finding inspiration in the streets on London as portrayed in the poem, the noise and strife of the city and the class struggle of those East End Boys and West End Girls. 

PJ Harvey's On Battleship Hill is also apparently partly inspired by The Waste Land, both commenting on the aftermath of the First World War and the slaughter of a generation of young men in the name of Western values. Polly pulls no punches. 

I found out too that Lana Del Rey's Do You Know There's A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd is possibly inspired by the poem, the search for meaning and themes of memory, loss and decay. And it's a rather dramatic and affecting song too. When I set out writing this post I didn't plan to end up with pet Shop Boys, PJ Harvey and Lana Del Rey and that just confirms what the voice in the Coyote song is saying. There's no such thing as coincidence. 

I'm At The Ramada

Sometimes Lana Del Rey hits to the spot so sweetly and perfectly that I can believe all the press about her- sometimes her albums leave me with the sense that a lot of songs just wash over the listener, a minute after one finishes it hasn't left much behind but, when she gets it right, she really gets it right. 

A&W came out earlier this year, on Valentine's Day, and is a psychedelic folk pop gem with a second half bolted to it that shifts everything elsewhere. A piano and reverb and an acoustic guitar fade in, clumsy at first, then taking shape. Lana sings in that breathy way she does, sounding like she's just woken up after a heavy night but swiftly a choral multitracked Lana flies in. There are some classic Lana lines- 'I haven't done a cartwheel since I was nine/ I haven't seen my mother in a long long time' and 'this is the experience of being an American whore' and 'called up one drunk/ called up another' among many. 

Then the second half kicks in, a stuttering grimy drum machine and dirty bassline, sounding like they've come in from another record entirely. Now she sounds woozy, dislocated, a headful of pills. The experimental, skeletal hip hop drums and bass underpin Lana singing with a mouth filled with cotton wheel, 'Jimmy only love me when he wanna get high' and then with much more clarity, 'Your mom called/ I told her/ You're fucking up big time'. 

A&W

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Ten minutes of squally, distorted, languid electric guitar while Lana Del Rey drives down the freeway in September 2018, 'fresh out of fucks forever'. Another song for autumn, this one painting it oils- 'You're in the yard/ I light the fire/And as the summer fades away/ Nothing gold can stay'. A song that is woozy and fluid and exists solely for itself. 

Venice Bitch

Venice Bitch

London Lee posted this earlier in the week at Crying All The Way To The Chip Shop and you may not have heard it yet- and if you haven't you should. This is the new one from Lana del Rey, a ten minute, fairly freeform meditation called Venice Bitch which opens with Lana cooing breathily about being 'fresh out of fucks, forever'. From there the acoustic guitar riff circles around, Lana's vocal becomes more upfront, and a 60s style pop song briefly appears. The song drifts on for a while, half awake, half in focus, atmospherics and melodies intertwined before changing gear with a gnarly guitar part and synth solo. A beautiful trip.



Lana said in an interview that she wanted it as a single and her manager asked her why couldn't she just make a 'normal three minute pop song'? She replied 'I was like, 'well, the end of summer, some people just wanna drive around for 10 minutes, get lost in some electric guitar' ''.

A commenter at Youtube posted 'this song evokes a longing in me I can't quite understand... a yearning for a place I've never been, a man I've never met and a life I've yet to live' which seems to nail something of its appeal.

The album is going to be called Norman Fucking Rockwell.

Packing

We had friends round for tea and a couple of glasses of wine each and we're now trying to pack to go on holiday tomorrow. And I'm mucking about on the internet.

I missed this absolute gem of a song and only discovered it by accident earlier today- from last year, Emiliana Torrini and Steve Mason, noisy and way up there. The noise, I've just discovered, is provided by Toy.



And this, a remix of Lana Del Rey's Video Games by Dreadzone's Greg Dread. Lovely.



Right. How many pairs of shorts do I need?

Edit: I've ripped both of these- would you like them?

I Go Out

Lana Dub Rey

I Remember You Well

I don't know about you but I think this is really rather good.