An Hour Of 2025 Part Three

This is my third and final Sunday mix pulling together some of my favorite tracks from 2025 (the first one, ambient and instrumental, is here and the second, dub and dance, is here). This one starts out folky, strays from dub to cosmische and Balearic, and picks from the past too with two covers, some Stone Roses inspiration and Mazzy Star, songs borrowing from the years 1971, 1989, 1993 and 1999. Going back to go forwards. 

An Hour Of 2025 Part Three

• Joao Leao: One Of These Things First
• Sydney Minsky Sargeant: Summer Song
• Coyote: Battle Weary
• Stereolab: Flashes From Everywhere
• Psychederek: Thinkin' Bout U Pt. 4 (Jupiter/ Reprise)
• Saint Etienne: Alone Together (Hove Lawns Sunset Mix)
• Pale Blue Eyes: How Long Is Now (Richard Norris Remix)
• Red Snapper: Ban- Di- To
• Five Green Moons and Brix Smith: Boudica
• Raz and Afla: Windowlicker
• 10:40 Present Retro Fit: Lavender Mist
• Four Tet: Into Dust (Still Falling)

Joao Leao is a Brazillian- Canadian artist. This cover of a Nick Drake song came out on 7" in February on Toronto label Local Dish, a lovely, slightly tropical and ever so sweetly melancholic version of the original. 

Sydney Minsky Sargeant's solo album Lunga was a 2025 highlight, an album with some songs that date back to his teenage years growing up in Todmorden and the flipside to Syd's main job as leader of Working Men's Club. Lunga is downtempo, personal, acoustic guitar based with echoes of Syd Barrett in the singing and Nick Drake in the playing. Summer Song is reflective, a little lost, the sound of the end of summer. 

Notts Balearic veterans Coyote continue to drip feed new songs and tracks. 2025 saw a six track mini- album, Wailing To The Yellow Dawn, a collaboration with Peaking Lights and two singles including the one here, the dubbed out sounds of Battle Weary with the vocal sample iterating, 'Sufferin' is a poor man's crime'.  

Stereolab returned after a long gap with a new album, Instant Holograms On Metal Film, an album stuffed full of vintage synths, motorik rhythms, wit, invention and (crucially) good songs. Flashes From Everywhere starts out like an easy listening track and then goes krauty and flirts with being poppy. 

Stretford's Psychederek released the four track EP Thinkin' Bout U in August, four different versions of the song, covering everything from Pacific State style dance to broken down, beach bar Balearica (Pt. 4, the one I've included here), kind of proving there's no such thing as a definitive or final version. You can always find another way to do something. 

Saint Etienne released four versions/ remixes of Along Together (a track from 2024's The Night). The Hove Lawns Sunset mix re- imagines West Sussex as a Mediterranean island, slo mo beats and sunset by the pool vibes. Bob, Pete and Sarah then announced an album that would be their last and a tour this year that will be ditto. I think we'll miss them when they're gone.

Pale Blue Eyes are from Sheffield, an indie/ krauty trio. Richard remixed the song as a cosmische autobahn trip, soaring away from South Yorkshire and into 70s West Germany.

Red Snapper were all over my 2025. A tour in March to celerbate the 30th anniversary of Reeled And Skinned, a new album Barb And Feather, and an appearance on Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 2 with the percussion mayhem of Qraqeb. Ban- Di- To is amped up jump blues done 2025 style. 

Five Green Moons second album, Moon 2, was a second strong dub/ folk set from Justin Robertson, who is really in a purple patch at the moment. Brix Smith appears on Boudica. Surviving The Fall/ leading an uprising against the Romans- similarly troublesome I'd imagine. 

Raz and Afla released their cover of Aphex Town's Windowlicker, an Afro- futurist dancefloor bomb that repositions Aphex Twin somewhere new. 

Jesse Fahnestock's 10:40 released An Alternative History back in April, a track Jesse made inspired by a post here at Bagging Area where I imagined an alternate history of The Stone Roses, one where they didn't mess it up after June 1990 but kept going and recorded singles, EPs and albums all the way through the 90s culminating in a gig at Raglan Road scout hut in Sale, up the road from me, where Ian and John first rehearsed way back. You can read that post here. Jesse fired up his studio, sampled Ian and built a new/ imaginary Roses track. The third version, Lavender Mist, went all backwards and is named after Jackson Pollock's painting of the same name. For a while Jesse had the idea that I might provide the vocal but I bottled it. Probably for the best. My singing voice hasn't been the same since I gave up smoking. I always planned to include Lavender Mist on an end of year mix but Mani's death in November added an extra poignancy to everything Roses related. You may have seen the photos from the funeral of his former bandmates carrying his coffin out of Manchester cathedral. A very sad loss. 

Four Tet's Mazzy Star sampling Into Dust (Still Falling) was my favourite single of 2025, a lush and slinky tune that (as I said elsewhere) sounded like summer in the summer and sounds like winter in the here and now. Kieran Hebden can do little wrong for me- his album with William Tyler was as good an album as any other released in 2025 and as Four Tet has been on a roll of superb albums in the last decade with New Energy in 2017, Sixteen Oceans in 2020 and Three in 2024.  

Monday's Long Song

Ten minutes and twenty five seconds from 1997 and the combined talents of Stereolab and Nurse With Wound. Simple Headphone Mind jumps straight in with Neu!- esque guitar and motorik drums and then some sounds and FX that spin and swirl around the music- that do indeed sound even better on headphones. 

Simple Headphone Mind

Those gorgeous guitar sounds were courtesy of guest David Kenny and the voice, dropped in to intone the title of the track, belongs to Nora Duus. It's a superbly done piece of space- kraut, all texture and groove, inventive and seductive and not a moment too long before dissolving into a distorted voice, the words 'milky white' slowing down to a stop. The 12" came in a sealed plastic pouch- only on opening it would the purchaser discover if they had black or yellow vinyl. There's an unopened one on Discogs listed for sale at £200 if you're feeling pre- Christmas flush and want some delicious 1997 grooves delivered to your door.

Forty Minutes Of Stereolab

Stereolab's new album Instant Holograms On Metal Film is an unexpected joy, their first for fifteen years and containing song titles that could have been created by a Stereolab song title generator bot- Mystical Plosives, Transmuted Matter, Vermona F Transistor, Melodie Is A Wound... The music though and the energy the songs contain make the band sound like they've been fired up after touring to support a series of re- issues and have a lot to do and say. 

The album kicks from the outset, the familiar Stereolab elements all present and correct- motorik drums, analogue synths, Moogs being very Moog, guitars and Laetitia Sadier's flat but engaged vocals, an amalgam of krautrock, ye- ye, easy listening, bossa nova and jazz, library and sound effects albums, with a healthy dose of Marxist politics. They sound like they did in the 90s but also sound like now, updated and refined. The songs fly by, some short, some six or seven minutes long, a rush of retro- futuristic avant- pop. Aerial Troubles catches the mood of the album perfectly, both sonically and visually. 

Sadier said in an interview that the album is inherently political even if the lyrics aren't directly political- by creating and by being positive they're countering the relentless negativity in the world, the poison of Trump and Farage, the mass murder taking place in Gaza, a Labour government taking benefits from the disabled and attacking the vulnerable (the list is mine not her's but I'm sure she was thinking of those things and others).

Forty Minutes Of Stereolab

• Space Age Bachelor Pad Music (Foamy)
• Jenny Ondioline (7" Tour Version)
• The Noise Of Carpet
• Lo Boob Oscillator
• Orgisatic
• Ping Pong
• Les Yper Yper Sound
• The Free Design
• Iron Man
• Melodie Is A Wound

Space Age Bachelor Pad Music (Foamy) is from the 1993 mini- album of the same name, released on Too Pure and a calling card for the groop- Tim Gane, Laetitia Sadier, Mary Hanson, and Sean O'Hagan. 

Jenny Ondioline was the lead song on a 10" EP from 1993, Transient Random Noise- Bursts With Announcements, a rush of guitars and noise. The version here is from the three CD box set Oscillons From The Anti- Sun. In 1993 they appeared on The Word playing French Disko, a song from the same EP. Stereolab made the absolute most of a bit of a cultural mismatch, a song that ends with the rallying cry of 'la resistance!'

The Noise Of Carpet is from the band's 1996 album Emperor Tomato Ketchup, possibly their best album- complex, multi- layered, vibrant, obtuse. It's a 90s banger. 

Lo Boob Oscillator was originally one side of a 7" single from 1993 that came out on Sub Pop. It was then compiled onto Refried Ectoplasm. Gotta dig those album names. 

Orgisatic is from Peng!, a 1992 album, a rattle of guitars that indicate Tim Gane's indie background - noise and distortion and sing song vox. My Bloody Stereolab. 

Ping Pong was the lead single to their third proper album, Mars Audiac Quintet. The lyrics are critique of the west's addiction to boom- bust economics with vintage synths and brass leading the way, all very melodic and 60s pop. 

Les Yper Yper Sound is also from the box set Oscillons From The Anti- Sun, a stunning, hypnotic five minutes of thumping drums and distorted synths sounds. 

The Free Design came out in 1999, a bossa nova/ tropicalia song from an EP of the same name and then on the album Cobra And Phases Group Play Voltage In The Milky Night.

Iron Man was a 1997 7" on their own Duophonic label and sold at the merch stand on the Dots And Loops tour. 

Melodie Is A Wound is from the new album Instant Holograms On Metal Film. Which is highly recommended. 

Soundtrack Saturday

Today's songs come from the soundtrack to the film High Fidelity, released a quarter of a century ago in 2000, the film version of a Nick Hornby novel of the same name. High Fidelity is about Rob Fleming, a record shop owner going through a mid- 90s, mid- life crisis. It's all very of its time, very mid- 90s/ turn of the millennium, Rob a slightly sad soul who can't commit, who deals with life via making lists and tapes, and with crises by re- organising his record collection. When the book became big- and then the film- lots of people assumed that if you bought records and filed them in any kind of organised way, you were a version of Rob. Which maybe some of us are- but also aren't. 

Anyway, this post isn't really about High Fidelity, a film which has its moments as any film with John Cusack in will. It's mainly about the band in this scene....

Teasers on social media led us to assume that a Beta Band announcement about a re- union was imminent and lo, earlier this week it happened. A tour of the UK in September and October followed by one in the USA. The scramble to get tickets for the UK dates has been a bit mad but I managed to bag a ticket for Manchester Apollo on 4th October and though it's six months away I'm really looking forward to it. Word has it there will be new music too. 

Dry The Rain is on the High Fidelity soundtrack but originally came out in 1997 on their first EP, Champion Versions. The Beta Band sounded so different and so fresh in '97 they became treasures immediately, the melancholic and doleful vocals matched by the inventiveness of the sounds- dub basslines, samples, pots and pans percussion, trumpets, acoustic guitars, a new low key psychedelia for the late 20th century, eclectic but accessible too, experimental but with tunes. Dry The Rain, 1997's best song, floats in, shuffles along, builds beautifully and ends with the chanted vocals' 'If there's something inside that you wanna say/ Say it loud it will be ok/ I will be alright/ I will be alright', the sound of a man trying hard to convince himself that he will be ok. 

Dry The Rain

I saw them in 1999, on what would be Eliza's birthday four years according to the internet, at Leeds Irish Club. I went to review them for a long gone Manchester arts and music magazine. The venue was swelteringly hot, hotter than hot, trousers sticking to your legs hot. The Beta Band were epic, four men with banks of equipment, instruments, amps, microphones and gaffer tape. They split in 2004, three albums behind them and a million pounds in debt. They've all travelled some distance since then. It will be good to have them back.

Another band on the High Fidelity soundtrack, another 90s band combining experimentation and pop and also still touring, are Stereolab. 

Lo Boob Oscillator

The Groop Played New Century Hall Music

If ever anyone was ever meant to play Manchester's recently restored 1963 venue New Century Hall it is surely Stereolab, whose retro futuristic music is perfect for a 60s version of the future, the white heat of technology and all that. I got an offer of a ticket from my friend Darren (the second this month, so many thanks Daz). On Sunday night we were down the front waiting for the band to appear. They arrive on stage at nine, the five members looking very much like a group of teachers on Inset day who took a wrong turn out of the conference centre and ended up on stage by mistake. The songwriting pair Tim Gane and Lætitia Sadier are very much the front pair, Lætitia welcoming us 'to the new century', chatting between songs, singing and switching between synth and guitar. Tim is in front of us with guitar and pedals. The opening song is Neon Beanbag, synths bleeping away, keys chiming, motorik drums and Lætitia's sung/ spoke vocals, 'I'm sad to see that you are sad'. After that there are a few technical issues involving leads and synths and missing plectrums that need sorting and then they're off into a twelve song set that is lapped up by a crowd spanning all ages, teenagers to sixty- somethings.

There are times when they sound very New York, a splicing of Silver Apples modular synth psyche and the feedback and organ of The Velvet Underground, Tim strumming gently but then a stamp on his pedals and it's all feedback and clanging notes. The funk, bossa nova and exotica influences are all in there too, a skillful blend of the obscure and the pop. This song from the 1993 mini- album from The Groop Played Space Age Batchelor Pad Music is aired early on, between Eye Of The Volcano and Refractions In The Plastic Pulse. 

U.H.F.- MFP

As they build to the conclusion, the drums get faster, the synths wiggier and the guitars more scratchy, it all coming together in bursts of noise and sing- song vocals, red and purple lights and the gorgeous ceiling of the New Century Hall reflecting back at the groop who finish with Super- Electric (from way back in 1991). Returning for an encore, after the briefest of disappearances (there's a 10.30 pm curfew so there's no time to be wasted), they blast into Allures and power straight into French Disco with its electrifying drones and guitars, synths and a call to rebellion and not giving into life's absurdities that is French Disco'ss two word chorus, 'La resistance!'. One  more song, Simple Headphone Mind, from the 1997 collaboration with Nurse With Wound allows them to rock out even more, channeling the spirit and sounds of West Germany in the late 60s/ 70s, filling the hall with cosmic, avant- pop.

French Disco

Things Worth Fighting For

I thought I'd posted this Stereolab song fairly recently but it turns out it was back in 2014 and that is not very recent at all so I'm posting it again. It is a simple fact that Stereolab songs work really well, best maybe, on shuffle mode/playlists/CD compilations/mixtapes. They work well in relation to what comes before and after. French Disco is a prime example- stick it in the middle of a compilation and it sounds amazing.

French Disco

The song was first released as part of the 1993 e.p Jenny Ondioline but rapidly became the song from that record that got played on the radio. It was then re-recorded later on the same year and released as a limited edition 7". The original release on 10" is a great e.p., setting the Stereolab stall out and there's no messing about in French Disco- a brief vintage synth intro and then banging drums and a pummelling guitar riff before the organ and French accented vocals come in singing the verses. The lyrics reference Albert Camus and his philosophy of absurdism.

'Though this world's essentially an absurd place to be living in
It doesn't call for total withdrawal
I've been told it's a fact of life
Men have to kill one another
Well I say there are still things worth fighting for

La Resistance!

Though this world's essentially an absurd place to be living in
It doesn't call for (bubble withdrawal)
It said human existence is pointless
As acts of rebellious solidarity
Can bring sense in this world

La Resistance!'

Absurdism, as Camus expressed it, is the conflict between the need humans have to find meaning in existence and the concurrent inability to find any such meaning. Life is inherently absurd. Camus' response to this crisis was that in the face of an unfair world one must become so free that existence itself is an act of rebellion - la resistance! Anyway, I'm sure had Camus been around to appreciate Anglo- French indie guitar/synth bands he too would have stuck their songs in the middle of a mixtape, opened the windows onto his balcony and shared them with his neighbours. 

Monday's Long Song

Not so much a song today, more a thirteen minute groove with staccato organ chords, crunchy guitars and trumpets, lightness rather than shade. Stereolab could do this kind of thing in sleep I think but that doesn't make it any less enjoyable. From their 1996 Flourescences ep (and the 3 cd box set Oscillons From The Anti-Sun from 2005 which is a treasure trove of ep tracks, a dvd of videos and TV appearances and some stickers).

Soop Groove #1

It's half term here this week and the weather looks good with some late October sunshine promised today. Some of the leaves are still clinging on to the trees. The rest are scattered all over the ground in a random autumnal colour chart. Quite often up here the seasons tend to blur and become a smudge but sometimes there's a week or two where we get a proper autumn, before the clocks go back and everything becomes unpleasantly grey and dark wintry.

French Disko

It's a video only day today- I'm doing this on the run and haven't time to rip and stuff.

C from Sun Dried Sparrows left a comment on my Timothy J Fairplay/Editors post mentioning Stereolab and everybody needs a little Stereolab in their lives, especially the mighty French Disko played live on The Word (you'll have to put up with a couple of seconds of Terry Christian first). The driving indie guitars and droning keyboards, Letitia's vocals- pop and experimental in one handy package and a real highlight from the early 90s.



C pointed me towards Editors cover version which is driving and Joy Division-esque and, hey, actually pretty good.



And it turns out that Scandinvian aces Raveonettes cover it too, as seen here at Austin, Texas in 2008.



Still, I think if pressed, out of the three I'd take Stereolab's original.

I Hate To See Your Broken Face

Just to prove it wasn't all serious Marxist dialectic round Stereolab's way I'll post another favourite of theirs of mine- it was a toss up between this and the sunny day optimism of Captain Easychord but I've gone for this one off the Emperor Tomato Ketchup album.

The Noise Of Carpet

And the video was good too...

It's Alright 'Cos The Historical Pattern Has Shown How The Economical Cycle Tends To Revolve

Marxist political and economic theory set to a counter-revolutionary 60s ye-ye beat by Stereolab, back in 1994- singalong together now...

'A slump then a war then peel back to square one and back for more

Bigger slump and bigger wars and a smaller recovery

Don't worry, be happy things will get better naturally
Don't worry, shut up, sit down, go with it and be happy

Dum dum dum, de dum dum, de duh de dum dum dum, ah, ah'

Ping Pong

Should The Bible Be Banned?

Described by Nicky Wire as 'communism with tunes' McCarthy were Stereolab man Tim Gane's first band, releasing three albums and numerous singles in the mid-to-late 80s. This one, Should the Bible Be Banned?, is one of their best- shimmering guitars and a satirical lyric asking if the murder of Abel by Cane would inspire copycat killings, at a time when the tabloid press asked the same question but about TV and film rather than the bible. There's a nice compilation album That's All Very Well But... which is worth getting if you can find it (or you can download it from emusic).

McCarthy_02_Should The Bible Be Banned.mp3

Stereolab 'Les Yper Yper Sound'

Stereolab- I'm no expert. Liked what I heard but never got into it in a buy-loads-of-records way. There was a 3 cd box-set called Oscillons From An Anti-Sun I bought and this was on it. I think it's a remix of a single Les Yper Sound. This is something else. 5 minutes of krautrocking rhythm and lounge-techno noises and buzzes. I've been rediscovering Saint Etienne recently,through the re-released and expanded Foxbase Alpha and So Tough albums, and in the liner notes Bob Stanley said they offered Stereolab a split single at some point in the 90s. Stereolab turned it down because they were worried it would chart. That's either admirable or stupid but either way I like it.

03 Les Yper Yper Sound.wma