Forty Minutes Of Andrew Weatherall Remixes For Convenanza

The Convenanza festival held at Carcasonne in south west France is in its third day today, the first festival since 2019 and the first since Andrew Weatherall died in February 2020. Convenanza started as an Andrew Weatherall and friends three day festival held inside the walls of the Medieval castle, organised by Bernie Fabre with a hand picked line up reflecting Weatherall's singular and eclectic worldview- acid house, dub, space rock, gnostic sonics, leftfield literature, artists painting the castle walls in trippy yellow stripes and performances from Andrew as DJ and as Woodleigh Research Facility with sets over the years from the likes of Silver Apples, The Liminanas, Red Axes, Baris K and Curses. This year the three nights have seen headlining sets by David Holmes with support including Glok, Ian Svenonius, The Utopia Strong, Manfredas and Sean Johnston/ ALFOS. I've never been to Convenanza, it's the wrong time of year for a teacher to be flying to south west France for a weekend of debauchery, but one day I shall no longer be bound by school holidays and if Bernie still puts Convenanza on, I shall be there. In the meantime I live Convenanza vicariously through updates from friends who are there. In tribute to the festival and Andrew Weatherall todays forty minute mix is a Convenanza friendly set of Weatherall remixes from the last decade, the hissy drum machine, space echo, arpeggiator and sequencers all deployed, setting the controls for the heart of le sol.

Forty Minutes Of Andrew Weatherall Remixes

• Group Rhoda: King (The Asphodells Remix)
• Richard Sen: Songs Of Pressure (The Asphodells Remix)
• The Venetians: Son Sur Son (Andrew Weatherall Edition Uno)
• Silver Apples: Edge Of Wonder (Andrew Weatherall Remix)
• Heretic: Pollux (Andrew Weatherall Remix)
• The Twilight Sad: Videograms (Andrew Weatherall Remix)
• Andrew Weatherall: Intro

We are making our own pilgrimage today, to Childhood Wood on the edge of Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire. The MPS Society, the charity who look after children and adults born with the set of genetic diseases, have a piece of woodland where they invite families to plant a tree in memory of those who have died. We're going there today to plant an oak sapling for Isaac and to see him added to the memory board. Another moment of grief and remembrance in a year full of them. 

Son Sur Son

This came out only a few weeks ago, the first Andrew Weatherall release of 2020 but what will now be one of the last with his name on it- two remixes of The Venetians. The band was the studio only project of Rik Swinn who arrived in Sydney in late 1982, having recorded the tracks with Vic Coppersmith- Heaven. They became a touring band and their sound is very left of centre early 80s, groovy post- punk synth pop. The 12" came out a few weeks ago and includes two Andrew Weatherall remixes, the first a swirly, percussive vocal remix and the second an instrumental, spacey affair, much further away from home. This is the first of the pair, A.W. Edition Uno.



While we're here last week in the rush of articles, obituaries, mixes and appreciations of the great man his friend and musical partner in Woodleigh Research facility Nina Wash posted up some links to some playlists on Youtube. These playlists were Weatherall's work but weren't widely known about because as Nina says 'he wasn't very good at the internet'. Collectively they are called The Black Notebooks and are a treasure trove of songs, from The Blue Aeroplanes to Townes van Zandt, Durutti Column, Willie Nelson, The Triffids, Pink Military, Moon Duo and Alan Vega and all points in between. You can find them all, volumes 1 to 9 at Ban Ton Ton.