Monday's Long Song

My April/ May 2026 Sonic Youth immersion continues- I can't enough of their music at the moment, inspired mainly reading Thurston Moore's Sonic Life and I've been going back into their 80s albums, 1986's EVOL and 1987's Sister especially. 

EVOL was their third full length album and the first with Steve Shelley on drums and as much as any of their records shows them moving from a fairly full on post- punk/ noise ascetic towards some tunes that could be decribed as pop (or at least informed by pop). The altenrate tunigns and unconventional structures are still there. They never really dealt in classic rock verse/ chorus/ verse/ chorus/ middle eight/ verse/ chorus, willfully creating whatever verse and chorus structure they wanted. But there are songs on EVOL that show tunes and melodies were becoming important to them. Kim Gordon called it a 'faux goth' record. 

EVOL has several songs that would qualify for a Sonic Youth best of- Shadow Of A Doubt and Starpower would both be contenders and in Expressway To Yr Skull one of their best songs, their first truly great song and one of the best of the 80s. Neil Young agreed. He called it 'a classic... incredibly good, so beautiful' and in 1990 invited them on tour (a tour that Thurston describes in detail in his memoir, their battles with the Neil Young and Crazy Horse road and sound crew a feature that pissed them off until Neil intervened). 

Expressway To Yr Skull (listed as Madonna, Sean And Me on EVOL's back cover) kicks in with clanging, wrecked guitar chords, wind blasted, sunglasses and hair blown away chords. Thurston eventually sings the opening verse, Brian Wilson on bad drugs, 'We're gonna kill the California girls' and then more obliquely, 'We're gonna fire the exploding load in the milkmaid maiden head'. They build, Thurston, Kim and Lee clanging up and down the necks of their guitars, noise and atonality but still with the musicality of outsider late 60s rock. 'Mystery train', he sings nodding to Greil Marcus and Elvis, 'Three way plane/ Expressway to your skull'.  They understood dynamics, the importance of tension and release, and there's a pause with the hum of amps and guitars, stretched out, before Thurston comes back in and drawls... 'to your skuuuuuuuulllll...'. 

There are different versions of Expressway. This one has a long fade out that takes it over six minutes. I've added another version of the song to the end of it, doubling its running time. Belgian artist Wixal recorded a cover of Expressway in 2007, part of a seven song EP of Sonic Youth covers, that he made after seeing Sonic Youth play a gig in Leuven. You can find it at Bandcamp. 

The Long Champs, a Weatherall approved Welsh cosmic/ ambient/ chug artist, took Wixal's cover and added a shimmering, padding ambient/ cosmische aura to it, sending Wixal's already blissed out cover of Sonic Youth's blasted alternative 80s art- rock into new places. I thought the two would work well as one thirteen minute piece- and happily they do.

Expressway To Yr Skull/ Expressway Long Champs Bonus Beats

Lloyd of The Long Champs has had a significant loss recently and this post is dedicated to him and to Delyth. 

While being inspired by Thurston's book I pulled my copy of Michael Azerrad's Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes From The American Indie Underground, 1981- 1991 off the shelf, a history of D.I.Y. US indie- punk from Black Flag to Beat Happening, published in 2001. My copy is hardback and I guess bought around 2002/ 3 when it was published in the UK. I opened the front cover and the first page had a scrawl in red pen all over it, done I remembered instantly when I left the book lying around and a young Isaac picked up a pen and opened the book and doodled away. It made me jump, this sudden contact with Isaac. 

When I skipped to the Sonic Youth chapter, he'd done the same over two pages there too. It made me smile- Isaac, gone four and a half years ago nearly now, scribbling over my book, suddenly there in front of me, or at least his marks were there in front of me, and the coincidence that reading Thurston Moore's book and listening to the records again had led me to this mark Isaac had made a quarter of a century ago in the Sonic Youth chapter struck me as, well, just a coincidence I guess. I could hear him speaking at that point too, a flashback, him unaware of what he'd done and laughing. Funnily, it also made me think it was pretty Sonic Youth, the home made, handwritten/ scrawled album sleeves, liner notes, gig posters and fanzines Thurston Moore was responsible for. 

'We're gonna find the meaning/ Of looking good/ And stay there as long as we think we should/ Mystery train/ Three way plane/ Expressway... to your skull'

An Hour Of The Flightpath Estate AW61 Afternoon Set

This is my hour's set from last Saturday afternoon at AW61 at The Golden Lion, Todmorden, re- created at home. The photo above shows my view from the DJ booth as my set ended and the auction and raffle began- you may recognise some of the faces getting ready to bid on items from Andrew Weatherall's studio. 

Once we've got all the other sets and the evening's rotations recreated we can upload the entire thing but I thought I'd share mine in the meantime. It comes in at over an hour and I only played for an hour on the day- from memory, I mixed Biosphere's En- Trance out because the file seemed very quiet (even for an ambient track) and it is in the mix below too. I think I mixed out of Underworld's 8 Ball halfway through as well but just left it playing in full here because, really, what sort of person mixes out the second half of 8 Ball? I'd just faded the GLOK Starlight Dub of A Mountain Of One's Star in when Gig, the Golden Lion's legendary landlady, took the mic to start the auction (along with Lizzie and Sofia) so that track was left mostly unplayed- you'll have to imagine the auction and raffle taking place when you reach that point in my set (unless you were there in which case replay it in your mind). I played Emotionally Clear as the raffle ended and to provide my handover to Dan who was waiting in the wings. 

Adam's Flightpath Estate Afternoon Set At AW61

• Coyote: Western Revolution
• Durutti Column: Bordeaux Sequence
• Psychederek: Test Card Girl
• Four Tet: Loved
• Rick Cuevas: The Birds
• Biosphere: En- Trance
• Underworld: 8 Ball
• Wixel: Expressway To Yr Skull (Long Champs Bonus Beats)
• This Mortal Coil: Edit To The Siren
• Bjork: One Day
• James Holden: Common Land
• A Mountain Of One: Star (GLOK Starlight Dub)
• David Holmes and Raven Violet: Emotionally Clear

Western Revolution is Coyote's sublime edit of Gil Scott Heron's The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. I had half a mind to start with Lonely, which is from the same vinyl only EP out last year, Magic Wand Special Edition Vol. 2, but Mr Holmes played it the night before. 

Bordeaux Sequence was on The Durutti Column's 1987 album The Guitar And Other Machines, a moment of genuine beauty from Vini Reilly. It is a re- recorded version of Bordeaux from 1983's Another Setting. A couple of people in the room gave me a 'thank you for playing Durutti Column' look.

Psychederek is from Stretford, just up the road from me. Test Card Girl was a digital only single from 2023 and I'm not over it yet

Loved was a single from Four Tet, also from last year and is now the opening track on his Three album. Another 2023 song that has stuck around well into '24. 

The Birds is by Rick Cuevas, from a self - released, private pressing album called Symbolism that came out in 1984, an album described on Discogs as 'soft rock/ AOR'. I wouldn't necessarily call The Birds either- a friend once described it as 'Durutti Column on steroids' which I'm happier with. I'm fairly certain I only know of this song because of Andrew Weatherall referencing it in an interview or playing it on a radio show. 

Biosphere's En- Trance is ambient/ techno from Belgium in 1994, an album called Patashnik. It's just some synth drones and an acoustic guitar- I say 'just', it's much more than that obviously. Shame this WAV file I have is so quiet. 

Underworld's 8 Ball was on the soundtrack to The Beach, the Leonardo Di Caprio film from 2000. 8 Ball is a nine minute low key epic with fluid guitar playing and some of Karl's loveliest singing, lyrics about men with empty whiskey bottles and walkie talkies and flaming 8 ball tattoos on their arms, a man who eventually throws his arms around him. They gave this away to a soundtrack, a soundtrack where it was overshadowed a little by All Saints and Moby- most bands would kill for a tune this good and would make it a single or the track they built an album around. Someone in the Lion asked me what this was and took some convincing it was Karl on vocals.

Wixel are from Belgium (with hindsight, there's a bit of a Belgian theme running through this mix) and put out a cover of Sonic Youth's Expressway To Yr Skull in 2008, part of a seven track EP of Sonic Youth covers. The Long Champs edit turns it into a shimmering, semi -ambient haze that led to a couple of enquiries in the pub- and if you turn a couple of people onto something new to them, that's what it's all about isn't it. 

Edit To The Siren is an In The Valley edit of Song To The Siren, This Mortal Coil's signature cover of Tim Buckley's song. Someone once told me this was sacrilege but for me its got a dubby/ Balearic splendour and is perfect Saturday afternoon vibes. 

One Day is one of the key early Bjork solo songs, from 1993's Debut. The dubby bassline, house shimmer, Nellee Hooper's production and Bjork's delivery are all superb. 

Common Land was one of the tracks on James Holden's 2023 album Imagine This Is A High Dimensional Space Of All Possibilities, an album I still go back to a year later. The burbling synths, birdcall, techno- ish drums and warbling sax combine to create something very heady and transportative. It's also a tribute to the free party movement and early 90s rave and felt quite fitting for the Lion and Todmorden.

A Mountain of One's Stars Planets Dust Me was one of my favourite albums from 2022. Andy Bell's GLOK remix is a spaced out, sun- baked treat. 

Emotionally Clear is from David Holmes' Blind On A Galloping Horse, 2023's number one Bagging Area album. Seeing David Holmes bidding at the auction at AW61 from behind the decks will take some beating in 2024. 

Isolation Mix Four

A bit of a change again for this week's hour long isolation mix, this time a trip into more psychedelic and psyche areas, some guitars, a couple of cover versions, some remixes and a re-edit of an 80s alt- classic with an eye, a third eye maybe, on the cosmic and the blissed out. One of the segues is a little bit clumsy but I can live with it. I've had to move the host over to Mixcloud as I'd used up all my available space at Soundcloud without going to the paid for service.



Tracklist-
The Durutti Column: Otis

Wixel: Expressway To Yr Skull (Long Champs Bonus Beats)

Moon Duo: Stars Are The Light

Curses: This Is The Day

Le Volume Courbe: Rusty

Sonic Boom/ Spectrum: True Love Will Find You In The End

Mogwai: Party In The Dark

The Liminanas: The Gift (Anton Mix)

Goldfrapp v Spiritualized: Monster Love

Julian Cope: Heed Of Penetration and the City Dweller Head Remix by Hugo Nicholson

Edit Service 8 by It’s A Fine Line: The Story Of The Blues (Talkin’ Blues)

The Early Years: Complicity

Expressway

There's an album of acoustic guitar cover versions of Sonic Youth songs, all texture and ambience and small hours vibes, by Belgian artist Wixel. It came out back in 2008 and lives on in Wixel's Bandcamp page (Wixel doesn't seem to have released anything since 2013). Welsh outfit The Long Champs have taken Wixel's cover of Expressway To Yr Skull and blissed it out, turning it into a gorgeous, shimmering, meditative haze, perfect for this time of the year. I can't recommend this highly enough, it's sublime. If you move quickly- and I appreciate moving quickly two days after Christmas may be relative- there's a free download.



Wixel's cover versions are worth some of your time too.