Waxing Lyrical

Three mailshots from Soulwax, Follytechnic Music Library and Leo Zero, all containing the musical equivalent of a volcanic eruption (I should hasten to add, in respect of impact, not catastrophic devastation).

First up is a standalone single from the brothers Dewaele, spending a magical mystery tour in Abbey Road Studios 1, 2 & 3 to come up with this absolute banger. Beats, vocals, keyboard stabs, squelchy bits, you name it, it's got it, delivering seven minutes and twenty five seconds of club- and ear-friendly pop goodness. 

It's incredible to think that the first release from Follytechnic Music Library was barely three years ago. FML1 was an album of Hot Chocolate edits, so it seems fitting that the latest, FML39, features another sweet thing, namely Blancmange.

A dozen skillful edits from their 1980s period, mostly singles, of which I've plumped for the most obvious, Living On The Ceiling.

Every FML is a labour of love and a delight to the ears. Individual releases are name your price, or you can buy the full discography (currently at 46 items) for a tenner. You will not regret it.

Leo Zero has been a longtime hero of mine when it comes to edits and mash-ups, and he's been on a creative streak with the former in the past 12 months, with a slew of new releases.

The past few days have seen nine more added to the catalogue, covering a diverse range of artists from Sade to The Seeds, Christopher Cross to The Clash and, perhaps the most unexpected of all, Dinosaur Jr.

I was tempted to feature the latter but instead I've gone for Beverley Knight's cover of I Wanna Be Your Lover by Prince, performed for BBC Radio 2's Piano Room back in 2019.

Leo has turned that stripped down, three-minute version into a nine-minute dancefloor behemoth. I love it.

And a belated happy birthday to Beverley, born 22nd March 1973. What a legend!

 

Release The Beats

Immersed as we are in end of year round ups and best ofs, I'm swimming with the current and today's 64-minute selection rounds up some choice choons from the year to date. 

A couple of these tracks have appeared on previous selections, but are too good not to bring back in. 

Like Fire by Airsine came out on the ever-excellent Paisley Dark Records label in March and I've been obsessed with it ever since. Today's selection meaning that I've now posted all four versions from the EP, every one a winner, as they say.

Speaking of fire, Leo Zero has been on fire (musically speaking, not literally) with a truckload of releases that haven't skimped on quality. June saw Nebulon Systems Vol. 1, a 20-track monster of an album, with Orangutan placed smack dab in the middle, at track ten. Not only a great album, but a ridiculous bargain at £4.00 for the lot.

Another mind-boggling bargain was the Powder Wax Vol. 2 EP by Jesse Fahnestock, revisiting his 10:40 alias, whilst also delivering a dizzying array of music in 2025 with Darren Bell as Jezebell. 

Powder Wax Vol. 2 arrived in February as a 'name your price' purchase, comprising two songs, Beneath The Waves and Miracle Me. Both appeared on 2025 highlights selections in March and May, and Beneath The Waves makes a welcome return here.  

Pye Corner Audio have frequently dropped a new track in time for Bandcamp Friday, always an automatic 'add to cart' come the day. The Deep Cut appeared in March, one of five new standalone tracks in 2025, all of this calibre.

Orange Sunshine was originally on a flexi 7" with limited vinyl quantities of Hifi Sean and David McAlmont's album Twillight. In April, Orange Sunshine appeared as a standalone single, featuring rapper Sawlty (and David's nephew). Feel it!

In 2024, sLEdger provided Fluke with a superb remix of Fluke's single Real Magnificent. June saw the favour returned, with Jon Fugler and Mike Tournier's remix of Tweeba, sLEdger given a refreshing Fluke rinse. Wonderful stuff.

I've continued with The Future Sound Of London's 'calendar' compilations of outtakes and unreleased music for a few years now, and still get a buzz when each monthly link arrives, building up a 12-track collection by year end. PSUN K arrived in November, the penultimate piece from another cracking collection.

August saw the return of Puerto Montt City Orchestra with And We'd Be So Happy, a lovely slice of Balearic sunshine with a spoken word vocal by Kitty Salter, the daughter of band member Tim. The initial single was backed with The Cruel Mistress Mix, included here, with two further remixes from Balearic Ultras and downtownLOOP arriving a fortnight later. Sounds just as good in winter as it did in summer.

Fluke's spectacular comeback continued with May's release of I Wanna Be, a bouncing, life-affirming single in it's original form, and given a fantastic dub rinse by Justin Robertson's Five Green Moons. I am over the moon (all five of 'em) to have new Fluke music in my life.

Wrapping up this final round up of 2025's beautiful beats is Tambores En Benirras, who I splurged my cash on during Bandcamp Friday earlier this month, snapping up the entire catalogue in one go. It was worth every penny, not least for the trio of remix EPs accompanying the album Ondas Horizontales. 

It was almost impossible to pick just one, but I've settled with Steve Cobby's nine-and-a-half minute revision of Extensor Entregado from the inaugural EP. Highly recommended!

1) Like Fire (Mindbender Remix By Mårten Attling): Airsine

2) Orangutan: Leo Zero

3) Beneath The Waves: 10:40

4) The Deep Cut: Pye Corner Audio

5) Orange Sunshine (Single Version): Hifi Sean & David McAlmont ft. Sawlty

6) Tweeba (Fluke Remix By Jon Fugler & Mike Tournier): sLEdger

7) PSUN K: The Future Sound Of London

8) And We'd Be So Happy (The Cruel Mistress Mix): Puerto Montt City Orchestra ft. Kitty Salter

9) I Wanna Be (Justin Robertson - Five Green Moons Remix): Fluke

10) Extensor Entregado (Steve Cobby Remix): Tambores En Benirras

Release The Beats (1:04:11) (GD) (M)

More 2025 beats on prescription via these previous Dubhed selections: 

28th March: It's A Glamorous World 

11th May: Doused In Dopamine

4th July: Staring Into Air

9th August: Is It Obvious? Or Is It Delirium?

Desperate To Disappear And Still Be Someone

Continuing with the A-Z of artist releases from 2025 that I haven't yet bought, but are on the shopping (long) list for this Bandcamp Friday.

Yesterday covered A to F; today, it's my picks of artists from G to M, specifically

Gwenno remixed by Cornelius

Horizontals aka Leo Zero

Ibibio Sound Machine

Jah Wobble

KLOUDs

Little Annie & Baby Dee ft. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy

MAN2.0 remixed by Tronik Youth

Gwenno's fourth album Utopia came out in July, her first predominantly in English, with previous albums in Welsh or Cornish. What's not changed is Gwenno's way with a song and this carries through into the Utopia Remixes EP, released last week. Versions by QUINQUIS and Stone Club both recommended, but I've opted here for the unexpected and delightful remix from Japanese legend Cornelius. 

Leo Zero has been a busy man this year and it's been hard to keep up with everything he's put out there, including two excellent EPs as Junk System (there's a third to come), 20-track disco monster Nebulon Systems Vol. 1, plus a ton of edits, remixes and one-offs.

Wild Light by Horizontals is Leo's ambient/balearic project, 10 tracks of on-the-nose bliss, including this one. 

I was a bit slow on the uptake with Ibibio Sound Machine, but I'm now all in, so the arrival last week of a new EP, Anyone Like You, is very good news indeed. In addition to three versions of the title song is the "cosmic funk" of Jagaban, featured here. The title is from Hausa, a widely spoken language in Nigeria, and translates as "leader of warriors". 

When Jah Wobble drops an album called Dub Volume One, you know what you're going to get, and you know it's going to be great. And of course it is.

Written, performed, and recorded entirely solo by Jah Wobble, mastered by Anthony Chapman (Collapsed Lung) and issued on Dimple Discs, the indie label founded in 2018 by Damian O'Neill (The Undertones, That Petrol Emotion) and Brian O'Neill (not related).

I could have chosen any of the eight tracks, opting here for the wonderfully titled Tragic Slav Dub.

KLOUDs is a collaboration between Ukrainian-born Sam Levin aka Zullah, and Israel's Itay Menashe aka Fistuk. I can't say that I've heard of either of them, but I really like this 2-track single, pairing PALMS and Côte D'Ivoire. Released in August on the Stereo MC's label called - what else? - Connected, it's a welcome ray of sunshine and recollection of summer in this damp, dark English winter.

I have loved Little Annie, since I first discovered her music in the early 1990s, courtesy of Adrian Sherwood / ON-U Sound. As the title suggests, With is an 8-song collection of 21st century collaborations with like-minded artists. 

The album opens with a rousing 2008 live version of Yesterday When I Was Young with Marc Almond and ends with Some Things We Do, from Swans' 2014 album To Be Kind. Included in between are team ups with Coil, Kid Congo Powers, Paul Wallfisch and Larsen.

I've gone for State Of Grace, the title track of the 2012 album by Little Annie & Baby Dee, featuring Bonnie "Prince" Billy.

Last but not least is MAN2.0's latest, on the ever dependable NEIN Records label. I'm a big fan of MAN2.0's previous music and mixes and this 5-track EP from July offers up two versions of CTRL ALT DEL (with Precious Blood) and three of Nightmare Walking.

All five tracks mean business, including this stunning remix by NEIN label boss Tronik Youth.

More tomorrow.

Tune Into The Light

Shakespears Sister's (and/or London Records) contribution to Record Store Day 2025 was a re-release of 1992 song Black Sky on glow in the dark 12" vinyl.

Arguably the real attraction, unless you have a particular fetish for glow in the dark vinyl, was the inclusion of the contemporary Dub Extravaganza remixes by Darren Emerson and Rick Smith aka two thirds of Underworld, plus a pair of re-edits by Leo Zero.

A visualiser rather than a video has been posted for the four-minute edit of the latter

as well as the Extended Re-Edit, running at just under nine minutes.

The Underworld remixes of Black Sky were originally available on promo 12" single only, which frankly I couldn't get a sniff of back in 1992. Both got a commercial release, but as bonus tracks on two separate single releases.

The vocal-heavy Dub Extravaganza Part 1 was renamed The Green Eyed Dub and featured on the UK CD single of Goodbye Cruel World, clocking in just shy of six minutes. All ten and a half minutes of Dub Extravaganza Part 2 was one of three remixes bolstering the CD package of follow up single Hello (Turn Your Radio On). 

Both are deserving of the label 'epic' and Leo Zero also does a fine job with the updated re-edits.

 

In 2022, to mark the 30th anniversary of second album Hormonally Yours, Shakespears Sister released remastered and expanded digital versions of Stay, I Don't Care, Goodbye Cruel World, Hello (Turn Your Radio On) and Black Sky.

Black Sky offers up 10 versions for a cent under 5 Euro, including both of the Underworld remixes, five further remixes, dubs and edits by Marcella Levy and Siobhan Fahey with Alan Moulder, as well as the original album version.

There's also a live version, recorded at The Town & Country Club in London, 24th March 1992, featured on the mammoth vinyl, CD and DVD box set Our History and released on my 50th birthday in 2020. I didn't ask for it and I didn't get it and at £200+ for a pre-loved copy on Discogs, it's unlikely I ever will.

The version heading up this post is from Shakespears Sister's concert at Brighton Dome on 20th November 2019 and ample evidence of what a formidable pairing Marcy and Siobahn are, then and now.