Thursday, 31 December 2020

2020, You Can Get Yirsel Tae Fuck


 

Let's all hope for health and happiness in 2021. All the best to you and yours

Jimi Hendrix - Auld Lang Syne

Thursday, 24 December 2020

Merry Christmas

 



I hope you all have as good a day as possible tomorrow and get what you deserve from Santa. All the best and stay safe.

The Housemartins - Caravan of Love

Wednesday, 23 December 2020

Tuesday, 22 December 2020

Pure Genius

 



This is absolutely fucking inspired and has hardly been off the turntable since I got it about 10 days ago. It really shouldn't work but it does, so, so well. This would have made top ten in The Tracks of My Year if I had had it a couple more weeks. If you didn't know better you would swear that that vocal was supposed to be in there.  It is the product of Japanese dj/producer Mister Mushi. 

Mister Mushi - Hard Lifetime

Monday, 21 December 2020

Monday's Long Song

 


Last week I was listening to Into The Mystic and thought to myself "what a pity he's such a prick, the majority of his music is so wonderful. I always knew he had been a moody fucker but when I read Laura Barton's account of trying to interview him, I lost all respect for the man. You can read it here And this was before his utterances on the COVID19 situation and joining the ranks of the Fox fool, Hartley-Brewer et all. But by god can he make some sweet music. This is an outtake from a recording session back in 1972 at Pacific High Studios in San Francisco.

Van Morrison - Caledonia Soul Music (Full version) 

Saturday, 19 December 2020

The Tracks of My Year


 

Ok, so here we are, it's time for the most self indulgent post of the year, the tracks that I believe are the best of the year, you may think differently but of course you are all wrong. 

It would have been easy to have filled this list with at least a dozen tracks that would be peppered with the Guv'nor's magic, to coin a phrase, as this is probably the last year that Andrew Weatherall's music will feature here which is too heart breaking to contemplate, not eagerly awaiting the next change in direction and ordering on spec, /cause it's Weatherall isn't it. Not sure if this is any kind of honour but he is the only artist that has featured in all 11 of these yearly posts.

When I completed the list I was quite surprised that there was nothing By Kungens Man or the 4 albums that I had purchased from those released on the El Paraiso label but when I thought a bit more there were no single tracks that jumped out at me, all were fine albums and worked as that an album, I would put them on and just listen to them. Another thing that struck me is, that for the first time, horror of horrors, downloads have been included and not just a few but 8 in total. I just hope that this is not the shape of things to come but I suspect it will be. 

Even a quick scan and you will realise that there are quite a lot of mixes/edits, yes in this year of all years when it has been impossible to go anywhere to dance I have been buying and listening to loads of dance music.  That along with a lot of ambient and psych is what has kept me relatively sane over the past 12 months. 

I hope you find something here that piques your interest here. 

1. Whyte Horses - Mr Natural 

2. Sault - Wildfires

3. Daniel Avery - Lone Swordsman

4. Little Barrie & Malcolm Catto - After After

5. The Orb - The Weekend It Rained For Ever (The Ravens Have Left The Tower)

6. Night Noise - Guiding Light (On The Horizon Mix)

7. Richard Norris - Music For Healing 6  

8. Glok - Cloud Cover (Andrew Weatherall mix)

9. A.M.O.R - No More (Original mix)

10. Closed Paradise - Tripping On Sunshine 

11. Greg Float - Pointe Venus 

12. Pye Corner Audio - Resist (John Talabot remix)

13. Four Tet - Something In The Sadness

14. Mister Mushi - Hard Lifetime

15.The Grid - Floatation (Paul Woolford Full Length mix) 

16. Charles Webster - The Spell (Vocal mix) 

17. Prince Fatty - Black Rabbit

18. Jorge Smith - Rose Rouge

19. Cult of Free Love - Transcendence 

20. Fever - Honesty

21. Woodleigh Research Facility - Calm Before The Storm 

22. Kit Sebastian - Durma (Baris K dub)

23. Klaus - Mammatus Clouds Over Saskatchewan

24. Marcu Rares - Contratimp

25. Andres Y Xavi - Is It Balearic?

26. The Airborne Toxic Event - Common Touch 

27. The Bongolian - Harlem Hipshake

28. King Creosote - Cath

29. The Long Champs - Men Of Letters

30. Unloved -Why Not (Richard Sen dub)

31. The Night Beats - That All You Got.

32. Tomorrow Syndicate - Living In Simulation

33. The Emanations - Spread A Little Love (Soul Clap Mix/Greg Wilson edit)

34. Fjord Funk - It's All Black (Hardway Bros Meet Monktown Uptown version)

35. X.Y.R. - Black Monk On The Dunes 

36. The Kevin Fingier Collective feat Gerri Granger - Don't Wanna Cry No More

37. Bruce Springsteen - Burnin' Train

38. Night Noise - Dancing In Space - (Hardway Bros Amorphous mix)

39. Valium Aggelein - Here Comes The Black Moon

40. Birds - Transcendental Phase 














Friday, 18 December 2020

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance (In A Socially Distant Manner)



 It's the final Friday prior to Christmas and normally I would be going on about the amateur drinkers and the sheer hell it is working in pubs and clubs on this night but things are a wee bit different this year. I am sure that all hospitality staff would rather be dealing with the worst of the Christmas office night out twat than sitting in the house doing nothing. I really feel for people working in hospitality but have less sympathy for club owners and top chefs moaning about public policy when they have been fleecing punters for years for miniscule portions and wine with a mark up of at least 300%, the money being made certainly wasn't going to the KPs, commis chefs, waiting or bar staff. Anyway, I digress, this post is usually soundtracked with a big, house tune, I'm not sure that Throw by Tee Mango was a big tune as by the time it was released, 2015 my clubbing days were mostly behind me but the tune that it liberally samples was HUGE. 

"Drew, what is going on with the Diamonds?" you may ask and my answer is, I have no idea, the only word that comes to mind is inconsistent. They have lost more than they have won and are in the bottom half off the table after two games that they really should have won or in last week's case at least turned up. This week they are away to league leaders Falkirk and I fully expect a scudding.

Have a good weekend people and stay safe.

Tee Mango - Throw

Thursday, 17 December 2020

That's All You Got

 


I haven't stopped playing this since I got it, five times on the bounce last night. Not sure what it is but the whole feel of it just lifts the spirit, it may be that organ, you don't hear enough of that instrument these days. You could imagine Otis Redding or Sam Cooke belting this out. In fact it may have been ever so slightly influenced by That's How Strong My Love Is which has featured here previously. 



Wednesday, 16 December 2020

Albums of The Year

 One good thing that has come out of 2020 is the quality of the music that has been released, well the music that I have bought anyway. It has been a bumper year in the number of releases too making it hard to keep up and I have had to make more hard choices on what to buy and what to try and forget about. It has also been a year when I have chosen to buy the cd copy of some new releases over the vinyl, mostly forced on me by major labels ripping the absolute pish in relation to price, thirty quid for A Letter To You by Bruce Springsteen or Taylor Swift's latest anyone? And don't get me started about the lack of download codes in an ever increasing number of vinyl releases. 

Some record labels are offering a different approach, producing beautifully packaged, well produced records complete with download codes and download links from the Bandcamp pages at a reasonable price, Colin Morrison's Castles In Space is the leader in this field and is now offering a brilliant subscription service. On the topic of labels a couple of new ones that have come to my attention over the past 12 months are Werra Foxma and Cue Dot Records both of which offer some excellent fresh electronic sounds and are well worth checking out. 

It has been difficult get my list down to ten albums but here they are.




10. Autotelia - I 

The album consists of 5 fairly lengthy pieces of psychedelic, kosmiche that envegle themselves into your consciousness and foster a strange feeling of calm at a time of high stress. Well worth a listen 






9. OCH - II

I know very little about OCH other than they are a trio from Sweden and this is their second release, the first being an ep which came out back in 2014. More synth based modern Prog Rock, no, honestly give it a listen. This album was bought on a whim and I am glad that I did. There was a time between April and July/August when, apart from one album which will feature later I had very little time for anything with any vocals at all and this fitted right in with that mood. 

OCH - Akssa



8. The Long Champs - Straight To Audio

Another one bought on the strength of hearing one track. Debut album by "the Welsh Idiot", not my description but what's on the Twitter bio for the Long Champs. I really don't know how to describe this other than none of the eight tracks would have been out of place on Weatherall's Music's Not For Everyone and quite a few of them could be included in an A Love From Outer Space set and no one would bat an eye. Yes, it is that good.  Only downside is that it only came out on cd or download.





7. Sault - (Untitled) Black Is

It's September and out of the blue, unheralded as with the previous two albums by the mysterious Sault, Black Is is released. An album that has obviously been produced in the wake of the hellish racist murder of George Floyd, the justified BLM protests and the totally disgusting actions of police forces all over the US. An album of protest, brooding, sorrowful in parts, defiant in others but absolutely gorgeous and the album that every right minded person needed at that time.



 



6. Greg Foat - Symphonie Pacifique

You know what I was saying about lyric less music being the thing that was floating my boat around the middle of the year, well I found this wonderful album courtesy of the Giles Peterson show on 6music. Until that point I was not aware of the Jazz pianist Greg Foat. although I'm not sure that this album can be called Jazz or pigeonholed at all. It is just a collection of beautiful pieces of music that hang together remarkably well as an album.




5. Richard Norris - Elements

Richard Norris' music should be given out by prescription on the N.H.S. I am not kidding you. His recordings over the past year, this album and the 12, long Music For Healing pieces that he had produced have done more for my mental health than anything else and I know that I am not the only one. I am so looking forward to the stuff that will be released through the subscription service. I do regret not going for the picture disc of this album as it is a thing of beauty but I have always been a bit wary of pic discs.






4. Glok - Dissident Remixed

Strangely in the same position as last year's original Dissident album by Andy Bell's side project. Here we see the tracks on the album getting some pretty brilliant remixes for the likes of Richard Sen, Maps and sadly one of the final if not the final remix by Andrew Weatherall which I found heartbreaking to listen to for quite some time if the truth be known.






3. Little Barrie & Malcom Catto - Quatermass Seven

I'm not sure that I have any better way of describing this album that the Bandcamp blurb that got me interested in the first place "what you hear within it's seven tacks is the British blues explosion, colliding with a mid 70s Bronx block party; Haight Ashbury acid rock mashed up with Manchester's summer of love circa '88: or a prime slice of UK freakbeat broadcast from New York's jazz underground, emerging kicking from and screaming above London city tower blocks."
This album has hardly been off the turntable since it came out. It is incredibly good and the sort of thing that we need much much more of.






2. Sault - Untitled (Rise)

So the week before the vinyl of the Sault album Black Is is supposed to arrive I check the Bandcamp page to make sure that I have the dates right and I see another title listed, surely not? But it is, another bloody album, so without any debate it is pre-ordered and because I am still loving the Black Is download I decide that I will wait to listen until the vinyl arrives near to the end of November before giving it a listen. Surely it can't be as good as the previous one. Correct, it isn't it's better, this has a much more hopeful vibe and is a lot more dance orientated. The lyrics are as angry as the previous album but there is also optimism there and the production as previously is immaculate.







1. Whyte Horses - Hard Times

Hard Times was one of the first albums that dropped through the letterbox in early January 2020(It had been on order since September 2019), when we were yet to realise just how much of a fuck up the year was going to be. From the first listen I loved it. The choice of covers were interesting, tracks by The Bee Gees, Lou Reed and Baby Huey amongst them and a couple that I didn't know at all. The choice of guest vocalists was even more interesting, John Grant, Tracyanne Campbell, Badly Drawn Boy and in the case of Elly Jackson (La Roux) a complete revelation. On many occasions this year when I have been feeling a bit low I have reached for this album usually to play a particular song and have decided to just play the whole thing and more than once have played it through twice. Great uplifting stuff



Monday, 14 December 2020

Monday's Long Song



 Some deep and dubby House for the last working week Monday of the year, for me at least and I must admit that I am looking forward to a couple of weeks of doing as little as possible and not thinking about work for two whole weeks. I realise that I really am one of the lucky ones as I have been working all the way through and have not been furloughed or worse but it has been hard going. Even though there were lots of things in regard to my job that I haven't been able to do due to travel restrictions and not being able to get into where I spend my time if I am not in my cupboard at home, my workload has increased what seemed like two fold and it was the same throughout our department. So some time with the pile of unread books that I have and some of the music I have bought but haven't really got round to listening to will be relished.

Beautiful World is the lead track on a three track 12" released on Paper Recordings twenty one years ago, however the tune does not sound dated or stale to me and I think wouldn't sound out of place in a club now, if such a thing were possible. 

Paul Hester - Beautiful World 

Tuesday, 8 December 2020

Edwyn Knew The Score A While Back


It's the same old story, England's glory

Claiming back the Union Jack, my arse.

 They've sold us all down the river for fucking fish that they're not going to be able to process or sell and blue bastarding passports that never were fucking blue in the first place. Still in fifty years it may come good. Cry God for Harry, England and St George,  eh. Fucking criminals each and every one of them. 

And by the way if you voted leave fucking own the shitshow that follows, it's not us that voted to remain in the EU to blame, neither is it the EU, the French or any other fucking scapegoat your, evil propaganda sheets might single out in the coming weeks, it's all down to you fuckers. As you kept telling us you knew what you were voting for.  

Edwyn Collins - Keep On Burning 

 

Monday, 7 December 2020

Monday's Long Song

 


I have been on a bit of an Ashley Beedle trip this weekend, immersing myself in both Ballistic Brothers albums, some 12" single and some of my favourite remixes including the immense Long Night and The Samba remix of One Night Stand by the Aloof which could have featured in this spot if I hadn't already posted it at least three times previously. Instead here is a beautiful deep mix of Simone Olayemi Adefikayo Ogunnbunmi excellent Unmask Me. This is just the sort of summery vibes that we need in early December. Just focus on the fact that in 14 days the days nights will start to draw out. 

The photie, is the vision that greeted me last Friday when I got up to get Max up for his work! 

Mama - Unmask Me (Ashley Beedle Vocal Mix)



Wednesday, 2 December 2020

The Trip



The Trip isn't a cover of my favourite Kim Fowley track which has been featured here in the past but the flip side of the only single, "I Know", the only release by Park Avenue Playground, a bunch of kids at the time hailing from Lansing, Illinois  The track was recorded in an old theatre and is a furiously paced fuzz guitar, mad sound effects and lyrics suggesting that this bunch had taken a trip or two. The band had 500 copies of the single pressed in 1969 for distribution and the single came to the attention of the Chicago label USA Records who unsuccessfully tried to sign the band who disappeared without trace after that. 

Park Avenue Playground - The Trip

Tuesday, 1 December 2020

Time Out



Over the past few months I have found that during the day I just need to take some time out and just sit there, select something comforting, stare off into the middle distance and try to soothe my increasingly troubled soul.  Kathryn Williams cover of Thirteen, one of the most heartachingly beautiful songs about first love ever usually does the trick either that or it makes me even more maudlin and then the day is shot to pieces and I go down the rabbit hole of That Summer Feeling, IMy Favourite Girl, Go Now, The Day Before You Came etc. 

You pays your money and  you takes your chances

Kathryn Williams - Thirteen