Bjorn Torske released a solo album in 2018, a Scandinavian space- disco epic called Byen. It opened with First Movement, eight minutes of seagulls and waves, keys and synths, a gently rolling bassline, percussion and hand drums. It’s not aimless but very much a wandering and drifting piece of music. When the seagulls and waves appear again at the end it feels like you’ve been somewhere, slowly. Ideal for a Saturday morning in November if you’ve got nothing much to do.
I took this picture in Manchester walking down Oldham Street back in August. A month from today it will be Boxing Day and the whole Christmas thing will be done and dusted bar the leftovers. The longest day will have passed and we’ll be heading towards the new year.
As Tony Wilson/ Steve Coogan says in 24 Hour Party People, ‘“It’s my belief that history is a wheel. ‘Inconstancy is my very essence,’ says the wheel. Rise up on my spokes if you like but don’t complain when you’re cast back down into the depths. Good time pass away, but then so do the bad. Mutability is our tragedy, but it’s also our hope. The worst of times, like the best, are always passing away.” (thanks to Guarin Tees for reminding me of this quote recently on social media). A lot of people are going through a lot at the moment and it’s tough sometimes to keep going and remember that all this will pass. Which it will, sooner or later.
Today’s music comes from Brian Eno, no stranger to literature and clever quotes himself. Here he was with long term collaborators his brother Roger and Daniel Lanois and the soundtrack to the 1989 documentary For All Mankind. It’s as good a way to start Friday morning as any.
Two weeks ago Khayem posted Creation Myths, an hour and twenty minute long mix of songs released by Creation Records between 1989 and 1991. It is a wonderful time capsule, a spicy soup of electric and acoustic guitars, dance beats, distortion, noise and melodies. Tucked away inside were two songs by a band I haven’t even thought about for years/ decades and certainly not listened to in as long- Swervedriver. Swervedriver were from oxford and were deeply inspired by American bands- most Creation bands who were influenced by US groups loved Love, Buffalo Springfield and The Velvet Underground. Swervedriver wanted to sound like Dinosaur Jr, Sonic Youth and Husker Du and to be fair they did a good job of it. Huge crunchy guitar riffs, snarly FX pedals, wah wah and tremelo, thumping drums and multi- tracked, stoned vocals. Heavy, rocking shoegaze with dreadlocks. They sounded like what they sang about- the open road, hot sun beating down on tarmac, speeding cars and gas stations, all the cliches but done so well.
Never Lose That Feeling came out in May 1992 and was produced by Alan Moulder who made a lot of Creation groups sound big- it’s woozy, stoned but speedy rock.
Rave Down was on Khayem’s mix and is my favourite Swervedriver song (although I don’t own a physical or digital copy). It came out in 1990 and then appeared on their debut album Raise a year later. It’s a blast with a bulldozing, churning chord change and vocals to match.
A 2014 Andrew Weatherall remix of Atari Teenage Riot, one of several from this point that shared a sound- a futuristic, slow mo chug, bassline to the fore, sci fi sounds bouncing around, lots of dubby space and then the arpeggiated synth part comes in. A long hypnotic groove. This was from around the time when Tim Fairplay was in the studio a lot with him, The Asphodells album came out the year before and the travelling A Love From Outer Space night with Sean Johnston was gathering pace- lots of cross pollination going on, sounds and styles being road tested and refined.
Other than this and an Atari Teenage Riot remix of a Primal Scream’s Miss Lucifer I don’t think I own anything else by Berlin’s foremost exponents of digital hardcore.
Twenty three years ago today Isaac was born, making his entrance at just after half past seven in the morning and whisked off immediately to an ICU unit. Although I don’t think you can ever be ready for the impact that becoming a parent has on your life we certainly weren’t expecting what we got- serious unknown genetic illness, frequent hospitalisation in his early years, deafness, serious learning difficulties, bone marrow transplants, operations and much more.
When pregnant people are asked ‘what do you want?’ and they reply ‘I don’t mind, as long as it’s healthy’, it’s a comment that you can’t possibly consider properly unless you’re thrown into the thick of serious life and death illness. Isaac is twenty three today and there have been occasions when he wasn’t expected to survive the night. In 2000 when he was undergoing a bone marrow transplant he contracted a serious Epstein Barr virus. In 2008 his undiagnosed missing immune system led to him getting pneumonia and then meningitis). Ass a result every year he adds, every birthday, feels like a stolen year, another year grappled back from what could have been. Sorry if that sounds melodramatic or maudlin- it’s supposed to be celebratory. And he will be celebrating, he loves a birthday and loves a party. Happy birthday Isaac.
Back in 1997, the year before he was born, The Charlatans released this piece of Dylan inspired, Stonesy guitar slinging, a song with a loping beat, some northern swagger and an emotion laden set of lyrics from Tim Burgess. A friend bought it for Isaac on 7″ not long after he was born. Isaac isn’t fussed about music (ironically given how much I am) and doesn’t know the song so it sits in with the rest of my 7″ singles.
‘Hey country boy/ What are you sad about/ Every day you make the sun come out/ Even in the pouring rain/ I’ll come to see you/ And I’ll save you, I’ll save you’
Definitely in a similar space sonically and tonally to yesterday’s Circle Sky album is this latest remix by Hardway Bros. To add to a long list of artists Sean Johnston has rmeixed over the last few years we now have Shadowlark, a three-piece from Leeds making lush 80s influenced synth- pop. Sean’s remix of Come Around Here is the kind of melancholic/ euphoric music you can dance to with tears in your eyes (to quote Ultravox). Buy it at Bandcamp.
Richard Norris and Martin Dubka’s Circle Sky album has finally seen the light of day, three years on from the release of If I Let Go and Ghost In The Machine, a pair of singles that married their analogue synths with a weirdly almost human voice, some beautiful, light than air melodies and a sense of melancholy. The album, Dream Colour, has that feeling of a future that has been lost, the promise and hope of the 21st century as it looked a few decades ago that hasn’t materialised- a future/ present weighed down by environmental collapse, terrorism, fractured societies, loneliness and isolation, plague and technology that presents as many problems as solutions. Somehow though, there’s a sense that things might just be ok.
The title track has the bassline and bounce of 80s house with that female voice singing vague somethings. The voice isn’t quite human and isn’t quite robotic either- how they’ve created her/ it, they’re not saying.
Salvation is altogether less physical and more ethereal, floatier, with twinkling synthlines and warm pads, a drifting, gliding piece of electronic music. The album has a cocoon- like feel, something to bathe in while the outside world carries on. There’s something of the future of Blade Runner in Dream Colour too, replicants with human emotions that they don’t understand yet. I think its an album I’ll be coming back to often.
Here’s a welcome surprise- William Orbit is back making music. The first fruit of a recent burst of creativity is Starbeam, six minutes of piano and wordless vocals, rising/ falling synth and keyboard parts. There’s too much going on here in the foreground for it to be ambient and it doesn’t have the minimalism of nu- classical. There’s an album to follow which an interview in The Guardian promises will have ‘symphonic trance crescendos, some chill out meanderings and a major ambient- rave tune’. Make of that what you will. He’s definitely a maverick and one of the architects of the 90s.
The interview here is very entertaining, focussing mainly on his work with Madonna (and him walking in on her while she was having a dump), his productions for the big stars (Britney, Pink, Mel C, Ricky Martin) and a drug induced breakdown aged sixty one (he’s now sixty five). I’d have liked more about Torch Song, Bass- O- Matic and his Strange Cargo albums but I suppose that would be for the serious music monthlies. This track, from Strange Cargo III in 1993, is a genuine 90s widescreen ambient- house classic. The Story Of Light
I’ve posted this song before, once in 2010 and once again in 2016, so I thought I might as well go for a five to six year cycle and repost it. The Pharcyde formed in South Central Los Angeles in 1989 and in 1992 released their first album. Passin’ Me By was a single, built around samples from Jimi Hendrix (Are You Experienced?), Weather Report (125th Street Congress) and Quincy Jones (Summer In The City). In contrast to what some other rappers were rhyming about in the early 90s, the four MCs- Imani, Slimkid 3, Booty Borwn and Fatlip- poked fun at themselves, self deprecating lines about being in love with girls at school who are out of your league, the one who ‘keeps on passin’ me by’. The casual flow and laugh out loud humour, coupled with the laid back beats and samples and that pumping bass sample, are a total joy.
I’ve been a bit late on the uptake with this group and their name suggests we’re running out of band names but there’s no doubting what they do- Dry Cleaning formed after a karaoke party and six months later discovered a vocalist, Florence Shaw (who holds down day jobs as a visual artist, lecturer and picture researcher). Florence’s vocals are spoken word, a bit indifferent to you and your life, eyebrows raised perhaps, casually narrating her subconscious (‘love, anger, revenge, anxiety, the kitchen…’). Meanwhile the three musicians (Tom, Nick and Lewis) scratch, scape and bash away at guitar, bass and drums. Guitar riffs, post- punk basslines and dry drums, a bit of 80s jangle, some dubby sounds. It sounds like the music’s come from jam sessions (in a good way) and they’ve honed in on the good points while Florence sits with sheets of paper waiting for her cue- ‘a woman in aviators firing a bazooka’ as she says in Scratchcard Lanyard. They’re on 4AD who let’s face it, usually know what they’re doing.
Strong Feelings rides on a rumbling bass and hissing hi- hat and then a shaker. The guitar comes in, single notes, as Florence says ‘I just want to tell you I have scabs on my head’. The Joy Division guitar riff builds up. Later on, after lines about Dutch landscape, an emo dead stuff collector and the repeated ‘It’s Europe’, she drops in ‘It seems like a lot of garlic/ Lonely beyond lovely/ You just want to be liked/ I like you/ Stay’. I’m not sure what it’s all about but I really enjoy listening to it.
Bug Eggs was recorded in summer 2020 and released summer 2021 after being available only as a bonus track. ‘I was a toasted teenage peanut’ Florence says and I think we all know how she feels.
Bagging Area 