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

 

Hall Of Mirrors

Oh look! More new Andrew Weatherall remixes. Two of them, this time reworking London band The Early Years, makers of experimental, drone, motorik music using guitars and synths. I’ve posted them before. Weatherall turns in a pair of remixes, each one long and expansive, with melodies and noises and machine rhythms. The first one is lighter, hypnotic and more playful, the second darker and foreboding but with a nice piano break to let some daylight in.

Elsewhere on the ep Andy Bell of Ride and XAM get stuck in. It’s out now, four track vinyl at your usual vinyl emporium or download at Sonic Cathedral. All four remixes are on the player below.

I Heard Voices

This is a b-side from an obscure London band released as the third track on a cd single called All Ones And Zeros back in January 2006, recorded at Death In Vegas’ Contino Rooms by DiV’s Tim Holmes. The Early Years put out several records around this time, then disappeared for a few years and came back in 2011 with a single called Complicity and then back again last year with an album called II. That’s the facts out of the way.

This song, I Heard Voices, is a long and expansive trip. It starts out with some noises and a lone repetitive guitar part. A krauty groove comes in. A voice starts muttering. There’s an organ adding some drones and textures. The guitars are spindly and psychey, painting their way through the first part before really coming to the fore in the fifth minute. By the ninth minute things are way up and beyond, the drums thumping and the guitars taking it on and on, in a loop but doing something different too. At ten minutes thirty seconds there’s a shift and the whole thing is driving itself home, guitars grinding their way through and to the end at eleven forty. This could easily be overdoing it in terms of length and focus but the band avoid that, keeping the interest and the drive, with the rhythm totally locked in, the playing compulsive, building something new.

I Heard Voices

Nocturne

Start the week with something new shall we? How about this, a noisy, motorik, squally slice of focused noise from London’s The Early Years, from their album II, which came out a couple of weeks ago. Hints of Bowie in Berlin about David Malkinson’s vocals while Roger Mackin’s blistering guitars kick up a real storm. I posted a track by them back in 2012, Complicity from an ep which I played to death at the time. And I’ll be off to check the new album out as soon as I get the chance.

Early

The Early Years make a post-punk and kraut influenced noise. This song was the lead track off an e.p. last year called Memory Case. It’s a lovely slice of instrumental guitar music, released on shoegaze label Sonic Cathedral. Really rather good, even if you won’t learn much from the sleeve.

Complicity