The blossom has suddenly appeared on the trees round here, a sign that some things are going ahead as they should be even if everything else is completely upside down. Long ambient mixes are the order of the day round Bagging Area much of the time at the moment- they seem to have a positive effect and provide a welcome distraction from the news. This one by Youth dates from five years ago, an hour and fifty minutes of ambient with several detours into psychedelia and global sounds from the likes of Cliff Martinez, Popul Vuh, Orchid Star and Suns Of Arqa. Highly recommended.
JD Twitch, Glasgow’s Optimo supremo, put together the first in a series of Tranquillity mixes last weekend aimed specifically at calming the nerves during the coming months. Perfect for headphones while social distancing. There’s a download button too if you want to keep it.
Takashi Kokubo – A Dream Sails Out To Sea part 1
Mkwaju Ensemble – Lemore
Hiroshi Yoshimura – 小川にそって
Yumiko Morioko – Rainbow Gate
Haruomi Hosono – Fujitsubo
Inoyoama Land – Glass Chaim
Inoyama Land – Pokala (remix)
Popol Vuh – Ah!
Justus Köhncke and Fred Heimermann – Albatros
Nuno Canavarro – Blu Terra
Erik Satie – Gnossienne No. 1
World Standard – Rozo, Du Pecoj
Testpattern – Souvenir Glacé
The second Tranquillity Mix went up on Wednesday, similarly ambient and calming but with some beats appearing towards the end.
Not long after writing Friday’s post which featured Jah Wobble and Youth a further Youth excursion appeared on my internet. This is a long dub remix of an Australian singer and songwriter, Manika Kaur, whose Punjabi Sikh heritage has led her into making devotional music. Her 2015 album was produced by Talvin Singh and she’s worked with Scottish folkie James Yorkston. On this one Youth extends the original track into a 2020 ambient dub tour de force, a journey in which, to quote Martin ‘Youth’ Glover himself, ‘to build invisible bridges between ancient tradition and the modern world’. Eternal bliss indeed.
Some top quality dub disco from 1983 via Jah Wobble and his Invaders Of The Heart and a track named after the band or vice versa. Wobble’s bass is the bedrock around which everything else revolves. Lots of eastern influences to the fore in this the 3rd mix off the 12″- eastern scales, instrumentation and vocals, and a tune that unfolds entirely at its own pace. The trombone solo is a joy.
Wobble has a new out imminently with Youth, an album called Acid Punk Dub Apocalypse, with Hollie Cook and Alex Paterson on board. Wobble and Youth have got previous not least the rather excellent Dub Trees project from 2016- this one, a dubbed out mix of their own work, came from Youth’s garden studio in South London.
Youth is someone whose work is woven through my record collection, from his beginnings as bass player in Killing Joke through his long standing work with The Orb, in the 90s as Blue Pearl, his various works as producer and his more recent collaboration with Woodleigh Research Facility. The recordings with Andrew Weatherall and Nina Walsh were done around the same as the Dub Trees e.p. this version is from, possibly all stewed in the same pot.
Sunday is a good day for posting a long mix. This one, Cosmic Odyssey XXI, is the latest in an ongoing series with plenty of back catalogue and catching up to do if you’re so inclined. It comes from Killing Joke bassist Youth, a man with a long history of exploring, producing and making dub and ambient music. There’s plenty of both in this along with a cosmic, global psychedelia that covers all points, from wherever you’re listening to it to the other side of the world.
Today’s song is Youth and Thrash in 1990 taking Bananarama onto the dancefloor and under the spell of Sympathy For The Devil (everyone was into Sympathy For The Devil and those woo-woo backing vocals in 1990). The bassline’s a killer too. Yes, you could probably mix it straight into Loaded. There’s only one thing for it- it’s Friday, get down.
A seventeen minute trip through Paris in the company of Malcolm McLaren and Catherine Deneuve on vocals sent through the ambient dub machine by Youth. A rambling, sprawling but never aimless Youth production from 1994 given a typically unwieldy name (The Emotional Curvature At A Given Moment In Space And Time). Enjoy the ride.
This week Jacob Rees-Mogg suggested that if The House Of Commons continues to make every effort to avoid a no-deal Brexit the Queen should suspend parliament. There you have it, if there was every any doubt, the actual face and voice of a right wing coup, not by thugs in jackboots but by Old Etonians with upper class accents. Suspend democracy to get what you want. ‘If Adolf Hitler, flew in today, they’d send a limousine anyway…’, as Strummer put it in 1978.
So this is very well timed indeed, a new song from a very post-punk line up of Jah Wobble, Keith Levene, Richard Dudanski, Youth and Mark Stewart and this fantastic musical melting pot, a comment on the madness of Brexit, a piece of 2019 brilliance. Even more excitingly, there’s a Weatherall remix to follow. Levene and Wobble’s former PiL colleague, Brexit and Trump cheerleader Lydon, is nowhere to be seen.
Just after Christmas I posted a half hour mix by Martin ‘Youth’ Glover, Joy Division versus Basement 5 combined in a mix for the longest night, intense and full of dread. This one, A Trip In A Flying Saucer (Maya Jane Coles v Killing Joke In Dub) is a 30 minute mix more suited to Sunday mornings. A hypnotic, rolling groove, plenty of dub production and the vocals of Maya Jane Coles woven in and out. Given the laid back nature of this and some of the sounds within it, it is no surprise to find out that Alex Paterson was involved in the record selection in the studio.
This 30 minute mix might just freak you out a little. Martin Glover (Youth) put it together for the solstice (a week ago now- and just think, it is several minutes a day lighter than it was this time last week). The mix takes Joy Division and Basement 5 as the source material, adds some spoken words and in Martin’s own words is an ‘experimental and eclectic journey through the longest night of Solstice towards the new dawn…hinged around a Joy Division incessant voodoo drum beat…buckle up’.
Doctor Doom, perennial enemy of the Fantastic Four, has frazzled the Surfer and is now ‘invincibly superior… and has attained powers without limit– power enough to challenge Galactus himself!’ We all know how this ends- overconfidence is always the downfall of a supervillain. Even Victor von Doom.
Jack Kirby’s artwork doesn’t make me think of reggae too often- Lee Perry’s Super Ape sleeve art and a few others aside- but in a week of new music today I offer you the honeyed voice of Hollie Cook and some wonderfully poppy reggae vibes on this single Freefalling which comes out tomorrow. An album, Vessel Of Love, produced by Youth is following in January.
Bagging Area 