An Hour Of The Flightpath Estate AW61 Afternoon Set

This is my hour’s set from last Saturday afternoon at AW61 at The Golden Lion, Todmorden, re- created at home. The photo above shows my view from the DJ booth as my set ended and the auction and raffle began- you may recognise some of the faces getting ready to bid on items from Andrew Weatherall’s studio. 

Once we’ve got all the other sets and the evening’s rotations recreated we can upload the entire thing but I thought I’d share mine in the meantime. It comes in at over an hour and I only played for an hour on the day- from memory, I mixed Biosphere’s En- Trance out because the file seemed very quiet (even for an ambient track) and it is in the mix below too. I think I mixed out of Underworld’s 8 Ball halfway through as well but just left it playing in full here because, really, what sort of person mixes out the second half of 8 Ball? I’d just faded the GLOK Starlight Dub of A Mountain Of One’s Star in when Gig, the Golden Lion’s legendary landlady, took the mic to start the auction (along with Lizzie and Sofia) so that track was left mostly unplayed- you’ll have to imagine the auction and raffle taking place when you reach that point in my set (unless you were there in which case replay it in your mind). I played Emotionally Clear as the raffle ended and to provide my handover to Dan who was waiting in the wings. 

Adam’s Flightpath Estate Afternoon Set At AW61

• Coyote: Western Revolution
• Durutti Column: Bordeaux Sequence
• Psychederek: Test Card Girl
• Four Tet: Loved
• Rick Cuevas: The Birds
• Biosphere: En- Trance
• Underworld: 8 Ball
• Wixel: Expressway To Yr Skull (Long Champs Bonus Beats)
• This Mortal Coil: Edit To The Siren
• Bjork: One Day
• James Holden: Common Land
• A Mountain Of One: Star (GLOK Starlight Dub)
• David Holmes and Raven Violet: Emotionally Clear

Western Revolution is Coyote’s sublime edit of Gil Scott Heron’s The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. I had half a mind to start with Lonely, which is from the same vinyl only EP out last year, Magic Wand Special Edition Vol. 2, but Mr Holmes played it the night before. 

Bordeaux Sequence was on The Durutti Column’s 1987 album The Guitar And Other Machines, a moment of genuine beauty from Vini Reilly. It is a re- recorded version of Bordeaux from 1983’s Another Setting. A couple of people in the room gave me a ‘thank you for playing Durutti Column’ look.

Psychederek is from Stretford, just up the road from me. Test Card Girl was a digital only single from 2023 and I’m not over it yet

Loved was a single from Four Tet, also from last year and is now the opening track on his Three album. Another 2023 song that has stuck around well into ’24. 

The Birds is by Rick Cuevas, from a self – released, private pressing album called Symbolism that came out in 1984, an album described on Discogs as ‘soft rock/ AOR’. I wouldn’t necessarily call The Birds either- a friend once described it as ‘Durutti Column on steroids’ which I’m happier with. I’m fairly certain I only know of this song because of Andrew Weatherall referencing it in an interview or playing it on a radio show. 

Biosphere’s En- Trance is ambient/ techno from Belgium in 1994, an album called Patashnik. It’s just some synth drones and an acoustic guitar- I say ‘just’, it’s much more than that obviously. Shame this WAV file I have is so quiet. 

Underworld’s 8 Ball was on the soundtrack to The Beach, the Leonardo Di Caprio film from 2000. 8 Ball is a nine minute low key epic with fluid guitar playing and some of Karl’s loveliest singing, lyrics about men with empty whiskey bottles and walkie talkies and flaming 8 ball tattoos on their arms, a man who eventually throws his arms around him. They gave this away to a soundtrack, a soundtrack where it was overshadowed a little by All Saints and Moby- most bands would kill for a tune this good and would make it a single or the track they built an album around. Someone in the Lion asked me what this was and took some convincing it was Karl on vocals.

Wixel are from Belgium (with hindsight, there’s a bit of a Belgian theme running through this mix) and put out a cover of Sonic Youth’s Expressway To Yr Skull in 2008, part of a seven track EP of Sonic Youth covers. The Long Champs edit turns it into a shimmering, semi -ambient haze that led to a couple of enquiries in the pub- and if you turn a couple of people onto something new to them, that’s what it’s all about isn’t it. 

Edit To The Siren is an In The Valley edit of Song To The Siren, This Mortal Coil’s signature cover of Tim Buckley’s song. Someone once told me this was sacrilege but for me its got a dubby/ Balearic splendour and is perfect Saturday afternoon vibes. 

One Day is one of the key early Bjork solo songs, from 1993’s Debut. The dubby bassline, house shimmer, Nellee Hooper’s production and Bjork’s delivery are all superb. 

Common Land was one of the tracks on James Holden’s 2023 album Imagine This Is A High Dimensional Space Of All Possibilities, an album I still go back to a year later. The burbling synths, birdcall, techno- ish drums and warbling sax combine to create something very heady and transportative. It’s also a tribute to the free party movement and early 90s rave and felt quite fitting for the Lion and Todmorden.

A Mountain of One’s Stars Planets Dust Me was one of my favourite albums from 2022. Andy Bell’s GLOK remix is a spaced out, sun- baked treat. 

Emotionally Clear is from David Holmes’ Blind On A Galloping Horse, 2023’s number one Bagging Area album. Seeing David Holmes bidding at the auction at AW61 from behind the decks will take some beating in 2024. 

AW61

I can’t remember who took this photo, maybe the wonderful Claire Dollers or possibly Neil Overall, Todmorden’s Golden Lion illuminated by the heavens, a rainbow the least we could have expected for the AW61 weekender that happened last weekend. There’s was so much that went on it’s difficult to piece it all together, so many people gathered in one place to pay tribute to the departed Andrew Weatherall, to dance and enjoy the music of the various DJs and live acts, lots of people where we were able to put faces to names, lots of familiar faces from previous outings at The Lion, and many magic moments which could only take place in that particular pub in Todmorden. 

Friday 

Rotter and Rusty were in the DJ booth. Rusty designed the artwork for our Sounds From The Flightpath Estate album, a copy of which sat centre stage on the booth (as pictured here with me behind the decks on Saturday afternoon). 

Rotter and Rusty played all sorts- country, funk and soul, cosmic stuff- perfect Friday afternoon sounds. As afternoon turned into evening and the pub filled, Matt Hum took over downstairs, some heavy sounding electronics, superbly mixed and sequenced. Upstairs a capacity crowd filled the live room as Keith Tenniswood aka Radioactive Man and former Swordsman played behind a bank of kit, mixer, synths, drum machines, FX devices and kicked up a storm of electro/ techno, basslines thumping and filling the room. The room was heaving, dark and sweaty, the floor bouncing, the kind of space and music that are perfectly suited for each other. I’ve no idea what tracks Keith played. This one is from his self titled 2001 Radioactive Man album.

Gone Forever 

Downstairs Matt Hum handed over to David Holmes, a man who has played the Golden Lion several times recently. He hit the ground running, a set that started out with music for dancing to and kept it going for four hours, plenty of deviations into disco in the first half, the second half having some crossover with sets played last year (a Galloping Horse remix, Rich Lane’s edit of Jackie by Sinead O’Connor) but filled with new tunes, 80s electro- pop and acid house, Can’s I Want More and the giddy synth ecstasy of Figures by Absolute Body Control from 1983 standing out, reaching a crescendo after 1am, the pub’s mirror ball spinning, red lights dancing around the stone walls, the place filled with dancers and revellers. 

Saturday 

We arrived at 2pm for our marathon Saturday afternoon and evening sessions, five Flightpath Estate DJs taking an hour each and then playing back to back, two or three tunes each in rotation. The sets weren’t recorded but we aim to recreate them at some point. Baz went on first, chilled afternoon sounds building to an end with White Williams’ Route To Palm (first heard on an Andrew Weatherall BBC 6 radio show in 2008) and Andy Bell’s cover of Smokebelch from our album. Martin followed, his usual eclectic and inspired selection of tracks. I played from 4pm to 5pm. You spend so long preparing for these sessions, selecting tracks, planning what to play and what to put next to what, and it’s over in a flash. My afternoon set was woozy electronic music, ambient sounds and spaced out stuff- Coyote, Durutti Column, Psychederek, Four Tet, Rick Cuevas, Biosphere, Underworld, The Long Champs/ Weval/ Sonic Youth threeway edit/ cover, an edit of Song To The Siren, Bjork and James Holden. I had just cued up GLOK’s spaced out remix of Stars by A Mountain Of One when the auction and raffle began, Gig (the Golden Lion’s legendary landlady) and Lizzie (partner of Andrew at the time of his death) auctioning a select set of Andrew Weatherall connected items, accompanied by Sofia Hedblom (dressed as a cupcake). 

Playing support act to this auction and raffle was a brilliant way to spend part of the weekend, bizarre and utterly Golden Lion. A mug from Andrew’s studio was bid for and won by Moggieboy (Alan McGregor who used to write the superb Ripped In Glasgow blog, one of the inspirations for this blog back in 2009/ 2010). Among the lots there were a pair of Andrew’s cufflinks, a Boy’s Own bag with incense in it, a photograph taken by Lizzie and used for the sleeve of Andrew’s The Bullet Catcher’s Apprentice EP and a metal tin from Andrew’s studio that used to contain his stash. The auction and raffle raised over £800 all of which went to Todmorden’s Incredible Edible charity, a local urban gardening project growing, celebrating and  sharing locally grown food. As the raffle ended I put David Holmes’ Emotionally Clear on and handed over to Dan. 

I missed most of Dan’s set having moved to the restaurant area to get some food, a stomach lining being important ahead of the evening. Mark took over from Dan and played a customarily superb set of tracks, dubby and chuggy, pushing things up a gear. By a bit after 7pm we were ready to go back to back, four of us taking it in turns to entertain a by now busy and keen pub. Sons Of Slough played upstairs, an hour long live set with lots of new material. Downstairs we were pushing the tempos up a little- after Martin played a three, I went back and played Anzu by C.A.R., David Holmes’ remix of Lisa Moorish’s Sylvia (I think Mark played this earlier too, always a risk with so many people involved at the decks) and Orbital and Mike Garry’s Tonight In Belfast, before handing over to Dan and then Mark and round again, but there were so many tracks that didn’t get played sitting in my bag. Hearing The Light Brigade’s Human : Remains pounding out of the sound system was a bit of a moment. In the run up to Sean Johnston and Duncan Gray taking over Dan, Martin and Mark nailed it, a blend of well known and obscure, Rich Lane’s edit of New Order’s Vanishing Point and Bedford Falls Players’ Beautiful Chaos both pumping loud and clear through the speakers. 

After 9pm Sean and Duncan took over and took the roof off. Often when they play together they play a lot of dub but this set went to chunky, pumping and spaced out, ALFOS style sounds quickly, thumping drums, synths, lots of vocals and many tracks that people couldn’t place. Radio Slave’s recent remix of Fun Boy 3’s The Lunatics (HaveTaking Over The Asylum) caused some mayhem. 

My memories are admittedly sketchy but at one point Sean dropped this monster from 1991 by LaTour, People Are Still Having Sex (possibly an edit of it)…

Vox Low’s Something Is Wrong was played at some point and Awrite by Manakinz but there was so much going on its difficult to keep track. I spent some time down the front in the mass of dancers, a happy blur of faces and limbs. When the lights came on and people hugged and blinked and wiped the seat from their brows and grinned in the early hours of Sunday morning there was a pause and then Sean finished with one of his signature tunes from last years’ ALFOS sets, Yame’s As I Ran, a euphoric and giddy dancefloor gem from 2022, a squiggly topline, wayward synthlines and a section that breaks down into chanted vocals and then rattling snares driving back in and the synth melodies kicking back in. The sequenced bassline runs on and on, running round in your head long after the track has finished. 

As I Ran

Sunday

Remarkably there were still people back at the Golden Lion on Sunday for more, Curley on the decks all afternoon spinning ambient and some floor shaking dub and then Rico and Waka playing a Double Gone Chapel set of rockabilly, garage and punk. I was present for some of it, waiting around until I felt well enough to summon the strength to drive home. 

Quite the weekend. 

We had a blast, it was a great thing to be involved in and we, The Flightpath Estate team, all feel so honoured to be a part of it. Massive thanks to Waka, Gig and Matt at The Lion, Ian and Lizzie, all the DJs and acts. And a big thank you to the beautiful and brilliant Golden Lion crowd, all the dancers and fellow travellers. In no particular order and I know I’ll miss someone out so apologies to anyone whose name should be here and isn’t – Claire and Si, Annabel and Tessa, Rotter, Rusty, Emily, Sofia, Curley, Rico, Alan/ Moggie, Cat and Robert, Raphael, Dave Croft et al, James, John, Marc and Harriet and the Glasgow revellers, Ian, Hugh, Michael and the Liverpool contingent, Gill and Damo, Tommo and friends, Jono, Gary J, Dickie, Joanne and friends, Neil, Simon, Chris, Andy and Ruth, and all the people I bumped into on the floor, in the garden or around the decks whose names I can’t recall right now. Thank you each and every one of you. 

Forty Minutes Of Andrew Weatherall

It’s day three of AW61 at The Golden Lion in Todmorden today, a day of dub and the Double Gone Chapel with Curley, Sherman and Nicky General bringing the dub and Rico, Louise and Waka bringing the Double Gone sounds. At the time of writing I don’t know how yesterday went but let’s assume it was really good and The Flightpath Estate DJs pulled it off in fine style.

Today’s mix is a tribute to Andrew Weatherall, with a selection of tracks that feature samples of his voice, a lengthy tribute from Kenneth Bager and an unofficial and unreleased oddity ripped from a radio show. As well as being a top class DJ, remixer and producer Andrew was a great interviewee, eminently quotable and entertaining. Most of the tracks below feature snippets from interviews he did during the 2010s, the topics under discussion including the importance of Factory Records, his A Certain Ratio fixation, and whether acid house is in the end ‘just a fucking disco’.

Forty Minutes Of Andrew Weatherall

• Prana Crafter: Starlight, Sing Us A Melody
• Sabres Of Paradise: Clock Factory (Joe Mckechnie North Star Edit)
• IWDG: In A Lonely Place (David Holmes Remix)
• BTCOP: Just A Disco (Lights On The Hills Mix)
• BTCOP: Just A Disco (Blavatsky and Tolley Mix)
• Kenneth Bager: Late Night Symphony (Tribute To Andrew Weatherall)
• BBC Radiophonic Workshop: Electricity, Language And Me

Prana Crafter released Morpho Mystic, a six track album in September 2020. The album is the work of William Sol, a psychedelic/ folk musician. Starlight, Sing Us A Melody is a few minutes of gently psyche acoustic and electric guitars with the voice of Mr Weatherall appearing at the end. 

Clock Factory was a fifteen minute excursion into spooked industrial ambience on Sabres Of Paradise’s 1993 album Sabresonic. Joe Mckechnie’s edit is entirely unofficial, Andrew’s voice dropped in to a shorter version of Clock Factory. Joe is a Liverpool based DJ, producer and remixer, formerly a member of 80s Liverpool band Benny Profane whose name was all over the city’s gig posters in Liverpool in the late 80s, regularly supporting bigger names and the touring indie bands who passed through venues such as the Mountford Hall, the Haigh Building and Planet X. 

IWDG is Ian Weatherall and Duncan Grey (also known as Sons Of Slough who played at The Golden Lion last night). In 2021 they covered New Order’s In A Lonely Place, a tribute to Andrew and to Factory Records. David Holmes was one of the remixers, sampling Andrew’s voice as well as singing Bernard’s words. 

Just A Disco came out in November 2022, a track built around a quote from Andrew where he mused on whether coloured lights, dry ice and trance inducing music was just a fucking disco or whether it’s something more than that- a gnostic ceremony he might have said with a smirk. The Lights On The Hill Mix is ten minutes of ambient/ Balearic gorgousness. The Blavatsky and Tolley Mix is much thumpier with the title rattling round and round. 

Kenneth Bager is headman at Music For Dreams in Copenhagen. His Late Night Symphony is from an EP released in 2022 called Stones And Steel and is a ten minute long tribute to Andrew- no voice on this one but a very lovely piece of wonky electronic music all the same. 

Electricity, Language And Me is a 2013 collaboration between the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and Andrew that remains unreleased. There are some unreleased remixes as well which I hope will see the light of day at some point. This is a short piece with Andrew providing a spoken word vocal, ripped from one of his NTS radio shows which were the gateway to so much music, both new and old. 

V.A. Saturday And AW61 Double Header

Today’s main action is AW61, the celebration of what would have been Andrew Weatherall’s 61st birthday at The Golden Lion in Todmorden, one of Andrew’s spiritual homes. Last night’s line up had David Holmes on downstairs with former Two Lone Swordsmen Keith Tenniswood playing a set as Radioactive Man, both ably supported by Matt Hum and the Rusty and Rotter DJ team. 

Today sees us, The Flightpath Estate DJs, return to The Golden Lion with a marathon set starting early afternoon and playing through until Sean Johnston and Duncan Grey take over to carry us all through til the early hours. Sons Of Slough play the upstairs room, Ian Weatherall and Duncan Grey picking up from their set at The Lion last August and at Carcassonne in September, promising a set packed with new material. Each of us in The Flightpath have an hour this afternoon and then we’re going back to back, playing three tunes each before handing over the next man, which really keeps you on your toes and can lead to some interesting changes in musical direction. We have the tracks from our album, Sounds From the Flightpath Estate Volume 1, to slip in at various points. Last year I was very nervous about DJing in the Lion for AW60. This year I’ve been more relaxed about it, pulling a folder of tracks and songs together over the last few months and then pruning it and giving some thought to selection and sequencing this week. AW60 was a superb day and night- hopefully this one will equal it. The honour of being asked to play is a huge one. I said to someone a while ago in conversation, without meaning it to sound like a massive name drop, ‘when we DJed at Andrew Weatherall’s birthday party…’, and caught myself mid- sentence thinking, ‘how the fuck did that happen?!’. The saddest thing about it all is that the man himself is absent, physically. His spirit though is very much in the room. Today, 6th April, was Andrew’s birthday. Many happy returns Andrew. 

Andrew was an inveterate record collector, tape and CD compilation maker. He made scores of tapes and CDs for friends and for his club nights, often given away to the lucky first punters through the door. He was often asked to put together Various Artist albums, his song selection and eye for detail legendary. Andrew’s Masterpiece album, three CDs/ triple vinyl from 2012 is a career high in some ways, the ALFOS sound with several of his own remixes. His Sci- Fi- Lo- Fi compilation for Soma in 2012 pulled together lost rockabilly nuggets, T- Rex, The Fall, The Cramps, The Flaming Stars and Killing Joke among others for a flawless selection, a peak inside the Weatherall record box. 

At the start of the 21st century he complied a pair of CD compilations that show the breadth and depth of his talent as a selector. In July 2000 the Nine O’Clock Drop compilation on Nuphonic was one of the kickstarters to the rebirth of the post punk/ punk funk sound, a thirteen song album that put early electro, Mancunian post- punk dread, reggae, proto house and reggae alongside each other- A Certain Ratio, 23 Skidoo, Quando Quango, Gina X Performance and Colourbox rubbing up next to Aswad, Chris and Cosey and William Orbit’s Torch Song. Not a dull moment and an album that showed how pioneering the early/ mid 80s were. Members of A Certain Ratio have said it was a crucial spur in them getting back together in the early 2000s and releasing their own early 80s compilation, titled Early (naturally) on Soul Jazz. They’ve gone from strength to strength since. 

I could pick any of the thirteen tracks and have gone for this one by Colourbox. Looks Like We’re Shy One Horse/ Shoot Out is riotous sampledelic dub, parts of Once Upon A Time In The West scattered throughout, squealing guitars, deep bass and kicking drum machine rhythms, with  a superb slowed down and dubbed out end section.

Looks Like We’re Shy One Horse/ Shoot Out

A year later in 2001 Andrew’s name and selections were on a CD from Force Tracks, a German label specialising in early 21st century minimal techno and house, a pared back and very Teutonic sound. The fifteen tracks are all from the label, largely without vocals, and seamlessly mixed in the Weatherall bunker. It works as a whole piece, an hour of futuristic dance music that concludes with Tessio by Luomo, the only track with a vocal. 

Tessio (Matthias Schaffhauser Decomposed Subsonic Remix)