An Hour Of Midsummer Ambience

Today’s mix is inspired by the music Martin and I played last Saturday might at Soup with Contours and Marconi Union, sixty minutes of largely ambient music with a tendency towards the cosmic and the odd detour into dub, on this day, the mid point of 2024- how did we get to 30th June so quickly? It seems like only recently it was New Year. The picture is from December last year and an Anglo- Saxon cross in the churchyard of St. Edward’s church in Leek, Staffordshire (my Dad’s hometown and home to the local delicacy, the Staffordshire oatcake). Anyway, midsummer, late nights, warm days, ambient bliss, dub bass. What more could you ask for?

An Hour Of Midsummer Ambience

• Underworld: Dark And Long (Most ‘Ospitable Mix)
• Khartomb: Swahili Lullaby (Synkro’s Balearic Dub Mix)
• M- Paths: Emerge
• Sabres Of Paradise: Chapel Street Market 9am
• Zoe: Moonsister (Lunar Dub 1)
• William Orbit: The Story Of Light
• Coyote: Every Forest Tells A Story
• The Woodentops: Dream On (Balearic Ultras Brooking Bass Remix)
• Andy Bell: Smokebelch II
• African Head Charge: Dub For The Spirits
• Sedibus: SETI Part 3

Dark And Long opened Underworld’s 1994 album dubnobasswithmyheadman. The single version came with four different mixes, the ambient Most ‘Ospitable one being a thing of great beauty. 

Khartomb’s 1983 single Swahili Lullaby, post- punk dub,  has recently been re- issued by Jason Boardman’s Before I Die label along with this ambient/ Balearic remix courtesy of Stockport producer Synkro. 

M- Paths album Submerge came out on Mighty Force earlier this year, one in a long line of outstanding releases from the reborn Exeter label. Emerge is the final track, piano and synths combining to give the feel of surfacing from underwater to feel the warm hit of sun on your face. 

Chapel Street 9am was on Sabres Of Paradise’s 1994 album Haunted Dancehall, Weatherall, Burns and Kooner creating a morning walk through the streets of London after a night at the titular nightclub, electronic seagulls yapping overhead and the gumshoe Maguire heading home. 

Zoe had a huge hit with her song Sunshine On A Rainy Day, a pop- rave classic from summer 1991. The Orb and Youth were involved and The Orb remixed her song Moonsister for the 12″.

William Orbit’s Strange Cargo 3 is a lost ambient/ global/ dub gem from 1993. The Story Of Light is a blissed out ambient peak.

Coyote released Every Forest tells A Story earlier this year, another spoken word vocal sample layered over laid back ambient/ Balearic music. 

The Woodentops released their album Fruits Of The Deep in April and a single Dream On a few weeks before with this floaty remix by Brighton’s Balearic Ultras. 

Andy Bell’s cover of Sabres Of Paradise Smokebelch II is from our album Sounds Of The Flightpath Estate Volume 1. In a chain of events that still leaves me scratching my chin, we had almost every track ready for mastering and I emailed Andy (he’d been on tour in the US with Ride) to see if he had anything for us. The following day he sent me Smokebelch, saying I’d inspired him to finish it. He started it the day Andrew died and completed it for our album, inspired by Andrew. Coincidentally, our album made Piccadilly Records mid- year top 25 collections round up a few days ago. 

Dub For The Spirits came out on African Head Charge’s Churchical Chant Of The Iyabinghi, an album of previously unreleased tracks and dubs from their 1990 classic Songs Of Praise. Every home should have one.

Sedibus’s SETI (The Search For Extra- Terrestrial Intelligence) came out at the start of the year and I’m still going back to it, a lovely mix of synths, samples and ‘real’ instruments and an endless, questing vision of outer space as a place to find something else/ yourself. 

Dream On

The Woodentops are preparing for an album release, a record that will be called Fruits Of The Deep. When they toured last month they played some new songs along with songs from their 80s releases and last year they put out the Ride A Cloud single. Last Friday Rolo and the rest of the line up put out a new song, Dream On, with a pair of remixes, all of which are hitting the spot, sounding laid back, sleepy and full of the promise of spring/ summer. Dream On opens with some very Woodentops sounding acoustic guitars, some dub space and an electric guitar riff. It’s lovely stuff. 

The remixes come in the form of a Rolo Dub and a Balearic Ultras remix. Dream On (Rolo Dub) extends it out, bassline to the fore, with backing vox and sound effects (a plane taking off, hitting an old leather arm chair for a drum sound, a large metal tray from Morocco, backing vocals recorded in a long concrete corridor), acoustic guitars and what may be a melodica. As I said of the original version, lovely stuff.

The Balearic Ultras Brooking Bass Remix is longer still, ambient intro, kick drum and snare rattle, padding bassline, isolated backing vocal, angelic sounds slowly gathering pace and then Rolo’s voice drifts in, ‘dreamer, dreamer, dreamer, waiting for the time to come…’- and again, lovely, lovely stuff, and ultra Balearic.  

All three can be bought at Bandcamp. 

Baltic Pearls

Polish band Jazxing’s Pearls of The Baltic Sea was one of my favourite albums of 2022- this year’s remix version came out at the end of October, the eight tracks remixed by eight different artists and was a very worthy follow up. I missed including it in my end of year list last Saturday, a bit of an oversight because it’s a wonderful album in its own right. 

The Balearic Ultras remix of Shoegaze Dub is one of the highlights, a slow mo drift with piano chords, dub bass and snippets of conversation, people discussing shoegaze, sound, guitar FX and experimentation. 

Bagging Area regulars Coyote show up with their Whirling Dervish remix of Vijnana that displays what they do so well, a layered, laid back but insistent version of the song, hazy but with a pulsing heartbeat, acoustic guitars, hand drums and an inclusive, everyone sitting round the fire on the beach feel. 

Brighton’s Andres Y Xavi take on Hyacinth, the ticking rhythm of an 808 with acoustic guitar and cooing voice conjuring up summer and long, warm nights, something that seems like a dream in late December. 

Opening the album is Danilo Braca’s remix of Fala. Fala was the track on the original album that first grabbed my attention, a huge cosmic groove with 80s sax. Danilo spins it out for over twelve minutes setting out with waves, gulls, and a sax solo but then shifting it towards the floor, drums and handclaps, kick drum, piano chords, synths and eventually heavy bass and some acidic touches.  

These four are the current favourites- the rest of the album with remixes by Polotronic, James Bright, Das Komplex and Janca are all well worth investing in. You can buy the whole thing here. 

Other Skies

Jesse Fahnestock and Emilia Harmony’s new musical outfit Electric Blue Vision release a four track EP today on Brighton’s Higher Love label, making a late dash for those lists that people are busy compiling at this point in the year. Jesse sent me a version of the original mix of Other Skies a while back and I was smitten from first play, the swirly organ intro and warm thud of bass joined by Emilia’s whispery vocals, everything a lovely hazy shade of blue but tinged with some yellow and amber. 

Jesse has said he was aiming high with Other Skies, looking to Higher Than The Sun and One Dove’s Fallen for inspiration. Other Skies has that widescreen, wide eyed ambient/ psychedelic feel, the drums and bass pushing it along but it has a sense of drift and yearning in the vocals too, Emilia singing, ‘Can you help me to find my way? Do you know the way back home? I’m ready to go, I said I’m ready to go…’. It’s late at night, the venue’s closed and moved everyone left at the bar out onto the pavement, the streets are cold and lonely, home is calling. It’s a lovely song and I can’t recommend it enough. 

If you’re not convinced by all of that, there are three remixes to turn your head. Balearic Ultras give it some heavy bass, drums and FX, filtering everything through a heat haze stripped back and minimal. The Tambores En Beniras remix goes for shimmer and shimmy, a slo mo thud of kick drum, twinkles of guitar and echoes all over the voices, a few lines isolated, ‘up down spin me round’, nodding in New Order’s direction, and there’s a piano line near the end that sends shivers up and down the central nervous system. Sean Johnston and Duncan Gray join forces again as Hardway Bros Meets Monkton Uptown, a dubbed out, melodica led stomp, percussion rattling round and Emilia looped into infinity. The bass of Wobble and the ghost of Augustus Pablo battling it out in other skies. 

You can (and should) buy the Other Skies EP is here. 

Triumphe Der Liebe

Brand new and a Bandcamp exclusive, this is Triumphe der Liebe, seven minutes of dark Balaerica, a proper cosmic chugger, transporting the listener from the track’s origins in Stourbridge to somewhere much further away. Triumphe der Liebe is the work of the mysterious Dirt Bogarde. Twinkles, hissing sounds, sci fi bleeps, wobbly synths, backing vocals covered in echo drifting in and out, all very cool. Buy it for one pound here. Highly recommended. 

You can find Triumphe der Liebe as the opening track on the latest Higher Love mix from Balearic Ultras, out a few days ago on Mixcloud along with music from the likes of Max Essa, Pilots of Peace, Breakbeat Convention, Vanity Project and Voice Of Art. Listen here. 

Out on Higher Love Recordings are Polish outfit Jazxing whose Pearls Of The Baltic Sea is one of the albums of the autumn round here. I posted their track Fala a few weeks ago, a gorgeous sax led, chilled groove. The rest of the album is equally good. Harbor Dub is very relaxed and, surprise surprise, dubby with a synth bassline deep enough to sink into. 

Shoegaze Dub chugs along beautifully, slo mo beats, keyboard chords, crashing drums and a warm guitar lick and no need to be anywhere in a hurry.