Seven Hours Of The Flightpath Estate At Blossom Street

If last Sunday’s mix, seven and a half hours of the Flightpath Estate DJs playing at The Golden Lion’s AW61 celebrations in April wasn’t enough for you, our outing at Blossom Street Social two weeks previously has just gone up on Mixcloud too- me, Martin, Dan and guest Rob Fletcher playing a seven hour fifteen minute vinyl only set on the afternoon and evening of 17th March. The full set can be found at Blossom Street Social’s Mixcloud. It was the first time a test pressing of our album got played out in the wild, exciting for us even if it didn’t exactly stop the traffic in Ancoats. In the end we played three tracks from it- Justin Robertson’s Deadstock 33s, Andy Bell’s cover of Smokebelch and The Light Brigade’s Human : Remains. 

Rob Fletcher was the man behind Herbal Tea Party, a 90s clubbing institution in Manchester. It started out at the New Ardri in Hulme and moved to Rockworld, midweek techno and electronic music nights that hosted gigs by Andrew Weatherall, Sabres Of Paradise playing live, Orbital, Fabio Paras, The Drum Club, Sven Vath, Psychick Warriors Of Gaia, Justin Robertson and David Holmes among the guests. Rob’s got an exhibition at Electric in Chorlton to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Herbal Tea Party- fliers, posters, tickets plus some recordings of sets and gigs- which has its opening night this Thursday. If you’re in the area, pop down and say hello. 

The set from Blossom Street is a live recording, the Tascam plugged directly into the decks and mixer so there are a few glitches and errors- the sound levels were a bit variable, deck two seeming to drop down in volume at times and the odd technical error here and there (one of us accidentally turning a turntable off at one point and another thinking a record was playing when they were hearing it through the headphones only). Some of the mixing may be a bit hit and miss too; mine especially. If it’s perfection you’re after, we may not be the people you’re looking for. Our tune selection however…

Martin

• Lionrock – Rock Steady Romance
• Innervisions – Mermaids

Rob

• Craven Faults – Deipkier
• Detroit Escalator Co. – Psalm
• Chapterhouse – Alpha Phase (Retranslated by Global Communication) 

Adam 

• Sedibus – Seti (Pt. 2) 
• Coyote – Cirrus 
• Brian Eno – An Ending (Ascent) 

Martin 

• Air – Modulor Mix 
• Purple Penguin – Memphis
• Biome – Skafter 

Rob

• Two Lone Swordsmen – Big Man Original
• The Irresistable Force – The Lie-In King 
• Pye Corner Audio – Exhumed 

Adam

• Tranquility Bass – They Came In Peace
• Four Tet – Loved 
• Coyote – Western Revolution

Martin

• Mad Professor & Chuck D – At Least The American Indians Know Exactly How They’ve Been Fucked Around 
• Craig Bratley ft Amy Douglas – No In Between (Ashigaru Dub) 
• Don Letts – Outta Sync (David Holmes Remix Edit) 

Rob

• Drum Club – Alchemy (D-Fex Dub)
• The Clash – Justice Tonight / Kick It Over
• Leftfield – Release The Pressure (The Desert Edit) 

Dan

• Mode – Lo-Fi Odyssey (Stallions Remix)
• Vanishing Twin – Cryonic Suspension May Save You Life 
• The Circling Sun – Spirits, Pt.2 

Adam

• Panda Bear & Sonic Boom – Whirlpool Dub (Adrian Sherwood Reset In Dub Version)
• The Clash – Bankrobber / Robber Dub 
• JIM – Phoenix (Crooked Goth) 

Martin

• Hedford Vachal – Toys 
• Hiem ft Roots Manuva – DJ Culture (Hiem 2013 Remix)
• The Asphodells – We Are The Axis (Daniel Avery Remix) 

Rob

• Glok – That Time Of Night (Hardway Bros Meet Monkton Uptown)
• The Shamen – Lightspan (Renegade Soundwave Mix) 
• Orbital – Midnight (Live) 

Dan

• Trevor Jackson – Lumiline 
• Hardway Bros – Theme For Flightpath Estate
• The Asphodells – Never There (Hardway Bros Remix) 

Adam

• Rheinzand – Porque 
• The Durutti Column – The Together Mix
• David Holmes – It’s Over If We Run Out Of Love 

Martin

•  It’s Immaterial – Driving Away From Home (Jim’s Tune) 
• Talking Heads – Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On) 
• Anthony Teasdale – Deep In The Forest Something Stared 

Rob

• The Liminanas – The Mirror 
• The Primitive Painter – Hope 
• Golden Bug & The Liminanas – Variation Sur 3 Bancs 

Dan

• Patrick Cowley – Jungle Orchids 
• Justin Robertson’s Deadstock 33s – Curtains Twitch On Peaks 
• Richard Norris – Pagan Dub

Adam

• Pete Wylie & The Mighty WAH! – Sinful (Tribal)
• Jo Sims – Bass – The Final Frontier (David Holmes Remix)
• Primal Scream – Uptown (Long After The Disco Is Over) 

Martin

• DAF – Brothers (Mix Gabi)
• Massimiliano Pagliara – It’s A Lately Thing
• Black Strobe – Innerstrings 

Rob

• Two Lone Swordsmen – Glide By Shooting
• The Disco Evangelists – A New Dawn (Back To The World) 
• Headfunk – Dawn Til Dusk

Dan

• Rude Audio – Running Wild
• Llewellyn – These Days (Don’t Make Me Wait)
• The Light Brigade – Human : Remains 

Adam

• Coyote –  Lonely 
• Andy Bell – Smokebelch II

Martin

• Andrew Weatherall – Ghosts Again
• The Asphodells – Another Lonely City
• Bjork – One Day (Springs Eternal Mix)
• Rae & Christian – Swansong (2 Lone Swordsmen Dub)
• Two Lone Swordsmen – Rico’s Helly (Re-Tailored By Nourizadeh And Teasdale) 
• Woodleigh Research Facility – Yaldabaoth 
• Andrew Weatherall – Kicking The River 
• The Asphodells – A Love From Outer Space
• Public Image Ltd. – Careering 
• Throbbing Gristle – Distant Dreams Pt. Two

Ripped In Todmorden

One of the maddest aspects of my life in recent weeks has been the number of times I’ve been on social media, scrolling through the needless tidal wave of posts, and seen our album, Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 1, pop up- from London to Scotland, from Ireland to Poland, Holland to Toronto, New Zealand and Australia, copies landing all over the globe, Rusty’s eye catching artwork propped up next to turntables and record collections everywhere. 

The first vinyl pressing of 500 copies sold out in a day in February. The second pressing, a further 500, is close to sold out- there are a few copies at Manchester’s Vinyl Exchange and maybe some at Stranger Than Paradise (London) and Monorail (Glasgow). This week a box arrived at Piccadilly Records, a record shop in Manchester I’ve been frequenting since the 1980s, and there it is again, sitting in the racks at my favourite record shop. Unbelievable in so many ways, an album that started as a chat between three of us last June has become this actual, physical thing, packed from start to finish with amazing music and being played all over the world. 

Back in the Golden Age Of Blogging (circa 2004- 2009) Moggieboy (Alan McGregor) wrote the legendary Ripped In Glasgow blog, one of the inspirations for this blog. Moggie posted dance music mainly, some indie and goth (The Cure and The Mary Chain both appeared), plenty of early 90s techno and lots of Andrew Weatherall’s music. Around 2011/12 he pulled the plug on Ripped In Glasgow and called it a day and in an act of scorched earth blogging deleted the whole thing too. Not long after he re- appeared with a Ripped In Glasgow Facebook group which quickly became a forum for all things Weatherall. I only joined Facebook because of the RiG Facebook group. When Moggie closed the doors on that group Martin got in touch with me and asked if I wanted to co- run a new Weatherall related Facebook group and that was where, ten years ago this year, The Flightpath Estate was born. No Ripped In Glasgow, no Flightpath Estate, no album. All these things are linked. 

I met Moggie/ Alan at AW61 at The Golden Lion a few weekends ago and as has always been the case, meeting bloggers/ internet friends in real life has always been a good thing. They say you shouldn’t meet people you only know from the internet and I’m sure it’s wise to be cautious (especially if you’re in the world of online dating) but every time I’ve met someone that I’ve known through the internet hit’s been a good experience and I’ve made many real life friends. 

Moggie/ Alan returned to Glasgow after AW61 (he did Todmorden Park Run on the Saturday morning too while some of us were feeling the after effects of the Friday night at The Golden Lion) and this week did his Ripped In Glasgow radio show, an internet radio on Radio Buena Vida. Moggie’s show is an hour long, he plays five of the tracks off our album and a few other AW61 related tracks ending with Radio Slave’s massive version of The Lunatics (Have Taken Over the Asylum) and talks through his weekend at The Lion with some lovely words about us too, not least ‘it’s great to meet people off the internet who aren’t complete nutters’. You can listen to Ripped In Glasgow getting Ripped In Todmorden here. 

Imagine It Create It

One of the treats of this week that keeps repeating has been the arrival of our album, Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 1, arriving in physical form through people’s front doors. The first copies started to fall onto door mats a week ago and there’s been a stream ever since. My copy arrived on Saturday morning an to say it’s a been a thrill is an understatement. 

When I was younger records had a mystical power, they cast a spell and there was a ritual connected to playing them- the black vinyl and the way it crackled slightly when pulled out of the sleeve, the spiralling groove with the stylus sitting within it, the magical sounds that emanated from this piece of plastic via the arm of the record player and out of the speakers, the sleeve with art or photo on the front and the world of credits, track titles, sleeve notes, and thank yous on the back or inside. And even though DIY culture has been part of the musical world I’ve been inhabiting since I first started buying records (the philosophy that anyone can make a record was part of both punk and its aftermath and acid house), the idea that a twelve track album in a gatefold sleeve with an array of top quality tracks, all connected to Andrew Weatherall, with my name, picture and sleeve notes written by me would some exist as an actual physical artefact, is a little mind blowing still. That mystical power of black plastic and a cardboard sleeve still exists. It was there last Saturday when I opened the package and slid the album out, Personality Crisis’s brilliant artwork in my hands, the gatefold opening up with my sleeve notes on the left and the credits and thanks you’s on the right (and a dedication to Isaac too, another proper moment), the pair of discs inside paper inner sleeves… the magic is right there. 

The twelve tracks are all absurdly good, everyone involved has sent us music from their top drawer. The opening track is a Two Lone Swordsmen ambient track (not a genre they explored that in that much depth) from a CD promo issued solely in japan twenty years ago called Still My World. We managed to get Rotters Golf Club to license it for our album, something that still has me shaking my heard. Sons Of Slough, Ian Weatherall and Duncan Grey, follow with a chunky, chuggy monster called Red Machine, recorded live at their soundcheck at The Golden Lion last August. Timothy J. Fairplay’s Centurion Version, closes side 1, Tim’s own tribute to the planned follow up to his and Andrew’s Ruled By Passion, Destroyed By Lust album (as The Aphodells), a rocking synth dub track. Flip the disc over and  you find Justin Robertson and his Deadstock 33s and a wired, tripped out dub ode to Todmorden and The Golden Lion, a very FXed vocal talking about happy valleys and UFOs (the Todmorden UFO society meets monthly upstairs at the pub. A friend who moved into the area and who attended a meeting was treated with deep suspicion by the regulars who thought he might be from the government). Curtains Twitch On Peaks is followed by the huge sounding Tough On Chug, Tough On The Causes Of Chug by Richard Sen, thumping, driving electronic music. Disc 2 kicks off with Rude Audio’s sleek dub techno track Running Wild, driving bass, guitar, keys and rocking dubbed out drums. Jesse Fahnestock’s 10:40 comes next, a circus organ riff transplanted from a fairground to acid house with Emilia Harmony’s  blissed out, otherworldly vocal a siren call. Side 4 has Sean Johnston’s Hardway Bros and the self- explanatory Theme For Flightpath Estate (how ace is that? We have our own theme??). Cosmic disco of the kind he plays at ALFOS with a nod to Andrew Weatherall’s Walk of Shame within it. The Light Brigade come next (it’s a pseudonym due to the artist being contracted Heavenly but the notes on the gatefold  credit the writing and production to David Holmes so you can probably make you onw mind up about who it is). Human : Remains sat unfinished and homeless on the shelf for twenty years before being dusted down, sharpened up and released on our album, a track that surges with krautrock drums and layers of synths, keys and bass. We finish with Andy Bell’s cover of Smokebelch, a gorgeous, lilting cover version, Andy’s fingers moving up and down the strings of his guitar audible, piano and guitars and FX, the perfect way to close the album. Andy began it on the day Andrew died in 2020 and finished it for our album back in October. As I’ve said and keep saying, a record full of moments that have had me/ us pinching ourselves at almost every stage, from the first week we had a ‘yes’ to our proposal to this week when the record arrived at our homes. 

The album’s sold out online. There are some copies available from today at The Golden Lion, at AW61, a weekender to celebrate what would have been Andrew’s 61st birthday. Tonight Radioactive Man and David Holmes will rock the Lion with Matt Hum and Rusty and Rotter. There are some copies due to land at Piccadilly Records soon and some more at London’s Stranger Than Paradise Records. All these things make me shake my head and pinch myself again. Yes, I will be going to Piccadilly Records to photograph our album in the racks. 

In an interview many years ago Andrew Weatherall spoke of what he did being in the spirit of ‘the grand amateur’. I think that’s us too. Waka, the man who runs The Golden Lion, said on Facebook this week, ‘Imagine it: create it’. And that’s what we’ve done. 

I can’t post any of the songs- we only got the license to put them out on vinyl, so there’s no digital release. Some of you may have copies of the album. If you do, I hope you’re enjoying it as much as we have been. We’ve already started contemplating the part of our album’s title that says ‘Volume 1’. 

Tim Fairplay posted his copy on Tuesday with the comment that the first band he ever saw live back in 1992 aged thirteen was Ride, on their Going Blank Again tour, adding it was kinda cool to ned up on the same album as Andy Bell. Both Tim and Andy have new material out elsewhere too. In February Tim released a six track EP/ cassette on Belgian label Pinkman called Convictions That Stick, six slices of Timwave electro, thunderous jacking grooves, squelchy synth sounds and strobe lit keys. It’s here. 

Andy Bell and the other three members of Ride have just released their third album since reuniting, a twelve song monster called Interplay. It’s got guitars and synths, a big sound made for playing live, nods to various 80s and 90s guitar bands and among the soaring chord sequences, towards the end, is this low key beauty, Essaouira, possibly a tribute to the Moroccan town that became a hippy haven in the 60s, with shuffling drums, samples, blissed out guitars and a dreamy, shimmering haze. 

Monday’s Long Song

Back to work today after a week off. Last week turned out to be a big week. The Sounds From The Flightpath Estate album which me, Baz, Dan, Martin and Mark have been pulling together since the germ of an idea occurred to us last summer, went live on Wednesday and on sale for pre- orders on Thursday. The album is a ten track compilation featuring a previously largely unreleased Two Lone Swordsmen track and nine of brand new recordings from Justin Robertson, Tim Fairplay, Hardway Bros, Sons Of Slough, 10:40, Rude Audio, Richard Sen, a well known and highly regarded producer/ DJ from Belfast under the name The Light Brigade plus Andy Bell’s cover of Smokebelch. Every track is gold. 

The link to buy  the album, double vinyl, 500 copies, went live at 10am on Thursday morning. By the end of the day it had sold out, 420 copies gone. Watching this happen during the day via our screens was incredibly exciting and there was a genuine buzz about the record. The remaining 80s copies have been kept for some physical, face to face sales over the weeks following release. 

Matt Hum’s twenty two minute mix of the ten tracks at Mixcloud is there to whet the appetite and has been streamed more than 800 times to date. On Friday night Mark Cooper, a friend of the group, the man behind Bedford Falls Players and a superb DJ played tracks from the album at his The 365 Social with our very own Baz providing some interview segments scattered throughout the show. You can hear it here. Word has it BBC Radio 6 might be onto it and some of the tracks might get played there next week. It’s all very exciting. Dr Rob, the man behind the Ban Ban Ton Ton blog reviewed Sounds From The Flightpath Estate at Ban Ban Ton Ton on Friday, a review that perfectly captures the album and the spirit of it. You can read that here. 

I’ve been writing guest reviews for Ban Ban Ton Ton intermittently for the last couple of years. Last week I wrote a review of the forthcoming Sedibus album SETI. I posted an advance track last November, SETI Part 3 (the third part of a three piece suite which makes up the second side of the album on vinyl). SETI is a wonderful album made by The Orb’s Alex Paterson and ex- Orber Andy Falconer, a record that takes the ambient house sound of those early Orb records, adds some acoustic instrumentation (piano, xylophone, horns) and a lot of space samples about the search for extra- terrestrial intelligence and creates something warm, organic and genuinely awe inspiring. My full review for Ban Ban Ton Ton and Rob’s companion piece are here. SETI comes out on Friday. 

Sedibus’ first album came out in 2021, a four track source of electronic fun and wonder. This track is Toi 1338b, twelve minutes of space age, spaced out Sedibus ambient house. 

Toi 1338b 

Toi 1338b is a planet roughly between Neptune and Saturn in size. Toi 1338b is in the Pictor constellation, 1320 light years away from us. It was discovered in the summer of 2019  by a 17 year old New York student named Wolf Cukier, while on an internship at the Goddard Space Centre, and announced in January 2020. I don’t know what you did in the your 17th summer- I spent the summer of  1987 working in the record and tape department of WHSmiths and indulging in underage drinking in pubs. Wolf discovered a new planet.

Sounds From The Flightpath Estate

This is a big news announcement! In fact, that probably needs to be in capital letters to reflect the hugeness of this- THIS IS A BIG NEWS ANNOUNCEMENT! 

We, The Flightpath Estate, are releasing an album, double vinyl limited to 500 copies, Sounds Of The Flightpath Estate Volume 1, a ten track compilation of artists associated with Andrew Weatherall and the online group The Flightpath Estate (run by five of us and celebrating its tenth birthday this year). There are nine previously unreleased, newly recorded, exclusive to this album tracks and a Two Lone Swordsmen track that has only ever seen the light of day on a very limited promo CD in Japan. It’s taken since last summer to pull all this together and there have been times when we have been pinching ourselves about the line up of artists, the quality of the music and the fact that this is going to be an actual record. 

The tracklist is hopefully enough to have some of you reaching for the pre- order links (which will go live tomorrow, Thursday 15th February) and getting your credit card out. 

• Two Lone Swordsmen: The Crescents
• Sons Of Slough: Red Machine (Live at The Golden Lion)
• Timothy J. Fairplay: Centurion Version
• Justin Robertson’s Deadstock 33s: Curtains Twitch On Peaks
• Richard Sen: Tough On Chug, Tough On the Causes Of Chug
• Rudio Audio: Running Wild
• 10: 40: Three Rings
• Hardway Bros: Theme For Flightpath Estate
• The Light Brigade: Human: Remains
• Andy Bell: Smokeblech II

Last summer while me, Martin and Dan were DJing at The Golden Lion we had a chat about a Flightpath Estate compilation album, the sort of chat which seemed like wishful thinking at the time but which sowed seeds with each of us. At first I was thinking of a compilation of already released tracks  but that seem to be fraught with complications- licensing tracks from various other labels seemed complex and potentially costly. A compilation of artists who are members of the group and who were friends/ partners/ colleagues/ fans of Andrew’s but with previously unreleased music might be easier to pull off. I should point out that our experience of putting an album out was at that point extremely limited (of the five of us, Mark makes music as Rude Audio and has some experience releasing music but the rest of us- me, Dan, Martin and Baz- have close to zero). 

The following week we discussed it further and drew up a list of names to approach. Our list included David Holmes, Timothy J. Fairplay, Sean Johnston, Richard Sen, Justin Robertson and Sons Of Slough (Ian Weatherall and Duncan Gray), plus Rude Audio, Jesse from 10: 40 and a few others. We divided them up between us and started making contact, via social media messaging and email. The first name in the list, a well known Belfast based DJ and producer who may have the initials DH but who has to appear pseudonymously due to him being signed to a record label, said yes immediately. Once he was on board we felt we had a chance of getting this together. We contacted Waka and Matt at The Golden Lion, Todmorden, who not only run a pub/ live venue/ portal to another world, but also have a record label- Golden Lion Sounds. They were happy to put our at this point speculative album out. The other names on our list began to respond and say yes too. As summer turned into autumn we began to receive music: a track from the Belfast based DJ/ producer that he’d begun years earlier and now wanted to finish to give to us, a track that is seriously good; dubby music from Justin Robertson and Tim Fairplay, recorded specifically for the album; music from Richard Sen and from Hardway Bros (Sean sent us a track, then another version of it, then scrapped it and went back to the drawing board and sent us a Flightpath Estate theme tune); Sons Of Slough promised us a live track recorded at their gig at The Golden Lion last August; new music from 10: 40 and Rude Audio. All of it genuinely brilliant. 

We discussed getting an Andrew Weatherall or Two Lone Swordsmen track. Martin is one of the few people who owns a copy of Still My World, a promo CD released in Japan in 2003 tied into a clothing range and we all loved the ambient track The Crescents. He contacted Andrew’s manager Pete Lawton and former Swordsman Keith Tenniswood, and we got their approval and blessing to use it, pending discovery of the master. Ian Weatherall gave us his approval, as did Lizzie, Andrew’s partner. I contacted Andy Bell (of Ride and GLOK) and asked if he was interested. He replied to say he had a cover of Smokebelch that he started the day Andrew died but hadn’t finished but to keep in touch. Then he went on tour to the USA with Ride. Our deadline for music was approaching (we were keen to have the tracks in our hands, compiled, and ready for mastering for vinyl by November ’23 in an attempt to get the album out spring 2024).  I emailed Andy on the off chance and the following day he replied to say I’d given him the nudge he needed and he sent me his now completed, stunning cover of Smokebelch. Now we had ten tracks, and a clear idea of which ones should open and close the album (Two Lone Swordsmen and Andy Bell respectively). Dan contacted Rusty, an artist and designer who goes by the name of Personality Crisis, about sleeve art (and getting that back plus the gatefold inner was another genuinely amazing moment). I wrote some sleeve notes. We did the legal stuff. GLS got it mastered. Last week test pressings arrived at The Golden Lion. Now the sleeves are going to print and the records are going to press and with any luck we’ll have them out in April (which happily will coincide with the AW61 celebrations at The Golden Lion). 

At times while doing this we’ve felt like a bunch of amateurs chancing our collective arm and making it up as we go along- but it turns out that things like this can actually happen. It’s one of the most exciting things I’ve ever been involved in. It still makes me shake my head in disbelief that in a couple of months it will be an actual physical record with this line up of artists, available to buy. The artists who have donated their music, the people who’ve helped us out along the way with advice and contacts, the team at The Golden Lion, the enthusiasm from a very select group of people who’ve known about this until last night-  massive thanks to each and every one of you. 

Matt from The Golden Lion has done a twenty two minute promo mix of the ten tracks sequenced together, if you need any further inducement to part with your money. You can listen to it at Mixcloud- find it here. 

Our compilation album, Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 1, is available to pre- order tomorrow from Golden Lion Sounds and/ or the GLS Bandcamp. There will be 500 copies, no repress, no digital, vinyl only. Any proceeds from sales will go to The Lion and to Andrew’s preferred charities (Crisis, Shelter and Thrombosis UK). Not only is it therefore a good thing for a good cause, it’s actually a really good album.