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Thursday 28 March 2024

Agent Cooper Coffee Dreams

Markus Cooper, the man behind Bedford Falls Players, released one of my favourite EPs last year, the Three EP with Marimba Marmite, his remix of Matt Gunn's Learning Through Loops and Matt's remix of BFP's Chug Hug. Markus has followed it this week with a seven and a half minute excursion into David Lynch goes cosmic disco territory called Agent Cooper Coffee Dreams. It fizzes with energy and invention, synths crackling over a rattling drum machine, some familiar chord sequences and a sense of possibilities. The titular Agent Cooper- Kyle MacLachlan's Dale Cooper- turns up in sampled form. It's a fantastic piece of music, life enhancing and giddily ecstatic. You can buy it here for just £1.25. 

Twin Peaks was already the home to some memorable music, David Lynch's dreamworld mystery detective series having music stitched into from Julee Cruise's song that played over the titles to the music created by Angelo Badalamenti for the soundtrack. Julee's song Falling came out in 1989, a year ahead of the series starting, on her album Floating Into the Night (an album Lynch and Badalamenti co- wrote). The song is built around a very distinctive low end guitar part that harks back to the 50s but is smothered in a very 80s ambient/ Cocteau Twins sound, with Julee's voice a spectral presence. 

Falling

Angelo Badalamenti's The Pink Room soundtracked one of the most memorable scenes from the 1992 film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. Laura Palmer enters a world known as the Pink Room, a rabbit hole of hallucinations and sensory overload. 

The Pink Room



Wednesday 27 March 2024

Daydream Repeat

Four Tet's new album Three came out recently, his twelfth album (roughly) and following on the footsteps of 16 Oceans (released just as lockdown kicked in four years ago and part of the soundtrack of that time for me) and 2017's New Energy, it showcases and encapsulates everything that the Four Tet sound has come to be- skippy rhythms, layered string parts (harps, guitars, whatever they are, those signature string sounds- I love them), washes of ambient synths and the lightness of touch he brings to everything. There are eight tracks, two sides of vinyl, a concise and compact record that reveals a little more with each play. Opening track Loved came out last year, a beautiful piece of music built around a hip hop breakbeat, a shaker and  some slightly mournful but brightly coloured synths. Forty minutes later Three closes with Three Drums, also out last year, an epic piece of music that twists and turns and draws the listener in, an emotive piece of electronic music. In between he uses his familiar sounds and shifts them around- hisses and static, drums occasionally slightly out of sync to surprise you, strings, loops, harps playing little melody lines, ambient moments and dancefloor moments. Gliding Through Everything flutters. Skater is led the unexpected appearance of a guitar that could have come from a Cure record in 1990 and an echo- laden vocal sample. So Blue is broken ambient, traces of synth, a unintelligible female voice and two minutes in another slow motion drum break. 

On Daydream Repeat he locks into an urgent, propulsive groove and there are bursts of noise, possibly a guitar distorted to pieces, a piano line twinkling over the sheet wall of feedback, that suddenly drops out leaving the drums and the piano dancing around. It's superb stuff, the work of  a master craftsman at the top of his game, finding new ways to move us. 

The record sleeve doesn't give much away, a collage of repeating rectangular pictures, coloured in water colour washes, the tracklist on the back with minimal credits, and the number 3 on either side of the label on the centre of the record. Inside the sleeve there's a piece of light green A4 paper, with part of the sleeve on it, as if done at the work photocopier in a rush. Very enigmatic. 

Tuesday 26 March 2024

I Guess That's Why I've Always Got The Blues

The Jesus And Mary Chain came to town last weekend, two nights at the Albert Hall in Manchester (one sold out and the other close to) with a well received new album to promote- Glasgow Eyes. I went on Friday night in a late addition to my gig calendar. The band appeared on stage at 9pm on the dot, William an explosion of frizzy grey hair and semi- acoustic guitar, Jim centre stage all in black. There's no concessions to showbusiness, no projections, no chatter between songs other than the occasional 'thanks' from Jim, just darkness, lights and dry ice- and seventy minutes of Mary Chain magnificence. There's a slightly shaky start, Jim's microphone not switched on until first song jamcod (from Glasgow Eyes) is halfway through and the bass and drums are very loud in the mix, right up with William's guitar sonically. 

They aren't as loud as they've sometimes been- back in 2016 when they played Psychocandy they were earsplitting. Tonight, maybe due to playing in an old venue where lumps of building could come loose, they're at a less extreme volume but even so they're handing out earplugs behind the bar. After jamcod they launch into their songbook, playing songs from all parts of their forty year back catalogue- Happy When It Rains and Head On get tossed out early on, the sweet rush of Honey's Dead's Far Gone And Out from Honey's Dead follows and then a thumping, full on All Things Pass (the song that saw the warring Reids back together in 2008).

Jim looks little different from the younger version of himself from the 80s, bending over the mic as he sings/ speaks his vocals. There are no false starts or wrong notes, everyone is on it, an audible sense of momentum building as each song passes- new song The Eagles And The Beatles, an electrifying Cracking Up, a lovely Some Candy Talking, the grime and scuzz of Taste Of Cindy and In A Hole and a gnarly, throbbing, swaggering Sidewalking, one after the other. Blues From A Gun lifts things higher, William's guitar lines bouncing round the old chapel as Jim sings of stone dead trippers, the state of his hair and always having the blues. It's exhilarating stuff, four decades of Mary Chain songs hitting home, a guitar driven distillation of 20th century pop culture. 

The last three are from three different slices of their history- Venal Joy from the new album, I Love Rock 'n' Roll from 1998 and then Just Like Honey, one of their many mid- 80s indie classics. The encore does a similar job with the slow burn of Darklands and new song Girl71, finishing, aptly and amusingly, with the William Reid's destructive late 90s blast of snotty noise I Hate Rock 'n' Roll. 

It's easy to forget how brilliant Sidewalking is, a 1988 single that cut and welded feedback and Bo Diddley to a hip hop drum sample (Roxanne Shante's Roxanne's Revenge), extended on the 12" to nearly eight minutes as Jim makes missing the last bus and having to walk home sound like the ultimate in rock 'n' roll outsider depravity. 

Sidewalking (Extended Version)


Monday 25 March 2024

Monday's Long Songs

Rheinzand were a recent Sunday mix post here. Coincidentally, not long after they announced the release of a new version of their second album Atlantis Atlantis, six of the songs remixed by Pete Blaker with new layers of instruments played by Pete, Reinhard, Mo and Charlotte. The first has the somewhat iffy title Ibiza Macht Frei (but having said that I've been a Joy Division fan since the 80s so Nazi influenced names aren't anything new or that we haven't dealt with before). Pete's reworking of Ibiza Macht Frei is a gorgeous eight minutes of slow motion drift, waves lapping on the shore as washes of synth build in a pink cloud, sax breaking through like shafts of sunlight. 

Pete's sonic refurbishment of Facciamo L'Amore is even longer, ten minutes of dubbed out majesty, a beautiful crawl through slow burning euphoria that just keeps giving as it plays. The album, Atlantis Atlantis (Sonic Refurbishment), will have a further four Pete Blaker remixes and can be ordered here



Sunday 24 March 2024

Forty Minutes Of Mark Peters

Back in 2018 I discovered an album called Innerlands by Mark Peters, eight guitar led tracks that skirted the edges of shoegaze, ambient and cosmische, a record that was the first thing I reached for for a while, Mark's guitar taking the place of a voice. Mark is from Wigan and his music has a very strong sense of place. The front cover of Innelrands was an Ordnance Survey style map and the eight tracks were all named after very north west England sounding place names. His second solo album took that windswept, moorland sound to the great open spaces of the American south west. Since then two EPs have added further geographical refences to his back catalogue, with the Alps and Peter Street. Mark's playing builds on the sounds of other, earlier guitarists- there are shades of Vini Reilly, Michael Rother and closer to Mark's home, Nick McCabe. In the 00s he was the guitarist in Engineers, whose shoegaze/ dreampop can be heard in a variety of current bands. The mix below is a forty minute snapshot of music from his various releases since 2018 and makes a really good Sunday morning soundtrack. 

Forty Minutes Of Mark Peters

  • Windy Arbour (Ambient Version)
  • Switched On
  • Twenty Bridges (Andi Otto Remix)
  • Sundowning (Richard Norris Remix)
  • Alpenglow
  • #1 Peter St
  • Ashurst's Beacon (Ambient Version)
  • Gabriel's Ladder

Windy Arbour (Ambient Version) is from Ambient Innerlands, the drumless version of Innerlands released in 2019, an atmospheric wash of piano, ambient synth sounds and electric guitar. Ashurst's Beacon is the last track from Ambient Innerlands. Ashurst's Beacon is an 18th century tower constructed on top of a hill near Appley Bridge in Lancashire, constructed to warn of invasion by the French. 

Switched On was the longer, dubbier verison of Switch On The Sky, a summer 2022 single and track from the Red Sunset Dreams album which followed. Dot Allison provides the voice, a perfect match for Mark's guitars and synths. 

Twenty Bridges was on Innerlands. In 2019 a remix album, New Route Out Of Innerlands, came out, which included a remix by Ulrich Schnauss (formerly in Engineers) and this lovely piece of ambient/ sound collage by Hamburg's Andi Otto.

Sundowning was also on Red Sunset Dreams and also features the voice of Dot Allison. It came out as a single in October 2022 with this glorious Richard Norris remix, Mark's guitar relocated to sunset in the Balearics. There's also a superb live version of Sundowning you can buy here

Alpenglow was on The Magic Hour EP, a four track digital/ 10" on yellow vinyl release from exactly a year ago, March 2023. Two new tracks, Alpenglow and The Magic Hour paired with two remixes. Alpenglow shimmers and shines like sunshine on snow as some very motorik drums glide away underneath. 

#1 Peter St is from another four track EP, this one titled Progress and out earlier this year. The photo on the sleeve shows Manchester's new skyscraper skyline as seen from Windy Arbour, a hill at Billinge near Wigan. 

Gabriel's Ladder is from Innerlands, three minutes and thirty six seconds of guitar textures and melodies, an emotive soundscape. 

Saturday 23 March 2024

V.A. Saturday

Colleen 'Cosmo' Murphy is a long standing DJ, radio host and presenter. She has compiled two compilations for Heavenly Records, Balearic Breakfast and the follow up Balearic Breakfast 2. The first was released in June 2022 and has long since sold out- second hand vinyl copies are currently well into three figures at Discogs. Balearic Breakfast finds the Balearic spirit wherever Colleen sees it- dance music, 80s electronic synth pop, deep house, ambient. The album starts with Joan Bibiloni, a very calming and chilled opener and then heads into Cantoma territory (Phil Mison, Cantoma's main man, is a Ibizan veteran). Linkwood Family, Mildlife, Lady Blackbird and Andrew Weatherall's Asphodells all show up before the album ends with first Caoifhionn Rose and then Mike Salta and Marty Mortale. At that point, all that's left to do is to go back to the beginning, with Joan Bibiloni and the ambient burblings and dreamlike state of Sa Fosc...

Sa Fosc

Balearic Breakfast 2 followed twelve months in June 2023, more of the same, a wonderfully selection of tracks from the corners of the musical world, the rarely known and lesser heard, a tracklist that includes Mental Remedy, Manolo's gorgeous Amalfi Drive, Gallo, Residentes Balearicos, Hard Feelings, Midlake and Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve, Lunar Dunes and Dip In The Pool. It's impossible to pick a best or favourite- they all work so well in slightly different ways. Try Lunar Dunes and the self- descriptive Moon Bathing. 

Moon Bathing

Friday 22 March 2024

Glasgow Eyes

The new Jesus And Mary Chain album, Glasgow Eyes, is out today, the first since Damage And Joy in 2017. Jim and William Reid recorded it at Mogwai's studio in Glasgow, the aptly named Castle Of Doom, and it comes out forty years after their debut Psychocandy- it shares some of that albums DNA, an uncompromising nature and a general sense that the brothers recorded it while feeling pretty pissed off. 

The songs on Damage And Joy were to some extent a celebration, the classic Mary Chain guitars, verses and chorus sound, about as sunny side up as Jim and William can ever be. Glasgow Eyes is different, it feels a bit broken down, skittery and fragmented. The songs have drum machines that hiss and pound, on some songs hammering away and on others spluttering. William plays some filthy lead lines, squally guitar sounds. There are some chugging, descending basslines of the sort that have underpinned JAMC songs since the Darklands album in 1987. There are stuttering synths and static, lo fi electronics and FX, the ghost of Suicide hanging around. Sometimes the songs take shape and then fall apart. It sounds like an album, like a group of songs recorded at the same time, some written in the studio, experiments turned into tunes. Girl71 is an outlier, a song more typical of their April Skies and Damage And Joy sound, a melodic three chord trick with uncharacteristically optimistic vocals. 

For much of Glasgow Eyes Jim's words and vocals swing between his customary self- loathing and misanthropy, dark pain numbed by drink and drugs, blank eyes and sneery voice and an often expressed love- for 'her/ she', for 'you', for 'everyone', for rock 'n' roll, for discotheques, for The Stones, Bob Dylan and the Beach Boys, the Pistols and The Crystals and The Velvets. Last song Lou Reid is six minutes of stop- start dynamics, rising and falling tempos and William's feedback. On The Eagles And The Beatles, over some chords Joan Jett left lying around, Jim almost tips into self- parody- 'I've been rolling with The Stones/ Mick and Keith and Brian Jones/ Bill and Charlie have gone home/ Andrew Oldham's on the phone'. Somehow, through a combination of blank eyed cool and sheer conviction, he gets away with it and by the second or third listen you're singing along. On the first single JAMCOD he sings about the band, the brothers and their bust up in 1998 that finished them first time around, and on another he sings the name of his band. It's a close knit, insular, self referential world they inhabit. 

Opening song Venal Joy spits its way into the world, clattering in on a synth riff and drum machine that could have last seen the light of day on 1989's Automatic and Jim kicking off with, 'You got a kingdom come but you don't have a future/  I know you like to be cool but it just doesn't suit ya/ I was kicking the cane cos the cane wasn't able/ I'm addicted to love so we can fuck on the table...'. They sound not exactly energised (half the time they sound like the made some of this lying down) but they do sound plugged in, like they give a shit and made a record they wanted to. 

I'm going to see them do it live tonight and will report back forthwith. In fact through a turn of events I won't go into here I've got two spares- if anyone's in Manchester tonight with nothing to do and they fancy an evening with the Reid brothers, give me a shout. 

And finally, this may seem cryptic but it's a message to Geoff who will understand- for many reasons you're going to need a lot of love and strength to get through today. I will be thinking of you and will raise a pint to you tonight.