Trance Stance

Electric Blue Vision released one of late 2023's best EPs, Jesse Fahnestock and Emilia Harmony's genre blurring widescreen Balearic psyche- folk/ indie dance track Other Skies. It came with three remixes that pushed it into other spaces, courtesy of Balearic Ultras, Tambores En Benniras and Hardway Bros Meets Monkton Uptown. If you haven't got it, get it here. The debut Electric Blue Vision track was a self titled electronic swoon with Emilia's celestial vocals floating by and if you haven't got that one you should get that too here.  

Now, today, comes the latest Electric Blue Vision release, out on Electric Wardrobe Records. Trance Stance was inspired by Emilia's outline for a song, one about the thrill of seeking someone out across a crowded dancefloor, the excitement of, 'waiting all night long just to rock your body down'. The music is a slow burning groove, chugging drums and bass, swampy guitars and some bleeps and bloops. Jesse made a connection with Emilia's lyrics to Joan Jett And The Blackhearts 1981 smash single I Love Rock 'n' Roll, Jesse's first ever single purchase and a record that probably provides all kinds of Proustian rushes for those of us of a certain age. As a result, a snippet of Joan ended up in Trance Stance (which also nods its head in the direction Dexys). 

The smokey, late night club vibe of Trance Stance comes with three remixes, all of which spin the song off in new directions. The Time Machine Dropouts remix comes via Matt Gunn (Electric wardrobe's main man) and Chad Jackson, an irresistible phunked up version with loops of bass, a floor filling drum break and whooshes. San Francisco's Cole Odin hits the space rock buttons, a cosmic trip with the controls firmly set for going further. Lastly Jesse provides his own remix, done with his 10: 40 headgear on, the Haight Steppin Remix, stripped down, gnarly electronics with whistles. Trance Stance is at Electric Wardrobe Records here. 

Joan Jett had form for rocking up with well chosen cover versions. I Love Rock 'n' Roll was originally released by Arrows in 1975. While on tour with The Runaways a year later she saw Arrows perform it on TV. Joan recorded and released a version with a pair of Sex Pistols, Steve Jones and Paul Cook in 1979 but then re- recorded it with The Blackhearts in '81. In 1981 Joan followed her hit single with another one, her cover of Crimson And Clover, a song that is peerless in early 80s pop- rock. It was originally a 1968 hit for Tommy James And The Shondells, bubblegum psyche- pop. Joan's version is totally badass, as they say.

Crimson And Clover

Nowhere To Nowhere And E2 To E4

More new music, guaranteed to put a spring in your step and a smile on your face- it did mine anyway- as spring springs, greenery is finally appearing on threadbare trees and there's an occasional glimpse of something called the sun. 

Psychederek lives in Stretford and has made some wonderful tracks in recent years- the Space Arcade EP, Test Card Girl and At The Mountains Of Madness can all be found at Bandcamp and are all worth digging into. Last week he announced the release of an EP titled Alt!, four tracks digitally and on vinyl (all available from early June). There are two to listen to now here, the first a six minute technicolour throb that starts like it's already been playing somewhere else for a while called Nowhere To Nowhere, a song for a psychedelic Stretford, choppy guitars, motorik drums, wired guitar and synth toplines, chunky percussion and  bumping one note bassline. The second is a cover of 808 State's Pacific, a song that I'm happy to hear in almost any version/ remix/ cover, a cover that sets out adrift on memory bliss, a tripped out mellowed out, slowed down, psyched out sunbaked cover with A Certain Ratio's Donald Johnson on drums. If the other two tracks on Alt! are as good, we have one of the EPs of the year looking at us. 

A month ago Psychederek released Tongue- Tied, a single cut from similar (tie dyed) cloth, starting out all laid back with drifting vox but then picking up the pace when the drums kick in. Tongue- Tied is at Bandcamp with a pair of excellent Moodymanc remixes to boot. 

That was to be the end of this post but I got in yesterday and a friend had tipped me off to this, Alex Kassian covering Manuel Gottsching's classic E2- E4, a twelve minute electronic ride into kosmiche/ Balearic/ cosmic disco from Berlin. If that's not enough there are two Mad Professor dub remixes (not available to listen to yet. The full release comes out in late May along with the 12" vinyl- and yes, I've missed out on the vinyl too. Listen etc here. Twelve minutes and twenty one seconds of your day you won't regret. 

Alex Kassian's Spirit Of Eden came out in 2021, one of my favourite releases from that year, a record I do not believe I will ever tire of, a track that sits in a space somewhere between the sun sinking into a melting Mediterranean sea, cosmic dub jazz and the theme tune to The Rockford Files. But miles better than that sounds. 

Spirit Of Eden

Every Forest Has A Shadow

Nottingham duo Coyote are experts at choosing a vocal sample and setting against the backdrop of some very atmospheric music. Their latest EP, Every Forest Has A Shadow, has two slices of casual Coyote brilliance. First the title track... 

The music is wonderfully evocative, a haze of reverb and FX, some synth chords, a tambourine, drums, all very organic and natural sounding. Aptly because the vocal sample is about environmentalism and the natural world...

'If you think along the lines of nature, one doesn't know what will change? Is it trees or is it the wood? One thing is sure, a great change is imminent... only a great danger exists with man himself'.

Know One Cares is a more psychedelic track with drums that pick up and push it on, tumbling synthlines and some acidic squiggle action, a gathering intensity, and a female voice saying, 'no one cares for me'. The hand drum that rattles in and out gives it some welly as the bass pads away. 

Each track is also on the EP in remixed form, one remix courtesy of Sebra Cruz and the other by Vanity Project. You can get it at Bandcamp. 

It All Comes Down To This

A Certain Ratio's new album, It All Comes Down To This, came out last week. Piccadilly Records and the band arranged an album launch where if you bought the album from them, for an extra £2.00 you got a ticket for a gig at Soup, a 200 capacity club in the Northern Quarter with a Q and A with Martin, Jez and Donald followed by ACR playing the album in full. At a time when £2.00 won't even buy a half of lager in the Northern Quarter this seemed a no brainer as they say. 

The three long standing members of ACR have stripped back to a three piece for the album, their third since 2020, recorded with producer Dan Carey. Pulling the sound back to guitar, bass and drums plus Martin's trumpet has shifted the ACR sound again- they really do sound like a band re- energised, fired up, with something to say and the means to say it (thanks to the deal with Mute records). The Q and A is interesting and funny, with stories of drummer Donald practicing his skills as a young man in his front garden in Wythenshawe, and Rob Gretton giving him thumbs up or down when he passed by depending on whether he liked what he heard. Gretton would soon introduce Don to the drummer- less ACR and the band suddenly shifted from post- punk gloom to punk- funk. Asked who the best bassist in the band is (ACR gigs frequently see members swap instruments) all three say 'Viv', the youthful bassist they recruited last year to deputise for Jez (whose rheumatoid arthritis has forced him to stop playing the bass live. 

After the Q and A we get the album, played in full and in order, the ten songs already sounding like ACR live favourites. The opener and title track thumps in, led in by a rat- a- tat- tat drum intro and Martin's guitar, trebly and right up close,with urgent Jez's vocals. Martin's guitar and Jez's bass form the sound of the album- Donald's drums absolute on the beat, Jez's basslines deep and rubbery while Martin's guitars slide around, clanging and bright. Second song Keep It Real thunders in straight away, choppy guitar riff and freight train rhythms. 

The songs shoot past, both on record and at the gig, short, sharp bursts, transmissions from a band forty five years into a career and not content to rest or take it easy. Surfer Ticket rolls ominously, some of the early 80s Factory dread evident. God Knows echoes some of the poppier sound that they reached for at the end of the 80s, a melody line picked out on the guitar and some sweetly sung multi- tracked vocals from Jez. Out From Under seems to nod its head to Shack Up, their calling card, with staccato bass and chak chak chak guitar riff. Estate Kings is narrated by Don from behind the drumkit, a Manc noir reflection on growing up in M23. Final song of the album and the gig is Dorothy Says, a song inspired by the words of Dorothy Parker, Jez singing over a rolling groove and ringing guitar line, 'Well I've heard it said that beauty is only skin deep/ But ugly it goes clean to the bone', and later, 'I plan to die at the last possible minute/ I'm not myself I'm not really in it/ I can't seem to filter out the static/ And my self- doubt is automatic'. 

The album, the gig and the songs show there's plenty of life left in ACR, a group who've outlasted many of their contemporaries and are making new music more alive and more vital than the ones who have lasted the course. They're on tour from this week ending up back at Manchester's New Century Hall in mid- May (two days before my birthday incidentally) playing the album and then a second set of ACR classics, and if you can, I'd get out and go to see them. 

Monday's Long Song

Back in 1992 Flowered Up, the London band whose live shows were seriously off the wall featuring dancer Barry Mooncult in a leotard and giant flower outfit, released Weekender. In some ways it was the group's last gasp. Their debut album A Life With Brian had been released to mixed reception despite good press coverage, and their label London Records turned Weekender down. They went back to where they started, Heavenly, a label who know a good thing when they see it. 

Weekender is a thirteen minute epic, a rampaging baggy groove, guitars, synths and horns and singer Liam Maher regaling the listener with his criticism of those people who only go out at the weekend. The 12" single came complete with a photo on the front of a hotel room that Sid Vicious had smashed up. On Weekender the band seemed to be combining everything they'd done for the previous two years- everything- into one song on one side of vinyl, Pink Floyd meeting Happy Mondays at the set of  Quadrophenia (two samples of Phil Daniels are on the song) as the mother of all comedowns kicks in. It's 1992. The party is almost over- but Flowered Up have got it together for one last spin round the floor. It was followed by Weatherall's Weekender, a pair of Andrew Weatherall remixes that twisted, extended and bent the original into all kinds of new shapes and places. 

'Weekender, whatever you're doing, just make sure what you're doing makes you happy', Liam concludes, making some kind of peace with those who can't live the lifestyle 24/ 7/365. 

A full length film video was made to accompany the song, a piece of art in it's own right, made by Wiz.

Flowered Up have lost several of their members over the years- sadly Liam and Joe Maher died within three years of each in 2009 and 2012 and Lee Whitlock, the star of the Weekender video died last year. Heavenly have just re- released Flowered Up's sole  album, it's first re- issue since  accompanied by Andrew Weatherall's remixes and various B-sides and versions and the group's contribution to the Fred EP. It also comes with a brand new remix of Weekender by Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve, Richard Norris and Erol Alkan reanimating the song for 2024, a version that subtly breathes new life into the song. 

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. 

V.A. Saturday

This Saturday series is jumping around all over the place, a celebration of the various artists compilation album, something that when done well is as good as any 'proper' album. Recently I've posted Lenny' Kaye's mid- 60s garage and psyche rock extravaganza Nuggets, a pair of Andrew Weatherall collated compilations (9 O'Clock Drop and Force Tracks), the Detroit techno classic Retro Techno/ Emotions Electric and Colleen 'Cosmo's Murphy's Balearic Breakfasts. Today I offer you a Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs modern classic, their 2022 compilation Fell From The Sun, an album that is very specific in its parameters spanning a period lasting two years (1990- 1991) and solely tracks that are at 98 beats per minute. 

The lost in ecstasy face on the front cover, snapped at legendary London club Shoom, gives more than a hint at what's inside, fourteen slices of blissed out, shuffling, slightly woozy, indie- dance crossover/ straight dance music from the early 90s, a period where there seemed to be exciting, genre busting, record deck hogging 12" singles released weekly but also a time when tempos were suddenly cut, where the paced slowed and people took a breather before heading back to the floor. Bob and Pete were part of the scene, Saint Etienne releasing their own contribution to the scene in the form of their cover of Neil Young's Only Can Break Your Heart. Fell From The Sun opens with Primal Scream's Higher Than The Sun (Higher Than The Orb), a record that redefined Primal Scream as a band (something that Andrew Weatherall had already done not once but twice wit their previous two singles, Loaded and Come Together). If they'd stopped after Higher Than The Sun, it would have been enough, a sun dappled, sky scraping ode to becoming unlocked and going with the flow, of losing oneself in the moment. Bobby Gillespie isn't always the man I'd go to for lyrics but Higher Than The Sun is close to perfection, 'My brightest star's my inner light/ Let it guide me/ Experience and innocence bleed inside me/ Hallucinogens can open me or untie me/ I drift in inner space free of time/ I find a higher state of grace deep inside'. 

Higher Than The Sun (Higher Than The Orb Extended Mix)

Spaced out sounds and whispers swirl around, a faint pulse bumps in, and a rising synth line appears and then the rhythm gently kicks in, as Bobby coos 'I believe you get what you give', and then organ and drums and woooo sounds. Saxophone. Eight minutes of bliss. 

After that Bob and Pete guide us through a version of 1990- 91 at 98bp, stopping off for the mighty Cascades by Sheer Taft, The Grid's Floatation, Saint Etienne's glorious B-side Speedwell, One Dove, Transglobal Underground, BBGs Snappiness and The Aloof and finding room for a few lesser known gems- Elis Curry's U Make Me Feel, Massonix's Just A Little Bit More, History and Q- Tee's Afrika. 

The track titles alone conjure up the look of 1990- white Levi's, Travel Fox and Converse, long sleeved t-shirts, boys with centre partings and shoulder length hair, girls with short hair, dungarees, football shirts, Happy Mondays t- shirts, Spike Island and Kate Moss on the cover of The Face. 

Towards the end of the album are this pair of tracks. Firstly, I Don't Even Know If I Should Call You Baby by Soul Family Sensation, a British trio switched on by Chicago house in 1989. They split in 1992. Johnny Male went on to Republica. Guy Batson worked with Saint Etienne. Singer Jhelisa Anderson sang with The Shamen on LSI. None of them ever sounded better than on this song. 

I Don't Even Know If I Should Call You Baby

Fell From The Sun closes with Moodswings' Spiritual High, a cover of Donna Summer's State Of Independence, with a typically 1990 drum pattern, Chrissie Hynde, loved up synths and keys, bouncing bass, rattling rim shots, a wheezy organ, a choir, tumbling piano chords, and eventually, finally, Martin Luther King-  Grant Showbiz (a former Smiths and Billy Bragg roadie) and drummer James Hood creating a sound that is the very essence of that period between early spring 1990 and autumn 1991.

Spiritual High (The Moodfood Megamix)