Necessary Genius came out yesterday, the new single from David Holmes ahead of his album in November, a fourteen track album titled Blind On A Galloping Horse. Necessary Genius rides in on a rattling drum machine and gliding synths, a kraut/ cosmische spliced with 80s electro- pop celebration of outsiders, artists, misfits, dreamers and believers, with vocals from Raven Violet. David's list includes Tony Wilson, Sinead O'Connor, Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, Angela Davis, Andrew Weatherall, Nina Simone, Terry Hall and Samuel Beckett in its rollcall of cultural inspirations, of people to believe in, alongside northern soul, rock and roll, agitprop and refugees. It's the latest in Holmes' recent run of songs that once over send me straight back to the beginning, clicking play again and again. This one sounds like a classic 7" single from the glory years of that format, a short sweet blast of sideways pop music and clarion call.
Necessary Genius comes after Holmes' pair of singles It's Over, If We Run Out Of Love and Hope Is The Last Thing To Die (released in 2022 and 2021 respectively) and the long awaited release of that pair of songs on vinyl is finally happening in early November. Those two songs have been played round here as often as any others released since 2020 and I suspect Necessary Genius will follow suit with the rest of Blind On A Galloping Horse following close behind.
A few weeks ago David made his monthly God's Waiting Room radio show at NTS a two hour tribute to Sinead O'Connor, finishing with a ten minute version of his remix of Orbital's Belfast with the vocal from Nothing Compares 2U mixed into it and then fading into an excerpt from an interview with Sinead. David read my blogpost and very kindly sent it to me. Up now for a limited time.
A three for one offer at Bagging Area today to celebrate the weekend, the yin and yang of music. First this song came out in mid- October, Orbital with Sleaford Mods and a coruscating, furious and perfectly timed piece of music called Dirty Rat.
'Shut up, you don't know what ya on about/ You voted for 'em, look at ya!/ You dirty rat'
'Blaming everyone at the hospitals/ Blaming everyone at the bottom of the English Channel/ Blaming everyone who doesn't look like a fried animal'.
Written for and about the people who voted for the shallowest talent pool the Tory party have ever fished in for government, the three Prime Ministers, one elected and two unelected, and the incompetent, mean spirited and downright dangerous cabinets we've suffered since 2019, the worst group of people to ever end up in power- this one's for you.
If that seems a bit much, a bit too angry for your Saturday morning and you fancy something more uplifting, more chilled and in places a tad more spiritual, this is David Holmes at NTS eleven days ago, back with his two hour God's Waiting Room show. This one is a tribute to DJ Alfredo, the man who who DJed at Amnesia in Ibiza from the mid 80s onwards and who David and his friend Iain McCready encountered there in 1990, a DJ set that took in reggae, Grace Jones, The Clash, Italo house, Eurodance, Talking Heads, Kraftwerk, Brazilian flamenco and much more, pulled together effortlessly. Alfredo has recently suffered some poor health and is recovering from a stroke. David's show, two hours of Alfredo's Amnesia inspired Balearica, is here, an absolute joy to listen to.
Bonus- if you needed it, here's Jezebell's summer stunner, Jezebellearic, eight minutes of blissed out beats and percussion, a lovely warm bassline, a sprinkling of hints of pop songs you might be able to discern and the voice of Alfredo talking about the people who came to dance to his music, the songs he played and how to make them dance 'you have to tell them a story'. Still available here for free.
Sometimes, rarely but sometimes, everything comes together, the stars align and the streams cross and you find yourself at the centre of something magical. The offer of a DJ support slot months ago for the five of us that admin The Flightpath Estate, a Facebook group set up to share the music of Andrew Weatherall, at The Golden Lion in Todmorden with David Holmes headlining was something that seemed unreal. As the months and weeks ticked by it became increasingly more real and then suddenly it became imminent, a matter of having to pull together some music, burn some CDs and think about how it might actually work.
The Golden Lion is a traditional pub in an old mill town, tucked in the hills on the Lancashire/ West Yorkshire border. Run by Richard Walker and his partner Gig it has a history of nights with DJs and bands plus excellent Thai food, a one off place that is now stitched into legend, Andrew Weatherall and Sean Johnston's ALFOS nights here especially so. An older gentleman (a retired teacher) standing at the DJ booth in the early evening told me, 'this place is a portal. Outside is Todmorden, in here it's another world'.
A quick guided tour of the equipment, the relief that CDs burned at home worked on the CDJs and then we got into the fun of starting to play to an almost empty pub at 2.30pm. Some familiar faces arrived- hello Claire and Si- and the afternoon drifted into evening, the five of us taking turns to play. Baz played his set including songs from The Pogues, The Animals, Chain And The Gang. Martin played rockabilly and folk. I played half an hour of dub (see Sunday's post) and then some Weatherall inspired songs plucked from his NTS radio shows and mixes, some Durutti Column, Coyote's Weatherall tribute The Outsider, Section 25, Joe Gideon And The Shark's Civilisation and this sublime, ghostly cover of Fun Boy Three/ The Go Go's Our Lips Are Sealed
Dan took over for some properly mixed leftfield dance music as the afternoon became early evening and then Mark 'Rude Audio' Ratcliff played, dubby dance filling the pub. At around eight, and who knows where the time went, we stated swapping on and off and then David Holmes arrived. I always assumed that Mark would be the one to do the immediately pre- Holmes part, building the warm up and then handing over. For reasons I still can't unpick, I ended up behind the decks just before David made his way to the DJ booth and began to sort his stuff out, the pub now full with expectant revellers. Mark had played Sabres Of Paradise Lik Wid Not Wit and then I put something else on and then as David continued to get set up, I played L.U.P.O.'s Heaven Or Hell, classic 1990 Balearic house, and then went into Song For Denise by Piano Fantasia, assuming he'd be then wanting to get playing straight away. 'Great track', David said to me, 'Stick another one'.
No pressure there then. So I played Hardway Bros' Argonaut, a Come Together referencing feel good Balearic chugger inspired by a boat trip in Croatia Weatherall and Johnston played. And with that, a brief chat with Mr Holmes, and then I'm standing next to him as he starts to play. Which is not what I expected to happen when I set out earlier that day.
Holmes' set was astonishing, a roof raising four hour set with non- stop dancing from an ecstatic crowd, with some choice remixes of his own music, some Afro- beat, some acid disco, some funked up French stuff and then somewhere in the middle (I lost track of time a bit it has to be said), a song to get a middle aged, leftfield crowd punching the air and singing along...
It was quite a moment. Much later and much fun having been had dancing, David finished with his recent remix of Orbital's Belfast, twelve minutes of sweet 1990 euphoria written after the Hartnoll's played at Holmes' Sugar Sweet club in Belfast, at a time when a lot of artists swerved Northern Ireland.
We left the pub at some point, making our way through the town and up the hill to the place we were staying, one of those nights that seemed to go on forever but was over so quickly, amazed and honoured not just to have been there but to have been part of it. I think we're all still buzzing slightly from the excitement while still unable to believe it actually happened. Serious life goals stuff.
I watched the Proclamation ceremony on Saturday morning where the Privy Council (a Medieval body which advises the sovereign) met to formally announce the accession of Charles to the throne, making him King Charles III. It struck me watching at home that this outdated show of pomp and ceremony, is designed specifically to show those watching (us) that the monarchy (them) is a seamless inevitability which cannot be questioned and that we should know our place. No sooner has the old Queen died than the new King is signed in. The uniforms, costumes, parade of former Prime Ministers, throne, list of articles regarding the Scottish Protestant church, documents to be signed and arcane rigmarole is a form of control, reminding all of us where the power lies. It goes without saying this is a profoundly undemocratic- antidemocratic even- system, the eldest child of the sovereign immediately replacing the deceased. These gun salutes, heralds, marching soldiers, references to Lords Spiritual and Lords Temporal and arcane conventions are no way for a 21st century nation to behave and this country needs to have a proper conversation about becoming a modern, grown up democracy where positions of political influence (including the head of state) are chosen by voters and not by accident of birth. I appreciate that many will not agree.
Orbital's second album (known as Orbital II or the brown album) came out in May 1993, eighteen months after their debut (Orbital I or the yellow album) which was a wide eyed record, filled the optimism of the new decade, Chime and Belfast somehow reflecting the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of apartheid and release of Nelson Mandela, the popular revolt against the Poll Tax and subsequent fall of Thatcher, several summers of love and a sense that things might actually be getting better. The second album is a bit tougher, more techno oriented, pushing on and finding new ways to sound better. The two stand out tracks- Impact (The Earth Is Burning) and Halycon + On + On -alternately want to wake the world up to climate catastrophe and allow the listener to dance away, tranced out and hypnotised. On Monday they build a classic Orbital track, seven minutes of loops and thumping drums, dancing synth toplines, a repetitive euphoria.
We got back from Gran Canaria in the early hours on Monday night/ Tuesday morning, Manchester welcoming us with drizzle and road works in a reassuring kind of way. Ten days in Gran Canaria was very much what we all needed, sunshine every day and not very much to do other than slow right down and potter between the pool, the beach and places to eat and drink. Usually when we go on holiday we're taking days to go out and do and see things, visiting cities and historical or cultural sites (and record shops). In Puerto Rico there wasn't much of that- a fantastic array of cactuses aside- so we ground to a halt. Much of the time it was too hot to do very much at all, the mercury rising to the mid- to- high thirties most days. On the descent from 30, 000 feet into Las Palmas airport my right ear unblocked itself, the congestion around my sinuses shifting completely which was worth the holiday in itself (even if I can feel it returning as I type this).
While we were away it seemed like there were a lot of interesting musical releases which I'll spend part of this week catching up with. One of them was this, a David Holmes remix of Orbital's Belfast, part of a 30th anniversary album the Hartnoll brothers have released to celebrate three decades of music called 30 Something. Belfast came out in 1991 on the III 12" along with the tracks LC1 and Satan. Belfast was named after the experience Orbital had playing in the city after Homes booked them to play at the Art College in Belfast in May 1990. David's remix doesn't radically alter the original, instead tweaking it, updating it from 1990 to 2022 and just making it a bit moreso. Twelve minutes of euphoric blissed out splendor (with a tinge of melancholy)
Here's the original from the III 12" single with the famous sample of soprano (singer not gangster) Emily Van Evera, a sampled voice that appeared on The Beloved's The Sun Rising a year previously.
This is a 1992 remix of Orbital's Halcyon, spliced with Opus III's It's A Fine Day by Michael Anderson, both songs I adore, standout songs from the early 90s when dance music seemed awash with possibilities and the promise of being the soundtrack to a new decade/ world.
Orbital's Halcyon borrowed from Opus III, a backwards piece of vocal from singer Kirsty Hawkshaw (who also starred in the video as a housewife losing it). The song Halcyon was dedicated to the Hartnell brothers' mother who had been addicted to the tranquiliser Halcion for many years, so the video is at least partly her story. The full eleven minutes of Halcyon (On + On) are a peak in Orbital's back catalogue, a back catalogue not exactly short of peaks.
Opus III were Kirsty Hawkshaw plus three producers- Ian Munro, Kevin Dodds and Nigel Walton. All also members of Spiral Tribe so their rave/ outsider credentials were second to none. It's A Fine Day was a big hit in 1992, crunching drums, rave keyboards and Kirsty's lighter than air vocal proving irresistible to the record buying public- hypnotic, trancey, loved up but with a slightly off kilter edge.
It's A Fine Day's slightly off kilter edge comes perhaps from its origins in early 80s Hulme, part of Manchester just south of the city centre, where the concrete housing development known as the Crescents had been abandoned by the residents and families it had been built for and taken over by a more bohemian set of people. The Crescents were described as 'Europe's worst housing stock' but in the 80s were the home to all sorts of people looking for an alternative place to live. Edward Barton, a Manchester based poet and musician, wrote It's A Fine Day while he lived in Hulme. The song's first recorded appearance was in 1982 on the mini- album Jane And Barton, the words sung by his friend Jane Lancaster- an unsettling piece of acapella.
Today is the last day of work in 2019 for me, the end of an extremely long feeling term. This week's posts have been largely dominated by anger in response to the UK in 2019 so there's a double reason for trying to end the week with some positivity and some uplift. This came out in 1992, truly a golden age for electronic dance music records, from the combined talents of Michael Hazell and Paul Hartnoll of Orbital plus Frank de Wulf on remix duties. Hazell and Hartnoll called themselves Golden Girls and the main elements of this track- Kinetic- have been re-purposed and re-used by Orbital umpteen times but never better than on this remix. From the celestial voices that open it to the insistent synth riff, the bleeps and flute/pan pipes part, this is the type of track that will have you throwing your hands in the air while blinking back tears. Optimistic, idyllic and emotive.
Today's post accidentally fits in really well with David Byrne's ideas about finding vocals and using them in new musical places (see yesterday's My Life In the Bush Of Ghosts post). A while ago someone somewhere, sorry I can't remember who, posted two Orbital tracks both released in 1990, one the B-side to Chime and the other a remix of that B- side from the Omen 12". Deeper and 2 Deep take the voice from a relaxation tape, designed to help people who were unable to relax or get to sleep, calm down and chill the fuck out. A warm, calming voice appropriated by the Hartnoll brothers and laid over some techno. Knowing, ironic, a bit trippy. 'Close your eyes and relax...'
I put both versions onto a compilation CD along with other similar stuff and found that they sounded really good driving to and from work. Thankfully they didn't cause me to relax so much that I fell asleep at the wheel. That would not have been relaxing.
Also from 1990 and in the same ballpark is this from Ed Ball's Love Corporation- sparkling, inventive acid house with a vocal found on a New Age, meditation tape, remixed by the King of Shoom Danny Rampling. 'Close your eyes and begin to breathe slowly and deeply...'
Plaid's new album Polymers is proving that experimental electronic music can be reflective of the early- to- mid 90s while also utterly modern, techno rhythms adorned with machine melodies- accessible, repetitious, hypnotic and at places liable to take your breath away. Orbital's remix of Maru proves that they haven't lost their touch either. A dancer.
Maru means circle in Japanese and is associated with goodness- a circle is used to mark correct answers on tests and exams (rather than a tick as we'd use). Maru is also a cat, a cat who lives in japan, and is apparently the most watched animal in the world with over 325 million views on Youtube. Here he is relaxing in a box.
Yesterday one of our longest standing friends got married- we all met doing teacher training back in the early 90s. Today he and his new husband are holding a party for everyone who couldn't make the wedding. It will inevitably be a full on party, a celebration and a dance.
Back in 1992 Orbital remixed this track, a Michael Hazell and Paul Hartnoll co-production for Belgian label R&S, an Orbital track in everything but name. It is a full on party, a celebration and a dancer too.
New tracks from Orbital could potentially be a let down, a bit Orbital-by-numbers- press the right buttons, get the right sounds, presto. Thankfully this doesn't seem to be the case with Tiny Foldable Cities, a new track played at their gig at the Apollo I attended back in December last year. There is a Philip Glass element to the melody part from the intro, set off neatly by the buzzing bassline. Dramatic and full of life. Eye catching video too.
The Hartnoll brothers, re-united again, played Manchester on Friday night. Just before kick off I was outside the Apollo trying to shift a spare ticket- along with half a dozen other middle aged men also trying to sell spares. 'Dad techno ticket to sell' someone shouted. Inside, having been unsuccessful in selling the spare, it was pretty rammed despite the spare ticket situation. Round the fringes of the Apollo standing area were a few hardy souls who looked like they'd taken an E in 1989 and never stopped but largely it was middle aged mums and dads on a night out.
Orbital appeared on a podium on top of the stage making them a good 10 feet above the usual stage height, with films and images projected above them, below them and behind them. A lattice of mini-laser beams mid-set caused cheers. Musically it's a greatest hits set plus a few new ones, perfectly paced, the songs segueing into one another. Opening with Lush 3 and then straight into Impact (The Earth Is Burning) is a statement of intent. Orbital are not going to spend long warming you up- the kickdrum started about 20 seconds in and didn't really let up. From the off the bass was loud- I could feel my jeans and coat vibrating. Phil and Paul are both wearing the trademark light-up glasses and frequently waving their hands in the air and doing the pointing-fingers dance, clearly enjoying themselves.
They chuck in 2017's Copenhagen early on and premier two other new ones (Phuk and Tiny Foldable Cities) but the main joy is in hearing their classic tracks at volume in front of an appreciative crowd- The Girl With The Sun In Her Head, Satan, a beautiful Halcyon and set closer Belfast. The rock trappings of the encore are still with us- they thank us, go off and we await their return. And when they return we are given The Box, a slightly too short Chime and Where Is It Going? All over by 11.00 pm. Babysitters get double after midnight.
As well as the slightly Orbital-by-numbers new track Copenhagen (which has grown on me over the last week) Orbital have celebrated their return by reworking an older track, Kinetic (a track they've reworked before admittedly). This 2017 version has some pretty spine tingling moments and is sure to work well with the crowd at the Apollo in December, a night when babysitters will be a premium in the Manchester area. Name your price teenagers.
Of all the big hitters of the dance music world of the early 90s Orbital always seem to be the raviest, the least moody, the most up and optimistic. The first two Orbital albums, the green one and the brown one, are both essential snapshots of the duo and the scene. The second one (brown or 2) is a blast from start to finish, opening wiht the sampled voice talking about Moebius, time as a loop, the sampled then looped and played against another version of it. From there on in the synthesizers and drum machines take over and the Hartnoll brothers manage to make techno that is melodic and poppy, dance music that works at home, simple sounding tunes that are increasingly complex, all building towards the majesty that is Halcyon + On + On. Before that though there is the ten minutes of this track, three or four songs in one but all the same too- synths, sirens, clattering drums, breakdowns, build ups and half way through a voice... 'it's like a cry for survival'.
Chime by Orbital is one of British dance music's breakthrough moments, proof the UK could do what the US had been donig in Chicago and Detroit. Chime was written by the Hartnoll brothers in Kent in 1989. It was recorded in early 1989 onto cassette in their makeshift home studio, a cupboard under the stairs, using a recently acquired Roland TB 303 which had been bought from a working men's club keyboard player. Legend has it that it cost a fiver (a documentary I watched a while back), £3.65 (an interview where he describes having to shell out for a metal TDK cassette) or a single pound (wikipedia). Paul Hartnoll mixed it live onto a four track tape recorder and then went to the pub. Paul described the evening thus- Chime' started as a big riff from me playing this joyous Detroit-y chord progression that mirrored my mood — it was a sunny day and I was off to meet girls down the pub — and then I built a two-bar groove on the 909 that turned out to be rubbish until I decided to play it as one-bar loops.
Taking it down to the local record shop where mentor Jazzy M worked, they played it through the shop's system and people started asking for it there and then. The full twelve minute one is the one you really want. This one here is a five minute edit. Shorter but still wondrous.
Things at work are quite intense at the moment and the time to do them seems to be running out rapidly, the weekends are full, and the time to just sit and do little is short. Sometimes you just need to listen to a track like this, beautifully melodic techno from Orbital, originally released on the III ep back in 1991...
I found this again recently, Orbital's The Naked And The Dead, the B-side to their monumental 1992 Halcyon single. The Naked And The Dead samples Scott Walker doing Jacques Brel and borrows the title of Norman Mailer's 1948 World War II novel. It is just shy of seven minutes of pounding, heady, forward thinking techno.
I was driving home last night reflecting on what has been a hectic and pretty intense start to the new school year- in my new role I am now responsible for the induction and mentoring of fifteen newly qualified teachers, six trainee teachers, and ten other new starters. Lots to be getting on with. And a move to a new office. My mp3 player, plugged into the cassette dock in my car stereo, started flashing that the battery was 'dangerously low'. As I noticed the warning Orbital's Are We Here? began to play. Fifteen minutes long, but never less than absorbing with its techno drums, building synths, 'what does God say?' sample,Specials' Man At C&A breakdown and Alison Goldfrapp's vocals. It played on and on and as the track finished and the next one began to cue up, with seconds to spare, the battery died. I don't what the next song was going to be.
Another 12" single picked up in King Bee on Saturday afternoon, Lush by Orbital. The a-side has Lush 3-1 and 3-2 sequenced without a gap so they run straight into each other, ten minutes of the Hartnoll brothers brilliance bottled and bagged.
The b-side is the Underworld remix, Lush 3- all thirteen minutes of it, a bit tougher and trancier with the bpms pitched up. Enjoy the ride.
Has there ever been a compilation of the cream of Underworld's remixes of other folk? Not to my knowledge. Why not?
I'm joining a few recent musical dots again- on Saturday I posted Orbital's Chime. Orbital's epic and beautiful Halcyon had a backwards vocal part sampled from Opus III's It's A Fine Day (sung by Kirsty Hawksworth, a big hit in 1992). It's A Fine Day was originally written and recorded a cappella by Jane and Barton and released in 1983. Edward Barton wrote it while living in Hulme, Manchester and it was sung by Jane Lancaster (his girlfriend). A haunting little song.
