Gotta Get Out Now

Fresh from contributing to the soundtrack Killing Eve South London's Fireflies released an e.p. at the start of the month called The Machine Stops. Recorded at Nina Walsh's Facility 4 the e.p. is led by their spooked cover of Kip Tyler's She's My Witch. Tucked away at the end of the four songs is the fuzzed up, smouldering garage rock of Heidi, four minutes of snarl and menace, a song which blows my cobwebs away each time I play it, thumping drums, a vicious guitar solo and lyrics about escape.  The Machine Stops is at Bandcamp and there's a video for Heidi here which isn't available to embed at the moment.

Isolation Mix Three

It's over halfway through April already. The weeks seem to be flying by even though some of the days seem very long. This is Isolation Mix Three. I thought I'd do something different from the ambient, blissed out, opiated sounds of the first two mixes and this mix is something that I first wrote about doing in a post here about three years ago. This is an hour and three minutes of spoken word and poetry and music. Andrew Weatherall features in various guises and with various poets, the Beat Generation and The Clash are represented, there's some reggae and the unmistakable voice of John Cooper Clarke.

Jack Kerouac/Joe Strummer: MacDougal Street Blues

John Cooper Clarke: Twat

Misty In Roots: Introduction to Live At The Counter Eurovision

Linton Kwesi Johnson: Inglan Is A Bitch

The Clash (and Allen Ginsberg): Ghetto Defendant (Extended Version)

Allen Ginsberg/ Tom Waits: Closing Time/America

Andrew Weatherall and Michael Smith: The Deep Hum (At The Heart Of It All)

Joe Gideon and The Shark: Civilisation

Woodleigh Research Facility and Joe Duggan: Downhill

Fireflies and Joe Duggan: Leonard Cohen Knows

BP Fallon and David Holmes: Henry McCullough (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

Mike Garry and Joe Duddell: St Anthony: An Ode To Anthony H Wilson (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

Allen Ginsberg: I Am A Victim Of Telephone

She's My Witch

Alderley Edge has a long association with the mystical and esoteric. Legend has it King Arthur sleeps below the ground, inside the cliff at the Edge, waiting for the moment England needs him to come back and save it. 'Yo, Arthur- think that moment might be coming' you might be thinking. Merlin, Arthur's wizard, is associated with the site too. This little house is on the side of the road near The Wizard Pub, a strange little one up, one down affair. Today Alderley Edge is mainly associated with footballers, who live in enormous houses dotted around the village and frequent the wine bars and brasseries. People say the charity shops often have excellent, barely worn stock as a result. This may be rumour though- like Arthur's supposed return. Maybe if he does emerge he'll come bedecked in Balenciaga and Prada on his way to tackle Johnson and Farage with Excalibur.

Fireflies have a single out, a spooky, slow and smokey cover of a Kip Tyler song- She's My Witch, a song Arthur and Merlin could have sung. In this case vocals are from Dani Cali with Nina Walsh and Franck Alba. It's in the new series of Killing Eve (which I haven't seen but people are saying isn't as good as the first one. Ain't it always that way).

Kip Tyler featured here many years ago, back in the Friday night rockabilly series, a 50s rock 'n' roller and bongo player.

A Vision Of Duncan Sharp

Fireflies are Nina Walsh and Frank Alba and have recorded some weird, spooky folk music in the recent past. This song is something else though, a post punk bassline and some electronic atmospherics over which author Gareth E. Rees gives a compelling spoken word performance, a vision of Duncan Sharp, becoming increasingly intense over its seven minutes. The track was recorded live at Weird Shit in Hastings last year and is as good a way to disturb your Saturday morning as any.

Moine Dubh

Andrew Weatherall's new folk influenced record label Moine Dubh is open for business. The vinyl-only subscription cost is £50. This gets you five 7" singles, released monthly starting in September, working out at a tenner a single. The record label was launched in London last month with the various artists playing live. A recording of this event, an hour and half long, is below. Dark, electronic-flecked folk from the dusty corners of the minds and imaginations of Andrew Weatherall, Nina Walsh, Franck Alba, Fireflies, Echowood, Dani Cali, Lowroad and Barry Woolnough.

Stoney Lane

Stoney Lane by The Fireflies is strange electric psyche-folk, slowburning, smoky and mysterious, with some real subtlety to the playing and vocals. It sounds like the song the band were playing late at night in a stone wall pub, after a weird night out in the English countryside.

Stoney Lane is coming out soon on Moine Dubh, a new label from Andrew Weatherall. 7" vinyl only, via subscription. He knows how to draw us in.