Tak Tent

The latest issue of The Wire (number 449 dated July 2021) has a lengthy feature on the growth of internet radio stations and an A to Z of 100 essential online stations. The Wire has been dedicated to exploring and focusing on experimental sound and music since 1982 and the internet radio stations in the article cover have a global reach- from China to South America and all points in between. Closer to home, one of the stations they've recommended in their list is Tak Tent Radio, based in central Scotland and with a similarly wide and eclectic range of music on offer- everything from Turkish psyche to dub, from weird folk to obscure Swiss coldwave. This is what The Wire said....

Last year Ali at Tak Tent emailed me out of the blue to say he'd found some of my Isolation Mixes done in the first lockdown and asked if I'd like to submit a mix to Tak Tent. I was stunned and flattered obviously and I've since done three mixes, one, two and three, lots of ambient, drone, Balearic, some techno, bits of dubby stuff, some Blade Runner and some Escape To New York- the sort of stuff that goes on here mainly. 

There's loads to explore at Tak Tent not least the regular spots from Richard Youngs, a genuine talent, hugely prolific and maker of all kinds of outsider music- experimental avant rock and folktronica if you're looking for labels. There's one here, a show done only using 10" vinyl, and the one referred to in the magazine, an hour of all vinyl, all acapella music here. 

Richard is also in AMOR, a slinky avant- disco outfit who have made some really good records in the last few years. One of the first records that dropped into my porch back at the start  of this year was their LEMUR 12", four slices of brilliance led by this song, Unravel, which I've posted before but that's no reason not to post it again- a sublime, dreamy, groove based seven minutes.  

Monday's Long Songs

Hey, February! Nice to see you. No offence to January- usually a month of restarting, reflecting and re-setting and requiring a certain stoicism and some austerity- but that was the worst, longest January we've ever had and it can, in no uncertain terms, fuck the fuck off. Will February be any better? Probably not but at least it's only twenty- eight days long, not thirty- nine like January was. 

Amor are a Glasgow based four piece centred around the talents of Richard Youngs, a man with umpteen albums behind him. They make dance music, a sleek, analogue, DIY, post- everything, Balearic/ avant disco approach to dance music, laid back and slinky with catchy vocals, rubbery basslines and beautiful melodies. Amor's new four track EP has just come out, available digitally at Bandcamp and in a limited edition of 500 12" singles, a work in collaboration with Lemur. All four songs are superb and wind their way around you. Fear is eight minutes and eight seconds of naggingly brilliant toplines and riffs, funky drumming and Richard's upper register vocal. For You is early 80s New York beamed into 2021 Glasgow, Talking Heads and Arthur Russell out for the night. Unravel is seven minutes of magic and already sounds like a future classic- synths and an earworm of a bassline and then Richard singing, 'I'm finding myself in your smile/ Always unravels me'. The piano chords hit the spot and then there's a ray of sunshine in the lyrics, to see us through the darkest of winters, 'The earth shall rise again'. Beautiful, hypnotising and just what we need. 

Back in 2017 Amor's Paradise single, their debut recording and release, was one of the highlights of that year . I have really strong memories of driving through the Vendee region of France with this playing on the car stereo, the Atlantic coast coming into view, two weeks of holiday ahead of us. 

'We're calling from paradise/ can you get through?'

Paradise (Alt Mix)

Isolation Mix Fourteen

Isolation Mix 14 or Songs The Lord Sabre Taught Us. Fourteen songs, an hour and a quarter mix of records played by Andrew Weatherall. Most of them, not quite all but most, I heard first because he included them in a set or a mix on the internet or one of his radio shows, for 6 Mix or Music's Not For Everyone, or he referred to them in an interview. The quality of the songs and the breadth of genres and styles tells you everything you need to know about his taste and ear for a tune. The selection of songs here spans 1956 to 2019 and covers rockabilly, blues, 60s modbeat, post- punk, weird southern blues/ rock/ gumbo, 80s dance and proto- house, krautrock, Paisley Underground guitar heroics, 21st century fuzz rockers and electro- cosmische funkers, ambient- drone, avant- disco and a 70s country tinged ballad. Something for everyone.



Tracklist-
Cowboys International: The ‘No’ Tune

James Luther Dickinson: O How She Dances

Wayne Walker: All I Can Do Is Cry

The Animals: Outcast

Johnny Jenkins: Walk On Gilded Splinters

The Dream Syndicate: John Coltrane Stereo Blues

Crocodiles: Foolin’ Around

Liaisons Dangereuses: Los Ninos Del Parque

Fujiya & Miyagi: Extended Dance Mix

La Dusseldorf: Rheinita

AMOR: Paradise

Piano Fantasia: Song For Denise (Maxi Version)

Rich Ruth: Coming Down

Donnie Fritts: We Had It All

Glimpses Across Thunder

One of my favourite songs of last year was Paradise by Glasgow's AMOR, a song that still sounds as good today as it did in February 2017, a hypnotic, joyful, arms aloft piece of avant disco that swoons and soars.



You can buy it at Bandcamp digitally (the vinyl is long since sold out).

AMOR are four musicians with different musical histories who've come together to make dance music for the feet and heart. Their bio on Bandcamp cites Ron Hardy, The Blue Nile, Philadelphia International and David Mancuso as reference points. There's an album out next month with this as a opening offer and I think we have a late contender for those lists people will soon be making...

Paradise

Something even longer than yesterday's eleven minutes plus extravaganza from The Early Years is this from Glasgow's AMOR (and played by Weatherall on his Music's Not For Everyone show last week). Paradise is a hypnotic and joyful musical exploration, this side of disco and that side of experimental. It came out at the end of February this year, has an irresistible groove and is beautiful in every way.