Thrill Me

The recent Unloved album, Polychrome is a succinct addition to last year's The Pink Album, the murky, moody girl group/ Wrecking Crew/ Serge Gainsbourg noir sound bent a little further out of shape. From the jerky and disorientating 60s pop of I Did It to the slow motion melancholia/ drama of Thank You For Being A Friend, You Know, The One You Never Want To Say Goodbye To it's an album I've been back to often. A remix EP has been released with new versions that take the songs further and deeper. Justin Robertson's rocking dub version of Thrill Me (Towers Of Wonder Remix) is a delight, thumping echo- laden drums, spaced out FX and a bassline conjured up straight from King Tubby's stockpile of bass. Jade's voice competes with the sounds reverberating around the mixing desk. 

Manfredas takes I Did It and warps it into a very long and strange trip indeed, a six minute first half with percussion, drums, stuttering sounds and chopped up vocals, then a pause and an equally distorted, psychedelic second half with organ, whirring noises and echoes of vocals. 

In complete contrast to both Justin and Manfreda's remixes, London duo Raw Silk refit the album's title track Polychrome as sleek sci fi acid techno. 

Polychrome Occult Persuasion

Two updates from the world of David Holmes for Friday. In the middle of the week Unloved, David's cinematic/ girl group/ weird 60s for the 21st century trio he formed with Jade Vincent and Keefus Ciancia, are following their twenty three song Pink Album (which only came out last year) with a nine song album called Polychrome. Ahead of the album Unloved have released I Did It, hip swinging psyche- pop  built around a wobbly bassline and whipcrack snare and ice cold vocals.

Polychrome is out on 24th February, vinyl and download. Order here. 

David returned to NTS this week too for the first God's Waiting Room radio show of this year (going live on the 23rd January 2023 for the 23 fans out there), two hours of sounds kicking off with some beautiful pedal steel guitar from Andrew Tuttle and then winding its way onwards in laid back, cosmische fashion, taking in Rico Toto, Prince Jammy, the dub splendour of Occult Persuasion by Bill Laswell, The Residents, Vangelis, Pleasure Pool among the many treasures played. You can listen at NTS or at Mixcloud. 

Half An Hour Of The Limiñanas

The Limiñanas are Lionel and Marie Limiñana, a duo from Cabestany in the south of France, who play psyche/ garage/ pop dressed in black jeans and boots, with fuzz guitar, Mo Tucker style drums and tambourine and slightly stoned, Gauloise vocals. Over the course of nine albums and umpteen singles/ EPs they've steered their own course pulling in like minded souls along the way. Their music always feels like summer to me, the hot and sticky days of July and August, the air smelling of beer and cigarette smoke, sunglasses, tinny car stereos and the clink of beer bottles- so there's no better time to listen to thirty minutes of their music than in mid- January. C'est la vie. 

Half An Hour Of The Limiñanas 

• Garden Of Love
• The Gift (Anton Mix)
• The Ballad Of Linda L.
• Variation Sur 3 Bancs
• Devils Angels (Limiñanas Remix)
• Dimanche (Laurent Garnier Remix)
• Garden Of Love (Lundi Mouillé Mix)
• Liverpool (album version)

Garden Of Love was a 2016 single, a lovely piece of 21st century garage pop, Marie's vocal to the fore along with Peter Hook's mournful, elegiac bass playing that makes me feel weirdly homesick, even when I'm at home. Garden Of Love was remixed by Andrew Weatherall twice and released on clear 12" vinyl. Both mixes are great, the one here, Lundi Mouille (Wet Monday) is the slower, more downtempo one.  

Hooky turned up on The Gift in 2018 too, a single and song from their 2018 album Shadow People, their fifth album, ten songs where they really hit their stride and refined their sound. Anton Newcombe was on hand for a lot of the album and provided the mix for this version of The Gift. They formed a  one- off group with Anton and actress/ singer Emmanuelle Seigner and released an excellent album in 2019 that I've remembered about while typing this. I should have included one of their songs on this but it's too late now. 

The Ballad Of Linda L. is from a soundtrack to a documentary from last year about the life of Linda Lovelace, written and recorded with David Menke.

Variation Sur 3 Bancs was a collaboration with Golden Bug. A vinyl/ digital EP came out in 2021 with remixes by Pilooski, Superpitcher and Destino, French electronic/ Balearic catnip. 

Devils Angels is by Unloved, from their second album Heartbreak (2019) There was a remix EP with remixes by various folk including Weatherall, Jane Weaver and here, obvs, The Limiñanas.

Dimanche is also from Shadow People with singer, songwriter and author Bertrand Belin on vocals. It was remixed by French DJ and Hacienda veteran Laurent Garnier. The Limiñanas and Laurent released an album together in 2021, De Pelicula, a psyche French road trip/ noir which is highly recommended (even though I neglected to put anything from it on this mix).

Liverpool is from the band's 2013 album Costa Blanca with vocals from Mu (Muriel Margail)

NYE: A Mix For Dancing

New Year's Eve- I'm not sure what we're going to do tonight. New Year's Eve is a strange night at the best of times (unless you're young and in a club where all that happens is that the countdown to midnight is a brief interruption to a night of dancing). The reflective, verging on maudlin, aspects of it are too easily summoned at the moment but celebrating it feels odd too. Caught in no man's land.

But, still, Happy New Year to everyone who comes here for the music and the words, thank you for your comments and support, it means a lot. I hope you're having a good time tonight whether you're choosing to do something or nothing. See you all in 2023 for more of the same. 

This is a mix I put together of tracks from 2022, made for dancing to. It's what I'd want to hear as the clock ticked towards midnight, if happened to find myself in a sweaty basement with a good sound system and a strobe light tonight- you never know, it could happen. Sean Johnston's work features heavily, turning up on four of the tracks. There are a couple of transitions where things are a little skewwhiff (one of them skewwhiff in a way I quite like, the beats and noises piling up messily and then clearing) and the BPMs may be a little out but I think the track selection is good enough. A bunch of dance records sequenced together for an hour and a quarter, with a slow spaced out ambient start, a dubby ending and plenty of dancers in between. Happy new year.

NYE 2022 Dance Mix

• Space Ghost: 4 AM
• Long Range Desert Group: Adjustment Notice
• Rude Audio: Big Heat
• The Summerisle Six: This Is Something (Dub Mix)
• Peak High: Was That All It Was (Hardway Bros Bleep Dub)
• David Holmes: It's Over, If We Run Out Of Love (Hardway Bros Remix)
• Unloved: Turn Of The Screw (Erol Alkan Rework)
• The Orielles: Darkened Corners (Eyes Of Others Remix)
• Phil Kieran and Green Velvet: Enjoy The Day (Hardway Bros Meet Monkton Downtown Remix)
• Matt Gunn: Disko Drohne
• Cantoma ft. Quinn Lamont Luke: Alive (Conrad's Vacant Lot Remix)
• 10:40: Hawaii (Big Wave Dub)

Number In My Phone

The new Unloved album, The Pink Album, is a twenty song, ninety minute opus full of girl group drama and atmospherics, Wrecking Crew instrumental sounds, a 21st century take on the 60s sound. Number In My Phone started as a moment, David Holmes scrolling through his mobile and realising he had the phone number of someone who had died (Andrew Weatherall as it happens but then also that he had his sister's and parents' numbers too), still had voice recordings but that they were gone- 'Even though you passed on/ I've still got your number in my phone'. Unloved singer Jade Vincent took the line and worked it into a full lyric and the Unloved trio then took the Tales Of The Unexpected theme tune as a musical inspiration. 

Back in the early 90s David was part of The Disco Evangelists with Ashley Beedle, releasing De Niro, a progressive acid house thumper. Now, thirty years later Ashley has remixed Unloved in his Black Science Orchestra guise. Number In My Phone (Black Science Orchestra Remix) a lovely, slinky, bouncy take on the original, an acid bassline and some piano giving it a dancefloor groove. 

David Holmes At The Golden Lion: Recreated

A trip back in time to two weeks ago for today's Sunday mix and a much longer offering than usual. You might remember- I do- that on Saturday 1st October a group of us supported David Holmes at the Golden Lion in Todmorden and had quite the night. David came on at about nine and played a four hour set that took the proverbial roof off. Using the power of our memories (hazy, intermittent, vague and unreliable admittedly) and those people who had the presence of mind to use Shazam in the building at the time, we've attempted to put together David's setlist from that evening and then I've slung the ones we've been able to identify together in a one hour and forty seven minutes long, fifteen track mix, in roughly the order we recall them being played. It's missing a lot of tracks clearly- Holmes played for four hours- and it's not anywhere near as skillfully mixed but it's here to give a flavour, a short recreation of David at the Golden Lion a fortnight ago. I've listened to it a couple of times since finishing it midweek and it works for me- if I do say so myself. 

David Holmes at The Golden Lion recreated by The Flightpath Estate

• Alex Kassian: Spirit Of Eden (Bill Laswell Remix)
• Roberto Rodriguez: Mustat Varjot
• Carte De Sejour: Ouadou
• Axel Boman: Klinsmann
• Pete Wylie and The Oedipus Wrecks: Sinful (Tribal)
• Dornbirn 78: Dancing In The City
• Suuns: Up Past The Nursery (Ivan Smagghe Edit)
• Ettika: Ettika (Version Maxi Inedite)
• Hans Zimmer: Inception (Junkie XL Remix)
• John Talabot: Depak Ine
• The Blow Monkeys: La Passionara
• David Holmes: It's Over, If We Run Out Of Love (Darren Emerson Huffa remix)
• Unloved: Turn Of The Screw (Erol Alkan Rework)
• David Holmes and Keith Tenniswood: I Am Somebody
• Orbital: Belfast (David Holmes Remix)

Alex Kassian's Spirit Of Eden came out as a 12" last year, my favourite release from last year I've only discovered this year. The original and the Bill Laswell mixes are superb. Roberto Rodriguez's Mustat Varjot is from a 2012 compilation EP called On the Latch. Carte De Sejour is Italian disco/ funk from 1984. The vinyl rip included here is crackly as fuck but I think it actually adds to the fun. Klinsmann by Axel Boman, a tribute to a very well known German footballer perhaps, is from 2013. Sinful (Tribal Mix), one of the night's highlights, is a 1986 single remixed by Zeus B. Held- the definitive version. I'm going to see Pete Wylie a week today and if he plays Sinful I will be very happy. 

Dornbirn 78 released Dancing In The City in 2019, a cover of Marshall Hain's 1978 song. Ivan Smagghe's edit of Suun's Up Past The Nursery is from 2013. Ettika is French disco from 1985. John Talabot's Depak Ine came out on his 2012 album Fin. The Junkie XL remix of Hans Zimmer's theme from the film Inception is from 2010. La Passionara is a  Balearic classic from 1990 by The Blow Monkeys.

The Darren Emerson remix of David Holmes' It's Over, If We Run Out Of Love was part of a remix package from earlier this year, with Raven Violet on vocals. Raven also sings on Unloved's Turn Of The Screw, from The Pink Album, out shortly on vinyl and already available digitally. The Erol Alkan remix came out as part of an EP recently. David's track with former Lone Swordsman Keith Tenniswood is currently unreleased and appears here courtesy of a rip from Holmes' wonderful Desert Island Disco mix for Lauren Laverne back at the start of the year- it has the voice of Andrew Weatherall at the end talking about acid house as gnostic ceremony. The David Holmes remix of Orbital's Belfast was the 'one more tune' track at The Golden Lion and came out a couple of months ago as part of Orbital's 30 Something compilation. 

Turn Of The Screw

One of the summer's best singles has been Unloved's Turn Of The Screw, an urgent, driving piece of 60s psyche that flips its middle fingers to all and sundry while simultaneously recommending the use of psychedelics for better mental health. David Holmes wrote the song in lockdown, an ode to 'making changes in your life for the better- cutting toxicity out of your life and focussing on the important things, family, friends and music'. Amen to that brother Holmes. Where Unloved often simmer and burn slowly Turn Of The Screw is fast and punchy, Raven Violet's vocals slicing through. The album, titled The Pink Album, is out in early September, twenty two songs with Etienne Daho, Jon Spencer and Jarvis Cocker involved on guest vocals. 

There are some remixes too. Darren Price, formerly of Underworld, reworks the song into a tribal dub with glowering menace and krauty keyboards. Erol Alkan and Juan Ramos are also on the case. Buy them here. 

Meanwhile, at NTS radio, David Holmes is proving himself the heir to Andrew Weatherall's much missed Music's Not For Everyone. Holmes' God's waiting Room is a monthly affair, two hours of cinematic, psychedelic, ambient, freakery. The latest one from mid- August is here. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Homer

David Holmes is in a purple patch, two singles of wonky indie dance brilliance (Hope Is The Last Thing To Die in 2021 and It's Over, If We Run If Of Love this year, both with Raven Violet on vocals) with a follow up 7" out on Hoga Nord later this year, two Unloved albums mining that 60s Now! sound and another due in the autumn, not to mention some stunning remixes. Throwing all of these together with a couple of choice songs from his past that fit in with those seemed an obvious Sunday half hour mix. The main problem was what to leave out- in the end there were several Unloved songs, some of the remixes of the two recent singles, some songs from his solo albums and a smattering of Andrew Weatherall remixes (of I Heard Wonders and Unloved's Devils Angels) that I couldn't fit in so a Holmes Mix Two may have to follow at some point.

Forty Five Minutes Of David Holmes

• David Holmes: Hope Is The Last Thing To Die
• David Holmes: I Heard Wonders
• David Holmes: 69 Police
• Unloved: When A Woman Is Around
• Phil Kieran: Think Too Much (Unloved Remix)
• The Vendetta Suite: Purple Haze, Yellow Sunrise (David Holmes Remix)
• Unloved: Mother's Been A Bad Girl
• David Holmes and Steve Jones: The Reiki Healer From County Down
• David Holmes: It's Over, If We Run Out Of Love

 

Mother's Been A Bad Girl

This came out yesterday from David Holmes, Jade Vincent and Keefus Ciancia's' Unloved band, the pithily titled Mother's Been A Bad Girl. It's a very gnarly, echo drenched song- 60s psyche, yé-yé, The Wrecking Crew and some psychodrama fed through a 21st century filter. Available to buy here. 

Mother's Been A Bad Girl was on the soundtrack to the most recent series of Killing Eve. We bailed out of Killing Eve a while ago but the soundtracks for each episode and series are superb in themselves with huge quantities of Unloved songs but also songs by influences, kindred spirits and fellow travellers such as Etienne Daho, Fireflies, Brigitte Bardot, The Liminanas, The Velvet Underground, Die Wilde Jagd, L'Epee and Jane Weaver.

Back in 2018 ahead of the Convenanza festival Swedish label Hoga Nord released a five track vinyl EP. Die Wilde Jagd (the musical vehicle for producer Sebastian Lee Philipp) contributed Gleiß K, a fine piece of tense, sparse and spooked psyche. 

Gleiß K

Monday's Long Song

David Holmes' Unloved project is a 60s via the 21st century sound, L.A. girl groups and Jack Nitzsche filtered through his thirty year DJ/ production/ soundtrack career. To date Unloved are two albums in, several singles and remixes, and a large part of the soundtrack of BBC's Killing Eve. There's a nine track remix e.p. available with reworkings of the song Why Not by Gwenno, Phil Keiran, Hardway Bros and The Vendetta Suite plus this, almost nine minutes of throb, echo and mystery via Richard Sen (there's a remix and a dub version).



Phil Kieran's remix is shorter, just shy of six minutes, but it's a blast, a funked up 60s spy film bassline, some horns, clattering percussion and a mad, driving energy. Occasionally it surfaces, vocals drifting in, before everything submits again to the pulse of the rhythm.



The Hardway Bros, Vendetta Suite and Gwenno remixes, it goes without saying, are all excellent too. Buy the whole package at Bandcamp. There's a limited four track vinyl release too which may well be sold out.

Monday's Long Songs

This Monday's long song is a remix and a Record Shop Day 2019 12" release. Despite all our misgivings about RSD- people who buy in bulk to then sell on ebay, the proliferation of re-issues no-one has asked for, the massively bumped up prices, the insistence that coloured vinyl is in some way better than black- this release showed that it was worth heading to a record shop for. New York's 1960s home-made synth enthusiasts Silver Apples remixed by Andrew Weatherall, a nine minute wonder with lighter than air melodies, steam powered drums and so many false endings that when it finally finishes you still expect it to start up again. Ace.



Weatherall has also recently remixed an Unloved song so while I'm here we may as well slip a second one in. Devils Angels is a very different animal, busier and built around a repeating bassline with ghostly echoed vocals and all manner of noises swirling around its eight minutes.

Heartbreak

More new stuff. Unloved, a threepiece made up of David Holmes, singer Jade Vincent and Keefus Cianca, inspired by the 60s girl groups, Jack Nitzsche and Hollywood's darker soundtracks, have signed to Heavenly and have a new song out. Their first album, Guilty Of Love released back in 2016, had a great sound and some good songs. This doesn't sound like a massive departure from that record, a bit denser and more fractured possibly.



I sometimes find that the internet has shorted my listening window for new releases. Things get posted online, I play them repeatedly for a few days until something else bright and shiny grabs my attention. When it finally gets a proper release it seems like the time has almost gone. I don't think it's the same as the concentration span issue the internet has created but the sheer wealth of stuff out there and the access to it. In the 80s and 90s you might hear a new release on the radio, tape it if you were really prepared. The cycle has changed. Not sure of it's better or worse but it's definitely different.

Papua New Guinea

Ok, last one in this particular run of posts- the extended, tranced and pounding Weatherall remix of Papua New Guinea. Future Sound Of London's original was more than enough in some ways but Weatherall redefined epic with this one in 1992. Are those seagulls I can hear?

Papua New Guinea (Andrew Weatherall Mix)

And just to bring us bang up to date this is Weatherall's remix of David Holmes's Unloved group and their When A Woman Is Around song, a highlight from the recent album- bass heavy and keeping parts of the spoken word section of the song. Out on 12" for Record Shop Day next month.

At The Moment You Could Say I'm Presently Optimistic

I really enjoyed Guilty Of Love by David Homes' Unloved project which came out last autumn. There were two long Weatherall dub mixes too which were rather good. Now there's a new song ahead of an album in March. When A Woman Is Around is even better than Guilty Of Love- rumbling drums, Wall of Sound production, ex-MC5 man Wayne Kramer's guitar and Jade Vincent's sultry vocals combining to bring 60s Hollywood into 2016. I'm in an open topped car in sunglasses and a bowling shirt, slipping between lanes and the palm trees. Actually, I'm not- I've looked out of the window. It's still South Manchester and its close to zero.

Guilty Of Dub

I may be guilty of going round in ever decreasing circles at the moment with the blog. When we got back from France and the Netherlands there was a card among the pile of letters that came through the door while we were away. The card was from the postman and usually a card from the postman is because he can't get a record through our letterbox. Maybe I should get a twelve inch wide letterbox installed. The record was Andrew Weatherall's remixes of Unloved's Guilty Of Love. Unloved are David Holmes, Keefus Ciancia and Jade Vincent- I posted the single a while back, a smoky blend of 60s girl groups, soundtracks and Jack Nietsche. The 12" version contains two Weatherall remixes- a vocal remix and this splendidly atmospheric dub.

Guilty Of Love

This came our way yesterday, the new song from David Holmes' new project Unloved (although I think Holmes has joined an already existing duo). Guilty Of Love sounds like a pyschedelic girl group song that could have been recorded at almost any point in the last fifty years, possibly in sun dappled, hazy Los Angeles with Lee Hazlewood involved somewhere, the air thick with cig smoke and perfume. Vocalist Jade Vincent has a very evocative voice. The e.p. is out in mid-October.

Silent

This is a ninety minute mix by David Holmes, a promo for a silent disco night he's doing at Belfast City Hall tonight- an eclectic mix of songs, with samples of 1960s radio djs providing links, but always with one eye on the rhythm. Somewhere within it is a Weatherall dub mix of Guilty Of Love from Holmes' new project Unloved.