What Do The Stars Say To You

The new album by Chicago house and techno legend Ron Trent, What Do The Stars Say To You, is causing a bit of a stir and rightly so- it's a repeat play, engaging, innovative and enchanting record, one that already feels timeless. Across the album's ten tracks (fifteen on CD) Ron Trent uses the studio, electronics and a range of live instruments with a slew of guests and collaborators. Every track is stunning- the production is sumptuous, the synths, instruments and drums perfectly mixed. Taken together, it's a fluid, grown up, richly musical album that has space to breathe and a general sense of wellbeing, that when it's playing, things are ok. 

On an album where every track could be a favourite here's a handful of highlights. Admira, recorded with ambient/ Balearic artist Gigi Masin, starts out slow with drums and cymbals and is suddenly interrupted by discordant synths and a noodly leadline. Gradually it builds, layers of sounds gliding in silkily, hand drums pattering away, toplines picking out melodies from somewhere. By the five minute mark it's weightless, floating off and away. 

On Sphere, created with French violinist Jean- Luc Ponty, the sheer warmth of the production and the dazzling melody lines (violin and synth) hark back to the 80s but also make something that feels very now. It's got jazz and house in its grooves but also something of a smoothed out version of early 80s New York avant noise. 

It's followed by WARM, a sultry, softly padding piece of music with keyboards and guitars going off at different points and an undulating bassline. Nothing stays the same for long and it's all so fresh and lively, endlessly finding new ways to repeat itself. 

The album is full of contributions from others. As well as Ponty and Gigi Masin, there are tracks with Venecia, Brazilian duo Azymuth, Lars Bartkuhn and recent Glastonbury smash hits Khruangbin, and a host of 70s and 80s influences- Tangerine Dream, Herb Alpert, Jan Hammer, Grace Jones, Vangelis, Prince, early Kraftwerk and Dinosaur L all get mentioned by Trent. On Flos Potentia (Sugar, Cotton, Tobacco) Trent and Khruangbin kick up an Afrobeat storm, propulsive grooves and euphoric chords. 

Back in 1990 Ron released Altered States, a definitive piece of US techno, thirteen and a half minutes of kick drums, synth strings, basslines, hi hats and raw but gliding, futuristic techno. He has recorded and released hundreds of records since, a back catalogue deep and wide, but Altered States remains untouchable. 

Altered States

A Lockdown Mix

An hour and four minutes of music for lockdown. This lockdown hasn't been any fun at all. The novelty of the first lockdown has been absent and in the two darkest months of the year, it's been difficult. There are at least some glimmers of light now, the vaccines, the numbers starting to come down but I don't have much confidence Johnson will make the right call on Monday and fear that he is in thrall to the voices on the right wing who want to unlock everything as soon as possible. No one wants to stay in lockdown any longer than necessary but I think many of us would rather soldier on for another month or two with a very gradual loosening than open up quickly, chuck away all the gains and end up with another surge in cases and lockdown four in April. 

It's easy to be overwhelmed when faced with all this, all these problems and issues that are beyond our control. As Richard Norris said recently, 'music is the answer'. This is a mix I put together recently, starting out with some street sounds from the BBC's extensive online archive and a bit of Blade Runner, some drones and spoken word, something from Luke Schneider's astonishing steel pedal ambient album, more ambient music with guitars and pianos and synths and then a second half that opens up and lets the light in, a bit of optimism before the strings and drama of Two Lone Swordsmen remixed by In The Nursery. It's at Mixcloud. 

• Romanian street sounds (morning in Bucharest)/ Leon’s Voight Kampf Test
• Andrew Weatherall and Michael Smith: Estuary Embers
• Luke Schneider: Anteludium
• Mark Peters: Ashurst’s Beacon (ambient version)
• Daniel Avery and Alessandro Cortini: Illusion Of Time (Teodor Wolgers Rework)
• Smoke Test: Regress
• Ganser: Bags For Life (GLOK Remix)
• The Primitive Painter: Invisible Landscapes
• Underground System: Bella Ciao (Laguna Mix by Gigi Masin)
• Seahawks: Sky Is You (Pye Corner Audio Head Tek Remix)
• Two Lone Swordsmen: In The Nursery Visit Glenn Street

Bella Ciao

It's not really that unusual for the time of year but there's been a lot of snow around recently and it catches us out every time. One night last week, as the river was about to breach its banks and they opened the sluice gates at Didsbury and Sale Water Park (something they haven't had to do since 1990 I'm sure I read somewhere- truly, these are exceptional times) I walked out in the dark. If you'd told me a year ago that I would spend cold, wet, dark January nights walking the streets I'd assume I was in the midst of some kind of breakdown but this is where we are. I set out in slight rain, not even what you'd call drizzle. Within ten minutes it was sleet and then the temperature dropped a couple of degrees in a matter of minutes and it began to snow. 'This will never stick' I thought, 'too wet'. By the time I got home the cars were all covered and half an hour later the roads were too. It has snowed, melted and snowed again in the days since- not the lovely, soft, sound deadening snow we got on Thursday night but the thin, slushy variety. I woke up yesterday morning to go to work (yes, I know...) and the ground was covered again, snow with frost on top. The roads round here were ok, largely drivable but as I headed north through Bolton they were grim, icy and dangerous. As the lights changed to red ahead of me I touched the brakes and began to slide, helplessly, towards the junction, barely slowing at all, the wheels making that horrible grinding noise as they skated over the ice. Remembering that you're supposed to tap/ pump the brakes not press them down hard and swear, I lifted my foot and pumped, still swearing, the car coming to a halt about two car lengths beyond stop line. Thankfully the traffic to my right hadn't had the green light yet or I might be writing a very different blogpost. By the time I got home from work seven hours later, all the snow had gone. More due this week apparently. 

That's my snow story. 

This is a gorgeous, warm, eight minute remix of Underground System's 2015 song Bella Ciao, the sonic opposite of snow, ice and winter in the UK in 2021. The original is a Latin/ Afro update of a traditional Spanish song popular during the Spanish Civil War, a song celebrating freedom and resistance. On this remix Italian musician and producer Gigi Masin slows it all down, stretches it out into a ambient- Balearic crossover, finding all the time and space in the grooves and letting it gently flow by.

Bella Ciao (Laguna Mix)

Edit: from Luca in Italy, 'I have to point out that 'Bella Ciao' is not Spanish, but "an Italian protest folk song that originated in the late 19th century, sung by the mondina workers in protest to the harsh working conditions in the paddy fields of North Italy"