Half An Hour Of The Charlatans

The Charlatans have weathered many, if not all, the storms that could be thrown at a band since their arrival in 1989 and still they keep moving. A Covid delayed thirtieth anniversary box set and tour has been completed this year and in September they play Manchester's New Century Hall as part of a week of celebrations for that venue where they'll play 1992's Between 10th And 11th in full plus 'all the hits'. Singer Tim Burgess regularly proves himself to be the nicest man on Twitter and his listening parties lit up lockdown back in 2020. They don't just rest on their laurels either- 2015's Modern Nature is among their best work and the follow up, Different Days, showed they still wanted to press forward. Tim's solo albums are full of ideas and good songs. None of this is what many would have expected from the five piece that stepped into the light in 1989 with Indian Rope. 

Todays'  thirty minute mix focusses on their swirly, heady, psychedelic side of the group's songs, a Hammond organ- led stew, with a couple of remixes thrown in, perfect for a bit of mellow/ wigging out on a Sunday. The Norman Cook remix is a 2016 Record Store Day release, a beautiful Balearic version of a song from Modern Nature. Come In Number 21 opened their third album, 1994's Up To Our Hips, produced by Steve Hillage- the 10: 40s edit here is somewhat unofficial. Opportunity is on debut Some Friendly (and thinking about this now I probably should have included Opportunity Three, the Flood produced remix and superior version). Another Rider Up In Flames is from Up To Our Hip. Chewing Gum Weekend is from Between 10th And 11th, the first album to feature guitarist Mark Collins. Imperial 109 is one two B-sides from their 1990 hit single The Only One I Know. Sproston Green closes Some Friendly and most of their gigs (the US single version I've included is slightly shorter, losing some of the long organ led intro- not the best version but it worked better here). Sproston Green is a small village near Middlewich, Cheshire, home to a couple of hundred people, a pub and a parish council noticeboard and not much else. The village has lost its signs on occasion, light fingered Charlatans fans taking it away from the side of the A54 in the dead of night. 

Half An Hour Of The Charlatans

• Trouble Understanding (Norman Cook Remix)
• Come In Number 21 (10:40's 21 With A Bullet Edit)
• Opportunity
• Another Rider Up In Flames
• Chewing Gum Weekend
• Imperial 109 (Edit)
• Sproston Green (US Version)

Anyone Who Ever Had A Heart

The last week has been soundtracked much of the time by this hour long mix from Jesse Fahnestock, a promotional mix for Brighton's Higher Love who have released Jesse's recent single Kissed Again (in his 10:40 guise). You can find Higher Love 059 at the Balearic Ultras Mixcloud  page and it's an absolute beaut, a meandering shuffle round some blissed out chugginess, some dub tinged delights, some indie- dance and some loose and lovely Balearica with half the tracks in the mix Jesse's own work as 10: 40. It drifts in with Rich Lane's Coyote, atmospherics, ambience and slide guitar and then Margo Timmins voice appears just below the surface, singing Sweet Jane from The Trinity Sessions back in the late 80s- quite the pairing. Matt Gunn, Kusht and Coco Rosie follow and then a run of unreleased 10:40 tracks before a euphoric section running from Cosmikuro into a re- edited Charlatans song from 1994, then into Kissed Again and then Jesse's re-edit of Hugh Masakela's Strawberries, all multi-coloured, dreamy splendour. Highly recommended.

Tracklist

• Rich Lane/Cowboy Junkies: Coyote Tan/Sweet Jane
• Matt Gunn: Lost in the Drohne
• Kusht: Trippin’ Out Back
• CocoRosie: Good Friday
• 10:40: Coat Check
• 10:40: [Unreleased]
• 10:40: [Unreleased]
• MAKS: North (Yarni Remix)
• Cosmikuro: Gum
• The Charlatans: Come in Number 21 (10:40’s Number 21 with a Bullet Edit)
• 10:40: Kissed Again
• Hugh Masakela: Strawberries (10:40’s Cream Edit)
• Florence & The Scream Machine: Don’t Fight The Love (10:40’s Machine Mash)
• 10:40: See Me Through

As an addition I thought I'd post two songs that provided Jesse with some of his source material. Back in 1988 Canada's Cowboy Junkies recorded an album that seemed to appear out of nowhere and crossed all kinds of boundaries over here. The album pulled together their own songs and some covers with the spectral presence of the church they were recorded in- the natural reverb of Toronto's Holy Trinity church is as important as any of the wood and metal instruments played by the group. The recording was made using a single microphone to pick up all the players and Margo's voice. On Sweet Jane they chose to cover the version from The Velvet Underground's 1969 Live album rather than the one from Loaded. Apparently even professional curmudgeon Lou Reed loved the Cowboy Junkies cover. 

Sweet Jane

By 1994 The Charlatans were a looking a little lost and out of time and their third album Up To Our Hips didn't set the world alight- the next big things of Britpop were already stirring and The Charlatans looked a bit like yesterday's men (many of their contemporaries had already run out of road). The album, produced by Steve Hillage, has endured though, has a groove and feel to it and some of the songs are real fan favourites, songs like Can't Get Out Of Bed, Jesus Hairdo and I Never Want An Easy Life If Me And He Were Ever To Get There. It opens with Come In Number 21, a song that sounds like they've just arrived, plugged in and turned all the switches on, a rehearsal where suddenly things come together on the spot. The guitars are lower in the mix, the drums less obviously based around the 1990 beat, Tim's singing surrounded by the swampy bass, organ and guitars. Time definitely not up. 

Come In Number 21

Saturday Theme

Theme For Great Cities kicks off side one of the album Sister Feelings Call the record that accompanied Simple Minds' 1981 album Sons And Fascination (not a double album, two albums released together). It's a massive sounding, gloriously pulsing instrumental, all the Mittel Europa ghosts of West Berlin, Bowie and Eno Kraftwerk and Neu! reimagined by a post- punk group from Glasgow. When Jim Kerr heard it for the first time on a cassette given to him by Mick MacNeil, played on his Walkman while walking round the streets of Glasgow, he knew it was 'fucking perfect', it didn't need vocals at all. It's a futuristic piece of music, synths and keyboards giving the melodies and sounds, driving drums and a typically superb bassline from Derek Forbes. By the time they came to record it fully, Steve Hillage was in the producer's chair. When the topline comes in at one minute forty we're off, dancing in a club in one of the great cities suggested by the title. 

Theme For Great Cities

The song developed a long life, re- emerging well after 1981 and becoming a mainstay of DJ sets in Ibiza and beyond, a Balearic classic. Weatherall played it in the early days of his DJing career (and the later days too). It's been remixed and re- edited by Fila Brazillia, Fluke, Moby. It being an instrumental leant itself to DJs, pitching it up or down according to the rest of their set. Many people danced the night away to Simple Minds unaware they were doing so- Simple Minds by the time of the Theme For Great Cities were all billowing shirts and anthemic choruses, the group that recorded the song long since turned into something else. 

The photo is what remained of the Ramada Hotel, a huge 1960s concrete hotel and shopping complex by the Irwell and the cathedral in Manchester. Urban renewal deemed it no longer fit for purpose. The Ramada had itself replaced a huge Victorian building. Cities always change and grow, new replacing old, societies building on top of what was there before. I do wonder how long we can go on constructing enormous buildings and then tearing them down every 50- 60 years though. Build, demolish, build, demolish. It doesn't seem like a sustainable way to build great cities. 

In The Locker

A postcard from 1996 today, System 7 and Alex Paterson from The Orb, and a gently pulsing, psychedelic bubblebath with a nod in its title to the seabed- aptly so- this track sounds like it has surfaced from the bottom of a deep blue sea and into the sun. A funky guitar part strumming away for eleven minutes, a dubbed out bassline, warm atmospherics and a faint male voice choir humming along. 

Davy Jones' Locker (The Orb Mix)

Desir

System 7, formed in the early 90s by Steve Hillage and his partner Miquette Giraudy, were one of the obvious links between the late 60s/ early 70s hippy movement and acid house. Hillage and Giraudy were both members of Gong, purveyors of space rock/ jazz psychedelia, and in the late 70s Hillage had more or less invented The Orb's sound with his album Rainbow Dome Musick. In fact, it was hearing that album played by Alex Paterson at Heaven with a house kick drum underpinning it that led to Hillage meeting Paterson and Hillage forming System 7. The intention was for Paterson and Hillage to record ambient house with Hillage's guitar high in the mix. Paterson and fellow Orb man Kris 'Thrash' Weston both feature on System 7's self titled debut and the follow up 777 album, as well as Tony Thorpe of the Moody Boys and KLF, Youth and Derrick May. On 777 Paterson's credit is noted as 'ambience, navigation'. 

Steve Hillage was one of the people who was derided during punk, the Year Zero approach of 1976/77 designed to slam the door shut in his face and the generation gap swallow them whole. Finding favour a decade later with two ex- punks, Youth and Paterson, very much involved must have been very satisfying.  

Desir (Butterfly Remix)

Steve Hillage was instrumental in establishing the Dance Tent at Glastonbury (another hippy- acid house link) and went on to produce The Charlatans 1994 album Up To Our Hips, a dense, swirling, post- Madchester, pre- Britpop record that is much undervalued, some of which echoes the late 60s space rock of Gong and Hawkwind. Feel Flows wouldn't be out of place in Ladbroke Grove in 1968. Jesus Hairdo is more focussed but just as much a hippy 90s as anything.

Feel Flows

Jesus Hairdo

Monday's Long Songs

Duncan Gray has been responsible for many Andrew Weatherall and ALFOS approved pieces of music in the recent past, plenty of slo- mo, trippy chuggers with lovely grinding basslines and a dark heart. The latest is a tribute to Gong/ System 7/ solo artist Steve Hillage, nine and a half minutes of slow paced psychedelic magick. Bandcamp have Danucan's Steve Killage to listen to and to buy here. A much better way to spend Monday morning than getting in your car in the dark and going to work. 

Even longer, twice the length in fact, is this Plastikman remix of System 7's Alpha Wave from 1995, Richie Hawtin sending everyone and everything into a state of hyper- realised acid techno mania. The build up for the first ten minutes is just absurd, endlessly building higher and higher, relentless stroboscopic action. There's a breakdown in the eleventh minute that makes you wait and wait, anticipating the inevitable, exhilarating rush of re- entry, which eventually starts to happen sometime around fourteen minutes before the dam bursts. 

Alpha Wave (Plastikman Acid House Mix)

Today is our eldest Isaac's birthday, he turns twenty two. He'll be spending it in lockdown and still being shielded, as he has been since March. Some presents and cards, some neihgbours passing by the front of the house, a couple of Zoom parties, a drive through for lunch and a takeaway for tea. Happy birthday Isaac. 

Monday's Long Song

I found a copy of Steve Hillage's 1979 ambient album Rainbow Dome Music in the second hand record shop in Stretford recently, the forty one year old sleeve and vinyl in pretty much perfect condition and priced at just £8.00. The album is two long pieces of ambient music composed and played by Hillage and his partner Miquette Giraudy, using guitars, Fender Rhodes, ARP and Moog synths,a double sequencer and Tibetan bells. It was recorded specifically for the Mind- Body- Spirit festival at Olympia in London but its influence has lasted long after that. When Dr Alex Paterson of The Orb started off playing ambient house in the back rooms of London's acid house venues he'd have a copy of Rainbow Dome Music on one deck, some sound affects albums on the second (birdsong, voices) and the rhythm tracks on the third. The Orb and Steve Hillage would go on to work together after the man who made the music introduced himself to Paterson while he was DJing with a copy of Rainbow Dome Music. Hillage would go on to form his own 90s ambient house outfit, System 7. Rainbow Dome Music's influence on The Orb's own recordings is huge. I don't know if Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty had heard it but it seems reasonable to assume they had and to these ears there seems to be a fairly straight line between Rainbow Dome Music and The KLF's Chill Out. Less of a straight line maybe, more of a meandering, wandering, gently drifting line but definitely a line connecting the two.

Garden Of Paradise, side one, is almost twenty five minutes of ambient, pastoral, dreamscape- running water, ringing bells, organ notes, bleeps, synths and long keening sounds, delayed guitar notes, all stitched together carefully and seamlessly, lush and rich and pushed along by Giraudy's double sequencer.

Garden Of Paradise