This is an hour's worth of songs and sounds I put together a week ago, got distracted from and went back to yesterday. I'm not sure it's quite right but I'm not unpicking the whole thing now so it's here for what looks like a wet and rainy Monday in August. Find it at Mixcloud.
I did think about dropping found sounds from the BBC sound archive all the way though it- a future project perhaps. I'm not sure the Scritti Politti song works where it is either but there's some nice ambient sounds from Sebidus (The Orb's Alex Paterson and Andy Falconer), some Balearic loveliness from Coyote, solo Strummer, Will Sergeant and Les Pattinson as Poltergeist, Dean and Britta doing Kraftwerk, Sonic Boom droning out Sinner DC, some spaced out sounds from Oregon's Lore City, William Orbit at chill level 10 and Mono Life's stunner of a remix of Pearl's Cab Ride from a few years ago.
One of my favourite tracks of 2015 existed only as a Soundcloud post but happily it has just had a proper release. Sunrise by Pearl's Cab Ride remixed into an extended trip by Mono Life. A full on Balearic, blissed out, wobbly bass celebration of dawn in the summertime. Mono Life, the skull from Hull, surpassed himself here.
Pearl's Cab Ride are a funk and soul band from Humberside. The lead track on the 3 song release is this sultry groover, with horns that hit the right spots. Great vocals too.
Available at the usual digital outlets and on old fashioned compact disc here.
I wrote this without knowing what the election result was so I've no idea if this morning is one of elation or despair. Despair I expect. Anything else is a bonus.
Some of the teenagers I work with like to say (ironically I think) 'I didn't choose the thug life, the thug life chose me'. East Yorkshire's Mark Osborne didn't choose the thug life, he chose the Mono Life. Mono Life's first album, released back in 2015, was a Bagging Area end of year favourite. A couple of weeks ago he released his second, Sandalphon. I wanted to give it a good listen and live with it rather than type up a hasty review. This means that he's had to fight for airtime with some recent big hitters who've put out new albums in May, Jane Weaver and The Charlatans mainly.
Sandalphon is an album not just a collection of tracks put together, it works as a coherent whole, buzzing with ideas and invention from start to finish. Opening track The Science Of Love And Deception with juddering synths and beats is a powerful statement of intent and from there on he covers the gamut of electronic styles, from acid house to big beat, via Crockett And Tubbs, an 80s style electronic funk. Phantoms rides in on a cool breakbeat and bleeps. Radiate echoes Leftfield's dub techno. Dusky is low slung and optimistic. Closer The End (Keep Smiling) opens with washes of noise and builds from there, darker and less sunny than much of what's gone before it. Some piano finds its way in and then the distortion and static returns for the end. Mono Life has one foot in the past for sure, dance music's back pages are where this comes from, but there's also an eye looking forwards to an electronic future.
Like Acid Ted I am eagerly awaiting the second album from Hull's MonoLife (titled Sandalphon). Last year's album, Phrenology, was one of my favourites of 2015, full of ideas and inventive electronic tunes. He's put a few tasters for the new one on his Soundcloud page. This one is moody with washes of synths and some bleeps riding the drums.
Here is my list, self indulgent as Drew says, but fun to do. I've enjoyed more new music during 2015 than any in recent years. These are the albums and songs/singles that have struck a chord with me and that have stuck with me since their release.
Albums
12. Mbongwana Star 'From Kinshasa'
Traditional African forms coupled with electronics. Still startling.
11. Mick Jones 'Ex Libris'
Vinyl only, six track instrumental.
10. MonoLife 'Phrenology'
The skull from Hull with some cracking old school dance music.
9. The Orb 'Moonbuilding 2703AD'
A return to form, four very long pieces full of ambient buzz.
8. Le Volume Courbe 'I Wish Dee Dee Ramone Was Here With Me'
Contains two of my favourite songs of this year- The House and Rusty.
7. Steve Cobby 'Everliving'
It could have been 'Revolutions' as well. Both are full of sumptuous electronic tunes and ideas.
6. Gwenno 'Y Dyad Olaf'
Perfect psychedelic pop sung in Welsh (except for the one sung in Cornish).
5. Crocodiles 'Boys'
Dirty, sexy, brash guitars from San Diego. If you haven't heard Foolin' Around, click play now.
4. Moon Duo 'Shadows Of The Sun'
Loads of uptempo two chord motorik psyche but with In A Cloud they had one of the year's most beautiful, almost Balearic guitar moments.
3. Sexwitch 'Sexwitch'.
Six covers recorded by Natasha Khan, Toy and Dan Carey. The intense stomp of the Middle Eastern songs take some beating and Natasha's vocals are superbly focused while also slightly unhinged. Possessed and obsessive.
2. The Charlatans 'Modern Nature'.
Recorded after the death of drummer Jon Brookes, a band back on form and determined to celebrate life with some of the best, soaring songs of the year- So Oh and Come Home Baby especially.
1. Jamie Xx 'In Colour'
A history of dance music from house to grime, emotionally charged from start to finish, with moments of ecstasy, clarity and genuine beauty. I'm still playing it from start to finish.
Singles/Songs
The hand and influence of Mr Weatherall is all over this section. That's just the way it's been this year. Both lists show I've been veering far more towards dance/electronics this year. A top seventeen for no real reason.
17. Noel Gallagher 'In The Heat Of The Moment' Andrew Weatherall Remix
It came out last year online but was released on vinyl in April. Glorious remix.
16. Dubrobots 'Forever'
This Cardiff based producer sent me two versions of this massively dub influenced song. Still rattling my ribcage.
15. Public Service Broadcasting 'Gagarin' Richard Norris Remix
The album did nothing for me but this remix, full of Spanish acoustic guitars, sent Yuri to Ibiza.
14. jennylee 'Never'
Warpaint's foxy bassist with an early 80s single that pushed the right buttons.
13. Gwenno 'Chwyldro' Andrew Weatherall Remix
Further, stranger, slower.
12. Unloved 'Guilty Of Love'
David Holmes' new project taking in 60s/70s filmscores with a girl group vibe. Also had two long dubby Weatherall remixes.
11. Vox Low 'Cast Upward Through the Waves, A Ruby Glow
Strange stuff from a French duo finding weird spaces between rock and dance.
10. Heretic 'Pollux' Andrew Weatherall Remix
I'm getting repetitive strain from typing those three words- this one took early New Order and merged it with some sparse electronics and a spooky vocal refrain.
9. Timothy J. Fairplay
Timothy J released several superb four track e.p.s this year, full of vintage synths- Stories Of Prison, Love And Columbium, No News From New York. Take your pick. Together they'd make a potential album of the year.
8. Paresse 'Rosita'.
Super smooth stuff from Scandinavia. Wraps your ears up all warm.
7. Haunted Doorbell 'Unconnected Thoughts On Jacking'
I'm cheating here- Fairplay again, this time with Matilda Tristam. Four outstanding instrumentals joining the various dots. The e.p. and title track gave us the song title of the year. Beautiful Sheffield is exactly as it sounds.
6. Patti Yang Group 'I'm Ready'
Chris Rotter, Matty Skylab and Patti Yang with a thumping piece of hymnal house. Do you want a free download?
5. Jamie Xx 'Loud Places' John Talabot's Higher Dub
I posted this last week. It's stunningly good, reworking an album highlight into something else with mesmerising, euphoric peaks.
4. C.A.R. 'Glock'd' Asphodells Remix
Super glam stomp, a massive wobbly bass, dirty guitars, French accented vocals; the sound of the future.
3. Sinkane x Peaking Lights 'Mean Dub'
This ten minute dub version of Yacha was the sound of my summer. All four tracks on the reworked dub e.p. were top quality stuff but Yacha is something else entirely and from somewhere else entirely too. Fast dub.
2. Pearl's Cab Ride 'Sunrise' (MonoLife Extended Trip)
A Humberside funk and soul sixpiece taken on a long trip by MonoLife- trumpet, distorted vocal, two note bass, drifting but always moving forwards. Beautiful.
1. Mike Garry and Joe Duddell 'St Anthony: An Ode to Anthony H Wilson'
This came out in August, an emotional tribute to Mr Manchester set to Joe Duddell's Your Silent Face inspired strings, full of Mike Garry's poetic references to the city and its sounds. All proceeds go to The Christie so if you haven't bought it yet, there's another reason to do so. Almost inevitably, there's a Weatherall remix on the other side (which isn't too shabby either. In fact it's very, very good). Still prone to move me after umpteen listens.
This was my view from behind the decks at a friend's 45th birthday party I played records at on Friday night, decks on the decking with fairy lights and a chandelier in the tree above my head. It was good fun, playing records outdoors for a small but appreciative crowd who wore a hole in the lawn. The man from next door (who went to school with Johnny Marr) asked 'have you got any Northern?' Guests had been asked to bring any 45s they might want playing and a man from a few roads away turned up with Underworld's Rez, which somehow I wasn't expecting.
This new one from East Yorkshire's Mono Life is a lovely piece of work and bodes well for the new album he's working on. Slow, down tempo, pushing all the right buttons and with a feel of those few minutes when the shadows lengthen and the sun slips down.
A few weeks ago in July Mark (who runs Cooking Up A Quiet Storm, as series of mixtapes provided by a variety of bloggers) asked for suggestions for a collective effort, a summer mixtape, inspired by the picture above. It dropped, as the young folk say, while I was in France. It is expertly sequenced by Mark.
My suggestion was a song I posted several months ago and remains one of my favourite tunes of the year, Mono Life's stunning remix of Sunrise by Humberside band Pearl's Cab Ride, and it occupies the last ten minutes of the mix. Before that you'll find a bunch of mellow summer sounds including Goldfrapp, Laura Nyro, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee and Antonio Carlos Jobim. If the sun's out round your way, dig in.
The campsite we stayed on in the Jura was massively popular with the Dutch. I'd estimate that 80% of the campers (tents, motorhomes) were from the Netherlands. The remainder were Belgian or French with a handful of Brits. There were Dutch kids everywhere, at least half of them wearing football shirts. The parents, most of whom spoke perfect English, would talk to us about football. Football is an international language, a way in to talk to complete strangers in the sun. They love English football- a Belgian chap from Antwerp a few tents up from us wanted to know about how his countrymen Marouanne Fellaini and Adnan Januzai are seen by us Manchester United fans. His neighbour was a Dutchman who wanted our opinion on Louis van Gaal and Robin van Persie. I mentioned to him that as far as I could see the Dutch kids were mainly wearing, in descending order, the shirts of Bayern Munich, Barca, Paris St Germain and Ajaz a lowly fourth. He became quite animated. 'I'm a Feyenoord fan' he said. 'These kids only follow Munich because of Arjen Robben. As far as I'm concerned if they wear a Bayern shirt, kick 'em off the campsite. If they wear an Ajax shirt, kick 'em off the campsite'. I don't think he was joking either. I got the feeling he may have been a fairly rabid Feyenoord fan as a younger man. He explained that in Holland the fans of all the clubs that aren't Ajax get on quite well- they are united in their mutual loathing of Ajax. Our neighbour for our last two nights was also Dutch. He said the reason they love English football is because 'it's not for cissies'. Our players get kicked and get up again, unlike in Spain, Italy and France. For the record English football shirts were few and far between- in amongst all the Bayern, Barca, PSG and Ajax shirts I spotted one Arsenal jersey (worn by a French boy obvs), a Chelsea shirt and, ugh, two Man City jerseys.
Warm washes and waves of synth are all over this, appropriately titled Coastal from Hull's Mono Life, released just under a year ago. Finishes with some piano and the sea. Makes me anticipate a holiday.
Mono Life is responsible for one of my favourite songs of this year so far, his remix of Pearl's Cab Ride's Sunrise (posted a month or two back). His album Phrenology is very good too. This song, Remediate, is a joy, full of throbs and pulses and Kraftwerkian keyboards. You can buy Phrenology at Bandcamp, on old fashioned compact disc or as a download.
If you like that, you'll like this one even more, which is like a massive electronic smile full of buzzes and bleeps.
I'm also partial to this one, The Perfect Kiss, with vocals by Berri- this beatless version has a feel of that lengthy Ashley Beedle remix of The Aloof's One Night Stand but without all the self-loathing. I can't recommend Mono Life's stuff highly enough at the moment.
Room for one more? This track, also posted by Acid Ted last week, was Mono Life's first recording, a delicious piece of summery piano house. Free to download.
Ctel posted this at Acid Ted last week. I have played it multiple times since. I don't know how much our readership overlaps so I thought I'd post it here too as it really deserves to reach a wider audience. Pearl's Cab Ride are a nine piece funk and soul band from Humberside. Mono Life is a musician/producer based in Yorkshire. In this just shy of ten minutes remix Mono Life sends Pearl's Cab Ride on a trip that takes in a bit of dub, some horns, heavy and wobbly bass, a stretched vocal and the second summer of love. It's a lovely, sprawling joy ride- that's not to say that it drifts or lacks focus- it's all worked out perfectly. It's like having your hand held while watching the sun come up, like the endorphin rush when being kissed for the first time. Sunrise even makes the Manchester Ship Canal look beautiful and romantic. This needs a proper release, preferably on 12" vinyl.
