The Seagull

Today's boarded up pub is The Seagull, Crimdon Dene, on the outskirts of Hartlepool. We had a few days in a caravan up there in April- the pub sits at the entrance of the caravan site. When I posted this on a social media platform a friend (of a friend) commented that it was the pub he and his friends used to drink in when they were teenagers. There were a few pubs in the area that were open but The Seagull was by no means the only abandoned one. 

Author and film- maker Michael Smith is a son of Hartlepool. His books The Giro Playboy and Unreal City are highly recommended. In 2013 he recorded sections of Unreal City with Andrew Weatherall, his East Yorkshire tones perfect over Andrew and Nina Walsh's ambient backdrops. More recently he recorded an EP with Steve Queralt, bassist from Ride. The EP, Sun Moon Town, had four tracks, Steve's music ranging from swelling post rock to glitchy electronics to psychedelic dub. In July Steve and Michael released a further version of Sun Moon Town, eight new takes on the songs with remixes from GLOK, Nina Walsh, Flug 8 and Nandele together with four instrumentals. Sun Moon Town Versions is at Bandcamp.

Much of Michael's writing and spoken word material deals with a resigned bewilderment at the nature of 21st century capitalism and the effect it has on our cities. Michael is a flaneur, one who wanders the city observing, a stroller who meanders, something the tracks on Sun Moon Town demonstrate brilliantly. 

The Flug 8 remix of Glitches is a throbbing, pulsing electronic monster, nine minutes long with Michael talking about finding himself in a a new part of the city, a re-developed hyper- capitalist shopping centre (Westfield) surrounded by shops, flats and skyscrapers, glass and steel, cardboard cut out policemen in shop windows to ward off shoplifters. As the drums kick away and synths swell, Michael sees the city mutating into a megacity with million pound customers, where the windows of shops selling suits promise that you are 'living the dream of a beautiful tomorrow', leading Michael to ask, 'What kind of a cunt's dream is this?' before speculating about the end of the world, the euphoric techno coupled with/ playing against Michael's prose. Dance while the world ends. 

On In A Wonderland he describes a return to London and his memories of his old life there. Nina Walsh takes the original and fills it out for twelve minutes, a wash of ambient sound, strings and synths. Unfolding gradually the Wonk On The Gnosis Mix, Michaels' voice wanders flaneur style, ending up with the tale of mushroom picking with a chef as Nina's soundscape rising and falling. 

Steve's bandmate Andy Bell records as GLOK and contributes a remix. The GLOK remix of Chaldean Oracle is chiming, propulsive cosmische, synths and drum machines gliding away into an infinite distance, bassline pumping and as a child/ robot voice intones in German. 

On the Nandele remix of Vespertine warm synths and keys and pattering electronic drums form a glittering backdrop to Michael's ever compelling words, prose describing a moment of blissed out contentment and some 'strange magic'. 

Acropolis Now

We got back from Rhodes in the early hours of Monday night/ Tuesday Morning. Our pre- holiday fears about the wildfires and cancellations were unfounded- many of the local people we spoke to said the fires were not directly threatening Lindos and had been made to look worse on the television than they were. Some of the staff at the hotel had been affected and evacuated from their homes but they wanted us back and contributing to the local economy. The first few days were noticeably quieter than usual, the tourists returning in greater numbers by the end of the week. As a result we had the run of the hotel pools for the first few days. Rhodes at this time of year is very hot and very sunny. The town of Lindos is dominated by its Acropolis.

It was the first thing we saw from our balcony each morning and the last thing at night, illuminated against the night sky. Lindos town is built into a gap in the rocks by the harbour, a maze of streets and houses, restaurants and bars with roof terraces and shops. The Acropolis dates back to at least the third century BC, the Temple to Athena at the top overlooking the sea. It's the sort of place which it is impossible to get a bad photo of- I won't bore you with all my holiday snaps but the Acropolis and Lindos are spectacular and very photogenic.

It was in use through the Greek, Roman and Byzantine periods, then occupied by the Knights of St. John (who fortified it and built many of the castle walls around it) and then by the Ottomans. During the Italian occupation (1912- 1945) it was restored, badly, and the Greeks have been working to restore and protect the site since then. It is a hot walk up to the Acropolis but well worth it. The Greek attitude to handrails and guardrails once up there is very different from here. There are several places were you could walk straight over the edge and fall hundreds of feet to the rocks below. It's a wonderful place to visit and left a deep impression on me. 

Back in 2012 Warrington musician Paul Fleming (also the Bunnymen's touring keyboard player), recording as Baltic Fleet, made an album of krauty/ cosmische/ post rock instrumentals on an album called Towers. One of them was this one...

Headless Horsemen Of The Acropolis

Last Friday, while we were sunning it up in Rhodes, was Bandcamp Friday and a rush of interesting new music flowed through the internet into inboxes. Among them was the latest from Woodleigh Research Facility and Nina Walsh's Apparently Solo series, this one being Volume 4. Borderlands has been floating around for a while on Youtube and it was in one of Andrew Weatherall's NTS radio shows, a track Nina wrote on a midi keyboard that had been set up for Andrew to use at Facility 4 back in 2019. Nina's composition had a Smokebelch- esque feel to it, even more so when classical viola player Sarah Sarhandi was asked to contribute strings to it. Andrew went onto remix the track and it was planned to be included in a WRF event at the Barbican, an event which never happened when Andrew died in February 2020. Nina's original version, Andrew's eight minute remix and Jagz Kooner's remix (Jagz being a Sabres Of Paradise cohort of Andrew's) are all at Bandcamp. Andrew's remix adds sweeping synth strings, trademark rolling tom toms and twinkling melodies and a sense of widescreen, celestial floatation. Jagz pitches the tempo up slightly, the drums a bit thumpier and drops in some vocal snippets, Andrew asking questions about stars and rockets and machines. 

Mark Stewart R.I.P.

 
Mark Stewart's death at the age of 62 was announced on Friday. Mark was a towering presence in post- punk and in music thereafter, a man who saw music as an art form that should be provocative and challenging. The Pop Group, the Bristol group he led, brought together punk's guitars and confrontation, dub's space, free jazz's noise and funk's basslines with Stewart's politicised, expressive and sometimes ranting vocals, with Dennis Bovell at the controls. They were hugely important in influencing the wave of 80s and 90s industrial bands. When the group fractured in 1980 Stewart went on to New Age Steppers and then to work with a like- minded soul in Adrian Sherwood and the On U Sound collective. His Mark Stewart and The Maffia records were made firstly with On U musicians from Creation Rebel and later on the Tackhead trio of Doug Wimbish, Skip McDonald and Keith LeBlanc. 

This song was from 1983, the title track from his debut album although the edited version here is from a flexi- disc given away with a Dutch magazine. The album, all cut up electro beats, dub bass, distorted, sample- like vocals and Mark's politics, isn't an easy listen and it's not supposed to be. 

Learning To Cope With Cowardice ((Flexi Version)

In 2019 Mark's voice and denunciation of Brexit and all those who pushed it were at the centre of a single recorded by Jah Wobble and a post- punk supergroup containing Youth, Richard Dudanski, Keith Levene and drum tracks and loops courtesy of Andrew Weatherall and Nina Walsh. Mark Stewart- one of those people who you feel we shall not see the likes of again. R.I.P.

A Very British Coup

Back At The Facility

More from the wider Weatherall connected world and some fine oompty- bumpty disco music to end the week. The Woodleigh Research Facility dates back to 2015, Andrew Weatherall and Nina Walsh creating an album The Phoenix Suburb (And Other Stories) in their recording facility in deepest south London, a collection of long tracks that find their own weird space somewhere between dub and deep house/ disco. In 2018 the very limited, vinyl only, 127 To Facility 4 album saw the light of day being sold from the back of a truck, each with it's own hand crafted sleeve, ten shorter slices of minimal, dystopic modern techno. It was followed in 2020 by a series of monthly emissions from Facility 4, twelve EPs of three tracks. 

Last week Nina released Apparently Solo, three tracks from the vaults and the W.R.F. sound library (much of which is samples made up from recordings from Nina's late partner Erick Legrand. His guitar is on this newest release). Lead track Shlap is a homage to the Detroit techno of London's late 80s clubs, a sound that is part of the W.R.F. DNA, the drum machine crunching away as only a 303 can. Crack- Ed follows, bouncing rhythms, springs and whirrs, and a bubbling bassline that can be felt as well as heard. Crack-Ed is also, in title, a response to the streets and environment outside Facility 4.

The third track on Apparently Solo is Mistress Ploppy, a Black Adder reference- you can't go wrong with Black Adder can you? Half the proceeds from Apparently Solo will go to Shelter, one of  Andrew's chosen charities. One of the W.R.F. monthly releases in 2020 contained Somnium, an elegiac recording with guitar, viola and eventually those familiar chuggy WRF drums. 

Somnium was originally a tribute to Droog, Nina's faithful dog. A different version of Somnium, Goodnight Sweet Droog, can be heard at Nina's Bandcamp page, a lush and affecting piece of music, part of a three track EP celebrating the life of her canine friend. 

Fitzroy Avenue

Joe Duggan is a poet from Northern Ireland, currently in Crystal Palace, whose work I'm a big fan of. He writes about every day life and the lives of others, writing about the little details and the big themes. As well as a gifted writer he has a distinctive voice. Out today on Paisley Dark is a poem set to music by Warriors Of The Dystotheque. Fitzroy Avenue describes a party taking place at 47 Fitzroy, Belfast, 'various substances, Stella Artois and the vague outside chance of a result tonight'. Joe's Northern Irish accent, his use of repetition and the cosmic disco chug of the music are a perfect blend. 'It's all happening here'. Fitzroy Avenue, the video and not one but six remixes are all available today at Bandcamp. 

The BFP Acid- Flex Mix is a beauty, the throb and buzz of the bassline and Joe's voice, some echo and some distorted synth sounds, combining over seven and a half minutes in a sweet spot of poetry and acid house.

Joe has previously recorded with Nina Walsh and Andrew Weatherall. He recorded Downhill with Andrew and Nina in their Woodleigh Research Facility guise, a collective based in the Crystal Palace environs. Downhill came out in March 2020, just weeks after Andrew died. 'From where I live', Joe declares over the wobble of synth bass and a kick drum, 'It's downhill all the way/ To the pubs of Waterloo Street/ Derry just kind of tilts me', the phrase, 'Has anyone seen Joe? Where'd he go?' repeated again and again. 

Joe also put his words over WRF's music on Play Bingo With Me, more dystopic future machine music with Joe's voice revealing slices of everyday life.

In 2019 Joe recorded with Fireflies, another Crystal Palace based group (who also recorded a single for Andrew Weatherall's Moine Dubh 7" singles club). Fireflies are Nina, guitarist Franck Alba and Dani Cali. The five track EP, Surrounded On All Sides, opens with Joe's poem Falling Man, the tale of a man who fell 3, 500 feet from the wheel arch a plane over South London, from a flight that took off in Kenya. It's is a dark and affecting poem, full of empathy for someone who took an enormous, fatal, risk to find a better life and died trying. There is light and shade on the EP too- Leonard Cohen Knows is more reflective. You can buy Surrounded On All Sides here. Stick all of today's poetry/ music into one playlist/ onto one CD for a Joe Duggan Friday festival.

Fate's Faithful Punchline

A few weeks ago Nina Walsh rediscovered and shared a YouTube playlist made my Andrew Weatherall when he and Nina were doing Moine Dubh (the record label they formed to put out weird, off kilter folk music based in Crystal Palace). Nina said Andrew often forgot his usernames and passwords for YouTube and was constantly having to create new accounts- it's nice to know that's something that affects top DJs and producers as well as the rest of us. The playlist, Dubh Drops, is here and features an array of acts including Cheval Sombre, The Shadow Project, Hungry Ghosts, Amanda Palmer and Edward Ka- Spel, The Black Ryder, Dean Wareham, Rose City Band, The Carpenters and Negative Lovers. It also includes this gem by The Legendary Pink Dots...

Fate's Faithful Punchline

Led by finger picked acoustic guitar and Edward Ka- Spel's echo- drenched voice and eventually some strings, Fate's Faithful Punchline is moving, gorgeous and elegiac psychedelic folk. The Legendary Pink Dots are an Anglo- Dutch group, formed in London in 1980 and have since then released forty- seven albums, twenty- six live albums and forty- eight  compilations. And you thought The Fall were prolific. 

I included Fate's Faithful Punchline on my latest mix for Tak Tent Radio which went live at the weekend, an hour of songs that you can listen to here at Tak Tent or here at Mixcloud. Andrew Weatherall's fingerprints are to be found elsewhere in the mix in the form of his remix of The Impossibles from 1991 and a Beth Orton song he produced that was a B-side on the Someone's Daughter CD single. 

• Alex Kassian: Spirit Of Eden
• Martin Duffy: Promenading
• Eden Ahbez: Full Moon
• 10:40: Ninety- Now
• Coyote: Nothing Rests
• David Holmes: No- One Is Smarter Than History
• Gal Costa: Baby
• The Impossibles: The Drum (Andrew Weatherall Remix)
• A Certain Ratio: Houses In Motion (Version 1)
• Ultramarine: Stella
• Beth Orton: It’s This I Find I Am
• The Legendary Pink Dots: Fate’s Faithful Punchline

Saturday Theme Twenty Two

Back in 2020 Andrew Weatherall and Nina Walsh's Woodleigh Research Facility had a year long series of releases, an EP a month. The third, released in March 2020, came out only weeks after Andrew Weatherall had died. It was three tracks long, the second being Lottie's Theme. 

Lottie's Theme starts with a child, Lottie I think, saying 'Mum, says you have to and Dad says and Granny says and everybody says and the whole world says...' as a wash of industrial noise swirls in. Clanging drums and percussion take up and Lottie carries on, 'the computer says it, the TV says it...', as more noise and grinding bass pick up. 'The sun says it, the moon says it, everything says...' 

Nina has just released a four track EP of her own, Retrospective, four songs from the last twenty years bound together. The first song is a cover of Pink Military's Did You See Her, dating from the late 90s when Nina was recoding with Lol Hammond as Slab. Pink Military were faces on the Liverpool post- punk scene, Jayne Casey and a dozen or so members including various drummers that went off to Simply Red, Durutti Column, Slits and Siouxsie and The Banshees.

Three more tracks complete the EP- Lover Teacher has a grungy, fuzzy guitar riff (the fabled 60s Vox Invader guitar sold by WRF to Andy Bell ) and a harmonica, sounding like something from Laurel Canyon timeshifted into the mid 80s indie garage scene. Darkest Night is from the mid 00s, a blasted, small hours ballad, summoning the ghosts of early 70s Stones and their musical heirs. Don't Let The Bastards Grind You Down is a lament for another loss from Nina's world, Erick Legrand, with unearthly droning synths and guitar combining for several minutes before Nina's voice comes in for the last minute. The Retrospective EP can be bought here. 

Borderlands

 

Nina Walsh shared this yesterday, Borderlands, an unreleased Woodleigh Research Facility piece echoing many of the sounds that her and Andrew's previous thirty years had taken in, from Sabres and Sabrettes to the WRF. Borderlands is fifteen minutes long, taking its time to get where it's going and in no particular rush, with a drum machine driven impetus kicking in at about five minutes in and the haunting melodies winding their way around the rhythms. 

Headland

In 2013 while installed as artist in residence for Faber and Faber Andrew Weatherall put out a limited edition multi- media release with Michael Smith. The package brought together Michael Smith's novel Unreal City as a 10" square book with Andrew's notes in the margins, a CD mini- album of ambient music made by Andrew, Nina Walsh and Franck Alba with Michael reading extracts from the book on top and a one sided 10" single. It's a lovely artefact, now only available second hand at three figure prices. If you haven't heard it, the six tracks plus the remix are at Mixcloud. The gentle ambient wash and mournful tone of the music matched by Michael's East Yorkshire voice and his tale of a flaneur returning to the city after some time living hand to mouth on the coast in Kent and his dismay at what has happened to London in his absence. 

Andrew was interviewed on Janice Long's Radio 2 show in December 2013, an interview now archived here. Andrew and Janice chat for almost an hour, play some records and he read some short stories finishing with a play of a so far unreleased track from the Unreal City sessions called Sound And Light. Janice died a few days ago, another face and voice of our youth lost. Her championing of music, radio shows, presenter appearances on Top Of The Pops alongside John Peel and enthusiasm for so many bands loved round here, not least the great Liverpool groups of the 1980s, will be sadly missed. For some time my Twitter timeline was almost entirely people from all walks of life paying tribute to Janice, someone who no one had a bad word to say about. RIP Janice. 

Nina Walsh has just put up a new recording at her Bandcamp page, a fifty minute spoken word/ musical piece called Headland. Michael Smith returns as narrator and returns to the coast, this time around Hartlepool, and tales from his youth and summer escapades by the beach. Nina and Franck plus friends provide the music, a longform piece that starts out with washes and ambient soundscapes which then gradually moves in a more folky direction with tin whistles and acoustic stringed instruments, some chanted backing vocals and an accordion. Later on the players pick up in a 60s style folk rock direction, transforming to match Michael's story as he grows his hair long and falls in love with a hippy girl. Later again, it becomes more electronic and cosmische, oscillations, saws and bleeps. Headland is perfectly pitched for this time of year where it's difficult to tell one day of the week from the next and it seems to be permanently dusk. You can listen and buy here.  

Facility 5 And 86'd

It's Isaac's funeral on Friday. Planning and organising your child's funeral isn't something you really ever think you'll have to do but with Isaac I guess it was always somewhere at the back of our minds. The reality is much more than you can ever imagine. 

Some things happened yesterday which show the impact Isaac has had on people and the never failing to amaze me kindness of people. I hope some day we can pay it all back some way. At the weekend Nina Walsh contacted me to say she wanted to do something to raise money for the MPS Society, the charity that support children and adults with the group of rare genetic diseases that included the one, Hurler's Disease, that Isaac was born with. Nina wanted to auction off her and Andrew Weatherall's 39p museum, a treasure trove of sweets, crisps and pop that used to line the shelves at the Facility where so much of the Woodleigh Research Facility recordings were made. As an additional treat she said she'd throw in the original reference master CD of Andrew's Convenanza album and all these items would be bundled together in a brand new Facility 5 tote bag. To say this left me floored is an understatement. The auction is taking place at The Flightpath Estate Facebook page. There's a JustGiving page here for anyone who'd like to donate to the MPS Society. Here's a pair of pictures of part of the 39p museum and Mr Weatherall himself posing with a 39p can of bubblegum flavoured fizzy pop. 

Nina wrote this- 

IN MEMORY OF ISAAC TURNER

My thoughts have been very much with Adam and Isaac Turner this last week.

For those of you who don't know Adam, he writes a fantastic blog https://baggingarea.blogspot.com/

More of a musical historian than a blogger.

Baggingarea has always been the one stop shop that Andrew and I would visit when we needed to remember something about ourselves!

Sadly Adam's son, Isaac, who brought so much joy to so many via his pictorial everyday doings posted on social media, passed away last week and many a heart has been broken.

Isaac lived with a condition called Mucopolysaccharide disease (MPS), a condition I knew nothing about until getting to know Isaac, albeit through pixels alone. He was a brave young man with a terrific smile and we will all miss him dearly. My deepest condolences to Adam and the Turner family.

As a way to raise some funds for the MPS Society I have decided to auction Andrew's beloved 39p Museum that was curated over the duration of our partnership from Facilities 1 to 4. I will also include the original reference CD master of Convenanza, mastered by Noel Summerville at 3345 Mastering, bundled together in a brand spanking new Facility 5 tote bag (awaiting delivery!). 100% of proceeds will go to the MPS Society, payable via the JustGiving fundraiser page set up by the marvelous Martin Brannagan of the legendary Flightpath Estate Facebook page. There is also the option to just donate if you are feeling generous

The auction will end at midnight Christmas Eve.

Bids in the comments below this post.

Do I hear £10?

Yes, there are a couple of parts of that which have me blushing through my tears. And to have Isaac, the Woodleigh Research Facility and Andrew brought together in such a way just leaves me speechless.  

As if that wasn't enough, there's this too. Last weekend Brother Joseph's Sonic Treasures radio show went out on Radio Magnetic, a Glasgow based internet radio station that I've supported in the past with guests like Sonic Boom, Andy Bell, Justin Robertson and David Holmes. I'll be able to share the full show soon, a six hour musical treat dedicated to Isaac and with an opening half hour that was a mix done especially for Isaac by Brother Joseph. The show's guest was Brother Chris Mackin, otherwise known as Chris Rotter. Chris was the guitarist in the live garage band incarnation of Two Lone Swordsmen and releases music on his own as Bad Meat Club. Back when Andrew Weatherall did a radio show for 6 Music he played a then unreleased Bad Meat Club tune called 86'd, a glistening skyscraper of a song, all soaring guitars and motorik rhythms. Chris messaged me to ask if it was OK to go ahead with the radio show. I replied to say it was and asked him to play 86'd for Isaac. Chris then took my breath away with a twenty three minute reworked version of 86'd, one minute for each of Isaac's years. Chris has now shared 86'd (For Isaac) at Bandcamp, asking only for a donation to the MPS Society as payment. 

I can't fully put into words how this leaves me feeling. Thank you Nina and Chris. 

All Is Not Lost

A new EP from Woodleigh Research Facility fell into the internet last Friday., the latest missive from Nina Walsh following her move from South London out west to Dorset. A studio fire at the new Facility 5 temporarily derailed things but all is not lost. Aptly, All Is Not Lost is the name of the EP and that spirit of optimism is found within the grooves and bytes of the music. Opening track Too Many Good Things is the kind of thundering electronic groove that she used to conjure up with Andrew Weatherall back when the WRF was a duo and not just Nina but Andrew's spirit and vibes are clearly shining down on this one, his music and presence being channeled into Facility 5. Driving bassline. Handclaps. Sirens. FX. 

The other two tracks are more songs than tracks- on the first the old WRF drum machine is present and the dubby basslines pump away but Nina sings on top. Alchemy is a dark delight led by a dirty after hours groove with some post punk guitar lines, strings bending and wailing, while Nina channels her inner Siouxsie. Rounding the EP off is All Is Not Lost, a ghostly, swirling, lullabye- no drums, no pounding rhythms, just a harmonium, some effects and Nina singing, reflections on time passing, mortality, life... 

A year ago Nina released this, Woodleigh Lament, a gorgeous, melodic, lilting tribute to Mr Weatherall and his absence. The sound of All Is Not Lost suggests the will to go on, the spirit of keeping going, are very much alive in Nina. WRF forever. 

Monday's Long Song

Since Andrew Weatherall's death Nina Walsh has been keeping their two person project, Woodleigh Research Facility, going on her own. The WRF started with an album in 2015, a low slung, dubby, steam- powered drum machine, set of instrumentals called The Phoenix Suburb (And Other Stories)- the title a reference to the Crystal Palace area where Andrew and Nina recorded at Youth's studio, named Facility 4. In 2018 a second album appeared in limited vinyl quantities with individualised sleeve artwork and sold through a car boot sale, 127 To Facility 4 (a second pressing saw some copies sold via the WRF website which is where I was fortunate and quick fingered enough to get one). Several one off digital and/ or physical releases have also been put out-  a 2017 track called S.O.M.A.25, a hard edged, techno tribute to Soma Records released for their twenty- fifth anniversary compilation and two years later Heilige Seidhr came out on Hoga Nord to celebrate the 2019 Convenanza. Then at the start of 2020 the WRF announced a series of monthly, digital only releases, three new tracks a month for a year, a huge burst of creativity and industry. When Andrew died in February 2020 it put those releases into a very different light, eleven epitaphs sent forth at the end of each month. The onset of Covid and the first lockdown a month later added to the sense of loss around those releases. The torrent of ideas and music in those thirty six tracks, songs and poems set to music is still revealing itself, a wealth of back catalogue treasure to explore. 

Nina has packed up and moved out of London (and is building Facility 5 out west). She is keeping the spirit and sound of Woodleigh Research Facility alive with a trickle of releases. Last month a new Nina written and produced WRF EP came out, Vernal Invocation, three new pieces of music led by Lex Talionis, seven minutes of that familiar drum machine sound, some dancing keyboard melodies and some moody synths.

Backed up by two further instrumentals, Alcyone and Salacia, the EP is proof that Andrew's musical partnership with Nina continues to bear fruit after his passing, something about him audibly evident in the grooves and sounds. 

In Greek mythology Alcyone was the daughter King Aeolus. She married Ceyx but foolishly the pair displeased Zeus and Hera and Zeus threw a thunderbolt at their ship. The gods took pity on the pair and changed them into kingfisher birds (or halcyons). 

Salacia was the Roman goddess of the sea, worshipped as the goddess of salt water and guardian of the depths, the personification of calm and sunlit ocean waves. She married Neptune and they had three children, the most famous being Triton, half man, half fish. That's got to be inconvenient in daily life in the 21st century but he maybe he made it work two thousand years ago. Salacia sounds aquatic and oceangoing. 

The Fool

The new Andrew Weatherall mixes of Warpaint's The Fool came out yesterday, double vinyl edition for Record Shop Day. The album originally came out in 2010 with two songs mixed by Andrew, the fabulous, slinky gloom of Undertow and Baby. Weatherall and Nina Walsh worked with the LA fourpiece, recording the songs in the studio and Andrew then mixed them and sequenced them. This wasn't a Screamadelica or Morning Dove White production job. The rest of Andrew's mixes for the remaining seven songs weren't used, the band for some reason going with different mixes and a different running order to the one he put together. Let's be honest- a new version of this album appearing eleven years later with all of Andrew's mixes, in the order he envisaged and a song that was left off back in 2010, a year after he died, can't help but feel a little exploitative. The band and label have every right to release whichever mixes they want to of course. If the mixes were worth releasing then Warpaint and Rough Trade should have gone with them first time round.  If they weren't, then it does feel a little money grabbing to release them now. Having said that, I popped in to Piccadilly Records at midday, no RSD queue and bought a copy. I like Warpaint, I have done since before The Fool came out, and didn't buy that album on vinyl at the time so buying this with Weatherall's connection balanced out feeling exploited  somewhat. 

As I said before, this isn't a Weatherall production job, this isn't Andrew and Nina being given the master tapes and carte blanche to do what they want with them. This isn't an early version of Weatherall and Walsh's Woodleigh Research Facility either. This is very much Warpaint sounding like Warpaint sound- post punk influences, dub basslines, stoned vocals, harmonies, West Coast USA via West London in 1978, shadowy, gliding songs, submerged sections and sudden bursts of sunlight. Majesty stands out in this mix, the rumble of the bass and drums to the fore and the spindly guitar notes on top with lots of space between the instruments. Baby, the same as the first release, is all acoustic despair and ennui, Nina's fingerprints visible. After a slow fade in/ intro, Composure lifts off as the bass and drums lock in and surge forward in the mix, the bass low and growly, the guitar notes dancing on top and the push- pull dynamics of the song very alive. The ending and sudden fade out is lovely too. there are lots of little touches, voices fading out at the end of songs, switches being flicked, that you notice when listening closely. Lissie's Heart Murmur (and I thought twice about even mentioning this song and its title given the horrific scenes at the Denmark- Finland match at the Euros yesterday) is dark and wallows in itself, piano spiralling over the rhythm section and a wash of reverb. When you know it's Andrew at the desk you can hear it- I'm not sure if I didn't I would say' yep, that's Andrew's touch' but I guess that's the heart of this release- he mixed it, he didn't produce it. Set Your Arms Down is the one for me after a couple of listens. In Andrew's version he placed it at the album's end (rather than the start as it was in the 2010 edition). The song is a propulsive album closer, building in intensity, those post- punk drums and bass driving the song on. People often compare Warpaint to The Slits and on this song, you can hear it, if The Slits had been from 21st century Los Angeles not 70s London- angular guitars blended into the sound, rattling snares, the throb of post- punk dub but a wider, bigger sound than The Slits had. Set Your Arms Down builds to a spectacular finish and then drops out, a few more seconds of sound and fades out, a good way to finish. Throughout this mix of The Fool the guitars are more post punk, less jangly- the previously unreleased Jubille has some choppy 1979 style guitars- and Andrew's mix places the bass and drums front and centre over a wash of reverb and atmospherics. 

Jubilee (Demo Version)

Baby

What have we learned? It's early days and I haven't lived with it yet but the album sounds very good- it would do with Weatherall mixing it wouldn't it? Do I want gold vinyl? No, I don't (and the pressing doesn't seem brilliant either, a lot of crackle on side C, something that is a recurring issue with coloured vinyl). Is it overpriced? Yes it is- I paid less than thirty quid but some of the online retailers are asking for closer to forty which is nonsense. Is it a lost classic? No, I don't think so. Is it the version I'll listen to from now on? Yes, it is. 

Unreal City

In 2013 Andrew Weatherall and author Michael Smith collaborated on a project called Unreal City. Smith, a Hartlepudlian, arrived in London in the mid 90s and drifted round parts of East London that had yet to be re- generated. In The Giro Playboy, a book published in 2006, and again in Unreal City he laments the loss of pubs and homes and communities to the forces of gentrification. In Unreal City the narrator, a broken down middle aged man living in a beach hut in Kent returns to London, walking the Thames estuary back to his old stomping grounds and sees everyone gone, the artists and painters and sculptors who used to live cheaply in rundown parts of the city. Smith's narrator is a flaneur, a person who strolls about and wanders the streets observing people and life. In the novel Smith describes London as both an outsider, a Yorkshireman, and as someone who had lived there for years and his love of London, it's streets and people, is evident- the novel rambles a bit, there is mood and texture rather than action and plot. Eventually the narrator heads to Paris and then back to London. It reads like listening to a stranger in a pub mid- afternoon, mid- week. 

Michael Smith is a regular performer, doing readings of his work. At some point Andrew Weatherall and Smith met and a collaboration was hatched, Andrew and cohorts providing a musical backing for Smith reading parts of Unreal City in his distinctive, lugubrious, East Yorkshire tones. The music, written by Weatherall with Nina Walsh (with some accompaniment from Franck Alba on viola and E- Bow) is a series ambient pieces, drones and drawn out sounds, acoustic guitar parts appearing and then being swallowed up, ringing noises, drips and droplets of water and acres of echo and reverb, in places achingly beautiful, the perfect musical illustration of Smith's melancholy.

The paperback edition of Unreal City was published in 2013 and followed by a multi- media version- a loose leaf book with Andrew Weatherall's scribblings in the margins and some great pen and ink line drawings, a six track CD and a 10" single with a remix. It's a beautiful artefact, the sort of thing that shows love and care and attention to detail. Unfortunately if you don't own a copy, the ones at Discogs being offered for sale will set you back well over £100. The paperback can be found for under a fiver. 

I've put the seven tracks together as one continuous piece and uploaded at Mixcloud. 

• Estuary Embers
• The Bells Of Shoreditch
• ONDON
• Water Music
• The Deep Hum At The Heart Of It All
• Lost
• The Deep Hum At The Heart Of It All (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

On The Mountainside

Nina Walsh and Franck Alba's Fireflies have a new song out, a squally, banjo driven stomp riding on a huge bass part, and Nina in imperious voice. It sounds like something bad has gone down, a ritual gone wrong, a friend abandoned in the woods, 'that morning/ when skies were grey/ I left you lying and slipped away'. The video starts with a minute and a half of quiet sounds, whistles and a drone, the sound of the woods, leaves crunching and the stream bubbling and the ever present menace of the British countryside in the winter, before it all kicks off at one forty- one. Buy it at Bandcamp

Sonic Treasures From Facility 4

On New Year's Day Brother Joseph's Sonic Treasures radio show featured two special long form pieces from Nina Walsh's Facility 4 (the recording home of Woodleigh Research Facility, the musical vehicle of her and Andrew Weatherall in recent years). These two pieces were lined up to be played on Weatherall's Music's Not For Everyone but in February tragedy intervened, took Andrew away and the monthly radio with him. The first piece, C-Pij01 Facility 4 Day, is an hour of wonderful ambient wash, a combination of harmonium, synth, flute, cello, guitar, viola and trumpet and some voices (played by Nina, Franck Alba, Anita Hurst, Chris Cornetto and Marcos Alegria- this line up includes the players on Andrew Weatherall's Convenanza album as well as the W.R.F. records and I don't know for sure but I wouldn't be surprised if the Fort Beulah N.U. project is to be found within it's ranks too). 

Day can be found at Soundcloud here. 

The second part, Night, is two and a half hours long, introduced by Brother Joseph and then fading into distortion and noise, echoes and bangs before a song starts to take shape, guitar chords. Then back to ambient sound, FX and washes, drones and voices coming through the mist and the wandering trumpet floating on top. After an hour and ten minutes it dissolves, Brother Joseph returns and then the guitar/ bass/ drums kick back in, an 80s post- punk bassline with a lovely synth topline... and then there's more, twists and turns, musical sections mixed together, one segueing into another. Magical. 

Night can be found at Soundcloud here. 

Nina and Andrew's monthly Woddleigh Research Facility e.p. releases finished at the end of December. The final one was a single track, twenty three minutes long, called A Walk With Bill and Bob, Vol. 4. It's a trippy, experimental sound collage, almost a megamix-  a drum machine intro with some bursts of static and a dippy synthline. A lovely Peter Hook- esque bassline. Some woodwind and dislocated voices. Various vaguely familiar sounding motifs surface-  some of the elements from Andrew's Moton 5 e.p. appear and then disappear again. The drum machine keeps pushing onwards, 'in the here and now'. 

I Cry Glory And Wave My Flag

Back at the start of the year it was announced that Andrew Weatherall and Nina Walsh's Woodleigh Research Facility would be releasing a year long series of three track digital only EPs, one a month. The first one at the end of January was an EP called Into The Cosmic Hole. When it came out it was a fascinating piece of work, three sonic messages from Facility 2- the weird, shamanic title track, the robotic machine science fiction- electro of Phonox Special No 1 (Outer Space) and the homage to Stockholm Monsters and Martin Hannett of Birthday Three. Eleven more of these would be a superb way to mark the passing of the year, a year long advent calendar of the weird, the wired and the wonderful. Sadly, by the time the second release came out at the end of February he was gone. 

2020 has been coloured by Andrew's passing for me, even with everything else that has happened. It's a strange thing to be moved by the death of a person you don't know and it's not anything compared to what his family and close friends felt and are feeling still. His sudden death on February 17th brought a stream of loss and grief across social media. My Facebook and Twitter timelines were almost nothing but Andrew Weatherall for days. The broadsheet newspapers and the BBC news covered his life and career (he always baulked at that word when interviewed). Then the world then shut down. Events to celebrate Andrew's life were shelved. The Flightpath Estate (a Facebook group I co- moderate with another fan, Martin Brannagan) began to grow, from three hundred fans to well over a thousand. People from Andrew's real life began to join the group, the boundaries between fans and family and friends dissolving. Part of the increasing membership came from some press interest in the Weatherdrive, an online resource of Weatherall DJ mixes spanning the period from 1990 to 2020, from the heyday of acid house to ALFOS. Mixmag picked up on it and asked The Flightpath Estate if we'd like to write an article about the 10 best of Andrew's DJ sets on the Weatherdrive. 

The Woodleigh Research Facility release campaign continued, updates from Andrew's studio life, a monthly reminder that he was gone but still there. The recordings present a vast range of sounds but are clearly the work of the same people, Andrew's intuitive nature and vision along with Nina's creativity and studio production skills. As the months have ticked by I've played these EPs, some more than others admittedly, and noticed how the W.R.F. releases seem to echo music he made in the previous three decades, reverberations from the past into the present. The lengthy running times, like the remixes of the early 90s where the music has space and time to unfold at its own pace. David Harrow said that when they were in the studio making music as Blood Sugar listening to what they'd done, he'd often be ready to change the drum pattern or bring a new element in, and Andrew would say, 'let it go round again', and the track would be extended out for another pattern/ 12 bars. The trademark hissing drum machines and mechanical rhythms point back to the music he released on his three Emissions labels in the 1990s and the stranger, more abstract, one off recordings he made, such as the Glowing Trees 12" he put out as Meek. The topline melodies point to the sound of Sabres of Paradise, especially the Haunted Dancehall album, and the bass- heavy mutant electro of Two Lone Swordsmen records. The metallic hi- hats and rattling snares sound like the ones on the TLS remixes of twenty years ago. The dub influence resonates through the Woodleigh EPs and through so much of his previous work (and DJ sets). The esoteric song titles could come from any point in his back catalogue. 

The monthly EPs will have given us thirty six tracks by the end of the year, a huge amount of music from someone whose creative flow was clearly in full swing. Looking back, even if you pick four songs from completely different parts of his back pages, there's clearly a line running through everything. He reinvented his sound and moved from one identity to another, zigging when others zagged, from the remixes accompanied by Hugo Nicolson to Sabres of Paradise to Two Lone Swordsmen to The Asphodells to his solo records to WRF, but it's all part of a body of work with common themes and a unifying vision. Even the stuff that is outlying and on the fringes- the secret side projects, the machine funk aliases like Rude Solo and Frisch und Munter, the panel beating techno of Lords Of Afford, the odd folk music of his Moine Dubh label, the shadowy collective Fort Beulah N.U. who made five one sided white label 12" singles- fits into the world he created. He'd often play it down, be self- deprecating and modest, saying he was just a grand amateur, but the music is endlessly inventive. Even when he seemed to have driven himself down a one way road he'd manage to pull off a deft three point turn and come back with something else, something new. 

Jockey Slut, started in Manchester as a dance music fanzine and then became something much bigger, and interviewed the man many times. In the summer they announced they were going to publish a special edition book, Andrew's interviews for the magazine compiled along with some new material (including an oral history of the acid house and Sabres years and a Richard Norris article). The book began to drop through letterboxes last week. Towards the back there is a double page spread about The Flightpath Estate and the Weatherdrive and its thousand hours of DJ mixes spanning Weatherall's career, based around an interview with Martin. Towards the bottom of the page, and this was a surprise to me as I leafed through it for the first time, is my name and this blog's name. 

Which, as that man on The Fast Show used to say, was nice. 

It was more than nice, it was incredible. A few people have since commented on social media that they were drawn back into the orbit of Andrew's music because of this blog, which is amazing and lovely to hear. It's what music blogging is for, to share the music and the world it's created in with other people. In a way music blogs are just an updated version of the fanzines of the 1980s, but with far less photocopying and Letraset. That this blog has become a minor footnote in the story is crazy, humbling and when I think about it, a bit mind-blowing too. 

In an attempt to close the year in which he left I started to put together a mix of some of Andrew's music. I wondered if I could somehow manage to summarise his vast and varied back catalogue into one handy hour long compilation but I realised almost immediately this would be an impossible task. In the end I chose a couple of  Two Lone Swordsmen tracks as a starting point and then went where it took me, throwing in quite a few of the ones he sings on, some remixes, some tracks that only came out on compilations and often just went with whatever the previous track seemed to suggest as a follow up. It ended up being a little over ninety minutes long and you can find it at Mixcloud. 

Audrey Witherspoon’s Blues

• Two Lone Swordsmen: Constant Reminder
• Two Lone Swordsmen: Light The Last Flare
• X- Press 2: Witchi Tai To (Two Lone Swordsmen Remix)
• Two Lone Swordsmen: Patient Saints
• Andrew Weatherall: The Confidence Man
• Woodleigh Research Facility: Birthday Three
• The Asphodells: One Minute’s Silence (Wooden Shjips Remix)
• Andrew Weatherall: Kaif
• Michael Smith and Andrew Weatherall: Water Music
• Radioactive Man: Fed- Ex To Munchen (Andrew Weatherall Remix)
• Andrew Weatherall: Youth Ozone Machine
• Andrew Weatherall: Cosmonautrix
• Andrew Weatherall: Saturday International
• Two Lone Swordsmen: Tiny Reminder No 3 (Calexico Remix)
• Two Lone Swordsmen: Sex Beat
• Andrew Weatherall: Privately Electrified
• Two Lone Swordsmen: Get Out Of My Kingdom

Judy In The Starry Sky

Lol Hammond is not a man to sit around twiddling his thumbs. He started out in Spiral Tribe and The Drum Club in 1991, formed Slab with Nina Walsh, recorded with Matt Rowlands and Mandy Wall as Girl Eats Boy, has made albums with Roger Eno, collaborated with Chris Coco on soundtrack inspired music, has been the music supervisor and soundtrack artist on a slew of British films and has recorded two albums with Duncan Forbes and now a new project as Are We Superheroes?

Girl Eats Boy released an album in 1997 called Thrilled By Velocity And Distortion, a record chock full of breakbeats and samples bursting with energy.  The song titles on the album were a joy- take your pick from Napalm In Bohemia, Kill Pussy Kill, Moist Babe Hates The Government, Surfing In Reykjavik- and this one, Chemical Phunk, which shows where their heads were at. Samples Sabres Of Paradise too unless I'm very much mistaken. 

As Slab Lol and Nina were immersed in electro and techno, making repetitive, minimal music for small clubs. Their 1995 track Atomsmasher was remixed by Andrew Weatherall (and engineered by David Harrow) with one version (Mix 3) on the 12" and another (Mix 1) on white label 10". As with most Weatherall remixes from the mid 90s this is a long, progressive techno track with weird noises as standard,  and plenty going on to keep you interested up to the tenth minute. 

Atomsmasher (Weatherall Mix 1)

More recently Lol has been active with Duncan Forbes (formerly of Manchester based DJ/ production duo Spooky , stalwarts of the live and club scene in the mid- 90s). Lol and Duncan released a lovely album earlier this year, Who Will Stop The Robots, ten tracks that skirt the edges of ambient, drones, dreampop and glistening psychedelia. I posted a song called Sorry Kids We Left You With A Black Sun previously. This one, Snow Ghosts, has a dark, slow motion beauty and the voice of Eve Abraham. 

If that isn't enough at the end of November Lol put out the first release by a new group he's formed with Karen Frost and Stefan Gordon, Are We Superheroes? Judy In The Starry Sky has a pleasingly skeletal drum machine banging away, Karen's vocals and a distorted guitar part that reminds me of lots of my favourite guitar bands. If you like the c86 bands or grew up with NME and Melody Maker, 4AD, Rough Trade and Creation you'll enjoy this a lot. Available at Bandcamp at the name your own price deal. 

Woodleigh Lament

Recorded in August at Facility 1, this is a forlorn but beautiful instrumental from Nina Walsh, keeping the spirit and questing nature of the Woodleigh Research Facility alive despite the absence of WRF partner Andrew Weatherall. The title is Woodleigh Lament and it's obvious who it is a lament for. Brushed drums and slow rhythm ticking onward and the achingly sad melody on top. The new Google Blogger format/ interface is shit. It took me ages to be able to get the photo to upload- in the end I had to upload it to Google Photos and then upload it to here from there. The Bandcamp player has two options, to embed in either html or Wordpress. Neither works with the new Blogger (obviously I didn't expect the Wordpress one to). It's messed about with the formatting of text too. Why can't they just leave stuff alone? 

Woodleigh Lament at Bandcamp is here. 

Recorded this month and released at the same time is Ella Baila, pushed along by one of those steam powered drum machines with a circling topline and a bubbling, acidic synth coming in and out. 

Ella Baila at Bandcamp is here. 

Downhill

Out today from Woodleigh Research Facility, the latest monthly emission from Andrew Weatherall and Nina Walsh. As there have been every month since January, when Andrew was still very much with us, there are three songs here available from the usual digital outfitters.

Where Nobody Else is superb science fiction ambient techno, Nina's disembodied voice over the top, like a strange tannoy announcement, 'it's time to go', over and over.

Lottie's Theme starts with a child's voice and then drums, metallic sounds and industrial noise, seven minutes of insistent rhythms and sounds before the child, presumably Lottie, returns at the end.

Downhill was on a WRF mix a few years ago and it's exciting that it's finally getting a proper release. WRF pound out more of their spooked, throbbing sounds as a vehicle for the voice and poetry of Joe Duggan. Over a marching beat and repeating bass wobble Joe describes the walk from his house to the pub 'from where I live, it's downhill all the way'. More rhythm, more space and more echo and Joe's Derry tones, 'Has anyone seen Joe? Where'd he go?'

Rotters_Golf_Club · Facility 4: Downhill