Too High Too Low

Some new songs to distract from the customary end of August dread that starts to sink in around this point of the year. If you like dark, intense, chuggy acid thump, this pair should be right up your alley. First up for today is the latest from Rich Lane, this time back with his Chug Norris hat on. The Dark And Sweaty EP has two tracks, Black Mass and The Ceiling. Coming in with a thudding kick drum and some acid whooshes, The Ceiling is designed for a dancing, specifically in dark, hot sweatboxes. After a minute of build up an impossibly deep voice interjects- 'You're drenched in sweat'-  and then the bassline takes over, grinding and bumping. A soulful voice joins in, Sheila Kerr singing about sweet reverberations and perspiration dripping from the ceiling. Machine music coupled with human voices, metronomic beats and emotional vocals. 

The Ceiling is available at Bandcamp. The Dark And Sweaty EP is there too. 

The second song for today comes from the combined talents of Sleaford Mods, Billy Nomates and Hardway Bros. Sean Johnston has done an unofficial edit of Mork And Mindy, a song from Sleaford Mods' 2020 album Spare Rib, one of Jason Williamson's transmissions from failed state UK, this one starting off on a council estate in the early 80s with Action Man and Sindy getting it on on a Sunday afternoon while his parents are out. Billy Nomates guests, singing 'Too high too low/ It doesn't make a difference I know'. Sean switches the vocal parts around and pumps up the drums and the acid, bringing a new slow burning, thumping energy to the song. The M&M Hardway Bros Acid Edit is a track that works extremely well in a hot, sweaty, low ceilinged building. You can get it at Bandcamp as part of a four track EP of edits, Beyonders Present: Case Edits Vol 1. All four are worth the price of admission (£3.96), Sean's especially. 

The video for the original version of Mork And Mindy is memorable, Jason, Andrew and Billy in a house with a box of toys and some musical equipment, the smell of Sunday afternoons in the 80s drifting through the screen.

Jezebellearic Beats

Jezebell's end of summer album hits the digital shelves today, a twenty track monster titled Jezebellearic Beats Volume 1- the artwork for the album borrows/ pays homage to the original Dave Little sleeve art for the classic 1988 Balearic Beats album. The music Darren and Jesse make as Jezebell shifts between boundaries and blurs lines, between club and poolside, between dancefloor banger and early evening livener, between sunset and sunrise, and between sampling and editing. All these can be found on Jezebellearic Beats Volume 1. About half of the tracks have been released previously and some have featured here in the course of the last two years- the eight minute summer 2022 epic Jezebellearic, the twelve minute soft- rock/ soul dreamscape of Jezeblue from earlier this summer, the beatier Concurrence, the low slung, just setting out fun of Trading Places (11AM) and its more upbeat, more up for it cousin Trading Places (3PM), the spaced out dubby Balearic chanson of Jezebell et Moi, Can't Cope's echo- laden swirls and early 90s trippiness. 

Within this album there are traces of other people, samples of vocals and instruments; Laurie Anderson, Beastie Boys and Money Mark, DJ Alfredo, Max Berlins, Herb Alpert, Julian Cope, Talking Heads, and David Byrne and Brian Eno are among those who show up, making themselves known within Jesse and Darren's chuggy/ cosmic/ Balearic/ indie- dance grooves. There are Rich Lane re- masters and a pair of remixes too, their blissed out remix of D:Ream's Pedestal and the Jezebell version of Red Shift by Man 2.0. There are many new tracks as well, not least the closer Swamp Shuffle, which is perfectly named. 

Jezebellearic Beats is infused with the spirit of acid house, the irreverence of an anything goes attitude coupled with a love of the music and a respect for those who came before. When I posted Jezeblue back in July I suggested that the slowed down and blissed out summer groove of the song was as much about memory as about music, about the way that memories make us who we are. Jesse said that all music is (for him) about memories that are just out of reach- 'not personal memories but... a collective memory just out of everyone's reach'. That feeling can be found all the way through this album- there are plenty of feel good, uptempo moments too, music for dancing and for parties but they're alongside something that feels much more fluid and less tangible, music that skips between boundaries and limits and leaves you in a different, better place from the one it found you in. 

Jezebellearic Beats Volume 1 is available at Bandcamp from today, pay what you want/ for free. 

Mostly Remixes

Matt Gunn's album Mostly Fiction came out earlier this year, ten tracks of electronic goodness that closes with the rippling, bleepy, ambient euphoria of Learning Through Loops. 

The first of a set of remix EPs came out at the start of the month- Mostly Remixed 1 features a pair of remixes, the first an Al Mackenzie remix of Learning Through Loops and the second a Matt Gunn remix of the epic Space Drohne. Al hits the button marked 'thumper', the drums kicking in from the off with blasts of synth, rumbling bass, rattling percussion, rising chords and eventually sirens and melodica- a widescreen/ sci fi/ house remix that make rainy summer days feel good. Find it at Bandcamp. 

Play it alongside this for maximum fun- Bass- The Final Frontier (David Holmes remix), one of 2023's best remixes so far, a seven minute David Holmes remix of Jo Sims, one of four songs from an EP that came out on Pamela records in July. I wrote about the EP at Ban Ban Ton Ton last month.  

Matt's remix of Space Drohne, the Floor Mix, is eight minutes of action in a similar sphere, drum machines, space synths, rave synths, breakbeats, synth arpeggios, synth bass, the machinery of Behringer, Roland and Moog in full effect. 

Al Mackenzie is a member of D: Ream and also puts out work under his own name. His latest release, a two track EP called Hold Your Own, came out on Field Of Dreams at the start of August. Get it here. The title track is my pick of the pair, nine minutes of thumpy, wiggy acid house. Music that sounds good in the dark. 

Download all the above and stick them all together in one playlist/ on one CD for maximum enjoyment, a late summer mixtape. 

I'll Walk The Seas Forever More

Sinead O'Connor's funeral took place earlier this week, an outpouring of sorrow and loss for a woman who clearly had a huge impact on many people. David Holmes dedicated his monthly God's Waiting Room radio show for NTS to Sinead, a two hour tribute with Sinead songs scattered throughout- I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, Black Boys On Mopeds, Jah Nuh Dead, Trouble Of The World, Troy, Don't Cry For Me Argentina, Silent Night and David's superb splicing of Nothing Compares 2U with his own remix of Orbital's Belfast. Alongside these songs are others courtesy of Grian Chatten, Bob Dylan, The Clash, John Lennon, Sly and Robbie, Keith Hudson and Janis Ian. It's a stunning way to spend a couple of hours and a beautiful tribute to Sinead. You can listen to it at Mixcloud and find the full tracklist at NTS. 

David was part way through recording an album with Sinead, titled No Veteran Dies Alone, eight songs completed including Trouble For The World (which came out on Heavenly in 2020). He'd introduced himself to her at Shane McGowan's 60th birthday event and on his Instagram page described recording her vocals as being in the presence of greatness, 'like recording Nina Simone, Billie Holiday or Karen Dalton'. 

More Sinead- Rich Lane created his own unofficial remix of Sinead's Jackie, a song from her debut The Lion And The Cobra. Rich made it in 2016 to play at a gig in Dublin. It's not available to buy or download (more's the pity) but you can listen to it here, an electronic throbber with 808 blips and cowbell and Sinead's voice on top.

In 1994 Sinead made an album called Universal Mother. Fire On Babylon, produced by Bomb The Bass's Tim Simenon, was released as a single and appeared on Top Of The Pops to promote it. The grooves/ bytes/ TV studio seem almost to small to contain the power and intensity of her vocal, not to mention the huge dub bassline that underpins it. Sinead is singing live and the moment at three minutes where she comes back in singing 'Fire!!!' is both breathtaking and bone chilling. 

Lyrically Fire On Babylon deals with Sinead's mother and how Sinead was treated as a child. The video for the song didn't hold back, a film made by Michel Gondry (who also made videos for Bjork's Human Behaviour and Protection for Massive Attack) and which depicted Sinead's childhood. It's a fierce, intense and mesmerising video and song- like the woman herself. 

Midsummer

Today, 21st June, is the summer solstice, the midpoint of the year and the time at which it's lighter longer and later than at any other point- something worth celebrating. It therefore also has to be noted that we start crawling back after tonight, we can't have one without the other. Something Rich Lane noted on his chuggy, slow mo Balearic classic from 2020 titled Solstice. 

According to the Christian church midsummer is officially 24th June, six months before/ after Christmas, but given that any midsummer celebration almost certainly pre- dates Christianity let's go with today. 

In 1990 Saint Etienne's glorious second single, their shuffly indie- dance cover of The Field Mice's Kiss And Make Up was remixed twice by Pete Heller, the Midsummer Madness and Midsummer Dubness versions, both versions arguably superior to the original single. They didn't release the remixes until October 1990 which seems a missed opportunity. Both are full of the spirit of the times, that joyous sense of freedom and possibility that the period had- although maybe that's partly because I was just twenty and everything was in front of me. The world was changing though. Thatcher gone, people power across the eastern Europe contributing to the fall of the Eastern Bloc, Nelson Mandela's release. Let's kiss and make up.

Kiss And Make Up (Midsummer Madness Mix)

Kiss And Make Up (Midsummer Dubness Mix)

Room for one more? This is Midsummer's Dream by DJ and producer Massimiliano Pagliara, southern Italian by birth but resident of Berlin. This track, seven minutes of thumping drums and trancey synths and acid toplines, came out last year and sounds much more Berlin than Lecce. 

Midsummer's Dream 

Acid Bangles

You didn't know you wanted, no, needed, an acid house reworking of Walk Like An Egyptian by The Bangles did you? You'd never listened to the song in all its Los Angeles 1986 glory and thought you needed it redone in huge acid chug style but, as they say, here we are- and you do. Thank Rich Lane who produced just such an artefact for a DJ gig he had a couple of weeks ago at The Evil Acid Barons Weekender in Devon. You can find it here- it was available for a limited time as a download but I think Rich may have switched that off due to potentially problematic copywrite issues. 

I think this is the ideal opportunity to post this snippet of video heaven- the Susanna Hoffs side eye. 

Written by Liam Sternberg the song was first offered to Toni Basil, then Lene Lovich (who recorded a version but didn't release it) before The Bangles got to record it. In September 1986 they played it while appearing on Whistle Test. The decision by producer David Kahne to have drummer Debbie replaced by a drum machine for the song caused ructions within the group and they didn't work with him again. It may have Rich's job a little easier though. 

Forty Minutes Of Depeche Mode

I recently watched 101, D.A. Pennebaker's documentary film from 1989 that showed the group preparing to play the 101st gig and final leg of their world tour the year before. It was good fun, a time capsule peak into the world of 1988, with a van of radio competition winners travelling to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena to see DM with live snippets of the group interspersed. 

It's fair to say that I'm a fan of some of Depeche Mode's songs rather than an outright fan of the band. Their story is interesting, electro- pop boys from Basildon who survive the departure of their songwriter becoming a pop sensation and then a stadium size electronic rock group. The death of Andy Fletcher last year showed a fairly unique aspect of the group too- Fletcher was the man who made the group work but whose contributions weren't predominantly musical. For the mix below I've concentrated on the late 80s/ early 90s era of the group, mainly singles with some remixes. I seem to have omitted Personal Jesus which is an error on my part. 

Forty Minutes Of Depeche Mode

• Happiest Girl (Orbital Mix)
• Never Let Me Down Again (Tsangarides Mix)
• I Feel You (7" version)
• Enjoy The Silence (Rich Lane A&E Cotton Dub)
• Blasphemous Rumours
• Barrel Of A Gun (Underworld Soft Mix)

From 1990 The Orb's remix of Happiest Girl confusingly titled as the Orbital Mix (how both The Orb and Orbital mist have wished the other had chosen a different name). The remix is typically Orb- like, downtempo ambient house with Dave Gahan's words on top. As well as a 12" single in 1990, it came out on The Orb's compilation of their own remixes in 1996, alongside a welter of other remixes- Pop Will Eat Itself, Erasure, Killing Joke, Primal Scream, Yello, Innersphere and Wir all feature. 

Never Let Me Down is a throbbing, growling, druggy electro- rock single from 1987 and from their Music For The Masses album. The Tsangarides mix is from the 12", a remix by Chris Tsangarides. My favourite DM song, one that has worked its way into my musical world in recent years. 

I Feel You was a 1993 single, screeching tyres, glitter stomp and blues guitar riff. 

Enjoy The Silence was a 1990 single and from their massive 1991 album Violator. Synths, monochrome gloom, a lush darkness made for those sunset moments in stadia round the world- along with Personal Jesus it's the 90s Mode in excelsis. The version here is a re- edit by Stoke- on - Trent's Rich Lane, a man who knows his way round a re- edit better than most. 

Blasphemous Rumours came out in 1984, a song about suicide, survival and religion that baited the religious, including those in the band. The crunchy synth sound and industrial drums show the way ahead. 

Barrel Of A Gun was a single in 1997, the lead song for their Ultra album. Underworld's remixes, three of them, showed the two sides of late 90s Underworld- the Hard Mix is nine minutes of thumping, hard and fast drums that don't let up. The Soft mix (included here) is Underworld in dreamy, floaty mode and proof that Underworld were still capable of great remixes and of creating some lovely, low key, intimate moments.

Monday's Long Song

Rude Audio made one of my favourite tunes/  EPs of 2021, the summer sounding skank- chug of Railton Ruckus. They've now returned to do the summer of 2022 a massive favour with a new track and EP, Big Heat. The title track is six and a half minutes of chuggy electronic dub house, the metronomic drums pushing ever on while the synths rise and fall and the timbales clatter around. There's a terrifc piano line that gradually works its way to the front of things.Big Heat is a proper groover, ideal for dancing to in dark basements or back gardens. 

The EP comes loaded with a pair of remixes, an eight minute one from Bedford Falls Players and a slightly shorter Rich Lane remix. 

The Bedford Falls Players remix extends it out and strips it down, focussing on the rhythm track and those timbales, then bringing the acidic squiggle of the 303 to the fore. The remix gets split in the middle by some samples, Hollywood coming to South London, before cutting back to the action.

Rich goes more laid back, steel guitar and washes of bliss, and then all dubbed out. 

All three versions of Big Heat plus two further Rude Audio treats, Rudely Fresh and Dust Devil remixed by Al MacKenzie, can be bought at Bandcamp, forty minutes of dubbed out house sounds for summer for just £4. 

Six Months

Isaac died six months ago today. I'm not sure what this means- the marking of dates and passing of time have a special significance, I'm always aware of them. On the one hand, six months seems like quite a long time when written down, it's half a year, give it another six months and we'll be about to see December in. On the other hand, it all seems very recent, it could in some ways have happened only a few weeks ago. The thought that just over six months ago we could talk to him, hold his hand, go out for a walk and stop off somewhere for a pint and some chips... it all seems very real and yet, he's definitely gone, we've accepted that. On a day to day basis we can operate and function, we can go out and see friends, do 'normal' things, have fun even. When we go to his grave it all seems very huge, the enormity of it all, his death and his absence. The time we've travelled since he died and the coping with it prove that only time can make the difference and that the Nick Cave quote that I've mentioned a couple of times holds much truth for me. On his blog Nick said 'in time, there is a way, not out of grief, but deep within it'. Every day, each day we go forward in time, Isaac is a day further away physically, but in lots of ways he's always there. In the end we just learn to live with the grief. So, six months is both significant and also just another day. It still hurts- it always will. We go on. 

It seems appropriate to pay tribute to yet another musical passing. Last Thursday news came through of the sudden death of Andy Fletcher of Depeche Mode. Depeche Mode's run of singles and albums from the early 80s and into the 90s is the stuff of synthpop and then stadium electro goth legend and I've grown to appreciate them and their music in recent years. On top of that no- one seems to have a bad word to say about Andy, a genuinely nice man, happy to talk to fans, popular with his peers and seemingly the glue that held the group together.

R.I.P. Andy Fletcher. 

A while ago I saw a clip of Depeche Mode performing Never Let Down Again on a TV show and I can't remember what TV programme it was but this one, somewhere in Europe in 1987, will do instead. Huge groove, killer tune, leather jackets, somewhere between industrial, New Beat and synth pop.

And seeing as Rich himself has been sharing this since Thursday I thought I'd help spread it a little further- Rich's own edit of Enjoy The Silence, a recent dance floor oriented update on the 1989 single. 

Enjoy The Silence (Rich Lane A&E Cotton Dub)

Thickener

Brand new from Jesse Fahnestock's 10:40 is Thickener, two mixes of deep, techno tinged, dark disco. Psyche- chug from Stockholm, mastered by Rich Lane in Stoke. The Thinner Mix is first up, kick drum and hiss and huge belching synth bass. A chopped up fragment of wordless vocal, rising and falling topline and then on it goes, pumping away. 

The Full Fat mix follows, riding in on tom toms and a big groove, a distorted voice and synths pinging about. The bassline buzzes about around the breakbeat and everything gets quite intense before the breakdown at four minutes. Then it all goes off again. You can both at Bandcamp, name your own price. 

I'm particularly excited about this release because the cover photo is mine, a picture I took a while ago and shared on social media. Jesse got in touch and asked if he could use it. Here's my original, a shot of a pendant lamp in a cafe/ bar in Altrincham taken from below. 

Obviously we now need to start a crowd funder campaign for vinyl, t- shirts, posters, coasters, tea towels, tote bags and all the other merch the image requires. 

Camo

Rich Lane's new EP came out a week ago, three tracks of sunlit Balearic chug and dancefloor monsters with energy and melodies to spare. Buy it at Bandcamp (it's only two pounds fifty, you've got nothing to lose). 

Flecktarn (a woodland camo pattern used by many European armies and by the Bundeswehr particularly) fades in on some gorgeous synth sounds, before the chiming guitar line appears and then a bouncy bassline glides into earshot. The breakdown at four twenty and re- entry is a moment. One day we'll listen to this on a dancefloor and we'll all smile and cheer and throw our arms around each other. 

Telo Mimetico (a camouflage pattern used by the Italian army for shelters and uniforms) is a squelchy acidic banger, rattling snares, voices coming in from leftfield and a wonderful Italo piano part. 

The third track is Dispersion Pattern Material (camouflage that creates an optical illusion), a dark, moody, basement track but with a piano breakdown that is pure 1990 before that wobbly, menacing bass comes back in and then off we go again. 

Rich loves the woodlands. Last year he took his camping gear and his studio gear into the north Midlands woods and made this, Prusik, a live hardware jam in the woods. Fades in with the sounds of leaves rustling in the breeze and a growly bass before some 80s Linn Drum samples kick in. 

Solstice

Trying to keep the habit of lockdown walking going hasn't been easy especially in the last month. Working late, getting home in the dark and then forcing myself to go out at 9pm, even if it's just a circuit round the block takes a bit of effort when it's wet and cold out and warm inside. It's been important to look for little celebrations this year, moments of light to cheer the spirits slightly. Today is the winter solstice and that seems like something worth marking, the darkest of all the days but the turning point too, when it starts getting a little bit lighter for longer every day. 

Mark Peters album from 2018 Innerlands was an instrumental journey through the landscape and place names of the north west of England. He followed it with an ambient version, all the drums taken off and just the synths, chiming guitars and atmospherics. Both are winter solstice sounding to me. This track, Ashurst's Beacon, closes both albums. 

Ashurst's Beacon (Ambient Version)

Here's the flipside. Exactly six months ago Rich Lane released a gorgeous summer song to mark the summer solstice, a song for the longest day- slow motion, Balearic synthpop. Get it at Bandcamp. Rich has released several pieces of new music throughout 2020 and it's all worth exploring. 

Isolation Mix Eleven

This week's mix is made up entirely of songs released during lockdown, since mid- March 2020. Some of them have been written and recorded during this period. I could easily have doubled the length of this so maybe I'll come back to this and do a part two. This one has the trippy psyche of Sonic Boom, dusty funk desert blues from Ess O Ess, some dubby jazz (or jazzy dub) courtesy of Jah Wobble, Number's post- punk dance stance, yet more excellence from Weatherall and Walsh's Woodleigh Research Facility, Justin Robertson and Sofia Hedblom's blend of Nigerian rhythms and electronic dub, Dan Wainwright's pagan chug and some Balearic bliss from Joe Morris, Rich Lane, The Long Champs and a cover by Rheinzand. There's one segue which is a bit of a mess but it'll have to do. Life has surface noise and all that.



Sonic Boom: Just Imagine
Ess O Ess and Saul Richards: Totem (Swamp Crawl)

Jah Wobble: Lockdown 5 (Forbearance)

Number: Red Flag

Woodleigh Research Facility: Karra Mesh

Formerlover: Correction Dub

Dan Wainwright: A Blessing

Joe Morris: The New Dawn Will Come

Rich Lane: Barry Island (The Long Champs Dub)

Rheinzand: All By Myself

Barry Island

This is new from Rich Lane, Newcastle under Lyne's Balearic chug overlord, and it's a beauty. Laid back and easy going, slinky and filmic in scope, it hits the spot from the moment those synths fade in at the start and the windwood brings the melody.

A friend on Facebook said it sounds like driving down the Amalfi coast in a convertible, wind in the hair, sunglasses on, sun dipping in the sky, the tide coming in, the evening ahead of you. It's all those things. And even though all those things are imaginary at the moment the music makes them almost close enough to touch. There are two top class remixes, the Long Champs dub is lovely, an unwinding and stripped down take on the original while Duncan Gray Ambient Mix is gorgeous, opening with the sound of the tide coming in and some synth bleeps before the strings take over. Buy all three for £1.50.

Indian Summer

This mix from Rich Lane is the perfect way to spend two and a half hours today, a midweek pick-me- up, lots of chuggy end of summer tunes, some head nodders, beard strokers and foot tappers. There's a possibility that some warm, even hot, weather is on it's way, thanks to those Saharan heat plumes.



Prequels - Rich Lane / (Cotton Bud)
9:AM (Rich Lane Remix) - Did Virgo feat. Johanna / (La dame Noir)
Araf - The Long Champs / (tici taci)
Irusu - Thoughtless / (Reinhardt)
Penumbras (Noche Remix) - Utopyk & El Fulminandor / (Fulmen)
The Science of Plants (Peza Remix) - Kieren Holden / (tici taci)
Trapped (feat. Snem K) - Duncan Gray / (tici taci)
Sleepstream (Ewan Pearson Remix) - Languages / (Days of Being Wild)
Dumb It Down - Rich Lane / (Cotton Bud)
La Nuit Des Tropiques (Field Of Dreams Remix) - Les Crocodiles / (Pleasure Unit)
Duncan Gray - Long Haul / (tici taci)
Jack Butters - Rotten Road / (tici taci)
The Long Champs - A Postcard / (tici taci)
Just Want to Touch (Cabaret Nocturne Remix) - Two Mamarrachos / (Nein)
Touched By The Hand of Cicciolina (Rich Lane Cotton Dub) - Pop Will Eat Itself / (unofficial remix)
Toucan (Mr BC Remix) - Quantal / (Sub:Sonic)
Power To The People (Markus Gibb Remix) - Pardon Moi / (Roam)
Imani's Dress (Original Mix) - Satori / (Crosstown Rebels)
Around Me (Rich Lane Cotton Dub) - ONUKA / (unnoficial remix)
Erotica Nervosa (feat. Sarah Rebecca) - Duncan Gray / (tici taci)
Plague Of The Zombies - Scientist / (Greensleeves)
City of Culture - Rich Lane / (Cotton Bud)
Tecno Misógino (Bufi Remix) - Moderna Y Theus Mago / (La dame Noir)
Gorian Dray (MontCosmik Remix) - Monoblock & PLSKTR / (Play Pal)
Subtractive Ocean - Dark Strands / (From the forthcoming album 'Lights Out')

Much Much Worse Where Clock Goes

This pair of chuggy, leftfield dancefloor monsters could have been posted on any given Monday in the Long Song slot, both being towards the ten minute mark. Both are from Duncan Gray with some sonic tweaking from Rich Lane in the mastering process. Both are getting frequent plays round here.

Much Much Worse is a stomper with  a massive hoover bass sound, a little clipped and funky guitar part and a flipped out synth topline that dances about all over the place, growing increasingly intense.



Where Clock Goes (long version) is a slow burning, dark disco number with wobbly bass, tsk tsk tsk hi-hats, and synth riffs that builds more and more and more, the whole thing then shifting several times during it's nine minutes thirty seconds running time. This could be twice as long and it wouldn't get boring.

A pound each at Bandcamp.

Low Frequency Dub

Rich Lane has done this cover of LFO's mighty 1990 bleep 'n' bass track LFO, the 12" that showed British techno was something special and able to stand on its own two feet, with its own character and feel that stood apart from Detroit. Rather than just re-edit it or use samples Rich has rebuilt it from scratch, keeping the original's power and mystery but giving it a nudge into late 2018. The bassline alone is enough to improve my mood.

Rude Redux

Rude Audio,a South London collective, have an e.p. out shortly. The five tracks on Rude Redux have been providing the soundtrack to my autumn commute on and off for the last few weeks. The trio take the open minded, anything goes, Balearic spirit of the late 80s/early 90s as their starting point and layer North African and Middle Eastern melodies over the top of their chuggy, dancefloor rhythms, dubby basslines bouncing about. In places woozy and light, in others more direct and 4/4. The opening track is this one, a shuffler with timbales borrowed from Sabres of Paradise, a nagging keyboard riff and a title that points the way...



You can buy it at Bandcamp (and get the rest of the e.p. when it comes out next week).

To The Half Moon combines chanting and Kraftwerk and glides off from there in an ambient house direction.



Two more tracks, Rumble On Arab St and Pipeline Screaming, flesh the sound out further before we get to the Rich Lane remix at the end. Rich has been mining gold recently with his remixes. Here he finds some additional space, adds a pulsing heartbeat rhythm and lets the synths do their thing...

A Sucker For Symmetry

A new chuggy, synth, disco track from Rich Lane's Cotton Bud label came out last Friday. A Sucker For Symmetry comes in both vocal and dub versions, with slinky grooves, early 80s style vox and some New Order-esque guitar lines here and there. Get it at Bandcamp. There's a video too here with plenty of  symmetry, opening with a shot of Salford Quays and then heading out into the world from there with pictures from Rich's travels on his scooter.

Prequels

I don't know about prequels- the three Star Wars prequels are the biggest waste of celluloid time I can think of. Clones. Tax dispute. Jar Jar Binks. Overactive and unconvincing CGI. Ewan McGregor's accent. Yawn.

Rich Lane and his Cotton Dubs on the other hand are always worth keeping an eye on. In the middle of August he released a three track ep featuring Prequels and City of Culture. Prequels is a slow motion, chug affair with a robot voice. It is not a million miles from the Code 61 Belgian New Beat track I posted recently. City Of Culture is top quality electronic dub reggae. The current City of Culture is Hull- I don't know if this is a tribute to Hull or not (Rich is from Wolverhampton which has never been City of Culture). The third track is a dub of the Prequels. You can buy all three for a measly £2.50 from Bandcamp.