Love Is Stronger Than Death

I've had a bit of a rough time recently, everything seems very close to the surface. The things that distract me- music, blogging, reading (and also these things aren't just distractions, they're the bread and butter of my life in some ways)- still do their job but the long road through grief is exactly that, a long road. Every time you think you've rounded a corner, you get whacked again. The last few weeks have brought all sorts of things up. I don't know why, it's unpredictable and sometimes inexplicable- there doesn't have to be an obvious trigger or an anniversary. Sometimes it's just bad again and I've learned that times like this just has to be accepted and felt and gone through. When other things are also tough- work for instance- it can replace the grief for a while but mainly it amplifies it. Two weeks ago I had a few days where I was utterly pissed off and quite angry- I'm not generally an angry person. Grief seems to turbo charge emotional responses and whereas in the early days and months I could shrug things off- some things, big to other people, seemed inconceivably small to me, no one had died so these things didn't matter. More recently I have been less able to do that. I don't think the saying about time healing is true- you just get used to living with it. 

We decided recently that it was time to get Isaac a headstone. It's been a long story. We went very early on to a stonemason and it felt a bit like we were ordering a new sofa. We then left it for eighteen months, none of us able to deal with the finality of ordering a headstone, deciding on wording and seeing it put in place. There came a point last year where we just felt ready. We tried a different stonemason but for various reasons he couldn't get what we wanted. Two months ago we went back to the first mason, starting back at the beginning, ordered a stone and felt some relief. A few days ago we decided on the wording. We're hopeful it might be installed in the summer. Isaac's birthday and the anniversary of his death are both late November, then quickly comes Christmas and then a long winter into spring. Having the headstone erected in July and maybe marking it in some way, in the summer months with warmth and sun and late light evenings, feels like it might break the sometimes wintry feel we often have at the cemetery. 

We go to see Isaac at least once a week, a visit to his grave has become part of our ritual. At first going to see him was tough but felt necessary but it did feel like every time we went we had to say goodbye to him again. As time has gone on and the rituals of visiting him have developed, going to his grave has started to feel like we go to say hello to him. We've tried to keep the flower pots and planters full of colour through the two winters he's been there, planting daffodils and white flowers, taking tulips and daffs for the vase and keeping the grave feeling fresh. In some ways when we go it feels like we're still looking after him. The pigs in the field behind the cemetery often come up to the fence. The pylons overhead buzz a little. More often than not the bus goes past on the road in the distance. All these things seems to be part of him now. 

This song was written by Matt Johnson in the aftermath of the death of his brother Eugene in 1989 and recorded for The The's Dusk album, released in 1993. I hadn't listened to it for many years until Khayem posted it at Dubhed a few weeks ago. It seems to sit (partly at least) somewhere in the space that I am currently in. 

Love Is Stronger Than Death

'Me and my friend were walking/ In the cold light of morning/ Tears may blind the eyes but the soul is not deceived/ In this world even winter ain't what it seems'

I believe that the friend referenced in the first line is Johnny Marr. Matt and Johnny were walking in one of London's parks after a night in the studio recording.

'Here come the blue skies, here comes the springtime/ When the rivers run high and the tears run dry/ When everything that dies shall rise'

Our visits to the cemetery have changed, become a positive, part of a weekly ritual that we do for him. Sometimes it genuinely does feel like we go to say hello and that indeed love is stronger than death. 

This section is longer and more complex, and you probably don't need my commentary on it, so I'll just leave it here. 

'In our lives we hunger for those we cannot touch/ All the thoughts unuttered and all the feelings unexpressed/ Play upon our hearts like the mist upon our breath/But, awoken by grief, our spirits speak: "How could you believe that the life within the seed/ That grew arms that reached and a heart that beat/ And lips that smiled, and eyes that cried/ Could ever die?"

Here come the blue skies/ Here comes the springtime/ Love is stronger than death'

What Was The Name Of The Movie?

This track was played by David Holmes at The Golden Lion's AW61 celebrations during his Friday night DJ set, one that sent the room into a bit of a spin, long forgotten memories of the 1980s reverberating round people's minds, singing along to a song you weren't sure how well you knew, a shared lost memory perhaps.

Figures

Absolute Body Control were from Antwerp, a duo of Dirk Ivens and Eric Van Wonterghem, dark but catchy synth- pop with deep, cavernous vocals, two fingered keyboard parts, synth squiggles, crunching drums and synth- percussion, with the vocal returning to the line, 'what was the name of the movie?'. Figures, the album this song is the title tack from, was released on cassette in Belgium in 1983, the pair's third album. In Belgium, Germany and The Netherlands this sort thing became known as EBM, electronic body music- a proto- house, dance music fusing sequencers, synths, punk and industrial. Electronic body music is a description that fits it perfectly. 

No Muscle, No Memory

Rich Ruth is from Nashville and makes highly emotive ambient music, some of which is the result of trauma of being held at gunpoint by carjackers. His two albums to date, Calming Signals from 2019 and I Survived, It's Over from 2022, use ambient as a starting point and veer off into cosmic space and free jazz, instrumentals that are sometimes in a blissed out meditative zone and sometimes wildly adventurous psychedelic trips, guitars and synths, loops and drones, sax and woodwind. Everything Rich does seems to be based on catharsis- for himself but also for us as listeners. He has a new album lined up for release, Water Still Flows, and the first fruits of it came out last week, a track called No Muscle, No Memory.

The video and the music seem very at odds with each other but the music is sublime, a transportative piece of music with a guitar solo at the start of it, a sax that replaces it, glass- like percussion and wood chimes and much more, a piece of music that somehow manages to be both heavy and light.

This is Angel Slide from 2022's I Survived, It's Over, six minutes of beautiful, ambient cosmic jazz that will give your day a different angle. 

Angel Slide

Avril 14th Delayed

Yesterday was 14th April, Avril 14th in Aphex Twin world. That track, Avril 14th, came out on Richard D. James' 2001 album Druqks, a two minute piano piece that provides some calming bliss, a moment of reflection in an ever- speedy world, an almost New Age composition but with that Aphex Twin edge that shifts it into slightly uncomfortable territory, loss and sadness at the fringes and very much a track that suggests something about memory and reminiscence. 

Avril 14th

It was recored using a Disklavier, essentially a piano that reads MIDI data and thus plays the notes without a human pressing fingers on keys- Aphex Twin blurring the lines between machine and human and producing something that is still ineffably human and beautiful. It's been used all over the place, in various films and sampled by Kanye West. It has been streamed hundreds of millions of times but remains unknown and obscure all the same. 

In 2018 Aphex Twin dropped two further versions and then deleted them the following day. Both add to the mystique. 

Avril 14th (reversed music not audio) sounds like things are as they should be. There's a lot of reverb and the piano does sound like it's playing itself

Avril 14th (reversed music not audio)

Alt Delay makes time shift around and adds further layers of melancholy to the piano in ways which are difficult to fully express. Liable to cause the blinking back of tears at the sudden appearance of memories, at least in this quarter.

Avril 14th (alt delay)

An Hour Of The Flightpath Estate AW61 Afternoon Set

This is my hour's set from last Saturday afternoon at AW61 at The Golden Lion, Todmorden, re- created at home. The photo above shows my view from the DJ booth as my set ended and the auction and raffle began- you may recognise some of the faces getting ready to bid on items from Andrew Weatherall's studio. 

Once we've got all the other sets and the evening's rotations recreated we can upload the entire thing but I thought I'd share mine in the meantime. It comes in at over an hour and I only played for an hour on the day- from memory, I mixed Biosphere's En- Trance out because the file seemed very quiet (even for an ambient track) and it is in the mix below too. I think I mixed out of Underworld's 8 Ball halfway through as well but just left it playing in full here because, really, what sort of person mixes out the second half of 8 Ball? I'd just faded the GLOK Starlight Dub of A Mountain Of One's Star in when Gig, the Golden Lion's legendary landlady, took the mic to start the auction (along with Lizzie and Sofia) so that track was left mostly unplayed- you'll have to imagine the auction and raffle taking place when you reach that point in my set (unless you were there in which case replay it in your mind). I played Emotionally Clear as the raffle ended and to provide my handover to Dan who was waiting in the wings. 

Adam's Flightpath Estate Afternoon Set At AW61

• Coyote: Western Revolution
• Durutti Column: Bordeaux Sequence
• Psychederek: Test Card Girl
• Four Tet: Loved
• Rick Cuevas: The Birds
• Biosphere: En- Trance
• Underworld: 8 Ball
• Wixel: Expressway To Yr Skull (Long Champs Bonus Beats)
• This Mortal Coil: Edit To The Siren
• Bjork: One Day
• James Holden: Common Land
• A Mountain Of One: Star (GLOK Starlight Dub)
• David Holmes and Raven Violet: Emotionally Clear

Western Revolution is Coyote's sublime edit of Gil Scott Heron's The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. I had half a mind to start with Lonely, which is from the same vinyl only EP out last year, Magic Wand Special Edition Vol. 2, but Mr Holmes played it the night before. 

Bordeaux Sequence was on The Durutti Column's 1987 album The Guitar And Other Machines, a moment of genuine beauty from Vini Reilly. It is a re- recorded version of Bordeaux from 1983's Another Setting. A couple of people in the room gave me a 'thank you for playing Durutti Column' look.

Psychederek is from Stretford, just up the road from me. Test Card Girl was a digital only single from 2023 and I'm not over it yet

Loved was a single from Four Tet, also from last year and is now the opening track on his Three album. Another 2023 song that has stuck around well into '24. 

The Birds is by Rick Cuevas, from a self - released, private pressing album called Symbolism that came out in 1984, an album described on Discogs as 'soft rock/ AOR'. I wouldn't necessarily call The Birds either- a friend once described it as 'Durutti Column on steroids' which I'm happier with. I'm fairly certain I only know of this song because of Andrew Weatherall referencing it in an interview or playing it on a radio show. 

Biosphere's En- Trance is ambient/ techno from Belgium in 1994, an album called Patashnik. It's just some synth drones and an acoustic guitar- I say 'just', it's much more than that obviously. Shame this WAV file I have is so quiet. 

Underworld's 8 Ball was on the soundtrack to The Beach, the Leonardo Di Caprio film from 2000. 8 Ball is a nine minute low key epic with fluid guitar playing and some of Karl's loveliest singing, lyrics about men with empty whiskey bottles and walkie talkies and flaming 8 ball tattoos on their arms, a man who eventually throws his arms around him. They gave this away to a soundtrack, a soundtrack where it was overshadowed a little by All Saints and Moby- most bands would kill for a tune this good and would make it a single or the track they built an album around. Someone in the Lion asked me what this was and took some convincing it was Karl on vocals.

Wixel are from Belgium (with hindsight, there's a bit of a Belgian theme running through this mix) and put out a cover of Sonic Youth's Expressway To Yr Skull in 2008, part of a seven track EP of Sonic Youth covers. The Long Champs edit turns it into a shimmering, semi -ambient haze that led to a couple of enquiries in the pub- and if you turn a couple of people onto something new to them, that's what it's all about isn't it. 

Edit To The Siren is an In The Valley edit of Song To The Siren, This Mortal Coil's signature cover of Tim Buckley's song. Someone once told me this was sacrilege but for me its got a dubby/ Balearic splendour and is perfect Saturday afternoon vibes. 

One Day is one of the key early Bjork solo songs, from 1993's Debut. The dubby bassline, house shimmer, Nellee Hooper's production and Bjork's delivery are all superb. 

Common Land was one of the tracks on James Holden's 2023 album Imagine This Is A High Dimensional Space Of All Possibilities, an album I still go back to a year later. The burbling synths, birdcall, techno- ish drums and warbling sax combine to create something very heady and transportative. It's also a tribute to the free party movement and early 90s rave and felt quite fitting for the Lion and Todmorden.

A Mountain of One's Stars Planets Dust Me was one of my favourite albums from 2022. Andy Bell's GLOK remix is a spaced out, sun- baked treat. 

Emotionally Clear is from David Holmes' Blind On A Galloping Horse, 2023's number one Bagging Area album. Seeing David Holmes bidding at the auction at AW61 from behind the decks will take some beating in 2024. 

V.A. Saturday

Nuggets, a four sides of vinyl, twenty seven track Various Artists album, compiled by Lenny Kaye and released on Elektra in 1972, is one of the definitive compilations, a record that had a huge influence. Lenny Kaye pulled together the album with Elektra boss Jac Holzman, songs by American garage bands from the period 1965- 1968. In the liner notes Kaye uses the phrase 'punk rock', one of the first recorded instances of its usage. The record would influence successive generations of bands, guitar/ drums/ bass/ sometimes organ plus singer, a sound with fuzz guitars, over driven amps, three chord, three minute wonders, snarly vocals, sunglasses and denim jackets. Not much later Kaye would be the guitarist in the Patti Smith Band and guitar bands all over the world would be forming and playing these songs, looking for a way out of their garages. Its difficult to imagine the music world without Nuggets. Here's one song from each of the four sides...

Dirty Water

Dirty Water is by The Standells from 1966, written by producer Ed Cobb, a tribute to the horrendously polluted river Charles that flowed through their home town Boston. The guitar riff is as good as any guitar riff ever played. 

Pushin' Too Hard

Pushin' Too Hard is by The Seeds, written by singer Sky Saxon and released in 1965, two chord electric piano and Sky railing against straight society/ his girlfriend/ the government/the man. 

Psychotic Reaction

Psychotic Reaction is a 1966 single by The Count Five, punchy rhythm guitar and some harmonica, double time sections, Bo Diddley influence near the surface. Sexual frustration causing a psychotic reaction. We've all been there. 

Let's Talk About Girls

The Chocolate Watchband's Let's Talk About Girls (a 1967 song from the album No Way Out) is pretty self- explanatory- muddy guitar riffs, thudding drums, an electric slice of teenage druggy, punky garage rock. 

Beautiful Chaos

This is the most recent digital release from Bedford Falls Players, the name used the magnificent DJ/ producer/ musician Mark Cooper (whose Friday night radio show at The 365 is essential if you're staying in on a Friday night). Beautiful Chaos (Dub Mix) came out a month ago and caused a little stir when Mark Ratcliff played it at The Golden Lion on Saturday night. It's eight minutes of electronic cosmic disco from Maidenhead, a tune that twists and turns, that has a kick and an energy but also moments of titular beauty, twinkling synth lines, long chord washes, burbling bass, piano and keys, acid squiggles, the full shebang. Get it at Bandcamp for just £1.25. 

Mark has a thing for Twin Peaks. A few weeks ago I posted his recent epic Agent Cooper's Coffee Dreams along with Julee Cruise's song Falling and Angelo Badalamenti's Pink Room. Bedford Falls Players have previously released an EP on Night Noise called Moon (back in 2017), four more Twin Peaks related musical excursions including this remix of Chapter 3 of Agent Cooper's Black Lodge  Excursion by Duncan Gray. Moon is here.