Youth Is Wasted On The Young

Youth aka Martin Glover could never be accused of slacking off. Since picking up a bass and co-founding Killing Joke, he's been a constant in my musical consciousness since the 1980s and shows no sign of slowing down in 2026.

Youth's CV includes production, collaboration, "supervision" and remix credits for artists ranging from Tom Jones to The Irresistible Force, Transglobal Underground to Cast, Du Blonde to Crowded House, The Orb to Shack and back again.

This ten-track, hour-long selection is rooted in the early 1990s, occasionally branches out into the 21st century and features some of my favourite reworks.

There's the Led Zeppelin-sampling cavernous boom of Björk's old band The Sugarcubes, with late period classic VItamin. 

This is preceded by a mighty dub of Killing Joke circa 1994, when the original line-up not only reformed but dove even deeper into the dub oceans they had previously explored a decade and a half before.

The remixes of Walking On Air by Frazier Chorus were a game changer, and I would have loved to have heard what Youth would have done if let loose on the entire album Ray, not just a couple of songs.

And Natacha Atlas' breathtaking ululations find a perfect complement in Youth's remix of Yalla Chant, which cropped up on a disproportionate number of my mixtapes in the mid-late 1990s.

Not that the remainder are any less of an experience, whether it's teaching old Goths new tricks (Peter Murphy, The Mission), flirting with pop (The Art Of Noise, P.M. Dawn) or going toe-to-toe with legends (Bim Sherman, Jah Wobble). Youth takes it all in his pace, weighted down with plenty of bass.

1) The Art Of Slow Love (Remix By Youth): The Art Of Noise (1991)

2) A Watcher's Point Of View (Don't 'Cha Think) (Youth Extended Mix): P.M. Dawn (1991)

3) Freaks Of Nature (Natural Dub Mix By Youth & Ott): Dub Trees ft. Bim Sherman (2000)

4) I Am My Own Name (Youth Remix): Peter Murphy (2015)

5) Another Cult Goes Down (Portobello Mix By Youth & Greg Hunter): Killing Joke (1994)

6) Vitamin (Babylon's Burnin) (Remix By Youth): The Sugarcubes (1992)

7) Tower Of Strength (Lysergic Dub) (Remix By Youth): The Mission (1994)

8) Walking On Air (Dub Instrumental) (Remixed By Youth): Frazier Chorus (1990)

9) Inspector Out Of Space: Youth Meets Jah Wobble ft. Rhiannon Sharkey (2020)

10) Yalla Chant (The Lesson Four Remix By Youth): Natacha Atlas (1995)

1990: Ray/The Baby Album (ltd 2x CD): 8

1991: A Watcher's Point Of View (Don't 'Cha Think) EP: 2

1991: The FON Mixes: 1

1992: Vitamin EP: 6

1994: Exorcism EP: 5

1994: Tower Of Strength EP: 7

1995: Yalla Chant EP: 10

2000: Nature Never Did Betray the Heart That Loved Her: 3

2015: Remixes From Lion: 4

2020: Acid Punk Dub Apocalypse: 9

Youth Is Wasted On The Young (1:00:07) (GD) (M)

Friday On Friday

There's a long-running and ongoing series on BlueSky called #FallFriday which - no surprise here - sees people posting a song by The Fall on a Friday.

This is my first contribution to #FallFriday and of course I had to be a clever dick by picking a song that guest stars Gavin Friday.

Clear Off! wasn't even a single, but followed on from Draygo's Guilt on Side 1 of the Call For Escape Route EP, a 1984 12" single which came with a free 7" single, racking up five songs in total. All bloody good songs, too.

Clear Off! isn't Gavin's only collaboration with Mark E. Smith and co., maybe I'll feature either or both when I finally have the nerve to create a Dubhed selection for The Fall...

When the off license asks

I've been 2 months

Checks the crack

On their forehead

Should comb a hair

Over that

And these Czech shoes

Are a bloody reminder

And this town

Is not much different

The clothes, the stooped appearance

Over the hill

Goes killer civil servant

I still remember

The white leafy border

The scheiss in winter

Over the hill

Goes killer civil servant

There's a song she had before

Borough town

That had the snappy rejoinder

Who's there?

What's wrong?

Clear off!

Overhead A Rainbow Appears In Black And White

You can depend on Half Man Half Biscuit to have a song for every occasion.

Warning: this video contains images of Simon Cowell, Jeremy Clarkson, Bono, Jeremy Kyle and "rubber faced irritant" Phil Cool.

 

Pulling the ice axe from my leg

I staggered on

Spindrift stinging my remaining eye

I finally managed to reach the station

Only to find that the bus replacement service had broken down

After wondering to myself whether or not

It should actually be called a train replacement service

I walked out onto the concourse and 

Noticed the giant screen seemed to have been tampered with

Probably by a junior employee

Disgruntled commuters were being regaled with some dismal TVM

Involving a tug-of-love-custody-battle

Stockard Channing held sway

Down in the High Street somebody careered out of Boots 

Without due care or attention

I suggest that they learn some pedestrian etiquette

i.e. sidle out of the store gingerly

Embrace the margin

Fat kids with sausage rolls

Poor sods conducting polls

There's a man with a mullet going mad with a mallet in Millets

I try to put everything into perspective

Set it against the scale of human suffering

And I thought of the Mugabe government

And the children of the Calcutta railways

This works for a while

But then I encounter Primark FM

Overhead a rainbow appears

In black and white

Shite Day

I guess this must be National Shite Day

This surely must be National Shite Day

Don't tell me, it's National Shite Day

Float... float on

Float... float on

Barry... Herpes

I got a letter from Stringy Bob

Still on suicide watch

Screws not happy

Spotted a Marsh Fritillary during association

Was roundly ignored

What news you

I felt sorry for him

He'd only been locked up for public nuisance offences

One of which saw him beachcombing the Dee Estuary

Found a dead wading bird

Took it home, parcelled it up

And sent it off to the rubber-faced irritant Phil Cool

With a note inside which read: 

"Is this your Sanderling?"

Another time saw him answering an advert in the music press

"Keyboard player required: Doors, Floyd, etc.

Must be committed, no time wasters"

You can guess the rest

I always imagined he would 

Simply wander off some day into the hills

To be found months later

His carcass stripped by homeless dogs

His exposed skull a perch for the quartering crow

I folded away the letter and put it in my inside pocket

All of a sudden I felt brushed by the wings of something dark

May the Lord have mercy on Stringy Bob

Shite Day

I do believe it's National Shite Day

It all points to National Shite Day

Someone's declared it National Shite Day

Shite Day

My birthday! 

On National Shite Day

No bogroll, it's National Shite Day

Cue drumroll, it's National Shite Day

Cosmic Era Marital Home Melodies

Would Spacemoth exist without Stereolab? Possibly, possibly not, but I'm very pleased to make their acquaintance via t'internet.

Do We Exist? is the first song on Spacemoth's second album, Inward Eye, due in June. 

Pipe And Pistol is the third track from first album No Past No Future and the second song by Spacemoth that I heard, less than one hour before writing this. 

Maryam Qudus, for she is Spacemoth, has enhanced her music making craft as freelance producer, engineer and "noisemaker" with a CV including the likes of Toro Y Moi, Death Cab For Cutie, Tune-Yards and Sasami, and the experience has fed into her own songs, bending instruments into new shapes (metaphorically not literally).

Last week, the ever-dependable KEXP invited Spacemoth in for a session and Maryam performs as a four-piece with Marika Stuurman, Derek Barber and Cody Rhodes. 

Opening with Do We Exist?, there are two more songs from Inward Eye (Round In Loops and UFObird) and one from the debut (Internet Fantasy); all four are excellent and in the post-session chat with host Cheryl Walters, Maryam is an engaging interviewee.

You can but both Spacemoth albums on Bandcamp and various items of merch from the official website.

This Film's Crap

How can it be that David Holmes' debut album is over 30 years old?!

This Film's Crap Let's Slash The Seats managed two weeks in the UK album charts in July 1995, peaking in its first week at #51. That said, not bad for a largely instrumental album, soundtracking imaginary movies that you may think twice before watching anyway.

The singles were no less uncompromising: Minus 61 In Detroit coming in at over nine minutes and album opener No Mans Land pushing the envelope even further, twelve minutes and forty five seconds of nerve tapping twitchiness.

Like Johnny Favourite, the non-album single that preceded them, neither single managed to break out of the Top 80 in their 1-2 week stay in the charts.

Record label Go! Beat played what I guess they thought was their trump card by following up with a third and final single the following April, with Gone. Another lengthy album track at just over eight minutes, Gone at least got a radio edit for the single release, although whether it could be described as 'radio friendly' is another matter.

Propelled by bass, guitar (courtesy of Keith Tenniswood) and a shuffling percussion, the key selling point is the guest vocal from Sarah Cracknell of Saint Etienne.

The lyrics are confined to a mere eighteen words

I'm gonna hide

She don't even know

I'm gonna run away

And you can never go on anymore

And you can never go on anymore

...although I'd always heard that final refrain as 

And you can never go home anymore

...which I prefer, but what do I know?

Gone fared slightly better than the previous three singles, although by 'better' I mean that it managed a single week in the chart at #75. 

Not that David appeared bothered in the least. Six months later, he was back with My Mate Paul, his first Top 40 hit, and a second album (Let's Get Killed) the following year, which did the same. And then he got properly into soundtracks, which was a game changer.

This Film's Crap Let's Slash The Seats is the David Holmes album I revisit the least, not because it's not much good but more that I need to be in a certain mood/frame of mind to listen to it. 

At the weekend, to mark a re-release of the album for Record Store Day, a video (and radio edit!) emerged of the kind-of-title-track Slash The Seats.

As a reminder of David's first album, and Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns' first major (co)production project following the part of The Sabres Of Paradise, it's an astonishing piece of music that still hits hard, three decades on.

Let's Calibrate And Check Our Specs

To celebrate the deluxe edition reissue of Beastie Boys' 2004 album To The 5 Boroughs, an animated video has been commissioned for It Takes Time To Build.

Track four, side one, twenty two years old and still sounds like it could be a brand new single release. 

I was listening to To The 5 Boroughs just last month and it's up there with their best. A response to the 9/11 tragedy, a love letter to New York, a scathing indictment of the US government, it still resonates today. It Takes Time To Build in particular could easily swap out Bush for Trump and remain relevant.

Videos were as much a part of Beastie Boys' world as their music, and Ad Rock, MCA and Mike D always brought their A game. It Takes Time To Build does a good job in it's unavoidable animated format, but I've included the four singles from back in 2004 as a reminder of how each new release was essential viewing.

 

 

 

If you don't like the news then press eject

Baby Davis getting older can't take a rain check

It's time to let'em know what we expect

Stop building SUV's strung out on OPEC

Hold up wait up you know we come correct

You wanna change things up, well hey just get set

It's easier to sit back than stick out your neck

It's easier to break things than build it correct

We've got a president we didn't elect

The Kyoto treaty he decided to neglect

And still the US just wants to flex

Keep doin' that wop we gonna break our necks

It takes a second to wreck it

It takes time to build

You gots to chill

Hate filled people wanna keep us in check

Tearin' down each other is what they expect

If you want love well hey that's a bet

We've got to give before we can get

Waiting like a batter who is on deck

When it's time to wreck shop then shop I'll wreck

So let's calibrate and check our specs

We need a little shift on over towards the left

I don't really know but I suspect

I think it's due time that we inspect

How they get their information and their facts are checked

Another press conference someone's talking out their neck

It takes a second to wreck it

It takes time to build

You gots to chill

So step up to the window and place your bets

Is the US gonna keep breaking necks

Maybe it's time that we impeach Tex

And the military muscle that he wants to flex

By the time Bush is done what will be left

Selling votes like E-pills at the discotheque

Environmental destruction and the national dept

But plenty of dollars left in the fat war chest

What the real deal why you can't connect

Why you hating people that you never met

Didn't your mama teach you to show some respect?

Why not open your mind for a sec?

It takes a second to wreck it

It takes time to build

You gots to chill

In It's Own Good Time

I got a bit carried away with today's selection.

I was keen to create another long-form piece, three to four tracks, each around the twenty-minute mark. I ended up with a short list of eight, couldn't whittle them down any further, so I used them.

A single, eight-song selection would have clocked in at nearly three hours, so instead I've sequenced the tracks into two separate 'phases', each coming in at 83-84 minutes.

The music  spans the last five decades, though mostly comes from the 21st century. There are two 'oldies'. Tangerine Dream were properly introduced to me through listening to The Orb in the 1990s. Green Desert was recorded in 1973 but not finished and released until 1986, as part of the vinyl box set In The Beginning...

I read about Les Rallizes Dénudés first, in Julian Cope's absorbing and essential Japrocksampler, and were one of many such bands that I actively tracked down after finishing the book. There are relatively few official Les Rallizes Dénudés releases, and tons of unofficial ones. Enter The Mirror usually clocks in at around ten minutes, but the version here comes in at double that.

The Arch Drude himself follows suit, having put out what seems like dozens of albums , particularly the Rite series, featuring extended jams and/or streams of consciousness. Last year, Julian returned with I Dream The Cosmos Atavistic.

Likewise, Moby has been putting out music like this ever since he put out a 33-minute ambient version of 1994 single Hymn. His Long Ambients/LA series is exactly as the title describes. It may send you to sleep, but then that was Moby's intention all along.

A surprise addition in 2003 was Paddy McAloon's album I Trawl The Megahertz, not least the 22-minute opening song. If you've not heard it, I won't spoil things with a description. Suffice to say it's a radical - and beautiful - departure from his work as Prefab Sprout. When the album was reissued in 2019, it was rebranded as Prefab Sprout, but this is a one-of-a-kind record from a one-of-a-kind artist.

Dungen were recommended to me by my friend John, Swedish prog/psych rock for the modern age. Today's featured song is Midsommarbongen, which you can translate without too much trouble as 'The Midsummer Bong' which probably tells you all you need to know about what the music sounds like.

The first track on Phase 1 and the last track on Phase 2 are courtesy of Richard Norris, who has released 20-minute ambient pieces on a monthly basis for years now, transforming it into an art form.

Spring - Alban Eilir is from Richard's 2023 edition of his Music For Healing series. It not only felt like a timely inclusion, but also features some beautiful trumpet floating throughout. Land by Deep Earth Network is so fresh that it came out in March. An "earth inspired sonic journey" created by Danny Hammond, mastered by Richard and featuring shack- and field-recordings and spoken word, including those inspiring today's post title.

Phase 1

1) Spring - Alban Eilir: Richard Norris (2023)

2) Green Desert: Tangerine Dream (1973)

3) LA3: Moby (2016)

4) I Trawl The Megahertz: Paddy McAloon (2003)

Phase 2

1) Enter The Mirror (Mars Studio Version 2): Les Rallizes Dénudés (1980)

2) Psalm Zero: Julian Cope (2025)

3) Midsommarbongen: Dungen (2001)

4) Land 1: Deep Earth Network (2026)

1986: Green Desert: A2

2003: I Trawl The Megahertz: A4

2005: Dungen 1999-2001: B3

2012: Mars Studio 1980: B1

2016: Long Ambients 1: Calm. Sleep.: A3

2023: Music For Healing: Equinox 3: A1

2025: I Dream The Cosmos Atavistic: B2

2026: Land: B4

In It's Own Good Time (Phase 1) (1:24:01) (GD) (M)

In It's Own Good Time (Phase 2) (1:23:37) (GD) (M)

If that's not enough and you want to fill your boots/mind/day with more of the same, take your pick!

Chic Thug Stuttered Through A Stereo Dream (August 2021)

Conchoidal Fracture (January 2022)

Monoliths (May 2023)

Sendimentary Sedentary (October 2023)

Urban Head Musics (July 2021) / More Urban Head Musics (February 2022)

Nine Times NEIN Equals Fifty Nine

Or, nine tracks from the tip top NEIN Records label in a fifty-nine minute Dubhed selection.

With the exception of label boss Neil Parnell's automatic inclusion with Tronik Youth, I've tried to pick artists that have rarely if ever featured in previous posts, such as Two Mamarrachos, Cabaret Nocturne and Bit Marten, the latter with the completely on-the-nose First Time.

An eclectic and electric bunch, all dedicated to the beat, mostly from the last two to three years but a few from the last decade to enhance the flavour.

A testament to Neil's vision that NEIN has been a quality label from the outset and maintained that level for over a decade.

1) Saturate (Single Version): Jobe (2023)

2) Overlution: Tronik Youth (2023)

3) Teach Me (Damon Jee Remix): Two Mamarrachos ft. Snem K (2017)

4) First Time: Bit Marten (2023)

5) Bird Lagoon (Mordisco Remix): Durand (2020)

6) Open Market: Fabio Kstro (2024)

7) Green Karma (Roe Deers Remix): Cabaret Nocturne (2017)

8) San Pedro (Tayga 90's Feelings Remix): Astroloop (2023)

9) Never Let You Go (Single Version): Ali X & Ximena (2018)

Nine Times NEIN Equals Fifty Nine (59:10) (GD) (M)

High On Love

Daníel Ágúst today, a last-minute replacement for my intended post when I discovered that a couple of archive Dubhed selections that I wanted to include have vanished into cyberspace.

Not that Daníel Ágúst is sloppy seconds, by any means. His work with GusGus alone is astonishing but back in April 2006, I discovered that Daníel had released a solo album and this is what I had to say about it on my former blog, twenty years ago today.

Swallowed A Star is the first solo album from the former lead singer with GusGus, whose dancefloor-friendly electronica is immensely popular in their native Iceland, but seems unfairly consigned to the periphery elsewhere. 

I fear the same fate for Swallowed A Star: initially available directly from label One Little Indian in September 2005, the album received a commercial release in January 2006; by April, it was lining the Virgin Megastore bargain bins, which is where I rescued my copy. 

Like many budget purchases, Swallowed A Star turns out to be a hidden treasure, a lavishly illustrated ‘hardback edition’ CD with delicately crafted music to match. Despite the album’s title, the impression is that Daniel Ágúst has swallowed an orchestra’s string section, as bass, cello, viola and violin provide the framework for his distinctive vocals. Björk is the immediate musical comparison, harking back to the spine-tingling orchestral remix of The Sugarcubes’ Deus way back in the late 1980s. 

Swallowed A Star also feels very much like a 4AD label release from that period, evoking both the sleeve and atmospherics of This Mortal Coil’s Blood. Oddly enough, Ágúst’s vocals effortlessly make the transition from GusGus’ (who, ironically, were with 4AD for a time) club-centric sound to this new, largely beatless setting. 

The English lyrics are basic, yet effective; the most extreme example of Ágúst’s minimalist approach being Nobody Else, which repeats the single refrain "You don’t want nobody else / ‘cause you got me babe" throughout. 

The album’s theme appears to be the struggle to see beyond the mundane and appreciate life’s inherent beauty. Agust sings about an existence "under the mainstream…on the outskirts of life" (The Stingray), noting that "the comforts of my yellow blue and white apartment block / block my vision" (Love And Respect). 

However, the narrative optimism seems firmly rooted in companionship: "We can open our eyes / and come to realise / we’re more able in life when we love" (Sparks Fly); or "We’re gonna make a day / and drive away / the gray" (The Gray). 

An instrumental 'Intersection' bisects the ten tracks, though there’s no discernible change in mood between the two halves. The songs could easily become overblown or pretentious, but Ágúst maintains a restraint, an intimacy that serves the songs well. 

With the music of Embrace (grandiose, pompous) and Sigur Rós (sweepingly epic) currently (back) in vogue, now would seem the perfect opportunity for Daniel Ágúst’s album to emerge - One Little Indian are evidently hoping to repeat the success of Björk’s Debut.

Sadly, I think Swallowed A Star may just miss the boat, through no fault of it’s own. I’ve played it dozens of times since buying it and am convinced it’s an album which, once owned, will be treasured constantly. 

Daniel Ágúst has swallowed a star and deserves an opportunity to illuminate people’s lives with his music. Watch the skies.

As a postscript, a year later Daniel returned to the studio with his GusGus compadres to record a new album. The Moss, a standout song on Swallowed A Star, was remade and reborn as the club banger that it was perhaps always meant to be, and it was brilliant.

Even better, GusGus got to perform The Moss at the Icelandic Music Awards in 2009.  Like the song, Daniel had also evolved in the intervening years. A compelling watch.

Massive Waits...And Then Boots On The Ground

Massive Attack.

Tom Waits.

Does any more need to be said?

(Post script, Friday 17th)

As it happens, yes, as a few hours later the full length length version and accompanying video was released.