Return To The Other Side

From yesterday's working class hero to today's Working Men's Club and a new song and video, Devout.

First impressions, very good. I can't help but be reminded of Clan Of Xymox in their 4AD pomp, but Sydney Minsky-Sargeant's vocals are less aching and forlorn, more insistent and inviting.

The beats are pulsing and insistent, with lots of squalls and screeches to keep the listener present and not drift into a trance. I'm intrigued that Working Men's Club have worked with producer Atticus Ross on this one, who I'm familiar with from his collaborations with Trent Reznor/Nine Inch Nails, Barry Adamson, Jehnny Beth and Bomb The Bass. On the strength of this single, I hope there's more.

Heading over to Bandcamp to buy, I was put off by the eye-watering $9.00 price tag for the track, with no indication that this is a pre-order for an album, so I can only assume it's a typo and will be corrected.

In the meantime, head straight to WMC's label Domino where you can buy Devout for a much more reasonable 99 pence.

It Just Shows What Love Can Do

Once A Man, Twice A Child was released last week, one of the finest Dexys Midnight Runners of their entire span.

If Love truly is the final Dexys album, and Kevin Rowland calls it a day, what a finale. His voice, his lyrics, his ability to strike that emotional chord is undiminished. And David Holmes' production is light of touch and heavy on impact. What a collaboration.

I've listened to Once A Man, Twice A Child on repeat and I'm welling up. I might need a minute.

I'm glad I had those times with you

Made up for what we both went through. 

And it was so great hugging you.

In those last days days of you

I helped you button up your shirt

It somehow helped to heal the hurt

Gave me a closeness never seen

I was so glad you needed me

Once a man, and twice a child

Was so true for you

And that gave me chance

To get close to you.

I kissed your head before you slept

And when you died I never wept

It was all locked up inside

You taught too well how to hide

Once a man, and twice a child

Was so true for you

And that gave me chance

To get close to you

I don’t know what else I can say, 

but I thought I’d never see the day

When I could be at peace with you

It just shows what love can do

Once a man, and twice a child

Was so true for you

And that gave me chance

To show how I loved you

Remind Me Of A Perfect Plan

Calling a single Hit Song is a bold move, and not a guarantee of success, as Peter Murphy discovered in 1992.

His previous singles in the mid-late 1980s rarely troubled the UK charts, scraping into the Top 100 (just). Hit Song didn't buck the trend and vanished as quietly as it arrived.

I found the CD single in the Virgin Megastore bargain bins a while later. I was a fan of Bauhaus and I quite liked Murphy's earlier solo material, though I'll be honest and say that it was Anton Corbijn's striking photo of Peter on the cover that was the draw.

Hit Song clocks in at 4:45, about 45 seconds shorter than the version which closes Peter's fourth solo album, Holy Smoke. Not that I knew this at the time, as I didn't take time to catch up with his 1990s and 2000s back catalogue until many, many years later.

Hit Song is a good song, but as straight a ballad as perhaps Peter Murphy has ever recorded. In 1992, alternative music was getting grungier and angrier, and Hit Song was perhaps even more out of step than it might have been. 

A year later, Duran Duran enjoyed a Top 20 comeback with Ordinary World and Come Undone. Would this have benefitted Peter Murphy and Hit Song, if it had been released at the same time? Probably not, but time has been a little kinder to this lost tune. Or maybe I've just got older and more sentimental.

Walking in the street

Breath the only friend

Strangers pass me by

I'm moving, moving with the wind

Inside me now, the gold

The gold at rainbow's end

Stranger to myself, a stranger

Stranger till the end

Behind the closed door

The one we painted green

To remind me of the perfect plan

Wash my face in fields of green

Take me to the stars for free

Point me to the high wire call

Wake me true and wake me all

Walk me in the streets

Take me, to a view on high

To an empire state

Tease, tease and bake me dry

Swerve and turn on me

Melt me, melt me to the wall

Like an unspent fortune, I'm running

Running with the call

Behind the closed door

The one we painted green

To remind me of a perfect plan

Wash my face

In fields of green

Take me to the stars for free

Point me to the high wire call

Wake me true and wake me all

Choo Choo Choons

Eight long songs, all emptied from my Bandcamp Friday shopping bag, half and half new releases from 2026 and 'older' songs and remixes.

And by long, I mean long. Strap yourself in for track two, as Ricardo Villalobos and Max Loderbauer take you on an Electric Jazz exploration of Nightmares On Wax's 1990 classic Aftermath for nearly sixteen and a half minutes. And this is the 'short' version; the remix on the A-side is two minutes longer!

I must be especially fond of the Pye Corner Audio remix of Unificado by Lorelle Meets The Obsolete as, when I uploaded the song to my music collection, I belatedly realised that I'd already bought it a couple of years ago....! It's bloody good, though.

As is Fluke's combeck with The Second Bite, which revisited and reworked their back catalogue. Not content with this, they've also released The Second Bite Remixes where a bunch of artists get their hands dirty, including Daniel Avery and Nick Warren. Justin Robertson and Steve Cobby return to Slid and Tosh, which they first remixed in 1993 and 1995 respectively. Others are completely new to me. Of the latter, Feon aka Fionn Macdiarmid delivers a stunningly good remix of Bullet, which I've included here.

Mermaid Chunky are here for the third consecutive day, with céilí, the opening song of slif slaf slof, a whistle-driven chugger (or should that be chunker?) Did I say that I love this album?

Another welcome returnee to this blog is Dan Wainwright, with a new project called Peace & Dub Soundsystem. Imagine Lee 'Scratch' Perry reading Alan Sillitoe's 1958 novel Saturday Night And Sunday Morning and being inspired to make an album, and you're somewhere close to what Dan's achieved. On paper, Northern grit and Jamaican sunshine shouldn't work, but somehow it does.

Abstrakt Lake and Snapped Ankles were chance purchases, as I don't know much about either, nor The Pyramids Of Phobos aka Simon Bowler, for that matter. Crooked Man aka Richard Barratt is another matter, so I was pretty steady ground. Luckily it turned out that both were sound purchases, and a taster for further listening.

Finishing today's selection is 100 Poems aka Mike Wilson, with End Of The Trail, the final album in his 'Americana' trilogy, following Let The Horse Run Free and Rodeo Disco. I loved the previous entries and this one is just as good. I'm fascinated to hear where Mike goes next but for now I've plenty to keep me going.

And yes, topping the page is a dead-eyed statue of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, standing outside Temple Meads rail station in Bristol, inset in a photo of the Bristol Hippodrome that I ran through a kaleidoscope filter. Nothing goes to waste on this blog, and I will find even the most tenuous link between my mixtape titles and cover images.

Enjoy!

1) Kálvin Tér (The Pyramids Of Phobos Remix By Simon Bowler): Abstrakt Lake (2026)

2) Aftermath (Ricardo Villalobos & Max Loderbauer Electric Jazz Version): Nightmares On Wax (2014)

3) Work To The Bone (Album Version By Dan Wainwright): Peace & Dub Soundsystem (2026)

4) Bullet (Feon Remix By Fionn Macdiarmid): Fluke (2026)

5) céilí (Album Version By Mermaid Chunky & Joe Jones): Mermaid Chunky (2024)

6) Come Play The Trees (Crooked Play) (Remix By Crooked Man aka Richard Barratt): Snapped Ankles (2017)

7) Unificado (Pye Corner Audio Remix By Martin Jenkins): Lorelle Meets The Obsolete (2019)

8) Do You Want To Get To Heaven?: 100 Poems (2026)

2014: Aftermath EP: 2

2017: Come Play The Trees EP: 6

2019: Unificado EP: 7

2024: slif slaf slof: 5

2026: A Drop In The Ocean: 3

2026: End Of The Trail: 8

2026: Hemisy Pantos (The Pyramids Of Phobos Remixes): 1

2026: The Second Bite Remixes: 4

Choo Choo Choons (1:14:22) (GD) (M)

Choons Help You Breathe More Easily

Saturday morning started with a headache in bith the literal and technological sense, so I’m bashing away with my oversized fingers and thumbs on a comparatively small mobile phone screen, which means a relatively short post today. 

And yes, the only A.I. contributing to my blog today is of the Authentically Incompetent variety, i.e. me.

By way of compensation, here’s Mermaid Chunky.

I found artist pals Freya Tate and Moina Moin via a guest spot with Orbury Common, and I’ve been a fan of them ever since.

Mermaid Chunky is also the name of a variety of wool that Freya discovered in Shaws the drapers, in her hometown of Stroud Gloucestershire (yep, nearly neighbours with Clan K, give or take 20 miles)

Their debut album slif slaf slof was released in September 2024, I finally got around to buying it yesterday (Bandcamp Friday) and I’m hoping to catch them performing somewhere in Bristol during the Simple Things festival in November.

Nature Girl is (self) described as a “mucky, trippy dirge filled with stalactites of synth and squelch”. What’s not to like?

Bag o' Choons

As usual, another Bandcamp Friday lands and I'm faced with an overwhelming number of singles, EPs and albums vying for my hard-earned moolah.

In no particular order, the following dozen will be dead certs for the checkout and dominating my playlists over the weekend*

1) Once Around The Block (Cover of Badly Drawn Boy): Ellen Beth Abdi (single)

2) North Sixteen: Jo Bartlett & Neil Haydock (album)

3) Easy EP: Smerz (EP)

4) End Of The Trail: 100 Poems (album)

5) A Drop In The Ocean: Peace & Dub Soundsystem (aka Dan Wainwright) (album)

6) Butt Sex: Mykki Blanco (single)

7) Spellbound (Yves Schopin Remixes): Rae & Christian ft. Veba (single)

8) AngieAngieAngie: spill tab (album)

9) Little to Lovers: HANN (single)

10) Unsteady: Jezebell (single)

11) Ghost Rider Remixes (Cover of Suicide): Blavatsky & Tolley (EP)

12) My Heart Is A Room With No Cameras In It: Victoryland (album)

* I may have said this about the some of these artists and releases in previous posts, but this time I really mean it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shakin' That Ass

The third and final compilation of my nominations for the #90sRumpShaker BlueSky challenge, hosted by @stevenh1974.bsky.social throughout August. If you liked the first two, then you will not be disappointed. If you didn't then, er, you will.

Today's selection opens and closes with my first and last picks, namely Back To Front by Adamski featuring Ricky Lyte (RIP) and remixed by Leftfield, and Tinseltown To The Boogiedown by Scritti Politti featuring Mos Def and Lee Majors (no, not that one), remixed by Psycho Les aka Lester Fernandez from The Beatnuts.

None of the other eight songs fall below the high bar set by these two, whether it's the dancehall grooves of Dawn Penn and Apache Indian to the trance-formative techno of David Holmes and Ashley Beedle's epic remix of Sugar Daddy by Secret Knowledge.

I've even managed to squeeze in Eurovision 1995 hopefuls Love City Groove, whose self-titled song managed a respectable 10th place in the final. The bigger draw for me is that, inexplicably, the commercial single release included an 11-minute remix by none other than Jah Wobble that is worth the sticker price alone.

I'm taking a break from BlueSky challenges in September, but will no doubt dive back in the near future. A few of the artists featured in the past three days should also be due their own moment in the Dubhed selection spotlight, hopefully before the end of 2026.

1) Back To Front (The Rub It Radio Edit By Leftfield): Adamski ft. Ricky Lyte (1992)

2) You Don't Love Me (No, No, No) (Extended Mix By Steely & Clevie): Dawn Penn (1994)

3) Magic (Sasha's Black Magic Mix): Sasha ft. Sam Mollison (1994)

4) Love City Groove (Seek Understanding Beyond Immediate Perception Mix Long Version By Jah Wobble): Love City Groove (1995)

5) Fever Called Love (Hardfloor Radio Edit): Rising High Collective (1994)

6) Toxygene (Album Version): The Orb (1997)

7) Starlovers (Album Version): GusGus (1999)

8) Sugar Daddy (Out Of Our Brains On The 5.15 Mix By Disco Evangelists aka David Holmes & Ashley Beedle) (Single Edit): Secret Knowledge (1993)

9) Real People (Gaudi Remix By Daniele Gaudi): Apache Indian (1997)

10) Tinseltown To The Boogiedown (Psycho Les Variation): Scritti Politti ft. Mos Def & Lee Majors (1999)

#90sRumpShakersVolumeThree (59:37) (GD) (M)

Booty-full

You may be relieved to read that the post title is the one and only reference to Bernard Matthews, as I present my second selection collated from the #90sRumpShaker BlueSky challenge, hosted by @stevenh1974.bsky.social last month.

Ten tracks and (hopefully) not a single turkey amongst them. 

Utah Saints sample Phil Oakey to great effect on Believe In Me, Fortran 5 go one step further and get Neil Arthur in the studio for Persian Blues, whilst The Source resurrect a forgotten Candi Staton vocal for a second time, with similarly epic results. And Soho's appropriation of Johnny Marr's unforgettable guitar effect from How Soon Is Now? is the stuff of legend.

Bentley Rhythm Ace, Global Communication and Roni Size Reprazent brought fresh perspectives to dance music in the late 1990s, whilst respecting the past, and Temple Head by Transglobal Underground was, for me at least, one of the songs that defined the optimism of the (then new) decade, the hope of a better world. 

To close, arguably the most unlikely pairing of the decade, Traci Lords teaming up with Juno Reactor aka Ben Watkins and Johann Bley for music that is a little bit techno, a little bit trance, and never dull.

The third and final volume will be landing tomorrow. Hope to see you there!

1) Believe In Me (12-Inch Mix): Utah Saints (1993)

2) You Got The Love (Now Voyager Mix): The Source ft. Candi Staton (1996)

3) Release The Pressure (Album Version): Leftfield ft. Earl Sixteen & Papa Dee (1995)

4) Bentley's Gonna Sort You Out! (Full Version): Bentley Rhythm Ace (1997)

5) Hippychick (Extended): Soho (1990)

6) Persian Blues (3YE1270 Mix): Fortran 5 ft. Neil Arthur (1993)

7) The Way (Original Mix): Global Communication (1996)

8) Temple Head (Zenana Mix): Transglobal Underground (1991)

9) Share The Fall (Version): Roni Size Reprazent ft. Onallee (1997)

10) Control (Olympic 7" Edit): Traci Lords (1994)

#90sRumpShakersVolumeTwo (1:00:02) (GD) (M)

Excuse Me, Is That A Rump Shaker?

Fresh off the finish line of the #90sRumpShaker BlueSky challenge, hosted by  @stevenh1974.bsky.social, with 31 songs, sorted and (re)sequenced as 3 hour-long selections over the next 3 days.

I'll address the elephant in the room straight away, in case you've been peeking ahead at the tracklisting.

Yes I know that Eye Know by De La Soul was released in 1989....well, at least, I remembered after I'd already posted it on 25th August. However, I will point out that Eye Know was still in the Top 100 UK singles by January 1990, the same month that parent album 3 Feet High And Rising finally went Top 20. 

So, Eye Know gets in on a technicality. Besides, the 12" remix by CJ Mackintosh and Dave Dorrell was too good to leave out.

By 1990, Bananarama lost Siobahn Fahey and gained Jacqui O'Sullivan, and swapped PWL for Boy's Own with a scene-referencing remix of Only Your Love by Terry Farley.

Fluke were on a roll in 1993, their remixes here, there and everywhere, including the one featured here, a magical Magimix of Spooky by New Order.

Everybody was getting in on the remix act, including Annie Lennox, whose chart-friendly hit Little Bird was taken out, consumed copious amounts of booze and drugs, and found itself raving in a field at 3:00am to the sounds of N-Joi.

Even The Fall were not immune. My 10" single of 1998 single Masquerade contains not only a PWL remix but a makeover by Mr. Natural aka Aaron Gilbert that's a fair approximation of The Chemical Brothers.

And there's plenty more where that came from! See you tomorrow.

1) Eye Know (The Know It All Mix): De La Soul (1989)

2) Bodyrock (Single Remix): Moby ft. Nikki D (1999)

3) Everybody Dance (Chic Inspirational Mix) (Cover of Chic): Evolution ft. Yvonne Shelton (1993)

4) Only Your Love (A Tribute To Barry Mooncult Mix): Bananarama (1990)

5) Little Bird (N-Joi Version): Annie Lennox (1993)

6) Fall From Grace (Free Me) (Remix By Eskimos & Egypt & Pro-Gress): Eskimos & Egypt ft. Diane Charlemagne (1992)

7) Spooky (Magimix By Fluke): New Order (1993)

8) Moves Like You (Album Version): Cath Carroll (1991)

9) Flavor (Part 2) (Reorganized, Repeated, Destroyed & Simonized By Beck, Mario Caldato Jr. & Mike D.): The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion (1995)

10) Masquerade (Mr. Natural Mix): The Fall (1998)

11) Rude Boy Rock (Album Version): Lionrock (1998)

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#HappyMusicVolumeTwo

This second #HappyMusic selection, gathering 15 songs I picked for Griff's music challenge on BlueSky, ending today. If you missed yesterday's post, songs were eligible if they:

-- make you happy

-- include the word "happy"

-- contain any variation of "happy" in the title, lyrics or band name

-- feature a synonym of "happy"

-- remind you of happiness

As with yesterday's selection, today's featured songs - with the exception of the closer - are not in the order that I posted them, as I was making it up as I went along. I'm pretty happy with how the two mixtapes worked out.

Today's selection gets off to a cracking start with The Icicle Works (my pick on 10th August),  and embracing The Doors, Scritti Politti, The Raveonettes, The Undertones, Madness, Confidence Man, U-Roy, Donovan and a fab cover version by The Siddeleys.

Pussycat by Mulu provided the inspiration for the album artwork for the two volumes, whilst the super final song by Al MacKenzie - one half of D:Ream - has the perfect lyrical sentiment:

"You only get one chance at life, try not to fuck it up"

I can certainly get with that.

September beckons tomorrow. What challenge will the month bring?

1) All The Daughters (Of Her Father's House) (Long Version): The Icicle Works (1985)

2) That Great Love Sound (Album Version): The Raveonettes (2003)

3) Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes) (Cover of Edison Lighthouse): The Siddeleys (1990)

4) It's Going To Happen! (Album Version): The Undertones (1981)

5) Jump For Joy: U-Roy (1976)

6) Mellow Yellow: Donovan (1967)

7) Francisca (Album Version): Espiritu (1992)

8) Up, Up And Away (Happy Sexy Mix By Danny Rampling): The Beloved (1990)

9) Pussycat (François Kevorkian Mix Edit): Mulu (1997)

10) Touch Me (Album Version): The Doors (1969)

11) Wings Of A Dove (Single Version): Madness (1983)

12) Holiday (Album Version): Confidence Man (2021)

13) Boom! There She Was (Album Version): Scritti Politti ft. Roger Troutman (1988)

14) The Crunch (Part 1) (Album Version): RAH Band (1977)

15) Life Is Short, Live It Well (Vocal Mix): Al MacKenzie (2026)

1967: Mellow Yellow: 6

1969: The Soft Parade: 10

1978: The Crunch & Beyond: 14

1981: Positive Touch: 4

1983: Wings Of A Dove EP: 11

1985: All The Daughters (Of Her Father's House) EP: 1

1988: Provision: 13

1990: Alvin Lives (In Leeds): Anti Poll Tax Trax: 3

1990: Blissed Out: 8

1995: Always...: 7

1997: Pussycat EP: 9

2003: Chain Gang Of Love: 2

2005: U-Roy Meets King Tubbys: 5

2021: Tilt: 12

2026: Evil Acid Barons: 15

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