Ambient Andrew

The 'Andrew' of course being Andrew Weatherall, the 'Ambient' a little misleading perhaps, but this is the nearest you'll get, a combination of chilled and chilling to get you through this mad, mad, mad world.

I've dug deep, going into Andrew's work with Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns as The Sabres Of Paradise, Keith Tenniswood as Two Lone Swordsmen, and Nina Walsh as Woodleigh Research Facility. 

There's also his remix and production work with all of the above, plus Hugo Nicolson with Primal Scream, Peter Hook adding a bassline to The Limiñanas' Garden Of Love that calls to mind The Times' 1990 classic Manchester, and Utah Saints' I Want You transformed beyond all recognition. Oh, and vocals too, from Marie Limiñana, Nina Walsh and, to close, The Guv'nor himself.

The thing is, trawling through my collection for compilation candidates, i ended up with enough for two hour-long mixtapes. So, Vol.2 will be here soon, probably next weekend.

For now though, sit back with a brew, and immerse yourself in Weatherall's world for sixty minutes. 

1) Kicking In Part 4: Two Lone Swordsmen (1997)

2) Garden Of Love (Lundi Mouillé Mix By Andrew Weatherall & Nina Walsh): The Limiñanas ft. Peter Hook (2016)

3) Flight Path Estate: The Sabres Of Paradise (1994)

4) Tiny Reminder No. 1 (C-Pij Remix Vocal) (Remix By Nina Walsh): Two Lone Swordsmen (2001)

5) I Want You (Sabres 110) (Remix By The Sabres Of Paradise aka Andrew Weatherall, Jagz Kooner & Gary Burns): Utah Saints (1993)

6) Akwalek: Two Lone Swordsmen (2000)

7) Theme 4: The Sabres Of Paradise (1994)

8) Emancipation Garage: Woodleigh Research Facility (2015)

9) Still My World: Andrew Weatherall & Keith Tenniswood (2003)

10) Chapel Street Market 9am: The Sabres Of Paradise (1994)

11) Inner Flight (Album Version By Andrew Weatherall & Hugo Nicolson): Primal Scream (1991)

12) Ghosts Again (Album Version By Andrew Weatherall & Nina Walsh): Andrew Weatherall (2016)

1991: Screamadelica: 11

1993: I Want You EP: 5

1994: Haunted Dancehall: 3, 7, 10

1997: Stockwell Steppas: 1

2000: Tiny Reminders: 6

2001: Further Reminders: 4

2003: Still My World: 9

2015: The Phoenix Suburb (And Other Stories): 8

2016: Convenanza: 12

2016: Garden Of Love EP: 2

Ambient Andrew Vol. 1 (59:45) (GD) (M)

Time Will Tell

Happy birthday to Robert Hodgens aka Bobby Bluebell aka founder member of The Bluebells, born 6th June 1959.

One of the great things about becoming a paid up member of the Last Night From Glasgow label is that it introduced me to The Bluebells in a big way. I mean, everyone knows Young At Heart, I was familiar with the other singles Everybody's Somebody's Fool and Cath, but that was about it.

I joined just in time to receive The Bluebells' 'comeback' album, In The 21st Century, which I (and Mrs. K) enjoyed immensely. They've followed up this year with This Is...The Bluebells, a fabulous double album (mine's in snowdrop white vinyl) with sixteen songs.

I also bought the LNFG reissue of debut album Sisters on glorious picture disc vinyl. Only forty years late to appreciate what a great album it is.

The core of The Bluebells - Robert with brothers Ken and David McCluskey - continue to make stirring, joyous music and I wanted to celebrate that in today's selection, which focuses exclusively on their songs from the 2020s.

Twelve songs, eleven originals plus one contemporary cover of fellow Glaswegians Sister John, who I featured back in March. In fact, why not create your own C90 cassette-friendly compilation, with Sister John on one side and The Bluebells on the other?

If, like me, you knew about The Bluebells, but didn't really know their songs, I'd strongly recommend heading over to LNFG and treat yourself.

1) Days Of The Revolution (2026)

2) The Boy Who Slipped Away (2023)

3) Trouble Talking (2026)

4) Stonehouse Violets (2023)

5) Glasgow Rainbow (Cover of Sister John) (2022)

6) Dream On (2026)

7) Blue Train (2023)

8) No Pasaran (2026)

9) Daddy Was An Engineer (2023)

10) Indian Summer (2026)

11) Orienteering (2023)

12) The Ballad Of The Bells (2023)

2022: Young At Heart / Glasgow Rainbow EP: 5

2023: In The 21st Century: 2, 4, 7, 9, 11, 12

2026: This Is...The Bluebells: 1, 3, 6, 8, 10

Time Will Tell (45:53) (GD) (M)

Gelli And I Scream

The first comment sitting beneath Gelli Haha's KEXP session on YouTube is "Idk wtf this is but it’s cool as fuck", which pretty much sums up the entire 23 minute performance. 

Recorded 3rd April, posted 4th June, this has arrived at exactly at the right time. I didn't know I needed to see and hear this until I did, and I'm glad I stopped by KEXP to see what was new.

Gelli Haha is otherwise known as Angel Abaya, born Boise, Idaho, based Los Angeles, California. Angel started releasing music under her own name in 2020, a debut album (THe Bubble) following in 2023. Then came her reinvention as Gelli Haha and last year's appropriately titled second album Switcheroo.

This is the first I've heard of her, so I can't compare and contrast before and after, but Gelli Haha is definitely a smart move. It's fun, fun, fun.

Five songs plus a short interview and trampolines, tents, torches, hide and seek, swimming caps and goggles, an inflatable dolphin... and five women (six if you count KEXP host Evie Stokes) having a really good time in the studio.

1) Funny Music

2) Spit

3) Normalize

4) Bounce House

5) Klouds Will Carry Me To Sleep

And here are a couple more tunes from Switcheroo to give you more bounce to the ounce:

 

I Didn't Expect You To Cut The String

Tahiti 80's second single of 2026, Made Up, is a dayglo indie dancefloor classic, precision tooled for primetime radio.

Whilst Too Much Too Fast Too Soon in April is steeped in the 1980s, Made Up immediately calls to mind The Boo Radleys circa 1994-1995, albeit with the rough edges polished off. None of which is meant as a criticism, I love it.

Made Up isn't available on Bandcamp (yet) but you can track it down on YT and the usual sucky sources. Too Much Too Fast Too Soon can be snapped up at BC for one Euro fifty.

Will You Still Love Me Tomora?

I experienced TOMORA for the first time on Later...With Jools Holland last week. 

The show - and it's host - appears to have a Marmite reaction in this corner of the blogosphere, but I enjoy it (mostly), though I frequently skip through artists and the often excruciating 5 minute 'interview' at the piano.

However, the show does still manage to spotlight artists that up to then have been outside of my periphery, and Tomora is the latest addition to that very long list.

I was mesmerised from the start by the music and the performance: loud, exhilarating, lots of fun. Two women dressed in white with big fluffy boots, one singing, the other (mostly) with her back to the audience, and an old guy wearing glasses and a baseball cap behind a bank of kit, all having a whale of a time. And the song - I Drink The Light - was great.

TOMORA were the subject of one of Jools' brief interviews, as he introduced two of the band, Norwegian artist AURORA aka Aurora Aksnes and Tom Rowlands, 50% of The Chemical Brothers... wait, what? Tom Rowlands?! That "old guy" was born a month after me....

Anyway, as Jools interviews go, TOMORA were great value, especially Aurora's unexpected and frank response to his question about what they like to do to relax, which I think made Jools blush. You can see the chat for yourself here.

I was inspired to buy the deluxe digital version of TOMORA's debut album, Come Closer. As the above two examples demonstrate, it's chock full of quirky bangers, which will keep me occupied over the summer months, at least.

Tom and Aurora have been collaborating for over a decade, so I will also be checking out their previous work on respective Chemical Brothers and AURORA albums.

The third person on stage with TOMORA for their TV debut and live shows is fellow Norwegian Amalie Holt Kleive, who is a member of Ice Quartet and has released a couple of albums as a solo artist. Another avenue I will be exploring.

Thanks, Jools!

Foxy Bass Or Bassy Fox?

Manchester four-piece Pyncher are new to me, and I'll admit some relief that they are relatively new full stop, first releasing music via Bandcamp last year. This bucks my usual habit of 'discovering' bands a decade or so and multiple albums into their career.

2025 saw four singles and a full length album, Every Town Needs A Stranger. Single #4 was the brilliantly titled Steely Dan.

19th June sees Pyncher release a proper EP, I Really Mean It This Time, with track #3 just released with a fabulously lo-fi video.

Oh Boy is a scuzzy slab of indie pop rock, with lots of familiar stylings, musically, vocally and lyrically but you know what? It works.

The thing that distinguishes Oh Boy is bass playing (courtesy of Britt Dewhurst) that may trigger the MMS. No, I don't mean an involuntary hum, I'm talking about the Moment Magnitude Scale (MMS) used to measure earthquakes. I mean, there's heavy and then there's HEAVY.

I'm popping over to Bandcamp at the weekend to buy the EP and check out the rest of Pyncher's catalogue.

Nothing seems to happen

No matter how hard I try

And your love still fills the pavements

So I’ll keep walking outside

Been down all the alleyways

There’s nothing else to find

I just wanna be running

Around your mind

Boy, I’ve done it again

I’m just a big fat loser

With my head sticking over the fence

You said that I’ve been torn

Since the day I was born

Well I know I need more

I just don’t know what for

Now I’m wishing on a sofa

Wishing on a star

I’d wish you’d come and find me

Whoever you are

Boy, I’ve done it again

I’m just a big fat loser

With my head sticking over the fence

Boy, you wanna be friends

And I’ve told you so many times

But you’re not listening

What is all this about

I just can’t work it out

It's all good

It's just fine

It's okay

It's alright

I'm doing good

And I am fine

Boy, I’ve done it again

I’m just a big fat loser

With my head sticking over the fence

Boy, you wanna be friends

And I’ve told you so many times

But you’re not listening

What is all this about

I just can’t work it out

What is all this about

I just can’t work it out

(I just can’t work it out)

You've Got Your Shooting Irons Sticking Out

When I saw that Matador Records had posted a Solex-related video last week, I momentarily thought that Elisabeth Esselink had been inspired to create and share new music.

Not so, sadly. The sobering reality is that it's 25 years since Solex's third and final album for the label. Low Kick And Hard Bop, like the albums that preceded and succeeded it, is an eclectic mix of ideas, musical notes, brain dumps and secondhand store samples, and all the better for it.

All three Solex albums were CD only and not formally released in the UK, so I had to resort to US import copies. In September, to mark it's quarter century, Low Kick And Hard Bop will be available on vinyl for the first time.

Whilst not a new song per se, Mr. Crockpot is a rarity and one that I haven't heard before now. It was originally available as the customary bonus track for the Japanese CD issue of Low Kick And Hard Bop. A few years later, it was also included on the US-only DVD, Solex vs. The Empty Bottle.

I'm pleased that it's been liberated from relative obscurity, and I hope that this may be the catalyst for new music. Elisabeth previous shared plans for a new album in 2020 and whilst that didn't happen, I remain optimistic.

For more Solex fun:

All Licketysplit (20th September 2023)

Say Captain, Say What (29th July 2021)

Are You Happy?

Nearly halfway through the year and I managed to get gig #2 in under the line, Tinariwen at the aptly named Electric Bristol last Sunday.

It was a hot day and even hotter inside, the venue looking more packed than I think I've seen it in a long while, especially given that the support act hadn't taken to the stage when I arrived.

I'm always nonplussed by the general tendency for people to skip the first act, so it was a nice surprise to see the opposite on this occasion. And Sudanese artist Sulafa Elyas was worth turning up on time for. 

Sulafa's half hour set - like her voice - was a thing of great beauty, bathing the audience in cooling, soothing sounds. Stage lights reduced to a minimum, accompanied by a musician (whose name I missed) on synths and her own oud playing, there were a couple of occasions where the sound skirted a little close to muzak, though generally it was an absorbing, engaging experience. 

Tinariwen came on stage around 9.00pm. I counted nine, six of which were playing guitar, often at the same time. two on percussion at the back and one who adopted a Bez-type role, that is, dancing and generally geeing up the crowd. Not that we needed any encouragement!

As usual, I was standing on the left side facing the stage and, as usual, a succession a taller blokes gravitated to the area directly in front of me. People may have mistaken my bobbing and weaving as some rudimentary form of dancing - admittedly, that did come later - but it did mean that I had a fairly decent view most of the time. 

Since April 2022, when I posted my first Tinariwen selection, comprised of random tracks from music mag freebie CDs, I've acquired a few of their albums, not including the most recent, Hoggar, released in March.

Not that it made any difference.  I recognised barely a handful of songs from my modest collection yet none of that really mattered as much as the vibe and the music and the energy coming from the stage. 

Sulafa Elyas came back on stage for the performance of Sagherat Assani from the current album and the crowd went wild. 

Between song banter was limited to the occasional "Thank you! Are you happy?" to which there was an increasingly raucous response.

Eighteen songs and one encore later, Tinariwen were gone for good, I was back out on the street, a hot night but cooling compared to the temperatures raised indoors. 

Tinariwen were on fire, everything that 21st century rock music should be about and a burning example of the power of music to transcend distances of geography, culture and language.

Usually, the selection accompanying a gig review will be a recreation of the setlist. Notwithstanding that a third of the gig covered albums I don't own, another third appears to be made up of songs that haven't yet appeared on any Tinariwen album!

This, according to Setlist, is what Tinariwen played in Bristol:

1) Kel Tamashek

2) Alkhar Dessouf

3) Imidiwan Takyadam

4) Sot Alwakhouch

5) Nak Tenere

6) Sagherat Assani

7) Kek Aghlam

8) Amidinim Ehaf Solan

9) Tahoult

10) Toumast Tincha

11) Amassakoul

12) Aklegh Achal

13) Tahalamot

14) Assàwt

15) Nànnuflày

16) Tiwàyyen

17) Imidiwan Afrik Tendam

18) Sastanàqqàm

19) Chaghaybou 

So, rather than provide a (very) truncated selection, I've instead created a bespoke 48-minute selection of a dozen songs drawn from the albums that I do own. Just one song - Wartilla - appeared in live form on my previous Tinariwen mixtape, so this time I've gone for the studio version. 

There are a few famiiar guest stars too, though never to the detriment of the music. which remains rooted in the desert.

Are you happy? Answers in the comments section below, please!

1) Kel Tamashek (2009)

2) Izarharh Tenere (2007)

3) Assàwt (2017)

4) Wartilla (Album Version ft. Stephen O'Malley & Warren Ellis) (2019)

5) Kud Edazamin (2011)

6) Soixante Trois (2007)

7) Nànnuflày (ft. Mark Lanegan & Kurt Vile) (2017)

8) Tenere Taqhim Tossam (ft. Tunde Adebimpe & Kyp Malone) (2011)

9) Anina (2019)

10) Tiwàyyen (ft. Mina Wallet Oumar & Matt Sweeney) (2017)

11) Imidiwan Afrik Temdam (2009)

12) Sastanàqqàm (2017)

Are You Happy? (48:13) (GD) (M)

My previous Tinariwen selection, What Can Cool A Heart That Burns, can be found here.

And finally, a huge thanks to fellow audience member Julia Parnaby, who was on the other side of the stage. My efforts to take a picture were continually thwarted by the aforementioned giants, so I am grateful that Julia uploaded a quartet of photos to BlueSky. Thank you!

Fee/Mail

On 23rd February 1997, I recorded a Björk cassette compilation called Debutante, "a selection of mixes and alternate versions" of her Debut album. Two sides of music found on the accompanying singles (and a few other sources) and squished on a C60 tape.

I didn't do the same for Björk's second album, Post, although I'd toyed with the idea, and even come up with a title, Fee/Mail. The release of the remix companion Telegram in 1996 effectively rendered the idea redundant.

A decade later, I discovered a Björk fan site online, containing a dizzying number of bootleg mixes spanning her entire career. It's not there anymore, although many of the mixes subsequently resurfaced on YouTube.

I posted the Debutante selection in December 2022 and was listening to it again this week. The thought of the Fee/Mail selection had never really gone away and I'd always found Telegram a patchy collection at best.

Last week, I finally succumbed and started trawling through my Björk collection to finally realise the Fee/Mail C60 compilation.

In 1997, alternative versions and remixes existed for some bit not all of Debut, so I filled the gap with non-album B-sides. No such problem with Post.

Fee/Mail replicates Post's track listing, providing alternative versions for each song. Seven of the eleven tracks are remixes lifted from the contemporary singles, Army Of Me, Enjoy (albeit 12" only), Hyperballad, Possibly Maybe and I Miss You. The list of artists is diverse:  Mike D (Beastie Boys), Fluke, Dom T., Talvin Singh, RH Factor, Plaid and a mighty death metal version by Carcass.

There's one demo - The Modern Things - which was belated released on the Family Tree/Greatest Hits box set in 2002.

The remaining three are all 21st century reworks by DarkJedi (Rouen, France), Ridu (Montreal, Canada) and Keith Kenniff (Portland, USA). All add something different to the music - radically so, in the case of It's Oh So Quiet - but all fit with the aesthetic of the original C60 concept.

I guess I should consider Homogenic next...?

Side One

1) Army Of Me (ABA All-Stars Mix By Michael Diamond & Mario Caldato Jr.) (1995)

2) Hyperballad (The Hyperballad Fluke Mix By Jon Fugler, Mike Bryant & Mike Tournier) (1996)

3) The Modern Things (Original Demo) (1994)

4) It's Oh So Quiet (DarkJedi Mix By Gregory Recher) (Cover of Betty Hutton) (2007)

5) Enjoy (The Beats Mix By Dom T. aka Dominic Thrupp) (1996)

6) You've Been Flirting Again (Ridu Mix By Mathieu Bégin) (2009)

Side Two

1) Isobel (The Carcass Remix By Jeff Walker, Bill Steer, Carlo Regadas & Ken Owen) (1996)

2) Possibly Maybe (Calcutta Cyber Cafe Mix By Talvin Singh) (1996)

3) I Miss You (R.H. Factor Lovely Mix By Michael Rosenman & Michael Hacker) (1997)

4) Cover Me (Plaid Mix By Andy Turner & Ed Handley) (1996)

5) Headphones (Glow Mix By Keith Kenniff) (2001)

1995: Army Of Me EP: A1

1996: Enjoy EP: A5

1996: Hyperballad EP: A2, B1, B4

1996: Possibly Maybe EP: B2

1997: I Miss You EP: B3

2001: Headphones EP: B5

2002: Family Tree (6x CD): A3

2007: It's Oh So Quiet (bootleg MP3): A4

2009: You've Been Flirting Again (bootleg MP3): A6

Side One (29:08) (GD) (M)

Side Two (28:32) (GD) (M)

For your further Björk listening pleasure:

The Original Debutante (4th December 2022)

Bjangin' Bjeats (16th August 2025)

Bad Bitter Melodramatic Trash

I'm delighted to see that the Trashcan Sinatras* have returned this year, with a new album in July and Melodramatic as the third pre-emptive single, landing a couple of weeks ago.

I was peripherally aware of them in the 1990s and early 2000s but just didn't delve into their music much. It's only been in the last few years, and in particular the re-release of 1996 album A Happy Pocket via Last Night From Glasgow, that I've started to appreciate what I've been missing.

The three songs here continue the tradition of beautifully crafted songs, and the videos are fun to watch, especially the one for Bad Husband, featuring guest vocals from Tracyanne Campbell of Camera Obscura.

I'm looking forward to the full release of Ever The Optimist on 31st July, in what is already proving to be another great year for albums.

 

* I'm never quite sure if it's supposed to be Trashcan Sinatras or The Trash Can Sinatras, as both seem to be used frequently, so I'm going with the official website, YT page and BlueSky name.