Is It Obvious? Or Is It Delirium?

Last Sunday's post summed up some of the great music in 2025 so far and tomorrow will complete the 25 For 25 set.

That selection has focused on what I would loosely describe as 'alternative' music, whereas I have featured several selections this year that are more electronic / beats based.

And there's so much of it, I can't keep up, to be honest. Exhibit A: another 90-minute, 15 song pick that refuses to be pigeonholed.

There is something of a nostalgic feel to this one. The All Seeing I have released an expanded version on their 1999 album Pickled Eggs And Sherbert, including 4 reworkings by founder member Richard Barratt aka Crooked Man, which you can also buy as a standalone EP. Of course I had to pick 1st Man In Space featuring living legend Phil Oakey.

Phil's in good company. The following song La Musica was originally released in 2014 by Munk and re-released this year as a collaboration with Kapote...although they are one and the same person, Mathias Modica. The version here features George Kranz, heavily incorporating his 1983 song Din Daa Daa.

Oh, and Yoko Ono pops up in the next song by the brilliant Jezebell,  Dub Narcotic Sound System's 1994 single Fuck Shit Up gets a makeover by hi-falutin' Hifi Sean and you'll hear a familiar snippet of Peter Fonda amongst the guess-the-sample offering by Follytechnic Music Library aka Paul Southgate. Paul's seemingly unstoppable output of edits and mash-ups deserves a post of its own. I must get to it.

It's not all reflective, though. If you've been following this blog all year, you will have twigged that I like Airsine's Like Fire EP. I mean, a lot. Three of the four versions have now appeared on 2025 round-up selections, so I guess I'd better save the remaining one for the 'best of the year' round up.

senses appear for the second time in a week with the same song. The original 'indie' version has a charm all of its own, but there was no way I was leaving out Andy Bell's GLOK remix. 

Likewise, Let Yourself Go by Una Camille & Dr. No (well, Richard Norris in disguise actually) popped up previously with one of his own remixes, but I had to make room here for the super Acid Mix by Leo Zero. 

Leo's been pretty busy himself this year, as I found to my (literal) cost last Bandcamp Friday, so there will be more from him here soon. 

Other gifts that keep giving since their release are albums by Hifi Sean and David McAlmont and 100 Poems aka Mike Wilson. Hugo Nicholson is in a real purple patch at the moment, Pete Bones too, here with a remix of Nick Hook for a charity fundraiser EP.

Relatively recent discoveries are Greendoxyn (here with Lyubava), via the ever reliable NEIN Records label,  and London duo Mermaid Chunky, who I found via their collaboration with Orbury Common in 2022.

Rounding things out is sLEdger, who got my attention with an excellent remix of Fluke in 2024, and have kept it with some top notch and brilliantly titled releases. Trippy Ass God Funk indeed.

Please come back on Sunday for more 2025 highlights.

1) 1st Crooked Man In Space (Remix By Richard Barratt): The All Seeing I ft. Phil Oakey (Return Of The Crooked Cat EP)

2) La Musica (Din Daa Daa Version): Munk & Kapote ft. George Kranz (La Musica EP)

3) Turn It Yes: Jezebell (Jezebellearic Beats Volume 2)

4) Like Fire (Single Version): Airsine (Like Fire EP)

5) Spanner: Hugo Nicolson (Black Stick EP)

6) have you ever had a broken heart? (Andy Bell/GLOK Remix): senses (have you ever had a broken heart? EP)

7) Sleeping Pill (Album Version): Hifi Sean & David McAlmont (Twilight)

8) Waiting For An Angel: Greendoxyn & Lyubava (Waiting For An Angel EP)

9) Viva Palestina (Pete Bones Remix): Nick Hook (Viva Palestina (Dance For Peace Remixes) EP)

10) chaperone (Peach's 2Good 2Be Remix): Mermaid Chunky (chaperone EP)

11) Fuck Shit Up (Hifi Sean Mix): Dub Narcotic Sound System (Fuck Shit Up EP)

12) Let The Horse Run Free: 100 Poems (Let The Horse Run Free)

13) Surfer Man Got Loaded: Follytechnic Music Library (FML25 Baggy Ravers 3)

14) Let Yourself Go (Leo Zero Acid Mix): Una Camille & Dr No (Let Yourself Go EP)

15) Trippy Ass God Funk: sLEdger (Funk From The Portal EP)

Is It Obvious? Or Is It Delirium? (1:30:45) (GD) (M)

And if you missed the previous 2025 So Far selections...

28th March: It's A Glamorous World 

11th May: Doused In Dopamine

4th July: Staring Into Air

How Can You Hate The 808?!

'Cause I certainly don't.

Happy #808 Day!

1) Spastik (12" Version By Richie Hawtin): Plastikman (1993)

2) Xtal (Album Version): Aphex Twin (1992)

3) Voodoo Ray (Original Mix): A Guy Called Gerald ft. Nicola Collier (1988)

4) (You Are My) All And All (Take Twelve) (Remix By Kurtis Mantronik): Joyce Sims (1986)

5) The Way You Move (Club Mix By Carlton Mahone, Jr.): Outkast ft. Sleepy Brown (2003)

6) It's Tricky (Album Version By Rick Rubin & Russell Simmons): Run-D.M.C. (1986)

7) Musique Non Stop (Album Version): Kraftwerk (1986)

8) French Kiss (The Songbird Sings Long Vocal Mix): Lil' Louis ft. Karlana Johnson & Shawn Christopher (1989)

1986: All And All EP: 4

1986: Electric Cafe: 7

1986: Raising Hell: 6

1988: Voodoo Ray EP: 3

1989: French Kiss EP: 8

1992: Selected Ambient Works 85-92: 2

1993: Spastik EP: 1

2003: Speakerboxxx / The Love Below: 5

How Can You Hate The 808?! (47:02) (GD) (M)

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Or, AFX with a video for Korg Funk5, directed by Nadia Lee Cohen.

As you might expect from Aphex Twin aka Richard D. James, aurally it's a bonkers track, coming in under four minutes and delivering the title's promise of Korg and funk.

Nadia creates an equally bonkers visual narrative involving a dancer (Nadia herself) repeatedly dying and replicating, travelling from a dance studio into the streets and navigating an array of colourful characters along the way.

Korg Funk5 is an old track, first emerging on the 14-track digital-only release Korg Trax+Tunings For Falling Asleep in 2017.

Korg Funk5 more recently popped up in December last year, simultaneously on the 5-track 12" & digital EP London 19.08.2023, and Music From The Merch Desk (2016 - 2023), a whopping 38-track collection for a mere 20 notes. 

Another Reason Why Now

The reality that Saint Etienne's upcoming 13th studio album, International, will also be their last is starting to sink in. 

I love the music that Sarah, Bob and Pete have created over the past three decades and it's sad that we are mere weeks away from a point when they deliver their last collection of new material.

At the same time, how often do we get to see beloved artists bring things to a close in a manner of their own choosing? No acrimonious split, bitter recriminations or artists flogging a dead horse and regurgitating and recycling ideas that seemed tired and worn out the second or third last time they did it.

If the second single, Take Me To The Pilot, and preceding lead single Glad are any indication, then International is Saint Etienne at their best, instantly recognisable as them, but pushing the concept of the band and their sound into new shapes.

A co-write with Paul Hartnoll of Orbital (why hasn't that happened before?), Take Me To The Pilot is it's own field, but feels complementary to a couple of previous singles: Heart Failed (In The Back Of A Taxi) (and especially the Two Lone Swordsmen remix by Andrew Weatherall and Keith Tenniswood) from 2000, and Who Do You Think You Are, specifically the 'Quex-rd' remix by Aphex Twin aka Richard D. James from 1993.

 

Glad is very much in the template of Saint Etienne's pop hits, though also very much in the 'now' of 2025. As ever, the videos for both are mesmerising, enhancing not distracting from the listening experience.

International is available for pre-order now, with a full release on 5th September and I may just have something in my eye on that day... 

Oh Deary Me, 'E's A Wrong 'Un

Adam Buxton has released a single and video. 

Doing It Wrong will either make you smile or get your hackles rising.

I'm firmly with the former. 

Not sure that I feel strongly enough to buy upcoming album Buckle Up, though. 

If you do, it's available for order now and all yours from 12th September.

As a bonus, here's Adam and Joe Cornish with Louis Theroux in 1990, dancing to Groove Is In The Heart by Deee-Lite. 

And why not?

I Feel Sometimes

A very happy birthday to Vini Reilly, born 4th August 1953.

I posted my first - and to date only - selection of The Durutti Column on 4th August 2022, to mark Vini's 69th birthday. A 13-song, 48-minute collection split into a vinyl-friendly two sides and spanning a decade from 1979 to 1989.

For Vini's 72nd birthday, I've expanded this Dubhed selection to 18 songs and 72 minutes, to neatly fit on a CD-R (if you're still into it).

The scope has also expanded to music from the last 30-odd years, including a song from Vini's last album of new recordings by The Durutti Column, Someone Else's Party in 2003.

Three years on from that post, I'm still discovering Vini's music, each listen revealing more layers and nuances, but all coming back to the fact that he is one of the most astonishing guitar players and composers of our time. 

Hope you have a good one, Vini.

 

1) Lips That Would Kiss (Form Prayers To Broken Stone) (1980)

2) Falling (2001)

3) Enigma (1981)

4) Home (1990)

5) Telephone Call (1983)

6) Woman (Album Version) (2003)

7) Mello Part One (2001)

8) One Christmas For Your Thoughts (1981)

9) Never Known (Four Track Home Demo) (1981)

10) Messidor (Album Version) (1981)

11) Otis (ft. Pol) (1989)

12) You've Heard It Before (1983)

13) Jazz (1980)

14) Buddhist Prayer (1989)

15) Catos Con Guantes (1987)

16) Sleep Will Come (1980)

17) Snowflakes (1983)

18) Goodbye (1985)

1980: From Brussels With Love: 16

1980: Lips That Would Kiss (Form Prayers To Broken Stone) EP: 1

1980: The Return Of The Durutti Column: 13

1981: Chansons De Noël: Ghosts Of Christmas Past: 8

1981: Enigma / Danny EP: 3

1981: LC: 10

1983: Another Setting: 12

1985: Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say EP: 18

1985: Scottish Christmas / Christmas For Pauline EP: 17

1987: Our Lady Of The Angels EP: 15

1989: Vini Reilly: 11, 14

1990: Obey The Time: 4

2001: Rebellion: 2, 7

2003: Someone Else's Party: 6

2009: Demos/Studio: 9

2012: Short Stories For Pauline: 5

I Feel Sometimes (1:12:30) (GD) (M)

You can find Sometimes I Feel (Sides 1 & 2), my previous selection of The Durutti Column,  right here

25 For 25, Part One

As far as I'm concerned, 2025 has been a great year for new music, some long-term favourites returning with new albums, others discovered for the first time. 

In fact, I struggled to come up with a single 45-minute selection, so sod it. I did two. More by accident than design, the second one came in at 13 songs which, added to this dozen, conveniently delivers 25 highlights from 2025. So far.

I'm going to hold onto Side Two until next Sunday. In the meantime, surround yourself with some wonderful songs from some wonderful albums (and two singles).

1) Patient Has Own Supply: Constant Follower (The Smile You Send Out Returns To You)

2) Dating A Model: Emily Breeze (Rats In Paradise)

3) The Blue: Mumble Tide (Might As Well Play Another One)

4) Who This World Is Made For. (Mindful Edit): Ellen Beth Abdi (Ellen Beth Abdi)

5) Burning Bridges: The Cowboy Mouth (Faultlines)

6) have you ever had a broken heart? (Album Version): senses (all the heavens)

7) Old Oak Road (2025 Mix): Mike Smalle ft. Cathal Coughlan & Jah Wobble (Ghosts EP)

8) 1st World Blues: Bright Eyes (1st World Blues EP)

9) Signs: Olafur Arnalds / Talos (A Dawning)

10) You Know It Ain't Right: Pearl Charles (Desert Queen)

11) Good To Cry: Robert Forster (Strawberries)

12) I Materialize: Destroyer (Dan's Boogie)

Side One (45:29) (GD) (M)

Nomates Put A Foot In It

Metalhorse by Billy Nomates is a standout album of 2025, and Nothin' Worth Winnin' a standout song.

Good news therefore that it's been officially released as a single. Not only that, but with a brilliant video directed by Tia Salisbury and co-starring the inimitable Paul Foot. 

It all starts with an exchange of phone messages.

Tor: "Hey Paul, not heard from you in a while. Had a thought. Me and you, let's go to the fair. Let's get on some rides, let's play some games, just go and have some fun."

Paul: "Hi Tor, thanks for your message. Would you mind if we didn't go? I'm just really not in the mood for that sort of thing. Um, if you really, really want to go, I will go with you, um, but i would really rather not. Thanks."

They go, of course.

A superb video to complement a superb song. Possibly the best music you'll see and hear all day.

Friday Camp Out At The Shops

In other words, it's Bandcamp Friday and I am poised to purchase.

I already had a long list, including

‘Aphex Meets Some Simple Minds Uptown’: sLEdger

Disturbia: Phonolab (Gaudi & Eraldo Bernocchi)

Don't Leave Me This Way (Cover of Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes): Crooked Man

La Musica (2025 Version): Munk & Kapote

Vertigo: Michele Mininni

Wise Music In Dub: Dennis Bovell

...and here are five more new releases that have jumped the queue from Bicep, Bright Eyes (gone ska!), Cardiacs, Adrian Sherwood and Daphni aka Dan Snaith.

Tame Impala's new single isn't available on Bandcamp, but it's so good I had to include it. And, based on the shite weather in this neck of the woods in the past few days, calling the song The End Of Summer perhaps wasn't as premature as I first thought...