Brain Is Burning From Losing

After a week of looking back, Friday's selection brings us back up to date with an 8-track trawl through the last couple of years, heavily weighted towards music from 2023.

Private Agenda is Sean Phillips and Martin Aggrowe. "In their teens," says the bio, "[they] dipped in and out of musical projects with their peers, swapping instruments, records and literature along the way. What united these early efforts was a growing fascination and exploration of a multi-genre, interdisciplinary approach to musical projects. If Private Agenda didn’t exist in name, it existed in spirit from an early stage." Private Agenda released the excellent Submersion EP on Lo Recordings in 2021, closing with a remix by label boss - and one half of Seahawks - Jon Tye under his Ocean Moon moniker.

From Ocean Moon to Moon Ocean, one of a series of top notch EPs released by Justin Robertson this year. Confluence Of Torrents is one of five tracks on this EP, featuring music dusted off from the vaults, which speaks to the quality and volume of Justin's work that sometimes there's just too much good music to release all at once.

I was certain that I'd previously featured at least one version of Iron Warrior by Revival Season here, but apparently not. I've gone for the Dubstrumental, one of three Raf Rundell remixes of this standalone 2021 single. Revival Season is Brandon Evans (B-Eazy) and Jonah Swilley (Mattiel) and their debut album is landing in early 2024.

in 2021, Steady State produced the rather excellent Ofra Haza-sampling Shake Up Your Mind. In turn, those wonderful people at Paisley Dark Records commissioned around two dozen remixes. Most of these were compiled for Shelter Me: Beats For Beds: The Remix Album, proceeds going to the housing and homelessness charity Shelter. No longer available to buy, this extract from the album is by Clandestino and amazingly, the quality of the remixes is that good throughout.

The Machine Soul aka Robert Folkesson released the Engineered State EP in the summer, another solid release on Paisley Dark Records. The bio on Resident Advisor reads, "Robert was part of the early rave and house scene in Stockholm, DJ-ing at various underground warehouse parties and legendary clubs like Deep in Bleep, Monday Bar and Le Garage under the DJ Robo moniker. The Machine Soul is Roberts’s brain child for producing deep and groovy tech and deep house" and Engineered State delivers and then some. I've included the original mix here but the remixes by Högt I Tak, Ian Vale, UFO and Jay-Son are also highly recommended.

JP Buckle is Jason Peter Buckle, perhaps better known as a member of The All Seeing I and collaborating with Jarvis Cocker as Relaxed Muscle in the early 2000s before becoming a core member of JARV IS... at the turn of this decade. Redefining prolific, Self Respecting Unobsessed is a track from the album Radio Silence, the seventh of ten (so far) albums and EPs this year alone. 

bdrmm is Hull-based four piece comprising Ryan Smith, Jordan Smith, Joe Vickers and Conor Murray. bdrmm was born as a solo bedroom project by Ryan and after a demo got interest from Radio 1, Ryan roped in his brother and mates to flesh out the band and the sound. bdrmm's music is typically described as shoegaze though you wouldn't know this from listening to Daniel Avery's superlative remix. How much of bdrmm's original music is left in the mix is debatable, but it's a cracking tune all the same.

After the previous song's brain burning beats, some cool water to quell the flames with A Place To Bury Strangers remixed by Annie Hart of Au Revoir Simone. Sonically, the songs is very reminiscent of the latter; vocally it's all the former, Oliver Ackermann's lyrics left intact. Another gem from this year's See Through You Rerealized remix album.

With the exception of the Steady State song, all of today's selections and their parent releases can be found and purchased on Bandcamp.

 

1) P.S.R (Ocean Moon Mix By Jon Tye): Private Agenda (2021)

2) Confluence Of Torrents: Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s (2023)

3) Iron Warrior (Raf Rundell Dubstrumental): Revival Season (2021)

4) Shake Up Your Mind (Clandestino Melt Up Your Mind Mix By Joe Morris & Nick Smith): Steady State (2021)

5) Engineered State (Original Mix By Robert Folkesson): The Machine Soul (2023)

6) Self Respecting Unobsessed: JP Buckle (2023)

7) Port (Daniel Avery Remix): bdrmm (2022)

8) Nice Of You To Be There For Me (Annie Hart Remix): A Place To Bury Strangers (2023)

 

2021: Iron Warrior EP: 3

2021: Shelter Me: Beats For Beds: The Remix Album: 4

2021: Submersion EP: 1 

2022: Port EP: 7

2023: Engineered State EP: 5

2023: Moon Ocean EP: 2

2023: Radio Silence: 6

2023: See Through You Rerealized: 8

 

Brain Is Burning From Losing (45:21) (KF) (Mega)

Psychedelisize Your Soul

As mentioned in my Sonic Boom post a couple of weeks ago, my quest for all things GLOK/Andy Bell related led me to A Place To Bury Strangers and their current remix collection, See Through You Rerealized, released at the beginning of June.

 

Styled as the "loudest band in New York" on the back of (in their own words) "wild live performances filled with beyond intense visuals and dangerous stage antics", APTBS are described on Discogs as purveyors of noise rock and shoegaze.

 

Whilst that may not be immediately apparent from See Through You Rerealized, most of the remixes are at least in a relatable area and have avoided going into full on, hands in the air, sirens blaring, trance territory. Case in point, the electro two-step of Let's See Each Other by the delightfully named Grimoose, which the band/label evidently liked enough to edit an official video for (actually dating from 2021).

 

Several songs get multiple reworkings, including I'm Hurt which appears in three variations. Two get accompanying 'visualiser' video knock offs (Melting Rust Opera's remix missing out, for some reason), first up a glam rock stomp by Trentemøller, followed by the aforementioned GLOK's audibly restrained bass-heavy synth-stabber.

 

The official video for I'm Hurt is the first in a series (of two, to date) created by horror film directors, not a genre I've kept up to speed with to be honest. This one is the handiwork of Chad Crawford Kinkle, whose CV includes Organ Grinder (2011), Jug Face (2013) and Dementer (2019).

 

The second, I Disappear (When You're Near), is directed by Keith Thomas, who debuted with The Vigil in 2019 and followed up in 2022 with a remake of Stephen King's Firestarter, starring Zac Efron no less. 

If anything, the remix of I Disappear (When You're Near) by "art damaged" Detroit duo The Bodies Obtained ups the chill(er) factor and comes with it's own minimalistic video.

In complete contrast to yesterday's Deee-Lite post, none of these songs (or indeed the entirety of the See Through You Rerealized album) would be obvious choices to uplift or get your day off to an optimistic start, but they have a place. Whether that's to bury strangers or not is entirely up to you.

 

Forever At The Push Of A Button

An hour (and five minutes) of Sonic Boom, all purchased within the last 12 months.  This selection and post comes with an inexcusable pun warning. Watch out. Here it comes. Wait for it...

 

I was a late b(l)oom(er) - sorry! - when it comes to Pete Kember. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, I was aware of but didn't particularly buy into Spacemen 3, Spectrum or Experimental Audio Research, literally or metaphorically. I was subsequently enlightened.

More recently, I've been enjoying Sonic Boom's run of new releases via Bandcamp, a real purple patch, not that I'm suggesting that there have been any fallow periods, far from it. In 2022, Pete teamed up with Noah Lennox aka Panda Bear from Animal Collective to produce the heady delight that is the album Reset. A 'Songbook Instrumentals + Remixes' companion was released late last year and a further iteration 'Reset In Dub', the entire album dubbed up by Adrian Sherwood, is released in full on Friday. Scroll to the bottom for my Dubhed selection, which starts off with Sherwood's wonderful rework of Whirlpool and includes further selections from the original and 'Songbook' albums.

The rest of the selection includes artists that are familiar to me (hello again, Pye Corner Audio) or that I've heard for the first time via these purchases. 

Sunray aka Jon Chambers has teamed up with Sonic Boom on a couple of occasions (including a fab cover of Ocean by The Velvet Underground). I bought Sonic Boom's mix of Music For The Dreamachine (Phase One) last week as a 2023 release, only discovering when writing this post that the track was in fact released as a one-sided 12" way back in 2000. No matter, it's twenty four and half minutes of pure bliss and sounds very now.

Veik is a trio comprising Boris Collet, Vincent Condominas, and Adrien Legrand, hailing from Caen, in the heart of Normandy in France. This is one of several remixes from their Surrounding Structures album and, by contrast with Sunray, is a breathtaking brisk remix coming in at under four minutes.

A Place To Bury Strangers have been around since the early 2000s and, after several line-up changes, are currently a trio of Oliver Ackermann, John Fedowitz and Sandra Fedowitz. Until last Bandcamp Friday, my APTBS collection was limited to a couple of remixes of their own songs and a few of them remixing others (Andy Bell, Grinderman and bdrmm). They've been dubbed elsewhere as the "loudest band in New York" and who am I to argue?

 

I'm still working my way through the mammoth remix companion to sixth album See Through You, featuring fresh takes by the likes of Trentemøller, Xiu Xiu, Annie Hart of Au Revoir Simone, bdrmm (repaying the favour) and Andy Bell in his GLOK guise, the latter the one that drew me to the album in the first place. The Sonic Boom remix of Love Reaches Out included here is a standout and if you buy the digital edition, you get a bonus Sonic Boom remix of My Head Is Bleeding. Cranial injuries are clearly an issue for APTBS, one of the few older songs in my collection being To Fix The Gash In Your Head. You need a health and safety risk assessment, mate.

 

David Holmes always delivers a beauty and his remix of Panda Bear and Sonic Boom continues that trend without hesitation. Taken from the Songbook Instrumentals + Remixes iteration of Reset.

 

John Massoni is another artist that I'd not heard of before last week but who, like Sunray/Jon Chambers, previously collaborated with Pete Kember in 2000 (with The Sundowner Sessions EP). The pair returned for this year's Record Store Day with an album, Think Of Me When You Hear Waves, which I've purchased digitally. It's a beautiful excursion and I'll be looking out for more of Massoni's recordings on the back of this.

 

If you're similarly inspired, I've included Bandcamp links - YouTube where not available or in the case of Edge Of The Edge, the official video because it's just to much fun - and all tracks are available for purchase there or elsewhere digitally and in some cases physically. Money well spent, in my opinion.

 

Thanks, Pete!

 

 

 

 

 

 

1) Whirlpool Dub (Adrian Sherwood 'Reset In Dub’ Version): Panda Bear & Sonic Boom (2023)

2) Saturation Point (Sonic Boom Remix): Pye Corner Audio (2022)

3) Music For The Dreamachine (Phase One) (Mixed By Sonic Boom): Sunray (2000)

4) Edge Of The Edge (Album Version): Panda Bear & Sonic Boom (2022)

5) Difficult Machinery (Sonic Boom Remix): Veik (2023)

6) Love Reaches Out (Sonic Boom Rererealized): A Place To Bury Strangers (2023)

7) Gettin' To The Point (David Holmes Remix): Panda Bear & Sonic Boom (2022)

8) Sun (Sonic Boom Mix): John Massoni with Sonic Boom (2023)

2000: Music For The Dreamachine (Phase One) EP: 3

2022: Let’s Remerge! EP: 2

2022: Reset: 4

2022: Reset (Songbook Instrumentals + Remixes): 7

2023: Reset In Dub: 1

2023: See Through You Rerealized: 6

2023: Surrounding Structures Remixes EP: 5

2023: Think Of Me When You Hear Waves: 8

Forever At The Push Of A Button (1:05:47) (KF) (Mega)