I Feel You Slipping Away

Today's random pick is Wheels Over Indian Trails by Stanton Miranda aka, er, Miranda Stanton, perhaps better known for her collaborations with Carter Burwell as Thick Pigeon.

 

Wheels Over Indian Trails was originally released in May 1986 as a single on Factory Benelux which, as you may have guessed, was the Belgian counterpart of the legendary Factory label founded by Tony Wilson and Alan Erasmus and home to, amongst many others, Joy Division and New Order.

The JD/NO connection doesn't end there. Gillian Gilbert and Stephen Morris perform on the record, as does Gillian's sister Kim, who was also a member of Thick Pigeon. The single was co-produced by film producer Michael Shamberg, Factory and New Order's "eyes and ears" in the United States, and remixed by John Robie, who had reworked Sub-Culture the previous year.

A quick trip to YouTube has revealed that an official video was commissioned for Wheels Over Indian Trails. A lot of it is Miranda playing in the wardrobe and video effects sandbox, with a few visual motifs that later appeared in New Order videos. It's a very lo-fi 80s video and all the better for it.

The vinyl 12" single is on offer on Discogs for a seemingly reasonable starting price of under six quid...until you have a proper look and factor in shipping charges. The sole copy available from a UK seller for example will set you back £35.50, all in.

Digital copies are available at a much more reasonable price. The dub mix on the B-side of the 7" and 12" single is featured on the excellent 2012 compilation, Trevor Jackson presents Metal Dance Industrial/Post-Punk/EBM: Classics & Rarities '80-'88.

 
At the same time as launching Factory Benelux in 1980, Michel Duval and Annik Honoré also co-founded Les Disques Du Crépuscule with artist Benoît Hennebert. The label has been reissuing much of it's back catalogue via Bandcamp this year and in March offered up the 2021 Thick Pigeon compilation Subway (Singles).  The 12" mix of Wheels Over Indian Trails is included as a bonus track. 

 
 
Not an obvious song to cover, but in January 2023, French Radio Constellation gave it a go. A largely faithful reproduction, it's worth a look just to see the video of dancing bats.

If you like that, French Radio Constellation currently have another 222 releases available on Bandcamp. 

Speaking of cover versions, and to bring this post full circle, in 1995 Stanton Miranda covered Love Will Tear Us Apart for a Joy Division tribute album. The video weaves visual excerpts from Wheels Over Indian Trails with clips and photos of (mostly) Ian Curtis and, bizarrely, it kind of works. As does the song. And the pause at 2:40 is just brilliant.

There's 70 Billion People In There

Side 1 of a Cabaret Voltaire mixtape, compiled by my brother in September 1990 as a going away gift just before I went off to Australia for a year, 19 years old, naive and fearless... well, that last bit wasn't quite true. If I thought too long about it, I was bricking it at the prospect of going to the other side of the world solo and essentially making it up as I went along. But I also sensed it would be a once in a lifetime opportunity and I didn't want to pass it up. One of the best decisions I ever made...even more incredible, given some of the poor choices I'd made in the previous couple of years...!

I digress. My brother is a huge Cabaret Voltaire fan, so I listened to a lot of their music blasting from the bedroom next door when we both lived at home and subsequently in his bedsit in Bristol's Stokes Croft area in the latter part of the 1980s. To be honest, I liked Cabaret Voltaire but I'd always gravitated towards their more poppy (if that's the right word for it) or dancefloor oriented material. This is probably reflected in the choice of tracks on this mixtape.

I was blown away by the Yashar 12" (my brother had the original Factory release, of course), both of the John Robie mixes cropping up on mixtapes of my own around that time. I remember getting the coach driver to stick a couple of my cassettes on during a Biology field trip to the Forest of Dean, which will have included Yashar, largely to the indifference of my schoolmates. 

I've tweaked today's selection slightly. Side 1 originally closed with Landslide from 1981's Red Mecca. As with many mixtapes I made or received, there'd often be a 2 minute 'filler' track to pad out a side of a cassette. Good though the track is, I suspect this was the case with Landslide, so I've dropped it and closed with Sensoria instead. To balance the running time, I've also swapped the album version of I Want You for the 12" Mix. 

The mixtape title, as I learned relatively recently, is a mishearing of the vocal sample used on Yashar. The correct wording is, "There's 70 billion people of Earth, where are they hiding?", taken from a 1964 episode of American TV series, The Outer Limits. The episode in question is Demon With A Glass Hand, episode 5 of season 2, written by Harlan Ellison and with the sampled phrase voiced by Robert Culp. Cabaret Voltaire revisited this episode for samples on other tracks on the albums The Voice Of America (1980) and Plasticity (1992).

1) Automotivation (1985)

2) Hypnotised (D.M.D.O.R. Mix By Daniel Miller) (ft. Ten City) (1989)

3) I Want You (12" Mix) (1985)

4) No Escape (Cover of The Seeds) (1979)

5) Yashar (John Robie Mix 2) (1982)

6) White Car (Album Version By Cabaret Voltaire & Adrian Sherwood) (1987)

7) Just Fascination (12" Remix By Cabaret Voltaire & John Luongo) (1982)

8) Sensoria (Album Version By Cabaret Voltaire & Flood) (1984)

 

1979: Mix-Up: 4 

1983: Crackdown/Just Fascination EP: 7

1982: Yashar EP: 5

1984: Micro-Phonies: 8

1985: Gasoline In Your Eye (VHS): 1

1985: I Want You EP: 3 

1987: Code: 6

1989: Hypnotised EP: 2

 

Side One (45:15) (KF) (Mega)

Scratch The Surface

Celebrating Richard H. Kirk, 21st March 1956 to 21st September 2021.

I was devastated to read that Richard H. Kirk died yesterday at the age of 65. His achievements with Cabaret Voltaire alone secure a place in music history, and his prodigious output as a solo artist, aliases including Sandoz, collaborations such as Sweet Exorcist (with Richard Barratt) and many, many remixes kept him at the cutting edge of electronic music. 

Richard H. Kirk re-established Cabaret Voltaire as a solo venture in the late Noughties with remix albums/EPs for Kora and The Tivoli and, in 2020, released the first Cabs album in 26 years with Shadow Of Fear. 

A couple of drone albums and an EP followed this year, proof if needed that Richard H. Kirk was creatively in rude health. 

I can't express how much his music has meant to me and this hastily compiled selection doesn't even begin to scratch the surface.

 

1) The Arm Of The Lord: Cabaret Voltaire (1985)

2) Diskono (Alternate): Cabaret Voltaire (1982)

3) In Slumber (Richard H. Kirk Mix): Anne Garner (2005)

4) Brain, Whisper, Head, Hate Is Noise (Remix By RHK aka Richard H. Kirk): Buck-Tick (1994)

5) Yashar (John Robie Mix 2): Cabaret Voltaire (1982)

6) Tripping On Your Love (Sweet Exorcist Mix By Richard H. Kirk & Richard Barratt): Bananarama (1990)

7) Shadow Of Funk (Edit): Cabaret Voltaire (2021)

8) Do Right (Album Version): Cabaret Voltaire (1984)

9) Kino 5 (C/V Western Re-Work: 92): Cabaret Voltaire (1992)

10) Geezer (Sweet Exorcist Remix By Richard H. Kirk & Richard Barratt): Ultramarine (1992)

11) Cockpit Country: Sandoz (1998)

12) Baader Meinhof: Cabaret Voltaire (1979)

13) Nag Nag Nag (Single Version): Cabaret Voltaire (1979)

1979: A Factory Sample EP: 12

1979: Nag Nag Nag EP: 13

1982: Yashar EP: 5

1984: Micro-Phonies: 8

1985: The Covenant, The Sword And The Arm Of The Lord: 1

1990: Tripping On Your Love EP: 6

1992: I Want You / Kino (Altern 8 Remixes/C/V Western Re-Works: 92 EP: 9

1992: Nightfall In Sweetleaf EP: 10

1994: シェイプレス: 4

1998: Sandoz In Dub: Chant To Jah: 11

2001: Conform To Deform '82-'90: The Virgin/EMI Years Archive: 2

2005: Re-Making The Pearl: 3

2021: Shadow Of Funk EP: 7

 

Scratch The Surface (1:09:07) (GD) (M)