Doused In Dopamine

Another round up of 2025 highlights so far, this time focusing on the electronic end of the musical spectrum.

I posted my first review in March and only one of the ten artists featured then reappears in today's selection. No surprise to find that it's 10:40 aka Jesse Fahnestock, with the flip side of his excellent Powder Wax Vol. 2 EP. 

A few surprises: it was a delight to discover that Montjuïc are James Hackett and Ian Carmichael, old buddies from The Orchids, the latter also delivering era-defining music with One Dove. 

Not only that, but the remix is by Cold War Cowboys, who happen to be Martin Watkins, long-time Marc Almond collaborator, and Phil Bloomberg, bass player with The Polecats.

But I've saved the best 'til last, with a beautiful dub-infused remix by Matias Aguayo of Lucrecia Dalt's Cosa Rara, with a spoken word vocal from none other than David Sylvian, who also co-wrote, played guitar and produced the song. A real "how did she do that?!" moment.

1) Dagger (Radio Edit By Charlotte Caluwaerts & Reinhard Vanbergen): Charlotte & Reinhard (Dagger EP)

2) Falling (What Time Is Love?) (Tronik Youth Remix By Neil Parnell): Blavatsky & Tolley ft. Gene Serene (Falling (What Time Is Love?) EP)

3) Field Of Dreams (Hardway Bros Cosmic Interpolation Mix By Sean Johnston): Hugo Nicolson (Field Of Dreams EP)

4) The Third Wave: Matt Gunn (Nowhere EP)

5) We're All Gonna Hurt (Extended Vocal): Le Carousel ft. Jolene O’Hara & Jess Brien (We're All Gonna Hurt EP)

6) Let's Change (Cold War Cowboys Remix By Martin Watkins & Phil Bloomberg): Montjuïc (Let's Change EP)

7) Miracle Me: 10:40 (Powder Wax Vol. 2 EP)

8) Popolina 90: Follytechnic Music Library vs. Pop Will Eat Itself (FML25 Baggy Ravers 3)

9) Like Fire (A Space Age Freak Out Remix By John Paynter & Ben Lewis): Airsine (Like Fire EP)

10) Cosa Rara (Matias Aguayo's Dopamine Dub): Lucrecia Dalt ft. David Sylvian (Cosa Rara EP)

Doused In Dopamine (1:00:09) (GD) (M)

You can find my previous 2025 selection, It's A Glamorous World, right here.

I Am Not Unconscious, I Am Wide Awake

David Holmes and Raven Violet are back with a new single, Stop Apologising, less than a month after their previous release, Necessary Genius.

 

Stop Apologising is a pulsing, electro glam rock stomp, a 2020s relative of Goldfrapp's Ooh La La. The radio edit is a stripped back affair, lyrically pared down to a singular chorus cycle

 

Stop apologising 

For the things you’ve never done 

Stop catastrophizing 

Get your feet back on the ground 

Intoxicating promises 

Losing touch with my own mind 

I am not unconscious, I am wide awake 

And not so blind

 

The single offers up the full length version plus a pair of remixes (vocal and instrumental) each from Horse Meat Disco and Cosmodelica. The former push the Giorgio Moroder needle into the red, upping the tempo and creating an insistent, throbbing dancefloor pulse with stabbing keyboard chords and an additional verse to boot

 

Before I die 

I wanna know that I have lived 

So I called the locksmith 

He did the best with what he had 

He helped me deal with things 

I did not understand 

Cautionary mycology 

Now putty in my hands 

Colleen Murphy's remixes pull the song and stretch it into elastic funk, the underpinning bassline immediately reminding me of the CSS remix of Office Boy by Bonde Do Role from 2007. The Cosmodelica remix takes things further, with rising waves of synths crashing over funky guitar licks and Raven's vocals. Right now, impossible to pick a favourite, they're all excellent.

For added enjoyment/nostalgia value, the accompanying video for Stop Apologising looks like it was created on a ZX81. Wow and then wow.

 

Necessary Genius is also a superb single, one that evokes the sound and feel of Holmes' previous album The Holy Pictures and particularly the Andrew Weatherall remix of I Feel Wonders. Raven runs through a call list of "dreamers, misfits, radicals, outcasts", name checking Angela Davis, Tony Wilson, Nina Simone, Lord Sabre and the recently departed, deeply missed Sinéad O'Connor. 

The digital release is a bumper package with seven additional remixes from Skymas, Decius, Phil Kieran (vocal and dub versions), Robin Wylie and two 'Dub And Response' reworks from Andrew Hogge aka Lovefingers at 142 and 130 bpm respectively. All are worth your time and your money.

 

All of this is a precursor to the release of David Holmes' fifth album (ignoring his numerous film and TV soundtracks), Blind On A Galloping Horse, on 10th November. 

 

In addition to Raven Violet's contrbution throughout, "there are spoken word accounts from Afghan and Ukrainian refugees now welcomed as residents in Belfast, alongside a Palestinian ambulance driver and French and Irish observers of the UK’s turmoil of recent years. Their voices add to the feeling that this record is a call to action, a motivation and a head clearing, slate wiping journey."

 

On the strength of these two songs, the inclusion of previous singles Hope Is The Last Thing To Die and It's Over, If We Run Out Of Love in updated versions and the promise of Holmes' recording of an unreleased Andrew Weatherall song called I Laugh Myself To Sleep, Blind On A Galloping Horse is a surefire contender for my (very long) list of album highlights of 2023.

Blind On A Galloping Horse is available for pre-order in physical and digital formats right now from the usual suspects. I was going to add it to my Christmas list but I just couldn't wait.