Fifty Minutes Of Music Inspired By Apollo 11

A couple of nights ago I watched Apollo 11, a 2019 film about the events of July 1969, fifty five years ago this summer, when astronauts Michael Collins, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong were fired into space on a Saturn V rocket and Armstrong and Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon. The film is a documentary using only archive footage from NASA (including previously unseen 70 mm film) without narration- the only audio comes from the films themselves, voices from ground control and the three men, sound from the mission and ending with a speech by Kennedy at the start of the 1960s. This is a ten minute preview. 

There were several pieces of dialogue between the people in ground control and the three men in a tin can hundreds of thousands of miles away in space that are instantly recognisable, partly because they've been sampled on records. I thought it might be a good theme for a Sunday mix, a collection of tracks inspired by the Apollo missions, some with samples from ground control and the three astronauts, some from other film versions and some just from the wider topic of lunar exploration. It came together quite quickly. It's no surprise probably that The Orb feature.  

Fifty Minutes Of Music Inspired By Apollo 11

• Brian Eno: Always Returning
• Brian Eno: An Ending (Ascent)
• Tranquility Bass: They Came In Peace
• Sedibus: Toi 1338b
• Ian Brown: My Star
• Meatraffle: Meatraffle On The Moon
• Meatraffle: Meatraffle On The Moon (Andrew Weatherall remix)
• The Orb: Supernova At The End Of The Universe (Earth Orbit Three)

Brian Eno's music for the 1983 album Apollo: Atmospheres And Soundtracks is rightly a legendary piece of ambient music, the soundtrack to a film called For All Mankind, an Al Reinhart documentary about the Apollo missions which didn't see the light of day until 1989. Eno, his brother Roger and Daniel Lanois created an album of heavenly, stargazing sounds, synths, piano and pedal steel. Always returning and An Ending (Ascent) bookend the film's soundtrack- both a gorgeous.  

They Came In Peace is a 1991 single by Tranquility Bass, an American duo of Michael Kandel (who I've just noticed I share a birthday with, and who sadly died in 2015) and Tom Chasteen. It's one of 1991's best 12" singles, opening with crickets and the gentle hiss of percussion. The vocal sample, 'they came in peace, for all mankind', is Neil Armstrong on the moon, reading from the plaque left on the moon that reads in full, 'Here men from the planet earth first set foot upon the moon July 1969, AD. We came in peace for all mankind'. The bass loop is one that I could happily listen to for hours, crickets chirruping away around it. Andrew Weatherall later sampled the bass loop for his Squire Black Dove remix of One Dove's Breakdown. Fun fact; I was given Andrew's copy of this 12" last year by Sherman at AW60, blue vinyl with a sticker on the plain black sleeve noting the BPMs of the four tracks in Andrew's handwriting. 

Sedibus is the recent project of Alex Paterson and Andy Falconer, an Orb offshoot (Andy was a collaborator back on the early Orb albums). Space exploration, the cosmos and the moon programmes are all over The Orb and Sedibus. This year's second Sedibus album is about the search for extra- terrestrial life, SETI. The first album, The Heavens, came out in 2021 and this track has a vocal sample intoning the word Sputnik, the USSR's satellite that preceded the US moon programme. Toi 1338b is a planet int eh Pictor constellation, discovered in 2019 by a seventeen year old student on an internship at Goddard Space Flight Centre. Toi 1338b is eleven times the size of earth 1301 light years away from us.

My Star was Ian Brown's return to music after the breakup of The Stone Roses and for me remains his best solo single. NASA samples are an integral part of the song, along with a throbbing bassline and twinkling guitar line and Ian's lyrics about space exploration, nuclear stations, military missions and astronauts being the new conquistadors. The vocal sample 'You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue, we're breathing again, thank the lord', is in Apollo 11, ground control shitting bricks as the command module re- enters earth's atmosphere and drops into the ocean. My Star came out in January 1998 ahead of the album Unfinished Monkey Business.

Meatraffle's Meatraffle On The Moon came out in 2019, a fantastic dub- inflected song imagining un- unionised workers stuck in dead end jobs on the moon, with the weekly meatraffle and karaoke sessions in the lunar base social area their only joy. 'They are so sick of this they just wanna be by the sea', they sing and sound utterly defeated by it. The song is on Meatraffle's second album, the highly recommended Bastard Music. Andrew Weatherall's remix is a nine minute bass- led dub monster that spins the poor moon workers woes out into the cosmos. 

The Orb's Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld is an ambient house touchstone, their 1991 debut album and tour de force. NASA samples appear all over it, not least in the back to back twenty five minutes of tracks Supernova At The End Of The Universe (Earth Orbit Three) and Back Side Of The Moon (Lunar Orbit Four). I picked the former, which has samples of Saturn V blasting off, various flight control to lunar module communications, and one from Dr Strangelove Or How I Stopped Worrying And Learned To Love The Bomb. 

An Hour Of Midsummer Ambience

Today's mix is inspired by the music Martin and I played last Saturday might at Soup with Contours and Marconi Union, sixty minutes of largely ambient music with a tendency towards the cosmic and the odd detour into dub, on this day, the mid point of 2024- how did we get to 30th June so quickly? It seems like only recently it was New Year. The picture is from December last year and an Anglo- Saxon cross in the churchyard of St. Edward's church in Leek, Staffordshire (my Dad's hometown and home to the local delicacy, the Staffordshire oatcake). Anyway, midsummer, late nights, warm days, ambient bliss, dub bass. What more could you ask for?

An Hour Of Midsummer Ambience

• Underworld: Dark And Long (Most 'Ospitable Mix)
• Khartomb: Swahili Lullaby (Synkro's Balearic Dub Mix)
• M- Paths: Emerge
• Sabres Of Paradise: Chapel Street Market 9am
• Zoe: Moonsister (Lunar Dub 1)
• William Orbit: The Story Of Light
• Coyote: Every Forest Tells A Story
• The Woodentops: Dream On (Balearic Ultras Brooking Bass Remix)
• Andy Bell: Smokebelch II
• African Head Charge: Dub For The Spirits
• Sedibus: SETI Part 3

Dark And Long opened Underworld's 1994 album dubnobasswithmyheadman. The single version came with four different mixes, the ambient Most 'Ospitable one being a thing of great beauty. 

Khartomb's 1983 single Swahili Lullaby, post- punk dub,  has recently been re- issued by Jason Boardman's Before I Die label along with this ambient/ Balearic remix courtesy of Stockport producer Synkro. 

M- Paths album Submerge came out on Mighty Force earlier this year, one in a long line of outstanding releases from the reborn Exeter label. Emerge is the final track, piano and synths combining to give the feel of surfacing from underwater to feel the warm hit of sun on your face. 

Chapel Street 9am was on Sabres Of Paradise's 1994 album Haunted Dancehall, Weatherall, Burns and Kooner creating a morning walk through the streets of London after a night at the titular nightclub, electronic seagulls yapping overhead and the gumshoe Maguire heading home. 

Zoe had a huge hit with her song Sunshine On A Rainy Day, a pop- rave classic from summer 1991. The Orb and Youth were involved and The Orb remixed her song Moonsister for the 12".

William Orbit's Strange Cargo 3 is a lost ambient/ global/ dub gem from 1993. The Story Of Light is a blissed out ambient peak.

Coyote released Every Forest tells A Story earlier this year, another spoken word vocal sample layered over laid back ambient/ Balearic music. 

The Woodentops released their album Fruits Of The Deep in April and a single Dream On a few weeks before with this floaty remix by Brighton's Balearic Ultras. 

Andy Bell's cover of Sabres Of Paradise Smokebelch II is from our album Sounds Of The Flightpath Estate Volume 1. In a chain of events that still leaves me scratching my chin, we had almost every track ready for mastering and I emailed Andy (he'd been on tour in the US with Ride) to see if he had anything for us. The following day he sent me Smokebelch, saying I'd inspired him to finish it. He started it the day Andrew died and completed it for our album, inspired by Andrew. Coincidentally, our album made Piccadilly Records mid- year top 25 collections round up a few days ago. 

Dub For The Spirits came out on African Head Charge's Churchical Chant Of The Iyabinghi, an album of previously unreleased tracks and dubs from their 1990 classic Songs Of Praise. Every home should have one.

Sedibus's SETI (The Search For Extra- Terrestrial Intelligence) came out at the start of the year and I'm still going back to it, a lovely mix of synths, samples and 'real' instruments and an endless, questing vision of outer space as a place to find something else/ yourself. 

Forty Minutes Of Music From Reviews At Ban Ban Ton Ton

I've been writing guest reviews for Dr. Rob's Ban Ban Ton Ton website for a few years now, Rob operating out of a remote location in rural Japan (having emigrated there from London) and me in south Manchester. Rob gets sent all sorts of music- Balearic, electronic, cosmische, ambient, jazz, dub, reggae and all points in between- and he passes some of it on to me to listen to and write about. He's keen that Ban Ban Ton Ton has different voices and I'm happy to receive the music and write about it. I currently have a few things lined up to do not least a review of Contours who me and Martin supported at Soup last night along with the headliners Marconi Union. Full reviews to follow both here at Bagging Area and at Ban Ban Ton Ton. One of the wonders of the internet age is the shrinking of distances and the ease of distribution of music. 

In 2024 I've already reviewed seven releases at Ban Ban Ton Ton. I've pulled tracks from each of those seven albums/ EPs into one mix below that works both as a sampler and as a forty minute mix in itself, starting out quite chilled with some dub/ post- punk from the early 80s, heading into ambient territory, then becoming more rhythm heavy with some cosmische and some early 90s Italo cosmic disco. 

Forty Minutes Of Music From Reviews At Ban Ban Ton Ton 

• Khartomb: Swahili Lullaby
• Project Gemini: Colours & Light
• Sedibus: SETI Part 3
• Caolifhionn Rose: Constellation
• Kosmischer Läufer: Spargelspiegel
• Sordid Sound System: It's About Time
• a.s.o.:Go On (Extended Remix)
• Meo And Steve: Global Village (Funk Version)

Khartomb were an early 80s post- punk/ dub/ bossa nova outfit with one 7" single and a Peel Session to their name. The single- Swahili Lullaby- has been picked up by Jason Boardman's Manchester based label Before I Die and re- issued along with two new remixes. My review was at Ban ban Ton Ton last week and you can read it here. Before I Die is fast becoming essential, every release testament to Jason's ability to find new music. Earlier this year he put out the excellent Dubtapes Vol. 1 by KlangKollektor and last year's Konformer was a superb album too. 

Project Gemini is the freak beat/ funk/ soul/ 60s/ cinematic outfit for Paul Osborne. His new album Colours & Light is packed full of guests and is a trip through the night, a kaleidoscopic night out with a  '60s flavour, Turkish and Arabic influences and some French vibes. My review is here. 

I've written about Sedibus here and at Ban Ban Ton Ton. The latest Sedibus album, SETI, is one of this year's records that has stuck around my turntable, The Orb's Alex Paterson and Andy Falconer in fine form. My Ban Ban Ton Ton review is here accompanied by Rob's own thoughts on the album. 

Caolifhionn Rose is a Manchester based artists and her album Constellation is out now on Manchester label Gondwana.  Previously Caolifhionn (pronouced Kallin) has sung with The Durutti Column. Her musical background is in jazz and folk. The album is a wonderous thing- piano, jazz and folk shades, ambient and classical, samples, saxophone and a lighter than air feel, a response to 2020's lockdowns and the power of nature. Read my review here. 

Fred Und Luna's The Future Sounds Of Kraut Vol 2 is a seventeen track compilation of music inspired by the West German bands of the 1970s. I've included two of my favourites here, Kosmischer Läufer and Sordid Sound System. My review at Ban Ban Ton Ton is here. 

a.s.o. are based in Berlin and make downtempo, hip hop influenced dance music. They released a remixes EP this year which I wrote about here. 

Meo and Steve's GLobal Village was one of six slices of Italian cosmic disco/ Afro/ funk/ house from the 1990s, originally out on Riccione's Tribal Italia label and now re- issued on Dualismo Sound. Read more here. 

Meanwhile At Ban Ban Ton Ton...

In time I'll post something up about the weekend's adventures at AW61 at The Golden Lion in Todmorden but in the meantime here's some Ban Ban Ton Ton related activities. I've been reviewing music for Dr. Rob's Ban Ban Ton Ton for some time now- Rob likes to have a variety of voices at his blog, he gets sent a lot of music and it's nice to be asked to guest write elsewhere. Back in January I reviewed an EP by a.s.o., a Berlin based collaboration by singer/ songwriter Aria Seror- O'Neill and producer Lewie Day. The EP followed the release of a self- titled album in 2023, five new mixes and versions of tracks from Lew E, Maara, Cousin and Purelink and takes in solar soaring thumpers, trance, dub and trip hop. My review is here and the EP is available at Bandcamp.

In February I reviewed the new Sedibus album SETI, an album that keeps on giving, old Orb friends Alex Paterson and Andy Falconer on an ambient trip into space searching for extra- terrestrial intelligence (hence the album title). The sweeping, enveloping ambient sounds combined with the vocal samples and use of acoustic instruments- pianos, strings, sax- and Niabinghi style drumming make it an emotive listen. I find it so anyway. Rob already penned some notes while listening it it and his musings are presented alongside mine here. This is an edited version of the closing exploration, SETI Part 3. 

In March I reviewed Fred und Luna's The Future Sounds Of Kraut Volume 2, a seventeen track compilaiton of music inspired by or rooted in the sounds of 1970s West Germany- Can, Neu!, Cluster, Harmonia et al- by artists including Roman Flugel, Sordid Sound System, Thomas Fehlmann, Minami Deutsch and Kosmischer Laufer. The review is here and the album is here. Too many highlights to pick a favourite but It's About Time by Glasgow's Sordid Sound System is a groovy treat, experimental and funky. 

At the end of March I wrote about a new six track compilation EP from Riccione, Italy- Tribal Italia started out in the mid- 90s, releasing tunes from Italy's eastern riviera. The six records re- presented on the new EP, Tribal Italia Breaks out now on Dualismo Records is a heady, far out mish mash of cosmic, Afro, trip hop, Italo and anything else the various producers fancied throwing in for dancing the night away on the beach. My write up is here. Again, difficult to pick a favourite but this one, Punjabi Fantasy by DJ Fary is a mid- 90s blast, combining hip hop drums, Andean pan pipes, and an Indian vocal. 

Lastly and by no means least Rob celebrated Andrew Weatherall's birthday on Saturday 6th April with a lengthy, personal and brilliant piece of writing, a remembering of his adventures at Andrew's Sabresonic club held at Happy Jax, including three separate ninety minute mixes of records played there. You can find it here. 

From 1993, signed to Andrew's Sabres Of Paradise label (release PT004), Musical Science were part of that shift from Balearic and house to techno, a pounding nine minute trance track with a voice intoning, 'musical science... earthly sensations'. This mix is from the Sabres Of Paradise compilation Deep Cuts.  

Musical Science (Home Economix 1)

Monday's Long Song

Back to work today after a week off. Last week turned out to be a big week. The Sounds From The Flightpath Estate album which me, Baz, Dan, Martin and Mark have been pulling together since the germ of an idea occurred to us last summer, went live on Wednesday and on sale for pre- orders on Thursday. The album is a ten track compilation featuring a previously largely unreleased Two Lone Swordsmen track and nine of brand new recordings from Justin Robertson, Tim Fairplay, Hardway Bros, Sons Of Slough, 10:40, Rude Audio, Richard Sen, a well known and highly regarded producer/ DJ from Belfast under the name The Light Brigade plus Andy Bell's cover of Smokebelch. Every track is gold. 

The link to buy  the album, double vinyl, 500 copies, went live at 10am on Thursday morning. By the end of the day it had sold out, 420 copies gone. Watching this happen during the day via our screens was incredibly exciting and there was a genuine buzz about the record. The remaining 80s copies have been kept for some physical, face to face sales over the weeks following release. 

Matt Hum's twenty two minute mix of the ten tracks at Mixcloud is there to whet the appetite and has been streamed more than 800 times to date. On Friday night Mark Cooper, a friend of the group, the man behind Bedford Falls Players and a superb DJ played tracks from the album at his The 365 Social with our very own Baz providing some interview segments scattered throughout the show. You can hear it here. Word has it BBC Radio 6 might be onto it and some of the tracks might get played there next week. It's all very exciting. Dr Rob, the man behind the Ban Ban Ton Ton blog reviewed Sounds From The Flightpath Estate at Ban Ban Ton Ton on Friday, a review that perfectly captures the album and the spirit of it. You can read that here. 

I've been writing guest reviews for Ban Ban Ton Ton intermittently for the last couple of years. Last week I wrote a review of the forthcoming Sedibus album SETI. I posted an advance track last November, SETI Part 3 (the third part of a three piece suite which makes up the second side of the album on vinyl). SETI is a wonderful album made by The Orb's Alex Paterson and ex- Orber Andy Falconer, a record that takes the ambient house sound of those early Orb records, adds some acoustic instrumentation (piano, xylophone, horns) and a lot of space samples about the search for extra- terrestrial intelligence and creates something warm, organic and genuinely awe inspiring. My full review for Ban Ban Ton Ton and Rob's companion piece are here. SETI comes out on Friday. 

Sedibus' first album came out in 2021, a four track source of electronic fun and wonder. This track is Toi 1338b, twelve minutes of space age, spaced out Sedibus ambient house. 

Toi 1338b 

Toi 1338b is a planet roughly between Neptune and Saturn in size. Toi 1338b is in the Pictor constellation, 1320 light years away from us. It was discovered in the summer of 2019  by a 17 year old New York student named Wolf Cukier, while on an internship at the Goddard Space Centre, and announced in January 2020. I don't know what you did in the your 17th summer- I spent the summer of  1987 working in the record and tape department of WHSmiths and indulging in underage drinking in pubs. Wolf discovered a new planet. 

Monday's Long Song

Back in May 2021 The Orb's Alex Paterson and old friend and colleague Andy Falconer released an album as Sedibus called The Heavens. It was a single disc, eight track album that arrived in amongst a slew of Orb related albums, Orb albums, Or remix albums, OSS albums and more besides but one that really struck a chord with me, there was something about the samples, the ambient dub house and lightness of touch that really worked. Alex and Andy have got a second Sedibus album ready to go, this one titled SETI (Search For Extra- Terrestrial Intelligence), out next February, just five tracks and three of them part of a three piece suite. This track, Purgatory, came out last Thursday, a nine minute space flight with BBC announcers and mission control samples, piano, a gentle chug and that widescreen cosmic ambience that Alex does so well. And has done for over three decades. 

This is Papillons from The Heavens, a track that starts with a voice asking big questions about space exploration, neolithic people, the stars and what people saw and wondered when they looked up, and follows it with ten minutes of ambient music. 

Papillons

Forty Minutes Of The Orb

Dr. Alex Paterson has been in a rich vein of form in recent years  with The Orb and various side projects rediscovering and revisiting the sounds and elements that made The Orb so good in the 90s- widescreen ambient dub house liberally peppered with vocal samples and the feel of the weightlessness of space. It seemed only right to stitch some of these together into a forty minute mix, the only problem being Orb songs are sometimes of such a length that it could easily have been a three song mix. It was only once I started putting it together I realised that some of the Orb's recent works have a particularly current resonance...

Forty Minutes Of The Orb

• Dohnavùr: New Objectivity (The Orb's Rest And Be Thankful Mix)
• Sedibus: Toi 1338b (Edit)
• OSS: Wow Picasso!
• The Orb: Ital Orb
• The Orb: Alpine (Prins Thomas Short Yoga Break Version)
• The Orb: The Weekend It Rained Forever- Oseberg Buddha Mix (The Ravens Have Left The Tower)

Dohnavùr are a Scottish duo on the excellent Castles In Space label. The Orb's remix is on a remix package that came out in January this year. 

Sedibus is Alex and original Orb man Andy Falconer. Their album The Heavens came out in May 2021 and was one of the records that sound-tracked last summer for me. 

OSS (Orb Sound System) are Alex and Fil Le Gonidec. Enter The Kettle, a six track album, came out in either November 2021 or July 2022 depending on whether you got the digital or the endlessly delayed vinyl. 

Alpine was a single from 2016 with the Prins Thomas mixes following shortly after. At this point The Orb were Alex and Thomas Fehlmann (who has since departed). 

Ital Orb and The Weekend It Rained Forever are both from the album which was one of the sounds of the first lockdown, released just a couple weeks after the country shut down- March 2020's Abolition Of The Royal Familia. On Abolition Of The Royal Familia The Orb were Alex and Michael Rendell with contributions from Roger Eno the lovely piano on The Weekend...), Youth, Steve Hillage, David Harrow, Gaudi, Miquette Giraudy and Nick Burton and it sounded then and still sounds now like a 21st century Orb classic. Have the ravens taken flight yet?

Monday Mix

This is an hour's worth of songs and sounds I put together a week ago, got distracted from and went back to yesterday. I'm not sure it's quite right but I'm not unpicking the whole thing now so it's here for what looks like a wet and rainy Monday in August. Find it at Mixcloud. 

I did think about dropping found sounds from the BBC sound archive all the way though it- a future project perhaps. I'm not sure the Scritti Politti song works where it is either but there's some nice ambient sounds from Sebidus (The Orb's Alex Paterson and Andy Falconer), some Balearic loveliness from Coyote, solo Strummer, Will Sergeant and Les Pattinson as Poltergeist, Dean and Britta doing Kraftwerk, Sonic Boom droning out Sinner DC, some spaced out sounds from Oregon's Lore City, William Orbit at chill level 10 and Mono Life's stunner of a remix of Pearl's Cab Ride from a few years ago. 

• BBC Sound Archive: Market Sounds
• BBC Sound Archive: Clock
• Sedibus: Afterlife Aftershave (edit)
• Coyote: Café Con Leche
• Joe Strummer: Mango Street
• Poltergeist: The Book Of Pleasures
• Dean and Britta: Neon Lights (Baxter Street Bounce Mix)
• Sinner DC: The Horizon (Sonic Boom No Drums Version)
• Lore City: And Tomorrow
• Scritti Politti: Dr Abernathy
• William Orbit: The Story Of Light
• Pearl’s Cab Ride: Sunrise (Mono Life Extended Trip)

Monday's Long Song

The new album from Orb boss Alex Paterson and old Orb partner Andy Falconer- released under the name Sedibus- is turning out to be one of early summer's real treats. Recent Orb albums have been a bit hit and miss and 2020's Abolition Of The Royal Familia had some very good, long tracks towards the end and some lovely remixes too but some misfires too. The Heavens is beautiful, immersive ambient house from start to finish, only four tracks but each one a journey- littered with samples, some familiar ones, space and NASA samples recurring, the thumping kick drum and dub bass present and the trademark Paterson sense of humour evident too. Dr Alex and Andy Falconer last worked together thirty years ago on Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld and in some ways this album seems to have picked up where that one left off. All four tracks are superb, weightless, organic and absorbing stuff. Unknowable, all eighteen minutes of it, is a trip.