This one's an absolute copyright nightmare. It's based on a 1963 folk song by Shel Silverstein and Jim Friedman called The Hills of Shiloh, and the vocal is from an acapella recording by the magnificent June Tabor.

Still, I enjoyed making it.

Amanda Blaine

Everyone knows Neil Armstrong's first words on the moon, but fewer people are familiar with Eugene Cernan's speech as he left the Moon on the final Apollo mission.

I really like that speech. It's both sad and uplifting. I tried to make something to fit with it that was the kind of 70s Lounge music the Apollo 17 astronauts might be familiar with, but at the same time had a kind of outer space dub situation going on.

For All Mankind

This is principally for the amusement of my friend Angie. 

Three chords and the truth? Sometimes one chord is plenty.

Not In Love

Tonight's special guest star: Chester Arthur Burnett.

Thinking Evil

An absolute classic by the Great David Essex retooled to blend in with the rest of my DJ set

Rock On (Rockers Mix)

Another one of those where I revisit an old recording… in the case the first record I ever appeared on, way back in 1980.  

It was amazingly badly-recorded but I only kept the vocal, from my pal Martyn, and added a 'borrowed' chunk of a tune from the new Mungo's Hi Fi album – which you really should get, it's ace!

Turn It Down

Dérive #11

Dérive #12

Dérive 13

I really don't know what this one's about.

About 150 years ago I had a band with my friend Spike and a singer called Judy (where are you now, Judy? We miss you!)

We recorded a bunch of stuff and even played one live show but it didn’t come to much.

Spike recently unearthed some of the recordings and made an enormous fat remix of one of the songs: https://youtu.be/UX4vyI-3GM8

I couldn’t just listen to it like a normal person though, so I took his drums and Judy’s vocal and made …whatever this is.

I added a little snippet from NYC battle-rapper Iron Solomon for variety and smooshed in everything else I could think of. 

It’s got it all. Strings, pedal steel, Hammond organ. The lot.

Is it any good? That’s for you to decide.

Sucker

I can't sing, I can't play the guitar all that well either, so I thought I'd do both.

First in a likely new strand of stuff involving actual songs. With 'singing'. Who expected that?

(nb: the first thing you hear is Theziz from Pulse Music Group on YouTube reviewing the drum sounds I used)

Some Of Us Are Dead

Dérive #13

I am trying to do a thing where I create pieces of music more-or-less 'live' in the laptop, allowing myself exactly an hour to compose, record and mix.

I really like Harold Budd and King Tubby. Does it show?

60MAN60

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