These Are The Things That Dreams Are Made Of

I've only recently begun to fully appreciate Neil Hannon's astounding body of work as The Divine Comedy. 

 

I mean, he's been writing, recording, performing and at times the sole member of the band for over three decades now. Although there's a definite peak in the mid-late 1990s, with a degree of commercial success and stack of UK Top 40 singles, The Divine Comedy has released a dozen albums, half of them in the 21st Century. 

In the last year, from owning zero albums, I've been slowly catching up with The Divine Comedy's back catalogue, up to and including the most recent album, 2019's Office Politics. To these ears, there is no dip in the lyrical wit, deceptively dark narratives and sing-a-long tunes throughout.

Here then is a selection of a baker's dozen of tunes. I haven't represented every album but it has a go at spanning The Divine Comedy's history to date. Ironically, the song that provides the post title - Infernal Machines - didn't make the final cut as I'd used it in a previous mix. There's only one "hit" and one "near miss" but they all sound like classics to me. 

 

The penultimate track is from a mammoth boxset released in 2020, secondhand copies of which will set you back nearly £300 on Discogs. I could have left it off to make the selection an even dozen and hit the 45-minute mark, but I couldn't resist the title.

Enjoy!

1) Neapolitan Girl (2010)

2) My Imaginary Friend (2004)

3) The Life And Soul Of The Party (Album Version) (2019)

4) To Die A Virgin (Album Version) (2006)

5) Generation Sex (Single Version) (1998)

6) The Dogs And The Horses (Album Version) (1996)

7) Secret Garden (1990)

8) If I Were You (I'd Be Through With Me) (Album Version) (1997)

9) When A Man Cries (Album Version) (2010)

10) Love What You Do (Deadly Avenger Mix) (2001)

11) Queen Of The South (Album Version) (1993)

12) Olivia, New Tron Song (2019)

13) How Can You Leave Me On My Own (Album Version) (2016)

1990: Fanfare For The Comic Muse: 7

1993: Liberation: 11

1996: Casanova: 6

1997: A Short Album About Love: 8

1998: Generation Sex EP: 5

2001: Love What You Do EP: 10

2004: Absent Friends: 2

2006: Victory For The Comic Muse: 4

2010: Bang Goes The Knighthood: 1, 9

2016: Foreverland: 13

2019: Office Politics: 3

2020: Venus, Cupid, Folly And Time: Thirty Years Of The Divine Comedy: 12

These Are The Things That Dreams Are Made Of (47:13) (KF) (Mega)

On a final note...

You may have noticed a slight change to the links. I've had continual headaches with Box, the latest being that I keep getting warnings that I'm nearly at my 10GB limit despite having barely 1.5GB of selections uploaded at any one time. 

 

After numerous attempts to ask Box to fix it and deleting and restoring the files, both to no effect, I've given Box the heave-ho and moved to Kraken Files. I'm also sticking with Mega. I've re-uploaded all of the linked files for the past month, although only 'new' posts so any recent Box links back to previous 'sides' will be dead.

 

I hope this doesn't prevent any of you from accessing my MP3s but feedback would be welcome.

Altered States

A 20-track, 80-minute journey through cosmic consciousness, courtesy of The Future Sound Of London. 

A seemingly random but well-timed comment last weekend coincided with an idea that had been percolating in my mind for a while. In response to the Stuff compilation CD I posted, blureu enquired,

"Have you ever done a The Future Sound Of London compilation post? Just curious. Thanks!"

My immediate thought was, "Yes, lots!", so I was quite surprised that whilst Brian Dougans and Gary Cobain have featured here regularly, they've only had one selection dedicated to their own work, in August 2021. Even then, it was a relatively brisk (under an hour) selection of remixes of other artists as either The Future Sound Of London or The Amorphous Androgynous. You can find that post and selection here.

 

I was suitably inspired to have a go at creating a new selection and, I'll be honest, I'm really pleased with it. One of those mixes where each track was offering itself up whilst the previous one was playing; the sequencing is my first take, no changes, no fancy mixing, quite a lot of edits and overlays and...I love it.

 

I also surprised myself with some of the track choices and the feel of the selection overall. It was an entirely intuitive mix so whilst I expected to include Lifeforms or Cascades, for example, I instead found myself choosing Max from 1996's Dead Cities or an obscure John Peel session from 1992 or a FSOL remix of Candese, one of their many aliases and collected on the essential Earthbeat compilation.

It's also given me the opportunity to share a few tracks from their annual calendar series, which I've subscribed to for the past few years. 

This one inevitably is for blureu - thanks, I got a real buzz from creating this selection.

1) Eyes Pop - Skin Explodes - Everybody Dead (Live ISDN Transmission From The Kitchen, New York) (1994) 

2) Elaborate Burn (1994)

3) Max (1996)

4) Papua New Guinea (Mellow Magic Maze Mix By Patrick Woodcock & Pierre Begon-Lours) (2001)

5) Papua New Guinea (Andrew Weatherall Mix - 7" Edit) (1992)

6) Hidden Sign (2008)

7) Space Hippy (John Peel Session) (1992) 

8) Deconstructed Room (2019)

9) We Have Explosive (Pt. 1-outro / Pt. 2-Remix By Leon Mar / Pt. 3-intro) (1997)

10) Day One (FSOL Cosmic Jukebox Mix v1): Deadly Avenger (2002)

11) 100 Baby Spiders (2008)

12) You Took My Love (Earth Mix By The Future Sound Of London): Candese (1991)

13) Mango Tree (Version) (2007)

14) Papua New Guinea (Translation 8: The Big Blue) (2009)

15) Utterance (2020)

16) Are They Fightin Us (1994)

17) Slow Photo (2017)

18) Opk Machines Trx M2 (2022)

19) Zen Jenny (2021)

20) Calcium (Album Version) (1991)

1991: Accelerator: 20

1991: You Took My Love EP: 12

1992: Papua New Guinea EP: 5

1992: The BBC Sessions EP (bootleg): 7

1994: ISDN: 1, 16

1994: Lifeforms: 2

1996: Dead Cities: 3

1997: We Have Explosive EP: 9

2001: Accelerator / Papua New Guinea Mix Anthology (2x CD): 4

2002: We Took Pelham EP: 10 

2007: From The Archives Vol. 3: 13

2008: From The Archives Vol. 4: 6, 11

2009: Papua New Guinea Translations: 14

2020: FSOL Calendar 2020: 15

2021: FSOL Calendar 2021: 19

2022: FSOL Calendar 2022: 8, 18

2023: FSOL Calendar 2023: 17

Altered States (1:22:28) (Box) (Mega)

Camouflage Conviction Continued

Side 1 of a Manic Street Preachers mixtape, compiled 1st April 1999. 

This may well be the longest gap to date between two sides of a cassette compilation, a year and week since I posted Side 2 to commiserate the fact that I was unable to see the Manics live at The Forum in Bath. There was a happy ending to that sorry tale, in that fellow blogosphere traveller Mike was able to use my ticket and had a great time (note: and I finally got to see my first gig at The Forum last night, but that's another post for the weekend).

As before, this side gathers together album versions, live performances, remixes and B-sides from the relatively few Manic Street Preachers singles that I owned at the end of the last century. I was in the crowd for their live rendition of From Despair To Where, opening up a blistering set at the inaugural Phoenix Festival in Stratford-Upon-Avon in 1993. The remix of La Tristesse Durera (Scream To A Sigh) by The Dust Brothers (aka Ed Simons and Tom Rowlands, before they had to go all Chemical on us) is my favourite version of the song, whilst Too Cold Here is another example of the treasure that could be found tucked away on their singles and EPs.

 

Turn the volume up for this one.

1) Australia (Album Version) (1996)

2) She Is Suffering (7" Radio Edit) (1994)

3) The Everlasting (Deadly Avenger's Psalm 315) (1998)

4) From Despair To Where (Live @ Phoenix Festival, Stratford-Upon-Avon, 18th July 1993) *

5) Too Cold Here (1994)

6) La Tristesse Durera (Scream To A Sigh) (Vocal Mix By The Dust Brothers aka Ed Simons & Tom Rowlands) **

7) P.C.P. (Live @ Glastonbury Festival, 24th June 1994)

8) Kevin Carter (Stealth Sonic Orchestra Soundtrack) (Remix By Apollo 440) (1996)

9) If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next (Album Version) (1998)

10) You Love Us (Single Version aka Original Heavenly Version) (1991)

1991: You Love Us EP: 10

1993: Five Alive Take Three (Melody Maker promo cassette): 4 *

1994: Revol EP: 5, 10

1994: She Is Suffering EP: 2, 6

1994: Volume Eleven: 7

1996: Everything Must Go (1996) / Australia EP: 1

1996: Kevin Carter EP: 8

1998: The Everlasting EP: 3 

1998: This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours / If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next EP: 9

 

* This version also popped up on the various artists' compilation Phoenix The Album in 1997

** This is a similar but different version from the Sunday Social Mix that appeared on the M.S.P. Done & Dusted 12" single in 1994.

 

Side One (46:11)

Side Two here

Day One

Happy New Year, everyone! In the interests of avoiding posting any on-the-nose songs by U2 or ABBA, here's a relatively forgotten remix of Deadly Avenger from twenty years ago instead. The "v2" remix is a good one to loop if you're planning a walk/fresh air to clear that fuzzy head. Both v1 & v2 appeared on the 2002 single We Took Pelham, albeit respectively exclusive to the 12" and CD single formats.

The Future Sound Of London only released one other 'Cosmic Jukebox' remix - Paths by Robert Miles, which I featured previously here. I've only discovered from researching this post that there was a planned then scrapped 'Cosmic Jukebox' project, which was subsequently replaced by the long-running A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble series.

The 'Cosmic Jukebox' sideline also pointed the way to the re-emergence of Amorphous Androgynous, with their incredible album The Isness that same year.

Amorphous Androgynous returned last year with We Persuade Ourselves We Are Immortal, an epic 6-part single/mini-album and remix companion, featuring Peter Hammill on lead vocals and Paul Weller tucked away in the mix, tinkling the ivories. 

A new album, Listening To The Head Chakra, has been promised for a few years now but may finally see the light of day in 2022.  

Day One (FSOL Cosmic Jukebox Mix v2): Deadly Avenger (2002)

Day One (FSOL Cosmic Jukebox Mix v1): Deadly Avenger (2002)

We Persuade Ourselves We Are Immortal (Official Video): The Amorphous Androgynous ft. Peter Hammill (2021)