Stations by Midnight Mines
Two track 45 from a London duo who have been putting out a steady stream of thematic releases over the past few years. Their first tape ‘Dancehall Style’ featured them playing over loops of deconstructed Black Ark rhythms, whilst their 2016 LP ‘If You Can’t Find A Partner Use A Wooden Chair’ purported to be the first release in a rock’n’roll trilogy that as yet hasn’t been completed. Recording sessions are sporadic and completely improvised, later edited and overdubbed into songs at home. The majority of their output has come out on their own Mystery Plane imprint although they have recently released material on the Loki Label in the United States. There have also been two solo tapes covering Baron Saturday’s psych-folk excursions and Private Sorrow’s downer techno. Future plans include a double CD compilation on the New Zealand based Independent Woman Records, and a ‘live DJ mix’ recorded with the General Echo Sound System for RWDFWD.
This particular single takes a dubwise production approach to ramshackle DIY punk with delay-baked vocals and a flipside ‘version’ in classic JA 7” fashion. “Stations” is a tinny goth club stomper, moody guitar lines reverberating over a repetitive bassline. “Radio Dub” is the slow crawl of the night bus home, rain-smeared horns heralding a spoken word lament.
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Credits
M-M-M-M-Mother-Earth, another earth, reading about middle earth whilst the cool kids were kissing and karving initials into the under-side of the slide. Station to station to station, frantically dialling. The european man has gone. Longing to be older and someone’s darling. “He only wanted to be loved”. Remake of the world’s strongest man with JC made to pull a bus with 350 million quid written on the side. It doesn’t matter which one. Hurry Up Garry and finish your peace-punk diatribe. Long good friday early 80s strapped into the back of my dad’s car, Ratcliffe substation visit and then the rest of the day is ours, because this is the day the country died, because we live in the remnants of a bitter and seething ex-empire full of rage that they can’t kick the colonies around any more. There was fun going on but I was too uptight to appreciate it at the time - youth wasted on the wasted. Let’s sit around at home and stare at the walls - I can stretch out and touch either side. In seering lines the metal grid zig-zags across the sky, legs astride wasteland, motorway sidings, leering up over the bank of the river. Going into the tunnel post-stoned and noticing nature ignored but always growing. Society scattered post-stones but these towers replace our former worship places, a world that’s gone too Ron and not enough Brian (or even Mick). Providing the charge we need, structures re-appropriated and imbued with more or less significance, dangling around your neck. These monsters stalk the land, metal crackling with static, coils ready to discharge, all tagged and maintained, even though you’re no longer on the line.
