37. Super connectors and low frequencies

This week’s news of the sudden death of DJ and producer Andy Weatherall - at just 56 - was rather shocking. He was one of the real musical ‘super connectors’ - the type of folks who are able to connect people and ideas across the restrictions of genre, geography and time. They’re the kind of people you want to get recommendations from - be it for music, art, film, food, or anything really.

My old friend Russell who used to work at Red Eye Records in the early 1990s sold me most of my early forays into Weatherall’s catalogue when I was still a goth. As he wrote in his Facebook obit to Weatherall - “[hearing Weatherall’s mixes in 1990/1991 was] transforming goths, mods, rudeboys into baggy ravers almost overnight”.

I assembled a massive playlist of all the Weatherall produced and remixed tracks I own, and there’s enough for days and days of continuous listening - from dub to techno, rockabilly to ambient, genuine ‘hands in the air’ anthems to moody glistening breakbeats. Having listened today to a couple of Two Lone Swordsmen albums and a bunch of his early classic remixes - of St Etienne’s Only Love Can Break Your Heart, Meat Beat Manifesto’s , The Orb’s , The Grid’s - I’m now revisiting his three part 2012 collection of later era sub-122 bpm grooves for Ministry of Sound as I write this. Next up will be a quick dive back into The Sabres of Paradise’s .