Playlist: Mackem magic and a mystical remix

The big upcoming event for me is the Summer Streets festival in Sunderland - two days of top local bands in the best free festival in the region. We've got a couple of highlights from that show on July 6/7, plus a hazily beautiful remix of some gentle electro-folk from East Durham.

Martha – Hope Gets Harder

Spiky, straight-edged Durham DIY band Martha tend towards wry, dark and cynical. But if the message is often a mix of sadness and anger, the music delivers it with a sucker-punch of bounce that buries itself in the brain. Hope Gets Harder, one of the lead tracks from 2022’s “Please Don’t Take Me Back” is a case in point. What could be a lament for a self-styled “damp and hateful island” turns out to be an absolute banger, albeit one fuelled by rage at the current state of the nation.

And there’s plenty to be enraged about. From phoney culture wars to crumbling public services, Britain in 2024 is left with an uncomfortable sense that the upcoming election is going to bring us old wine in new bottles. These are bleak times. Hope, indeed, gets harder to find. But one place where I still find some of mine is in the flickering lights of creativity that still twinkle despite years of slash-and-burn politics ripping through our society.

Martha plays day one of Summer Streets on Saturday, July 6. The music starts in Cliffe Park, Roker, Sunderland at 12:30. Admission is free.

Field Music - Orion from the Street

Among the highlights of the weekend is a set from Field Music. Perhaps Sunderland’s best band of the 21st century, the Brewis brothers have been relatively quiet since 2021’s “Flat White Moon”. Summer Streets is their only scheduled gig this year, and although April’s Record Store Day saw an intriguing joint release with the NASUWT Brass Band, that has been deliberately low profile in hopes of persuading people to part with their cash, pick up some vinyl and support a beleaguered recording industry and the dwindling infrastructure of knowledgeable, independent music stores that depend upon it.

But the pause also gives a chance to reassess “Flat White Moon”, an album that was greeted with some confusion when it emerged. Less overtly political than its vocally anti-Brexit predecessor “Open Here” or “Making A New World” and its gentle probing of the patriotic idealism that marked the centenary of the First World War, the change of pace wasn’t welcomed by all.

Yet the opening track, “Orion From the Street” is a gem on its own terms. It takes less than 15 seconds for a swirling piano hook to grab the listener, and after that the song does not let go. We’re in a hazy, dazed world of psychedelia; echoes of Bowie, hints of Talking Heads. In its own words recognisable yet foreign, it also comes with an inspired video tour of a surrealist Sunderland: a distant world built around the familiar. Emotionally, it hits hard and the impact lingers.

Field Music plays day one of Summer Streets on Saturday, July 6. The music starts in Cliffe Park, Roker, Sunderland at 12:30. Admission is free.

The Woven Project - Winds (Foll Remix)

Kicking against the idea that social media is unmitigated garbage, the algorithm sent me this unexpected gem. I’m not sure how the Woven Project passed me by for so long, but I’m grateful for a chance to make amends.

This is a remix of one of the tracks from 2023’s “Let Beautiful In” EP, and it’s a stunner. Swirls of wordless singing float through the ether, creating music that explores the ties between ritual and dance. Depending on your tastes, you might hear a whiff of plainchant in here, or a wordless drone of the shaman (the ritualistic traveller between worlds, not Mr C and his Ebeneezer Goode pals). There’s a hint of Enigma, but without the play-it-safe commercial instincts of an early 90s chart smash. Electro percussion and soaring strings complete the soundscape, combining for five minutes of chilled-out bliss that cocoons Jamine Weatherill’s breathy vocals in the gentle blanket of a summer breeze. Best of all, having discovered the Woven Project via a remix, there’s every opportunity to dig deeper and discover the original.

Thanks for reading another playlist. If you liked it, give a like and subscribe. If you really liked it, consider buying me a coffee. But, most of all, please consider supporting the artists by buying their music or attending their gigs.

Previous playlists: Folksy flavours / Politics / Stockton Calling / Russia / Aelius / #6 / Border Crossings / #8 / Safe hands throwing stones / More Than a Stone’s Throw / Fusion / Pigs, parties and Portuguese / From Bronte to Black Metal / Punk Princesses