Time flies: Massive Attack return and bring Tom Waits with them

If there's one thing we have learned from Massive Attack's new single is that Tom Waits loves flies.

Boots On The Ground is Massive Attack's first new single in ages. It's a dimly-lit, seething electronic stomp that pours ire on the militaristic and fascistic state of US geopolitics.

The track features the vocals of Tom Waits. Obviously, he’s best known as the serial killer bunny owner in the 2012 film Seven Psychopaths. Apparently, he’s done some music too. His voice is brilliantly gruff: a tipper truck of gravel poured into Massive’s moody quagmire.

This is proper political. When “federal pricks” is one of the more polite lyrics, you know things have got bad.

Says Robert Del Naja: “Across the Western hemisphere, state authoritarianism and the militarisation of police forces are fusing again with neofascist politics… this track contains pulses of callous impulse and abandoned mind.”

Very poetic but also absolutely furious. It’s good to have the Attack chaps back.

Del Naja was arrested in Trafalgar Square last week after showing support for Palestine Action. The government has now arrested thousands of people on similar grounds, including people with disabilities and pensioners. The wrong placard, the wrong t-shirt, but it’s alright to pour cash into genocidal bombing campaigns. This isn’t a political blog, but jeez, I can see why Massive Attack are so narked.

The forthcoming 12-inch of Boots On The Ground will feature a spoken word track called The Fly. It is… well, I’ll let Tom Waits explain.

“Man’s folly of fiascos is a feast for the flies. Hence, the b-side of Massive Attack’s upcoming 12-inch The Fly features my appreciation for the winged nuisance.”

Very poetic but also absolutely off-the-chain. I never knew how much Tom Waits loves flies. Rabbits, maybe, what with all those rabbits he owned when he was a psychopath. But flies?

As I kid, I used to befriend spiders on the way to school. I gave them names and counted their legs to make sure everything was in order. No, really. I wonder if Waits does the same with houseflies.

Maybe I'm wrong and it's a cover of U2’s leather-and-shades reinvention The Fly. That would be a disappointment. Or the best thing ever. I can't decide.

Watch the video for Boots On The Ground.

Further Fats: Massive Attack got soul but Ceephax got swing(ing lampshades) (2010)

Further Fats: Does Donald Trump listen to music? (2017)

Hannah Peel goes stratospheric, and I'm just tagging along

The cover feature for issue 136 of Electronic Sound Magazine is my interview with Hannah Peel.

I chat to Hannah about her new album The Endless Dancewith percussionist Beibei Wang, her nocturnal Radio 3 show, the emergence of a space-themed ballet, and how 2026 will be a meteoric year. Oh and hiccups. We talk about hiccups.

I last spoke to Hannah nine years ago: we hung out at the glorious BlueDot festival where she was performing alongside a full colliery brass band. My recollection is that it was a sunny day, although that could have been Hannah's disposition.

In the intervening years, Hannah's CV has not only expanded, it has exploded into a colossal supernova of radio presenting, soundtracking for telly, BBC Proms, doing stuff at the Barbican, and even a cosmic-themed ballet. We cover as much of it as we can in the interview.

For one of our chats, we were joined by her album collaborator, Chinese percussionist Beibei Wang. I say 'percussionist' - the term doesn't really do her justice. She creates instruments in the most complicated ways possible: vegetable tom-toms; Coca-cola xylophones; leaky colanders.

"I just bring whatever I have from my pocket and then join Hannah’s party," says Beibei of working with Hannah, and that pretty much sums it up. There's a wild creativity between them, but then a real ease, as if they were destined to make tunes together. Impressive.

Enough gushing. If you like my words, such as "gushing", do pick up a copy of the mag. You can even get a limed-edition accompanying single if you're quick enough. In this issue, you'll also find me banging on about the Eurovision Song Contest. An excerpt:

"This year’s UK entry is Look Mum No Computer, which coincidentally was the slogan of my short-lived IT repair company aimed solely at members of the Icelandic indietronica band Múm."

Yes, I am an idiot.

Shout out too to Mike Lindsay who produced Hannah and Beibei's album. I last spoke to Mike in 2018 about modular basslines, not having rules, and moving to Margate.

Shop for lovely ES magazines here.

Further Fats: 'Scoping out the 2017 BlueDot festival (2017)

Further Fats: No-one wants songs about the moon these days (2017)

Janus Rasmussen's snappy new album is super, super ert

Janus Rasmussen, him out of the rather wonderful Kiasmos, is cooking up a stunning solo album.

I've covered Kiasmos before. I declared their self-titled debut album the Third Best Album Of 2014, which undersold it something horrible because it was most definitely the number one best album of that year. Ólafur Arnalds and Janus Rasmussen's amazing collaboration still twangs my brainstrings even if I catch a single note.

Rasmussen's new solo album Inert, released on 9 June 2026 on Berlin's Embassy One Records, will delight anyone who wants a bit more oomph to the Kiasmos sound. It’s called Inert but it's super un-inert. Ert?! It's made for the club – tip top trouser-wobbling, clog-clomping, elbow-waggling fayre.

He says of the album: "Inert is my attempt to break out of a mould I somehow found myself in while writing music. I felt a need to open things up, to sing, and to let the songs move freely between genres without overthinking where they belonged.

"Lyrically, the album is very open-ended, almost like meditations on guilt or feeling bad for no clear reason, which makes it the most revealing body of work I’ve written so far. It feels like an honest reset, both creatively and emotionally."

Consider the mould successfully broken. It's so dang SNAPPY. Full of ear-tickling wubbles and bubbles. There's the delicious arp curves of Murk, and a full-on synth pop stomp called Fumes complete with EDM synth giddiness and sassy call-and-response vocals.

The tricksy moments are pleasing too, such as the de-spannered found-sound beat of Tomb or the scampering rolling percussion of Blame.

It's one of those sad vocal albums, with lyrics like "I thought you were there in a puddle of mud" and "fingers trace where the tracks decay." But as long as you can cope with the tuneful moping, you'll be fine.

It'll appeal to people into James Blake, Modeselektor and Bicep. Pre-order here.

Pictured: Janus Rasmussen with Inert album cover

Further Fats: Best electronic albums of 2014: three (2014)

Further Fats: Listen to Bicep's Glue – it'll stick with you (2017)

What's the deal with Boards of Canada's mystery VHS tapes?

Is this the return of Boards Of Canada? Is this the return of VHS? And which one of those two possibilities is more exciting?

Boards of Canada have been teasing a possible new album by sending out video tapes of abstract noise and sounds to carefully-selected recipients. It’s all hush-hush: they’ve not told anyone they’re doing this. But the crackling audio and decaying analogue images on the tapes seem very much in the style of BoC.

The devious despatches have left fans trying to decipher the tapes’ mysterious phrases and symbols, as if they were ancient runes that renowned professor Robert Langdon is trying in order to prevent the Pope from morphing into a man-bear or something. Sorry. I’ve been reading too much Dan Brown.

Nottingham electronic musician Lone (pictured) was one of those that received a VHS tape. “Who knows what’s in store at this point,” he said on his Instagram page, “but judging by what’s on the tape I think it’s safe to say they haven’t mellowed one bit.”

YouTuber MATTHS has been updating the internet on the Boards bamboozling. He says 17 have been mailed out so far, as of yesterday, although uber-geeks on a BoC tape mailings forum – yes, that's now a thing – have updated this figure to over two dozen.

It seems legit. MATTHS says the recipients seem to be connected by purchases they made from Warp Records’ online shop Bleep.com. He’s also spotted an image on the VHS tape that has turned up on Warp Records’ Spotify page.

BoC have form for this kind of shenanigan. When they released Tomorrow’s Harvest in 2013, they did a similar Krypton Factor-style teaser by eking out codes via limited-edition 12-inch vinyl. Once solved, the codes led fans to a video page and an album pre-order.

Most people just "drop" an album; BoC are dangling theirs. Mailer campaigns, physical media, online speculation? It's pleasingly old school. Everyone's playing detective and we are loving it. I bet deerstalker and magnifying glass sales have gone through the roof.

If you're reading this, I'll take mine on Betamax, chaps. Cheers.

Update: Posters have appeared in Soho in that there London. Have a look at Jo-Cliche's Flicker page. They're awfully creased.

Photo from Lone's Instagram page

Further Fats: Geo-giddy: Boards of Canada's one word Facebook publicity explosion (2012)

Further Fats: Happy 30th anniversary, Warp Records (2019)

A brush with electronic music: Jim'll Paint It's new Eraserhead album

Microsoft Paint artist Jim'll Paint It has released an electronic music album. This news is a surprise and a total delight. If you could see my face right now, you would see a big wide smile (drawn using the marker pen tool in the brush dropdown menu). 

His recording name is Eraserhead, the album is called Violence. It clearly comes from a passion for bass music, jungle, acid, IDM, breakcore and all the lovely stuff that has kept this music blog going for the past 21 years.

"This release is the realisation of a dream I’ve had since I was about 9 years old," says Jim, "recording noodlings from my Yamaha PSS-380 toy keyboard onto TDK tapes... This is the truest expression of self I’ve ever managed in any medium."

The collaborations are immense. D.A.R.E with Enduser is an apocalyptic mix of rolling breaks and industrial terror. Om Unit brings significant wub to the dark acid of Operation Hardtack. Nadia Rose is full of sass and brap-brap on title track Violence – referring to Eraserhead by saying "certain heads need erasing" is poetry.

He's got Beans spitting furiously over the bad-tempered jungle of Hurricane With Teeth - I was fond of his Antipop Consortium outfit back in the day. And I don't know what's going on with the the ambient screamo-rave hellscape of Monolith with Amée Chanter, but I like it. I really like it. 

Even without the collaborative tracks, there's distressed acid, growling digital ambience and even a saxophone that sounds like a randy housefly. Better that than the other way round: if you had a fly in your living room buzzing like a saxophone, you'd have to move out.

I'm an electronic music guy. I'm a cartoon illustrations guy. This album is two of my worlds colliding. It's the equivalent of Banksy dropping a glitch album or Rembrandt launching a punk band or Francisco Goya joining an experimental kazoo ensemble.

If you want to get the album, you can download it via Microsoft Pai-- oh wait, no, that's not how music works. You can stream it on Bandcamp and bag a copy on digital, vinyl or cassette.

Further Fats: Chosen Words – D is for Design (2010)

Further Fats: 8/08 – The most Roland day of the year (2025)

Holy heck, it's top of the God pops

Today is Easter Sunday, which is an annual day of celebration for that time a chocolate egg fell from heaven and killed the Easter Bunny to forgive our sins.

The UK singles chart is a pretty godless place. A quick scan of the current top 40 singles chart and I can see songs about Dracula, swimming, dancing and loving each other, all of which sounds terribly non-Christian. Erm. Probably.

To celebrate the day Jesus rose from being cross and ascended to Heaven nightclub – I really need to brush up on my Bible knowledge – here are the ten most successful Jesus-themed songs in the UK singles chart.

Disclaimer: I looked up the words “Jesus” and “Christ” and didn’t go much beyond that, so if I’ve missed something, feel free to condemn me to all seven circles of hell. Oh and they're in order of chart success, so we'll be ending on a couple of number one smashes.

10 – Longpigs: Jesus Christ (number 61, 1995)

While there were more prominent proponents of the Sheffield’s Britpop scene, the ‘pigs were absolutely brilliant. Jesus Christ was full of their typical yearning and the lead singer looked a bit like a future Matt Smith. Their guitarist went on to be in Pulp and their original drummer used to play for Cabaret Voltaire, which makes them the most Sheffield band ever.

9 – Delirious: White Ribbon Day (number 41, 1997)

An obscure choice here, but this did precede a four-year run of top 40 singles for this Christian praise & worship outfit. White Ribbon Day is proper religious – there’s praying and the cross and hallelujah and all that kind of thing. The gospel truth is they sounded like U2 from the late 1980s, which ticked boxes for people that found 1990s U2 too MacPhisto-ish.

8 – Green Day: Jesus Of Suburbia (number 17, 2005)

“Everyone's so full of shit,” preaches Billie Joe Armstrong on this nine-minute epic beloved by Green Day fans. This is, apparently, Green Day doing a Bohemian Rhapsody,  and the track is split into five movements, like me after a bowel exam. I was never a massive ‘Day follower, but it feels like we need their agit-angst more than ever now. 

7 – Kanye West: Jesus Walks (number 16, 2004)

Before things went south for West, he made tracks full of braggadocio and brilliant beats. Jesus Walks was super militaristic, but this was okay in the mid-2000s because the US army had definitely never done anything bad ever. Ahem. These days West is just full of braggadocio and bullcrap. Shame because his College Dropout years were banging.

6 – Ash: Jesus Says (number 15, 1998)

The video for Jesus Says has the camera spinning around and around, like you’re inside a washing machine. The effect prompted protests from fans who complained of nausea, but they needn’t worry coz they could just pop their vom-splattered t-shirt into said washing machine. “God give me strength,” sing Ash on Jesus Says. Fair comment.

5 – Depeche Mode: Personal Jesus (number 13, 1989)

For far too long, I thought a Personal Jesus was a personalised Christ service in which He followed you around all day and made bitchy comments like ‘You look fat in that jumper’ and ‘That blusher’s far too gay’. Anyhoo, this is Depeche Mode at their peak, and it gave the impending 1990s permission to blend rock and synths and change music forever.

4 – Marilyn Manson: Personal Jesus (number 13, 2004)

For far too long, I thought a Personal Jesus was a– oh hold on, we’re already done this. I’d lost track of Marilyn Manson and where the allegations were up to, so I googled “is marilyn manson a wrong 'un” and Google’s AI bot responded by saying that the truth is “subjective”. So that’s settled then. I do not want Marilyn Manson to reach out and touch me.

3 – Morrissey: I Have Forgiven Jesus (number 10, 2004)

Oh holy hassocks of hell. Am I in some kind of purgatory? Is writing this blog post punishment for my multitude of sins? Here comes another person I would not to choose to be stuck in a lift with. I wouldn’t even follow behind him on the stairs. I much preferred Mozza when he was a lyricist and not a polemicist, although maybe he has always been both.

2 – Cliff Richard: Saviour’s Day (number 1, 1990)

Finally. A perfectly normal pop star. Cliff’s religious output is universally awful, and his triptych of Christian chart-toppers – Mistletoe And Wine, Saviour’s Day and The Millennium Prayer – have the same linear drop-off as the Godfather trilogy. Still, I’m glad Cliff exists. If he wasn’t around to be God’s representative in the pop charts, we’d have to choose Ye and that wouldn’t do at all.

1 – George Michael: Jesus To A Child (number 1, 1996)

You’ve got to have faith, and you’ve got to have this caramel-smooth cheese-fest from king George. Without telling anyone, George Michael donated the royalties from Jesus To A Child to the ChildLine charity. That makes this paeon to a lost lover the most Christian track in this list.

Not much electronic music in this list. Jeez, get it together Jesus.

Further Fats: Delirious' bid for number one: the rock delusion? (2010)

Further Fats: Warning! Dinosaurs are taking over the UK album chart! (2021)

Name me a better remix album list than Daniel Avery's remix album list

“Alright, name me a better remix album than this,” says Daniel Avery to the camera as he brandishes a CD copy of Nine Inch Nails 1992 release Fixed.

Avery has just released Tremor (Midnight Versions), a reworking of his own album Tremor which came out last autumn. The remixes have a bit of a boogy about them – as he puts it, these are “club edits aimed squarely at the strobe light”.

Remixes are clearly on his mind, because he recently posted on his socials a tribute to his favourite remix albums. He leads with the Nine Inch Nails album, and the artwork for Midnight Versions seems to be inspired by the Nails artwork.

But he then mentions another batch of remix albums that he loves. Let's go through them.

The Human League / The League Unlimited Orchestra: Love And Dancing (1982), a dubbier take on their Dare album

The Cure: Mixed Up (1990), various twelve-inch bits and related bobs

Massive Attack V Mad Professor: No Protection (1995) – ain’t no Protection from this level of dub wizardry

Björk: Telegram (1996), various remixes of her Post tracks

Primal Scream: Echo Dek (1997), with Bobby’s band reimagining their Vanishing Point album, and oh my word how good was this era of Scream

Two Lone Swordsmen: Peppered With Spastic Magic (2004), although please can we let that word die

Aphex Twin: 26 Mixes For Cash (2003), which I wilfully misunderstand in this blog post

Soulwax: Nite Versions (2005) – they “reshaped my brain as a teenager” says Avery

That's a cracking selection, my favourites being Mad Professor, Primal Scream and Aphex Twin. I'd throw in Dangermouse and maybe Pet Shop Boys too, and I know James's Wah Wah doesn't count but it pretty effectively remixed my brain. 

What is your favourite remix album? Write your answer on a postcard and immediately remix it into a shredder.

Daniel Avery's Tremor (Midnight Versions) is out now.

Further Fats: Music Order Remixed New (see what I did there) (2017)

Further Fats: Cover me bad – Block Rockin' Beats by the Chemical Brothers (2021)

It's all about the Electronic Sound podcast

It's All About Vinyl is a new podcast in which Mark Roland and Push, the guys that founded Electronic Sound magazine, bring their favourite vinyl into a podcast studio and smash it all with hammers.

Oh. Apparently they don't smash the vinyl with hammers. Instead they just talk about it. That's disappointing. Chaps, if you're reading this, can you please return all those hammers I posted to you? Cheers.

These fellas know what they're talking about. The pair did electronic music stuff for Melody Maker before moving on to Muzik magazine, for which Push was founding editor. One of them once edited a fanzine called 'Happy Cheese'. I won't tell you which of the two, but you can see it in his eyes.

So far in their podcast series, they've had delightful waffle-chats about The Damned, Tin Machine ("horrible"), Hawkwind, Harry Styles (!), Kraftwerk, Suzanne Ciani losing her synthesiser, the history of Melody Maker, and why the first 19 editions of Electronic Sound didn't quite work. They've even had snookerist and bleepy music head Steve Davis on.

Electronic Sound has been running for 135 issues. That's a big number. It's about twice as many people that were in The Fall, or about as many weeks Fleetwood Mac's Everywhere has spent in the UK charts since it debuted in 1988, or exactly the same height as the London Eye in metres.

It does mean that there's plenty of material for them to plunder. Anecdotes, interviews, favourite records, memorable gigs, music industry bashes, awful columnists. Wait. No. Not that last one. Ignore that last one.

I rarely get to meet my editors in person, so it's a pleasure to see their digital faces poking out of my internet. You can listen to It's All About Vinyl on that new-fangled Spotify thing or on the YouTubes.

Further Fats: Fat Roland Bangs On... as an Electronic columnist (2012)

Further Fats: This is a journey into Electronic Sound 2.0 (2016)