His achievements would take a book to list. Suffice to say that there was not a single year of his career when he didn't deliver a remix or production that was up there with his best, and his DJ sets – often three clubs a weekend to the very end, plus his regular NTS radio show, playing everything from the deepest techno to the rawest rockabilly, cosmic ambient to apocalyptic dub – continued to win hearts and minds over and over again. His A Love From Outer Space sets and parties with Sean Johnston have lately symbolised a kind of never-ending groove: never about the big splash, always about the regular crowd, the sense of a party, the low-key promotion of something that regular punters knew could be a profound experience. And that's precisely the point. Weatherall always emphasised the importance of putting in the work, over and above any sense of novelty or forced achievement. He never wanted to make bigger and bigger records, or reinvent anything: just to continue being around the people, sounds and ideas that he loved. His prolificness and creative generosity weren't about trying to win anyone's approval, but out of this undimming delight in dub, in disco, in subculture, in weird ideas, in sound and in people, came ever more inspiration.
He could easily have been one of our great cultural commentators too, being as great a student of leftfield writers and raconteurs as he was of music. His close friend and publisher Lee Brackstone was continually pestering him to write a memoir, which would have been a thing of wonder, even though Weatherall continually claimed not to remember most of his professional life through the weed haze and afterglow of the 90s. But even with a very, very few words, Weatherall could draw you into his world. Just last month, the week after New Year, he delivered a note perfect beat-free cosmic-ambient mix for his NTS show: two hours of radiant, spiritual sustaining magic, precisely what everyone needed that week. During the show he only said these words, in his typically deadpan tones: “dusting the ornaments on the mantelpiece of your mind.” It was a flash of casual brilliance: foolish, hilarious, but at the same time absolutely spot on, perfectly describing the function of this deep and intense music, making you snap to attention and enjoy it even more. This combination of insight, personality and ability to come so close to musical perfection, undimmed by thirty years plus of hard work and indulgence, was utterly unique. And we all thought that he would be doing this for decades more to come yet. The gap left by Weatherall's departure is too much to comprehend, individuals and institutions are today shaken by his loss. But his legacy is undeniable: he's given us not just records and DJ sets, not just personal memories, but a whole way of being, a whole approach to this culture that we should never, ever forget.
Joe Muggs is a freelance music journalist and regular contributor to Mixmag. Follow him on Twitter
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February 18, 2020 at 01:50AM
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RIP Andrew Weatherall: A sonic revolutionary and free spirit - Mixmag
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