Back in the mid 1980s, Réamann O Gormain was a founding member of That Petrol Emotion. A band from Northern Ireland, based in London, that also featured brothers John and Damian O’Neil, ex of Derry punks The Undertones. TPE made crunchy, guitar-driven, often politically charged, power pop, and a few of their songs became huge Balearic hits. 1987’s Big Decision – remixed by Francois Kevorkian and referencing Brother D & The Collective’s How We Gonna Make The Black Nation Rise?, with its coda of “Educate, agitate, organise” – made the charts in “acid house’s village newspaper”, the fanzine, Boy’s Own.

In 1989, Abandon was one of the first tracks to be remixed by Boy’s Own DJs Andrew Weatherall and Terry Farley. The pair borrowing hip hop beats from 3rd Bass, righteous roots vocals from Big Youth*, and the odd bite from On-U Sound’s Dub Syndicate.

Their engineer, and very able assistant, Hugo Nicolson, also transformed Hey Venus into a firm favourite at underground clubs, like the Thursday night Amnesiac reunion / shindig, Future.

That Petrol Emotion disbanded in 1994, reformed in 2008, and in 2012 regrouped as The Everlasting Yeah! In 2023, Réamann began releasing his own music on Bandcamp. Creating a solo catalogue of intricate, electronic experiments in ambient and dance. Heaven Is Beyond Your Mind is an 11 and a half minute opus, lifted from his latest long-player, Dilettante I Flagrante (Putting Out The Bins In A Kimono). A showcase of busy, breakneck sampledelia, it’s similar sonically to some of former collaborator Nicolson’s stuff. A totally charged trip, with no time for rules, genres, or pigeonholes, the track journeys back and forth between deconstructed, decimated Middle Eastern melodies to jumbled, jittering West African highlife. Its rhythm raised from flickering, fidgeting collaged, colliding snippets of guitar strings and zither zings. Plus the odd psyche organ screech. Coconut shell percussion tumbles, a bit like the intro to Sparks’ Beat The Clock, and 3 / 4s in choir-like harmonies –  a la The Stones’ You Can’t Always Get What You Want – help knock on the titular heaven’s door.

The results overall recall a couple of Brian Eno’s cracking collaborations. Starting with his and David Byrne’s eccentric, energetic edits on the Talking Heads’ tune, I Zimbra, and then as Réamann’s picking becomes more plaintive, producing crystalline cascades, Eno and John Cale’s emotional epic, Spinning Away.

*According to legend, this was the first reggae record that Weatherall ever bought – after hearing Sex Pistol John Lydon spin sides like Dr. Alimantado’s Born For A Purpose on the radio.

I recommend you take a rummage through Raemann’s back catalogue. There are loads of real gems there. A big thank you to Rude Audio’s Mark Ratcliff for the tip off.