Review: Electropop pioneer Andy Bell, who is best known as the lead vocalist in late 80s and early 90s group Erasure, releases his new solo album. The release is his first solo album since 2010s Non-Stop, Ten Crowns. Not one to settle for less than the best, the producer of this album, Dave Aude, has more number ones on the Billboard Dance Club chart than anyone else. Aude's also big in the pop world having worked with the likes of Britney Spears, Madonna and U2. This solo album's standout is a collaboration with Blondie's Debby Harry, titled 'Heart's A Liar'. Plus, 'Breaking Thru The Interstellar', which flicks back and forth between cosmic, introspective layered sonics and barnstorming electro pop that puts a kick in your step. Looking for some life-affirming pop music with conviction and style? Then look no further...
Review: While he's released countless albums as one half of Erasure, Andy Bell solo excursions are something of a rarity - at least under his given name. Setting aside his conceptual 'Torsten' albums, Ten Crowns is his first solo album since 2010. Produced by Dave Auden (who also provides a seamless, DJ mix style version of the set on disc two), it largely delivers a more muscular, EDM-influenced take on the sparkling and energy-packed synth-pop sound he's famed for making with Erasure. There are naturally deviations from the script - see the indie-rock-framed singalong alongside Debbie Harry, 'Heart's A Liar' - but for the most part the highlights are rooted in Bell's love of dance-pop/synth-pop fusion (see 'Don't Cha Know' and 'Breaking Through The Interstellar').
Review: We get it - there's a lot of music released everyday and it can feel overwhelming to sort the wheat from the chaff. There's no doubt, however, that Ride guitarist Andy Bell has delivered the goods here. His latest solo effort is helped by some influential collaborators. Proto-shoegaze cut 'I'm In Love...' features none other than One Dove's Dot Allison and Neu!'s Michael Rother. It's a beautiful reworking of The Passions' 1981 hit, certain to strike a chord with those who love the dreamier side of shoegaze. Bell has mixed and produced this record himself and proves himself to be a tireless conduit for beautiful ideas and sounds. Long may he keep producing music this good.
Review: Following a few years spent focusing on his ambient, drone and instrumental shoegaze focused GLOK project, former Ride man Andy Bell has finally got round to recording a new album of songs. Titled Sonic Cathedral, the album is undeniably nostalgic in tone, not only reacalling the jangly and sonically dense days of shoegaze and jangly indie-pop, but also the funkier and more intoxicated indie-dance records of that period (think Weatherall productions and remixes of the period, the Stone Roses and - whisper it quietly - Candy Flip). It's a bold and hugely enjoyable blend, with Bell sashaying between the tactile, Spiritualized-ish 'The Notes You Never Hear', the krautrock-goes-funky flex of 'Space Station Mantra', the Beck-esque 'Music Concrete' and the Tony Allen/Afrobeat-influenced 'Apple Green UFO'.
Review: Andy Bell is a blessed man: he had none other than Neu!'s Michael Rother supply guitar parts to the opening cut 'I'm In Love' (a cover of The Passions' post-punk classic). Moreover, One Love's Dot Allison is guest vocalist and supplies ethereal tones to the breathtaking song. It opens the gate beautifully for the heady collection of entirely new material that follows. It's an album that navigates Stone Roses grooves and Arthur Russell style experimental textures and works just as well for close listening as it does moodily-lit dancefloors. The Ride guitarist is on the form of his life here and you could do far worse than letting this wash all over you.
Review: Entering his fourth decade of service it's probably fair to call Andy Bell - guitarist with Ride, Oasis bassist and an increasingly renowned solo artist - an indie icon and round legend. After an EP of covers of tunes that inspired his last album this month, 'The Grounding Process' features four stripped down versions of tracks from 'Flicker'. Bell says 'World of Echo' was written at the height of an obesession with Scouse indie/skifflers The La's, while 'She Calls The Tune' was penned on tour wioth Oasis in 1999, particularly dear to Bell as it ended a long period of writer's block.
Review: Ride guitarist and songwriter Andy Bell drops this blue-splattered 10" with covers and acoustic versions of tunes that are said to have inspired his last album Flicker, which was released on Sonic Cathedral to great acclaim back in February. It is one of three such EPs and this one features an opening track written by Yoko Ono, a second cut by Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Danny Thompson, Terry Cox and Jacqui McShee, one by Raymond Douglas Davies and a closer by the late, great Arthur Russell. He brings his unique alternative and indie perspective to the originals and they serve as a great backstory and accompanying listen to the aforementioned album.
The Sky Without You (David Holmes Radical Mycology remix) (5:53)
It Gets Easier (Maps remix) (5:58)
Something Like Love (Richard Norris remix) (5:20)
Way Of The World (Bdrmm remix) (6:38)
Review: Andy Bell, guitarist with Ride, onetime bassist of Oasis lead singer and now established solo act, presents 'I Am A Strange Loop', an EP of four remixes of tracks from his last album 'Flicker'. As if enlistig the skills of PiL/Orb bassist Jah Wobble wasn't enough, the remix roll call includes David Holmes, James Chapman (Maps), bdrmm and Richard Norris, all getting to work on the post-punky philosophising on Bell's own state of being.
Review: The second solo album from Andy Bell of Ride and more latterly Oasis fame. The lead track 'Something Like Love', suggests a lean much more towards the spangly, hazy sound of his former band rather than the Mancunian legend, with Bell explaining that some of the songs date back to the '90s, meaning the process of making 'Flicker' was almost like exchanging ideas with his younger self.
Review: Andy Bell's 2020 album The View From Halfway Down rightly won praise for its attractive fusion of ghostly electronics, simmering strings, crackling experimentalism, drowsy vocals and hypnotic, spaced-out soundscapes. Here he presents an alternate take on the album, with fresh reworks from lauded experimentalist Pye Corner Audio being joined by a mixture of shoegaze-inspired bonus tracks and acoustic recordings of some of the Isle of White-based singer-songwriter's greatest songs. It's the PCA remixes that hit home hardest (even if the acoustic tracks are wonderfully sparse and baggy), with highlights including an acid-heavy, Brown Album-era Orbital style revision of 'Love Comes in Waves', a psychedelic revision of 'Indica' and a dreamy ambient pop version of 'I Was Alone'.
Review: Ah, Andrew Bell - you've always been a hopeless romantic in our eyes. Lead singer of Erasure, queer icon, exceptional songwriter and a wonderfully talented studio head (both as producer and remixer), those who don't consider themselves avid fans (fools, basically) may not immediately recognise him as a powerhouse acoustic artist, too, but take it from us, All On You isn't the only example of this guy doing the do unplugged.
All On You arrives with typically high expectations in its wake; we've been waiting some time for this and the contents do not disappoint. Both the original work here and the exceptional re-reading of Paris Angels' classic pop-acid house smash hit 'Perfume' are incredible displays of imaginative repurposing, the latter being a particularly unique alternative version. But even Bell's own tracks feel and sound different without the trappings of amplification. It all sounds rawer, and more honest, than many artists allow.
Review: Andy Bell's debut solo single gets reworked twice here by Pye Corner Audio, with the originals also included. First up is a version of 'The Commune' that's slow and heady. Sludgy drums and bass bring murk while distant keys add a little ray of light and hope somewhere in the distance. Plastic Bag (Pye Corner Audio remix) sounds like a lost cut made by The Stone Roses and Primal Scream back in the nineties. Its another one mired in lo-fi fuzz and fioth, which is only shown up even more when you hear the more airy originals.
Review: RECOMMENDED
They say good things come in small packages, or at least some of the time, and at just eight tracks long Andy Bell's spectacular The View From Halfway Down is certainly proof. Ride guitarist and GLOK producer, here the musical maestro gives us the big picture, calling on a range of styles to create a jangly, hallucinatory indie that's as familiar as Madchester and fresh enough to make you think none of that era ever happened.
Or at least that's certainly the case with super-charged psyche opener 'Love Comes In Waves'. The next track, 'Indica', doesn't exactly contest our theory, either, easing the vibe with a loose, open breakbeat and hypnotic groove. By now you're hooked, so we probably don't even need to mention the likes of delicate lo-fi acoustic number, 'Cherry Cola', or the warm layers of synth on closer 'Heat Haze On Weyland Road'.
Review: RECOMMENDED
Ride guitarist and singer Andy Bell has been busy in recent times, to put it mildly, as plans to release three EPs and an album between April and June 2021 prove. All set to be put out under the series title 'Ever Decreasing Circles', The Indica Gallery EP is the first in that set, and suggests we're in for a very, very interesting time when the next instalments follow.
The release comprises five remixes of tracks from Bell's 2020 solo outing, The View From Halfway Down, with reworkings completed by Martin Jenkins' Pye Corner Audio project, and the sixth piece here coming in the form of Bell's own edit of a PCA remix of his work, here credited to his GLOK alias. Name-dropping done, the record is a dense electronic trip into psychedelic cosmic disco slo-mo territories, dream-like ambient beauty and loose, baggy-trousered, nostalgic elec-indie fare.
Murmuration Of Warm Dappled Light On Her Back After Swimming
The Slight Unease Of Seeing A Crescent Moon In Blue Midday Sky
Tidal Love Conversation In That Familiar Golden Orchard
A Pyramid Hidden By Centuries Of Neon Green Undergrowth
Review: He may be a shoegaze and dream-pop legend, but sometime Ride guitarist and songwriter Andy Bell has spent much of the last few years making ultra-immersive, out-there ambient soundscapes that are as mind-soothing as they are enveloping and, at times, overwhelming. Tidal Love Numbers, his latest album, once again puts his gorgeous, layered guitar playing front and centre, with collaborators Masal (a duo from Essex) providing complimentary harp, synth and drum sounds. They call the resultant four tracks "ambient, astral jazz". That's a fairly apt description, with the four stretched-out tracks sitting somewhere between Bell's own ambient work, the ambient-Americana of Jonny Nash, and the open-minded experiments of 21st century harpists such as Zeena Parkins.
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