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CD
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SCR 205CD
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Ride guitarist and songwriter Andy Bell releases a new compilation album called Strange Loops & Outer Psych. The release marks the end of the campaign for Andy's second solo album Flicker (SCR 200CD/LP), which came out to great acclaim in February 2022, and rounds up 16 tracks from his recent run of three EPs -- I Am A Strange Loop (SCR 207LP), The Grounding Process (SCR 204LP) and Untitled Film Stills (SCR 206LP) -- that were made up of remixes, acoustic versions, and covers of songs that inspired the album. The new CD release includes four tracks that weren't included on the original limited-edition vinyl releases. It also includes his fuzzed-up cover of Yoko Ono's song "Listen, The Snow Is Falling" -- which was recently given the official seal of approval when Yoko herself tweeted the video -- and the majestic Maps remix of "It Gets Easier", as heard on Lauren Laverne's show on BBC Radio 6 Music. There are further remixes by David Holmes, Richard Norris, bdrmm, A Place To Bury Strangers, and Claude Cooper, as well as covers of songs by The Kinks, Arthur Russell, and Pentangle and five fragile acoustic takes on album tracks. "Almost a year to the day since I released my second album Flicker, here is a technicolor companion piece that pulls together the tracks from the EPs to color in the edges of the record," says Andy. "Influences, stripped down acoustic reworks and remixes by my friends, comrades and heroes all hopefully help the listener see where my head was when I made Flicker, but also it stands up as a decent listen in its own right." The CD was mastered in New York by Heba Kadry and is sequenced like a mixtape, which makes for a proper listening experience. "Hatful Of Hollow is my favorite Smiths album, just saying," explains Andy.
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10"
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SCR 207LP
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Clear/pink splatter 10" vinyl. Reworkings of songs from Flicker by David Holmes, Maps, Richard Norris, and bdrmm. "It was so great to see what came back when I gave these tracks from Flicker to various comrades, friends and heroes to play with," says Andy. "They've given them a new technicolor life." "David Holmes requested the opening track as he had formed a bit of a connection with it, and what he came up with turns the song into a hallucinogenic beast, taking pride of place here as the opening track but in a whole different way to how Flicker opens. James Chapman AKA Maps has taken 'It Gets Easier' to a bigger, brighter and shinier place, he's given quite a downbeat track a euphoric and epic sheen. I couldn't put Richard Norris's lovely widescreen take on 'Something Like Love' better than the man himself -- in his own words he found the 'hitherto undiscovered sweet spot between 'Roscoe' and 'Outdoor Miner' and he tapped into the melancholy euphoria at the core of the song. bdrmm's remix of 'Way Of The World' is one for headphones. There are so many great moments to love, all held together by a bassline worthy of Jah Wobble. Astonishing!"
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10"
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SCR 204LP
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Clear/green splatter 10" vinyl. Stripped-down versions of tracks from Flicker. "'Something Like Love' is the most popular song from Flicker and one of the oldest, starting life in the '90s. It's probably the only one that dates back to the Ride era. The riffs for 'World Of Echo' were written while I was on tour with Oasis, at the height of my La's obsession. It went through a few iterations from then onwards, but never had a final melody until last year. 'She Calls The Tune' was the first song I wrote after I joined Oasis, 'Lifeline' was another riff I came up with while on tour with Oasis. I remember being on a UK tour with Shack, and sitting around backstage on acoustics with Mick and John Head jamming around the Simon & Garfunkel version of 'Scarborough Fair'. It was always called 'Lifeline' but I never found the right lyric for it until recently."
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10"
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SCR 206LP
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Clear/blue splatter 10" vinyl. Songs that inspired Flicker by Yoko Ono, Pentangle, The Kinks, and Arthur Russell. "The idea was that I would be covering songs which helped in some way to color in the edges of the picture of the influences that make up Flicker," explains Andy. "The song 'Jenny Holzer B. Goode' on the album refers to a few of the female artists from the music and art worlds who I find inspiring, including Yoko Ono, so it felt right to include a cover of 'Listen, The Snow Is Falling', my favorite Yoko Ono song. Pentangle's 'Light Flight' came out in 1970, the year I was born. Nat Cramp, the head honcho of Sonic Cathedral, requested that I cover 'The Way Love Used To Be'. I'd never heard this song despite being a big fan of The Kinks, but it's lovely and it felt very natural to do a version. Arthur Russell has been a big reference point for all my music - there is something impressionistic and open-ended about his records. I guess you could describe the production style I'm trying for on 'Our Last Night Together' as World Of Echo meets This Mortal Coil doing Skip Spence."
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2LP
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SCR 200LP
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Restocked; double LP version. Clear vinyl. Flicker is the second album from Ride guitarist and songwriter Andy Bell. This 18-track double album finds Andy moving towards classic songwriting, notably on the reflective lead single "Something Like Love", the strident harmonies of "World of Echo", the joyous refracted loops of "Jenny Holzer B. Goode" and the fuzz-laden late-60s balladeering of "Love Is The Frequency". Stylistically, the four sides of Flicker take in everything from modern psychedelia to fingerpicked folk, whimsical baroque pop, and Byrdsian 12-string beauty. It's a breathtaking array and makes it even more abundantly clear that Andy has entered a purple patch in his songwriting, hitting a new velocity in contrast to his initial inhibitions about becoming a solo artist. Flicker is also an apt description for the genesis of the album. At the start of 2021, Andy returned to the stems of the recording sessions he made at Beady Eye and Oasis bandmate Gem Archer's North London studio and added fuel to the fire, writing melodies and lyrics and turning them into fully formed songs. The same sessions were also the starting point for The View From Halfway Down (SCR 170CD/LP, 2020) and this album picks up where that one left off, quite literally, with the very first words being "I was halfway down?" This is the first of several playful, possibly intentional, references to albums and song titles that litter the record like a musical breadcrumb trail. As much as this is a modern sounding and forward-looking record, it's also very much about looking back, something that is clear from the first glimpse of the front cover -- a previously unseen outtake from Joe Dilworth's photo sessions for the inner sleeve of Ride's debut album, Nowhere (1990). "When I think about Flicker, I see it as closure," explains Andy. "Most literally, on a half-finished project from over six years ago, but also on a much bigger timescale. Some of these songs date back to the '90s and the cognitive dissonance of writing brand new lyrics over songs that are 20-plus years old makes it feel like it is, almost literally, me exchanging ideas with my younger self." Some of it remains unspoken, taking place sonically rather than verbally: the album has a reflective, meditative feeling throughout.
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CD
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SCR 200CD
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Flicker is the second album from Ride guitarist and songwriter Andy Bell. This 18-track double album finds Andy moving towards classic songwriting, notably on the reflective lead single "Something Like Love", the strident harmonies of "World of Echo", the joyous refracted loops of "Jenny Holzer B. Goode" and the fuzz-laden late-60s balladeering of "Love Is The Frequency". Stylistically, the four sides of Flicker take in everything from modern psychedelia to fingerpicked folk, whimsical baroque pop, and Byrdsian 12-string beauty. It's a breathtaking array and makes it even more abundantly clear that Andy has entered a purple patch in his songwriting, hitting a new velocity in contrast to his initial inhibitions about becoming a solo artist. Flicker is also an apt description for the genesis of the album. At the start of 2021, Andy returned to the stems of the recording sessions he made at Beady Eye and Oasis bandmate Gem Archer's North London studio and added fuel to the fire, writing melodies and lyrics and turning them into fully formed songs. The same sessions were also the starting point for The View From Halfway Down (SCR 170CD/LP, 2020) and this album picks up where that one left off, quite literally, with the very first words being "I was halfway down?" This is the first of several playful, possibly intentional, references to albums and song titles that litter the record like a musical breadcrumb trail. As much as this is a modern sounding and forward-looking record, it's also very much about looking back, something that is clear from the first glimpse of the front cover -- a previously unseen outtake from Joe Dilworth's photo sessions for the inner sleeve of Ride's debut album, Nowhere (1990). "When I think about Flicker, I see it as closure," explains Andy. "Most literally, on a half-finished project from over six years ago, but also on a much bigger timescale. Some of these songs date back to the '90s and the cognitive dissonance of writing brand new lyrics over songs that are 20-plus years old makes it feel like it is, almost literally, me exchanging ideas with my younger self." Some of it remains unspoken, taking place sonically rather than verbally: the album has a reflective, meditative feeling throughout.
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LP
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SCR 170LP
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2022 restock; LP version. Blue vinyl. Ride guitarist/singer Andy Bell releases his debut solo album. The product of a gradual, four-year process and finished during lockdown, the album was entirely written and recorded by Andy, engineered by Gem Archer and mastered by Heba Kadry. Back in 2016, Andy was inspired by David Bowie's death to be more proactive about finishing his songs, more confident about sharing them and to channel all of this into finally making a solo album. He laid down some tracks in former Beady Eye and Oasis bandmate Gem's studio, but got diverted when Ride's live reunion blossomed into a full return. A run of two albums, an EP and two world tours later, it would take a pandemic to give Andy the space to complete The View From Halfway Down. From the ecstatic psych pop of "Love Comes In Waves", to the heady loops of "Indica" and deeply groove-led "Skywalker", the eight tracks mix summery melodies with soundscapes and studio experimentation. The end result sits neatly between Ride's widescreen shoegaze and GLOK's textured electronics, variously inspired by The Stone Roses, Spacemen 3, The Beatles, The Byrds, The Beta Band, Stereolab, Neu!, Can, John Fahey, The Kinks, The La's, The Who, and the United States Of America. As for the album title, it comes from a particularly dark episode of BoJack Horseman and a poem that scriptwriter Alison Tafel wrote for the penultimate show. The spoiler-free version of the story goes like this: "The poem describes someone committing suicide by jumping to their death and the regret the protagonist experiences when he sees 'the view from halfway down'. Although, of course, it's too late to change what's going to happen. I read this poem as having a message of suicide prevention: if you could see the view from halfway down, you would never go through with anything that would end your life. I've never been suicidal, but I felt really moved by this brilliant poem when I watched the show during Ride's US tour in Autumn 2019 . . . The early stages of lockdown, you could feel the tension in the air, causing what felt like a global panic attack. But, in common with what I've heard from others who can experience anxiety for no reason in their everyday lives, I felt strangely calm in the midst of all of this, seeing things in my life very clearly. Such clarity allowed me to finally compile this record..."
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CD
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SCR 170CD
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Ride guitarist/singer Andy Bell releases his debut solo album. The product of a gradual, four-year process and finished during lockdown, the album was entirely written and recorded by Andy, engineered by Gem Archer and mastered by Heba Kadry. Back in 2016, Andy was inspired by David Bowie's death to be more proactive about finishing his songs, more confident about sharing them and to channel all of this into finally making a solo album. He laid down some tracks in former Beady Eye and Oasis bandmate Gem's studio, but got diverted when Ride's live reunion blossomed into a full return. A run of two albums, an EP and two world tours later, it would take a pandemic to give Andy the space to complete The View From Halfway Down. From the ecstatic psych pop of "Love Comes In Waves", to the heady loops of "Indica" and deeply groove-led "Skywalker", the eight tracks mix summery melodies with soundscapes and studio experimentation. The end result sits neatly between Ride's widescreen shoegaze and GLOK's textured electronics, variously inspired by The Stone Roses, Spacemen 3, The Beatles, The Byrds, The Beta Band, Stereolab, Neu!, Can, John Fahey, The Kinks, The La's, The Who, and the United States Of America. As for the album title, it comes from a particularly dark episode of BoJack Horseman and a poem that scriptwriter Alison Tafel wrote for the penultimate show. The spoiler-free version of the story goes like this: "The poem describes someone committing suicide by jumping to their death and the regret the protagonist experiences when he sees 'the view from halfway down'. Although, of course, it's too late to change what's going to happen. I read this poem as having a message of suicide prevention: if you could see the view from halfway down, you would never go through with anything that would end your life. I've never been suicidal, but I felt really moved by this brilliant poem when I watched the show during Ride's US tour in Autumn 2019 . . . The early stages of lockdown, you could feel the tension in the air, causing what felt like a global panic attack. But, in common with what I've heard from others who can experience anxiety for no reason in their everyday lives, I felt strangely calm in the midst of all of this, seeing things in my life very clearly. Such clarity allowed me to finally compile this record..." LP version comes on blue vinyl.
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