Andy Bell will release new album ‘pinball wanderer’ through Sonic Cathedral on February 28th.
The English musician is on a rich creative run right now – guitarist and key force in resurgent shoegaze legends Ride, his electronic work as GLOK is also turning heads. Andy Bell’s solo work contains some fantastic ideas, building into a singular catalogue within his broader range of creative outlets.
New album ‘pinball wanderer’ lands on February 28th, accompanied by a run of acoustic sets at independent record shops across the land. Pre-order the album in a variety of formats including limited cyan, magenta and yellow vinyl variants, here.
Self-produced (alongside old Oasis compadre Gem Archer, in fact) and self-written, ‘pinball wanderer’ is led by ‘I’m in love’ – a reworking of The Passions’ post-punk classic, and seemingly a long-time favourite of the guitarist.
Out now, it’s a dreamy version of the song, with Andy Bell aligning up alongside Dot Allison and Neu!’s Michael Rother.
“I went through a stage of playing the guitar part for that song at every Ride soundcheck,” says Andy of the 1981 original. “Erol Alkan has always maintained it’s ‘proto shoegaze’ and I agree. Dot has been a friend of mine for a long time now. Like many people of a certain age, I loved One Dove, and when I booked her to DJ at a club night in Sweden in about 2004, she levelled the place by playing ‘Ace Of Spades’ by Motörhead at 3am and we became mates. I played on some tracks on her last album ‘Consciousology’ and this was her returning the favour.
“Then, incredibly, Michael Rother from Neu! also ended up on it. I met him at his show at the Barbican last February and asked him to remix the song, but instead he decided he wanted to play guitar, which took everything to a whole new level. “I was leaving for a tour the next morning and I knew I had to mix the single before I left. Hearing Michael’s guitar parts in the mix was such an incredible feeling; it just fired me up to keep on recording and mixing into the night.”
Tune in now.
Catch Andy Bell at the following shows:
February
27 London Stranger Than Paradise
28 Oxford Truck Store
March
2 Bedford Slide outstore at Esquires
3 Brighton Resident
4 Coventry Just Dropped In
5 Manchester Piccadilly
6 Liverpool Jacaranda
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Photo Credit: Perou
Inset Photo: Denise Esposito
