Andy Bell - Flicker

2022 release, the second album from Ride guitarist and songwriter Andy Bell. This 18-track 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).