Although Ride’s still ongoing reunion has brought us redemptive live shows and a string of pretty solid new studio albums, it still feels like Andy Bell has found more fecund creative rewards through his recent twin-track solo output — both under his given name (in songs-led fashion) and under his GLOK alias (through electronic essaying routes, with occasional guest vocalists).
Eschewing the girth of its ‘official’ prequel – 2022’s double-length Flicker – whilst deploying extra synthetic elements from the GLOK toolkit, this fresh eight-track suite is more compact overall but internally denser, with greater emphasis on grooves over songcraft. This doesn’t mean that Pinball Wanderer is an insubstantial affair, but it does glide along as a looser proposition, in which Bell finds novel yet still familiar spaces in which to spread himself out.
The slinky yet swirling opening of “Panic Attack” sets the scene assuredly, with Bell’s airy tones submerged between chiming guitar lines and smeared mechanical rhythm layers. Straight afterwards comes a languorously fuzzy cover of The Passions’ proto-shoegaze standard “I’m In Love With A German Film Star” (retitled as just “I’m In Love…”), which gives over the dreamy vocal duties to similarly rejuvenated labelmate Dot Allison and patches in a guest guitar spot from NEU! legend Michael Rother. Whilst the ensuing “Madder Lake Deep” offers a fleeting passage of pastoralised Cocteau Twins prettiness, it’s with the next trio of tracks that the LP really leaves its mark.
Whilst the wind-down end of Pinball Wanderer doesn’t quite top the aforementioned triumvirate, the gently percolating electro-art-pop of “The Notes You Never Hear” and the harmony-topped fizzing kosmische closer of “Space Station Mantra” still wrap things up nicely.
Satisfyingly sustaining his midlife purple patch as a whole, this is another essential latter-day Andy Bell release.-Adrian-
