Ride guitarist and songwriter Andy Bell has taken yet another musical detour, this time collaborating with Essex-based duo Masal on an incredible new album of ambient, astral jazz. “Tidal Love Numbers” is released via Sonic Cathedral, and is made up of four mesmerising, meandering instrumental tracks that combine Andy’s incredible guitar playing with analogue synths and harp.
Andy was inspired by the likes of William Basinski, Harold Budd, Ariel Kalma’s Osmose and Babe, Terror’s Ancient M’ocean, while Masal shared their love for Prince Lasha, Turkish prog and folk, medieval harp music and Guitarrorists, a 1991 compilation of outsider guitar sounds. The end result – sympathetically mastered by Andy’s Ride bandmate Mark Gardener – lands somewhere between Mary Lattimore, psych-folk guitarist Sandy Bull and Spacemen 3’s Dreamweapon, with the four pieces subtly ebbing and flowing from pastoral picking to psychedelic bliss to noisy drones and back again, all punctuated by Oz’s heavenly harp.
Despite their length, the tracks never outstay their welcome, and their stream-of-consciousness titles add to the sense of intrigue.
“Tidal love numbers are quantities without dimension, measuring how much things alter, for example on a solid planet, due to tidal forces. The number is assigned based on levels of gravity and solidity and I guess this measurement is the scientific kernel behind astrology. I was introduced to this concept by the harp/synth duo Masal (masalbanduk.bandcamp.com), and having got my head around it, felt like it might be a good title for the album we had just happened to make.
I’m so happy to announce this new collaboration and can’t wait for people to hear it. I’m not sure how you categorise it, there are elements of ambient, classical, jazz, shoegaze, electronic and drone. All I can say is that it was a lot of fun to create. The music was composed in a semi-improvised way between the three of us and we’ll be entering that same creative space together at the Social on May 21st.”
released April 6th, 2023
Written by Andy Bell, Ozlem Simsek & Alastair Johnson
The Fat Angel Sings 