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Sunday 19 February 2023

Forty Five Minutes Of GLOK

Two disclaimers before getting into the body of this blog.

1. I had been trying to put together an Andy Bell mix for some time and couldn't get it right until I separated the Andy Bell material from the GLOK stuff. I'm still not sure that I've got it right but it's better than the earlier attempts.

2. Between putting this GLOK mix together and  writing this post I spent several hours in local pubs with predictable effects and then came home and wrote this. 

Andy Bell's music outside Ride has been a revelation to me in recent years. His connections with Andrew Weatherall and the tracks they recorded together, his initially anonymous, house and kraut influenced tracks as GLOK and then his solo albums have been some of my most played music. GLOK's cosmische, pulsing, never-ending waves of synths and guitars music have hit the spot in all sorts of ways. This is a selection not a Best Of, some GLOK tracks that hopefully work together as one piece. 

 Forty Five Minutes Of GLOK

  • Pulsing (Ambient Version)
  • Kolokol
  • That Time Of Night (Edit)
  • Somaside
  • Pulsing (Citadel Version)
  • Cloud Cover (Andrew Weatherall Remix)
  • Memorial Device
  • Indica (Pye Corner Audio Remix- GLOK Edit)
Pulsing and Kolokol are both from the intended to be anonymous debut GLOK album, released in July 2019. Pulsing later saw the light of day as an EP called The Citadel. Andrew Weatherall's urban ambient remix, harking back to Two Lone Swordsmen in some ways, came out on there an the subsequent album of remixes, Dissident Remixed. 

Somaside was sent out to everyone who bought the follow up album, 2021's Pattern recognition, which suffered from endless delays due to pressing problems and vinyl backlogs. Pattern Recognition is a superb album. The only reason that more of its tracks don't appear on this mix is that so may of them are so long that they'd use up so much time of my self- allocated thirty to forty minutes. 

Memorial Device is from Pattern Recognition and also the name of an imaginary Airdrie post punk group/ 21st century novel by David Keenan. 

Indica was on Andy's solo album The View From Half Way Down, the Bagging Area album of the year in 2020. Pye Corner Audio remixed the entire album superbly. The GLOK remix is Andy remixing a remix of himself. 


4 comments:

Walter said...

I agree that it is almost impossible to feature GLOK and Andy Bell in one mix. GLOK also accompanied me during the last years and I couldn't make a better mix. Be sure - this mix works very well, especially on a rainy Sunday morning. Thanks for it.

Khayem said...

I remember you teasing a mix when I posted an Andy Bell selection last July. It was worth the wait.

I had exactly the challenge and solution when approaching his work; GLOK got it’s own selection a few months later.

I suspect many (most?) of my posts would have benefited had I spent several hours in local pubs beforehand…!

Great work as always, Adam

Swiss Adam said...

Thanks chaps. Having bene out today with my brother in law, watched United at the pub and then carried on, I'm only marginally less drunk now than I was last night.

Alls well that ends well eh?

blureu said...

Enjoying this for my Monday morning. Thanks.