ANDY BELL’S delicious Ever Decreasing Circles series continues today with a rather too desirable yellow vinyl 10″, the See My Friends EP.
The EP features the two tracks from Andy solo debut 7″, “Plastic Bag” and “The Commune”, itself a hyper-limited release as part of Sonic Cathedral’s Singles Club in the winter of 2019, and super-hard to find; and it’s that flipside, “The Commune”, that now takes centre stage with the restylings of Pye Corner Audio. You can watch the video for that addictively dreamy remix below.
Haunting, gliding, sliding forward on backwards masked drums, pushing out from shoegaze into an electronic psychedelia and all topped out with a soaring vocal loop, it’s blissful and beautifully judged.
That repeated mantra of “I wanna see my friends tonight, if it’s the last thing I do”, has taken on new meaning what with the viral purdah we’ve all been living through. It’s a call of humanism, of connection, couched in dreamstate sonic bliss.
The original versions both feature, remastered; and Pye Corner Audio also takes on both tracks. On the evidence of his retake herein and the preceding six-tracker, The Indica Gallery, it’s an essential, forward-thinking record.
“Martin [Jenkins, aka Pye Corner Audio] is so good with slower tempo electronic stuff,” says Andy. “What he came up with is perfect for these songs, he enhanced the originals massively.
He has been top of my list of people to work with ever since a monumental night at the Social, late 2019. It was Sonic Cathedral’s 15th birthday party and Pye Corner Audio was headlining, with bdrmm and myself playing live sets.
“It was a bit of a legendary night and, before it was over, Martin and I had agreed we would work together on something, sometime. I wasn’t sure he’d remember the conversation, but luckily he did.”
Andy Bell’s See My Friends EP is available digitally and on a limited-edition yellow vinyl 10” today; the third release in the Ever Decreasing Circles series, the All On You EP, follows next month.
