HAVING released a series of vinyl format singles, the Ever Decreasing Circles triptych, following his superb album from last autumn for Sonic Cathedral, The View From Halfway Down, and also last year’s Dissident Remixed set of rerubs from his electronic alter-ego GLOK, Andy Bell has proved himself as industrious as he is ever curious and seeking as he is talented; always looking forward, restless, finding new musical horizons to crest.
And never one to rest on his laurels, with that series of 12″, 10″ and 7″ and that attendant compilation just completed, he’s announced that come autumn he’ll be releasing what he’s terming GLOK’s first album proper on Bytes. It’s to be entitled Pattern Recognition, it’ll be a delight, we’re told, of haunting electronica, glimmering electro, Balearic atmospheres, modular trippiness, conceptualised in a manner akin to James Joyce’s Ulysses around the passage of a defined period of time, herein weekend to weekend.
You can glory in a first single drop from the record right here, right now: “Maintaining The Machine”, a hazily blissful electronic groove, layered up with retro-electropop rhythms that reminds me of Yellow Magic Orchestra, topped with the evocative, detached chant of singer Sinead O’Brien, and all still with a euphoric psych-shoegaze haze fully present and swirling; win.
That loose chronological-conceptual thread – a week of a life, from weekend to weekend, presents with each of the vinyl’s four sides capturing different mind states. Each side, we’re told, has a distinct feel that’s different to the last but inherently cohesive – much like the changes an individual goes through over seven days.
And it’ll all be composed from an absolute smorgasbord of lovingly curated influences, combined and recombined: acid, of the electronic and the psych stripes; kosmiche, techno, shoegaze (of course), art rock, post-punk, garlands of ambient, modern classical, more.
With Dissident having presented as an entirely instrumental affair, Pattern Recognition also sees a step up to working with vocalists, including not only Sinead, the Irish poet of the lead single here, but Ransom Note labelmate Chloé ‘C.A.R.’ Raunet; interstellar futurist MC Shamon Cassette, of Bon Voyage, and Andy’s wife Shiarra.
GLOK‘s Pattern Recognition will be released digitally, on CD and on 2xLP by Bytes on October 1st, and is available to pre-order right now, here.
