Loading details…
Artist
Glok
12+ albums
ambientelectronicblack metaltechnobalearic
about
RIDE’s Andy Bell is in for a busy year. As well as releasing a new album with the revitalised shoegaze legends (This is Not a Safe Place, out on Wichita Recordings in August), Bytes is proud to announce the first physical release of his solo recordings under the alias GLOK. The bulk of the tracks were slipped out anonymously a couple of years ago, until Andy finally broke cover to reveal that he was the man twiddling the knobs in an interview with Clash in May 2017. “I didn’t want people to be hearing the first tunes with a picture of me, a middle-aged guitarist, in their heads,” he explained. “I wanted the music to exist outside of any preconceptions, at least for a few months.” Avid RIDE fan and Bytes co-owner Joe Clay fell in love with the music before discovering that GLOK was Andy. It was destiny for the tracks to end up being released on Bytes, with two unreleased tracks joining the five already available, with the whole album remastered by Keith Tenniswood to stunning effect. The name GLOK is a misspelling of the German word for Bell. The German connection fits well as there is a strong Krautrock influence in the music, especially on the title track, ‘Dissident’, an epic clocking in just shy of the 20-minute mark, which blends synthwave, minimalism, trance, Detroit techno and John Carpenter soundtracks, with Andy even dropping in some killer John Squire-esque guitar licks. It’s a real journey, but rather than driving down Kraftwerk’s Autobahn, this is one for a
