The Welsh musician Andy Bell has had a rich and storied career. Bell was the leader of Ride, one of the most important bands of the initial British shoegaze wave. Ride are back together now, and they released their album Interplay earlier this year. Bell also had a decade-long stint in Oasis. Just a few months ago, Bell was saying that Oasis would one day reunite, and Liam Gallagher was telling him that everyone should just move on. Bell turned out to be right, and there are unconfirmed reports that he’ll take part in next year’s Oasis reunion. Before that does or doesn’t happen, though, Bell will release some new music of his own.

In addition to his time in a couple of iconic bands, Andy Bell has released plenty of solo music over the years — both under his own name and under that of his electronic alter-ego GLOK. In 2021, Bell released the GLOK album Pattern Recognition. Now, he’s getting ready to follow that LP with Alliance, a full-length team-up with Timothy Clerkin, boss of the Manchester indie label Insult To Injury.

In 2020, Timothy Clerkin remixed Andy Bell’s GLOK track “Projected Sounds,” and that led to a full-length collaboration. Bell and Clerkin recorded Alliance remotely during lockdown after Clerkin found an old Les Paul in storage. In a press release, Bell says:

We didn’t discuss much in the way of direction. I was having quite a creative spell at the time, to me it felt like making music was keeping me sane. But when I think back, it was actually making me more insane, just in a different way… I handed control over to Tim for the production side. My role was coming up with, and recording, musical ideas — and playing on his ideas. I’m not entirely sure who played what on what tracks. It all goes into the Clerkin blender, and amazing music comes out!

Lead single “Empyrean” is a very cool seven-minute zone out. It’s built on a droning guitar sound, but there are synth melodies sprinkled all through it, and it recalls the more adventurous ends of ’90s downtempo music. Timothy Clerkin built the track, remixing a demo that Andy Bell sent him. Bell says, “To me, it’s one of the best tracks I’ve ever been involved with since I started making music.” High praise! Below, listen to “Empyrean” and check out the Alliance tracklist.

TRACKLIST:

01 “Empyrean”
02 “AmigA”
03 “Nothing Ever”
04 “Scattered”
05 “The Witching Hour”
06 “E-Theme”
07 “Nothing Ever (Reprice)”

Alliance is out 11/8.