You drop the needle. …the first sound you hear is the ride cymbal accompanied by a distant feedback. A bass groove introduces itself to tighten the beat. There is a progression and then you are hit by a massive wall of guitar sounds that lifts you to a place you have never been before.
‘’ My eyes are sore, my body weak, my throat is dry, I cannot speak, my words are dead ’’ …indeed.
For the first six minutes, you are trapped in a whirlwind of sound that you can’t get out of and honestly don’t want to. In all this chaos, you are carried by the gentle vocals of Mark Gardener and Andy Bell. The rhythm section comprised of Steve Queralt and Loz Colbert hold everything together in a masterful way.
All four bring the whole thing to a powerful ending with an unbelievable crescendo that simply leaves you breathless. At this point you are in a trance, but you definitely want more.
The song in question is called ‘Seagull’, the opener of one of the most important and defining shoegaze albums ever recorded: ‘Nowhere’ by RIDE.
At the time, the Oxford lads were in their early twenties and already accomplished musicians. They did not invent the genre, mind you, but they surely brought shoegaze to another level.
Not as delicate or ambient as Slowdive, not as experimental or extreme as My Bloody Valentine.
They made shoegaze more ‘accessible’ by incorporating it into a more traditional structure.
The 60’s jangle pop psychedelic feel. The Byrds harmonies in Gardener and Bell’s joint vocals. The Keith Moon-like thunderous drumming of Loz Colbert. The wall of distortion made by twin guitars, mixing the dreamy with the aggressive. Adopting rhythms that you could almost dance to.
All these elements made ‘Nowhere’ the masterpiece it is today.
In the space of the album’s eight songs, they also gave Alan McGee of Creation Records a reason to commercialize the genre. It made RIDE indie darlings and brought them instant fame – a contrast to the way McGee handled Slowdive’s career and later almost bankrupted the label with the recording of My Bloody Valentine’s ‘Loveless’, another seminal shoegaze album.
With its iconic cover art and embossed lettering, ’Nowhere’ is now 36 years old and remains vibrant and more relevant than ever. Often copied but never matched. It is still a major influence and a blueprint for the new generation of shoegaze bands.
Now, let’s drop the needle again…
Photo and review by Richard – Speaker at The Record Club
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