LISTEN TO A PREVIEW OF ANDY BELL’S ‘VARIANCE – THE TORSTEN THE BAREBACK SAINT REMIXES’ ALBUM
3
July
As previously reported Andy Bell will release a new solo album, ‘Variance – The Torsten The Bareback Saint Remixes’, on September 4th on CD and via download and you can listen to a medley of tracks from the record here…
‘Variance – The Torsten The Bareback Saint Remixes’ features remixed versions of nine tracks from last year’s ‘Torsten The Bareback Saint’ release which accompanied Andy’s one-man theatre show of the same name.
Barney Ashton-Bullock, the writer behind ‘Torsten The Bareback Saint’ and the forthcoming ‘Torsten The Beautiful Libertine’ explains a little more about project:
“I really wanted to explore the underlying pop sensibility of some of the tracks from the ‘Torsten The Bareback Saint’ album. Many fans don’t perhaps realise that the genesis of some of the songs on that first album go back to the mid 80s and that the Torsten project has been in my head pretty much since the early 90s.
I only ever wanted Andy Bell to take the part of Torsten. I think I learnt about his sensibility and his vocal abilities and I never entertained the idea of casting anyone else. Andy was known for the electro-pop of Erasure and I perhaps was fascinated to play tribute to that heritage in some of the remixes on this album.
There are many synth-pop and electro-pop practitioners and hobbyists and Matt Culpin from Dancing With Ruby was known to me through Limahl and Matt knew Mike Stanley of mOOger! and both were enthusiastic to offer their respective takes on ‘Weston-Super-Mare’. Additionally the producer of the original album, Mike Allison, reworked the three lead tracks ‘Weston-Super-Mare’, ‘I Don’t Like’ and ‘Fountain Of Youth’ as radio-friendly Radio Remixes and those variants are also collected on the album.
The wildly experimental ‘Weston-Super-Mare’ (Industrial Soundscape Mix) – which contains some previously unheard lyrics – was my homage to the very early industrial noise collages of bands like Cabaret Voltaire, Fad Gadget and Einstürzende Neubauten but perhaps my favourite track on this collection is the Electropop Remake of ‘Bingo Hall Baby’ – it has a loungecore vibe on the original Torsten album, but it is a song which I originally made as an electropop track in the early 90’s when in a band called Rupert Drinks Vodka at Goldsmith’s Art College.
I loved rewriting and re-working it with Christopher Frost for inclusion in this collection. We couldn’t stop laughing recording the bingo hall manager parts – our homage to Alan Bennett, and Andy really does sound fabulous on it.”
TRACKLISTING
Weston-Super-Mare (Radio Super Mix) / Weston-Super-Mare (Extended Version) / Weston-Super-Mare (Dancing With Ruby Remix) / Weston-Super-Mare (Mooger! Remix) / Weston-Super-Mare (Industrial Soundscape Mix) / Bingo Hall Baby (Electropop Remake) / I Don’t Like (Radio Remix) / Fountain Of Youth (Radio Remix) / Torsten The Bareback Saint (Promotional Medley)
PREORDER ‘VARIANCE – THE TORSTEN THE BAREBACK SAINT REMIXES’