’90s shoegaze pioneers Ride have announced their seventh studio album, Interplay, and it’s out March 29 via Wichita Recordings/PIAS.
Since getting back together in 2014, the band have released two other records, 2017’s Weather Diaries and 2019’s This Is Not A Safe Place. The upcoming LP — produced by the band with help from Richie Kennedy and mixed by Claudius Mittendorfer — saw them “go through a lot of ups and downs; maybe the most of any Ride album,” according to guitarist/vocalist Andy Bell. Additionally, its 12 songs take influence from Tears For Fears, Talk Talk, and early U2, which you can hear on lead single “Peace Sign.”
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“‘Peace Sign’ started life as a jam recorded at Marks’ OX4 studio, in early 2021,” Bell says. “We called it ‘Berlin’ and initially it featured Loz on drums, Steve on bass, and myself on a prophet 5 synth. About six months later I got hold of the recording and wrestled it into song form. Lyrically, I was inspired by a film called The Alpinist about the visionary free climber Marc-André Leclerc. Soon after I’d finished working on the song, I remember I was raving to my bandmates about Leclerc at OX4, and a good memory of that time was us all watching that film at Mark’s studio.”
Listen to “Peace Sign,” plus check out the album artwork and tracklisting, below.
Interplay tracklisting
“Peace Sign”
“Last Frontier”
“Light in a Quiet Room”
“Monaco”
“I Came to See the Wreck”
“Stay Free”
“Last Night I Came”
“Sunrise Chaser”
“Midnight Rider”
“Portland Rocks”
“Essaouira”
“Yesterday Is Just a Song”
