Following the 2019 single ‘Plastic Bag’, Andy Bell releases his debut solo album ‘The View From Halfway Down’ on October 9, 2020. Sitting somewhere in between Ride’s widescreen shoegaze and Glok’s darkly textured electronics, it is the end product of a gradual, four-year process that was finished during lockdown. Back in 2016, Andy was inspired by David Bowie’s death to be more proactive about finishing his songs and laid down some tracks in former Beady Eye and Oasis bandmate Gem Archer’s studio, but got distracted when Ride’s live reunion blossomed into a full return. A run of two albums, an EP and two world tours later, it would take a pandemic to give him the time and space to complete ‘The View From Halfway Down’. “I’ve always wanted to make a solo album, I’ve always said I would do it, although I never imagined it happening like, or sounding like, this one does,” he explains. “I’d been sitting on this pile of almost finished tracks, along with all the other hundreds of ideas that had fallen by the wayside since I’ve been making music. Lockdown gave me the opportunity to find a way to present it to the world.”