Glok - Dissident Remixed (2020)

Dissident, the debut album from RIDE’s Andy Bell, recording as his electronic alter ego GLOK, was released last year to widespread acclaim. On Dissident Remixed, album no 7 on Bytes, lil’ sister of Ransom Note Records, members of the extended Ransom Note family and fans of GLOK and RIDE have come together to reimagine the source material in a rich smorgasbord of styles. The late, great Andrew Weatherall, Richard Sen, Maps, Jay Glass Dubs, C.A.R., Timothy Clerkin, Franz Kirmann, Minotaur Shock and the man himself all step up to lend their talents to the project and the results are stunning.

Richard Sen kicks things off with his swaggering remix of the album’s title track, distilling the 20-minute John Carpenter-meets-Krautrock original into seven-minutes of psychedelic disco-dub, with Andy’s John Squire-esque guitar licks to the fore. Add an Ian Brown vocal and this is what the Third Coming of the Stone Roses should have sounded like.

Andy’s contribution is a game changer, as the widescreen ambient-techno throb of ‘Pulsing’ is revamped over 15 hypnotic and glorious minutes. Imagine Mr Fingers at 33rpm, augmented by plaintive piano lines and dissonant atmospherics. This is the slo-mo acid-house/shoegaze hybrid you didn't know you needed.

Timothy Clerkin’s remix of ‘Projected Sounds’ is the perfect foil for Andy’s epic excursion. The Insult to Injury head honcho takes the propulsive Neu! meets Steve Reich original and sloooooows it right down, with squelchy acid lines, chanted vocals and trippy effects. It’s ‘Voodoo Ray’ for the shoegaze generation.

The mighty Andrew Weatherall’s contribution is a timely reminder of why he will be so sorely missed. A master of atmosphere and rhythm, the Guv’nor transforms the soaring, ambient-acoustic ‘Cloud Cover’ into a subaquatic electroid groover, with echoes of his work as Two Lone Swordsmen. (It is his TLS partner in crime, Keith Tenniswood, on mastering duties for the remix album.)

C.A.R. (aka Chloé Raunet) unearths the hauntology in ‘Weaver’, as a sinister bass throb underpins the Ghost Box synths and Andy’s spidery guitar lines. Maps delivers GLOK to the sonic cathedral with his incredible version of ‘Pulsing’, all epic, hands-in-the-air synths and cascading drum rolls, while Jay Glass Dubs serves up a majestic dub rework of ‘Exit Through the Skylight’.

Andy’s Bytes labelmates also get a piece of the action, with Minotaur Shock’s meaty, beaty, big and bouncy remix of ‘Weaver’, and Franz Kirmann taking ‘Kolokol’ for a spin around the M25 in search of a rave. Franz also delivers a jarring dub of his remix, slowing ‘Kolokol’ down with a grinding groove and clattering percussion. And last but not least, Leaf Troup demonstrates his expert editing skills by compressing the sprawling title track into a bitesize tech-trance banger.