RIDE – GOING BLANK AGAIN 2LP – Nr MINT CREATION 1992 ORIG INDIE

Ride – Going Blank Again
(Creation Records  1992  CRELP124)
Matrix No’s: A1/B1/C1/D1

Gatefold Sleeve in Nr MINT condition

Double Vinyl in Nr MINT condition
(there are a few light surface marks visible on the vinyl when held up to the light but they don’t affect the sound quality)

Ride are an English rock band formed in Oxford in 1988. The band consists of vocalists and guitarists Andy Bell and Mark Gardener, drummer Laurence “Loz” Colbertand bassist Steve Queralt. They have been recognised as one of the key pioneers of shoegaze, an alternative rock subgenre that emerged to prominence in the United Kingdom during the early 1990s.

Going Blank Again is the second studio album by British alternative rock band Ride, released in March 1992 on Creation Records. It was produced by Alan Moulder, and peaked at #5 in the UK Albums Chart. In October 2009 the album was certified gold by the British Phonographic Industry for sales of over 100,000 units.

Following Ride’s 1990 debut album Nowhere, Ride released Going Blank Again as their second full-length record, accompanied by the singles “Leave Them All Behind” and “Twisterella”. The album consists of ten tracks, selected from twenty-five that the band had recorded.

It has been said that Going Blank Again resembles the band’s debut album but also has an upbeat, power pop factor. In this sense the album has been compared to the music of Teenage Fanclub who were Creation Records labelmates of Ride, although it is pointed out that Ride’s vocals are more layered, and that the guitars are not as sharp and cutting as those of similar bands of the same era, whilst retaining the reverberating sound that was typical of the shoegaze sound, which was influenced by Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound technique. The lyrics on the album have been criticised, but overall this was not seen as an important factor for the album given the nature of shoegaze.

Reviewing the album at the time, British music weekly NME noted that they did not have high hopes for Going Blank Again but that Ride “did the business” and restored the magazine’s faith in the band, noting particularly that they had taken on board a diverse set of influences and developed their sound:

This LP has some top punk rock bass guitar on it! Some new effects pedals! New ideas! It is not Going Nowhere Again which is the album we feared they’d make. Instead, GBA fills in the lines between Ride’s beauty with cement and then builds like a demon. There is no stone left unturned, as they open up to new reference points… would you believe King Crimson? New Order? The Who? The Beach Boys? Ride have reinvented themselves whilst retaining all the cuteness of Haircut One Hundred.

An academic study on My Bloody Valentine’s seminal shoegazing album Loveless mentions that the tracks of Going Blank Again are “predictive” of later genres of indie rock, and notes that the seventh track “Cool Your Boots” is a “shoegazing classic”. The song features an excerpt of dialogue from the film Withnail and I, and takes it title from a line directly spoken in the film.

The band credit Christopher Gunson with creating the cover art for the album.

The album was re-released on 24 September 2001 featuring 4 bonus tracks on the Ignition label in the United Kingdom. On 30 March 2012, a 20th Anniversary reissue of the album was announced, featuring the same tracklisting as the 2001 reissue, plus a bonus DVD of the band’s 27/3/92 Brixton Academy concert, previously only released on VHS, which has long since gone out of print. According to a recent newsletter to fans, tracking down the video was no easy task:

After quite a lengthy stint of detective work, we managed to track down the original digital master tape of the Brixton live show. And it looks great! So we asked Catherine Marks and John Catlin at Alan Moulder’s studio to mix the audio afresh from the 2″ master tapes of the gig. Catherine had worked under Alan’s watchful eye on the Roxy LA mixes and so we were really happy that she could find time to mix and edit the Brixton audio. Needless to say, it sounds truly wonderful and we’re really pleased to now finally have a Ride release on DVD.

Track listing