Andy Bell - The View From Halfway Down (2020)
Andy Bell - The View From Halfway Down (2020)
EAC Rip | FLAC (tracks+log+.cue) - 263 Mb | MP3 CBR 320 kbps - 101 Mb | 00:41:59
Pop Rock, Synthpop | Label: Sonic Cathedral Recordings
EAC Rip | FLAC (tracks+log+.cue) - 263 Mb | MP3 CBR 320 kbps - 101 Mb | 00:41:59
Pop Rock, Synthpop | Label: Sonic Cathedral Recordings
Coinciding with his fiftieth birthday, The View From Halfway Down signals a brand new chapter for Andy Bell thirty odd years into his career. The product of a gradual, four-year process and finished during lockdown, the album was entirely written and recorded by Andy, engineered by Gem Archer and mastered by Heba Kadry.Tracklist:
Back in 2016, Andy was inspired by David Bowie’s death to be more proactive about finishing his songs, more confident about sharing them and to channel all of this into finally making a solo album. He laid down some tracks in former Beady Eye and Oasis bandmate Gem’s studio, but got diverted 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 Andy the 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,” explains Andy. “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.
“The album is not about songwriting. There aren’t many verses or choruses, because this album is about sounds, a listening experience.”
From the ecstatic psych pop of ‘Love Comes In Waves’, to the heady loops of ‘Indica’ and deeply groove-led ‘Skywalker’, the eight tracks mix summery melodies with soundscapes and studio experimentation. The end result sits neatly between Ride’s widescreen shoegaze and GLOK’s textured electronics, variously inspired by The Stone Roses, Spacemen 3, The Beatles, The Byrds, The Beta Band, Stereolab, Neu!, Can, John Fahey, The Kinks, The La’s, The Who and the United States Of America.
As for the album title, it comes from a particularly dark episode of BoJack Horseman and a poem that scriptwriter Alison Tafel wrote for the penultimate show. The spoiler-free version of the story goes like this: “The poem describes someone committing suicide by jumping to their death and the regret the protagonist experiences when he sees ‘the view from halfway down’. Although, of course, it’s too late to change what’s going to happen. I read this poem as having a message of suicide prevention: if you could see the view from halfway down, you would never go through with anything that would end your life. I’ve never been suicidal, but I felt really moved by this brilliant poem when I watched the show during Ride’s US tour in Autumn 2019. It’s an incredible message.
“There was a small kind of a parallel with me, sitting at home in London in March 2020. In the early stages of lockdown, you could feel the tension in the air, causing what felt like a global panic attack. But, in common with what I’ve heard from others who can experience anxiety for no reason in their everyday lives, I felt strangely calm in the midst of all of this, seeing things in my life very clearly. Such clarity allowed me to finally compile this record. In a way, to see my life flash before me and be able to curate moments of it into a 40-minute listening experience, then find a title that would fit.
“My upcoming 50th brought everything more sharply into focus. If you imagine that my entire life was a freefall jump to my death, and you were feeling optimistic about me reaching 100 like my Gran did and getting a telegram from the Queen, this album would be ‘the view from halfway down’.”
So there you have it. The near death of a cartoon anti-hero and the actual death of a music legend, feeling the calm within a global pandemic and a musical turning point halfway through life all add up to one glorious, technicolour whole.
1. Love Comes in Waves (04:48)
2. Indica (06:55)
3. Ghost Tones (02:28)
4. Skywalker (06:22)
5. Aubrey Drylands Gladwell (03:10)
6. Cherry Cola (04:29)
7. I Was Alone (06:45)
8. Heat Haze on Weyland Road (07:00)
Exact Audio Copy V1.3 from 2. September 2016
EAC extraction logfile from 14. October 2020, 0:01
Andy Bell / The View From Halfway Down
Used drive : HL-DT-STDVDRAM GH70N Adapter: 1 ID: 0
Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No
Read offset correction : 667
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Gap handling : Appended to previous track
Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 1024 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files (x86)\Exact Audio Copy\Flac\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -8 -V -T "ARTIST=%artist%" -T "TITLE=%title%" -T "ALBUM=%albumtitle%" -T "DATE=%year%" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%tracknr%" -T "GENRE=%genre%" -T "PERFORMER=%albuminterpret%" -T "COMPOSER=%composer%" %haslyrics%–tag-from-file=LYRICS="%lyricsfile%"%haslyrics% -T "ALBUMARTIST=%albumartist%" -T "DISCNUMBER=%cdnumber%" -T "TOTALDISCS=%totalcds%" -T "TOTALTRACKS=%numtracks%" -T "COMMENT=%comment%" %source% -o %dest%
TOC of the extracted CD
Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
1 | 0:00.00 | 4:48.43 | 0 | 21642
2 | 4:48.43 | 6:55.17 | 21643 | 52784
3 | 11:43.60 | 2:28.40 | 52785 | 63924
4 | 14:12.25 | 6:22.13 | 63925 | 92587
5 | 20:34.38 | 3:10.03 | 92588 | 106840
6 | 23:44.41 | 4:29.18 | 106841 | 127033
7 | 28:13.59 | 6:45.55 | 127034 | 157463
8 | 34:59.39 | 7:00.30 | 157464 | 188993
Track 1
Filename C:\EAC Rips\01 - Love Comes In Waves.wav
Pre-gap length 0:00:02.00
Peak level 96.9 %
Extraction speed 1.1 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC F99D4CBA
Copy CRC F99D4CBA
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK
Track 2
Filename C:\EAC Rips\02 - Indica.wav
Peak level 95.7 %
Extraction speed 1.3 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC D16CE1E1
Copy CRC D16CE1E1
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK
Track 3
Filename C:\EAC Rips\03 - Ghost Tones.wav
Peak level 95.0 %
Extraction speed 1.2 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 93C5BB3D
Copy CRC 93C5BB3D
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK
Track 4
Filename C:\EAC Rips\04 - Skywalker.wav
Peak level 100.0 %
Extraction speed 1.5 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 51DA9DEE
Copy CRC 51DA9DEE
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK
Track 5
Filename C:\EAC Rips\05 - Aubrey Drylands Gladwell.wav
Peak level 96.6 %
Extraction speed 1.5 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 42E8D0FC
Copy CRC 42E8D0FC
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK
Track 6
Filename C:\EAC Rips\06 - Cherry Cola.wav
Peak level 96.6 %
Extraction speed 1.4 X
Track quality 99.9 %
Test CRC 3E2C430C
Copy CRC 3E2C430C
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK
Track 7
Filename C:\EAC Rips\07 - I Was Alone.wav
Peak level 94.9 %
Extraction speed 1.8 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 9443C6F3
Copy CRC 9443C6F3
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK
Track 8
Filename C:\EAC Rips\08 - Heat Haze On Weyland Road.wav
Peak level 97.0 %
Extraction speed 2.0 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 8C1EA31D
Copy CRC 8C1EA31D
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK
None of the tracks are present in the AccurateRip database
No errors occurred
End of status report
–– CUETools DB Plugin V2.1.6
[CTDB TOCID: A3U3Gu67vYtM9uLpdYmFQXQm.aE-] found
Submit result: A3U3Gu67vYtM9uLpdYmFQXQm.aE- has been confirmed
Track | CTDB Status
1 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
2 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
3 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
4 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
5 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
6 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
7 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
8 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
==== Log checksum EA21FA1D5D6389641DD1F0E6C8E47FE39B84FBD45340087BA3FDDC9AB7BB4F6B ====
EAC extraction logfile from 14. October 2020, 0:01
Andy Bell / The View From Halfway Down
Used drive : HL-DT-STDVDRAM GH70N Adapter: 1 ID: 0
Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No
Read offset correction : 667
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Gap handling : Appended to previous track
Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 1024 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files (x86)\Exact Audio Copy\Flac\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -8 -V -T "ARTIST=%artist%" -T "TITLE=%title%" -T "ALBUM=%albumtitle%" -T "DATE=%year%" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%tracknr%" -T "GENRE=%genre%" -T "PERFORMER=%albuminterpret%" -T "COMPOSER=%composer%" %haslyrics%–tag-from-file=LYRICS="%lyricsfile%"%haslyrics% -T "ALBUMARTIST=%albumartist%" -T "DISCNUMBER=%cdnumber%" -T "TOTALDISCS=%totalcds%" -T "TOTALTRACKS=%numtracks%" -T "COMMENT=%comment%" %source% -o %dest%
TOC of the extracted CD
Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
1 | 0:00.00 | 4:48.43 | 0 | 21642
2 | 4:48.43 | 6:55.17 | 21643 | 52784
3 | 11:43.60 | 2:28.40 | 52785 | 63924
4 | 14:12.25 | 6:22.13 | 63925 | 92587
5 | 20:34.38 | 3:10.03 | 92588 | 106840
6 | 23:44.41 | 4:29.18 | 106841 | 127033
7 | 28:13.59 | 6:45.55 | 127034 | 157463
8 | 34:59.39 | 7:00.30 | 157464 | 188993
Track 1
Filename C:\EAC Rips\01 - Love Comes In Waves.wav
Pre-gap length 0:00:02.00
Peak level 96.9 %
Extraction speed 1.1 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC F99D4CBA
Copy CRC F99D4CBA
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK
Track 2
Filename C:\EAC Rips\02 - Indica.wav
Peak level 95.7 %
Extraction speed 1.3 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC D16CE1E1
Copy CRC D16CE1E1
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK
Track 3
Filename C:\EAC Rips\03 - Ghost Tones.wav
Peak level 95.0 %
Extraction speed 1.2 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 93C5BB3D
Copy CRC 93C5BB3D
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK
Track 4
Filename C:\EAC Rips\04 - Skywalker.wav
Peak level 100.0 %
Extraction speed 1.5 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 51DA9DEE
Copy CRC 51DA9DEE
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK
Track 5
Filename C:\EAC Rips\05 - Aubrey Drylands Gladwell.wav
Peak level 96.6 %
Extraction speed 1.5 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 42E8D0FC
Copy CRC 42E8D0FC
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK
Track 6
Filename C:\EAC Rips\06 - Cherry Cola.wav
Peak level 96.6 %
Extraction speed 1.4 X
Track quality 99.9 %
Test CRC 3E2C430C
Copy CRC 3E2C430C
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK
Track 7
Filename C:\EAC Rips\07 - I Was Alone.wav
Peak level 94.9 %
Extraction speed 1.8 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 9443C6F3
Copy CRC 9443C6F3
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK
Track 8
Filename C:\EAC Rips\08 - Heat Haze On Weyland Road.wav
Peak level 97.0 %
Extraction speed 2.0 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 8C1EA31D
Copy CRC 8C1EA31D
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK
None of the tracks are present in the AccurateRip database
No errors occurred
End of status report
–– CUETools DB Plugin V2.1.6
[CTDB TOCID: A3U3Gu67vYtM9uLpdYmFQXQm.aE-] found
Submit result: A3U3Gu67vYtM9uLpdYmFQXQm.aE- has been confirmed
Track | CTDB Status
1 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
2 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
3 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
4 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
5 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
6 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
7 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
8 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
==== Log checksum EA21FA1D5D6389641DD1F0E6C8E47FE39B84FBD45340087BA3FDDC9AB7BB4F6B ====
Thanks to the Original ripper !