Thursday, April 28, 2011


Ride- Smile (1990) MP3 & FLAC


"And when I see you sliding past, I make my plans, and then my plans slip through my fingers just like sand."

While My Bloody Valentine is often cited as the pinnacle of the Shoegaze movement of the late eighties and early nineties, Ride's first smattering of EPs and their debut full-length, Nowhere, are nearly as good, with the added bonus of pushing the "wall of sound" approach into regions more visceral and less fussed-over than their contemporaries. On Smile, a compilation of the band's first two EPs for Creation, the influence of Psychocandy is palpable, and like The Jesus and Mary Chain, Ride are careful to wrap their layers of distortion around sugar-sweet garage-pop gems. For example, on one of the album's obvious highlights, "Chelsea Girl," Ride tap into a mid-sixties garage-psych sound but take it somewhere new with heavily distorted guitar squalls and Loz Colbert's manic drumming. While "Silver" heads into darker neo-psychedelic territory, "Furthest Sense" nods in the direction of My Bloody Valentine, but whereas that band buries melody in layers of guitar refraction, Ride pushes the song's pop structure to the foreground. Though Ride's debut album (and masterpiece) is more fully-formed and better recorded, the EPs comprising Smile should by no means be overlooked.

Smile (2001 Remastered Edition)

Ride EP
1. Chelsea Girl  (2:58)
2. Drive Blind  (4:45)
3. All I Can See  (3:24)
4. Close My Eyes  (5:27)

Play EP
5. Like a Daydream  (3:07)
6. Silver  (4:13)
7. Furthest Sense  (3:23)
8. Perfect Time  (3:54)


14 comments:

  1. for me Ride were always one step above MBV,(hmm ocasionaly there was space in between for someone else) and one step below JAMC(they are unbeatable). Not only for "Nowhere" but also for "Going blank.." and all those EPs, and such artwork!!!

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  2. ranxerox, I tend to agree with you. I'll be posting the 20th Anniversary edition of "Nowhere" sometime soon

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  3. Thanks voixautre!! Will enjoy listening to this with MBV and Psychocandy in mind ...

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  4. Oh what a surprise! I didn't know that this ep collection is remastered!Yeah,in 2001 by Ignition Records,now I know! I have original cd and the sound is pretty dirty and guitar feedback is even thicker on original recordings.This is much better! I can't believe I missed their concert in 1991 in my high-school days when they were playing gigs just before Nowhere!
    The Holy Trinity MBV-JAMC-Ride is something finest in UK indie (rock) music ever!!!
    And please post 20th anniv. Nowhere ASAP!! Hopefully with bonus live cd!!!
    Thanks for this great post!

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  5. iggy1, yes, this version is a huge improvement on the original issue, which was evidently mastered from vinyl copies of the EPs. I will post the deluxe version of "Nowhere" in the next couple of days :)

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  6. A real treat. I didn't buy it at the time and was looking for it afterwards with no results.
    So at last I get it thanks to you !

    Cheers !

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  7. Lon, you're welcome. This remaster is a hard one to find

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  8. You're de man, voixautre. Another great choice - and one I was planning on including on Shoulda been huge. For a month or so after "Nowhere" I was convinced Ride were the best goddamn band on the planet....and then it all went to shit. Carnival of Shite (oops Light) is one of the biggest turkeys of all time!

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  9. Hi Ralph, I completely agree. Ride's speedy decline still confuses me nearly twenty years later. But their pre-"Carnival" stuff is some of the best guitar-based music of the nineties

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  10. Could it be possible to re-up pls ?

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  11. Could you kindly re-up your Ride links? Thank you!

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