For an album that starts by spectacularly ripping off Roy Budd’s early seventies masterpiece, ‘Carter Takes A Train’ as well as deploying more than the occasional Ennio Morricone signature it’s surprising that Glide writer, producer and all round sonic entertainer, Will Sergeant has even heard of a computer, let alone used one. But used one he has – not just on this album – not just with this band – but with a broad and masterful range of weird and wonderful projects. First up, ex-Bunnymen Sergeant has seen a number of singles released on the far-reaching audio research Ochre label – home to a dizzying array of space-wankered experimentalists – as well as collaborating on releases by Liverpool minimalists, Skyray and Cheltenham bleep artists, Longstone. And if you think that’s far-out, then get this: Glide’s last album ‘Performance’ was generated almost entirely by a computer program based on Brian Eno’s ‘KOAN’ application (KOAN works by addressing the sound card in the computer. The computer sends instructions to that sound card and tells it what noises to produce and in what patterns. Most of KOAN’s instructions are probabilistic – so that rather than saying “do precisely this“ (which is what a musical sequencer does) they say “choose what to do from within this range of possibilities“) Heavy stuff. And not what you were expecting from the jingly-jangly god of seminal indie rock, I’ll bet. Me neither.
But here we have it: ‘Curvature Of The Earth’. Bleeps, buzzes and layer upon layer of slippery, trajectory weird-shit. Sergeant is happy enough to draw a line under the Eno influence and so should we; not the ambient Eno of ‘Another Green World’ or ‘Before and After Science’ – more the bonkers, madcap glam professor of razor-sharp pop albums like ‘Here Comes The Warm Jets’. And the congruence is no more obvious than on tinkling, seismic buzz track ‘Rotation 1’ – featuring all the usual Eno suspects: vibrato, Alladin Sane-era piano, wobbly sequencers and fuzzy guitars. ‘Ainsdale Beach April’ and ‘Expo 68’, are similar suspects, only this time amongst the sparse technogobble of the percussion there’s a well-tasty smattering of Joe Meek and ‘Revolver’ era Beatles. And it’s this fairly pronounced psychedelic flavour that really prevails on subsequent listens. True there’s a smidgen of rumbling, industrial electro trash on tracks ‘Spirit’ and ‘Iggy and Ziggy’ but it’s the gaily tripping crop-circles of simplicity like ‘I Have Seen The Sunlight’ (featuring Sergeant’s wife Paula on vocals) that really leave their mark.
Anyway, if you’re too embarrassed to buy a Mike Oldfield record, too sensitive to listen to T. Raumschmiere or Miss Kittin and just too darn lazy to go an unearth a Brian Eno record, this album should just about suffice. It may wear it’s influences on it’s sleeve – but when those influences have a pedigree like these, that’s no bad thing.