Mark Gardener Left Them All Behind, Pull Out His First Solo Album & It's A Totally Astonishing Release! Totally!

“Ride’s a tough act to follow, but I’m loving what I’m hearing…”

Strong words for Mark Gardener about the process of creating "These Beautiful Ghosts," his first solo effort since his now-legendary group Ride disbanded. Ride, for you youngsters, kick started the “shoegazing” movement of the late eighties/early nineties in the UK and influenced artists for years to come. Not to disparage the impact that their music had on those times, but you know, that was then, this is now. Mark says, “My passion for making music hasn’t changed, but of course, I’m a completely different person now.”

Make no mistake; Gardener has been indulging that passion for a while now. And like most records, this one has a story…

Back in February 2003, after spending a couple of years laying low, shacked up in barn in a walnut orchard in Le Lot and then travelling in India, Mark leapt at the opportunity, offered by the success of the Ride Best Of release, to play live again. The US label that had released the Ride compilation asked him to come over and play an acoustic show at SXSW in Austin, TX in March and to do a few interviews, radio sessions etc. This was the first time in 11 years that Mark had played shows in the States - when Ride last toured there in 1992 they were still too young to drink in the clubs they played. The SXSW showcase turned into a full two-month solo acoustic tour with Mark playing mostly Ride material, but also a smattering of brand new stuff.

Prior to heading off to the States Mark played a low-key warm-up show in the Cellar Bar in Oxford where he was joined onstage for half the set by local alt. country stars Goldrush, (they used to cover Ride's “Dreams Burn Down” in their live set and had hooked up with Mark when he went to see them play at the Garage in London at the beginning of the year). The loose idea had been to play some shows together and it was a good chance to try the idea out. As fate would have it, Andy Bell was over from Stockholm for a day and both he and Loz Colbert joined Mark and Goldrush onstage for an extra "near-Ride-reunion" encore (Steve was in the Shetland Isles at the time).



When Mark returned from his US tour, he and Goldrush decided to go out and play the UK shows that they'd spoken about earlier in the year. They recorded some tracks together for an exclusive Tour EP: "Falling Out Into The Night" featured one Mark song, “Snow In Mexico,” (we’ll get to that later), one Goldrush song and one Ride song, the aforementioned, “Dreams Burn Down.” A few copies leaked out and the lead track was played on BBC Radio 1 and on BBC 6music A few months later, Mark would play a packed out London's Spitz on the 30th July with Goldrush as his backing band.

More writing and demo-ing followed in August (back in the land of walnuts) and then 2 months in the US taking the Gardener/Goldrush touring format Stateside. Goldrush were recording with Dave Fridmann out there in September and it seemed rude not to hook up and play some shows. In true ambitious fashion, Mark and Goldrush then rambled from the East Coast (where Mark continued to record some of the tracks that would become "These Beautiful Ghosts") to the West Coast, to Hong Kong, Japan, Europe, then back to London and a quick jaunt to Spain. Whew. Then, it was more writing (in France), a well-received tour of Australia (w/sometime Ride keyboardist Nick Moorbath) and some more shows in Spain, punctuated by a support slot (with Goldrush) to die-hard Ride fans Black Rebel Motorcycle Club at the Forum in London. In fact, BRMC managed to tease Mark back onstage at the end of the night for a storming cover of Ride’s “Leave Them All Behind.”

Mark then returned to France in the summer of 2004 to finish writing "These Beautiful Ghosts."

The remainder of the year was punctuated with occasional live shows with Goldrush including an appearance on the John Peel Stage at Glastonbury. Mark also hooked up with French duo rinôçérôse to write and record some tracks for their imminent V2 album release. They had traveled across France as obsessive fans to see one of Mark’s solo shows and, after a little vin rouge, the three of them ended up spending a long weekend together in a Montpelier studio, writing and recording.



Over the past year Mark has also collaborated on recent releases from German dance duo Jam And Spoon, Italian singer/songwriter Deepo and Australian alt rock outfit The Morning After Girls. It would seem that the Ride gospel traveled far and wide and that Mark’s musical currency has never been higher.

Buoyed by the inspiration from his travels, Mark returned to New York early in 2005 to work with producer Bill Racine. Bill had engineered the Tarbox recording sessions at the end of 2003 and Mark wanted him to record and mix the remainder of the tracks. The initial mixing sessions in the legendary Bearsville Studio in upstate NY were an instant success and Mark arranged for Goldrush to fly over to record the rest of the tracks. Always keen to tread the boards. Mark played a series a of East Coast and West Coast shows backed by the Bennett brothers, Robin and Joe, from Goldrush and Brooklyn vocalist/performer Cat Martino (who also features on two of the album tracks).

Okay now, deep breath. "These Beautiful Ghosts" is finally in the can…

And with all of the globetrotting, it’s a wonder how Gardener found it in him to embrace such introspective meandering. The title track, for instance is about looking back to realize that, “things in our lives didn’t work out for a reason.” “It’s about those isolated moments in the evenings and the mornings,” Mark says, “when the past, good and bad, can sweep around us. Those fresh things we breathe in and the old that we breathe out… detoxing.”

"These Beautiful Ghosts" opens with “Snow In Mexico,” (I said we’d get back to it), an ethereal and poignant piece Mark says is, “… about people collisions.” Inspired by a newspaper headline, Mark ran with the spirit of the words. “It’s really about how people can blow hot and cold, be one way one minute and then completely different, the next.”

Texturally, the record does retain some of the atmospheric nuance that Ride knew so well. For reference, listening to mammoth pieces like the sweeping “Gravity Flow” but "These Beautiful Ghosts" is completely different animal. “I wanted to make a record that’s got some weight and some emotional content, but is also interesting to listen to.” The emotive quality of the record is certainly not lost to its soundscapes. Rather, the wedding of neat sounds to songs that reach out to us are palpable as in the bonafide pop song, “To Get Me Through” and the gorgeous “Summer Turns To Fall” (actually penned by Robin from Goldrush and American songwriter Danny Power while meditating on Mark’s time with Ride), with its uplifting harmonies reminiscent of the best things Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young have ever done. The rest of the record rolls off like a desert wind- memorable, mysterious and refreshing.

Slated for release on October 11th, 2005 on new model indie United For Opportunity of whom Gardener says, “credible music people find each other,” "These Beautiful Ghosts" will undoubtedly open a new chapter for a musical iconoclast.

These Beautiful Ghosts

The beginning of Ride's descent, according to many a shoegazer, can be traced to the day someone slipped the band a copy of the Byrds' Notorious Byrd Brothers. From that moment, the band underwent a complete makeover. Multiple layers of storming guitars were replaced with an acoustic guitar, strings, and a tamboura (and a contribution from Deep Purple's Jon Lord), while the shabby university dropout look was exchanged for Laurel Canyon chic (as if they had taken a time machine back to the 1969 set of Mr. Dressup). Any detractor with common sense had to at least concede that Mark Gardener's songs on Carnival of Light ("From Time to Time," for instance) easily surpassed the ones written by Andy Bell ("Crown of Creation"), so it was apparent that Gardener's transition was relatively natural. And then came Tarantula, where the downward spiral began to look more like a greased chute -- Gardener was roughly (only) eight percent responsible for that. Between then and the 2005 release of his first solo album, Gardener released a single on Shifty Disco, made an album with the hard-to-remember Animalhouse, recorded a couple guest appearances, and did some ambitious touring. He used the money from the touring to finance These Beautiful Ghosts, an album that doesn't stray all that far from Carnival of Light ("Snow in Mexico," "Getting out of Your Own Way," and the eight-years-old "Magdalen Sky" especially). It's less ambitious and more emotionally rounded, backed by fellow Oxford natives Goldrush, a band with an apparent affinity for the likes of Neil Young, the Band, and therefore latter-day Teenage Fanclub. Gardener's more skilled as a singer, which could either be a good or bad thing, depending on what angle you're coming from: you'll either think he sounds better than ever or miss the charmingly naïve boyishness heard on Nowhere (or both). His songs are generally strong, which helps make up for the fact that they're not an advance from what he was doing a full decade prior.

Review By AMG.



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