An exclusive clip of Love Oneself (one of the songs from Andy's forthcoming album Electric Blue) has been added to andybell.com.
Love Oneself is one of the two songs that feature a duet between Andy and Claudia Brucken (of Propaganda and Act fame).
On Thursday 6th October, Andy Bell will be performing a live set at the Electrogogo night at Madame JoJo's in London to launch his new solo album.
The club is open between 9pm and 3am. Entry is £4.00 with flyer or £6.00 on the door.
Andy will be DJing at the 'Pearl Necklace' night at the Redstar bar/club in Camberwell, London on the Friday 9th September.
The music website arjan writes has just published one of the first reviews of Andy's forthcoming album 'Electric Blue', and is extremely positive about the album.
For the full review, visit arjan writes. Printed below are a few excerpts from the review.
"The album kicks off with a fine piece of electro-bliss on "Intro." Consider it a brief warm up to the electro thunder that is about to unleash itself.
The album reaches its first climax on track #3, the single "Crazy." The song is clearly the most obvious single choice. Bell knows that you can't go wrong with a deliciously hooky chorus and his choir boy vocals. This one will be stuck in your head after first listen. Bell speaks his truth on "Love Oneself," a duet with Claudia Brucken. Bell sings, "Life is a riot. We only have one life. This is not a rehearsal." Just like I said. This is perfect dancefloor stuff.
The next track is the much-anticipated duet of Bell and Scissor Sisters' Jake Shears on "I Thought It Was You." It is a fat slice of disco funk with Shears' high-pitched vocals craftfully layered over Bell's singing.
"Jealous" shows off Bell's terrific songwriting skills. He is able to pack big emotions into (seemingly) simple lyrics.
Once of the album's highlights is "See The Lights Go Out" that brings Bell's dancefloor bliss to an end.
This album represents some of Bell best songwriting and his unique, spirited vocals. Also, Manhattan Clique have added their own electro spin to give Bell truly a sound of his own."
Over the past few weeks, EIS members have been voting for their ten favourite fan mixes of 'Here I go Impossible Again' that were created using the extremely popular Digimpro remix software.
These ten mixes were subsequently forwarded onto Erasure, who have chosen a final overall winner!
"This is really really hard & I think all the mixes are really sweet & lovely it's really touched my heart & made me cry. I would love to have a CD of all of them! Thanks to everybody, really wonderful to hear! Love Andy xx"
"All of the remixes are excellent! Vincent."
The band particularly praised: Beckys Bored To The Stars Mix and the Three Little Words Only Mix, however there can only be one winner...
And that winner is: Glynns Smash Mix by Glynn Jaine, who will win an iPod and a complete set of Erasure Live Here Now CDs.
The remaining nine finalists will each receive a choice of three Live Here Now CDs each.
As a thank you for those that took the trouble to vote in *every* round of the competition, copies of the 'Here I Go Impossible Again / All This Time Still Falling Out Of Love' radio and club promos CDs have been sent to each of you.
I would like to extend my thanks to Digimpro for making this contest possible, to everyone that voted and to Erasure for making the final difficult choice!
Real Media and Windows Media streams of the ten finalist's mixes (in no particular order) are listed below:
- Glynns Smash Mix [Glynn Jaine] (winner) [Windows Media] | [Real Media]
- Beckys Bored To The Stars Mix [Michael Pitt] [Windows Media] | [Real Media]
- Three Little Words Only [Wolfgang Schlechter] [Windows Media] | [Real Media]
- Funky House Mix [Patrick Seguy] [Windows Media] | [Real Media]
- The Falling Star Mix [Guido Wesemann] [Windows Media] | [Real Media]
- Far From Home Mix [Janet Chusainow] [Windows Media] | [Real Media]
- Johnny T's Grind Mix [John Thompson] [Windows Media] | [Real Media]
- ASH-II Mix [Stephen Ashworth] [Windows Media] | [Real Media]
- Passion Blend Mix [Dave Seguin] [Windows Media] | [Real Media]
- Dawdles Of Love Mix [James Baradine] [Windows Media] | [Real Media]
A further 130 images have been added to the EIS Gallery.
After quite a long break, the 'Ask Erasure' feature is back! This month both Andy and Vince have answered a selection of your questions.
The music channel VH1 Classic (UK) will be showing a selection of Erasure videos on:
Date: Tuesday 16th August 2005
Time: 11:00 to 11:30
Duration: 30 mins.
VH1 Classic is available on the following digital platforms:
- Sky Digital: 447
- NTL: 91 / 611 / 707
- Telewest: 311
As part of a large BBC Radio 2 event in Blackpool, Andy (with a little help from Manhattan Clique) will be performing live a selection of Erasure's greatest hits!
If you watched the video clip posted on the EIS site last week, you will understand why Vince is unavailable for the event, however Vince's influence is still felt by his choices of songs that Andy, Chris and Phil will be performing.
The venue is the 'Radio 2 Arena' near the North Pier, and they will be on stage approx 7:20 - 8:10. In addition, two songs will be performed live on BBC Radio 2.
(Note - the above web page only seems to work in Internet Explorer - the content doesn't appear in Firefox)
Andy's website has been updated with a clip of 'Crazy', the first single from his forthcoming album 'Electric Blue'.
Also Amazon.co.uk have his new album available for preorder.
Here is an EIS exclusive brief video message from Andy where he talks about 'Electric Blue' (his solo album) and Erasure's acoustic album.
Apologies for the poor sound quality - we were trying to be quiet so as not to disturb the photographer in the studio at the time.
Thanks to Janet btw, who was asking the questions off camera.
Transcript of the message:
This is Andy Bell from Erasure, and you're watching the Erasure website!
The plans at the moment is for an October release of this album, 'Electric Blue' [Andy's solo album], and I think they might be releasing something after Christmas, in the new year, and depending on when Vince is back, cause he said he was gonna start working as soon as his baby was born, but I don't think that's going to be the case!
So probably, Mute were thinking of releasing the 'Acoustic Album' when we've got an acoustic band together, and we're thinking of maybe, it's a bit up in the air at the moment, of doing some gigs in Apple stores, but we're not sure. So that's kind of the plan really, at the moment!
Out in stores on Monday (2xCD, 1DVD) and available *now* as a digital download is 'Ooh La La', the brand new single from Goldfrapp.
Andy Bell (with a little help from Manhattan Clique) has provided a rather fine mix of the single, titled 'Ooh La La - When Andy Bell Met Manhattan Clique Mix'.
Of particular note is the additional vocals provided by Andy.
'Ooh La La - When Andy Bell Met Manhattan Clique Mix' is available on the DVD single, as well as iTunes (UK) and 7Digital.com for the digital download.
Direct download links: iTunes (UK Store), 7 Digital.
The Gallery
Some old press photos from the 'Innocents', 'Chorus' and 'Tiny Tour' era have been added to the EIS Gallery.
Fan Mixes
A few weeks ago the Fan Mixes section was updated with several more mixes. Several more are due to be added in a week or two, and when that occurs further MP3's of the older mixes will be removed.
Discography
The EIS Ddiscography is *finally* being revamped. Currently the album section has had details of (some) non-UK releases added, as well as direct links to iTunes and MSN Music for many of the tracks. More updates to come.
Links
Several links to photographers and fan sites have been added to the EIS Links section.