With what seems like a classic filmic device, the starting point of Flicker is a lovely Joe Dilworth photograph of Andy Bell’s younger self. The record evolves out of the idea of trying to combine the things that we lose on the way with the experience we hopefully gain. Flicker is all super saturated colours and reflections, bold melody lines and spacey structures. In places it comes very close to the classic Ride template, Something Like Love would fit very easily into one of the early records. In other places it seems to almost catch hold of that great Byrdsian Goin’ Back feeling which is something he does well – those two Idha records he collaborated on are gorgeous for more of this. Flicker is experimental in its way too, there are fragments of Arthur Russell and other elements too – it will take a while to catch hold of it all. He’s someone who is very, very good at something (playing guitar, his starting point) who has taken that as a place to push off from rather than a resting place. Flicker is many things, a very successful collaboration with his younger self, an engaging, engaged project. Really excellent.