Happy Monday and Black Grape members Shaun Ryder and Bez have teamed up with former Oasis and The Who drummer Zak Starkey, and Oasis bassist and Ride guitarist Andy Bell to form the supergroup.

On the chaotic and fun-filled single “Gorilla Guerilla” Ryder’s cries of “Gorilla!” echo over Bez’s energetic maracas, repetitive guitar riffs, and thumping drum beats. Released alongside the hallucinogenic single is a colourful animated music video created by Ryder’s son Olli. Watch the trippy video for “Gorilla Guerilla” below:

Mantra of Cosmos features baggy icon Shaun Ryder on vocals, Welsh musician Andy Bell on guitar, Ringo Starr’s son Zak Starkey on drums, and everyone’s favourite cheeky chappy Bez on percussion.

Ryder revealed the group’s formation to The Sun in early May spilling to the publication that the band had been secretly working on a debut album that would be “coming out very soon”. The 90s star continued, “It doesn’t sound like the Mondays or Black Grape or Oasis or The Who, it’s what we’re doing all together.”

Channel 4 herded together the fantastic four for a TV interview in which Bez revealed, “for the first time ever I’ve actually got maracas solos”! Watch the whole interview here.

In a video shared to the band’s Instagram, when asked who would be in his fantasy supergroup dead or alive, Ryder replied, “John Lennon, Paul McCartney, every member of the Rolling Stones past and present. Sly Stone, the Pistols, the Kinks, both brothers and all the rest of the band. Funkadelic-Parliament! Every member of Parliament!”

The band made their debut live appearance at The Box in London on the 5^th June giving an intimate performance at the venue.

Mantra of The Cosmos will be taking Glastonbury Festival’s Glade area by storm on Sunday 25^th June at 8.20 pm.

Bez and Ryder will also be playing as part of the Happy Mondays later this year. The band will be playing Dreamland in Margate alongside Primal Scream and Crystal Palace Bowl in London with James in August. A month later they will appear at the Rock N Roll Circus festival in Sheffield.

See below for Mantra of the Cosmos UK dates:

25/06/23 – Glastonbury Festival – Glastonbury

Ashcroft’s headlining appearance at the festival was announced in March, with support yet to be announced at the time of the announcement. Now, Ashcroft has revealed his special guests for the show, which include British DJ Steve Lamacq, Hull-based shoegazers bdmm, Canadian singer-songwriter Tess Parks, and Alan McGee. South Facing Festival debuted last year, and featured performances from Dizzee Rascal, Supergrass and The Streets. The festival this year will run from July 29^th to August 21^st. This year’s event will include performances from Becky Hill, London Grammar, Jungle and Bombay Bicycle Club.

Richard Ashcroft’s headlining show on August 6^th will also mark a big day for Ride, who will be performing their debut album Nowhere in its entirety for the record’s 30^th anniversary. The album was originally released in 1990.

For any shoegaze fan, this is an absolute dream come true, given Ride’s status as pioneers of the beloved genre. The group’s debut is a feverish wash of lush, reverberating soundscapes and what sounds like an orchestra’s worth of screaming guitar noise that swirls around dreamy, lethargic vocals and thick, catchy basslines; an essential listen for any lover of rock music.

Ride originally broke up in 1996, but reformed in 2014 to play a series of shows across Europe and North America, which eventually resulted in the group releasing new music in 2017, starting with a single called “Charm Assault”. In June of that year, the band released Weather Diaries, their first full-length album in twenty-one years. The band also went on to release another album after their reunion; 2019’s This Is Not A Safe Place, which received favourable reviews from critics, with NME saying: “It’s fitting that Ride would choose to call their new album ‘This Is Not A Safe Place’. After spending the last two decades of his career very much playing it safe, (Andy) Bell is back in brave, progressive, creative territory.”

Ride also announced earlier this year that they will be re-issuing some past releases, including their debut Nowhere, and their sophomore full-length effort Going Blank Again. The re-issues will be released on November 4^th, via Wichita Recordings. You can pre-order them here.

While the single is definitely reminiscent of its older brothers released during Ride’s time, ‘Something Like Love’ adds a bit more of an electronic twist, especially with the vocoder-type effect running through the vocals for the duration. In a statement with NME, Bell said, “The ‘flicker’ I’m talking about in the lyrics of ‘Something Like Love’ is that flame that makes a person who they are, I wanted to find that in myself, so I went back to the teenage me – a technique I learned in therapy and have been doing ever since – and got some advice on how to live and be happy in the 2020s.” Regarding the album as a whole, “Some of these songs date back to the ’90s and the cognitive dissonance of writing brand new lyrics over songs that are 20-plus years old makes it feel like it is, almost literally, me exchanging ideas with my younger self.” That explains the familiarity.

Until we get the rest of the LP, you can pre-order the album in a number of different formats, including a number of limited-edition vinyl colourways released through indie labels; Crash Records, Sister Ray Records, Mixed Up Records, and others on their official websites. Check his Twitter, linked below, for more details on the multitude of releases.

Thanks so much to @laurenlaverne for playing “Something like love” as her ‘While you were sleeping’ track today on @BBC6Music … “Flicker” is out 11th Feb on @soniccathedral https://t.co/uxicYQ25NF

— Andy Bell (@Andybebop) January 11, 2022

This April, Bell will also embark on a tour with Ride in celebration of the 30^th anniversary of their classic Nowhere. Beginning in Sheffield on April 21^st, and concluding at London’s Roundhouse on 29^th, more information on the reunion can be found here.

See the full list of the “Andy Bell Space Machine” dates below, and full ticket information here:

31/1/22 – Three Wise Monkeys – Colchester
1/2 – Hot Box Live – Chelmsford
2/2 – The Black Prince – Northampton
3/2 – The Smokehouse – Ipswich
4/2 – The Jericho Tavern – Oxford
6/2 – The Town Hall – Trowbridge
12/2 – Rough Trade East – London
13/2 – Rough Trade – Bristol
14/2 – The Portland Arms – Cambridge
15/2 – Rough Trade – Nottingham
16/2 – Resident Music – Brighton
18/2 – Elsewhere – Margate

The album is one of the most influential ones from that era as it made shoegaze a genre, even though it reached No 11 in UK Charts.

The Ride’s tour has been delayed due to pandemics and will now kick off on 21st April in Sheffield and up in London’ Roundhouse. Also next year, the band’s planning to release their catalogue albums via Wichita. More details on that matter are to be confirmed.

Ride are playing a Nowhere 30th anniversary UK tour in April 2022.

The tour pre-sale starts on Wednesday 20th October at 10am BST. Please head to https://t.co/55MMGGvCdu and input the code Nowhere30 to get your tickets. @andybebop / @markgardener / @doctorloz @stevequeralt pic.twitter.com/Oep0Qy4gIl

— RIDE (@rideox4) October 18, 2021

After the Ride’ last album of the 90’s Tarantula, the band reformed and released Weather Diaries in 2017. The album was produced by Erol Alkan and received great critical acclaim, reaching No11 in charts. The bad reunite with Dick Green and Mark Bowen from Wichita Records, who worked with the band at the beginning of their career. 

Latest Ride’s album from 2019 This Is Not A Safe Place reached No7 on charts, their highest chart position. It also showed “the sound of a band embracing their new found creativity and rejuvenated dynamic“. The band once again worked with producer Erol Alkan and sound engineer Alan Mulder, who helped with a few other Ride’s productions: Weather Diaries,  Going Blank Again and Nowhere.

The Ride’s sixth studio album release has been announced with a first single “Future Love” on 23 April 2019. It received critical praise with four stars from NME calling it full of “wealth of creativity and experimentation“. In their 6.5 mark review, Pitchfork said: “is not, in the end, the classic Ride Mark 2 release that its first three songs so casually tease. But it has enough joy, verve and invention to suggest that Ride could get there one day”.

“If we let it, music can take us anywhere we want it to; it can affect us as we desire: music can douse the flames of anger, clear the clouds of sadness, make us whole. Since their reunion in 2014, Ride has surrendered to the influences that made it one of Britain’s top acts of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, and with it brought back a quality sorely missed in music today“. You can read the full mxdwn review of the album here.

Tickets for the tour go on sale on 22nd October at 10 am BST.

The ‘Nowhere’ tour dates are as follows:

21/04/2022 Foundry – Sheffield
22/04 Waterfront – Norwich
23/04 O2 Academy – Oxford
24/04 Marble Factory – Bristol
26/04 SWG3 – Glasgow
27/04 Boiler Shop – Newcastle
28/04 O2 Ritz – Manchester
29/04 The Roundhouse – London

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The project will be the follow up to his 2017 mixtape ‘High street kid’ which featured hits such as ‘Screw and Brew’ featuring Mist. ‘Dealers and Robbers’ featuring J Hus and ‘Ussy Ussy’.

The second edition of what was Mos first project features the same kid from the original cover this time 4 years older and alongside the Hornsey rapper Mo Stack.

Mo is yet to have released the tracklist for his upcoming project but has announced it will be released on the 2nd of September.

‘High Street Kid’ was originally released on the 2nd of June 2017 and the independent project debuted at 16th on the official charts and stayed in the charts for 2 weeks. Mo went on to release his debut album ‘Stacko’ two years later in 2019 and debuted 3rd on the official charts 13 places higher than his debut project ‘High street kid’.

Mo has released multiple singles following his album release and in 2020 found himself f in the top 40 three times with his tracks ‘Dinner guest’ featuring AJ Tracey which peaked at number 5, ‘Miss me’ another song alongside AJ Trace which debuted at 39th and ‘Way too long’ alongside Nathan Dawe and Anne Marie which saw them peak at 37th.

2021 has been quite the opposite to Mos 2020 with the Hornsey rapper having only released one single, ’Ride’ which was released at the end of July and reminded fans of Mo how talented he was and what they had been missing. 

Mo Stacks return is a blessing for UK rap and his project ‘High Street kid 2’ is set to release on the 2nd of September.

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A post shared by @mo.stack

The track titled ‘Ride’ was his first since his last single ‘Change on me’ which was released in November of 2020. The video shot by Wowa starts with Mo on his block in Hornsey and shows the artist in his element, enjoying himself with friends.

Mostack is the go-to man when it comes to summer anthems ‘Fashion week’ featuring Ajtracey, ‘Shine girl’ featuring Stomrzy, ‘Liar Liar’ and a feature on Daves single ‘No words’ are just an example of the hits the 26-year-old has released during his 4-year career.

The North London rapper is an artist who rarely speaks in interviews or via social media. Mo has only ever done one interview with Tim Westwood on his Capital Xtra show in 2019 following the release of his project ‘Stacko’, Mo can often shock fans having only announced his return to music after an 8-month hiatus on 2 days before its release. 

Mostacks last project came out in 2019, ‘Stacko’, the second project release of his career having previously dropped ‘High street kid’ in 2017. Looking at the space between the last two projects fans may be expecting to hear a new project from the highly talented rapper.

As venues begin to open and the world begins to return to normality, artists are preparing to drop music, Fredo, Dave and Unknown T are all preparing for summer releases. With touring returning Mo stack could be preparing for a summer release.

The video for ‘Ride’ is available to watch here:

All the ticketed profits are set to be donated to the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust. The tickets are £12 and the buyer has the choice whether to make another charitable donation on top. In addition to this, the band have treated fans to new merchandise, which will also be available to ticket holders only. This is set to be the bands first live show since they finished their tour in February which was in support of their recent EP.

*NEW SHOW* Ride will be Streamed Live From London, Thurs 6th August 8.30pm BST.

This one-off show will not be archived. Tickets are £12 & go on sale 9am today at @dicefm >>> https://t.co/zUONGAhBoC

There will be a Q&A with the band afterwards.

This is life online /// pic.twitter.com/idLbYncwHj

— RIDE (@rideox4) July 20, 2020

The band came to prominence during the late 80’s and made one of the most important “Shoegazing” records. It is also the first band of Andy Bell, who you may know as being the bassist for Oasis. Funnily enough, the band was also signed to Creation Records, which would become the home of Oasis. Small world. 

Ride have now released 6 full length albums, which have all received warm critical reception. They have done more than enough to solidify their names as cult heroes of the English scene, not a lot of bands have been going (albeit off and on) since 1988 and still remain relevant to this day. Especially not many Shoegazing ones as well.

Though they may not be household names, I do not think you can dismiss Ride as they have been successful throughout their career and still are now. If you want an example of why shoegazing was successful and popular at one point in time then you need look no further than Ride. Their enduring career and success show how they can not be discarded.

This new livestream gig is a great way for fans to connect with the band again while also doing their bit for charity. Along with a special one off performance, they get to ask the band questions and access to limited edition merchandise. So it will not be one to miss.

Photo credit: Ekaterina Gorbacheva

The Cure frontman is a long-term friend of the 90s Shoegaze band, with the oxford band having supported The Cure at the Great British Weekend event in 1991. He is especially a fan of Ride’s ‘Vapour Trail’, having commented in the documentary ‘Beautiful Noise’ that “I instantly remember songs like ‘Vapour Trail’… it’s one of the best 15 second intros of all time!”

It is unsurprising then that both his takes on ‘Vapour Trail’ include an extended introduction. Otherwise the remixes doesn’t deviate too far from the tone of the original, instead they add a somewhat ‘Disintegrated’ era flavour to them. you can hear them both below:

Ride will also be touring the UK for the anniversary of ‘Nowhere’ in october, playing the album in full for the first time.

Ride guitarist Andy Bell spoke of the upcoming tour, saying:”I’m so excited about playing ‘Nowhere’ in full… I didn’t realise how few times we’d actually played most of the songs. And of course we have never played the album in its original track order before.