Piero runs the Ticket To Ride site and has announced that there will be new Ride material released this year. Click on 'Read More' for the full announcement.
It's been a long time since the last newsletter and before I unveil the great RIDE news I would like to say a big thank you to all the fans who have bought the "Best Of" boxset and also the reissued albums: just consider that the boxset had to be re-pressed thrice because the stocks ran out very quickly each time!

The band was very happy with the reaction and the support received from the fans when the boxset and the back catalogue came out last autumn and this leads me straight to the big news: very soon there is gonna be the first release of new RIDE material in about six years.

Maybe the majority of you remember that all the four RIDE members briefly reunited last October in a London studio to record some footage that had to be showed in an episode of Channel 4's programme "Pioneers" dedicated to Sonic Youth.

Andy and Mark were invited to talk about Sonic Youth's influence generally to 90's music and specifically the influence on the then-fledgling Ride. As part of the idea for the show, the producer had asked Mark and Andy to play 10-15 minutes of guitar-based feedback which they wanted to film and use as a backdrop to the programme. It was Andy's idea that if he and Mark were going to get together to talk about Sonic Youth's influence on Ride then any "performance" to accompany the programme should feature all 4 ex-Ride members. And that's how Andy, Mark, Steve and Loz ended up playing together once again after the split.

So, what remains now of that day (besides almost one minute long TV appearance late night on Channel 4 last december) is about half an hour recording of pure RIDE extemporaneous trademark noise which the band was willing to make available for the fans somehow someday.

Well, that day is coming very soon. No official release date decided yet, but the Channel 4 session will be shortly made available to the fans. "Coming Up For Air", this is the name of the limited-edition CD, will be printed in 1000 copies and will be subsequently sold through the OxfordMusicNet website.

According to the band, the artwork is done and all that's left to do is to physically press the CDs, so it's really matter of a few weeks.

Just be sure to check your mailboxes or the Ticket To Ride website in the following days as I will make an announcement as soon as the CD will be available through the online shop.

And (fingers crossed) this could be only the first good news coming from RIDE this year! So stay tuned and keep the faith!

All the very best to you all,

Piero @ TTR