Nowhere is the debut album by British shoegaze band Ride, released 15 October 1990. Rolling Stone called the album "a masterpiece",[1] and online magazine Pitchfork called it "one of shoegazing's enduring moments".[2]
Background and production
Ride released three EPs, Ride, Play, and Fall, prior to the release of Nowhere.[2]Nowhere was recorded live-in-the-studio with producer Marc Waterman.[3] Waterman had a mental breakdown, which resulted in Alan Moulder mixing the recordings.[3]
The band members were between 18 and 20 during the recording of Nowhere. Mark Gardener described it as a "nighttime sort of record", and recalled the band working on the album in the studio during late-night hours and long sessions. He said feelings of isolation resulted from this work pattern.[4][5] Gardener said “It all added to that dark, alienated feeling that I think permeated through Nowhere.”[5]
Both Bell and Gardener used the Roland GP-16 multi effects unit to create various tones on the record, including tremolo on Polar Bear and modulation on Vapour Trail. According to Guitar.com the unit help to create the record's 'jangly cloud'.[5]
Artwork
The album cover features an uncrested wave photographed by skateboard/snowboard photographer Warren Bolster.[6] The original LP cover artwork had the band name in embossed text centered in the upper half and an embossed album title in the lower right corner. The original cassette and CD releases featured no band name or album title on the cover, but sometimes came with an identifying sticker on the outside of the CD or cassette case. For the 2001 CD re-release, the band name and title were printed visibly on the cover in the locations of the LP's embossed text.[7] The 2011 Rhino Handmade edition features a lenticular design of the wave.[8]
Release
Nowhere was released by Creation Records on 15 October 1990. The album was issued in the United States in December 1990 by Sire Records.[2]
A 2001 reissue by Ignition Records further added the four songs from the band's Today Forever EP as bonus tracks.
In February 2011, Rhino Handmade released a special 20th anniversary edition of Nowhere, featuring the remastered original album with seven bonus tracks, plus a bonus disc featuring a previously unreleased live performance at The Roxy in Los Angeles recorded on 10 April 1991. The set also includes a 40-page booklet with exclusive photos and a new essay by music critic Jim DeRogatis, as well as a lenticular-covered digipak book.[8][9]
In November 2015, the band released a special 25th anniversary edition of Nowhere across two separate formats: a CD/DVD set, and a coloured-vinyl double LP. The CD features the same audio material as the 2001 and 2011 reissues remastered, with a DVD featuring a previously unreleased live performance at Town and Country Club in London on 7 March 1991. The discs come in a hardback cardboard case with canvas-style cover and a 36-page booklet. The 2LP version features an expanded track listing with 7 bonus tracks from the Fall and Today Forever EPs, and was pressed on white and blue marbled colour vinyl. The reissue was released independently.[10] In conjunction with the re-release, the band performed the album in its entirety at a series of live shows in October 2015.[11]
Nowhere was re-released in November 2022 by Wichita recordings. All the original audio reworked and refined, the reissue made available on vinyl and CD. It charted at number 62 on the UK Albums Chart.
Noting the "huge burden of expectation" placed on Ride's first full-length album after three acclaimed EPs, Select critic Andrew Perry deemed Nowhere a "phenomenal" debut and praised the band's "heaven-sent melodic gift" and avoidance of "formularisation".[18]Record Mirror's Chris Sharratt called Ride "undoubtedly the present day kings of the indie guitar empire" and found that the album justified the "media hype" around the band.[17] In a more ambivalent review for NME, Simon Williams wrote that only "two-thirds of Nowhere sublimely reaffirms our faith", and that the album "fails – unluckily – to gel as a Great Album should. It doesn't challenge or thrill unexpectedly."[16]
Retrospectively, Nowhere has been acclaimed as one of the greatest albums of the shoegaze genre.[12] David Bevan of Pitchfork described Nowhere as one of shoegaze's "indisputable masterpieces",[2] and Andy Kellman of AllMusic said that the album exemplified the genre at its "most exciting and mastered", while also being "Ride's zenith".[12]
Nowhere was ranked at number 74 on Pitchfork's 2003 list of the top 100 albums of the 1990s,[20] and at number 277 on Spin's 2015 list of "The 300 Best Albums of the Past 30 Years".[21] It is also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.[22] The track "Vapour Trail" was named the 145th best song of the 1990s by Pitchfork in 2010,[23] and the 81st best song of the 1990s by NME in 2012.[24]
