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Mar 26, 2025 By Mark Redfern Photography by Brian David Stevens

Two shoegazing icons have united—Steve Queralt of Ride and Emma Anderson, formerly of Lush—for the new song “Lonely Town.” It is the first single from Swallow, Queralt’s debut solo album, which was announced today. Swallow is due out June 13 via Sonic Cathedral. Below watch the video for “Lonely Town,” followed by the album’s tracklist and cover artwork.

Anderson is featured on two songs on Shallow and another song features the guest vocals of Verity Susman (of Electrelane and MEMORIALS). Anderson, who was also in the post-Lush duo Sing-Sing, released her debut solo album, Pearlies, in 2023.

Queralt had this to say about “Lonely Town” in a press release: “I’d been going through another Joy Division stage and so the rhythm and tempo were the starting point and, once they were in place, the bass part followed naturally. Emma follows the synth melody for the chorus, but it’s the bridge part that does it for me. Just after we finished it, Emma came up with more vocal parts which were too good to miss out on, so back to the studio we went.”

Anderson says the lyrics are about “revisiting a familiar place and having your memories jogged and remembering things how they were in reality and not how you thought you remembered them.”

Much of Swallow is instrumental, with Mogwai and the Blade Runner soundtrack cited as reference points. “There have been some amazing instrumental albums made over the last few years, especially in the new classical and post rock worlds,” says Queralt. “Some of them sounded like songs to me, just without any words.”

One song on the album is even titled “I Don’t Know How to Sing.”

“One of the demos reminded me of Lush, who Ride had toured with in the ’90s, so I contacted Emma thinking her voice would be perfect. But she was confused and said she’d never sung lead vocals,” Queralt explains.

“At the time I hadn’t even decided I was going to sing on my own records, so I told Steve I couldn’t do it,” says Anderson. “Then, a couple of years later, when I was singing on my own records and my debut album Pearlies was about to come out, I enquired about it, thinking he must have found someone else, but luckily he hadn’t.”

“After a few false starts, I had started to doubt the project altogether. It was going nowhere,” Queralt continues. “Then, out of the darkness, Emma got back in touch to tell me that she’d found her voice and could I send her some tracks. A few files back and forth and an afternoon in the studio later and we had ‘Lonely Town’ and ‘Swiss Air.’”

Susman was also vital in the creation of Swallow and her MEMORIALS bandmate Matthew Simms mixed the album.

“Swallow has turned out so much better than I had hoped, largely thanks to Emma and Verity’s contributions which sew the tracks together and shape it into an album,” Queralt concludes. “I’d fallen out of love with it so many times I was thinking of calling it Loveless. But then, that wouldn’t be the whole story.”

Queralt is the bassist in Ride. The band’s guitarist, Andy Bell, put out a new solo album, pinball wanderer, in February also on Sonic Cathedral.

Ride released a new album, Interplay, last year via Wichita and PIAS. It was one of our Top 100 Albums of 2024.

Read our interview with Ride on Interplay.

Read our interview with Emma Anderson on Pearlies.

Swallow Tracklist:

1. Mission Creep
2. Lonely Town feat. Emma Anderson
3. High Teens
4. A Porsche Shaped Hole
5. Swiss Air feat. Emma Anderson
6. I Don’t Know How to Sing
7. Messengers feat. Verity Susman
8. 1988
9. Motor Boats

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