Tag Archives: Strike Force Entertainment

Andy Bell – Judgement (from Variance III – The ‘Torsten In Queereteria’ Remixes)

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Erasure’s Andy Bell releases Variance III – The ‘Torsten In Queereteria’ Remixes as a limited edition CD through Strike Force Entertainment / Cherry Red on December 6th.

The counterpart to the music from this year’s sensational third part in Barney Ashton-Bullock and Christopher Frost’s visceral musical about the semi-immortal polysexual Torsten, Variance III includes brilliant, shimmering remixes of tracks from Torsten In Queereteria by Bronski Beat and Matt Pop. Tangerine Dream’s Jerome Froese delivers a thunderous, dark-edged version of ‘Lowland Lowriders’, one of the most poignant moments from the show and Andy Bell’s accompanying soundtrack album, while Shelter reprise their work with Andy Bell on their joint iPop album from 2014 with a stunning mix of the ordinarily wistful ‘We Hadn’t Slept For Twenty Years’.

The collection also includes a solo version of the standout nod to Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, ‘If We Want To Drink A Little’, originally recorded for the Torsten In Queereteria album by Bell and Hazel O’Connor, various single edits and radio-friendly versions of tracks from the original album.

Variance III also includes two new, unreleased tracks from the third instalment of the Torsten series, ‘Judgement’ and the lurid lounge jazz-funk of ‘Lead Me’. Documentary Evidence is today delighted to share the exclusive first play of the anguished, beautiful ‘Judgement’. The song is accompanied by previously unseen stills from the photo shoots for Torsten In Queereteria, finding Bell effortlessly evoking the essential inner turmoil of a character that he has made his own since he first took it on for a limited run at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2014.

Watch the extract of ‘Judgement’ below. Order Variance III from Cherry Red.

Related: Andy Bell – Torsten In Queereteria : Redux (interview)

Sincere thanks to Barney Ashton-Bullock.

(c) 2019 Documentary Evidence

Andy Bell Is Torsten In Queereteria TV (Clash feature, 2019)

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The third instalment of Barney Ashton-Bullock’s Torsten series kicks off at Vauxhall’s Above The Stag theatre on April 10 and finds Erasure’s Andy Bell once again taking on the role of the half-Norwegian, half-English polysexual semi-immortal Torsten.

Amid the maelstrom of press interviews that Bell has undertaken to support Queereteria TV, managed to get some time with Andy and Barney during rehearsals to talk in detail about the latest postcard from the hotspots of the 114-year old Torsten’s memory.

My interview went live on the Clash website earlier today and can be found here. A longer version will appear here on Documentary Evidence during the show’s run.

Queereteria TV runs at Above The Stag from April 10 to April 28. Tickets are available at abovethestag.com. A new album, Andy Bell Is Torsten In Queereteria is released by Strike Force Entertainment on April 12.

(c) 2019 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence for Clash

Andy Bell – Torsten The Beautiful Libertine (Strike Force Entertainment / Cherry Red album, 2016)

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Erasure‘s Andy Bell has recorded the follow-up album to Torsten The Bareback Saint, written by Barney Ashton-Bullock with music by Christopher Frost. Bell performed the first chapter in the life of the colourful polysexual Torsten at the Edinburgh Festival in 2014 and will perform this next installment during March 2016 at Above The Stag in London’s Vauxhall.

I reviewed Torsten The Beautiful Libertine for This Is Not Retro. My review can be found here. Also on This Is Not Retro is my interview with Andy from last year and a review of the Variance remix collection.

(c) 2016 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence

A Conversation With Erasure’s Andy Bell

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I recently spoke to Erasure‘s Andy Bell about his role in Barney Ashworth’s musical theatre show Torsten – The Bareback Saint. The show ran during the 2014 Edinburgh Festival and was accompanied by an album of the songs from the production, released via Strike Force / Cherry Red.

Upon the release of Variance, a collection of remixes and new versions of songs from the album, and ahead of Bell treading the boards again next year for the follow-up instalment, Torsten – The Beautiful Libertine, I interviewed Andy for This Is Not Retro. The conversation can be found here.

Anyone who knows me remotely well will know that Erasure have always been, and always will be, my favourite band. To get the opportunity to talk to someone whose work you’ve literally grown up with is always a privileged moment, and I am continually grateful for such chances.

I had always intended to write up a review of the performance of Torsten that a friend and I watched in Edinburgh last year, but never did. In its place, these are the rough notes I took at the time, along with a text message to a friend, all of which would have become a review if I’d just bothered to finish it.

Andy Bell – Torsten The Bareback Saint, Edinburgh 13 August 2014

In the introduction to the programme that accompanied Andy Bell’s first Edinburgh Festival show, he described taking on the role of Torsten in this song cycle as a challenge. As he climbed up the stairs to the small stage in full top hat and tails while singing the song ‘Teacher Teacher’ it was pretty obvious to the twenty or so people in the lecture theatre-cum-studio that this came pretty naturally to Bell.

‘It was really good. He came on in hat and tails, at one point was in heels, a vest and a sparkly pair of pants and ended up killing himself in a dressing gown. Very dramatic, quite funny, stirring and emotional. Boy can he sing! Only about twenty of us there.’ – text to a friend immediately after watching Torsten The Bareback Saint on 13 August 2014.

Suicide. Robin Williams.

Sax

Showgirl headgear.

Snarl. Disgust. Rage.

Weston-Super-Mare.

(c) 2015 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence // interview (c) 2015 This Is Not Retro