Shepherd Bush-based band The Passions released the single I’m In Love With A German Film Star in 1981. Its lyrics a dedication to former Clash and Sex Pistols roadie, Steve “Roadent” Connelly, who had indeed done a bit of acting in Deutschland. The track owes its timelessness to Barbara Gogan’s purred sex kitten vocals and Clive Timperley’s intricate Echoplex-ed guitar textures. Andy Bell is one of a large number of people who consider the song to be “proto-shoegaze”…. and, shit, as a member of Ride – pin-ups of the genre – he should know.

The tune’s been covered a few times – Linoleum, Foo Fighters, Dubstar, Sunscreem, Sam Taylor-Johnson with The Pet Shop Boys – but Bell’s now had a crack of his own. Enlisting the assistance of mates, Neu!’s Michael Rother and One Dove’s Dot Allison. Their take actually stays fairly true to the original, but cranks the fretwork up to 11, with Rother and Bell riffing off one another. Throwing out pretty picked pinpoints and noisy fuzzbox arcs. The beat, a kinda kosmische march. The results rocking, but ethereal. The 6-string layers woven about Allison’s breathless whispers. Summoning Sofia Coppola’s Lost In Translation score. Standouts by Death In Vegas, The Jesus & Mary Chain, Kevin Sheilds’ City Girl.

As GLOK, Bell gives us a stripped back, skeletal remix. Looping the line “I’m In Love” into a machined funk mantra, which stamps and stomps before being hit with a some banging old school Chicago jack bass. All the while, his angular axe ringing. Justin Robertson then jumps in for both a vocal and dub version. Donning his Deadstock 33s alias he delivers a chunky mid tempo chugger. Adding cowbell and handclaps, a bit of Happy Mondays’ baggy swagger to make for a very Balearic bounce. Downplaying the duelling guitars and shifting focus instead onto some bubbling and boiling acidic electronics, as Allison gets increasingly impassioned. The dub takes those progg-y, Guerilla Records-y elements and dives into something deeper, more bleep-y, while reducing our siren to the distant promises of heavily reverb-ed washes.

Andy Bell’s I’m in Love… can be ordered directly from Sonic Cathedral.