Alive And Amplified

It’s been six years since Trippin’ With Dr Faustus, and Amplifier have returned with mini-album, Hologram. But behind the scenes, everything’s changed – or has it? Even as the band wrestle with the monster they’re building for their full-length follow-up, mainman Sel Balamir tells Prog how the spirit of Amplifier remains constant through line-up changes, moving studios, and discovering fresh ways of making music.

- David West

Over the last 30-odd years, Amplifier have established themselves as Manchester’s foremost space rock quartet. Only they’re no longer based in Manchester nor a quartet. Change has been afoot in the Amplifier camp, as singer and guitarist Sel Balamir and drummer Matt Brobin have left the north-west and headed for the south coast, settling near Brighton. This may help explain the briny flavour of Balamir’s 2021 solo album, the ocean-themed Swell.

“I’ve been moving to the sea for the past 20, 30 years. I was just stuck in the wrong place,” says Balamir.

Like his gradual drift down to the seaside, Balamir hasn’t rushed to put out new Amplifier music. Trippin’ With Dr Faustus arrived in 2017 and while the next full album, Gargantuan, has been announced, there’s still no release date. Fortunately, in the meantime, the band have released the six-track mini-album – or megaEP, perhaps? – Hologram.

“We’ve been working on Gargantuan for a while, but as the name suggests it is quite expansive,” says Balamir. “All the time I’m working on it, I’m aware that people are waiting for something new to listen to, so I decided to take a bit of a detour. Generally, when we put an album out there are songs that don’t fit on the album but that have come up along the way, so Hologram is in that tradition.”

In the gap between Amplifier albums, Balamir released two solo records, Orphans and the aforementioned Swell, and the band haven’t exactly been in hibernation. “We’ve put out loads of little things on