Beatglider ‘Dreaming of Roads’

Formed in Southend in the late 90’s, Beatglider’s tale is a familiar one taking in early acclaim only for momentum and promise to be dashed by major label statis and indifference.

After the release of the debut long-player, ‘40 Days Of Summer’, in 1999 the band signed to Sony subsidiary Lakota and decamped to LA to record its follow-up, ‘Dreaming Of Roads’, an album that was never to see the light of day.

And now, over 20 years later, ‘Dreaming Of Roads’ eventually gets a deserved release on 28th February via the Arlen label. A beautiful 11-track understated delight which musically falls somewhere between the likes of Elliott Smith, Grandaddy, Yo La Tengo and Sparklehorse, the album has not only stood the test of time, but arguably sounds as fresh as ever in 2026.

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The tale of the album, as told by Beatglider

We were sitting by the pool at our Oakwood Apartments, sipping beer as the mid afternoon sun blazed down, palm trees and Hollywood hills on the horizon when a Jesus-like figure dressed head to toe in white casually strolled over to us and introduced himself...”Hi, I’m Tom, welcome to L.A”.
This still resonates as the most ridiculously surreal moment in Beatglider's short musical “career”.  It felt a million miles from the faded seaside glamour of our hometown of Southend-on-Sea but here we were, guests at the home studio of Tom Rothrock of Beck & Elliott Smith fame to record our second album ‘Dreaming of Roads’.

For some context..

Beatglider released an album, 40 Days of Summer on a small Leicester based label in 1999 and garnered some media attention & John Peel play. There had been a handful of gigs with a lot of the Chemikal Underground bands - The Delgados, Arab Strap & Magoo - and this had attracted the attention of a few labels, most were put off by our often-erratic live shows.

We signed to Lakota (a subsidiary of Sony) without them ever seeing us play live. Dreaming of Roads was demoed in Leicester with Paul Warrener and then a few tracks with Ken Thomas (Sigur Ros). A few producer names were thrown about (Roger Moutenot & Kramer I remember) but Tom Rothrock liked what he heard and was the man chosen.

It seems fantastical now but we spent a month recording the album at Sound City (where Rumours and Nevermind were tracked), rehearsed in a room where David Crosby and The Beatles' names were scrawled on the walls, met a hero in Elliott Smith at a downtown L.A party thrown by a member of hardcore legends Circle Jerks and generally led a band life far beyond our wildest dreams!

The songs sounded great, although far more polished than previous recordings and we’d toned down the ‘kitchen sink’ approach of our earlier songs. We worked meticulously on parts, getting the max from the songs and all chipping in on instrumentation and ideas.

On the last night we all sat in the studio, ate pizza while Tom got the bong out we and listened back to album at full volume. Tom put on Elliott Smith ‘Angeles’ and we relaxed and drank beer in the afterglow.
This was perfect, we’d done well. This could be our job...

On return home we were worried we might have ‘overcooked’ the songs, re-treading and re-recording to an extent we weren’t used to but in hindsight the album has some of our best recordings and songs and it doesn’t feel like it sounds 20 years old.

During early 2003 we played gigs with Sleepy Jackson, Simple Kid, American Analogue Set as we geared up for the single release of ‘We Gotta Coast’ and then the album. We tried to hone the live set for consistency but we were always slightly flaky about playing the same songs every night and the shows were just a bit soulless.

We soon realised the album was never going to be released and it soon became consigned to the vaults of the record company abyss(which has swallowed up many a good album I’m sure).
We all went back to our day jobs and continued making music as a hobby as we’d always done.

So this is the album Dreaming of Roads, over 20 years on from its original inception.
We were in our mid to late 20s then and anything seemed possible, now we’re closer to 50 it’s easier to appreciate what a special moment it was.A lot has moved on in our lives in that time but we’re all still good mates and still making music. We’re just happy Dreaming of Roads has found a home and finally ‘arrived’.