ThE BETA BANd

The Three EPs BECAUsE 8/10 Quixotic Scottish explorers’ crowning statement, remastered 1998 was a precipitous year in British music. Yes, the wheels had fallen off the Britpop bandwagon – but in its wake a number of new sounds, styles and bands were jostling for attention, and one of the more interesting prospects was The Beta Band. A Scottish-born, London-based group with a distinctly unstarry manner, their first three EPs – 1997’s “Champion Versions”, and the following year’s “The Patty Patty Sound” and “Los Amigos del Beta Bandidos” – sketched out a rich, sometimes baffling sound that took in campfire folk, psych collage and dub production techniques. The Beta Band’s appeal might have lain in their sheer bloodymindedness, the way relatively conventional songcraft abuts the deeply strange. What band of the era were making songs as unclassifiable as the cosmic Gregorian chant of “Push It out”, or a 16-minute sound collage of birdsong and dub echo titled “The Monolith”? As well as a Cd version, this 20th anniversary remaster makes The Three EPs available for the first time on vinyl. Extras: 6/10. deluxe four-disc vinyl edition comes with reproductions of fanclub fanzine The Flower Press.