The Beta Band-- Three EPs

(Astralwerks 6252)

My track record on British bands with tambourines and acoustic guitars and guys named Guy is not good: I always get suckered into that demi-rave sound that starts out twee and personable and builds into a pop-sludge-POP!-jangle-faster/faster-everybody-in-the-crowd-is-pumping-their-fists-in-the-air dancepop.

My published 1998 best-of list includes an entry for The Other Side that may be my worst choice of the decade, and I was sort-of pushing the overproduced Stereophonics and Cast as recently as last summer. Well, students, you'll very likely be getting the Beta Band from me come late December, so at least give me three grafs and two pints to explain why this time everything's different.

First off, what little demi-rave that exists here is of the lo-fi variety. While the CD kicks off with acoustic guitars and tamobourines in a harmless shuffle, these Scots manage to work the Blur out of their system by the end of the first song, and then the seagul effects and campfire

ragas kick in.

Grafting turntable scratches onto country songs that appear as bridges in the middle of mid-tempo space rockers isn't entirely new (or necessarily desired), but the Three EPs manages such genre hopping without calling too much attention to the hopping.

Their trademark is an eerie use of modulating vocal harmonies, which make you think variously of male Bulgarian folk choirs and the Silver Apples.

But to their credit, they never try to sell their break beats with street

raps ala Beck. They let their prettiest songs just hang out as unobtrusively beautiful mood pieces. I don't like the Can rip-off, but the sheer originality of the incomparable "Inner Meet Me" more than makes up for the slips.

I'm also encouraged that the Betas seemed to grow by bounds in the 12

months that separated the three EPs. From the primitive Champion Versions debut through Patty Sound's psychedelic dub to the creepy pop of Los Amigos Del Beta Banditos, the band manage to turn Britpop convention on its head, lather the rebelious stinker in hot buttered soul, strap it down with psychedelic oscillations and leven it with some beautiful soundscapes.

Mark my word this time.

--- Dave Harrison