The Beta Band - The Three E.P.'s

The Three E.P.'s

(Astralwerks)

The Beta Band are certainly an anomaly in modern music. The group has been stirring up a huge critical following in the UK with its downright bizarre take on songwriting, incorporating everything from acoustic indie rock to loops and samples, sixties psychedelia and just plain strangeness.

Cited by Shirley Manson of Garbage as one of her brightest musical hopes for 1999, The Beta Band prides itself on being endlessly inventive with sound, failing to fall into any categorized hole and utilizing just about anything the four bandmembers come across that will make a noise in the process.

One of the band's rare gigs boasted in attendance members of the Verve, Shampoo, Elastica's Justine Frischmann and even the highly discriminating Noel Gallagher.

Don't let the rock and roll connections fool you, though. Keep in mind this collection of the group's highly sought-after three original EP releases is out on Astralwerks, an offbeat electronica label without many rock associations.

This is groundbreaking stuff here, a reinvention of what music can be that incorporates elements of everything that came before it, as well as drawing from the sounds of the future.

-doug levy