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

"There's just an enormous amount of information out there and it's inevitable that people want to make things out of the torn part off of something else and put it with theirs. I think it's a natural creative process."-Tom Waits

"Dry The Rain," the opening track of The Beta Band's The Three E.P.'s, sounds like the slide guitar on the second half of Pink Floyd's Meddle mixed with the loose and funky drumkit of Beck's Mellow Gold and the inspirational lyrics of John Lennon; "If there's something inside that you want to say/ You can say it alright/ I will be alright/ I will be O.K."

While listing the Beta Band's apparent influences might be fun, it would detract from the main point. These four guys from Scotland and England have got the tact of jazz musicians. They put together songs with a bare minimum of ingredients to create a huge presence. They use the space between notes and around the percussion to let the reverb play off the walls or to let the whole song expand inside your head.

Songs like "B+A" and "Inner Meet Me" sound like a cathedral during a mass in which the congregation has acid tabs on their tongues rather than communioun wafers. The combination of organic samples of birds and water, turntable sorcery, folky arrangements and synthetic gurgles is truly engaging. The underlying bass drone on "Push It Out" is so low it's likely to make you fear for the structural integrity of your house. The main elements that pull all of the songs on this compilation of their first three, now extremely out of print, EPs are the lilting vocal harmonies and complex chorus-stacking. You'll want to sing along, I guarantee it.

Like The Beatles and Dylan, the Betas have the capacity to write songs that are almost skeletal and yet somehow seem unapproachable in terms of being recreated. Their tendency to embellish around a one-chord, acoustic guitar drone is a beautiful match to all that goes on percussively in songs like "Inner Meet Me" and "She's The One." It's this same sort of drone-with-variations-turned-pulsing-entity that makes early Stereolab records so appealing.

In short, this release is the vibrant and exciting beginning for a group that isn't afraid of drawing from sources far and wide. If you're looking to induce summer a little early or just haven't heard anything truly innovative in a while, pick up this record, take it home, pop it in and goddamn it, plug in those headphones.

The Betas will release their first full length album, enigmatically entitled The Beta Band, in June. Look for a review of it here in the coming months.

— Larry Davidson (crumbtrail@hotmail.com)