The Beta Band is the debut studio album by Scottish musical group The Beta Band, released on 21 June 1999 by Regal Records. The album followed the critically acclaimed compilation of their first three EPs titled The Three E.P.'s (1998). With high anticipation for The Beta Band, the band originally planned to record the album in four separate continents, but financial constraints slimmed the recording locations down; however, the album was still recorded in a variety of locations. The band approached creating the songs in a variety of ways, sometimes forming songs from single melodies, sometimes bringing together other strands of music, among other forms.
The album builds upon the experimentation of their EPs, and is often seen as a particularly intricate, experimental and layered album, with a variety of different influences, sound effects, instrumentation and song structures. Based more around beat and rhythm than prior releases, the numerous different styles and influences incorporated into The Beta Band include psychedelia, hip hop and blues. Vocalist Steve Mason described his lyrics as fitting but without narrative interests. The band also recorded an ambient bonus disc of two long compositions, "Happiness and Colour" and "The Hut", but decided not to include the disc in the final release.
Upon its release, the band made their dissatisfaction with the album public, infamously calling it "fucking awful", largely blaming time constraints. Upon its release, it reached number 18 on the UK Albums Chart. Critics were favourable towards the album, although many found the album particularly messy and disappointing after the EPs. In later years however, several critics have found the album to be underrated and have praised its ambitions. In 2018, as part of a reissue campaign of the band's discography, Because Music re-released the album alongside the intended bonus disc.
Background
In 1997 and 1998, Scottish-based The Beta Band recorded their first releases, three EPs, Champion Versions, The Patty Patty Sound and Los Amigos del Beta Bandidos, which were met with high critical acclaim. After they had signed to Regal Records, a subsidiary of EMI's label Parlophone, the three EPs were released together as the album The Three E.P.'s in September 1998, which similarly was met with positive reviews. In 1999, they signed to Astralwerks in the United States and the label subsequently released The Three E.P.'s in the country. According to writer Ted Hedrickson, the band – consisting of multi-instrumentalists Steve Mason, Robin Jones, Richard Greentree and John Maclean – fused musical elements like ambient drones, trip hop beats and Pink Floyd-style introspective balladry to create their unique sound throughout their EPs, and that these releases "served as a fabulous taster for the band's self-titled debut." Describing his lyrics for the record, vocalist Steve Mason explained he typically just followed "the rhythms of the songs, more like a percussionist", and mentioned that the songs "don't really tell a story. It's just words that go in there. They mean something, but they don't mean…anything." The band's original intention for The Beta Band was for it to be a double album with each side of the LP recorded in a different continent, "one in Tokyo, one in Mexico and so on". Sawmills Studio, Rockfield Studios and Jacobs Studio were also recording locations for the album. As with the band's prior releases, The Beta Band co-produced the album with Chris Allison, who also engineered it, although the band's manager later admitted he felt the collaboration was not as successful this time.
Ambient bonus disc
In one of their attempts to "make something out of nothing",
Composition
Musical style
The Beta Band was less well received by music critics than the Beta Band's previous releases. Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone said the band "layer warped voices, pastoral guitars and random sound effects over slow-motion loops to evoke a chance meeting between King Crimson circa 1969 and Happy Mondays circa 1989", highlighting "The Cow's Wrong". He stated that the band is "still lost in sound, but oriented enough here to make tunes out of it."
Writing several months after the release of The Beta Band, Tom Ewing of Freaky Trigger called it "the most troublesome album of 1999," highlighting how "its makers disown it, its few disciples adore it, a whole lot of people hate it, and a whole lot more like me just don't know what to make of it, but keep playing it anyway. While there are certainly good bits and bad bits on The Beta Band, it’s not always possible to work out which is which, let alone pull them apart. And the funny thing is that after a few months you stop caring and just take the whole damn lot as it comes."
At the end of 1999, The Beta Band was ranked in several publications' lists of the year's best albums; Intro named it 9th, Mojo named it the 10th, Rockdelux named it the 26th, Muzik named it the 27th, and NME named it the 36th. In a retrospective review, AllMusic critic Jason Ankeny thought that the album "constantly runs the risk of collapsing into complete self-indulgence." Nevertheless, Ankeny further stated: " In its way the Beta Band's genius is their wanton disregard for niceties like verses, choruses, and melodies; rejecting musical theory in favor of the chaos theory, the album's neither a masterpiece nor a mess, but both." The album is featured in Mojo magazine's book The Mojo Collection, which lists what its authors consider to be the 1,000 greatest albums of all time.
- Steve Mason – vocals
- Richard Greentree – bass
- Robin Jones – drums
- Chris Allison – producer, recorder
- John Maclean – sampler, turntables
- Fergus Percell – human beatbox (track 5)
- Kingsley – vocals (track 1)
- Neil Richardson – trumpet (track 9)
- Gordon Anderson – lyrics (track 10)
- Stephen Mason – lyrics (track 10)