truly great UK bands of the ’80s. Now bolstered with the addition of


LOOP Heaven’s End / Fade Out Reactor/Forte CDs www.fortedistribution.co.uk


Timely and welcome re-release of late ’80s London noiseniks Loop’s first two albums. Primarily forging a sound roughly hewn from the more metallic


elements of The Stooges, MC5 and Velvet Underground, they also incorporated aspects of Can, Neu! and Faust, as well as New York synth duo Suicide. Along with fellow travellers Spacemen 3, it’s clear that they are antecedents to Mogwai and their ilk. As visceral as anything The Stooges


ever did, most of these songs still sound as refreshing as they did on their original release and Loop’s Robert Hampson must be one of the most underrated guitarists to ever emerge from the Ron Asheton School of fuzz and wah. The bonus out-takes and Peel Sessions are a real treat, providing both albums with an extra CD’s worth of material. Things are looking equally interesting regarding their 3rd and 4th albums, which are to be given triple and double CD treatment respectively, later this year. Rich Deakin


MAKIN’ TIME No Lumps Of Fat Or Gristle Guaranteed Plus Demos Ace CD www.acerecords.com


Makin’ Time flew their mod flag proudly during a time – the mid 80s – when mod was a dirty word in the UK music press. Taking their inspiration from


Brian Auger & Julie Driscoll, they forsook Rickenbackers in favor of the forceful Hammond organ of vocalist Fay Hallam. And while their sound and image may have evoked the R&B and pop stylesof the ’60s, their recordings were not sad retro jobs but energetic, modern and forward looking. Their 1985 debut for Stiff was brilliant, but the group found themselves label-less when Stiff shut down soon after. Taking matters into their own


hands, Makin’ Time took two days with producers Will Birch and Pat collier to cut No Lumps Of Fat Or Gristle Guaranteed, which they would issue on their own label as their last hurrah. Less polished but just as engaging as their first LP, No Lumps... captures the band at their most basic, turning out tough and tuneful keyboard dominated tracks that served as a fine epitaph for one of the


eight studio demos from the same era, this is an essential purchase for fans of The Prisoners, Small Faces, Brian Auger and Georgie Fame. You get the picture, so now get the CD. Stefan Granados


THE SCREAMING BLUE MESSIAHS Live At The BBC Hux Records CD www.huxrecords.com


If you’re a fan of British rock and roll, the mid-80s probably isn’t your favorite era. But The Screaming Blue Messiahs offered a staggering riposte


to the synth and drum machine-led groups that dominated. This CD presents sessions from the Beeb’s vaults that highlight the Messiahs’ earlier material and shows them to be an altogether more unwieldy beast. The Paris Theatre portion lays out


the power trio at their droning, discordant best. The beginnings of singer/guitarist Bill Carter’s obsession with Americana emerge, with lyrics that skewer as well as revel in the culture, all set to a jackhammer backbeat that never lets up. ‘President Kennedy’s Mile’ sees him gleefully pogoing through the bloodstains of Dealey Plaza. A later session from ’87 with the


crazed but goofy ‘I Wanna Be A Flintstone’ shows that not even cartoons were safe from Carter’s unsteady gaze. Christopher Walsh


THE TELESCOPES # Untitled Second Bomp!/Alive Natural Sound CD www.bomp.com


A lost classic of the shoegazer movement, 1992’s # Untitled Second is now


rediscovered for the second time in the last five years. An introspective,


psychedelic departure from the band’s previous, more noise-oriented work, it was also The Telescopes’ debut for Alan McGee’s taste-making Creation label. The group’s most fully realized album to date, it should attained the same recognition that My Bloody Valentine, Spacemen 3, Slowdive et al got for similar records made around the same time. But the band gave it at a non-title and the label didn’t do much to promote it, thus it tanked. This is a shame, as ‘Splashdown,’ ‘Flying’ and ‘Ocean Drive’ are all gorgeous slices of blissed-out dream pop that perfectly capture the essence of the genre. Bomp! adds to Rev-Ola’s 2004


reissue by tacking on a few more bonus selections; one of the extras – ‘The Sleepwalk (Sitar Version)’ – might be the finest track on the set. Brian Greene


THE ADAM SYKLES Out Of The Circle Game THE JUNE Magic Circles Teen Sound CDs www.mistylane.it


Teen Sound starts the year with a pair of pop-sike releases that not only both come from Italy, but also share a “circle” in their titles and have a (different) song called ‘Daisy’! Psychedelic, eh? I’ll start with


The Adam Sykles just because their frontman and sole author is Massimo Del Pozzo, Misty Lane/Teen Sound


records head honcho himself. After the garage punk and folk rocking jangle mostly dominating his previous well known efforts with The Others sand The Tyme Society (not that any of this is lacking now), he seems to have mellowed a bit throughout the years, which ain’t no bad thing at all. Most of the tracks here share that Paisley Underground kind of a vibe (most reminiscent of The Three O’Clock), be it the Revolver-ish psych, Graham Gouldman-like minor-chord beat, or some jazzy Da Capo-era Love. However, the ones I consider for stand-outs myself, are those with the distincitive Britsike touch to them like ‘The Big Green’, ‘Feel The Pain (Robby’s Song)’ or ‘She Lives In My Mind’. Besides the already mentioned, yet


another thing that makes the sense of déjà vu about the two albums even stronger, is that both of them open with an Eastern flavoured Beatle psych. The June seem quite obsessed with Revolver actually. Not only is there more than an occasional musical nod, but the cover drawing of the band is an obvious tribute as well, with the whole thing culminating with a song called ‘Revolver’, with backwards guitars an’ all. Besides all this, with such a band name, and a song title like ‘Sir Eugene Maddog’, the “Shindig!- friendly” tag is a must! Goran Obradovic


DAN AUERBACH Keep It Hid Nonesuch CD www.nonesuch.com


In case you ever wondered what The Black Keys would’ve sounded like had they been at least a four piece, I suppose it can’t get much closer than this.


73


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