Bowery Electric, Beat (1996)

Where bought? Purchased the reissue brand new, likely from Rise in Worcester. 

Those early days in Worcester were reasonably exciting for me. I was earning a nice wage to research something I was interested in, I had begun to lecture and develop confidence in public speaking, I had colleagues for the first time that I liked and was happy to socialise with, and I had started a romantic relationship not long after ending one (normally I would go years).

On a Friday, if I was not otherwise engaged that evening, I would go home via the record shop and treat myself if there was anything good. Often there was not - Rise tended to favour distributors who would cough out lots of trendy-looking but utterly no-name stuff. Occasionally they would turn up something good, such as this excellent shiny reissue of Beat on the Kranky label, which doesn't half-arse its reissues (though it does them rather slowly, come on Labradford discography!).

I was only passingly familiar with Bowery Electric but took the plunge partly based on that cover; it yelled '90s to me in a way that only my soul could understand. Austere and slightly filtered and pleasingly askance.

You could reasonably summarise the sound of Beat by posing the rhetorical question of wondering what My Bloody Valentine leaned into the machinic percussive loop side of Loveless. That doesn't quite nail it wholly; Beat is less of a fuck record and more of an infrastructure and concrete landscape record. There are dubby touches, and the bass leads just as often as the treated guitars. 

These different textures - drum loop, cascading guitars, low and searching bass, distant vocals - all combine in a much more satisfying way than MBV managed on Loveless. You could argue that the songwriting isn't as strong, but this isn't a verse-chorus-verse record anyway; these are miniature worlds to get lost in for a few minutes. Not quite trances, but slightly narcotising.

In the end I'm glad I took the plunge. It's not an every week record, or every month, but when I do pull it out (and it's gatefold so the spine is always visible) I'm always pulled into its spell. A keeper.