I have on my desk a copy of the NME from 1989, Jim Kerr of Simple Minds gazing myopically out next to the promise of a feature on King of the Slums (nope, me neither). The gig guide tells me Mega City Four are touring on the strength of their second single, that My Bloody Valentine are playing the ULU next Thursday and Pop Will Eat Itself are at the Town and Country Club Saturday. Of the hundreds of bands mentioned barely a handful are still with us, a few fondly remembered, but most lost to history. The turn of THE decade finds us with a lack of identity, the tribes jostling for position. Grebos were just starting to clamour into their massive shorts. Shoe-gazers were at the store purchasing their overdrive pedals. Tops were getting baggy and the Stone Roses were on the verge of releasing their debut. In short, ‘indie’ music was beginning to find its feet again.
Among the lost, sadly, are Loop. But to be truthful, they were never really that appreciated then. They were the kind of band who were always fast-forwarded when the Chart Show did Indie, in favour of Danielle Dax or The Heart Throbs. However, their influence is more keenly felt that you might realise. Lush and Slowdive did the simple trick of adding melodies to Loop’s three chord dirges, Thee Hypnotics added car-chase horn stabs, whilst mid-90’s outfit Quickspace (formed from the ashes of the equally Loop-like Th’ Faith Healers) continued in a similar, all be it looser vein.
The two albums reissued here represent the end, and the middle of their career. The bands view is that compilation album The World in my Eyes was put together by their old label Chapter 22 solely as a way of paying back the money they owed them. The move to Beggars Banquet saw their music become more portentous, darker, gothic with swabs of feedback. And they are handsome re-issues, the former expanded to three CD’s including remixes by Mute boss Daniel Miller and a variety of b-sides. The two cover versions are good, particularly that of Nick Drake’s Pink Moon, played with a gloomy thrum and a gravelly vocal.
A Gilded Eternity is spread over two CD’s, and is the better of the two albums. The second CD comprises demos and Peel session, providing an interesting look at the more nocturnal activities of the band. The album itself is really something, and sounds wonderful in its re-mastered form. The relentless guitars of ‘Vapour’ scorch their way into the stunning ‘Afterglow’, with its off-kilter rhythm and clattering drums. The word epic is bandied about too much in music but its certainly true of closing track ‘Be Here Now’, a monolith of sound, brooding bass and a woozy, repetitive riff over the space of a short nine minutes.
The Peel sessions on the second CD are reasonable, though overly ponderous, particularly ‘Sunburst’ which rattles on forever. The demos are also an interesting listen, particularly ‘Be Here Now’ which sounds more industrial in its formative state. Loop are the sort of band often mentioned in footnotes, when someone might mention the early days of Spacemen 3 or My Bloody Valentine, but these reissues show that they were a band of some skill and an ear for the epic. Half the band went on to form The Hair and Skin Trading Company, but never really achieved much acclaim in much the same way as Loop. It’s a shame, but at least through these remastered album they can be appreciated anew by fresh ears.
The World In Your Eyes – 68%
A Gilded Eternity – 78%
Loop on MySpace
Related posts
Great article Simon. I had a subscription to NME circa 89-90, what a blast from the past this is. Mega City Four! Ned’s Atomic Dustbin!! The Soup Dragons!!! I bought ‘A Gilded Eternity’ on cassette when I was about 12. Not sure if I really got it then, but something tells me I’d like it more now. Thanks for the memories.
The other half of Loop (Robert Hampson) had a more interesting career development than the Hair and skin TRading Company which I found pretty generic psychedelic rock: he formed Main, a solo (and sometimes duo) project, guitar-based ambient with slight traces of song structures (a radicalisation of some things you can already hear on A Gilded Eternity) – he did that at least 5 years before a generation of leftfield postrockers connected the shoegazer tradition with Brian Eno. Actually I don’t remember discovering Loop because of Main or the other way round.
I’ve been buying these Loop re-issues to update my original vinyl versions. The original A Gilded Eternity came as a double 12″ with a free 7″ (both sides of which feature on the 2nd disc of this re-issue). At the time this was my favourite Loop album but mainly because the original vinyls of Heavens End and Fade Out sounded quite tinny and weak. A Gilded Eternity was a chunkier beast by far and was preceded by the awesome Arc-Lite single (featured here in demo form).
This re-issue sounds fantastic. The guitars are clearer and louder, searing through your brain box like an evil fighter plane. Background noises are more prominent, some of which I didn’t really pick up on with the original. I can’t work out if the bass is lower down or not what with the guitars being so clear. These remasters always take a while getting used after years of listening to the originals pummelling swirl.
A Gilded Eternity is a dark, dense, alien sounding album, great for headphones (esp in this remastered state). Forget that other band who released Be Here Now. The track on this album is a majestic head melter and deserves to melt bands like Oasis in it’s wake.
King of the slums were/are a killer band from manchester, had a lot of press did a lot of gigs, released albums and singles…This year 2009 they released a new album “The Orphaned Files”
http://www.kingoftheslums.com
http://www.scukotsnewyork.com
http://www.myspace.com/kingoftheslums2009