Music Arcades: The Beta Band: The Beta Band

I organise my Music Arcades listening in batches of five: I get five random numbers from random.org, and then map those onto my catalogue to work out what's up next. Recently Lucy and I went on a road trip, so I took the next five CDs with me (the last two days, today, and the next two). After playing my own first choice…, I asked Lucy to choose what to put on next. She said, "Since I know the others, let's have The Beta Band so I can see what that's like." That's my girl! Not conservative, appetite for discovery.

I think The Beta Band are the only band I've discovered from watching Later…. I stopped watching it about six years ago: it was already a tired format then, so god knows what it's like now. But The Beta Band were a breath of fresh air: you couldn't tell where they were coming from musically or geographically. If anything, they looked a bit like Hare Krishnas, as I remember it.

The Beta Band, the album, is one of those that sounds like it's overflowing with a surfeit of ideas. Instead of having a producer force them to pare down all the different elements, they've just gone with it. And somehow the surplus mish-mash works— like Mellow Gold and Piper at the Gates of Dawn in their different ways. I think it's the uncanny wit that helps them carry it off.