Beat (Bowery Electric album)

Beat
Studio album by
Bowery Electric
ReleasedNovember 12, 1996 (1996-11-12)
RecordedJune 1996
StudioStudio .45 (Hartford, Connecticut)
Genre
Length63:35
LabelKranky
Producer
Bowery Electric chronology
Bowery Electric
(1995) 		Beat
(1996) 		Vertigo
(1997)
Singles from Beat
  1. "Without Stopping"
  2. "Coming Down"

Beat is the second studio album by American band Bowery Electric. It was released on November 12, 1996 by Kranky.[3] Beggars Banquet Records licensed Beat for release in the United Kingdom and Europe in 1997.[4]

The cover art is taken from Catherine Opie's photograph "Untitled No. 27", depicting the Corona Del Mar Freeway in Costa Mesa, California.

Background and composition

Beat was recorded and co-produced by Bowery Electric and Rich Costey at Studio .45 in Hartford, Connecticut in June 1996.[5] Drummer Wayne Magruder contributed to four of the ten tracks.[3][5] Lawrence Chandler of Bowery Electric said to Alternative Press in 1997 that "Beat [was] the beginning of us learning our way around a proper sampler and software which allow[ed] us to work with samples on the computer. We [could] sample ourselves, manipulate sounds, create our own beats and basically work with fewer restrictions."[4]

Release and reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[2]
Alternative Press5/5[6]
NME7/10[7]

Beat was released on November 12, 1996 by Kranky.[3] Beggars Banquet Records licensed Beat for release in the United Kingdom and Europe.[4] Two singles, "Without Stopping" and "Coming Down", were released from the album.[8] Bowery Electric toured the United Kingdom and North America following the album's release.[4]

Bowery Electric co-headlined the Music in the Anchorage festival with Mogwai in New York on June 20, 1997.[9] They performed in London on July 16, 1997 and on The Think Stage at The Phoenix Festival.[10] Reviewing a concert during the tour, Melody Maker noted "for two people to be able to create such a huge, rolling epic sound is surprising; what really hits hard is just how huge it can be, how the inarguable and pulverising beauty of BE's sound simply forces a slacked out crowd into its swell."[11] A John Peel Session was recorded at Maida Vale Studios in London on July 20, 1997 and broadcast on BBC Radio 1 August 7, 1997.[12]

The album was reissued in the United States by Kranky on November 18, 2016.[13]

Melody Maker named the album the "rock LP of the year",[14] and The Wire praised the album as "genre-defining".[15] Neil Strauss of The New York Times rated it in his 1997 selection of albums "that haven't received much attention but are worth the extra time it takes to hunt for them".[16] In a 2016 review of the album's reissue, The Wire wrote: "This music hasn't aged a bit. ... [It] remains an unexplored road to a wondrous promontory only Bowery Electric have ever reached".[17]

British music distributor Boomkat described the album upon a 2023 reissue as "a hypnotic set of sampled breaks and shimmered guitar and vocal textures that split the difference between DJ Shadow and MBV [...] pre-empting the wave of electronic shoegaze revivalists".[18]

Track listing

No.TitleLength
1."Beat"7:16
2."Empty Words"3:45
3."Without Stopping"5:13
4."Under the Sun"3:32
5."Fear of Flying"5:39
6."Looped"2:39
7."Black Light"6:53
8."Inside Out"7:19
9."Coming Down"4:38
10."Postscript"16:41
Reissue bonus track
No.TitleLength
11."Low Density"7:16

Personnel

Credits are adapted from the Beat sleeve.[5]

  • Martha Schwendener – bass, keyboards, vocals
  • Lawrence Chandler – guitar, keyboards, programming, vocals
  • Rich Costey – production
  • Bowery Electric – production
  • Wayne Magruder – drums (on tracks 2, 7, 8, 9)
  • Catherine Opie – photography ("Untitled No. 27" from her Freeway Series)

References

  1. ^ O’Neale, Sean (May 15, 2014). "Bowery Electric rewired shoegaze to trip-hop to create a huge '90s sound". The A.V. Club. Retrieved June 4, 2018.
  2. ^ a b Raggett, Ned. "Beat – Bowery Electric". AllMusic. Retrieved October 16, 2017.
  3. ^ a b c "KRANK014 – Bowery Electric, "Beat"". Kranky. Archived from the original on October 17, 2017. Retrieved October 16, 2017.
  4. ^ a b c d "Bowery Electric". Kranky. Archived from the original on October 18, 2017. Retrieved October 17, 2017.
  5. ^ a b c Beat (sleeve notes). Bowery Electric. Kranky. KRANK 014.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  6. ^ "Bowery Electric: Beat". Alternative Press (103): 57. February 1997.
  7. ^ Empire, Kitty (March 8, 1997). "Bowery Electric – Beat". NME. Archived from the original on October 12, 2000. Retrieved May 15, 2018.
  8. ^ "Bowery Electric". Brainwashed. Retrieved June 5, 2016.
  9. ^ "Music In The Anchorage 1997 Roster". Creativetime.org. Retrieved October 25, 2017.
  10. ^ "Bowery Electric". Songkick. July 17, 1997. Retrieved October 25, 2017.
  11. ^ "Bowery Electric". Kranky. Retrieved October 25, 2017.
  12. ^ "BBC – Radio 1 – Keeping It Peel – Bowery Electric". BBC. Retrieved October 25, 2017.
  13. ^ Mrozek, Patryk (October 3, 1996). "Kranky to reissue Bowery Electric's Beat on vinyl". Tiny Mix Tapes. Retrieved October 25, 2017.
  14. ^ Kulkarni, Neil (February 25, 1997). "Bowery Electric: Beat". Melody Maker: 42.
  15. ^ Ridge, Tom (February 1997). "Bowery Electric: Beat". The Wire. 156: 43.
  16. ^ Strauss, Neil (January 23, 1997). "The Pop Life". The New York Times. Retrieved October 16, 2017.
  17. ^ "Bowery Electric: Beat". The Wire. 394: 52. December 2016.
  18. ^ "Bowery Electric - Beat". Boomkat. 2023.
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