Beat

Bowery Electric | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 18, 1996)
• Number of Discs: 1
• ASIN: B000024IGU
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #606,432 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Somewhat bizarrely, Beat received a large amount of critical buzz over its supposedly groundbreaking fusion of hip-hop/techno rhythms and the band's older dream pop stylings. Anyone who had heard Loveless-era My Bloody Valentine or a fair amount of Chapterhouse's material probably had some things to say about that judgment, while in turn many dance mavens saw the band's efforts as already terribly outdated in terms of general sonic approach. Set all this aside and concentrate on enjoying Beat in and of itself, though, and the fine qualities of both group and album come through quite clearly. Bowery Electric may not be on the cutting edge, but Schwendener and Chandler aren't pretending to dwell there. The title track sets the album's tone from the start, an open-ended guitar drone from Chandler later accompanied by Schwendener's low-key bass and distanced singing matched with a crisp drum loop. Variations on this basic formula throughout Beat: slight rhythms are sometimes more prominent, sometimes buried, guitar lines are clearer here or more heavily produced there -- but taken as a whole the release is quietly intoxicating. Standouts include "Fear of Flying," with a strong guitar scream/wash from Chandler and a more upfront bass/drum combination, and the thoroughly but beautifully zoned out "Black Light," which features a rare Chandler vocal and an enveloping delay-pedal-produced atmosphere. Notably, the drumming on the latter track is more in line with, say, early Pink Floyd or Slowdive rather than the loops used elsewhere. Both performers are incredibly undemonstrative throughout the album -- Beat works best as something either totally concentrated on or left running as ambient music; a party record this isn't. At times Bowery Electric eschew percussion entirely, to lovely effect: "Under the Sun" is a brief but dark piece, a low bassline providing the only forward motion. ~ Ned Raggett, All Music Guide

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars minimalist trip-hop--throw in shoegazer, April 8, 2003

By 

Keir H. Fogarty "funkarty" (fort collins, colorado United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beat (Audio CD)

this is Bowery Electric's best album--they have always been a blend of shoegazer/My Bloody Valentine, and trip-hop--this album has the best amalgam of the two, while their two other albums lean too far one way or another--The vocals have been called boring and monotonous by Bowery-haters, but they're missing the point--this band is about music seamlessly emerging from a background--like you could turn on the stereo and there would be no discrete moment when one would say, "ok the music's on"--the music is emergent from the ambient noises of life--this is an excellent "study" album--especially track 8 (one of my fave songs of the past few years)--"words are just noise," goes one of the opening lines of the album--you get the sense that this minimalism (see the gargantuan last track(I fall asleep to it every night))is saying something about music in general--like they don't dare to be so loud as to assume to be changing anything, but are rather taking the sounds of the world around and gently guiding them into some pattern--a gardener lets a tree be a tree, but by placing it and pruning it, can achieve a rather powerful effect--Bowery Electric aren't creating the sounds of their album, but rather channel the constant flow of sound around them.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sparse yet lush..., September 18, 2002

By 

Yuri Kuzyk (Toronto, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beat (Audio CD)

For some reason I pulled this out of my cd collection and once again realize how good it is. Bowery Electric sound similar to a stripped-down Slowdive, or perhaps like a minimalist trip-hop version of This Mortal Coil.

Basically two people, Martha Schwendener on bass and haunting vocals with Lawrence Chandler on guitar and programming, BE seem to have a knack for noticing the slow yet powerful undercurrents of much of the electronica dance music being foisted on the public. Unlike Portishead they don't seem too concerned with making 'pretty' soundscapes which lends even more strength to the album. Schwendener's vocals are particularly beautiful since they are mixed in the back of the heavier music - but they also don't get lost in the soundscape.

Worth hunting down - a number of tracks evoke the state of affairs post 9/11 from people who live(d) there...

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars urban shoegazer, November 29, 2002

By 

eric (Redlands, Ca. United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beat (Audio CD)

This is a great album. Definitly not for everyone, but definitly
worth owning. This is the album My Bloody Valentine would have made if they had survived after Loveless. It is stark, ethereal,
heavy, minimal, yet beautiful all at the same time. Some people might find it a bit heavy and perhaps even boring, but it is an
aquired taste, I think. It is better than their newer material
(Lushlife), more focused and less busy, which adds to it. I would classify this as 'urban shoegazer'