At times unsettlingly familiar, this excellent set is almost perfectly realised.  Full text...

For a while, it looked like we'd lost Gordon Anderson. Institutionalised in the mid-nineties due to his serious mental instability, a return to making music at all, let alone one of the freshest, funkiest, tragic and joyous albums in recent times, seemed unlikely.  Full text...

The Beta Band's esoteric melange of electronica, hip-hop, psychedelia and folk, on the other hand, suggested music could be a boundless world of possibilities.  Full text...

Ex-Beta Banders discover their Smile on stunning psych-pop debut.  Full text...

Put together by the original core members of the Beta Band - Gordon Anderson, John MaClean and Robin Jones - the summation of years spent gluing themselves, nevermind sounds, together, ‘Astronomy For Dogs' is the myspace generation's Dark Side Of The Moon, it's Sweetheart Of The Rodeo. And I for one suggest you go buy it sharpish. Especially if you like anything that's happened in music between the Monkees and the Klaxons.  Full text...

'Setting Sun' sounds like 'White Album'-era Beatles siphoned through a spaceship engine, and 'Rox' is a 'Screamadelica'-sized stomp, but what should really earn them your love is the fact that the Sly Stone-ish 'Robot Man' was conceived when Anderson began spontaneously doing the robot dance at a bus stop.  Full text...

Despite its joyful and temporal excesses, Astronomy for Dogs, much like Black Gold, provides a fond look at just why we adored their elasticity in the first place.  Full text...

Lone Pigeon leads Beta Band mates in new venture.  Full text...

As a record so outwardly yearning for mainstream appeal, this lack of constraint is its most prominent downfall.  Full text...