Loop
(Reactor)
"I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over..."
So intones an ominously calm male voice, from a 2001: A Space Odyssey clip featuring the HAL computer not doing a very good job of reassuring astronaut Dave, at the end of what would have originally been side 1 of 1987's Heaven's End, by Croyden, England, outfit Loop. Ah, if only things were that easy. The gobbling-the-pill part, that is. Because the sizzling sonics bookending the aforementioned clip - the whorling, backwards phased guitars of "Heaven's End" and the jagged, tremolo-strafed ur-punk of "Too Real To Feel" - are about as far from stress relief as you can get. More like a descent into the proverbial maelstrom, a nightmarish, claustrophobic, psychedelic death trip located halfway between Altamont and Thatcher's Orwellian England. Yeah. But it's a Lovely Sort of Death.
Loop existed for but a brief blip on the alt-rock sonar, yet during their 1986-91 run enjoyed some well-deserved notoriety for their skull-denting brand of Stooge-oid/Suicide-al psych. The band's uncompromising approach to fuzz/drone/wah-wah freakouts sometimes resulted in dismissive "Spacemen 3 Jr." labels from the press; if memory serves, a territorial-minded Sonic Boom, from S3, may have pushed that notion as well, resulting in cross-media sniping between the two bands, for indeed in interviews Loop founder/guitarist Robert Hampson came across unusually sensitive towards the accusation (although when I talked to him later in the mid ‘90s he seemed to have gotten over it, laughing about how competitive British bands could be).
Hampson & Co. weren't reluctant to wear their influence on their sleeves, though, as evidenced by the covers gracing their numerous singles: Suicide's "Rocket USA," Can's "Mother Sky," the Pop Group's "Thief of Fire" and "Thief (Motherfucker)". And in truth, they were credible contemporaries both sonically and spiritually of My Bloody Valentine, Jesus & Mary Chain, Swervedriver, and of course the Spacemen. Loop left behind three official studio albums, several singles collections and a set collecting the band's Peel Sessions. Bandleader Robert Hampson subsequently put together his ambitious ambient/experimental project Main (he also performed, for a short while, with Godflesh), which lasted until about 2006, at which time he commenced operations under his own name. Meanwhile, the other erstwhile Loop members had formed the Hair & Skin Trading Company and released several well-regarded albums.
In any event, with the benefit of hindsight and the reissue in hand here, Loop held its own, and then some, carving an estimable legacy well worth rediscovering. Heaven's End also operates as reasonably effective time capsule of a period when Loop and their ilk were picking up assorted ‘60s and ‘70s torches and setting their own blazes against what was at the time a bleak British economic and cultural backdrop. Escapism through noise, in other words, and Loop definitely brought the noise. Check the above-mentioned pair of tunes, the fuzzed-out, Ecstasy-fueled (or so one imagines) overdrive of "Head On" or the chugging, knuckle-dragging, Stooges-like thump of "Straight To Your Heart": there's no subtlety here, just pure brute application of force. You may want to sit down calmly, take a stress pill and think things over when the record's done.
A bonus CD features the band's first, three-song Peel Session, originally broadcast over the BBC in August of '87; "Straight To Your Heart" is a standout, not quite as unhinged as the LP version and boasting more clarity in the vocal department (on the album, Hampson's voice is typically submerged in about three layers of echoey gunk), while the scorching "Rocket USA" is utterly true to the sound and spirit of Suicide's original, right down to the headache-inducing drum machine pattern and Hampson's sneering vox. Three previously unreleased Heaven's End session cuts are also present: the Suicide song, the original mix of "Head On" (it pales, though, against the beefier and edgier LP version) and the original mix of the wonderfully-title "Soundhead" (which in an alternate universe is what Hampson might've named his band instead of "Loop").
Heaven's End arrives alongside 1988's Fade Out, each a two-disc set. (Still to come: 1987 compilation The World In Your Eyes, which will bring together all the singles, and 1990's A Gilded Eternity.) The albums were remastered from the original analog tapes, and though the Reactor label's website indicates that in assembling the reissues it was discovered that some of the tapes had been damaged, there are no noticeable flaws. Throw in mini-LP packaging that reproduce the original sleeves, and you've got a pretty accurate recreation of the Loop experience. It would have been nice to have a booklet featuring liner notes that tell the whole story, but then, Hampson was never about explaining himself - he just did it.
Standout Tracks: "Straight To Your Heart," "Rocket USA" (Peel Session) FRED MILLS
