The Beat Surrender

As the Inspiral Carpets once sang “there’s a popular misconception� that does the rounds in the British Music scene. That misconception is that the only place in England that produces any decent music or has any decent live venues or club nights is the capital. (That’s London for anyone who failed Geography at school).

This opinion is mainly generated from one of two sources, either Londoners themselves or the press, which lo and behold happens to mainly base itself in London. The truth is that most major cities have clubs, venues and bands to rival those from the capital, what they don’t have is access to such a large population contained in a relatively small area, this large populous means that clubs in London can afford the luxury of putting on slightly more diverse nights in the knowledge that out of such a big catchment area they are likely to get a sufficient percentage of people who will attend the nights they put on, so yes in that respect I’m willing to concede that they do have that little bit more diversity.

One such club who have thrived in these conditions is AC30, they have set themselves up as the premiere club for shoegazing, postrock and electronica, featuring the best dj’s in those genres as well as putting on live bands with ties to the late eighties / early nineties scene or bands inspired by that sound. To give a flavour of the club and what you can expect they’ve released the first in a series of three sixteen track albums called Never Lose That Feeling.

The albums feature contemporary artists covering classic tracks from the period, this isn’t obviously a new concept, these sort of compilations are ten a penny, be it covering them from a scene or tribute albums of bands or artists where modern bands cover a song each by a hero or influence of theirs. The problem with these albums is that they inevitably have mixed results, it’s usually very hard to improve on the much loved originals and very few people are brave enough to do anything new with the track, which leaves you asking what’s the point?

That is a little harsh on this lovingly prepared compilation, most of the tracks tackle the originals with a great degree of respect, Andrew Kenny does a good job Angel Sigh by Spiritualized and Windemere do a top notch job on the doom laden Coast is Clear from Curve (hmmm Toni Haliday). Amusements Park On Fire sound more like Ride (more on them later) on You Made Me Realise, they do however recreate the My Bloody Valentine wall of noise effectively.

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