The Beta Band

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• Genre: Post-Modern Pop
• Hometown: Edinburgh

About

The Beta Band are a raggle-taggle group of Scots and Brits who stirred up loads of justifiable interest for their genre-bending pop experiments. While the band do incorporate a DJ, their sound is a mainly organic one that manages to tie together folk, hip-hop, and psychedelia into one cohesive headphone-friendly jam. What comes out of listening to the Beta Band is their obvious desire to make music and to not be pop stars. They don't seem to take themselves too seriously, titling records like Los Amigos Del Beta Bandidos while constantly referring to their work as "awful." One might be quick to assume that their shuffling, bass-heavy psychedelia was the work of drug-soaked pranksters, but the band has been quite adamant about the lack of contraband around them. Instead, until their dissolution in 2004, they continued to toss out the occasional brilliant song alongside steel drums, raps, spoken rambles, congas and general head nodding-ness for what is unwittingly some of the coolest Jam Rock in the world.

- Jon Pruett