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Stereophonic Pop Art Music – Reviews
Think Roswell, think zero-gravity guitar arpeggios, think hypnotic deep space grooves. Joe Meek meets H.G. Wells. A corker.
Mojo, November '96
Founded by Peter Bain, who played with seminal psych rockers Spacemen 3 and fronted the way-out Darkside, Alpha Stone has quite a space rock pedigree. So, it's no surprise that Stereophonic Pop Art Music has an alien on the cover and lunar mood music inside. Like a less sublime, more groovy, danceable Spiritualized, the band merges spacey riffs with urban samples and mechanical drumbeats. This formula works best on more structured numbers like the droney, melodic "Destiny Angel", the upbeat "Transfixed" (which adds maracas to the phased music) and the funky "Farmer C". Though not as transcendent as Spiritualized or Sonic Boom, Alpha Stone's down-to-earth sensibility and out-of-this-world sounds have an appeal of their own.
Laura DeMarco, Magnet Magazine, Sept. 96
The Darkside were good, but Alpha Stone succeed on a higher level. They take all the kitschy space-age trappings, lace them with nitrous oxide and wrap them around a foundation that alternates between a more stratospheric version of the Darkside's tributes to the swingin' '60s ("Special One" stands out) and reverberating space mantras easily good enough to compete with Spectrum ("Astro" tunes in, turns on and blasts off). "Fall on Me" comes pretty damn close to actually being Spectrum. Best is the criminally short cosmic joyride that is "Farmer C"--a true wobbler on sensory perception. Alpha Stone's chemistry could very well provide a longstanding residence for Bassman. No longer a shadow figure under the Spacemen legacy, Pete and crew are coming up and ready to challenge either co-founder of his original gig.
Troy Palmer, Alternative Press, November '96
Life is a Motorway EP - LP Reviews
Though I don't see the corrolation here for driving, the point is well expressed that if life is a motorway, some of it involves traffic jams. Alphastone presents a nice song of spacey textures laced with good gutiar and drum work and a tune that does stick in the mind. It is always a pleasure to hear from Pete Bassman (Spacemen 3). The EP includes remixes by Flowchart, Accelera Deck, and Pacifica, as well as Alphastone cast member Steve Janes. Flowchart's take is a little too Disco-y, if you ask me, trying a little too hard to make a slow driving song quick. And they have that irritating electronic handclap thing way overdone. They do call it "Doinky" themselves though. The next two versions equally emphasize the ambient availability of the song, in different ways, with Pacifica losing it to the Dance thing. The best remix is probably by the band's own drummer Janes, which highlights not suprizingly the valium-Disco drum parts.
Richard Fontenoy, FREQ Music E-Zine
A taster from their forthcoming second album, Alphastone give us a CD single featuring a variety of remixes of the albums title track. For the uninitiated, Alphastone is the current band from Pete Bassman, formally of Spacemen 3. The influence of them can be heard in the original version but the other remixes open up a cavern of different ideas. Keeping it in the family, all the remixes are done by Enraptured artists with Flowchart laying a hip hop beat underneath, Accelera Deck going for the abstract Pole like sound, Pacifica dropping a drum'n'bass infused mix and, best of all, Alphastone drummer Steve James stripping it down to bass and drums, resulting in the sort of mix the Dust Brothers used to do, before they went Chemical and crap.
Matthew K / Kevin, Interactive (Glasgow)
At last, the first great drug record of the 21st century! Like swimming in marshmallows or doing pushups in a lemon meringue pie, former Spacemen 3 bassist Pete Bassman (that can't be his real name!?) has concocted a cotton mouthed cocktail of electronic euphoria that will set your head reeling and keep your senses working overtime. While Pete "Sonic Boom" Kember and Jason "Spaceman" Pierce have gone to great lengths to distance themselves from their heady S3 daze, Mr. Bassman has remained true to the original vibe and delivers the best Spaceman 3 release since Sonic went "boom" and Jason found that old time religion. Hypnotic 'tronics, repetitive, krautrockian moto-riff-iks, distorted fuzzboxes and sleepy vox – shit, close your eyes and you'd swear you dropped "the perfect prescription" in some stoned stupor.
"Here It Comes" is as smooth as a baby's bum with some tasty guitar licks and Pete's rolling bassline propelling us into an ethereal oblivion. "Retroglide," as its title suggests, harkens back to those vintage S3 blissouts as catatonia settles in for a long comfortable stay and doesn't pack its bags until well after the final track has evaporated into a cloud of purple smoke. The mind continues its downward spiral with "Electro Blues" as the feeling slowly dissipates from arms and legs and your eyelids struggle under two ton weights. The prophetic "Losing Touch With You" signals complete surrender of all sensory control…and that's just the end of side 1!
For those able to wrestle themselves away from the carpet long enough to flip the record over, you'll find "Getting Close To Nowhere" a welcome respite as Bassman kicks in with a little pick me up. You know the feeling: somewhere in the midst of that cumulous buzz, a voice or flickering candlelight will stir you back to planet Earth. Pete's slo-mo vocals and drawn out enunciations drag "Feel the Rain" out to seemingly twice its 4:00 length and the hypnotic drumming, rolling basslines and sweet guitar licks will have you back in the clouds in nothing flat.
From here on in, it's every man, woman and child for themselves as the epic eight minute "Cool Earth Sensation" slowly takes over, refusing to release its stranglehold on your synapses until the final two electronic dronefests "Last Exit" and "Motorway Reprise" complete the eternal buzz, landing us safely on terra firma.
So, life IS a motorway and our journey ends back where we started. This stoner's rendition of "Autobahn" even comes complete with a hidden track, just as life always reveals hidden surprises along the way. The fact that the track is merely a continuation of the "reprise" only indicates, as Al Pacino found out in Godfather 3, that the more you try to escape, the more you get pulled back in. A life affirming sentiment for these crazy times if ever I heard one. So, just sit back and enjoy the trip. Mr. Bassman is at the wheel and all is right with the world.
www.goes.com/~leapday
Click on the image below for the Euro 2002 tour diary
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Thanks & goodbye...
We wish to thank the following people:
Mark Lacelles who helped create the initial interest for the band and got us talking to BOMP! USA, Greg Shaw for putting out the first two albums, [see tribute pg]. Jack and Domenic from Enraptured 45's/Earworm, both these guys have contributed enormously to UK music by releasing interesting music by musicians who have been largely ignored by the mainstream, us included. Jack Trevillion who kept the band alive for 5 years or more, releasing records and getting gigs and tours together with little reward in a climate that has not been entirely favourable for musicians. We owe a big debt to Jack for all his help and kindness. Alex Di Ganji and Giacomo Fiorenza from Sleepin Corporate/Mirabilia/Homesleep, thanks for the 98 Italia tour and all your generosity over the years, gratzie mille. Jay and Cato, a truly awesome band, it was a pleasure to play gigs with you guys. Simeon and the Silver Apples, it was a dream come true to get to tour with the Silver Apples. Domenic Dejoseph, we provided the soundtrack to Domenic's debut art house film ''The Leafblower''. 1500/Interscope Records, thanks for the interest Mr Riker and all the other big time guys who strung us along. Darren and Cargo Distribution, thanks for all your effort over the years, and everyone who has supported us through the years.
Apologies to the people who contacted us and got no reply from us, especially anyone after the Silver Apples tour of 98, hope you can appreciate that making music has been difficult to do effectively whilst trying to pay the bills and all the other myriad problems that life throws at you. Success may have eluded us and we may have collectively lost the plot a few times but we had good times and came with a good vibe. The band never used any professional musicians and nearly everyone in the band came from the Rugby locality.
Commercial Success was never a part of the game plan, we only ever hoped to gain some financial recompense from our work to re invest in the band. We had no large budgets to work with, in fact we had no budget at all, most of the recorded output was made on domestic 8 track tape machines. I hope you will understand when it comes down to quantifying our music against commercially made music, I wish we could have had at least a fraction of the budget received by my ex colleagues but not to be, a portastudio, headphones and a bag of grass was all we had at the time. Despite these economic disadvantages I wrote some of my best material which I think still rivals my peers' best efforts, our lo-fi approach served us well and enabled four albums to be written and released from 95-2001. The last album ''Life's a motorway'' was to be the definitive Alphastone album and a final attempt to make a band record, unfortunately the tape machine broke down and rough mixes had to be used. The live band's contributions which feature Andy Smith and Dannie Payne were combined with my solo work to make up the final Alphastone record.
Life's a Motorway was a disappointment to us and me personally, it was a very problematic and time consuming process, as always I was left with the arduous task of creating the record practically single handed whist my band were conspicuously absent from the process. When Dannie Payne our drummer went AWOL during 99 it was the end of Alphastone, Dannie left after our most productive year, 1998, when we toured Italy with Mirabilia, and the UK with the Silver Apples, we were gigging consistently and ended up with a headline slot at the Abbey Park festival in Leicester, Dannie's defection undermined years of work. Local drummer Steve Janes [Crime Scene Cleaners/Kerpunk] joined the band from 99-2001, we were grateful to Steve for giving us an extra lease of life but we never regained our momentum.
The band was resurrected for our last European tour in 2002, although very successful and enjoyable there was no intention of carrying on afterwards, the tour was a reunion and a nice way to finish. Steve very graciously stepped down to allow Dannie the opportunity to do the tour. We see Dannie on his annual visit to the UK.
Thanks to the following musicians: Matt Barnet, Matt Reid, Duncan Coates, Chris Brightwell, Pete Prince, Mark Carolan, Andy Smith.
There's no denying I grew old with this band, after the Spacemen 3 and The Darkside I felt too damaged to ever think about being in a band again, most of the time spent in Alphastone for me was a recuperation process, it also has been a period of change for us, it was a decade of wandering about in the woods, I am glad there was someone along with me.
Since I went ''solo'' so to speak I have enjoyed making music again, since the end of the last Alphastone tour I have written a new set of songs and developed a new live act with help from Andy Smith from Alphastone on bass vibrations and Gareth, bass player for local band ''the Shady'' on percussion and keyboards. We have spent the year refining the sound and playing out live locally, we now have a set of songs that will be the basis of our live set for the next year or so.
I should thank everyone for all the positive dialogue and support over the years and I hope Acid Ray, and what I am trying to do here gives you some enjoyment and enlightenment on the world of ''Bassman''.
Over and out.
Bassman 2004.
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