LOOP World In Your Eyes
Aquarius Records
Finally!! Ever since the first two Loop records got the deluxe multidisc reissue treatment, we’ve been anxiously awaiting the last two, their final record A Gilded Eternity, and this one right here, many folks around here’s favorite, a compilation of 12"s called World In Your Eyes. Originally released in 1987, the updated World In Your Eyes is even better, a TRIPLE disc collection of 12"s, 7"s, bonus tracks, unreleased tracks, demos, and covers.
Seemingly always (unfairly) overshadowed by their sonic brethren the Spacemen 3, Loop managed to give the drugged out drone rock thing their own distinct spin, infusing some serious krautrock mesmer and some metallic muscle into their slow burning drones and effects drenched psychrock workouts. Slipping easily from super dreamy one riff blown out hypno rock, to in-the-red space garage pound, to hushed soft focus inner space drift, Loop were masters of modern psychedelia. Take the 10 minute drug drift of "Burning World", with its processed guitar chug, the swirling clouds of effects, the blooping bass, the motorik drums, like the perfect mix of Can and Hawkwind. Or "Brittle Head Girl", which sounded like a spacier more tripped out Galaxie 500, its lazy drawled vocals, and woozy guitar hook, and that irresistible bassline. Or "I’ll Take You There", a super fuzzed out bit of garage-y space groove, the band easily out spacing the Spacemen themselves. We could probably go track by track, every one here is a gem, and the extras! Holy shit. Where to start? Besides a plethora of demos, live tracks and the like, this collection also includes some incredible covers, A spaced out version of a Pop Group track, Neil Young’s "Cinammon Girl", Nick Drake’s "Pink Moon" and Can’s "Mother Sky (which Andee sez is better than the original, yeah we know, we know). Then there’s the Arc-Lite 12" that takes up the first half of the third disc, one of our favorite Loop eps, and the track "Arc-Lite (Sonar)" is one of the best Loop jams ever, with its relentless riffing, it’s strange flurries of tribal drumming, the echo drenched vox and the swooping streaks of effects, a 4 minute song that could easily have been ten times that. The song is reimagined as the "(Radar)" version, getting sort of supercharged, heavier and fleshier, less spare and skeletal and jangly than the original. There’s a third version still, that gets all remixed into something less space rocky and more tripped out and dizzying. Let’s not forget the ten minute "Sunburst", a sprawling bit of lysergic minimal krautdrone, woozy and druggy and slow burning. There’s also the legendary live Prisma Europa Live 12", and finally, to top it all off, Loop’s Godflesh cover, from their Loopflesh split 7", where each band covered the other, one of our Holy Grail 7"s, if anyone out there has one they can part with, we will be forever in your debt, and of course it’s a killer, Godflesh’s "Like Rats" transformed into something much spacier but no less menacing, in fact, it’s most definitely the heaviest meanest slab of Loop-age ever, while still retaining plenty of that Loop-ed FX drenched shimmer. So goddamn GREAT.
These reissues have been shuffling tracks around enough to cause a little confusion, as some of the tracks on the original issue of WIYE are left off here, but are tacked on elsewhere on the other reissues, and disc 3 here seems like it could have been included on the Gilded Eternity disc as this disc highlights one of our favorite Loop tracks, the above mentioned Arc-Light, originally a 1989 single, which was lumped onto the cd edition of A Gilded Eternity which came out a year later in 1990. But who really cares, as long as it’s all here, and it’s ALL here, and then some. Space rock and drone rock and psychedelic rock fanatics should buy all four, one of the most supremely transcendent and kick ass bodies of work in rock. Hyperbole? We think NOT. Killer packaging, three paper sleeves with various reproductions of the included 12"s, all housed in a slipcover, with a booklet that includes track listings credits, but sadly, not much in the way of liner notes.