“I will now sell five copies of The Three E.P.s by the Beta Band.”
With those legendary words, John Cusack’s Rob Gordon put on “Dry the Rain” in the adaptation of High Fidelity. Not only did copies of the Scottish band’s 1998 collection fly off the shelf in the movie scene, but within a month of the film’s early 2000 release, sales of The Three E.P.s quadrupled.
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Initially released by Regal Records before Astralwerks swooped in and signed the band, The Three E.P.s is a hallmark of late ’90s indie, the sound of rock changing as listeners became omnivorous. Listeners can now experience the magic of “Dry the Rain,” which opens both The Three E.P.’s collection and the original Champion Versions EP (July 1997), alongside the strange charm of the other two EPs in the collection: The Patty Patty Sound (March 1998) and Los Amigos del Beta Bandidos (July 1998). This new vinyl reissue, featuring a fresh remaster by famous audio engineer Matt Colton, will be released on July 11, 2025.
“Dry the Rain” serves as a musical Trojan horse of sorts, beginning the collection as the catchiest and most accessible track out of the 12. Over a span of nearly 80 minutes, listeners are taken on a journey through sinuous basslines, damaged art-pop, bizarro house music stand-ins, and even a strange rap in faux-Japanese. The tracks range from traditionally structured songs such as “Dry the Rain” to wandering soundscapes like “B+A.”
It’s possible the folks in High Fidelity felt duped after the melodic “Dry the Rain.” But you shouldn’t.
Keep in mind that bands such as Oasis and Radiohead referenced the Beta Band as a favorite in the late ’90s, and even though the latter experimented wildly, they still never reached for as many genres as are present on these three EPs. Injections of Britpop, jam band strangeness, nascent electronica, and even straight-up rock percolate in these 12 songs.
For every genre exploration—such as the psychedelia-leaning “Needles in My Eyes”—there are also some bizarre choices, like the use of a chipmunk effect on Steve Mason’s vocals on “She’s the One” or the challenging 15 minutes of the mainly instrumental “Monolith” that sounds like the guys from CAN snuck onto the album. Meanwhile, “Dr. Baker” recalls Revolver-era Beatles in its autumnal melancholy.
The Three E.P.s has been confounding and charming fans for nearly three decades now. And even though genres have blended more as rock cedes its popularity to other sorts of music in the 21st century, this collection is still beguiling and strange enough to influence a new generation of fans. Though the group released three studio albums between 1999 and 2004, these three short EPs remain the Beta Band’s defining work. Put together as one collection, it’s a staggeringly important document of late ’90s music, before the internet really changed everything.
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