Friday Full-Length: Loop, Heaven’s End
Loop, Heaven’s End (1987)
Among the great many other things 2017 will do, it’ll mark 30 years since Loop issued Heaven’s End. It remains an album ahead of its time, our time, the entire concept of time, etc. One has to wonder if the Surrey, UK, trio — then comprised of guitarist/vocalist Robert Hampson, bassist Neil MacKay and drummer John Wills — had any idea the ritualized sensibility that would be read into the blown-out repetitions of “Forever” three decades after the fact of its initial release on Head Records, or that the reverb overdose that “Too Real to Feel” elicits would continue to churn innards over such an expanse of years. Long before Heaven’s End and its two original-era follow-ups, Fade Out (1988) and A Gilded Eternity (1990), were reissued on Reactor Records in 2008, and long before they got back on stage in 2014 for appearances at All Tomorrow’s Parties, Roadburn (review here) and elsewhere, Loop thrived on word of mouth — an organic reputation worthy of the buzzsaw leads on “Straight to Your Heart.” There was never any marketing push, never any major press (until the reissues and reunion, anyway) and for a long time, Hampson — who was the sole remaining founder by the time they were done — was on to other projects, among them Main, and for a brief while, Godflesh.
But it’s perhaps by virtue of being so out of step with their era, their place, this dimension, and so on, Loop have proven to be so haunting. The samples of HAL9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey peppered throughout the title-track of Heaven’s End and closer “Carry Me” — the record finishes with the spoken line “my mind is going,” when in fact it sounds like the mind and everything else has long since melted away — seem almost quaint now, but the take-acid-worship-cosmos context was entirely different. Consider Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan (consider, for that matter, Theresa May and Donald Trump; could be time for a new Loop full-length in 2017) and the dawning of neo-conservatism. Where culture all around them was looking backward and trying to recapture a period it felt sentimental for that never actually existed, Loop turned the impulse on its head and looked back in an attempt to capture the most resonant freakouts of the original psychedelic years circa 1967 to 1971, bringing that swirl and drive to opener “Soundhead” as a clarion to those already on their wavelength and a strong argument for conversion of the otherwise willing. In a time when alternative rock was getting its feet wet in the underground as it prepared for a commercial takeover in the next decade, Loop stepped outside even those bounds and brazenly revitalized dripping-wet psych in what, 30 years later, still sounds like a reminder of how often our universe exists in boxes of its own making.
They weren’t the only band playing psychedelic rock at the time, or garage rock, proto-gaze, or whatever else you might want to tag Heaven’s End as being — multiple tags apply, none of them fully — but their influence continues to expand to a new generation of lysergic jammers in Europe and beyond. In 2015, Hampson joined forces with Hugo Morgan and Wayne Maskell of The Heads and guitarist Dan Boyd as a new incarnation of Loop and released the Array 1 12″ and toured the US before stepping back into the murk of inactivity. As recently as Oct. 2016, Hampson — who’s also been playing solo shows under the moniker Low — has hinted at Loop doings for 2017, and indeed the band is booked alongside Swans, The Fall and Royal Trux at a festival dubbed Transformer this coming May in Manchester, UK. As he put it, “Basically, things went south all at once and it was not the right time to simply deal with everything at once and it hit us financially a great deal too… A rest was needed and even tho’ ill-timed (Loop Law) it was unavoidable. I’m glad to be able to tell you that there are chinks of light and we do plan to resurface next year in 2017. I hope that the unfinished Array project will also see its fruition in some form. But… it’s early days yet to say too much and make promises that might not be able to keep. We haven’t gone, we just sat down and took stock.”
Fair enough. Whatever Loop wind up bringing to bear this year or don’t, their mark on heavy psychedelia remains indelible, and Heaven’s End, as the first step in the pivotal trio of offerings, is a crucial piece of understanding the impact of which is still fleshing out. Call it acid philosophy.
As always, I hope you enjoy.
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I went back to work this week after having vacation between Xmas and New Year’s. It wasn’t easy, it wasn’t fun, but it happened and the week is almost over, so I suppose I survived. Not always by choice. By Wednesday afternoon I was praying to Apollo — god of pianos, among other things — to drop one on my head. As usual, silence in return.
The good news. What’s the good news? Hell if I know.
Well, I guess the good news is the All That is Heavy sponsorship deal (detailed here) got an encouraging response. If you haven’t yet, you should take advantage of that whole 15-percent-off thing, as it’s pretty sweet. For what it’s worth, I’m planning on filling a cart as well. There’s always something I want to pick up.
So there. That’s some positivity.
Also got confirmation that I’ll be at Roadburn again this year, working on the Weirdo Canyon Dispatch for the fourth year in a row, which is amazing and humbling and was pretty much what made all that time otherwise spent piano-wishing on Wednesday worthwhile.
And I’m looking forward to a recuperation weekend of sitting on ass with The Patient Mrs. as we continue to make our way through Final Fantasy XV together, and I got a fancy new coffeemaker from my family for Xmas that seems to specialize in pure caffeinated joy, so yeah, okay, not so bad.
Pep talk accomplished. Thanks for being a witness.
Next week also looks pretty sweet. Here’s what’s lined up as of now (subject to change, of course):
Mon.: Radio Adds (it’s been so long!), Elephant Tree tour news and a Pater Nembrot video premiere.
Tue.: Lo-Pan track premiere and review of their new EP, In Tensions.
Wed.: Premiere of Kings Destroy‘s new single-song EP, None More.
Thu.: Full-album stream of the new Aathma.
Fri.: Long-overdue Sergio Ch. review and a Funeral Horse video premiere.
There’s more to come, of course, but that’s the basic sketch I’m going from for now. I hope whatever you’re up to over the next couple days, you have a great and safe weekend. Back here on Monday, and please don’t forget to check out the forum and the radio stream.
Tags: Head Records, Heaven's End, Loop, Loop Heaven's End, Reactor Records, Surrey, UK
Awesome to see Loop acknowledged here. A Gilded Eternity is their end to end masterpiece-I was lucky enough to see them around this time back in the day and the sonic assault was beyond belief-as good as a Godflesh show as well.