Le Beat Group Electrique

Wreckless Eric never rose high on the ladder of stardom, but after his groups Captains of Industry and the Len Bright Combo both went belly-up, the bottom appeared to have fallen out of whatever career he had, and Eric suffered a nervous breakdown. In 1988, shortly before Eric relocated to France, he cut an album in his London flat, using a Teac four-track tape deck and a ragtag collection of outdated studio gear, and with the accompaniment of Andre Barreau on bass and Catfish Truton on percussion (often consisting of just a cardboard box and a tambourine). Purposefully low-key and performed as if the trio was often afraid of waking the neighbors, Le Beat Group Electrique often sounds as much like therapy as a recording project, but the album's modesty and open, personal tone are among its most appealing qualities. With the melodies rendered in humble, lo-fi form, Eric's vocals here are expressive and charming, more so than when he had to push his instrument into a bellow on some of his early recordings. Eric is conversational but full of personality on "You Sweet Big Thing" and "Wishing My Life Away," while he bares his soul with equal portions of wit, charm, and awkward introspection on "Depression" and "Parallel Beds." When Eric and the band turn things up just a bit on "Sarah" and "It's a Sick Sick World," the songs take off with a good head of steam, and the intimacy of the recording, simple but clear, gives Le Beat Group Electrique a feel akin to a house show in someone's living room (fitting, since it was in fact recorded in a living room). Wreckless Eric's music was already headed in a new direction before he recorded Le Beat Group Electrique, but the album's bare-bones approach forced Eric and his songs to stand on their own in a way his previous work did not, and the result was a small-scale triumph and some of the best work of his career. ~ Mark Deming