Pitchfork

In the Beta Band's hotel room a collage sat unfinished on the faux-wood table. The piece depicted Europe with substituted country names and surreal clippings. Scandinavia was dubbed "Cock & Balls"; Switzerland was noted only for their chocolate. Humorous cut-and-paste crafts aren't typical rock 'n' roll hotel room behavior. Yet after hearing the Beta Band, little else is expected. It's reassuring to step behind the curtain and realize the giant talking head of the wizard is actually a giant talking wizard's head. The Beta Band really do live in their pastiche pastures and carry Dada handbags. Their new stand-alone single proves they're still burning fuel past escape velocity-- they effortlessly surpass their peers with two seemingly simple songs.

"To You Alone" opens with a bellowing bass pulse and tantric humming before stuttering into epileptic beats and a plaintive keyboard melody. The song punches a hole through the back of TLC's "No Scrubs", rips out the spine, and reconstructs an interstellar psychedelic booty call. Further blurring the line between dance, jazz, rock, and folk, "To You Alone" manages to make an 808 blurt out hair-raising space-pop. A crescendo of drums pile up during the chorus.

Steve Mason weaves a unique take on unrequited love with his longing lyrics. "You do not realize the line that runs from me across the universe to you alone," he sadly observes. The impending doom of the one-way relationship is wonderfully wrapped in the metaphor: "A black box inside my mind recalls the time we spend together." Finally, he proclaims in a mix of pride and resignation, "I'm gonna sing it like a fool/ I've been singing like a fool." The Beta Band's ability to touch on such emotions while simultaneously expanding pop music's vocabulary justifies every ounce of hype surrounding them.

"Sequinsizer" provides more of an instrumental funk. The nocturnal urban pulse blends Aphex Twin's "Windowlicker" and Primal Scream's "Swastika Eyes". A clarinet drifts over basslines that rocket like metro lines. Fat keyboards make the groove positively nasty. With a single track, the Beta Band offhandedly outdate everything Underworld pumped out in the last couple years. If Miles Davis worked with Warp Records, this might be the result.

On this single, the Beta Band recontextualize hip-hop and city rhythms into their sylvan fantasy planet. You can take Mos Def, your so-called hip-hop savior, and shove him up your Monch-- you can find him "keeping it real" on the new Scritti Politti record. When it comes to futuristic hip-hop-- and rock for that matter-- I'd rather place my bets on these four scruffy Scots.