Coterie

Bonkers Bickers joined Levitation after leaving the House of Love and this trippy, spaced out album was the result. Coterie is light years ahead of anything the H of L ever did. Some of the tracks on this release are live and all the better for it. (It was re-released in 1994 with the same track listing but all studio versions.) My favourites are Bedlam and Smile which sound as good today as when they were first performed. (Strangely the CD doesn't say where the gig was.) The chit-chat between the band and audience on live numbers is quite amusing too. It's a shame Bickers left Levitation in a fit of pique but they carried on without him as Dark Star and their album, Twenty Twenty Sound, wasn't half bad either. I now regret I never saw Levitation live. Tis my loss.

There weren't many bands as thrilling to witness live as Levitation... I saw them twice at the New Cross Venue, the most memorable being when they were supported by Strangelove... Great double bill. Intense, chaotic, melodic, psychedelic - Levitation had it it all. Should have been bigger.

When guitar protégé Terry Bickers quit the House Of Love in 1989 because of Guy Chambers megalomania ( Bickers version , though how someone who looked like E.T. on mogadon could be megalomaniacal is another point ) or because of Bickers copious drug consummation ( E.T,s...sorry Guy Chambers version ) he teamed up with Something Pretty Beautiful drummer David Francolini.They formed Levitation with a group of sympathetic and reputable musicians - second guitarist Christian Hayes (formerly with Rings & Cardiac amongst others ), keyboard player/occasional guitarist Robert White (ex-Zag and the Coloured Beads, Ring), Johnny T (a violinist from The Reggae Philharmonic Orchestra), and bass player Joe Allen.Levitation took few elements of Bickers former band taking the music in a far more psychedelic and free -form direction .This was music as much about space and expansion and transmutation as it was about blurry ambience and introspection. Their first two E.P.s were lauded in the music mag that was my bible at the time "The Melody Maker " with the Coppelia EP ( arguably ) the single finest release of their brief career and described by the MM as " speeding, hallucinating, rampaging, brilliance." which it was.In 1992 after the release of the  World Around  E.P. the band brought out Coterie ( it had already been released in the States in 1991 ) a mixture of studio tracks taken from their first two E.P,s ( some of them live versions )and the two singles "Squirrel " & "Firefly ".Even if whole doesn't hang together as well as a properly constructed album might it sort of fits in with the bands remit and didactic approach to song writing. The songs surge, ebb and throb with moments of eerie clam being supplanted by thundering percussion , prismatic walls of guitar or delicate filigree's of chord manipulation. The guitar playing is superb but the key to the whole band can be found in the work of drummer Dave Francolini. Somehow he manages to hold it all together and a less competent drummer would have failed to prevent this from degenerating into a disordered mess. As it is there are some fantastic songs on Coterie ."Smile " is still a cyclonic tour-de-force, that riff like the cogs turning in the mind of some spaced out deity. The live version on here isn't the definitive one but it is still eight minutes of some of the finest incendiary ingenious guitar music ever recorded. As is "Bedlam " whose final incandescent blitz of needle shard guitar is truly electrifying .The curt ""Nadine " has the backing woozy brass for supplementary variety. Every track though has some sonic revelation to offer.Which is more than you can say for virtually every contemporary guitar band. Only The Big Pink and A Place To Bury Strangers offer anywhere near the level of innovation and manic thrills that are displayed so abundantly on Coterie . Bickers walked out on the band in the middle of a gig in 1993 and though they tried to continue the band split for good the following year. Which leads to the conclusion that they were a band too prescient , too pioneering for even the little off- shot indie mainstream. We're into positive negativism. " said Terry Bickers once. " You have to be aware of all the negative things that are going on, all the grimness, and then turn it all around." . Apparently he could not turn the negativism in his own head round but when he burned with Levitation he did burn so very brightly before burning out completely .

Levitation were a 'musicians' band who really stood out of time from any of their contemporaries. At one of their first gigs in London's underworld they were heckled by disappointed House of Love fans ( Terry Bickers former band) as Hawkwind. They weren't. They just didn't play 3 minute guitar led songs.If this sounds like anyone its more akin to Can, Funkadelic, the Swans and the Cardiacs.This record was originally released in the USA and contains great live versions of Smile and Paid in Kind ( both of their 1st EP). Its worth buying for smile alone but don't expect Christine or Destroy the Heart.They did sadly implode before the release of their 2nd album which remains unreleased to this day. The initial single off that record suggested a more focused approach and perhaps a great work lies dormant in some record label back office.

Don't miss out. If you like your indie rock infused with dark druggy psychedelia, check out the tracks here. Live tracks stand out for the sheer scale and ambition being displayed, all the band working as a whole with the guitar interplay of bic and bickers dancing marvellously. If you ever saw them live this is a worthy document.'Smile' and 'Bedlam' being mi personal faves. Just enjoy the ride and wander what happened to this band. Should've been the next floyd perhaps....

Although a stop-gap release to complete Levitation's contract with Ultimate Records(before moving to Rough Trade), this album is not the lesser for it.Bringing together the highlights of their two EPs and one 7" release plus a couple of live favourites, this album perfectly encapsulates the wonder that is Levitation in their early development. Alas the band didn't last long (fizzling out a couple of years later after Terry Bickers had acrimoniously left the band on-stage at the Tufnell Park Dome), but this gives an idea of their intensity on stage and off, with special mention to the epic 'Bedlam', 12 minutes of glorious madness, riddled with a hypnotic chiming Bickers riff that hooks the soul.Need For Not, the only 'proper' album followed soon after this, but this album represents the raw original Levitation with their howling and incandescent guitars, the adrenalin bursts and the mantra-like downs.The band did release another album, Meanwhile Gardens, on Dinosaur Records (I think), but without Bickers' lead vocals and chiming guitars - a major disappointment.