Amp - All of Yesterday Tomorrow

by Eddie Robson

An ample compilation

"This massive compilation houses stacks of orphan tracks under one cover, presenting an overwhelming three-and-a-half hours of noise. Overwhelming in a good way, that is."

Somewhat carelessly, avant-psych-rockers Amp have left a lot of odd tracks lying around in their fifteen-year existence. This isn’t just a facetious comment – one track, ‘Je Veux’, was supposed to be on their ‘Stenorette’ album but got lost. This massive compilation houses stacks of orphan tracks under one cover, presenting an overwhelming three-and-a-half hours of noise. Overwhelming in a good way, that is.

Although handy for completists, rounding up hard-to-find tracks (some of which have never been available on CD before) and including twelve previously unreleased cuts, ‘All of Yesterday Tomorrow’ works equally well as an introduction to the group for ingénues. It also features a number of their singles (all ten tracks from the 1998 singles collection, ‘Passé Présent’, are included) and covers a wide range of styles: plenty of their predominant My Bloody Valentine/Flying Saucer Attack white noise guitar blizzard, but also trip-hop (‘ICU’), Broadcast/Stereolab-esque electronica (‘Walking a Line’) and minimalist pieces (‘Standing in the Darkest Corner of the Room’). However, there’s also a consistency that makes the compilation feel almost continuous.

There’s too much material on this three-disc set to cover it all here, but lots of interest: covers of ‘Scarborough Fair’, The Silver Apples’ ‘Seagreen Serenade’ and Spacemen 3’s ‘So Hot (Wash Away All of My Tears)’; a track from an abandoned EP of pieces set to Baudelaire poems; and a track featuring original vocalist Jo (that’s all, just Jo). What’s really remarkable is that the material doesn’t seem dated at all, probably because Amp have followed their own path - the remastered recordings are resonant, compelling and often excellent.

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