The Beloved - Early Recordings

To many, The Beloved were an early 90's trance-pop duo who scored two monster hits, Sun Rising and Hello. To me, they were a melancholic indie-pop quartet who produced four outstanding guitar based EPs on their own Flim Flm label between 1986 and 1988.

It all started with two fantastic John Peel radio sessions, recorded and broadcast in 1985. I taped both sessions and played them to death over the subsequent months before the bands first release. Those tapes are long lost, and after many years of trying to hunt down the sessions, Beloved lead man, Jon Marsh made them available again on his website and subsequently, the original masters were re-aired on BBC Radio 6.

The band's original sound sat well between early New Order (aided by a good old Shergold 6 string bass) and The Smiths with a nod to The Cure. Marsh's melancholic vocal style reminds me a lot of Glaswegian Factory recording act, The Wake. A brief history courtesy of Marsh's website..

Throughout its fluid existence, the guiding force behind the group remained vocalist Jon Marsh, who formed the band Journey Through at Cambridge University with Steve Waddington and Tim Havard; with the addition of Guy Gausden (november '84), the group renamed itself the Beloved, and gradually evolved into a moody dance outfit not dissimilar to True Faith-era New Order.In 1986, the Beloved issued their first single, "A Hundred Words" a series of releases (including the EP Happy Now, the double A-sided single "Surprise Me"/"Forever Dancing" and the 1987 compliation Where It Is) followed, but none garnered any significant critical or commercial success. Consequently, Gousden and Havard exited in 1987, at much the same time Marsh and Waddington were falling under the sway of London's burgeoning rave community. After first re-emerging with the ambient-styled single "The Sun Rising" the Beloved then scored an international hit with "Hello" a bubbling techno exercise which name-checked many of the group's influences.

In these archives:

1983-1984 Demo Recordings
1. The Flame
2. A Search
3. The Last Detail
4. Privacy Sometimes

January 1985 Peel Session
1. A Beautiful Waste Of Time
2. The Flame
3. A Hundred Words
4. Idyll

October 1985 Peel Session
1. So Seldom Solemn
2. In Trouble And Shame
3. Josephine
4. Up A Tree

A Hundred Words EP
1. A Hundred Words
2. Slow Drowning
3. In Trouble & Shame

This Means War EP
1. This Means War
2. Let It Begin
3. Saints Preserve Us

Happy Now EP
1. Righteous Me
2. A Kiss Goodbye
3. If Pennies Came

Forever Dancing EP
1. Forever Dancing
2. Surprise Me
3. Having Fun

1988 Demo Recordings
1. I Love You More
2. Sally
3. Jackie
4. Jennifer Smiles
5. My Heart's Desire

Listen: Part One / Part Two

Note: Please remember to download both RAR files before extracting