October 25, 1998

The Bill Well Octet Vs Future Pilot Aka

Before we start, a quick word of explanation. Bill Wells is a man in his early-40s, known to his friends as Falkirk's answer to [a]Sun Ra[/a] and a recent collaborator with both [B]The Pastels[/B] and

8 / 10 BEFORE WE START, A QUICK WORD OF explanation. Bill Wells is a man in his early-40s, known to his friends as Falkirk's answer to Sun Ra and a recent collaborator with both The Pastels and V-Twin. Future Pilot AKA is the nom de plume of Sushil K Dade, a man currently reinventing himself as the dark lord of experimental space-rock electronica and a recent collaborator with, well, just about everyone.

Echoing the chill-out zones on Primal Scream's 'Screamadelica', this album is 24 minutes of harmonious jazz interspersed with spliced beats and skewed electronic voices. Coolly atmospheric, it's the product of Wells' Octet (which features members of both The Pastels and Belle & Sebastian) jamming along to looped tapes of Future Pilot's live show and the results are extraordinary.

Part soundtrack drone ('Olympic Material'), part blissed-out meditation ('Om Namah Shivaya'), it's engaging and beautiful throughout. At its heart, though, is the brilliant 'No Funerals This Morning'. An avalanche of cascading baroque keyboards and stuttering rhythms, it raises the whole album onto another astral plane altogether and confirms Future Pilot's position as one of the most inventive musicians in Britain today. He used to be in The Soup Dragons, you know.