Loop - Sonacy “Style wise, it’s incredibly different, going back to thinking about guitars andguitar sounds. Obviously you have to take into consideration things like percussiveelements such as drums, which I haven’t been using in my other projects; but this isthe mind set that makes up Loop.”So says Robert Hampson, the indefatigable visionary behind inspirationalsonic architects Loop, whose eagerly anticipated fourth LP Sonancy (Latin for “tocreate noise”) is the perfect document for these strange times. Dynamic, dystopian,righteously angry and unashamedly Loop-ian, it’s an album that marks a vital re-emergence for Hampson and co.Formed in South London in the mid-1980s, Loop blazed a trail with theirpotent mix of motorik beats and heavy guitar riffs, recording a trio of brilliant albumsthat set the indie charts alight before imploding in 1990 after the release of albumnumber three, A Gilded Eternity. As critics enthused at the time, Loop were thesound of Suicide jamming with the Stooges aboard a spaceship built by Hawkwindand piloted by CAN. They were post-psychedelic, pre-shoegaze figureheads in aworld of anodyne pop jangle and baggy rhythms, and even their closestcontemporaries like Spacemen 3 and My Bloody Valentine didn’t plough such adistinctive furrow as theirs.After Loop’s demise, Hampson pivoted away from guitars with electronicproject Main, before moving to France and hooking up with fabled experimentalcollective Groupe de Recherches Musical (GRM). Loop were a distant memory, onethat Hampson seemed unwilling to revisit, so it was a delightful surprise when theyremerged in 2013 to play and curate the All Tomorrow’s Parties (ATP) festival,followed by a performance personally requested by Robert Smith of The Cure atMeltdown Festival in 2018.“Through that long period when I often said I wouldn’t reform Loop, I didn’tmiss it, I didn’t feel the need to have it in my life,” Hampson explains. “It was workingwith people like Barry Hogan at ATP and the re-mastered reissues of our originalalbums coming out that sparked my interest again. It took me a few years to becomfortable to say, ‘Yes, we can do this again, we’re relevant’. I’m not someone whowill do something for the sake of doing something.”Along with the live shows, there also came new music in the shape of a 2015EP called Array 1, the first in a planned trio of EPs of protracted tracks whichHampson eventually abandoned in favour of the more direct pleasures of theirastounding new full length Sonancy.“I dropped the idea of the EP series and went in an entirely different direction.I started writing songs that were much more immediate, tighter, dare I say moreaggressive – although not aggressive in the old Loop way, but with a spikiness. Itneeded to sound more modern. When Main petered out, I started working withpeople like the GRM in France, so I went in the direction of electroacoustic musiqueconcrète. Loop is completely removed from that, but there are parts of the Array EPand Sonancy that go towards the more experimental sounds. It’s not just guitarthrash.“My motto has always been ‘Forward’ and I always try to do something newwith each record. I always try to push different influences in there. Specifically for thisrecord, I wanted to counter the idea of the Array EP, on which all the tracks werelonger and drawn out. They still had the motorik element of bands like Neu! andCAN, but Loop’s always had that. With Sonancy I also wanted to take a post-punksound, spin it on its head and mix it with a psych influence. A total gumbo. Whichhas always been Loop, this mash up of spicy rhythms.”Indeed, with its rich mixture of styles and cadences, Sonancy is the sound ofLoop in the 21 st century, Hampson’s intense guitar work anchored by propulsivebacking in service of songs with clinically dissociative titles such as ‘Eolian’, ‘Supra’,‘Penumbra’ and ‘Fermion’.“People who know my music well know that from the last Loop albumonwards, my interest in chemistry, science and astronomy have come to the fore,”Hampson elaborates. “I use those titles but I use them in an abstract context. Withthe cutback, minimalist sound I wanted for this record, I wanted to do that with thelyrics and the titles as well. It’s very immediate. The songs are shorter in length, thelyrics more minimal than ever.“I’m often asked to print the lyrics but I want people to approach our recordswith a sense of mystery, so you don’t necessarily know what’s going on. You maycall it challenging. I’m influenced by J.G. Ballard and Philip K. Dick to a certaindegree. Lyrically, if you listen to it intently, there’s this dystopian outlook. There’s alot of anger in there. I don’t like seeing the wanton abuse of power, which is whatwe’re seeing right now and I’m disgusted by it. I wouldn’t say Sonancy is bleakthough because I’m one of those people who believes there’s a chance for change.That may be naïve, but I always hope that people will come out of this coma they allseem to be in. I’ve imbued the lyrics with a little bit of hope.”Hope is a powerful force, one perhaps needed more than ever today.Pandemic lockdowns stretched the making of Sonancy, recorded at long-term Loopsoundman Joe Garcia’s Bristol-based studio Joe’s Garage, from an expected coupleof weeks to almost a year. Still, if recording was elongated, the experience wasmade easier by the interplay between the members of what is the most enduringline-up of Loop to date.“I formed Loop, I’m the sole original member, I’ll just carry on, but the currentLoop line-up has been pretty stable for the last six or seven years. We have Wayne[Maskel, drums] and Hugo [Morgan, bass] from The Heads, who a lot of peopleknow, a fantastic rhythm section, and Dan [Boyd] on second guitar, who offered ushis services.“I was very anti-guitar for a long time. You hear progressively through theMain period the guitar fading away. I just felt that it didn’t have any place in what Iwas sonically trying to do and I didn’t miss it at all. Now, having a guitar in my handsdoesn’t bother me anymore as long as I can do something useful with it; and workingwith the current line-up we have, it’s very enjoyable indeed. Long may it reign.”Today, Loop stand as innovators in a musical world that has embraced andfollowed their defiantly individual sound – there are hundreds of contemporary neo-psych artists out there who arguably would not exist without Loop’s pioneeringmusic, music that continues to evolve and grow in the most startling of ways onSonancy.“It crosses my mind that there are a myriad of those kinds of bands out there,and if I’ve influenced anybody, wonderful. Ultimately, however, Loop is Loop. Iwouldn’t call us space rock, I wouldn’t call us psych, I wouldn’t call us Krautrock.We’re Loop. Whatever comes out under the name Loop is Loop.”Welcome to Sonancy, a sound that is most definitely Loop.Tracklist:1. Interference2. Eolian3. Supra4. Penumbra I5. Isochrone6. Halo7. Fermion8. Penumbra II9. Axion10. Aurora
