LIMITED TO 311 HAND-NUMBERED COPIES
One of the hidden treasures of the Spanish ’90s garage-revival scene, Madrid’s Beat In blended beat, folk-rock, and pop, heavily influenced by bands like The Remains, Byrds, Zombies, Hollies, Kinks, Easybeats…
Songs full of melody, energy, and a true ’60s spirit that never made it beyond demo tapes are now rescued and restored by Guerssen Records to celebrate our 30th anniversary.
In the mid-’90s, Antoni, founder of Guerssen, received a cassette with demos by a Madrid band called Beat In. Despite the home-recorded sound, those songs had something special that hooked him: irresistible melodies, sparkling harmonies, and a clear connection to names like The Remains, The Byrds, and the West Coast sound.
For years, they dreamed of doing something with that material at Guerssen. They tracked down the main songwriters, Marcos de Ben and Fernando Maestú, who sent us more recordings. The project slowly began to take shape, and it finally crystallized when we discovered that Jesús Sanz—respected music tastemaker and someone Alex Carretero at Guerssen followed on social media —had been the band’s bassist. With Guerssen’s 30th anniversary approaching, they knew it was the perfect moment: now or never.
Although Guerssen is known for rescuing psychedelic rarities from the ’60s and ’70s, releasing the Beat In recordings makes perfect sense. In the label’s early days they were already putting out contemporary garage and neo-psychedelic bands, and Beat In fit naturally within that spirit. Besides, if in the ’90s they were rediscovering music from thirty years earlier, why not do the same today with the hidden gems of the ’90s?
Active between 1989 and 1992 and friends with bands like Sex Museum, Los Potros (with whom they shared many influences), or Snap!, Beat In were a group deeply in love with ’60s pop but with a personality of their own. In a scene dominated by raw and dirty garage sounds, they stood out for their melodic side. Not for nothing did they cited influences such as The Remains, The Byrds, The Zombies, The Kinks, The Beach Boys, The Dave Clark Five, The Hollies, Pete Dello…
They left behind a good handful of home demos with memorable songs, and it’s quite possible that, had they continued, they might have become one of the first bands of the Spanish indie movement. In 2026, Beat In’s songs deserve to be heard by any fan of the very best music inspired by the 1960s.
