Beak> - Beak>

Portishead’s main brain takes it down a gear

Geoff Barrow has recently claimed that the music he makes with Beak>, a largely instrumental Bristol trio, is not about “forwarding” music like it is in his day job (Portishead). Instead, this is about working to templates and strict rules.

So it’s perhaps no surprise that these 13 “no edits or rehearsals”/one-take offerings rarely match the laboured intensity or soul of Portishead, often trudging through motorik noise and, occasionally, terrifying bleakness. Influences that coloured much of PH’s Third still abound, but they’re pandered to, rather than used as tipping points. The Monks, Can and The Silver Apples all seem present and correct (Flax Bourton and Backwell, specifically, are practically locked grooves), but it’s not all head-down plodding; no, there’s “fun” too! The maniacal Barrow Gurney is a mashed electronic feedback endurance test that feels like it will never end, but you sort of miss it when it eventually does. Like banging your head against a wall.

Beak> is not, however, a difficult listen. There’s much to please fans of Stereolab, or even recent Sonic Youth, but quite why Barrow has pushed himself into doing it when, by his own admission, he’s not progressing, is a mystery.

3 stars 3 stars 3 stars

Invada | INV 100 CD

Reviewed by Jake Kennedy
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