Beak>

Seems that ~everybody~ can listen to this album now, right here: http://beak.bandcamp.com/releases

Oddly enough the closest analog I have for this album is (my favourite band) Electrelane?

how is the new one? i don't wanna be a debbie downer but i thought there was something kinda ... contentedly retro about them at first. it would be cool if they were branching out from motorik-revival a lil. electrelane have all of those cool other directions, beak seemed sorta one note to me.

This is my favourite G Barrow-related release to date. Don't skip ahead but there's a guitar solo halfway through the record that destroys, ohhhh mannnn this is the BEST ALBUM

And yeah I get what you're saying; listen and get back to me, and don't jump around this album is a slow build

Wouldn't have made that connection at all myself... Beak> seems a bit more Tortoise/math influenced than Electrelane? But I've not listened to this one yet, will stick it on. Adored the last one.

SPOILER: guitar solo
will listen & check back. nyow-nyow-nyow-nyow guitar thrash was always my least favourite electrelane mode but i'm interested now.

Okay, I'm loving this. Quite different from the first, I think? 'Spinning Top' has a real nice Silver Apples thing going on... though maybe *too* obvious? But then, how many people pay tribute to the Silver Apples? Not that many.

'Wulfstan II' is the #1 keeper on this imho

xp ha ha no the guitar solo is like all-time, like Mark Shippy walked in and played it into a DI. It's on "Wulfstan II" for cheaters. The only two middling tracks on this record are considerately placed at the end.

driest drums in the west

yeah, i'm really digging this. agree w/ schlump about the last one being a little too under the shadow of its influences, but this steps out enough for me to deal with the occasional straight up Playin' the Oldies moments.

Glad to hear this is good, I'm anxious to hear it as I loved the first one. If it wasn't pissing down rain outside right now, I'd walk up to my local and see if they got it in yet.

haha just got to the guitar solo

yeah this is good stuff. can't decide if the vocals are a little too superfluous or if they're the perfect thing.

this band suxxx yall got chumped

Oh dang. There I was, thinking I was very much enjoying this, when yeah verily, the scales were removed from my eyes. Praise be to Lamp!

your sarcasm is very unbecoming

Your Whiney G. Weingarten Jr. schtick is very unbecoming.

wait is this a new one? i liked the first one but never ever ever listen to it

really? i think it makes mr seem older and more distinguished (xp)

i know i made a Beak> thread for the debut album but it's unsearchable.

glad they are back because i really enjoyed the last album.

Beeok>

i'm unclear how portishead has time and energy for two beak> albums and a hip hop album w/ 41 guests on it

Easy when you take 8 years between albums.

Wow. This is fantastic stuff. Escaping the weight of influence by being better than most of the time/place that's influencing them. Not a total surprise (after the total surprise of Porishead's '3'), but welcome.

Been listening to immense amounts of Can lately (more than usual) and this is not suffering by the comparison at all.

the original "wulfstan" is among my favorites for this decade so far... this new version might be even better!

so... this is pretty fucking cool, one song in

i can't get enough of this record... the songs are so dark and strange yet all of them seem to be sticking around in my head. good drum sound too. prolly the most solid record i've heard this year so far.

more people should be going nuts over this IMO

It sounds exactly like a Can record but I mean I really love Can so.

it's a good but uneven record - the kosmiche bits are really good, the shitty goth bits aren't. it's def more good than bad, though.

not hearing any goths bits - loving this although might be a tad repetitive

Keep meaning to pick this up after comign across Youtubes of a couple of tracks live when i was doing my big motorik beat playlist.

regarding the can comparison, yeah it's the same type of music (kraut/experimental/freakout/improv) but i hear lots of freshness.. i dont think i've heard any can-influenced stuff performed or arranged or recorded quite as well probably since Liars "they were wrong so we drowned" .. Cave from Chicago is cool also, but I think I like this Beak> album more than anything from Liars or Cave

regarding "a tad repetitive," i hear "meditative" more than repetitive, and i dont think it hurts the album at all.. and plus "Wulfstan 2" is the longest song on this and it totally rules

To my ears this has way more in common with Neu! + VU than Can. Doesn't have the wild modulations, cosmic deepness, virtuosity, experimentation, which is totally a good thing IMO I love how grey and static it is, can see this getting a lot more play this winter.

youre right, it does sound closer to neu! haha

I listen very closely to this album, looking for evidence that it wasn't recorded entirely live off the floor. There's maybe one or two giveaways?

It certainly feels that way. I love the production on this record, it sounds like records sound before they go off to get mixed and mastered

This Beak album is great. Still getting into it after my third or so listen. But man, has anyone heard the Drokk record with Ben Salisbury? It really is fucking awesome, Carpenter to the core, almost to the point of cheating, but it is a majestic sound.

Anyone heard the hip-hop Quakers thing yet? Barrow seems to be on a path of greatness atm.

"Wulfstan II" just pwned me

man it is impossible to search for this thread title

It certainly feels that way. I love the production on this record, it sounds like records sound before they go off to get mixed and mastered

Def.. Only album released this year I've felt compelled to listen to like five times over the first day I heard it.

http://www.google.com.au/search?q=beak%3E+site%3Ailxor.com

"Wulfstan II" just pwned me

― cake-like Lady Gaga (DJP), Friday, 21 September 2012 16:45 (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this x 1000

The only two middling tracks on this record are considerately placed at the end.

not sure about this comment tbh. i really like 'deserters'. 'kidney' takes a while to get there but the little build round the 3.20 mark is nice.

tried but i'm not really feeling this tbh

Yeah they're not bad or even really middling, this is just a great album. Favourite first track in a long while

yeah 'the gaul' rules. love the whole album (and i only listened to the first one like twice)

I like this album so far, but it leans awfully heavily on easily recognizable lifts from specific krautrock bands.

also it annoys me as a drummer that the drummer tries so hard to sound like Jaki Liebezeit and is way less good than Jaki Liebezeit

I like "Eggdog." Keyboards sound a bit like Robert Wyatt. That's as far as I'm going to go with comparisons, though, 'cos then we get into "Limited Edition ORIGINAL TAGO MAGO COVER of 25" land of sad.

ha

any drums like this are gonna owe a debt to jaki really. this guy is pretty wonky but i think it totally works. it's really difficult to record with hot rods and make the kit sound this cool

Bought 6 tracks off this after listening to the whole thing on spotify. This is some fantastic shit. Was almost as impressed by Drokk but not quite.

wulfstan ii (riff) is the only thing that wears thin for me.. don't know if it's the overt stylization of the track, or that it may be the most realized track on the album. otherwise, the songs are hard to pin down (time-origin -wise). track 3 is the only overtly can-like (imo) of the album. "eggdog" is a favorite, and everything after wulfstan is <i>great</i>. "kidney" clean guitar sounds kinda recall sy's expressway (slide-y tones). the the loose drumming throughout is a virtue.

I agree re: Wulfstan II riff; I really like this album, but that riff is weakish sauce to these ears.

so how does this line up w/ the previous album on ipecac?

First album is cool but not as good, Anika album is very good, >> is best of all.

Thing about Wulfstan II is that it's more fully realized on record which makes that riff too insistent (although the dopey little impotent resolution is priceless) but I bet it's a high point of their live set, I want to see this album live in the worst way

hating the riff in "Wulfstan II" makes the Flying Spaghetti Monster cry

Drummer in no way is trying to ape Jacki.

― comedy is unnatural and abhorrent (Scik Mouthy), Thursday, October 11, 2012 4:19 AM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

okay this album is great so far (late pass plz) but I think you should listen to Spinning Top again.

that said, this is great and exactly what I would want a Clinic album to sound like in 2012

(which is the second new cool album I've compared to Clinic in the past couple months even though this is actually not that new anymore, which just adds to lameness factor bah!...)

what was the 1st one?

Feeling this way more today than I was a few months ago.

feeling this greater than or equal to how i was feeling it in early oct. more or less, to some degree.

Moon Duo (in all fairness I just mentioned the comparison to the leadoff single + video)

actually listening to the new Moon Duo album in full, I do think it makes a decent foil to this album

New single is on Spotify. Nice driving beat, arpeggiated bass line, in/out/in/out of consonance synth drone, wandering vocals, a little taste of pop towards the end, carefully crafted parts that surprise in their repetition. Very nice!

I saw them a few weeks ago and found the show damn damn boring. They had some kind of "lol we're in *that* London" vibe going on. Also seemed to have some kind of ironic distance from what they were playing, I didn't feel like they were particularly into it at any point. There wasn't any improvisation. I'm sure I'd read how they just kind of jammed a few times and these songs are the result of that. Why not give us a bit of that excitement live, rather than playing each song exactly as it is on the CD?

Of course, I can imagine a lot of people hating the show I'd liked to have seen, my girlfriend loved them.

I saw them a few weeks ago and found the show damn damn boring. They had some kind of "lol we're in *that* London" vibe going on. Also seemed to have some kind of ironic distance from what they were playing, I didn't feel like they were particularly into it at any point. There wasn't any improvisation. I'm sure I'd read how they just kind of jammed a few times and these songs are the result of that. Why not give us a bit of that excitement live, rather than playing each song exactly as it is on the CD?

I agree with everything in this review, but I was at the second night so I guessed it might just be fatigue from a long week.

I assumed the gig would be less songs, more jamming but the live tracks were pretty much identical to the album tracks. bit of a disappointment.

and I wouldn't think that Beak> would be an album band.

i found two songs they recorded with the singer Anika a few years ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVNWSXdUSHE

You know that they were the backing band on her whole album right?

The album's pretty good but the live shows were something else.

Just got back from seeing these. They're a lot funner live than on record.

Glad to hear it- I'm seeing them in Philly next weekend!

xp I heard about it today, but it says they co-wrote only 2 of the songs.

Well yeah, but a bunch of those songs were also cover versions.

Is it too cheeky to wear a Can shirt to a BEAK> show? My guess is yes.

Do it. And paint it to say CAN>

So how's the new album? I haven't really been paying attention to their soundtrack work, but the show I saw them play last year was very good and I liked "Sex Music", so I should probably check out the new LP.

apparently it is very relaxed and laid-back. the song i heard was a simple guitar tune with restrained singing. i liked it. quite different from the krautrock stuff of the last album(s).

not unlike an evil richard dawson, mxlx arises to plumb the soul of this land. this is going to be one amazing album, and it's also going to hurt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsI2gfL9XwY

please to be hyped

Ooh what this? I'm seeing it's from Bristol and sounds like a similar vibe. Is it a member of Beak?

Former member. I toured UK with him! He was extremely fun, very prolific, very talented, and what a Brit would describe as “absolutely mental”

I'm a little bit pally with him these days and wouldn't dispute any of that. His album from a couple of years ago as 'Won't' is a truly staggering achievement imo. He claims that he records everything in a sort of fugue state and is merely a vessel

Ya he absolutely rules. I remember I played a set and came backstage to find he’d drunk our entire booze rider and was eating a pizza he’d pulled from a dumpster. I love him, truly an agent of gregarious chaos

haha that sounds like the guy. well there's a whole album of concentrated That Energy coming up, although if anyone wants a foretaste, his stellar 2021 output is helpfully provided below:

https://kindarad.bandcamp.com/album/nebula-rasa

https://kindarad.bandcamp.com/album/wont

Latter is something I can't get anyone to listen to cos of the track lengths but it really is one of my favourite albums at this point

There must be something really charming about someone who could drink your alcohol and still be regarded as a good un'.

I've seen both Beak line ups. I believe the guy you're referring to played keys with one hand and chugged 2 entire beers with his free hand before the song was over. It was pretty amazing.

Also they just announced a new album in 2024!

It was “our alcohol”, technically, but yeah, he’s as good as they come

and so is his album (which you have to buy to hear) (so, this depends on how much you trust me/him)

https://kindarad.bandcamp.com/album/saint

would describe as 'psych (as in psychotic)-doom Arabesques of apocalyptic weight, forged by a man in the grips of madness, hunger and somehow having the best synth sounds'

closing track does the 'post-rock lullaby' thing about as well as it's ever been done

Surprise release for new album

Only starting first listen - nothing shocking but I always like the sound, it's sounding good.

Didn't care for the first track but then it gets really really really good really quickly

Right-ear high-harmony vocal part on last track "Cellophane" would've a perfect (but maybe too on-the-nose) spot to feature Beth G. in a cheeky cameo

This is great so far

that first track actually really grabbed me, "in a future age" chords with panda bear echo kinda starting as a church dirge and kinda growing into its own thing

For most of this I kept having a nagging intrusive thought (“why not just listen to Ege Bamyasi?”) and the harmonizing on “Hungry Like Me” was annoyingly Bon Iverish but getting doomy on “Cellophane” was great.

Beak> is so great

Looks like I'm going to need to listen to this record if only because the cover art is so good.

But also -- I'm loving everything I've sampled yesterday & today of MXLX. Getting some late-era Pain of Salvation vibes, if Daniel Gildenlöw were still an underground artist. I can hear where the "evil Richard Dawson" bit comes in. But clearly this guy's on a mission all his own. Going straight to the top of the "investigate as soon as time permits/I find an exit out of the Yellow Magic Orchestra universe slash black hole" list.

>>>> is so great!

taking sides: >>>> v lives outgrown?

luckily we don't have to take sides and can keep them both!

seriously though, i love them both and couldn't choose, but they both occupy such different spaces.