Artist: Beak>
Album: Beak>
Year: 2009
Grade: 4 pretzels
Beak> is a strange and intriguing sideproject by Geoff Barrow, one of the founding members of Portishead and their master of all things beat and rhythm related. Rarely do you hear about drummers/percussionists releasing sideprojects or solo albums, but Barrow isn’t exactly your average, snare-smashing drummer and Beak> is a lot more than just a few stray ideas that weren’t fit for the next Portishead album. Despite Barrow’s well-documented love of hip-hop, Beak> looks towards a whole different musical genre for inspiration: krautrock.
In the early 70s, Germany had a particularly antsy and artsy generation on its hands and many of these youngsters decided to form bands. However, rather than gravitating towards the druggy excess of Westernized rock, these college-educated kids formed bands like Can, Neu! and Kraftwerk, creating hypermodern music that tore huge holes through established musical conventions. Perhaps one of the most striking innovations that came out of the scene (eventually dubbed “krautrock”) was the motorik beat, a relentless, repetitive rhythm that evoked the hypnotizing ups and downs of driving on the autobahn.
In Beak>, Barrow utterly and completely embraces the motorik concept. The majority of these songs chug insistently forward, never really becoming up-tempo but always retaining a sense of momentum. The thudding bass and crisp drumming of “Pill” is a prime example. “I Know” speeds things up somewhat, but still has that robotic sameness to its rhythm that becomes oddly compelling over the course of an entire song. Disembodied voices float over the top, drowned in a fog of distortion and voice-altering effects. It’s a stark, cold and ultimately very dislocating experience.
I can’t help but feel that Beak> will end of up being one of the more ignored album releases of the year. Sideprojects don’t usually get much press, especially ones that owe huge debts to arty German music from almost forty years ago. However, I think this album deserves much more praise and a higher profile. It’s one of the most enjoyably strange albums I’ve heard all year and proudly wears its influences on its sleeve. Despite Barrow’s presence bringing it attention, Beak> is an entirely different creature from Portishead and should be treated as a completely separate entity.
In the early 70s, Germany had a particularly antsy and artsy generation on its hands and many of these youngsters decided to form bands. However, rather than gravitating towards the druggy excess of Westernized rock, these college-educated kids formed bands like Can, Neu! and Kraftwerk, creating hypermodern music that tore huge holes through established musical conventions. Perhaps one of the most striking innovations that came out of the scene (eventually dubbed “krautrock”) was the motorik beat, a relentless, repetitive rhythm that evoked the hypnotizing ups and downs of driving on the autobahn.
In Beak>, Barrow utterly and completely embraces the motorik concept. The majority of these songs chug insistently forward, never really becoming up-tempo but always retaining a sense of momentum. The thudding bass and crisp drumming of “Pill” is a prime example. “I Know” speeds things up somewhat, but still has that robotic sameness to its rhythm that becomes oddly compelling over the course of an entire song. Disembodied voices float over the top, drowned in a fog of distortion and voice-altering effects. It’s a stark, cold and ultimately very dislocating experience.
I can’t help but feel that Beak> will end of up being one of the more ignored album releases of the year. Sideprojects don’t usually get much press, especially ones that owe huge debts to arty German music from almost forty years ago. However, I think this album deserves much more praise and a higher profile. It’s one of the most enjoyably strange albums I’ve heard all year and proudly wears its influences on its sleeve. Despite Barrow’s presence bringing it attention, Beak> is an entirely different creature from Portishead and should be treated as a completely separate entity.
No comments:
Post a Comment