by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
At this point in time, Beak> need no introduction. The trio’s prior accomplishments are all well and good, but over the past fifteen years they’ve proven over and over again that they live in no one’s shadow. As the band want less and less to do with the music industry (and who the hell can blame them), they’ve put more focus on why they’re still doing what they do, reconnecting in the studio to capture that ever glistening spark, opting for a matter of simplicity. In turn it’s tempting to call >>>>, the band’s new album, a return to form, except for the fact that Beak> never really lost their form, they’ve only been getting better with each successive release. It’s not so much a return to form but more a personal rejuvenation, the sound of a band revitalized by their own creative leaps, and they’ve made what could be considered a masterpiece in the process.
Geoff Barrow (drums/vocals), Billy Fuller (bass), and Will Young (keys) have an understanding of where they’re going, even if the lines of the map have blurred and smudged. They’ve played together long enough to develop a synchronicity in their performances, providing each other the space to adapt and the patience to explore. That earned sense of trust feels apparent in the progressions found throughout >>>>, a record in constant motion yet never seemingly in a rush to get anywhere. There’s an oceanic feel to it, ebbing and flowing like waves crashing into the shoreline, a natural rhythm in an ever changing world. There’s a brightness reminiscent of a breezy calm, a throbbing heat stroke inducing pulse, and the vast darkness, each moment an inevitable part of the dynamic whole. Their signature blend of krautrock rhythms, analog synth exploration, and droning psych pop melodies is engrained with depth, a cosmic current of fluid ideas made uniquely human and at times delicate (despite the band’s charmingly salty disposition).
“Strawberry Line” does a profound job of setting the tone, the crawl of mourning organs creating a soft focus and a deliberate pacing as each note is given nearly full resonance. There’s a distance that occurs when Barrow’s vocals eventually emerge, strewn with a hazy disorientation, a calm reflection delivered in liminal spaces. As the song continues its evolution, the bass begins to rattle the framework, pulsating with a deeply melodic groove, snaking around a tightly wound path before the drums make their first appearance half way into the voyage. The restraint shown hits that much harder upon impact, Beak> distill a graceful slow dipped acidic dexterity in the song’s expansive structure. With one of the best rhythm sections in music, their motorik surges come in fits and starts, the open intervals greatly serving as a juxtaposition to their capacity for dazzling density. Both Barrow and Fuller play with what feels like an inherent sense of melody woven into their rhythms, slinking between locked in movements and amorphous freedom.
>>>> is primed to move between hypnotic boogie on tracks like “The Seal” and “Ah Yeh” and the band’s more meditative side captured on “Denim” and “Cellophane,” skittering between a sense of wonder and dread in equal measure. For every buoyant drift into mesmerizing territory, there’s also a cataclysmic counterpoint and a brain melting groove (seriously, give Billy Fuller his damn flowers). As “The Seal” comes colliding toward a close on an spidery beat that pairs jazz fusion over a layer of krautrock repetition, the warped and wonderful “Windmill Hill” follows with the immediacy of a comet hurtling toward the desert, the atmosphere thick and caustic. The same can be said for the reverberating tranquility found on “Bloody Miles,” the song’s introduction reminiscent of watching the wavering rings of a rain puddle until the cascading rhythm eclipses the serenity with taut rolling fills.
Then there’s “Hungry Are We,” the album’s centerpiece, a song that feels almost like the spiritual successor to >>>’s “When We Fall”. Beak> have proven once again that they truly stand in a league all their own when making psychedelic folk tunes, and they do it without retreading upon the magic of their prior album’s finale. Gentle and intricately composed, it feels as though the rhythm on “Hungry Are We” is super glued into the pocket, dreamy and impeccably adrift, and then the band swirl into an unfiltered touch of prog rock greatness, swaying between excess and subtletly with sheer brilliance. >>>> is an immersive experience, pulling us deeper into the world as Beak> know it, a place where complexity and ambiance go hand in hand, droning and pensive one moment and jubilantly grooving the next.
Let us not forget the album art. While such things shouldn’t play into our perception of the music, >>>> has what is sure to be the best album cover of the year. RIP to Alfie Barrow, immortalized with laser eyes.