Beak>

A trio crafting dense and atmospheric music inspired by dub, Krautrock, and the Beach Boys, BEAK> feature Portishead producer/multi-instrumentalist Geoff Barrow, bassist Billy Fuller, and keyboardist Matt Williams. Fuller and Williams are also members of Fuzz Against Junk and Team Brick, respectively, both bands that are signed to Barrow's Invada Records imprint. The trio got its beginning at a jam session during Invada's 2008 Christmas party, then began playing as BEAK> early in 2009. They recorded their debut album in 12 days with a strict set of rules: the trio members recorded all of their parts in the same room, and no overdubbing was allowed. BEAK> arrived in fall 2009 via Ipecac in the U.S. and Invada in the U.K., just before the group made its official live debut at the Ten Years of ATP Festival. That year, Barrow met and signed the German political journalist turned post-punk singer Anika, with whom BEAK> recorded her 2010 eponymous debut album. He also kept busy with a number of other Invada-related projects, including Quakers, an underground hip-hop collective, and Drokk, a collaboration with composer Ben Salisbury inspired by the long-running comic strip Judge Dredd. Quakers' self-titled album and Drokk: Music Inspired by Mega-City One both arrived in early 2012, shortly before a new BEAK> album, >>, was released. Later that year, the band issued a split single with DD/MM/YYYY. The group returned in 2015 with the BEAK> 's score to Belgian director Tom Geens' psychological drama Couple in a Hole arrived in May 2016. ~ Heather Phares