BEAK> - >>

Having already self-released 2012 full-lengths from his Quakers and DROKK collaborations, Geoff Barrow has had an especially fruitful past year in the studio; this follow-up (if you don't count their crucial role as Anika's backup band) from Barrow's live-off-the-floor trio with Matt Williams and Billy Fuller, though, is an especially striking, darkly menacing effort, full of off-kilter oscillator wobbles, pristinely recorded Silver Apples-style drum primitivism, and vocals muffled to the point of indiscernibility.

"The groggy post-punk fidget of Bristol's Beak> is erected on antiquated, simplistic, intentionally demanding limits. The trio write in the studio, record in one room at the same time, don't do overdubs, and use outdated digital recording rigs that have as much capability as a 24-track tape machine...The result of their labors is masterful second album >>..., a perfect mix of robotic human rhythms intertwining with humanized electronic textures: krautrock grooves melt into This Heat avant-punk minimalism, and Devo performs through a mouth full of cottonballs and a stomach full of Codeine." - SPIN

"[This] trio’s Neu!-like pulsations are boosted by droning synths ('The Gaul'), crunchy guitar ('Wulfstan II'), suffocating bass ('Kidney') and disquietingly distant vocals ('Deserters'). Menacing and paranoid, this second album makes satisfying sense in 2012, and even leaves you grateful to live in a chaotic world." - NME