Beak
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THE REVIEW

The krautrock has already been discussed in every possible way. Since the Pandora's box was opened by Julian Cope's essay, “Krautorcksampler” in '96, everyone began to discover everything they could in the dense avant-garde rock scene of Germany in the '60s and '70s.

For years it seemed (and I fell for it too) that any group was essential and an initiator (willingly or not) of any modern musical trend, from dubstep to post rock and so on.

Fortunately, with the receding due to overexposure, the actual value of many groups has been able to decant and remain afloat, in accordance with a less obsessive search anxiety (at the moment this dynamic is shifting to the ethnic and third-world psych area, damn you Animal Collective!).

The second album of BEAK, side project of Geoff Barrow, the mind behind Portishead, fits perfectly to talk about this arduous process of self-analysis. For those who missed the previous effort, our Geoff showcased a debut compressed between cosmic gusts reminiscent of Tangerine Dream/Klaus Schulze and motorik sound of Neu/Can. Fabulous in some parts, a bit wordy in others, but with a fundamental flaw: the lack of "songs," replaced by reclusively internal landscapes.

In this second album, however, good old Geoff seems to have found the perfect balance, focusing the rhythms and atmospheres into songs that, although often generous in length, are well-balanced between devotion to the origins and genuine psychedelic energy.
From the distorted organ intro of “Gaol” to a distillate of pure Düsseldorf circa 1972, among Harmonia, Neu, and Can (“Yatton” and “Spinning Top”), calmer moments, between the cosmic (“Ladies' Mile”) and singer-songwriter style (“Deserters”) until the final noise shift of “Kidney”, among the tracks that deviate most from the Teutonic blueprint of the album.

A mandatory Chapeau for “Wulfstan II”, with an almost Hawkwind-like appeal, driven for all 7 minutes by an obsessive guitar riff, doubled by a velvetian six-string in the middle, yet always on the edge of palpable and threatening tension until the final climax.