On the heels of Portishead's Beth Gibbons releasing her debut solo album Lives Outgrown, the out-rock trio helmed by the band's Geoff Barrow (alongside Billy Fuller and Will Young), BEAK>, have surprise-released their fourth studio album today.
Marking BEAK>'s first new record in the five-plus years since 2018's >>>, the nine-track >>>> is out now via Temporary Residence Ltd.
"At its core we always wanted it to be head music (music for the 'heads,' not headphone music) — listened to as an album, not as individual songs," the band explained in a press release. "This is why we are releasing this album with no singles or promo tracks."
They continued, "The recording and writing initially began in a house called Pen Y Bryn in Talsarnau, Wales, in the fallout from the weirdness of the COVID days. Remote and with only ourselves and the view of Portmeirion in the distance, we got to work. With the opening track, 'Strawberry Line' (our tribute to our dear furry friend Alfie Barrow, who appears on the album's cover) as the metronomic guide for the album, we then resumed recording, as before, at Invada studios in Bristol, whilst still touring around Europe and North/South America."
The trio concluded, "After playing hundreds of gigs and festivals over the years we felt that touring had started to influence our writing to the point we weren't sure who we were anymore. So we decided to go back to the origins of where we were at on our first album — with zero expectations and just playing together in a room."
Listen to BEAK> get back to their roots on >>>> below. Copies of the album on various physical formats are now available for pre-order.