New Portishead Album "Quakers"

Discussion
1

Well almost a new Portishead album…Portishead man Geoff Barrow and Portishead engineer 7-Stu-7 team up with Ozzy producer Katalyst and a ton of emcees to create this Quakers record. I snagged this along with the new Dr.John record…I’ve only listened to it a few times so at the moment I find myself prefering the instrumentals…the cd comes with the vocal album & instrumentals.

Check out the tune and a review below…

WAR DRUMS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eun923PnJgk#ws]Quakers - War Drums f. Phat Kat & Guilty Simpson

"At 41 tracks, Quakers is a behemoth of a record. It’s hip-hop to the core: samples and crisp beats clashing violently beneath a roll call of emcees who run the gamut from well-known indie stars like Dead Prez, Prince Po, and the ubiquitous Akil of Jurassic 5 (all of whom are in fine lyrical fettle) to virtual unknowns like Coin Locker Kid.

Sonically, it’s a perfect fit with Stones Throw, the label that championed Madlib and Dilla. The breaks contain solid funk, jazz, soul and orchestral sounds, but they are far from the obvious choices that lesser producers might have used: these are either dusted, rare breaks, found by dedicated vinyl-chasers, or they’re sampled from live instrumentation. Either way, they are totally original. The tracks with synth-based breaks are even stronger, exuding a powerful, cinematic menace.

With beats by Fuzzface (aka Portishead’s Geoff Barrow), 7-Stu-7 (Portishead’s engineer), and Australian producer Katalyst, one might expect a disjointed outing, with the three producers and thirty-five emcees straining against each others’ aesthetic sensibilities, but the opposite is true. Quakers has a remarkable coherence. Highlights: What Chew Want’s brassy, minor-chord horn-stabs, with the loping, stoned flow of emcee Tone Tank; the space-age organ funk and chopped drums of Coin Op Kid’s Russia With Love; the synth-powered swagger of Jobless and Dark City Lights, and all of the Quakers instrumentals.

This is solid, exciting, experimental hip-hop with an old-school soul. Destined to become a classic, it has the epic sweep of the old Quannum collaborations: a self-assured reliance on the core values and aesthetics of hip-hop, cheek by jowl with serious experimentation and boundary-pushing. Lyrically and musically, it’s a triumph. Buy it on vinyl."

2

This record is all rap and therefore nothing at all like Portishead.

3

This record is all rap and therefore nothing at all like Portishead.

???

It features Geoff Barrow and 7-Stu-7 of Portishead…AND…it features the instrumental set if you buy the cd rather than the vinyl so you can pretend it’s Portishead…except it’ll be better.

4

I don’t think hip-hop when I think portishead.

5

Wurd, thanks for this bro.

I hear that Portis vibe in those tracks.

6

Portishead is as much about Beth Gibbon’s voice as Geoff Barrow’s production, as distinct as it is.

7

I don’t think hip-hop when I think portishead.

That’s because you’re not as cool as us Hippitty Hoppers.

8

Portishead is as much about Beth Gibbon’s voice as Geoff Barrow’s production, as distinct as it is.

Exactly.
It’d be like if Paul and Al got back together and put out an album that sounded like TMIATTT, but they got Joanna Newsom to do all the vocals. It just wouldn’t be what I wanted to hear.

9

Portishead were/are WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY over rated & over hyped. They did a few good albums and I’m sure they did/do put on good live shows but people need stop being lazy bastards and bow down to Smith & Mighty and kiss their ass a million times more than Portishead when it comes to the “Bristol sound”. Oh hang on…that’d mean actually digging for records rather than having records thrown at them by HMV & Walmart.

Press release for Smith & Mighty’s Retrospective…

“The story of Rob Smith and Ray Mighty, more commonly known as Smith & Mighty, began long before the world became fascinated with Bristol as the central source of the best downtempo and drum & bass the electronic music world has seen to date. It was the innovative precedent that Smith & Mighty brought to Bristol’s music community, helping launch artists such as Massive Attack, Roni Size, Portishead and Tricky into the international spotlight. Due to a major label contract dispute, much of their early work was previously unavailable to their fans. This collection is an excellent sampling of their unique ability to combine elements of dub, reggae, R&B, hip hop, and drum & bass into a seamless mix ready to rock any dancefloor around the world. Retrospective collects classic tracks from as far back as 1989’s ‘Wishing on A Star,’ which perfectly exemplifies their echo chamber experiments developed during their work with Adrian Sherwood’s On U Sound collective in the mid 80s. With classic tracks from their last three artist albums as well as singles previously unavailable on CD, this collection is sure to please the fans and convert the previously unconverted to utter obsession.”

10

Blah blah blah.
I like Portishead. I didn’t like the hip-hop album you posted. I don’t give a good God damn about the “Bristol sound”.

11

I don’t give a good God damn about the “Bristol sound”

In that case burn your sissy Portishead records.

12

Brilliant BBC6 Radio DJ Huey Morgan talked to Geoff Barrow about Quakers etc on the radio today…go to 2:17:30 to listen…

2nd part of interview is 2:42:45…

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b01fntwr

13

Right I’ve given this album around 4 or 5 spins now and it’s pretty awesome. In saying that I’m talking about the instrumentals. Some of the emcees have some great lines etc but the instrumental version of the album comes across as stronger for me.

Yo Rev…I recommend you do what I do and just blast the instrumentals…you’d most likely dig it. I’ve put the vocal version on my iPod and play the instrumentals at home.

Smith & Mighty is better though! waka waka waka!!

14

Another new Geoff Barrow project dropped recently too…

"Geoff Barrow is a founding member of Portishead and producer/label owner of INVADA records UK. Ben Salisbury is a soundtrack composer with over 200 film and TV credits to his name, including David Attenborough’s ‘Life of Mammals’, ‘Life in the Undergrowth’ and ‘Life in Cold Blood’. Barrow and Salisbury met over 10 years ago when they both joined a Bristol football team for old men. After many disastrous games they decided they might be more productive working on a music project together. Other work commitments kept them apart until late 2010, when the pair met up with a screenwriter to discuss some possible work on a feature film project. Although their involvement with this particular film didn’t continue, a collaborative writing relationship had begun… When Barrow and Salisbury revisited and started expanding upon this early material they decided to continue writing what was essentially soundtrack music.

Barrow, along with album designer and long term friend, Marc Bessant, were both avid ‘2000AD’ readers from a young age, and the sprawling metropolis and classic stories of Mega-City One seemed the ideal inspiration for this ‘soundtrack’. Although Mega City One has been brought to life in great detail over many years by the acclaimed work of writers and artists alike, there is still huge scope for readers to have their own vision/soundtrack of the city.

Rather than intending to be the definitive sound of Mega City One (could there be a ‘definitive sound’ of a city so vast, changeable and varied?), DROKK is Barrow and Salisbury’s personal, outsider’s’ interpretation. DROKK was written in a 6 month period between Barrow’s Portishead world tour and Salisbury’s composing jobs for the BBC. Even though it is a soundtrack of sorts, Barrow and Salisbury instinctively felt that music for MC1 should steer clear of the rich orchestration common to many contemporary film scores. Even for electronica the music is often purposefully stark and spare, with the majority of tracks created exclusively on the Oberhiem 2 Voice Synthesizer (a 1975 classic keyboard), and its onboard sequencer used to create rhythm and drums sounds . The only exceptions are a handful of tracks which combine the synth with digitally manipulated and time-stretched performances of acoustic instruments (such as piano, violin, mandolin, ukelele, voice and hammered dulcimer). There is also a brief cameo from Barrow’s other band BEAK>.

‘2000 AD is delighted that Judge Dredd continues to inspire artists in the year of the character’s 35th anniversary, especially such high profile talents as Geoff and Ben. You can tell, from their vision of the Big Meg, that they’re massive fans of the strip.’ - 2000 AD / Feb 2012."

TRACK LISTING

  1. Lawmaster / Pursuit
  2. Helmet Theme
  3. Titan Bound
  4. 301-305
  5. Justice One
  6. Scope The Block
  7. Exhale
  8. Council Of Five
  9. Puerto Luminae
  10. Miami Lawgiver
  11. Eagle
  12. Clone Gunman
  13. Inhale
  14. Iso Hymn
  15. 2t (fru) T
  16. Dome Horizon
  17. The Men Who Never Learned
  18. End Them
  19. Helmet Theme (reprise)
15

So… What about the new Dr John, then ?

(I won’t argue over Portishead, because their drummer was in Hawkwind. That’s enough for me to become a complete fanatic)

(that was a joke)

(but I really like Portishead. And it IS a fact this band is the result of a rather un-natural combination of post-hip-hop production and desperately beautiful vocals, this kind of miraculous sonic intercourse that sometimes happen in the bleak world of record industry. But as far as I’m concerned, Geof Barrows’ work without Beth is of very little interest, and Beth’s solo stuff maybe worse. I mean, that Rustin Man album wasn’t bad, it was just so disappointing…)

16

As a comic geek, the 2000ad project sounds rad. Will definitely pick up.

17

So… What about the new Dr John, then ?

The new Dr John album is pretty awesome actually.

18

As a comic geek, the 2000ad project sounds rad. Will definitely pick up.

I was a huge Judge Dredd fan for a long time, but the previews sounded a little too soundtracky, if you know what I mean.

19

I picked up DROKK today and really dig it. Yeah, it’s very soundtracky, but in a good way to my ears (actually I’ve been listening to about half instrumental and soundtrack music for the past half year so this is right up my alley).

The cool thing is how much this is “John Carpenter does Dredd” which is really just what I wanted. It’s not industrial balls out fury, it’s ominous instead. There’s even some moterik Neu! sounds that slip in during “Inhale”. Totally dig it and imagine I’ll listen to it a lot while reading and writing.