Quakers – U’ll Be Sorry

Quakers: “A glimpse into the world of the 35-member hip-hop collective produced by Fuzzface (Geoff Barrow, Portishead), Katalyst and 7Stu7″

via Stones Throw podcast 72

Quakers Mixtape

Although some music did leak earlier this is the first label sanctioned peak at Quakers. Embed below is blocked unless you’re at the Stonesthrow or Pitchfork site, which I think is supposed to create the illusion of exclusivity. Good job guys, the few people that might check for it from a different circle on here, but won’t feel the need to go out of their way with that extra click, will make sure to skip this altogether. Bravo. But hey, have you heard about Stonesthrow’s new subscription service?

Quakers – Fitta Happier ft. Guilty Simpson, M.E.D.

previoiusly:
Katalyst – Your Beats Smell Of Paco Rabanne
Year Start List

Bridging the gap then burning the bridge semi-professionally since 2004 yall. – GRNDGD.

Music slotted for the forthcoming Quakers project. Let loose by Barrow for the Invada label sampler, which also features some new Beak> material.

But Portishead’s relationship with hip-hop has always been symbiotic; its music is synonymous with the flickering, noir sense that rappers have been trying to evoke for years. The band has been dutifully sampled by the Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA and a young Timbaland, not to mention flipped on records by Slick Rick, Three 6 Mafia, and Canibus. (Barrow’s favorite Portishead rework is the Cincinnati DJ Ill Poetic’s mash-up of their music and the vocals from Joe Budden’s mixtape Mood Muzik 3.) The band has curated two days of this weekend’s All Tomorrow’s Parties–produced I’ll Be Your Mirror Festival in Asbury Park, and the bill contains gloomsplosion merchants who file nicely alongside the hissy, doomy, analog night-terrors of Portishead’s most recent album, Third: Swans, Mogwai, Battles, Earth, a collabo between Simeon of electro-psych pioneers Silver Apples and Hans-Joachim Roedelius of krautrock dreamweavers Cluster. But Portishead has also invited a formidable, pan-generational lineup of New York’s hip-hop pioneers. Public Enemy will perform their iconic 1990 album Fear of a Black Planet in its entirety; Kool Keith and the rest of the Bronx’s ill-angled Ultramagnetic MCs will make the most of a reformation; and New York murk-hop iconoclasts Company Flow will emerge from a 10-year hibernation at Portishead’s request.

“Portishead gave us the excuse to do it,” says Company Flow producer and MC El-P. “When I found out years ago through the grapevine that they were fans, it kind of blew my mind. They were just so clearly influenced by hip-hop. . . . It was amazing to hear this group paying homage to that vibe in a way hip-hop fans and producers could really relate to and making a record that every red-blooded rapper would gladly murder a child for if they could get the rights to sample it back.”

“Hip-hop is kind of my punk, really,” says Barrow. Like many members of his generation, the first time Barrow heard hip-hop was through Herbie Hancock’s wikki-tastic 1983 crossover hit “Rockit.” After his parents divorced, the 11-year-old Barrow and his mom had left the valley-set village of Walton-in-Gordano for the comparatively bustling, urban fishing town of Portishead, where breakdancers showed off their moves to the sounds of compilations put out by the U.K. label Street Sounds.

A preteen Barrow popped and locked in “the worst crew in the world,” the Freaky Fresh Four. “The craziest thing is that living in a place like Portishead, there’s a little town called Clevedon next to it, another little town called Nailsea, a little place called Pill. The only reason you used to go to those towns was to have a fight,” he recalls. “And through that period, people went to have breakdance battles. And I’m not talking about kids. I’m talking about guys who had spent time in jail. Proper, hardcore guys that got into breakdancing. You’d be surrounded by the hardest kids, but they wouldn’t beat you up because it was a kind of rule of breakdancing that it didn’t turn to violence.” Barrow was a self-described “fucking terrible” dancer, the little guy the bigger dudes would throw around. “That’s why I moved to the decks.”

All Tomorrow’s Parties announced its fourth annual New York-area show will be curated by British trip-hop band Portishead and feature a rare performance by Jeff Mangum. The music festival will be held for first time in Asbury Park, N.J. from Sept. 30 to Oct. 2.

For Portishead, the ATP fest will mark the band’s first East Coast shows since 1998. Mangum, who has largely been out of the spotlight since Neutral Milk Hotel disbanded in 1998, is slated to play songs by his former band.

Anika – I Go To Sleep

Finally caught this documentary last night in NYC. Pretty good introduction to people unfamiliar with the street art scene with spotlights on the likes of Shepard Fairey, Invader and, of course, Banksy among others. The film follows the video camera of Thierry Guetta as he documents a variety of street artists bombing different walls in the US and the UK. Along the way, we see his transformation from a documentarian of street art culture to a so-called artist himself, eventually making millions overnight. With Exit Through The Gift Shop, I believe Banksy attempts to draw attention to the problem of mainstream culture’s infiltration on a previously lesser known artform (in this case, street art) for its own monetary gain, leaving the pioneers high and dry. As Banksy states in the film, it ain’t about the money. It’s about the bastardization of a culture by those who proclaim to love it but will be quick to jump to the next cash cow when it suits them. It’s about the ridiculous notion of commodifying and selling art when it should be free to the world. But I digress. It appears Banksy sees this going down in the art world. And if you’re a Hip-Hop head in any sense of the word, you definitely see it in Hip-Hop culture as well.

If you have the chance to see this documentary before it leaves theaters, I suggest you do so. Now. Further incentive to get off your ass is that the film is wonderfully scored by Geoff Barrow, the man behind the music for Portishead. link

For those like myself not familiar with the band Malachai, here’s the video to the original. I didn’t watch the whole video but I think i saw some drum pads being pushed.

Off the new Beak> album that I’m looking for on vinyl.

Beak> – Pill

I mean how we did it was just [pauses]… amazingly easy. The writing process was just a flow of consciousness with three different vocal mics going through a guitar amp in the room so we could hear ourselves sing. I mean we would probably do three or four takes on some stuff, and just kind of go ‘Oh well the first one was better, but the lyrics were fucked but it doesn’t really matter, forget it anyway’ [laughs]. I don’t mean for that to seem like it was some kind of throwaway project.

For us it’s a record that we really like the sounds of. In the past we have all made multilayered records and this was kind of slightly a reaction against that. What would happen was that we would play a tune and usually for me and Billy it would be like that’s alright and then we can start adding stuff; but Matt was already on a computer really bored of it going ‘No well it’s done isn’t it?’ because he comes from a one take avant-garde style background where he never repeats himself again. So we all decided it sounds alright and that it was done. (via Geoff Barrow interview w/ Thomas A. Ward)

Great feature from Remixmag on Portishead’s recent production on Third. Geoff Barrow takes a moment to dis Timbaland’s attempt to produce a record for a british band, Mark Ronson’s last record, and Dj Spooky for pretending that there are no black people in the UK art community. He also praises Madlib and Flying Lotus for their originality. In the past, Geoff Barrow has also mentioned preferring to ‘poo in his mum’s Sunday Roast’ before he would let Danger Mouse produce a Portishead record. Link

“[America's music] is shit, isn’t it?” he continues. “The hip-hop artists are just rubbish. Jay-Z’s records always sound good, but he got the sack from Universal. If you end up with a country Britney, it doesn’t matter ’cause they’re all twats anyway. Timbaland came to England trying to find a Coldplay to produce. Everyone told him to fuck off. He went to America and got his own band and they are gi-normous, the most revolting people you have ever seen in your life. They are called Timbaland. We all like it underground but no one is buying it. Even Moby is struggling.”

“Mark Ronson’s record is shit,” Barrow exclaims, referring to the celebrated Amy Winehouse-associated producer’s release Version (Allido, 2007). “He is a massive superstar in the UK. He considers himself as Quincy Jones. I’ll tell you who else is really bad: DJ Spooky. He is so full of shit. At least Mark Ronson is talented. I saw DJ Spooky at the Knitting Factory, and I tried to buy a beer to throw at him. There are black people in England, so you don’t have to come here and make out that there aren’t any black people in England’s art community. You have someone like Madlib who is a fucking genius — a genius! [He's] a real true artist in what he does, when he takes American TV soundtracks and turns them into hip-hop. Then Spooky turns up and plays a couple shit European drum ‘n’ bass records.”

“The new album is less hip-hop if you listen to modern hip-hop,” Barrow (drums, production) suggests. “But Third is purely influenced by old hip-hop [and metal drone group Sunn O))), as Barrow says later]. For me, it’s Public Enemy, Marley Marl, EPMD, Flying Lotus and Madlib. That is pure mad music, out-of-tuneness and noise. But people are worried about making money. I’m not; I just want to make a decent album that is heavy.

“Every single thing was absolutely agonized over,” Utley says. “For everything you hear, there were at least 10 things that we spent fucking hours making that we didn’t use — a real voyage of discovery. Sometimes it was enjoyable, but mostly it’s kind of frustrating and difficult. The process of creativity is not always what you think. You are surrounded by the most beautiful equipment, but it doesn’t mean anything if you haven’t got an idea that is worth recording. You could record through the worst preamp with the worst microphone in the world, but [whether you have] a good idea is the most important thing. If you don’t have an idea, it’s better to go to a house in the country with a porta-studio and any old guitar just to purify your mind. Having amazing equipment doesn’t give you the solution to creativity; it’s merely a tool for recording it.”

“I’d rather poo in my mum’s Sunday roast than have Danger Mouse produce a Portishead record” – Geoff Barrow

Has it really been 9 years since the last Portishead record? Where does the time go? Their mysp*ce page has audio up from something recorded in 2003 which isnt anything really except for a random beat but a new album is supposedly in the works. Portishead producer Geoff Barrow recently formed a new superband with Dominic Aitchison from Mogwai called Crippled Black Pheonix and are releasing an album sometime in 2007. link, Wandering Star