In The Headphones: Live Albums From BEAK> and Osees
Record Room: Saturday, 10/11
To whom it may interest,
If you continue to visit this cobweb-strewn side of the Internet, you might be happy to hear that a number of writing projects are in the works and that my obvious lack of writing and posting is not due to lack of effort, but lack of time, energy, and focus. I’ve noted in my personal journal that I mean to make my calendar an ally where blocks of time can be dedicated to listening and coverage. I mean to make something worth reading, not simply a repository for embedded links and tired notes.
Anyway… I checked out two live albums this week. Thoughts ahead:
BEAK>
Live at Zebulon, Los Angeles, April 2nd 2025
Invada Records
Released: 9/26/25
“Let this fill your Beak> void until the next chapter begins…”
Following the release of BEAK>’s 2024 album >>>>, it was announced that Geoff Barrow (Portishead) would be leaving the group. Confirming that Barrow’s exit doesn’t mean the end of BEAK>, a conclusion that I certainly drew after I’d heard the news, remaining members Billy Fuller and Will Young stated per the announcement that, “New music and activity will come along when the time is right.” So… BEAK>’s new live record, Live at Zebulon, Los Angeles, April 2nd 2025, is our placeholder.
The setlist is mostly built from >>>>, those tracks faithfully reinterpreted onstage. Other than some amusing banter regarding a band member’s dislike of the song “Secrets”—“He really hates this song. But, what does he know about music?”—crowd interaction is minimal. Sonically, the recording is pretty spotless and showcases how well this sadly-defunct version of BEAK> stands (or, stood) as a live act.
Highlights include “Brean Down,” “Allé Sauvage,” and “Hungry Are We,” the opening notes of which have to compete a little with incidental chatter from the crowd.
Live at Zebulon, Los Angeles, April 2nd 2025 is available as a clear variant double-LP via Invada Records and digitally via Bandcamp.
Osees
Live At The
Broad Museum
Deathgod Records
Released: 10/3/25
The ever-prolific John Dwyer of Osees has released a new live album, Live At The Broad Museum. Currently touring in support of the band’s recently released LP, Abomination Revealed At Last, Dwyer & Co.’s live show is a thrash-bound and sweat-infused rush of serrated guitar tone and percussive violence. Watching the video that accompanies the album, all of which is shot with spinning fisheye lenses and occasional mirrored split screens that obscure the environs outside of the main stage, this hour-and-some-change performance is heavy on the groove-tailored jams, the 20-plus minutes of “I Got A Lot” the album’s best example. As drummers Paul Quattrone and Dan Rincon hold anchor with bassist Tim Hellman, their dual-kit interactions mostly call-and-response while metronomically locked in, Dwyer and keyboardist Tom Dolas fill the space with vocals, improv’d guitar textures and keyed tones. The crowd, warped into a triangle of heads that shrink into a peaked horizon, collapse into each other like a surrealist’s vision of a stormy waterfront, the buildings surrounding them bent into wave-like crests. This might unsettle claustrophobes.
Live At The Broad Museum is available for purchase via Deathgod Records.
Links:
Osees — Official / Bandcamp
Deathgod Records — Instagram
Links, knowledge, and sounds were handed over courtesy of Tell All Your Friends:
“It feels like its all lighting off. A lot of fodder in today’s world for an artist.
Too easily humans forget their humanity. Forgiveness is a dead science. Empathy is viewed as a weakness by cretins. Easier to hate rather than love. Fear and greed have dug their bloody hands into everything.
At least now we know who you are.
We see you. We defy you.
People are under duress. Recognize this abomination. Oppose the oppressor. FUCK the fascists and their enablers. Fuck the war mongers
Good luck out there. ACAB.”
- OSEES
P.S. Here’s the full album stream of Abomination Revealed At Last, out now via Deathgod Records. A review is in the works, albeit late.
Sincerely,
Letters From A Tapehead
