Geoff Barrow & Ben Salisbury

Q&A: Portishead producer Geoff Barrow on hip hop, krautrock, and film scores

DROKKGeoff Barrow & Ben Salisbury: Drokk: Music Inspired by Mega-City One (Invada, 5/1/12)

“Lawmaster Pursuit”

Geoff Barrow & Ben Salisbury: “Lawmaster Pursuit”

If there’s one band that pulled off the long, mysterious hiatus with mystique intact, it’s Bristol, England’s Portishead. Yet when the ’90s trip-hop act resurfaced in 2006, it had substantially changed — gone were the down-tempo beats and much of the melancholy, replaced with a new sound and sparse, driving rhythms that owed more to krautrock than Def Jam.

Beatsmith/songwriter Geoff Barrow was guiding it that way. Since the reunion, he’s been on fire, issuing music in a variety of guises with Beak> (a rock band), Quakers (a sprawling hip-hop project), and as Drokk (a soundtracking duo). That’s not including the records that Barrow has produced for others and released on his label, Invada.

With no shortage of topics in tow, we caught up with Barrow to talk about drum sounds, film scores, and writing music for Judge Dredd.

Down

Q&A: Down, NOLA’s reigning metal super-group, goes four for IV

Down: Down IV Part 1: The Purple EPDown: Down IV: Part 1, The Purple EP (WMG, 9/18/12)

“Witchtripper”

Down: “Witchtripper”

Last year, long-running metal super-group Down released the first of a sprawling four-part EP series. Aptly titled IV, the releases — the rest of which come in 2013 or later — are meant to comprise a massive new album, and the first takes the band’s Black Sabbath influences to a rawer and darker place.

Singer, songwriting contributor, and former Pantera vocalist Phil Anselmo — who teams with members of Corrosion of Conformity, Eyehategod, and Crowbar in Down — joined us to talk about soaring vocals, his home studio, and that unapologetic Sabbath influence.

Sailor Jerry

Music & Mixology: Make a “Lola” with Sailor Jerry brand ambassador Ashley Miller

This content appears in ALARM #40. Subscribe here to get your copy!

Driving from gig to gig, playing mixologist, giving away free booze — week after week, it can get exhausting. Somehow, Ashley Miller and her Sailor Jerry cohorts muster the strength to enliven parties everywhere. Here’s a little about her and one of her favorites, the Lola.

Drink of choice:
Lola
2 parts Sailor Jerry Rum
1 part sweet vermouth
2 dashes Angostura bitters

Combine in glass over ice; garnish with an orange

Psych rock, polyamory, and cult life: The Source Family documentary to open nationwide

During the 1970s commune boom, a charismatic man known as Father Yod founded a vegetarian restaurant in Los Angeles. Named The Source, this and his background in several religious movements led to Yod attracting a group of followers who viewed him as both father figure and spiritual guru. This “family” went on to form a psychedelic rock group known as Ya Ho Wa 13 but was forced to flee to Hawaii when local authorities began questioning its unconventional activities. Barely a year later, Yod died in a hang-gliding accident.

This is an abbreviated history of The Source Family.