« Video: the Rapture - "Pieces of the People We Love" | Main | Works in Progress - Thinning out with age »
February 28, 2007
Retrohump - From the coast
And there was Portishead. From a coastal town in England to a small New Jersey suburb, Beth Gibbon's sultry and lugubrious voice broke through one person's musical spectrum like a Duvel to a Bud drinker, aged Gruyere to a cheese whiz devotee, and so on.
19.02.05 Bristol Carling Academy; photo by Dan Keefe
The band's sounds straddled so many contradictions that any group less qualified would have brought, to the aisles of (then solvent) Tower Records, a limp mess of spaghetti. Simultaneously calm and paranoid; smooth and jagged; romantic and heartless. It provides make-out music with jagged lyrics; hook-up verse with warning sounds. The first album, Dummy, remains one of the most awesome things to join me as we exited the 90s.
The second album, Portishead, suffered from not-Dummy-icitis, but anyone who has given the sophomore effort a chance knows how good it is. Dummy opened a colorful door; Portishead carried the torch deeper into the band's dark world view. PNYC (along with Nirvana MTV Unplugged) might be the only officially-released live discs you need from your childhood.
No band has seemingly dragged out the inevitable reunion/third studio album more than Portishead, perhaps because of their fondness for Web site and MySpace updates.
January 25: the most recent such update.
hello againbeen working on the new songs
going around in circles every day
but things are progressing upwards
trying to meet deadlines for this year
ive goto go
my little ones cryin
g {P}
We, the huddled masses, can't promise we'll do more than check out the new album when it drops. But we can, and oh, will we always, look back.
Before we get into the videos, here are some rare live tracks, unearthed live tracks from the Empress Ballroom in Blackpool (1995).
Portishead - Sour Times (PNYC)
The single that started it all. A great example of how Portishead songs were often multi-layered. Gibbon's wonderful phrasing and pace made the song at once mournful and hopeful - Nobody loves me... It's true... (pause)... Not like you do.
Here's two doses of Humming, from the forgotten sophomore album Portishead.
Portishead - Humming (music video)
Portishead - Humming (PNYC)
Portishead - Roads (PNYC)
And one of Portishead's most beautiful (and heart-wrenching) song - the near hush of Beth's voice - with the church-symphonic organ and the trip-step drumbeat.
Posted by Keith O'Brien at February 28, 2007 10:40 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.merryswankster.com/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/702
Comments
"PNYC (along with Nirvana MTV Unplugged) might be the only officially-released live discs you need from your childhood."
it's so so true.
Posted by: steev! at February 28, 2007 07:09 PM
