Geoff Barrow is the driving force behind Portishead. In the early 1990s, he operated the recording equipment during the debut album sessions of trip-hop pioneers Massive Attack. Through them, he came into contact with Neneh Cherry's husband and was able to write the music for her song 'Somedays'. Barrow also worked on remixes for Primal Scream, Paul Weller, and Depeche Mode and produced for Tricky. In 1991, Barrow met pub singer Beth Gibbons. As Portishead, they released the film noir 'To Kill A Dead Man' in June 1994, shown in a single London cinema.
Barrow had always wanted to make a soundtrack and instead of waiting for a chance, he decided to make the film himself. Both Barrow and Gibbons acted in the film. The name Portishead comes from the town near Bristol where Barrow spent his youth. When Barrow worked for Massive Attack, he was called 'the lad from Portishead', which inspired the band name.
Together with several guest musicians, including Adrian Utley and Dave McDonald, Portishead went into the studio. The result is atmospheric with Gibbons' ethereal voice. Slow beats invite you to lean back, but the spooky samples and subtly present organ keep bringing the listener back to the edge of their seat. The whole thing resembles a soundtrack.
Dummy
The debut album Dummy was released in 1994. Initially, the band did not want to give interviews or perform live. The record company was at a loss: how to promote an album by a new band without interviews and without performances? Eventually, they came up with the idea to place advertising dummies in various locations around London.
Under pressure from the press and fans, Portishead went on tour in 1995. Paradiso also welcomed the trip-hop band, and in a sold-out venue, the reactions were enthusiastic. After the tour, we heard nothing from Portishead for a while. Barrow contributed to Radar, the debut album of Earthling, and Portishead clones conquered the charts. But for a new Portishead album, we had to wait until 1997.
Comeback
Portishead returned to the stage at the end of 2007. The group played at the All Tomorrow's Parties festival, held on 7, 8, and 9 December in Minehead, Great Britain. Portishead was to perform new material for the first time in ten years. Whether a new album would finally be released was unknown.
Sunday Morning Classic: Dummy
On 4 July 2021, Portishead with the album Dummy was our Sunday Morning Classic.
As tempting as it is to label Portishead's debut as the definitive trip-hop record, Dummy is truly a genre unto itself. Sensual and sombre, Dummy is everything you could reasonably expect from a debut album. It announces itself as something new and distinctive, and manages to do so with the measured, bitter air of a veteran. It took the dance foundations of Massive Attack, resulting in one of the key milestones of the '90s.
Dummy is as eerie as it is satisfying and is defined by a few aspects, not least the spectacularly sombre atmosphere, but above the ominous backdrop hangs Beth Gibbons' mournful voice. Her chilling singing is as eerie as it is beautiful, blending organically with the instrumentation to achieve one of the slickest combinations in contemporary music. I do not hesitate to call the vocal performance on Dummy one of the best on any record, of any time. Throughout the album, Gibbons sounds ghostly, angelic, sometimes frightening, and on "Roads"—the album's centrepiece—her expression of heartache is painfully beautiful.
It seems unfair for a person to sound as beautiful as she does, but Dummy does not waste the privilege. Despite all its despair, Dummy remains strangely irresistible. It is a record as sexy as it is sad, with its forbidden desires seeping through the dark web that only partially covers the shadowy tones of "Mysterons" and "Numb". The work takes on a seriously sombre flair in the opener "Mysterons" and barely lets up. From the clunky groove of "Strangers" to the tender melodies and swelling souls of "It's A Fire" and "Roads", there is no shortage of wistful flair on the show. By the time we reach "Glory Box", the only love and lust song of '94 that can genuinely compete with "Closer", the secret is out. Dummy is a beautiful record that is undoubtedly of its time, yet continues to thrive in the modern listener's mainframe.
So meticulously produced in sound and composition, the songs inevitably climb up now and then to keep pace with Beth Gibbons, the majesty of the voice that accompanies them. Dummy's darkness is part of what makes it so emblematic of the '90s.
(source NPO, Jan Liebregts and Wikipedia)
