Portishead
Brave New World?
2008-06-13
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Stretched out on a poolside lounge, Adrian Utley has his head cushioned tightly into his girlfriend’s bikini-clad crotch. Sounds vaguely soft pornographic, but it’s really not. It’s actually sweet and abandoned and safe. It’s certainly a place that Utley is loath to leave. And it is one of the main reasons that Utley’s band, Portishead, has taken over a decade to release an album of original material since their last eponymous offering, in 2007. Why would anyone want to leave the comfort of their family’s lap to roam the world for months at a time?
“By the end of touring for Portishead in 1998, we just didn’t want to do any more Portishead,” states Utley. “Not ever, but just then, we had completely and totally had enough.”
Utley, along with Portishead voicebox, Beth Gibbons, and producer extraordinaire, Geoff Barrow were headlining festivals playing to 50,000 people at that point while their own gigs were around the 10,000 capacity mark. This was the case almost immediately after the release of their debut, Dummy, in 1994. But this was never the intention for the three, who feel their music is better suited to small venues with better sound for a better experience. The larger the crowds got, the harder the job became with Gibbons falling ill from physical and mental exhaustion towards the end and not being able to perform, while Utley and Barrow had sunk into self-confessed alcoholism.
Contributing one last Portishead to the world in the form of a live album, Roseland NYC Live, Utley and Barrow spent a month in the studio on that before calling temporary quits.
“We had started drinking quite a lot,” recounts Utley. “When we got home, I remember getting back to Heathrow [Airport], rushing into the wine shop that I knew was there and pushing the cork in. We had a car driving us to Wales, to the studio, and we were sitting in the back drinking wine out of the bottle.”
With marriages in meltdown and personal lives turned to rubbish, Portishead took a break from the beast that only rears its head when the three of them are present—but not from music. Barrow decamped to Australia, Gibbons to the countryside to record her solo album, and Utley to the soundtrack world. During this time Utley and Barrow also produced an album for the Coral, Invisible Invasion, and Utley worked with Gibbons on her songs. And while the dynamic was different, the pressure was even more on than when they worked as Portishead.
Around 2001 Utley and Barrow made a stab at Portishead, but the drive wasn’t there yet. So they separated again to rejoin at a later point when the tracks for Portishead’s long awaited third album, aptly titled Third, started taking definitive shape.
“We had sketch of what we did want and what we didn’t want,” says Utley. “It was a bit like a dogma manifesto about an intense rulebook that we’ve backed up over the years that we’ve all been together of what’s good and what isn’t. We don’t even have to say anything. You know when you’re stepping out of the band’s boundaries. Of course if you know the rules so you can break them as well. We didn’t want to sound how we use to sound. That was a really big one. We wanted to reflect how we felt about music and life and politics, an honest appraisal of everything that we were. And we definitely had this dissonance that we were interested in: a scrappy, rough-edged, leave mistakes in. It was like having a machete and cutting our way through.”
If Portishead sounded down before, Third is absolute destitution personified. Gibbons pain-filled signature tones take on a frantic note, bewailing warnings and screaming with anxiety. The hi-fidelity guised as low-fidelity compositions of Barrow and Utley are still being filtered through a gramophone from the Fifties, but they have an urgency to them that is all about the frightening state of living in the Noughties.
“Politically everything is really fucked up,” says Utley. “When I was 20, it was 1977. That was when I first heard the Sex Pistols and the Damned. At that time the shit that was going on was much more visible. Punk was an overt reaction to what was happening politically.
“Now, we’re not in a dissimilar situation, except it’s much more sneaky and nobody knows about it. Our music reflects that political climate of uncertainty and frustration. There doesn’t seem to be much to fight against or much to like. This is the horrible reality of where we’re at in the world right now.”
“We Carry On” is a rallying cry for those of us who understand the desperation of the type of world we are forced to live in at the moment. Gibbons’ shrieks about choices and no turning back lead the march as hypnotic loops provide the marching beat, repeating their wordless message so insistently and persistently, you have no choice but to follow. “Machine Gun” bangs similar messages home with pounding beats that don’t allow you to ignore the images Portishead are holding up. If Third is on, you will be listening to it.
“We are very influenced by John Carpenter's music, have been for a long time,” says Utley. “Those bleak landscapes influence us and are reflecting where we’re at as well. All that stuff leads us to where we are: Brave new world…but is it really?”
“By the end of touring for Portishead in 1998, we just didn’t want to do any more Portishead,” states Utley. “Not ever, but just then, we had completely and totally had enough.”
Utley, along with Portishead voicebox, Beth Gibbons, and producer extraordinaire, Geoff Barrow were headlining festivals playing to 50,000 people at that point while their own gigs were around the 10,000 capacity mark. This was the case almost immediately after the release of their debut, Dummy, in 1994. But this was never the intention for the three, who feel their music is better suited to small venues with better sound for a better experience. The larger the crowds got, the harder the job became with Gibbons falling ill from physical and mental exhaustion towards the end and not being able to perform, while Utley and Barrow had sunk into self-confessed alcoholism.
Contributing one last Portishead to the world in the form of a live album, Roseland NYC Live, Utley and Barrow spent a month in the studio on that before calling temporary quits.
“We had started drinking quite a lot,” recounts Utley. “When we got home, I remember getting back to Heathrow [Airport], rushing into the wine shop that I knew was there and pushing the cork in. We had a car driving us to Wales, to the studio, and we were sitting in the back drinking wine out of the bottle.”
With marriages in meltdown and personal lives turned to rubbish, Portishead took a break from the beast that only rears its head when the three of them are present—but not from music. Barrow decamped to Australia, Gibbons to the countryside to record her solo album, and Utley to the soundtrack world. During this time Utley and Barrow also produced an album for the Coral, Invisible Invasion, and Utley worked with Gibbons on her songs. And while the dynamic was different, the pressure was even more on than when they worked as Portishead.
Around 2001 Utley and Barrow made a stab at Portishead, but the drive wasn’t there yet. So they separated again to rejoin at a later point when the tracks for Portishead’s long awaited third album, aptly titled Third, started taking definitive shape.
“We had sketch of what we did want and what we didn’t want,” says Utley. “It was a bit like a dogma manifesto about an intense rulebook that we’ve backed up over the years that we’ve all been together of what’s good and what isn’t. We don’t even have to say anything. You know when you’re stepping out of the band’s boundaries. Of course if you know the rules so you can break them as well. We didn’t want to sound how we use to sound. That was a really big one. We wanted to reflect how we felt about music and life and politics, an honest appraisal of everything that we were. And we definitely had this dissonance that we were interested in: a scrappy, rough-edged, leave mistakes in. It was like having a machete and cutting our way through.”
If Portishead sounded down before, Third is absolute destitution personified. Gibbons pain-filled signature tones take on a frantic note, bewailing warnings and screaming with anxiety. The hi-fidelity guised as low-fidelity compositions of Barrow and Utley are still being filtered through a gramophone from the Fifties, but they have an urgency to them that is all about the frightening state of living in the Noughties.
“Politically everything is really fucked up,” says Utley. “When I was 20, it was 1977. That was when I first heard the Sex Pistols and the Damned. At that time the shit that was going on was much more visible. Punk was an overt reaction to what was happening politically.
“Now, we’re not in a dissimilar situation, except it’s much more sneaky and nobody knows about it. Our music reflects that political climate of uncertainty and frustration. There doesn’t seem to be much to fight against or much to like. This is the horrible reality of where we’re at in the world right now.”
“We Carry On” is a rallying cry for those of us who understand the desperation of the type of world we are forced to live in at the moment. Gibbons’ shrieks about choices and no turning back lead the march as hypnotic loops provide the marching beat, repeating their wordless message so insistently and persistently, you have no choice but to follow. “Machine Gun” bangs similar messages home with pounding beats that don’t allow you to ignore the images Portishead are holding up. If Third is on, you will be listening to it.
“We are very influenced by John Carpenter's music, have been for a long time,” says Utley. “Those bleak landscapes influence us and are reflecting where we’re at as well. All that stuff leads us to where we are: Brave new world…but is it really?”
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