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Underground > Radio & Music >

Portishead's Third.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

02:28 / 14.05.08

Out of curiosity, is anyone else absorbed in Portishead's new album at all? It usually takes me a few weeks to properly submerge, but I'm really enjoying it. It's very Portishead, almost platonically so. Slow and sexy. "Nylon Smile" is the one I get stuck on the most. The rhythm undulates, Beth Gibbons has stolen my heart again, all that.

I can't decide if being so consistent is a crime or a virtue, though. Thoughts?

08:07 / 14.05.08

I don't think you can really call it consistency when they haven't had a proper album out since 1997. I find it troubling that in the interim their sound doesn't seem to have evolved a great deal, although saying that I preferred Dummy's (relative) gentleness to the eponymous second album. I should qualify that by saying I'm judging this on two tracks, Nylon Smile and Machine Gun.

Taking that into account I'll reserve judgement until I get a chance to sit down with the rest, after which I will entirely change my opinion and rave up ont.

Just remembered that the Sour Times single was the second CD I ever bought. First? MC Spiderman & Friends. What a song.

10:27 / 14.05.08

Anyone else notice the seemingly huge silver apples influence all over this album?

12:02 / 14.05.08

Agreed on the Silver Apples sound. I can't work out whether it's a conscious influence or a natural bi-product of the manner in which they've tried to move their sound forwards by almost entirely jettisoning the hip hop beats.

It's a solid album but hasn't hooked me. The sense of space and atmosphere of their earlier work, that sense of timelessness has gone. I think it's another bi-product of the drum programming, to be honest. Barrow seems to have wanted to expand his repertoire in order that he doesn't pigeonhole himself, but while that impulse is laudable he doesn't have the deeply ingrained understanding of these other rhythms that he has with hip hop. As a result they sound like cold loops and don't spring to life, and the blues/jazz inflected Utley and Gibbons don't sit nearly so well in the overall sound.

Without knowing exactly what happened in the writing and studio sessions we can only speculate as to what has robbed their sound of so much of its soul, but my money is on Barrow's choices. If he's opted to expand his sound by adopting some of Keiran Hebden's approaches (expanding his palette to free jazz, for example) we might have had a much stronger record. As it is the synthesis that the three of them once had is considerably weaker.

So yeah. Solid but lacking unity and soul, so disappointing for me.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

13:04 / 14.05.08

I love it, but then I always preferred the second album. To an extent I can see what you mean, El D, but I don't think it's a dealbreaker. Parts are a little lighter on atmosphere than we're used to, but it's not a dealbreaker as for the most part that's not the case.

Yeah on the Silver Apples thing, as well. (I'd guess it's, in not deliberate, at least in some way conscious, after they booked SA to play at ATP in December).

What it reminds me of most isn't either of the Portishead albums but the album she did with Dustin Mann a few years back. It has a much more "western" feel than it does a "spy movie" one.

Closed for Business Time

13:35 / 14.05.08

Silver Apples, yes, but is no-one hearing Kraftwerk? I could swear there's a riff that sounds straight outta Computer World.

El D, I hear you on the soul-lessness, but, dang nabbit, I like my new cold Portishead. I think they've done good to move away from the trip/hip-hop beats and gone with simpler stuff. Only listened through it once so far, but I'm liking it a lot already.

ONLY NICE THINGS

14:53 / 14.05.08

I refuse to listen to any album with an ordinal number higher than "Second" in the title.

Closed for Business Time

15:10 / 14.05.08

Stop threadrotting, grey-face.

19:36 / 14.05.08

I like it, but haven't listened that much. I find one track almost NIN-y...
I love the way some tracks are trance inspired, but hate the way they cut the first three tracks as they're getting into a serious groove. There are some tones used in a couple of songs which can become grating if you listen in the wrong setting.
I almost had the impression that Gibbons et al are almost saying:"You want a new album? Here, listen to this and fuck off, stop bothering us..."
Still like it though.
If I want to hear "new" "Classic" Portishead, I put on Bitter/Sweet.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

05:01 / 23.05.08

It's not really working for me yet until about half way through, and the only track I really like so far is 'Machine Gun'. I think part of the problem is that if this album had come out some seven or eight years ago it would have seemed reasonable, but ten years away to return with this? I probably feel twice as disappointed as Stone Roses fans...

Baobab Branches and Plastic

21:54 / 14.06.08

I love this album. I thought it'd be hard to top 'Dummy' but I think it about does it. Silence is fantastic as is 'We carry on'.

Portishead on Jools Holland
http://ut.ghasedak.com/watch?v=VNItz50u6OM

Is muchly fantastic

Baobab Branches and Plastic

21:55 / 14.06.08

Also... this album is VERY silver apples, and boo sucks to anyone wot says different.

Keith, like a scientist

19:02 / 16.06.08

I think part of the problem is that if this album had come out some seven or eight years ago it would have seemed reasonable, but ten years away to return with this? I probably feel twice as disappointed as Stone Roses fans...

Can't really think about it that way. This isn't the Portishead that made those albums, totally new mindset to the people involved. The title is the worst decision, because it reminds people that this is a continuation of a band, as opposed to the album being allowed to exist on it's own merit, not in comparison.

I love the thing, and I was really expecting them to not stray as far as they did from the old stuff. It's mature, interestingly composed, has unique production, and basically wears its love of CAN on it's sleeve. Tons of jam session tape edit old school production going on.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

16:16 / 30.12.08

Hmm. It's weird, I loved it at the time, but found it a little cold, and then didn't listen to it for months.

Now I've put it back on, and it's about all I'm listening to, and I can't fucking imagine why I thought it was cold at all. Maybe it just matches my mood better now than it did back then, but... it's perfect for me right now.

clever sobriquet

20:16 / 30.12.08

I'm much the same; I was impressed as hell, but found it really, really difficult on the first few listens, and put it aside for music more easily engaged. I've recently come back to it and am staggered at the genius, but find it much more porous. It's as though the music had to work changes in me before I could more fully come to it, and that required a period of dormancy.

Anna de Logardiere

22:47 / 30.12.08

I associate albums with the weather, there are some albums I can only listen to in the rain, some that are absolutely meant for sunshine, others that belong to the frost. The peculiar thing about this album is that it sounds like it could belong to the summer, Deep Water and Machine Gun are particularly deceptive in that way but it doesn't. This is a winter album and it was released at the wrong time for proper listening. So when you say you can't imagine it being cold that's surely because it's literally cold at the moment so the album feels warmer?