Articles

Title: An English Band Plays, And You Can See The Music

Source: The New York Times, Saturday, November 26, 1994

Every year a few records are released that sound strikingly original. The music seems to come not from some previous model, but from an idea for a sound its composer has trapped in his or her head. "Dummy" (Go! Discs/London records), the first album by the English band Portishead, is such a record.

It's best to think of Portishead's music visually, because it is arranged spatially, instead of musically. Portishead's songs begin with a voice, a soprano that is dreamy, melodic, and completely alone, soaring high over a chasm. Far beneath it, an electronic bass line throbs, pulses and buzzes and a record - maybe War song, maybe incidental music from "Mission Impossible," it doesn't really matter - is scratched slowly and atmospherically. Time is suspended on "Dummy," because it is structured not so much like an album with 11 different songs as a film with 11 scenes. When the movie is playing, you are in it's creator's world, one where wristwatches can be deceiving.

Portishead consists of Beth Gibbons (the voice) and Geoff Barrow (the chasm). A small cast of extras occasionally adds string arrangements, organ melodies, trumpet textures and the unsettling warbles of the theremin, and early electronic instrument. The lyrics are delivered sporadically, meant more to convey a mood than meaning. "Wandering stars," Ms. Gibbons sings on "Wandering Stars," "for whom it is reserved the blackness, the darkness, forever." Her voice echoes in the void of Portishead's music, like that of a dive in search of a dance song.

Neil Strauss

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Title: An English Band Plays, And You Can See The Music