Articles

Guitar Player, May 1995

"This is not a guitar thing, really," says Adrian Utley, producer and guitarist for Portishead, leading exponents of the"trip-hop" wave. The Bristol, England-based group combines densely layered acoustic and electric instrumentation, soulful crooning, and the studio techniques of hip hop into one of the most richly inventive sounds in modern pop. "It's about using guitar as a source rather than guitar for guitar's sake."

The haunting musical moods that fill Portishead's 1994 debut Dummy contain nary a routine guitar solo or feedback-drenched rhythm fill. The group--led by keyboardist/sampler Geoff Barrow and enchanting vocalist Beth Gibbons, with supporting members Utley and engineer Dave McDonald--recontextualizes the instrument in innovative, often disorienting ways.

From the tortured Hendrix-like riff that creeps into the chorus of "Glory Box" to the Link Wray-ish line that grinds over a sample from Lalo Schifrin's Mission: Impossible theme in "Sour Times," Utley's guitar alternately bubbles in the back-drop and pokes to the surface in raging torrents. It's less a lead instrument and more a tool for dramatic punctuation.

Plugging his favorite Gibson ES-335 into a cast of old Fender amps and pawnshop fuzzboxes ("I like the Fuzz Face and Big Muff"), many of Utley's parts were first recorded onto vinyl, then sampled into the mix as needed. This technique was used for the woozy riff that gives "Wandering Star" its fractured, eerie quality. In "Strangers," a similar strategy resulted in the scratchy, noodling guitar part that sounds like it was lifted off an old jazz 78. "That was an absolute piece-of-shit acoustic we found lying around the studio," laughs Utley. "We tuned it up, recorded it onto a dictaphone, and put it on `Strangers.'"

For a 37-year-old jazz-trained guitarist who's led numerous British blues bands and recorded with his longtime idol Jeff Beck on Crazy Legs, playing in Portishead is quite a departure. "It's pretty weird stuff guitar-wise," Utley says. "But it doesn't bother me playing guitar not like a guitar. It's an adventure."

Jason Fine

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