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By: Mark Jenkins
Source: Washington Post, April 28, 1995

Geoff Barrow is calling from a Bristol studio, and that's just where he'd like to stay. In an interview occasionally interrupted by squawks of guitar noise, the Portishead songwriter and programmer explains that "we never really wanted this tour. We just wanted to put out lots of records."

The group's American label, London, insisted on at least a short U.S. jaunt to bolster the success of Portishead's debut, "Dummy." (The band will apprear Tuesday at Radio Music Hall.) Barrow wanted to make a second album before hitting the road but adds that "I can't blame them for it." "Dummy," after all, has gotten substantially more attention in United States than might be expected of an album of leisurely British post-hip-hop torch songs. "It's gotten a bit silly, really," says Barrow, "It's been a major suprise to us."

Like other acts that have developed out of the Bristol scene, including Soul II Soul, Massive Attack, and Tricky, Portishead is basically a producer (or production team) and a singer. Beth Gibbons sings such tunes as "Sour Times," "Glory Box," and "Numb," the backing tracks of which were crafted by Barrow in Bristol studios where he worked in exchange for free recording time.

"I really enjoy Bristol," says Barrow, who named his group for the nearby coastal town where he grew up. Of his home town he says, "It's incredibly depressing and small-minded. It's just a very very boring place. I really wanted to fight and get away from there."

And what of the musician's new home? "It's really laid-back. It's very slow," Barrow says of the southwestern English city. "People are not really influenced by what goes on in London. In London, people just go for the buck. People down here do music for themselves."

Barrow started doing music after leaving a graphic-arts course - "When it comes down to academic studies, I'm useless, really." - and wangling a job as a "tape op," the lowest form of recording studio fauna. To make initial contacts, he agreed to help build a studio for free. "I didn't really have any late teenage years," says the 24-year-old.

In his spare itme, Barrow prowled used record stores for possible samples, buying both heavily rhythmic music and soundtrack albums. "I see soundtrack music as a musical genre," he explains, "separate from the film." He admits that he greatly admires composer John Barry, who's best known for his James Bond film scores, even though "it's kind of trendy" in Britain these days to champion Barry's work.

Barrow picked used albums by "if it's a good year," which meant nothing later than 1976. "The production of drums sort of changed around then," he notes.

"It's like wine, innit?" he suggests of vintage vinyl. "I'm not an encyclopedia of players or styles. But if it's cheap enough, you haven't wasted much money."

Though a hip-hop fan, Barrow has carefully appropriated his heroes' techniques for his own style, which is spooky, vaguely eastern, and languid. "I could not imagine what it's like to live in L.A.," he says, arguing that it would be "disrespectful" to attempt to simulate the work of such models as A Tribe Called Quest or Gravediggaz.

The studio hound has also been influenced - negatively - by the furious beats of techno, house, and it's various mutations. "It's an anti-house thing," he says of Portishead's sound. "House has sort of destroyed music in this country."

"I like emotional songs," he notes, "and emotional songs have never been that fast."

"Dummy" samples Issac Hayes, War, Weather Report and the "Mission Impossible" theme, but Barrow says he will abandon rhythm tracks made with tape loops of moments from other people's records. "I think there's an art to finding an incredibly good sample and using it in a good way," he insists, but he's tired of debates over who found what sonic snippet first. "There's no skill at all" in employing a sample someone else has already used, he contends.

Barrow also has strong ideas about a 10-minute film, "To Kill A Dead Man," made to publicize the group, and about how to play his music live. "We thought it was a good idea when we did it," he says of the project, but "there was a misunderstanding of what we wanted in style." Though he dislikes the film, he's been unable to squelch it. "It's going to be showing before we play," he says he's recently been informed. "Great," he groans.

Although Barrow admits his group has only "done about three gigs," he announces a possibly daring approach to live performance. On stage, he says, Portishead will number six: vocals, keyboards, bass, drums, guitar, "and them I kind of make weird noises from the record decks."

"I don't like the idea of using DATs or samplers," Barrow explains. "because I don't think it's live."

"You won't recognize 'Sour Times,'" he promises. "We've completely changed it, 'cause we're bored with it. As long as we can create the same kind of vibe, that's what I'm interested in."

"I don't know," he adds after a pause. "I might be wrong."

And what will be the effect of this two-week tour on Portishead's postponed second album? "We'll become more mechanical," Barrow jokes. "Cause I will have had it with live instruments."

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