Articles

Very Good at Being Themselves

Independent on Sunday, November 30, 1997, pp 6

Portishead Is not just the name of a band. It's the name of that band' s second album, and it's the name of their hometown, just outside Bristol (the show in the Brixton Academy on Wednesday began with "Welcome to Portishead" signs flickering on thebackdrop), a town which must have mixed feelings about losing its identity to the renowned pioneers of post- hip-hop haunted-house lounge music.

A few seconds into the gig and it was clear that Portishead is also the name of a genre. You may (at your own risk) call the band trip- hoppers, and you may compare them with Massive Attack or Moloko, but no one makes music like Portishead do. No oneelse can evoke desolation and anguish in a way that is so classic but so revolutionary, and so spine-chilling that it makes passing Goths tear their black hair out by its blond roots. Portishead are a genre unto themselves - and that's why they are so important. If you see only one gig this year, then you should really get out more often; if you see only five gigs this year, Portishead's should be one of them.

In concert, Portishead the band do Portishead the genre as impeccably and stylishly as they do on Portishead the album. Projected on to the backdrop are oily tendrils of smoke, then a haze of television interference, then a green wave-pattern whichresponds to Beth Gibbons' s vocals: as her spiky Germanic caw gives way to a pure, desolate cry, the line trembles, then spasms into jagged peaks and troughs, and you wonder why no one else came up with this idea before.

Gibbons' voice - so icy that the people at the front of the crowd had to wear mittens - is complemented by shivers of organ, alien cackles from Geoff Barrow's record decks, and Adrian Utley's diverse, but always stately and economical guitar. Each bandmember is intensely focused on making sure that Portishead never get a Christmas number one single. They know precisely what they're doing.

Sometimes this can be frustrating. Portishead have mastered a particular mood, and show no signs of venturing into another genre, so you know from the first few bars how the whole concert will sound (Portishead is a fabulous place to visit, but Iwouldn't want to live there). These self-imposed limits may explain why the band struggled for three fraught years between the first album and its follow-up. When I saw Portishead on their last tour I wondered how they could possibly make a second album; this time I wondered how they could possibly make a third.

NICHOLAS BARBER

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Very Good at Being Themselves