Adrian Utley

Beth Gibbons

Dave Mc Donnald

Geoff Barrow

Others

An interview with Portishead

Having reached the millennium's edge, Portishead is pausing for a moment to ponder future life with the nervous desperation of a cigarette's slow ashing-- and to deliver a sophomore album, Portishead. Two years after Dummy, their smashing debut, Portishead has managed to further evolve a sound that was already years ahead of its time. The group bears the name of founding breakologist and head sound bomber Geoff Barrow's home town, a few miles west of the group's private recording studio in the blue-collar city of Bristol, on the western shores of Britain. Yes, the crew has been relatively isolated here for the last two years, far from the pulse of London's music industry and media posturing. But the new album is edgier, lusher, more collaborative, and less redemptive than could perhaps have been achieved under more standard circumstances.

Listen to Portishead. A new form of mutant music has been established, fusing apocalyptic-folk sensibility with the intensity of American hip-hop. Live musicianship has been tempered with an understanding of electronic loop groove, as original chords and hooks recorded live by the group are shifted and transmogrified into samples, and manipulated through reverb and distortion effects back on to vinyl or DAT. Full orchestra and horns are used sparingly. Minimalist sonic space allows all the muted colors and shades of Portishead's tunes to reveal themselves. The sparse use of musical and rhythmic elements signifies the group's continuing reverence for producers like RZA, DJ Premier, and Isaac Hayes. Organically fused into the mix is their trademark '60s spy-movie soundtrack tremolo guitar (a sound, incidentally, that inspired numerous imitators and practically spawned the category trip-hop). The resultant depth of the texture affords a more satisfying experience with every listen.

After interviewing Geoff Barrow, I realized how much his political and social concerns have informed Portishead's sound and message. He states that the final fall of the lingering British Empire should be embraced rather than mourned nostalgically. For him, the Empire destroyed vibrant, innocent cultures, enslaved whole races. For him, politics in Britain are so screwed up that the Labour party may not be able to effect anything positive for the common person. The level of social violence in Britain is approaching that of the US, he says. And he is wary of the possibility of global conflict, especially involving China-- a threat to the new millennium that echos the specter of nuclear holocaust that curdled the '80s for him and was a definitive influence upon his youth. It is perhaps the fusion of this skepticism and atomic paranoia with Barrow's love of American hip-hop that makes Portishead so intriguing. Nuclear threat seems to lurk everywhere on the new album, but so do suggested escape routes to freedom and renewal-- some of which are evoked by the voice of Beth Gibbons, which thunders in defiance of lost love, lust, and industrial totalitarianism:

You could call Portishead "the Wu Tang Clan of apocalyptic folk-soul"-- meaning that on this album, in particular, they are breathing desperate breath, creating a work that demands focussed attention rather than the half-listen you give a coffeehouse playlist selection. Portishead is a darker album that Dummy -- angrier and more immediate. The production seems more subtly crafted to suit each song, reflecting growing musical mastery, but several things have changed in the life of the crew since the world first caught sight of them in 1994. They won Britain's most prestigious music award, the Mercury, for Dummy. Geoff Barrow got married. And the group is going to tour-- which is quite a turnaround from their almost claustrophobic resistance to public performance two years ago. They almost broke up under self-imposed creative pressure following the success of Dummy -- and in the face of the multiple cheap imitations that came from it-- but today they seem more Portishead than ever.

In fact, Portishead seems to have recreated themselves on the second album by not changing a damn thing. They have become even more themselves musically, doing everything live. They may benefit from some major industry-mystery, what with the image of Gibbons (who seems elusive but is merely shy)-- yet, really, Portishead is made up of just some common good folk. The kind who enjoying a pint at the local pub with family and friends-- more human than Truman.

TOM: Portishead has won so many fans among artsy, college, and film circles, yet you've also turned on a lot of people in the hip-hop underground. Can you talk about how influenced you've been by the approach that American hip-hop takes to production and music?

GEOFF: We've been massively influenced. I was in rock and could have stayed with the drums and stuff, but when hip-hop first hit suburban England, it kind of took over and was massively exciting. It was a real thing you could get into. It's difficult to describe, but to a younger generation of sixteen-year-old kids it was that you wouldn't go out and have a fight; you'd go out and dance against each other. We were like, "Well, what the hell?"-- you know what I mean? People might laugh at that-- like you're laughing now. But that's the way it happened.

The other point was that America was the absolute home of it. It was developed straight out of block parties or whatever, and when it got to the UK it wasn't a commercial thing. It wasn't until a lot later that I started seeing it on the TV. It was just massively exciting getting these tunes-- whether it be "So Why Is It Fresh?' and the original breaking' tunes. In the UK we had these "electro" records, which were basically American imports on a series of compilation albums called "Electro". It went from "Electro One" to "Electro Fifty," or god knows how many. If you couldn't afford to buy the imports you'd go out and buy the compilation.

Yeah, and it had all of the original Roxanne Shante stuff on it...

And it was hip-hop?

Pure hip-hop, yeah-- from all of the Grandmaster Flash stuff to even stuff like the Knights of the Turntables [laughs]-- you know what I mean? It was totally exciting, and you could tell the different crews from Los Angeles to New York, to whatever. And you had people coming out of the UK, as well. People started developing themselves.

Massive Attack.

Well, yeah. But I mean the Wild Bunch thing was pretty big and just all over the shop. It started to get played on radio and it was still called "underground." It wasn't a mainstream thing. And then there was a guy I used to buy tapes off, who still DJs with us.

DAVE AND ADRIAN: Andy Smith.

GEOFF: Basically, Andy's been DJing since the late '70s-- disco tunes, disco mixing, and the whole thing. He had these turntables and I went down to his house, heard this stuff, and was like, "Ahhh, that's it." And it's been that way all the way through 'til now-- listening to hip-hop and through that being introduced to jazz and soul tunes.

ADRIAN: Soundtracks.

And soundtracks. So it's massively creative, hip-hop, and it still will be even if it's commercial. I mean, the thing about people slaying the commercial hip-hop that is happening in America-- Yeah, it's commercial, but it's just the development of hip-hop. Hip-hop has developed all the way through, but instead of having that guy Vanilla Ice on the top of the charts, you've got someone who owns a black record company. Which is better for hip-hop, because he can get his millions of dollars and reinvest it into something that is underground. It's just more investment into black music. I mean, at one point hip-hop was so controlled by the big labels that only a certain amount could get through. But now, especially when you have people like Wu Tang selling the kind of records they do...

And everything else they're doing... ay pure is to write your own beats.

It just means more generated money, and what that does is creative. What used to happen is that if a commercial rap act were owned by a major record company, the record company would take that money and invest it in more pop. Whereas these guys [in black-owned companies] are investing in their friends and their culture.