Day 0977 - Third

Portishead "Third" (2008)

Portishead had kind of taken their lush, orchestral trip-hop sound to its natural conclusion.  After two albums in that style, they played their live show with an orchestra in New York and released an audio and video record of the same.

The group had been touring and recording fairly constantly and decided to take a break (also partly motivated by the divorce of one of band members).   They made a few attempts here and there to write and record new material but were concerned about repeating themselves.

Adrian Utley and Geoff Barrow produced an album by The Coral and the ease with which that band laid down an album made them realise they were overthinking things somewhat.   In touch again with singer Beth Gibbons, the three swapped ideas and recordings and experimented with swapping instruments and stripping back their playing and sound.

The result in a stark contrast to their previous two albums, with their orchestral, cinematic sound being supplanted by a minimalist (melodically and arrangement-wise) electronic sound.  Though there are hints of their old reverb-soaked noir sound on tracks like "Hunter" and "Threads", even these ones feature some industrial sounds and sparser instrumentation.

“The Rip” is largely built around light acoustic guitar with some percussion sounds seeping in later on in the piece, almost reminiscent of Radiohead's early 00s work.  Actually, Kid A would be a really good reference point, both for some of the sounds and the extent of the change to their sound.

Deep Water” is an easy-strumming ukulele track with an almost cute vocoder backing vocal, which sort of acts as a palate cleanser before the industrial, and unrelenting “Machine Gun”.  MG's instrumentation mostly eschews melody in favour of a repetitive grinding rhythm that Gibbons’ voice hangs hauntingly over.

"Small" has touches of the Doors to it, with its intense organ and jazz-tinged drums.

The thing that remains most unchanged on this album is Beth Gibbons' haunting voice.  I guess its context changed, as she always seemed like an actor, fitting her voice/roll to what the music demanded.  She does the same here, but without sweeping strings and moody brass behind her, she sounds less like the noirish femme and more fragile and desperate.

Sadly, to-date the group have not yet provided us with a follow-up to this album, outside of a one-off single.