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.

Day 0761 - Dummy

Portishead "Dummy" (1994) - got it

The words that spring to mind with this one are moody, cinematic and a mix of old and new.

"Cinematic", not necessarily meaning grandiose, it's just that the music creates atmospheres and visuals in my mind.  This sense of the cinematic is emphasised by Beth Gibbons changing her singing voice to suit each track, almost like a vocal 'actor'.

"Old and new" because they're mixing old jazz, soul and torch-song sounds with modern production.   Organs, strings and moody trumpet with hip hop beats and scratches.  

Opening track "Mysteron" is appropriately titled as it sounds like an old sci-fi b-movie score with a beat.  "Glory Box" speaks of sultry noir, and was used as the backing track for MTV's Superrock show, hosted by the glamorous Julia Valet.

Though Portishead didn't invent triphop, this album's sound came to be what many would associate the with the genre.

Sadly, the band's output (though superlative) has been fairly small.  Two albums, then a fantastic live album with the NY orchestra.  After that there was a 10 year wait before their third and (to date) final album.  

Day 0526 - Eliminator

ZZ Top "Eliminator" (1983) - got it

The Top were still well into their dry-n-dusty blues-rock, and still singing about cars and girls.   Any suggestion, however, that they were a complete anachronism was at least delayed by them getting into synths and drum machines and injecting elements of disco and new-wave into their catchy rock grooves.

Various rumours have Billy Gibbons more or less excluding his two bandmates in favour of drum machines and playing the other instruments himself.  Whatever the case, the album fared very well, helped in no small part by its music videos (such as "Legs") which were put into high rotation on MTV.