eMusic Review 0
From the opening notes of Portishead's 1994 debut album, Dummy, everything feels like it's in flux. A muted, tremolo-soaked guitar bubbles up from the deep, while a theremin flickers like seaweed; even the solid elements — vinyl scratching, rickety breakbeats — don't anchor things so much as crabwalk nervously across the bed of a deep, desolate ocean, dragging the song's uncertainly along with it.
Much of the desolation that the Bristol trio conjured was thanks to the voice of its singer, Beth Gibbons: Channeling the tics of blues singers at their most unguarded, she sometimes sounded like a sped-up Nina Simone played back on a faulty turntable. But Gibbons made an asset out of her quirks, sliding from note to warbly note and cloaking herself in a soft, husky hiss. Her impressionistic lyrics are like stabs in the dark, free associations finding their way again and again to recurring themes of fatigue, loneliness, and self-loathing.
The group's lounge signifiers and hip-hop leanings were hardly unprecedented. The Hammonds and spy-movie shtick were familiar from the late '80s' acid-house boom, and the crackling breaks and sedated hip-hop vibe were a staple of London's Mo' Wax label, founded two years earlier. (Unlike more uptight… read more »
