"Oh, can't anybody see
We've got a war to fight
Never found our way
Regardless of what they say
How can it feel, this wrong
From this moment
How can it feel, this wrong..."
(c) Roads, Portishead
About us
Portishead is an English band formed in 1991 in Bristol.
They are often considered as one of the pioneers of trip hop music.
The band is named after the nearby town of the same name,
eight miles west of Bristol, along the coast.
Portishead consists of Geoff Barrow, Beth Gibbons and Adrian Utley,
while sometimes citing a fourth member, Dave McDonald,
an engineer of their first records.
Their debut album, Dummy, was met with critical acclaim in 1994.
Two other studio albums have been issued:
Portishead in 1997 and Third in 2008.
About
Dummy (1994)
Portishead's first album Dummy was released in 1994.
The credits indicate that at this juncture,
Portishead was a duo of Geoff Barrow and Beth Gibbons.
Adrian Utley, who co-produced the album with them,
became an official band member shortly after its release.
Despite the band's aversion to press coverage,
the album was successful in both Europe and the United States
(where it sold more than 150,000 copies even before the band toured there).
Dummy was positively described by the Melody Maker as "musique noire for
a movie not yet made". Rolling Stone praised its music as "Gothic hip-hop".
Dummy spawned three singles: "Numb", "Sour Times" and "Glory Box",
and won the Mercury Music Prize in 1995.
The success of the album saw the band nominated for Best British Newcomer
at the 1995 Brit Awards.The album is often considered one of the greatest
trip hop albums to date and is a milestone in the definition of the genre.
Portishead (1997)
After their initial success, Portishead withdrew from the
spotlight for three years until their second album, Portishead,
was released in 1997. The album's sound differed from Dummy,
characterised as "grainy and harsher". Three singles,
"All Mine", "Over" and "Only You" were released,
the first one achieving a Top 10 placing in the UK.
In 1997, the band performed a one-off show with strings at the
Roseland Ballroom in New York City. A live album primarily featuring
these new orchestral arrangements of the group's songs was released in 1998.
There was also a long-form VHS video of the performance,
and a DVD followed in 2002, with substantial extra material including
many early music videos.
Hiatus (1999–2005)
In 1999, Portishead recorded the song "Motherless Child"
with Tom Jones for his album Reload. For the next few years,
the band members concentrated on solo and other pursuits.
In February 2005, the band appeared live for the first time
in seven years at the Tsunami Benefit Concert in Bristol.
Around that time, Barrow revealed that the band
was in the process of writing its third album.
Third (2008)
On 2 October 2007, Portishead stated that the new album Third had been
mixed and was nearly complete, and was due for release in early April 2008.
The release was later pushed to 28 April.
On 8 and 9 December 2007, the band curated the All Tomorrow's
Parties festival in Minehead, England. The festival featured
their first full live sets in nearly 10 years.
They premiered five tracks from the new album: "Silence", "Hunter",
"The Rip", "We Carry On", and "Machine Gun".
On 21 January 2008, a European tour to support the album was announced,
together with a headline spot at the Coachella Valley Music
and Arts Festival on 26 April 2008, their only U.S. date on the tour.
Third was made available on Last.fm the week before release,
attracting 327,000 listeners in just under 24 hours.
The album was released on 29 April 2008 to coincide with the band's
appearance at Coachella.
Post-Third (2008–present)
On 18 May 2008, Barrow expressed Portishead's enthusiasm for
recording new material on their official website's blog,
stating that he "can't wait to write some new tunes".
On 28 September 2009, Barrow announced "big plans" for a new
project with a new angle, hinting that an album could arrive
as soon as late 2010. Whilst the album had yet to materialise,
on 9 December 2009, the band released the song "Chase the Tear"
for Human Rights Day to raise money for Amnesty International UK.
During Summer 2011, Portishead performed at a number of festivals in Europe.
Then they visited several cities in North America during October.
They finished their tour with a jaunt to Australia and New Zealand.
Barrow stated in a Rolling Stone interview that he would begin work
on his portion of the album in January 2012, jokingly pointing out
that it could be another decade before a new album is released.
In summer 2014, they played several concerts around Europe.
Additionally, Portishead produced a cover of ABBA's song "SOS"
for the soundtrack to the movie High-Rise which had a Gala screening
at the London Film Festival on 9 October 2015.
In 2016, the band won an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding
Contribution to British Music. On 22 June 2016, Portishead released
an official video for "SOS" that recontextualized the song in
the wake of the then-recent murder of MP Jo Cox and the Brexit vote,
taking place the next day; the video ends with Beth Gibbons
reaching her hand out towards the viewer and then a quote by Cox appears:
"We have far more in common than which divides us."
