Details
Track Listing
1. Mysterons
2. Sour Times
3. Strangers
4. It Could Be Sweet
5. Wandering Star
6. It's a Fire
7. Numb
8. Roads
9. Pedestal
10. Biscuit
11. Glory Box
| Details | | Producer: | Adrian Utley, Portishead | | Distributor: | Universal Distribution | | Recording Type: | Studio | | Recording Mode: | Stereo | | SPAR Code: | n/a |
Album Notes
Portishead: Beth Gibbons (vocals); Adrian Utley (guitar, Hammond organ, bass, Theremin); Geoff Barrow (Fender Rhodes piano, drums, programming).
Additional personnel: Strings Unlimited (strings); Dave McDonald (nose flute); Andy Hague (trumpet); Neil Solman (Fender Rhodes piano, Hammond organ); Gary Baldwin (Hammond organ); Clive Deamer (drums); Richard Newell (programming).
Recorded at State Of The Art and Coach House Studios, Bristol, England.
Named for a town near Bristol, England, Portishead is a British dance band that grabs ideas from all over the mod pop world (spaghetti Western guitars, turntable scratching, melancholy soul vocals, atmospheric organs, house beats) and stirs them into spacey, dub-like productions that sound like a dance club in the middle of a "Twin Peaks" dream. You could call it surreal hip-hop pop. But if the beats on the band's debut album achieve a kind of trance-like static, the songs themselves reach for something more rousing. With understated lyrics and overstated melodies, singer Beth Gibbons and bandleader Geoff Barrow write insinuatingly melancholy dance ballads that ebb and flow like waves through rustling waters. Organs quaver in quiet tremolos, guitars emit squiggles and turntables hiccup, while Gibbons, in a high, cutting voice that evokes a less breathy Sinead O'Connor, sings songs of longing and heartbreak with equally palpable emotion.
Industry Reviews
Included in Rolling Stone's Essential Recordings of the 90's.
Rolling Stone (05/13/1999)
Included in Q Magazine's 90 Best Albums Of The 1990s.
Q (12/01/1999)
Ranked #29 in The NME Top 30 Heartbreak Albums - ...An easily accessible, but still richly emotional new sound for the beginning of the '90s.
NME (08/12/2000)
Included in Mojo's 25 Best Albums of 1994 - ...A stunning, stylish first album.
Mojo (01/01/1995)
Ranked #61 in Q's 100 Greatest British Albums
Q (06/01/2000)
...On their debut, instrumental wunderkid Geoff Barrow and torch vocalist Beth Gibbons draw on grooves from Isaac Hayes to the present to create dark, dense tracks that inspire gentle rocking instead of frantic pumping...
Alternative Press (07/01/1995)
...mixes cocktail keyboards, spaghetti-western guitars, eerie tape loops, and dub-wise rhythms into what could be called `acid cabaret'....as musically compelling as it is emotionally chilling... - Rating: A-
Entertainment Weekly (11/18/1994)
4 Stars - Excellent - ...perhaps this year's most stunning debut album...
Q (10/01/1994)
...Turntable wicky-wicky, film-noir theremin, hammer dulcimers, and the tearful vocals of Beth Gibbons...
Spin (03/01/2003)
3.5 Stars - Very Good - ...Assertive rhythms and quirky production save Portishead from languishing in any coy retro groove. Instead they manage yet another--very smart--rebirth of cool...
Rolling Stone (03/09/1995)
Ranked #6 in NME's list of the `Top 50 Albums Of 1994.'
NME (12/24/1994)
Ranked #14 in the Village Voice's 1994 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll.
Village Voice (02/28/1995)
Included on Neil Strauss' list of the Top 10 Albums Of '94 - ...The eeriest and most original dance-music album of the year.
New York Times (01/05/1995)
Ranked #42 in Spin Magazine's 90 Greatest Albums of the '90s.
Spin (09/01/1999)
3.5 Stars - Very Good - ...Assertive rhythms and quirky production save Portishead from languishing in any coy retro groove. Instead they manage yet another--very smart--rebirth of cool...
Rolling Stone (03/09/1995)
Ranked #35 in Mojo's 100 Modern Classics -- [S]loping beats, inventive samples and freaky melodies create an unsettling emotional topography.
[They] combined odd sample noises and instruments with haunted vocals....A perfect pop album.
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