After a Decade Away, Portishead Floats Back

[swag]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/arts/music/13pare.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

By JON PARELES
MUNICH

GEOFF BARROW has an objective for his band, Portishead. He wants it to be “the opposite of rock ’n’ roll,” even if he hasn’t entirely figured out what that is. After all, it was a taste of the rock ’n’ roll life that made Portishead disappear for a decade while the band’s otherworldly mixture of modern dread, retro samples and torch-song yearning lingered on soundtracks and boutique playlists.

On the two morosely startling albums that made Portishead’s reputation when it came out of England in the 1990s, Beth Gibbons’s voice and words were bereft and bitter, floating in music that placed vintage samples in sparse, echoey backdrops, conjuring emotional abysses and the irrevocable passage of time. The band itself was self-effacing, but word of mouth, from introvert to introvert, worked as much as radio play to cultivate devoted fans. According to Nielsen SoundScan, Portishead’s debut album, “Dummy,” sold 1.1 million copies and its second, “Portishead,” sold 635,000. Then, after touring and a live follow-up album, Portishead faded out.

Now Portishead has rematerialized, resuming a career that has always moved in slow motion. “It’s amazing how quickly 10 years can go,” said Adrian Utley, who plays guitars and keyboards, over coffee at an elegant Munich hotel the night before the band’s performance. “There was no sense that we would split up or we weren’t going to do anything again. We just didn’t want to for that time.”

This month Portishead is touring Europe and making an April 26 appearance at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in California. (Those will be its only concerts for the rest of 2008, for “personal reasons,” Mr. Barrow said.)

And on April 29 Portishead releases "Third" (Mercury/Island), its third studio album and the sequel to “Portishead,” from 1997. “Third” is more polymorphous, more extreme, more propulsive and often harsher than previous Portishead albums. Instead of mellowing with age or returning to a signature sound, the band has fractured and splintered that sound, plunging even deeper into loneliness and anxiety.

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some intertubes: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=portishead+third&search_type=

[Bryan]

1. Very excited about this album

"Machine Gun" is very harsh.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lsuz4ki31zA

[Elidor]

2. Machine Gun may be their best work yet

I love it.

[Drum]

3. I'm glad to hear this news,

and not surprised that it was you who posted it. :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Many thanks, and salutations!