Portishead


Trip hop, electronica, alternative rock, downtempo band from Bristol, England

Biography of the Band


Portishead is a Bristol-based English band that started in 1991. They are frequently regarded as one of the forefathers of trip hop music, despite the fact that the band has always despised the name when used to define their sound. The band takes its name from the local town of the same name, which is located eight miles west of Bristol on the coast. Portishead is made up of Beth Gibbons, Geoff Barrow, and Adrian Utley, with a fourth member, Dave McDonald, who worked as an engineer on their early releases.

Dummy, their debut album, was released in 1994 to tremendous acclaim and rapidly became a classic in the trip hop genre. Portishead was released in 1997, and Third was released in 2008, both of which gained critical praise.

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Dummy (1994)

In February 1991, Geoff Barrow and Beth Gibbons recorded their first song for the album, "It Could Be Sweet." They then met Adrian Utley while recording at Bristol's Coach House Studios, where Utley heard the first song Barrow and Gibbons had recorded and the two began exchanging musical compositions. Portishead's first album, Dummy, was released in 1994 as a result of this collaboration. A shot from the band's own short movie To Kill a Dead Man appears on the cover. Geoff Barrow and Beth Gibbons were the members of Portishead at the time, according to the credits. Adrian Utley, who co-produced the album with them, joined the band as an official member soon after it was released.

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Portishead (1997)

Portishead retired from the spotlight for three years after their first breakthrough, until their new album, Portishead, was released in 1997. The album's sound was described as "grainy and rougher" than Dummy. Three singles were released: "All Mine," "Over," and "Only You," with the first reaching the UK Top 10. The band did a one-off gig with strings at New York City's Roseland Ballroom in 1997. In 1998, the group produced a live CD that used these new orchestral arrangements of its songs. A long-form VHS film of the concert was also released, and a DVD with extensive bonus material, including several early music videos, was released in 2002.

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Third (2008)

Portishead said on October 2, 2007, that the latest album Third had been recorded and was nearly finished, and that it would be released in early April 2008. The launch date was eventually moved back to April 28th. The band produced the All Tomorrow's Parties festival in Minehead, England on December 8 and 9. Their first complete live sets in over a decade were performed during the event. Five songs from the latest album were premiered: "Silence," "Hunter," "The Rip," "We Carry On," and "Machine Gun." A European tour in promotion of the album was announced on January 21, 2008, along with a headline slot at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on April 26, 2008, the tour's lone U.S. date.