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Writer's block, rockin' beats >> How Portishead topped themselves--and the trip hop competition they spawned--by going "up their own arse" by CHRIS YURKIW
The fact that he started worrying right after he'd finished recording Dummy back in 1994 (with vocalist/lyricist Beth Gibbons, producer/guitarist Adrian Utley and studio engineer Dave McDonald) would almost lead you to believe that Barrow knew he was onto a new genre--that it would be tough to distinguish a second effort and get over the sophomore hump. Lucky for him Dummy became a left-field, worldwide hit, selling over two million copies and giving him some time to regroup--even if most of it was spent touring and promoting the album. Not so lucky for him was the fact that when you crystallize a new genre there will inevitably be other artists who move in to fill it out, so by the time Portishead got down to work on album No.2, groups like the Sneaker Pimps, Olive, Morcheeba and Hooverphonic had already stepped up and sampled more early soul breakbeats and Isaac Hayes strings than you can shake your booty at. Barrow got into the studio and quickly found he was "up [his] own arse," trying not to repeat himself or those other groups. However, it was up that very ass that Barrow ultimately found a way out of the dilemma. "Hellish" and "a nightmare" is how coproducer, co-writer and shadowy Portishead member Adrian Utley describes the recording of the second album, simply titled Portishead perhaps to relieve any other creative pressure. "We had a block," says Utley. "After the promotion and the touring [for the first record] we hadn't been in the studio much, and we were concerned about other bands. So we came up with a new process of sampling ourselves, and I think we're all happy in the way that we've moved on."
But again, that's what happens when people are exposed to a style for the first time: they tend to think that it all sounds the same. Utley says that what Portishead wanted on this record was a sound that was "heavier, more ragged and edgy," and if you play it back to back with Dummy there's no denying it is just that. It strikes you from the very first notes of the opener "Cowboys," where a distressed organ tries to resonate in the vacuum of space before Gibbons' compressed voice comes in, these days sounding like Billie Holiday after having spit out some really bitter, really strange fruit. "She's into sounding pretty extreme, vocally," says Utley. "I was up with her last night until 5 a.m., working on re-vocalizations. And we were doing stuff on the board like taking the bass right off her voice, EQing it very trebly." Gibbons' is the face and voice of Portishead, but she draws the line there in terms of giving herself to the public. She flat-out refuses to elaborate on her songs or do interviews, and suffered from stage fright when the touring for Dummy first took off. Still, Utley cites "the integrity of Beth's songs and voice" as the key to Portishead's success. "It connects with everyone," he says, "and it'll take us further than hip hop or guitar music." And that is the great innovation of Bristolian trip hop, as opposed to the ambient, deconstructed breaks of the ol' Mo'Wax crew in DJs Krush and Shadow, who first got called trip hop before Portishead even came to light. Bristol trip hop connects with so many people because it takes the all-important breakbeat ("hip hop") and lays a pop song over it ("guitar music"). "Beth is what takes us out of the [dance music] trip hop thing," says Utley. "Things in dance music move fast, and we obviously aren't about that!" At Metropolis this Tuesday and Wednesday, March 10-11. Both shows are sold out
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Before Portishead were proclaimed leaders of the new cool in trip hop, before you heard the languorous sound of Dummy leaking out of every café, boutique and laundromat/juice bar on the continent, and before a lorry load of other "electronica bands" started sneaking around to pimp the Bristol group's torchy, jazzy, hip hop blues, Portisheadmaster Geoff Barrow was already wondering where the hell he could go next with their sound.
It's not that Barrow and Utley, who lay down tracks and then send them to Beth Gibbons for anguished lyrical completion, sampled the first Portishead album for the second. Rather than seeking out ever more obscure snippets from the recordings of Johnnie Ray or Lalo Schifrin, what the pair did was record their own strings, record their own breakbeats, even record some original vocals, and had them pressed onto vinyl to then mess about with as though they were old records. They'd scratch them up, literally, before scratching them on the turntable, and the overall effect seemed to cause some folks to feel that the new album, however glorious, sounded more like the first one than the first one did(!).