I love Portishead, I had the good fortune of meeting them many years ago when I worked for their publishing company.

If you've never heard of them, I seriously urge you to check them out.

You need to give the new album multiple listens before layers of audio genius reveal themselves to you.

Admittedly, I'm what you could easily classify as a Portishead junkie, and bias runs rife (Roads et al are seldom away from constant rotation).  I can also admit, however, to being somewhat taken aback by the album upon the inaugural spin.  It's not as immediately, nor as abundantly rich as the first two records, therefore lending itself to unravelling slowly before you.

Be patient.  Let it come to you at its own pace, and be thankful that a decade later, a trio from a place in the UK no one outside of it has ever heard of, can still be so inspiring and individual.  To me, they remain as stunning as ever.

P.S Raging jealousy directed at Cheese's fortunate meeting.   

I've listened to some of their songs via a few different mediums, youtube and the likes, in the past and I really enjoyed their music.

There's one specific song I really enjoyed and I cannot for the life of me remember that it was called. Which is annoying the heck out of me, so I'm going to hunt it down :p

You need to give the new album multiple listens before layers of audio genius reveal themselves to you.

Admittedly, I'm what you could easily classify as a Portishead junkie, and bias runs rife (Roads et al are seldom away from constant rotation).  I can also admit, however, to being somewhat taken aback by the album upon the inaugural spin.  It's not as immediately, nor as abundantly rich as the first two records, therefore lending itself to unravelling slowly before you.

Be patient.  Let it come to you at its own pace, and be thankful that a decade later, a trio from a place in the UK no one outside of it has ever heard of, can still be so inspiring and individual.  To me, they remain as stunning as ever.

P.S Raging jealousy directed at Cheese's fortunate meeting.   

exsuscito wrote:

You need to give the new album multiple listens before layers of audio genius reveal themselves to you.

Admittedly, I'm what you could easily classify as a Portishead junkie, and bias runs rife (Roads et al are seldom away from constant rotation).  I can also admit, however, to being somewhat taken aback by the album upon the inaugural spin.  It's not as immediately, nor as abundantly rich as the first two records, therefore lending itself to unravelling slowly before you.

Be patient.  Let it come to you at its own pace, and be thankful that a decade later, a trio from a place in the UK no one outside of it has ever heard of, can still be so inspiring and individual.  To me, they remain as stunning as ever.

P.S Raging jealousy directed at Cheese's fortunate meeting.   

Yeah, there are only a couple tracks that still have me gritting my teeth now.

Yasamuu, this probably isn't what you're thinking of, but Gibbons did an album with a dude named Rustin Man between this and the last Portishead album, and although it's mostly quite a bit different than Portishead's stuff, there's one track called "Tom the Model" that's in a similar vein, and that one was released for free on the internet somewhere.

I'll bet the farm that one of those tracks is 'Machine Gun'.  I found that that particular track is stronger when listened to 'in the street' (young, hip colloquialism unintentional), as you can somehow appreciate the nuances a little more.  Once you come to realize that is supposed to be arresting, and a little barbaric, you can allow it to seep into the psyche.

The album with Rustin Man (Out Of Season) is very good, also.  It fully embraces Gibbon's love of 30's-like ballads (for lack of a better description), with a dark twist, of course.  Recommended for Portishead fans.

Off-topic, but new Massive Attack album now, please. 

Feathers on my breath.    

P.S Raging jealousy directed at Cheese's fortunate meeting.   

It was in a working capacity, but they were really nice, Beth especially.

This was around '95/'96 ish.

Rarebit wrote:

exsuscito wrote:

You need to give the new album multiple listens before layers of audio genius reveal themselves to you.

Admittedly, I'm what you could easily classify as a Portishead junkie, and bias runs rife (Roads et al are seldom away from constant rotation).  I can also admit, however, to being somewhat taken aback by the album upon the inaugural spin.  It's not as immediately, nor as abundantly rich as the first two records, therefore lending itself to unravelling slowly before you.

Be patient.  Let it come to you at its own pace, and be thankful that a decade later, a trio from a place in the UK no one outside of it has ever heard of, can still be so inspiring and individual.  To me, they remain as stunning as ever.

P.S Raging jealousy directed at Cheese's fortunate meeting.   

Yeah, there are only a couple tracks that still have me gritting my teeth now.

Yasamuu, this probably isn't what you're thinking of, but Gibbons did an album with a dude named Rustin Man between this and the last Portishead album, and although it's mostly quite a bit different than Portishead's stuff, there's one track called "Tom the Model" that's in a similar vein, and that one was released for free on the internet somewhere.

I'll bet the farm that one of those tracks is 'Machine Gun'.  I found that that particular track is stronger when listened to 'in the street' (young, hip colloquialism unintentional), as you can somehow appreciate the nuances a little more.  Once you come to realize that is supposed to be arresting, and a little barbaric, you can allow it to seep into the psyche.

    

exsuscito wrote:

Rarebit wrote:

exsuscito wrote:

You need to give the new album multiple listens before layers of audio genius reveal themselves to you.

Admittedly, I'm what you could easily classify as a Portishead junkie, and bias runs rife (Roads et al are seldom away from constant rotation).  I can also admit, however, to being somewhat taken aback by the album upon the inaugural spin.  It's not as immediately, nor as abundantly rich as the first two records, therefore lending itself to unravelling slowly before you.

Be patient.  Let it come to you at its own pace, and be thankful that a decade later, a trio from a place in the UK no one outside of it has ever heard of, can still be so inspiring and individual.  To me, they remain as stunning as ever.

P.S Raging jealousy directed at Cheese's fortunate meeting.   

Yeah, there are only a couple tracks that still have me gritting my teeth now. " width="15" height="15" />

Yasamuu, this probably isn't what you're thinking of, but Gibbons did an album with a dude named Rustin Man between this and the last Portishead album, and although it's mostly quite a bit different than Portishead's stuff, there's one track called "Tom the Model" that's in a similar vein, and that one was released for free on the internet somewhere.

I'll bet the farm that one of those tracks is 'Machine Gun'.  I found that that particular track is stronger when listened to 'in the street' (young, hip colloquialism unintentional), as you can somehow appreciate the nuances a little more.  Once you come to realize that is supposed to be arresting, and a little barbaric, you can allow it to seep into the psyche.

    

Yay, I win a farm! Wait, what kind of farm is it?

I'm mostly all right with Machine Gun. The two that still kind of get to me are "We Carry On," and "Deep Water" (mercifully brief).

Banana.  Potassium's the gift that keeps on giving.

I was initially a little "Waaa??" at 'Deep Water', but I've come to appreciate it as an momentary indulgence of Beth's influences.  I do find the barbershop quartet backing vocals extremely eerie, for some reason.  That, for me, adds to the theme of the record.  Also, the fact that it's short tells me they were conscious of alienating their fans, with this one, but gave them enough credit to be able to 'handle' a 90 second departure.

It's not Dummy, and it's not the self-titled follow-up.  It's perhaps not as good, overall.  The sooner I got over that, however, the more this one got under my skin a little.  

exsuscito wrote:

You need to give the new album multiple listens before layers of audio genius reveal themselves to you.

Admittedly, I'm what you could easily classify as a Portishead junkie, and bias runs rife (Roads et al are seldom away from constant rotation).  I can also admit, however, to being somewhat taken aback by the album upon the inaugural spin.  It's not as immediately, nor as abundantly rich as the first two records, therefore lending itself to unravelling slowly before you.

Be patient.  Let it come to you at its own pace, and be thankful that a decade later, a trio from a place in the UK no one outside of it has ever heard of, can still be so inspiring and individual.  To me, they remain as stunning as ever.

P.S Raging jealousy directed at Cheese's fortunate meeting.   

Yasamuu, this probably isn't what you're thinking of, but Gibbons did an album with a dude named Rustin Man between this and the last Portishead album, and although it's mostly quite a bit different than Portishead's stuff, there's one track called "Tom the Model" that's in a similar vein, and that one was released for free on the internet somewhere.

Yeah, it's not that one. I remember Numb being used on a Lost Ad for Channel 4 over here before the series came out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJB9PuWT5CY

Channel 4's used it for a few ad's I think, so it might have been Numb I was thinking of and just got confused but I'm fairly sure it wasn't. Oh well, I shall figure it out eventually. In the mean time... *listens to the new album*