The Goo 1
Regular CONOR FARRELL THE GRAPE VINYL Dummy - Por
tishead (1994) 30th Anniversary Year Geoff Barrow was a young tape op working at Coach Studios in Bristol when Massive Attack came in to record their seminal debut album Blue Lines. Barrow was learning his craft as an audio engineer and DJ at the same time and had ambitions to put his own project together. He had recently met aspiring singer Beth Gibbons at a meeting for an unemployment benefit scheme. Barrow took advantage of free studio time available to him and an Akai sampler gifted to him by Massive Attack. The chemistry between Barrow and Gibbons was immediate. Gibbons was such a soulful singer and Barrow was interested in creating atmospheric soundscapes. Barrow himself was a drummer at heart but his growing interest in hip hop beats had led him to DJing and sampling. But despite the tightness of the collaboration something else was needed to fill out the sound and add more texture and colour. Little did they realise that the perfect solution, the final piece of the puzzle, was about to walk into the studio to record his own demos. Adrian Utley was a session guitarist who was doing a lot of live Jazz but was frustrated that he wasn’t developing creatively. Utely was interested in making experimental and esoteric sounds. He was interested in cinematic sounds and was influenced by the spaghetti western guitar sounds used by Morricone. He was also interested in 60’s spy music soundtracks or what he called “Cold War Sounds”. He was experimenting with instruments not traditionally used in pop music for example the Cimbalom, PAGE 44 a type of dulcimer, and more unusually the Theremin. The Theremin is a type of electronic instrument where the sound is created through antennae creating the kind of spooky sound you might get in a 60’s sci fi movie. It was fate that Utely should choose Coach studios at this very time and he almost immediately joined forces with Barrow and Gibbons. THEY USED REVOLUTIONARY TECHNIQUES IN SAMPLING SUCH AS RECORDING THEIR OWN LIVE SAMPLES AND PRESSING THEM TO VINYL studio but it was apparent that she too was closely attuned to their shared vision. Taking their name directly from the coastal town near Bristol where Barrow grew up in Portishead entered the studio in 1993 to record their debut album Dummy. From the opening bars of Mysterions with its spooky Themerin and slow marching drum beats you could tell that Portishead were going to be different. The music was an incredible mix of sounds. It was electronic with hip hop beats sampling and organic live music. They used revolutionary techniques in sampling such as recording their own live samples and pressing them to vinyl. Then they would scratch and rough up the vinyl until it had all the hisses crackles and pops to give it a evocative vintage sound before feeding it back into the sampler. Gibbons’ haunting vocals were immediately arresting and ethereal. Sour Times would follow and become a hit on both sides of the Atlantic Barrow and Utley had aligned ideas when it came to making music with each keenly interested in what the other was doing. Gibbons would generally work alone on her parts and send it into the despite its mournful refrain “nobody loves me, it’s true”. Gibbons’ powerful lyrics reflected a devastating loneliness and isolation throughout with occasional light peaking through “where the morn meets the dew”. The vocals like the music would at times go from a whisper to a scream. But her voice was always soulful and utterly captivating. It was sonically fragmented just like the neurotic soul at its heart. Dummy would go on to win the Mercury Prize beating Oasis which was no mean feat in 1995. They had invented new vocabulary which resounds in the music world today.