Phead articles

	ARTICLES ABOUT BETH'S ALBUM "OUT OF SEASON" from mojo First 'solo' album from Portishead's singer, in collaboration with Paul Webb, formerly of Talk Talk, with additional input from Portishead colleague, Adrian Utley. "God knows how I adore life..." Out Of Season has one of the most arresting opening tracks I've ever heard. Mysteries is a shivery folk ballad, pregnant with the past, sung in something like the voice Marianne Faithfull chose for As Tears Go By. Accompaniment is a single acoustic guitar - recorded, by the sound of it, outdoors, in the rain - and a small heavenly host, the kind of background voices favoured in 1930s Hollywood scores. Towards the end there's a smudge of very quiet electric guitar. Not much going on, then, and what there is is curiously old-fashioned, yet Mysteries is thrilling in its reliance on so little for its power. It is intimate, human, bewitching and duct-pricklingly beautiful. Everyone I've played it to has fallen into a reverie for four and a half minutes and ended it with a quiet 'wow' or 'Jesus' or 'ffffffff'. It reminds them of something. "The first time I saw The Wicker Man," said one, cryptically. "[An ex-lover]," said another, wistfully. "The reason I got into music," said a third, crucially. This same person has also expressed an unreasonable loathing for the glassy purity of Eva Cassidy. "Everyone's indulging themselves in her tragedy. It's insert-emotion-here music." We argue about this. Isn't all singing asking us to respond with our own experience, to, in effect, 'insert-emotion-here'? Doesn't a good voice impel you to revisit feelings? Isn't 'the reason I got into music' because it moved you? "Yes, and Eva leaves me cold." Lots of questions about our response to voices arise listening to Out Of Season because Beth Gibbons - unusually, daringly - adopts so many different voices. Generally, we mistrust singers who veer from their 'natural' tone. The deal implicit with a singer like Cassidy is 'Here's my voice and I'm going to filter these songs through it.' Beth's instinct would seem to be different. She treats each song as a new role, electing to convey distinct emotions by changing narrator. For Tom The Model, she becomes Ms. Bryan Ferry; for Show she wears a husky, trumpety vibrato akin to Chet Baker, for Romance she settles on the Bille Holiday tone that was a trademark of Portishead, for Spyder she chooses a west-country whisper. Resolve, simply Beth and her acoustic guitar, begins with a tentative croak that sounds like the mike's at her temple and is catching her thinking of the song for the first time. Such shape-shifting could be the sign of some insecurity, but Beth's a natural-born actress, a medium, and whatever tone she adopts seems totally right. There are several over-praised singer-songwriter types who will be eating their hearts out when they hear this. I can't think of a better singer in Britain right now. It's a delight to hear her outside the comparatively chilly climate of Portishead too. The music is exquisitely recorded and appealingly analogue-sounding, Paul Webb and Adrian Utley's productions lay down folk or jazz textures and decorate them with finely-judged details - a clattering Wurlitzer, a harmonica, churchy Hammond, subtle orchestrations. The rooms are audible; and there's something stagey about the sound too, respectful backgrounds for Beth's quietly bravura performances. This is a record made by people with innately high standards. Out Of Season exhibits a generous amount of effortless-sounding craft. The songs are original yet unflashy compositions; one or two are so good they sound like freshly minted old standards. It isn't the product of some luddite hankering for the past, but confidently displays a depth that many modern records don't have the time, wit or inclination to explore. It's among the best albums ever made. It'll remind you of something. Jim Irvin
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ARTICLES ABOUT BETH'S ALBUM "OUT OF SEASON"

from mojo

First 'solo' album from Portishead's singer, in collaboration with Paul Webb, formerly of Talk Talk, with additional input from Portishead
colleague, Adrian Utley.

"God knows how I adore life..." *Out Of Season* has one of the most arresting opening tracks I've ever heard. Mysteries is a shivery folk ballad, pregnant with the past, sung in something like the voice Marianne Faithfull chose for As Tears Go By. Accompaniment is a single acoustic guitar - recorded, by the sound of it, outdoors, in the rain - and a small heavenly host, the kind of background voices favoured in 1930s Hollywood scores. Towards the end there's a smudge of very quiet electric guitar. Not much going on, then, and what there is is curiously old-fashioned, yet Mysteries is thrilling in its reliance on so little for its power. It is intimate, human, bewitching and duct-pricklingly beautiful.

Everyone I've played it to has fallen into a reverie for four and a half minutes and ended it with a quiet 'wow' or 'Jesus' or 'ffffffff'.

It reminds them of something. "The first time I saw The Wicker Man," said one, cryptically. "[An ex-lover]," said another, wistfully. "The reason I got into music," said a third, crucially. This same person has also expressed an unreasonable loathing for the glassy purity of Eva Cassidy. "Everyone's indulging themselves in her tragedy. It's insert-emotion-here music." We argue about this. Isn't all singing asking us to respond with our own experience, to, in effect, 'insert-emotion-here'? Doesn't a good voice impel you to revisit feelings? Isn't 'the reason I got into music' because it moved you? "Yes, and Eva leaves me cold."

Lots of questions about our response to voices arise listening to *Out Of Season* because Beth Gibbons - unusually, daringly - adopts so many different voices. Generally, we mistrust singers who veer from their 'natural' tone. The deal implicit with a singer like Cassidy is 'Here's my voice and I'm going to filter these songs through it.' Beth's instinct would seem to be different. She treats each song as a new role, electing to convey distinct emotions by changing narrator. For Tom The Model, she becomes Ms. Bryan Ferry; for Show she wears a husky, trumpety vibrato akin to Chet Baker, for Romance she settles on the Bille Holiday tone that was a trademark of Portishead, for Spyder she chooses a west-country whisper. Resolve, simply Beth and her acoustic guitar, begins with a tentative croak that sounds like the mike's at her temple and is catching her thinking of the song for the first time. Such shape-shifting could be the sign of some insecurity, but Beth's a natural-born actress, a medium, and whatever tone she adopts seems totally right. There are several over-praised singer-songwriter types who will be eating their hearts out when they hear this. I can't think of a better singer in Britain right now.

It's a delight to hear her outside the comparatively chilly climate of Portishead too. The music is exquisitely recorded and appealingly
analogue-sounding, Paul Webb and Adrian Utley's productions lay down folk or jazz textures and decorate them with finely-judged details - a clattering Wurlitzer, a harmonica, churchy Hammond, subtle orchestrations. The rooms are audible; and there's something stagey about the sound too, respectful backgrounds for Beth's quietly bravura performances.

This is a record made by people with innately high standards. *Out Of Season* exhibits a generous amount of effortless-sounding craft. The songs are original yet unflashy compositions; one or two are so good they sound like freshly minted old standards. It isn't the product of some luddite hankering for the past, but confidently displays a depth that many modern records don't have the time, wit or inclination to explore. It's among the best albums ever made. It'll remind you of something.

Jim Irvin

interviews