You and your girlfriend have just crash-landed on the forbidden Planet. Your video collection has been destroyed except for a few choice episodes of Perry Mason, but, thank God, those martini mixes have survived. After all, your girl just left you for one of the local aliens. So, it’s 3 a.m. and outside your capsule the theremins are wailing, the Perry Mason theme is blaring, and you’re spilling your fourth martini onto your already tear-stained space suit when…hey, is that hip-hop you hear? No, it’s the surreal sonic landscape of Portishead’s third release, Roseland NYC Live.
Although this album ambitiously incorporates a thirty- member string orchestra into their mix, don’t mis- understand, the sound is still Portishead. All of the songs on this disc have appeared before on their first two, Dummy & Portishead. This live offering captures what is most characteristic about them: dark, melancholy chords; echoes of Billie Holiday; spooky synth patches; old sci-fi movie sound effects; wah-wah guitar; record scratching and samples; and slow hip-hop undercurrents. The added strings work a perfect balance against the dissonant electronic treatments and are never overdone.
With such a collage of sounds and musical influences, it’s hard to imagine that all of this could combine into something satisfying, but often it does. The disc opener, “Humming,” is a case in point. It starts with strings and a theremin-like synthesizer oooohing like the ghosts in a ’50’s horror flick. Then the elegant jazz-noir melody drops along with the slow hip-hop groove and agitating needle scratches. Quivering organs, tremolo strings, and electronic rattles further the uneasiness. The lyrics, too, are strange and unsure. ‘Is it all as it seems, so un- resolved, so unredeemed…’
Beth Gibbons’ singing is tender, fragile, and despairing. Her lyrics are full of loss, guilt, confusion, and angst. An amazingly adept singer, she effortlessly negotiates some extremely tough jazz-like melodies. Geoff Barrow’s scratching skills are formidable. It’s a trendy, noisy distraction to otherwise perfect mood painting. It’s the etched scar that details the pain of a wounded heart.
This disc is full of music that is always interesting and sometimes great. If you have a penchant for the strange and forlorn or for a few drinks on a forbidden planet, you’ll enjoy Portishead’s Roseland NYC Live.
+ rob dallessandro
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