Thursday, March 12, 1998

Sonic perfection

By BEN RAYNER -- Ottawa Sun

You don't encounter a lot of bands who entrust the
role of press spokesman to their sound engineers.

Still, there aren't a lot of bands out there who
devote as much attention to sound as Bristol, Eng.'s
bleak, beautiful Portishead, who play the Congress
Centre tonight.

In fact, it says a lot about the moody "electronica
noir" quartet's meticulous approach to making
music when engineer Dave McDonald is accorded
full-fledged member status in its recording and
touring lineup.

Mention that to him, mind you, and he'll point out "it
just seems stupid" that most bands don't bring the
same people responsible for crafting their studio
sound out on the road -- especially if they have to
recreate something as dense and textured as
Portishead's harrowing melange of hip-hop, torchy
jazz and cinema-score atmospherics live on stage.

"A lot of bands don't pay a lot of attention to
detail," he says. "They do spend a lot of attention
when they're in the studio, but they don't when they
play it live.

"We spend a hell of a lot of time in preproduction,
just working out how we're going to recreate it live,
working out every last detail

"It's very taxing, but its very rewarding. You know
exactly what you're getting."

Capturing Portishead's scratchy vibe live comes
down to "just choosing the right equipment and
using your mind," says McDonald, who confesses
he and bandmates Geoff Barrow, Beth Gibbons
and Adrian Utley are "kind of old-equipment
junkies."

"Our technicians hate us," he laughs, "because
we've got three box organs and only one of them
runs, while the other two are just around for spare
parts in case something breaks down."

The band's penchant for sonic perfection no doubt
contributed to the three-year gap between its
epochal 1994 debut Dummy and its self-titled
follow-up -- a gap in which everyone from the
Sneaker Pimps to Madonna copped bits of the
Portishead style.

"It was just hell, just complete hell," says
McDonald of the recording sessions for Portishead,
"because we didn't have a direction at first and we
didn't want to step over familiar ground.

"It was a very painful process doing it. It took two
years of that, really going to the depths of
depression ... just the mental agony of going over
the same beat repeatedly, the tediousness.

"We worked every day on that album -- absolutely
every day -- for two years."

Everyone in the band was a little stunned, too, he
admits, at how Dummy -- which has sold more
than two million copies to date -- took off around
the globe.

"We were in a position where we'd only just signed
a deal, and we were thinking 'Maybe it'll just sell
30,000 -- if we sell 60,000 we'll be able to make
another album.'

"It was very shocking," says McDonald.

"And it's still selling now, which is ridiculous."