Addicted to Noise
For Portishead, It's Always Sour Times

Three years ago Portishead hit with "Sour Times," and trip-hop was born. Now they've returned to the scene of the crime with a new album. ATN editor Michael Goldberg grills band mastermind Geoff Barrow.

By Michael Goldberg

A note played on a keyboard repeats. It's followed by additional notes, some repeating, echoing. The mood is eerie, haunted. Something strange is going on. It's almost like the audio equivalent of the opening to the old "The Twilight Zone" TV series.

Then a twangy chord, the entrance of singer Beth Gibbons, her voice harsh, edgy, lifted off a 78, and the trip has begun. "But don't despair, this day will be the damnedest day, oh, if you, take these things from me," she sings.

The second Portishead album is an epic work. More than two years in the making, it picks up where Dummy, the groups hit debut, left off. It is a dark, despairing album. It is also a mesmerizing work of beauty, and impossible to resist.

Portishead emerged in 1994 with "Sour Times," the heartbreaking ballad with the James Bond guitar riff and the trip-hop beat. While is was "Sour Times," that hooked us, when we got our hands on the album, we weren't disappointed. Dummy was a revelation, at once introducing master studio wizards -- co- producer and beatmaster Geoff Barrow, guitarist Adrian Utley and musician/engineer Dave McDonald -- and a striking singer/lyricist, Beth Gibbons.

Addicted To Noise editor Michael spoke with Barrow about the group's new album, and their mysterious singer. "For me, it was that [I wanted it to] be a real record," Barrow said of Portishead. "A real album that starts and it takes you somewhere."

Addicted To Noise: Well, first of all, I wanted to ask you about how you view recording and making records. Because it seems like you are really trying to push boundaries. Even the way you look at making records is very different than a lot of people.

Geoff Barrow: It is. I suppose it is really. The way that we do it just seems natural to us. There's never any boundaries of recording. There's nothing you can't do. To achieve a sound on a beat or on a vocal or on a guitar or whatever, there's nothing that is wrong to achieve that sound, you know what I mean, in the sense of technique to make it sound like that. The restrictions of recording techniques during the 1980s was so huge with so-called professionalism. You have to record a drum kit with like 30 microphones, you know what I mean? It had to be done in a room that sounded a certain way. We still go along in the sense of a room that sounds good. But in the '80s it was so limited and so technology inspired that everything had to be cleaner, everything had to be tighter. It kind of squashed a lot of the emotion and mistakes and all kinds of things that go to make good music out of the music. It was just a weird state.

We just record in loads of different ways. We put stuff on tape. We put beats to vinyl, then we sample them. We stick things through little amps and re-record them again. Usually, the crappier the machine, the better it sounds. It's the way that we work. It's weird because we've got Dave [musician/engineer Dave McDonald], who's done years of recording and engineering and co-production and we've got Adrian {Portishead guitarist and studio ace Adrian Utley], who's very, very purist about sound in the sense because he played jazz for over 20 years and loved the original jazz recordings. [Producer] Rudy Van Gelder and people like that. The sound of Blue Note [Records].

And for me, I've always been into hip-hop, which is the other side of things. But we're all inspired by old records, old vinyl. And we love the sound of old vinyl. And so when we sample something or when we even make a sample ourselves, which we have done on this record, to incorporate the sound of vinyl is as important as the instruments playing.

ATN: Give me an example. Let's take a song on this album. How about "Half Day Closing?" Or is there a better example?

Barrow: Something like "Humming"... A lot of the tracks were recorded in the same way. "Half Day Closing" was more recorded in the traditional way, where there was no samples involved. It was just me on the drums, Adrian on the bass, push "record" on the tape machine and we recorded it from start to finish, do you know what I mean? As like a usual band, would, which is unusual for us.

ATN: That's where you have the drums completely on the left side.

Barrow: Yeah, that's just like an old kind of retro trick. Not a retro trick but a retro style of doing things. Giving the track a feel of stereo and space through panning, from one speaker to the other. When it comes down to the other stuff, what usually happens is it starts off with myself and Adrian and Dave behind the desk, just pushing the chords basically. What we do is we record an idea, which would only be about two minutes long, where I'd be on the drums. Just real instruments, basically. Guitar, bass, organ and we might get Clive [Deamer] in to play the drums. He's got definitely a distinct sound, you know what I mean? And we record a two-minute section of the track. That's kind of like an idea that's been inspired by either a sound or a riff. And then we mix it. Once we finish recording it, we mix it in the sense that we make it sound like a whole track. And then what we do is we get that two minutes of music. And then we either bounce it down to a quarter inch machine or we put it through some other techniques, compressor, filter or whatever. And then we put it on tape and then listen back to it like it was an old record, almost. And then choose the best part of it. Sample it and then make a kind of backing track out of the best part of the two-minute piece that we wrote.

ATN: Just as if you had found an old record and were sampling something that you liked?

Barrow: Yeah, exactly yeah. But when we record the stuff, we use the original instruments. We don't believe in using a modern keyboard and pushing "Hammond sound." We just don't believe in that. If it's gonna be a Hammond, it's gonna be a Hammond. Or it's gonna be a Vox Continental. Those [modern keyboard] sounds are restricted by the programmer at Yamaha or Korg or whatever. They're made to sound like a Hammond, but in reality, a real Hammond organ has got over 1,000 sounds. Which means you can experiment it and get your own sound or get a similar sound to one of the great Hammond players. So going back to after we sample it. We sample it. Then we come up with a rough guide, a backing track, basically. Then we add real guitar again or we add more instruments to build it up so it's got a chorus or whatever. I personally sample it and work on it on the computer really, just as a little creative tool.

And then we send it off to Beth and Beth writes the lyrics and the melody. Then if it comes back and if Beth wrote a song that she's happy with and we're happy with and everything else, then I take the main beats or the main samples and then send them away and get them pressed on vinyl. And then when they come back, then I'll just mess about on the decks with them. It's almost like, when you mess around on decks, you can make the beat or the sample sound completely different than what you started with. Then we sample that back from the decks to sampler and lay it down on the two-inch and mix it, like a normal track. That's pretty much how we work.

ATN: You're making use of modern technology and old instruments -- taking the two and doing something different....

Barrow: Yeah, that's what it's kind of about, really, for us. The organic sound of the real instrument, kind of fitted together and held by modern technology. It's that kind of weird thing. People say that the way that we work is a really strange way of working. People say, "Why do you put it down to vinyl? Why don't you just take it off and leave it as it is?" But for us, it's almost like a guitarist putting his guitar through a fuzz effect, a foot pedal. Why did he do that? It sounded fine before. Then he'd say, "Well, because I like that." And that's pretty much the same reasons that we do our thing, really. It's just the way it happens.

ATN: You're expanding the tools that are at your disposal to make a recording.

Barrow: That's it. On this record, we only use two samples from other people. The rest of the stuff was wrote by ourselves, which seems like a logical step for this record compared to the last one. Even though 70 percent of the last record was wrote by ourselves, you know. I still believe in sampling. I still believe that you can sample other people's music as long as you pay 'em. And you do it in a creative way. The only trouble is what I saw happen between the first record [Dummy] and the second record [Portishead] is that the whole creative process of sampling for a lot of people was kind of closed off. it comes from the history of finding...being a record searcher. Going into places really early in the morning and digging out obscure records. Which has always been a big part of things like hip-hop, you know. But what actually happened it was closed off. The industry got a hold of it and turned it into a joke by producing these CDs with 5,000 funky breaks on it for people to sample straight off. And to be quite honest, it's a very uncreative way of making records. Literally, this is from this shelf, this is from this shelf, and put them together and there goes a cool track, which is not true. It's not. It's almost like making bad rock music, you know what I mean? OK, these are some rock chords, this is a fuzz guitar, this is a rock beat. It doesn't really mean anything. Because all the struggle of developing those sounds has kind of gone out the window. And now it's like cans of beans on the shelf.

ATN: So you're saying that part of the art of being a DJ was seeking out and finding old recordings and then taking them and using them in fresh ways...

Barrow: Yeah, but that's the important thing: using them in fresh ways is the real point behind it. As a DJ, finding other people's records and sampling them is not incredibly creative. It's just the thing that you do that you love, do you know what I mean? When you sample someone else's record, for you to say, "Yeah, this is a really cool tune," it will be because it's someone else's music. And you like it. That's the reason you sample it. When you do something creative to it, especially in the States, within hip-hop, they use it in such a creative way, they take music from -- it could be anyone -- from the Rolling Stones to Bach and they use it in a way that turns it into a feeling.

It comes down to the question of the ethics. Creative ethic sampling and creative sampling. One thing I've learned from working with Adrian -- he's played jazz for the last 20 years -- is looping off a break from James Brown's "Drummer" is great if you can do it creatively and you can say, "Yeah, look, I've sampled someone else's playing here." But then to actually take the credit in the sense of "Yeah, listen to this, this is me," it's not . It's James Brown's "Drummer."

ATN: So explain a little bit the motivation of trying to create as much of it yourselves this time around.

Barrow: It's mainly because -- like I said, I've got nothing against sampling from records -- but really it just seems like the next logical step to finding records that basically had what we wanted in them, was to create our own music to sample. When we listened to records we wanted to sample, we would think, "Well, hang on a sec, we could do this ourselves. This is a couple of hours in a recording session, you know what I mean?" And it wouldn't be the same. It would be ourselves. And not to actually copy it but to actually do something that's even better than the recording.

ATN: Kind of inspired by it...

Barrow: Yeah. So in the sense of that, that was one of the reasons. The other thing was that it was just getting really, really hard to find things, especially in Europe. Twice a week, a bootleg comes out of Europe and goes into the shops that says "sample me" on it. That's got, literally, 24 tracks of unheard jazz, R&B or psychedelic to classical to religious music. It's just heavily backed by soul or funk or jazz drums. And because of that, I just couldn't bring myself to sample that stuff. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. It just didn't seem like a creative thing to do for me. Going into a modern record shop, picking up this thing that says "You can use these samples," taking it home and sampling that, -- that was not all that creative at all for me.

ATN: What do you think the song "Western's Eyes" is about?

Barrow: [Laughs] Oh, God knows. The way that we work is I don't kind of ask those questions with Beth basically. I just kind of remain as a listener when it comes down to her lyrics. We've kind of come to this thing where, for some reason, we just don't ask the question of what it's about. Because Beth writes on the backing tracks. We give her the backing tracks, she writes it and it comes back. It's just really odd to describe, but I just don't really ask.

ATN: But as a listener, you have certain impressions or feelings or something. I'm just curious about what you think about it.

Barrow: I don't know. [Laughs] To be quite honest, I don't think I've really thought about any of the tracks in that way. I haven't yet sat down and really listened to it yet.

ATN: Do you think of them more as... I mean, her voice and the words as part of the whole texture of them?

Barrow: Kind of. I think it's incredibly important to have a song that really means something. I know that personally, to Beth, those lyrics mean so much personally to her. That's the reason that she doesn't do interviews. She doesn't want to talk about it. And I respect that. So I kind of step off that. So I kind of don't ask as well, do you know what I mean? I know it's real. I know that she's not making up just to make a record. I think if she didn't really have a sense of what she was going to sing about, she wouldn't sing it, you know what I mean? It's not just out to make an album that sounds, that is a continuation of the last. For her, it has to mean something emotionally. And for me it has to mean something emotionally, 'cause you know you can tell something that is emotionally personal but you don't really have to listen to every word to get that vibe. That's the kind of way I see it. When we're in the studio, myself, Adrian and Dave, producing, I just purely hear things sonically without the words. The only time that I ever get involved [in changing the words is] if there's a lyric that just sonically just sounds strange. I would just say, "Have you got an alternative to that lyric or that word because it just sonically just stands out really -- It just doesn't work." I won't ask what it's about. And she'll just say, "Yeah, I could put this in." I'll say, "Well, try it." And if it works, we keep it. That's kind of as much as I get involved in the lyrical side.

ATN: On at least some of the songs on this album, "Cowboys," for instance, you recorded her voice so it has kind of a harsher edge to it. Do you know what I mean?

Barrow: It's almost like she sings it. If I was to take away the distortion --it's not distortion, it's just that it's been bounced really heavily. If I was to take that away, you'd be surprised actually how close it would sound [to the final recording]. All we do is enhance the feeling in her voice. And she's very much into that as well. If it's the track that really starts to stretch right out there like in "Half Day Closing," then she really wants us to really fuck around with her voice. It's not like well, we're gonna do this to your voice and she doesn't like it. She's totally into it, you know. And also, sometimes, I think she likes the idea of her vocals sounding like an instrument, something that's right in there. If it's a track and she's angry, it's like sonically it has to work within the track. There's no point in it sounding really like twee.

ATN: What do you think was the most challenging thing about recording this new group of songs?

Barrow: Getting them finished.

ATN: Why?

Barrow: Well, to be perfectly honest, we went through absolute hell recording this record. We had about 14 months of absolute desperation, frustration because it just wasn't working, it just wasn't happening, you know. For me, it was that [I wanted it to] be a rounded album. To have a feeling of a real record. A real album that starts and it takes you somewhere. The art of actually making albums is really important, which, I think to a lot of bands, they don't think about it so much. They're kind of like "Well, here's your singles and there's your fillers and there's your...." And we don't really think about our songs in a singles way even though we do release singles. But if we didn't have to, we wouldn't. So it's important to get that vibe. There's no point in us recording like 12 of the same track. It was a really weird time recording the record. The most important thing is that it's one better than the last, heavier than the last and rougher than the last. And that's the three morals I go for.

I chose to overanalyze the pressure of making another record and what we should do and what we shouldn't do. All these rules...well, we shouldn't use this instrument because we used it on the last one and all that stuff. And pretty much it fell apart doing that. And then about four months in, we all sat down and we all said that we were really pissed off making this record. And Adrian said, "Well look, let's finish one." 'Cause what happens is we don't record one, finish one and get on with another one. Instead, we have about eight or nine tracks running at the same time. We all bring them up to the same level. So what will happen is we never have one finished. The trouble is with that you never hear anything finished. So Adrian said, "Well, look, we're all pissed off. Let's just finish one. We'll get it close to mixing, just get on a vibe with it, and then just see what happens." That's what we did.

ATN: What was the song?

Barrow: I think it was "Half Day Closing" because it was like a pure recording thing. Just me playing the drums and Adrian playing the bass and Dave pushing record. And we recorded the track. And then we built it up without any samples and all that kind of stuff, like a proper, like a normal track, I suppose. And it was refreshing because then there wasn't any samples...

ATN: So once you got that done, that sort of broke it open for you?

Barrow: Yeah, then it only took five, six months to finish the record.

ATN: Since Beth doesn't do interviews, can you give me some impressions of her? What she likes, what she listens to, does she read novels or is she into the record-making process...

Barrow: She's got her own little studio that she works in when she writes the songs. She likes recording her own tracks really badly. Like playing drums or playing guitar or whatever, making a racket. I don't know. I think she likes people like Otis Redding, I suppose, or Janis Joplin. But she's not a big music person. She wouldn't really go out and buy a record. Since I've known her, I've never known her to actually say she's gone out and bought an album and liked it. I don't even think she really listens to music either really.

ATN: So really, music, singing and writing, is her form of expression as opposed to her being a big fan.

Barrow: Yeah, yeah. But I think that's pretty similar to all of us. We all like and listen to music and we all talk about music, but we're very rarely inspired by music that is actually out now. More older music I think.

ATN: But you're someone who...

Barrow: Oh yeah, I know what you mean. I'll go out and buy a new hip-hop record, yeah. In the sense of Beth...I don't know, it's strange. She's not kind of depressed or... I don't know. It's a weird one. She lives kind of quite far away from the rest of us in a sense. She lives in the country, you know.

ATN: So you literally do send tapes.

Barrow: Yeah, yeah. But it's not like some awful music industry kind of business kind of co-op. [Laughs] It's not like, "Yes, we've got these tracks for you, so you have to sing in them..." It's not made for that. We do actually feel like a band and we are a band. It's just that she chooses to live out there and we kind of choose to live in Bristol. We would never really work in that kind of horrible industry way. As so many other people do. Especially in dance music. It's what it seems to be about.

ATN: The overall feeling that comes from these recordings that you make -- it's sort of this dark, moody, often kind of downbeat feeling. Even the title "Sour Times" has that. What's that about?

Barrow: I think we're just not very optimistic. When we get into the studio, when we really get into our emotions of how we feel, when it comes to music, that's what kind of comes out. Especially on this record, when it took so long to make and everyone was really depressed. That came out on the record. A lot of frustration came out on this record. That's why some of the things are angrier, I think, than the last record. It's just that feeling. I don't really get off on happy music. But I'm not a very optimistic person. Especially in the last days of Tori government in England, you know what I mean? They pretty much crushed the life out of people in England, you know what I mean? So there wasn't an awful lot of happiness, you know what I mean? All your rights were being squashed from the... things like ridiculous rulings that were just being passed by those people alone. Things like you weren't allowed to have a gathering of over nine people. It was turning into a dictatorship. It was just bizarre. It gave you this impression that you've got this life. But it's bullshit. You haven't really. You virtually ended up with music policing in the U.K. If I had played hip-hop music or whatever and it had a monotonous beat, at a certain volume you could get arrested for it. Where if you were into, say opera, and you take it out to the field, no one's gonna complain, you know what I mean? It was completely class and kind of racially-orientated, kind of youth-orientated, kind of laws. It was just incredible.

ATN: Some of this record there was a little bit of almost like Billie Holliday, "Strange Fruit" sort of feeling to it. Do you get that at all?

Barrow: I don't really know. [Laughs] I've never really listened to Billie Holliday, so I couldn't really tell you. Yeah, a lot of people have said about that. I think I have heard the odd tune and stuff but never really kind of listened to that. I know that my wife's got some. And Adrian's got some.

ATN: Do you think that Beth will break her silence at some point?

Barrow: I don't know really. I really don't know. Within Portishead, there's really only one important thing and that's making music. So if her doing interviews affects her doing music and she's uncomfortable with it, then she doesn't have to do it. If she wants to at some point, yeah. It's totally up to her. It's not some kind of ploy to make her this mysterious woman. She doesn't like doing them -- full start.

ATN: Did that come out of her doing a few initially?

Barrow: I think so, yeah. I think the idea that she gives so much of her personal feeling into those things, for someone to judge her within half an hour is kind of really unfair. Because if I were a journalist, heard the record and I spoke to her about personal things, you would actually think that she must be a massively depressed, kind of troubled person when in reality she's not at all.

ATN: So it was bothering her that people were writing...?
Barrow: I think it was they were judging her.She's always been uncomfortable with being the front of the band anyway. Because it is purely music, we just kind of knock that stuff out. I can't stand being in a photo studio for five hours with a stylist. It's not what I'm about. I'm a musician. So I don't do that either. So in the sense of whatever it means... lack of record sales or whatever, it doesn't matter to us. As long as we can carry on writing music. We sell enough records so people are happy with it and enough people hear it and kind of like it, that's the most important thing. We can continue writing music. We're not out to be the biggest band in the world or any of that nonsense.

ATN: I don't know if this affects what you guys do, but I was just wondering if you had any thoughts about the success that Prodigy and now Sneaker Pimps and some of the other so-called electronica bands are having in America. Prodigy, their album just sold a million copies finally after about five weeks or something, which was pretty amazing. That had never happened before in the U. S.

To be continued...