How Portishead Pioneered Trip-Hop

Originally published at LifestyleA2Z and sister sites.

Trip-hop is a sound that originated out of Bristol in the early ‘90s. The bustling port city is located close enough to London to be pertinent, yet far away enough to do its own thing. Portishead, named after a nearby port town, did exactly that. The band helped define the UK cultural hub of Bristol. Bristol, decorated by its many artists of graffiti, home to the legendary Banksy, is a multi-ethnic menagerie with a bohemian vibe.

Lead vocalist Beth Gibbons and her boys, Geoff Barrow and Adrian Utley, revolutionized the trip-hop sound along side bands like Massive Attack and Tricky, also part of the Bristol scene. 

Portishead's Geoff Barrow first began experimenting with hip hop and electronica in 1991. Adrian Utley joined him and Beth Gibbons, rounding out the Portishead trio. Unique tracks created by the young musicians epitomized the trip-hop genre. The nascent vibe would find its place in the category of alternative music, with no where else to place it. Prominent genres, namely grunge, made way for this new style. Beth Gibbons led the group contributing haunting and poetic vocals over melodic electronic beats, distinguishing the musical style, sometimes called "the Bristol sound." It's known everywhere today, thanks to artists like Billie Ellis who incorporate trip-hop sounds into popular songs. 

Making DUMMY

On August 22, 1994, Dummy was released. Produced on an extremely tight budget, the album features an unadulterated intensity buoyed by industrial beats. Songs like "Sour Times" and "It Could Be Sweet" define the then-burgeoning soundscape. It's gritty yet sweet. Barrows and Utley created the sound from their 80s influences in hip hop music. Experimenting with these beats and an array of electric samples, laying Gibbon's hauntingly complex vocals on top of it spawned this trip-hop masterpiece known as Dummy.  Dummy was produced in a tiny studio, what these three could procure. It was called State of Art, 

The State of Art Studio

Located in Bristol, the ironically named studio became a thing of legends, thanks to this band. The primitive studio was not only very small, but it lacked ventilation. It was so cramped that with all three band members smoking two packs a day, the place would fill with smoke. One time, after someone decided to open a window to air out the place, the smoke, flowing out like a smokestack chimney, attracted the British fire brigade who came rushing to put out a fire!

Barrows and Utley talk about Trip-Hop

Talking about electronic beats and how trip-hop manifested, Barrows said, "We were into this thing that we called 'hip-hop tuning'." This was a DJ style that, he explained, would sample orchestral movements from Shostakovich, for example, and mix it with riffs from composers like Miles Davis or Fred Wesley. In a celebration of 25 years of Dummy with KEXP, Barrows and Utley shared these insights. Both were impressed with the new sounds. Utley said, "It was a new kind of tonality, really." "It was kind of two things forced together." With an obviously acute ear for these things, Utley summed it up, "If it sounds cool, then that's kind of all you need to know." 

Discussing the magic of Portishead, Barrows reflects, "We had this thing going on, and then we had Beth." "She brought her soul to the record." This type of music never had a emotional or poetic touch to it, her lyrics and depth of feeling made Portishead a sound that completes a string of mesmerizing beats.