Customer Reviews

Out of Season

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Don't buy this album expecting Portishead. Gone are most of the elements of trip-hop. Beth Gibbons explores a new set of vocal stylings along with the new accompanyments. There are many moments where the typical Protishead fan would have a hard time recognizing Gibbon's voice. For example, I think she sounds a lot like Billie Holiday on the track "Romance." There are also tracks where her voice (and the mood of the music) remind me of Tori Amos or Karen Carpenter. For those of you who hate any attempt to compare the sound of one artist to another, suffice it to say that this album sounds pretty retro- borrowing from a few different time periods. I love Portishead, but I think I am going to grow to love this album as well (I have listened to it about five times). I think it is definitely worth owning if you have enjoyed Beth's previous works....

In my humble opinion, most of the reviewers below, by focussing on the stylistic aspects of Beth Gibbons' new album, have completely missed the point. Let me add also that I'm one of Portishead's most rabid fans, and that I consider their almost impossible to find "Trip Hop Reconstruction" (differently titled depending on the country of origin--mine's Australian) to be one of the greatest albums ever--along with Dummy, Portishead and Roseland of course. But maybe albums like "Out of Season" should be reviewed both by normal people who can critique them effectively on their purely stylistic attributes, and those who are "damaged" in some way, and who can therefore critique something like this on a more general aesthetic level. Because this album bears comparison with the greatest musical art in western civilization that seeks to encompass the emotions of loneliness, alienation desolation and despair. I'm serious. I recently compared it to Brigit Fassbaender's Schubert "Winterreise," Shostakovich's 14th Symphony, the "Abscheid" from Mahler's "Das Lied von der Erde" and Moussorgsky's great "Sunless" and "Songs and Dances of Death" cycles. That's about as good as it gets, and this magnificent album easily belongs in that "elite" company. The songs range from excellent to unbelievable as do Paul Webb's haunting arrangements and accompaniments. But it's Gibbons vocal performance that elevates this into the realm of high, serious art. I've never heard a singer (I'm speaking here solely about the perforance rather than the material) who is able to convey the meaning and essence of what if feels like to be completely, hopelessly isolated from the world. This isn't solitude, it's bleak, stark loneliness.

Lucky for them, most people don't get it. For example, one of the reviewers below describes the dreamy atmosphere of "Sand River" and quotes the lines "Beauty has a hold on me; Autumn leaves, pretty as can be." But the emotional center of the song is in the next two lines, when Gibbons virtually sobs out "Everyone can see, everyone except me." Try to imagine what it feels like when even beauty leaves you behind. Listening to Beth Gibbons will help, if you want to give it a try. I've never heard a vocal performance like this. Gibbon's can float a beautiful note better than just about anyone when she wants to, and when she does so on this album--taken in context--it will tear your heart out. When beauty takes a back seat to truth, as it often must on a work like this, I find myself wondering how someone can get so close to the edge without losing it and falling off. Subtle changes in inflexion, the emphasis she places on certain words, the way she adopts a slightly different tone to suit the mood of each song remind me of what separates something like Maxim Vengerov's shattering performance of Shostakovich's 1st Violin concerto, which literally makes all prior and subsequent recordings of the work superfluous, from other, merely competent performances. You can't describe it without doing it a disservice; this is the truly the kind of music-making that begins where mere words lose their ability to adequately convey the intent of the communicator.

So this album is for everyone who's ever stuck a needle in their arm on a slate gray Sunday afternoon in a filthy flat in some rotten city, who's ever made a serious attempt at drinking themselves to death, who's ever known that "died of a broken heart" can be more than just a metaphor, who has gone a month without even a call from a telephone solicitor, who has ever forgotten how to talk because they've gone so long without speaking to another person, who has loved so hard what they can never love again that they wished they had never loved at all. Each song, in its own way, is like a suicide note from the edge of the abyss, except perhaps for "Rustin Man" which sounds as much like a love song from beyond the grave as you're ever likely to hear. This is not music to make your martini slide down easier, or to use as a soundtrack to your next sexual conquest. It's not easy to listen to, and it might just ruin your day. But make no mistake about it, this is one of the greatest vocal recordings ever made.

Portishead's Dummy was one of the nineties most special records -beautiful, swooping torch songs set to an (at the time) fresh and original sounding 'trip-hop' and scratching fusion. And then there was that voice. Beth Gibbons' vocals simultaneously made and destroyed Portishead. She was simply too good for the confines of the project, often sounding like an ingenious sample rather than the inspiring showstopper she really is.

So, here, four years after Portishead's 'difficult' second album, comes Out Of Season, recorded with ex-Talk Talk man Paul Webb. This is stirring, emotionally volatile stuff. Ten simple, elegant folk songs, sparsely arranged, all individual and distinctive with ample room for Gibbons to showcase her talent. At its best, Out Of Season is truly incendiary. The opener Mysteries is at least the equal of Dummy's finest ballad (Roads), while Tom The Model is naggingly catchy without ever coming close to grating. Romance is all Shirley Bassey-kitsch, while Resolve, perhaps the highlight, is utterly heartbreaking.

Highly recommended.

The record is a great improvement in the vocal preformances of Beth Gibbons. If, in the Portishead albums, she had a great voice but still somehow immature, here she displays a great versatility and she easily adapts her voice to the sound of the songs. In some songs she sounds like Billie Holiday, in other songs she sounds like Nina Simone..it's really amazing, you would tell there are different singers throughout the record.
HEr songwriting is also impressive. Together with Paul Webb they managed to write a great bunch of songs. The musical style is very quiet and relaxed..basically an acoustic version of Portishead. Being without the electronic base, all the songs tend to be more focused on the voice of BEth, however the arrangements are always interesting, albeit very simple. Most of the times the songs have just a piano and some guitar, sometimes a violin or a horn is in the background, but the vocals tend to predominate. The only song where there is a real orchestral arrangement, with some horns in the background, is Tom the model, which is the best song of the album and is a bit reminding of some motown stuff. Other real masterworks are Show and Sand River. But the general tone of the album is very good and there is not one single bad song. All in all, a great record, which establishes Beth Gibbons as one of the great singers of this decade.

You know her best as the ethereal voice of Portishead, but in "Out of Season" Beth Gibbons strays away from indie trip-hop into melancholy acoustic pop, jazz and folk, collaborated with Paul "Rustin Man" Webb of Talk Talk. This autumn-toned collection is melancholy and pensive, a bittersweet little gem.

"Out of Season" starts off strong with the gentle, plaintive "Mysteries," followed by the shimmery "Tom the Model," the piano ballads "Show" and "Resolve," jazzy "Sand River," and the brilliantly murky "Spider Monkey." It finally wraps up with the bizarrely enticing "Rustin Man," a wavering outflow of shimmery sonic currents and Gibbons' submerged vocals.

The opening lines of "Sand River" ("Autumn leaves/Beauty's got a hold on me/Autumn leaves/Pretty as can be") pretty much describe "Out of Season." The cool prettiness of Portishead carries over to the folkier, simpler tunes.

Beth Gibbons' vocals are outstanding, clear and sensual in just about every song. "Rustin Man" and "Romance" are the exceptions. In the former, her voice sounds seductively mechanical; in the latter, she almost sounds like she's parodying a torch singer sometimes. It's a little disconcerting, but her voice is almost uniformly beautiful.

The instrumentation is stripped-down to bare bones: piano and acoustic guitar, most of the time. Adding a bit of extra flavor are gentle string accompaniments, and a bit of subtle organ work. And the songwriting goes more towards being moodily evocative, with quiet lines like "And those water-coloured memories/Soft as a summer's breeze/You're as pretty as can be."

Though a little uneven at times, "Out of Season" is like a fall morning -- cool, pretty and faded. Beth Gibbons' foray into non-Portishead turf is a solid one, and this collection of autumnal ballads is definitely a keeper.

This collaboration between Beth Gibbons of Portishead and Rustin' Man (aka Paul Webb, erstwhile bassist of Talk Talk) is without doubt one of the best discs of the year. At times it sounds like "Portishead Unplugged," while at others Beth seems to be chanelling the ghost of Sandy Denny or Nick Drake. "P" fans may be disappointed by the relative lack of electronica here, although the tunes themselves are for the most part very similar in construction/arrangement to those of Portishead. The other members of that band show up here and there on the disc, and it was great to see that some of the old Talk Talk stalwarts, like Lee Harris and Mark Feltham, are on here too.

This is probably not the type of record that will blow you away on first listen. It's a grower. But once the bug's got you it's incredibly addicting. Major kudos to Beth and Paul.

P.S. If you dig this kind of thing, you definitely need to check out the final two albums by Paul's old band, Talk Talk. SPIRIT OF EDEN and LAUGHING STOCK were a marked departure from the band's earlier (and excellent) efforts at adventurous, melodic synth pop-rock. These two records groove in a way that not much else was grooving in the late 80's, and definitely paved the way for some of the more "experimental" pop of the 90's, Portishead included. When these two records came out nothing else sounded like them (what? no singles? no songs under 5 minutes?) and they're still very timeless sounding. If they were released tomorrow, they'd still be current.

There's a reason that critics were immediately hailing this as one of the year's best. Although the driving beats of Portishead's radio singles are missing (along with the DJ flourishes), the sound is not at all unexpected from Beth Gibbons. In fact, this could very well be a new Portishead album with a little twist. Not that I mean to slight it in the least. Luxurious vocals that recall both aspects of Gibbons' Portishead moods (including the occasional Shirley Bassey-esque turn of voice), sparse arrangements that ooze atmosphere, and dark-yet-hopeful romance. A stunning album that's well worth the import price. You can't dance to it, and it isn't built for raves, but it's not to be missed.

As an added bonus, it's hip enough to impress your friends, yet it won't cause the folks to demand you switch the music.

I agree with a friend who calls Portishead "musical wallpaper;" it can help complete a nice room, but it will never be front and center. Not so with Beth Gibbons' extraordinary solo debut. Its quiet hush has a startling ability to grab you and not let go; you have to go as far back as Nick Drake to find an artist who achieves this level of intensity with such a quiet and subdued presence. Especially impressive is the range of styles and moods Out of Season achieves working within a modest sonic (i.e. spare) and emtional (i.e. sorrowful) framework. Tasty arrangements from Talk Talk's Paul Webb give the album a wonderfully modulated flow, but Gibbons' chameleon vocals are what make it so compelling. How often have flavor-of-the-week singers been compared to Billie or Dusty or some other forbearer from a golden age gone? Gibbons' performance on Out of Season is the first I've heard in a long time that can withstand such comparisons, largely because Gibbons uses her voice and talent with intelligence in service to the material. I literally gasped when I first heard the world-weary jazz vocalist she channels on "Romance." She also achieves another cliché music biz journalists love to spout - the intensity of her private reverie will convince you that she's singing into your ear. We've heard these claims time and time again. On the haunting beauty that is Out of Season, however, Gibbons delivers.

Having released what I consider to be some of the most important music of the 90's, Portishead paved the road of trip hop's gloomy, yet beautiful soundscapes. With Portishead on "official hiatus", Beth has left what they do to in the closet, opting for a heavier mood through pure singing and less sampling. Coupled with the bassist from Talk Talk, (Rustin Man) they have achieved something in the same ballpark as Portishead, yet light years away at the same time. Beth's voice shines brighter on any Portishead record, her lack of the trip hop over-tones helps this along. So think of this as less of a Portishead record and more of a Beth Gibbon's record and you will be pleasantly won over.

Ahhhhh(sigh)! that's exactly what this album made me say when I first heard it. It made me feel all warm and snoozy. It's one of those rare albums that ALWAYS put you into a particular mood when you want it to, just like the Flamin' Lips latest release always puts me into a giddy stupor. If ever I'm feeling stressed or in a slightly irritant mood,then on it goes and I'm 'cured' instantly. Beware though, as I have not been able to put it on without listening to it the whole way through,resulting in ALOT of (well)spent time. If Portishead disband tomorrow, then maybe I won't be completely devastated, because miss Gibbons and her Rustin Man will know how to sooth my soul.