Portishead

Portishead play tension like it's an instrument. At night, their songs watch you with eyes from skeleton trees that lost their leaves. The taut, meditative tones are apt now, as the days shorten and fade to gray. It's an impending sound. Brooding, minor-chord builds house a macabre sanctity. Central for Portishead are Beth Gibbons's vocals. Her tones are sorrowed by cold, but comely and stoic. She proffers a rapt, opulent howl, singing (eyes closed) like she's sequestered in a tale from Edward Gorey's Gashlycrumb Tinies.

Portishead come from Bristol, in the southwest of England, and they're named after a smaller spindle town eight miles to the west. Their three albums, Dummy, Portishead, and Third were released in 1994, 1997, and 2008, respectively. In the early days, the band purveyed a triphop sound. Meticulous, hairpin beats and psych progressions are enunciated with the skill of seasoned jazz cats. From there, they drew it out and expounded. Live, Portishead grow to six players, intermittently going with two drummers, and they prefer all-analog gear. Portishead are perfectionists. Their mold is singular, and they shy away from the spotlight. Earlier this year, they started playing some festivals in Europe and are currently on a small North American tour. Multi-instrumentalist/founding member Geoff Barrow spoke from Mexico City. The phone number I dialed was 19 digits long.

You're a huge Iron Maiden fan.

Not really.

Iron Maiden had a major influence on Portishead. You're both English.

There probably is some kind of influence. We do both write music that is slightly alarming at times.

Portishead don't have the 15-foot-tall demon-zombie mascot, Eddie, like Iron Maiden does.

Our mascot has been in development for a few years.

What is the Portishead mascot? Is it a 15-foot demon-zombie?

Our mascot is a massive mug of tea.

You guys should also probably make mouse pads. They're sexy as hell.

Aren't mouse pads kind of boring? Don't we need something snappier?

Mouse pads with nude people on them. They might need to be more macabre. Naked people with knives?

That's snappy. Let's schedule a meeting.

Could you talk about the macabre facet to your music? The way you all rouse and draw tension in the tones. It's spooky, and unnerving, but beautiful. Like a ghost. Where does this come from?

I don't think there's a lot of warmth. That's what it is. I don't think it's so spooky. A lot of people's sound is made to draw you in with its warmth. Like if you could imagine the opposite of Jack Johnson, that's where we would be. Cold music, but human. On the last record, we stayed away from the blue notes a bit. Our chord progressions have always been fairly minor, which doesn't lead to warm music. It's similar to rock and old psych. I guess you could say there are spooky elements to our first record. We're interested in soundtracks and less-traditional chord shapes.

What is different about Portishead now? What's changed?

When we used to play live, we were very close to the studio, recorded Portishead. Now, we've eased up off that strictness a little. I think we're more comfortable in our presentation now. Everything used to have to be completely exact. I used to grind everyone on certain points. Now, not so much. Our sound is still accurate, but it can move. The overall feeling's got more flexibility. There's more movement with our playing.

Talk about your live setup.

It's the same as when we started playing in 1994. It's pretty much the same band. We can't play the set with our eyes closed. It's too complex when it comes down to getting the sounds ready. We don't use computers and then just pull up a patch. All our stuff is actually mechanically wired together. Whether it's keyboards or guitars, we have to physically get to the next point. So a lot of our concentration is focused on getting the sounds right.

Does Portishead do crazy things on the road, like nitrous? Or drink blood?

[Laughs] To be honest, we're just normal people. We've been to some crazy parties. Probably not that crazy for people who are used to going to crazy parties. We had a miserable time on the road toward the end of the last tour.

What was miserable?

We were all going through breakups. Divorces. Some of them were actually on the road. People not looking after themselves. Not drug issues, just getting a bit lost. We were on tour for a long time around that '98 period. I wasn't enjoying music so much. I hated the concept of DJing, and dance music, and I didn't feel like we were representing the music very well. We weren't necessarily happy with management. There was division between tour management and the crew—all kinds of bullshit, really. That's kind of the reason we took so long to make another record.

But now you're back, touring with panache. And designer, stain-resistant Portishead mouse pads.

It is scary how much time people spend on their computers and phones. I'm addicted. It's horrid. I can get information all the time. I feed on it.

Sometimes you just gotta look away from the screen, or the monitor, and stare at a tree, or a large body of water. And you're in Mexico now, so you can stare at some tequila.

Yes, Mexico City at the moment. We're playing a festival more than our own gig. We've been getting used to playing our own gigs again, which is nice. Festivals can be a bit strange, but the lineup on this one is pretty cool. The Strokes and Mogwai are playing.

What's an essential Portishead effect, gear-wise?

Our keyboard player John runs a Rhodes through distortion, then that distortion has an effect on it, like an RE-201 Space Echo. It's all about the amount of gain, and the setup of the Space Echo: what tape head it's on, the type of delay, the amount of echo. For me, I'm playing an Oberheim now. If there are cuts in songs, I need to make sure I hit them. And that all my echoes are dialed in. Then, for drums, I need to make sure I'm set. Usually I think this sort of stuff is recorded, then fabricated digitally, but we've never really gone that route. If we did that, I think it would make touring incredibly boring. Part of the process for us is creation of sound.

Where has Portishead played in Seattle?

We played Moe's originally.

Yes. Now it's Neumos. They put Jacuzzis in the downstairs greenroom. Actually, since you were here last, there has been an accident—one of the bigger commercial radio stations started playing Pearl Jam's "Alive" like every nine minutes. After the four-zillionth time, the radio tower shot out a gamma ray and every single person in Seattle spontaneously combusted into Eddie Vedder. I'm looking out my window right now and can see three ladies walking down the street. All three of them are Eddie Vedder.

That is unfortunate.

I listen to Iron Maiden, and it keeps me safe. And dubstep. I'm not an Eddie Vedder. Are you into the dubstep?

I don't think I rightly now what dubstep is. I mean, I know what it is. I've heard the talk amongst the deejays. But I don't really think I've heard anything definitively dubstep. I know the warbly bass lines. And now they're using them in pop music.

How about Skrillex? You know Skrillex?

I've heard of Skrillex, but I don't know any of his or her work.

Skrillex is basically just Iron Maiden. Shitloads of warble. So what are you listening to these days? What has been floating from your headphones to your brain to cause you musical elation?

I've been listening to Soft Machine. And the Plastic People of the Universe album Egon Bondy's Happy Hearts Club Banned—like in the sense that you've been banned from that bar. It's an early '70s Czechoslovakian art record. You might like it.

I shall ingest it.

I wanted to ask, what's the venue we're playing in Seattle?

You guys are playing at a place called the Cha Cha. Like 7,000 capacity. Good beer on tap there.

Hopefully they have Jacuzzis.

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