Mystery burns at the heart of Portishead, lurking deep within their music and their very image.
From the outset they seemed like an apparition, as if their elegant debut, Dummy, simply materialized out of the ether in 1994, as their stately blend of looped rhythms, '60s soundtrack samples, and doomed chanteuse vocals had only a tenuous connection to such Bristol compatriots as Massive Attack and Tricky.
Soon enough, Portishead's unique sound was exploited by others, heard in swank clubs and high-end dinner parties on both sides of the Atlantic, a development that the trio of Geoff Barrow, Beth Gibbons, and Adrian Utley bristled at instinctively, recoiling into the darker corners of their sound on their eponymous 1997 sophomore album before fading back into the ether leaving no indication when they were coming back, if ever.
They returned 11 years later, seemingly suddenly, with Third, supporting the album with candid interviews that lifted the veil from their personality, yet the mystery remained deeper than ever within their gorgeous, unsettling music.
| Title/Composers | Performer | Listen | Time | Size | Size | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Silence | Portishead | Play | 05:00 | 11 MB | 30 MB |
| 2 | Hunter | Portishead | Play | 03:58 | 9 MB | 20 MB |
| 3 | Nylon Smile | Portishead | Play | 03:19 | 7 MB | 18 MB |
| 4 | The Rip | Portishead | Play | 04:30 | 10 MB | 23 MB |
| 5 | Plastic | Portishead | Play | 03:30 | 8 MB | 20 MB |
| 6 | We Carry On | Portishead | Play | 06:27 | 14 MB | 41 MB |
| 7 | Deep Water | Portishead | Play | 01:33 | 3 MB | 6 MB |
| 8 | Machine Gun | Portishead | Play | 04:46 | 10 MB | 31 MB |
| 9 | Small | Portishead | Play | 06:47 | 15 MB | 37 MB |
| 10 | Magic Doors | Portishead | Play | 03:31 | 8 MB | 23 MB |
| 11 | Threads | Portishead | Play | 05:47 | 13 MB | 34 MB |
| 49 mins | 112 MB | |||||
| 49 mins | 287 MB | |||||
| Artist | Job | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | John Baggot | Fender Rhodes |
| 2 | Jim Barr | Bass |
| 3 | Geoff Barrow | Mixing |
| 4 | Larry Bennett | Photo Courtesy |
| 5 | Marc Bessant | Design |
| 6 | Clive Deamer | Drums |
| 7 | Rik Dowding | Engineer |
| 8 | Beth Gibbons | Guitar |
| 9 | Will Gregory | Saxophone |
| 10 | Stuart Matthews | Engineer |
| 11 | Charlotte Nicholls "Chipper" | Cello |
| 12 | Portishead | Performer, Primary Artist, Producer |
| 13 | Craig Silvey | Mixing |
| 14 | Team Brick | Clarinet, Vocals |
| 15 | Adrian Utley | Engineer |
| Quality | Format | Encoding | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | MP3 | 320kps 44.1kHz | MP3 is an audio coding format which uses a form of lossy data compression. The highest bitrate of this format is 320kbps (kbit/s). MP3 Digital audio takes less amount of space (up to 90% reduction in size) and the quality is not as good as the original one. |
| CD Quality | FLAC | 16bit 44.1kHz | FLAC is an audio coding format which uses lossless compression. Digital audio in FLAC format has a smaller size and retains the same quality of the original Compact Disc (CD). |