Wiki
-
Release Date
28 October 2002
-
Length
10 tracks
Out of Season is an album by Portishead frontwoman Beth Gibbons and former Talk Talk bassist Paul Webb (under the pseudonym Rustin Man). It was released in 2002 in the United Kingdom and in 2003 in the U.S. Out of Season is largely a folk album with jazz leanings, with Gibbons and Webb drawing more directly on the influences of Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, and Nick Drake, at which Portishead's work in trip-hop only hinted. Out of Season also features contributions from Gibbon's fellow Portishead bandmate Adrian Utley. The first track of the album, Mysteries, appears on the original soundtrack of the French movie Les Poupées Russes (The Russian Dolls).
Out of Season plays to Beth Gibbons' strengths as a vocalist and songwriter more than anything released prior by Portishead. On both Dummy and Portishead, her pained, worn, resilient voice was often made to sound as if it was as much an artifact as the Isaac Hayes and Lalo Schifrin samples. That voice of hers was perfectly suited for the backing provided by her bandmates, but more than a few wondered if it would sound even more perfect – or in a better setting, naked and completely central – if it were supported by the type of folk, jazz, and R&B recordings it could've been plucked from in the first place. That "what if" is answered with this album, made by Gibbons in collaboration with Paul Webb, several of his fellow Talk Talk alums, and numerous others. Brass, strings, reeds, organs, acoustic guitar, double bass, and lightly brushed drums are all part of the mix, which never threatens to take the spotlight away from Gibbons. The lyrical themes aren't much of a departure for the singer, who contemplates the passing of time and her love/hate relationship with existence throughout – one song opens with "God knows how I adore life," and then one song later, she's "So tired of life." The icing on the cake is in the little details, like the sly Carol Kaye imitation snuck in by bassist Adrian Utley during "Romance" and the way the background vocals discreetly drift in and out, alternating between serene and spooky. The sticker that came affixed to the disc contains a quote that proclaims this to be one of the best albums of all time. While that is a stretch, there's no denying that the quote below that one – "Quietly devastating" – is 100 percent accurate.
Album descriptions on Last.fm are editable by everyone. Feel free to contribute!
All user-contributed text on this page is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply.
