Portishead - Live at Roseland (1998)

I fucking love this album by one of my favorite bands.

"Recorded with a full orchestra on a cold, rainy day shortly after the release of their second record, Portishead, the project doubled as a live album and the soundtrack for a BBC documentary. In addition to being economical and perhaps lucrative, the disc demonstrates how sampled and sequenced music can be re-created in concert without losing any of the charm or dynamics of the original recordings. All it takes is a 22-piece string section, some horns, and a band whose tightness is exceeded only by its creativity. At times the performances on PNYC sound even more breathtaking and cinematic than Portishead's original recordings, as humming theremin, skittery scratching, and gliding strings mingle with stealthy guitar lines and sultry vocals."

Here's some background info on Portishead for those who are new to their music.

"Portishead are a band from Bristol, England, named after the small coastal town of Portishead, twelve miles west of Bristol in North Somerset. They were initially known for their use of jazz samples and some hip hop beats along with various synth sounds and the hauntingly beautiful vocals of singer Beth Gibbons. Their current sound drops the samples in favor of a harder, more abrasive edge, but retains Gibbons’ vocals.

The band was formed in 1991, by keyboardist/multi-instrumentalist Geoff Barrow and singer Beth Gibbons. Barrow had previously worked with two other bands from Bristol, Massive Attack and Tricky, and decided to name his new endeavour after his hometown.

After releasing a short film (To Kill A Dead Man) and its accompanying music, Portishead signed a record deal with Go! Beat and their first album, ‘Dummy’, was released in 1994. It featured heavy contributions from guitarist Adrian Utley. In spite of the band’s media-shyness, the album gained universal critical acclaim and was successful on both sides of the Atlantic, spawning two hit singles, “Glory Box” and “Sour Times”. The album won the British Mercury Music Prize in 1995 beating albums such as ‘Definitely Maybe’ by Oasis and Leftfield’s ‘Leftism’.

Their second album, ‘Portishead’, was released in 1997, and featured the single “All Mine”. A live album featuring new orchestral arrangements of the group’s songs was recorded primarily at Roseland in New York City and released in 1998, as well as a DVD of the Roseland concert."

but don't despair

The year in music 2008: Songs of 2008

2008 gave us a lot of good albums and songs. We'll be adding shortly the list of our favorite albums of 2008 but let's start with some of our favorite songs.

I encourage my fellow colleagues from the blog to edit this post adding their favorite song of 2008. For now I'll start with mine.

Alex (Abelardo): Lil Wayne - A Milli

From this moment this came out I turned into my favorite song of the year and it still hasn't left that spot. Wayne (with a ragga vibe at times) rhymes some stream of conscience madness full of ridiculous metaphors and nonsensical word play over the most minimalist of hip hop beats. Instead of going after a more complex backdrop Wayne toned it down and let his flow do the talking. There is absolutely no chorus here either so the fact that he managed to turn this abstract song into a Top 10 Billboard hit (It reached #6!) is mind boggling.

Kemuel (Sandunga Cat):

Well, in a year with plenty of good fuckin' music, my vote for best song goes to Fleet Foxes'... haha yeah right. Fuck those bloodless chancers (and all their ilk). It's actually a tie between:

Sightings - Debt Depths

Arthu Russell - What It's Like

In "Debt Depths" Sightings continue their amazing run, presenting a sinister vocal straight through the middle of cackling feedbacked guitar, dubbed out arrhytmic percussion bouncing all over the stereo field and detuned bass threatening to engulf your inner ear, with the percussive elements morphing oh-so-slightly under the processing until they resemble a horde of giant turtles splitting an ocean in two.

In "What It's Like" Arthur channels Television's hyper-dramatic "The Dream's Dream" and injecting an overdose of Verlaine-through-the-cornbelts melancholia that sounds just majestic to my ears, telling the tale of a country girl telling her sexual escapades to a priest with a glassy eyed nostalgia. Singular proof of Arthur as a preeminent songwriter of our time.

(Honorable mention for Benga's "Night").

Raúl (Sean Coonery): Portishead - Machine Gun

Holy sweet bloody fuck mother fuckin Josef Christ on a stick. Talk about making a comeback. This might be my favorite song from "Third". It was hard making my mind up since the whole album is magnificent. Just listen to the crushing and pounding of that fucking beat mimicking a machine gun. Thank your god for drum machines. Eerily beautiful.

Javi(er)-(Howard Roark): The Sea and Cake - Fuller Moon

Although I haven't particularly heard a lot of newer albums, this one stands out in my mind. The Sea and Cake's: Car alarm. Released in october, it continues in S&C's line of breathie harmonies swimming across apathetically hectic post-rock breakbeats. Its not groundbreaking but it's just what the doctor ordered.