This article is about the band; for the town see Portishead, Somerset.

Portishead is a trip hop band from Bristol, United Kingdom, named after the small town of Portishead, 12 miles west of Bristol. The band was formed in 1991, after Geoff Barrow , who had previously worked with two other trip hop bands from Bristol - Massive Attack and Tricky - met Beth Gibbons. Portishead is the birthplace of Barrow. The name is pronounced 'Por-tis-head', with an 's' in the middle, and not 'Por-ti-shead'.

After releasing a short film (To Kill A Dead Man ) for which they had written the music, Portishead signed a record deal with Go! Beat and their first album, Dummy, was released in 1994, with Gibbons singing, Dave MacDonald as a drummer, and Adrian Utley playing the guitar. In spite of the band's media-shyness, the album was a big hit in both Europe and the United States, as were the singles from the album, "Glory Box" and "Sour Times".

Their second, self-titled album, Portishead, was released in 1997, of which the single "All Mine" was drawn. A live album mostly recorded in Roseland in New York City, was released in 1998 with a DVD of the concert soon following. All records were released on Go! Beat. 1999 saw a cooperation with singer Tom Jones for a track on his album Reload.

There have been rumours of a third album to be published, possibly called Alien, but no such record has been released, and Portishead's official site dismisses the rumour as such: "We have noticed that there is some confusion on an album release called "Alien". Please be aware that this is NOT a Portishead release. The band are in the studio working on new material now but no release dates are scheduled as yet. Keep an eye on the site as any release plans will of course be announced here first!"[1]

As a note about trip hop, Portishead and some other similar artists have shown dislike for the term, as it is a media invention designed to categorize their otherwise not-so-categorizable music.

Discography

Albums

• 1994 "Dummy" #2 UK, #79 US
• 1997 "Portishead" #2 UK, #21 US
• 1998 "PNYC" (live) #40 UK, #155 US

Hit singles

The chart positions are for the UK, the highest US chart position was #53 for "Sour Times".

• from "Dummy"
  • 1995 "Glory Box" #15 UK
  • 1995 "Sour Times" #13 UK
• from "Portishead"
  • 1997 "All Mine" #8 UK
  • 1997 "Over" #25 UK
  • 1998 "Only You" #35 UK

External link

• Portishead's official website
• Lyrics