Posts Tagged Portishead
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April 9, 2020 by Simon Sweetman
RNZ Feature: Album Openers
This was just my second feature on RNZ for 2020 – well, there’s been a bit of other stuff going on of late… Still, I got the call, was asked to put together a thing about best Album Openers. So I did. Jesse was away, so I chatted to Anna Thomas on the day. On the phone. […]Archive
June 1, 2018 by Simon Sweetman
Sweetman Podcast: Episode 118 – Chris Tse
Welcome to episode 118 of Sweetman Podcast with support from our sponsors – T Leaf T, Yeastie Boys and Le Petite Chocolat. I had a conversation with Chris Tse. He’s a Wellington poet. He’s done some acting and music-making too but it’s for his books How To Be Dead In A Year of Snakes and the very recently released He’s So […]Archive
August 19, 2016 by Simon Sweetman
Get The Blessing: Astronautilus
Get The Blessing Astronautilus Naim Music By my count it’s the fifth-full-lengther for this British jazz-meets-rock-fucks-anything group (formed around the dynamic duo at the helm of Portishead’s rhythm section) and in a sense it’s business as usual, Get The Blessing have everything lined up and ready to mow down as usual – big sweeps of […]Archive
March 25, 2014 by Simon Sweetman
Adrian Utley’s Guitar Orchestra: In C
Adrian Utley’s Guitar Orchestra In C Invada There are some flexible rules around performing/recording Terry Riley’s famed minimalist composition, In C, it’s all about the group of instrumentalists sitting on the same sound, creating a groove through the exploration of 53 short musical phrases being played consecutively. The piece was debuted 50 years ago – […]Archive
March 3, 2014 by Simon Sweetman
Get The Blessing: Lope And Antilope
Get The Blessing Lope And Antilope Naim Jazz Here we have the fourth full-lengther from British jazz quartet Get The Blessing. Formed around the rhythm section of Portishead, theirs is a probing, searching version of jazz – it makes me think of the recent Sons of Kemet album (which I loved). We start with the […]Archive
March 1, 2014 by Simon Sweetman
The Vinyl Countdown # 1176
Portishead, Dummy (1994) I still remember – in my first year of university – hearing this album was a revelation, it was all its own thing, it wasn’t at all like anything in my collection of music up to that point. I heard just a snippet of the opening track in a friend’s room in […]Archive
June 26, 2013 by Simon Sweetman
The Knife: Shaking The Habitual
The Knife Shaking The Habitual Mute US Corporation Swedish brother/sister synth-pop/electronic duo The Knife releases a belated follow-up to the fan-winning Silent Shout. It’s fair to say, surely, that a lot of people found The Knife on the back of the Jose Gonzales cover of Heartbeats. Anyone still hoping they’ll write another song for Jose […]Archive
January 20, 2012 by Simon Sweetman
The Vinyl Countdown # 1658
Beth Orton, Trailer Park (1996) In the mid/late 1990s a lot of people thought Beth Orton was the “Beth” from Portishead. There were a lot of people checking out Trailer Park, figuring it was some folkie sidestep from their new favourite downbeat/trip-hop singer. Seriously. I know this to be true because I was working in […]Archive
November 14, 2011 by Simon Sweetman
The Vinyl Countdown # 1761
The XX, XX (2009) I wasn’t that much of a fan at first – well, I just didn’t get the buzz. To me The XX sounded okay, but nothing special. But I bought the vinyl because a) my wife was really digging the album and b) I liked the LP packaging. It also made me […]Archive
September 16, 2011 by Simon Sweetman