Lives Outgrown
Beth Gibbons from Portishead presents her first solo album
Beth Gibbons reflects on her life with all its ups and downs. photo
© Netti Habel/Domino Records/Goodtogo/dpa
At 59, Portishead singer Beth Gibbons takes stock of what she has poured into a solo record. It is an audibly rested album that comes with prominent support.
Thoughtful, sometimes disturbing, but also pleasantly harmonious: Portishead singer and songwriter Beth Gibbons releases her first solo album. The 59-year-old Brit from the West Country uses the record entitled “Lives Outgrown” as a look back at her life so far with all its ups and downs – including realignment. It is an audibly rested album, whose ten songs Gibbons took a whole decade to write.
Unconventional record with catchy songs
It’s about motherhood, fears, menopause and that Death of loved ones. But Gibbons doesn’t fall for these topics: her subtle lyrics leave room for interpretations and associations. Musically, it’s a refreshingly idiosyncratic record that doesn’t take conventions into account but still has some catchy songs.
The single “Floating On A Moment” stands in a field of tension between the music, which, carried by bass guitar and back vocals, evokes a feeling of security, and lyrics that mercilessly address the many uncertainties of our existence and the one great certainty, death , suggests: “I’m floating on a moment, don’t know how long / No one knows, no one can stay / All going to nowhere (nowhere) / All going, make no mistake” doesn’t know how long / Nobody knows, nobody can stay / Everyone is going nowhere / Everyone, believe me).
Tupperware containers filled with peas as drums
Overall, it is an album that sounds harmonious, but is also characterized by dissonance. For example, Gibbon and former Talk Talk drummer Lee Harris, who supported them on the album, experimented with improvised instruments such as Tupperware containers filled with peas and other everyday objects that could be used as drums.
In search of unusual sounds, she also got music producer James Ford (including Arctic Monkeys) to hit the strings of a piano with a spoon. The resulting sound is not perfect, but at the same time it is characterized by depth and substance that reveal great skill. You can hear it, for example, in the melancholic song “Burden of Life”.
Of the experiences she drew from, Gibbons said in a statement: “When you’re young, you never know how it’s going to turn out, you don’t know what’s going to happen next. You think: We’ll get through this. It will getting better.” But some things are difficult to digest. Nevertheless, Gibbons also emerges stronger from the process of looking back: “Now that I’ve come out the other end, I think you just have to be brave.”