Oddfinds is a series about the records, songs, or even shops, labels and other pieces of the musical ecology that are literally ‘odd finds’. Stories, pieces of vinyl, CDs, or online sounds found in digital corners. From my point of view, an oddfind is good – very good.
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Oddfinds #4.2: Beth Gibbons: a triptych, Part 2
What inspired this two-parter was the release of Beth Gibbons’ first official solo album, Lives Outgrown, on May 17th 2024. I spent much of that day and the following week listening to the album on a loop and love it already! This piece and the last are dedicated to and inspired by the three albums (a 22-year triptych) that Beth Gibbons released outside of Portishead. The first part looks at 2014’s The Symphony of Sorrowful Songs; while this second part reflects on her other two albums – sisters separated by 22 years: Out of Season by Beth Gibbons & Rustin Man (aka Paul Webb) released in 2002, and Lives Outgrown by Beth Gibbons, released May 17th 2024.
Part 2. Out of Season
YouTube album playlist for Out of Season:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_l0Lns5MJxJfMjpELRIsHsp0QMJxHWzBIg
Out of Season came to me late. I had become aware of the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs project and I had been first intrigued then delighted by it. Beth Gibbons was back on my radar, and I returned to Portishead for a spell to remind myself of the profound effect that the band, and particularly their first album, Dummy, had on me.
And as I said in the first part of this piece: that voice…!
I’d somehow missed that Gibbons had recorded another album in 2002, this time with Paul Webb (aka Rustin Man), who had been the bassist with 1980s band Talk Talk. Although it had great reviews at the time, I think it’s fair to say that it slipped under the radar a bit – and not just mine. It was as low key and weird as Portishead had been, but more straightforward as a collection of songs, with seemingly little influence from the trip-hop dance floor days of the 90s Bristol scene.
This album seemed more embedded in, well, the ‘land’. It feels very pastoral in places. Just look and listen to the beginning of Mysteries in the video below, and the cover art that highlights a bleak landscape. However, the album starts almost as a celebration, albeit a downbeat one – a recognition of a settling into mid-life:
God knows how I adore life When the wind turns on the shore lies another day I cannot ask for more
Whilst celebrating life, love and beauty, there’s doubt and bitterness too, in amongst the love of life and a life of loves. It’s not an easy listen at first, and the soundscape definitely invites the kind of adjectives that the reviewers were using back then (and which had been used, no doubt, in early Portishead days):
“intimate”, “autumnal”, “uneasy”, “moving yet subtle” - and so on…
Beth Gibbons’ intensity doesn’t change, throughout. Her voice does – a little – over the album, though always with those ghostly tones. There’s the pastoral folk feel of Mysteries, Sand River and Resolve; an emotive torch song/show-tune in Tom The Model, and the beautiful, rhythmic Show, held by a simple piano line repeating over and over, and Beth’s voice trembling just above it. A lament maybe, an acceptance or just a statement of intent.
But it’s all just a show A time for us and the words we'll never know And daylight comes and fades with the tide I'm here to stay
The tunes are all lovely; the instrumentation is pared back and the production spot on. The album is really not like Portishead; but it is too, if you know what I mean!
It’s so easy to slip into cliches and review-speak or to look for influences – so if you want these you can always search out and read about them. Paul Webb (Rustin Man himself) has a well written and reflective ABOUT section on his website with a great description of the album project:
In 2002, Beth Gibbons and I teamed up and released an album called ‘Out of Season’. We’d met some years previously, when she’d auditioned as a singer in the early stages of the ‘O’rang project. Beth had gone on to become hugely accomplished in her own right, singing and writing with the band Portishead. Having stayed in touch, I was thrilled when she suggested we should have a go at writing some songs together. With all the experimental music I’d been immersing myself in, it was refreshing to return to a more orthodox approach to songwriting…It took us a good few years to create an album of songs worthy of release, but we got there in the end. The album was well-received with Mojo magazine boldly stating ‘it’s among the best albums ever made’, while Uncut ranked it at number 23 in their top 150 albums of the decade.1
A vinyl version of the album was released in 2019, and I got hold of a copy a couple of years later. It evokes a lot of things, for me, I guess. Nostalgia, from hearing Beth’s voice that takes me back to Dummy days, and all that this entails. Admiration, for her utter devotion to the craft of a song. And the usual emotions that come with great music: sadness, joy, grief, connection, love, yearning – and all the rest.
I remember reading somewhere that this record sounded like a first Beth Gibbons solo album, but I don’t hear it like that. When two people collaborate on a project that has such amazing songs at its heart, then it always has both their voices – even though we don’t hear Rustin Man sing (except some backing vocals on Sand River).
On the final track, Rustin Man, Beth’s words confirm this. She’s not the star of the show – of any show. She knows the deceit and conceit embedded in this – and tells us that this could have only happened with the both of them. These songs – this album – only exist because two people got together to write them.
Oh Rustin Man I can't deny this is you again Little little little I know but how the hold is holding you Let's all get out of frame Oh Rustin Man I can't deny this is you again
Part 3. Lives Outgrown
YouTube album playlist for Lives Outgrown:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_l-wP2OoNJqb2P3P3nXbVHevP243FJkiTA
The way I bought the latest Beth Gibbons album was this: I heard one single from it (Floating On A Moment, see below), loved it, and decided to buy the album as soon after release day as I could. A trip to Dead Sea Records in St Davids ensured the purchase. I have played it repeatedly and was inspired to write this post about it.
I'm interested in this impulse. These days I do sometimes buy records on impulse, or alternatively listen on a streaming platform, waiting a while so the album settles in and I become sure (or not). What is it, however, about certain artists and certain records that makes me totally sure that I will love them straight away? It reminds me a bit of when I was a teenager. We’d go up to Newcastle, buy a record and play it to death for the next few months. We’d know what we were looking for, and sometimes coordinate purchases with friends so we weren’t duplicating.
50 years later, I still find myself becoming obsessed with an artist or band. Recently, I’ve had phases where I’ve gone searching for records and music by the enigmatic and wonderful Sault, catching up on Bjork’s ‘middle period’, and keeping up to date with the Unthanks. David Bowie also falls into this category, and in 2023, Everything But The Girl’s album Fuse, was another one I bought on release and played to death.
I’ve already written about how I found Beth Gibbons’ other two albums: the excellent Songs of Sorrowful Songs (last post) and Out of Season (above), and also loved her work with Portishead, particularly their extraordinary debut, Dummy.
I think there’s something about ‘hyper-focus’ here, at least for me. Once I love something – a book, an artist, a project – then I’ll be a wannabe completist, more likely settling for being a deep loyalist (completism is VERY expensive!).
There is something about the ‘voice’ (the artist’s, author’s or, literally, singer’s voice) that I want more of. I am not a ‘Swiftie’ (I’m 66 and too old for a lot of Taylor Swift’s earlier teen pop stuff), but I can really understand why Swifties are Swifties.2 Her work is great, she is a brilliant songwriter (her pair of lockdown albums, Folklore and Evermore are works of genius) and she reinvents her music – if not herself – with each album.
With these artists, there’s always a new take that emerges from something intimately familiar. Taylor, Bowie – and Beth Gibbons – literally grow on the fans who follow them – and grow with them too. In this way of thinking, the difference in tone between Out of Season and Lives Outgrown might be down to the different stages in life that Gibbons (and Taylor and David and all of us) find ourselves in. That’s not all it’s about, of course, but there’s often also an element of surprise in their releases – just check out at the variety and quality in the output of Sault, in recent years.
There’s something in the reinvention, I think, that makes such a fanboy of me. There are bands whose music I’ve loved early on, but when they’re doing the same thing after album two or three, I tend to move on. All my favourite artists, Beth Gibbons included, are always changing up. Always moving on. Their work – their voice – is recognisable, but what they choose to do with it – right here, right now – is what makes the difference.
On Lives Outgrown, Beth Gibbons gives voice to a variety of style and emotions across the ten songs of the album! Similarly, the three Portishead albums all had different characters, and the leftfield choices she took that led to her two albums (Sorrowful Songs and Out of Season) meant that we never knew what might be coming next.
This album came out of the blue, and was received with such delight and surprise by people who probably never thought there’d be another Beth Gibbons album. As an example, in 20th May, Gibbons and her band performed a wonderful session of songs from the album on BBC 6 Music. DJ Mary-Anne Hobbs introduced the set like an excited fangirl herself, hardly believing she had this wonderful artist in the room!3
I’m still too deep into these songs to really give an objective impression of them. I’m in hyper-focus, deep into a Beth Gibbons rabbit hole at the moment, listening and re-listening to the album – and to the Rustin Man record too. The two albums seem intimately related – connected – saying something about the time of life that Beth finds herself in. Whereas Out Of Season had joy in it, there was also a lot of mid-life searching and questioning too.
Lives Unknown is not all cheery – it’s a record of loss after all, written 22 years after the initial mid-life yearnings she shared with Rustin Man. However, there’s a sureness and complexity about this one. Nothing tentative here. She seems totally confident and comfortable with these songs. It’s like she is saying simply “this is me”.
On that 2002 album with Rustin Man, she sang: “God knows how I adore life… I cannot ask for more”. Now, maybe she knows that she doesn’t ever need to ask for more. It is all there in the here and now. Now she sings, on Lost Changes, of wisdom and acceptance:
Love changes, things change Is what changеs things Time changes Life change Is what changes things
So, this album is just rather wonderful. It’s going to be a companion to me for many years. And my rabbit hole searching threw up something wonderful too – a gift to you (and me). This is a full live session she played earlier in early May 2024 at Artone Studios in Haarlem for 3voor12 (the Dutch public broadcasting company) with tracks from the album, and one from Out of Season too…
Notes
Rustin Man (Paul Webb) also writes about the tour that followed the album, https://www.rustinman.com/about-1-1: “The tour that followed was, for me, as good as touring can get. We pulled together a super band and hired a beautiful 18th century harmonium to replace some of the orchestrated parts of the album. We played shows in the UK, Europe, USA, and finished off in sunny Brazil. A fitting place to celebrate the end of an extremely enjoyable project.
A video of the full tour set from the Paléo Festival, Switzerland, 2003 is here:
If you think that middle-aged muso and vinyl enthusiasts are geeky, try talking to a pre-teen or adolescent Swiftie. They’ll trump your detailed knowledge of your favourite obscure post-rock or psychedelic techno outfit by miles. All the words. From all the albums. Respect…
My 12 year old granddaughter, Freya, has serious chops in this department. Her favourite albums: 1989 and TTPD (The Tortured Poets Department). Favourite tracks (last time I asked) from TTPD: Who’s Afraid Of Little Old Me?, thanK you aIMee, I Hate It Here, I Look in People's Windows and The Prophecy She knows…
On 20th May, Beth Gibbons performed a wonderful session of songs from the album on BBC 6 Music. Mary Ann Hobbs introduced the set like an excited fangirl herself, hardly believing she had this wonderful artist in the room!
“Hi It’s Mary-Ann Hobbs from Radio 6 Music. I don’t know if we ever dared to dream for a moment like this with Beth Gibbons, who made an indelible mark fronting Portishead, a band at the epicentre of the Bristol scene, in the mid-1990s. Her last album with the band was Third, released in 2008. She is a notoriously reclusive artist, so we were overjoyed when she accepted our invitation to play a live session for us. Beth and her band landed at the Maida Vale studios, just as the Spring of 2024 was breaking. She recorded tracks from her debut solo album, Lives Outgrown, and a classic from Out of Season made with Rustin Man in 2002. This is Beth Gibbons.”
A version of a film of the BBC 6 Music session performance is available on BBC iPlayer for a limited period HERE. It might only be available in the UK, so see also the 3voor12 linked to above.