Welcome to Ear 2 Da Sky! Each week, I will be going over topics within music culture and reviewing albums and EPs across genres, eras and artists that are submitted by readers and listeners of my radio show, ear 2 da ground, every Wednesday at 11 p.m. on WHUS 91.7 FM! For this week’s submission, I rotted in my bed a little bit and threw on Portishead’s “Dummy.”
Released at the dawn of the new year in 1994, the album runs in at a solid 49 minutes. “Dummy” was their debut studio album, setting the groundwork for the rest of the England-based bands’ career.
The first track off the project is “Mysterons,” which opens with the hip-hop production technique of “scratching,” before lead singer Beth Gibbons joins in with a voice like stained glass — delicate but beautiful. This song sets a great precedent for the rest of the album, acting as a marriage of varying techniques and sounds: scratching, sampling, Beth Gibbons’ vocals and lastly — but certainly not least — a theremin.
“Sour Times” is song two on the album. With the help of sampling Lalo Schifrin’s “Danube Incident” for the bassline, it sounds like it’s something you would hear in a spy movie. Gibbons slowly dances around the international-super-spy-esque instrumental with her vocals, speaking on the endless cycle that is love. She sings about the fallacy of love, but how she still desires to be wanted even though she knows it will fall apart. She gets on the chorus, “Cause nobody loves me, it’s true / Not like you do.”
“Strangers” is track three and sounds like a beat you would hear in an album from The Pharcyde. I think that can be attributed mainly to the sample heavy production — thanks to Geoff Barrow and Adrian Utley — borrowing sounds from the likes of Weather Report, Eddie Harris and Donny Hathaway. Gibbons stresses the importance of living life through your own lens and living for yourself rather than others. “Did you realize no one can see inside your view? / Did you realize for why this sight belongs to you?”
The most popular and last song on the album is track 11, “Glory Box.” Following the sonic theme of international super spy, Portishead samples Isaac Hayes’ “Ike’s Rap II.” Hearing that sample anywhere is like unwrapping presents on Christmas to me every time. It’s genuinely such a timeless sample; I’ll never get sick of hearing it. They supplement this already great production by throwing a few electric guitar riffs on it.
Over the instrumental, Gibbons finds the ability to live with herself and the ability to let go throughout the song. Each delivery of the chorus grows with confidence, before leaving the listener without any doubt that she has finally broken free from the cycle of unhealthy romantic desire. “Give me a reason to love you / Give me a reason to be a woman I just wanna be a woman.”
Portishead’s “Dummy” is an incredibly interesting listen. They utilize different musical ideas and techniques from different genres, countries and regions. The group puts all of it together to create an experience that is uniquely their own.
Rating: 5/5
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This album was a masterpiece through the whole rollercoaster ride it presented…Setting the the Trip- Hop scene bar…so High…I never get sick of this album…Just like Massive Attack’s ” Mezzanine” album… Truly love throwing tem on to take me back to the first time I laid ears on it!!!