BETH GIBBONS AND RUSTIN MAN * OUT OF SEASON
The band was The Cardigans, the single she loved was "Kiss Me", and here it was, my first girlfriend throwing it out from the second floor window of her house, landing at my feet in pieces. So much for pop music.
Years later, this is probably why I love this here Beth Gibbons album so much-- it sounds like nothing I need to hear, and yet nothing I've heard. Just looking at Beth fade to gold turning the cover of Out of Season in the lamp beside me, I knew I had to tell you all about it. I had to tell you that it's a duet with Rustin Man and a solo project from the delirious trip-hop of Portishead. I've also gotta tell you after hearing all year about this from critics, I've listened to it twice in six hours today, finally spending the bit of Christmas money from my Great Aunt, who, as far as I know, might even enjoy the record, too. Yeah, it's one of those. They come around every now and then like a stranger in the night, and make all the hot-cheese of albums we normally stare out in record stores seem like a disease on a plate. A singer, already known for his/her infamy, decides to cut a quiet and obscure solo album that traces their real influences and not, by George, what scrapes in the cash. It's different, soon becoming a whisper in the batch, and is in everybody's collection, going down in twenty years as one of the hundred coolest albums to own since Elvis declared everything a "Houndog". Some just don't howl back, though.
Not that Portishead didn't, they're of course the UK sundown, taking the nineties on a mystery tour by Beth Gibbons' supernatural voice beneath layers of orchestral exotic/turntable/sad-beat/paradise. I like them, they're a careful band, releasing albums now and then, and incorporate weird stuff like old mood-music themes into their dub wonder. Beth's lyrics were always somber tales of solitary tragedy as told through love-makin' rhythms, where if you were thought that song was hot, getta load of the next one. Over the years I find myself drawn more and more in by mellow, dreamy albums, which skirt in and out of reality in slow chilling soundscapes. I don't have any friends my age who dig Portishead (and don't have too many friends to begin with), but have hung out in a enough record shops to know they appeal to a more notorious-seeking clan of youth who take shelter in their music, and are alive to know if you buy a Portishead record, a communication between you and the clerk will silently evolve that: you're hip, probably single, and also looking for something.
And here we arrive at Beth Gibbons and Rustin Man's Out of Season, which starts with a two-minute sound-quake, soon to swim into Beth's Billie Holiday-esque hushings over an acoustic pattern of Paul Webb's production of pondish voices. This is "Mysteries", and I'd have to wait until later when Beth confesses over a cloud of guitars that it's a funny time of year to really grasp what's going on (there's also a video, but my computer wouldn't let me see it). Like I said, I've listened to it twice, well, three times now after beginning this review with Buddy Holly, and arrive at a few conclusions: One, I must confess, I've developed a crush on Beth Gibbons since I heard her sing "Humming" off the self-titled Portishead album, and this is one of the reasons why I bought this record. I know, it's dangerous for a male to review a female singer on the basis of her sexuality, but I just don't care. Half of Portishead's audience is generally guys, either indirectly or not, mesmerized by Beth's mystic persona, and could be a main reason why this album is lauded in a ethereal/Nico kinda way (i.e. Beth signifies a sensitivity that guys admire but don't know how to express-- thus, Portishead's brooding music). You can even hear 'em yelping out on the album's bonus live track where she sings Lou Reed's "Candy Says" (actually one of the nicest things on here, making the album not a fine de siecle after all, but beautifully close). It's better if you listen.
So when you do, check out "Tom the Model", the chorus will remind you of Nina Simone and Patty Waters, and by the time you get to "Romance", clearly lounge-music with Beth singing from the side of her mouth, well, you just don't know where you are, but it's surely an intimate place. I was just listening to "Drake" from the other room and it obviously occurred to me it was both a Nick Drake reverie, and in the deep echo, Beth's own passion, unfolding when the floating harmonica slides in (Nillison/Midnight Cowboy style). There's been other suff, too. Skin's Flesh Wounds (former vocalist for metal-bashers Skunk Anise) which came out a year ago, and was a cool melancholy dip-into-the-blue and totally disregarded (other solo beauties in our very own nineties: John Frusciante, Thurston Moore's Psychic Hearts; both underrated). Yet, now listening to Out of Season for a fourth time, I can tell Beth and Rustin were trying their best to shed the whole jaded spin-off that lurks among most trip-hop attitude, settling their wrists in a classical ripple of minimal melody, with the eerie vocals and a breeze of string instrumentation like Francoise Hardy sung over a Sarah Vaughn record in complete reverse (and Goddard was in there shouting that this was really great, but we gotta wait until 2003 so we can cut a spanking video!). I'm still waiting for that one.
Oh yeah, Rustin Man-- he's the limb of the project, even leading Beth to sing a song to him at the end, making me think this duo was a heaven-made relationship, because for two years (since I started Track) I've been asking for a popular album that would intertwine a whole new world, answering the questions and saying no more. Catch this one if it's thrown out any second floor window.
--Carson Arnold - February 2nd, 2004
copyright 2004 Carson Arnold
H(ear) is an online music column consisting of interviews, articles, and investigations written by Carson Arnold. As a freelance writer for various magazines and liner notes, living in the woods of Vermont with his family, Carson widely encourages one to submit their art, writing or any interesting piece of material that you would like to share. H(ear) is accepting both promos and demos for review or any other valuable music-related subjects. If you wish to make a comment or would like to receive H(ear) weekly by email please contact Carson at [email protected]
Thanks and enjoy!
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