Portishead 'Dummy' - has it aged well?

mms

sometimes
michael said:
Haha, I was listening to this at the gym today. I feel like such a yuppie listening to trendy obscure shit on my digital music player while working out. Oh wait, maybe because I am...

Anyway, yeah, it's a great collection of tracks he's put out on EPs. It's got all the hallmarks of 60s and 70s trippy shit.. reversed bits and pieces and strange harp sounds and cool bass (guitar) lines and his hazed out vocals.. Sorta the meeting point between shoegaze and trip-hop, yet despite how that might sound it's actually good. ;)

Also great that the tracks are short.

The album on Stones Throw is a collection of previously released EPs. I first heard of him via a remix he did for Four Tet, which was really good. From memory Four Tet also released Koushik's first EP, 'Battle Rhymes for Battle Times'. Haha... I love the fact he sings that line in a muffled blur that doesn't sound at all tough. :)

he remixed madvillain as well and they're well good those mixes.
its easyto dismiss that sort of thing esp after rjd2 who just aint much cop but i reckon this dude has something else
 

mms

sometimes
michael said:
Think the tune's called 'Sly', just to be a trainspotter... it's pretty great.

The hip-hop group he produced was called The Brotherhood.. I remember he also released a double album of Underdog productions, but I didn't buy it. Gave it a listen at the time, but would have no idea what it sounded like now, really.
yes and yes.
it's great that one
the brotherhood and look where he's ended up..
 

hamarplazt

100% No Soul Guaranteed
henry s said:
I second the Earthling sentiment...whatever happened to them/him?..."my gosh, my gosh, I'm Juliette Binoche"...we need more of that...
"I went to play a little black jack in the casino, the man dealing cards looked like Brian Eno"

I've no idea what happened to Earthling, except that the rapper Mau appeared on a 2nd Gen-album last year.
 

hint

party record with a siren
hamarplazt said:
I've no idea what happened to Earthling, except that the rapper Mau appeared on a 2nd Gen-album last year.

There's a "lost album" sitting on a shelf somewhere, by all accounts.
 

Numbers

Well-known member
Even twenty years (!) after Dummy I have to admit that some so-called triphop aged really well. I recently listened to some old discs and I can't put my finger on the reason though.

Could it be the implicit belief of authenticity/sincerity/simplicity that much of triphop carries? The lack of self-relativation? Sure, it has all been used and abused in adverts, coffee shops, boutiques, etc. But does that not prove the point that it carried some kind of sentiment considered real enough to appropriate for other purposes?

Note how from this perspective, triphop and the currently fashionable seapunk are completely, diagonally different.
 

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
What's seapunk?

Trip-Hop actually sounds hideously dated to me. Can't stand most of Dummy, or nearly any of Massive Attack. Early Tricky works, until he gets into the rock thing way too much.
 

Leo

Well-known member
i wish i could return to the first time i heard "dummy", it was so fresh and different and great. i honestly haven't been able to listen to it in decades, which is sad because it shouldn't have to suffer just because of the trip hop wave that followed. "maxinquaye" is easier to listen to today, i guess because it's a bit more varied and fucked up sounding.

"dummy" is one of those great records that i'll probably never have an interest in hearing again.
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
i like trip hop stuff way more now than i did at the time when i thought it was just hip hop for people that didnt like rapping, which was maybe true, but now i just think, well whats wrong with not liking rapping?

not really including massive attack in that though. more the dj vadim type stuff.
but a lot of it sounds great now.
 

connect_icut

Well-known member
Haven't read back through the thread to see if anyone has already made these points but...

1. Dummy sounds dead contemporary because of all the compression

2. Like many people, I recently discovered Leslie Winer's Witch, a proto-trip-hop classic from 1990 - highly recommended, if you haven't heard it yet
 

Numbers

Well-known member
What's seapunk?

More on this thread. It's Tumblr-music, mostly, if that makes sense. Some stuff is very good though (cf. Fatima al Qadiri).

Gonna check that Witch proto-triphop now, thanks connect_icut.

About outdated yay/nay: compression is probably a factor. At the same time, I think trip hop really succeeded very well (and probably too easily) in what essentially all music more or less tries to accomplish, ie. to create a mood or sentiment that resonates in the listener. It still works -or at least so it seems for some of us.
 

trza

Well-known member
Zinc likes the self-titled album from 1997, if I am reading the article correctly.
 
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