CLASSIC ALBUM

THE BRISTOL GROUP’S DEBUT LONG-PLAYER IS A SULTRY, SMOKY AND FIERCELY ORIGINAL CLASSIC THAT BLENDS LOPING BEATS WITH TWANGY GUITARS AND SEDUCTIVE VOCALS. IT CONQUERED BRITPOP TO SCOOP THE MERCURY PRIZE – JUST DON’T CALL IT TRIP-HOP.

FELIX ROWE

1 994: a watershed year for British music, whatever your tastes. Blur’s Parklife, the Manics’ The Holy Bible, The Prodigy’s Music For The Jilted Generation, not to mention a cracking debut single from Supergrass and, of course, Oasis’ Definitely Maybe. But none were quite so singular; so boldly original and notably out of step as the introductory offering from Portishead. Dummy, released in August that year, was as brilliant as it was unexpected – one of the most influential British debut records of its era.

And just as Britpop was in full swing, sending acoustic guitar sales through the roof with supercharged lad-rock anthems tailored for the terraces, a sleeper-hit revolution was under way in Bristol. It began as a low rumble of bass – one you could feel rattling in your bones long before your ears could even hear it; the warm crackling and popping of vinyl static; slow, hypnotic grooves and ethereal vocals. Pitched quite deliberately at the opposite end of the spectrum, Portishead’s Dummy was everything that Definitely Maybe or Parklife wasn’t: subtle, slow-burning, elusive, delicate, haunting.

But dinner party music this ain’t. If your host should slip Dummy onto the turntable before serving up the hors d’oeuvres, it might be wise to politely make your excuses.

Exquisite taste in music aside, there’s a good chance the canapés have been laced with cyanide. Far from the ‘chill out’ tag too often lazily applied to this group, ‘chilling’ would be more appropriate. Portishead’s debut is at times awkward, intense, demanding, anxious and sinister. For all its lighter moments (It Could Be Sweet), it gets pretty heavy, too (that groove in Strangers).

Portishead’s mastermind Geoff Barrow and vocalist Beth Gibbons, photographed in London, just after the release of the band’s debut LP, Dummy

MUSICAL MELTING POT

The Bristol Sound* evolved out of the city’s sound systems, melding influences from US hip-hop with a distinctly Bristolian sensibility, informed by the city’s rich (albeit troubled) multicultural heritage, and influence of dub from incoming Afro-Caribbean communities. (*Don’t call it ‘trip-hop’, unless you wish to invoke the wrath of its originators.)

The creative clash of cultures nevertheless fuelled a subversive artistic outlook that fed into the music. One such collective, The Wild Bunch, spawned scene icons Massive Attack and their occasional associate Tricky, as well as Grammy award-winning producer, Nellee Hooper, while the same scene birthed the famously elusive street artist, Banksy.

PITCHED DELIBERATELY AT THE OPPOSITE END OF THE SPECTRUM, PORTISHEAD’S DUMMY WAS EVERYTHING THAT DEFINITELY MAYBE OR PARKLIFE WASN’T: SUBTLE, SLOW-BURNING. ELUSIVE, DELICATE, HAUNTING

The Bristol set jettisoned the alpha male braggadocio typically associated with hip-hop, electing instead for hushed vocals, a meditative, soulful sensuality, and – a total taboo in hip-hop at the time – occasional gender-fluidity. The pace is positively sedate yet unrelenting, like a freight train gradually building momentum. Contrary to Madchester’s rave culture, that was all about coming up, Bristol soundtracked the comedown, representing the internal rather than external. “Dance music for the head rather than the feet”, to quote Massive Attack’s Daddy G in The Observer.