Q & A
Lee Harris: “She found her ‘spark’”
You’ve crossed musical paths with Beth several times over the years. How did you begin working with her on Lives Outgrown?
Ihave known Beth for many years, since she came down for acouple of sessions for the [post-Talk Talk] Orang albums, pre-Portishead, in the early ’90s. Beth had tried working with several people for her solo album, but without the “spark” she was looking for, so she invited me down to chat and have arun through ideas. Ihave the reputation of being “a bit out there”. We tried recording afew tracks, but they all sounded too ordinary, run of the mill. We decided we needed anew approach.
How did you find that approach?
Beth kicked abox she stored curtains in and said, “I like the sound of that”, so we started from there: we had our bass drum. Out came all manner of weird objects to play and what to play them with. We settled on felt beaters, anything high frequency would be covered in cloth, the dullest oldest guitar strings used, all recorded with vintage preamps and microphones, to give an overall soft explosion feel.