Album Reviews

LPs are back, but they can be expensive--I don't have to tell you that. One of the great frustrations of their return is finding a bin full of unknowns and not knowing which might be worthwhile. That's why you come to this site. But where do I turn? To find this moody, evocative album I turned to a guy working the crowded floor at Rocks In Your Head, a densely packed Prince Street LP emporium in NYC's Tribeca area.

LPs are back, but they can be expensive--I don't have to tell you that. One of the great frustrations of their return is finding a bin full of unknowns and not knowing which might be worthwhile. That's why you come to this site. But where do I turn? To find this moody, evocative album I turned to a guy working the crowded floor at Rocks In Your Head, a densely packed Prince Street LP emporium in NYC's Tribeca area.

"Of all the new vinyl in this bin," I asked him, "which would you recommend?" Out came this, a collaboration between Portishead's large-lung'ed lead singer Beth Gibbons and "Rustin Man," a.k.a. Paul Webb, the former bassist for the '80s band Talk Talk. (The album was issued last year, so it might be old news for some of you.)

The cover sticker proclaims someone at MOJO ranked Out of Season "among the best albums ever made." That's a pretty strong statement. Can any album live up to that kind of hype? No. But this mature, autumnal album does not disappoint in the face of such hyperbole.

Gibbons and Webb have produced a delicate, atmospheric album that expresses the tranquility, beauty, and isolation of late-night reverie, of "out of season" calm and desolation. It's a reflective set, the kind that works best when heard after peak-energy periods: late at night, winter afternoons, just before sunrise, or even as the sun is setting. The small, back-jacket photo--reproduced full-size on the 12 x 12 inner sleeve--perfectly evokes the album's dimly lit backdrop. It's a forlorn fall shot of a decrepit dock jutting from the shoreline of a mountain-ringed lake on an overcast day. At once serene and depressing, the picture sets the album's reflective tone.

Singing in a voice totally different from the one she uses in Portishead, Gibbons sounds like a breathy, delicate folkie here, hugging the microphone and articulating her words with utter clarity in a crystalline upper register. On one tune, though ("Romance"), she affects an unusual Billie Holiday/Nina Simone-like mannerism in which each "S" sounds like a "Sh," which works to perfection against an exquisitely complex, retro string and horn arrangement reminiscent of what Holiday might have worked in front of during her heyday. "Funny Time of Year" is reminiscent of Holiday's chilling "Strange Fruit." There's as much jazz as folk in the eclectic musical mix, and a single nod to rock on the ELO-like "Tom the Model"--the only song with a strong drum-driven backbeat.

The album commences with a sound effect redolent of the aforementioned photo, followed by Gibbons' "folkiest" performance--one that verges on preciousness--as she sings, "God knows how I adore life/When the wind turns on the shore lies another day/I cannot ask for more." The setting behind her voice is simple, yet effective: angelic background singers and a solo acoustic guitar. This purity of sentiment carries through the rest of the album, which is far more varied and musically and lyrically ambitious. Side one ends with the equally sparse and pristine "Sand River," though it's darker than the opener. One of the album's most evocative tracks is "Drake," an homage to Nick, which you'd recognize from the orchestration even without knowing the title.

This is a carefully produced album, complex in its inner construction yet seemingly simple and uncluttered on the surface. I'd guess the duo produced the basic vocal, guitar, and keyboard tracks themselves "on location," with all of the delicate acoustic orchestrations overdubbed later.

The recording is clean, though appropriately distant and quiet, and though not "bright" per se, it's harmonically shadowy and lacking in warmth and transparency. It has that dry "Pro Tools" sound, though clearly a great deal of care went into the recording and mixing of this delicately drawn epic. One can actively listen to it with pleasure owing more to the clarity and focus of the musical images than to the vividness of the instrumental timbres.

My copy was unfortunately typical of the seemingly sabotaged vinyl coming from the U.K. these days: fine surface scratches covered the surface of both sides, and these scratches sometimes "play," resulting in noise--somewhat distracting on such a quiet, reflective album.

Out of Season is the kind of record you have to figuratively find. It won't reach out and grab you on first listen, though its atmosphere will certainly drift into your subconscious and begin doing its work. After a few plays, you'll find yourself drawn in and rewarded with increased pleasure each listen. A small gem.