3.

Portishead – Dummy

[I got into] Portishead, Massive Attack and Tricky around the same time. It was Portishead first, and you realised they were part of this Bristol scene or whatever it was called, trip hop, and I quickly hunted all that out as well. Portishead’s Dummy, it’s just such a perfect album. Again, it’s one of those ones where I could say I’ve listened to it honestly from start to finish more than a thousand times, [even though] I might not have listened to it in ten years. [laughs]

The first time I listened to it, I didn’t really get the whole album. But after several plays it was like, yeah, this is just such a perfect album – it’s so different and involving. I actually think some of the best albums play out that way – you’re not really sure what you’re listening to the first time you hear it. Anything that gets you like that, after you listen to it for a while, it’s almost like it does change the way you hear things. And that was definitely an album that changed the way I listened to things. It did confuse me a little bit [at first], but once I’d heard it a few times, I couldn’t stop listening to it, and it actually stopped me from getting pleasure in other forms of music. I wasn’t interested in listening to Soundgarden and Nirvana and things like that anymore, it just took me to a different place and showed me different things.

[Also], I wouldn’t even have appreciated it at the time ’cause I wouldn’t have had a clue about production in any way – but the intricacies of the production, it’s a subtle thing, it’s not just about who can get the shiniest, brightest production. The attention to detail in every little sound that’s in those tracks, the warmth, the quality. It sounds great, even if you don’t like the music itself, the pleasure of that sonic experience. Geoff Barrow did an absolutely stunning job with it.