Barbican Centre, London
“If I had known where I'd begun, would I still fear where I might end?”
Over the last two decades, Gibbons has manufactured her debut solo LP, Lives Outgrown, at last released this year to critical acclaim. Culminating with this sold-out show, the audience remain transfixed, imbued by a dramatic atmosphere and spirited by Gibbons’ undying curiosity for the unknown.
Many artists once-famous, revered, and earmarked as “boundary-pushing” often fade into obscurity over time. Their curiosity wanes; their personal interests lead them elsewhere; or (fatally) they bury themselves into solitary existence. For Beth Gibbons, renowned as the lead singer of trip-hop act Portishead, her curiosity has been hard to trace to date: Portishead’s last LP arrived in 2008, alongside scattered records in the interim with Rustin Man and the Polish Symphony Orchestra.
Now collaborating with Lee Harris (of Talk Talk) and James Ford (Blur, Depeche Mode, Jessie Ware), an unconventional approach is enlisted: paella dishes, metal sheets and a cowhide water bottle for instrumentation. For tonight, she’s accompanied by her extensive band laced with dissonant woodwind and strings, bolstered by a range of percussion and guitar parts. ‘Tell Me Who You Are Today’, saunters these parts into the Barbican by virtue of preying guitar licks, tapping drums and holistic lyricism akin to The Doors’ ‘The End’ (“If I could change the way I feel / If I could make my body heal / Free from all I hear inside”).
Through the deepened red and blue hues encasing Gibbons’ entourage, the singer deems self-possessed, encompassed amongst the crescendoing dissonance within ‘Burden of Life’ (“The burden of life just won't leave us alone…the time's never right when you're losing a soul”). ‘Rewind’ and ‘For Sale’ offer a notable pertinence from the woman-of-the-hour, striking a dramatic retelling of our plundering of Mother Nature (“Too far to rewind” / “If we don't stop now, will we go too far?”), pinned against tumultuous, winding instrumentation and solos reminiscent of Swans’ clamouring energy.
A deep-dive into her classic-pop record with Rustin Man offers a brief respite, yet the breadth of Gibbons’ journey to date is apparent: accentuated by tonight’s crowd favourites from her latest LP, ‘Floating on a Moment’ and ‘Beyond the Sun’. The former transfixes Gibbons’ perturbed silhouette on-stage, highlighting her pervasive lyricism (“On the path with my restless curiosity / A passenger on no ordinary journey”), whilst the latter forever twists and turns against the tussling woodwind and strings sections, reminiscent to that of Radiohead, Nick Cave or PJ Harvey.
The most vocal reception, however, reveals itself (expectedly) at the lone Portishead recital of ‘Roads’, as well as tonight’s finale, ‘Reaching Out’. From one of the band’s biggest and most transcending tracks to date, the once-popular trip-hop scene caked in espionage reverberates effortlessly here as Gibbons’ frail questioning relentlessly rings out (“How can it feel this wrong?”). Traversing through the muted verses and explosive choruses of the latter, the brilliance of Gibbons’ latest body of work is vocally realised as the house lights illuminate the rapturous audience, revealing a jubilant artist rambling through myriad thank you’s.
Despite her incoherency here, Beth Gibbons remains powerfully stoic in her performance tonight. An intricate, daring, introspective and insular performance from an artist well into their illustrious tenure, Gibbons’ voice continues to transcend time, remaining a part of a niche circle of transcendental artists from the nineties (Björk, Fiona Apple, Sinéad O'Connor, PJ Harvey). If this is only her first instalment as a solo artist, then the future deems enticing for this curious singer-songwriter, eternally grasped by a gasping voice which strains and yearns for the unknown.
8/10
Beth Gibbons' latest LP, Lives Outgrown, is out now via Domino Recording Company and can be found below.
Photo is courtesy of Burak Çıngı whose work can be found here.