Portishead
Dummy

THE REVIEW

Claustrophobia.

Listening to "Dummy" for the first time, I experienced strange sensations. I felt like I was enclosed in an open box, but dark and rather small. The fact is, this album speaks of pain by involving you, without conveying the emotions of the author or artist. No. This album engages, which is more difficult: you feel in the middle of the record, as if Beth were singing beside you, with her unmistakable voice that leaves a mark and makes everything outside no longer matter.

Just the first notes of "Mysterons" are enough to leave you mesmerized: spectral theremin, transcendent and pounding rhythm, Beth whispers a melody of unattainable beauty. Spectacular "Roads", which along with "Mysterons" represents the pinnacle of beauty on the album, a dark ballad that gets under your skin like a needle. "It Would be Sweet" should also be mentioned, a masterpiece with a slowed-down hip hop rhythm, occasionally broken by samples, Gibbons sings divinely, reminiscent of the best Billie Holiday. "Numb", the most famous track: frantic scratches and once again the indispensable Beth Gibbons commanding the scene in a truly enviable performance, and here the box closes with the splendid jazzy vocal solo, so dark it hurts.

It is impossible not to mention "Glory Box", another great example of jazz on an electronic base that marks an absolute masterpiece of music, a seal of a genre like Trip Hop, an album where it is therefore impossible, at the end of the listening experience, not to press "Play" again on your CD player.