With the rainy and gloomy days of April now upon us, certain music just feels tailor-made for melancholy mornings vibing out at your local coffeehouse. And for this writer, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better soundtrack for those (mildly pretentious) settings/vibes than Portishead’s classic debut record, Dummy. A fantastic headphones album, it’s got some serious knock, but it’s Beth Gibbon’s distinctively aching and yearning vocals that help give the record it’s trademarked emotional weight and intimacy. As the late great Stuart Scott often said, “it’s cooler than the other side of the pillow”, which is an apt description for this performance of “Strangers” from their classic concert at the Roseland Ballroom in New York City from 1997. Turn it up and witness Portishead in their prime:
