Portishead's Beth Gibbons Shares Interactive Video For New Song 'Reaching Out'
He lives out of date Releases May 17 via Domino
April 10, 2024
Photo by Netti Habel
Portishead's Beth Gibbons releases her debut solo album, He lives out of date, on May 17 via Domino. Now she's shared her second single, “Reaching Out,” via a music video. Weirdcore (Aphex Twin, Arca) directed the song's interactive video. Watch a static version below or check out the interactive version here.
A press release describes the video in more detail: “The video features 4D models of Beth freefalling through a kinetic sci-fi spacescape. As the video progresses, Beth's models change to represent the different stages of her life, echoing the He lives out of date of the album title. If you click and hold your mouse button, it allows you to interact and rotate the models to make it feel like you're trying to approach each other in impossible ways.”
She previously shared her first single, “Floating on a Moment,” via a music video. “Floating on a Moment” was one of the songs of the week.
Portishead's last album was in 2008 Third. In 2002 Gibbons teamed up with Rustin Man (aka Paul Webb of Talk Talk) for the collaborative album Out of season. In 2014 Gibbons collaborated with the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Krzysztof Penderecki, to perform Henryk Górecki's acclaimed 1977 symphony, Symphony No. 3 (Symphony of Sad Songs). An album and a film documenting the performance, simply titled Henryk Górecki: Symphony No. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs)released in 2019. In 2022, Gibbons collaborated with Kendrick Lamar on the song “Mother I Sober”, from Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers album.
Despite her long career, He lives out of date is her first true solo album. Gibbons produced the album with James Ford (Arctic Monkeys, Depeche Mode, The Last Dinner Party), with additional production by Lee Harris (Talk Talk).
The album was inspired by a decade of change as he entered middle age and the vibrancy and hope of youth began to fade. As loved ones began to die much more regularly than when she was younger.
“I realized what life was like without hope,” Gibbons says in a press release. “And that was a sadness I had never felt. Before, I had the ability to change my future, but when you're dealing with your body, you can't force it to do something it doesn't want to do.”
The album's themes include motherhood, stress, menopause and mortality.
“People started dying,” says Gibbons. “When you're young, you never know the end, you don't know how it's going to turn out. You think, “We're going to move past this. It will get better.' Some endings are hard to digest.”
Gibbons adds, more hopeful: “I've come out the other end now, I just think you have to be brave.”
Read our rave review for Henryk Górecki: Symphony No. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs).
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