The song of the week is Consequence'yes Weekly column highlighting the latest and greatest new songs. Find these new favorites and more in our Spotify best songs playlist and to see other great songs from emerging artists, check out our Spotify new sounds play list. This week, Beth Gibbons introduces her solo ambitions with “Floating on a Moment.”
Three decades after Portishead's debut and 16 years after her last work, Beth Gibbons has finally announced her long-awaited solo project, lives surpassed. While this isn't the first time Gibbons has left the Portishead universe (he's released more than one collaborative album and has lent his vocals to artists like Kendrick Lamar), Lives overcome It is the first complete collection to bear the Gibbons name and the Gibbons name alone. Judging by its lead single, “Floating on a Moment,” it’s going to be heavy.
The track, directed by Consequence2023 Producer of the Year James Ford exudes a certain hopelessness that Gibbons says is emblematic of the direction of the new album. “People started dying,” Gibbons said of lives surpassed. “When you're young, you never know the end, you don't know how it will end. You think, 'We're going to get through this.' Everything is going to get better.' Some endings are difficult to digest… I realized what life was like without hope, and that was a sadness I had never felt. “Before, I had the ability to change my future, but when you're in front of your body, you can't force it to do something it doesn't want to do.”
Despite the understated, ever-developing sonic beauty of “Floating on a Moment,” one can't help but feel the desolation behind the baroque instrumentation. Especially with Gibbons' thoughts about death and sadness in mind, the softly sung lines about going nowhere and being too afraid to feel free reveal the song's existential concerns. There's seemingly the slightest glimmer of optimism as the song fades, with dreamy, childlike choruses and Sufjan Stevens-style folk instrumentation supporting Gibbons as he sings, “Everything we have, is here and now.” And yet it feels more like a defeated surrender than a defiant embrace of the present.
Of course, the punchline is how beautiful the song sounds. Despite the darkness of the lyrics, the prancing baseline, shimmering arpeggios and Gibbons' delicate playing are paradoxically comforting. He squints and you may find the song warm and uplifting. However, if you look closer, you'll wonder how you ever thought things were okay.
— Jonas Krueger
Editorial Coordinator
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