Former Portishead singer, Beth Gibbons, she with the voice of silk and smoke, teams up with Rustin Man for an album of slow and serious melancholia. Eyeballkid checks out the result.

I hate January; it feels like the fag end of the year. At least in February, you’ve got the January hangover over with. So there I was in early January, pounding the sodden streets of Dublin armed with a bunch of record tokens I’d gotten as Christmas presents (thanks, by the way, if you are reading this) looking to do some serious damage in the first music emporium I stumbled upon. Amongst my splurge of quality purchases, I came across this. And what do you know, my January became a lot more bearable.

We all remember Beth Gibbons, she of Portishead fame, she with the voice that could make United Nations resolutions sound interesting. Here she’s teamed up with Paul Webb (aka Rustin man) to deliver an album of outstanding beauty that’ll blow all cobwebs away.

Released late last year, it made it’s way onto many 2002 ‘best of’ lists, and has already been hailed as a classic in some quarters. High praise indeed. So what have you? Well, you have 10 perfectly crafted songs that cause your heart to swoop and soar and do funny things. There’s the breathtaking opener ‘Mysteries’, a delicate fragile thing that still does something to me when I hear it, the ethereal feel, its glorious opening optimistic lines “god knows how I enjoy life”. ‘Tom The Model’ swoops in next with its driving orchestral chorus, sweet harmonica and urging vocals from Beth. The slow melancholic burning of ‘Show’ comes next, with its plaintive piano accompaniment. The vocal from Gibbons on ‘Romance’ is wonderfully jazzy, really showing her stylish versatility. The beautiful ‘Sand River’ glides by followed by the brooding ‘Spider Monkey’ and ‘Funny Time Of Year’ -the best track on the album -until the finish with ‘Rustin Man’, a fragmented vocal from Beth drifting in a sonic mix of organ and harmonica.

If you like your music mellow and thoughtful, comforting and rewarding, uplifting and melancholic, you’ll do worse than to purchase this. I hope it doesn’t become as ubiquitous as ‘Dummy’ or ‘Play’ or, god forbid, ‘White Ladder’, but there’s a chance it might because it is a wonderful piece of work. This is that rare beast, a bunch of songs of enchanting quality.

We’re into February now and spring is that little bit closer. ‘Out Of Season’ will be a perfect companion for all the seasons.

Words: Adrian Mc Gahan