On Lives Outgrown, the first solo album from Portishead’s Beth Gibbons, time is marked by unconventional percussion: a paella dish, a cowhide water bottle, wooden drawers, a box full of curtains. And time is the thing that keeps ticking through these songs: it’s an album of loss, years passing, “lots of goodbyes”. Lives Outgrown was over ten years in the making and earned Beth a Mercury nomination last year. Her swooping vocals and tumbling, brooding brand of low-stringed creaky folk finds beauty amid the bleak, though: as she sings, “All we have is here and now”.
Country: UK
Label: Domino
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