Portishead
„Roseland NYC Live“
Trip Hop, Dub, Jazz, Breakbeat, Soul
Remaster, limited Reisue in Red Vinyl. 2024 (1997)

How could I have missed this brilliant music? In 2024, someone gave me this album as a gift. And even then, it took another three months and now I can't imagine my inner rotation without it. The quality of the remaster is flawless, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra comes across well, Beth Gibbons' voice floats through the hall. In addition, the LPs are in red vinyl and lie neatly on the surface. Not a single micro-scratch spoils the listening pleasure. That's how a remaster should be!

In short: Geoff Barrows from Portishead near Bristol was involved in a production by Massive Attack. That's how his idea for Project Portishead came about in 1991. Beth Gibbons, who sang in bars, and jazz guitarist Adrian Utley joined the band and in 1994 their first album "Dummy" was released. Portishead innovatively mixed hip hop, dub, soul, jazz, post rock and breakbeat to create trip hop. The term trip hop did not originate with the band and they did not identify with it. I would like to call it trip hop downbeat prog. Whatever the case, "Dummy" was voted album of the year in 1994. The music lives from its innovative mix of many samples, hip hop elements, dub, downbeat, jazz and soul and the extraordinary vocals of Beth Gibbons. But back to Roseland NYC Live.

Six songs from the "Dummy" album and eight songs from the "Portishead" album are on this classically pimped live trip-hop album, which could challenge some listeners, as Beth Gibbons' fragile-sounding voice also becomes bombastic when the band and orchestra go into the depths together. For me, this is clearly the best remaster and one of the best vinyl live albums of the last 25 years. 

In addition to the "Dummy" songs, eight songs from the "Portishead" album are also included, but only in this version of the album, as the songs "Numb", "Undenied" and "Western Eye" are not included on the first edition. The songs "Sour Times" and "Roads" have also been swapped for the original recordings from Roseland NYC Live.

I can't think of a more worthy remastering of an album than this one by Portishead. Of course there are other remasters that are also great, but some remasters could learn a lot from this. I don't need to say anything more about the songs to fans and connoisseurs, and I refer everyone else to the following videos. Conclusion? 15 out of 10 points.

The photos are all from my LP. The rights to all motifs, logos, texts and fonts that can be seen in the photos are of course owned by the copyright holder.