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Portishead music biography continued...

The band was formed in Bristol, England in 1991, by Geoff Barrow, Beth Gibbons and Adrian Utley. They got their name from the West Coast shipping town where Barrow grew up. Prior to forming the band, Barrow had been working as a tape operator and remix producer, Gibbons was singing in pubs, and Utley had played jazz guitar for Big John Patton and The Jazz Messengers. The trio created the short film To Kill a Dead Man, which was heavily inspired by espionage films, and its accompanying soundtrack persuaded Go! Beat Records to sign the band. Portishead's first album, Dummy, was released in 1994 and spawned three singles , "Numb", "Glory Box" and "Sour Times", which was accompanied by an atmospheric video that went into regular rotation on MTV in America. Within a few weeks, Dummy and "Sour Times" were alternative rock hits in the U.S. Back in the U.K., the album had crossed over into the mainstream, becoming a fixture in the British Top 40. The album went on to win the prestigious Mercury Music Prize in 1995, an award given for the best album in either the United Kingdom or Ireland. In 2003 it was named one of the top 500 albums of all time by Rolling Stone magazine.



Always media shy, Portishead remained out of the headlines for three years following the huge success of Dummy and didn't release their self-titled sophomore effort until September 1997. Portishead went on hiatus starting in 1999, and Barrow, Utley and Gibbons began working on their own projects. In February 2005, the band appeared live for the first time in seven years at the Tsunami Benefit Concert in Bristol. Portishead's third studio album, aptly, called Third, was released in 2008. The group backed up release with a performance at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in California. In May 2008 Barrow expressed the band's enthusiasm for recording new material on their official website's blog, stating that he "can't wait to write some new tunes." Portishead's fans can't wait either.