Feb 3

Feb 3 Sour Times, by Portis Head

Well chosen sample

My friend was finding the chemo really tough at this point of their treatment (see my About page to understand how and why I started this blog: https://www.jenxlovesmusic.com/about ). I chose this piece at the time because I felt it was an easy listen, yet absorbing and something about its melancholy atmosphere probably represented something of what both my friend and I were feeling. Only now that I’m writing about it do I realise that I had unintentionally had a bit of a “Trip Hop” phase, featuring Massive Attack’s Teardrop in my previous post and now Sour Times. Next on the list is a Goldfrapp number, which is slightly more pop and released almost a decade later, but still in the Trip Hop vein. How interesting to discover something new about my own listening habits.

If you are not familiar with Trip Hop, it emerged in the early 1990s and is characterised by a slowed down beat, slightly trippy vibe (hence the name) and often melancholy lyrics. Sour Times initially only reached number 57 in the UK chart, but was subsequently re-released and reached number 13 making it one of Portishead’s most successful singles.

How do they do that?

So what is happening in the music to create that sense of melancholy atmosphere and give the piece its distinctive, somewhat clandestine character?

The darkness begins with the descending three note pattern that we hear in the instrumental part. It is low in register and falls within a minor third, a minor key always recognisable to our collective consciousness as representing sadness or being unsettled. When the vocalist enters, the melancholy of that three note pattern and the rest of the tune is accentuated by a singing style that slurs into the notes.

Then there is the rather strange warble of a stringed instrument you don’t come across very often - a cimbalon. This is a Hungarian instrument, like a small harp in a case laid on its back with the strings played using small beaters. This method of playing the strings makes it sound very different to a harp, piano or other types of stringed instrument. There is a short demonstration of a cimbalon available here: https://youtu.be/62x1HkiaWQA

To me, it sounds in this piece like an alarm bell ringing. It interrupts and disturbs and perhaps the unfamiliarity of the sound adds a slightly other-worldly character too, of being out of phase.

A number of these elements come from a sample from Danube Incident by Lalo Schifrin (1968, Argentina) composed for an episode of the TV series Mission: Impossible. https://youtu.be/LkVGfVXPy18?si=FDHK5WVX1iocqTjY. This adds both a 60s psychedelia flavour and that sense of espionage too., featuring the chord synonymous with the James Bond movies, the minor-major 9th! (This chord is constructed using the minor 3rd, major 7th and major 9th, which is both clashing yet pleasing).

Harmonically, the piece is very static, sitting largely on one chord. This lack of harmonic progression makes the piece feel claustrophobic, as we are caught in the repetition of the harmony, broken only by that warning alarm. The strangeness continues right to the end with a rhythmic, electronic wah-wah-wah, punctuated by that chilling yet refreshing James Bond chord.

All combining to dark and melancholic effect.

Hope you enjoy it or feel inspired to listen to something new today.

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