Portishead On Sampling

Bristol trip hop legends Portishead have spoken about their move away from sampling and into live instrumentation.

Portishead were one of the most influential acts of their generation. The Bristol group emerged from a coterie of acts loosely dubbed 'trip hop' - an amalgamation of hip hop, electronica, soul and more.

The band returned with their new album 'Third' in 2008, ending almost a decade of silence with a series of stunning tracks. Acclaimed by critics the album demonstrated how Portishead have been able to evolve without losing their core sound.

Portishead initially used an array of samples to achieve their sound, but as songwriter Geoff Barrow reveals the restriction of technology led to the band using live instruments.

"There’s been an awful lot of experimentation over the years and one of the great areas of discovery is tuning" the Bristol musician explained. "In relation to my world this has made a big difference. It became exciting again to hear things that were out of tune."

"I come from quite a sample-based background, sampling pieces of music and putting them together where they shouldn’t be. And there would always be a dissonance with that because things would never be exactly in time with each other so you’d have to slow them down or speed them up" said Geoff Barrow.

"There would always be tuning issues basically and the thing is that when we stopped sampling and started writing our own music it all became too in tune because I was so used to stuff being out of tune!"

Portishead recently released their new track 'Chase The Tear' exclusively through Amnesty International.