We didn’t have to wait long to get full details of Portishead singer Beth Gibbons‘ long-awaited debut solo album, Lives Outgrown. It will be out May 17 via Domino. (Preorder here.) Beth co-produced it with James Ford (Arctic Monkeys, Depeche Mode, Blur) with additional production from Talk Talk drummer Lee Harris.
This album is a long time coming — Beth signed to Domino in 2013 — and she made if after a period of reflection and “lots of goodbyes.” “I realized what life was like with no hope,” says Beth. “And that was a sadness I’d never felt. Before, I had the ability to change my future, but when you’re up against your body, you can’t make it do something it doesn’t want to do.”
“People started dying. When you’re young, you never know the endings, you don’t know how it’s going to pan out. You think: we’re going to get beyond this. It’s going to get better. Some endings are hard to digest,” Beth says, adding, “Now I’ve come out of the other end, I just think, you’ve got to be brave.”
The first single from Lives Outgrown is “Floating on a Moment,” a regal song that merges baroque folk and the more sweeping, cinematic side she had with Portishead. Beth’s voice sounds as good as ever. The video was made by Tony Oursler, who made Bowie’s “Where are We Now?” video. “When I first heard ‘Floating On A Moment’ it literally transported me from place to place, filling me with kaleidoscopic emotions and visions,” says Oursler. “If possible, I wanted to capture that psychic liquid in this video. Beth’s work is so powerful it can lead us through life’s forests and fires, revealing glimpses of possible futures. With a voice and music like that I knew we had to make images which are open, somehow speculative.”
Watch the video, and check out the album artwork and tracklist, below.
Beth has also announced European and UK tour dates in late spring, including Barcelona’s Primavera Sound and a London show at The Barbican Centre. All dates are listed below.
Lives Outgrown:
1. Tell Me Who You Are Today
2. Floating On A Moment
3. Burden Of Life
4. Lost Changes
5. Rewind
6. Reaching Out
7. Oceans
8. For Sale
9. Beyond The Sun
10. Whispering Love
Beth Gibbons – 2024 Tour Dates
5/27: La Salle Pleyel – Paris
5/28: Theater 11 – Zürich
5/30: Primavera Sound Festival – Barcelona
5/31: La Bourse Du Travail – Lyon
6/02: Verti Music Hall – Berlin
6/03: Falkonersalen – Copenhagen
6/05: Tivoli Vredenburg (Main Hall) – Utrecht
6/06: Cirque Royal – Brussels
6/09: The Barbican Centre – London
6/10: Albert Hall – Manchester
6/11: Usher Hall – Edinburgh