Cowabunga! Don’t have a COW, man! I know what you’re thinking, and YEP, it’s been 20 years since Portishead’s seminal 1994 album Dummy hit the scene and magically made it “okay” overnight for people to say the compound word “trip-hop” and signify something legitimate thereby (other than perhaps their own heretofore-unique brand of douchebaggery).
Happily though, that 20-year-mark means two awesome things. First, the band is reissuing the album “on 180-gram, heavyweight vinyl in a gatefold sleeve,” the first 1,000 copies of which will be pressed to a special, limited-edition blue vinyl. Boom. No additional filler material; no outtakes or demos or shitty “remember that show, brah?!” live versions — just the fucking songs on the original record in the original order. You can pre-order it from the band starting tomorrow, August 13.
And second, it means that the follow-up to 2008’s pretty-alright Third fucking must be — as the British trip-hop set would say — comin’ ‘round the mountain, right? I mean, that’s just how publicity works. And Portishead are nothing if not slaves to the traditional industry hype cycles; am I right, fellow trip-hoppers?
• Portishead: http://www.portishead.co.uk