Portishead singer Beth Gibbons has officially announced her long-awaited debut solo album.
Set to premiere on May 17th via Domino, Lives Outgrown was produced by Gibbons with James Ford (Arctic Monkeys, Depeche Mode), and features 10 new tracks recorded over the course of the past decade. In a new press release, Gibbons touched on the album’s themes of motherhood, anxiety, menopause, and mortality.
“People started dying,” Gibbons said. “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… I realized what life was like with no hope, 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.”
The first single, “Floating on a Moment,” speaks to the album’s themes, arriving with a music video directed by Tony Oursler (David Bowie), depicting scenes of nature, destruction, and Gibbons herself, all in a futuristic, kaleidoscopic display.
Lives Outgrown will be available in vinyl and CD formats. Pre-orders are ongoing.
In May, Gibbons will hit the road for a run of European tour dates, stopping in cities like Paris, Berlin, London, and more. Check out the full list of her upcoming dates below, and grab tickets on her website.
Last year, Portishead a remastered and expanded edition of their live album Roseland NYC Live for its 25th anniversary. In May 2022, they reunited for their first live show in seven years at a UK benefit concert alongside IDLES.
Gibbons previously released a pair of collaboration albums: Out of Season with Rustin Man in 2002 and Henryk Gorecki: Symphony No. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs) with the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in 2019. Portishead’s last studio album was 2008’s Third.
Lives Outgrown Tracklist:
01. Tell Me Who You Are Today
02. Floating on a Moment
03. Burden of Life
04. Lost Changes
05. Rewind
06. Reaching Out
07. Oceans
08. For Sale
09. Beyond the Sun
10. Whispering Love
