For a limited period, The Portraits are offering their full album The Blushing Of A World In White for free in exchange for a message on your Facebook wall or a tweet on your Twitter account.
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The Portraits' simple observations of adult life from the perspective of those that have loved, lost, travelled, had children and laughed about it all, make for a cosy brand of acoustic pop with beautiful harmonies and folk and world music tinges.
"The Blushing Of A World In White" is the album the Millingtons have been waiting years to write. An ensemble of 12 alternately heartbreaking and witty songs about real lives built around haunting piano lines, raw strings, orchestral instruments, ethnic voices and percussion, and most notably, the duo's trademark vocals, near choral in style, layered and pained in harmony with a distinctive nod to the 70s, Brian Wilson and Clannad. This is the culmination of a decade's songwriting partnership and a life-time of shared experiences.
Along with a larger band of string players, sax and percussionist, a remarkable Spanish vocalist, Belen Martin Miguez, joins The Portraits on certain dates during their forthcoming tour, bringing to their live set a new worldy flavour, as well as cowriting and singing on several songs on the album.
"The Portraits blend sophistication with simplicity; a classical mien with modern mores on The Blushing Of A World In White. Infused with musical and rhythmic influences drawn from at least four continents, The Portraits create thought-provoking works of art in song. The Blushing Of A World In White doesn't so much mark a change for The Portraits as it does the next step in their inevitable development. The create force majeure comprised of Lorraine Reilly and Jeremy Millington is destined to never rest in their search for new creative avenues in music. It's for that reason that The Portraits always sound fresh and inspired. This is a must-have album."
WILDY'S WORLD, May 2010
As with all our downloads, fans set the price and 1/3 of all proceeds go to a school for poor children in Burma.
"Timescape", the new album by Anglo-Irish folk-pop duo The Portraits, followed a thrilling worldwind period working in Cape Town with local South African musicians, renowned studio wizard Simon "Fuzzy" Ratcliffe, and contributions from Portishead side-kick Pete Judge on brass. Released in late 2008, the colourful follow up to the duo's critically acclaimed first album "Kin" (2006) blends the choiry feel of the duo’s trademark vocal arrangements with an electronic worldiness, and a new instrumental flavour emanating from the inclusion of cellos, giant African percussion troups, ethnic flutes...and just the odd smattering of Bristolian trumpetting. The result may hint at a Brian Wilson wall of vocals and the honest song writing style of the likes of Ben Folds or Heather Nova, but a uniquely Portraits-ish tapestry of cellos, flutes, trumpets, electronics and world instruments ensures that the new album is a curiously intoxicating and unique listen.
As with all of our downloads, you set the price and 1/3 of the proceeds go to a school for poor children in Burma.
01 POPPY SONG (4:08)
Timescape's opening song is the reflection of an elderly lady looking back at a love lost during the war, wondering how the fields of Northern France could be so cruel as to conceal under their green beauty the appalling secrets of the past. The synth drumloop and FX-ed verse vocals take the song in an unusual direction for The Portraits, this only pulled down to earth by their trademark piano and harmony vocals during the choruses. Featuring trumpet by Pete Judge who recorded his lines in Bristol and sent them over the internet to the band who were mixing the album in South Africa.
02 FAME (3:57)
Fame is one of 4 songs on Timescape to have been written more than five years ago by the duo. It depicts the more unpleasant side of success, portraying a duo for whom a stark contrast in their individual levels of personal ambition has led them to separate paths in life: one is setting the scene alight, the other channel-hopping and embittered by their former partner's glory. A simple electro-tinted ballad built around a repetitive piano riff.
03 AUTUMN (4:32)
Growing older is something none of us will ever escape, and this song was inspired by Jeremy's image of the span of life as a wheel. We are all on the wheel, and all of us will be young and old at some stage, so to make value judgements based on age is a strange thing to do. It equates to a judgement of ourselves. Kayla, the main character in the song who is reassured by the "Don't fear my dear, no time to leave the stage" of the chorus, is fictional, but based on the common scenario of the headstrong career-minded person who reaches middle age and wonders what has happened to their life. The "Kayla" as sung in the verse is constructed from a 30-strong choir of Lorraines and Jeremys overdubbed, and the final classical guitar solo is played by Jeremy after a gap of 18 years since learning the instrument at school. Hopefully this doesn't show too much!
04 BITTER (3:44)
The Portraits' first foray into environmental issues was not supposed to sound quite as judgemental about the abuse of the planet as it ended up. "We" is the operative word in the choruses, which accepts blame on behalf of the songwriters as much as anyone, as we are all cogs in the workings of our world. The slant that Bitter takes is to question whether our treatment of the environment could be seen in a wider global context - if you believe that "What Goes Around Comes Around" (that damned Mr Timberlake released his version just after Bitter was written) does exist, then mightn't our collective disrespect for our Earth be balanced by the horrors it throws back at us? The duo's own favourite part of this song is the counterpoint of two overdubbed vocal groups towards the end.
05 PRECIOUS RED (3:13)
The Portraits first album, 2006's "Kin", had as its central muse the sudden death of Jeremy's father Graham in his early 60s. The downbeat nature of the album was largely due to its subject matter, despite the duo's penchant for setting sad lyrics to cheery-sounding music. "Timescape", in a lyrical sense at least, is very much post-bereavement, dealing as it does with age, with legacy, with how we will be remembered. Precious Red links Jeremy's dad with the granddaughter he never knew: the song was an attempt by Jeremy to offer some upbeat thoughts to his newly born daughter for a future time when he himself was no longer here. Featuring the beautiful bowings of Cape Town's finest session cellist Lara Block.
06 REAL WORLD (4:11)
For people old enough to remember vinyl, track 6 of Timescape represents the start of the virtual Side B of the album. Real World's lyrics are a stab at a nameless acquaintance of the writer who tested their friendship to the limit. It is "Grow Up!" set to music. Using an African percussion troup of overdubbed bongos and household sounds, Real World weaves a simple melody and harmonic line into a huge counterpoint of voices towards the end. Once again, the cyber trumpetting of renowned Bristol trumpeter Pete Judge is downloaded into the midst of the musical chaos that builds towards the track's completion.
07 SEE THROUGH YOU (4:33)
One of the four older songs on Timescape, See Through You in its original form first appeared on the setlist of an earlier incarnation of The Portraits in the late 1990s. Reworked and reworded, the new ethnic-tinged version mixes sampled electro-loops with bongos, eerie piano lines with worldy voices, and deals in the lyrics with domestic violence and the "business as usual" camouflage that surrounds families affected. Featuring ethnic flutery by Simon "Fuzzy" Ratcliffe.
08 SHIELD (3:07)
A simple tune asking why the world works in such a divided way. Why do we live in such Western comfort and bemoan everything we have, whilst in so many other parts of the world people suffer on a daily basis but put on such a brave face? When Jeremy wrote the lyrics to Shield, he had in his head a third world family hearing about the riches of the West and wondering why they themselves haven't been blessed in the same way. Naturally, the song is influenced by the duo's personal experience of Burma, a tragic, forgotten country filled with a beautiful, resilient people ruled by fear.
09 VIRTUAL (4:57)
A friend of the band says that this is his favourite song on the album purely because of the line "How did I end up here?" which he feels is a motto for his own life, and how many people feel about theirs. In fact, Virtual is the oldest song on The Portraits' new album, having been written and rewritten several times since 1993. Its latest outing is partly inspired by a brilliant UK TV series called Life on Mars in which a cop is involved in a road accident in 2006 and wakes up in 1973, having to deal with a new life without any of the cultural and technological developments of the last thirty-five years. And we the audience wonder whether he really is in 1973, or in a dream or a coma. Virtual is a trip down memory lane through the 80s of the writers' childhood.
10 WINDFALL (5:20)
Introducing once again the beautiful cello work of Cape Town's Lara Block, Windfall is a song about loss, and of making the most of the few years we have on this planet. It is written from the perspective of an entirely non-religious person doing his bit at a relative's funeral by reading a Psalm. Afterwards, the words remain with him through the secularity of his own life, and he realises that the "three score years and ten" (70) or "if we are fortunate four score years" (80) that we are given should not be wasted on misery or work that you hate. There is no rehearsal. We will all be in a wooden box soon enough, so it is vital to make use of the time you have. A nice cheery note to end the album.
'Kin' is the debut album from Anglo-Irish songwriting partners The Portraits. Its 11 highly personal songs use colourful acoustic arrangements and choir-like vocals to present various takes on family, ambition and bereavement. With lyrics at times humerous and at others painfully reflective, this is adult pop with a distinctly theatrical edge. As with all of our downloads, you set the price and 1/3 of the proceeds go to a school for poor children in Burma.
