Portishead’s Beth Gibbons Announces First Solo Album ‘Lives Outgrown’

Thirty years after the release of Portishead’s first album, lead singer Beth Gibbons has announced the impending arrival of her own solo debut LP, Lives Outgrown.

Ahead of the album’s May 17 release via Domino, Gibbons has shared the first single “Floating on a Moment,” which was accompanied by a video directed by multimedia artist Tony Oursler.

Lives Outgrown is the culmination of a decade’s worth of songwriting for Gibbons, with the singer ruminating on motherhood, anxiety, menopause, and mortality over the course of the album’s 10 tracks. The LP was born out of a series of deaths — “lots of goodbyes,” Gibbons said — of loved ones and friends over the past few years.

“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,” Gibbons said in a statement.

“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.” 

Lives Outgrown — available to preorder now — was produced by Arctic Monkeys and Depeche Mode collaborator James Ford, along with additional production by former Talk Talk member Lee Harris; Gibbons previously worked with Harris and his Talk Talk bandmate Paul Webb on the 2002 album Out of Season under the moniker Rustin Man.

While Gibbons previously released an album of Henryk Górecki interpretations in 2019, Lives Outgrown marks her first-ever solo album of original music. As a member of Portishead, Gibbons released three studio LPs, beginning with 1994’s Dummy to the group’s most recent work, 2008’s Third. In 2022, Gibbons reemerged to appear on Kendrick Lamar’s “Mother I Sober,” which Rolling Stone ranked as the 13th best Lamar song.

Lives Outgrown Track List

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 

Thirty years after the release of Portishead’s first album, lead singer Beth Gibbons has announced the impending arrival of her own solo debut LP, Lives Outgrown.

Ahead of the album’s May 17 release via Domino, Gibbons has shared the first single “Floating on a Moment,” which was accompanied by a video directed by multimedia artist Tony Oursler.

Lives Outgrown is the culmination of a decade’s worth of songwriting for Gibbons, with the singer ruminating on motherhood, anxiety, menopause, and mortality over the course of the album’s 10 tracks. The LP was born out of a series of deaths — “lots of goodbyes,” Gibbons said — of loved ones and friends over the past few years.

“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,” Gibbons said in a statement.

“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.” 

Lives Outgrown — available to preorder now — was produced by Arctic Monkeys and Depeche Mode collaborator James Ford, along with additional production by former Talk Talk member Lee Harris; Gibbons previously worked with Harris and his Talk Talk bandmate Paul Webb on the 2002 album Out of Season under the moniker Rustin Man.

While Gibbons previously released an album of Henryk Górecki interpretations in 2019, Lives Outgrown marks her first-ever solo album of original music. As a member of Portishead, Gibbons released three studio LPs, beginning with 1994’s Dummy to the group’s most recent work, 2008’s Third. In 2022, Gibbons reemerged to appear on Kendrick Lamar’s “Mother I Sober,” which Rolling Stone ranked as the 13th best Lamar song.

Lives Outgrown Track List

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