Adrian Utley

Best known as a member of <a href="spotify:artist:6liAMWkVf5LH7YR9yfFy1Y">Portishead</a>, guitarist and producer Adrian Utley has also recorded under various names and participated in several recorded and live collectives, such as the occasional This I Dig, <a href="spotify:artist:6gIs4hObSQJz7SfSkBBGey">Stonephace</a>, Adrian Utley & Mount Vernon Arts Lab, and <a href="spotify:artist:6RAAWReEpAGQ4YUqGFoTfB">Adrian Utley's Guitar Orchestra</a>. Utley was originally a jazz guitarist, performing in organist <a href="spotify:artist:1N0ymPm6hUQbmzXDuERfeT">Big John Patton</a>'s touring band and also with a late edition of <a href="spotify:artist:6QQuESLtKhAOcLW2TeWC2t">Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers</a> -- one of the few guitarists ever to do so.

In 1991 he met producer/engineer/musician <a href="spotify:artist:53b2a4ytPlelgBJYLLocWh">Geoff Barrow</a> and singer <a href="spotify:artist:6Lt6KFXX3P0v6vfrynQAMo">Beth Gibbons</a>, and the three began writing together and became <a href="spotify:artist:6liAMWkVf5LH7YR9yfFy1Y">Portishead</a>. They enlisted a fourth member, engineer and drummer Dave MacDonald, and the group's debut album, Dummy, appeared in 1994. They released a second, self-titled studio offering and the live PNYC before going on hiatus in 1999.

Utley and his bandmates pursued individual projects. He produced <a href="spotify:artist:7I6mcKhFFT9sW6OZ09G1ZY">the Flanagan-Ingham Quartet</a>'s Textile Lunch album in 2000, and played on and co-produced <a href="spotify:artist:6Lt6KFXX3P0v6vfrynQAMo">Gibbons</a> and Paul Webb's (aka <a href="spotify:artist:62NNHMoDbLSbR3THDaFNO7">Rustin Man</a>) album Out of Season in 2002. That same year, he and <a href="spotify:artist:53b2a4ytPlelgBJYLLocWh">Barrow</a> released a cover of the rock classic "Apache" as Jimi Entley Sound. The pair also took on the moniker Fuzzface to co-produce singer <a href="spotify:artist:08YadB7oKIN5eIRT7y6xLN">Stephanie McKay</a>'s 2003 album, McKay. In 2005, they helmed the sessions for <a href="spotify:artist:6OiHleP2bHM18dXq4aZQWt">the Coral</a>'s Invisible Invasion album.

In 2005, <a href="spotify:artist:6liAMWkVf5LH7YR9yfFy1Y">Portishead</a> reconvened and contributed the track "Un Jour Comme un Autre (Requiem for Anna)" to the 2006 <a href="spotify:artist:01C9OoXDvCKkGcf735Tcfo">Serge Gainsbourg</a> tribute album Monsieur Gainsbourg: Revisited. The group's next full-length, Third, appeared in 2008. In 2009, Utley collaborated with notable musicians <a href="spotify:artist:34YLsejbEKSlTwPCqMCWZs">Larry Stabbins</a>, Jim Barr, Helm DeVegas, and DJ Krzysztof Oktalski as <a href="spotify:artist:6gIs4hObSQJz7SfSkBBGey">Stonephace</a>. The collective issued a self-titled genre-defying meld of jazz, world music, and electronica on <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Tru+Thoughts%22">Tru Thoughts</a> in 2009. In 2012, Utley formed <a href="spotify:artist:6RAAWReEpAGQ4YUqGFoTfB">Adrian Utley's Guitar Orchestra</a> in order to perform <a href="spotify:artist:7DnLQaXsqcYkgm0nyDrB3r">Terry Riley</a>'s 1964 minimalist masterpiece In C for special occasions. The group was composed of 24 musicians, including 19 guitarists (Barr, <a href="spotify:artist:0471mUAOfEtdju1S0JjYdp">Thought Forms</a>, and <a href="spotify:artist:1UAM4fJFTeyMZbhTVUKiXk">John Parish</a> included), four organs, and a bass clarinet. Their recorded version of the work appeared in October of 2013.