Just The Facts

The journalistic geniuses at Spin & NME just reported that Portishead have "finally unveiled new tunes" suggesting that it's their first new material since 1997. I understand some of the confusion because there are two tracks up on the Portishead myspace, but both tracks have been up there for months. Are they really new songs? Geoff Barrow took a break from his usual daft ramblings in the Portishead blog to explain:

i heard from my mate that bbc radio 6 has been telling everyone that we have new material on here so id thought id better tell you that its not..

the tracks on here are doodles from about 3 years ago....

we are in the studio with tunes done but its unlikley that we will post any new stuff just yet

: It's a classic case of media reporting what other media are reporting, but you would think that respected news organizations that have previously created news items based on the Portishead's blog, only available at their myspace page, would have noticed these "new songs" before. In fact the only thing I've found online in the media noise over these new tracks that acknowledges that Portishead have officially released anything since '97 is Pitchfork who reference to Portishead's Serge Gainsbourg cover that I posted about at the beginning of the month. It's puzzling to me that my blog has more journalistic integrity than news sources with people who get paid to research and editors who are supposed to check facts.