Beth Gibbons review – an unapologetically intense triumph

Barbican Hall, London EC1
Folk, classical and jazz textures from a quietly stellar band back the singer’s elegant, swooping voice on an almighty debut tour

Eyes shut, feet bare, with the stage in virtual darkness, singer Beth Gibbons clings to her microphone stand as though to a sapling in a gale, a veil of blond hair periodically falling across her face. It’s a pose every bit as era-defining as the microphone stance of fellow 1994 alumnus Liam Gallagher. Oasis’s Definitely Maybe and Portishead’s Dummy both came out that year, the latter introducing Gibbons’s otherworldly, jazz-inflected voice.

Tonight, Gibbons’s instrument, flawless against the march of time, hovers over a backdrop of groans, drones and keening melodies coming from seven players backlit by a succession of dark reds and blues. Often, Gibbons turns away from the mic, as though unable to face the words she has just sung.