Pitchfork Awards An 8.0 To Beth Gibbons

Pitchfork has given an 8.0 review to Beth Gibbons‘ new performance of Henryk Górecki‘s Third Symphony with The Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra. Writing about Gibbons’ voice, the site says, her ‘grainy, sour wail, coated with streaks of dried spilled coffee and nicotine stains, strikes deep chords of clammy fear, of desperation, of vulnerability.” Pitchfork notes the remarkable popularity of the Third Symphony, a “deathless” piece that “won some obscure cultural lottery by entering the popular consciousness in a way 99.999 percent of new orchestral works do not.” According to the site, there’s “something magnificent about what Gibbons, [Krzysztof] Penderecki, and the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra have accomplished here: They have managed to make the ‘Symphony of Sorrowful Songs’ feel dark, even dangerous.” Read the full review here.