Beth Gibbons (born 4 January 1965) is an English singer and songwriter best known as the singer and lyricist for the English band Portishead. With Adrian Utley, Gibbons and Barrow released the first Portishead album, Dummy, in 1994 and have produced two other studio albums, a live album, and various singles in the years since. She has also collaborated on a separate project with former Talk Talk bassist Paul Webb (Rustin Man). (Before she joined Geoff Barrow in Portishead, she auditioned for the singer's slot in .O.rang, the group formed by Webb after Talk Talk's late-Eighties departure from EMI, but Portishead's sudden success pre-empted matters.) In October 2002, they released the album Out of Season in the United Kingdom. The album peaked at number 28 in the UK Albums Chart. It was released in the United States a year later.