In news that should probably be taken with a bucketload of salt, Portishead claim that the reason that they don't intend to play any further live dates this year is because they intend to begin working on a new album, their fourth, in the coming months.

Speaking to BBC Six Music, guitarist Adrian Utley confirmed that fans won't have to wait till 2019 for the follow up to the quite exceptional Third.

"We are thinking a new album," Utley said. "That's partly why we're not touring enormously, because in 1998 we toured for a year and a bit and it just crashed us. None of us wanted to see each other for a while after that.

"We got together the other night discussing stuff and getting a bit of a plan together. We're all gonna be doing stuff. We've finished our touring for this album for this year because of things that we want to do."