Portishead ask fans: how should we sell our music?

Having come to the end of their current contract with Island Records, experimental trip-hoppers Portishead have now appealed to fans to tell them what they should do next.

Writing on their MySpace blog, band member Geoff Barrow says: "We spent the day discussing the future of the P as we are free. Well free of a deal and free of commitment... for now!

"With the world being the way it is there are lots of options open, but if you lot have any bright ideas of how we should sell our music in the future let us know, why not!"

"It fucking takes ages"

Portishead are just the latest of many artists to consider their future on a major label. Indeed, some bands have taken the radical step of giving away their new albums, but Barrow doesn't want to go down that road.

"I don't think that we're into giving our music away for free to be honest. It fucking takes ages to write and we have to heat our swimming pools!"

Asking your audience for advice could be a sensible strategy, but Portishead should probably get down to finishing their next album and then worry about how they're going to release it, for they do indeed seem to take 'fucking ages'.

Last year's Third was their first studio record in over a decade: we might all be downloading music directly into our heads by the time they complete the next one.