Portishead are closing in on nearly a decade-long gap between albums when Adrian Utley realizes something has gone terribly wrong. A track called “We Carry On,” which was slated for the new record has gone missing.

“That was a really early track,” Utley remembers. “We were using the RADAR system for recording, which is a 24-track digital recorder. And Geoff (Barrow) and I had produced a band from England called The Coral from Liverpool. We used my RADAR to do that, which we took to another studio. And somehow in the midst all of that malarkey, we must’ve initialized the drive.”

Which meant that all their work on the song had been lost. But while he was rebuilding the track from scratch, Utley decided to replace the original bass guitar part with a Minimoog.

“I changed it slightly because I couldn’t quite remember what I’d done. But in the end, it’s better.” Utley concludes. “We did another version that was not so good, and then we did another version which is on the album and I like that one.”

The song is a relentless, driving piece of music that pairs the machine-like pattern of a Minimoog with an equally industrial pulse from an EMS VCS3. Beth Gibbons haunted singing is only periodically interrupted by passages of reverby guitar. It is a deep, brooding piece of electronica with a slightly surreal edge to it - quintessential Portishead.

The Minimoog that helped Utley re-envision the track had actually been signed by Bob Moog himself when Utley attended a celebration of the Theremin back in 1999.

“A friend of mine named Steve Martin, who had made a film about Theremins (“Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey”) was having a talk about it and invited Bob Moog along. So, he came and talked, which was brilliant. And I took the wooden panel off of my Minimoog, and got him to sign it for me. I'm a longtime fan of Moogs, so I think it’s great that Bob signed mine.”