Tricky Albums (9)
What The Critics Say
Is the year 2008 a Bristol revival? First there's a new Portishead recording (Third), their first in over a decade, then Massive Attack finishes a new album (Weather Underground) and curates the Meltdown festival, and finally, Tricky's released his finest record since Pre-Millennium Tension. Knowle West Boy is named for the Council Estates housing project neighborhood Tricky grew up in. This set is not shrouded in mystery: it's autobiographical. It's the first album of well-crafted songs he's come up with since Maxinquaye (but doesn't sound a thing like it). As has been his wont since early on, Tricky also employs a host of other vocalists here for the sake of expressing more complex emotions, and also toward spinning a more complete -- if sometimes complex -- narrative. Rage and paranoia haven't been replaced so much as they've been extrapolated upon and expanded by humor, joy, bravado, and an authentic vulnerability and sense that the personal is political, as this set deals straight on with issues of race and class without even remotely preaching. That said, it's a down and dirty musical beat collision that combines punk, reggae, funk, pop, and hip-hop and hard rock in a wicked brew that is focused and in your face. The set begins with a lounge-blues soundscape that evokes the late-night feel of Barry Adamson at his sleaziest. It explodes about a minute in, strutting its scrappy big band against Fripp-ian guitars, a cracking distorted snare, and cymbal thuggery. The cool thing is in its humor. Tricky plays a lounge lizard boasting about himself to a young woman (Alex Mills) who hands it back to him on a funhouse mirror. The first single, "Council Estate," is a furious punk anthem created as a football-style chant set to a post-punk bassline, with big menacing kick drums, staggered reverb vocals, and Tricky letting the pride in his upbringing come to the fore. It's a breathless two-and-a-half minutes, but it's the best thing here. "Past Mistake" is reminiscent of the torch song duet balladry of Nearly God's "Poems," a tune Tricky performed with Terry Hall and Martina Topley-Bird. "Bacative" employs a ragged punk-charged ragga, and features toaster Rodigan (a New Yorker of West Indian origin). He begins his toast to a plucked cello, drum loops, snares, tambourines, and a set of hi-hat cymbals that shimmer above the bassline. "Joseph" is titled for a young man who does the vocals. The use of harp, hand drums, vibes, and a synthed bassline is strangely atmospheric and haunting. "Veronika" features vocals by French-Moroccan vocalist Lubua; it commences with a slew of distorted beats and tom-tom loops that feel like a military march; her voice is anything but, however. She expresses hurt, heartbreak, and anger brought about by the absent subject. She is also present on the haunting ballad "School Gates" that closes the set; a haunting ballad about a teen pregnancy told from both male and female points of view. "C'Mon Baby" is a rockist thumper that evokes AC/DC with beats! There is also a cover here of Kylie Minogue's "Slow." Whereas the original is all sleek, sensual, and inviting, Tricky inverts the song's meaning by becoming a sleazy, macho Lothario narrating. Knowle West Boy is not another Maxinquaye (it doesn't try, either) but it is a very strong, accessible set that puts his renewed creativity on display in a blur of sound and color. It not only re-establishes him as a pioneer, but as an engaging personae who isn't hiding behind his sonic palette anymore; his music is all the better for it. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Predictably unpredictable and unnerving as all get-out to sit through, Tricky's contribution to the Back to Mine series still manages to be an absorbing listen, despite all of the slammed-together transitions and wild stylistic jumps from track to track. Tricky's picks continually flit from old favorites of his to new discoveries and projects -- several of which are given their first official airings. The disc begins as solidly and smartly as any other edition of Back to Mine, with smooth transitions within the first four disparate tracks. The Cure's eerie, string-laden "Lullaby" is successfully blended into the queasy sway of Radanna's "How We Wide," a street-oriented downtempo/gangsta hybrid featuring the compiler on the mike. This abruptly shifts into Eric B. & Rakim's "My Melody," which carries the melody from its predecessor for nearly two minutes. From there, the disc derails and gets back on track a number of times. Unsurprising appearances from Kate Bush ("Eat the Music"), Buzzcocks ("You Tear Me Up"), and Chet Baker ("My Funny Valentine") are broken up with more of Tricky's own projects and interests, including a pair of tracks from artists (Kat Cross, Costanza) who are at least partly molded in his image. After the initial third of the disc, there's little sense of continuity; the odds are pretty good that you'll have to make sure at least once that you haven't accidentally hit the shuffle button. (This has been a constant issue with the Back to Mine series; ideal batches of songs are put together without considering whether or not they'll work well together.) Even more perplexing are the observations made in the liner notes. Some of the things listeners learn: Tricky had sex with a half-Jamaican/half-Spanish girl to Gregory Isaacs' "Night Nurse"; you can't hear Kate Bush's parents in her voice; the Streets' Mike Skinner samples "crap"; "Maxwell is as soulful as a plate of fish and chips." ~ Andy Kellman, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
First, the bad news. There are no new tricks on BlowBack, the star-studded 2001 comeback by Tricky, the pioneering trip-hopper that wandered his way into the wilderness. He wandered so far that nobody really cared anymore if he had anything to say -- particularly because he wound up saying the same thing, slightly differently, over and over again. He doesn't escape from this problem here, yet he's found a map -- and that map is craft. He knew this before, since the best moments of Angels With Dirty Faces and Juxtapose were when he knew how to spin his signatures just right, so they jelled into something brilliant. He has the same gift here, and he extends it throughout the record, so this is the first record that really plays smoothly from start to finish since Pre-Millennium Tension. That, of course, isn't the same thing as being as good, since he has ceased to innovate, and he has a couple of annoying flaws, including his tendency to create one mood and sustain it without developing it, plus his love of dancehall toasting. The thing is, for all of his genius, Tricky doesn't really have the greatest taste in the world. Yes, he's worked with Björk and PJ Harvey, but he's also brought Bush into the studio, and here Live's Ed Kowalczyk, three members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Cyndi Lauper all contribute sonic coloring. The genius of Tricky is, he knows how to pull out the best in such unlikely collaborators, making it sound like a natural extension of his work. Then again, it could just be that John Frusciante and Flea know "Brand New You're Retro" so well, it's easy to turn it out again on "Wonder Woman." So, it's a mixed bag, but it plays sharper than his albums of late. Yes, there are some astonishing slips -- the backing track of "Something in the Way" sounds great, but Hawkman, the ragga bane of this album, castrates it of its power -- but, at this point, that's a given with Tricky. Once you get past that, once you stop expecting genius -- or at least something that matches Maxinquaye (or even Tension) -- it's much easier to enjoy BlowBack. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Tricky's potential once seemed boundless, but by the time of his fifth album, Juxtapose, he hadn't expanded his trademark sound: a creeping, menacing blend of hip-hop, alternative rock, and ragga, all delivered with stoned paranoia. Perhaps Tricky realized that its rewards were smaller with each subsequent album, since he designed Juxtapose to be his most ambitious, eclectic album since Maxinquaye, and the one that finally broke him to the mainstream American hip-hop audience. So, he teamed with DJ Muggs (the architect of Cypress Hill's sound, a clear precedent for Tricky's) and DMX's producer, Grease. The end result is hardly a collaboration -- in fact, it feels truncated, weighing in at a mere 35 minutes -- but it works in other ways, since Tricky often seems revitalized. That much is evident on the stellar opening cut, "For Real"; the music is spaced-out, sexy, melodic, and appealing, even when it gets foreboding. It's a terrific beginning, suggesting that this will be the first album to offer significant variations on Tricky's signature sound. And it does, but it may not go far enough for some tastes, since a good portion of this brief album is devoted to retreads, which reveal his weaknesses all too well. Tricky remains unduly infatuated with ragga, letting British toaster Mad Dog run wild; his frenetic delivery single-handedly breaks the spell of each track he's featured on. But elsewhere, Tricky pushes forward in inventive ways that add weight to Juxtapose -- "Contradictive" is his best pop move to date, blessed by Spanish guitars and elongated strings; the paranoid drums of "She Said" successfully deepen the menace; and "Scrappy Love" is a haunting blend of soul and trip-hop, with eerie piano reminiscent of DJ Shadow. Juxtapose is a qualified success, but it is a success since the moments that work are his best in years. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
'Angels with Dirty Faces'
Release Date 5/18/1998
Tracks 12
Label Island UK
See Album Tracklist and Review
'Pre-Millennium Tension'
Release Date 10/25/1996
Tracks 11
Label Universal
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Maxinquaye was an unexpected hit in England, launching a wave of similar-sounding artists, who incorporated Tricky's innovations into safer pop territory. Tricky responded by travelling to Jamaica to record Pre-Millennium Tension, a nervy, claustrophobic record that thrives in its own paranoia. Scaling back the clattering hooks of Maxinquaye and slowing the beat down, Tricky has created a hallucinatory soundscape, where the rhythms, samples, and guitars intertwine into a crawling procession of menacing sounds and disembodied lyrical threats. Its tone is set by the backward guitar loops of "Vent," and continued through the shifting "Christiansands," and the tense, lyrically dense "Tricky Kid," easily Tricky's best straight rap to date. Occasionally, the gloom is broken, such as when the shimmering piano chords of "Makes Me Want to Die" ring out, but nearly as often, it becomes bogged down in its own murk, as in the long ragga rant "Ghetto Youth." While the lyrics are often quite effective in conveying dope-addled paranoia, what ties the album together is its layered rhythms and soundscapes. Though it might not sound that way immediately, Pre-Millennium Tension is as much Tricky reaching back to his hardcore rap roots as it is a sonic exploration. As such, it stands as a transition record for Tricky, but its overall effect is only slightly less powerful than Maxinquaye or Nearly God. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Nearly God is Tricky's unofficial second album -- he calls it a collection of brilliant, incomplete demos. When Tricky signed his contract with Island, it allowed him to release an album a year under a different name and Nearly God is the first of these efforts. Tricky recorded the record with a diverse cast of collaborators -- in addition to his partner Martina, there's Terry Hall, Björk, Neneh Cherry, Cath Coffey, Dedi Madden, and Alison Moyet (Damon Albarn pulled his track just before the album's release). Building on the ghostly, dark soundscapes of Tricky's debut, Maxinquaye, Nearly God narrows the focus of his first record by making the music slower, hazier, and more distubing. It's not as coherent as Maxinquaye, but that's part of its appeal. Nearly God is a haunting, fractured, surreal nightmare that doesn't always make sense, but never fails to make an impact. Certain collaborators work better than others -- Tricky understands the eeriness of Terry Hall's voice, but he does nothing to tame Alison Moyet's inappropriate bluesy shrieking -- but the overall effect of the album is quietly devastating. It gets under your skin and stays there. It's a brilliantly evocative nightmare. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Tricky's debut, Maxinquaye, is an album of stunning sustained vision and imagination, a record that sounds like it has no precedent as it boldly predicts a new future. Of course, neither sentiment is true. Much of the music on Maxinquaye has its roots in the trip-hop pioneered by Massive Attack, which once featured Tricky, and after the success of this record, trip-hop became fashionable, turning into safe, comfortable music to be played at upscale dinner parties thrown by hip twenty and thirtysomethings. Both of these sentiments are true, yet Maxinquaye still manages to retain its power; years later, it can still sound haunting, disturbing, and surprising after countless spins. It's an album that exists outside of time and outside of trends, a record whose clanking rhythms, tape haze, murmured vocals, shards of noise, reversed gender roles, alt-rock asides, and soul samplings create a ghostly netherworld fused with seductive menace and paranoia. It also shimmers with mystery, coming not just from Tricky -- whose voice isn't even heard until the second song on the record -- but his vocalist, Martine, whose smoky singing lures listeners into the unrelenting darkness of the record. Once they're there, Maxinquaye offers untold treasures. There is the sheer pleasure of coasting by on the sound of the record, how it makes greater use of noise and experimental music than anything since the Bomb Squad and Public Enemy. Then, there's the tip of the hat to PE with a surreal cover of "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos," sung by Martine and never sounding like a postmodernist in-joke. Other references and samples register subconsciously -- while Isaac Hayes' "Ike's Rap II" flows through "Hell Is Around the Corner" and the Smashing Pumpkins are even referenced in the title of "Pumpkin," Shakespeare's Sisters and the Chantels slip by, while Michael Jackson's "Bad" thrillingly bleeds into "Expressway to Your Heart" on "Brand New You're Retro." Lyrics flow in and out of consciousness, with lingering, whispered promises suddenly undercut by veiled threats and bursts of violence. Then, there's how music that initially may seem like mood pieces slowly reveal their ingenious structure and arrangement and register as full-blown songs, or how the alternately languid and chaotic rhythms finally compliment each other, turning this into a bracing sonic adventure that gains richness and resonance with each listen. After all, there's so much going on here -- within the production, the songs, the words -- it remains fascinating even after all of its many paths have been explored (which certainly can't be said of the trip-hop that followed, including records by Tricky). And that air of mystery that can be impenetrable upon the first listen certainly is something that keeps Maxinquaye tantalizing after it's become familiar, particularly because, like all good mysteries, there's no getting to the bottom of it, no matter how hard you try. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
