A Trip-Hop Love Affair (& Other Infatuations)

‘It’s a failed week if I don’t have at least one brilliant thought’ – Brian Eno.

The quote goes something like that. My response to the quote is this – Format is a torniquet to the flow of creativity. Perhaps this is less brilliant thought more metaphor equal measures neat to poncy, but I suppose there’s some degree of brilliance in the personal action this prompts. To suit my listening habits and avoid an increasing sense of jadedness, I’m changing the format of this blog. In my mind this will read like a listening diary, but there’s no introduction-PEEL-conclusion structure. I’m getting rid of the scaffolding. And this brings me to the eternal wisdom of my second quote:

‘Sometimes it may be good, sometimes it may be shit’ – Genaro Gattuso.

A Trip-Hop Love Affair

I’ve just discovered I have a Type A personality. And by discovered, I mean self-diagnosed after the Google search “why do I obsessively make lists?” (yeah, I punctuate my Google searches, spin on it). This extends to every area of my life, including an unhealthily long list of music artists I want to listen to. The stress of this ever-growing list will lead to early heart failure. I’ve been a late bloomer in most aspects of my life, so naturally I didn’t expect to be trailblazing in the silver fox department. Mullets and grey hair go together like denim and denim, and I don’t have the mojo for it. But anyway, on occasion I pluck a gem from that list, and I am consoled by the knowledge that my funeral playlist will have the mourners jiving around my coffin like New Year’s ‘99.

That great, big gemstone I’m alluding to is Bristol’s own Massive Attack. I randomly picked the album ‘Blue Lines’ not realising that this was the genesis of a movement called Trip-Hop. I don’t care much for genre definitions, but the elevator pitch goes like this. If the dust of 90’s underground hip-hop settled on a bed shared by Lover’s Rock and Soul, and Garage was the twinkle in their eye. That’s my best shot at it from this coffee shop back bench, a definition that’s subject to a thorough re-up in a matter of hours. But listen to this album and tell me you don’t hear the echo of ‘Original Pirate Material’. ‘Blue Lines’ is a toe dip for the genre’s offerings throughout the 90s. The listing shifts between those relaxed intertwinings of reggae and soul, and low-fi, ‘off-the-dome’ but effortlessly cool emcee tracks. The vocalist tapas is a return to a British dubbed 36 chambers (I’ve shoe horned Wu-Tang in again, I know) and the low-end theory is in full effect. I read a Pitchfork review of Morcheeba (more on that later) that cited paranoia as a key trait of Trip-Hop. I’m not sure I agree with that. It’s true for a lot of music in the trip-hop catchment, but I wouldn’t describe ‘Blue Lines’ as paranoid, not in the way that the isolated ‘Dummy’ has its head on swivel. It certainly loiters in the shadows, but it possesses the unmistakeable whiff of going out-out. As a side note (with a point so bear with me), there’s a certain charm I find in British creations. I feel an unspoken connection to this genre in the same way that 2000s Grime lore and the Lamarr years of ‘Never Mind the Buzzcocks’ and the Karla trilogy call to me. The same way that Simon Pegg winking at me in Dishoom is a Tattoo Fixer eclipse over meeting Bruno Fernandes. Now I’ve only been to Trip-Hop Meccah once, but you can imagine the energy and fever of this record lining the streets of Bristol. It was a Saturday and a British Halloween and the party mood descended on me like a mist. That city simmers at night. Everywhere you looked had the promise of excitement. Reliving that night with a British empathy is pretty good insight into the heart of this record. And I think the word Pitchfork was looking for was edge. ‘Blue Lines’ nestles too snuggly into a rave to be paranoid. My favourite track here is ‘Be Thankful for What You’ve Got’ partly because the only vehicle I own gets its MOT at Russel & Bromley, but mainly because it’s gangstafied and interpolated by OutKast on ‘West Savannah’. I have a soft spot for samples and interpolations. As a general rule going forward, if a Trip-Hop album samples Isaac Hayes, you know it’s going to be hot stuff. ‘One Love’ samples ‘Ike’s Mood’ so ‘Blue Lines’ = hot stuff.

I cannot explain why I was drawn to Morcheeba’s ‘Big Calm’ next. I guess the grainy, clementine album cover was screaming 90s treasure at me, and like a man holding beads on Bourbon Street, I followed protocol when I saw the flash. It gets unfairly dragged because it’s labelled as Trip-Hop whilst lacking any paranoia or edge. The lyrics are less mysterious and sound like something Jamiroquai would put out. There’s nothing wrong with simplicity. I take my coffee black and my ice-cream vanilla. Morcheeba suffers from two things. The first is mislabelling. Songs like ‘Over and Over’ are just acoustic ballads. The album draws on acoustic guitars a lot, the result being that the second half of the album doesn’t really resemble Trip-Hop at all. It suffers from the Die-Hard Christmas film complex, only for the opposite reasons. So, if you’re let down as the opening menace of ‘Part of the Process’ dilutes into a poppy, radio friendly chorus, you’ve been misled by the genre amigo. No one likes surrendering the thread of the night to be lumbered with the wallflower. Second is comparison. An electronic-ish duo fronted by a female vocalist sounds an awful lot like Portishead. Unfortunately, the combination of acoustics, strings and psychedelic eastern influences don’t fill Portishead’s codpiece, and Skye Edwards is nowhere near as soul-soured and mercurial as Beth Gibbons. Here’s what Morcheeba is up against. ‘Dummy’ is a voyeur’s paranoia. It’s like breaking and entering the deepest recesses of another’s heart. It’s like that instant indecipherable and labyrinthine connection you have with a complete stranger, as if subject to the remanence of a memory imprinted on your soul in a past life. It has an unexplainable and chilling allure. Plus ‘Glory Box’ samples ‘Ike’s Rap II’. So good luck ‘Big Calm’. It does come across as Trip-Hop for the infantile in comparison. But if you’ve ever found yourself using the phrases ‘holibobs’ or ‘picky bits’ instead of proper words, then check ‘Big Calm’ out. ‘The Sea’ is genuinely a brilliant song though. Morcheeba’s best offerings are when they dial down the saccharine and find the genuine in the simple.

This last record is the McCoy ridge cut of the Trip-Hop world. I’ve been grasping at phrases to capture the impact that Tricky’s ‘Maxinquaye’ had on me. The best I’ve got is ‘Beginner’s Mind’ (that’s a childlike state of wonder and awe at everything for the uninitiated). And I actually rediscovered a reference for this feeling lodged away deep in the creases of my brain. As a kid the Greenwich observatory was essentially a glimpse at the celestial. There was a huge screen on the domed ceiling, and as I lay back and drifted through the universe I was struck repeatedly by the daunting and awe inspiring, as though it were my first crack at life. In the context of this listening experience, I felt a though I was hearing music for the first time after only knowing deafness. And it achieves hot stuff status, sampling Isaac Hayes’ ‘Ike’s Rap II’ (weirdly the same sample as ‘Glory Box’). Perhaps I’ve built it up too steep, but I truly feel that this record castrates dogs and kneecaps bees. It’s a singularly human experience, likely an organic reflection of Tricky and Martina Topley-Bird’s relationship at the time. It exists in this grey area of emotion, wielding its hypocrisies to potent effect, producing a slithering and slippery impression. Picture this you freaks. It has the sensual awkwardness of the first undressing, but also a danger that says you’re being undressed by your hot step mum. There are the seductive, swaggering, and murky tracks. ‘Overcome’ is both sexy and filthy. It washes over you like pitch black waves. ‘Hell is Around the Corner’ feels like a poisoned lullaby that flatters your sweet tooth, courtesy of Tricky’s seducing drawl. Then there’s bursts of punky passion. ‘Brand New You’re Retro’ is like a 3AM fire alarm, in keeping with the abrasiveness of ‘Black Steel’ which is a brilliant reimagining of the Public Enemy track. It captures the fury of Chuck D’s verses whilst Martina’s melody finds it’s fangs in its own nonchalance. At the same time, ‘Maxinquaye’ is warped and deranged. ‘Pumpkin’ exists in the cavity of time as dream slips into nightmare and ‘Strugglin’ is like an unhinged scrawling lifted off a padded wall in Broadmoor. Tricky and Martina aren’t vocalists, they’re silhouettes. The vocals are so intimate but at the same time intangible as ‘Abbaon Fat Track’ curdles into a dreamy haze despite the visceral lyrics. Martina Topley-Bird is the soul of Tricky. She gives the record a delicacy and vulnerability through her quiet and almost shy delivery, especially on ‘Ponderosa’ where she’s barely a gasp. I listened to an interview with Martina where she said she preferred to write suggestions and impressions. And ‘Maxinquaye’ is an album of suggestions. You don’t hear the words. They just sink and bubble beneath except for the odd surfacing phrase. “Underneath the weeping willow is a weeping wino” is one for the mind palace. Unnerving as it is, I think this record is endearing. It works because it has the spirit and confidence to bare itself, scars, warts, blemishes and all.

I’ll come up for air now. As a cap, all I’ll say is that the list is looking a little longer and my life expectancy a little shorter.

Other Infatuations

‘Trampled Under Foot’ does just that. If you’re a real masochist check out the live version at Earl’s Court, 1975. The album track is good, but Led Zeppelin’s double-time live version is like standing between a hen-do and a Rev bar at happy hour.

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The chorus of ‘Stay Young’ sounds like a bladdered karaoke cover of Oasis. But kumbaya if this song doesn’t take me back to 18 before God smiled on me and blessed me with two-day hangovers. Oasis at their best make you like the rockstar, like the sun shines out your arse and never sets, and this is one of their last great offerings.

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In fairness I didn’t think I’d be writing about Rick James either. The kinky boots and Cleopatra cut aren’t caught in the same orbit as the Trip-Hop image. But just as Rick Rubin taps the creative flow of the universe, so it was decided by the shuffle button that I should do chin ups to ‘Ghetto Life’. The ‘Street Songs’ standouts are ‘Ghetto Life’ and ‘Mr. Policeman’. Rick James is like Fix It Felix with a bassline and a hook, keeping the aforementioned generic tracks spinning far longer than they have a right to. He’s got more brass than New Orleans which allows him to skate across the shit bog combo of 80s cheese and funk lyrics and still smell like a bouquet of roses. Take ‘Make Love to Me’. On paper, “come like the falling rain” summons a torrent of bile, but Rick growls it in a way that gives me chills and makes it the highlight of the track. Even the ubiquitous ‘Super Freak’ survived MC Hammer’s best spatchcocking efforts (MC standing for meat cleaver). Unfortunately, the album does get a bit vapid from here on. The last two tracks are the equivalent of putting a sock down your boxers and ‘Fire and Desire’ is a gastric band to the fatness of Side A’s funk. Even the short sighted can see the cynical, pre-streaming track listing approach from a country mile. The album has piss poor feng-shui. ‘Come Get It!’, on the other hand, is a ride with better suspension. It’s not an album that’s drawing the boundaries of music. It’s quite content sounding like George Clinton passed the blunt to Sgt. Pepper, and not just because ‘Mary Jane’ is a kidney stone subtle wink to the funny fags. There’s a mindset for listening to Rick James. I have an indoor water feature in my home. My washing machine leaks when it’s too full and floods the tiled kitchen. But I won’t raise this with the landlord. I just play ‘Come Get It!’ front to back and glide down that hallway like I’m on angel dust. Perhaps it helps that songs like ‘Dreamaker’ and ‘Hollywood’ have a zest of Frankie Valli, a mixture of the theatrical and the dreamy that turns you into prime Travolta. It’s dumb fun, but the scale favours the latter.