TH10: The Best of Trip Hop
Trip Hop is a fluid genre, broadly characterized by the use of sampling, down-tempo rhythms, and an emphasis on ambiance. With that said, I am not going to detail its inherent ambiguity any further. I wrote this as a list of my personal favorite records, to share and animate them, rather than analyze them as a music critic. Now then, let’s begin by acknowledging five very important albums that didn’t quite make the cut.
Honorable Mentions:
Nujabes — Modal Soul
The Baby Namboos — Ancoats 2 Zambia
DJ Shadow — Endtroducing…..
Blue Foundation — Blue Foundation
Everything but the Girl — Walking Wounded
And now, our feature presentation:
10. Crustation — Bloom
The list begins with a record that begs to be rediscovered. Painted in deep pastel, Bronagh Sleven’s breathy voice elegantly shimmers atop Bloom’s opaque depths. Despite its undeniable yet understated beauty, producers Ian Dark, Stig Manley, and Mark Taylerthe unfortunately did not reconvene with Sleven for a follow-up to this often overlooked album. After Down Down takes you underwater and you feel the pressure building in Falling, swim up through the seaweed to find solace in the moonlit fresh air of Flame. Sleepy beats swirled with surprisingly intimate lyrics will ground you amidst the satisfying sonic vertigo of the murky saltwater eddy that is Bloom.
9. Aim — Cold Water Music
Written in true DJ fashion, Cold Water Music certainly lives up to its name. Imagine yourself alone on the album art’s suggested arctic iceberg, about to pass out from the cold. This album could very easily serve as the soundtrack to your consequential unconscious psychedelic reverie. Exquisitely paired samples are the bread and butter of this album, seamlessly incorporating features ranging from the melancholy melodies of Kate Rogers in Sail to the vorpal verses of YZ in Timeless and From Here to Fame. Andrew Turner’s aim is a trip like no other.
8. Massive Attack — Blue Lines
The oldest album on this list, Blue Lines is often hailed as the first mainstream Trip Hop record. Putting Bristol on the map and paving the way for the rest of the artists on this list, Robert Del Naja, Grant Marshall, Andy Vowles, and Adrian “Tricky” Thaws did much more than make “dance music that you actually listen to.” By incorporating heavy dub elements and other eclectic sampling into an Electronic songwriting template, Massive Attack succeeded in solidifying a new genre of music, as the amalgamation of acoustic and electric sounds would become a stylistic staple of Trip Hop. This variance is reflected within the record itself, from Horace Andy and Willy Wee bars in Five Man Army straight into the awe-inspiring soul power of Shara Nelson in Unfinished Sympathy. Spanning decades in single songs, Blue Lines is an album just as timeless.
7. Portishead — Dummy
Portishead was formed by Geoff Barrow in the year of the previous album’s release and is regarded as another cornerstone of the Bristol Trip Hop scene, with Dummy their crowning achievement. Revolutionary production, jazzy percussion, and the vulnerable voice of Beth Gibbons do nothing short of capturing, keeping, and overwhelming your attention. After the seductive snare introduction of Mysterons, Adrian Utley’s warbling guitar leads a chromatic descent into the film-noir of Sour Times before diving into Dummy’s intimate innards. The album is bookended with the resigning refrain of Glory Box, punctuated by a powerfully plodding bass-heavy breakdown before regaining its closing composure.
6. Stateless — Stateless
The youngest album on the list, Stateless reminds us that the roots of Trip Hop made it well out of the ‘90s. Its era-embodying piano-heavy pop songs are master-crafted and surprisingly indomitable. Chris James’ tender voice is the perfect foil to David Levin’s beautifully busy drumming, with Kidkanevil, Rod Buchanan-Dunlop, and Justin Percival filling every remaining harmonic void. Although the record is sound throughout, its final tracks are a real treat. The post-chorus glow of Crash fades into the insidiously infectious rhythm of Bluetrace before the soberingly bleak conclusion of Inscape. Occupying the musical limbo its name suggests, Stateless bridges the gap between classic and modern Trip Hop.
5. UNKLE — Psyence Fiction
James Lavelle samples and DJ Shadow production are a frightening force, but don’t be afraid of their magnetic masterpiece. Timeless apocalyptic soundscapes like Unreal are as close as this album can get to heart and soul, introduced and interspersed with lo-fi riffs and bursts of golden age MC hype. This alchemic combination creates the devoid dimension wherein Psyence Fiction resides. Don’t struggle as it empties your lungs; the familiar breath of Richard Ashcroft and Thom Yorke will help you find your way back to reality. With that said, this album is only understood by undergoing utter immersion in its comatic clime.
4. Zero 7 — Simple Things
Relax. Elementary melodies like whirlpools in lukewarm primordial shallows steer Simple Things in a lazy orbit around your temporal lobe. This self-aware island soundtrack provides the perfect backdrop for post-9-to-5 unwinding. Henry Binns and Sam Hardaker struck gold on their first try, with iconic vocal cameos from Sia, Mozez, Sophie Barker, and Terry Callier. This record never fails to make me feel as if I’ve been sucked into someone else’s daydream. An ethereal escape for any occasion, Simple Things simply sings.
3. Sneaker Pimps — Becoming X
At the forefront of the second generation of Trip Hop artists was Sneaker Pimps, also following in female-fronted footsteps. Chris Corner’s superb songwriting warms to Kelli Dayton’s nymphian voice, although their relationship was not in fact harmonious: Dayton was subsequently excused from the group despite this record’s success. Full of angsty anthems, matter-of-fact classics and despondent deep cuts, this record runs the thematic gamut from Low Place Like Home to Six Underground to Waterbaby. The meaning of Becoming X is reflected in its instrumental variance, equally incorporating acoustic and electric elements. Corner’s beautiful dysfunctionality is responsible for both the genius of Becoming X, and the ensuing internal turmoil of Sneaker Pimps.
2. Tricky — Maxinquaye
Despite Massive Attack writing Mezzanine just after Tricky’s exodus from the group, his debut turned just as many heads. The discovery of and love affair with the young Martina Topley-Bird provided Tricky with both a muse and a voice, with Topley-Bird’s vocals heavily featured throughout the record. Named for Tricky’s mother, Maxinquaye is inundated with Id-inspired beats seeming to emanate from some kind of dystopian Caribbean brothel, as rich as molasses. Though irresistibly hypnotic, this deep-dream behemoth occasionally comes out of hibernation to get up in your face. Punctuated with the political punch of a Public Enemy verse, Tricky reminds us of the aftermath of British colonialism with Black Steel before coolly slipping into the “isms and schisms” of Hell is Round the Corner. Maxinquaye is arguably best experienced skin-to-skin, but if find yourself alone, pull out your finest indica — just don’t sleep on this gem.
1. Massive Attack — Mezzanine
This is not an album you listen to because you want to. This is an album you listen to because it compels you to. To those who have never had the pleasure, Mezzanine’s reptilian drone will penetrate your ears, slither down your throat, and come to rest between your quivering hips. In Massive Attack’s third and most decorated album, the group managed to succeed in creating a truly unmatched aesthetically coercive ambiance. Del Naja reminds you “toy-like people make me boy-like,” exemplifying his felonious delivery while rhetorically coaxing you through Risingson. After an exhausting start, the sunburst intermission of Exchange warms the cold blood of this otherwise immensely tense album before its second submersion. However, amidst the darkness, Mezzanine is sparsely peppered with what could be considered Trip Hop ballads, transcending its visceral convictions into immortality with Teardrop and Man Next Door. Totalitarian and timeless, this is truly a record for the ages.
— ZS