Tricky - orlando

W0RDS )ilando Hughes
Maxinquaye
viscerally bare. Moxinquoyereads as one continuousjourney throug' --:
soft underbelly of a hard world, punctuated with bursts of paranoia, e: ,=me-alone lyrics and sexual intensity. lt's a slow motion explosion, the sel:":
'1990s, from Portisheac : ' :
wave of the Brlstol Movement that began in the
Massive Attack's stunning lead.
It is hard to imagine a more seamless album. Not for nothing rr'::
immediatelv noticed and praised worldwide on its release. Tr cky's
toriously negative reaction to the rapid-onset of fame has slnce lec
musical output in darker and darker directions, and of all his music:-.
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the brightest.
It starts off strong with "Overcome," (on which we l-tuned ears r'
spot Tricky recycling his lyrics from lVassive Attack's "Karmacona
most likely suffering from a deadline crisis, but we're the lucky o':.
The impressive "Aftermath" simmers with a slow, dark, crackling :'ris
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ine and hiss.
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Fortunately for listeners, Tricky's dislike of his own voice was no:
manifest at this stage of his career. (The retreat from prominence of his :
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vocals in subsequent albums has only been reversed in hls latest, Vulnerc:
which he proclaims as his greatest attempt at honesty and openn::.
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Martina Topley-Bird's honeyed vocals are exceptional throughout and c:
pliment Tricky's sultry beat-up, slowed-down input.
"Hell ls Around the Corne/' is a beautiful ultra-slow rap with decept
effortless harmonies. "Uughh," exclaims Tricky in "Ponderosa", reduc
The perennial cop-out of hailing an album as "hard to classify" is difficult
to escape this time. When it launched in '1995, Moxinquoye was described
as seminal ln the trip-hop genre. Perhaps an innocuous enough description
of a particular kind of music coming from Bristol, England, during the 1990s
- a down-tempo take on American hip-hop fusing rap, rock and RftB - the
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whole world of feeling to a single guttural sound. lt demonstrates the ':=son the album works so well: Tricky has the ability to imbue the s
igi"::-
sound with significance.
Sometimes the vocals slow down so much that there's a danger of :-:
as with "Pumpkin", which also features g.=-
music stopplng altogether
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to understate the
vocals by Alison Goldfrapp, who tenderly reduces lyrics to even-rnore a:stract sounds. The ability to carry off this sLow pace is the other thing :'":
from samples from diverse s0urces, strains of half a dozen
genres are here. Fresh from his guest vocals on the Massive Attack albums
Blue Linesand Protection,Tricky is noticeably delighted to have artistic con-
to lyrics, without in any way descending into unliste nable experimenta sThere is very little fat on this album, very little self-lndulgence or gra:. -
trol over this very Bristolian offering.
tously extended tracks.
iabel was w dery said to have disgusteo the arrist.
To claim mixed influencesfor Moxinquoye would be
case. Oulte apart
Tricky, real name Adrian Thaws, was born of Spanishfamaican roots and hails
makes Maxinquoye such a powerful album. There's a boldness of
appro::-
That's true of much of the Bristol Movement:this musical upheaval anc
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m.:
from the rough Knowle West area of Bristol. His arresting debut album immor-
casting under the vague banner oftrip-hop was notjust some obscure
talises his mother, Maxine Ouaye, who committed suicide when he was four
years old. His difflcult and culturally mixed background may account for his
moment for boffins to pore over a nd show off trivla ; it was the conclusior^
acumen with such a range of musical styles, though perhaps not for his pecullar
abilify to assimilate them into an entire y coherent new approach to music.
a range of traditions and the pointlng out of a way ahead.
This is a brilliant album, is the point. Just go and buy it. You'll thank
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is and dedlc-
later. lt's unusua to find something remotelyas progressive.And what
love and re lationshlps minted in rough neiqhbourhoods. Black and white
after all, other than the results of a remarkabLe knowledge, Jove
tion to music? A standard enough mix, even if rare. But the magic lngredie -
musica traditions combine in an emotionally charged atmosphere of life lald
that sets this a ight? That would be Tricky. Fair play to him.
The album is about the underworld, about murky goings on, messed-up
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