With the new Portishead album just on the horizon, I have been inspired to dig back into my trip-hop albums of old. The genre had a very short lived heyday, but in many ways I am thankful for that. 1996 saw the release of two albums that would become the definitive sound of the genre. The first being Portishead's Dummy and the other being Tricky's Maxinquaye. The tunes are sexy and dark. They are smooth and jazzy in a haunted sort of way. They are also laden with slow and heavy beats borrowed from the era's hip-hop scene. Somewhere James Bond, Miles Davis, Snoop Dog, and David Lynch got mixed together into a smooth blend that can make anyone seem cooler simply by being in its presence.
I'm glad that the commercial trip-hop era was short. The genre burst through the gates with its two best efforts and had nowhere to go but down. Not that Portishead's and Tricky's follow up albums weren't good. Some of them were even great, but pale compared to the two aforementioned. There were also many followers that, again, made some great records, but couldn't hold a candle to Dummy or Maxinquaye. Hooverphonic, Massive Attack, Sneaker Pimps, Red Snapper, Morcheeba, Lamb, Ruby... all of them are worth listening to. The genre died off before it slid from good imitators into the bad ones. This happened with most of the techno and grunge scenes that were flooded with terrible knock off acts at that time.
Portishead's latest is to be titled Third, denoting that it is there third record. Simple or clever or both. I truly admire the fact that the waited 10 years to follow up their last effort. It has been long enough that it won't sound like just another trip-hop record in the late nineties. They also waited until they were ready to do something unique with their sound instead of just recreating the same thing. From what I have heard of the new record, it is very dark and Beth Gibbons sounds more haunting than haunted. James Bond appears to have left the building and let Caberet Voltaire fill his place in the mix. It seems hard to access and takes patience to really get into what they are doing. It doesn't seem like it will be a car trip album or make me seem any cooler than I am, but that isn't what this one is about.
There is a great in-studio performance of some of the new material on Current TV. Portishead in Portishead
4 comments:
I'm proud to say that I'm pretty familiar with all the bands mentioned in this post (and I enjoy all of them). That is a rarity for me with Brad's collection!
I love Portishead, too! You'd be surprised to know that SETH is the one who actually introduced me to them...
I love trip hop (also known as the Bristol sound, you know, and at its peak when I was studying abroad there) particularly Portishead and Tricky. But I would also class Massive Attack with those two (in fact, if I'm remembering correctly, they came first...)
Yes, Massive Attack did come first. However, there sound, prior to Portishead hitting the scene, was less Trip-hoppy. Thanks for calling me on it though!
-Brad
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