Dearly beloved...
...we are gathered here today to celebrate the debut LP by Tricky, Massive Attack eminence grise and supreme majesty of trip hop.
TRICKY
Maxinquaye
ISLAND

"Fuck you / tuck you / suck you / roll up the blue bills / I snort the cheap thrills. I'll fuck you in the ass / just for laugh." A sample of the lyrics from 'Abbaon Fat Track' aptly illustrates the nature of 'Maxinquaye' and the allure of Bristol's nice guy Tricky. You never know what to expect.
   As sometime writer and vocal cohort with Massive Attack, and songwriter, lyricist and producer of Neneh Cherry and Whale, Tricky's already estrablished himself as a reputable figurehead in the dizzy crossover world of rap / ambient / dub / trip hop.Yet as prevalent as the hypnotic, somnambulant, creepy rap elements on this debut album are, anything is possible when - with his white coat, mad hair and Back To The Future ideals - the Christopher Lloyd of trip hop slips into his spooky secret laboratory to experminet, dismantle and abuse whatever's at hand. For instance, 'Ponderosa''s Tom Waits-ian rhythm track was, undoubtedly, beaten out on a percussion instrument constructed exclusively from the skulls of demeted dwarves. Meanwhile, his version of Public Enemy'santi-draft diatribe 'Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos', as sung by vocalist Maxine (whom he found several years back, when she was still a schoolgirl, sitting on his wall) in her melliflous, endearing Grange Hill accent, is like hearing Aled Jones cover Cypress 

 Hill's 'How I Could Just Kill A Man?'. Deeply unnerving.
   Tricky's samples aren't strictly the norm either. In among the immaculately constructed collages of found sounds and noises, and cuts rendered from the dismantles innards or records by Marvin Gaye, you'll find Michael Jackson's 'Bad' as the basis for the pumpking 'Brand New You're Retro'. Or, for ingenuity and a twist on gangsta rap, he'll use the click-clack of a pistol's automatic slide to form the rhythm track behind 'Strugglin''.
    A chilling vocal sample ("let me tell you aobut my mother") drifts in to add weight to the anticipation and destruction of his first single, 'Aftermath'. These are the words of Leon, one of the replicants in Blade Runner, before he pulls the trigger of doom. At over seven minutes (all too short), the whole track evokes the brittle calm and borderline hysteria of someone strung out on a combination of late night, heavy smoking and post-traumatic stress disorder. Or something even better.
   Although shrouded with the same haunting qualities as both Portishead and Massive Attack, Tricky is not so easily pinned to the clouds, with his ambient dramas, intriguing ghost tunes, off kilter torch songs and occasional dual vocals that sound like OAPs arguing. Yu may be inclined to call it nutjob hip hop for the funky manic depressive. You'd be right.
[ 5 of 5 ]
GINA MORRIS

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photo: Simon Fowler

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