The artist Tricky is another example of the Bristol Trip Hop I covered a couple of weeks back, with Smith and Mighty.
He had worked with Massive Attack, but felt he could accomplish more on his own. He was right.
“Aftermath” a fluid and slightly frightening track, with the album version spanning 7 minutes of psychedelic, soul infused and dubby hip hop.
The samples are drawn out and eerie, the rapping wary and evasive, and there’s a pretty sweet flute.
The vocals, provided by Martina Topley-Bird, are sultry and alluring, with both Tricky’s rapping and her singing being pretty cryptic in content. It’s basically a love song, which is nice since they started dating for a bit after the album was released.
The song is built around samples, with probably the most prominent one being from Marvin Gaye’s “That’s The Way Love Is” from 1969; that’s the main guitar riff. There’s also the drums and bass from LL Cool J’s “Eat Em Up L Chill” (1990).
The song is from the seminal 1995 album Maxinquaye, which is named after his mother, who died aged 4. It’s a very highly rated album, for good reason.
It was his first single as a solo artist, released in 1993.
Groundbreaking music.