Tricky, Electric Ballroom

Tricky insists that Nothing’s Changed on his latest album False Idols, released last May. In a way, he’s right. The album is a return to form for the Bristolian trip hop pioneer, evoking the dark, menacing sound cultivated in his seminal first album Maxinquaye.

False Idols recreates the charged melancholy of Tricky's debut. The artist uses his tri-partite formula of seducing the listener with (typically female) vocals dipped in honey, that in turn act as a counterpoint to the musical tension created with antic drumming and brooding bass lines. (The best example of this is Does It). To this, Tricky adds a malevolent susurrus of whispered sprechgesang lyrics, alternately growling like Gil Scott-Heron and muttering like Iggy Pop on a come-down.

Comparing False Idols to Maxinquaye, Tricky has said the former is 'a better album'. You can judge for yourself when he performs at the Electric Ballroom on December 19th. It’s a big statement for Tricky. Maxinquaye was heralded as era-defining when it came out in 1995. It won Album of the Year from NME (and just lost out to fellow trip hop-ers Portishead for the Mercury Award), entrancing listeners with anxious, bewitching songs like Hell Is Around the Corner.

Maxinquaye was a musical milestone—although it may have felt more like a headstone to Tricky. Hounded by his newfound celebrity, he became increasingly erratic as he tried to redefine his music outside of the Maxinquaye paradigm. But Tricky’s work from the 00s was critically lambasted; he was rapped on the knuckles for his incoherent attempts at playing leap-frog with genre.

It’s been three years since his last album, and the rapper has obviously done a bit of soul-searching. He has said False Idols is about “finding himself again”. For all those on gap years, no matter your age, we say ditch them: come back home and find yourself with Tricky this December 19th. 

Ticket price: £22

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