First, the bad news. There are no new tricks on BlowBack, the star-studded 2001 comeback by Tricky, the pioneering trip-hopper that wandered his way into the wilderness. He wandered so far that nobody really cared anymore if he had anything to say -- particularly because he wound up saying the same thing, slightly differently, over and over again. He doesn't escape from this problem here, yet he's found a map -- and that map is craft. He knew this before, since the best moments of {^Angels With Dirty    [ read more ]

CD $9.45

Predictably unpredictable and unnerving as all get-out to sit through, Tricky's contribution to the Back to Mine series still manages to be an absorbing listen, despite all of the slammed-together transitions and wild stylistic jumps from track to track. Tricky's picks continually flit from old favorites of his to new discoveries and projects -- several of which are given their first official airings. The disc begins as solidly and smartly as any other edition of Back to Mine, with smooth transi   [ read more ]

CD $17.08

It's not sequenced in chronological order, but that's about the only flaw with Island's 2002 compilation, A Ruff Guide. Over the course of 17 tracks, the highlights from Tricky's Island albums unspool, hitting every single and many of the great album tracks (including cuts from the Nearly God album). Although this may seem like it'd be just for the fellow travelers -- the kind of casual fan that just wants the hits -- this is actually a very useful compilation for those that followed his care   [ read more ]

CD $36.08

Tricky's debut, Maxinquaye, is an album of stunning sustained vision and imagination, a record that sounds like it has no precedent as it boldly predicts a new future. Of course, neither sentiment is true. Much of the music on Maxinquaye has its roots in the trip-hop pioneered by Massive Attack, which once featured Tricky, and after the success of this record, trip-hop became fashionable, turning into safe, comfortable music to be played at upscale dinner parties thrown by hip twenty an   [ read more ]

CD $13.25

Maxinquaye was an unexpected hit in England, launching a wave of similar-sounding artists, who incorporated Tricky's innovations into safer pop territory. Tricky responded by travelling to Jamaica to record Pre-Millennium Tension, a nervy, claustrophobic record that thrives in its own paranoia. Scaling back the clattering hooks of Maxinquaye and slowing the beat down, Tricky has created a hallucinatory soundscape, where the rhythms, samples, and guitars intertwine into a crawling processio   [ read more ]

CD $13.25

Mission Accomplished doesn't do much to reinvent the club/dance sonics Tricky forged on Maxinquaye, but it does offer some of the biggest beats he's ever cooked up. The title track mixes storm-tossed live drums with subtle fuzz guitar (and a rip from Peter Gabriel's "Big Time," too), while "Crazy Claws" is gestalt hip-hop: Both in your face and somehow aloof, the MC outlines his sordid trysts with ghetto women while shrouded in a haze of club-drub drums and druggy bass. It's just the sort    [ read more ]

CD $9.49

It's not sequenced in chronological order, but that's about the only flaw with Island's 2002 compilation, A Ruff Guide. Over the course of 17 tracks, the highlights from Tricky's Island albums unspool, hitting every single and many of the great album tracks (including cuts from the Nearly God album). Although this may seem like it'd be just for the fellow travelers -- the kind of casual fan that just wants the hits -- this is actually a very useful compilation for those that followed his care   [ read more ]

CD $14.23

It's not sequenced in chronological order, but that's about the only flaw with Island's 2002 compilation, A Ruff Guide. Over the course of 17 tracks, the highlights from Tricky's Island albums unspool, hitting every single and many of the great album tracks (including cuts from the Nearly God album). Although this may seem like it'd be just for the fellow travelers -- the kind of casual fan that just wants the hits -- this is actually a very useful compilation for those that followed his care   [ read more ]

CD $13.25

CD $10.44

CD $32.28

First, the bad news. There are no new tricks on BlowBack, the star-studded 2001 comeback by Tricky, the pioneering trip-hopper that wandered his way into the wilderness. He wandered so far that nobody really cared anymore if he had anything to say -- particularly because he wound up saying the same thing, slightly differently, over and over again. He doesn't escape from this problem here, yet he's found a map -- and that map is craft. He knew this before, since the best moments of {^Angels With Dirty    [ read more ]

CD $36.08

CD $35.13