Various - Tricky Presents Brown Punk
Trip hop troubadour Tricky has been a very busy boy of late; setting up a brand spanking new label alongside one time Island chum Chris Blackwell. This fifteen track compilation showcases the best of the talent on offer, and truthfully the eclectic offerings here are for the most part pretty impressive.
Obviously a compilation bridging numerous genres was always going to sound a little ramshackle as a whole. Electronica, indie, rock and reggae don’t always sit well side by side as a listening experience and this does nothing to buck that trend. Shifting from a rock by numbers group like The Dirty to the wonderfully soulful female chanteuse Maxfield doesn’t work at all. Take each track and examine it on it’s own however and there are some rewarding listens here.
So what are the highlights? ‘Connecting People’ by 1st Blood is undoubtedly the standout offering, a bizarre musical experience best described as the hip hop version of The Young Knives, it’s mad, catchy, elctro tinged, witty and suggests there is more to Nottingham than crime and Richard Bacon. ‘8 Millimetre’ by Face is as lyrically crass and stereotyped a gun crime rap as you’ll likely hear. But its intensity, structure and brutal beats are all undeniably brilliant • hitting you almost as hard as the bullets Face raps about. There is also a more than competent showing from the vocally excellent Alex Mills • expect to hear more from this young singer songwriter in the future.
It isn’t all good though. Opening monstrosity ‘Babylon’ by Starving Soul is a horrific reggae ditty with a bizarre celtic tinge. If you were polite you’d call it avant garde • if you were honest you’d say it was messier than a twenty four hour drinking binge in Eastern Europe. The Dirty are another group showcased which seem to lack any redeeming features. Theirs is a magpie rock sound so clichéd any number of stadium acts could have claimed it as their own about twenty years ago. Rodigan’s The Truth is also pretty uninspiring not just due to its horrific instrumental arrangements but the pedestrian vocals; has a musician ever sounded so profoundly bored?
Tricky himself even gets round to contributing a track, humbly popped in at the end so as not to distract from the talent elsewhere, which is just as well because on this form he’s in very real danger of being surpassed by his protégés.