Angels With Dirty Faces - Tricky

Track List:

1. Money Greedy
2. Mellow
3. Singing the Blues
4. Broken Homes
5. 6 Minutes
6. Analyze Me
7. The Moment I Feared
8. Talk to Me (Angels with Dirty Faces)
9. Carriage for Two
10. Demise
11. Tear out My Eyes
12. Record Companies
13. Peyote Sings
14. Taxi

Running time: 59 minutes
Released: 1998

Massive Attack have already appeared in this project; this album is from an alumnus of the same scene in Bristol. My first exposure to Tricky was unknowingly through Massive Attack; the first exposure I actually recall was not much liking the video for Makes Me Wanna Die... That said the video I can find online for that song doesn't match the one in my memory, so it is probably another track I am thinking of, even if none of the titles seem right for the memory. 

I somehow missed his earlier solo work, but picked it up later after moving to Bristol for uni. None of the track titles here jump out at me with recognition, and before googling to grab the track list (you don't think I type them all out each time do you?) I had no idea that PJ Harvey appeared on any of his material. So despite owning this, I am pretty ignorant of it. Time to change that.

OK, the first thing I notice is a lot of disruption of the sound. Not sure whether this is a deliberate decision in the creation of the track or an artefact of preparation and presentation. It is most audible in Tricky's voice on Money Greedy; the song itself I find lacking, a dull riff/rhythm combo and not much else of note going on for a whole 5 minutes. The same problem affects Mellow - the music on the track just does nothing to excite me. The whispered, husky vocal is interesting (if indistinct), and provides a USP for the tune, but it is not enough in and of itself to sustain interest.

Singing the Blues is the third track in a row that gives me the same problem. The groove, the hook, the beats - that is pretty much all there is to these tracks, no melody at all. That is not a problem if those things are stellar, but what I am hearing falls short. Repetitive, too consistent, ultimately boring rather than unpleasant. I hope for an upturn as the album moves along but a strong pattern would need to be broken for that to happen. Even PJ Harvey's tones cannot snap me out of the drudgery - her vocal on Broken Homes is within the range of what you might expect but it is saddled with the same uninspired backing, only lightened in places by a harmonic backing vocal. I could simply not be in the mood for dirt and grime, but more pertinently I think what I am hearing is more a child of its time and has not aged well.

Aha, a more interesting track? Maybe. Tricky brings his familiar vocal style to a party with a faster beat. Unfortunately the track is still lacking anything else for these to play off against and so 6 minutes also falls flat for me: the rhythmic pattern can only sustain interest so far. I doubt at this point that I will be keeping any track from the album. Half way through and not even green shoots of change, of any extra depth to the tracks. It just hit me that this is drum'n'bass-like, but with the bass recorded low enough to be barely audible over the drums, and both parts relying far too heavily on a single loop. I am sure there is a lot more depth here than I am giving it credit for, but I just cannot hear it, and the patterns are too dull to draw me in.

I have zoned out; droned out my brain by attending to other things. There is little here of interest to the modern me. The last two tracks are listed as "bonus" numbers, but they feel like penalties. In truth, I doubt I ever listened to these tunes much even when I picked the album up and I will not miss them. I feel like what is here... well, it sounds like the top half of every song was simply forgotten, not recorded, not mixed. Some of the percussion/bass interplay is reasonably good and if there was almost anything else going on over it the songs could be transformed to my ear. Alas, that was not there and my last hour has been pretty much an aural endurance trial as a result.

I acknowledge that I am not the target audience, that my need for a bit more going on over the base provided is my issue, not the artist's, but whilst I am no longer completely ignorant of this album, it was so much not to my taste that in some ways (like having the last hour back) I wish I was.

100th Window - Massive Attack

Track List:

1. Future Proof
2. What Your Soul Sings
3. Everywhen
4. Special Cases
5. Butterfly Caught
6. A Prayer for England
7. Small Time Shot Away
8. Name Taken
9. Antistar

Running time: 73 minutes
Released: 2003

I've been away a bit, not jacked the project in quite so soon. Back from a 5 day jaunt to Scandiwegia to see an old friend and the 4 kids they have had since we last met. Squeezing this in before I am off away again - this time to my niece's 4th birthday party. Life is busy sometimes, just not often.

Everyone (pretty much) thinks Massive Attack peaked with Mezzanine. They are probably all right.* Seeing them play Bristol Student Union just after that album was released is still a highlight, 16 years on.

My memory tells me that there are good songs on 100th Window, which was what followed, but also some weaker material. And the 19 minute length of Antistar reminds me of hidden track nonsense.

Future Proof confirms that initial thought - I have always liked this track. It is dark and brooding, good mood music for an urban or cyberpunk RPG session, with the electronic clicks reminiscent of background static in a slightly frantic percussive manner. The light airy vocal, disconnected from the ominous track enforces that sense of unease; it works for me. We then move on to the first of 3 tracks voiced by Sinéad O'Connor.  I think that, at the time, I did not realise all 3 tracks with female vocals were O'Connor - not sure why. I certainly did not realise at the time that Damon Albarn (credited as 2D from Gorillaz) was involved, but back then I thought Blur were shite and nothing of Albarn as an artist. Times change us. I am not fond of What Your Soul Sings, I just find it really bland - lyrically, vocally, musically, it is just dull. It is also too long, but that makes it feel such a relief when it gives way to Everywhen. I fell in love with Horace Andy's vocals the first time I heard him on a Massive Attack record (probably One Love or Hymn of the Big Wheel from Blue Lines), and picked up some collections of his reggae recordings later on, to find that several Massive Attack songs with him doing a new vocal are pretty much re-recordings. I do not think Everywhen is in that category, but I could be wrong. It plays a bit like a less urgent Future Proof, with an unsettling, dangerous air, a floaty voice and relatively clean sound in place of the more chaotic opener. I would say it is a slightly more hopeful track, but it is hope stemming from darkness all the same, and a rich darkness at that. It is probably the best track on this album for my money, and my instinct is that 100th Window's bolt is now shot.

Special Cases is more O'Connor; it is less dull than What Your Soul Sings and there is much more going on but I still cannot find any love for it. The doomy theme continues, which makes it powerful background sound, but for actually listening to? No thanks. I do not own any Sinéad O'Connor records and do not find her voice doing anything for me, though I do think A Prayer for England utilises her better (or perhaps it is just a better song). As Butterfly Caught starts, I find myself not recognising it which is slightly disturbing, and the first of what I guess will be many such experiences of going "oh, that's not what I thought it was" for this project. Not knowing stuff before I get to it is one thing, but not recognising something I thought I knew is different, unsettling. Like this track (which I recognise once more once the vocal comes in). An edginess and paranoia flow from my speakers, quite at odds with the brightness of the day outside. It is midmorning on a Friday - not the ideal time to immerse oneself in the themes of this record.

My time in Brizzle was right at the tail end of the Bristol sound ("don't call it Trip-Hop") era. Mezzanine was just out and was the end of that era of Massive Attack, Portishead had gone on their long break etc. I also lived in very different parts of the city to those that spawned the edginess. Still, I feel a degree of affinity to the place and the music it spawned even now, when it is a part of my life that is fading in memory - contacts lost, friends rarely seen etc. Listening to these bands brings back those thoughts.

Yeah - A Prayer For England is just a better song. There is purpose in the driving bass, menace even. That links with the urgency of the vocal and the lyrics and the slightly shorter length to produce a much more compelling listen. There is almost a relief when it gives way to the more chilled Small Time Shot Away; chilled, but still dark. More cyberpunk mood music. Albarn's backing vocal is so indistinct that I miss it even knowing it is there now - I mean, it is audible in places, but hard to tell who it is. The last 30 seconds of the track are really weak... continuation for continuation's sake and I am definitely relieved when Name Taken starts. It is another slow dark menace sound, rather than urgent dark menace (this album only has two flavours). Andy is back, again floating over the music angelically, reinforcing him being up there as one of my favourite male vocalists of all time - along with the sadly missed Terry Callier - who, of course, provided the vocal on Massive Attack's Live With Me (along with Paradise Circus from Heligoland, which was used as the theme for the BBC's Luther, the only great tracks Massive Attack produced since Teardrop). I am certainly struggling to find too many other names to challenge those two on a purely vocal level.

Ah, now we're into the dregs. Antistar just started and I cannot find much to like in its opening refrains. Calling the bolt shot after Everywhen was harsh as although the middle of the album is not superb it generally retains a level of interest and is certainly keeping a consistent theme which makes the album as a whole a very attractive keeper. The vocal mellows Antistar a bit, but not enough to make it a good listen; the menace is still there though and I realise that for proper mood music I would want to dump the vocal anyway as it would be a distraction. Too bad.

Right, now to see about this secret track bullshit. It actually starts fairly promptly - which is good - but as I recalled it is just a loopy, oscillating, bassy sound which lasts far too long. It ceases to be interesting almost as soon as it starts and... zzz

* If anything, it was earlier.