Send "Tricky " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 The frustrating thing about being a Tricky fan is that he's a guy who knows damn well where his talents lie, and yet he chooses to ignore them. The list of things Tricky does poorly (rock, house, singer-songwriter pop, ska, disco, etc.) is much longer than the list of things he does well (which basically amounts to the sound he invented and perfected on the music he released between 1995 and 1999). For 10 years, he's refused to accept that an inimitable style can be a strength as much a limitation, a foundation to build from rather than something to reject as predictable. His music's suffered horribly thanks to many, many failed attempts to show off a versatility that just isn't there.At the beginning of the 21st century, Tricky decided to ditch his dank, anxiety-ridden, and reputation-making brand of UK hip-hop. Critics had been carping that he'd devolved to pastiching himself on records like 1998's Angels With Dirty Faces. Fans wondered if his relentlessly bleak sound had anywhere left to go. Stretching the formula might not have been such a bad idea. Unfortunately Tricky's reinvention was a little more scorched-earth than anyone expected. On 2001's execrable Blowback and 2003's ever-so-slightly-less-awful Vulnerable, he flipped both middle fingers at his audience while running straight into the worst music of his career, a sad stew of lazily executed alt-rock and dance-pop clichés. Tricky had often been blasted for having a one-note sound, but these failed attempts at schizoid genre-mixing proved that at least he'd really believed in that one note. On 2008's Knowle West Boy and the new Mixed Race, the two tentative comeback albums he's released since the Blowback/Vulnerable fiasco, the standout tracks continue to look back to Tricky's bleaker (and better) 90s records. His music sounds as visceral and committed as ever when he's working with materials he's mastered: hip-hop, dub, urban dread. And a few Mixed Race tracks do give up the goods: The ravaged voice that sounds both sexy and sinister; the oppressive atmosphere he can still conjure effortlessly; the way his slow, bleary rapping meshes so beautifully with low-key female vocalists. On opener "Every Day", he adds a new and blessedly subtle country blues vibe, and it suggests that, hey, maybe he really can expand his music without totally ditching what makes it special....full text |
| Guardian |
| His vocal cords grizzled to the point at which his singing approaches incomprehensibility, Tricky has chosen to lurk in the background of his ninth album. It's deliberate, as Mixed Race sees Tricky focused on developing not his lyrics but his sound. That is one change from 2008's Knowle West Boy and there are others, such as an increase in tempo and melody, even an occasional taste for cheese. Most striking, though, is the mix of musical genres that are trawled and tricked up across the piece: a Daft Punk pastiche is followed by a dancehall cover and a piece of cosmic disco. The album's centre is a song performed by Algerian rai guitarist Hakim Hamadouche; it is melancholic, haunting, and also, thanks to the sly addition of a tough, granular beat, distinctively Tricky. Mixed Race doesn't always hang together, but it is the work of someone with a renewed creative appetite....full text |
| Contactmusic |
| Tricky, a subversive phenomenon of the 90s has continued to plough on with his brand of Trip-hop during times of great change, the mid 90s seem an age ago now and Tricky feels like a name of Christmas past. The Trip-hop sound that metamorphosised out of the bleak Bristol streets was a fresh alternative to the sickeningly rich portions of Brit-Pop so regularly rammed down the throats of British music listeners around the time of Tricky's impressive debut. Having already appeared on Massive Attack's Blue Lines album, Tricky was already a name that those on the scene were themselves familiar with. Maxinquaye was a success of sorts, hailed as NME's album of the year and reaching #3 in the charts at a time when you actually had to shift some units to be there. Critical acclaim was something that Tricky could take for granted until 2001's Blowback LP, and since then it's been a rocky ride through the noughties both critically and commercially. Now Tricky follows up 2008's, the respected Knowle West Boy, with Mixed Race, an album produced in Paris, (his new home) and features (as has become the norm) a host of interesting collaborations. Mixed Race predictably is a mixed bag, single Murder Weapon is a surf pop re working of an old Echo Minott track - somewhat uplifting with a vicious undercurrent. Whereas the atmospheric Ghetto Stars is a gloomy affair, almost theatrical at times as its slow grooves meet soaring strings. It's regressive moves such as this that can at times hold Mixed race back, Kingston Logic sounds a touch 90s also, but manages to work as it's mixed with a far more contemporary beat and production style. Standards are heightened when Really Real arrives, featuring some sweet vocals, its eerie feedback sounds makes for an intriguing listen, it's just a shame it doesn't make the three minute mark. Every Day also provides Mixed Race with one of its bright spots, a short but sweet bluesy effort that even sees an appearance from the harmonica on one of the albums most acoustic based tracks. At just over half an hour, Mixed Race is a bit of a tease, spraying us with an array of styles, blues, funk, hip hop, lounge and minimal all feature before fading out at least fifteen minutes early. Having said that, during that half an hour, there are enough striking moments to prove that Tricky is back on form, continuing where he left off with Knowle West Boy, safely on the tracks of good form....full text |
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