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Rating:
Album of emotionally rich modulated electronics, a nocturnal album, trip hop is a term I don't like to use for this album. Trip hop is a cage for this music that relaxes you on a four-wheeler speeding toward the darkness and its treasure chests of secrets of a nocturnal Babylon to be seduced... start with song number one, and suddenly she, Tracey Thorne, brings the refined grace of early Everything But The Girl, illuminating the track that opens and titles the album, essentially a suburban and dreamy white answer to "Safe from Harm" which opened the previous album, equally in need of cuddles and a nook to find refuge, equally beautiful.
And a one-two that cuts your legs: the languid rap with Andean aromas of "Karmacoma" that celebrates the contrast in a vocal duel between the rhymers 3D and Tricky (who will be offended and will carry the song into his solo debut to give life to "Overcome").
Two other stellar tracks to finish the quartet: "Sly" sees Nicolette impersonate a Lady Day with more confidence in the future invited to the court dance between techno-rococo stuccos and the instrumental "Heat Miser", a soundtrack for a film yet to be made, preferably with a soft focus effect and imbued with cosmic Blade Runner-esque pessimism.
For three-quarters, the album is superb, then the Bristolians, sparing themselves new efforts, thought it wise to follow the lazy beat of their heart engine and replicated it in the other half, so "Weather Storm" substitutes "Heat Miser" in a more languid key, the traces of "Karmacoma" are followed with a slightly slick conviction in "Eurochild" (a knockoff version of it would end up in the TV commercial for a well-known beer: mysteries of advertising...), but despite being epigonal, these 2 tracks remain very, very seductive.
Final mention for the two tracks with a Jamaican aftertaste by Horace Andy: "Spying Glass" is an accomplished dubbed reggae with the limitations of an exercise in style, the final "live in studio" jam of "Light my Fire" (yes, it's that one) is a nostalgic tribute to their Massive sound-system past but with alcohol levels worthy of a breathalyzer and quantities of ganja enough for immediate arrest.
Not a masterpiece, but a demonstration of dazzling class and above all a soundtrack that will get into your head immediately and will lead you through highway nights you young lovers and connoisseurs of superior class.
Not recommended for the coarse, recommended for elegant individuals who know how to let their heartbeats drift in the right atmospheres.
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
01 Protection (07:53)
This girl I know needs some shelter
She don't believe anyone can help her
She's doing so much harm
Doing so much damage
But you don't wanna get involved
You tell her she can manage
Now you can't change the way she feels
But you can put your arms around her
I know you wanna live yourself
Could you forgive yourself
If you left her just the way you found her?
I stand in front of you
I'll take the force of the blow
Protection
I stand in front of you
I'll take the force of the blow
Protection
She's a girl and you're a boy
Sometimes you look so small
[you look so small]
You've got a baby of your own
When your baby's gone
She'll be the one to catch you when you fall
I stand in front of you
I'll take the force of the blow
Protection
I stand in front of you
I'll take the force of the blow
Protection
You're a girl and I'm a boy
You're a girl and I'm a boy
Yeah
You're a girl and I'm a boy
You're a girl and I'm a boy
Sometimes you look so small
You need some shelter
Just running round and round, helter skelter
And I lean on you for ease
Now you can lean on me
And that's more than love
That's the way It should be
Now I can't change the way you think
But I can put my arms around you
That's just part of the deal
That's the way I feel
I'll put my arms around you
I stand in front of you
I'll take the force of the blow
Protection
I stand in front of you
I'll take the force of the blow
Protection
You're a boy and I'm a girl
You're a boy and I'm a girl
You're a boy and I'm a girl
You're a boy and I'm a girl
02 Karmacoma (05:18)
You sure you want to be with me
I've nothing to give
Won't lie and say this lovin's best
Leave us in emotional peace
Take a walk, taste the rest
No, take a rest
I see you digging a hole in your neighborhood
You're crazy but you're lazy
No need to live in a lean-to
Your troubles must be seen to seen to
Money like it's paper with faces i remember
I drink on a daily basis
Though it seldom cools my temper
It never cools my temper
Walking through the suburbs though not exactly lovers
You're a couple, 'specially when your body's doubled
Duplicate, then you wait for the next kuwait
Karmacoma, Jamaica and Roma (x4)
You sure you want to be with me i've nothing to give
Take a walk take a rest taste the rest
Take a walk take a rest taste the rest
Take a walk take a rest a taste of rest
Don't want to be on top of your list
Phenomenally and properly kissed
We overcome in sixty seconds
With the strength we have to together
But for now, emotional ties they stay severed
When there's trust there'll be treats
And when we funk we'll hear beats
Karmacoma, Jamaica and Roma (x4)
Deflowering my baby, are you my baby mate
I must be crazy, see i'm swazy
Digging a hole in your neighborhood
You're crazy but you're lazy, must be lazy
Don't wanna on top of your list
Monopoly and properly kissed
Deflowering my baby, are you my baby mate
My baby
Deflowering my baby, are you my baby mate
I must be crazy, you must be lazy
Karmacoma, what?, Jamaica and Roma (x4)
03 Three (03:50)
Nicolette :
Three's my lucky number
And fortune comes in threes
But I wish I knew that number
That even little children seem to see
Oh, I'm missing everything I knew
It's just so hard to be a child
Oh, i'm missing all the things i knew
Yet whinge i knew nothing at all
I whinge i knew nothing at all
Soon i'll have the courage
To leave my thoughts behind
I'll give back all the knowledge
And keep the wisdom precious in my mind
Oh, i'm missing all the things i knew
I miss them yet i want them gone
Yes, i'm missing all the things i knew
Yet whinge i knew nothing at all
I whinge i knew nothing at all
I whinge i knew nothing at all
05 Spying Glass (05:23)
Spy at thy neighbor
Spying glass
You live in the city
You stay by yourself
You a-find all weakness
Still some people they brand you ya
Just because you are rasta
You move to the country
You live in the hills
You a-find all company
When you check it them-a use spying glass
They want to know all your business
Spy at thy neighbor
Spying glass
Spy at thy neighbor
You live in the city
You mind your own business
What you see you don't see
But some people they always see
They never mind their own business
You move to the country
You live in the hills
You think you're far from the weak
When you check it them-a use spying glass
They want to know rasta business
Spying Glass!
Spying Glass!
Yeah
06 Better Things (04:20)
Don't drag me down just because your down
Just cus' your blue don't make me too.
Though you found you need more than me
Don't talk to me about being free,
That's freedom without love
Magic without love
Magic without love
Hear me say, better things will surely come my way.
Hear me say, better things will surely come my way.
You say that the magic's gone, well I'm not a magician,
You say the spark's gone, well get an electrician,
And save your lie about needing to be free,
Oh that's bullshit baby, you just want rid of me.
You want freedom without love
Magic without love
Magic without love
Hear me say, better things will surely come my way.
Hear me say, better things will surely come my way.
07 Eurochild (05:08)
3D
Sitting in my day care, yard is decopainted
Blessed by the drink
Upon the corner where we've seen it
Chased by the planet
Haunted by the medium
Too high to flow toward to break the tedium
Glow from my tv set is blue like neon
Activated the remote I put the BBC on
I've seen this city somewhere
I'm looking out for no-one
Pallor in my eye it get blue like neon
Tricky
Hell is round the corner where i shelter
Isms and schisms we're living helter skelter
If you believe i deceive then common sense says shall you receive
Let me take you down the corridors of my life
And when you walk, do you walk to your preference
No need to answer till i take further evidence
I seem to need reference to get residence
A reference to your preference to say i'm a good neighbour
I trudge so judge me for my labour
I walk in a bar and immediately I sense danger
You look at me, girl, as if i was some kind of a
A total stranger
3D
Hysterical, ecstatical no matter, call me stags(?)
Have to get a drink, i go to relax
Upon phono, no go zone i go through
Aching aways just to relocate you
Kill us with your fist
Now baby mix it with me
You see me function better when i get approximately
High by my technical flyby
I function better with the sun in my eyes
So goodbye
Tricky
Take a second of me you beckon i'll be
And when you're sad i'll mourn
And when you tear i'm torn
Take a second of me
Take a second of me
I stand firm for our soil
Lick a rock on foil
So reduce me, seduce me
Dress me up in stussy
Show me and i'll stick em
Will you be my victim
Take a second of me
3D
Mad over you, mad over me, an analogy
Baby taking up up all of my stationary
Sitting in my daycare, mediocre painted
Colliding with the jam
Until the drink got dated
Window when they go when they go boom
I run inside my room
No sense you can trust me
Climb on my sofa
Roll in a daydream
Spliff make daddy go sleep-a-trip dream
08 Sly (05:26)
I try to believe what i feel these days
It makes life much easier for me
It's hard to decide what is real these days
When things look so dizzy to me
I already know my children's children's faces
Voices that i've heard before
There's always more (x2)
Wandering leaving the sea behind
To my home which everybody owns
Wandering, wandering
Where we can do what we please
Wandering
I feel like a thousand years have passed
I'm younger than i used to be
I feel like the world is my home at last
I know everyone that i meet
Somewhere in the music i can hear the bells
I heard a thousand years before
There's always more (x2)
Wandering is this there all there is
Since i was since i began to be
Wandering, wandering
Where we can do what we please
Wandering
10 Light My Fire (live) (03:15)
Horace Andy
You know that it would be untrue
You know that i would be a liar
If was to say to you
Girl, we couldn't get much higher
Come on baby, light my fire
Come on baby, light my fire
Try to set the night on fire
The time to hesitate is through
No time to wallow in the mire
Try now we can only lose
And our love become a funeral pyre
Come on baby, light my fire
Come on baby, light my fire
Try to set the night on fire
The time to hesitate is through
No time to wallow in the mire
Try now we can only lose
And our love become a funeral pyre
Come on baby, light my fire
Come on baby, light my fire
Try to set the night on fire
You know that it would be untrue
You know that i would be a liar
If was to say to you
Girl we couldn't get much higher
Come on baby, light my fire
Come on baby, light my fire
Try to set the night on fire
Try to set the night on fire X4
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