Tricky
Maxinquaye

THE REVIEW

- Hi Marco, what are you listening to?
- I'm listening to "Maxinquaye" for the umpteenth time.
- Max... what?!??"
- Understandable, anyway it's Tricky's first album!
- And who is Tricky? You're always into these unknown musicians...
- How can they be unknown? This is an artist who has stirred the waters in the international music scene for a while by proposing something truly original and unclassifiable. In my iPod under the "genre" label, I've imported it as Tricky because his music can't be classified.
- Bohh... it still doesn't ring a bell?!
- Maybe if I tell you that one of his songs "Hell Is Round The Corner" was used for the Superga commercial a long time ago, it might help. Here, listen to it...
- Ah, it's true, now I remember.

But how is it possible that even today many people don't know Tricky? Maybe it's the people I hang out with who are musically ignorant, but I don't think so because some of them know who he is, and besides, "Maxinquaye" was dubbed on cassette for me back in the day by a friend. Later I had to buy the CD because the tape got ruined from too much listening, and let's be honest, also because the artwork is too cool: with him dressed as a bride and Martina as a groom. A must-have. It's also true that Tricky never sought fame, or rather, he never sold out because he always did what he felt like doing, which is things not entirely accessible to the mass audience. On the contrary, when he signed with a Major (Island), he dedicated himself to riskier projects while now that he's with an indie-label (Anti-Epitaph) he's more upbeat than ever.
More alternative than this? Perhaps the only explanation for why he's not well known lies in Tricky's very essence, which is that he's not mainstream.

It starts with "Overcome" which is a dig at Massive's "Karmacoma"; in this opening track, clearly superior and more intense than the beautiful song from "Protection", Tricky's dark and dreamy soul makes itself felt, leaving behind the rap cadence of the lyrics to hand them over to the debut Jazz singer Martina Topley-Bird. You wouldn't want to compare Del Naja's interpretation with Martina's, would you? An excellent start for a radical Trip-Hop. The second track is the oriental-tinged "Ponderosa" produced by Howie B, which is a must for the trendiest productions of the period, while in the devilish "Hell Is Round The Corner", "Ike's Rap II" by Isaac Hayes is sampled (a choice also made by Portishead). Martina's childlike voice is the "light shadow" of Tricky's hoarse one or vice versa, and in the end, it creates this game of personality splitting represented precisely by the double voice. The only cover is "Black Steel" by Public Enemy, made possible with the help of the metal band FTV and is among the most famous and favorite tracks for his fans. The vocals don't only feature Martina's childlike voice: in the haunting "Pumpkin", for instance, there's Alison Goldfrapp who gets under your skin like even Topley-Bird couldn't, and above all, it doesn't make us miss the sampled "Suffer", in fact, it ennobles it. In "You Don't", there's a duet with the powerful Ragga, which turns out to be the best choice because Martina better interprets darker, more paranoid and seductive songs like "Aftermath" (first single), "Suffocated Love", and "Abbaon Fat Track". The latter is the most beautiful track on the album where a dialogue part from the movie "The Rapture" is sampled ("Can you fly? You fly as fast as you can to Baby Jesus") and where he lashes out at the music industry, ridiculing it, as he does in the satirical "Brand New You're Retro".

The music is truly hypnotic, disorienting, and sick; you don't know how he could create something like this, and in my opinion, not even he knew what he wanted to achieve because today he wouldn't be able to make the same song in that way. But the whole album is like this, naive and intense and most of all unique even when compared to other Tricky albums, let alone when compared to other records. Go and get it immediately, even though I envy those who have never listened to it because discovering it has a different taste than having it in the player for many years, although sometimes I still find something new and it continues to move me. Anesthetizing.