Trip3
Who's the Third?

THE REVIEW

Between the 80s and 90s, the incredible evolution of electronic devices prompted more and more artists to experiment with these new "contraptions" even in the musical field. The concept of "electronic music" was already strongly present in the 70s, but only in the subsequent decades did it gain such importance as to require identifying this specific type of music with new nomenclatures. Synthpop, Industrial, Trip Hop... these are just some of the genres linked to electronic music, spread by prominent figures such as Kraftwerk, Brian Eno, Throbbing Gristle, Nine Inch Nails.

And it is precisely these last ones that inspire this Trip Hop duo born in Naples: Trip3, composed of SkeyS and J-NoX, draw sources from groups like Massive Attack and NI? to produce sounds with a restrained atmosphere, without becoming a pounding that, at first, may seem attractive, but in the long run can become tiring and annoying. The first EP produced by Trip3, Who's The Third?, is heavily influenced by the dreamlike atmospheres so dear to Trip Hop: dark but full-bodied sounds, rhythms with a low acoustic profile but incisive and catchy. We're talking about definitely inspired atmospheric music, with tracks perhaps all a bit too similar, but still interesting. The two members of the duo worked in the studio using pretty much all the available instrumentation, although live they tend to differentiate their roles, with SkeyS on keyboard and J-NoX on bass and guitar.

Speaking of the structure of the tracks, you will often hear the presence of Johnny the frog, not only in the track that opens the EP but throughout the work, with electronic reproductions of the animal's typical sound. With the exception of the last track, all pieces of Who's The Third? are purely instrumental, a characteristic that makes the final song, Liev' (from Neapolitan "remove"), perhaps the one that stands out the most among the others.

You can listen to this very interesting work on Jamendo here.