For many people the nearest they ever get to Bristol is hurtling past on the M4 or M5. I, however, regard Bristol with rather more fondness. For a start I lived in Gloucestershire for a few years and Bristol was a short drive down the motorway. Apart from Gloucester Guildhall Arts Centre (and at a pinch the Leisure Centre) Bristol was the best place to go and see any bands. The gig by The Sundays (fuck, what year was that?) was just about the very finest that I have seen.
Anyway, I digress. What I really want to talk about is trip-hop, or at least the Bristol version of it which became known as 'Bristol-hop' or 'The Bristol Sound'. I suppose the sound really came out of the acid-jazz stuff that had been around since the late eighties - bands like A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, or Arrested Development spring to mind. But suddenly everybody was talking about the trippy, spliff induced songs of Massive Attack, Portishead and Tricky. They became the darlings of the music press and for a while it was impossible to remove them from the covers of 'Select', 'NME', 'Q' etc (well a slight exaggeration perhaps while grunge and brit-pop were fighting their wars). The atmospheric and dreamlike sound was quite clearly an extension of the changes taking place in the culture of the place. The docklands area was thriving and Bristol was becoming a much more 'cultural' place to live and work.
In the mid nineties, the three key albums of the movement were released. Massive Attack - 'Protection', Portishead - 'Dummy' and Tricky - 'Maxinquaye'. All were lauded and applauded and Bristol seemed to be the centre of the trip-hop world. The albums released afterwards though never seemed to reach the heights demonstrated in this burst of creativity and the 'Bristol Sound' was never fully realised. Mind, you only have to listen to the likes of Morcheeba or Moloko to understand their importance at the time. Not that I'm saying that either of these bands are that important - but you get the drift I hope....
Massive Attack - Inertia Creeps (mp3) buy
Tricky - Black Steel (mp3) buy
Portishead - Cowboys (mp3) buy
Beth Gibbons & Rustin Man - Tom the Model (mp3) buy
Bandwidth now sorted - thanks for your patience
2 comments:
it's the instrumental of cowboys that does it for - her voice is such an overwhelming thing it's good to astounded by everything else for a change
x
Ta for your comment ally - I agree. The instrumental break almost comes as a relief.
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