Tricky - Mixed Race (2010) [Repost]

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Tricky - Mixed Race (2010) [Repost]

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Musically Tricky's production work takes influences from UK, Jamaica, the US, North Africa and French music. The album is an intense lyrical journey with temptation, reflection, mischief and misbehavior. There's a wealth of knowledge distilled within the music as Tricky approaches twenty years of recording. "Every album is a learning experience and this is concentrated music, there's no dilution" said Tricky of his new collection, "I've spent my life going between cultures; Mixed Race is about that in a very direct way".

When Tricky returned from his five-year recording hiatus with the autobiographical Knowle West Boy in 2008, he proffered a hard-hitting set of songs and soundscapes comprised of originals and covers that roared with confrontational brownpunk energy. Two years on, Mixed Race is as direct as its predecessor, but sparser, more spacious, mostly low-key, and very brief (under half an hour). While its sound is still in-your-face, it's remarkable how little murk there is – despite the layers of backing tracks. Lyrically it's autobiographical, but it's also a gangster album. The sound of guns being cocked and loaded is almost ubiquitous. The signpost is the single, a revisioned take on Echo Minott's '90s dancehall hit "Murder Weapon." The lyric (delivered by Tricky's brother Marlon Thaws), full of references to guns and shoot-em-up street battles, is juxtaposed with Henry Mancini's "Peter Gunn Theme" and a sampled blues harmonica riff. Its sound looks to the past for inspiration while looking only at itself as a map reference. "Bristol to London" rips on the old-school styles of Brit-hop with a furious synth up front and three staggered rhythms. The wiry funk in "UK Jamaican," with singer Terry Lynn, defines the plight of immigrants who think (or are forced to think) with "Kingston logic." "Ghetto Stars," one of numerous tracks to feature Tricky's excellent touring vocalist Franky Riley, comments on the reality of gangster life in public housing projects with dramatic string samples, slow, menacing loping beats, and metallic guitars. She also shines on the spooky, sinister, drone-blues opener, "Every Day." "Hakim" uses a North African motif, handclaps, and both vocal and lute from Hakim Hamadouche (Rachid Taha), along with a shuffling rhythm track. "Early Bird," with its slow chunky guitars, shimmering cymbals, muted trumpet, and a knotty little single-string blues guitar riff, is dark and imposing. "Come to Me" is a (literally) finger-popping jump jazz love song, slowed down to cough syrup flow. "Time to Dance," the closest Tricky claims he will "ever get to disco," is synthed-out minimalism, dry and deadpan. "Really Real," a collaboration with Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie, is a spaced-out, aimless dronescape, with guitars and rhythm tracks crisscrossing in a repetitive mantra-like manner. Ultimately, Mixed Race, with its simmering tension, is a worthy follow-up to Knowle West Boy, and a fine entry in Tricky's catalog overall.

Review by Thom Jurek, Allmusic.com

What Massive Attack's stealthiest weapon of ass destruction rightly claims is his most uptempo and clearly conceived album isn't therefore his most songful, though he'd probably disagree, out of habit if nothing else. That's still 2002's criminally neglected Blowback, available as I write used and domestic for under a buck or new and imported for 45 of 'em. The thematic attack here is pretty surgical, cutting most of the time to the gangsta life he's so glad he sidestepped as a youth. The individual pieces are well-defined by his muzzy standards. And the usual lineup of vocal guests you never heard of–in this case Kingston hard Terry Lynn, London patois-slinger Blackman, Tricky's reformed little brother Marlon, Bobby (from Primal Scream, you remember), and most prominently Irish-Italian belle Frankie Riley–certainly stick up for themselves. But things only get catchy when an Arabic speaker who turns out to be Rachid Taha's guitarist–not even backup singer!–grabs the album by the throat and is followed by Riley taking up a "big underground tune" from when Tricky was a teen. It goes "Shiny gun, shiny gun, shiny gun, right now." He can still remember some thug scaring him silly by singing it to him in a shop that happened to stand on disputed turf.

Review by Robert Christgau

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Tricky - Mixed Race (2010) [Repost]

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Tricky - Mixed Race (2010) [Repost]

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