Nearly Tricky

Nearly God is Tricky's unofficial second album – he calls it a collection of brilliant, incomplete demos. When Tricky signed his contract with Island, it allowed him to release an album a year under a different name and Nearly God is the first of these efforts. Tricky recorded the record with a diverse cast of collaborators – in addition to his partner Martina, there's Terry Hall, Björk, Neneh Cherry, Cath Coffey, Dedi Madden, and Alison Moyet (Damon Albarn pulled his track just before the album's release). Building on the ghostly, dark soundscapes of Tricky's debut, Maxinquaye, Nearly God narrows the focus of his first record by making the music slower, hazier, and more distubing. It's not as coherent as Maxinquaye, but that's part of its appeal. Nearly God is a haunting, fractured, surreal nightmare that doesn't always make sense, but never fails to make an impact.

Maxinquaye was an unexpected hit in England, launching a wave of similar-sounding artists, who incorporated Tricky's innovations into safer pop territory. Tricky responded by travelling to Jamaica to record Pre-Millennium Tension, a nervy, claustrophobic record that thrives in its own paranoia. Scaling back the clattering hooks of Maxinquaye and slowing the beat down, Tricky has created a hallucinatory soundscape, where the rhythms, samples, and guitars intertwine into a crawling procession of menacing sounds and disembodied lyrical threats. Its tone is set by the backward guitar loops of "Vent," and continued through the shifting "Christiansands," and the tense, lyrically dense "Tricky Kid," easily Tricky's best straight rap to date. Occasionally, the gloom is broken, such as when the shimmering piano chords of "Makes Me Want to Die" ring out, but nearly as often, it becomes bogged down in its own murk, as in the long ragga rant "Ghetto Youth"…

Maxinquaye was an unexpected hit in England, launching a wave of similar-sounding artists, who incorporated Tricky's innovations into safer pop territory. Tricky responded by travelling to Jamaica to record Pre-Millennium Tension, a nervy, claustrophobic record that thrives in its own paranoia. Scaling back the clattering hooks of Maxinquaye and slowing the beat down, Tricky has created a hallucinatory soundscape, where the rhythms, samples, and guitars intertwine into a crawling procession of menacing sounds and disembodied lyrical threats. Its tone is set by the backward guitar loops of "Vent," and continued through the shifting "Christiansands," and the tense, lyrically dense "Tricky Kid," easily Tricky's best straight rap to date. Occasionally, the gloom is broken, such as when the shimmering piano chords of "Makes Me Want to Die" ring out, but nearly as often, it becomes bogged down in its own murk, as in the long ragga rant "Ghetto Youth"…

Collection includes: Ponderosa, Overcome, Pumpkin, The Hell EP, Grassroots EP, Nearly God - Poems, Christiansands, Makes Me Wanna Die, For Real, Mission Accomplished EP, Council Estate.

Originally, Tricky was a member of the Wild Bunch, a Bristol-based rap troupe that eventually metamorphosed into Massive Attack during the early '90s. Tricky provided pivotal raps on Massive Attack's groundbreaking 1992 album, Blue Lines. The following year, he released his debut single, "Aftermath." Before he recorded "Aftermath," he met a teenage vocalist named Martina, who would become his full-time musical collaborator; all albums released under Tricky's name feature her contributions…

Tricky - Pre-Millennium Tension (1996) {Island Records}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 275 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 109 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (tiff) -> 170 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1996 Island / 4th & Broadway | BRCD623/524302-2
Trip-Hop / Alternative / Electronica

Ranked #2 on Rolling Stone's list of the "Ten Best Albums" of 1996. Urbane and despairing, this trip-hop king's second album under his own name is a genuine fin-de-siecle concoction. Apocalyptic messages are projected over layers of gleaming noises and libidinous rhythms that lurk underneath the surface like secret cities. Although his songs are full of sinister, futuristic overtones, Tricky refuses to be cornered as a messianic spokesperson. No longer working under the moniker "Nearly God," and discontented with the role of anonymous auteur, he's the "Tricky Kid": simultaneously celebrating and bemoaning the musician-as-god paradigm.

Blowback is the sixth album by Tricky, released in 2001. Like Nearly God, Blowback contains several collaborations, but the album's sound is much brighter and more relaxed by comparison. Tricky himself said that he wanted to get airplay with this album, while most of his earlier albums were made to stay off the radio. Guest performers on Blowback include Flea, Anthony Kiedis, Josh Klinghoffer, and John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Cyndi Lauper, Alanis Morissette, Ed Kowalczyk and less known artists such as Hawkman, Stephanie McKay and Ambersunshower, with whom he already worked in 1996 for the charity compilation Childline. Limited edition reissue of 2001 album includes bonus CD featuring seven rare & unissued Tricky songs.

It's not sequenced in chronological order, but that's about the only flaw with Island's 2002 compilation, A Ruff Guide. Over the course of 17 tracks, the highlights from Tricky's Island albums unspool, hitting every single and many of the great album tracks (including cuts from the Nearly God album). Although this may seem like it'd be just for the fellow travelers – the kind of casual fan that just wants the hits – this is actually a very useful compilation for those that followed his career closely, since Tricky's albums after his brilliant debut Maxinquaye grew more erratic with each release. Therefore, this collection works really well as a collection of the moments where Tricky flashed his brilliance on uneven albums ("Broken Homes," "Tricky Kid," "For Real," among them). Yes, Maxinquaye is the masterpiece – one of the great, defining albums of the '90s – but as a summary of his uneven career this is excellent.