TRICKY
Corn
Exchange, Brighton, Sat 24th May
Part
of the Brighton Festival
If
Tricky's still best known for trip-hop via his debut LP
'Maxinquaye' (1995), its true to form for him when
that album scarcely gets a look-in tonight. (Contributing precisely
one song, 'Overcome'.) His own opinions of the
genre may, ironically enough, be summed up by one of its other tracks
- 'Brand New You're Retro'. Feeling it quickly
became branded, he complained of going to the cinema to find all the ads had been given quasi-trip-hop soundtracks. (“That
was the end for me. My music had become McDonald's and I had to run
away from it. I could never make another album like
'Maxinquaye'.")
Of
course, as ever, to fit those cinema ads the sound of trip-hop was
twisted as much as it was stretched. Though the description of it as
a “cooler, late-night vibe” comes from Massive Attack's 3D, this ignores the important early
influence of Gary Clail and Tackhead, colliding post-punk and dance
at high impact. Alas the edgier, more disortienting side of the style
soon got edited out for a slightly beatier version of chill-out. Yet
'Maxinquay' in particular was characterised by
murky beats and slurred vocals, as if punch-drunk by life.
Six-and-a-half minute songs about being sectioned don't fit the
standard definition of chill-out.
Tricky
also has a strange overlap with the other great genre of that era,
grunge, even covering Nirvana's 'Something In the Way'.
Like Nirvana, many of his tracks sound like they might once have been
clean and anthemic, but fell into a disorienting fever dream before
they could be released.
But
'Maxinquay' was, in its own weird way, ornate –
in the way a collage artwork can juxtapose so many elements it builds
up into a kind of sensory overload. In fact, the cover art - a
collection of corroded surfaces, often covered with graffiti or the
residue of layers of torn posters - was a kind of
collage. (“Let me take you down the corridors of my life”, was
perhaps the key lyric, like his mind was a labrynthine delapidated
mansion even though when he wrote those words he probably lived in a
bedsit.) It marshalled the insistent power of repetiton, but normally
the 'artificial' repetition of samples on repeat, not the 'natural'
samples of re-struck chords.
Whereas
here everything which isn't strictly functional is discarded. The
music's boiled-down, lyrics often reduced to a few repeated phrases.
And the rock-totem guitar becomes a prominent instrument, with as
many tracks riff-driven as beat-based. There's more Link Wray to it
than there is Massive Attack. And, always a contrary bugger and
averse to being labelled a black artist, it may be part-wilfulness on
Tricky's part to be taking up so white a style.
Then
two-thirds through an already intense set, he summarily dismisses his
co-vocalist. (Who had previously seemed to be doing most of the
work.) And things grow more intense still, like we'd already taken
the mixer out of the spirits and now start on the neat alcohol. He
skitters across the stage like a twitching spider, clutching at his
clothes, a mike in each hand, head jerking between them.
The
length of tracks seems not just sprawling but almost arbitrary, at
least in the sense of developing as compositions. 'Vent',
just over three minutes in the studio, stretched to forever. It has
more of a ritual element, like the drums in voodoo the purpose of the
track is to install some trance state upon everyone, and it'll keep
going until it gets there. Which is probably another way of saying
the tracks are tracks, in their purest form.
It's
only the second time I've seen Tricky, and with many years between,
but there is the same weird energy to things. He occasionally speaks
to the audience, even thanks us for showing up, but mostly seems lost
to some private episode, frequently turning away, at times not even
thinking to hold the mike to his mouth. (“On my own again”
becomes a repeated lyric.) It can sit strangely with a Saturday night
crowd, large numbers of whom look dressed to go clubbing later. (And
there was, alas, no shortage of audience wankers.)
It
is, saying it can't be avoided, much the same weird energy you can
feel radiating from a crazy guy in the street. But equally Tricky has
often said he finds a fixation with his mental health be racist, and
perhaps it is the cultural equivalent to the way higher numbers of
black people get sectioned. He's often at pains to point out “on stage I'm a different
person, very aggressive, very tense... I shake my head and the little
lights start blurring, so I'm having trips and dreams. It's almost
speaking in tongues.” There is of course a world of difference
between being able to channel some force and having your life
overwhelmed by it. Dali famously said “the only difference between
me and a madman is that I am not mad”. And that difference is
important.
There
are those who dismiss trip-hop, and all who sailed in it, as some
Nineties fad. Like Blairism, something which just seemed a good idea
at the time. And yet Tricky's still here, unbound to the sound he
sprang from, and as strange and intense as ever.
The
afore-mentioned 'Vent', though not from Brighton.
There may not appear much to look at in this clip. But there often
isn't with Tricky gigs. They go in for mood lighting, in the main...
TINARIWEN
Concorde
2, Brighton, Wed 27th May
In
one of his last ever interviews, the late great Captain Beefheart
explained his reason for relocating to the desert – he found it
“subtle”. His was not always an easy mind to guess. But what I
think he meant was the place that looked to the outsider like a
featureless expanse was, to the attuned eye, anything but.
And
the desert blues of Malian band Tinawriwen (the name meaning
“deserts” in their Tuareg language) seems similar. It's not as
dynamic as conventional rock music, pretty much eschewing breaks and
bursts for a continuous flow, one section blending smoothly into the
next. And if a river metaphor seems to be shaping up there, let's
pursue it. The surface of their tracks isn't always lively, they
proceed at a measured rate and can appear placid. Something
accentuated by the way both main set and encore were given a slow
incline, starting with steady chant and a solo acoustic guitar
respectively. But the longer you listen, the more you feel
undercurrents are starting to hook you. The choral vocals, the guitar
lines first seem mantra-like in their repetitivenessm but start to
sound more intricate and interwoven as they progress. (I am not sure
how many rivers there are in the deserts of Mali. Just go with it,
okay?)
And
in fact I later discovered this passage from
their website bio:
“The
desert is a place of hardship and subtle beauty, a stark world that
reveals its secrets slowly and carefully... For Saharan blues band
Tinariwen, the desert is their home, and their hypnotic and
electrifying guitar rock reflects complex realities of their
homebase.”
Not
to over-generalise about the music of a continent, but John Peel once
said of Zimbabwean band the Bundhu Boys that their music seemed to be
coming up from the ground and passing through them. Similarly, rather
than unleashing a barrage of power chords, Tinariwen seemed linked to
some ceaseless energy source. You felt they could have played two or
three times as long, had they been someplace which could accommodate.
Of
course it's possible to be cynical about the whole 'world music'
industry. It often feels like people are liking the sort of thing
they think they should like. It can suggest rich
hippies listening to their expensive steroes, and convincing
themselves the process attunes them to the Global south. (The Dead
Kennedy's famous “ethnicy jazz to parade your snazz.”) But one
cool thing about Tinariwen, and perhaps desert blues in general, is
that it's not music which is particularly interested in
'authenticity'. Though the drummer slaps traditional African drums,
the rest utilise electric guitars. (Founder member Ibrahim Ag Alhabib allegedly built his first guitar, after seeing one in actionin a Western film.) They cite as influences the folk music of Mali, but also Arabic pop,
Led Zeppelin, Bob Marley and (ulp!) Dire Straits. And seeing them in
a rock venue like the Concorde, not some sedate arts centre, feels
appropriate. First and foremost, they're a great live band.
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