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Track List
01) Overcome
02) Ponderosa
03) Black Steel
04) Hell Is Round the Corner
05) Pumpkin
06) Aftermath
07) Abbaon Fat Tracks
08) Brand New You're Retro
09) Suffocated Love
10) You Don't
11) Strugglin'
12) Feed Me
Cd 2
01) Pumpkin (edit)
02) Moody Broody Buddhist Camp
03) Brand New You're Retro (Alex Reece remix)
04) Pumpkin (ambient)
01) Overcome
02) Ponderosa
03) Black Steel
04) Hell Is Round the Corner
05) Pumpkin
06) Aftermath
07) Abbaon Fat Tracks
08) Brand New You're Retro
09) Suffocated Love
10) You Don't
11) Strugglin'
12) Feed Me
Cd 2
01) Pumpkin (edit)
02) Moody Broody Buddhist Camp
03) Brand New You're Retro (Alex Reece remix)
04) Pumpkin (ambient)
4:30
3:31
5:40
3:47
4:31
7:39
4:27
2:54
4:53
4:39
6:39
4:04
4:07
5:18
4:51
4:44
Data Complete
70%
Total Rating
70%Total Rating
(2 users)
Back Cover
CD Art
3D Case
3D Thumb
3D Flat
3D Face
3D Spine
First Released
1995
Trip Hop
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Urban/R&B
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Album
0 copies
Album Description
Available in:
Maxinquaye is the debut album of the English musician Tricky, released in 1995. Expanding on the sonic template of fellow Bristolians Massive Attack, and featuring then-girlfriend Martina Topley-Bird on vocals, Maxinquaye is a dark, mysterious album featuring a combination of hip-hop, soul, dub, rock and electronica.
Maxinquaye, named after Tricky's late mother Maxine Quaye, received critical acclaim. The album was re-issued in the UK on 2 November 2009 by Universal Island with a second disc of remixes as a "Deluxe Edition".
Tricky chose Mark Saunders as co-producer of the album due to his previous work with The Cure on the albums Wish and Mixed Up, and they recorded the album in the first half of 1994 at Tricky's home studio, with later work done at the Loveshack and Eastcote studios in Notting Hill, London.
The sessions for the album were somewhat chaotic, and Saunders, who had the impression that he would serve as an engineer, frequently found himself serving as a DJ and programmer. Tricky frequently instructed him on what to sample, regardless of different tempos and pitches, and asked him to piece the result together, something Saunders achieved by pitch-shifting the respective samples.
Various contributors were occasionally called in to play instruments, such as guitarist James Stevenson, bassist Pete Briquette, the band FTV (on "Black Steel"). The producer Saunders contributed guitar himself, with the resulting improvisations treated as samples. Adding to the free-form atmosphere of the sessions, Martina Topley-Bird's vocals were recorded in the first take without any planning beforehand.
User Album Review
Bristol rapper Adrian Thaws, aka Tricky (once he’d dropped the cumbersome "Kid" from his moniker), was hardly an unknown force when he released this debut album in early 1995. His whispered, husky vocals had appeared on Massive Attack’s 1991 disc Blue Lines, and he featured again on the trio’s next LP, 94’s Protection. Maxinquaye, though, was something else. It’s hard to imagine how he could have stepped out of Massive Attack’s shadow in a more dramatic fashion.
Named after the artist’s late mother, Maxinquaye is a (quite deliberately) suffocating delight of oily beats and murky atmospherics, bruised lyricism and crafty samples. Tricky relishes his frontman role, that much is clear from a venomous turn on Brand New You’re Retro (which lifts from Michael Jackson’s Bad) and the man’s captivating performance on Hell Is Round the Corner, which rides the same Isaac Hayes sample as Portishead’s Glory Box (which was released as a single just weeks before Maxinquaye hit shelves). But he’s not quite flying solo here, as his then-girlfriend Martina Topley-Bird steals the spotlight on a series of numbers. And it’s the collision of these vocal styles – one croaky and smoky, one silky smooth but able to bear teeth when called upon – that drives this album to the classic status it today enjoys.
And rightly so, too. Trip hop had reached its creative zenith in the mid-90s, and it was Portishead’s Dummy and this collection that gave the sub-genre its twin pillars of demonstrable brilliance. (The next contender would not appear until 1998, in the shape of Massive Attack’s awesomely claustrophobic Mezzanine.) But while Dummy was an unlikely hit with the coffee table set, Maxinquaye’s oppressive production and oblique lyrics ensured it bypassed cocktail party playlists. It was – it is – intoxicatingly deep, with too many moments of malevolence-meets-melancholy magic to summarise in just a handful of paragraphs. And if that sounds like a cop-out, it partially is: returning to this album is like meeting an ex-lover you last saw a lifetime ago. You want to hold onto the memories, not scatter them amongst the detritus of the present day. Because these songs are possessed by a wicked beauty rarely glimpsed since, in the work of Tricky or any other artist; a beauty intrinsically tied to time and place.
Maxinquaye was both Melody Maker’s and NME’s album of the year in 1995. It was nominated for the Mercury Prize in the same year (losing out to Dummy). Magazines Q, Rolling Stone, Spin and Village Voice scored it incredibly highly. It has a five-star rating at AllMusic.com. So while it’s far from the easiest of listens, even so long after its release, this set is as essential to any record collection as Pet Sounds, Purple Rain and Paul’s Boutique. Believe the critical consensus, as in this instance it’s entirely accurate.
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User Comments
Available in:
Maxinquaye is the debut album of the English musician Tricky, released in 1995. Expanding on the sonic template of fellow Bristolians Massive Attack, and featuring then-girlfriend Martina Topley-Bird on vocals, Maxinquaye is a dark, mysterious album featuring a combination of hip-hop, soul, dub, rock and electronica.
Maxinquaye, named after Tricky's late mother Maxine Quaye, received critical acclaim. The album was re-issued in the UK on 2 November 2009 by Universal Island with a second disc of remixes as a "Deluxe Edition".
Tricky chose Mark Saunders as co-producer of the album due to his previous work with The Cure on the albums Wish and Mixed Up, and they recorded the album in the first half of 1994 at Tricky's home studio, with later work done at the Loveshack and Eastcote studios in Notting Hill, London.
The sessions for the album were somewhat chaotic, and Saunders, who had the impression that he would serve as an engineer, frequently found himself serving as a DJ and programmer. Tricky frequently instructed him on what to sample, regardless of different tempos and pitches, and asked him to piece the result together, something Saunders achieved by pitch-shifting the respective samples.
Various contributors were occasionally called in to play instruments, such as guitarist James Stevenson, bassist Pete Briquette, the band FTV (on "Black Steel"). The producer Saunders contributed guitar himself, with the resulting improvisations treated as samples. Adding to the free-form atmosphere of the sessions, Martina Topley-Bird's vocals were recorded in the first take without any planning beforehand.
User Album Review
Bristol rapper Adrian Thaws, aka Tricky (once he’d dropped the cumbersome "Kid" from his moniker), was hardly an unknown force when he released this debut album in early 1995. His whispered, husky vocals had appeared on Massive Attack’s 1991 disc Blue Lines, and he featured again on the trio’s next LP, 94’s Protection. Maxinquaye, though, was something else. It’s hard to imagine how he could have stepped out of Massive Attack’s shadow in a more dramatic fashion.
Named after the artist’s late mother, Maxinquaye is a (quite deliberately) suffocating delight of oily beats and murky atmospherics, bruised lyricism and crafty samples. Tricky relishes his frontman role, that much is clear from a venomous turn on Brand New You’re Retro (which lifts from Michael Jackson’s Bad) and the man’s captivating performance on Hell Is Round the Corner, which rides the same Isaac Hayes sample as Portishead’s Glory Box (which was released as a single just weeks before Maxinquaye hit shelves). But he’s not quite flying solo here, as his then-girlfriend Martina Topley-Bird steals the spotlight on a series of numbers. And it’s the collision of these vocal styles – one croaky and smoky, one silky smooth but able to bear teeth when called upon – that drives this album to the classic status it today enjoys.
And rightly so, too. Trip hop had reached its creative zenith in the mid-90s, and it was Portishead’s Dummy and this collection that gave the sub-genre its twin pillars of demonstrable brilliance. (The next contender would not appear until 1998, in the shape of Massive Attack’s awesomely claustrophobic Mezzanine.) But while Dummy was an unlikely hit with the coffee table set, Maxinquaye’s oppressive production and oblique lyrics ensured it bypassed cocktail party playlists. It was – it is – intoxicatingly deep, with too many moments of malevolence-meets-melancholy magic to summarise in just a handful of paragraphs. And if that sounds like a cop-out, it partially is: returning to this album is like meeting an ex-lover you last saw a lifetime ago. You want to hold onto the memories, not scatter them amongst the detritus of the present day. Because these songs are possessed by a wicked beauty rarely glimpsed since, in the work of Tricky or any other artist; a beauty intrinsically tied to time and place.
Maxinquaye was both Melody Maker’s and NME’s album of the year in 1995. It was nominated for the Mercury Prize in the same year (losing out to Dummy). Magazines Q, Rolling Stone, Spin and Village Voice scored it incredibly highly. It has a five-star rating at AllMusic.com. So while it’s far from the easiest of listens, even so long after its release, this set is as essential to any record collection as Pet Sounds, Purple Rain and Paul’s Boutique. Believe the critical consensus, as in this instance it’s entirely accurate.
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