The magical world of trip-hop

The Bristol-born, cool fusion of hip hop and electronic music, soaked in downtempo beats, atmospheric sounds, and shaky with psilocybin-infused basslines, came to be labeled “trip-hop” by music journalist Andy Pemberton in 1994.

Credit must be given where credit is due. In 1973, in the Bronx neighborhood of New York City, DJ Kool Herc got the genius idea to scratch vinyls together to extend the instrumental parts of disco songs, creating a new kind of dance music: hip-hop was born. In the later 1970s, the pioneering works of electronic and rap music DJ Afrika Bambataa, as well as of Grandmaster Flash, who invented the groundbreaking technique of using two copies of the same vinyl to elongate drum breaks, built on DJ Kool Herc’s foundation, leading to the creation of what we today know as modern music.

How does this relate to the underground Bristolian 1990s scene, you may ask? Well, the DJs in the underground British electronic music scene had gotten by then into the habit of mixing – literally, mixing on a turntable – these techniques imported from overseas with downtempo, a kind of laidback and heavy drum beat, producing a slower version of typical hip-hop beats.

Tempting though it may be, tracing the entire history of trip-hop from its conception to its current legacy would be impossible, so we must content ourselves with talking about three separate albums that marked the history of the genre.

Massive Attack, Blue Lines (1991)

This 1991 record is considered by many as the first true trip-hop album. The surreal superposition of hip-hop, electronic music, funk, soul, and reggae creates a stretched-out sound, with its repetitive bass lines, that nevertheless retains an edge through the stark vintage hip-hoppy percussions it relies on.

According to Grant “Daddy G” Marshall, one of the founding members of the band, this album was born out of a desire to “create dance music for the head, rather than the feet”. Indeed, “Blue Lines” is better listened to through headphones, otherwise you might miss some of the sleek nuances, resonances, and echoes embedded in the smooth melodies.

The title track mixes a smooth jazzy sound, reminiscent of a dimly lit cocktail bar, with a whispery British-accented slam rap, making for a good listen. The high point of the record, however, is arguably not “Blue Lines” but “Unfinished Sympathy”. The song begins with the bare beats from a bass drum and the quick tick of a metronome, on top of which a voice goes, “Shh”, immediately followed by a record scratch. Then, the rich strings of an orchestra. While the incorporation of classical music on a 1991 record is unusual, it adds so much feeling and grace to the track that it instantly makes sense. Perhaps this is the essence of trip-hop: weird music born out of weird combinations.

Portishead, Dummy (1994)

So mellow, so atmospheric is the movie soundtrack-friendly music of Portishead! The band’s 1994 album Dummy, with its distinctive deep blue cover, and even more distinctive hit “Glory Box”, which has soundtracked many cinematic and real-life makeout sessions since its release, is perhaps the quintessential trip-hop album.

The production is finely chiselled, thanks to Geoff Barrow’s multi-instrumental skill and mastery at the art of sampling; the album’s ultra-iconic fan-favorite “Glory Box” samples Isaac Hayes’ “Ike’s Rap II”, even though it has since then surpassed it in terms of fame. Beth Gibbons’ voice, fraught with controlled emotion, is superposed with the trembling music of the electric guitar, which seems to develop a voice of its own, transforming the song into a duet.

The cinematic track “Sour Times”, second-most-iconic on this record, takes the sexy James Bond act a tad too far, leaning so far into the spy film vibe it almost becomes tacky. The reason for this is that they sampled Lalo Schifrin’s 1967 “Danube Incident”, a song from the Mission: Impossible espionage TV series.

The distorted guitar lines, the slinky, slow, and seductive rhythm, and deep basslines that make this album so immersive are layered with the unsettling and lonely themes it deals with. This is not just background music for having sex or for getting mildly plastered in a smoky hotel lobby: listen closely, and you might end up quite depressed. In the song “Numb”, Beth Gibbons, singer of Portishead, in a repeated cry of despair, sings “And this loneliness / It just won’t leave me alone”, while the music, slowed down and stretched out all the way to distorsion, creates a disturbing noise of instruments grinding against each other, taking the album’s vibe away from trendy bars and towards a sort of foggy discomfort, that grows to infinite sadness with the cold and grey “Roads”, the next track on the list.

Elsiane, Hybrid (2007)

Damned be those who say that trip-hop died at the end of the 1990s, because there is at least one record that carried its flame beyond the threshold of the century. This album, namely the Canadian duet Elsiane’s Hybrid, is a rare find even amongst music connoisseurs, and is usually made known to virgin ears thanks to the archives of inactive trip-hop blogs, and word-of-mouth from fellow enjoyers of this particular genre of music.

It is based on trip-hop’s traditional electronic-heavy aesthetics, slow tempos and heavy bass, but adapts them to a new emotional climate, more introspective than Massive Attack, and more futuristic than Portishead. This record delves into the ice-cold potential of trip-hop, stripping it back to its roots as music that is better listened through headphones. Singer Elsieanne Caplette’s high-pitched voice sounds alien, almost unsettling.

This album is recommended as a soundtrack for taking the Parisian metro on cold winter mornings, for leaning one’s hand against the window in the passenger seat of a car, for looking at the sea, or for when the sky takes on a light pink hue.

Where is it now?

So no, trip-hop did not die sometime around the turn of the millennium, nor did it quietly retire to a dusty record store crate labeled “90s nostalgia”. It simply went underground again, where it has always been most comfortable. I hope to have piqued your interest enough for you to give this genre a try; who knows, you might like it!