{"id":2097283,"date":"2026-08-17T11:39:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T08:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2097283"},"modified":"2026-08-17T11:39:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T08:39:00","slug":"a-rare-interview-with-tricky-bristols-trip-hop-phantom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2097283","title":{"rendered":"A rare interview with Tricky, Bristol\u2019s trip-hop phantom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[analyse_image type=&#8221;featured&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1200\/0-248-2000-1333\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1450\/1\/1451356.jpg&#8221;]<\/p>\n<article class=\"main-article longread\">\n<div class=\"article-main-content article-wrapper has-media-but-its-an-image\" data-status=\"loaded\" data-primary-article=\"true\" data-url=\"\/music\/article\/70811\/1\/tricky-interview-different-when-it-s-silent-new-album-trip-hop\" data-article-id=\"70811\">\n<header class=\"article-header has-portrait-image no-media\">\n<div class=\"wrapper dg-max-width\">\n<div class=\"inner\">\n<figure class=\"main-img has-figcaption\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"portrait\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"0.67\" data-template=\"Longread Article\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"portrait\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"_E5A2966_TRICKY 0326_Gullick\" class=\"img\" height=\"3000\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1280\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1450\/1\/1451356.jpg\" width=\"2000\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"inner\"><span class=\"credit\">Photography Steve Gullick<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<aside class=\"meta\">\n<div class=\"inner\"><time datetime=\"2026-08-17T11:39:00+00:00\" class=\"timestamp\" title=\"17 August 2026\"><span class=\"month\">DateInMeta<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"day\" data-day=\"17\">17,<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"year\">2026<\/span><\/time><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<div class=\"titles\">\n<div class=\"tags\">\n<div class=\"sections\"><a class=\"category vertical vertical - music\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/music\">Music<\/a><br \/>\n\/<br \/>\n<a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/feature\">Feature<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h1 class=\"title\"><span>A rare interview with Tricky, Bristol\u2019s <span class=\"nowrap\">trip-hop phantom<\/span><\/span><\/h1>\n<div class=\"standfirst\">\n<h2>In the wake of his latest album, Different When It\u2019s Silent, Emma Garland sits down with the elusive artist to discuss grief, the question of retirement, and quitting Massive Attack over a portion <span class=\"nowrap\">of chips<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<p><time datetime=\"2026-08-17T11:39:00+00:00\" class=\"timestamp\" title=\"17 August 2026\"><span class=\"month\">August<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"day\" data-day=\"17\">17,<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"year\">2026<\/span><\/time><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"tags\">\n<div class=\"sections\"><a class=\"category vertical - music\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/music\">Music<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/feature\">Feature<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><time datetime=\"2026-08-17T11:39:00+00:00\" class=\"timestamp\" title=\"17 August 2026\"><span class=\"month\">August<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"day\" data-day=\"17\">17,<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"year\">2026<\/span><\/time><\/p>\n<div class=\"providers\">\n<div class=\"contributors\"><span class=\"contributor\" data-contributor-role=\"Text\"><span class=\"contributor-role\">Text<\/span><a class=\"contributor-name\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/user\/EmmaGarland\"><br \/>\nEmma Garland<br \/>\n<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"article-body-container\">\n<div class=\"article-body wrapper\">\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>\u201cI\u2019d rather shoot myself in the foot, to be honest with you,\u201d Tricky grins. I\u2019ve just asked the trip-hop trailblazer how he strikes a balance between staying true to himself and <\/span><em><span>not<\/span><\/em><span> shooting himself in the foot. I don\u2019t know what other answer I expected to receive.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>For those who weren\u2019t around to observe Tricky\u2019s ascent in the mid-1990s, his 2019 autobiography <\/span><em><span>Hell Is Round the Corner <\/span><\/em><span>offers a comprehensive, no-holds-barred account of an artist who has been both incredibly successful and staunchly principled in his own way. This is a guy who, for instance, did two months in prison at 17 (after being caught with forged \u00a350 notes) rather than watch his nan beg the judge for leniency, and who knew he\u2019d end up leaving Massive Attack when they wouldn\u2019t lend him \u00a32.50 for food at a service station. \u201cWhere I grew up, they would steal that money so I could eat,\u201d he writes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201c\u00a32.50 for sausage and chips\u2026\u201d he scoffs now, his Bristolian accent still as thick as if he\u2019d lived there his whole life, rather than bouncing around London, North America, Berlin and his current residence in the south of France. \u201cTo me that\u2019s just like, \u2018you ain\u2019t my mate then, are you?\u2019 I\u2019m not money oriented at all, but little things like that it\u2019s like, \u2018what are we doing here?\u2019\u201d He fell in with Robert Del Naja and Grant Marshall when he was 19 years old, having come from nothing, financially speaking. \u201cAnd then the judge watching my nan beg, I thought, \u2018Nah, fuck this, I can\u2018t be bothered.\u2019 Because it\u2018s a game, innit? So I just can\u2018t be bothered with it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Tricky, real name Adrian Thaws, is right up there with Banksy, Black Roots and cider as one of Bristol\u2019s most significant cultural exports. Raised in a mixed race family in the tight-knit, rough neck neighbourhood of Knowle West, he cut his teeth as an MC for The Wild Bunch sound system, which later evolved into Massive Attack, helping to pioneer what is now referred to as \u201cthe Bristol sound.\u201d Though he rejected the \u201ctrip-hop\u201d label at the time \u2013 and still does \u2013 Tricky is nevertheless revered as one of its primary architects. His debut album <\/span><em><span>Maxinquaye<\/span><\/em><span> stands as one of if not <\/span><em><span>the<\/span><\/em><span> defining album of the genre; a strange, nocturnal collage of hip-hop, dub, downtempo soul, ambient and post-punk held together by whispered tales of interior nightmares and societal deterioration.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cI don\u2019t believe there\u2018s such a thing as a Bristol sound,\u201d Tricky shrugs now, hand-rolling a cigarette and blowing smoke out the window at the Creation Records office in Soho on a blistering afternoon in mid-July. \u201cIf I were to say that Bristol had a sound it would be reggae, because it\u2019s an old sound system place, but the stuff that happens now? I\u2019d say that\u2019s just music.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"src-youtube video-container embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"media-youtube\" data-id=\"E3R_3h6zQEs\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allowfullscreen frameborder height=\"900\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/E3R_3h6zQEs\" webkitallowfullscreen width=\"1600\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>Named after his mother, who died by suicide when he was four years old, <\/span><em><span>Maxinquaye <\/span><\/em><span>put Tricky and his now-lifelong collaborator Martina Topley-Bird on the map, earning a gold certification, a Mercury Prize nomination, and the adoration of music critics on both sides of the Atlantic. They responded by never making another album like it ever again, opting for experimentation over tried and tested acclaim, and a version of success defined by artistic freedom over major label metrics.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Spiritually, Tricky has always fallen more in line with punk than anything else. That non-conformist streak is partly why he\u2019s been able to tour with everyone from Gravediggaz to Tool; collaborate with a broad church of artists including Bjork, Terry Hall, Grace Jones, David Essex, PJ Harvey and Cyndi Lauper; and land a major supporting role in Luc Besson\u2019s psychedelic sci-fi <\/span><em><span>The<\/span><\/em><em><span>Fifth Element<\/span><\/em><span>. Even at 58, his sinewy 5ft 6in frame vibrates with the kind of raw, unpredictable energy that might burst out at any moment, like too many clothes stuffed into a suitcase. He cuts an incongruous figure in the Creation Records office in a yellow net polo shirt and cream cords, flanked by a tower of unworn Carhartt hats and a fancy candle, sitting in a desk chair the way those who are deeply unsuited to 9-5 desk work do: awkwardly. The glint in his eye when he talks about scribbling what could be described as early poems with crayon on his great grandmother\u2019s concrete floor as a kid, or his disdain for musicians who \u201cintellectualise everything,\u201d gives off the same aura of mischief.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><span>\u201cThat\u2019s my definition of success. Being able to do whatever I want to do musically, on my own terms, and people support me\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span>The rejection of the spotlight brought by <\/span><em><span>Maxinquaye<\/span><\/em><span> is one of many moments in a decades-long career in which Tricky has been presented with a clear run to fame, and bolted in the opposite direction. Live, he has always performed antisocially, with his back to the audience and minimal stage lighting \u2013 a choice which divides fans to this day. He quit Massive Attack in 1995, just as they were blowing up, over creative differences (in addition to the chips thing). When devoted fan David Bowie wrote a short, delirious piece of fiction about meeting Tricky for <\/span><em><span>Q Magazine<\/span><\/em><span> and then reached out directly, Tricky never pursued the potentially fruitful connection. \u201cIt was all too fast\u2026\u201d he <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/tricky-david-bowie-opens-up-mental-health-struggle\/\"><span>reflected<\/span><\/a><span>, with some regret, in 2023. Still, you might argue that, for Bowie at least, the lived experience rang true to the fantasy, and was therefore the ideal outcome. \u201cThe phantom was known to move as a group of one,\u201d Bowie <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.moon-palace.de\/tricky\/q95.html\"><span>wrote<\/span><\/a><span> in <\/span><em><span>Q<\/span><\/em><span>.<\/span><span> \u201cNever took prisoners. You\u2018d never catch him snorting vodka at the bar. You\u2018d never catch him period, I\u2018d been told. A shaman who\u2018d never slept with the Others, he was still pure, his spells unblemished.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201c[Creation Records co-founder] Alan McGee said to me once, \u2018You know what I like about you? You\u2019re not a celebrity,\u2019\u201d Tricky ponders now. \u201cSo I think that\u2019s [my definition of] success. Being able to do whatever I want to do musically, on my own terms, and people support me.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Case in point: his most recent single, \u201cOut of Place,\u201d made its way onto BBC radio A-Lists despite being a wandering melancholic orchestral arrangement that makes a sharp u-turn into grinding post-punk without a chorus, or any vocals for the first 35 seconds. \u201cIt\u2019s not a radio song at all,\u201d he marvels. \u201cI think sometimes as artists we want to be the biggest, to sell the most tickets, the most records\u2026 But that to me is success.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"src-youtube video-container embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"media-youtube\" data-id=\"7rT2jZnA6UA\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allowfullscreen frameborder height=\"900\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7rT2jZnA6UA\" webkitallowfullscreen width=\"1600\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>\u201cOut of Place\u201d is the last track on Tricky\u2019s latest album, <\/span><em><span>Different When It\u2019s Silent<\/span><\/em><span>. Released independently through his own False Idols label, it\u2019s Thaws\u2019 first album as Tricky since 2020\u2019s <\/span><em><span>Fall To Pieces<\/span><\/em><span>, which was made in the wake of his daughter\u2019s sudden death in 2019. (Mina Topley-Bird took her own life on the ward of an NHS adult psychiatric hospital in Darlington; an inquest into her death ruled that there had been a failure in care. She was just 24.)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>It\u2019s not that Thaws hasn\u2019t kept himself busy in the last six years; he worked on a collaborative album with producer Mike Theis under the name Theis Thaws, a joint album with collaborator Marta Z\u0142akowska, and put together an all-star 2021 project under the name Lonely Guest, which included contributions from Idles\u2019 Joe Talbot, Murkage Dave, Max\u00efmo Park\u2019s Paul Smith, and, Lee \u201cScratch\u201d Perry. But, crucially, side projects can come without the strings of press, music videos or touring attached to a Tricky release. \u201cI wouldn\u2018t say I was reluctant to release music under my own name. But I wasn\u2018t that interested, to be honest. I didn\u2018t have the motivation,\u201d he explains.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em><span>Different When It\u2019s Silent <\/span><\/em><span>was also conceived as a side project. It was McGee, now his manager, who convinced him to put it out as Tricky upon hearing the material, deeming it the artist\u2019s best work since <\/span><em><span>Maxinquaye<\/span><\/em><span>. So here we are, and here is the album \u2013 a brooding, uranium-heavy meditation on grief slash celebration of life that marks his \u201cfirst indie rock \/ grunge album\u201d and holds Mina\u2019s presence throughout. On \u201cOut of Place\u201d \u2013 which originally appeared on Marta Z\u0142akowska\u2019s album <\/span><em><span>When It\u2019s Going Wrong <\/span><\/em><span>(2023) under a different title, sung by the Polish vocalist \u2013 Tricky reclaims lyrics as a powerful declaration of fatherly love: \u201cI\u2019m singing, I sing for my daughter.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Incidentally, <\/span><em><span>Different When It\u2019s Silent <\/span><\/em><span>is the first Tricky album to feature mostly male vocals. Whether it\u2019s Martina, Marta, or any of his other collaborators, the texture of Tricky\u2019s discography has been largely mapped by women, regardless of the fact that it\u2019s the low, slow murmur of Thaws\u2019 voice that people most associate with it. On this album, though, he takes a backseat. The most definitive voice on the record belongs to the young, fellow Bristolian singer-songwriter Mitch Sanders (even if he does sing in a somewhat androgynous register, with reviewers comparing it to Portishead\u2019s Beth Gibbons). On earlier versions of the album, Thaws\u2019 voice was completely absent.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cI didn\u2019t realise it at the time, but a lot of the lyrics are about my daughter,\u201d Tricky says of the decision. \u201cThe lyrics [to \u2018Out of Place\u2019] are the same ones I wrote for Marta on \u2018Moving Through Water\u2019, but when they\u2019re sung by a man it has a totally different perspective. So I think it was subconsciously knowing that this is about my daughter, and thinking, like, \u2018Marta can\u2019t sing for me on this one.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"inline-img expandable dev-view-hide\" data-img=\"82cbf76c-5ef8-40d5-b629-b4a9009c9131\" data-src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/2000\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1450\/1\/1451357.jpg\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"1.5\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Tricky\" class=\"img\" height=\"2000\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1600\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1450\/1\/1451357.jpg\" width=\"3000\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"credit\">Photography Steve Gullick<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><em><span>Different When It\u2019s Silent <\/span><\/em><span>has been released into a zeitgeist in the throes of rediscovering trip-hop and downtempo, with the biggest acts of the 90s circulating on TikTok, and a new generation of songwriters and producers retooling its paranoid signifiers for the present-day digital dystopia. In spirit, it\u2019s perhaps Tricky who most faithfully meets youth culture where it\u2019s currently at \u2013 with his historic lack of adherence to genre, and the gender fluidity that has been an organic presence in both his music and presentation since the start, when he and Martina Topley-Bird appeared on the cover of \u201cOvercome\u201d dressed like a bride and groom; Martina in a top hat clutching flowers, Tricky in a wedding dress and smudged red lipstick wielding two pistols. (He describes in his memoir how, as a kid, he\u2019d pick out dresses in charity shops and wear them out raving in Bristol.) It was never an attempt to be deliberately subversive though, he says. Rather, if he likes an item of clothing it simply doesn&#8217;t occur to him to care about what section of the shop it comes from. He still does that now. The cords he has on today are women\u2018s, he notes. \u201cFrom the 60s.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Rather than being re-upped by the algorithm, Tricky reckons most of the younger fans he\u2019s met on tour have come through word of mouth. \u201cI&#8217;ve got a lot of young people in my shows \u2013 but they\u2019re not finding me through revivalism, it\u2019s through their family,\u201d he explains. \u201cI met a girl in Russia whose granddad played her my music, because her dad had played it to her grandad who then passed it back down to her. So I get a lot of that, people playing it to their kids or parents.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>That might be because, despite supposedly \u201cinventing\u201d it, the trip-hop label is one Tricky has largely succeeded in shrugging off. \u201cThe Bristol sound, the Manchester sound, the Liverpool sound\u2026 It\u2018s just a marketing tool. And one of the problems Bristol has is that we\u2019re so obsessed with the past,\u201d he says. \u201cI love what Bristol\u2018s done and I love being Bristolian, but people tend to live off of what happened 30 years ago. You get people who weren\u2018t even around then obsessed with it. But there\u2019s a younger generation of talented people there too, and I think working with new artists is more interesting than talking about war stories.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cIt\u2019s great to love the past,\u201d he concludes. \u201cBut if you\u2019re too invested in it, then there ain\u2019t no future.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"src-youtube video-container embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"media-youtube\" data-id=\"Api8tCZu5rs\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allowfullscreen frameborder height=\"900\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Api8tCZu5rs\" webkitallowfullscreen width=\"1600\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>That said, not even Tricky is totally immune to the nostalgia industry. Last year a re-recorded version of <\/span><em><span>Maxinquaye <\/span><\/em><span>was released to mark its 30th anniversary, followed by the <\/span><em><span>Maxinquaye Reincarnated<\/span><\/em><span> tour that reworked what is still considered to be his greatest work. Though in reality, if you ask around, everyone has their own darling. <\/span><em><span>Angels<\/span><\/em><span> and <\/span><em><span>Pre-Millennium Tension<\/span><\/em><span> were panned by critics at the time of release, but they\u2019ve gone on to become cult classics. Someone told him the other day that their favourite album is 2001\u2019s <\/span><em><span>Blowback<\/span><\/em><span>, once regarded by critic Jeffrey Thiessen as \u201ca great pop album nobody liked.\u201d <\/span><em><span>Is <\/span><\/em><span>there an album he\u2019s most proud of, though, I ask? He furrows his brow and curtly replies, \u201cNo.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>That\u2019s not the point, you see. For Tricky, every release has to be better than the last. It\u2019s all about forward momentum. <\/span><em><span>Different When It\u2019s Silent<\/span><\/em><span> just came out, and he\u2019s already over it. He\u2019s thinking about working on Marta\u2019s next album in October, and with Mitch Sanders on his album at the end of the year.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cI\u2019m not proud [of my music], but I\u2019m happy that it\u2019s there for people,\u201d he reflects. He recalls a moment of ennui once, years ago, while touring North America at the height of his commercial success. \u201cOne day I was on the tour bus by myself, smoking a spliff and thinking, \u2018Alright, so, I\u2019m wealthy, I travel the world, I can go in the studio anytime I want\u2026 but what\u2019s this all about? Is this it?\u2019\u201d But then later that day, his drummer asked him to sign a CD for a nurse who worked on a children\u2019s burn unit. Shortly after, in Texas, he visited a man in a coma whose parents had reached out to say was a fan, and they played his music to him in the hospital. When he was on tour with Tool, a pregnant lady approached him and thanked him for his music. More recently, a girl came up to him after a show in Berlin and said his music helped her through a crisis.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cThat stuff is why I\u2019m here, I think. That\u2019s what it\u2019s about,\u201d he says. \u201cAll the travelling et cetera is a bonus.\u201d <em>Maxinquaye<\/em>, then, matters insofar as it matters to other people, but it doesn\u2019t really matter to him. \u201cBeing stuck on one album? It\u2019s not about that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The glint in his eye flashes again, like sunlight passing over a blade, when he recalls one of his previous managers advising him to put money away for when he retires. \u201cI said \u2018Mate, retire from what? You don\u2019t retire from music. What are you talking about?\u2019\u201d he says, still incredulous. He points to Lee \u201cScratch\u201d Perry, who did a six week coast-to-coast tour of America\u00a0at the age of 82 \u2013 a damn sight older than Tricky is now. \u201cI can understand someone not wanting to tour anymore, or doing press, but retire? That\u2019s impossible.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>You do it because you have to, I offer.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cWell, yeah,\u201d he says, like I just told him water is wet. Like it\u2019s the most obvious thing in the world. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing else <\/span><em><span>to<\/span><\/em><span> do.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span> Different When It\u2019s Silent<em> is out now.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<footer class=\"article-footer\">\n<div class=\"article-series header tags\"><span class=\"heading\">More on these topics:<\/span><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/music\">Music<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/feature\">Feature<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/massive-attack\">massive attack<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/bristol\">Bristol<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/rap\">rap<\/a><\/div>\n<\/footer>\n<div class=\"grid split-list__header\">\n<div class=\"section-header\">\n<div class=\"section-header__link\">\n<h2 class=\"section-header__title\">Trending<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<section class=\"split-list-scene\" data-split-scene>\n<section class=\"split-list\" id=\"trending\" data-split>\n<div class=\"split-list__layout\" aria-label=\"Trending\">\n<div class=\"split-list__feature\"><a class=\"split-hero\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/70804\/1\/why-is-gen-z-ghost-posting-on-instagram\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"split-hero__media\"><span class=\"image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"1333\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/640\/0-0-1080-720\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1450\/1\/1451265.jpg\"><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"split-hero__panel\">\n<div class=\"split-hero__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"split-hero__title\">Is the grid dead? 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Culture<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"split-rail-card__title card-latest__title\">The next generation of tradwives is already spawning<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a class=\"split-rail-card card-latest\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/music\/article\/70809\/1\/the-saddest-phoebe-bridger-s-songs-ranked-lost-weekend\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"split-rail-card__img-wrapper card-latest__img-wrapper\"><span class=\"image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Photography Olof Grind\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/640\/0-187-2999-1999\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1450\/1\/1451329.jpeg\"><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"split-rail-card__content card-latest__content\"><span class=\"split-rail-card__ribbon card-latest__ribbon\">Music<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"split-rail-card__title card-latest__title\">The 9 saddest Phoebe Bridgers songs, ranked<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a class=\"split-rail-card card-latest\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\/article\/70794\/1\/remembering-wet-the-magazine-that-made-a-splash-in-70s-la\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"split-rail-card__img-wrapper card-latest__img-wrapper\"><span class=\"image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"WET Magazine Nov\/Dec 1981\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/640\/0-248-748-499\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1450\/1\/1451132.jpeg\"><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"split-rail-card__content card-latest__content\"><span class=\"split-rail-card__ribbon card-latest__ribbon\">Art &amp; Photography<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"split-rail-card__title card-latest__title\">Remembering WET: the magazine that made a splash in 70s LA<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a class=\"split-rail-card card-latest\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/fashion\/article\/70780\/1\/punketo-meet-the-indigenous-gen-z-punks-of-mexico-city-maxwell-vice\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"split-rail-card__img-wrapper card-latest__img-wrapper\"><span class=\"image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Punketos by Maxwell Vice\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/640\/0-0-1418-945\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1450\/0\/1450961.jpeg\"><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"split-rail-card__content card-latest__content\"><span class=\"split-rail-card__ribbon card-latest__ribbon\">Fashion<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"split-rail-card__title card-latest__title\">Punketo: meet the Indigenous Gen-Z punks of Mexico City<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"image-navigation\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/news\/\" class=\"image-navigation__img one\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">News<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/fashion\/\" class=\"image-navigation__img two\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">Fashion<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/music\/\" class=\"image-navigation__img three\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">Music<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/film-tv\/\" class=\"image-navigation__img four\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">Film &amp; TV<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/music\/article\/70811\/1\/tricky-interview-different-when-it-s-silent-new-album-trip-hop#features\" class=\"image-navigation__img five\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">Features<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/beauty\/\" class=\"image-navigation__img six\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">Beauty<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/\" class=\"image-navigation__img seven\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">Life &amp; Culture<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\/\" class=\"image-navigation__img eight\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">Art &amp; Photography<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><\/div>\n<\/article>\n<div class=\"article-body wrapper\">\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>\u201cI\u2019d rather shoot myself in the foot, to be honest with you,\u201d Tricky grins. I\u2019ve just asked the trip-hop trailblazer how he strikes a balance between staying true to himself and <\/span><em><span>not<\/span><\/em><span> shooting himself in the foot. I don\u2019t know what other answer I expected to receive.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>For those who weren\u2019t around to observe Tricky\u2019s ascent in the mid-1990s, his 2019 autobiography <\/span><em><span>Hell Is Round the Corner <\/span><\/em><span>offers a comprehensive, no-holds-barred account of an artist who has been both incredibly successful and staunchly principled in his own way. This is a guy who, for instance, did two months in prison at 17 (after being caught with forged \u00a350 notes) rather than watch his nan beg the judge for leniency, and who knew he\u2019d end up leaving Massive Attack when they wouldn\u2019t lend him \u00a32.50 for food at a service station. \u201cWhere I grew up, they would steal that money so I could eat,\u201d he writes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201c\u00a32.50 for sausage and chips\u2026\u201d he scoffs now, his Bristolian accent still as thick as if he\u2019d lived there his whole life, rather than bouncing around London, North America, Berlin and his current residence in the south of France. \u201cTo me that\u2019s just like, \u2018you ain\u2019t my mate then, are you?\u2019 I\u2019m not money oriented at all, but little things like that it\u2019s like, \u2018what are we doing here?\u2019\u201d He fell in with Robert Del Naja and Grant Marshall when he was 19 years old, having come from nothing, financially speaking. \u201cAnd then the judge watching my nan beg, I thought, \u2018Nah, fuck this, I can\u2018t be bothered.\u2019 Because it\u2018s a game, innit? So I just can\u2018t be bothered with it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Tricky, real name Adrian Thaws, is right up there with Banksy, Black Roots and cider as one of Bristol\u2019s most significant cultural exports. Raised in a mixed race family in the tight-knit, rough neck neighbourhood of Knowle West, he cut his teeth as an MC for The Wild Bunch sound system, which later evolved into Massive Attack, helping to pioneer what is now referred to as \u201cthe Bristol sound.\u201d Though he rejected the \u201ctrip-hop\u201d label at the time \u2013 and still does \u2013 Tricky is nevertheless revered as one of its primary architects. His debut album <\/span><em><span>Maxinquaye<\/span><\/em><span> stands as one of if not <\/span><em><span>the<\/span><\/em><span> defining album of the genre; a strange, nocturnal collage of hip-hop, dub, downtempo soul, ambient and post-punk held together by whispered tales of interior nightmares and societal deterioration.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cI don\u2019t believe there\u2018s such a thing as a Bristol sound,\u201d Tricky shrugs now, hand-rolling a cigarette and blowing smoke out the window at the Creation Records office in Soho on a blistering afternoon in mid-July. \u201cIf I were to say that Bristol had a sound it would be reggae, because it\u2019s an old sound system place, but the stuff that happens now? I\u2019d say that\u2019s just music.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"src-youtube video-container embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"media-youtube\" data-id=\"E3R_3h6zQEs\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allowfullscreen frameborder height=\"900\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/E3R_3h6zQEs\" webkitallowfullscreen width=\"1600\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>Named after his mother, who died by suicide when he was four years old, <\/span><em><span>Maxinquaye <\/span><\/em><span>put Tricky and his now-lifelong collaborator Martina Topley-Bird on the map, earning a gold certification, a Mercury Prize nomination, and the adoration of music critics on both sides of the Atlantic. They responded by never making another album like it ever again, opting for experimentation over tried and tested acclaim, and a version of success defined by artistic freedom over major label metrics.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Spiritually, Tricky has always fallen more in line with punk than anything else. That non-conformist streak is partly why he\u2019s been able to tour with everyone from Gravediggaz to Tool; collaborate with a broad church of artists including Bjork, Terry Hall, Grace Jones, David Essex, PJ Harvey and Cyndi Lauper; and land a major supporting role in Luc Besson\u2019s psychedelic sci-fi <\/span><em><span>The<\/span><\/em><em><span>Fifth Element<\/span><\/em><span>. Even at 58, his sinewy 5ft 6in frame vibrates with the kind of raw, unpredictable energy that might burst out at any moment, like too many clothes stuffed into a suitcase. He cuts an incongruous figure in the Creation Records office in a yellow net polo shirt and cream cords, flanked by a tower of unworn Carhartt hats and a fancy candle, sitting in a desk chair the way those who are deeply unsuited to 9-5 desk work do: awkwardly. The glint in his eye when he talks about scribbling what could be described as early poems with crayon on his great grandmother\u2019s concrete floor as a kid, or his disdain for musicians who \u201cintellectualise everything,\u201d gives off the same aura of mischief.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><span>\u201cThat\u2019s my definition of success. Being able to do whatever I want to do musically, on my own terms, and people support me\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span>The rejection of the spotlight brought by <\/span><em><span>Maxinquaye<\/span><\/em><span> is one of many moments in a decades-long career in which Tricky has been presented with a clear run to fame, and bolted in the opposite direction. Live, he has always performed antisocially, with his back to the audience and minimal stage lighting \u2013 a choice which divides fans to this day. He quit Massive Attack in 1995, just as they were blowing up, over creative differences (in addition to the chips thing). When devoted fan David Bowie wrote a short, delirious piece of fiction about meeting Tricky for <\/span><em><span>Q Magazine<\/span><\/em><span> and then reached out directly, Tricky never pursued the potentially fruitful connection. \u201cIt was all too fast\u2026\u201d he <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/tricky-david-bowie-opens-up-mental-health-struggle\/\"><span>reflected<\/span><\/a><span>, with some regret, in 2023. Still, you might argue that, for Bowie at least, the lived experience rang true to the fantasy, and was therefore the ideal outcome. \u201cThe phantom was known to move as a group of one,\u201d Bowie <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.moon-palace.de\/tricky\/q95.html\"><span>wrote<\/span><\/a><span> in <\/span><em><span>Q<\/span><\/em><span>.<\/span><span> \u201cNever took prisoners. You\u2018d never catch him snorting vodka at the bar. You\u2018d never catch him period, I\u2018d been told. A shaman who\u2018d never slept with the Others, he was still pure, his spells unblemished.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201c[Creation Records co-founder] Alan McGee said to me once, \u2018You know what I like about you? You\u2019re not a celebrity,\u2019\u201d Tricky ponders now. \u201cSo I think that\u2019s [my definition of] success. Being able to do whatever I want to do musically, on my own terms, and people support me.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Case in point: his most recent single, \u201cOut of Place,\u201d made its way onto BBC radio A-Lists despite being a wandering melancholic orchestral arrangement that makes a sharp u-turn into grinding post-punk without a chorus, or any vocals for the first 35 seconds. \u201cIt\u2019s not a radio song at all,\u201d he marvels. \u201cI think sometimes as artists we want to be the biggest, to sell the most tickets, the most records\u2026 But that to me is success.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"src-youtube video-container embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"media-youtube\" data-id=\"7rT2jZnA6UA\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allowfullscreen frameborder height=\"900\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7rT2jZnA6UA\" webkitallowfullscreen width=\"1600\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>\u201cOut of Place\u201d is the last track on Tricky\u2019s latest album, <\/span><em><span>Different When It\u2019s Silent<\/span><\/em><span>. Released independently through his own False Idols label, it\u2019s Thaws\u2019 first album as Tricky since 2020\u2019s <\/span><em><span>Fall To Pieces<\/span><\/em><span>, which was made in the wake of his daughter\u2019s sudden death in 2019. (Mina Topley-Bird took her own life on the ward of an NHS adult psychiatric hospital in Darlington; an inquest into her death ruled that there had been a failure in care. She was just 24.)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>It\u2019s not that Thaws hasn\u2019t kept himself busy in the last six years; he worked on a collaborative album with producer Mike Theis under the name Theis Thaws, a joint album with collaborator Marta Z\u0142akowska, and put together an all-star 2021 project under the name Lonely Guest, which included contributions from Idles\u2019 Joe Talbot, Murkage Dave, Max\u00efmo Park\u2019s Paul Smith, and, Lee \u201cScratch\u201d Perry. But, crucially, side projects can come without the strings of press, music videos or touring attached to a Tricky release. \u201cI wouldn\u2018t say I was reluctant to release music under my own name. But I wasn\u2018t that interested, to be honest. I didn\u2018t have the motivation,\u201d he explains.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em><span>Different When It\u2019s Silent <\/span><\/em><span>was also conceived as a side project. It was McGee, now his manager, who convinced him to put it out as Tricky upon hearing the material, deeming it the artist\u2019s best work since <\/span><em><span>Maxinquaye<\/span><\/em><span>. So here we are, and here is the album \u2013 a brooding, uranium-heavy meditation on grief slash celebration of life that marks his \u201cfirst indie rock \/ grunge album\u201d and holds Mina\u2019s presence throughout. On \u201cOut of Place\u201d \u2013 which originally appeared on Marta Z\u0142akowska\u2019s album <\/span><em><span>When It\u2019s Going Wrong <\/span><\/em><span>(2023) under a different title, sung by the Polish vocalist \u2013 Tricky reclaims lyrics as a powerful declaration of fatherly love: \u201cI\u2019m singing, I sing for my daughter.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Incidentally, <\/span><em><span>Different When It\u2019s Silent <\/span><\/em><span>is the first Tricky album to feature mostly male vocals. Whether it\u2019s Martina, Marta, or any of his other collaborators, the texture of Tricky\u2019s discography has been largely mapped by women, regardless of the fact that it\u2019s the low, slow murmur of Thaws\u2019 voice that people most associate with it. On this album, though, he takes a backseat. The most definitive voice on the record belongs to the young, fellow Bristolian singer-songwriter Mitch Sanders (even if he does sing in a somewhat androgynous register, with reviewers comparing it to Portishead\u2019s Beth Gibbons). On earlier versions of the album, Thaws\u2019 voice was completely absent.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cI didn\u2019t realise it at the time, but a lot of the lyrics are about my daughter,\u201d Tricky says of the decision. \u201cThe lyrics [to \u2018Out of Place\u2019] are the same ones I wrote for Marta on \u2018Moving Through Water\u2019, but when they\u2019re sung by a man it has a totally different perspective. So I think it was subconsciously knowing that this is about my daughter, and thinking, like, \u2018Marta can\u2019t sing for me on this one.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"inline-img expandable dev-view-hide\" data-img=\"82cbf76c-5ef8-40d5-b629-b4a9009c9131\" data-src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/2000\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1450\/1\/1451357.jpg\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"1.5\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Tricky\" class=\"img\" height=\"2000\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1600\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1450\/1\/1451357.jpg\" width=\"3000\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"credit\">Photography Steve Gullick<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><em><span>Different When It\u2019s Silent <\/span><\/em><span>has been released into a zeitgeist in the throes of rediscovering trip-hop and downtempo, with the biggest acts of the 90s circulating on TikTok, and a new generation of songwriters and producers retooling its paranoid signifiers for the present-day digital dystopia. In spirit, it\u2019s perhaps Tricky who most faithfully meets youth culture where it\u2019s currently at \u2013 with his historic lack of adherence to genre, and the gender fluidity that has been an organic presence in both his music and presentation since the start, when he and Martina Topley-Bird appeared on the cover of \u201cOvercome\u201d dressed like a bride and groom; Martina in a top hat clutching flowers, Tricky in a wedding dress and smudged red lipstick wielding two pistols. (He describes in his memoir how, as a kid, he\u2019d pick out dresses in charity shops and wear them out raving in Bristol.) It was never an attempt to be deliberately subversive though, he says. Rather, if he likes an item of clothing it simply doesn&#8217;t occur to him to care about what section of the shop it comes from. He still does that now. The cords he has on today are women\u2018s, he notes. \u201cFrom the 60s.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Rather than being re-upped by the algorithm, Tricky reckons most of the younger fans he\u2019s met on tour have come through word of mouth. \u201cI&#8217;ve got a lot of young people in my shows \u2013 but they\u2019re not finding me through revivalism, it\u2019s through their family,\u201d he explains. \u201cI met a girl in Russia whose granddad played her my music, because her dad had played it to her grandad who then passed it back down to her. So I get a lot of that, people playing it to their kids or parents.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>That might be because, despite supposedly \u201cinventing\u201d it, the trip-hop label is one Tricky has largely succeeded in shrugging off. \u201cThe Bristol sound, the Manchester sound, the Liverpool sound\u2026 It\u2018s just a marketing tool. And one of the problems Bristol has is that we\u2019re so obsessed with the past,\u201d he says. \u201cI love what Bristol\u2018s done and I love being Bristolian, but people tend to live off of what happened 30 years ago. You get people who weren\u2018t even around then obsessed with it. But there\u2019s a younger generation of talented people there too, and I think working with new artists is more interesting than talking about war stories.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cIt\u2019s great to love the past,\u201d he concludes. \u201cBut if you\u2019re too invested in it, then there ain\u2019t no future.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"src-youtube video-container embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"media-youtube\" data-id=\"Api8tCZu5rs\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allowfullscreen frameborder height=\"900\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Api8tCZu5rs\" webkitallowfullscreen width=\"1600\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>That said, not even Tricky is totally immune to the nostalgia industry. Last year a re-recorded version of <\/span><em><span>Maxinquaye <\/span><\/em><span>was released to mark its 30th anniversary, followed by the <\/span><em><span>Maxinquaye Reincarnated<\/span><\/em><span> tour that reworked what is still considered to be his greatest work. Though in reality, if you ask around, everyone has their own darling. <\/span><em><span>Angels<\/span><\/em><span> and <\/span><em><span>Pre-Millennium Tension<\/span><\/em><span> were panned by critics at the time of release, but they\u2019ve gone on to become cult classics. Someone told him the other day that their favourite album is 2001\u2019s <\/span><em><span>Blowback<\/span><\/em><span>, once regarded by critic Jeffrey Thiessen as \u201ca great pop album nobody liked.\u201d <\/span><em><span>Is <\/span><\/em><span>there an album he\u2019s most proud of, though, I ask? He furrows his brow and curtly replies, \u201cNo.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>That\u2019s not the point, you see. For Tricky, every release has to be better than the last. It\u2019s all about forward momentum. <\/span><em><span>Different When It\u2019s Silent<\/span><\/em><span> just came out, and he\u2019s already over it. He\u2019s thinking about working on Marta\u2019s next album in October, and with Mitch Sanders on his album at the end of the year.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cI\u2019m not proud [of my music], but I\u2019m happy that it\u2019s there for people,\u201d he reflects. He recalls a moment of ennui once, years ago, while touring North America at the height of his commercial success. \u201cOne day I was on the tour bus by myself, smoking a spliff and thinking, \u2018Alright, so, I\u2019m wealthy, I travel the world, I can go in the studio anytime I want\u2026 but what\u2019s this all about? Is this it?\u2019\u201d But then later that day, his drummer asked him to sign a CD for a nurse who worked on a children\u2019s burn unit. Shortly after, in Texas, he visited a man in a coma whose parents had reached out to say was a fan, and they played his music to him in the hospital. When he was on tour with Tool, a pregnant lady approached him and thanked him for his music. More recently, a girl came up to him after a show in Berlin and said his music helped her through a crisis.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cThat stuff is why I\u2019m here, I think. That\u2019s what it\u2019s about,\u201d he says. \u201cAll the travelling et cetera is a bonus.\u201d <em>Maxinquaye<\/em>, then, matters insofar as it matters to other people, but it doesn\u2019t really matter to him. \u201cBeing stuck on one album? It\u2019s not about that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The glint in his eye flashes again, like sunlight passing over a blade, when he recalls one of his previous managers advising him to put money away for when he retires. \u201cI said \u2018Mate, retire from what? You don\u2019t retire from music. What are you talking about?\u2019\u201d he says, still incredulous. He points to Lee \u201cScratch\u201d Perry, who did a six week coast-to-coast tour of America\u00a0at the age of 82 \u2013 a damn sight older than Tricky is now. \u201cI can understand someone not wanting to tour anymore, or doing press, but retire? That\u2019s impossible.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>You do it because you have to, I offer.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cWell, yeah,\u201d he says, like I just told him water is wet. Like it\u2019s the most obvious thing in the world. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing else <\/span><em><span>to<\/span><\/em><span> do.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span> Different When It\u2019s Silent<em> is out now.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>[analyse_source url=&#8221;https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/music\/article\/70811\/1\/tricky-interview-different-when-it-s-silent-new-album-trip-hop&#8221;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[analyse_image type=&#8221;featured&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1200\/0-248-2000-1333\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1450\/1\/1451356.jpg&#8221;] Photography Steve Gullick DateInMeta\u00a0 17,\u00a0 2026 Music \/ Feature A rare interview with Tricky, Bristol\u2019s trip-hop phantom In the wake of his latest album, Different When It\u2019s Silent, Emma Garland sits down with the elusive artist to discuss grief, the question of retirement, and quitting Massive Attack over a portion of chips [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,76],"class_list":["post-2097283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-dazeddigital-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2097283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2097283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2097283\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2097283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2097283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2097283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}