[.ca] Maxinquaye

Adrian Thaws (aka Tricky), one of the key components of Massive Attack around the time of their important Blue Lines album, seemed to find more space to explore his fears, loves and neuroses as a solo artist on this, his debut release, which is also something of a classic itself. Whilst the Massive Attack sound is a standard one of dub basses, Tricky gains greater contrast with his smoky vocals by utilising a disjointed, handmade mix of sounds, from hard noise ("Black Steel") to marimba-like plonks ("Ponderosa") and slow-beat joints ("Brand New You're Retro"). Here, alongside vocalist and one-time partner Martina Topley Bird, Tricky is able to maintain a sense of perspective lost in later works--the recording sounds positive and instructive, as if they were happy just to make a good album. Named after his mother, Maxin, who committed suicide when Thaws was six, there is just the right level of paranoia in the claustrophobia of his rhymes, creating a musical document that sounds homespun and satisfying. --Charlie Porter

Un Essentiel amazon.fr:
Révolutionnaire, la musique de Tricky est une des plus audacieuses de la fin du XXe siècle et Maxinquaye, un pavé jeté dans la mare du trip hop inventé à Bristol. Carrément. Et bien malin celui qui pourrait prétendre le contraire, échapper au pouvoir hypnotique de ce chef-d'oeuvre sombre auquel on revient sans se faire prier, sans arrêt. A l'image de son créateur, Maxinquaye est grinçant, claustrophobique, atmosphérique, sexuellement chargé, parano, insaisissable. Rebutant ? Pas du tout car authentique jusqu'au bout des ongles. Pas une seule seconde Tricky ne songe à se dérober. Il ne triche pas, préférant se mouiller là où d'autres se seraient dégonflés. Martina, sa muse, prête sa voix aux samples - "Hell Is Round The Corner" transpire la sensualité par tous les pores - et les ambiances se bousculent au portillon des influences sublimées : Portishead sur "Ponderosa", Public Enemy sur "Black Steel" et Massive Attack sur "Karmakoma". A écouter en boucle. --Philippe Robert

From Amazon.com:
Less experimentally brash than his more recent release, Tricky's debut CD Maxinquaye is actually a better introduction to the British hip-hopper turned international trip-hopper than his later work. The dozen smoldering, moonlit tracks are less concerned with loopy aural exaggeration than they are with showcasing Tricky's slow-mo rap and singer Martine's sexy soprano. With the exception of the stellar "Pumpkin," (featuring vox from Alison Goldfrapp), the duo mix a colorful palate of rhythmic vocals, throbbing backbeats and gravelly electronic textures. Toss in large doses of sexual innuendo and Maxinquaye becomes a libidinous foray into languor and lust. --Nick Heil

awesome:
The influences peel off like stickers on a notebook. Utilizing Bomb Squad-confrontational production and subtly primitive IDM textures, Tricky's uniquely muddy form of soundclash shocked the mid-90s listening populace with his merger of angular, raw sampling, dark synth innovation, and pseudo-intellectual lyrics to build the convention-destroying music of Maxinquaye. A collaborative effort from a former husband/wife team, Adrian Thawes and singer Martina Topley-Bird, demonstrated a bizarrely genuine chemistry in such shielded music. Topley-Bird's distinctively British dialect developed a refreshing retreat from her more typical peers, yielding a more modern voice for a changing musical landscape. As she sings, Tricky's monstrously cracking vocals shadow hers to make the listening experience a more personal feat than many pieces before it. Borrowing more than lyrics from his previous tenure guesting for Massive Attack, Tricky's producer/singer relationship is stronger than the interplay in more linear genres, making this an obsessive work of customization. Unforgettable moments appear frequently, from the gorgeously hard drum break of "Ponderosa" to the clicking future saloon shootout screamer of "Strugglin'" to the Michael Jackson-sampling "Brand New, You're Retro". It's hard to imagine the landscapes of modern electronica and underground hip-hop without this record's influence.

TRICKY IS TRICKY!!!!:
I stayed away from this CD for the longest, scared of what I might hear--I mean Tricky does look slightly demonic. But all that aside, "Maxinquaye" turned out to be just the opposite of what my initial perception was. It is in fact a masterpiece that can only be tantamount to the works of Massive Attack, Portishead and even DJ Shadow. With sexy vocals from Martina and Tricky himself, "Maxinquaye" keeps it appeal in 2004 with material that doesn't at all sound dated or forced, but instead sounds fresh and innovative as the day it was released. Tricky is truly a "trip-hop pioneer." "Maxinquaye" is haunting, sexy, profound, intense and down right funky! Highly Recommended!

Something like it, but not really..:
The flow of the piece itself expelled alot of talent, and Im sure took alot of time and energy. Though to completely glorify this album at all, would not be my own doing. Tricky's work has been compared to Massive Attack and Portishead. Maybe MA has a flow like Trickys recent work, but cant be even be compared to an album like Portisheads' "Dummy" album. This album, Maxin-something or another, has alot of work to do. Maybe a good remix, or maybe ten of them, would help. I only give it three stars, because I couldnt do what he does, but I think Im just in a polite mood tonight. So if you like a good sensual electronic flow, MA and Portishead will have to do you. Tricky is too wanna-be Deltron3030 mixed with a bad breakbeat/trance album.

Number 1:
After owning this album since 1996, I can safely say...This is the best album I own. Hands down.

Being Haunted Has Never Been This Much Fun:
This debut album, like Tricky's work with Massive Attack, signified an innovation in contemporary pop production and arrangement, like Eno's best work was to the 1970s or My Bloody Valentine's was to the early 1990s, and is probably the best trip-hop album ever. Tricky's bleak and cynical vision finds form through bizarrely juxtaposed collages of samples and loops that sound like he put his memories of music through a blender, as if he were both reveling in and taking revenge on our cut-and-paste society. Who'd ever have thought to assemble together the strange samples one hears on down-tempo tracks such as "Overcome" or "Ponderosa"? But it's not without humor (starting with his spliff-ravaged speak-sing) and a thorough sense of irony, exemplified most strongly on the piece "Strugglin'" with its dislocated rhythm track of a gun being cocked. Then there's Martina's sleepy voice chiding and hiding through the mix. This is a sexy, smoky, disorienting and beautiful album by a madman.

• Overcome
• Ponderosa
• Black Steel
• Hell Is Around the Corner
• Pumpkin
• Aftermath
• Abbaon Fat Track
• Brand New You're Retro
• Suffocated Love
• You Don't
• Strugglin'
• Feed Me