Day 22: Tricky – Hell is Round the Corner/Pumpkin

 

Today’s disc is plural (so add an s) as it is two 12-inch singles and a CD (a CD finally makes an appearance!). The artist is Tricky and the singles are both pictured above. They are both tracks from Tricky’s 1995 album Maxinquaye which I had on CD (and still have, pic below):

 

 

 

The lead track on the orange single is Pumpkin – the track from Maxinquaye that features Alison Goldfrapp on co-writing and vocals (most of the rest of the album features vocals by Martina Topley-Bird – both women have gone on to many successes since with all kinds of music). Coloured vinyl isn’t the most popular with DJs because the sound quality isn’t always the best but we did play a track on the B side of this one (the Alex Reece remix of Brand New You’re Retro), mostly when we played in a back room at the delightfully named Cockpit in Leeds in the mid to late 1990s. This is the mix (both it and the original of this track are great):

 

As for the other single, Hell is Round the Corner has long been a favourite track of mine. When we used to listen to the album (often late into the night/early in the morning) it was lyrics from this that used to stick in my mind (“until then, you have to live with yourself” etc. – hear the track at the end of this post). 

 

Tricky was from Bristol, worked with Massive Attack early on and there are lots of crossovers in terms of sounds and samples with them and other artists from that part of the world at around that time (i.e. Portishead). In certain corners of the internet arguments can be found regarding which artist and album was better and who used such and such sample better. I’ve even been lectured once on how Maxinquaye was only so good (and successful) because of its co-producer Mark Saunders (and he has been in this series already, back on Day 13 with Neneh Cherry). 

 

To be honest, I like this and albums by Massive Attack and Portishead. I don’t have a favourite and I don’t feel the need to fight for one over the other. My former DJ partner is still a big Tricky fan (she saw him live last year I think) but I can’t say I’ve followed him in the same way (he went a bit more punk after this album and she was always more punk than me). All I know is I loved this album in the mid 1990s and it was a good companion for both of us at that time. I listened to it again this week and the variety on it has held up to a point (the cover of Public Enemy’s Black Steel and both of today’s tracks are probably my favourites, then and now). I can’t say I still enjoy the clunky industrial sounds on some of the tracks now as much as I did in 1995 but then it was coming after years of happy house and was a welcome change, whereas now it’s more the sound of a time (and a time quite long ago – nearly 20 years). The tracks I can still enjoy now are the ones where Martina’s haunting vocals and Tricky’s distinctive drawled spoken word are doing most of the work (less trip hop, just mellow hip hop, perhaps). I’ve often joked that Hell is Round the Corner is on my (own) personal funeral playlist. I’ve enjoyed it again this week and I’d say it’s still on the list of possibles. Enjoy:

 

Back tomorrow with a Huddersfield house master.

 

For the first intro post to this series go here.