Tricky

Tricky on rinse (April 2020)

surprised it took them this long honestly, rinse is like the radio 1 of dance music now, has long since snowballed outside of its londoncentricity. even had bloody hixxy on there last year lol. personlly i don't have anything to say about it mainly cos my musical interests are elsewhere.

he's been on before dont worry

sure but i was thinking they'd have had him on in 2014. that's when i tuned out of rinse for good. it wasn't a 'oh what have we lost' sentiment, more that i was getting into peter brotzmann and shit.

i mean, i know what you mean, rinse isn't the old rinse, but still... rinse is like hyperdub or warp. if it all ended tomorrow, rinse would still be rinse.

hyperdub set from 2016 feat. babyfather in the 2nd hour - i

Booked to see tricky in Manchester, Sunday 7th nov

his book is really good

Yeah I read it last year. Good to hear about his acid and squatting adventures as a teenager.

Last night's gig was very good.

I was very worried about it in all honesty, the signs weren't good.

A slowish start, classic empty stage opening with a butchered version of "sweet dreams" playing over the PA to an empty stage.

But I was sufficiently pissed after a few pints in the Britons protection. Goodish atmosphere, but also not very busy in the venue.

[Some comedy on the way in, where the covid check consisted of a guy looking at the qr code on my phone and saying yep, no problem. And then saying he was ready to accept a tesco club card.]

Tricky was entirely in silhouette for almost the whole show, with the singer, drummer and guitarist all lit up. Nice blue and red lights.

First 30 minutes very much a warm up, barely a few whispers from Tricky, most of the work being the singer (wasn't sure who she was). She did pretty well, but difficult one for the crowd who wanted Tricky.

He was skulking about quite a lot, pulling at his clothes, twisting his head, sticking his tongue out.

Then it started to click a bit. You could see him "directing" the other players and feel the improv, and it started to build and become something. Longish jams/riffs on single phrases.

Very dark, but very engrossing. One tune was just him repeating "inhale, exhale", "I inhale, you inhale", and then he started flexing his arm up to the sky, really fast. Snapping his elbow. Intense.

The final tune is just him repeating "pain" endlessly, but by then it was very hypnotic.

I feel like he's developed his stage show a bit since I last saw him. Kinda reminded me of the last time I saw thd Fall, with the element of directing the players.

Here's a review of the Glasgow gig from a few nights before


Must say the Manchester audience were better than how the guy writes up the Glasgow audience. There was definitely some impatience (some very annoying guy near me screeching out "black steel" after every song) but by the end there was a good vibe. Especially cos its still very weird to be out around a lot of people.

I like that venue as well (O2 Ritz) cos of the wooden floor, so you get a big of a bounce feeling.

catalog said:

I like that venue as well (O2 Ritz) cos of the wooden floor, so you get a big of a bounce feeling.

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when HMV took it over ( before O2 owned it ) they were going to rip the floor out...

If there’s one thing Manchester’s legendary Ritz nightspot is famous for, it’s that springy dancefloor. So it’s surprising to learn that the venue’s new owners, HMV, debated long and hard about taking it out as part of their £2m refurbishment of the historic venue that has been taking shape over the past four months.


Thankfully, they realised just how essential that bouncy-floored experience is to keeping the spirit of The Ritz alive, and returning it to the historic grandeur of its 1920s origins.

David Laing, MD of HMV’s regional venues, laughs: “The floor has been sanded right back, but rest assured it will remain very bouncy.
“We thought long and hard about whether we should lay a new floor, but in the end we decided it had to stay.
“There aren’t many venues that still have a sprung dancefloor like this, and we realised it was very important to preserve that.”

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