"Sampledelia"

[dHarry]

Yeah, protection seemed a bit directionless, although it contains some great individual moments, perhaps more of an EP than an album...

I thought it was a cohesive seamless (skunk) trip of an album. Its spangly digital clean-ness turned out to be a virtue (a la Luomo), providing an unlikely context for some gritty rapping by 3D and Tricky, great vocals by Nicolette, Tracey and Horace and some fantastic slo-mo 303 action. And the live Light My Fire (sound system stylee) at the end works as a nod to their roots and a wake-up bump back to reality at the end.

Mezzanine for me was over-long, turgid and boring, only RisingSon, Angel and the Liz Frazer track really work, Inertia Creeps says it all for the rest; even the other female vocal track sounds like token trip hop.

But it always puzzled me how Portishead could be considered in the same league as dreck like Morcheeba, Sneaker Pimps et al. Geoff Barrow is a sonic architect with serious next-level hip hop and production skills, and Beth Gibbon is an incredible singer and songwriter, a virtuoso of stylistic tics (a refusal of a coherent expressive ego?) and sheer power. The atmosphere, grain and weight/drag of their sound is addictive. Amazingly they pull the whole thing off live as a band incredibly well also, after prime late 80's Sonic Youth and MBV, one of the most impressive gigs I've seen. Their contribution to a recent Serge Gainsbourg tribute was worryingly dull and rockist, hopefully they haven't abandoned their retro-future hip hop experiments and Geoff will listen to some dub-step instead of Hendrix before the next album gets made. Their first three singles had some incredible Barrow remixes, and his GB Beats track opening the Andy Smith mix Document LP is fantastic, not far off filthy dub-step in its way.

 

[Gabba Flamenco Crossover]

Blue Lines is amazing. I've heard that record thousands of times & I never get sick of it. Daydreaming is my favorite massive attack track. Protection, I've listened to a few times recently having not heard it in years. Where it's good it's great, like the Nicollette & Tracey Thorn tracks, but the instrumentals are a bit directionless. I've never liked Mezzanine - music made by people smoking too much weed and never going out, the sound is oppressive and turned in on itself where Blue Lines has such lightness. It's the 90s equivilent of drug-introversion records like There's A Riot Going On and Station to Station, but not as good.

One trip-hop era record I reallly liked was DJ Cam's Substances. Really slow moving, quite hauntological in fact, fusing skeletal old school hip hop with sampled Serge Gainsborough orchestration and eastern vocals. It has this really mysterious atmosphere, properly draws you in.

 

[elgato]

this is what i love about it. the thick, horrible, introverted, oppressive, darkness...i dont want that sound all the time, but when i do i dont know of many better. i dont know anything that sounds like that LP, its so angry and intense but without being angsty and ragey, its a slow burning, frightening insight to a very dark psychological state... is that a bad thing full stop?

on the rockism point... if taken in its abstract sense, surely to reject mezzanine on the grounds of its use of guitars, its indulgence, its clear divergence from their previous path, for being 'whiter' etc…is rockism at its purest?!… its just that the rockist exclusivity has been replaced by a new ideal, a new conception of what good music must be to be critically acceptable?

 

[swears]

Rockism: Harbouring ideas of realness, authenticity, paying dues, etc...
Popism: Trying to piss off rockists.

 

[LRJP!]

but does it matter even if he didn't? many producers talk of "happy accidents". maybe it doesn't lessen the impact even if the producer inadvertantly stumbled upon new ideas.

Definitely. I wasn't trying to deny the importance of chance or accident, just suggest that Req was clearly in control of his sounds and aesthetic -contrary to the Outsider Artist model mooted by michael:

With producers like Req and Vadim I was always unsure how much of their sound was just being absolutely crap producers, i.e. the "outsider artist" thing of thinking they were making something normal or straightforward, but due to whatever skewed vision / lack of means to achieve their aims they come out with this wonky shit.

It seems unlikely to me that all those distended bass rumbles and muffled, awkward boom baps were result of trying to sound like the average Hip Hop (or even Trip Hop for that matter) production; Titles like Sketchbook or the diagram of his Tascam set-up in one of the sleeves (In One or Frequency Jams??) suggest that any convention warping or mis-recognition was conscious and desired if not *actually* deliberate.

 

[bassnation]

I thought it was a cohesive seamless (skunk) trip of an album. Its spangly digital clean-ness turned out to be a virtue (a la Luomo), providing an unlikely context for some gritty rapping by 3D and Tricky, great vocals by Nicolette, Tracey and Horace and some fantastic slo-mo 303 action. And the live Light My Fire (sound system stylee) at the end works as a nod to their roots and a wake-up bump back to reality at the end.

apparently tricky was a member of massive attack at the time, rather than a guest. but i could be wrong. i'm with you on protection, definitely their best and most coherently structured album.

But it always puzzled me how Portishead could be considered in the same league as dreck like Morcheeba, Sneaker Pimps et al.

i agree with this - very unfair how they got pigeonholed as trip hop wallpaper. their first album was very dark. i used to listen to it when i was coming down after clubbing and it wasn't always a great choice, mood wise.

on the sneaker pimps however i have to say how much i loved the armand van helden remix of spin spin sugar. there are some that say it had a big part to play with the formation of speed garage back in the late nineties. according to van helden he'd visited a jungle club in london which led him to use those rude sub-basslines. see also his mix for genaside II "narramine".

 

[swears]

on the sneaker pimps however i have to say how much i loved the armand van helden remix of spin spin sugar. there are some that say it had a big part to play with the formation of speed garage back in the late nineties. according to van helden he'd visited a jungle club in london which led him to use those rude sub-basslines. see also his mix for genaside II "narramine".

Yeah, that tune's great, even if the Sneaker Pimps were a bit crap themselves...

I'm quite partial to a bit of Massive Attack, although hearing stuff come out in that style now seems pointless. I think that first wave of Bristol producers was great, particularly Tricky. But they're not really what I'm on about, they modified and added to their samples in an interesting way.

 

[mms]

but does it matter even if he didn't? many producers talk of "happy accidents". maybe it doesn't lessen the impact even if the producer inadvertantly stumbled upon new ideas.

i reckon the guy is the consumate renaissance man to be honest, sleeves to records.
i dont reckon, infact i know his records didn't do very well. his record planned on major label funded skint was dropped b4 release and came out on warp later, still didn't do well though, he's an unhearalded producer for sure, it's like hip hop behind a white sheet with a floodlight pointed at it.

 

[mms]

massive attack were great, getting larry heard to remix them, followed by a dub album from the mad prof, always had excellent people who worked on remixes, always produced brilliant albums with high quality oddballs and honey voices, look at the lineups, tricky, nicolette, horace andy, liz frazer, tracey whatsername. they've got brilliant taste and a very grownup view of music and media, plus daddy g doing their art etc, its a real suprise they were popular at all.

 

[francesco]

I think the great blissblogger is referring to some aspect of this thread in his latest post and he is OTM like and deep as ever. I have listened a lot to the recent FSOL greatest hits this week: now i remember been left totally cold by their output, but i always loved (who don't?) Papua New Guinea and anyway i don't have the first Irresistible Force album or Throbbing Pouch or any Aphex here, so it was like a ready available substitute. Yes they are kitch and totally prog (even if strangely this comps overlook almost totally Lifeforms) but the electronic sounds of early '90 are texturally glorious. They were the Vangelis/Esquivel/JMJarre of their time, but what a time for electronic music was that sampladelic '90!!! And by Sampladelic include early hardcore techno, so heavy on speeded up sample, not only speeded down trippop. Also strange how they have practically disappeared in their own hole '00, like Aphex, Mixmaster Morris... even Portishead... even Tricky or 2/3 of Massive Attack... or 99% of techno/jungle/gabba/whatever was great at that time. Definitely one of the great golden era of pop ended sometimes after '96. And since this year had been, a very few moments aside, shit... This stuff is classic, like Studio One, like '60 psychedelia, like '50 jazz, like punk and post.

 

[gek-opel]

Agreed that you'd have to be an idiot to dislike "Papua New Guinea". Is there a thread in whch we can discuss Reynolds' excellent new post or do we need to make a new one? Cos I ws thinking about the whole "futustic" trope recently, and think that what he terms "futuroid" really means "alien" (as he says correctly "modernist", like "avant garde", has too many genre-based connotations now)...

 

[swears]

The 90s is probably my favourite decade for music, my main concern is that there's been little innovation since, because people are happier to carry on working in a certain 90s genre now, like drum 'n' bass, rather than develop new sounds. Things have solidified into styles. Hence my disapointment at albums like Druqks and Since I left You.
The electro revival of '00-'02 was exciting because it seemed like getting back to basics, and startting afresh, but it soon degenerated into retro wank.

 

[swears]

This is a new act with some very early nineties sounds that I'm loving at the moment:
http://www.myspace.com/stephanietannersurprise

Sort of like BOC with the 70s influnces swapped for 1991 or something. Nature films replaced by SNES games.

 

[DJ PIMP]

The electro revival of '00-'02 was exciting because it seemed like getting back to basics, and startting afresh, but it soon degenerated into retro wank.

yes!

but by god, it has come back with a vengeance in the oh six.

 

[elgato]

The 90s is probably my favourite decade for music, my main concern is that there's been little innovation since, because people are happier to carry on working in a certain 90s genre now, like drum 'n' bass, rather than develop new sounds.

i just dont agree. the innovations may not have been to your tastes, but post-millenium garage through to dubstep and grime are prime examples of substantial, genre-breaking innovations since the 90s

 

[swears]

i just dont agree. the innovations may not have been to your tastes, but post-millenium garage through to dubstep and grime are prime examples of substantial, genre-breaking innovations since the 90s

I love all those things, but compared to the bounty of the 90s it's slim pickings isn't it?

 

[baboon2004]

Great thread.

Going back a few posts, it's hard to imagine anything from the 90s will be more revered in 20-30 years' time than 'Maxinquaye' or 'Blue Lines'. There's just such overwhelming sonic joy and variety in both those albums.

 

[swears]

Just heard the awful new Gnarles Barkley single "Who Cares?" This is the sort of thing I'm talking about.