tricky / 'triki / adj  1 difficult or
intricate 2 crafty or deceitful
TRICKY
Pre-Mililennium Tension
ISLAND

In 1953, at the height of his popularity, the Maerican abstract expressionist dauber Mark Rithko was comissioned to paint a series of design for the Four Seasons Restaurant in New York's Seagram's Building. Rothko's response was such: "This is a place where the richest bastards in New York come to feed and show off. I hope to ruin the appetite of every son of a bitch who ever eats in that room. I want them to feel that all they can do is butt their heads against the wall. Forever."
   The history of artists who hate their audience is a rich one. Miles Davis, Lou Reed, Bob Dylan: all have, at one time or another, made extreme shifts in order to distance themselves from the unthinking fans who dared to admire them int he first place. With 'Pre-Millennium Tension', Tricky may feel that he is continuin in this grand tradition, but, although there is much here that fits into the same 'classic' category as Massive Attack's 'Blue Lines' and 'Maxinquaye'. 'PMT' also comes complete with the requisite dollops of pig-headed self-undulgence.
    Probably the msot influential album of the last five years, 'Maxinquaye' becamse the key reference point in the emergence of the hwole trip hop scene and its every descending quality lineage from Portishead and Moloko to 12 Rounds. As it nestled comfortably between Simple Minds and U2 in moneyed front rooms throughout the land - a concession to muscial weirditude, daling - Tricky retreated from the limelight. Whether the result of a geniune belief in artistic purity, or simply the paranoid side-effects of too much high-grade smoke, the impression was of a star bedevilled by the monster he had created and desprerate to escape its clutches.
   After the demo-esque, I-Am-Not-Tricky statement of the Nearly God project, 'Pre-Millennium Tension' moves even further away from any notion of narkebility. Relocated to some ramshackle Jamaican studio hut, but sounding a tad more 'produced' than 'Nearly God', the overall mood is of intense oppression - 50 minutes inside the head of the most paranoid man in pop.
   Allegedly 'influenced' by those generous portions of high-calibre weed Tricky now smokes to combat his asthma, opening track, 'Vent' is effectively the album's statement of intent. A schizoid can't-hardly-breathe funk of flu and rheumy sickness, it quotes Grandlaster Flash's 'The Message' ("Don't push me cos I'm close to the edge / I'm trying not to lose my head"), before dragging the album into a well of wheezy despondency from which it never fully recovers.
   The single, 'Christiansands', carries on the gloom baton. A palsied tirade against the cliches of relationship - "Forever / What does that mean? / You and me / What does that mean? / It means we'll manage" - it is given an unnerving twist by the fact that the most obvious target of this verbal assault, co-singer Martine, is now also the mother of Tricky's kid, Maisie. We are entering a very sick world indeed.
   However, like Tricky himself, it's now very easy to become bored by trademark breathy muttering and bastard breaks - the chidren of trip hop have stolen the original Tricky sound and it isn't really until the third track, 'Tricky Kid', that any real sense of escape is estrablished. Sporting a particularly cancerous pair of lungs and backed by some unidentified homunculus gibbering "Tell me what you see when you look in mama's 

eyes!", this is Bad Tricky, the tricky kid, raging against the people that made him, the pretenders who stole his style and, more significant, himself: "They used to calle me Tricky Kid / I lived the life they wish they did / Here comes a Nazareen / Look good in a magazine / Everybody wants to be naked and famous / Just like Tricky Kid / I'm naked / And famous". It's axactly the Tricky you hoped for after his 'Nearly God' self-therapy, a genius paranoiac wreaking vengeance on the parsitic music world and possibly the best single track he's ever recorded.
   Unforunately, it doesn't last. 'Bad Dream' and 'Lyrics Of Fury' see Tricky revisiting the world of the hip hop cover version, so roundly mashed on 'Maxinquaye''s 'Black Steel', but only the backwards jazz-drum clash of Eric B's 'Lyrics' manages to sound worthwhile. While 'Bad Dream''s thudding gangsta carnage - "His head fell apart like a block of ice / What can I say / Iwas havin' a fucked-up day" - might well be attributed to the jaded artist, sick of all he sees, it doesn't help that the listener is as bored as the narrator by the unemotional list of atrocities on show.
    As a result, 'Pre-Millennium Tension' is a presistently annoying album. Tricky's relaxed approch in the quality-control department may well be the sign of his being at odds with Island's demands, but it also helps to obscure the geniune points of brilliance that he is capable of. Not surprinsingly, it's the tracks where Mr. Paranoid takes a back seat that work best. 'Makes Me Wanna Die' has Martine intoning through a heavy skunk pall like a space age Nancy Sinatra to Tricky's Lee Hazelwood, detailing the insignicance of relationshiops - "I'm a small piece / An ism" - in the face of a collapsing future. Perhaps the strangest inclusion is 'Ghetto Youth', a Jamaican-patois tale of 'no-good slum-yoot makes good'. narrated in a casual dub drawl - "Man nah stop kill man / Seen?" - by some bloke Tricky met in Kingston, it is a rare moment of unassuming cool in an album beset by The Fear.
   The remaining tracks, however, form a quite frustrating descent into the worst of Tricky. True, 'Sex Drive' is the welcome sound of Augustus Pablo ram-rading an amusement arcade, but Tricky's suburban-threat lyrics, "Now I can afford / To live in your area," are ultimately wearying. 'Bad Things' and 'My Evil Is Strong' are just tiresome: a slow-beat rant against everything - "Don't ever fuck around with my privacy" - followed by the sound of JG Ballard and Kathy Acker talkikng loudly over a free-hazz recital.
   Although 'PMT' is an effective smothering of his bastard trip hop children, there is the worry that, for the time being, he's got little left to replaceit with. By the end of 'Piano' - Tricky practising the old joanna inside an iron lung and mumbling some Valentine's Day stream of consciousness - it's like he's momentarily just given up.
   In terms of achieving Tricky's aim - pissing off his part-time wine-bar fans - 'PMT' is certainly just the ticket. If that personal success means that the rest of us should endure an erratic musical excursion into the tedious world of articsitc vanity, so be it. Wheather 'PMT' is a geniune loss of direction, or simply a tactical retreat from the lublic glare, will onyl bve decided when the repostedly excellent glut of further Tricky material is released next year.
    So, 'PMT' is no 'Maxinquaye', but an album that'll have your average Ikea trip hop buff felling like they're butting their heads against a brick wall. Forever. Which can only be a good thing.
[ 3 of 5 ]
Soundbite: "Bad time of the century?"
ANDREW MALE

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