TRICKY

Maxinquaye (Reincarnated) (UMG)

When Adrian ‘Tricky’ Thaws left Massive Attack to branch out on his own, his debut solo album Maxinquaye, created with singer Martina Topley-Bird and released in 1995, was as groundbreaking as John Lydon’s post-Sex Pistols work with PiL. Though Tricky’s aural stew of garage rock, hip-hop beats and dub techniques never quite fitted comfortably into any genre, it’s well and truly stood the test of time.

Maxinquaye is now re-released with Tricky’s full cooperation: he’s also reworked a number of tracks that accompany the original album, along with remixes – a rare Leftfield effort among them – and BBC sessions. A remastering job, at Abbey Road, enhances Tricky and Topley-Bird’s vocals and deepens the bass throughout, without losing any of the original rough-and-readiness.

It took guts to cover Public Enemy’s Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos – its title shortened by Tricky to Black Steel – and Pumpkin, created off the back of a Smashing Pumpkins sample, is beautiful and inventive. In 1995, David Bowie wrote to Tricky telling him how much he was blown away by Maxinquaye, and it’s not difficult to see why. Hopefully, Tricky’s two successor albums, Pre-Millennium Tension and Angels With Dirty Faces, will be re-released as lovingly and lavishly as this timeless gem.

words DAVID NOBAKHT