Music & SocietyTrip Hop Bristol Sound 1990s

Chris Bakerwww.musicstudentinfo.com

Location Bristol

• City • West coast U.K.• Key slave port• Weather rainy• Large long established African & Caribbean population• Cheap housing attracts bohemians, students and

immigrant population• Fertile environment for blending music styles

Genre Trip Hop

Background

•Bristol sound•1990s•Down tempo electronic music•Sample Heavy & Moody •Bands Massive Attack, Moloko, Portishead, Tricky, Björk & Amon Tobin •DJ Shadow, Gorillaz, Unkle, Howie B •Morcheeba from Kent

Trip Hop History

• 1990s Bristol, England when American hip hop was taking over • British DJ’s put a local spin on the international phenomenon • Added a laid-back beat • Emphasis on slow and heavy drum beats and a sound drawing

on Jamaican dub music and electronica

Trip Hop History cont.

• Massive Attack's first album Blue Lines in 1991, first of the "Bristol hip hop movement"

• 1994 and '95 peak & rise of Portishead and Tricky • Portishead's - Beth Gibbons' sullen voice, samples

from the '60s and '70s, sound effects from LP’s giving distinctive style

• Tricky's style murmuring and low-pitched singing

Post Trip Hop

• Divided into sub categories Big Beat and Electro • Integrated trip hop with Ambient, R&B, Breakbeat, Drum 'n'

Bass, Acid Jazz, New Age, etc • Vocals expanded beyond melancholy female voices• No longer limited to the "deep, dark style" eliminating the

original impression of trip hop as "dark and gloomy"

Trip Hop Aesthetic

• Jazz samples, from old vinyl records • Rhodes pianos, saxophones, trumpets & flutes• Trip Hop differs from hip hop in theme and overall tone, Trip

Hop offers a more aural atmospherics• Regarded as a nineties update of fusion, trip hop transcends

the hardcore rap styles and lyrics with atmospheric overtones to create a more mellow tempo

Trip Hop Aesthetic cont.

• Production - lo-fi, analogue recording equipment and instrumentation for ambience

• Portishead record to old tape from real instruments & sample their recordings, rather than recording their instruments directly to a track

• Drums through compression• Later artists take inspiration from world and orchestral

influences, as well as, film scores • Film soundtracks

Trip Hop Summary • Origins: Hip hop, Dub, Down tempo, House, Breakbeat, Acid

jazz, Reggae, Rock & Psychadelia• Cultural origins:1990s Bristol, United Kingdom• Typical instruments: Fender Rhodes, turntables, samplers,

brass, flutes, strings• Mainstream popularity: High in the underground levels, mainly

Western Europe and North America• Drug of choice: Cannabis