{"id":1673,"date":"2008-09-05T14:17:44","date_gmt":"2008-09-05T18:17:44","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2008-09-05T14:17:44","modified_gmt":"2008-09-05T14:17:44","slug":"listening-with-the-tv-off-tricky-lemgkno","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/listening-with-the-tv-off-tricky-lemgkno\/","title":{"rendered":"Listening With the TV Off: Tricky, <em>Knowle West Boy<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"<iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/W7Zjp2-zTCA?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>Had my music-listening and drug-taking behaviors not been well established before the advent of <strong>Massive Attack<\/strong> and the subsequent solo career of <strong>Tricky<\/strong>, my initial thoughts on listening to Tricky&#8217;s new album, <em>Knowle West Boy<\/em>, might run deeper than recalling episodes of cheesy cable spy and con game shows, like USA&#8217;s &#8217;90s knockoff, <em>La Femme Nikita<\/em>, and the more recent AMC series <em>Hustle<\/em>. Of course the use of trip-hop soundtracks on such shows is an outgrowth of the music&#8217;s use in stylish, gritty action films, like <em>Face\/Off<\/em> and <em>Snatch<\/em>. Those fictional London two-bit cons and thugs, in particular, are all about multi-cultural cross-pollination, harsh urban landscapes, witty asides, and an underlying sense of chill.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tricky, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/media\/blogs\/rth\/06-CouncilEstate.mp3\" title=\"\">&#8220;Council Estate&#8221;<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Tricky, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/media\/blogs\/rth\/04-Veronika.mp3\" title=\"\">&#8220;Veronika&#8221;<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As I work to hear this album with the figurative tv turned off, the underlying rhythms and subtly jarring sound collages are pretty cool apart from the image of a wiseass Cockney guy and some modern-day <strong>Emma Peel<\/strong>. Chances are, you&#8217;ve been listening to this stuff with the tv off for some time. Surely the music of Tricky prepared some of you for the coming of <strong>M.I.A.<\/strong> For instance, the insistent &#8220;Veronika&#8221; and &#8220;Baligaga&#8221;, from <em>Knowle West Boy<\/em>, now make sense to these old ears, having come in through the back door. Also, after all these years, a track like &#8220;Council Estate&#8221; fills in some of the gaps in my musical and drug-taking experiences, making me think that Tricky&#8217;s working off ideas first established by <strong>The Specials<\/strong>, on their proto-chill second album, <em>More Specials<\/em>. I can dig that. Frequently, the singing and influx of rock guitar posturing reminds me of <strong>Terrence Trent D&#8217;Arby<\/strong>, who despite his self-generated bombast put out a couple of cool albums. <\/p>\n<p>Shit, I&#8217;ve missed so much over the years that I can&#8217;t tell if Tricky&#8217;s new album is outdated or ahead of some retro &#8217;90s curve. Somehow, as our Presidential campaign kicks off with a collection of cutting-edge and retro candidates ready to square off, this music sounds more appropriate than it otherwise might.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Had my music-listening and drug-taking behaviors not been well established before the advent of Massive Attack and the subsequent solo career of Tricky, my initial thoughts on listening to Tricky&#8217;s new album, Knowle West Boy, might run deeper than recalling episodes of cheesy cable spy and con game shows, like USA&#8217;s &#8217;90s knockoff, La Femme <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/listening-with-the-tv-off-tricky-lemgkno\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1673"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1673\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}