Record Rebound: Tricky reincarnates ‘Maxinquaye’ with fresh remixes
As a member of The Wild Bunch and early collaborator of Massive Attack, Tricky – born Adrian Thaws – was one of hip-hop’s early British innovators. Alongside their Bristol neighbours Portishead, Massive Attack were widely regarded as the founders of trip-hop. This is an ill-fitting genre tag with which Tricky isn’t particularly comfortable, and with such boundless creative exploration over the past three decades, it’s easy to see why.
After working with Massive Attack on their second album, 1993’s Protection, notably contributing to ‘Karmacoma’ and ‘Eurochild’, Tricky sought to bring this eclectic approach into a solo career. He began this venture in 1994 as he stepped into the studio with vocalist Martina Topley-Bird and a solo contract with 4th & B’way.
The extraordinary fruit of these sessions was pressed into Maxinquaye, Tricky’s debut solo album of 1995. Like his earlier work with Massive Attack, this groundbreaking 12-track set defied categorisation, leaving critics to stutter in awe over terms like trip-hop and post-rock. Meanwhile, Tricky pushed on to release three further studio albums by the millennium’s close, each bringing a progressive batch of thoroughly engrossing material.
Although it’s not a round number anniversary for Maxinquaye, the Universal label gave Tricky the opportunity to reissue the album alongside six brand-new reworks of its classic tracks. “When Universal approached me, I said to them, ‘Can I do some new tracks?'” Tricky said in a new press release. “And they just said yes to me right away. It wouldn’t have involved me otherwise, and the way they’ve been has sort of restored my faith in major labels. It’s like the early days of Island all over again.”
The new reincarnated edition drags the thematically dark and creatively colourful debut album into the 21st century with six reimagined tracks, live versions, alternative mixes, and new Abbey Road remasters of the original tapes. “If you’re an artist or a musician and you look back at your old stuff,” Tricky explains, “If you don’t think it’s dated, then you’re either stood still or you’re satisfied with what you’ve done. So, Maxinquaye sounds dated to me. I can understand why it was an important record, but to me – because I made it – it sounds dated.”
The six tracks Tricky “reincarnated” for this special reissue are ‘Strugglin’, ‘Aftermath’, ‘Ponderosa’, ‘Hell Is Round The Corner’, ‘Pumpkin’ and the abridged reprise, ‘Little Aftermath’. Working in collaboration with Alex Reece, Marta Złakowska, Lucia, Sukie Smith and RZA, Tricky has breathed new life into these tracks, transforming them past what could be considered correction and into a new creative realm entirely.
For example, with Sukie Smith on board, Tricky has omitted the sample of Isaac Hayes’ ‘Ike’s Rap’ (also famously used for Portishead’s ‘Glory Box’) and treated the track to a stripped-back sonic and lyrical overhaul, equally pleasing on the ears.
Elsewhere, Złakowska’s vocals and another instrumental overhaul bring ‘Aftermath’ to more atmospheric, punchy and decluttered climes. The original version arrived as Tricky’s debut solo single in January 1994. “I hadn’t listened to it for years! And ‘Aftermath’ was the obvious one to start with because that was my first release without any label,” Tricky notes. “So it was like, ‘Okay, I’m not going to cover this.’ It’s almost like I just thought about that song and then ‘Aftermath Reincarnated’ – just how it should have sounded to me now. So, I redid it as it should sound now. It’s not a cover; it’s a reminder.”
The new super deluxe set arrives in triple LP, double CD and digital formats, each emblazoned with the reincarnated cover artwork featuring a photograph of Tricky as a child with his late mother. “That’s the only existing picture I know of me and her together,” Tricky said of the artwork. “One of my cousins found that in a box a couple of years ago. So the timing is perfect. When I first did Maxinquaye, I never had that picture. I know more about my mother now than when I did when I made that album, right? So it’s kind of perfect timing. It was meant to be.”
The reissue arrives on Friday, October 13th, but all purchase options are available for preorder now. The 3LP set of Maxinquaye (Super Deluxe) is available for £43.99 here.
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