Nostalgia will flatten all art eventually, but one of its most recent victims has been the 90s British music scene. Britpop’s vicelike grip on the cultural imagination might lead you to think that the chart landscape 30 years ago consisted exclusively of a war of attrition between Oasis and Blur, while Jarvis Cocker occasionally flashed his bum. In reality, it was a vibrant period of stark contrasts. While Oasis swaggered, Mogwai raged. When Damon Albarn was painting cock-er-nee caricatures, PJ Harvey was smuggling feminist rhetoric onto Top Of The Pops. And while the redtops revelled in rock’s seeming lack of seriousness, acts such as Massive Attack and Tricky were crafting demure, textured and studious revolutions in trip hop.

Tricky himself has barely let up since his 1994 debut, marking himself as a prolific though mercurial presence. Since the death of his daughter in 2019, he pushed himself further to the sidelines, happier platforming other acts through his record label or writing songs for a variety of side projects. Different When It’s Silent, his first album since 2020, often feels like it’s wrestling with his reluctance to be the star of his own show. Known for using female vocalists, here he enlists fellow Bristolian Mitch Sanders whose high-strung falsetto acts as a foil to Tricky’s low, guttural whisper, which lurks near-spectrally in the background. Where his voice once possessed a hectoring quality, now he’s a growling, keening presence, too wounded to fully engage.

Released under the Tricky moniker on the insistence of his new manager (the 90s mogul Alan McGee), there’s a distinctly collaborative air to each song, all of which credit Sanders and Tricky as co-writers. Elsewhere, Radana spits some nose-flaring bars, while Marta (another frequent flyer with Tricky) joins in on the energetic ‘Out Of Place’, one of the few songs that directly addresses the loss of his child (‘I sing for my daughter,’ he croaks, his voice notably louder than anywhere else on the album). But Sanders’ vocals are a focal point, comparable to Perfume Genius without any of the knowing irony. His full-powered delivery contains a soulful pain in even the slightest lyrics. Perhaps his finest moment is ‘Paris Maybe’, a bass-heavy anti-love song which oozes passion. ‘I’ll be here, I’ll be right here,’ he croons with a sense of mordancy and regret.

Pain and disconnection are constants, complementing sparse arrangements which, though lacking the baroque elements of Maxinquaye or the more upbeat passages of Fall To Pieces, continue Tricky’s preference for foregrounding spidery bass lines and lingering notes. Away from the beauty of ‘Piano’ and ‘Hengrove Blues’, a lope into the shadows can be found on ‘I Still See Me There’, ‘Be Still In The Pain’ and ‘Cannon Fodder’, and yet glimmers of hope are hidden throughout its orchestral flourishes, joyous bursts of hip hop, and hat-tips to nu-soul. He may feel impotent in the face of life’s slings and arrows but his music is never less than purposeful. 

McGee (who’s never shied from hyperbole) has insisted that this is Tricky’s best album since Maxinquaye, a weight that few albums should have to shoulder. Where that debut was part of a vivid movement subverting UK music’s norms, here Bristol’s finest export is reclaiming the sound that’s rightfully his and repurposing it for a period of necessary reflection. When trip hop does receive its much-needed reclamation for the masses, there’s no doubt Tricky will be championed once again. Until then, Different When It’s Silent is a touching ode to the people he’s lost and a tribute to the music community he’s proud to be a part of.

Tricky: Different When It’s Silent is released by False Idols on Friday 17 July; picture: Steve Gullick.

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