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Irving Plaza, New York June 18, 2001 By C. Bottomley You may remember Tricky. In 1994, his debut, Maxinquaye, defied classification and landed in the most style-conscious of CD players. He was the British rapper who whispered over beats lifted straight from Captain Beefheart's trash can. And for a good long while, it seemed like the only person not a Tricky fan was the wiry artist himself. An avalanche of albums and EPs followed. Each was more ambitious than the last, and collectively they had a single goal: Destroy our public perception of Tricky. Now this wild card has pulled his best trick yet. He's been anointed official next-big-thing status - again. The new Blowback sees him teaming up with Live's Ed Kowalczyk and the Red Hot Chili Peppers and stacking catchy choruses end to end. The beats are four to the floor. The sound is polished rock/rap. It seems Tricky has returned from the outer reaches of his herb-enhanced consciousness to slay radio and claim victory. And though the album has just been released, in concert Tricky is already ripping the guts from the thing and rearranging himself again. As a concession to stardom, this soundscapist has abandoned his usual practice of performing in near darkness, and when he took the stage of Irving Plaza, the band even played "Ghetto Youth" as a dazed instrumental - like Tricky was leading a soul revue. In a sense he was, although that soul is surely frying in hell's deepest regions. When he wasn't rapping he kept his back to the audience, leaving it to burly Bronx raggaman Hawkman and singer Ambersunshower to voice his thoughts. But when he took the mike, this imp shook back and forth with rage, strangling the stand as if to squeeze the very electricity out of it. His band performed at Warped Tour volumes, and the guitar-heavy textures of Blowback flattened the eardrums like a steamroller. "Bury the Evidence" was an Eminem-style revenge fantasy that slowly built its cinematic chords into a chundering guitar storm, while Tricky screamed, "It's just like a movie/ Life doesn't move me." "Girls" and new single "Evolution Revolution Love" liberated the choruses from Anthony Kiedis and Kowalczyk, respectively, leaving Ambersunshower to sing lines like "Genetics from my gun/ Baby I don't care" without consideration for gender. With his way of casting singers for certain lines, inviting random mates out to rhyme on "Hot Like a Sauna" (which bore no resemblance to the original on 1999's Juxtapose), and holding his fiery explosions in reserve, Tricky structures his performances more like a play than a concert. He wants catharsis in the purest sense, squeezing listeners through the claustrophobic space created by rumbling bass and bellowing guitar, leading an escape from panic. He finished his set with "Vent," the musical asthma attack from his 1996 masterpiece, Pre-Millennium Tension. Before collapsing to the floor, he stood dazed as fluorescent green and yellow spots played across his bare chest and tattooed arms. For a crazy moment, this contrary artist made some sort of sense. His audience won't know Antonin Artaud, so call him Iggy Pop instead. Like them, Tricky is a shamanic scapegoat - confounding us because he confounds himself, subverting notions of success because they're not to be understood. How else to take him? There's a chance he's about to enter the Train leagues. If so, it will be proof that there are stranger things on heaven and earth than we can ever dream of in our record store. For biography, interview, pictures, videos, and songs, visit our Tricky artist section. |
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