Where to start with Bristol Trip Hop

Bristol Trip Hop is a music scene from Bristol, England, 1983–1998. Its principal artists include Massive Attack, Portishead, Tricky and The Wild Bunch. This issue covers 9 essential albums and 11 dated events.

Start here

1
Blue Lines
Massive Attack · 1991
Original release: Circa Records · 0777 7 86228 2 6 · CD · UK 1991
Widely considered the first trip hop album, it set the genre's template of sample-based production, guest vocalists, and orchestral scale.
2
Dummy
Portishead · 1994
Original release: Go! Beat · 828 553-2 · CD · Europe 1994
A landmark that won the 1995 Mercury Prize and marked the year Bristol's sound reached its widest audience.
3
Maxinquaye
Tricky · 1995
Original release: Island · 524 089-2 · CD · UK 1995
By most accounts the defining record of the genre, a nocturnal collage built around Martina Topley-Bird's voice.

Go deeper

4
Protection
Massive Attack · 1994
Original release: Circa Records · 7243 8 39883 2 7 · CD · Europe 1994
Protection featured Tracey Thorn and Nicolette and marked the band's move away from the loose, Wild Bunch-era collective toward a more defined studio sound, winning a Brit Award for Best Dance Act.
5
Portishead
Portishead · 1997
Grainier and harsher than Dummy, with more live instrumentation, the self-titled follow-up pushed the band further from the trip hop shorthand critics had settled on them and toward a sound entirely their own.
6
Debut
Björk · 1993
Original release: One Little Indian Records · TPLP 31 CD · CD · UK 1993
Produced by Wild Bunch alumnus Nellee Hooper, Debut carried trip hop's textures into mainstream pop and helped bring electronic dance music to a much wider listening public, proof of how…
7
Mezzanine
Massive Attack · 1998
Original release: Virgin · 7243 8 45599 2 2 · CD · Australia 1998
Mezzanine gave Massive Attack its first UK number one album, featuring Elizabeth Fraser and Horace Andy, and it remains a fixture on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums.

For the obsessed

8
Nearly God
Tricky (as Nearly God) · 1996
A pseudonymous side project featuring Björk and Neneh Cherry, Nearly God opens with a cover of Siouxsie and the Banshees' proto-trip-hop track 'Tattoo,' a fitting nod given Tricky's own instinct…
9
Third
Portishead · 2008
Original release: Mercury Records · B0011141-01 JK02 · 12″ Vinyl · US 2008
A rockier, post-punk-influenced return after a decade-long hiatus, Third drew 327,000 listeners on Last.fm in just under 24 hours when the site streamed it a week before release, the first…

The stories behind every record are in Bristol Trip Hop, a members' issue.