The Trip-Hop/Chill/Dream Pop thread

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The KLF

The seminal art/dance group that never felt comfortable at the top of the charts and were never taken seriously as artists created some of the most exciting dance music of the late '80s and early '90s.

The bulk of their output is a poppy sort of proto-trance they labelled stadium house, but they are quite varied. The album most in keeping with this thread is Chill Out:



This ambient album is just one long beautiful track, rated by Mixmag the 5th greatest "dance" album of all time.

Chill Out (part 1). Other parts should come up on the side if you want to hear the rest, but if you enjoy it just find a copy so you can listen to the whole thing at once.

If you like this it's a bit of a shame they didn't do anything else quite like it. The most notable of their output was released as singles, but they also put out The White Room album.


This is a poppier outing first conceived as a soundtrack to an aborted film. It is still relaxing and soothing, and songs on it serve as testament to Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty's prescient understanding of the potential of electronic music.

Some Clips from the album:
3 AM Eternal
Last Train to Trancentral (live from the lost continent)
Kylie Said to Jason (This was a commercial flop - judge for yourself as I quite like it.)

As a bonus clip (not from either album) here is their first #1 hit:
Doctorin' the Tardis

[daveT]

PJ Harvey! I want to know what he thought of Imogen Heap's live triple dubbing. But I really want his opinion on genitorers.

Seriously, thanks, Wookie. I listen to as much as I can as well. I see that the number count is increasing, so a few links are hopefully being pushed. I also enjoy writing, and writing reviews is a fun art.

Here is song I think you may be able to dance to.

Southern Sun

Just because other people mis-label doesn't mean we don't know our stuff! [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

And Dom, I am highly impressed with PJ.

[Kimbell175113]

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Dom, I am highly impressed with PJ.

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but that means less coming from me than it does from Wook

[Kirg]

Wow a thread I feel I can contribute to, and with a Belgian band in the first post even to make me feel all proud of my homeland and stuff [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Before I add a few albums I just wanted to comment on this.
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Massive Attack - Mezzanine

Long considered the "masterpiece" of the genre...

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[nitpick]I don't think you can say this, I've noticed here in North America most ppl are of this opinion maybe because it was simply played the most yet in Europe the choice of defining album was usually between either Blue Lines or Protection although Mezzanine has a ton of fans. Not that this matters though, they're all great. Personally I can't really pick one, the sound between the albums is so very different. [/nitpick]

I can also concur on Moon Safari. I had this cd playing in my bedroom for 2 years nonstop, as in it never got turned off, it played for 2 years straight 24/7 until the wife and I moved to another place. And yet I'm still not tired of this album nor of any of the songs.

Now to add some not mentioned yet. Some of these are not trip hop in the purest sense, but honestly Massive Attack and Portishead are probably the only "pure" ones.

Moloko - Do you like my tight sweater


The only word that comes to mind to describe Moloko's trip hop is "insane".

Moloko - Killa Bunnies (amateur clip and the song is about 1 min longer on the album.)
Who can resist with a song title like that and lyrics like:

Sniveling little bunny bouncing up and down,
Scummy little creatures,
Run them out of town,
In the tiny tunnels scuffling under ground,
Toxic little bunny can always be found,
Danger evil rodent,
Multiplying every day,
Bunny taking over,
Get on your knees and pray,
Filthy fluffy creatures,
Teeth as sharp as knives,
The longeared ones are coming,
Run run run for your lives,

Moloko - Day for Night (Live) (Live performance sadly, sounds 10x better on the album)

Moloko - Fun for Me (nice to be reminded how damn sexy Roisin Murphy is)


DJ Krush
I don't have an album to recommend for this Japanese artist as I only have single songs. He does a decent amount of more regular hip hop stuff but he also has trip hop gems like.

DJ Krush - Dig This Vibe Clip has nothing to do with song but is only one out there. Song is 4+min in actual track.


DJ Shadow - Endtroducing

While they are not all Trip Hop noone weaves and creates songs like DJ Shadow. Almost every song is 5 to 9 minutes of perfection that tingles every one of your senses. Sometimes I miss the female vocals that are so typical of a lot of trip hop songs but when in the right mood a DJ Shadow song is nirvana. Even these YouTube video's don't really do the songs justice.

DJ Shadow - Midnight in a Perfect World

DJ Shadow - What Does your Soul Look Like part 4 (only 1 min of it though)


Thievery Corporation - Mirror Conspiracy


Again, not every song is trip hop.

Thievery Corporation - Lebanese Blonde

Thievery Corporation - Indra Ignore the video.

That's it for now. Most modern trip hop is mixed with other styles like ambience, trance, D n' B and stuff so it's hard to find pure trip hop albums anymore. Not that this is bad, I quite like some of the newer mixed stuff like Morcheeba etc.

Honestly though, you could lock me up for the rest of my life on an island with just the Massive Attack, Portishead and Air discographies and you wouldn't hear me complain, even though I listen to everything from Classic to Hip Hop to Industrial.

Oh, and since I'm now somewhat homesick I have to end with one more Hooverphonic song.

Hooverphonic - Eden (it sounds hollow on all the vids though [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] )

Did you ever think of me
As your best friend
Did I ever think of you
Im not complaining
I never tried to feel
I never tried to feel this vibration
I never tried to reach
I never tried to reach your eden

Sorry if this turned out too long :P

-Kirg

[Dominic]

awesome, Kirg! please post more!

[Kirg]

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awesome, Kirg! please post more!

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Ok then!

Was kicking myself for forgetting them anyway.

Blue Foundation - Sweep of Days


A collaboration between 3 Danish composers, a Japanese DJ and a British MC, Blue Foundation gets named a lot as the one band that comes very close to the original Bristol Sound trip hop. While not as sultry, sexy and raw as Portishead you can definitely hear the abundant Massive Attack influences (having Tricky working on your record sure helps for this). Some people might know "Sweep" from the Miami Vice soundtrack.

As usual, disregard the videos, not only are they not the actual clips but they will change how you interpret the music significantly.

Blue Foundation - Sweep

Blue Foundation - End of the Day

Sadly I can't find video's of some of the best songs like "Ricochet" a pure Massive Attack song with Tricky type vocals and "02.17 AM", a great groove song with a fantastic jazzy trumpet.

And while I'm at it.


Mono - Formica Blues


I can really let the song speak for itself here.

Mono - Life in Mono

Great sound and fantastic female vocals that always evoke feelings of Parisienne singers and classic French wistful movies.

Warning, the rest of the cd is all over the map genre-wise though.


Royksopp

This is mostly just about one song since they only really have two trip-hop like songs on their second album "The Understanding". But boy oh boy is one of them simply fantastic.

Is this even trip hop? I'm not sure, wikipedia says it is, and honestly when you get to any electroniclike music lines can become so murky it's ridiculous. Genres are just useless labels that try and trap artists within a box anyway. (end rant)

On to the song. But please please please do not look at the video, minimize it, scroll down, turn your screen off, hell throw your monitor out the window as long as you don't watch.

Royksopp - Triumpant

You should probably listen to the song before reading further as I don't want to bias the experience.

"Triumphant", the perfect title for what you are about to hear as this song is the embodiment of that word. Every time I hear this song I instantly get a movie in my head of a man sitting on a step trying to work out a difficult decision in his head. When the beat starts he gets up and starts walking, the longer the song goes the faster he starts walking until he finally is walking at an elated and happy brisk crisp...triumphant.

Some people play "Eye of the Tiger" to get pumped up, I play "Triumphant"

For what's it worth " Mogwai's Auto Rock" gives me the exact same emotions and movie in my mind.

Oh, right the other trip hoppy type song, it's more Hooverphonic-like really.

Royksopp - What Else is There?

And now I really should get some sleep since it seems to be almost 6am [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

btw I love these "Genre X" music threads. They always come out so perfectly informative in the Lounge and thanks to the posters here I've found a ton of new music already. So like, thanks and stuff. Happy to give something back.

[Kirg]

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and quite frankly Bukem is probably the only listenable Drum and Bass

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E-Z Rollers - Tough at the Top

It's not Chill but listen to that dirty jazzy sound mixed with the Drum 'n Bass and tell me that's not good?
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[zyrrth]

Check out Monkey Radio

[cwsiggy]

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and quite frankly Bukem is probably the only listenable Drum and Bass

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E-Z Rollers - Tough at the Top

It's not Chill but listen to that dirty jazzy sound mixed with the Drum 'n Bass and tell me that's not good?
[img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

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Ok - agreed - I do like Jazzy drum and bass and there are many more artists.

[ohead]

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Here is song I think you may be able to dance to.

Southern Sun


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if you like southern sun you gotta check out tiesto's mix "in the search of sunrise 3" which is the best of the sunrise-mixes and is compiled of like 15 songs like southern sun, southern sun is actually IN that mix too [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I suppose you could group it as chillout music [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

but both are Trance and not really into the genre of this thread [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]