Trip-Hop
Trip hop is a genre of electronic music that originated in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom and achieved a great popularity with commercial success. As a music genre, typified by a quite slow tempo, muted breakbeat, distinctive bass, sounds from old records (jazz, soul, pop), dark and depressive atmosphere, laid-back vocals.
Birth: 1991 Bloom: 1994
Trip hop emerged as a fusion of experimental hip hop with jazz, dub, rock, and soul, which were propelled at that time by Massive Attack and Portishead from Bristol. Bristol is also associated with the first name of trip hop– the Bristol wave or the Bristol sound. The term trip hop was coined by the British magazine Mixmag.
Trip hop often combines live recorded instruments with samples. Sometimes rap pronounced in a muted voice or even whisper is used as vocal. Modern musicians often use trip hop elements in a combination with other styles: synthpop (Goldfrapp, Jay-Jay Johanson, I AM X), alternative rock (Garbage, Curve, Tapping The Vein), EBM (Ego Likeness, Crystalline Effect), industrial (Collide, Unwoman), dream pop (Violet Indiana, Rya, Hungry Lucy).
The trip hop history can be started from reggae rhythms (the famous «Jamaican syncope») and dub, and from more ancient tribal music of the East. Nowadays, among modern artist attention should be paid to Nico, in her solo works there were proto-trip hop features, but the starting point of trip hop is said to be the first Cocteau Twins` album, whose vocalist Elizabeth Fraser became a godmother of trip hop. Cocteau Twins` achievements became the basement of music by Switchblade Symphony, Curve, My Scarlet Life, The Machine In The Garden, Collection D`Arnell-Andrea, and many other artists attributed to ethereal rock as well as elements of the Bristol wave music. That was accurately noticed by А.Горохов (A.Gorokhov) in his book «Музпросвет» («Muzprosvet») about trip-hopization of the USA, because the main part of trip hop musicians comes from there.
Later there was a fusion of trip hop with shoegazing and dream pop. The previous era of new wave has influenced trip hop and many musicians often admitted their sympathies to post-punk and new wave. But don`t forget that despite the existence of similar elements trip hop emerged exactly in the early 90s. However similar compositions can be found in tracks by Cure, Siouxsie, The Banshees, The Sisters of Mercy, Cocteau Twins, Depeche Mode, and many other. That`s because of dub influence on the first post-punk/goth rock bands. Moreover, inspite of the passion for «new wave» music, punk or post-punk, the main rhythmic elements of trip-hop roots in reggae or hip hop.
Umbrellate style: Downtempo
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