Trip-hop pioneer Tricky, of Massive Attack fame, talks with Wired.com about becoming a musician and about how he views his naive approach as important to his unique sound.

via wired

Ambient Hip Hop Constructions is a collection of 20 melodic, beat-driven songs, broken down into their constituent looped elements such as drums, keys, bass, and synth parts. Each element is looped to a specified BPM (tempos range from 70 bpm 120 bpm), and keyed to allow mixing and matching between themes. All individual drum hits are also included.

This product has been created for producers into ‘abstract’ and melodic hip hop styles such as trip hop, film score, electronica, downbeat and chill out.

Product Specifications:

• Samples: 152 WAV format loops and hits, separated into 20 themes
• Format: WAV (16 bit)
• Compatibility: Any sampler that reads WAV files
• Download Size: 190MB
• Delivery: Download instantly after purchase

Ambient Hip Hop Constructions is available for download at $39.99.

From its name, you might think Älymystö was a shelving unit from Ikea – but it’s Aktually a Finnish band that combines “elements of ambient, noise, industrial, triphop and god knows what in the mix.”

They’ve put up their latest album as a free Creative Commons download:

Our first album Atomgrad is now a free download (direct & torrent) and copying is highly encouraged, as are comments.

Direct Download HERE.
Torrent HERE.

via Warren Ellis

Here’s the latest Portishead video, for The Rip from their latest album, Third.

Neither the video nor the song do much for me, and they seem to have left what was good about their sound behind. Has Portishead jumped the shark?

Let me know what you think in the comments.

Morcheeba

The band is made up of two UK brothers, Paul and Ross Godfrey, who cover the production and electronics, and Skye Edwards on vocals. Their music often has a retro sound, with low-fi samples and traditional blues lyrics. Their production is often complex, but never obscures the vocals.

Edwards voice is smokey and soulful, and her beautiful presence is a big part of the bands’ appeal. Her laid back but strong singing lends an immediate sensuousness to the often languid songs. It’s hard to imagine Morcheeba’s music without Edward’s vocals.

The Godfrey brothers create downtempo trip-hop tracks that draw on many influences, mostly retro. They combine looped beats with traditional soul instruments like sax, wah guitar and hammond organ. Their production style incorporates dub influences, with tape echo used tastefully to create loop effects.

The combination of Edwards’ dead-on vocals and the chilled electronica vibes update the soul ballad style.

Morcheeba has six major releases:

• 1996 – Who can you trust?
• 1998 – Big Calm
• 2000 – Fragments of Freedom
• 2001 – Back to Mine
• 2002 – Charango
• 2003 – Parts of the Process

This moody orchestral work finds Massive Attack working with some interesting collaborators. Sinead O’Connor adds her distinctive sound to “What Your sould Sings”. Her singing makes this a moving song. She also helps out on “A Prayer for England”, where her emotional delivery contrasts with Massive Attacks restrained backing. Horace Andy contributes the vocal for “Name Taken”, a string filled number that’s anything but easy listening.

Overall, the sound on 100th Window is restrained and mellow. The music stretches the boundaries of trip-hop. If there’s a weakness, it’s that the interest comes primarily from the vocalists, rather than the music itself.

100th Window doesn’t break new ground to the extend that Massive Attack’s 1991 release Blue Lines did. Nevertheless, it’s a well produced slice of challening dance electronica.