I’ve been into this stuff since, well always really.

I remember discovering Massive Attack in the early 90’s, and tuned into more of the UK sounds with Faithless, Lamb and Portishead. A number of ‘bands’ and ‘collectives’ all happening out of Bristol, England, with a sound that got dubbed as ‘Trip Hop’ .

These were more collectives of individual than bands, with both Massive Attack and Faithless having 3 key members, and others drifting in and out, or invited to join in, over the course of several albums.
Nobody has mentioned Faithless as yet. Faithless was a defining musical moment for me. The 3 main members being Maxi Jazz, - a UK MC / rapper, Sister Bliss - a UK based DJ, and Rollo, a DJ / Producer.

Their first 2 albums of Saturday 8pm, and Reverence, still get regular play on both the Ipod and the car CD stacker. Each of these albums also came out with remix albums, being Sunday 3am and Irreverence respectively. The later albums are also good, with some epic moments, but the first two just have that special spark. Maxi, being a Buddhist (hence Faithless) always had some interesting things to say.....

The music is a mix of styles, and includes some massive dance hits – although the band would never agree to being cast as a ‘dance act’. Some of the chill tracks are beautiful, but if you’re not into the higher tempo stuff you may not get into it. Although, it is this journey from chill to noise to chill again that makes these albums. To me they’re not so much individual tracks as a ‘trip’...

Evergreen:

Crazy English Summer:

I won’t go an about the others tonight as someone else here probably will (I’d crap on all night about Massive Attack and Lamb if you let me......) Maybe later if there’s any interest?

Another duo not mentioned surprisingly is closer to you than me over here in Oz,
From Nettwerk records in Canada, Delerium are 2 producers / DJ’s (Rys Fulber & Bill Leeb) that come together every so often and create some masterpieces. Both have very different styles in their own music (one is industrial electronic, other more experimental).

Best albums to check out – Semantic Spaces from 1994, Karma from 1997, Poem from 2000.

Terra Firma from Poem:

Enchanted from Karma:

Silence – has been remixed by just about every DJ out there, so you’ve probably heard one version somewhere. In fact I couldn’t find the original version on Youtube....

Finally for tonight, another band not mentioned here from our Kiwi neighbours – Strawpeople.

Once again, not really a band, but one guy who co-opts other musicians and vocalists in to work with. The version of taller than god is different to the album version which IMO is better. This version has been ‘commercialised’ for public release..... Not sure if you can access from outside Oz / NZ?

Trick with a knife:

Taller than God:

Scared of flying:

Let me know if any of you like what you hear. If people are interested, I can relate some other possibly obscure musical gems that you may just fall in love with as I have.
Cheers,
Mike.