Trip-Hop

Trip- hop is a style of electronic music, for the slow, hip-hop similar rhythms are characteristic (usually between 80 and 90 BPM). The pieces often contain samples or vocals. Trip-hop emerged in the early 1990s in the region around the English city of Bristol and was therefore also called Bristol sound.

Sound and Description

Trip- hop is often perceived as introverted or melancholic due to its slow tempos and atmospheric soundscapes. Often working with low-fidelity effects, as the crackle of vinyl records. Instrumental trip-hop pieces are considered by many to clear demarcation no more than trip-hop, but as downbeat. Elsewhere, however, the term Downbeat serves as a superordinate category or collective term for various styles, including trip-hop belongs.

Name and origin

Trip-hop has its roots in hip-hop and dub, but is usually omitted characteristics such as rap in the trip-hop. Often harmonic- melodic elements are found, similar to pop music.

The music journalist Andy Pemberton has used the term " trip hop " in 1994 in the June issue of Mixmag magazine for the first time. The name was created by the charge included in the Hip- Hop elements and the resembling a TripAdvisor perceived slow sounds. In the multicultural scene of Bristol was founded toward the end of the 1980s, the artist collective "The Wild Bunch", which included Massive Attack and Tricky also. Massive Attack has been with her first album Blue Lines laid the foundation stone of the trip-hop, according to many listeners, but it was still very heavily based in large part on funk and soul. Portishead (named after the town in England, near Bristol) was the first band that has the new style presented so that the music journalists saw a need for a new genre name. The alternative term Bristol sound is controversial even today in Bristol, because many local musicians who do not produce trip-hop, feel excluded.

Famous Artists

Known trip-hop performers are Massive Attack, Björk, Portishead, Crustation, Tricky, Smith & Mighty, DJ Krush, Lamb, Red Snapper, Morcheeba, Waldeck, Terra Nova, Mandalay, Nightmares on Wax, Hooverphonic, Alpha, Moloko, Earthling, Kid Cudi and Kruder & Dorfmeister. With the term trip-hop often the UK label Mo ' Wax and Ninja Tune are connected. Your artists ( for example, UNKLE, DJ Shadow, Amon Tobin, Kid Koala, Mr. Scruff, The Herbaliser ) use a lot of the trip-hop -like elements, but they are somewhat hip-hop influences. Thus, both labels understand rather than abstract hip-hop labels.

If one sums up the area a bit further, you will encounter experimental projects such as Coldcut or very independent bands like Air or Solution Coma, but no longer conforms to the music of the common definition of trip-hop. The album Dragonfly by Ego Likeness contains many trip-hop elements. In the course of time, their style changed to be much more dark wave and industrial rock.

Since the advent of trip-hop, many musicians were inspired by this style, thus you can find typical elements of many other genres.