It seems like a lot longer than 14 years since “trip-hop” was the hot new underground sound in music. But in the mid-1990’s, it was all the rage. Thanks to bands like Massive Attack (and spin-off artist Tricky), Portishead and DJ Shadow’s legendary debut album Endtroducing, “trip-hop” was the buzz-sound of the day.
Most would credit Massive Attack for kick-starting the craze upon the release of their first album, Blue Lines, in 1991. Combining soul, jazz and reggae to narcoleptic hip-hop beats and the grandiose sensibilities of Pink Floyd, the Massive Attack template became the ad hoc blueprint for what would be known as the “trip-hop” sound.
The same year that Blues Lines was released, Nightmares on Wax (George Evelyn and founding member Kevin Harper) dropped their own debut, the rave-influenced A Word of Science: The First and Final Chapter. But it was their next release, 1995 album Smokers Delight, which really put NOW on the map. Kevin Harper had bowed out of the act, leaving it essentially a solo vehicle for Evelyn. With the album title a not-so-subtle reference to listening while stoned, the blurry beats contained within were tailor-made for altered states of consciousness.
While Nightmares on Wax have sporadically released music since (most notably Evelyn’s edition of the long-running DJ-Kicks mix series), Smoker’s Delight has been the act’s touchstone. Although that could change now that he’s released a fresh batch of blunted beats on a new album, Thought So. The first single, “195 Lbs,” is a thick reggae groove. Capturing Evelyn literally in transition (he moved his home base from the Northern England town of Leeds to the sunny shores of Spanish party island Ibiza), the songs are far less of the smoky club basement variety, and more jumped-up feel-good tracks that can fill a dance floor. But for Evelyn, it always comes back to the soul.
“Soul music is the earliest form of hip hop,” he stressed in a recent interview. “That's why I want to create it. It might seem like recreating what was done in the past, but what I want to do is merge soul and hip hop together. That's why I'll bring in the live aspect of what happened back then into current hip hop trends. That's the angle I'm arriving at."
See Nightmares on Wax at the Echoplex on Monday, Feb. 2
