When I saw Tricky on "Sessions at West 54th" about four years ago, his performance intrigued me. I watched him hunch over his mic and breathe his raspy, smoke-stained vocals. His vocal partner in crime Martina Topley Bird crooned seductively, and his band rhapsodized his unique take on trip-hop. I watched astounded, enveloped by the layers of sound emanating from my small television speakers. I immediately scrambled to pick up Maxinquaye, his 1995 debut.
It soon became one of my all-time favorites. Maxinquaye was a strong, cohesive, brilliant, unpaved road of a record, filled with clattering, arrhythmic beats, haunting vocal interplay, and a dark and dismal atmosphere that still gives me goosebumps with every listen. In 1998, I got a copy of Angels with Dirty Faces during my internship at a now-defunct alternative radio station here in Los Angeles. While not as groundbreaking as Maxinquaye, it was certainly more focused than 1996's somewhat scattershot Pre-Millennium Tension. Far from a let-down, the album left me hope for the future of Tricky's musical landscape.
But 1999's Juxtapose was a significant step down. While probably worthwhile record for those that prefer Tricky's hip-hop material, it seemed largely inessential for a fan of his more creative output. Even at its best, Juxtapose played like straightforward rap/hip-hop incorporating a more watered-down Angels backdrop and uninspired rhymes. It didn't help that Martina, such an essential element in Tricky's earlier, better work, was nowhere to be found on the album. I hoped this would only be a brief, Pre-Millennium-style detour.
Fortunately, I was half right. But only half. I was optimistic that his new EP could signal a return to the creativity of Maxinquaye, or at least to that of Angels with Dirty Faces. The four-song Mission Accomplished EP, however, took this naive assumption of mine, threw it to the ground, and kicked it with steel-toed boots while shouting degrading insults at it. As exaggerated as I may sound right now, I need only describe the unoriginality of the record's opening title track to back my claims.
Tricky utilizes (read: rips off) the main riff of the Mission: Impossible theme-- a song which has already been retooled to fit 4/4 rock/pop formats at least twice on a mainstream level over the past four years-- and retools it to fit a 4/4 rock/pop format. He then whispers nearly unintelligibly along with this for just over three minutes. Some of the vocals make cliches out of his past work (he even says "brand new, retro," as in "Brand New You're Retro" from Maxinquaye), though the majority simply consists of a repetition of the chorus of Peter Gabriel's "Big Time." Word for word, note for note. And with no hope for relief until it finally and mercifully ends.
The next two tracks feature rapper Lynx, who rhymes about, well, probably sex, and some other things I can't possibly make out through his abominable, incoherent stylings. And to continue Tricky's newfound tradition of carbon-copying the already prosaic and mundane, he even reuses one of the drum loops from "Mission Accomplished" as the primary beat for "Crazy Claws."
The only track out of the bunch worth half a listen-- at best-- is "Divine Comedy," an alternate version of "Money Greedy," one of Angels with Dirty Faces' strongest tracks. Here, Tricky and his cohorts endlessly rip on his former record company, repeating "Polygram!/ Fucking niggers..." quite a few times. This may or may not seem amusing initially; either way, it quickly becomes pointless and monotonous.
I've listened to this EP twice; that's once more than I would have ever liked to have heard it, give or take one listen. Mission Accomplished nearly destroys all hopes I once held for Tricky's future. I could dream about the next Maxinquaye, or even the next Angels. But sadly, my hopeful, innocent wishes have already been beaten senseless. Alas, Tricky, I hardly knew ye.
