Tricky - A Ruff Guide DVD

Since emerging on the music scene in the early 90s, Tricky made his mark as one of the most pioneering contemporary artists in the UK. Along with fellow-Bristolians Massive Attack (on whose seminal Blue Lines album he debuted in 1991), he helped spawn the "trip-hop" movement, ushering in his own spectacular--if a little frightening--dose of introspective lyricism, dreamscape beats and heady blend of urban surrealism. Ruff Guide features 12 of Tricky’s most popular songs and videos, covering tracks from his five albums to date, charting how the artist and his work have... progressed over the last 10 years. The music videos seem to be largely visual representations of escapist urban fantasy/subliminal reality interplay that his songs contain. Many of the early works retain the same reality-twisting approach but offer a visibly increase in professionalism and overall tightness; "Ponderosa", "Black Steel", "Overcome" and "Aftermath", were directed by Mike Lipscombe and have a continually fluid yet overwhelmingly abstract feel to them. As we get into later work ("Christiansands", "Tricky Kid", "For Real" and "Broken Homes") the videos retain the same reality-twisting approach but visibly rise in their professionalism and overall tightness. Just as his music suggests, Tricky leaves the limelight largely up to singer Martina in his videos, content to lurk in shadows and peep around corners and even then his unmistakeable features are heavily made up. The occasions when he does confront the camera ("Christiansands" and "Hell Is Round The Corner") are all the more thrilling for it. This is a great way of listening to some of Tricky's greatest hits and seeing the maestro in action. On the DVD: Tricky-Rough Guide’s menu is divided into three nicely designed sections. The first section is for the videos (with a facility to watch them all in a row or to select individual items), the second is for the Naked and Famous documentary (which is also split up into bite-size categories) and the third allows you to choose between 5.1 surround sound or Dolby stereo and to click the links on or off. The audio and visual quality is food and the content continually watchable. As a special bonus the directors have included Naked and Famous, the notoriously revealing documentary about the artist's Bristolian background, first shown on Channel 4 back in 1997. --Paul Sullivan [show more]

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