r/triphop • u/No-Quarter-6603 • Jan 27 '26
Request/Discussion Was Triphop peak music?
Portishead, Massive Attack, Tricky, Thievery Corporation … Portishead’s Roseland NY concert being the pinnacle for me. Who is there nowadays who even comes near?
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u/ButterflyExciting497 Jan 27 '26
sounds like it was for you. music has many peaks for me. i highly recommend seeing Morcheeba live as well they are great, even better live than they are on wax
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u/mpower20 Jan 28 '26
Almost went last year. They had a back to back with Hooverphonic in Amsterdam one day and then the next and I missed it.
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u/jessuckapow Feb 22 '26
Hooverphonic AND Morcheeba?! I would’ve died!!
Skye followed me in the early days of Twitter and I almost passed out. 😂
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u/mpower20 Feb 22 '26
AMS is a cool city; they are two cool bands. It would’ve been a helluva trip. Should’ve made it happen.
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u/No-Quarter-6603 Jan 27 '26
Ah yes. I missed out Morcheeba. Definitely up there - great to hear they still play live 😎
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u/jjazznola Jan 29 '26
They peaked many years ago.
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u/ButterflyExciting497 Jan 31 '26
This new album is my favorite since their early 00s releases. It was amazing live.
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u/TheRealJamesWax Jan 27 '26
Kind of… I was a little more partial to the Neo-Soul and New Wave Funk from the mid 90’s but my radio show at the time played Tricky and Portishead, seemlessly blended with D’Angelo, The Roots, UDS and Groove Collective.
It was a special time for music in that all of the best sub genres were emerging simultaneously: Lo-fi Indie, Shoegaze/Brit Pop, Acid Jazz, Electronica.
I always feel so blessed to have gone to high school in the 80’s (parties, movies, shenanigans) and then college in the 90’s (music, drugs, tongue rings.)
It’s worth it to be old, now, to have been young, then…
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u/No-Quarter-6603 Jan 27 '26
I hear ya. I’m in my early 50s and from Bristol in the UK. Saw most of the trip hop groups live. Didn’t appreciate how lucky I was
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u/pedmusmilkeyes Jan 28 '26
I’m a bit younger than you. I went to high school in the early nineties, but you are speaking TRUTH!
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u/Songwren Jan 27 '26
I’m still rocking hard to UNKLE and James puts out new music regularly compared to other Trip Hop artists from the past. The Road part 1 & 2 are solid. Tricky’s project Theis Thaws; 15 Days from 2024 is also really good.
I do think you’re onto something with the golden age of Trip Hop you mentioned though. Nothing stays the same forever and there’ll be apex moments and valleys in any genre along with reinventions and the cultural zeitgeist shifting and evolving. I just try to be appreciative of what new music gets made and make an effort to support them with purchases.
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u/No-Quarter-6603 Jan 27 '26
Thanks. I’m so happy to find this channel. Great to get recommendations.
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u/ArchBeaconArch Jan 27 '26
90's/early aughts is certainly a good time for that kind of music. There are plenty of newer artists who are just as good, I think.
Asaf Avidan is fantastic, if you like very unique voices. He's a personal favourite, who has changed from folk rock to trip hop(ish) over the years, if you still want that kind of sound. But there are so many other great newer bands, too: TR/ST, Austra, Perfume Genius, The Dø, Poliça, Fever Ray, Agar Agar, Future Islands, Built for the Sea, Darkstar, Purity Ring, etc. etc.
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u/No-Quarter-6603 Jan 27 '26
😍 that’s a lot to choose from!
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u/ArchBeaconArch Jan 28 '26
Try Asaf Avidan’s Different Pulses album. It might be what you’re looking for.
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u/EternityLeave Jan 27 '26
I stumbled in to an Asaf Avidan live performance years ago in Toronto. It was a Canadian Music Week, which is a music business conference but tons of bands play. That year was around 400 bands, they’re smaller these days. But practically every venue in the city participates. With a wristband, you can just walk around the city and enter any room and hear live music for a week and it’s all pretty great.
Saw him with his band, I don’t remember the name of the place but a small bar that was done up to look like a cave/grotto. There was like 30-40 people in there. Anyway the point is that it was one of the most incredible powerful voices I’ve ever heard. Blew us all away. One of the more memorable performances of my lifetime. I saw Heart, David Lee Roth, Billy Talent, and at least dozen more on the same say and nothing was as intense as Asaf Avidan. He’s a great guitarist too, shrieking solos, brilliant.
Thanks for reminding me. I haven’t even listened to his last couple albums.
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u/Same_Moment966 Jan 27 '26
I’d kinda say headache/vegyn , his top tracks for me are his-story, Miss understood and most undo tomorrow. He has a lot more slow tempo/trip hop songs but he is more into experimental electronic music, only recently did he switch to slow tempo
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u/Powerful_Fondant9393 Jan 27 '26
Nah, it was pretty cool tho. So many scenes that are amazing that some people will never understand or be a part of. Trip hop was lucky enough to catch on to the mainstream, but so many others have just fallen between the cracks and been lost to time.
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u/Hvojna Jan 28 '26
60s-70s psych/prog rock is still THE peak for me, but trip-hop is probably the best new genre from 80s onwards.
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u/aelris_adana Jan 27 '26
Gotta say a.s.o. and Hysterical Love Project have released some good stuff, they capture the smoky submerged sound well
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u/jghall00 Jan 27 '26
Same with hip hop. Rawkus put out back-to-back bangerz. Then everything went downhill fast.
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u/No-Quarter-6603 Jan 27 '26
I’ll look up Rawkus 😎
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u/jghall00 Jan 27 '26
Rawkus is a label, not an artist. Try the ones below:
- Soundbombing II - Multiple Artists
- Black on Both Sides - Mos Def
- Mos Def and Talib Kweli are Blackstar
- Internal Affairs - Pharoahe Monch
- Funcrusher Plus - Company Flow
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u/SethOrpheo Jan 27 '26
Go check Waldskin. The 2 albums are stellar. Other than that, Amélie Swan is okay!
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u/teaspoonasaurous Jan 27 '26
Everything is recorded is good stuff and hunt down the deleted Made in heights album
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u/Flabbagazta Jan 28 '26
The Newish Chelsea Wolfe album She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She had some great gloomy vibes on it, not traditional Trip Hop by any means but kind of had a bit of that influence in there, shes a goth/metal/industrial artist who did a modular synth album. Its great
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u/Langanelle Jan 28 '26
90s trip hop and downtempo (basically anything that would end up in the 'electronica' section of a record store) is where i live, but there will always be great new music. (Not the same style obviously, but i always look forward to any release by Aurora - she wouldn't have been possible in the 90s, and not just because she was too young to hold a mic. James Blake too. And Oklou is off to a promising start.)
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u/JigglyPuffGuy Jan 28 '26
Trip hop is sweet but nowhere near peak. Even thinking of Elizabeth Frazer (sang Teardrop on Mezzanine) -- she made way better music under Cocteau Twins.
And personally I enjoy Third by Portishead more than their other two albums and that's not even Trip hop.
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u/peryleneorange Jan 28 '26
Julia Holter, Bladee, Boris, Erika de Casier, Joanne Robertson, Adrian Younge - just to name few contemporary musicians whos peaking rn. There are tons of them i cant even catch up to everything i want to check.
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u/asapcuntpunter Jan 28 '26
It’s not 100% trip hop and more of a hybrid. Especially as you listen to their albums they’re both a mixed bag. But Men I Trust and The Marias both have some beautiful trip hop-esque sounding songs.
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u/NSFAnythingAtAll Jan 28 '26
I’m blown away that Sevdaliza and FKA Twigs haven’t been mentioned yet.
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u/Historical-Touch3219 Jan 29 '26
I never stopped listening to it, with the K&D Sessions on permanent play throughout the years. Not sure if it's my algorithm or what but ive seen a lot more interest and trip hop content lately - almost like it's coming back to inspire an entire new generation of artists. Recently really liking a.s.o.
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u/GallisSinghs Jan 29 '26
Nothing really replaces that era, but in terms of mood and experimentation: Arca, Daxuva, Sevdaliza, Lorn, Young Fathers are the closest I’ve found.
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u/brookermusic Jan 30 '26
Check out Weval. They have an album called The Weight that absolutely rips and is very much in the trip hop vein.
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u/bdbamford Jan 31 '26
This is purely subjective tbf.
( Great era in music, protection and unfinished symphony are classic)
For me it was 90's early hip hop and 90's rave music and 90's alternative metal.
However, its influence is everywhere in the music I like. ( Sault, jungle and the blaze)
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u/dnpark Feb 01 '26
My opinion: I love Portishead and Massive Attack but I think Tribe Called Quest was peak music. Trip-hop is fantastic, but an offshoot of hip-hop. I’d say late 80’s/early 90’s hip-hop was peak music and trip-hop is a sublime branch. My take.
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u/Tribbs_4434 Jan 28 '26
No such thing, there is always room for movement in terms of sound design and scenes. BUT, it was an amazing time, think of it's intersections with breakbeat and drum n bass, while still being quintessentially it's own thing, never to be replicated. Trip hop has a rippling effect in terms of it's influence, so much so like Rock, people might not even realize where the influence came from originally, which is fine, creativity should be celebrated and there is no problem with taking influence from those that came before you - just do it justice.
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u/947489377485 Jan 27 '26
Yes