{"title":"RJ Wheaton","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"33-1-3-portishead-dummy","title":"33 1\/3: Portishead - Dummy","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis is a thoroughly researched exploration of one of the most original, unexpected, and durable British albums of the 1990s. An album which distilled a genre from the musical, cultural, and social ether, Portishead's 'Dummy'was such a complete artistic achievement that its ubiquitous successes threatened to exhaust its own potential. RJ Wheaton offers an impressionistic investigation of \"Dummy\" that imitates the cumulative structure of the album itself, piecing together portraits and interviews, impressions of time and place, cultural criticism, and a thorough exploration of the music itself. The approach focuses as much on the reception and response that 'Dummy' engendered as it does on the original production of the album. How is it that so many people have, collectively, made a quintessential headphone album into a nightclub album? How have they made the product of a niche local scene into an international success? This is the story of how an innovative, experimental album became the iconic sound for the better part of a decade - and an aesthetic template for the experience of music in the digital age.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bloomsbury","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":50402316353867,"sku":"377733","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/e4d5a8b0-f013-4a7e-9213-04d934dfb74d_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726540511"},{"product_id":"trip-hop","title":"Trip Hop","description":"\u003cp\u003eTrip-hop was a label cast upon music that, in the early 1990s, sounded from the boundaries of dub, hip-hop, electronic, jazz, soul, and psychedelia. Acoustically arresting albums like \u003cem\u003eMassive Attack’s Blue Lines\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eProtection\u003c\/em\u003e; \u003cem\u003ePortishead’s Dummy\u003c\/em\u003e; \u003cem\u003eTricky’s Maxinquaye\u003c\/em\u003e; \u003cem\u003eDJ Shadow’s Endtroducing...\u003c\/em\u003e ― these, and scores of records on labels like Mo’ Wax and Ninja Tune, seemed to speak to a sense of collective alienation and disenchantment, with the end of the century in sight.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBut the ‘trip-hop’ label was loathed by most of the musicians and producers; and by the early 2000s, receding into a bland ignominy of soundtracks and commercial imitation, the scene seemed to have exhausted itself. The music went on, just like it had come before.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis short book seeks to dislocate \"trip-hop\" and instead understand this music within wider and more interesting aesthetic traditions. Traditions in which qualities of beauty, intimacy, and nostalgia sit alongside complexity, virtuosity, and furious experimentation. It places this strange, spacious, avant-garde sound alongside musics of exile, loss, and the Black diaspora.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eLike the music, this book will both offer solace and challenge. It will ask questions about who gets to define genres, and what ― and who ― do such genres exclude. And it will ask, as a listener, how do you untrain your ears and escape complicity from the commercial imperatives of labels and algorithms?\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"No Label","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":50411296653643,"sku":"1157103","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/c7329301-1ac0-42ea-b848-a395268eb2fc_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726655759"}],"url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/collections\/rj-wheaton.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}