Maxinquaye

one of rough trade's island 50th anniversary selection - 50 crucial titles, specially selected by us to highlight the unique contribution this seminal label has made to british music since 1959. tricky made a low-key entrance onto the music scene as a guest vocalist on massive attack's 1991 classic 'blue lines'. there was little indication that he would resurface four years later with an album as powerfully unsettling as 'maxinquaye'. accompanied by the sweet-voiced martine topley bird and alison goldfrapp, tricky takes the listener on a tour of the dark corridors of his mind, dealing exclusively in paranoia and obsession. the striking rhythms of stand-out tracks 'overcome', 'hell is round the corner' and 'suffocated love' merge seamlessly with a hard-rock reworking of public enemy's 'black steel in the hour of chaos' and the warped soul of 'abbaon fat tracks' to create one of the 90s' most compellingly atmospheric records.