Trip-Hop Essentials for November
As the year approaches November, my music taste changes again. This happens to me every year. As fall fades into winter (or has in the past, but it’s supposed to be 74 degrees on October 29th this year, so) I get re-immersed in the world of trip-hop. November was the month in which I discovered trip-hop. I remember so clearly seeing a TikTok of a woman showing her outfit, with the song Glory Box by Portishead used as the audio. I remember immediately closing the app to listen to the song. I still have that TikTok saved, even though I no longer use the app and haven’t in about a year. I won’t ever delete it.
There’s something really intimate about trip-hop’s blend of rap, sampling, electronic production, and sultry vocals. The music reminds me of being inside and cozy during a snowstorm or getting back home during a freezing day in the city and finally getting the chance to thaw. Music had never made me feel safe like that before and had only resonated that deeply with me on a couple of occasions. The more stripped-down trip-hop songs that I discovered, of Portishead and far beyond, reminded me of my loneliness. The intensity and longing of Massive Attack’s lyrics resonated with how it felt to want something so bad and not be able to have it. At the time, it was 2021, and all I wanted in the world was to go to a concert. I never thought that would happen to me while I was still young, because of Covid. I’m glad that I was wrong about that.
Trip-hop as a genre evolved the sounds hip-hop and electronica into an other-worldly, extra-terrestrial sound. It emerged throughout Bristol’s underground music scene in the late 80s and early 90s. The genre was conceived as an off shoot of breakbeat music. One of my favorite sub-categories in trip-hop is songs that blur the line between pure trip-hop and jungle or drum n’ bass. My 15-year-old mind didn’t believe that trip-hop could be upbeat. It was really thrilling to discover how wrong I was on that.
So, here is a playlist of my favorite trip-hop songs! Some of these are classics, some were genre-defining, some are from this year. Regardless, I hope that you listen and enjoy! Trip-hop is in my holy trifecta of favorite genres, and I hope that it’ll grow to be one of yours too.
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