Homebrew “lo fi” remixes of anime and game themes, which could easily pass as trip-hop, regularly clock up tens of millions of streams on YouTube, as do streams of trip-hoppy “beats to study/chill/sleep to”. A lot of the new UK soul and jazz, from Jorja Smith through Children of Zeus to Moses Boyd and Sault, is distinctly trip-hoppy Arlo Parks’ Mercury prize-winning album is steeped in it, as is tattooed, cosmic dub-soul provocateur Greentea Peng. In the leftfield, acts such as Young Echo, Tirzah and Space Afrika explore some oddly familiar dark, dubby spaces, the latter citing Tricky as a key precedent. Alicia Keys’ new single, Best of Me, couldn’t be more trip-hop if it was made in a smoky Bristol basement in 1995. Some of the most high-profile acts in the world – Billie Eilish, Lana Del Rey, Lorde – are unabashed in these 90s references. Jhelisa, whose albums in the 90s easily bridged the gap between trip-hop and acid jazz, is back and on spectacularly trippy form with 7 Keys V.2, too.Īnd perhaps even more significantly, younger musicians are channelling the sound. Martina Topley-Bird’s Forever I Wait (featuring several productions by Robert “3D” Del Naja of Massive Attack), the reformed Sneaker Pimps’ Squaring the Circle, and even Saint Etienne’s mostly instrumental I’ve Been Trying to Tell You all meander moodily in classic trip-hop style. Nightmares on Wax’s new album, Shout Out! To Freedom …, shows producer George Evelyn as committed to cosmic beats, and as inspired, as ever, and Smokers Delight got a deluxe reissue treatment last year.
Photograph: Dwayne Boydīut whatever you call it, the specifically 90s downtempo vibe abides. Jhelisa Anderson found in the UK ‘a version of modern blues, a depth and darkness’.
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