As Massive Attack's new album hits the shelves to critical aclaim, we've dug up alittle tribute to those who put trip- hop on the map. Small west-of-England port whose tradition of Jamaican DJ sound systems helped foster a trio of extremely influential bands '90s.

The first Bristol outfit to achieve international recognition was Massive Attack, a group of three former DJs whose laconic 1991 debut album Blue Lines incorporated satellite rappers and vocalists, simmering beats, DUB bass and string arrangements into a groundbreaking vision. Bristol's easygoing pace may have been one reason that Massive Attack's sophomore album Protection (with re-configured guest line-up) didn't arrive until late 1994.

Shortly afterwards came Dummy, the debut album from Portishead (featuring a former Massive cohort), which brought torch-singing and '60s film-score arrangements into the equation. When Massive Attack guest rapper Tricky (b. Adrian Thaws, 1968) released his sullen, powerful debut, Maxinquaye (recorded with a female singer-partner), trend-spotters applied the epithet "trip-hop" to the Bristol sound with increasing frequency. Since the bare essentials of trip-hop were extremely easy to copy, the sound had many imitators of variable quality, their work providing a pleasant soundtrack in trendy bars, restaurants, and boutiques world-wide. Tricky deliberately bucked the trip-hop trend with two 1996 album, the skeletal, spiky Nearly God, and the more full-bodied, eclectic Pre- Millenium Tension.

Bristol is also the home base of the DRUM 'N' BASS supremo Roni Size, who (in collaboration with his band Reprazent) introduced the mainstream to a jazzier, more soulful form of the subgenre with the 1997 album New Forms.

(Source: alt.culture)