GOING BACK TO TRIPHOP

On the way home from work yesterday morning, I found myself bored with the music I have on my phone. For almost two years now, I have been without a dedicated digital audio player and have been using my phones instead as I dread carrying alot of things with me. The tracks on the phone I mostly carry with me, a Sony Ericsson K800i, have not been updated for more than a year already. I have been lazy replacing the files on its memory card with those I have on the computer at home.

The phone contained mostly house music, about 100 of them, and then the other half are of mixed genre from pop to triphop. I realized the triphop songs have been on my phone since I first bought a memory card for it, but have rarely listened to them, often just skipping as one starts to play. They mostly are from my favorite triphop band- Portishead, and then several tracks also from Massive Attack and Sneaker Pimps. I decided to create a new playlist with just the triphop tracks and some ambient and chillout tracks I also have on the phone and listened to it the whole two hours of my ride home.

I first had my taste of triphop back in the heyday of Massive Attack around mid-90's. That, along with techno and mostly electronica consisted the playlists on my computer then. For a brief period in the early 90's, I was into alternative rock, especially grunge and Seattle; but have never abandoned my passion for electronic music. Then, around 1995, I discovered chillout music. I have always been drawn to the kind of melancholic/dark that chillout music sort of creates, and so I figured I should learn more about it. In the process of trying to learn more about chillout, I have uncovered a sort of subgenre darker and more melancholic than anything else i have heard, and that is triphop.

Tricky was the first band I have come to identify with triphop. Back then internet was expensive and file-sharing is virtually still in its infancy. The only source I have for feeding my crave for certain kinds of music is to ask my brother here in Metro Manila to look for CDs for me. He managed to get me CDs of Portishead and Massive Attack. At first I was more into Massive Attack, and then even Sneaker Pimps, than Portishead. When Portishead though churned out their self-titled second album, I was convinced they are the best triphop outfit there is. Their CD stayed for some months on my CD changer in my bedroom and I faithfully listened to each and every song almost every single day then. I mean it rarely happens that you would like each and every single song in an album, much more if you are somebody like me whose taste for music is diverse as one can get.

As far back as I can remember, I always have been into music, and I have grown my appetite for electronic music as a young boy when I first got hold of a cassette album by Kraftwerk. I have listened to anything from classical and traditional Celtic music to rock and electronica, with everything else in between. Rock though was kind of a favorite as I was growing up- I view it as a type of music that gets you in the gut. Then as I grow older, it unfolded to me that riffs and screams doesn't necessarily help you vent out your angst, dark and morbid melodies can too, and even more effectively. Until I saw myself veering away from youth's staple of rock and more venturing into the realm of electronic music.

My fascination with triphop peaked about 2001, when I was about to realize my dream of becoming a club DJ. That time I have both the albums considered to be the best triphop albums ever-- Portishead's self-titled and Massive Attack's Mezzanine (pictured above). Then as I landed a job being a resident DJ at a club in our town, I have more and more concentrated on House music.

As you probably have known by now, it already has been more than 2 years since I have left residency at the club I was working for, and the club itself have also closed doors shortly after I left. Still I kept up with the latest in house music. That is until recently. I have been finding myself opting to listen to radio on my commute to and from work instead of the lot of house music files I have on my phone. I was thinking before that it may be because I have just gotten tired of listening to house, as I have sworn before that in house I found the soundtrack of my lifetime. Well, I stand corrected.