TRICKY (Trip-Hop/Soul/Dub - UK)
Considered as one of the mainstays of Trip-Hop, Tricky, whose real name is Adrian Thaws, made his mark on the music of the 90s and the 2000s both discreetly and profoundly. Ex member of the rap collective The Wild Bunch, he logically followed in the footsteps of his friends when they formed the group Massive Attack. However, it was his meeting with singer Martina Topley Bird that led him to find the magic formula that can be heard on his first proper album "Maxinquaye". A massive success, the record owes its international fame to this unparalleled "director" of female vocals. Despite this success, Tricky did not choose the easy route and followed up with several dark and introspective albums like "Pre-Millennium Tension" and "Angels with Dirty Faces" before returning to the light with "Blow Back" in 2001. Here he covers Nirvana, samples the Eurythmics, increases the number of collaborations and jumps from deranged electro to metal via pop. Such a mixture of influences and sounds can also be heard on his excellent latest album "Knowle West Boy", a sort of summary of his first smoky Trip-Hop convulsions and his more clean pop from the early 2000s. Today, nobody knows what the elusive Tricky will do in the future. There's just one certainty: you will find him on the Ardentes stage this summer.
