Trip Hop

Trip hop on vinyl: Bristol, beats and melancholy

In short: Trip hop emerged in Bristol in the early nineties: Massive Attack, Portishead and Tricky slowed down hip-hop beats, mixed in dub bass, soul samples and film music and laid vocals on top. To this day the term stands for nocturnal, melancholy electronic music. The Vinyl Room currently has 67 trip hop records.

What is trip hop?

Slow beat, heavy bass, lots of space: Massive Attack are represented with “Inertia Creeps” and “Dear Friend”, Red Snapper with live instruments. The London collection “Headz” from the Mo’ Wax label brought the instrumental side together.

The sound travelled on: Gotan Project from Paris combined tango and electronics, Nujabes from Japan contributed to the music for the anime series “Samurai Champloo”, and from Denmark comes Blue Foundation.

What to look for

Many trip hop records also came out as 12-inches with remixes. Original or reissue is noted with each copy.

From our stock

First pressings

New in

→ Massive Attack · AIR · Downtempo · Electronic on vinyl · How to spot a first pressing · Grading explained

FAQ

What is trip hop? Slow, atmospheric electronic music with hip-hop beats, dub bass and samples, born in Bristol in the early nineties.

Who shaped trip hop? Above all Massive Attack, Portishead and Tricky from Bristol.

What is the difference from downtempo? Trip hop usually has audible hip-hop beats; downtempo is the broader term for calm electronic music.

Is there trip hop from Denmark? Yes – here, for example, Blue Foundation.