One of England's great inventions at the turn of the millennium was "trip-hop", the style that bridged dance beats, psychedelic dub trance and soft-jazz atmosphere. Pioneered in the 1980s by dance collectives such as A R Kane and Coldcut, by sophisticated singers such as Sade and Neneh Cherry, and by pop bands such as Cowboy Junkies and Blue Nile, trip-hop was born in earnest in Bristol, England, the home base of the collectives that turned the world of dance music upside down. Soul II Soul, the project of disc-jockey Jazzie B (Beresford Romeo) and arranger Nellee Hooper, launched the genre in march 1989 with Keep On Movin', a whispered, sensual scat over shadow bass lines, softly hypnotic beats and orchestral counterpoint. Bristol created a clear demarcation between techno/house/jungle and atmospheric, ethereal dance music. Massive Attack (1), an emanation of the sound system Wild Bunch (disc-jockey Grantley "Daddy G" Marshall, rapper Robert "3-D" Del Naja and rhythm engineer Andrew "Mushroom" Vowles), formalized that dividing line on their influential Blue Lines (1991), featuring vocalist Shara Nelson, which established the sonic standard of trip-hop: a blend of soul vocals, dub bass lines, languid strings, ambient electronica, intricate drum patterns, and eerie atmosphere. The idea was not terribly original (it was basically a revamping of easy-listening, new-age music, orchestral soul and cocktail-lounge music for the affluent white disco crowds), but the choreography was clearly more important than the music, as Mezzanine (1998) proved in an even more seductive manner.

Slight variations on the same theme were offered by Breakbeat Era, a trio including Roni Size, Nightmares On Wax, George Evelyn's brainchild, Up Bustle And Out, a duo of producers, Smith & Mighty (producers Rob Smith and Ray Mighty who had engineered Massive Attack's sound).

Portishead (10), formed by producer Geoff Barrow, vocalist Beth Gibbons, sound engineer Dave McDonald and guitarist Adrian Utley, were the ultimate creation of Bristol's fertile scene. The spectral and funereal lieder of Dummy (1994) set desolate laments to a casual backdrop of electronic music and let them float over a disorienting flow of syncopated beats. They had blurred the line between the pop ballad and the abstract chamber piece.

Tricky (1), a former member of the Wild Bunch, hired Martine Topley-Bird to imitate Portishead on Maxinquaye (1995), adding a more neurotic dynamics. The album credited to Nearly God (1996) featured guest vocalists such as Bjork, Neneh Cherry and Alison Moyet interpreting or backing up Tricky's "songs". Fullfilling his progression towards a more personal and sincere form of music, the bleak Pre-Millenium Tension (1996) set his depressed toasting against nightmarish soundscapes.

The golden era of trip-hop 1995-99

Then came the deluge: Pressure Drop, the project of London-based disc-jockeys Justin Langlands and Dave Henley; 95 Funki Porcini (James Bradell), with the pastoral Hed Phone Sex (1995); Rockers Hi-Fi, the Birmingham-based sound system of Richard "DJ Dick" Whittingham and Glyn Bush, with Rockers To Rockers (1995); Baby Fox; Andrew Barlow's Lamb (1), with the psychodramas of Lamb (1996); Morcheeba, fronted by sensual chanteuse Skye Edwards, with Who Can You Trust (1996); Red Snapper (1), who sculpted the complex, arcane and recombinant Prince Blimey (1996); the Sneaker Pimps, the project of keyboardist Liam Howe and guitarist Chris Corner, fronted by singer Kelli Dayton, whose Becoming X (1997) was trip-hop for the generation that never heard the new wave; etc.

Skylab (1), a collaboration between avantgarde composer Mat Ducasse and Howie B, crafted a wild collage of manipulated sounds, #1 (1995), an essay in the absolute dissolution of identity that sounded like John Cage reborn as a disc-jockey.

London-based producer Howie Bernstein, better known as Howie B (2), who crafted the atmospheres of Soul II Soul's records, followed a different route on his solo albums: the instrumental tone poems of Music For Babies (1996), the stylistic studies Turn The Dark Off (1997), ranging from vibraphone-based lounge shuffles to big-band dancehall exuberance, and the elegant ballet of noises and instrumental sounds of Snatch (1999), works that elevated him to the jazz counterpart of Brian Eno and the hip-hop counterpart of Robert Fripp.

Funk (Brand New Heavies) and soul (Jamirocqai) helped the style stabilize.

Avant-hop

Several British musicians pioneered an atmospheric form of sound collage that ventured beyond the original premises of trip-hop.

Luke Vibert devoted his project Wagon Christ (1) to the ambient side of the trip-hop equation with Phat Lab Nightmare (1994) and especially with the celestial trance of Throbbing Pouch (1995), exuding abandon and fatalism. Massive sampling of orchestral sounds gave Tally Ho! (1998) an almost symphonic grandeur.

An atmospheric sound similar to trip-hop hovering in an ether halfway between dub, hip-hop and ambient music, was often produced via a technique of cut-up that was the equivalent of cinema's montage. For example: Grassy Knoll, the project of San Francisco-based disc-jockey, filmmaker, photographer and composer Bob Green, on Grassy Knoll (1995); the subliminal jams of DJ Cam (French dj Cam Laurent Daumail), for example on Substances (1996), that frequently employed samples of obscure jazz records; Russian-born Andre Gurov, better known as DJ Vadim, who focused on collage of micro-samples with The Theory Of Verticality (1996).

The Cinematic Orchestra (1), led by bandleader John Swinscoe, devoted Motion (1999) to a tribute to film soundtracks of the 1950s. It was one of the works that marked a turning point in avantgarde, when "reconstructing" started prevailing over "deconstructing" (that had been the dominant buzzword throughout the era of postmodernism).

The Groove Armada, i.e. London-based disc-jockeys, Tom Findlay and Andy Cato, "reconstructed" the romantically retro Vertigo (1999).

Towa Tei, a Korean-Japanese former member of Deee-Lite in New York, assembled jazz, world-music and all sorts of retro styles on on Future Listening (1995).

A number of "atmospheric" groups were more or less related to trip-hop. Perfume Tree, a trio of Vancouver disc-jockeys, induced trance on The Sun's Running Out (1994) through a blend of dream-pop, hip-hop, dub and electronica. Iceland's Gus Gus (1) coined an anemic, sleepy, out of focus kind of pop-soul-jazz ballad on Polydistortion (1995), that sounded like the equivalent of be-bop in the age of trip-hop: a dejected soundtrack for the neuroses of the urban crowd. Sweden's Whale incorporated sensual crooning and heavy-metal guitars into the trip-hop sound of We Care (1995). Tosca, i.e. Austrian producers and disc-jockeys Richard Dorfmeister and Peter Kruder, achieved the majestic mannerism of Opera (1997) and especially Suzuki (2000), which was replicated by the Sofa Surfers, an Austrian quartet led by Wolfgang "I-Wolf" Schloegl, on Cargo (1999).

Western dub

Dub had a life of its own in the western world. Notable works included: President's Breakfrast (1990) by President's Breakfast, a San-Francisco based ensemble led by drummer and sampler technician Click Dark that played an insane fusion of dub, funk, hip-hop and jazz; Sounds from the Thievery Hi-Fi (1996) by Thievery Corporation (1), the project of Washington-based disc jockeys, Eric Hilton and Rob Garza; the series culminated with Dub Voyage (2000) by Twilight Circus Dub Sound System, i.e. Holland-based multi-instrumentalist Ryan Moore; Rome (1996) by Rome, a Chicago instrumental trio of bass, drums and sampling keyboards sculpting dissonant electronic dub; Dancehall Malfunction (1997) by Sub Dub (the quartet of bassist John Ward, programmer Raz Mesinai, vocalist Ursula Ward and saxophonist Grant Stewart), which spearheaded a fusion of hip-hop, ambient house, world-music and dub; CD 1 (1998) by Pole, i.e. Berlin-based sound engineer Stefan Betke, who became the master of a starkly minimalist form of dub-based dance music. Influenced by Bill Laswell's and Jah Wobble's experiments of the 1980s, not to mention Adrian Sherwood, the Pop Group and Tackhead, they reinvented the genre as a stark and austere form of art.

Thomas Brinkmann (1) transposed the minimal aesthetic of glitch music into the subliminal ideology of dub music on Klick (2001), the natural link between sound sculpting and dance-floor beats. Klick Revolution (2006) continued the program of Klick with another set of subliminal, anemic, dilapidated techno music assembled out of defective vinyl records.