Tricky

Different When It’s Silent is the first Tricky album in six years, and with good reason.  Since 2020’s Fall to Pieces the musician has released an album, and accompanying self-directed film, under the name Lonely Guest, an all-star 2021 project that included contributions from Oh Land, Marta Złakowska, Idles’ Joe Talbot, Murkage Dave, Maxïmo Park’s Paul Smith and, in one of his final appearances on record, Lee “Scratch” Perry. Three years later came Fifteen Days, a collaborative album from the artist born Adrian Thaws and producer Mike Theis, under the name Theis Thaws. Then, last year, he and Marta released joint album, Out The Way. All of those projects came out via False Idols, the label he founded in 2013. You can’t say Tricky’s not been busy. But Different When It’s Silent is the first Tricky album in six years with bad reason, too. In 2019 his daughter died suddenly.  “To be honest with you, since my daughter died, I want to work,” Tricky begins, “I want to do stuff. But all the press, being on camera, everything just changed when she died. I've never been a pop star as such but: that made me even more want to go in the background.” Pointing to Fall to Pieces, released the year after her passing, he says that “I was in pieces when I made that album. It was almost like I had to get that out of me. And then after that, I was more worried about Marta's album or the label. So, I wouldn't say I was reluctant to release music under my own name. But I wasn't that interested, to be honest. I didn't have the motivation. Releasing an album under your name, you got to do certain stuff. I can bring out a side-project with no press, no photographs, no videos, no tour, nothing at all. It's easy.” Then, in 2025, Tricky’s new manager Alan McGee heard the songs the Bristolian had been working on at his new home in France and in the studio in Bristol. In Tricky’s mind, this was to be another side-project. “Then Alan come to my house and I played it to him. He goes: ‘Mate, this is a Tricky album. This is the best thing since Maxinquaye. This has got to be a Tricky album.’ It was Alan who convinced me to put it out as a Tricky album.” That wasn’t managerial hyperbole, ass-kissing or smoke-blowing: Different When It’s Silent is, no question, the best Tricky album since his groundbreaking 1995 debut. Tight, taut, focused, real, raw, rich, melodic, melancholic, defiant, textured, layered, provocative, grief-stricken, joy-bringing – this 15th studio album is Tricky’s musicianship at its confident, thrilling, no-one-else-sounds-like-this best.  Underscoring that idea of a full-circle moment is the first line of the first track. The skeletal blues of “Still See Me There” opens with “make me want to die”. It’s a callback to “Makes Me Wanna Die”, a track from Pre-Millennium Tension, the 1996 third album that followed the same year’s Nearly God (on which Tricky was joined by Björk, Alison Moyet, Neneh Cherry, Terry Hall and more) and capped an incredible 21-month opening burst from the musician.  “Yeah, that is deliberate,” he says. “Especially because it's a man singing it. This is the first album I've done with mostly male vocals. There's only one female vocal on this, Marta. So that's deliberate for a man singing 'make me want to die'. It just changes things.” That male vocalist is young Bristolian singer-songwriter Mitch Sanders. He’s signed to Island, the label Tricky was with for those first few albums. But that’s not how Tricky knows him: he’s the son of a friend of one of his best mates. “Mitch is like a nephew. He's someone I'd hang out with when I was at school. We'd have been playing football together, going to pubs together. Mitch goes to the same pubs I went to when I was growing up. His dad went to the same clubs I went to. It's all the same community. “So he was the right guy. He's not like an artist – he's like a Hengrover, a Knowle Wester,” he continues, referring to their respective and adjacent Bristol neighbourhoods. “Massive Attack, love all those guys,” Tricky goes on, referring, of course, to the crew he started out with. “But we were not from the same environment. So ’cause Mitch and me are from the same environment, that's what made it work.” That, and Sanders’ stunning voice. He’s there, leaning in soulfully, over crunching guitar riffs, on the urgent “I’m Yours”. His eerie, pained falsetto floats over the electro throb of “Because I Don't Know”, singing, "Can you feel my pain? Do you feel the same? Just let me know. Just let me know,” as Tricky’s shadow vocals lurk in the background. Sanders is joined on the sinuous, sensual “Be Still in the Pain” by Red Run Rambo, a rapper from Bristol. “Really good lad,” says Tricky. “He spent a long time in prison, and now he does a lot of social work. He goes into prisons and talks to kids. Very positive youth.” Sanders takes the lead in a different way on “Paris Maybe”. “That's Mitch's song. To me it was a no-brainer, but Island didn't want it. When I heard it, I thought: that's a pop vocal. So if I do the music, it don't have to be pop to get close to pop. So I took the vocals and redid the music.” Ideas, inspirations and collaborators came from all directions. There is an inspired cover of “Marinade” by Dope Lemon, the side-project of Angus Stone (“I fucking loved that song for years”), with largely new lyrics by Tricky. The track “Piano” features an opera singer. “Marinade” has a violinist and cellist. “So Cold” features drum’n’bass-adjacent production. The gnarly funk of “Frontier Town” foregrounds the vocals of Christian Pattemore from Forgotton Pharaohs, aka the guy who was driving McGee around Los Angeles one time. “Christian said something what made me piss myself laughing. I just thought he was a funny, interesting guy. And he said he does music. So I asked him to send me some of his stuff. He sent me that and I just redid the music.” As ever, Tricky is pulling talent and inspiration from anywhere and everywhere. That, he says with a shrug, is just how he’s always, instinctively done it. “Making music is an opportunity for artists to bring someone along. I feel like that's part of the career. Back in the days, you always had artists bringing up other artists, not-so-known artists supporting on tour. I always feel like it's good to bring someone who's not known. Who's not a famous actress or a famous singer or a famous this or a famous that. Just people around you. And it's easier. And it's just a good vibe.” Through this all, though, like darkness making light seem brighter, is a seam of loss, of absence, of pain. “I’m Yours” is a full-on rock track that bubbles with grief, sadness and anger. “I've had emotional loss, but I've never had emotional loss and mental loss,” says Tricky. “I really lost my mind. Nothing looked the same, nothing tasted the same, nothing sounded the same. So, yeah, I suppose, there is some anger on that track.” The album ends with the charged and charging “Out of Place”, Tricky sharing vocals with Marta. "I sing for my daughter,” he says, a simple, powerful, direct message that’s a full-stop on the 15 tracks. Originally written for Marta’s album, Tricky reclaims the song with renewed energy.   “Her vocals are mellow, different. And it's almost like punk, my vibe. I knew it had to be the last track. The only female vocal on the album, and it's the last track, and it's me talking about my daughter. It's a great way to end the album. And then I can move on to doing other things. There will always be lyrics about my daughter in my songs. But it won't be way so heavy. I can move on.” Different When It’s Silent, then: the first Tricky album in six years, for all the reasons, good and bad, in the world. And now? “Emotionally, I'm saying I'm ready to start my life again. I'm looking forward to touring. I want to record. I was emotionally paralysed. Now I'm moving again. And sonically, this lets people know: if you have your own sound, you'll never go out of fashion. When genres come and go, you'll still be there. This album says that – nothing sounds like it.” Despite it all, because of it all, Tricky is grateful, too.  “I'm thankful to be able to do this for a living. I'm very grateful for the opportunity I've gotten to live this life and make music. I just love it. I adore going in the studio. I don't have to answer my phone. It's real freedom. So I cannot wait to do more. But Alan's slowing me down – because I want to do a Nearly God album again, but call it Nearly Good! And Alan's like: ‘Alright, let's do that in ’27, mate!’ But, you know,” he concludes, grinning wide, “I just love making music.”  On the life-celebrating Different When It’s Silent, it wholly, vividly, brilliantly sounds like it.