Trip Hop

Trip hop is a slow tempo breakbeat music which started around 1993 in Bristol.
The word ‘trip hop’ combines the word ‘trip’ with the word ‘hip hop’.

trip - a drug induced hallucination (alluding to psychedelic music)

hip-hop – the music genre and culture born out of looping breakbeats together.

Trip hop often has a sparse feel and a laid back feel to it. It is made using a combination of live and sampled
instruments.

In the early to mid 1990s there were often ‘chill rooms’ at dance clubs where slow tempo music was played to give
dancers a break from dancing to the fast music on the main dancefloor. There would be soft sofas and comfortable
pillows and projections of entrancing images. The music played in these rooms would often be a mixture of ambient,
trip hop, ambient house and New Age music.

Trip hop includes some elements of the other genres of chill out music mentioned above

Musical and Technical Characteristics

Sampled Drum breaks, often bass drum heavy, emulating slowed breakbeat samples popular in hip hop in the 90s.

The music often has a swing feel to it.

Jazz / funk / soul influences to the music

Often female vocals (various styles of singing including R&B/ soul / jazz)
Vocals often had a mournful quality.
Elements of ambient music(slow harmonic rhythm, slow tempos, sparse textures)
Elements of dub music (delay, heavy use of effects, heavy bass sound)
Psychotropic atmospherics (!)
Playing with reverb and delay effects to create the impression of big spaces.
The music often followed a traditional song-based structure.
Hip hop techniques were used commonly (e.g. scratching, sampling beats)

Typical timbres that are included are

Rhodes pianos
Saxophones
Trumpets
Flutes
Often the sampled instruments are playing jazz phrases.

60s spyfilm soundracks were an influence- John Barry (James Bond composer) was sampled by Portishead and the
Sneaker Pimps.

Trip hop beats

‘Trip Hop is Hip Hop slowed down and without the rap… The overall feel is not quite as funky (or a loose, slow
funk feel), but it does have a groove and a psychedelic, trippy flavour. Add a dark EQ (cut treble or boost bass
frequencies) to the kick and snare to get an authentic sound.
Some styles of trip hop have roots in reggae music. Look at reggae beats for ideas. Emphasis is often on beats 2 and
4

Trip hop basslines

Trip hop songs often use fairly static harmony. It is not uncommon for a trip hop song to be built around just a
couple of chords. The groove is the crucial, most important element and the interplay of the bass line with the drums
is crucial to a successful trip hop song.

Dubby bass lines of hip hop and drum and bass can work well.
Trip Hop Bands / Artists

Several of the artists did not like the term trip hop and preferred to call their music hip hop.

Massive Attack - emphasis on dub, hiphop influences, minimal vocals

Portishead - emphasis on samples, jazz influences, significant female vocals
Tricky – Dark sounds, sample based, repetitive structure with lyrics at times distinct, other times indecipherable.

Coldcut - turntablist, hiphop and jazz influences, vocals are all sample based
DJ Shadow
U.N.K.L.E.

Post trip hop artists who integrated trip hop with other genres.
Morcheeba
Sneaker Pimps

Is trip hop a real genre?

Trip hop – another definition

http://1x43.wordpress.com/2010/11/16/different-manifestations-of-the-hip-hop-mantra-trip-hop/

Trip-Hop as the name goes is basically trippy Hip Hop. It utilizes the production aesthetics of hip hop, but abandons
a lot of the defining characteristics of American hip hop. It gravitates more towards the more delayed and darker
moods, heard in Jamaican dub music. The music is almost always dark, and almost always built on slow sound beds
held together by a delayed beat or downtempo breakbeat.

Another viewpoint….

http://ask.metafilter.com/152237/Has-the-genre-of-music-loosely-known-as-triphop-faded-away-or-has-it-been-
incorporated-into-other-genreslabels

There is some common musical ground between the trip hop artists but the label was more of a lazy shorthand for
sample-heavy electronic music coming out of Bristol and London in the early/mid-90's that was kind of (wrongly)
pegged as the UK answer to American hiphop.

The sounds continued to evolve and branch from each other, so Portishead leads one into Morcheeba and
Hooverphonic, while the Coldcut sound leads you to Ninja Tune's stable of instrumental turntablists.

References:

Pop Music The Textbook

The Ambient Century

Quick Guide to Dance Music – Ian Waug

Logic instruments to try

Dub bass

Double bass

Synth bass

Rhodes piano

Dub piano (Piano with lots of treble EQ, telephone style)

Logic plugin effects to try

Tape Delay

Stereo Delay

Samples to add

Slowed down breakbeats

Vinyl crackle,

Tuning of a radio with lo fi samples

Film like orchestral excerpts

Jazz samples- improvised / relaxed phrasing