Search - Tara King :: Sequence 101

Finally- - acceptable new trip-hop.

Vectoria Riverson | Olympia, WA USA | 10/17/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The problem with the term "trip-hop" is that it is used to cover a wide range of music styles. Generally speaking, trip-hop is displayed by the standard artists everyone knows - Tricky, Portishead, Massive Attack - as well as by less well known artists like Lamb or Kruder & Dorfmeister. Aside from that, a lot of music that is being called trip-hop is basically a glorified Sade-meets-Tori female-vocal-extravaganza, and I am invariably dissapointed.
Thank goodness for this album, Sequence 101, by Tara King th. (as she is referred to in France). It has everything honest-to-goodness trip-hop needs. There is enough Doom Bass to satisfy most melancholics (especially on "Cold"). There are plenty of minor notes and chord resolutions to keep the songs from acquiring any semblance of sappy hope (except for "Ex," my least favourite song). The female voice is NOT the central focus, thank god, and the instrumental parts offer quite a bit to deconstruct. There is a gratuitous use of movie samples and sounds, something any trip-hop piece can benefit from. There is even a very well done French hip-hop piece (Nature Morte), and while it is like nothing else on the album, it only adds strength, and is more alike to Dialated Peoples than MC Solaar.
Overall, I highly recommend this album to any trip-hop elitist. Tara King th. has definitely proved her trip-hop pedigree with this objet d'art."