Closer Look: 1994 Trip Hop

Trip Hop emerged from Bristol in the early 1990’s and brought a completely new sound to England, and the whole world shortly after. Trip Hop combines downtempo, sedative beats with Hip Hop samples and record scratches to create atmospheric music that makes just sitting on the couch feel cool. Bristol artists Massive Attack and Portishead were the trailblazers of this incipient genre and prior to the coinage of the term “Trip Hop”, this style of music was regarded simply as the “Bristol Sound”.

Enjoy and subscribe to the latest Closer Look above! Scroll down for the individual tracks selected from the Trip Hop of 1994.

Trip Hop artists celebrate and reimagine Hip Hop’s tradition of cratedigging and cleverly pair obscure samples with hypnotic drum loops to create a truly ethereal sound. Trip Hop uniquely invokes elements of Acid Jazz, Reggae, Post Punk and Electronica to craft moody but still powerfully rhythmic tunes that cast dancing shadows on the walls.

Although the artists themselves never loved being put in the box of the fairly reductive term “Trip Hop”, it’s a broader classification for this style of music that changed Hip Hop and Electronic music forever. The Trip Hop movement of the 90’s was incredibly influential and the sample-collaging sound of artists like The Avalanches would never have existed without the sonic blueprint laid out by DJ Shadow and others.