Some artists follow the times. Tricky has spent three decades doing something harder: building a world of his own and inviting everyone else to catch up. Now the Bristol original has announced Different When It’s Silent, his 15th studio album, due 17 July via False Idols.
Pre-save the album HERE.
It is his first full-length release under the Tricky name since 2020’s Fall To Pieces, and by all accounts a deliberate return to the lean, unsettling grammar that made 1995’s Maxinquaye such a rupture in British music. Where many heritage acts polish the past, Tricky seems more interested in reopening it.
Lead single ‘Out Of Place’, premiered by Lauren Laverne on BBC Radio 6 Music, arrives as the closing track on the album. It pairs longtime collaborator Marta with Tricky’s clipped, urgent vocal, creating a tension between restraint and abrasion. The song reportedly began life for Marta’s own record before being reclaimed for this project, which feels fitting. Tricky has always had a habit of pulling songs toward his own gravity.
Recorded between his home in France and sessions in Bristol, the album also draws heavily on the city that shaped him. Bristol singer Mitch Sanders features prominently, his falsetto threaded through a set said to mix skeletal blues, low-lit electronics, distorted guitars and spare hip-hop rhythms.
That restlessness has been the constant. Since Fall To Pieces, Tricky has kept busy through side roads and aliases: the collaborative Lonely Guest project, Fifteen Days with producer Mike Theis as Theis Thaws, and last year’s Out The Waywith Marta. Yet even he reportedly saw this material as another detour until manager Alan McGee argued the songs belonged on a proper Tricky record.
He is also set to tour the UK and Europe this May and June, including dates at Troxy, Aviva Studios and Beacon.
“I just love making music,” Tricky says. It sounds simple, almost offhand. But simplicity has often hidden the depth of his best work. Different When It’s Silent may prove that the artists who invent their own language rarely go out of date.
