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The 50 best trip-hop albums of all time

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Like it or not, trip-hop is a thing. I say this as someone who, for the past 18 odd years, has loved the music just as much as I’ve hated the term.

Coined in June 1994 by Andy Pemberton in a feature for Mixmag , trip-hop was used to describe the recent stylistic shift of the Mo’ Wax label and that music’s popularity in dance circles, particularly in after hours sessions. Pemberton heralded trip-hop as a psychedelic take on hip-hop and the first valid alternative to America’s dominance of the music.

The DNA of trip-hop was more complex than its reduction to bite-sized adjectives. One strand came from hip-hop, which had fed the musical imagination of a new generation for over a decade, while another strand came from rave, which had provided further stylistic possibilities with its fusion of drum machines, breaks, samples and synthesisers. Sound systems, digging, dub, chill-out rooms, early globalisation and technology also acted like so many molecules attaching themselves to a new idea of what hip-hop could be. Trip-hop was a logical evolution in a decade during which everyone came down from a partying high to face the reality that hip-hop and dance music were being co-opted by the mainstream; dreams of a new sonic utopia crushed by the relentless onslaught of capitalism.

Just as techno had become a synonym for dance music, trip-hop soon became a crutch for journalists and marketers wanting to signify hip-hop without rappers. Most notably, it became a byword for the Bristol sound epitomised by bands like Massive Attack and Portishead. In 1998, The New York Times retconned Massive Attack’s debut album Blue Lines as the so-called genre’s inception point.

On the ground, the sound did resonate in a genuine way among a new generation of musicians seeking freedom to experiment. In London, Ninja Tune played yin to Mo’ Wax’s yang. Both labels crafted a unique visual dimension and assembled expansive rosters. In Paris, DJ Cam pushed out his own blunted beats to eager continental heads. In Austria, Kruder & Dorfmeister added an extra layer of dub and turned trip-hop into downbeat in a haze of weed paranoia. In New York City, a loosely linked group of artists, thinkers and musicians spread from downtown Manhattan to Brooklyn’s cheap warehouses to imagine their own version of the sound, which The Wire magazine dubbed illbient. No matter the names or the execution, the DNA was the same.

It was always going to end badly. Mo’ Wax, often seen as responsible for the sound, originally kicked off riding the acid-jazz wave, a sound that soon exhausted itself into a creative cul-de-sac. By the late 1990s, trip-hop had become nothing more than limp, often stoner-friendly, coffee table hip-hop beats. It was music for people who felt rap was too dangerous. To those who believed in it though, it always held a promise of things weird and wonderful.

Alongside IDM (another etymological faux pas from the 1990s), trip-hop presaged the beat scene of the late 2000s, a continuation of the ideas and aesthetic it first articulated. When I spoke to Daddy Kev in 2012, he pointed to Mo’ Wax as one of the key influences for Low End Theory. Flying Lotus has cited DJ Krush as an influence. And tastemakers like Gilles Peterson have championed the music’s evolution across decades.

https://www.traditionrolex.com/21 In putting together this list, we tried to take all of this into account. There is no purism to indulge in, because there is nothing pure about trip-hop. As DJ Food’s Strictly Kev put it recently, at its best the music was “psychedelic beat collages, usually instrumental, embracing samples, analogue electronics and dub FX.” The list is contained to the 1990s for historical accuracy and tries to steer away from the music’s strongholds to show the width and breadth of the sound. As such, you’ll find artists from France, Northern Ireland, Japan, America, Denmark and Brazil represented as well as releases from Asphodel, Wordsound, Rephlex, Warp and a handful of majors. It’s also worth noting that when an artist had multiple worthy albums (for instance, Portishead or Massive Attack), we only included their most definitive moment.

Listen to the whole list as a playlist via YouTube  or   Spotify .

50. London Funk Allstars London Funk Volume 1 (Ninja Tune, 1995)

London Funk Allstars’ Ninja Tune debut will likely sound dated to most who come across it for the first time today. And yet, amid the simple breakbeats, classic loops and obvious vocal chops there’s a real beauty that captures the essence of a simpler time when the possibilities seemed endless and technology was providing new ways to think about music.

49. Bomb The Bass Clear (4th & Broadway, 1994)

Tim Simenon might not be the most obvious pick for a trip-hop list, but Clear exhibits plenty of the genre’s hallmarks. Tossing away the rave collage aesthetic that had made ‘Beat Dis’ such a massive success, Simenon weaves an ambitious narrative, tying together dub and hip-hop-influenced tracks with heady spoken-word clips from writers Benjamin Zephaniah and Will Self. There are also notable contributions from influential figures such as Leslie Winer (if you haven’t heard her 1993 album Witch , you should seek it out immediately), Bernard Fowler and Bim Sherman, opening up a dialogue between New York, Jamaica and the UK that would remain at the center of the genre for years to come.

48. Slicker Confidence in Duber (Hefty, 1998)

John Hughes’s Chicago-based Hefty imprint was crucial in cementing the relationship between Chicago’s burgeoning post-rock scene (led by Tortoise) and the seemingly more experimental (and more European) IDM and trip-hop genres. This union would reach its peak in 2001 with Telefon Tel Aviv’s massive Fahrenheit Fair Enough , but a few years prior, Hughes himself was making similar strides under his Slicker moniker. Confidence in Duber sits firmly alongside Scott Herren’s early Delarosa & Asora experiments, snatching the breaks ‘n’ blunts from trip-hop and injecting them with digital belches cribbed from the IDM playbook. Oddly enough, it’s aged better than you might expect, and is well worthy of re-investigation.

47. Meat Beat Manifesto Subliminal Sandwich (Interscope, 1996)

Subliminal Sandwich is Meat Beat Manifesto’s fourth album and their first on a major label via Nothing Records, a subsidiary of Interscope helmed by Trent Reznor that was intended to capitalise on the success of Nine Inch Nails. The album proved a critical and commercial flop, though it remains an interesting offering, drawing links between trip-hop, dub, industrial and ambient with a touch of psychedelia. Split across two CDs, it’s the first half that’s of most interest here as the rest focused on drone and ambient compositions. The 18 tracks draw heavily on samples and breaks combined with pulsing basslines, heavily processed vocals and an overall gritty finish that makes it sound like the bastard child of Mo’ Wax and Bill Laswell’s Axiom Records.

46. 9 Lazy 9 Paradise Blown (Ninja Tune, 1994)

Early Ninja Tune beatmakers 9 Lazy 9 might not sound as crucial now as they did back in the mid 1990s, but there’s still fun to be had on Paradise Blown , their second album. The Italy-based group (including Funki Porcini’s James Braddell) added a distinctly light-hearted lounge quality to a genre that could often dwell in the darker crevices, and as such  Paradise Blown can be filed alongside offerings from Tim ‘Love’ Lee and Tipsy, even if it’s not anywhere near as endearingly experimental.

45. UNKLE Psyence Fiction (Mo’ Wax, 1998)

Mo’ Wax boss James Lavelle’s pet project, UNKLE, remains a controversial part of the trip-hop canon. With distance, Psyence Fiction is possibly more enjoyable than it was back in 1998, and it highlights the genre’s crossover potential with guest spots from Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, The Verve’s Richard Ashcroft (then riding high after the success of ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’) and Badly Drawn Boy, but it’s hard not to see it as a slightly cynical marketing exercise. DJ Shadow, who was drafted to co-write the album, was quick to speak out about his unhappiness with both the process and the result, but Psyence Fiction is representative of a time and place, and shows trip-hop’s promise as it was being co-opted and transformed into something that labels could whitewash and monetize. Zero 7 was just around the corner.

44. Tipsy Trip Tease – The Seductive Sounds of Tipsy (Asphodel, 1996)

It might be a stretch to classify Tipsy as trip-hop, but the Californian duo of Tim Digulla and David Gardner certainly used many of the same tools as their European peers. Pillaging loops from a wide variety of lounge and exotica records, Digulla and Gardner came up with a dusty, defiant and undoubtedly downbeat look at sound collage. Since it veered away from obvious breaks and beats, Trip Tease actually holds up markedly better than some other records of the era, and ends up sounding closer in style to David Holmes, with a smoky, cinematic quality.

43. Justin Warfield Field Trip To Planet 9 (Qwest, 1993)

Released a year before the term trip-hop was coined in Mixmag , Justin Warfield’s first and only solo album is included here largely thanks to Strictly Kev, who recently pointed out its relevance  with regard to the music’s supposed psychedelic properties. My Field Trip To Planet 9 is a rap album, cut from the same cloth as Check Your Head -era Beastie Boys and Digable Planets. But remove its vocals and behold music that sounds like it wouldn’t be out of place on Mo’ Wax or Ninja Tune a few years later. At its best, trip-hop was music for b-boys on acid, as Warfield sang on the album’s single. A year later, he provided the vocals for Bomb The Bass’s ‘Bug Powder Dust’, another bonafide rap-on-acid classic that got the trip-hop treatment via Paris’s La Funk Mob and Vienna’s Kruder & Dorfmeister.

42. Smith & Mighty Bass Is Maternal (More Rockers/!K7, 1995)

You can’t have a conversation about trip-hop without mentioning Bristol, and you can’t talk about the Bristol scene without giving a nod to Smith & Mighty. The West Country duo took soundsystem culture and a hefty scoop of the ideas informing an increasingly popular jungle scene and helped formulate an entire sound. Without them, Portishead, Tricky and Massive Attack simply wouldn’t sound the same. Bass Is Maternal is the best representation of their scope, and illustrates their experimentation as they attempted to summarize the meeting point between UK rave culture and Jamaican dub. It’s not always successful, but to ignore it is to disregard an important chapter in British musical history.

41. DJ Vadim U.S.S.R Repertoire (The Theory of Verticality) (Ninja Tune, 1996)

The first of Vadim’s four albums for Ninja Tune, U.S.S.R Repertoire is a weeded-out take on an American musical form by a Russian immigrant living in the English capital – an instrumental microcosm of hip-hop’s globalisation. Beneath a layer of simplicity, there is depth to Vadim’s approach; the beats feel expansive, the music inviting the listener to cradle in the grooves of the breaks and warmth of the bass. Much of this debut also acts as an echo of what Wordsound and We™ were doing across the ocean at the same time. As Vadim’s 1995 debut on his own Jazz Fudge imprint proclaimed, heads weren’t ready.

40. Funki Porcini Hed Phone Sex (Ninja Tune, 1995)

After a decade penning film and TV music in Italy, British producer James Braddell decided to head to London and set up his own studio, where he would use some of his commercial writing tricks to come up with Funki Porcini, one of the most recognizable names on Ninja Tune’s early roster. This was trip-hop with a side helping of very English humour, from the moniker itself to the record’s awkwardly suggestive cover. Musically, Braddell laid out a template that would be traced over for years to come with his combination of dusty hip-hop rhythms and booming dub bass. The swirling, reverb-drenched samples just added an extra layer of thick smoke to an already bloodshot premise.

39. Red Snapper Prince Blimey (Warp, 1996)

If the elephant in the room here is acid jazz, Red Snapper are one of the rare acts who addressed it head-on. Prince Blimey is their first full-length and is certainly more overtly jazzy than most of the records we’ve highlighted on this list. That’s not a negative though, the trio – a bassist, guitarist and drummer – had genuine chops, and managed to inject their musical training into a more contemporary mode, touching on trip-hop and drum & bass without ever sounding forced. It’s a concoction that might now sound too close to the coffee table dreck that sat next to a copy of American Psycho and a rolled up tenner at the close of the millennium, but Red Snapper managed, somehow, to keep things edgy and unusual. They even, somewhat inexplicably, ended up touring with The Prodigy.

38. Various Artists DJ Kicks: Kruder & Dorfmeister (!K7, 1996)

Despite becoming the figureheads of Austria’s downbeat scene (a continental take on trip-hop), Viennese duo Kruder & Dorfmeister never released an album. Instead it was through their debut EP, G-Stoned , and absurdly popular mix CDs that they accrued fame. Their 1996 contribution to !K7’s DJ-Kicks series captured the sweet spot between the blunted grooves of chill-out rooms and the rolling breaks of jungle, an approach they’d refine two years later on The K&D Sessions . K&D’s arrival on the scene came at a time when trip-hop had started to resemble a safe version of hip-hop for those seeking thrills without effort, and their mixes remain as close as you can get to the bland, coffee table take on the genre without feeling too sick.

37. Wagon Christ Throbbing Pouch (Rising High Records, 1994)

With releases under a variety of aliases on seminal labels like Ninja Tune, Mo’ Wax, Planet Mu and Rephlex throughout the 1990s, Luke Vibert is one of the artists that best connects the dots between the various styles and ideas that fed into trip-hop. His second release as Wagon Christ pieces together elements from hip-hop, the burgeoning UK dance music scene and electro into a colourful sonic puzzle that glides along in splendid fashion. Or as Select put it at the time, “the missing link between Aphex Twin and Mo’ Wax.”

36. Tim ‘Love’ Lee Confessions of a Selector (Tummy Touch, 1997)

As boss of the Tummy Touch label, Tim ‘Love’ Lee had an important part to play in the development of downbeat and trip-hop, not least thanks to his discovery of future genre stars Groove Armada, but the less said about that the better. Confessions of a Selector might be his finest achievement, not quite reaching fully into the trip-hop cookie jar, instead relying on Lee’s estimable crate digging expertise. The hallmarks of the genre are there, but prettied up with luscious tropical vistas and an eccentric (but smart) cut-and-paste quality that isn’t a million miles from US duo Tipsy.

35. Psychonauts Time Machine (Mo’ Wax, 1998)

Psychonauts were Mo’ Wax’s secret weapon, so much so that James Lavelle had them provide mixes under his name – ghost mixed, if you will. Time Machine was his payment for services rendered, and it’s a fine document of the era, not only rounding up some of Mo’ Wax’s finest moments, but also showing just how important turntablism and truly creative mixing was to the scene’s development. Most songs don’t get more than a minute of air time as the duo power through almost 50 tracks in half an hour, blending together cuts from genre luminaries DJ Krush, Luke Vibert, DJ Shadow, La Funk Mob and more. If you need a quick-to-digest taster of the genre, this is as good as it gets.

34. Prince Paul Psychoanalysis (What Is It?) (Wordsound, 1996)

We can already hear the furious typing of wronged hip-hop heads asking with disgust why Prince Paul is even on this list. Psychoanalysis is here for a bunch of reasons: it was originally released by Wordsound, a label most associated (wrongly or not) with illbient, NYC’s answer to trip-hop; it’s a rare example of a fully instrumental hip-hop album from a city that, in the 1990s, had no time for anything that didn’t have rappers on it (Skiz Fernando Jr., who ran the label, recounted stories of Fat Beats refusing to stock the album at the time); and it’s basically 15 tracks of Prince Paul taking his whole skit philosophy to its most absurd conclusion. For all these reasons and more, Psychoanalysis remains a slept-on classic from the 1990s, a half-way point between trip-hop’s European roots and its infatuation with American hip-hop.

33. The Herbalizer Blow Your Headphones (Ninja Tune, 1997)

Jake Wherry and Ollie Teeba’s The Herbalizer project was a fine example of trip-hop’s most visible back-and-forth with “proper” hip-hop. They weren’t afraid to work with emcees, and on Blow Your Headphones , their second album, they found a kindred spirit in Natural Resource’s What? What?, now better known as Jean Grae. She added an important element to Wherry and Teeba’s jazz-flecked backdrops, and while it’s certainly true that many of trip-hop’s consumers were looking for a safer alternative to charged US rap, The Herbalizer walked the tightrope admirably, and were markedly more successful in bridging the genres than many of their peers, who buckled when attempting to integrate emcees.

32. The Bug Tapping the Conversation (Wordsound, 1997)

Another release that will likely raise a few eyebrows for its inclusion, The Bug’s debut album nonetheless fits within the wider idea of what trip-hop could, and should, be about. There are a few other reasons too: it was released on Wordsound; DJ Vadim provided the drum samples; and, like the best trip-hop releases of the 1990s, it was a soundtrack for life, with the listener invited to let their mind fill in the blanks. The blend of hip-hop, dub and industrial influences that would go on to characterise Martin’s work is found here at its rawest and tracks like ‘Those Tapes Are Dangerous’ show a darker side to trip-hop’s blunted potential.

31. Neotropic Mr Brubaker’s Strawberry Alarm Clock (Ntone, 1998)

Riz Maslen is often more widely associated with electronica (no doubt thanks to her early association with Future Sound of London), but her second Neotropic album Mr Brubaker’s Strawberry Alarm Clock is one of the trip-hop era’s hidden gems. The record appeared on the Ninja Tune sister label Ntone, and is one of the few full-lengths on this list that still sounds truly bizarre and alien. On top of the usual dusty breaks, Maslen lavished elements absorbed from IDM’s palette but left behind its seemingly random, artificial bent. The conversation between trip-hop and IDM was very visible in the late 90s – Plaid being the most obvious example – but Maslen avoided many of the trappings of both scenes, emerging with a record that was probably “too future” for most beatheads.

30. Various Artists Headz (A Soundtrack Of Experimental Beathead Jams.) (Mo’ Wax, 1994)

After a forgettable false start peddling iffy acid jazz, Mo’ Wax made a stylistic shift in 1994, kickstarting a four-year period that continues to resonate two decades on. The first Headz compilation is a neat 18-track digest of that transition, a declaration of what was to come. Influences, ambitions and comments on the status quo of the time are found in the slowed down grooves and samples as well as the track titles: ‘Ravers Suck Our Sound’, ‘Contemplating Jazz’, ‘In Flux’, ‘The Time Has Come’. The titular beatheads may have seemed like a stoned, uncreative bunch at the time but their aesthetic has proven resilient. Alongside obvious names like DJ Shadow, La Funk Mob and R.P.M, Headz also featured Nightmares On Wax, Autechre, Howie B. and various members of Major Force.

29. Various Artists Eleven Phases (Sublime, 1998)

Eleven Phases is a true gem, a little-known compilation of downtempo and instrumental tracks from many of Detroit’s finest techno artists including Robert Hood, Kenny Larkin, Eddie Fowlkes and Anthony Shakir. Originally released in Japan only, the compilation makes for a fascinating snapshot of the hip-hop roots and leanings of the city’s dance music pioneers. Will Web’s ‘Cosmic Kung-Fu Funk’ slows down techno’s rawness to a blunted, hip-hop-influenced slouch while Robert Hood’s ‘Mystique’ wouldn’t be out of place on a !K7 compilation. Despite emerging entirely outside of the 1990s trip-hop world, Eleven Phases shows how the core ideas and principles of the aesthetic bled into various scenes and cities throughout the decade.

28. Solex Solex vs. Hitmeister (Matador, 1998)

It makes sense that one of the best (and weirdest) records in a genre that deifies crate diggers should come from a record store owner. Elisabeth Esselink’s debut album was hard to categorize when it landed in 1998, there were elements pilfered from plenty of genres but not really enough of one or the other for categorization. Not only this, but Solex vs. Hitmeister emerged on the Matador label, then best known for releasing indie records. It was certainly aimed at a different crowd from the usual green-thumbed beatheads with a complete collection of Mo’ Wax 12″s and a line of Gundam figurines on their desk, and that was a good thing. Esselink was a breath of fresh air, and Solex vs. Hitmeister ‘s peculiar charms still resonate as she tangles her voice through hiccuping collages of unwieldy samples and collapsing drum machine loops.

27. Various Artists Funkjazztical Tricknology (Ninja Tune, 1995)

Released in 1995, the first Ninja Tune compilation arrived between the two Headz volumes from Mo’ Wax, providing a perfect counterpoint that showed how similar yet different the London powerhouses were at the time. Focused largely on early Ninja artists such as 9 Lazy 9, The Herbaliser, Coldcut and DJ Food, it also features appearance from Austria’s downbeat kings Kruder & Dorfmeister and Attica Blues, who had just joined Mo’ Wax. As with the first Headz volume, Funkjazztical Tricknology also marked the beginning of a shift for Ninja Tune with its releases becoming essential not just for the music but also their design, packaging and words of in-house scribe Shane Solanki, who invented the Ninjaspeak that played into the label’s growing mythos.

26. DJ Food Recipe For Disaster (New Breed, 1995)

No other artist embodies Ninja Tune quite like DJ Food, the multifaceted DJ project set up in the early days of the label by its founders, Coldcut. As its name implies, DJ Food was set up to provide DJs with the necessary ingredients to do their thing. For the first five years, the collective – Coldcut, Strictly Kev and PC – released loops and other tools via the Jazz Brakes series, some of which is great, while some is just as forgettable as the more tepid early Mo’ Wax releases. In 1995, DJ Food went for a meatier offering with their debut album, A Recipe For Disaster . Using the same approach that had made their Solid Steel mixes and live appearances unmissable, they pieced together 16 tracks that veer from downtempo moody to breakbeat furious and proved that they knew their way around the trip-hop kitchen just as well as the best of them.

25. DJ Krush & Toshinori Kondo Ki Oku (Apollo, 1996)

The collision of avant-garde jazz and trip-hop was bound to happen. Experimental players throughout the world were desperate to open up a conversation with younger producers, and trip-hop (as well as drum & bass) was an obvious crash-pad, considering its liberal pilfering of the genre via sampling. Ki Oku is one of the best examples of this collision, despite trumpeter Toshinori Kondo turning in a surprisingly straightforward performance throughout. (This is a musician who had gone head to head with Peter Brötzmann and John Zorn – we weren’t exactly expecting him to toot out a cover of Bob Marley’s ‘Sun Is Shining’.) But it works. What could, in the wrong hands, have been one of the worst abuses of both jazz and trip-hop tropes, is actually remarkably measured and incredibly listenable.

24. We™ As Is. (Asphodel, 1997)

We™ formed by accident in the early 1990s after DJ Olive had been asked to contribute a track to Wordsound’s Certified Dope Vol.1 compilation for which he roped in fellow Brooklyn musicians Lloop and Once11. In the following years the trio became one of the emblematic acts of New York’s short-lived illbient scene, drunk off the possibilities afforded by the experiments that drove their creative ecosystem, where ambient, dub and hip-hop floated freely in a haze of smoke between cheap Brooklyn lofts and downtown squats. Their 1997 debut for Asphodel is a blistering run through hip-hop instrumentals, ambient lulls and drum & bass exercises that highlight the music’s chill-out roots and breakbeat fetish.

23. Amon Tobin Bricolage (Ninja Tune, 1997)

Known for his virtuoso sound design and increasingly complicated A/V shows, Brazilian producer Amon Tobin might seem like an odd addition to a list of trip-hop albums, but bear with us. His second album Bricolage emerged from the dust of trip-hop, appearing on Ninja Tune and offering a view of the scene through cracked glass. Tobin provided a more precise (and, let’s be honest, less stoned) take on the trip-hop sound, absorbing drum & bass and IDM influences without batting an eyelid. The result is an accomplished midpoint between the edit-heavy trickery of Squarepusher and Aphex Twin and the moody soundscapes of Krush, Vibert and Shadow.

22. Third Eye Foundation Semtex (Linda’s Strange Vacation, 1996)

Matt Elliott may have been a total outlier to most of the scenes that piled up to intersect at trip-hop, but Semtex is an example of how certain musicians could absorb familiar tropes without sacrificing originality. Elliott’s Third Eye Foundation debut fused breaks and booming sub bass with sounds more common to shoegaze: endless reverb, screaming and grizzled distortion. Traces of drum & bass (which would emerge more clearly on Elliott’s follow-up album Ghost ) slipped in-and-out of focus, and Semtex doesn’t really feel like part of one movement or another, rather adjacent and dizzy from ether and cheap draw. If anyone tries to tell you Bristol was just Portishead, Tricky and Roni Size, play ’em this burner.

21. Attica Blues Attica Blues (Mo’ Wax, 1997)

Like many of the artists and albums featured in this list, Attica Blues is trip-hop thanks to the location and affiliations of its creators at the time. A trio composed of producers Charlie Dark (then D’Afro) and Tony Nwachukwu (of CD-R fame) alongside singer Roba El-Essawy, Attica Blues made jazz-influenced hip-hop that happened to have a woman singing on it instead of emcees rapping. In the 1990s, thanks to genre purism, that meant your shit wasn’t rap and therefore wasn’t hip-hop. Attica Blues is one of Mo’ Wax’s better and more slept-on full lengths, a deft exercise in sampling, programming and arranging, back when doing so took more than a few clicks of a mouse.

The best trip-hop owed plenty both to the art of mixing and the cut-and-paste aesthetic of the 1980s, which is why a handful of releases on this list are mix CDs rather than albums. Cold Krush Cuts is a perfect example of how those two ideas influenced the music at its peak, and has the bonus of acting as a handshake between the two London labels most associated with the tag. Krush was Mo’ Wax’s Japanese weapon, and Coldcut and DJ Food were Ninja’s own zen masters of audio collage. The result is a still-classic double CD with the London boys arguably edging it thanks to a wide selection and craftsmanship reminiscent of their acclaimed Journeys By DJ entry; DJ Krush goes for the mind, limiting his selections to only six of Ninja Tune’s artists and slicing the cuts up in his trademark less-is-more approach.

19. Depth Charge 9 Deadly Venoms (Vinyl Solution, 1994)

A natural progression from the movie-obsessed NY rap of Wu-Tang Clan et al, 9 Deadly Venoms used a backbone of cult film samples to underpin gritty hip-hop instrumentals that helped inform a fast-growing scene. This was the blueprint for the Mo’ Wax 12″s to come: music based around the kind of nerd fandom that in 1994 was still a counter-culture. It still plays like an authentic labour of love for Jonathan Saul Kane, as he blends chops from The Evil Dead and Dirty Harry with collapsing breaks and ominous textures – it’s hardly surprising that the producer ended up establishing a company to issue UK versions of Hong Kong action movies.

18. Nearly God Nearly God (Island, 1996)

Described by Tricky as “a collection of brilliant, incomplete demos,” Nearly God is a bright, often-forgotten reminder of just how unmatched Tricky was in the 1990s. He called the record Nearly God , for fuck’s sake, and that wasn’t far from the truth. The album acted as a stop-gap between Tricky’s genre-defining Maxinquaye  and his difficult (but almost equally brilliant) about-turn, Pre-Millenium Tension . It stands apart simply because of its scope – there are appearances from regular collaborator Martina Topley-Bird, but also tracks with Alison Moyet, Björk, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Terry Hall. What sounds like it could have been a self-indulgent victory lap for (back then) one of the UK’s most notorious stars is somehow a coherent, exemplary document of a peculiar time in British music. Tricky also has to be commended for having the good sense to veto a collaboration with Damon Albarn (and then Suggs) which could have easily been the straw that broke the camel’s back.

17. Skylab #2: 1999 “Large As Life And Twice As Natural” (Eye Q , 1999)

Skylab was a short-lived collective composed of Matt Ducasse, Howie B and the Japanese duo of Tosh and Kudo, aka Love TKO from Major Force. They released two albums on Sven Vath’s Eye Q label before disappearing, and their work was among the better but lesser-known of the trip-hop era. Ducasse has gone on record to state that their attachment with the genre was unintentional and that he saw their work as “more expansive, […] more in common with collage music […] or soundtracks.” And yet, those ideas were also at the heart of what the best trip-hop could be. In many ways Skylab were not so different to Portishead in both their intentions and execution. Their second album was released just as the label folded, leading it disappear into the cracks of time until a reissue by Tummy Touch earlier this year. Howie B had left by this point, and vocalist Debbie Sanders joined the trio to craft a beautiful record which really goes out there and was praised by both critics and knowledgeable fans.

16. Laika Silver Apples of the Moon (Too Pure, 1994)

Emerging from post-rock band Moonshake, Laika orbited the trip-hop genre without succumbing to many of its less flattering trappings. When guitarist and vocalist Margaret Fiedler commented in 1995 that her band was “just like trip-hop, but much much faster,” she was doing herself a massive disservice. A cursory listen might not even reveal too many obvious similarities – like Portishead, Laika were taking elements of post-rock, krautrock and certainly hip-hop to provide something reactionary, and different from the pervasive, laddish Britpop that was polluting the charts at the time. While their contemporaries Stereolab (and later, Broadcast) were experimenting with drum machines and synthesizers, Laika were integrating samples and a deep passion for jazz and dub. Silver Apples of the Moon is one of the most singular albums on this list, and one of the most rewarding.

15. Nightmares on Wax Smokers Delight (Warp, 1995)

Few records from this era quite capture the nexus of styles that trip-hop could represent at its best than Nightmares On Wax’s second album for Warp. Pulling from the same influences that defined the late 1980s rave explosion, Smokers Delight reconfigured the UK’s summer of love for the Discman generation while remaining just as suited to chill-out room comedowns or Ibiza sunset sessions.

14. REQ One (Skint, 1997)

Sure, Skint might still be best known for breaking Fatboy Slim, but don’t turn away just yet. Brighton-based producer (and sometime graf writer) REQ offered up one of the most blunted takes on the genre, almost by accident. His compositions didn’t pander to the popularity of the growing trip-hop scene, instead dwelling in a noisy, near-ambient back room. He made hip-hop instrumentals that sounded like they were being beamed in from a parallel universe via 14.4kbps modem, and in doing so, avoided being both pigeonholed and, well, popular. His brilliant debut album One has barely dated, fitting as well alongside DJ Spooky or even Dälek as it does anything the Bristol scene had to offer. One sounds, at times, like an MPC tumbling down a distant stairwell into a muddy lake, and we couldn’t think of a better recommendation than that.

13. Crooklyn Dub Consortium Certified Dope Vol.1 (Wordsound, 1995)

Skiz Fernando Jr.’s Wordsound label was in many ways the dubbed-out New York answer to Mo’ Wax, a home for what its founder coined dub-hop: music that blended the dusty boom bap that ruled the city at the time with the mixing desk mysticism of Jamaican dub. Certified Dope Vol.1 was Fernando’s attempt at cataloguing the music of like-minded artists who populated the Greenpoint and Williamsburg neighbourhoods in the early 1990s, including the likes of We™, Dr. Israel and Bill Laswell. Swinging like a pendulum between full-on dub and head-nod instrumentals, the compilation was one of the first to highlight the parallels between hip-hop’s sampling aesthetic and Jamaica’s dub.

12. DJ Krush Meiso (Mo’ Wax / Sony, 1995)

I imagine that choosing a favourite DJ Krush album is a little like asking parents to pick their favourite kid. A perfectionist who infused an American cultural import with the meticulousness of his own culture, the Japanese producer was the Far East’s answer to DJ Shadow, and together they would become Mo’ Wax’s flagship artists. On Meiso he dug for samples and looped them with the same precision, sensitivity and attention to detail as the finest calligrapher or ukiyo-e artist. The addition of CL Smooth, The Roots’ Black Thought and Malik B as well as Big Shug and Guru showed that trip-hop’s instrumental aesthetic could also provide the backdrop for some fine rap moments.

11. David Holmes Let’s Get Killed (Go! Beat, 1997)

For his second album, Belfast’s David Holmes walked around New York on acid recording voices and sounds. The results were weaved into the music for Let’s Get Killed which, like his 1995 debut, acts as a sort of soundtrack for an imaginary movie. The process also resulted in one of the best albums of the era – a psychedelic collage of rhythms, textures and styles that jumps between hip-hop, dub and dance music and rests on the back of Holmes’ urban trip.  Let’s Get Killed  has aged gracefully and still sounds just as engrossing as it did nearly 20 years ago.

10. DJ Spooky Songs of a Dead Dreamer (Asphodel, 1996)

Say what you like about Spooky and his over-explanation (those liner notes) and academic slant, Songs of a Dead Dreamer might sound better now than it did back in 1996. Hobbled at the time by the “illbient” tag, Spooky had come to the same conclusions as many of his European contemporaries: that a blend of hip-hop rhythms, dub bass and ambient soundscapes sounded pretty damn inspiring. Songs of a Dead Dreamer is his crowning achievement, and while its construction is relatively simple – loops fed through Spooky’s desk and piped through various effects – the effect is hypnotic and beguiling. While others may have pilfered from dub at a surface level, Spooky was using the Jamaican techniques (mixing board trickery, tape delay etc) to produce alien soundscapes that were a million miles from the comparatively safe sounds of Up, Bustle and Out or Funki Porcini.

9. DJ Cam Abstract Manifesto (P-Vine, 1996)

Soon after his debut in 1994, Paris’s DJ Cam positioned himself as the European equivalent to DJ Krush and DJ Shadow – a hip-hop enthusiast capable of weaving together abstract, blunted beats with finesse. Within a few years, he’d parlayed his underground kudos for an attempt at more standard rap fare. Abstract Manifesto is one of his lesser-known releases, a Japan-only album that tapped into the same minimal approach as Krush with added jazz flourishes and junglistic detours. ‘No Competition’ remains one of his best compositions to date, and a staple of sets from the era.

8. Major Force West 93-97 (Mo’ Wax, 1999)

It’s testament to the power of the ideas underpinning trip-hop at the time that this list includes an album spearheaded by a Japanese pop musician who had a hand in the new wave movement. Major Force was the name of Toshio Nakanishi’s hip-hop project, originally conceived in 1988 after a near-decade long infatuation with the music. Comprised of Nakanishi and former Melon bandmates Gota Yashiki and Masayuki Kudo, Major Force released new material as well as an anthology titled The Original Art-Form on Mo’ Wax in the mid-to-late 1990s. The latter is well worth your time, featuring early work and collaborations with Bristol’s DJ Milo, another link in the global thread that supported the music’s most daring leaps. In a 2014 interview, Nakanishi admitted that his fascination with hip-hop stemmed from recognising its links with Burroughs’ cut-ups, stating that “in collage, something happens where you never expected it to.”

93-97 compiles the group’s work during their years living in London, hence the twist to their name. It’s a brilliant and bizarre collection of ideas from a culturally out-of-place trio, who got it because they were so far from the “it” everyone was talking about. In those same years, Nakanishi and Kudo also worked as part of Skylab and you can hear similarities in this collection with the latter’s #1 debut album, especially in how the best of it isn’t the downtempo beats but the drawn-out compositions which have the feel of improvised studio jams. Later on in his interview, Nakanishi points out that London, at the time, felt as psychedelic as the 1960s, with the group seeking to inject some of this spirit into hip-hop, which in England was called trip-hop.

7. Various Artists Headz 2 (Mo’ Wax, 1996)

Just as the first Headz marked Mo’ Wax’s ascendance, the second compilation crowned its achievements and enshrined its best-known artists in an expansive collection of 53 tracks. While the first volume feels a little dated, Headz 2 has aged remarkably well, in part thanks to its broad representation of what trip-hop could be and where it came from. That means music from the Beastie Boys, UNKLE, Money Mark, The Black Dog, Dillinja, DJ Shadow, Danny Breaks, Tortoise and Urban Tribe among many. Headz 2 is also testament to James Lavelle’s impeccable A&R skills, and his talent for making sense of the various 1990s post-rave threads that informed the music.

6. Leila Like Weather (Rephlex, 1998)

Leila Arab’s debut album stuck out like a sore thumb when it appeared on Rephlex in 1998. Not because it was more extreme than Rephlex’s usual fare, but because it was actually a proper album, with songs, a narrative and little of the label’s usual tongue-in-cheek antics. Arab had pieced together a hazy, underwater daydream of a record with half-heard soul, pop and chiming ice cream truck electronics swirling together in a soup of memory and emotion. Not quite trip-hop and not quite illbient, it certainly wasn’t IDM either, despite an intriguing “post production” credit from a certain Richard D. James. It’s one of the most disarming records of the era, and manages to fulfil the promise of trip-hop without succumbing to its trappings. Like Weather might be the one record on this list that has the most in common with Maxinquaye , and that should tell you something about its quality.

5. Luke Vibert Big Soup (Mo’ Wax, 1997)

Luke Vibert’s first record under his real name, Big Soup summed up the Mo’ Wax catalogue perfectly, even if Vibert was only casually adjacent to the scene. Maybe that helped, as his productions have stood the test of time, sitting somewhere in between the sample-rich collages of DJ Shadow and the tight, precise constructions of DJ Krush and Major Force. The thing that Vibert had and which many of his peers always lacked was a sense of humour, and as track titles like ‘No Turn Unstoned’ might suggest, that helped remove some of the inherent pretentiousness of the scene, breaking down another barrier that walled it off to potential listeners. Vibert’s produced more complicated records since, and he’s produced more successful records too, but Big Soup is a perfect picture of a certain moment in time, painted with a British eccentricity that cuts through the posturing that would later derail the scene.

4. Massive Attack Blue Lines (Island, 1991)

In a 1998 feature for The New York Times , Guy Garcia posited Blue Lines as the blueprint for trip-hop, an argument that holds some weight if you consider that parts of the album were as old as the days of The Wild Bunch, from which the trio emerged. Blue Lines made its mark thanks to a mix of ideas: England’s love affair with sound systems; the comedown from its own summer of love in 1989; and hip-hop’s nascent dominance and rapacious aesthetic. Blue Lines was all of these things and more. Whether or not you consider it trip-hop is at this point in time purely a matter of personal beliefs and largely irrelevant considering its legacy. In 2009, Daddy G told The Observer : “What we were trying to do was create dance music for the head, rather than the feet.” A statement of intent for trip-hop if there ever was one.

3. DJ Shadow Endtroducing (Mo’ Wax, 1996)

DJ Shadow’s first album for Mo’ Wax is the kind of debut that places the bar so high in its mastery of a new musical vocabulary that even its creator can never hope to better it, forever living beneath the weight of what he’s accomplished. Endtroducing is the lingua franca of trip-hop, an album crafted by a hip-hop fanatic outside of any direct sphere of influence but his own. Like all of the releases on this list, to define Endtroducing as trip-hop is to limit it, to take away the transformative powers it had to imbue listeners with a new understanding of the potentials of hip-hop as an instrumental music. It’s not just the music that made hip-hop suck in 1996, it was also the critics who couldn’t conceive that albums like Endtroducing were what they claimed to be and nothing more.

2. Portishead Dummy (Go! Beat, 1994)

Portishead’s 1994 debut was soaked in the same DIY, melting pot approach that typified much of Bristol’s output at the time. From Massive Attack to Smith & Mighty and early Full Cycle releases, the city’s greatest hits in that decade were all about the blending of aesthetics with a brazen irreverence for rules. As a result the music felt both impossible and irresistible. Two decades on, Dummy still sounds as hypnotic and engrossing as it did then, a gritty take on hip-hop, 1960s movie soundtracks and traditional songwriting that laid bare the potentials afforded by sidestepping rigid genre formats.

1. Tricky Maxinquaye (Island, 1995)

This is the one, really. Tricky named his debut solo album after his mother, Maxine Quaye, and that should already indicate just how personal the record is. He’d sharpened his skills as a member of Massive Attack (indeed some of his rhymes from Blue Lines were recycled here), but his solo material went far beyond his former collaborators’ scope. Tricky was pulling from a darker well, and allowed his struggles, both external and internal, to sit at the album’s epicentre. The result was some of the most tortured and original electronic music cut to wax which gave birth to an era where “weird” became fashionable.

He was assisted by his then-girlfriend Martina Topley-Bird, whose nonchalant purrs offered a foil for Tricky’s hoarse raps. She was the smooth to Tricky’s tab-addled rough, and grounded the project for many listeners, no doubt helping people to lump it in with the similarly located Portishead.

Tricky hated being labeled trip-hop (“This is not a coffee table album. I don’t think you can have dinner parties to it,” he stated in 1996) and has rallied against it ever since, but there can be no argument that, for better or for worse, he left an indelible mark on British music, electronic and otherwise. If covering Public Enemy’s racially charged ‘Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos’ and recasting Chuck D as a mixed-race female from Bristol (singing, instead of rapping) isn’t hitting the genre’s conceit squarely in the face, we’re not sure what is. “If I supposedly invented it, why not call it Tricky-hop?” he said, before releasing Pre-Millenium Tension . He wasn’t wrong.

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10 Essential Trip-Hop Albums

Last month, Treble explored the greatest albums in hip-hop released in the 1990s . It was a great exercise in being immersed in the beat-heavy sounds of the era, but it also inspired us to do a post-script of sorts on the outgrowth of hip-hop that happened in the Bristol club scene in the UK. Using hip-hop beats as a foundation for darker, late-night grooves and smoky atmosphere, trip-hop created a fascinating fusion. As the genre celebrates its 25th anniversary (assuming you count Massive Attack’s “ Any Love ” as the first real trip-hop release, which we suppose is debatable), we assembled our list of 10 of the best trip hop albums. Because nobody loves us — not like you do.

Portishead – Dummy

(1994; Go! Discs/London)

This is not the beginning of trip-hop — that arguably started back in 1988 when Massive Attack released their debut single. But it wasn’t until around 1994 that the phrase began to make the rounds outside of its incubating scene in Bristol, UK, and began to circulate in the U.S. and beyond. And it’s thanks in large part to Dummy , the breathtaking debut album by Portishead. Named for a small English town, Portishead took a hazy, dark approach to pop music, blending crackly hip-hop beats with sparse guitar licks, noir film samples and a fetish for John Barry. Dummy became a cult hit on the strength of gorgeous, catchy singles like “Sour Times” and “ Glory Box ,” though between those tracks, the group stuffed in moments of soul balladry, heavy-hitting boom-bap beats and swampy, psychedelic dirges. At the time it was completely alien and strange, but compelling in spite of the weirdness that characterized it. That didn’t last — within a few years, everyone would come to copy the Portishead template, diluting it a little each time until it lost its intrigue. Even Portishead lost interest; in 2008, the release of the fucked-up, paranoid sounding Third represented a huge transition for the band, revealing once again that Geoff Barrow, Beth Gibbons & Co. are about innovation above all. – JT

Nightmares on Wax – Smoker’s Delight

(1995; Warp)

After releasing an album on then-fledgling label Warp Records in 1991, Nightmares on Wax founder George Evelyn stepped away to run a dance club in Leeds, DJ, and start his own record label.  The context is important because unlike many of the other notable trip-hop releases, Smokers Delight has a distinct DJ feel to it, with an aesthetic that relies on multiple melodies being seamlessly layered on top of each other throughout the course of a song. The transitions between movements are always fluid as new pieces are pulled into the picture by a crossfader that moves at a snail’s pace. Take for instance the opening track, “ Nights Introlude ,” which weaves in a “Summer In The City” sample — the one made popular by Pharcyde’s “Passin’ Me By” — after already establishing a perfectly fine high hat and string-based groove. Evelyn clearly has a fine ear for samples and uses them tastefully but frequently to extremely satisfying ends. Smoker’s Delight has aged surprising well over the years; for all of the styles that Evelyn touches on throughout the record from hip hop to funk to dub, there’s a unifying coherence that’s the true litmus test of a master DJ — a quality that’s difficult to map when done well but easy to spot when botched.- DG

Tricky – Maxinquaye

(1995; Island)

When Tricky left Massive Attack after Blue Lines , there were questions about how he would respond to the challenge of establishing himself as a solo artist. With Maxinquaye , one of the most prodigious debuts of the past three decades, Tricky put those questions to rest with one fell swoop. As enthralling and bold as Blue Lines is, Maxinquaye arguably transcends it with greater scope, ambition, and passion (the album is named after Tricky’s mother, who committed suicide). One can simply play any of the tracks on the album to test this assertion; from the bony rattle of “ Ponderosa ” — which brilliantly samples Shakespeare’s Sister — to “Abbaon Fat Tracks,” a distorted sex ballad, to the languidly gorgeous closer “Feed Me,” Maxinquaye passes every time. Truthfully, its only downside to speak of is that it set the bar too high for Tricky, who hasn’t quite been able to match its brilliance again. Bad for Tricky, good for all of us. – CB

Laika – Sounds of the Satellites

(1997; Sire)

Formed by former Moonshake vocalist Margaret Fiedler and producer/engineer Guy Fixsen, Laika took trip-hop to weird new places. Though the duo used beats and grooves in much the same way that Portishead or Massive Attack did, their manic, polyrhythmic arrangements were far more complex and weird than the club crowd might have been ready for. The lead single from Sound of the Satellites , “ Prairie Dog ,” slinks along a dub-inspired 7/4 rhythm, and the frantic pace of tracks like “Poor Gal” feel more like Rema in In Light -era Talking Heads or Metal Box -era Public Image Limited than anything happening in Bristol. This is intense, but fun stuff, and maybe not the most traditional of trip-hop records, but definitely one of the best.

Air – Moon Safari

(1998; Source/Caroline)

Air may not fit the British, café lounge archetype that’s associated with a majority of popular trip-hop acts, but the French duo’s first full-length expands on all of the genre’s chill-out aims. Guest vocalist Beth Hirsch contributes to what would become one of Air’s all-time most popular songs, “All I Need”, as well as another album highlight, “You Make It Easy.” Believers in warm introductions and kind goodbyes, Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel put their two most languid and spacey tracks at the front and back of Moon Safari . Starting things off is “ La Femme D’Argent ,” an instrumental that stays tethered to a thick-stringed, yet subtle bassline, but stretches out with spiraling arpeggios, spunky synth keys and refreshingly human hand claps. Moon Safari isn’t so much an album you stop listening to as it is a kind of dream you wake up from; the exact events from the experience are a hazy memory but the color of the ride leaves a vivid, pleasant impression. – DG

Massive Attack – Mezzanine

(1998; Virgin)

Most groups that emerged during the trip-hop era weren’t terribly prolific, and by 1998, a second wave of tepid coffeehouse trip-hop had become the sleepy norm. Having released their last album Protection in 1994, Bristol’s Massive Attack at this point weren’t front and center in the conversation in the same way that Portishead was before taking an extended break, or with the bright flicker that artists like Esthero and Hooverphonic would briefly enjoy. But in the summer of 1998, Massive Attack not only returned, they did so with their best album yet, a dark, sinister head-trip of an album that crept slowly and hit with lethal force. Mezzanine found Massive Attack entering a dark phase in their career, which hasn’t really ever ended, though this is the moment where it’s most potent. The eerie lurch of “Angel,” the stoned dub-funk of “Risingson,” or the evil pulse of “Inertia Creeps” — it amounts to an album by a group seemingly no longer interested in the more positive aspects of club music, as Blue Lines suggested. This is its sweaty, grimy, scraped-up, paranoid, sleazy and possibly even dead underbelly. – JT

Morcheeba – Big Calm

(1998; Sire)

Some parts of Morcheeba’s sophomore LP, Big Calm , have not aged well. The background DJ scratching on “Blindfold” feels forced and awkward, “The Music That We Hear” is an unnecessary pop rework of a debut album stand-out (“Moog Island”), and I can practically smell the incense when the sitar comes in on “Shoulder Holster.” Those few awkward elements aside, Big Calm is held up on the merits of a few choice tracks, namely lead single “The Sea,” “Let Me See” and “Over and Over.” Singer Skye Edwards’ relaxed coolness gives each song a degree of levity without ever dropping the sultry edge. It’s a fine line to tip-toe and Edwards always stays a few short steps in front, enticing the listener with the promise of satisfying hooks that come when expected. From the loud bounce of “Let Me See” to the sparse “Over and Over” Edwards has the right balance of tranquility and sexuality to keep heart rates low and attention high. – DG

UNKLE – Psyence Fiction

(1998; Mo’ Wax)

For me, as it was with likely most listeners who picked up Psyence Fiction , the big sell was a collaboration between DJ Shadow and Thom Yorke. In the late ’90s, there was no more glorious dream collaboration, Yorke’s vulnerable vocal performance on “ Rabbit In Your Headlights ” matched perfectly by James Lavelle and Josh Davis’ chilly sample arrangement. However, it was just one of many interesting stylistic detours on an album that used trip-hop as a foundation for even bolder experiments. The Verve’s Richard Ashcroft lent his vocals to the epic, string-laden “Lonely Soul,” Mike D and Metallica’s Jason Newstead teamed up on the scrappy hip-hop of “The Knock,” and the then-unknown Badly Drawn Boy helmed the harder rocking “Nursery Rhyme.” Yet the instrumentals dazzled as well, like the gorgeously psychedelic “Unreal,” which was later released in an alternate version with vocals from The Stone Roses’ Ian Brown. It was all very lush and gorgeous, but should anyone get the wrong impression, that UNKLE had no sense of humor, segue “Getting Ahead in the Lucrative Field of Artist Management” dedicated its 54 seconds to a hilarious commercial for a board game called “Ball Buster.” (Snicker…) – JT

Goldfrapp – Felt Mountain

(2000; Mute)

In the 13 years that have lapsed since Goldfrapp first made their debut with Felt Mountain , they’ve taken many a stylistic detour, from trashy electro on Black Cherry , to beat-driven glam-pop on Supernature , psych-folk on Seventh Tree , and inexplicably upbeat new wave on Head First . And generally speaking, Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory do a bang-up job each time they switch up the formula. Yet their debut follows a trip-hop aesthetic in much the same way that Portishead laid it out, with sexy, dark soundscapes that blend the string-laden grandeur of John Barry’s Bond themes with the eccentric folk touch of Lee Hazelwood. It’s one of the group’s most stunning albums altogether, from the sultry shuffle of “Lovely Head” to the lush orchestration of “Pilots.” Whether or not you prefer Goldfrapp in sequins, spandex, furs or forests, it’s hard to argue that Felt Mountain isn’t one hell of an album. – JT

Nathaniel Merriweather presents… Lovage – Music to Make Love to Your Old Lady By

(2001; 75 Ark)

In 2001, under his “Nathanial Meriweather” moniker, Dan The Automator produced a trip-hop album featuring Jennifer Charles (of Elysian Fields) and Mike Patton (of Faith No More, Tomahawk and Mr. Bungle) on vocals. The mixes on Music to Make Love to Your Old Lady By featured Kid Koala on turntables, as well as a couple other Deltron 3030 collaborators. The album paid tribute to Alfred Hitchcock, Serge Gainsbourg, and new wave rockers Berlin. If all that doesn’t convince you to listen to this smooth hour of turntable-heavy trip-hop, I don’t know what will. – AK

No becoming X = fail list

Becoming X was nowhere near good enough to be in any ‘Best of’ list. Kelli Dayton’s voice was never in teh same league as her compatriots.

Where is esbe? He’s in the top ten in my book.

Becomimg x, fuck no lol

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Trip-Hop Essentials

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The 40+ Best Trip Hop Artists, Ranked

If you are ready for a journey through one of the most eclectic music forms, consider trip hop. Trip hop music awakens the senses and unlocks a treasure trove of rhythm, style and emotion. This genre is steeped in the roots of British electronica, breakbeat, and hip hop. It's fascinating to wend your way through a collection of the finest trip hop artists whose songs have made a profound impact on music scenes globally. 

The best trip hop groupspaint an enchanting picture of profound musical innovation, blending various styles to create something unique and potent. Their transformative influence on trip hop's evolution becomes apparent with each resonating beat and soulful lyric. The music vibrates with a deep resonance that echoes across the mainstream and indie audiences, highlighting the uniqueness of each artist and their indelible mark on the genre. 

In the illustrious lineup of trip hop artists, certain names stand out. These include top trip hop bands like Portishead , Massive Attack, and Tricky. Portishead's hauntingly beautiful melodies tug at the heartstrings of the listeners, making the band famous. Massive Attack, with their groundbreaking albums, brought a new perspective to the genre, a testament to their status among the best trip hop artists. Tricky melded raw emotion with creative beats resulting in a distinctive sound that resonates with fans to this day. Their achievements, ranging from memorable songs and classic albums to prestigious awards, speak volumes about their stature in the trip hop universe. 

Reflecting on the history of trip hop music and its best artists presents a captivating saga of artistic expression, innovation, and boundary-pushing beats. Distinguished by their individual style and contributions, these trip hop bands have set new standards for the genre with magical tunes that continue to inspire, entertain, and move audiences around the world. 

Portishead, the brainchild of Geoff Barrow, Beth Gibbons, and Adrian Utley, revolutionized trip hop in the 90s with their groundbreaking albums Dummy  and Portishead . With a hauntingly atmospheric sound that flawlessly combined eerie vocal melodies, innovative sampling techniques, and cinematic soundscapes, Portishead captured the imagination of music lovers everywhere. They managed to push the boundaries of the genre by blending elements of jazz, electronica, and rock, ultimately creating a hypnotic experience that became synonymous with the trip hop movement. To this day, Portishead remains a luminary of the scene, continuously inspiring generations of artists with their emotive and timeless compositions.

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Massive Attack

Massive Attack, hailing from Bristol, England, have long been considered pioneers in the realm of trip hop. The trio, consisting of Robert Del Naja, Grant Marshall, and Andy Vowles, crafted a unique sound that seamlessly merged elements of dub, reggae, soul, and electronica. Their seminal album Blue Lines  served as a blueprint for trip hop, boasting an array of downtempo beats, ethereal ambience, and thought-provoking lyricism. Massive Attack's innovation and experimentation within the genre have solidified their legacy as one of the most influential trip hop acts of all time.

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UK-based artist Tricky, born Adrian Thaws, quickly emerged as a trip hop icon with the release of his debut album, Maxinquaye . His distinct fusion of hip hop, rock, and electronica resonated with listeners seeking something more subversive and experimental within the genre. Drawing heavily on his Jamaican roots and experiences growing up in Bristol, Tricky's music showcased his powerful storytelling abilities and otherworldly production skills. As a result, Tricky has remained an essential figure within the trip hop scene, continuously pushing the envelope with each successive release.

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Morcheeba, a British trio consisting of siblings Paul and Ross Godfrey and vocalist Skye Edwards, captivated listeners with their polished blend of trip hop, electronica, and pop. Their debut album Who Can You Trust?  served as a prime example of their ability to create moody, atmospheric compositions that showcased Edwards' sultry vocal stylings. Morcheeba's ability to navigate the diverse sonic landscape of trip hop while maintaining a strong focus on melody earned them critical acclaim and a devout following. Over time, the band has continued to evolve, solidifying their status as a versatile powerhouse within the genre.

Rock Out To Some Of The Most Popular Songs From Morcheeba   - "The Sea"   - "Trigger Hippie"   - "Rome Wasn't Built in a Day"

Dive Into Morcheeba's History With Some Unique Deep Cuts   - "Friction"   - "Big Calm"

Sneaker Pimps

Established in the mid-90s, the British trip hop trio Sneaker Pimps, composed of Chris Corner, Liam Howe, and Kelli Ali, brought a unique spin to the genre with their compelling mix of electronica, alternative rock, and darkly melodic pop. Their debut album Becoming X  showcased innovative production techniques, catchy hooks, and Ali's alluring vocals, which quickly garnered them international attention. Not content to remain static, Sneaker Pimps continued to explore and push the boundaries of trip hop, consistently reinventing their sound and remaining an influential force within the scene.

Rock Out To Some Of The Most Popular Songs From Sneaker Pimps   - "6 Underground"   - "Spin Spin Sugar"   - "Tesko Suicide"

Dive Into Sneaker Pimps' History With Some Unique Deep Cuts   - "Low Place Like Home"   - "Grazes"

British duo Zero 7, comprised of Henry Binns and Sam Hardaker, emerged on the trip hop scene in the late '90s with a mission to blend chilled-out electronica, sophisticated pop sensibilities, and seductive downtempo grooves. Their debut album Simple Things , featuring collaborations with vocalists like Sia and Mozez, showcased the duo's penchant for crafting exquisitely lush and soothing soundscapes. Over the years, Zero 7 has continued to evolve and redefine their sound, often incorporating elements of jazz, soul, and world music, earning them a dedicated fanbase and a lasting impact on the trip hop genre.

Rock Out To Some Of The Most Popular Songs From Zero 7   - "Destiny"   - "In the Waiting Line"   - "Home"

Dive Into Zero 7's History With Some Unique Deep Cuts   - "Likufanele"   - "I Have Seen"

Hooverphonic

Belgian outfit Hooverphonic, led by mastermind Alex Callier, made a lasting impact on the trip-hop scene with their evocative, cinematic soundscapes that beautifully melded elements of pop, rock, and electronic music. From their breathtaking debut A New Stereophonic Sound Spectacular  to their more recent work, Hooverphonic has demonstrated an uncanny ability to create lush, immersive atmospheres with a keen sense of melody. With a revolving door of talented vocalists, including Liesje Sadonius, Geike Arnaert, and Luka Cruysberghs, the band has consistently defied expectations, solidifying their status as one of trip hop's most captivating acts.

Rock Out To Some Of The Most Popular Songs From Hooverphonic   - "Mad About You"   - "2Wicky"   - "Eden"

Dive Into Hooverphonic's History With Some Unique Deep Cuts   - "Vinegar & Salt"   - "Out of Sight"

French duo Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel, better known as Air, brought a distinctly Gallic flair to the world of trip hop with their sublime fusion of electronic experimentation, retro-pop melodies, and dreamy atmospherics. Their seminal album Moon Safari , featuring hit singles like "Sexy Boy" and "Kelly Watch the Stars," captivated audiences with its timeless charm and ethereal beauty. Throughout their career, Air has consistently pushed the boundaries of trip hop by exploring a wide range of sonic palettes and textures, leaving an indelible mark on the genre.

Rock Out To Some Of The Most Popular Songs From Air   - "Sexy Boy"   - "La Femme d'Argent"   - "Cherry Blossom Girl"

Dive Into Air's History With Some Unique Deep Cuts   - "Le Soleil est près de Moi"   - "Talisman"

• # 296 of 307 on The Greatest Musical Artists of the '90s
• # 134 of 215 on The 200+ Best Indie Artists Of All Time, Ranked
• # 365 of 384 on The Greatest Pop Groups & Artists of All Time

Thievery Corporation

Washington, D.C.-based duo Thievery Corporation, consisting of Eric Hilton and Rob Garza, have been synonymous with trip hop since their formation in the mid-'90s. With a sound that effortlessly fuses elements of dub, reggae, lounge, and electronica, the pair has developed a unique global sonic identity that transcends genre boundaries. Their debut album Sounds from the Thievery Hi-Fi  laid the groundwork for their signature sound, combining lush electronic soundscapes with hypnotic grooves and worldly influences. Over the years, Thievery Corporation has continuously evolved their eclectic sound, solidifying their status as one of trip hop's most innovative and boundary-pushing acts.

Rock Out To Some Of The Most Popular Songs From Thievery Corporation   - "Lebanese Blonde"   - "Sweet Tides"   - "The Richest Man in Babylon"

Dive Into Thievery Corporation's History With Some Unique Deep Cuts   - "Amerimacka"   - "The Mirror Conspiracy"

Josh Davis, known professionally as DJ Shadow, is an American producer and DJ who has left an indelible mark on the world of trip hop with his undeniable talent for crafting immersive beats and moody soundscapes. His groundbreaking 1996 debut Endtroducing...  is widely regarded as a trip hop classic, showcasing a mastery of sampling techniques, innovative production styles, and a keen ear for haunting, atmospheric sounds. Throughout his career, DJ Shadow has continued to explore and expand the boundaries of the genre, pushing the limits of what can be achieved through the art of sampling and beat making.

Rock Out To Some Of The Most Popular Songs From DJ Shadow   - "Midnight in a Perfect World"   - "Building Steam with a Grain of Salt"   - "Six Days"

Dive Into DJ Shadow's History With Some Unique Deep Cuts   - "Stem / Long Stem"   - "Organ Donor"

• # 103 of 156 on The Best DJs in the World Right Now
• # 57 of 81 on The 80+ Best Rap Producers Of All Time, Ranked
• # 37 of 349 on The Best Electronica Artists

British duo Goldfrapp, led by the bewitching Alison Goldfrapp and multi-instrumentalist Will Gregory, emerged in the early 2000s as a force to be reckoned with in the realm of trip hop. Their debut album Felt Mountain  showcased a beguiling mix of cinematic orchestration, electronic experimentation, and Alison's enchanting vocals. Goldfrapp's enigmatic sound has continually evolved, encompassing elements of glam rock, synth-pop, and dance music, making them one of the most unpredictable and fascinating acts within the trip hop genre.

Rock Out To Some Of The Most Popular Songs From Goldfrapp   - "Ooh La La"   - "Strict Machine"   - "Lovely Head"

Dive Into Goldfrapp's History With Some Unique Deep Cuts   - "Utopia"   - "Black Cherry"

• # 172 of 248 on The Most Hipster Bands
• # 121 of 156 on The Best DJs in the World Right Now
• # 36 of 42 on The Best Gold Things

British musical mastermind James Lavelle, the driving force behind Unkle, has been captivating audiences with his dark and cinematic take on trip hop since the late '90s. Unkle's debut album Psyence Fiction , featuring collaborations with notable artists like Thom Yorke and Richard Ashcroft, showcased Lavelle's knack for blending moody electronic production with elements of rock, pop, and hip-hop. Over the years, Unkle's ever-evolving sound and roster of talented collaborators have helped cement the project's place in trip hop history as a daring, innovative force within the genre.

Rock Out To Some Of The Most Popular Songs From Unkle   - "Rabbit in Your Headlights"   - "Bloodstain"   - "Burn My Shadow"

Dive Into Unkle's History With Some Unique Deep Cuts   - "Celestial Annihilation"   - "Lonely Soul"

Lamb, the enchanting English duo consisting of producer Andy Barlow and vocalist Lou Rhodes, first made waves in the trip hop scene with their eponymous 1996 debut album. Their unique fusion of electronic experimentation, emotive vocals, and captivating songwriting quickly set them apart, winning them fans across the globe. With a sound that combines elements of jazz, drum and bass, and ambient music, Lamb has continually pushed the envelope, proving themselves to be one of the trip hop genre's most enduring and captivating acts.

Rock Out To Some Of The Most Popular Songs From Lamb   - "Gorecki"   - "Lusty"   - "Angelica"

Dive Into Lamb's History With Some Unique Deep Cuts   - "Cotton Wool"   - "Trans Fatty Acid"

Nightmares on Wax

George Evelyn, the man behind Nightmares on Wax, has been weaving spellbinding webs of sound since the early '90s, blending elements of dub, electronica, and soul to create uniquely evocative trip hop compositions. With a discography that spans decades, Nightmares on Wax has earned a reputation for consistently crafting music that not only embodies the spirit of trip hop but also pushes the boundaries of the genre. From early classics like Smokers Delight  to more recent releases like Shape the Future , Nightmares on Wax has proven time and again that his innovative approach to music-making remains vital and engaging.

Rock Out To Some Of The Most Popular Songs From Nightmares on Wax   - "You Wish"   - "Les Nuits"   - "Flip Ya Lid"

Dive Into Nightmares on Wax' History With Some Unique Deep Cuts   - "Ethnic Majority"   - "Morse"

• # 84 of 146 on The Most Influential DJs of All Time
• # 16 of 43 on The Best Bands Like Massive Attack
• # 17 of 48 on The Best Downtempo Bands/Artists

Norwegian duo Röyksopp, comprising Svein Berge and Torbjørn Brundtland, emerged in the early 2000s with a distinct brand of trip hop infused with elements of synth-pop, ambient, and electronica. Their chart-topping debut, Melody A.M. , showcased their ability to create lush, atmospheric soundscapes punctuated by catchy hooks and intricate production. Throughout their career, Röyksopp has remained committed to exploring the boundaries of trip hop, collaborating with various artists and incorporating diverse influences into their constantly evolving sound.

Rock Out To Some Of The Most Popular Songs From Röyksopp   - "Eple"   - "Poor Leno"   - "Happy Up Here"

Dive Into Röyksopp's History With Some Unique Deep Cuts   - "So Easy"   - "A Higher Place"

• # 114 of 156 on The Best DJs in the World Right Now
• # 31 of 143 on The Best Europop Bands/Artists
• # 29 of 349 on The Best Electronica Artists

French producer Jean-Christophe Le Saoût, known by his stage name Wax Tailor, has been crafting elegant, cinematic trip hop since the early 2000s. With a penchant for lush orchestration, deft sampling, and moody atmospherics, Wax Tailor's music stands as a testament to the genre's enduring appeal and versatility. Throughout his career, he has collaborated with a diverse array of artists, pushing the boundaries of trip hop while remaining true to the genre's core aesthetic.

Rock Out To Some Of The Most Popular Songs From Wax Tailor   - "Que Sera"   - "Seize the Day"   - "Ungodly Fruit"

Dive Into Wax Tailor's History With Some Unique Deep Cuts   - "Positively Inclined"   - "Until Heaven Stops the Rain"

Kruder & Dorfmeister

Austrian duo Kruder & Dorfmeister, composed of Peter Kruder and Richard Dorfmeister, have been at the forefront of the trip hop movement for decades, known for their innovative remix work and original productions. Their landmark compilation The K&D Sessions  featured reimaginings of tracks from a wide range of artists, showcasing their ability to transform songs into immersive, downtempo masterpieces. With their seamless blend of dub, jazz, and electronica, Kruder & Dorfmeister have left an indelible mark on the trip hop scene and inspired countless artists to follow in their footsteps.

Rock Out To Some Of The Most Popular Songs From Kruder & Dorfmeister   - "K&D Sessions" (This is an album containing various remixes)   - "Black Baby"   - "Deep Shit Pt. 1 & 2"

Dive Into Kruder & Dorfmeister's History With Some Unique Deep Cuts   - "Bug Powder Dust"   - "Sofa Rockers"

• # 146 of 156 on The Best DJs in the World Right Now
• # 28 of 40 on The Best Lounge Music Artists of All Time
• # 8 of 48 on The Best Downtempo Bands/Artists

Japanese producer Hideaki Ishi, better known as DJ Krush, has been making waves in the trip hop world since the early '90s with his uniquely atmospheric and meditative soundscapes. Known for his groundbreaking use of sampling and turntablism, DJ Krush consistently pushes the boundaries of the genre by incorporating elements of jazz, hip-hop, and traditional Japanese music into his work. With a discography that spans multiple decades, DJ Krush remains an influential figure within the trip hop scene, inspiring future generations of artists with his innovative, genre-defying approach to music production.

Rock Out To Some Of The Most Popular Songs From DJ Krush   - "Kemuri"   - "Song 2"   - "Big City Lover"

Dive Into DJ Krush's History With Some Unique Deep Cuts   - "Road to Nowhere"   - "Meiso"

• # 153 of 156 on The Best DJs in the World Right Now
• # 36 of 99 on The Real Names of 100 DJs
• # 12 of 49 on The Best Turntablists

American producer Ramble Jon Krohn, better known as RJD2, burst onto the trip hop scene in the early 2000s with his adventurous, genre-blurring approach to music-making. His debut album Deadringer  showcased a unique blend of hip-hop, electronica, and soulful sampling that garnered widespread acclaim and helped establish him as a pioneer within the trip-hop scene. Throughout his career, RJD2 has continued to push the boundaries of the genre by incorporating a wide range of influences and collaborating with various artists, solidifying his status as an innovative force in the world of trip hop.

Rock Out To Some Of The Most Popular Songs From RJD2   - "Ghostwriter"   - "Smoke & Mirrors"   - "The Horror"

Dive Into RJD2's History With Some Unique Deep Cuts   - "Dead Ringer"   - "Shot in the Dark"

• # 130 of 156 on The Best DJs in the World Right Now
• # 61 of 81 on The 80+ Best Rap Producers Of All Time, Ranked
• # 85 of 99 on The Real Names of 100 DJs

The London-based collective Archive has been pushing the boundaries of trip hop since forming in the mid-1990s. With a diverse and ever-evolving roster of musicians, the group has developed a sophisticated sound that incorporates elements of rock, electronica, and orchestral music. Their ambitious concept albums, like the acclaimed Londonium , showcase their ability to create sweeping, cinematic soundscapes full of emotion and depth. Archive’s unique take on trip hop has earned them a dedicated fanbase, solidifying their status as one of the genre’s most daring and innovative acts.

Rock Out To Some Of The Most Popular Songs From Archive   - "Bullets"   - "You Make Me Feel"   - "Again"

Dive Into Archive's History With Some Unique Deep Cuts   - "Conscience"   - "Numb"

Emancipator

Portland-based producer Doug Appling, known as Emancipator, has been a leading force in the trip-hop scene since the release of his acclaimed debut album Soon It Will Be Cold Enough . With a signature sound that blends lush instrumentation, intricate production, and cinematic soundscapes, Emancipator has consistently captivated listeners with his evocative and meditative compositions. A classically trained musician, Appling's ability to seamlessly weave together elements of electronic, hip-hop, and world music has helped him stand out as a unique and influential figure within the trip-hop genre.

Rock Out To Some Of The Most Popular Songs From Emancipator   - "Soon It Will Be Cold Enough"   - "Lionheart"   - "Anthem"

Dive Into Emancipator's History With Some Unique Deep Cuts   - "Periscope Up"   - "Nevergreen"

Martina Topley-Bird

British singer-songwriter Martina Topley-Bird first emerged as a prominent figure within the trip hop scene through her collaborations with pioneering artist Tricky. Her distinctive, ethereal voice adds a unique depth to the atmospheric soundscapes that have come to define the genre. With subsequent solo work like her debut album Quixotic , Topley-Bird has demonstrated her ability to craft captivating trip hop compositions that seamlessly blend elements of electronica, pop, and rock. Her continued contributions to the genre have made her an enduring and influential presence within the trip hop community.

Rock Out To Some Of The Most Popular Songs From Martina Topley  -Bird   - "Sandpaper Kisses"   - "Need One"   - "Anything"

Dive Into Martina Topley  -Bird's History With Some Unique Deep Cuts   - "Too Tough to Die"   - "Steal Away"

Irish singer Róisín Murphy and English producer Mark Brydon formed Moloko in the mid-'90s, bringing a quirky, innovative, and genre-defying sound to the world of trip hop. With hit singles like "Sing It Back" and "The Time Is Now," the duo crafted a distinct blend of electronic, pop, and dance music that set them apart from their peers. Throughout their career, Moloko's continuously evolving sound and Murphy's beguiling stage presence have earned them a dedicated fanbase and solidified their status as one of trip hop's most inventive acts.

Rock Out To Some Of The Most Popular Songs From Moloko   - "Sing It Back"   - "Time is Now"   - "Fun for Me"

Dive Into Moloko's History With Some Unique Deep Cuts   - "Pure Pleasure Seeker"   - "Dominoid"

• # 45 of 65 on The Best Bands Named After Books and Literary Characters
• # 55 of 70 on The Best House Music DJs
• # 34 of 35 on The 35 Best Acid Jazz Artists, Ranked

Brazilian-born composer and producer Amon Tobin has long been heralded as a pioneer within the realm of trip hop and electronic music. His unique ability to fuse diverse influences, ranging from jazz and ambient to drum and bass, has earned him a reputation for pushing the boundaries of the genre and defying categorization. Tobin's atmospheric and immersive compositions, such as those showcased on his groundbreaking album Bricolage , remain influential touchstones within the trip hop scene and continue to inspire future generations of producers and musicians.

Rock Out To Some Of The Most Popular Songs From Amon Tobin   - "Four Ton Mantis"   - "Easy Muffin"   - "Stoney Street"

Dive Into Amon Tobin's History With Some Unique Deep Cuts   - "The Lighthouse"   - "Bridge"

• # 42 of 349 on The Best Electronica Artists
• # 84 of 197 on The 150+ Best Avant-Garde Music Artists, Ranked
• # 18 of 76 on The Best Breakbeat Groups/DJs

The eclectic New York duo Cibo Matto, comprised of Japanese expats Yuka Honda and Miho Hatori, brought a quirky, genre-defying approach to trip hop with their 1996 debut album Viva! La Woman . Incorporating elements of hip-hop, pop, and experimental music, Cibo Matto's unconventional sound and whimsical lyricism set them apart from their peers. Their unique blending of styles and penchant for culinary-themed lyrics helped Cibo Matto carve out a distinct niche within the trip hop community, making them one of the genre's most memorable and singular acts.

Rock Out To Some Of The Most Popular Songs From Cibo Matto   - "Sugar Water"   - "Know Your Chicken"   - "Birthday Cake"

Dive Into Cibo Matto's History With Some Unique Deep Cuts   - "White Pepper Ice Cream"   - "Sci  -Fi Wasabi"

Supreme Beings of Leisure

The Los Angeles-based collective Supreme Beings of Leisure merged trip hop with elements of lounge, world music, and electronica to create a unique and enticing sound in the late '90s. The group's self-titled debut showcased their ability to craft lush, groove-driven compositions that catered to fans of downtempo electronic music. Supreme Beings of Leisure's diverse influences and innovative approach to trip hop earned them a dedicated following and helped cement their place within the pantheon of influential acts in the genre.

Rock Out To Some Of The Most Popular Songs From Supreme Beings of Leisure   - "Strangelove Addiction"   - "Golddigger"   - "Never the Same"

Dive Into Supreme Beings of Leisure's History With Some Unique Deep Cuts   - "Ain't Got Nothin'"   - "Sublime"

Little Dragon

Swedish band Little Dragon, fronted by the dynamic vocalist Yukimi Nagano, brings a fresh, genre-defying approach to trip hop, blending influences from electronica, R&B, and synth-pop. With acclaimed albums like Ritual Union  under their belt, the band has captivated audiences worldwide with their unique sound and electrifying live performances. As Little Dragon continues to push the boundaries of trip hop and explore new sonic territories, they remain an exciting and essential act within the genre.

Rock Out To Some Of The Most Popular Songs From Little Dragon   - "Ritual Union"   - "Twice"   - "High"

Dive Into Little Dragon's History With Some Unique Deep Cuts   - "Blinking Pigs"   - "Feather"

French musician and producer Jean-Yves Prieur, known as Kid Loco, has been a fixture in the trip hop scene since the mid-'90s, producing music that blends elements of dub, jazz, and electronica into an intoxicating, downtempo sound. His debut album A Grand Love Story  showcased his deft touch for crafting lush instrumental soundscapes that evoke a sense of warmth and nostalgia. With a career spanning multiple decades and numerous collaborations, Kid Loco has solidified his status as an influential figure within the trip hop genre.

Rock Out To Some Of The Most Popular Songs From Kid Loco   - "A Grand Love Theme"   - "She's My Lover"   - "The Bootleggers"

Dive Into Kid Loco's History With Some Unique Deep Cuts   - "Love Me Sweet"   - "Calling Aventura King"

Bitter:Sweet

Los Angeles-based duo Bitter:Sweet, consisting of vocalist Shana Halligan and producer Kiran Shahani, delivered a sultry, sophisticated take on trip hop that captivated listeners in the mid-2000s. Drawing inspiration from jazz, lounge, and electronica, their debut album The Mating Game  showcased their ability to craft intoxicating, melody-driven compositions that resonate with fans of the genre. Though their time as a duo was brief, Bitter:Sweet's unique sound left a lasting impression on the trip hop scene and continues to be celebrated by fans and fellow musicians alike.

Rock Out To Some Of The Most Popular Songs From Bitter:Sweet   - "Dirty Laundry"   - "Drink You Sober"   - "The Mating Game"

Dive Into Bitter:Sweet's History With Some Unique Deep Cuts   - "Heaven"   - "Don't Forget to Breathe"

Canadian singer-songwriter Esthero, born Jen-Bea Englishman, made a powerful entrance to the trip hop scene with her 1998 debut album Breath from Another . Her enchanting blend of jazz, pop, and electronica elements, combined with her candid lyricism and emotive vocals, struck a chord with listeners. While Esthero's sound has evolved over the years to include elements of R&B, hip-hop, and rock, her roots in trip hop remain evident, solidifying her status as one of the genre's most versatile and captivating artists.

Rock Out To Some Of The Most Popular Songs From Esthero   - "Breath from Another"   - "Heaven Sent"   - "That Girl"

Dive Into Esthero's History With Some Unique Deep Cuts   - "Swallow Me"   - "Telephone"

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The 10 Best Trip-Hop Albums To Own On Vinyl

Back in the early ’90s, the seeds of a new strain of music that blended together hip-hop, jazz and electronic influences started to sprout. Tagged trip-hop—a phrase reputedly coined by a writer at Mixmag magazine—the vibe was all about atmospheric (and often instrumental) beats that embraced a languid, laid-back vibe that, as the cliché goes, was often used as background music to smoke sessions. Over this blunted base, producers layered in psychedelic flourishes and introspective vocals. At the height of the trip-hop movement, labels like Mo’ Wax and Ninja Tune helped bring together British beat makers with open-minded American rappers in the pursuit of stylish mood music—and it’s a fusion that caught the mainstream’s attention through crossover albums by the Bristol-based bunch of Massive Attack, Portishead and Tricky.

Two decades on from trip-hop’s peak, here’s a salute to 10 cornerstone albums deserving of a place in your collection.

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# Massive Attack: Blue Lines

For many listeners, Massive Attack's debut album is synonymous with "Unfinished Sympathy"—a bittersweet relationship confessional fleshed out with orchestral strings—but you can also make the persuasive argument that the rest of Blue Lines was a case of 3D, Mushroom and Daddy G laying down a formative trip-hop template. It's a blueprint spawned from British soundsystem culture—"English upbringing, background Caribbean," as Tricky, the group's de facto fourth member, puts it—and at times, songs like "Lately" and the title track sound like they're being broadcast live from the dance as classic hip-hop breaks are cut up and topped with the hushed raps of the crew, Shara Nelson's impassioned singing and roots reggae man Horace Andy's angelic lilt. Back in 1991, you'd find a copy of Blue Lines in constant rotation inside any self-respecting Sony Boodo Khan.

#Various Artists: Headz

You can't talk about trip-hop without mentioning the importance of James Lavelle's Mo’ Wax label—and 1994’s Headz compilation hit home as an indicator of where the sub-genre was going. The expansive project's subtitle alone is a solid summation of the movement’s ambit: "A Soundtrack Of Experimental Beathead Jams." Fittingly, what unfurls over a lavish triple vinyl set—which is fronted by abstract artwork courtesy of Massive Attack's 3D — is all about ambient downtempo beat work: La Funk Mob's "Ravers Suck Our Sound" and Howie B's "Head West—Gun Fight At The O.K. Corral" are cinematic outings that toy with dub overtones, while DJ Shadow's "In/Flux (Alternative Interlude 93)" is a nostalgia-tinged, beat-shifting coda that closes out the set. A second installment in the series dropped two years later and upped the ante to include artists like Air, Tortoise and DJ Krush, but the first Headz collection is the pivotal anchor of the trip-hop scene.

# Justin Warfield: My Field Trip To Planet 9 Back in 1993, hip-hop fans were either on board Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg's slick G-funk ride or pledging their allegiance to the Wu-Tang Clan's rugged and raw Shaolin styles. Justin Warfield, on the other hand, could be found releasing far-out experimental rap music that was usually tagged as being like hip-hop on acid—a claim uncontested by songs like "Drugstore Cowboy" where the protagonist cops to the substance being "my favorite pastime" before realizing "the room starts looking like a clamshell deep beneath the sea." Musically, producers Prince Paul and QDIII roll out a shapeshifting bed of beats for Warfield's leftfield lyricism. "Thoughts In The Buttermilk" also features guest guitar lines from producer and engineer Scotty Hard, whose own group, New Kingdom, can also make an early claim for being trip-hop pioneers of a sort, complete with MC Nosaj going on to record with Tricky and Morcheeba.

#Attica Blues: Attica Blues After jazz record dealers questioned Tony Dark's ability to pay for a copy of saxophonist Archie Shepp's 1972 release Attica Blues , the producer struck back by naming his band after the album. Consisting of fellow beatsmith Tony Nwachukwu and vocalist Roba, the London-based trio found a home for their melodramatic and brooding sound on the Mo’ Wax label. 1997's eponymously titled debut album is a moving collection of songs that showcase Roba's royal vocals as she trills through tracks about self-doubt, lost love, and even world history. This goes down over expansive production that fuses jazz samples with elaborate strings to create a dramatic and haunting listening experience that also nods to the two producers' African heritage. "It doesn't cost anything to be yourself / Wealth has no value when you're dealing with yourself," sings Roba on the melancholic "R.E.A.L. Expense” as she helps turn Attica Blues into a trip-hop album with true soul.

# DJ Shadow: Endtroducing….. For die-hard hip-hop heads, 1996’s Endtroducing..... hit home like a logical update of Steinski and Double Dee's innovative cut-and-paste sample collages from the ’80s—but DJ Shadow's debut album wound up taking on a fresh life as a figurehead release for both the Mo’ Wax label and the trip-hop movement as a whole. Clocking in at just over an hour in length, the project is a highly nuanced demonstration of the art of crate digging and sampling, with the San Jose native conjuring up dreamy soundscapes and moving the narrative along via select vocal samples and scratches. It all amounts to an intoxicating ode to the joy of record collecting.

# Tricky: Maxinquaye At times, trip-hop has been stigmatized as little more than stylish background music, but with his debut solo album Tricky showed that the sub-genre can command the ear and touch the heart. Named after his mother (Maxin Quaye) and recorded in cahoots with his then-girlfriend Martina Topley-Bird (whom he allegedly stumbled across one day when she was cutting class), Maxinquaye features Tricky Kid airing out the same sort of abstract, weed-enhanced, freewheelin’ lyrics he debuted on Massive Attack's Blue Lines . "MTV moves too fast/I refuse to understand / You go your way and I'll see mine / Feels like wasted time," he drawls on the woozy, aquatic "Pumpkin," before coating the rest of the experience in a dark leftfield patina that reaches a zenith with a cover of Public Enemy’s “Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos.”

# Herbaliser: Blow Your Headphones Trip-hop has a staunch British heartbeat, but its finest practitioners have always reached out to the U.S. when it comes to adding a little vocal rap flair to their tracks. Dropping on Cold Cut's Ninja Tune label, producers Ollie Teeba and Jake Wherry's second long-player jolts into life with "Opening Credits," where crisply scratched in vocal grabs from Run-DMC and Onyx announce that things are about to get "live like a wire." After that, Jean Grae (appearing under her former MC moniker of What? What? from the group Natural Resource) makes the first of four guest spots on "The Blend" and proceeds to drop buttery flows all over the taut track. When Blow Your Headphones settles back into instrumental territory, it becomes defined by jazz-inspired grooves and a tangible ’60s spy movie soundtrack vibe.

# DJ Krush: Meiso Another essential release from the Mo’ Wax stable, Japanese turntablist DJ Krush's third solo studio album underscored the links between the trip-hop and hip-hop scenes in the ’90s by calling on features from CL Smooth, The Roots' MCs Black Thought and Malik B, and Gang Starr Foundation soldiers Guru and Big Shug. Beyond the guest spitters, the rest of Meiso rolls out as a masterclass in turning sampled breaks into stripped down but atmospheric beatscapes, with songs like "Anticipation" gently teasing the listener into a zen zone. Throw in minimalist cover artwork by graffiti icon Futura 2000 and you’ve got a true trip-hop collector’s centre piece.

# Portishead: Dummy The highlights of Portishead's 1994 debut album are now firmly enshrined in pop culture: "Sour Times" is like a spaghetti western soundtrack flipped into an off-kilter ballad, "Roads" is fueled by one of the all-time haunting keyboard lines and "Glory Box" became the background to an entire generation's moody student days. But the essence of Dummy is about a cultured record collector—Geoff Barrow—turning a crate digger's encyclopedic knowledge into an emotionally dripping album experience by virtue of calling on the assistance of a singer, Beth Gibbons, who’s blessed with an astounding ability to convey sad and wounded lyrical sentiments. Consider Dummy an evocative example of letting the song cry.

#DJ Cam: Substances Parisian mood master DJ Cam was lavished with critical praise for 1995's Underground Vibes , but the following year's Substances is the project that resonates most ethereally. Openly showcasing his hip-hop and jazz influences, songs like the delicate and airy, piano-helmed "Friends And Enemies" seamlessly samples Gang Starr and John Coltrane, while the rolling, harp-spiked "Innervisions" mines from a similar stash of sounds as it fuses Nas’ old spar AZ with Alice Coltrane. But don’t think this is some awkward mash-up experiment—in DJ Cam's nuanced hands, Substances resonates as a poignant musical journey that salutes hip-hop pioneers and jazz cats in a tender and respectful manner.

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Phillip Mlynar writes about the holy trinity of rappers, cats and food. He once got drunk on pints of black and tans with MF Doom in the name of journalism.

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Trip-Hop Artist Highlights

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Welcome to Essential Releases, our weekly roundup of the albums that we can’t stop playing, and that we think you need to hear.

Alpha Failure

Unless you’re well-versed on ’90s trip hop, more specifically its Bristol roots, Alpha’s name probably won’t ring a bell. Despite amassing local success, nabbing prominent co-signs (most notably by area heroes Massive Attack, who made Alpha inaugural signees to their Virgin Records imprint Melancholic), and releasing collaborations and remixes with Jarvis Cocker, Horace Andy, Coldplay, and others, the group never hit it big. Whether that’s owed to the stiff competition at home—Massive Attack, Portishead, Tricky—sub-par PR, or plain old bad luck is unclear; at any rate, the enigmatic Alpha have stayed the course, cranking out over a dozen albums’ worth of moody, Bacharach-esque soundscapes. Their twelfth vocal album, Failure , plays like a time capsule of that bygone era, with an abundance of cinematic strings, billowing dynamics, and forlorn atmospheres. The proceedings are uniformly moody and yet sonically diverse thanks to the five guest vocalists showcased across the album, whose delivery styles range from tender and Britpop-y (“Subliminal Bliss” featuring Jakeoat) to layered and heady (“Sleeper Dreamer” featuring Yinshyen). The end result is a perfect chill-out album for these hot summer days, vintage trip hop that still feels fresh.

The Catenary Wires Birling Gap

When I interviewed Glenn Donaldson of The Reds, Pinks, and Purples a few months ago, he said something I found really interesting, which is that “Indie pop is folk music that’s just a little more arranged, with electric instruments.” That’s not a terrible way to describe the sound of Birling Gap , the third release from the Catenary Wires. The band was formed as a duo by indie pop legends (Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey of Heavenly, Talulah Gosh, Tender Trap, etc.) in 2014 but have expanded to a five piece for Birling Gap ; a smart, grown-up pop record takes the bright melodies, layered arrangements, and quirky instrumentation of mid 60s sunshine pop and folk-rock, and mashes it up with the melancholy and self-reflection of middle age. Layers of warm synthesized horns and shimmery organs add a expansive quality to the songs that belies their picaresque subject matter—highlight “Mirrorball” tells the story of two divorcees falling in love at an 80s dance night, while “Canterbury Lanes” is indebted to the Kinks’ wry, observational tales of pastoral England. Birling Gap is a charming and intelligent release from a pair of indie scene veterans not interested in coasting on nostalgia, which clearly means they are still young punks at heart.

– Mariana Timony

Dean blunt black metal 2.

Navigating the catalog of UK artist Dean Blunt is not a task for the faint at heart. For one thing, it involves separating his main projects from aliases like Blue Iverson and Babyfather —even though the musical difference between them is often slight. It also requires unraveling more than a few mysteries: What, if anything, is the connection between the Hype Williams that featured Blunt and erstwhile collaborator Inge Copeland and the Hype Williams who released an album on Big Dada in 2017 ? All of this makes trying to get into Dean Blunt a bit like trying to get into The Fall: Even if you wanted to, you’d have no idea where to start. Black Metal 2 arrives as an antidote to this dilemma. A sequel to his 2014 stunner Black Metal , the album handily condenses all of Blunt’s chief characteristics into a streamlined, 23-minute package: the moody, oppressive atmospheres, the waves of aqueous guitars, and the presence of a female vocalist to counterbalance Blunt’s solemn baritone. (The vocalist’s name is uncredited, because nearly everything on a Dean Blunt record is uncredited.) The songs here are among the most beautiful and hypnotic in Blunt’s vast catalog: the slow, orchestral pulse of “VIGIL”; the woozy, almost trip-hoppy “SKETAMINE” with its wobbly guitars; the moody thrum of “LA RAZA,” which sounds like an old cowboy ballad as filtered through Blunt’s abstract sensibilities. Black Metal 2 is a hushed and disarmingly gorgeous record, its ghostly songs appearing for a brief moment, then evaporating into the air.. The only problem with it is the question it raises when it’s over: “OK, so—where do I go next? ”

– J. Edward Keyes

Don cherry the summer house sessions.

By the late 1960s, the trumpeter Don Cherry had become a leading voice in avant-garde jazz by crisscrossing the United States and Europe to immerse himself in different scenes. There was no telling where he’d pop up and with whom; such creative curiosity made him a favorite amongst listeners and fellow musicians. In ‘68, Cherry flew to Sweden with his partner, Moki, and her daughter, Neneh , where he gathered local artists and led various workshops that emphasized vast forms of creativity, including but not limited to Indian scales, breathing, silence and drones. Then that summer, the saxophonist Göran Freese invited Cherry and other players to jam at his house, putting those workshop lessons to good use. Out today, The Summer House Sessions is some of Cherry’s best work, a vast set of remarkable songs made up on the spot. The highlight is the two-part opening track, a free jazz excursion which, when played in one take, totals 46 minutes and centers on charging drums, whistling clarinets and short-bursting saxophone and trumpet wails. Conversely, “Summer House Session 4” is more subdued although the sound is still active: Cascading percussion provides the backdrop for the band’s dueling horns. There’s a palpable radiance to this LP, the spirit of performing with fast friends in a new setting without boundaries or expectations. The Summer House Sessions unearths an important part of Cherry’s musical journey, one we didn’t know existed but very much needed.

– Marcus J. Moore

Eboni band eboni band.

Eboni Band’s 1980 album (reissued by the always-excellent Toronto label We Are Busy Bodies ) is, first and foremost, a pretty terrific slab of Afrofunk and soul that is very clearly of its period but retains a timeless feel—put this on at a backyard or stoop-front gathering this weekend and it’d still be a crowd-pleaser. This is no surprise—Eboni Band was Ivory Coast label Eboni Records’ house band, set up in the late ‘70s after the Motown model by Motown Studios alumnus Gerald Theus, and this, the first Eboni Records release, was recorded in LA with a stunning cast of musicians both American and Ivorian. Fred Wesley, of the J.B.s and Parliament Funkadelic, is a player here, along with other well-known session greats like Ernie Fields Jr. and Nolan Smith, and their Ivorian counterparts include most of the Eboni roster—kora player Lamine Konte, bandleader Mamadou Doumbia, and so forth. The whole affair was produced by Art Stewart, who worked on classics by artists like Marvin Gaye, Teena Marie, and Rick James. Opener “Sing a Happy Song” is ebullient funk, while “Desire” is as sleek and sensual as it should be and “Fasso” is soulful and spiritual. My favorite track is probably the rousing “Mogofindeo-Sopeunte (Get Together),” a bright ode to pan-African solidarity and celebration in which Konte’s kora matches perfectly with those classic Motown bouncy horn stabs.

– Jes Skolnik

Amythyst kiah wary + strange.

For anyone familiar with Amythyst Kiah ’s contributions to the celebrated folk quartet Our Native Daughters or her Grammy-nominated song “ Black Myself, ” her alt-country debut Wary + Strange is a departure from her more roots-tethered work towards an iconoclastic, hybrid style. With production help from Tony Berg (see: Phoebe Bridgers ’ Stranger in the Alps ), the Chattanooga, Tennessee musician delivers an immersive sound ferried by her strong, resonant vocals and colored by unexpected textures from buzzsaw bass harmonica to crackling ambient drone. In an interview with The New York Times , Kiah describes her sound in terms of a Southern Gothic magical realism, explaining her vision for the album as, “This idea that you have a setting that is very familiar, very real, but then there’s these weird, otherworldly bits and pieces within it.” And for a musician like Kiah, being both Black and queer amidst a predominantly white landscape like country music is an unexpected disruption in and of itself. “I pick the banjo up and they stare at me/ ‘Cause I’m Black myself,” she sings with deep-chested defiance on the anti-racist anthem which earned her a Best American Roots song nomination. A deeply emotive record, Wary + Strange is a revelatory new sound from one of country’s rising stars.

– Stephanie Barclay

King ralph c’mon king.

The Buffalo rapper King Ralph repeats the title of his latest record— C’mon King —in nearly every song; but each time, it takes on a different meaning. On “Coast,” it’s invitational: “C’mon, King, come and coast with us”; on “Back Blocks,” it’s motivational: “C’mon, King…they don’t wanna see me on top, they’d rather hit me with shots and leave me to rot”; and on “Silver Spoon,” it’s inspirational: “C’mon, King, I wasn’t born with a silver spoon/ before a king, I was a goon from the gutter/ I grew wings and I fluttered.” That Ralph can instill those two simple words with such vastly different nuance every time is just one indication of his gifts. The brief LP—which features fellow Buffalo rapper Elcamino on eight songs and Mobb Deep’s Havoc on one—is an origin story written in pointed verse, the tale of Ralph’s ascent to the throne delivered in lines that prove him worthy of the honor. The production throughout remains grainy and nostalgic: spiraling strings, bleary organs, chopped-up soul loops. But all of it exudes warmth; there’s a brightness and optimism to C’mon King that courses through the album, even when the subject matter is bleak. There is precious little information about King Ralph on the internet right now; but a few more albums as good as this one, and that number will undoubtedly skyrocket.

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How to Make Trip Hop Music

Imagine trip hop music as a canvas waiting for your creative brushstrokes.

As you delve into the world of trip hop production, you'll find that the genre offers a rich tapestry of sounds and textures to explore.

From crafting intricate drum patterns to weaving moody atmospheres with sampling techniques, there's a multitude of elements that come together to form the distinct trip hop sound.

Whether you're a seasoned music producer or just starting out, understanding the basics of trip hop production can set you on a path to creating captivating and immersive tracks that captivate listeners.

When delving into the basics of trip hop, embrace the downtempo vibe, characterized by a slower tempo around 95 bpm, to capture its electronic yet acoustic and trippy essence influenced by artists like Massive Attack.

Trip hop music hinges on this distinctive tempo, creating a laid-back and hypnotic feel, perfect for delving into the genre's unique sound. Understanding the trip hop basics involves immersing yourself in the intricacies of drum beat creation.

Layering kick and snare elements, incorporating hats and toms for variation, and using headphones for better mixing are crucial elements. Additionally, recognizing the influence of artists like Massive Attack is essential. Approach production with a freestyle mindset, allowing creativity to flow freely to capture the essence of trip hop.

These basics set the foundation for crafting trip hop music that resonates with its distinctive vibes and overall mood. It's about diving into the unique rhythm and style, embracing the electronic yet organic feel, and understanding the nuances that make trip hop a genre like no other.

To achieve a laid-back and hypnotic feel in your trip hop music, begin by experimenting with a slower tempo ranging from 90 to 100 bpm for your drum patterns. This tempo range sets the foundation for the relaxed vibe characteristic of trip hop music.

Here's how you can craft laid-back drum patterns:

• Layer kick and snare elements to create a relaxed yet punchy rhythm, providing a solid backbone for your track.
• Incorporate hats and toms for subtle variation and depth in the drum pattern, adding texture and groove to the overall sound.
• Consider using headphones for precise mixing and nuanced placement of drum elements, allowing you to finely tune the subtleties of your drum pattern.
• Focus on a freestyle approach to drum beat creation, drawing influence from trip-hop legends like Massive Attack, allowing yourself to play with different rhythms and sounds to find a unique and captivating groove.

Experiment with various sampling techniques to create moody atmospheres that will enhance the emotional depth and texture of your trip hop music. Start by delving into vinyl records, capturing their vintage and atmospheric sounds to infuse your tracks with a sense of nostalgia and depth.

Additionally, integrating field recordings of ambient noises, such as rain, wind, or city sounds, can add an extra layer of richness and complexity to your compositions.

Manipulating vocal samples can also be a powerful tool for creating haunting and emotional atmospheres within your music. Experiment with reversing samples and time-stretching loops to craft surreal and dreamlike sonic landscapes that captivate and intrigue the listener.

Furthermore, layering and blending multiple samples can help you build a rich and immersive sonic environment, allowing for a truly captivating and memorable listening experience.

Can I Use Similar Techniques for Making Trip Hop Music and Playboi Carti Type Beats?

Yes, you can use similar techniques for making trip hop music and Playboi Carti type beats. By following a Playboi Carti type beat tutorial , you can learn how to incorporate the signature sounds and rhythms that give his beats their unique vibe, while still adding your own spin for trip hop tracks.

Delve into the enchanting realm of dreamy melodies and soundscapes by infusing your compositions with ambient sounds and textures. To create an evocative and mesmerizing musical experience, experiment with the following techniques:

• Ambient Sounds and Textures : Layering ambient sounds such as nature recordings, vinyl crackles, or distant conversations can add depth and intrigue to your music, transporting listeners to a different world.
• Reverb and Delay Effects : Harness the power of reverb and delay effects to infuse your melodies with a sense of space and time, allowing them to linger and evolve, creating a hypnotic atmosphere.
• Lush Synth Pads and Arpeggios : Incorporate lush, ethereal synth pads and arpeggios to add a touch of celestial beauty to your compositions, evoking a sense of wonder and tranquility.
• Unconventional Chord Progressions : Explore unconventional chord progressions and harmonic structures to weave a sonic tapestry that feels both familiar and mysterious, captivating your audience with its enigmatic allure.

When mixing and mastering your trip hop tracks, utilize EQ and compression techniques to enhance the depth and dynamics of your music. Use EQ to sculpt the tonal balance, making room for each element in the mix. Experiment with compression to control the dynamics, adding punch and clarity to your trip hop tracks.

Additionally, consider incorporating reverb and delay effects to create a spacious and ethereal atmosphere. These effects can add depth and dimension to your mix, contributing to the signature dreamy quality of trip hop music.

Pay close attention to stereo imaging when mixing your trip hop tracks. Ensure that elements are well-balanced and effectively panned to create a wide and immersive soundstage. Utilize automation to introduce movement and variation, keeping the listener engaged throughout the track.

When mastering, focus on achieving a balanced and polished sound. Pay careful attention to levels, dynamics, and tonal balance to ensure that your trip hop tracks sound cohesive and professional.

Now that you've mastered the art of crafting laid-back drum patterns and sampling techniques, creating dreamy melodies and soundscapes, and mixing and mastering your trip hop tracks, you're ready to unleash your unique sound to the world.

Remember to keep experimenting, thinking outside the box, and staying true to the distinctive trip hop sound. With dedication and creativity, you'll be sure to make a lasting impact in the trip hop music scene.

Keep pushing boundaries and let your imagination run wild.

I Used to Travel for a Living, Here Are 16 Travel Essentials That Are Always On My Packing List

Pack like a pro with these amazon travel essentials that will keep you prepared for anything your trip throws at you..

We independently selected these deals and products because we love them, and we think you might like them at these prices. E! has affiliate relationships, so we may get a commission if you purchase something through our links. Items are sold by the retailer, not E!. Prices are accurate as of publish time.

I'm the first to admit that I haven't always been a great packer . Not only did I live in constant fear of having to pay extra for an overweight bag, but I always arrived to the airport or train station with a sneaking suspicion that I left something really important behind. But that all changed when I landed a job where I was required to travel several times a month. Whether it was a two-day trip or a week long stay, I made it my mission to pack like a pro , which not only means being organized but also being prepared for any inconveniences I might face along the way.

I'm pleased to report that I not only accomplished that, but I also discovered some must-have travel essentials that everyone should pack. Whether you're travelling via plane, train, or car, I rounded up all of the Amazon travel essentials that you should definitely add to your packing list.

From a toiletry bag that RHOBH star Kyle Richards never travels without to depuffing under eye patches and a portable phone charger that doesn't require any cords, keep reading for the 15 best travel essentials that are always on my packing list, from someone who used to travel for a living.

Holii Travel Pill Organizer

This pill organizer is perfect for travel, since it has several compartments to separately store medications, vitamins, or pain relievers and won't take up much space. I've also used the bigger compartments for hair ties, bobby pins, and other small items. It has 14,00+ 5-star ratings in five colors.

iWALK Portable Charger

A portable phone charger is a no-brainer, but the reason this one is so great is that it doesn't require any extra cables since it pops directly into your phone's (or AirPods') charging port. It's compact, lightweight, and rechargeable, plus it comes in six colors.

Travel Bottles for Toiletries

Even if I'm checking a bag, I still like to transfer my shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and facial cleanser into TSA-friendly bottles like these. This set includes four leak-proof silicone bottles stored in a zippered pouch. Choose from 12 colorways.

Veken 8 Set Packing Cubes

My life changed for the better when I discovered packing cubes, which keep your suitcase so organized. This highly-rated set includes four different sized cubes, toiletry and accessories pouches, a shoe bag, and a laundry bag. Not only will your suitcase be neat, but you'll also be able to easily find what you're looking for.

Tide Stain Remover for Clothes

At some point in your trip, you're bound to stain an outfit, which is why I keep a Tide pen on me at all times. That way, you can get rid of stains ASAP so you can re-wear clothes instead of tossing them in your laundry bag.

MLVOC Memory Foam Travel Pillow

Whether you're traveling by train, plane, or car, a travel pillow is a must-have if you're trying to take a nap. This memory foam one has contoured support that reviewers love, which is why it's garnered over 22,300 5-star reviews. As an added bonus, it comes with a carrying case, ear plugs, and a sleeping mask.

grace & stella Award Winning Under Eye Mask

These individually packaged under eye masks will help to de-puff skin after long flights and early mornings. A best-seller, these under eye masks are packed with moisturizing niacinamide and hyaluronic acid and deliver a cooling sensation that depuffs and feels so soothing. No wonder they have 14,600+ 5-star ratings!

Touchland Power Mist Hydrating Hand Sanitizer Spray

This goes without saying but you'll be encountering a lot of germs on your travels, which is why it's essential that you travel with hand sanitizer. Not only are these from Touchland aesthetically pleasing with delicious scents, the spritz is super convenient and won't leave your hands sticky. They come in multipacks with different scents.

Washable Reusable Gel Lint Roller

This tiny but mighty lint roller is ideal for travel since it doesn't take up a lot of space (you can even toss it in your purse) and is reusable. Just pop out the sticky ball, rinse it under water, and it's good as new.

BAGSMART Toiletry Bag

Rather than stuffing all your toiletries into a bulky makeup bag, try this best-selling organizer that folds open to reveal tons of zippered compartments. The best part is that it can be hung on a towel hook for easy access. Not to mention, it's a favorite of RHOBH's Kyle Richards.

Etekcity Luggage Scale

Spare yourself the anxiety of showing up to the airport and having to pay extra for an overweight bag with this luggage scale . It clips onto your luggage and provides an instant weight read so you know if you need to remove a few items (or have space for a few added items).

Travel Ready Portable Emergency First Aid Kit

From blisters to unexpected injuries, this first aid kit has got you covered. The compact box includes band-aids of different sizes, gauze and tape, alcohol wipes, Neosporin, and Tylenol.

Gillette Venus Extra Smooth On The Go Razor

With over 15,400 5-star ratings, reviewers love how small and convenient this portable razor is. It's everything you love about Gillette razors, just on a smaller scale. It comes with its own carrying case and a blade refill.

MZOO Sleep Eye Mask

If there's any chance of me getting some shuteye, it's because I have a sleep mask on me. This blackout mask has padded contouring and an adjustable strap for a perfect fit that won't squish your eyes or slide off. It has a whopping 71,700+ 5-star ratings.

BAGSMART Travel Jewelry Organizer

Tossing all of your jewelry into a bag won't just make it hard to find what you're looking for but it will make everything tangled. This folding jewelry organizer solves the problem, with designated spaces for necklaces, bracelets, rings, and earrings. And since it's flat, it doesn't take up much space. It comes in 11 colors and two sizes.

Himawari Laptop Backpack

While cute, carrying heavy shoulder bags are uncomfortable and painful, which is why I opt for a spacious backpack. This waterproof one has a padded laptop sleeve, plenty of pockets, and adjustable straps. Not to mention, it comes in so many cute colorways.

Hitting the slopes for Spring Break? Here's every affordable ski trip essential you need to pack.

—Originally published on Feb. 28, 2024, at 12:00 p.m. PT

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32 Inexpensive Travel Essentials You Won’t Regret Buying For Your Next Trip

Whether you're jet-setting abroad or just heading somewhere for the weekend, these under-$30 items are here to help.

BuzzFeed Staff

1. A  TSA-friendly toiletries kit  featuring a pack of four travel bottles, two little jars, two spray bottles, two scoopers for transferring creams, one funnel to transfer liquids, one cleaning brush, a set of labels, and a clear pouch to store them all away in. Keeping all of your liquids contained in this kit should help make getting through security a bit smoother. 

Promising review: "This is essential for flying! I fly pretty often throughout the year, and after having numerous leakage issues with regular plastic travel containers, I decided to go the silicone route and am so glad I did. I love that this set includes different sizes of bottles and tools to help fill/empty them, so reusing them is a breeze, and there is no wasted product. The variety of colors is great, so I can easily tell apart my toiletries, even without the included labels! Love this set and highly recommend it!" — Hennie S.

Get it from Amazon for $9.99+  (available in four color combos). 

2. A universal travel adapter you're gonna be grateful for if your travels involve hopping to various countries that all use different outlets. Now, you won't need to buy and pack different adapters for each country you plan on visiting. Phew!

The charger can be used in Mexico, Canada, the UK, the UAE, Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand, and countries in Europe, Asia, and South America.

Promising review:  "LOVE this adapter! I travel from time to time internationally and have always used just the 'standard' adapters found in airports. Could not pass up the opportunity to purchase this one after reading the reviews. Exceeded my expectations of what it was capable of. Used on a recent trip to Germany, and it handled everything needed — laptop, cellphone (USB ports are so very welcome), alarm clock, dryer, etc. Did not miss a beat on the power provided. And it is also attractive looking ;-) Thank you for making such a great, dependable product!" — Monkey  

Get it from Amazon for  $19.99 . 

3. A wallet designed to hold all of your important travel documents because every time you're at the airport, you swear you'll have your license, passport, and boarding pass easily ready to show, and every time you're at the airport, you end up fumbling all of those things and holding up the line. 

The wallet has a passport pocket, boarding pass compartment, three credit card slots, an ID slot, a slim card pouch, a slim pocket, a ticket slot, a cellphone pouch, a coin zippered pocket, a key holder, and a pen holder.

Promising review: "I absolutely love this wallet. I needed a new travel wallet, and this holds everything I need all in one place, and it still closes nicely and stays flat! I can fit my boarding pass, passport, ID, credit cards, money, checked baggage tickets, receipts, and more in it, yet it doesn’t bulk up or look like an overstuffed mess. It's just amazing. The description says it only holds US money, but I just used the boarding pass flap to hold all my Japanese Yen, which are larger. I didn’t use the zippered pocket for coins as I much prefer a separate coin purse for that sort of thing. I definitely recommend it to anyone who travels a lot!" — Anthony Luu

Get it from Amazon for $12.99+  (available in 27 colors).

4. A  portable digital luggage scale  because the year is 2024, and it's time we put an end to that gut-wrenching moment the airline counter tells you your suitcase is a few pounds over the weight limit. Being forced to transfer your things from your suitcase into your carry-on in the middle of the terminal for everyone to see is dreadful.  

I simply do not need the entire JetBlue terminal judging me for being so indecisive that I felt the need to pack my entire closet into my suitcase.   

Promising review: "Definitely get this if traveling abroad. It really saved us from having to throw things away at the airport last minute. It’s small enough to just pack with you, and you will not regret it." — Lilian

Get it from Amazon for $10.99+  (available in packs of one or two and six colors).

5. An airplane phone mount  so you can watch your favorite downloaded shows/movies on your flight — because sometimes the airline doesn't offer your comfort characters on their entertainment menu or worse...there's no television at all.

Promising review: "After a flight last month, I was convinced I needed a phone mount and ran into this. So I bought it. The wild part was that I hadn’t been on another flight yet, and yet I used this gadget every single day.  So far, I found this to be durable and can contort to your needs. The different combinations of positions literally allow you to mount and position your device to nearly any position you need it to. I use the iPhone 11 as my device. I mount this on my standup desk at work, at my nightstand to watch movies while in bed, on my treadmill so I could watch something while walking , on a nearby counter as a 'tripod' for my phone, and, of course, as a standalone stand when I’m sitting at a flat table." — Justin E.  

Get it from Amazon for $13.97+  (available in five colors and a multipack). 

6. A pair of  compression socks  for potentially bringing sweet relief to feet that tend to swell during air travel. 

Read more about compression socks and swelling on long flights at  Cleveland Clinic . 

Promising review: "With three weeks of international travel coming up, I purchased these to combat swelling in my feet during the flights. I had noticed swelling after three-hour domestic flights, so I was worried about what almost 30,000 miles would do! I wore these on every leg of the trip and never noticed any swelling — even after the 10- to 15-hour flights. They are very comfortable, too!" — J. Beaty

Get them from Amazon for $14.59+ (available in sizes S–XL and in 13 colors).

Check out my colleague's  Physix Gear compression socks review  for more deets!

7. A convertible travel pillow you can opt to use as a U-shape around your neck or as a square if you prefer a more traditional pillow style to relax with during your journey.

Promising review: "I traveled extensively with this pillow (four eight-plus-hour flights), and I got more sleep than expected (5–6 hours). It works great for bus rides as well. It also helps you nap anywhere when you turn it into a normal pillow. It doesn't smell either." — Pratik

Get it from Amazon for $14.99+  (available in three colors).

This is our pick for the  best cheap travel pillow !

8. Or a  travel blanket and pillow set  that's truly a genius solution for cozying up en route to your next destination (as long as you're not the one driving, of course). All you have to do is unzip the pillow and take out the fleece blanket that neatly fits inside it when you're ready to snuggle up. Plus, you can either slide it over the handle of your carry-on OR use the included carabiner to clip it to your backpack or duffel. 

EverSnug  is a small business that sells travel sleeping care kits.

Promising review: "Became my #1 travel essential. Better than a neck pillow! Made my sleep on the airplane more comfortable. During my three-week trip to the Philippines, I was going from one hotel to another, and some didn’t even provide blankets :/ This became my #1 blanket wherever I slept. And for a 5’3” lady, it covered me from neck to toe, which is perfect. Super warm, too! Extremely thankful I bought this." — Nicole Ann

Get it from Amazon for $29.95  (available in six colors).

9. EarPlanes  — ear plugs designed to help ease the pain that comes with the sudden pressure change during takeoff. These are also great if you're driving to a destination at high altitude or if you're simply just trying to drown out the sound of a crying baby so you can sleep.

Promising review: "I love this product! Every couple of trips, no matter what tricks I try, I cannot clear my ears. The ear pain is immense at takeoff (I completely understand why those babies and toddlers wail!) and then I'm hard of hearing for days. With these, that has never happened. A few other people near me had ear pain, and I did not, so I was very grateful I'd bought this product." — Amy Clark

Get a pair from Amazon for $7.29 .

10. A neat little packing  checklist notepad  so you can ensure you're not forgetting to pack the essentials. Having to explain to the hotel concierge that you left your toothbrush at home is always a humbling experience. 

Promising review: "I hate making lists trying to figure out what I need, and this is PERFECT for trying to figure that out. It has a lot more on the checklist than I would ever take on a trip, but it does accommodate every kind of trip, from a simple vacation across state lines to a business trip to a wedding halfway around the world. I'm pretty pleased!" — Alyssa Kauffman

Get it from Amazon for $10.50+  (available in three versions).

11. A pack of  perfume atomizers  for bringing your signature scent on your next trip without needing a checked bag just so you can bring a reg. perfume bottle, purchasing the expensive travel-sized version, or settling on a scent you don't typically use or particularly like just because you can get it through TSA. 

Promising review:  "I bought these due to traveling a lot for work and needing to cut down on the size of things in my carry-on bag for flying. I can bring four different perfumes now instead of one big one. They’re super easy to fill and haven’t leaked so far, but I keep them in a sandwich baggie while traveling, just in case. I would 100% buy them again." — Emily

Get a four-pack from Amazon for $6.99 .

12. An  acupressure anti-nausea wristband  that claims to ward off motion sickness and nausea, minus the drowsiness side effect found in most nausea medications.

For more info on how to use acupressure for nausea management, check out this guide from the  Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center . 

Promising review: "Seabands make boating possible for me. Simple, easy to use, and reliable. I would say these are a must for anyone who gets motion sickness on sea or land." — Lauren

Get a set of two from Amazon for  $8.20  (available in adult and  children's sizes ).

13. A pair of jogger-fit leggings because spending hours in a plane, car, train, etc. calls for a comfy outfit, and there's no better way to begin your travel ensemble than with these soft and breathable pants. BRB, ordering one in every color.

Promising review: "Last month, I bought a pair in olive just to try them out. Love! Immediately bought two more, the heather charcoal (more love!) and the black with the orange print zipper. I like the black but the fabric is not the same, not that yummy soft buttery feel. But the fit is great, like the others, and I like the zipper on the pockets. Then I found this dark camo with the zipper, with the same soft fabric. Had to have it. And it’s now my favorite. Bonus: These pants are perfect for traveling. They fold up to half the size of regular pants and never wrinkle. The only problem is you have to stop yourself from buying too many." — nancykou

Get them from Amazon for $12.99+  (available in women's sizes S–3X and dozens of colors).

14. A set of packing cubes that'll make packing feel less overwhelming (because all your stuff will have a place!!!) but will also make unpacking a breeze because you'll actually know where your stuff is! Think about how nice it's gonna be to open your suitcase and see some order rather than an overflowing mess!

The set includes three different size packing cubes, one bra and underwear bag, one shoe bag, and one bag for your toiletries.

Promising review: "When I first became aware of packing cubes, I thought they seemed completely unnecessary and a waste of precious suitcase real estate. Then, a friend gave me these as a gift to celebrate my impending trip to Iceland. I'm now a devout convert! These little devils saved me so much time and aggravation I still can't believe it. When I got to my hotel room, it took me exactly six minutes to unpack and put stuff away. Getting dressed in the morning was faster because used items were in cubes separate from fresh ones. Packing to return home was faster because, well, I was already basically packed. I just popped the cubes back in the suitcase, and voila." — Robin Osbourne

Get the six-piece set from Amazon for $13.99+  (available in 13 colors).

15. An undercover travel pouch you simply clip onto your bra so you can keep money, your phone, or any other small essentials close by and out of sight. Pickpockets, you lose this round. 

Promising review: "This was a LIFESAVER while traveling. I kept my cards and cash in it and had no stress about thieves lifting my essentials while traveling heavily pickpocketed cities. I loved it so much that I actually continued to use it when I got home instead of carrying a purse! The top flap did start to unravel after about six months, but this was also after six months of everyday use." — Krista Hinz

Get it from Amazon for $17.94+  (available in three colors).

16. A daily facial spray that's gonna come in super handy for anyone who tends to get irritated skin after spending a few hours on a plane. Give a few spritzes before, during, or after, and enjoy some sweet relief. 

Tower 28  is an Asian woman-owned small business and clean beauty brand designed for sensitive skin. Their products are nontoxic, nonirritating, vegan, and cruelty-free, so you can rest easy when applying.

Promising reviews: "So, I love this thing. I usually end up with horrible skin after flying. Especially if it's a long-haul flight. So now I spritz this on my face during the flight a few times, and I arrive at my destination with fantastic skin. One day, I boarded the plane with my skin already bad, some pimples and all, and by the end of the flight, it was all gone. It's a miracle worker!!! " — FabsConti

Get it from Amazon  (available in two sizes) and Sephora  (available in three sizes) for $12+.

17. A stash scrunchie because a little accessory that doubles as a hair tie AND a spot to store your smallest belongings deserves to be displayed in a hall of fame. But for now, you can just display it around your wrist. 

Hustle Sew Shop  is based in Oregon and hand-makes goods like face masks and scrunchies.

Promising review: "Love this scrunchie! This is perfect for when I walk my dog; it fits my house key, lip balm, and treats, and STILL holds my hair up! I will be buying more for friends in the future. Highly recommend." — Sarah Dickinson

Get it from Hustle Sew Shop on Etsy for $8  (available in 12 fabric colors and three zipper colors). 

18. A double layer electronics bag perfect for keeping your devices and chargers nice and tidy in your luggage. Spending your precious vacay time untangling wires is SILLY. You should be at tourist attractions! 

Promising review: "My husband and I both bought this about two years ago and still use them daily! They are still like new! Perfect fit for our chargers and extra cables. Also fits easily into carry-on bags, backpacks, and larger purses!" — Beth Wilson

Get it from Amazon for $18.99+ (available in two sizes and four colors).

19. A set of Tide sink packs if your goal is to pack less and re-wear more of the items you're bringing. These will make it so simple to do so. No washing machine required!

Each pack comes with three packets. And, because they *are* liquid, they'll easily slide into the side of your toiletries bag.

Promising review : " Game changer for travel!  We were gone for two weeks, and I was able to wash all the clothes I had packed! Helped with using only a carry-on for the trip and kept my clothes fresh and clean! So easy to use and smelled nice! Will never travel without them again!" — Kristy

Get nine packs from Amazon for $7.35 .

20. A  luggage caddy  so making a pit stop at the airport coffee shop for a caramel latte and a breakfast sandwich doesn't mean having to juggle your food/drink on the way to your gate. 

Promising review : "This cup holder is a game changer  for traveling solo or with kids! It holds a large coffee cup and a large McDonald’s beverage at the same time! It doesn’t tip over! But I would suggest using it with a four-wheel rolling suitcase! Worth it! Would recommend!!" — Emily rose Hudson

Get it from Amazon for $9.99+ (available in 25 patterns/styles). 

21. A  bug bite suction tool  to help get rid of itchy bites. Kinda rude that little buggies get to munch on our skin and blood, and we have to deal with itchiness after...and on vacation nonetheless. 

Promising review: "I am a magnet for bites of all kinds and carry topical and medicines with me at all times, so I figured this would be a good product to see if it really works. It arrived on Monday and Tuesday morning, I woke up with a bug bite on my arm, so I used this little tool (three times per the instructions), and immediately after use, it stopped itching! And less than 24 hours later, the bite was gone! There is a very faint red mark from using the thing, but it is a small price to pay, IMO. Bottom line: It’s awesome. I’m carrying it with me everywhere!" — Rebecca

Get it from Amazon for $9.95  (available in three colors and in multipacks).

22. A reusable  oil-absorbing face roller  that'll be a lifesaver for anyone who tends to get extra oily no matter the temperature at your destination. Just glide it over your face, it's THAT easy. 

Promising review: "This rolling device is like pure magic. You simply roll it around your oily areas, and BOOM — the oil magically vanishes into the ball, never to be seen again! This is an item that #tiktokmademebuyit for sure! I saw a video on TikTok and immediately went on the hunt only to be disappointed that this item was sold out everywhere! I eventually got added to a waiting list here on Amazon, and once they had it in stock again, they charged my card and sent it my way! If you have the chance to purchase this and you have oily skin, get yourself on the waiting list if you need to, and just kick it until it shows up. You will be pleased. Thank me later." — Veronica Cooper

Get it from Amazon for $9.75 .

23. An  anti-blister balm  to apply before putting on your shoes so you can prevent those painful annoyances from even trying to happen — whether you're walking miles a day in a big city or dashing from ride to ride at a theme park, your feet will be happy you prepped them ahead of time.

Promising review: "I purchased two of these for our one-week Disney World trip. I knew I’d be walking around A LOT, and my feet weren’t used to the many miles of walking a day in the hot and humid environment, so I didn’t want to be uncomfortable. I'm happy to say I put it on once in the morning, slipped on some socks and comfy shoes, and I didn’t get one blister or issue with my feet! I wish I knew about this a long time ago!" — Michelle

Get it from Amazon for $8.99 .

24. A  mini flat iron  for anyone who knows the struggle of packing hot tools in a bag with very limited space. This handy gadget is smol, efficient, and just perfect for your travel needs.

It also comes with a heat-resistant pouch for easy carrying!

Promising review: "I got this nice little and compact hair straightener for my trip to the beach. It is small and lightweight. Perfect for a trip. It heats up really fast; within seconds, it is very hot. It comes with a pouch to tuck it away. You do need to move slowly through your hair because the heated part is small, but it does a good job. Also, I like the comfort of the design to hold it. Fits nicely in my hand. Not heavy like the bigger bulkier ones are. I took my time and shopped around for a travel one. I think this will be good to use every day. It doesn’t take up much space either. " — Connie Cunningham

Get it from Amazon for $16.99+  (available in three colors).

25. A  foldable jewelry organizer  that'll take up less space in your bag than a clunky jewelry box AND also serves as a better method than just tossing your jewelry into your bag and having to untangle it once you reach your destination.

Promising review: "I would give this more stars if I could. It's exactly what I've been looking for forever!!! It has plenty of room for my clunky jewelry and enough separate pouches that things don't get tangled. I LOVE it." — Carrie Minturn

Get it from Amazon for $9.09+  (available in two colors).

26. A pack of travel shoe bags because tossing your footwear into your luggage is NOT doing you any favors. Why risk getting dirt from the bottom of your shoes all over your clothes before you've even had the chance to wear them on your trip?!

Promising review: "These are perfect for packing shoes when traveling. They are reasonably priced. Exactly what I was looking for." — PB from Pennsylvania

Get a set of five from Amazon for $8.88+ (available in medium and large and in four colors).

27. A set of  vacuum storage bags  for keeping clothing and undergarments compressed in your suitcase, which may just leave you enough room to get that extra souvenir you probably wouldn't have had room for if you didn't own these babies.

Promising review: "I've used these bags before, and they are so helpful. I even use the medium one for travel, and I have tons of extra suitcase room. The clothes don't come out wrinkled at all as long as you fold them nicely before placing in the bag, then the air sucks out, keeping them safe and sound and very compact." — Susie Kochsmeier

Get a four-pack from Amazon for $15.99+ (available in five sizes).

28. A  folding toothbrush  because while you probably don't think of your toothbrush being some big, clunky item that interferes with your packing, saving a little bit of space here and there really does make a difference (especially when your goal is to pack light). 

Promising review: "These are great! I travel around a lot for work, and I also have Invisalign, so I like to keep one in my work bag as well as my travel bag. The best part is the convenience. I used to carry a toothbrush in a case that took up a lot of room in my work bag as well as my travel bag. Now, I just use these. They are small, durable, easy to use, and the brush is fully covered when it is fully closed, which is what I was a little worried about at first. It was exactly what I was looking for in a travel toothbrush. I highly recommend it, and I will be purchasing it again." — Demetri

Get a two-pack from Amazon for $5.99+ (available in two styles).

29. And a set of toothbrush covers  — ya know, for a hygiene tool you PUT IN YOUR MOUTH, tossing it into your toiletries bag without any other protection is...gross...to put it lightly. Do yourself a favor and get these covers!!!

Promising review: "Fits my double brush electronic toothbrush perfectly. Cleans easily. A perfect accessory for the health and cleanliness of the toothbrush. Great idea, and I like the way they look." — a l brock 

Get a pack of two from Amazon for $9.99  (available in two colors). 

The reviews for this post have been edited for length and clarity.

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Trip-Hop Essentials

In the early '90s, an ambient, atmospheric sound began to emerge from rave culture's chill-out rooms and smoky club corners. This bass-driven blend of hip-hop-inflected breakbeats, jazz grooves, dubby tempos, Rhodes licks and wraithlike vocals spoke to both premillennial anxiety and escapist bliss. Trip-hop was largely British in origin; Bristol's shores in particular provided a backdrop for Portishead's eerie noir, Massive Attack's epic comedowns, and Tricky's murmured incantations. But the woozy deconstructions of Howie B and the baroque flourishes of Lamb and Goldfrapp pushed the genre beyond its ground zero—geographically and stylistically.

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