Go West

Who’d expect trip-hop's depressed dandy to kick-start an album with a blues song called "Puppy Toy?" Or for it to swing like Sinatra in Vegas? That’s exactly what Tricky does on Knowle West Boy, named for the dreary Bristol, England housing project where he grew up.

Could trip-hop’s greatest architect be ready, at 40, for good times? Oh, he's still a dark, contrary mother: check his countrified reminiscence of teen pregnancy on "School Gates" for proof. But some sunshine from his adopted L.A. home has seeped into those grooves. He rocks a Madness vibe on the jumpy "Council Estate" and cranks the arena guitars up to 11 on the sluttish "C'mon Baby." He even car-jacks Kylie Minogue's "Slow" for a pedal-to-the-metal joyride down the Pacific Coast Highway. And that cannabis-coated croak of his is more seductive than sinister here.

Best of all, Tricky has re-ignited his idiosyncratic muse. Having exhausted his pre-millennium tension (his term), he loosens up with a set of playful, strange and compelling songs that leave his angst — and his painful Knowle West past — vanishing in the rearview mirror.

Knowle West Boy is available today from Domino Records.

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