Tricky returns with his 13th album, ununiform, out on september 22 on his own label False Idols via !K7 Music. It’s a delicate, storming, intricate album that sees Tricky take perhaps his most radical step yet – a journey into happiness and contentment. It’s a record that shows the legendary British producer confront his legacy, history, family – even death itself. And in all of this, he finds the strangest, least familiar thing – peace.
This is the first album-proper made since Tricky moved to Berlin, three years ago. While many people move to the clubbing capital of Europe to party, this was a clean break, in every sense of the word. “I like it here because I don’t know anybody. I eat good food, I go for walks, I’ve got a bike. I’m trying to look after myself. I don’t drink here. Some people call it boring, but I wake at 9am and I’m asleep by 11 o’clock at night. I’m looking after myself.”
Though the album is more settled and at peace with life than any other that Tricky has recorded, it’s also one shot through with references to the end of life, from the raving, synth-led Dark Days to the single When We Die. “Word to the wise: I don’t want to die young,” Tricky explains. “But my first memory was seeing my mother dead in her coffin in my family house. I’d go in, stand on the chair and look at her. So I’m saying to that kid on the chair, ‘it’s going to be OK. You’re going to tour the world, you’re going to make music, and the good life is going to come in.’ If you don’t accept death, you don’t really accept life.”