Bristol / Wild Bunch & Trip-Hop

A sound system’s record bag becomes a different kind of album.

What you're really asking

There is reggae weight under the bass, hip-hop in the construction, and soul in the voices. Bristol’s music came from people sharing records and working across local crews before it became an internationally marketed sound.

The albums preserve that mixture without all following the same formula.

Where it sits

In the 1980s, Bristol’s sound-system and hip-hop crews included the Wild Bunch. Massive Attack formed from that circle in 1988; Blue Lines arrived in 1991.

Smith & Mighty were another crucial local production force. Tricky’s Maxinquaye and Portishead’s work opened further directions in the 1990s.

The name trip-hop spread internationally, but it can hide the particular local relationships that made these records possible. Bristol’s drum-and-bass history overlaps the wider city story without being identical to this album-centred route.

The scene

Who: Daddy G, Robert Del Naja, Mushroom, Tricky, Nellee Hooper, Smith & Mighty and Portishead’s circle. Places: the Dug Out, local sound-system events and studios.

What: sampled rhythm, dub space, distinctive voices and producers who move across projects. A slow breakbeat alone is not a Bristol connection; Kruder & Dorfmeister and DJ Krush belong to other networks.