In one of those frightening existential realisations that hit us all as we get older, it just dawned on us that Tricky's landmark album 'Maxinquaye' is 20 years old this week.

Tricky grew up in Bristol's Knowle West area and, after hanging around with the Wild Bunch, joined the Fresh 4 (whose other members included Krust and Suv of Full Cycle fame, and Flynn of Flynn & Flora) in the late 1980s, and then went on to provide guest vocals for Massive Attack.

It was his brooding, breathless, gravel-voiced turns on Massive Attack's classic album 'Blue Lines' that announced Tricky to the world, and it was during the recording of that record that he met Martina Topley Bird, who went on to provide vocals for 'Maxinquaye'.

After leaving Massive Attack, Tricky released 'Maxinquay' in 1995, which was voted album of the year by NME and nominated for the Mercury Music Prize.

A landmark album for both the 'trip-hop' sound and Bristol music as a whole, 'Maxinquaye' is still just as captivating, unsettling and powerful today as it was 20 years ago.

Watch a 1995 interview with the great man himself below and if you listen to just one record today, make it 'Maxinquaye'.

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