Day 381: Nearly God – Nearly God
I’ve been having a weird day, so I need to accompany it with a suitably off-kilter album. In an ideal world I’d also seek the advice of someone versed in astrology etc. to advise me if there’s something going on, but in this economy, unfortunately I probably can’t justify spending money on an astrologer, so it looks like I’ll just have to roll with it. Let’s listen to a bit of Nearly God instead.
Album cover courtesy of Island
Nearly God was a side project of Tricky, who I covered on day 252 and concluded that I like very much. His contract didn’t allow him to put out two albums in the same year that he released his debut Maxinquaye, so he decided to release his unofficial second album in 1996 under the pseudonym Nearly God. The name came from an interview he’d done where the interviewer asked him “so how does it feel to be God... well, nearly God.”
It’s a collection of very unusual songs mishmashed together in a way that feels almost perfectly jumbled, like a stream-of-consciousness poetry collection with no clear concept and a pretty stacked list of collaborators. The album features Martina Topley-Bird, Neneh Cherry, Alison Moyet, Terry Hall and Björk, who Tricky says gave him formative advice on preserving his sound:
People have been telling me for years I have weird time signatures. For me, it’s not weird: that’s just how I hear things. This is why my music doesn’t age—it’s because I don’t know how to make a traditionally formatted song. I was tempted to get vocal lessons once and it was Björk who said to me ‘Don’t do it!’ She said I have weird melodies and if I learn to sing, it might take it away from me.
Great advice. I think why his stuff works so well is that he’s a bit of an odd duck, he doesn’t sound like anybody other than him. And it feels like there’s a purity to him as an artist, this album in particular feels like pure, unfiltered expression. It’s fun to hear something that sounds like there was zero thought put into trying to make this a record that sells. And there’s not many other artists who would sound completely natural doing an album with a jazz standard, a Siouxsie and the Banshees cover and a bonus track with his version of Slick Rick’s “Children's Story”.
Nearly God is dark, moody, and interesting to listen to, so I was bound to like it. It’s also nowhere near as good as Maxinquaye, but it’s an interesting peek into Tricky’s head. I’m going to bend my rules here a bit, I normally only give an 8 or above if it’s an album that I’ll listen to again, which I probably won’t – it’s more out there and not really something I feel like I’ll need to experience more than once, but it’s cool, I’m still inclined to give it an 8/10.