Available on: Domino LP

Tricky’s Mixed Race comes across much like a lovingly compiled mixtape. Here, the Bristolian – now based in Paris – goes through a good half-dozen different genres, from grime to slo-mo disco to Algerian rai. As with a good mixtape, these disparate styles are bound together into a coherent whole by the stamp of their curator’s own enthusiasm and force of personality, as Tricky haunts them all with his characteristic, paradoxical blend of cool tension.

For an artist so associated with a kind of claustrophobic dread, though, what’s surprising about Mixed Race is how fun it is. Most tracks come in at under three minutes long, and are ultra-condensed but never sketchy; rather they make their point and then move on. ‘Kingston Logic’, for example, is brilliantly simple and entertaining – pretty much just a staccato rap overlaid on an irresistible, strutting disco riff. Likewise, on ‘Really Real’, Tricky reduces woozy house right down to a no-fat core; just two minutes of swirling, fuzzy synths and triumphantly sensual vocals that reminds you how great Bobby Gillespie can be when put to good use. It doesn’t need anything else, so Tricky doesn’t add to it. Even the tracks with a more stereotypically “Tricky-esque” atmosphere – dark, smoky, paranoid- have a new theatricality and boisterousness about them, as on the blaring brass and gutter-blues stomp of ‘Early Bird’, or Tricky’s almost absurdly lascivious growl of “Come to me, in a summer dress!” on ‘Come to Me’.

For the most part, Tricky skulks in the nooks and crannies of the album, letting his guest vocalists take centre-stage. In some ways, that’s a bit of a shame, as on the occasions when he does step out into full view, he shows himself to be on great form. His introduction halfway through ‘Kingston Logic’ – cutting in with a snarled “this ain’t a fucking love song” – is visceral, menacing and genuinely thrilling. His slurred, undulating flow on ‘Ghetto Stars’ is another highlight, weirdly reminiscent of Lil Wayne at his most lurid and psychedelic. However, all that said, the generous space that Tricky leaves to his main co-vocalist, Franky Riley, results in some of Mixed Race’s most enthralling moments, most notably on the feather-light ‘Time to Dance’, where she tenderly picks out a ghostly melody over the brittle bones of snapping, crackling electro-funk.

Mixed Race re-confirms the many things we already knew Tricky could do well, and adds a whole range of other facets. Although ‘Time to Dance’ and ‘Early Bird’ come close, it doesn’t quite have a track that takes your breath away in wonderment at its sheer, audacious genius, as Tricky at his absolute peak can do. However, Mixed Race sees Tricky testing himself and his audience, picking up genres with a focussed, no-nonsense passion. On this evidence, he sounds tantalisingly close to a new purple patch.

Simon Hampson