In the second episode of City Scenes Tom takes a dive into the music scene of Bristol, a city in the south west of England with a thriving music scene.
The sounds that have come to make Bristol famous can be traced back to various sources, but a very important one is the huge jamaican-style sound system culture that was brought to the city by the many caribbean immigrants that had called Bristol their home since the 1950s.
Reggae and Dub music for this reason have a huge place in Bristol’s history but it was in the 1990s that the city came into the spotlight for spawning what music journalists started calling the ‘Bristol Sound’ - a type of music known as Trip Hop, which was mostly downtempo, atmospheric, bass heavy music inspired by the roots of dub music and hip hop.
Three acts that pushed this sound to great effect and achieved huge global success with trip hop were Massive Attack, Portishead and Tricky.
The 90s was a time when Brit Pop was at the forefront of the charts in the UK, Blur vs Oasis was dominating the media and guitar driven rock music was at the fore - so for Massive Attack, Portishead and Tricky to be making the music that they were was a groundbreaking thing to be doing and it’s why it helped carve out a unique sound identity for Bristol which set the city aside from what was going on in the rest of the country.
One area that Bristol has always punched above it’s weight in is Dance music. The City’s history of soundsystem culture has ensured that it has always had a prolific dance music scene and Bristol’s music scene has been instrumental in the development of genres like Dubstep, Drum and Bass, Jungle and techno.
Now of course the music scene in Bristol isn’t only all about dub, bass and soundsytem culture influences. But Up until recently it was quite difficult for a band to come out of bristol without getting the necessary comparisons to the ‘Bristol Sound’that Massive Attack made famous. In spite of this though Bristol has a massively productive and active underground music scene, it’s one that is full of artists that aren’t concerned with commercial success, but which instead are dedicated to pushing their music to break new boundaries and staying true to the thriving underground scene that the city has. Bit by bit though the world is picking up on the energy that exists in bristols underground music scene. For example. The city has a thriving punk and DIY scene. And one band that have risen up through that scene and taken the world by storm is of course Idles.
Another Artist from Bristol that is rising out of the underground is Katy J Pearson. This year she collaborated on a track with Metronomy and she looks set to take the world by storm in 2023.
Join us next week for another episode of City Scenes when we'll be looking at Chicago.