Martina Topley-Bird
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rocknroll_n_blues_queensI recently came across the singer Martina Topley-Bird on the Tricky album Maxinquaye and have decided that she's great. :)
Under the cut is information about her from here.
Note: it's a bit out of date, but it has some more interesting details about her than her Wikipedia page. You can check her website for details on her more recent work.
Martina Topley Bird was born on May 7 in 1975, grew up in London, Maidenhead and then Somerset. Some people still think she is called 'Martine', but that was just a printing error in the booklet of her first album with Tricky, 'Maxinquaye'. Martina went to school in Sussex and Bristol, where she later met Tricky. She has quite a big family: "Her mother has five children, her stepfather three. Her real father died when she was a child." (The Observer 2003) Almost all her family seems to be involved in music somehow. Her mother works in the music business, one of her sisters works in New York, where she books bands and two of her brother are involved in a group called Outtro. Martina herself was singing since she was very young, first in choirs, then in a school jazz band. Then she was into punk and dyed her hair blue. She listened a lot to bands like Pearl Jam, The Smashing Pumpkins or Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Martina met Tricky in 1990, when she was 15 years old and still in school. How they met sounds like a myth, but is obviously true: Martina was sitting on a wall in her school uniform, smoking, Tricky comes up and chats her up. "So we met that day and I went round to his house a couple of weeks later. Tricky was out but Mark Stewart [former singer with the apocalyptic post-punk band The Pop Group] was there - he'd known Tricky since he was about 15. So I was banging on the door pissed out of my head on Merrydown. I climbed in through a window and we must have spoken about the band I was in, because next time Tricky was, like, oh, you're a singer." (The Face 96)
The rest is history: they recorded 'Aftermath', Tricky pressed a 12" off it and got a contract with Island Records. In 1994 they record the songs for 'Maxinquaye' together. Tricky and Martina are like chalk and cheese, but obviously that's one of the reasons why their music is so intense and fascinating. In spring 1995 the first Tricky tour starts through the UK with PJ Harvey. Martina is already pregnant and shortly after the tour her and Tricky's daughter Maisie (Mazy? Maisey?) gets born.
In the following years their relationship is already over, Martina says at the end of 1995 that Tricky and herself "have grown apart" (NME 95). But they still work together and record songs, in 1996 they record 'Pre Millennium Tension' in Jamaica. Afterwards Martina goes on US tour with Porno For Pyros as a background singer.
Finally in 1998 also their musical relationship ends. Tricky explains that they won't work together anymore, because (as he explained it) the press said he's a bad father. He relates to two articles in The Face, one from 1996 by Andrew Smith, and one from 1998 by Craig McLean (for some other reason). Tricky explained: "When I read that Face thing, I started thinking we should split up. Our relationship's good, it's been seven years, and the fact we were seeing each other, had a kid, stopped seeing each other and carried on making albums is unbelievable." (Big Issue 98)
Luckily Martina keeps on making music, in 1999 she contributes backing vocals on two songs of Primus' 'Antipop' album. She also collaborates with David Holmes on two tracks of his album 'Bow Down To The Exit Sign' (see discography). He will produce some tracks on her own solo album.
For a long time rumours were floating around that Martina will record an album with jazz standards. Tricky already mentioned in 1999 that she will write songs and he will maybe produce some of those. She is now signed to Independiente Records and released her first single, 'Need One', in 2003. Tricky recorded three songs with her debut solo album (Ragga, Stevie's and Ilya), but most of the songs were written with Alex McGowan (The Starseed), Steve Crittall and her stepbrother Nick Bird. Finally in July her solo album 'Quixotic' is released, and soon afterwards nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. She did some gigs in the UK, the rest of the world is unfortunately still waiting for her. The album is released in the US one year later, but with another cover, song order and title ('Anything'). Producer is Chris Blackwell from Palm Pictures, who also worked with Tricky a lot.
In the next years it was a bit quiet around Martina, although she can be heard on other people's albums. Her collaborations include the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, the Gorillaz, Diplo, Puracane, Jet Lag and Son of Dave, whom she also joined on stage a couple of times (see discography for details about all these releases). In 2005 she covers the song 'I Only Have Eyes For You', while even one of her songs gets covered ('Too Tough To Die', by the Twilight Singers). Meanwhile she is working on her new album, which is produced by Danger Mouse. The album will be called "The Blue God" and released on May 12, but you can already listen to it on Last.fm.
& some videos for you all to enjoy:
Under the cut is information about her from here.
Note: it's a bit out of date, but it has some more interesting details about her than her Wikipedia page. You can check her website for details on her more recent work.
Martina Topley Bird was born on May 7 in 1975, grew up in London, Maidenhead and then Somerset. Some people still think she is called 'Martine', but that was just a printing error in the booklet of her first album with Tricky, 'Maxinquaye'. Martina went to school in Sussex and Bristol, where she later met Tricky. She has quite a big family: "Her mother has five children, her stepfather three. Her real father died when she was a child." (The Observer 2003) Almost all her family seems to be involved in music somehow. Her mother works in the music business, one of her sisters works in New York, where she books bands and two of her brother are involved in a group called Outtro. Martina herself was singing since she was very young, first in choirs, then in a school jazz band. Then she was into punk and dyed her hair blue. She listened a lot to bands like Pearl Jam, The Smashing Pumpkins or Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Martina met Tricky in 1990, when she was 15 years old and still in school. How they met sounds like a myth, but is obviously true: Martina was sitting on a wall in her school uniform, smoking, Tricky comes up and chats her up. "So we met that day and I went round to his house a couple of weeks later. Tricky was out but Mark Stewart [former singer with the apocalyptic post-punk band The Pop Group] was there - he'd known Tricky since he was about 15. So I was banging on the door pissed out of my head on Merrydown. I climbed in through a window and we must have spoken about the band I was in, because next time Tricky was, like, oh, you're a singer." (The Face 96)
The rest is history: they recorded 'Aftermath', Tricky pressed a 12" off it and got a contract with Island Records. In 1994 they record the songs for 'Maxinquaye' together. Tricky and Martina are like chalk and cheese, but obviously that's one of the reasons why their music is so intense and fascinating. In spring 1995 the first Tricky tour starts through the UK with PJ Harvey. Martina is already pregnant and shortly after the tour her and Tricky's daughter Maisie (Mazy? Maisey?) gets born.
In the following years their relationship is already over, Martina says at the end of 1995 that Tricky and herself "have grown apart" (NME 95). But they still work together and record songs, in 1996 they record 'Pre Millennium Tension' in Jamaica. Afterwards Martina goes on US tour with Porno For Pyros as a background singer.
Finally in 1998 also their musical relationship ends. Tricky explains that they won't work together anymore, because (as he explained it) the press said he's a bad father. He relates to two articles in The Face, one from 1996 by Andrew Smith, and one from 1998 by Craig McLean (for some other reason). Tricky explained: "When I read that Face thing, I started thinking we should split up. Our relationship's good, it's been seven years, and the fact we were seeing each other, had a kid, stopped seeing each other and carried on making albums is unbelievable." (Big Issue 98)
Luckily Martina keeps on making music, in 1999 she contributes backing vocals on two songs of Primus' 'Antipop' album. She also collaborates with David Holmes on two tracks of his album 'Bow Down To The Exit Sign' (see discography). He will produce some tracks on her own solo album.
For a long time rumours were floating around that Martina will record an album with jazz standards. Tricky already mentioned in 1999 that she will write songs and he will maybe produce some of those. She is now signed to Independiente Records and released her first single, 'Need One', in 2003. Tricky recorded three songs with her debut solo album (Ragga, Stevie's and Ilya), but most of the songs were written with Alex McGowan (The Starseed), Steve Crittall and her stepbrother Nick Bird. Finally in July her solo album 'Quixotic' is released, and soon afterwards nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. She did some gigs in the UK, the rest of the world is unfortunately still waiting for her. The album is released in the US one year later, but with another cover, song order and title ('Anything'). Producer is Chris Blackwell from Palm Pictures, who also worked with Tricky a lot.
In the next years it was a bit quiet around Martina, although she can be heard on other people's albums. Her collaborations include the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, the Gorillaz, Diplo, Puracane, Jet Lag and Son of Dave, whom she also joined on stage a couple of times (see discography for details about all these releases). In 2005 she covers the song 'I Only Have Eyes For You', while even one of her songs gets covered ('Too Tough To Die', by the Twilight Singers). Meanwhile she is working on her new album, which is produced by Danger Mouse. The album will be called "The Blue God" and released on May 12, but you can already listen to it on Last.fm.
& some videos for you all to enjoy:
