Baby Namboos, The - Ancoats 2 Zambia

So, the Baby Namboos’ first album, Ancoats2Zambia appears on Tricky’s Durban Poison label and has Tricky put in a guest appearance. If you said that they were simply Tricky-lite, that’d only be half true. Sure, there’s the same paranoid trip-hop feeling (reminiscent of Maxinquaye and Pre-Millennium Tension), the wounded little girl delivery by Aurora Borealis (reminiscent of Martina Topley-Bird’s vocals), and the harshly-whispered rhyme (reminiscent of Tricky himself). But there’s a little more levity here than on Tricky’s work, and that’s what separates them. Listen to the near hopefulness in the music on “Provoked.” There’s some nice break action on “Trials and Tribulations.” While Ancoats2Zambia deserves a listen (especially for the Geoff Barrow and Dillinja remixes), there’s nothing here that hasn’t been done better by Tricky or Terranova.

The original european release misses the very cool Barrow & Dillinja remixes (which appeared later on the title track's single version ) & so only has 10 trax, but the same cat # anyway.
The Baby Namboos are some Bristolian relatives of Tricky & the man himself helps them out in production, writing & guestspots on trax 3, 4 & 5.
Indeed some of these trax sound more like early Massive Attack & Tricky circa Maxinquaye then anything the originals did after their cutting edge debuts.
A special bow for vocalist Aurora Borealis (aka Zoe Bedaux). She is to the Namboos what Martine was to Tricky ; a delicate but powerful emotional force...