Martina Topley-Bird

★★★★ Forever I Wait

AWAL. DL/LP

Trip-hop pioneer’s first LP since 2010. Massive Attack’s Del Naja and others guest. Martina Topley-Bird’s fourth album was almost finished when her (and Tricky’s) daughter Mazy took her own life in 2019. The title of Forever I Wait refers to the singer’s patient efforts to override previous compromises born from parenthood duties and questionable advice, but you can imagine it also stands for an aching absence. What remains is Topley-Bird adopting trip-hop’s narcotic, edgy trademark for further adventures in soul, torch song, electronica, dub; whatever best conveys the sentiment behind one-word titles such as Collide, Blood and Love. The teenager who gilded Tricky’s epochal Maxinquaye is now in her forties, and her voice’s levity and heaviness more clearly reveal a love of Billie Holiday. This feverish record ends beautifully with Rain, just voice, strings and hope: “One day while walking in the rain/I found my path along the way.”