Biography
The daughter of a well known advertising executive, Drayton Bird, Topley-Bird was educated at Clifton College where she sang in the choir. It was while she was a teenager at the school that she met trip hop pioneer Tricky, with whom she worked on his first album Maxinquaye. She continued her collaboration with Tricky on his follow-up albums Nearly God, Pre-Millennium Tension and Angels with Dirty Faces.
Following a falling-out of their professional and personal relationship in 1998, she began pursuing a solo career. It was not until 2003 that she released her debut album, Quixotic (Independiente Records), mainly produced by Topley-Bird and production team AMP9 (Alex McGowan, Steve Crittall, Nick Bird) at Space Eko Recording Studios London. Upon its release, it received positive reviews from critics and was a finalist for the 2003 Mercury Music Prize. The song "Sandpaper Kisses" from the album was featured in the video game, Fahrenheit (released in North America as Indigo Prophecy).
The album finally saw a limited release in the United States in July 2004 when the Palm Pictures label released a re-designed and re-sequenced version with a new title (Anything), a trimmed-down tracklisting and all-new cover art.
The following year she appeared on the Starbucks compilation album, Sweetheart 2005: Love Songs, which features contemporary musicians covering classic love songs. She sang "I Only Have Eyes for You", a song originally by composer Harry Warren and lyricist Al Dubin.
Her second solo album, The Blue God, was released in May 2008. The track "Carnies" was released as the first single on 3 March 2008 and reached No.20 on the UK Indie Charts. "Poison" was released as the second single and reached No.9 on the Indie Charts.
In 2010, Topley-Bird appeared on the album Heligoland by Massive Attack, lending her voice on the tracks "Psyche" and "Babel". She also toured with Massive Attack as their support act and providing guest vocals. Topley-Bird's third album, Some Place Simple, was released in July 2010. It contained stripped-down versions of songs from her first two releases, along with four new songs.
Topley-Bird performed Maxinquaye live at the Sundance Festival, London, in April 2012.
Read more about this topic: Martina Topley-Bird
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