TRICKY'S GANGSTER PARADISE

New album stars notorious London villains

TRICKY has masterminded an album which sees some of London's most notorious gangsters recount tales of their violent crimes set to dance music.

 Mad Frankie Fraser, Chadie Richardson end Dave Courtney all contribute to the LP, called 'Product Of The Environment'. It is released on September l3 through Tricky's own label Durban Poison and Palm Pictures and is described as the "real deal account of what happened on the streets during this time".

Eleven gangland names feature on the record, talking about incidents they have served time for or have hitherto remained quiet about.

Although Tricky conceived the project some time ago, the music on the album was written and performed by Tricky's keyboard player, Gareth Bowen, who also interviewed the gangsters for the project. Bowen got to know Jack Adams, an accomplice of the Krays, after working at London's Barrington Studios, which Adams owns. Adams introduced Bowen to a number of underworld nines, including Great Train Robber Tom Wisby end another Kray associate, Tony Lambrianou, who served time for the murder of Jack 'The Hat' McVitie. Both appear on the record.

Palm Pictures deny the LP glamorises violence or that it exploits the gangsters' victims - some of whom were murdered.

A Palm Pictures spokesman said: "Anybody that was killed during the time that they talk about was within that group of people. There were no innocent bystanders, all those murdered were part of that system."

However, he chose to gloss over the fact that the driver of the train in the Great Train Robbery, who died after being hit over the head, was nothing to do with London gangsters.

 The spokesman added: "They (gangsters) don't regret what they've done. They don't see any of it as particularly wrong."

 Meanwhile, Tricky's own album, 'Juxtapose', is released through Island on August 17.