Trip-hop’s emergence in Australia was centred entirely in Sydney, which may go a long way to explaining why Endorphin (originally born in France as Eric Chapus) would relocate there from the small town of Kuranda, Queensland to work on 1999’s Skin—the dizzyingly quick follow-up to his 1998 debut, Embrace. Embrace had made such a resounding impression at home and abroad that Chapus had seemingly been touring alongside trip-hop greats Portishead, Faithless and Massive Attack ever since its release—and their influence would later be felt. Part of Embrace’s standout appeal was due to Chapus’ atypical induction of classical music, which was on striking display from the get-go with the now-classic “Satie 1”. Skin offered very little, if any, of this reference or intricacy, opting instead for a simple inhalation of trip-hop’s Bristol origins—as well as Australia’s: “Red” is led by thrumming yiḏaki—and a sleazy exhalation of mostly wordless, late ’90s electronica that remains definitive of the time. By his own admittance, “Afterwords” is the “closest thing to a ‘real song’” Chapus had produced to that point, and is the only track on the album to feature a vocal narrative (courtesy of Stella One Eleven’s Cindy Ryan). The title track, too, is notable as the only sudden peak in Skin’s hissing wastes of moodiness and brooding, its pining piano transformed into a dream of troubling things by one of the deepest basslines the genre had ever felt, and the faraway threat of clattering drum ’n’ bass.