Thursday, September 28, 2006  

Return of the Wild Bunch
Massive Attack makes trip-hop dangerous again

Washington Post Express, Thursday, July 28, 2006; Page E5

[DIRECTOR'S CUT]

When Massive Attack's debut album, Blue Lines, came out in 1991, the mix of hip-hop beats, soundtrack ambiance, and postpunk attitude turned the music world on its ear. It was sui generis statement coming in the middle of the grunge movement, and writers fumbled around to describe the English band's sound. Someone came up with the phrase "trip-hop," and within a few years fellow Bristol artists Tricky and Portishead joined Massive Attack as the faces behind this new sound.

The roots of Massive Attack are in a 1980s sound-system crew called the Wild Bunch, which included Tricky and gained renown for spinning catholic sets. "It wasn't so much dub based; it was a little bit more eclectic," said founding member Robert Del Naja. "It was more hip-hop in its center, but it went dub, it went soul, it went a bit New Wave, it went a bit retro film soundtrack-y—it was always a bit kind of strange, and I guess that's how the reputation spread because we were doing something nobody else was doing at the time."

As things got bigger, the sound system started to splinter, and three members of the Wild Bunch, Del Naja, Grant Marshall and Mushroom, formed Massive Attack. After cutting three well-received singles ("Daydreaming," "Unfinished Sympathy" and "Safe From Harm"), Del Naja said, "We got dragged kicking and screaming into the studio to make our first album. The idea was just to capture the history of our musical upbringing and a commentary on what it was to be a civilian in Britain at that time. We were writing stuff in a hip-hop way but, being youths in Thatcher's Britain, our angles were always slightly different."

After the massive success of Blue Lines, the group went through an identity crisis. "We hit this strange space afterward, where we weren't quite sure what it was about being a band," Del Naja said. "That same sensation has followed every record; we haven't really had a full-on game plan."

That might account for Massive Attack's seemingly lower profile the past few years, but the group, whose core now includes Del Naja, Marshall and producer Neil Davidge, has actually been very busy making records and scoring films. The follow-ups to Blue Lines include the equally great Protection (1995) and Mezzanine (1998) as well as 2003's 100th Window and the soundtrack records Danny the Dog (2004) and Bullet Boy (2005). Massive Attack's latest is Collected, featuring two CDs of hits, remixes and three new songs along with a DVD of the band's evocative videos.

The group is also working on a new concept album that Del Naja describes as "gothic soul," though work has been slow going. "It seems to evade me," he said with a laugh. "It's just really difficult; it's really something I want to do, but it hasn't quite come through. But I'm on a mission." --Christopher Porter

Posted by CP | Link |

---