Weekly Wrap: Where to from here?

Another chapter in the Massive Attack Heligoland video series is released: John Downer directs “Psyche” with Martina Topley-Bird on vocals (watch below / youtube / Massive Attack site) ¶ Manuel Tur is the latest to guest on the Bodytonic podcast featuring Pepe Bradock, a Matthew Herbert remix of Bjork and the Motorbass remix of Daft Punk’s “Around the world”.  ¶ Grace Jones‘ Hurricane album lives on with the release of single “Love you to life”, delivered by label Wall Of Sound with various remixes, but it’s the Dub Version that wins, taking the original and spacing it out with reverberations in true dub-style. ¶ Josh Wink is currently on tour to celebrate 15 years of Ovum Records – quite an accomplishment considering the current state of the music industry.  A new 60-minute DJ Times set from Josh is available here and is yet another fine example of what a house set should be.  Meanwhile, his first remix in well over a 12 months (possibly longer) is rumored to be for Gorillaz… this should be an interesting combination.  The animated band’s new video due for release on June 15, so hope to see the remix soon after.   (more…)

Weekly Wrap: Brought to you by the letter B.

What a musical month March was… The Miami Winter Music Conference once again saw DJ’s & Producers from around the world come together to party and showcase, well, something.  So far, lots of interviews – including Seth Troxler on drugs and umm, bats (“bats! fucking bats!”) - but as of yet it has failed to deliver “this year’s hottest track” – unless I’ve completely missed the announcements, which is possible considering I’ve been swept away with a fantastic Massive Attack concert [review] plus new albums from Hollie Smith [my review @ Amplifier] and Erykah Badu [review] … My hits, misses and other moments from the past week or so: (more…)

Comatose Karma

Some relatively large life decisions have wrapped me up in a constricting cocoon of stress and uncertainty today.  The Massive Attack concert was a much-needed musical release that immediately chiseled through that cocoon,  blowing it away in a powerful sonic storm.  It was also a jolting and well-timed reminder of exactly how much I need regular music events to keep me balanced. (Concert photo’s here).  (more…)

Weekly Wrap: True silence is impossible.

Massive Attack continue their series of Heligoland short films – the latest is for “Saturday come slow” featuring Damon Albarn on vocals. Directed by Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin who transform the song into a beautiful but horrific piece that explains high-volume interrogation tactics used on a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, Ruhal Ahmed.  View here, and visit zerodb.org for information on music against torture. ¶ “Incense and Poetry” 60-minute deep house mix from Osunlade available here.  He will be playing at Development’s 4th birthday party in Manchester at the end of March, who have an exclusive interview and deep soul mix available. ¶ David Alvarado’s special blend on “One:2010″ keeps it deep and techy with the right amount of soul. Solid house music. Listen on SoundCloud or download/subscribe to his podcast. ¶ Anti-folk singer Jeffrey Lewis performed at Tabac last night (March 20), much to Bob Daktari’s excitement.  Photo’s here.  ¶

Last but not least, congratulations to Hollie Smith whose sophomore album, “Humour and the Misfortune of others”, shot to number 1 on iTunes shortly after it’s release on Monday 15th March, 2010.   A truly useless piece of writing came from Simon Sweetman – a blogger on NZ news site stuff.co.nz.  Despite having the album over 1 week before it’s release, he listened to it once before lazily putting together a post that: (1) over half of it was a re-post of old information pertaining to Hollie Smith’s first album, (2) using those criticisms as a leaning post to degrade the new album, and (3) couldn’t even deliver a decent title for the post.  I openly criticized his lazy efforts, to which he replied and hid behind the excuse that it was “a blog, not an article”.  While that’s true, it’s a blog that is on a professional news publication and should therefore have much higher writing quality.  I would have no problem if there was some decent writing there, but all of his work appears to be full of weak put-downs and questions posed to readers in a way that sounds like he doesn’t have the ability to make up his own solid opinions.  I’d be embarrassed to have his work appear on such as site.

Their eyes changed as they learned to see through flames.

It’s been well over a decade since I loved any new Massive Attack material.  It only took one album, “100th Window”, for me (and many others) to see exactly what Mushroom’s input into their previous work was.  The quiet, often in-the-background guy who (as far as I know) never had any vocal appearances – but it appeared that he was the one who had the raw, subtle and often unnoticed elements that filled out the soundscapes.  Massive Attack walls always had cracks in them; Mushroom was the one picked away at the edges and gave them the unpolished character.

Let’s step back though, as this already sounds like I’m not giving Robert “3D” Del-Naja and Daddy G enough credit.  Yes, there were cracks in the walls and well-known conflicts between the three, but in the end this was ultimately a contribution to their sound.  We’re not talking about shiny bubblegum chart shit here… it’s Massive Attack: a sound system consisting of a mash-up of influences and ideas.

(more…)