Massive Attack | Tripping Into 'Heligoland'

Feb 19, 2010 5:51 PM, By Sam Pryor

           
 

INSIDE THE PRODUCTION OF MASSIVE ATTACK'S LATEST ALBUM

Massive Attack's Robert "3D" Del Naja (left) and Grand "Daddy G" Marshall Photo: Warren Du Preez and Nick Thornton James

For Massive Attack, the process of producing an album is often an evolutionary one, with the final result deviating significantly from what was originally envisioned. A case in point is the band’s last release, 100th Window (Virgin, 2003). Massive Attack’s primary composers—vocalist Robert Del Naja (aka “3D”) and producer Neil Davidge (who has been part of the band since Mezzanine [Virgin, 1998])—began the writing process for that one by spinning hard drives and letting tape roll while their core musicians improvised for what turned out to be 80 hours’ worth of loose ideas and song threads. Not satisfied with the results, the group eventually scrapped the entire project and started fresh.

Similarly, on their current effort, Heligoland (Virgin, 2010; see Fig. 1), Massive Attack (now joined again by former member, vocalist Grant “Daddy G” Marshall) recorded with dozens of singers in their Bristol, U.K., studio, as well as studios in London and New York, before ultimately trashing many of the tracks and completely rewriting others.

Beginning with their landmark 1991 debut, Blue Lines (Virgin), which originated the style branded as trip-hop, Massive Attack has created a brooding, intensely beautiful, deep-soul-meets-dark-technology sound that is as thrilling as it is foreboding. Massive Attack standards such as “Unfinished Sympathy,” “Teardrop,” and “Futureproof” rely on the group’s experimental and highly influential application of sample editing and layering, as well as their use of orchestral dynamics, advanced DJ techniques, inventive dance rhythms, and multiple vocalists.

Of late, Del Naja and Davidge have been prolific soundtrack composers. The recent films Unleashed, Gomorra, and In Prison My Whole Life, and the upcoming Trouble the Water and 44 Inch Chest feature the pair’s dark musical vision. Working in their studio, The Industrial Unit (based around a Solid State Logic G+ console and Digidesign Pro Tools)—or as Del Naja refers to it, “the last place on Earth we ever wanted to set up shop”—Massive Attack followed a new trajectory for Heligoland. Eschewing the heavy processing and textural effects of 100th Window, the group stripped the music to its barest elements, largely preferring natural drums to treated machine rhythms, and an intimate sonic ID to EQ-warped, reverb-soaked arrangements.

Massive Attack continued their practice of working with numerous vocalists on Heligoland, including longtime favorite Horace Andy, as well as Hope Sandoval, Blur’s Damon Albarn, TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe, Martina 
Topley-Bird, and Elbow’s Guy Garvey. The most acoustic and natural-sounding album the band has done to date, Heligoland retains the feeling of dread and dislocation that marks Massive Attack’s best work.

The opener, “Pray for Rain,” begins with doleful organ tones, followed by plaintive floor-tom rolls and funereal piano chords that are eventually consumed by a swelling vocal choir worthy of Brian Wilson, circa Surf’s Up. “Flat of the Blade” contains odd vocal humming and squirming sounds. “Girl I Love You” works a mad punk bass riff and ominous string and brass samples into a post-apocalyptic travelogue. Closer “Atlas Air” sounds like a tiki bar soundtrack created by space invaders, complete with Farfisa organ, gloomy strings, and a trashy disco beat.

Massive Attack’s trademark urban-dread atmospherics, their torrid-soundtrack-to-a-bleak-future vision, is more apropos than ever before. Refining their style to its core elements, stripping away nonessential effects to reveal their dark heart, Massive Attack forget their past, reinvent their present, and continue to set the standard. I explored the recording and production of Heligoland in separate interviews with Del Naja and Davidge. I also spoke with engineer Euan Dickinson (see sidebar “Massive Tracking”).