State of Independence
(Exclaim 30th January 2003)
And then there was one. Well, not exactly. When Massive Attack was last in the
public eye there were three key players, Daddy G (Grant Marshall), Mushroom
(Adrian Vowles), and 3D (Robert Del Naja). The trio can lay claim to making
some of the most influential music of the '90s, and are responsible for putting
Bristol, England, on the musical map. But nearly five years after their last
full-length effort, 3D is the only one of the three original core members to
work on their fourth album 100th Window, something that's sure to raise quizzical
eyebrows. When I ask if he's been Massive Attack's de facto creative force for
some time now, he shifts uncomfortably on the couch, smiling and then laughing
nervously. "I'm kinda paranoid," he says after a brief pause. "I
know this isn't what's been intimated, but it's this terrible thing. Everybody's
going to think I'm this control freak."
While he's obviously
uneasy with the creative focus being solely on him - the conspicuous absence
of two of the group's original members makes it unavoidable - his reaction is
in some ways is understandable. The group has always sourced collaborations
from different artists to create something bigger than the sum of its parts.
Even as Massive Attack has undergone changes in its core and associated personnel,
and ultimately its sound, underlying principles continue to link them to their
impressive and distinctive past.
Blue Lines, Massive
Attack's 1991 debut, was a stunningly seamless and genre-defying amalgam of
dub, soul and hip-hop. It represented the logical extension of Bristol's Wild
Bunch soundsystem, to which all three members of Massive Attack once belonged.
The album's assured, languid rhythms coalesced the different musical forms into
a soothing cerebral experience; it made the group's name change to Massive because
of the hoopla surrounding the Gulf War all the more ludicrous. By the time they
issued the refined electronic soul sheen of follow-up Protection, the group
found themselves being lumped in with fellow Bristolians Portishead and Tricky,
who both contributed to Blue Lines, as part of a new style of music. Trip-hop,
a much-maligned term that makes 3D cackle when I mention it, was the most popular
catch-all description for it. Soon these groups were the arbiters of cool. 1998's
Mezzanine found Massive Attack expanding their sonic repertoire; abrasive guitar
work and samples literally copped from Turkish tourist resorts were grafted
onto the group's dub foundation to create a tense, brooding effort. It could
have been interpreted as a rude retort to the slew of imitators raiding their
early work by cranking out languid hip-hop beats with female vocals, but the
sound of this record actually reflected simmering tensions in the group and
set in motion the context in which the group exists today.
During Mezzanine's
pre-production phase, 3D was anxious to return to the punk and new wave roots
of his youth. Daddy G and Mushroom on the other hand were creating loops modelled
around hip-hop and soul. While 3D and Daddy G had overlapping tastes in punk
and new wave, Mushroom wasn't too thrilled with this new sonic direction and
the tension sparked a creative stand-off. The situation escalated to the point
where much of the album was recorded separately and the tour that followed was
particularly strife-ridden. The trio refused to do interviews together and 3D
and Daddy G in particular were fairly candid about the acrimonious state of
the group. In performance, the three members were rarely on stage at the same
time and by the end of the tour they had decided to work separately from then
on. Evidently, the differences couldn't be reconciled and by late 1999 Mushroom
was no longer in the group.
"It got to the
point where Mush, he's a purist, in terms of what he wants to do with soul and
funk and R&B," says 3D. "And he was getting more and more purist.
He had a clear idea of what he wanted to do and I think myself particularly
and G to a certain extent wanted to experiment. I like the purity of certain
things but I like to see them all put together in one place to see what happens
in an alchemist sense. And it was impossible because I was trying to get Mushroom
to commit pure ideas to the general melting pot and he didn't want to. It meant
that it was his thing only or my thing. It was never a joint thing, so ultimately
it was obvious we were going to part ways."
It may have been a
foregone conclusion to 3D, but it wasn't Mushroom's decision to leave the band.
"Well to be honest me and G kinda made [the decision] for him. I think
we were like, 'Look mate, you're not happy here, we're not happy here. Something's
gotta give, you know what I mean? We want to continue doing Massive Attack and
experimenting, you want to do your thing. What's the point of us working together?'
It was either that or dissolve the band altogether which would have been a shame
because there's still more to be had out of a project like this."
While Mushroom began work
on a solo album, Massive Attack continued as a duo, doing remixes and contributing
to soundtracks. When it came time to start work on the group's fourth album,
Daddy G was still very much in the picture. But Daddy G, who reportedly termed
the Mezzanine recording sessions - where he was often the mediator - as the
most stressful of his life, became less involved as time wore on. According
to 3D, at one point he didn't see Daddy G in the studio for six months. Consequently,
on 100th Window Daddy G is noticeably absent; certainly his deep rumbling vocals,
a staple of past Massive Attack records, are nowhere to be found. Apparently,
he's still a member of the group who will tour and will work on the group's
fifth album, which is already in production, but he is taking time off to look
after his new child and focus on his family "My motivation right now is
to be in the studio and that's that," says 3D. "G's motivation is
to be a father, so there's no point in us forcing it. It would be conflict,
it'd be silly. I just kinda got on with what I had to do making records, 'cos
I would've been unhappy if I hadn't. I couldn't wait around. I had to do something."
On a dour, overcast
day in London, 3D appears to be quite happy. Despite the rumpled look his days-old
stubble gives him, he's cheerful and animated, kitted out entirely in black
with a T-shirt that reveals a tattoo on his left arm: the flammable sign that
appears on the cover of Blue Lines. Recalling those early years, 3D contends
that a harmonious working environment never really existed between himself,
Daddy G and Mushroom. "The project was always ambiguous because it was
rare that we were alone in one room," he says, referring as he often does
to the group as a project. "It would be one or two of us with someone else,
whether it was Nellee Hooper, Neil Davidge or way back with [Blue Lines producer]
Johnny Dollar. It was never all three of us sitting around the melting pot cooking
by proxy. It never happened. In the old days, we'd end up fighting for the element
we put in, whether it was a hi-hat or a bass line and we'd never look at the
whole thing, just the element that we contributed." For this album, 3D's
studio cohort was Neil Davidge, who worked extensively on Mezzanine as a co-writer
and co-producer.
The undeniable change
in creative dynamic impacted the recording. "I think it was much more isolated
and therefore I was a bit more exposed, more frightened and wanting answers,"
admits 3D. It's evident this vulnerability has informed the concept of the album
itself. The title refers to The Hundredth Window, a book by Charles Jennings
and Lori Fena that explores issues surrounding security and privacy on the internet.
The idea is if you put bars across 99 of your windows but leave the hundredth
window open, invaders can still get in and access personal information. "I
took it as an analogy for the window to the soul," 3D explains. "No
man is an island. You can't expect to live your life in dislocation and isolation
and expect to only communicate when you want to. There's always a way in and
a way out of your head and the contact is a communal thing, it's a give and
take. It takes other people to highlight your flaws and your bad side and your
weaknesses because you're never gonna see them yourself."
Initially, 3D and
Davidge spent a long time in the studio with rock band Lupine Howl, comprised
of ex-members of Spiritualized. After 18 months of arduous effort, they scrapped
those sessions and started from scratch, eschewing the usual approach of starting
with samples. "It wasn't all about the rhythm and I felt with this album
I wanted to make a record that didn't rely on a rhythm going steadily right
through it. It felt that the rhythm was responding to the music and vice versa,
so it would react to that." 3D contends it's Massive Attack's most intricate
and affecting record to date. "Rather than like being like Mezzanine where
everything is cold and dark, there's warmth where you can make contact with
people, there's more to be had out of this," he says.
With its resonant
ambience and thematic need for security, 100th Window bears the hallmarks of
previous recordings. But where Mezzanine was expansive, this plumbs sonic depths
and presents a subtle deconstruction of what the group has previously done.
The change is most noticeable in the treatment of voices on the record. Legendary
reggae singer Horace Andy is the only artist outside the original trio to appear
on every Massive Attack record, and he contributes vocals on two Window tracks.
But 3D experimented with how he wanted to hear Andy's voice.
"It was mad,
trying to get Horace to sound like he wasn't a reggae singer for the first time,"
says 3D. "I felt we've done a lot of things with Horace that were a throwback
to his history. He's got such a great voice you don't need to do that. I wanted
to write some new stuff for him like I did on 'Hymn of the Big Wheel' [from
Blue Lines]."
This experimentation
wasn't limited to Andy. 3D too has changed his vocal stylings. This record finds
him favouring plaintive vocals more heavily than in the past and his distinctive
whispery raps are completely absent. "Two things. One, there are people
out there who can rap a million times better than me," he says self-deprecatingly.
"Second, I think I got a little despondent and bored of having to use so
many words to say a few things."
The use of voice as
an instrument is pushed to the point where the sound itself is given primacy.
The male vocals on the record are often smoothed out to the point where the
lyrics are inaudible, ironically bringing a more intimate feeling to the proceedings.
Although 3D was fruitless in his attempts to corral jazz singer Nina Simone
for 100th Window, the emotional quotient of the record is heightened by three
hauntingly beautiful vocal performances from Sinead O' Connor, an artist with
whom 3D had been wanting to work for some time. "The thing about working
with Sinead is that the one thing I wanted to get out of it was the anger. She
always conveys proper emotion and personality. She's one of the few singers
that has a real personality. She's been a spokesperson on various issues and
she's been expressing her views, and I think she carries that with her. You
hear an innocence and a beauty and a hope; you also know there's been a lot
of experience there. She's seen a lot of things and she commands respect that
way."
Sinead O'Connor's
heartfelt presence on 100th Window is just the latest example of Massive Attack
choosing distinctive voices to front their music, a pattern dating back to their
origins even within the Wild Bunch soundsystem.
"In an age where
music is much more generic, the emphasis is on commerce," says 3D. "No
one really wants to hear someone with personality, it's much easier to deal
with the generic voice that everyone can relate to. So if an artist is passed
by another similar artist then it's not a problem for the average person to
go out and buy into both concepts, perhaps because they're not being challenged.
It's just easy, there's no thought process. In a world where everyone's got
so little time, that's what you want."
Another primary musical
aspect of Massive Attack that can also be traced back to their soundsystem origins
is their use of bass. 100th Window ends with a throbbing 13-minute bass line
that extends its length to the 74-minute mark. "Reggae and soul-hip-hop
was always bass-driven, rhythm-based music," he says. "For me, coming
out of the punk thing, it was like Public Image Limited, the Clash - the bass
emphasis in those bands was very influential." This merging of divergent
elements has fostered the principled independent spirit that embraces amorphous
roles and one-off collaborations, allowing the music to exist on its own terms,
independent of the people involved. For Massive Attack fans, the music and the
mood it creates, not the band members, are what come to mind. Maybe that's why
3D was so uneasy.
"One thing I
always tried to do was to not associate ourselves too directly with the project
itself, in the sense where you say that's the band, that's Massive Attack, those
are the guys in the band," 3D says. "It always seemed to be quite
destructive - it's mostly vanity and ego and there's plenty of that floating
around anyway. There's a healthy amount of ego in any project, whether it's
music or business or a workplace. I thought let's not do that. If we're not
totally connected to our faces and the way the band operates, then the project
can speak for itself. As a fan, Massive Attack can be anything. As long as the
album comes out and it says Massive Attack and it's something of interest to
anyone, got some quality to it, then it don't matter what happened behind the
scenes."
By Del F. Cowie