Hello people. I'm preparing a series of videos to broadcast at my two coming talks in France about Bristol, one in Nantes, at Trempolino with Stereolux, and the other one in Paris' Mediatheque Musicale, two very appealing venues doing a lot to showcase the best in music! I'm very proud.
Tonight I want to share this live recording - though very unprofessional - of a song I absolutely adore and that is so very relevant in our postmodern world. Lyrically and musically. I absolutely adore the contrast between the vocals (with lyrics written by the unique Sinéad O'Connor) and the mysterious, heavy and otherworldly music...
Shame Sinéad didn't tour for long with the band, so in this footage the Scottish singer Dot Allison is covering for her.
I want to underline that for me, it is difficult to pretend understanding Massive Attack without digging into their fourth album this song is featured in, 100th Window. This record, as a lot of band's fourth album is often misunderstood and even more often underrated. While it is indeed a masterpiece in electronic music, which also addressed all the most important themes in the era it was written, all along 2002: the pressure of the United States on the Middle East and the looming war coming up, the increase in surveillance and the bubbling birth of the internet and digital world, the feeling of being so fragile in a world increasingly turning into a permanent trading act...
But enough rambling. Here is the extract:
Massive Attack - 'Special Cases'
(Live - Athens 2003)
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3D on his collaboration with Sinéad O'Connor - Extract from my book - Massive Attack: A Bristol Story, to be released in April 2018:
Sinéad is also well known for her
social and political outspoken discourse. Massive Attack already contacted her
to try to collaborate in 1993, but the project had no time to even start. 3D
had expressed his admiration for her directness and authenticity in some of his
first interviews, especially for her raw presence on stage. They crossed path
in festivals and showed a mutual respect. Then in 2000, the Irish signer
decided to take a break from the music industry, to learn the Irish language
among other things. Only a few collaborations will get her out of her silence
until her comeback in 2005.
This time, Robert feels it is the
right moment to work together. “Sinead was an easy choice,” he insists afterwards. “When you talk about
what you want do in the future, it’s very difficult to let go of the past, and
with Sinéad, I wanted to take something that inspired me about her. You hope
for these kinds of collaboration, don’t you? You meet someone and you want to
work with someone because you’re into what they’ve done. You’re drawling from
the past to create something new[1].”
[1] In an interview with the author in Bristol, in February 2015
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To pre-order the book:
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