Massive Attack with Bre Morell

On this week’s episode of Bandsplain, Bre Morell of Crushed joins Yasi to talk about reluctant genre inventing geniuses Massive Attack. We talk through the rich music history of Bristol, their sound system DJ origins, the visual signatures, all the musical influences that fed into their sound, and the many artists that sprung up or morphed their sound in their wake. Episode Playlist Listen to the Massive Attack playlist here CREDITS: Host: Yasi Salek @yasisalek Guest: Bre Morell @bremorell Producer: Rob Sundermann Editor: Adrian Bridges Additional Production Supervision: Justin Sayles Theme Song: Bethany Cosentino Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:31Speaker 01

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• 1:00Speaker 02

  What's with this band, anyway? I don't get it, can you please explain? Wait, like, "Bandplain"? Never heard this band in my life. Oh, you haven't? I'd love that. Really? Why? Yeah, I love this song. Oh, I don't know that one. Bandplain, bandplain, bandplain. I really hate this band! Whatever, I'm their biggest fan. Bandplain, bandplain, bandplain, bandplain. Bandplain!

• 1:40Yasi Salek?

  Hello and welcome to Bandplain. I am your host, Yasi Salek. This is a show where I invite an expert guest on to help me explain a cult band or iconic artist. Today's episode is about Massive Attack. If you've never heard Massive Attack, love? Love is a verb, babe.

• 2:05Yasi Salek?

  My guest today is the gorgeous, the talented, the intelligent, beautiful, perfect, Bree Morell of the band Crushed.

• 2:17Speaker 04

  Hello.

• 2:18Yasi Salek?

  Welcome to the show.

• 2:19Speaker 04

  Thank you so much for having me.

• 2:20Yasi Salek?

  I'm so happy to have you.

• 2:22Speaker 04

  I'm very happy to be here. It's an absolute honor and a joy.

• 2:25Yasi Salek?

  Well, I wouldn't go that far.

• 2:27Speaker 04

  It's true.

• 2:27Yasi Salek?

  See how you feel an hour before. See how joyful you feel when you're on, you know, your fourth hour of discussing trip hop. Bree, do you want to kick us off by, because you're a bit younger than me. I learned today in the parking garage that you were born in the 90s.

• 2:46Speaker 04

  91, to be exact.

• 2:47Yasi Salek?

  1991. Do you want to talk a little bit about your, your journey with Massive Attack?

• 2:53Speaker 04

  Sure. My discovery of Massive Attack would have happened when I was like 15 or 16. Houston, Texas. Like, so we're like mid 2000s, late 2000s. I grew up like in the suburbs of Houston, so pretty isolated from any kind of music scene or like anybody that liked any music that I was interested in, you know? So I, everything I discovered was through message boards and, and, you know, early, not early internet, but like compared to what it is now, obviously it was a different, very different landscape.

• 3:23Yasi Salek?

  You want to hear about early message boards? I can tell you about them.

• 3:26Speaker 04

  I love to talk about message boards. But yeah, I discovered them. They, I was big into some of the Radiohead message boards at the time because those were a huge deal.

• 3:35Yasi Salek?

  Okay, that makes total sense. That's, I was gonna ask them, like, what message board are you on that like all roads lead back to Massive Attack? But Radiohead makes total sense.

• 3:45Speaker 04

  Yes, and a whole lot of crossover there, of course. So there's a lot of shared fans, a lot of people talking about their music. I would see their album art all the time and I was like, who are these guys? The rest is history. I blinked and here we are.

• 3:55Yasi Salek?

  What was the first album you heard?

• 3:57Speaker 04

  I want to say, I mean, it's kind of hard to say what was first, but I think Blue Lines or Protection would have been first.

• 4:03Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 4:03Speaker 04

  Yeah. But then it was, you know, once you make your way through the discography, I realized I already knew several of the songs that crossed over, you know, to the other side of the pond. I knew Cheer drop very well, you know, so.

• 4:14Yasi Salek?

  Dr. House.

• 4:15Speaker 04

  I was aware of them, but yeah.

• 4:17Yasi Salek?

  He's gonna do it. It's gonna be hit or miss, touch and go. He's gonna be cranky about it, but in the end, it's not lupus.

• 4:26Yasi Salek?

  And that's all I can really think about when I hear that song. And I'm sure that brings no end of great joy to the members of Massive Attack.

• 4:33Speaker 04

  I'm sure.

• 4:34Yasi Salek?

  Do you know that it was only in the first season?

• 4:35Speaker 04

  I learned that in a Google Doc.

• 4:37Yasi Salek?

  But in my mind, no, all whatever seven or eight seasons that I've watched all the way through multiple times.

• 4:43Speaker 04

  Oh, wow. I've actually never seen a single episode. But I know, and I only knew that that song was used for the theme song. And I also assumed it was for the whole show because of how many comments. I posted a video on TikTok of when I saw Massive Attack with Liz Fraser playing that song. And there's like a thousand comments about Dr. House. And I was like, what the? So for so many people, so many Americans, that's what I think of, which kind of breaks my heart.

• 5:08Yasi Salek?

  This is why America is a trash country. And we deserve everything that's happening to us.

• 5:14Speaker 04

  It's true. That's the reason.

• 5:16Yasi Salek?

  That being said, Dr. House MD is my favorite television show of all time.

• 5:18Speaker 04

  Really, really?

• 5:20Yasi Salek?

  I live for a medical procedural.

• 5:23Speaker 04

  I love the pit. Do you love the pit?

• 5:25Yasi Salek?

  I love the pit. If you love the pit, why would you? Because we're in the studio where the gorgeous, the Watch podcast, the ghosts of Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald are amongst us right now. They also love the pit. I don't know how they feel about Dr. House MD. I think Chris Ryan's a fan. Anyways, we've strayed far from God's light.

• 5:44Yasi Salek?

  We have to start with the TH word, the dreaded TH word.

• 5:50Speaker 04

  The dreaded TH word, yeah.

• 5:51Yasi Salek?

  Trip hop. No one likes to be genrefied and put in a box, but we do the best we can with what we have, you know, diction wise. I think that we need to set out to answer the question, did Massive Attack invent trip hop?

• 6:07Speaker 04

  I think the answer is they inadvertently absolutely did. You know, they like unknowingly let, they made a record so good that it created accidentally a genre because everybody wanted to sound like them.

• 6:17Yasi Salek?

  Right. They made a record both so good, so new, so dealing with

• 6:27Yasi Salek?

  multiple genres mixed together in a different way than they had been before.

• 6:34Yasi Salek?

  Pre-sampling, like, taking off in the world, pre-pro tools. Like, they stumbled upon, and I don't want to make it sound like it was an accident, because obviously it wasn't, although I'll have some quotes that might indicate that it was a happy accident. They really created something. And I think it was probably zeitgeisty, which we'll get into when I do my like 15 to 18 minute TED Talk about the origins of Massive Attack in Bristol. But the term trip hop now has a bad rap, obviously. It's like, it's-

• 7:10Speaker 04

  Not in my house, but-

• 7:12Yasi Salek?

  Now it's maybe come back around, but it definitely got to a point where it was like, "Yeah, that's the music you hear in the Standard Hotel lounge while you're waiting to check into your room. It's Buddha bar, babe." You know, like, the term wasn't even coined until 1994, which is like, three years after Blue Lions came out. I think whatever you want to call it, I do think that Massive Attack did kick off something really special, and that their first album is seminal in many ways for that.

• 7:43Speaker 04

  1,000%.

• 7:44Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. All right, TED Talk time.

• 7:46Speaker 04

  Let's go.

• 7:46Yasi Salek?

  Let's fucking go. Bristol, babe.

• 7:49Speaker 04

  Tell us about it.

• 7:50Yasi Salek?

  Well, until the Industrial Revolution, Bree, it was England's second city. Did you know that?

• 7:55Speaker 04

  I bet you didn't.

• 7:56Yasi Salek?

  I didn't. It was one of the most prominent slave trading ports in England. I think it was Bristol, Liverpool, Cardiff, maybe, in London? This is like between 1698 and 1807. That's right, we're talking about 1698 and the Massive Attack story.

• 8:13Speaker 04

  All the way back, yeah.

• 8:13Yasi Salek?

  Going all the way back. This is important, though. Besides the fact that this was obviously like a dark shadow that hung over the city, like shame, and a lot of the remnants of the wealth created by the slave traders and, you know, the racism of such hung like a specter over the city. But- That also increased the population of black people in Bristol, which was later increased even more after World War II in the late 1940s, when many West Indian people began to move to Bristol, to an area, it was because of, there was like labor shortages, so they reached back out to like, oh, come, oh, sorry. Sorry about all that stuff that we did and the colonizing and stuff,

• 8:57Yasi Salek?

  but we have jobs for you if you want to come now. So a lot of West Indian people moved to Bristol, primarily to an area called St. Paul's. A large portion of those West Indian people were Jamaican, also Barbadian. And these people had relatives not only back in Jamaica and Barbados, but also in America, in Harlem and New Jersey. So now we're just going to jump to hip hop. Yep. Was I on the Wikipedia page for hip hop during the research for this show? Yes. Did I question all my life choices? Was I like, am I fine? When I was firing up wikipedia.com, type in hip hop?

• 9:41Yasi Salek?

  Well, it's necessary to tell, you know, to paint this picture effectively. You are fine. You're doing great. I'm doing great. I did learn something. So, but in the late 1950s, the United States radio stations were playing a lot of R&B, like really like bumping R&B music. Definitely better and more varied R&B music than the BBC, which was what was syndicated in Jamaica, right? That's what the Jamaican Broadcasting Corporation had, was just the BBC. So they would pick up in Jamaica these American stations, like because it was close enough that they could get it. Total sidebar, but we also, there's also like a theory that ska music came from this because it would come in syncopated, because the signal wasn't strong.

• 10:26Yasi Salek?

  It's not been proven, but it makes a lot of sense. But anyways, that's not part of our story, really. But there were these American DJs, Jaco Henderson, Jockey Jack, people like that. And not only would they play these R and B records, they also had this like way of speaking that was, you know, it's like kind of early, early rap, this like cadence laden rhyme filled way of speaking. And this is like kind of the earliest roots of rap. And DJs are starting in Jamaica to set up these sound systems for outdoor parties. And this tradition of toasting begins, which if I'm not wrong, in a way mimicked the way those DJs would speak.

• 11:11Yasi Salek?

  And then also at the same time in New York, there's like all this spoken word poetry going on with people like The Last Poets and Gil Scott-Heron. So throughout, through all of this is sort of like the rich texture from which hip hop music emerges. And obviously also in Jamaica, there's, you know, the reggae is going strong. Jamaican DJs would remix all this recorded music to make new sounds. People like Duke Reid, King Tubby, they would like take vocals out of records, like all the, just creating new versions with what they had. This sort of like mix of,

• 11:50Yasi Salek?

  you know, I guess eclectic production styles based on need kind of created dub music, right? Um, I can't believe I'm, this is like, the way that I am like oversimplifying and dumb white girl speaking this right now. Apologies to everyone, including myself.

• 12:07Speaker 04

  You're doing great.

• 12:07Yasi Salek?

  Okay, now, now that we have a rough understanding of the history of slavery in Bristol and the history of hip hop, we can go to the history of the music scene in Bristol. This is all gonna make sense, I promise. Here's what Simon Reynolds, you know, the incredible British music journalist who's written extensively about um, dance and electronic music and trip hop in, um, in the UK, said about Bristol. He said, "Laid back verging on the supine. Bristol is Slackersville, UK, a town where cheap accommodation allows bohemia to ferment." He said they're lazy.

• 12:45Speaker 04

  Where's he from? Do you know?

• 12:47Yasi Salek?

  I don't know, actually. Probably not Bristol. Um, no, actually, I looked it up, he's not from Bristol. So before hip hop really hits, it's like about 81. There's like a lot of reggae bands, local reggae bands in Bristol. Obviously, you know, the West Indian people are living there, creating their own bands. Like, there's one called Talisman, um, one called Restriction that had Rob Smith of the group Smith and Mighty, who we're gonna get into later. Um, and there were like many Bristol-based sound systems who would like work these circuits of like black community centers, not just in Bristol, around Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Swindon, Reading, London. Can't wait for people to say, "You pronounced that wrong." And they would like swap back and forth.

• 13:30Yasi Salek?

  And then St. Paul's had this like big summer carnival. And then also Bristol's first punk band was called The Cortinas. They were founded in 1976 by Nick Shepherd and Jeremy Valentine, two 16-year-olds, um, who went to a Clash concert and started a band. Um, actually, Nick Shepherd, in a very cool, uh, turn of events, went on to be the last guitarist of the Clash from 83 to 86. So The Cortinas were a thing. Schoolmates of theirs started the pop group. Very important, very fucking seminal. In 1977, vocalist Mark Stewart, um, he lived on the same street as Nick Shepherd and went

• 14:13Yasi Salek?

  to school with Jeremy Valentine, John Waddington, Simon Underwood, and guitarist saxophonist Garret Sager and drummer Bruce Smith. And they were like really one of the earliest examples of blending all these styles of music, right? They were like super into reggae and funk and jazz, but also super into punk. And they created this like really fascinating style of music. Also, shout out to the queen and friend of the pod, Jeanette Lee, who put me in touch with her gorgeous husband, Garret Sager, of the pop group. So I got to talk to him about some of this stuff. But as he told me, he was like, "Yeah, punk was great." Because we were like, "Oh, you don't have to know how to do anything. We can just do this. We can just make this."

• 14:58Yasi Salek?

  Also, very interesting that low-key, like, the way they used like found sound and radio excerpts into their songs was like very much pre-Sage sampling in any way. And they were even earlier than like Brian Eno and David Byrne doing that on "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts." So I thought it was really cool. Not unrelated, but Mark Stewart was six foot six.

• 15:19Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 15:20Yasi Salek?

  Okay. Another person was six foot six. His name was Grantley Marshall.

• 15:25Speaker 04

  I was gonna ask, I was like, Daddy, because that fool is tall.

• 15:27Yasi Salek?

  Yes.

• 15:28Speaker 04

  So tall.

• 15:29Yasi Salek?

  Um. And they met pretty early on. Which I'll get into, but Grantley worked, his name, he goes, it's Grant Marshall, but according to Garret Sager, he's like, I call him Grantley because that's what I knew him by. And I was like, that's his government name. Um. He worked at the record store in town. Okay, but before I get there, there's a couple of other groups we should talk about in Bristol. Ripperick and Panic, which was the group that kind of formed out of like the wreckage of the pop group by Garret Sager and Bruce Smith and um piano player Mark Springer. And also vocalist Nana Cherry, who was a teenager. And I, I had to ask, I was like, how did Nana Cherry like get in the mix? This story.

• 16:12Yasi Salek?

  Garret Sager was like, well, I was dating um a woman named Viv Albertine. And I was like, oh, a woman named Viv Albertine? Of the Slits? You mean from the Slits? And Garret Sager, having great taste, loved this album called Codona that had Don Cherry, the jazz musician, playing on it. And he shared it with Viv and she became very into it, became very into Don Cherry. And because the Slits were signed to Virgin, they were like on a major. She basically convinced them to bring Don Cherry over to open for the Slits on tour. And he brought with him not only um Lou Reed's backing band.

• 16:48Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 16:49Yasi Salek?

  But also his 14 year old stepdaughter, Nana.

• 16:52Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 16:53Yasi Salek?

  And they, he was like, she just really had something special and we saw it and um they recruited her for the band.

• 17:01Speaker 04

  Crazy.

• 17:02Yasi Salek?

  So that's how we got Nana Cherry in the mix. And then there's one more band that was formed in 81 called Maximum Joy.

• 17:09Speaker 04

  So good.

• 17:09Yasi Salek?

  Um, so good. And this band had Tony Rafter, Janine Rainforth. Charlie Lewin, Dan Katsas, and importantly, for one year when he was 19 years old, Nelly Hooper. Legend. Absolute legend. And they were also influenced by jazz, reggae, funk, punk, soul, hip hop, like all this stuff. This is all kind of going on in Bristol, like fucking popping with these many influences. Also, just a side note, Maximum Joy's 1982 album, Station MXJY, was produced by Adrian Sherwood, who will be part of our story, but also obviously a legendary producer, who had been the Slits's touring sound guy.

• 17:54Yasi Salek?

  It's all red stringboard. So there were a lot of places that music, you know, took place in Bristol. House parties, community centers, blues clubs, and then this one place called The Dugout, which had started out as a jazz club. It was in the Clifton area. And basically what it ended up being was this incredible, it was like one of the only places to go. And it was just this complete mix of white people, of black people, of different genres of music. They had punk, they had reggae, they had soul, they had hippie music. Like it was all and everyone would go there because it was the place to go.

• 18:39Yasi Salek?

  And this was like very important in yielding what is going to be the scene from which Massive Attack is born. But first, we have to start with the wild bunch. Of course. You already knew, babe. Of course. 1979. All right, in 1979, our friend Grantley Evan Marshall, aka soon to be known as Daddy G, who was born December 18th, 1959. Sagittarius. Sagittarius. Like me. His parents are from Barbados. They were like really known for their massive collection of Jamaican reggae records. All his dad's friends were DJs. They would put on these Sunday parties. So he like really grew up in such like a rich culture of knowing about like deep reggae music.

• 19:24Yasi Salek?

  He got a job working at Revolver Records, which was like the Bristol record store for music discovery in Coolshit Bristol. Although according to Gareth Sager, it was randomly in the white part of town, even though that was the place he would go to get the reggae seven inches. And then he would also, he was friends with the owner of The Dugout, whose name was Brian?

• 19:46Yasi Salek?

  Not that it matters, but I think his name was Brian. And so he started also DJing at the dugout. He was friends with another guy from a Jamaican family called Miles Johnson, who went by the name DJ Milo. And they start DJing together under the name The Wild Bunch. They were really into film, and this is obviously named after the 1969 Sam Peckinpah film. So at this point, Grant's like 20 years old. And through the record store, he meets a guy called Paul Nelly Hooper. He was like maybe 19 at the time. And he introduces Nelly to Miles. The three of them kind of started doing stuff together.

• 20:28Yasi Salek?

  Also, Nelly and Miles were in a punk and new wave band called Roomba Lament. It's great. It's just incredible. So good. Miles was playing drums. But then Miles went to jail, briefly. I don't know why. Unclear, unclear why, what he did to get in there. But while he was there, he listened to a lot of John Peel. And that's where you first heard Planet Rock by Afrika Bambaataa. And during that time while he was in jail, Nelly was playing in Maximum Joy. Okay, a quick sidebar. 1980, St. Paul's riots. These are important to our story. So these riots took place on April 2nd, 1980. There was a real atmosphere of racial unrest.

• 21:09Yasi Salek?

  Because if you couldn't believe it, the police were hassling black people. That's so crazy. Is that not insane that that would happen? So crazy. I can't even wrap my mind around that. Yeah, so it was awful. And people were getting fucking fed up with it, as well they should. And finally, they just exploded and had this like standoff with the police because they were sick of their bullshit. And... Their bullshit, by the way, being specifically that they were using these things called sus laws, which were, uh, stop and search laws, that they could just stop and search anyone they found to be suspected, which obviously was always young black men. And the broader result of this riot, which was like a pretty fucking big deal.

• 21:54Yasi Salek?

  It was like 130 people were arrested, 25 people went to the hospital, was that the police backed off.

• 21:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, kind of actually worked.

• 22:01Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, they, they kind of actually worked. And the byproduct of the police backing off was that things like illegal street parties and sound systems were sort of allowed to go on without police intervention, which wasn't really happening in other parts of the UK. So this sort of was able to like thrive. And it's under this sort of landscape that the Wild Bunch, and there's a bunch of other big Bristol DJ crews, like the FBI crew, City Rockers, and there's one called Too Bad, which Dom T was a part of, which Dom T later, uh, produces Bjork and also introduces Bjork to Nelly Hooper. They're, they're really able to thrive under this. Now it's 1982, the year of my birth.

• 22:41Speaker 04

  Happy birthday.

• 22:42Yasi Salek?

  Thank you so much. I'm born, and a young 17, handsome young 17-year-old boy, who loves The Clash, is hanging around the record stop by an electronic 12 inches. His name was Robert Del Naya, AKA 3D. Born January 21st, 1965. An Aquarius, makes total sense. Are Aquarius or aliens? In the best way possible.

• 23:07Speaker 04

  They have another Aquarius in the story too, don't they?

• 23:09Yasi Salek?

  Yep.

• 23:10Speaker 04

  Alien.

• 23:11Yasi Salek?

  Alien, yeah. So Robert was born to an English mother, Anne Rosemary Peters, and an Italian father, like, straight from Naples, Franco Del Naya. His mom was really into music and she actually listened to a ton of Roxy music, Moody Blues and Beatles while he was growing up. The Roxy music thing makes a lot of sense, because that's like weird shit for a kid to grow up listening to. He was really artsy, super into comic books and drawing, gets really into punk as a teenager, goes to his first ever concert at 14, it was Stiff Little Fingers at the Colston Hall. They were touring their album, Inflammable Material, which, if you've seen the cover, you'll understand the impact. Robert said, "That had a big impact on me. I was 14. I fell in love with that album. It's such a powerful record.

• 23:56Yasi Salek?

  The sleeve always stood out." Amongst all my punk records, nothing was quite as graphic as that, as simple. This is from his book, 3D and the Art of Massive Attack, which I do not have because it costs 1,000 American dollars on eBay.

• 24:11Speaker 04

  Psychotic.

• 24:12Yasi Salek?

  And I was unable to procure the funds to purchase it. So he uses this punk kid in his entryways, The Clash, but obviously The Clash and punk in general have a huge reggae crossover, particularly in England. You know, with The Clash putting reggae in their music, The Slits, Don Letts, Public Image Limited, who actually Robert loved their second album, Metal Box. At some point, I'm gonna switch to calling him 3D, but-

• 24:34Speaker 04

  I was literally just thinking, like, how are we, it's so hard to like-

• 24:37Yasi Salek?

  I feel like right now, he's still Robert, cuz he's like a teenager, you know, like-

• 24:40Speaker 04

  I've also, though, heard, I was reading Tricky's book, and there's other people who I'm sure we'll talk more about later, referred to him as-

• 24:46Yasi Salek?

  Delge.

• 24:47Speaker 04

  Which I, that's my favorite one. So I keep wanting to say Delge, but-

• 24:51Yasi Salek?

  I think if he's listening, so I'm sure he's not-

• 24:53Speaker 04

  What's up, Delge?

• 24:54Yasi Salek?

  He would respond to all three.

• 24:56Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 24:57Yasi Salek?

  So yeah, so by 1981, Robert "3D" Delge has been awakened to rap and funk via, you know, songs like Radio Clash and The Magnificent Seven. And in 82, he's introduced to the graffiti artist Futura via The Clash song "Overpowered by Funk" because Futura does vocals on that. And I think it was around this time that he starts doing graffiti around town, under the moniker 3D. Robert said, "3D." "There are a lot of white boys like me who are introduced into the reggae scene through the crossover with punk. And when it exploded, hip-hop had a similar feeling to punk and new wave, the feeling of being part of a gang." He also said this. "The Pistols said the subculture of punk was dead after six months, and it had become a uniform.

• 25:39Yasi Salek?

  But the uniform was important, as it separated me from the parts of society that didn't really understand. Hip-hop came and merged with that and took over. The idea of the sound system was around as well. Build your event, your own show. That was the same kind of attitude. None of us had money, or were musicians, or had instruments. So we couldn't put on concerts, but we could put on sound systems and get some booze and lights and put on events in a very DIY fashion." It makes sense, right? Like punk and hip hop were sort of offering similar things. Like, they were at their heart political. They were offering a way forward where you didn't, you could be anti-establishment. You didn't have to be an expert. So anyways, 3D is at the record store one day and he sees a poster for The Wild Bunch behind the counter.

• 26:24Yasi Salek?

  And he asks Grant, "Who's The Wild Bunch?" And apparently, Grant was like, "I am The Wild Bunch."

• 26:31Speaker 04

  Great response.

• 26:32Yasi Salek?

  Great response. Right around this time, Miles gets out of jail. He's out of the huskow. And this is sort of when the more robust version of The Wild Bunch comes to be. It's Grant, it's Miles, 3D is involved, Nelly is involved, a guy called Claude Williams, AKA MC Willie Wee.

• 26:52Speaker 04

  Another great name.

• 26:53Yasi Salek?

  Such a great name. Who Miles knew from school, but also Garrett Sager was really good friends with from school. And I brought up Mark Stewart being 6'6" and Grant being 6'6" because they would hang out too. They met through the record store. And Grant got really into, that's how Grant entered into like punk music, is that he would always hang out with Mark Stewart and the pop group. So he was exposed to all this stuff and he was quite young.

• 27:18Speaker 04

  It's really crazy how young everyone is in this story. It's like, yeah, it's wild, it's cool. Well, music is for young people.

• 27:27Yasi Salek?

  Talking about music at five-hour lengths is for old people like myself.

• 27:30Speaker 04

  Got it.

• 27:33Speaker 04

  Happy to be here.

• 27:34Yasi Salek?

  You're somewhere in between.

• 27:37Yasi Salek?

  Apparently, 3D was initially just brought into the crew to do their flyers because he was obviously this great artist. But then, you know, he starts rapping and getting into that. And they would do every Wednesday night at the dugout. Nelly Hooper and Miles Johnson were the ones that were like doing mostly like DJing and scratching. Grant did some DJing, but it was also like the MC like toast style. And then 3D and Willie Wee would rap live. If you listen to those early versions of 3D rapping, it's very much Sugar Hill Gang. You know, it's very much like OG beginnings of hip hop. It's nothing like what you hear once Massive Attack starts.

• 28:22Yasi Salek?

  So what 3D said is, I think what made it different with The Wild Bunch was that we played everything from public image, the Pistols and the Clash, to funk and soul, dub reggae and early hip-hop, and we got a mixed crowd of people at our jams.

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• 29:38Yasi Salek?

  In 1983, a film called Wild Style came out. Have you seen the film Wild Style? I have not. It's really cool. It is ostensibly a fictional story, but it features like a bunch of like the big characters of graffiti and hip-hop at the time. Like Fat Five Freddy's in it, Lady Pink, the Rocksteady Crew, the Cold Crush Brothers, Grandmaster Flash. But it follows, Lee Kianos I think is the name of the actor that plays the main guy. But it's about this like young graffiti artist and then this like... Interviewer blonde lady who comes to town to like talk to her and the blondie did some music for it. It's like a real like amazing snapshot of New York in 1982, 83.

• 30:19Yasi Salek?

  And that made its way to Bristol, you know, so they're like, oh, now we have even more fuel to the fire of like hip hop is cool. Graffiti is cool. Um, Miles said, although hip hop was American and we were British, there was never that sense of not understanding it. We were West Indians dealing with reggae and they were dealing with soul and everyone had the same struggles, the same search for enjoyment. As to cutting up and stuff, I mean, we didn't even know until Wild Style. And then it was like, we got to get those turntables. We weren't the first in England, though we were pretty early. We did a little dub plate recording. Okay, you guys pause. A dub plate is an acetate disc. I had to look this up. I didn't know because I'm a dork.

• 30:57Yasi Salek?

  Basically like used by studios to test recordings prior to mastering. And in this world, people would use it as like a way to play out their own original tracks without. Like you can only play it 40 to 50 times and it was like disintegrate.

• 31:11Speaker 04

  But it was like a, an affordable or like accessible way to get your music pressed, I think.

• 31:15Yasi Salek?

  Exactly. And, and, and they weren't selling it. They just wanted it to be able to play at their own, you know, sound systems or DJ sets or whatever. In 85, the first graffiti exhibition in the UK takes place. At the Arno Fleeny Gallery in Bristol and 3D is at the center. 3D is basically the first graffiti writer in Bristol and also the biggest. So he has his art show with his mates, the Z-Boys, Fade, Jaffa and the London Artist's Pride. There's a huge opening party, the Wild Bunch Sound System does the music. Mark Stewart is there. He brings his roommate, Adrian Nicholas Matthews. Is it Thaws?

• 31:50Speaker 04

  Great question. I think it's, I've been saying Thaws, yeah.

• 31:54Yasi Salek?

  Soon to be known as Tricky.

• 31:58Yasi Salek?

  Rob Smith and Ray Mighty and a 15 year old lad named Jeff Barrow. Who came on the bus from the nearby town, Portishead.

• 32:08Yasi Salek?

  Also graffiti artist called Goldie from Birmingham, who had met Nellie Hooper at a party and who brought with him two other graffiti artists from the Bronx, from a collective called Tats Crew, named, I think it's Bio and Brim. So Robert and Goldie become, 3D and Goldie become best graffiti friends, BGFF, and they start getting up all over town together. Just to contextualize for a second how important 3D was in the history of graffiti art and art in the UK in general. In 2006, the magazine Swindle, you guys don't remember the magazine Swindle, but it was a different time. There was this quote, and here's the quote.

• 32:50Yasi Salek?

  "When I was about 10 years old, a kid called 3D was painting the streets hard. He was the first to bring spray painting to Bristol. I grew up seeing spray paint on the streets way before I ever saw it in a magazine or on a computer. 3D quit painting and formed the band Massive Attack, which may have been good for him, but it was a big loss for the city." This quote is from a guy called Binksy. We will later get into the conspiracy theory that Binksy and 3D are the same person, which I think has been completely debunked by now, but it was probably fun while it lasted. Yeah. All right. And also, the same year of this graffiti exhibition, The Wild Bunch kind of gains a new member. He's a bit of an apprentice, named Andrew Lee Isaac Vowles, AKA Mushroom, born November

• 33:34Yasi Salek?

  10th, 1967, the baby of The Bunch. Scorpio? Birthday coming up. That would be Scorpio. Yeah, that makes so much sense that he's a Scorpio, the most sense. When we get into Mushroom, like truly one of the most fascinating characters of this story. Really is. Really a lot under the surface that we don't know about. He was mixed race. He was born to a Dominican father, New Yorker, American, and an English mother. And he grew up in the Fishponds area of Bristol. When he was 15, he met Grant at Revolver, and he was super into hip-hop. He said, "I first heard hip-hop from this guy's car outside the school, and I checked it out right away." Can you imagine? Like, what a time. Like, you just hear music coming out of a car that you've never heard before, and you're like, what is that? Take me back, honestly.

• 34:18Yasi Salek?

  I don't even, we were not even around. Can you imagine? Just the idea of like- Radiohead, first time you heard Karma Police. Anyways.

• 34:26Yasi Salek?

  So he starts trying to mix right away. And he said kind of a similar thing to Miles Johnson. For me, the Americanness of hip hop was no problem. As soon as I left school and went straight to America, I said, I've got to go where this is going on. And my dad's a New Yorker, even though I've never really seen him. So he went to New York right away and kind of like got into it. But he would go to the dugout all the time. Grant knew the, um, door guy, his name was, I think Mad Max? I'm just saying that if there's any-

• 34:51Speaker 04

  How'd you find the door guy's name?

• 34:52Yasi Salek?

  Gareth Sager, babe. I'm just saying it for any heads, any Bristolian heads that used to go to the dugout. Mad Max would let in 15-year-old mushroom into the dugout. Um, and the way he got his nickname was they would all hang out at this place called Special K's, Costas Cafe. Um, and he would spend hours playing a video game called Centipede, in which the avatars would fight mushroom-shaped monsters.

• 35:16Speaker 04

  Incredible.

• 35:17Yasi Salek?

  I know. So 3D said this about what's basically going on at this time. "New York, like Kingston, Jamaica before it, began to shape and influence the subculture of Bristol and London. Before then, British youth culture in the eighties had been tribal and divided. Hip hop changed that. It broke down class and race divisions in a way punk and the ska movement had tried but failed to do. The Wild Munch spent three years putting on warehouse parties and underground jams, using graffiti art to spread the word. The parties attracted a cross-section of the young population, middle class and working class, black and white." And that's what Gareth Sager said also about the dugout. He was like, it was so special and so just something you wouldn't find anywhere else, where it was so mixed.

• 36:01Yasi Salek?

  And it was, you know, partly because of the racial landscape of Bristol, but partly also because there was nowhere else to go. So like, if you were young and into subculture, you were at the dugout, whether you were a punk, like, skinhead, oi punk, whatever, hippie, um, as Gareth called them, pimps who were into soul music. Like, it was, everyone was just there, like, vibing together. And probably fighting as well, who knows?

• 36:23Speaker 04

  Um, seems like there was a lot of fighting going on.

• 36:26Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 36:26Speaker 04

  Well-

• 36:27Yasi Salek?

  I'm sure we'll get some of it.

• 36:28Speaker 04

  You know.

• 36:29Yasi Salek?

  So it's around this time they made a name for themselves in Bristol. They're like, you know, they're known. They're like, I saw someone say like, they were like the coolest guys in Bristol, like- They start trying their hand at making their own music. And they make this track called "Tearing Down the Avenue." 3D said, "So starting to make our own music. In those days, it was so different. The scene was run by an indie crowd, which was very new wave, alternative rock, like four blokes with guitars. The dance thing hadn't developed in terms of being able to turn music over quickly like you can now. So it was a case of Nelly and Miles and G knowing people who had studios and getting in there and applying the logic of being a DJ, making music out of bits of other people's music and putting lyrics over the mic in a rap or reggae way. Quite naive and almost a copycat way, same as any band would start.

• 37:14Yasi Salek?

  With every new rap record that came out, it was, "Have you heard that new rap record?" And everyone would say, "Oh, yeah, I'm gonna rap like that." I thought that was interesting. It's like, making music for them was just doing what they were doing live already. They were already creating these new sonic landscapes with bits and pieces of beats from one song, 3D rapping, Willie Wee rapping. Like, they just took that exact same thing and recorded it. I wanted to point that also, like, what's kind of going on simultaneously, that's, I think, sort of related for our purposes, is that in Manchester, the Happy Mondays are forming.

• 37:58Yasi Salek?

  And this is around like, '82, '83. And, you know, they kind of start putting music into the world in like, I want to say like, '84. And it's not till like, '88 that the hacienda, that dance music scene is thriving. But it is, I just thought it was interesting that like, very different because the Manchester, Manchester scene wasn't really rooted in hip-hop as much as it was rooted in, I don't know, psych, funk, just dance, weird stuff. But there is like, something kind of brewing with like, electronic music throughout England. All right, now it's 1986. Re-enter Nana Cherry, she's back, babe.

• 38:42Yasi Salek?

  Were you ever in Nana Cherry? Had, did you ever get into her?

• 38:45Speaker 04

  I haven't dove deep.

• 38:47Yasi Salek?

  So good.

• 38:47Speaker 04

  I think I should. I started to on this journey, but yeah.

• 38:50Yasi Salek?

  I think you would really like it.

• 38:51Speaker 04

  I think so, too.

• 38:51Yasi Salek?

  Oh my god, raw leg sushi is so good.

• 38:53Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 38:54Yasi Salek?

  Bruce Smith and all these guys that she was in Rip, Rig and Panic with are friends with The Wild Bunch. And actually, this was Gerasager specifically, he told me. She had asked them, she and her, she had this boyfriend named Cameron McVeigh. They were looking for, they were like, do you know any hot guys? Basically, like, because they were working with The Face. And they were trying to like, book models, basically. And Gerasager was like, I do know some really hot guys. They're in The Wild Bunch. Particularly Miles Johnson, who's by all accounts, like, not just gorgeous, but really stylish and kind of like, set the tone for all of them. Like, he was like, really like, cutting edge. So Gerasager puts them in touch.

• 39:36Yasi Salek?

  She gets them to do some modeling or whatever, but then she also gets them to go over to Tokyo in the spring of eighty-six to do like, some parties, The Face set up, some events. This is like, kind of, a breaking situation for The Wild Bunch in a weird way. Because there's not a lot going on, they're broke as hell. Like, they, they are just kind of like, floating between frozen pizza and like, one event to the next thing. Three D in particular is like, suffering. He is sick, sad, suffering, you know? He is not doing well. He misses his girlfriend, he's broke, he's hungry, and one day, he just leaves.

• 40:17Yasi Salek?

  Would you like, real respect? I get it.

• 40:20Speaker 04

  It's so funny, because I had read or heard that story in an interview, I don't remember which other member it was, but they wouldn't say who it was that did this. And I thought maybe it was Mushroom, just because of how he seemed to have...

• 40:31Yasi Salek?

  It does fit more in with his...

• 40:33Speaker 04

  Exactly, just based on their dynamic throughout the rest of his time in the band. But, so it wasn't until I saw the Google Doc, so maybe it was in one of the books that you read or something, where he was outed as the one that ditched.

• 40:43Yasi Salek?

  Well, okay, so in this book, Straight Outta Bristol, which is behind me.

• 40:48Speaker 04

  Somewhere.

• 40:49Yasi Salek?

  Okay, by Phil Johnson, one of the best, uh, references for this. Because, why? Because it was written in nineteen ninety-six, so very fresh. It's out of print, and they just say Wild Gen in it, because they were still young, and it was still very like, in the midst of it. So Miles is interviewed. By this, Miles Johnson, and he says, anyways, 3D left and they kicked him out of Wild Bunch.

• 41:14Yasi Salek?

  Miles said, 3D? I don't like talking about that guy. I should have known about him. I liked him up to a certain time, but after he left us and came back from Japan, I thought, why'd he do it? We fell out and I didn't speak to him when he was still in the crew. Everybody kept at me to speak to him, and I did, but I shouldn't have. He's a big part of what happened. As far as I was concerned, me and Nelly and G were the Wild Bunch. Willie and 3D were just there emceeing. They were good, and 3D is a talented writer. So whatever, he was not happy about it. So, yes, they kicked 3D out. The other Wild Bunch members, the Wild Bunch stay in Japan for another month, come back, and then Nelly and Miles kind of moved to London. Just like, dude, shit's popping, right? They're doing Wild Bunch shit there. Grant didn't want to leave Bristol. He's like, okay, well, you guys have a good time, I'm staying here.

• 41:59Yasi Salek?

  And 3D wasn't in the band. And I really don't know what Willie or Mushroom were up to, it didn't come up. 3D is working at the BBC canteen to pay his dad back for the money he borrowed to go to Japan, and doing a bunch of graffiti. He joins this crew called the Transatlantic Federation with Goldie, Brim and Bio from Tats Crew, and like, all these other artists, BG183, Nicer, How, Knowsome. I say this for my graffiti heads. Bree, I don't think I can stress how much it's insane to me that like, the things that shaped my youth are just like, it's here. Like, I grew up going to high school where the coolest guys were, now I think about it, it's embarrassing. I think it's graffiti became so co-opted by the mainstream that it became embarrassing. But like, they were called the Jedi Knights.

• 42:42Yasi Salek?

  At South Torrance High, they were the hottest, coolest guys. They were always getting up with their like, paint pens and stuff. I thought it was the coolest thing ever.

• 42:50Speaker 04

  I mean, I was right there with you. You know, I thought that shit was so cool, too.

• 42:53Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. And you know what it kind of was, until like, everything is ruined by capitalism. So towards the end of 86, now The Wild Bunch is in London getting a lot of attention. They have their demo for "Tearing Down the Avenue" and they get label interest. Also, Nelly Hooper started talking to a guy called Jazzy B, who was about to form a little group called Soul to Soul, but we'll get to that later. They get label interest from a label called Fourth and Broadway, which was linked to Island. And they're like, "Cool, do you have more music?" And they're like, "We don't have a vocalist." And they go, "Hi, 3D. I'm so sorry, remember us? Can you come back now?" And he was like, "Okay." So Nelly and Miles get signed to Island Records as The Wild Bunch, just the two of them in 87.

• 43:36Yasi Salek?

  According to Miles, and I couldn't fact check this, they were the first British rap group to sign to a major. Sounds right. And so now Grant Lee and 3D are back in the crew. They record a final version of "Tearing Down the Avenue." More importantly for the B-side, they do a cover of "The Look of Love," a song originally composed by Burke Beckerak and written by Hal David for Dusty Springfield, which was in the 1967 Bond film Casino Royale. Miles chose this song, and he's also the one that kind of chose to like really slow down the rhythm, kind of velvet undergrounded this entire Bristol scene, I feel like, with this one song. He's like patient zero. So when we say who invented trip hop, like was it Miles Johnson, maybe? You know?

• 44:27Yasi Salek?

  That song is cool.

• 44:28Speaker 04

  It's really cool.

• 44:29Yasi Salek?

  And who is the vocalist on it? Sharon Nelson.

• 44:32Speaker 04

  Of course.

• 44:33Yasi Salek?

  Of course. That is their first, uh, their first working with Sharon Nelson, who had come to them through Adrian Sherwood. It just, I can't stress how much, to me, this feels like the DNA of what is going to become the Bristol sound, which we'll get into with the Tricky and the Portishead and obviously the Mass Attack of it all.

• 44:51Speaker 04

  The predecessor.

• 44:52Yasi Salek?

  Totally, because like, he did this, and then of course, Nelly took his version and applied it to Soul to Soul, and the remaining three, you know, of the Wild Bunch, became Massive Attack and kind of applied that, but it's like, this is really where it started.

• 45:06Speaker 04

  I agree.

• 45:07Yasi Salek?

  Daddy G said that The Look of Love wasn't accepted because it was too far ahead of its time, and what they called it, which I loved, was Lover's Hip Hop. As opposed to Lover's Rock, this was Lover's Hip Hop.

• 45:16Speaker 04

  That's cute.

• 45:17Yasi Salek?

  We could be saying Lover's Hip Hop instead of Trip Hop right now.

• 45:20Speaker 04

  Let's just start it, let's bring it back.

• 45:21Yasi Salek?

  Right here, we're doing it. So this came out as a single, but like Daddy G said, like, nobody really cared. Meanwhile, same year in Bristol, Smith and Mighty have started, Rob Smith and Ray Mighty, and there's another single called Stranger Than Love, that Mark Stewart did, the guy from the pop group, that also, coincidentally, at the same time, not coincidentally actually, because he was inspired by The Look of Love, he took a version of Eric Satie's Gymnopédie, number one, that Smith and Mighty had done, obviously slowed down, you know, blissed out, and not that that song is already not blissed out, it's slowed down, and he added his own vocal with lyrics, and a melody line that he took, um, from the song Somewhere, from West Side Story,

• 46:07Yasi Salek?

  and made his own song, and he gave Smith and Mighty like 500 pounds, and it's, it's really like a primitive drum machine, like, eerie vocal song.

• 46:24Yasi Salek?

  Alright, so it's 88, The Wild Bunch release one more single with a couple of tracks on it, Friends and Countrymen, Machine Gun Down by Law. I think they put back The Look of Love on it, again, it doesn't really go anywhere. Nelly Hooper moves to London for good, he's like, on his Soul to Soul journey, thank god, because that album, Club Classics number one, is really fucking amazing. Miles Johnson moves to Japan. Um, he gets married, he's working as a DJ there, um, doing, working with this hip hop crew, I want to say, I didn't write it down, but I want to say they're called Powerforce, if I'm wrong, I'm so sorry. And he eventually moved to New York and ran like a vintage clothing import business from Tokyo there, which is very fucking cool and ahead of its time also. And Smith and Mighty have this label called Three Stripe, which is what their crew is

• 47:08Yasi Salek?

  called, and they release a sort of like remix, reimagining of Walk On By by Dionne Warwick. And they're actually the kind of the first ones to get attention. Like, they have a whole face profile in 1988. And I think what happened is actually they got tied up in like weird litigation and couldn't release their album until later. But in another alternate timeline, they might have been the first trip up. You know, you just never know. But the first trip up, release of all time, is Massive Attack. Whether they want that title or not, and they certainly do not. It feels like they've come around to it. I'm sure, I think so, I think that's true. Okay, so now, it's three, it's just 3D, Mushroom and Daddy G. Once again, I don't know where Willie is. Willie Wee? He's not here.

• 47:52Yasi Salek?

  He is here, he is on the album, but he's not part of Massive Attack in that way. So they kind of form into a collective-ish because Cameron McVeigh, who is now married to Nana Cherry, really encourages them, and so does Nana Cherry. Mushroom was DJing for Nana Cherry. Cameron had asked 3D and Mushroom to work on the album she was working on, Raw Like Sushi, and 3D co-wrote the song Man Child, which was a big hit. And Mushroom does, I think, DJ performance on Kisses on the Wind, The Next Generation, and So Here I Come. So the big track off Raw Like Sushi was Buffalo Stance, that was their whole thing with Buffalo. And there's a lyric from it, "Looking good, hanging with the wild bunch. Looking good in a Buffalo stance."

• 48:36Yasi Salek?

  A little name check, yeah.

• 48:45Yasi Salek?

  The name Massive Attack apparently came from the guy from Tatscru Brim, who used to call them a real underground massive attack. Although, I saw a lot of different stories. Massive was a very common phrase back then. Miles Johnson said that he came up with it, and it was just like, they would call it an underground massive, but he wanted it to have the, an A at the end, so it would be like, um, Tuma. The underground massive attack, so we added attack.

• 49:13Speaker 04

  Oh, I see.

• 49:14Yasi Salek?

  Regardless, they get, they start to call themselves massive attack. And Daddy G gets to gather this track called Any Love, which is the cover of a song by Rufus and Shaka Khan. And he gets this young singer called Carlton to sing it, and Smith and Mighty produce and release it. And this is technically the first massive attack release. It's a good song.

• 49:38Speaker 04

  It's a great song.

• 49:39Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 49:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 49:40Yasi Salek?

  You, it's, it's definitely like more Daddy G-ish, because he was sort of the architect behind it.

• 49:55Yasi Salek?

  Also around this time, 3D is spending a lot of time with Tricky, who, born January 27th, 1968, another Aquarius. He's 20 at the time, he's quite young. Here's what 3D said about him. "The earliest memory of Trick I've got, I remember meeting him and we did this jam on Trinity. And I was on the mic doing this live version of Tearing Down the Avenue, and there was Tricky at the front, giving it, yes. He was working with the Fresh Four, and we kept him a bit of a relationship. And no matter what Tricky says about being the best songwriter in the world and a genius, I can remember that his lyrics were basically, even on blue lines, "I'm a tricky kid, I did this, I do that, I'm a tricky kid." And I was saying, no, why don't we do something a bit different? Get a bit more out there, a bit more abstract, start using different words.

• 50:38Yasi Salek?

  I'm not saying it was me, me, me, but I was saying, let's use the quiet voices. The whispered rap was something I was really into."

• 50:47Speaker 04

  Already beefing out the gate.

• 50:49Yasi Salek?

  Already beefing out the gate, but you know what? I love it.

• 50:54Speaker 04

  People don't beef like they used to.

• 50:55Yasi Salek?

  People don't.

• 50:56Speaker 04

  Really gotta bring it back.

• 50:57Yasi Salek?

  People don't drag people publicly, like through years and multiple publications like they used to. And I think you should bring it back.

• 51:05Speaker 04

  I'll work on that.

• 51:05Yasi Salek?

  You did so much press, why didn't you throw shots at anyone?

• 51:09Speaker 04

  Coward, I guess.

• 51:11Yasi Salek?

  You gotta, you gotta be the change you wanna see in the world.

• 51:16Speaker 04

  Twenty twenty six will be my year.

• 51:18Yasi Salek?

  I wanna stress that, from what I can understand, Massive Attack did not set out to be a band. They weren't like, it's me and my mates against the world, like, they were just kind of doing what they were doing with the DJ crew. And it, because they made this album, which we're about to talk about, it solidified them into a band. But they weren't really, and they didn't feel comfortable in that amalgamation. There's a reason that they have so many collaborators. It's a collective, that's kind of what they always were and what they always wanted to be. But once you have a hit album, which, Blue Lines.

• 52:00Yasi Salek?

  Well, I don't know if it was a hit album, but it was an important album, you're kind of stuck. Nineteen ninety, Nana Cherry, she's very successful, Roll Like Sushi did really well. She's like, can you guys just fucking make some go- what are you doing? And she like lets them record in her house. Daddy G said, we were lazy Bristol twats, sorry, we were lazy Bristol twats. I've been told by the Brits that they say twat. It was Nana Cherry who kicked our asses and got us in the studio. We recorded a lot at her house, in her baby's room. It stank for months and eventually we found a dirty nappy behind a radiator. I was still DJing, but what we were trying to do was create dance music for the head rather than the feet. I think it's our freshest album, we were at our strongest then. This is a quote from two thousand nine.

• 52:46Yasi Salek?

  They write, great quote.

• 52:49Yasi Salek?

  The nappy?

• 52:52Yasi Salek?

  They write in demo a bunch at Nelly, uh, no, sorry, at Nana Cherry and Cameron McVeigh's house with the baby.

• 52:58Speaker 04

  He was managing, uh, did you already mention this?

• 53:00Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, and then he's manag- I didn't mention that, you're right, he's, he's managing them. Um, he brings in a guy called Johnny Dollar, um, to help them do like programming and production.

• 53:12Speaker 04

  So many good, there's no shortage of great names in this story.

• 53:14Yasi Salek?

  I realized that Massive Attack actually gave him that nickname, and I should say his real name, I'm sorry I don't have it, but, um.

• 53:21Speaker 04

  Dollar's better, whatever it is.

• 53:22Yasi Salek?

  They're in Coach House Studio where.

• 53:26Yasi Salek?

  A young tape operator was working.

• 53:30Yasi Salek?

  Named Jeff Barrow from Portishead.

• 53:32Speaker 04

  Can't lose the guy.

• 53:33Yasi Salek?

  Can't lose the guy, babe. Well, he's gotta be inspired somehow.

• 53:37Yasi Salek?

  And they take a whole ass long time and finally make Blue Lines. Comes out in 1991. Let's talk about Blue Lines.

• 53:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 53:48Yasi Salek?

  It's so good. I know that's not a groundbreaking statement. I just, especially now, I don't think I'd ever sat and like listened to the entire discography of Massive Attack with this like discerning like, you know, eye and kind of doing a comparison. But now I'm just like, wow, Blue Lines is like so special. Because of what we talked about, right? All those inputs. Like what, what, for you, what is like, what's so magical about Blue Lines?

• 54:16Speaker 04

  There's so many things. And again, it's like I hadn't, I mean, of course, I've, this record's been with me for half, more than half of my life, but I hadn't really sat and I don't really think about why things resonate with me typically. It's just like it does or it doesn't. I don't really kind of like get super analytical about why, but through, you know, watching all these interviews and like really sitting down and listening and thinking about it, I feel like there's so many things about it that make it so like special and incredible and insane that it was their first record. Not only it's like their debut record, but also they're inadvertently, like we talked about, creating a whole new genre. They're like blending together, not just music styles, but cultures, you know, like the band is very mixed. So, and everybody's bringing their unique

• 55:01Speaker 04

  perspectives and, and styles. And that's what makes it so cool and special and like the DIY of it all, you know? And it's also just so impressive that they made a record like this the time that they did, you know, which we maybe kind of talked about, but. While sampling, you know, that being introduced to music was an equalizer, right? Because you could make music without maybe being a great guitarist or singer or whatever.

• 55:28Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 55:29Speaker 04

  It still is not easy, like it was especially to for us now, you can make that, you can make a record on your phone. You know, so it's like hard to remember that.

• 55:36Yasi Salek?

  They didn't have any of the technology that we currently have.

• 55:40Speaker 04

  They were very lucky to have those connections like through, I think, Nelly Hooper and then through Nana Cherry, where they were able to use their equipment to make this stuff. But the fact that they made this record, that it was their first, I mean, it's just like, they just struck the perfect chord at the perfect time, you know?

• 55:56Yasi Salek?

  I think what is so special about Massive Attack's Blue Lines to me now, kind of having looked into all this research is I can, I can feel the like youth and hopefulness in it, right? It's a very warm record. It's a very like joyful record. It is a record of like a bunch of like early twenties, people who have discovered these incredibly life-changing genres of music, hip hop, punk, and then like brought to the table, reggae dub, all this stuff. And, and the like, the magic that you could now make something from it of your own.

• 56:38Yasi Salek?

  I feel like that's like a real through line that I feel throughout this album, which does start to dissipate in Massive Attack albums over time, which is of course normal. And like, the older you get, the more disillusioned you get. And also time changes, like nineteen ninety-one was like, what a time. And then you get like towards the end of the century and you're like, wow, KMS, you know?

• 57:01Speaker 04

  It's very pure.

• 57:03Yasi Salek?

  It's very pure.

• 57:03Speaker 04

  They made it a very pure, exciting time, you know?

• 57:07Yasi Salek?

  It's a real like, put on this album on a beautiful day and walk, you know? And just like, it not, and it's not simple or stupid or, you know, there's a lot of like thought provoking stuff in it. And I think they touch on some important themes. But overall, like, it's just this, I keep going back to the words, just this like warm album. Okay, this I found fascinating because again, as you know, when I talk about things like BPM, I am doing theater.

• 57:36Speaker 04

  Right.

• 57:37Yasi Salek?

  Because I don't know what that is. However, even I, an idiot, know the difference between a big number and a small number.

• 57:43Speaker 04

  Right, that's good.

• 57:44Yasi Salek?

  Yes. She's killing it. And Simon Reynolds pointed out in his book, Energy Flash, from 1998, "The songs on blue lines run at spliff tempos, from a mellow, moonwalking 90 beats per minute, which is exactly midway between reggae and hip-hop." I love, I'm like, that's so cool.

• 58:05Speaker 04

  I hadn't heard of that term either, it is really cool.

• 58:07Yasi Salek?

  And that it's not, like, a lot of the songs are, the BPM is the exact midpoint between reggae and hip-hop, so cool, and then down to a positively torpid 67 BPM. Which I think, like, if you contrast it, and you'll know because you know how to make music and you're smarter than me.

• 58:21Speaker 04

  Well.

• 58:22Yasi Salek?

  You at least know what a BPM is.

• 58:24Speaker 04

  Barely.

• 58:25Yasi Salek?

  I think when, when we got to, like, acid house and rave music, that was getting up to like 140, right?

• 58:32Speaker 04

  Yes, correct.

• 58:33Yasi Salek?

  So, the difference is quite stark.

• 58:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:37Yasi Salek?

  Very cool.

• 58:38Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 58:38Yasi Salek?

  Daddy G said, "Right from the start, we never made music in line with the tempos that were required in clubs. Our music's more like something to eat your food to, you know? It's made for after clubs, when you want to chill out, learn how to breathe again."

• 58:49Speaker 04

  I really love that.

• 58:50Yasi Salek?

  Love music to eat my food to. I love eating food.

• 58:52Speaker 04

  That's where I listen to most of music, probably.

• 58:55Yasi Salek?

  Well, I'm watching Doctor House usually, but...

• 58:56Speaker 04

  Oh, okay.

• 58:57Yasi Salek?

  Still having a little bit of Massive Attack. Let's go through some of the collaborators. Horace Andy is obviously really important to the Massive Attack story in general, but also to this album. He is a reggae artist, born in Kingston, Jamaica. In 1970, he joined the mythical Studio One, which is name-checked in this album, which was basically the Jamaican Motown, and Bob Marley and the Wailers did stuff with them. He had a number one hit early on, the song called "Skylarking", and then he had like a bunch of other hits throughout the 70s. He also recorded a pretty, like, iconic dub album, "In the Light", and then in 78, he had an album called "Pure Ranking", that was sort of like right ahead of the rise of dancehall reggae.

• 59:41Yasi Salek?

  So he's kind of touched, like, all these different genres. In 85, he moves to London with his wife, and this is where he meets Cameron McVeigh, who's the one that introduces him to Massive Attack. I feel like, I think his voice is so singular and so like, part of, I think, what I was talking about with the warmth of the album can be attributed to like, Horace Andy's like beautiful singing voice. Of course. It's incredible. It's incredible. Um, and also, you know, again, they're like, they might be like,

• 1:00:15Yasi Salek?

  three kids from Bristol or whatever, but like, they know their shit and they're, and they're being respectful of these genres that they're obsessed with. And so they're going to the source and they're finding, you know, one of the heroes of reggae and to come participate with them. Um, and then we, we mentioned Sharon Nelson, who had a singing career before this. She, uh, had put out a couple of singles that had done, you know, fairly well. And then Tricky, we talked about already. And we will talk about quite a bit more. So 3D said, "The way Blue Lines came together was so hit and miss. Cameron was there directing the music and Nene was there helping us with The Big Wheel, which we wrote for Horace Andy and I wrote with Nene." She has a writing credit on that song.

• 1:00:58Yasi Salek?

  Mushroom would just be on the turntables, cutting up some crazy beat and Sharon just started singing this song, which she called Kiss and Tell. So interestingly, Kiss and, Unfinished Sympathy, that's what Kiss and Tell became. That was her song. Like she had the melody and she was just singing around the studio and they were like, Can you? What's that?

• 1:01:15Yasi Salek?

  I'm gonna sing that on this. What's that? I'm just kidding. I'm sorry. So sorry. They can't do it. I'll go home now. I've been fighting for my life to not do it. You, uh, this is a safe space. Paddington's here. And he was like, "Well, it wasn't really happening. There was a vibe to it." And then Johnny Dollar started playing the keyboard live and suddenly we put it together on tape. And the next day we're chatting about it and fucking hell, there's something there. To the point that we were making earlier, like they accidentally, kind of did accidentally create some of this music. He said, "It's quite embarrassing when you talk about it as a seminal album because it was just born out of chaos." And there were so many collaborators on it. And then again, that was from 1996. I don't think 3D would say that now, that it's embarrassing. Mushroom said, "The whole thing that we've been doing is making music from the decks on the turntables,

• 1:02:00Yasi Salek?

  but making a new piece of music out of it. It wasn't new to us. It was just doing what we did live. But instead of mixing it at a jam, we were able to tape it at a studio." This is kind of what we were talking about earlier. And then just a thing I found really interesting that 3D said about his lyrics, because 3D's lyrics are so interesting.

• 1:02:21Yasi Salek?

  I was looking for a word and the only word I could come up with it. Cause sometimes I'm like, what is this man on? What are you even talking about?

• 1:02:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:02:28Yasi Salek?

  But it's cool because I mean, I think part of the point of Massive Attack is that you get lost in the music in a way that you're not too distracted by the details of like it being so specific what they're talking about.

• 1:02:41Speaker 04

  And that's how my enjoyment has always been. And that's how, honestly, how I am with all music. I don't, I'm someone, I'm a weirdo that like, I'm not looking at the lyrics to every song that I love. I kind of, sometimes it can just maybe ruin it sometimes. I don't need to know. Um, but through the content, for the purpose of this, you know, podcast, I was paying more attention. No, no, no.

• 1:03:03Yasi Salek?

  We ruined it for you.

• 1:03:03Speaker 04

  I was like, oh, maybe I should pay more attention. And I was like, oh.

• 1:03:07Yasi Salek?

  I love lyrics, but definitely here, you're not gonna get, I don't think, like, put off by strong sentiments.

• 1:03:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:03:15Yasi Salek?

  It's, it's more like magic eye paintings or something. Where like, you see what you want, you know?

• 1:03:20Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 1:03:21Yasi Salek?

  Um, that's not how magic eye paintings work. Yeah, actually, it's just one thing to say, so.

• 1:03:25Speaker 04

  I like how he described his lyrics.

• 1:03:27Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. So he said, with my lyrics, my ideas are based on fragments. The title's one fragment and the rest of the song doesn't necessarily add up to make the whole broken mirror. But you can put them together in whatever, whatever way you like. Because it's like, the best way to describe it is like traveling through a crowded bar and stopping for a few moments at each conversation. And listening to bits and pieces. And at the end of it, you create a summary of what the place was like, but made up of so many different parts.

• 1:03:52Speaker 04

  I really like that.

• 1:03:53Yasi Salek?

  I know. I'm gonna just point out that while the vibes were vibing, they were also kind of bad already. They were already fighting. 3D said, during Blue Lines, I thought I was gonna have a heart attack. The only thing that saved me was because I thought I was too young. I was getting pins and needles in my hands with the arguments we had. And Cameron, as a manager, encouraged it. He's a nightmare.

• 1:04:17Yasi Salek?

  They really got messy about Cameron in this book in 1996. He's into himself and Nene, and he's got a side to him that is very manipulative, which brings out the worst in you, as it did in all of us. Every time we argue, it never gets resolved. Sometimes, when just two of us go somewhere, whichever combination it is, it's a lot easier. With the three of us, it's always a slight tension, and it remains in the studio. Sometimes I dread going into the studio with Gian Mush. I fucking hate it. I can imagine us going into the studio at separate times and putting it together later. Which is exactly what ends up happening.

• 1:04:48Speaker 04

  Spoiler alert, yeah.

• 1:04:50Yasi Salek?

  That actually unlocked something for me, because I was like, oh yeah, like, three is the worst number. Like, when you go on a trip with three people, it's inevitable that a coalition forms of two against one. It's just human nature.

• 1:05:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:05:03Yasi Salek?

  So they had a rough go of it. And according to 3D, he was a bit difficult. He said, "I spent most of my time hassling the others. Gian Mush are so fucking laid back about it. Talk to Gian Mush and they'll probably tell you I'm the most selfish, get-your-own-way bastard." Which, to a certain extent, is true. You have to have a vision to see an album through to its end, even if you don't know what the fuck your partner's gonna make of it. And again, like, I think that is really important, because we talk about this on Bands Plan a lot, which maybe you've heard. Almost always, there has to be one person who's like annoying. Who's like, "We have to get this done." Like, someone has to fucking push it forward, right? Because otherwise, people can be the most talented in the entire world.

• 1:05:46Yasi Salek?

  They can vibe out as much as they want, but nothing is gonna happen.

• 1:05:49Speaker 04

  I fear I might be that person.

• 1:05:50Yasi Salek?

  Great. You, Lars Ulrich, Robert Delnaya, you're in good company.

• 1:05:57Speaker 04

  I don't think I'm as miserable. These guys, it's just so funny. Like, I don't think they seemed like they were ever having fun working on... Which is like, not entirely true. I feel like with later interviews and like where they're at now, it seems to be very different as they've gotten older. But like, throughout the 90s, they seemed to generally not have fun working together at all.

• 1:06:13Yasi Salek?

  Everything I read about 3D was that he doesn't have fun at all. Like, he's like, "I'm just in my house, like, stressing all the time." Or, "I'm in the bath stressing," or "I'm like, trying to fall asleep stressing." So it feels like fun was not his bag.

• 1:06:25Speaker 04

  I have so many questions about this guy.

• 1:06:26Yasi Salek?

  I know. It's very interesting. Daddy G seems like he's just chilling, man.

• 1:06:31Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 1:06:31Yasi Salek?

  He's having a good time.

• 1:06:32Speaker 04

  The two of them seem to like, work together really well. And I feel like, for some reason, Mushroom would kind of like...

• 1:06:37Yasi Salek?

  I think Mushroom and 3D have like, the most wildly different...

• 1:06:43Speaker 04

  Perspectives.

• 1:06:44Yasi Salek?

  Perspectives, yeah, and interests.

• 1:06:46Speaker 04

  Hip-hop guy only, like strictly, I guess, is what the deal was.

• 1:06:49Yasi Salek?

  But he was also really into psych and like Pink Floyd.

• 1:06:53Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 1:06:53Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. He's like a trippy guy.

• 1:06:55Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:06:56Yasi Salek?

  He was a vegan, he doesn't drink, he doesn't smoke, like.

• 1:06:59Speaker 04

  Respect.

• 1:06:59Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, super interesting. I don't want to cast aspersions, but they've talked about it quite a bit. The other two are partying a bunch, especially 3D. Okay, we kind of already hinted at it with the cover, which is behind Bree here.

• 1:07:11Yasi Salek?

  Designed by 3D.

• 1:07:14Yasi Salek?

  Was inspired by that inflammable material logo that's used a bunch of times on the Stiff Little Fingers album. And on the back cover, there's a really iconic shot.

• 1:07:22Speaker 04

  So good.

• 1:07:23Yasi Salek?

  John Baptiste Mondino. I'm not really sure if she styled them or it's the typeface, I don't really know, but British punk designer Judy Blame was involved. Sorry, not she, he. British punk designer, he, Judy Blame, very cool. He passed away, actually, sadly. Another fun fact for you. That font is the same Oasis font.

• 1:07:43Speaker 04

  Oh, that makes sense.

• 1:07:44Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, and they used it because at the time.

• 1:07:47Speaker 04

  Rectangle.

• 1:07:48Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, at the time, it was like, kind of, I won't say a political statement, but it was very much like the font of advertising. So they were kind of like, oh, it's funny.

• 1:07:59Speaker 04

  Cheeky.

• 1:07:59Yasi Salek?

  Cheeky, or like, it's making a bit of a commentary on like.

• 1:08:03Speaker 04

  That makes sense.

• 1:08:04Yasi Salek?

  You know, like, we're just gonna, instead of doing something like really cool and like style is like, this is a product, you know? They always had really incredible visuals, which we will get into.

• 1:08:15Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:08:15Yasi Salek?

  There's like a really cool promo video that this guy Roger Palmfree made, who was briefly the guitarist of Eurythmics. It was actually called Just a Matter of Time, where it's just like various members of the group walking around Bristol and like lightly interacting with each other. Is 3D wearing a leather beret? Is that what's happening?

• 1:08:30Speaker 04

  I would love to know.

• 1:08:31Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:33Speaker 04

  I need the 4K restoration.

• 1:08:35Yasi Salek?

  Please, on DVD. Where's the physical media? But most of them are just asking each other, and other people, where's Tricky? And then it ends, I believe Tricky arrives at the end. People just called it, where's Tricky?

• 1:08:46Speaker 06

  All right, Jack? All right. What do you have to? Then who is he? You seen Tricky? No, I haven't seen him at all today. I don't know what to do. What do you want to do? Go to the zoo?

• 1:08:56Yasi Salek?

  Let's go track by track.

• 1:08:57Speaker 04

  All right.

• 1:08:58Yasi Salek?

  Save from harm. Like, how cool is it that the first

• 1:09:03Yasi Salek?

  lyrics you hear is midnight rockers, city slickers?

• 1:09:13Yasi Salek?

  So good. Just got the chill. I don't know why. It's so cool. It's pretty good. Making some profound commentary. This song is just so fucking good. Sharon Nelson has such a gorgeous, soulful. And warm. Yes, warm voice. Like, it really invites you right into the record from Jump. Also has that cool beat and the bassline, which is sampled from jazz fusion drummer Billy Cobham's 1973 song Stratus. But, oh, that bassline. So good.

• 1:09:51Yasi Salek?

  So it's basically Sharon Nelson singing and then 3D just kind of chiming in with some "serious, infectious and dangerous."

• 1:10:02Yasi Salek?

  Also, the "I was looking back to see if you were looking back at me to see me looking back at you." Iconic. Which is a reference to an old country standard from 1954 called "Looking Back to See."

• 1:10:29Yasi Salek?

  Where the fuck do you find that, bro?

• 1:10:32Yasi Salek?

  Crate digging, babe. They were crate digging. Revolver. At Revolver. Yeah, that's, it's a great, I think, starting track one, because it gives you, like, this is the massive attack vibe. Yeah. The next song is "One Love" featuring Horace Andy. It does feel like on this album, they lean the hardest into the genres that they're inspired by. I agree, yeah. You know, like, it's their most present, whereas the further along you get, the more it's sort of... Recedes into the background.

• 1:11:05Speaker 04

  I think it all just starts to blend together more and more over time also. It just could be part of it, but everything kind of stands out more.

• 1:11:11Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:12Speaker 04

  Earlier.

• 1:11:12Yasi Salek?

  Like One Love, obviously, you know, very famous reggae, uh, Rasta sentiment. And the song's just great. Um, Willie, We, also has a writing credit on this song. Um, it's built on three main samples. Uh, one is from the song You Know, You Know by Mahavishnu Orchestra, which was a jazz fusion prog rock band from New York City. Um, probably this came from Mushroom, I'm guessing, because he liked that kind of stuff. And then the two other short samples are from Ike's Mood One by Isaac Hayes. That is later sampled also by Portahead.

• 1:11:48Speaker 04

  There's so many things like that, which I don't.

• 1:11:51Yasi Salek?

  And I think also Tricky, I think all three of them end up sampling that.

• 1:11:54Speaker 04

  Was that the one? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They were just like sharing records and I don't know, it's.

• 1:11:58Yasi Salek?

  I loved hearing that, like, they were, like, back then, the culture was so, like, you would, like, black out the seven inches you had so that no one could see what you had. So that they wouldn't steal it. Isn't that so funny?

• 1:12:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's very funny.

• 1:12:13Yasi Salek?

  They didn't know the internet was coming.

• 1:12:14Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 1:12:15Yasi Salek?

  They didn't know Shazam was coming to ruin their lives. Um, Shazam is a cop.

• 1:12:22Speaker 04

  It's, um, don't get me started.

• 1:12:24Yasi Salek?

  Shazam is a police.

• 1:12:25Speaker 04

  Don't get me started.

• 1:12:26Yasi Salek?

  Okay, Blue Lines is the third track. This is where we first hear our guy, Tricky.

• 1:12:30Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:12:32Yasi Salek?

  He really does stand out on this album as a bit of a star. Do you think so?

• 1:12:38Speaker 04

  It's just something about that voice, you know? And his energy, but he has such a unique and singular voice, which, I mean, it's.

• 1:12:44Yasi Salek?

  So tricky.

• 1:12:45Speaker 04

  Everybody does, is what I was gonna say, like, honestly, every vocalist on this record does. I don't know what it is, but just something like kind of addicting about Tricky's, like, vocal delivery.

• 1:12:52Yasi Salek?

  He just, he has such a strange accent.

• 1:12:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:12:55Yasi Salek?

  That it's even more strange than, like, the 3D's Bristolian accent. I heard someone describe it as a very working-class Bristol.

• 1:13:04Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:13:05Yasi Salek?

  Also, his raps are just like. Psychologically quite dark.

• 1:13:09Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 1:13:10Yasi Salek?

  Like, this one is like, even if I told you, you would still not know me. Tricky never does. Adrian mostly gets lonely. And it's like, oh, you're already like bifurcating yourself into like you're two, you're 20 years old. To the two parts of yourself. Inside me, there are two wolves.

• 1:13:24Speaker 07

  Even if I told you, you still would not know me. Tricky never does. Adrian mostly gets lonely.

• 1:13:30Yasi Salek?

  I also liked this bit. The blues get big, massive or even larger. Save enough space into the tricky TARDIS.

• 1:13:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:13:38Yasi Salek?

  It's for my Doctor Who heads.

• 1:13:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:13:39Yasi Salek?

  Do you watch Doctor Who?

• 1:13:40Speaker 04

  I, I haven't in years, but I, I definitely had.

• 1:13:42Yasi Salek?

  But you were familiar with the TARDIS.

• 1:13:43Speaker 04

  I definitely had a phase. I'm very familiar with the TARDIS.

• 1:13:45Yasi Salek?

  Time and relative dimension in space. It's a police, police box.

• 1:13:48Speaker 04

  Police box.

• 1:13:49Yasi Salek?

  That you go in. Doctor Who goes in and travels.

• 1:13:51Speaker 04

  Yeah. It's bigger on the inside.

• 1:13:53Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. Yep.

• 1:13:55Speaker 04

  Something maybe worth noting to your point about, um,

• 1:13:59Speaker 04

  about him, him having like more of like a working class like accent was, I think, I, I think him and maybe one other member. I don't, not 3D and I don't think it was, um, Daddy G either. Maybe Mushroom, but definitely Tricky grew up in a council estate and he grew up in like the rougher neighborhood, a town called Noel West, whereas the other two didn't. So there was also that kind of like,

• 1:14:19Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:19Speaker 04

  That was kind of, I think, from Tricky's perspective, from reading his book. Oh, maybe what instigated a lot of his like distance with the friction.

• 1:14:26Yasi Salek?

  Right. That makes so much sense.

• 1:14:27Speaker 04

  That's also why his accent's like way different, you know?

• 1:14:31Yasi Salek?

  You're so right. He, he grew up in a council estate. He grew up, I want to say without a father.

• 1:14:36Speaker 04

  So his mother died when he was really young.

• 1:14:38Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:14:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:14:39Yasi Salek?

  But did he, was he raised by his grandparents?

• 1:14:40Speaker 04

  He was raised by his grandparents.

• 1:14:42Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. And he's from a Caribbean background.

• 1:14:45Speaker 04

  His dad was from Jamaica.

• 1:14:46Yasi Salek?

  From Jamaica.

• 1:14:47Speaker 04

  Very mixed as well. I think his mom was white, but his dad was from Jamaica.

• 1:14:50Yasi Salek?

  Jamaica and Roma. Yeah, he, he's coming from a different place.

• 1:14:55Speaker 04

  And I can't really find out.

• 1:14:56Yasi Salek?

  And honestly, yeah, Mushroom too. I think that, that, and it is interesting that the, the most beef that happened was between 3D and each of them, you know?

• 1:15:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:15:05Yasi Salek?

  And Daddy G, I didn't grow up in a council state, but he is from the like West Indian part of town and like, you know? I mean, from what I gathered, 3D's parents were like restaurateurs or something.

• 1:15:15Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:15:15Yasi Salek?

  Whoa. I'm not really sure.

• 1:15:17Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:15:17Yasi Salek?

  It was, it was hard to kind of get the lowdown, but he, he eventually opened a bar in Bristol and he said he grew up in like bars and restaurants. And I think, I think I did read his father was like in the food world.

• 1:15:28Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:15:29Yasi Salek?

  Which makes sense, he came from Naples and like.

• 1:15:31Speaker 04

  That makes sense.

• 1:15:31Yasi Salek?

  Um.

• 1:15:32Speaker 04

  I think Tricky also referred to him and Daddy G as like art school kids or like they went to college, you know, so they were like the art kids and they, they went to college whereas he, you know, obviously did not. And was like not really in, interested in that world.

• 1:15:44Yasi Salek?

  I didn't read anything about them going to college, but that's, that's what they did. I believe him.

• 1:15:46Speaker 04

  God, these guys. I, I honestly, it's so inspiring to me how little information is available.

• 1:15:52Yasi Salek?

  You too can be, you too can be private.

• 1:15:54Speaker 04

  I talk too much.

• 1:15:55Yasi Salek?

  I know, same. I mean, I'm the, I give my.

• 1:15:57Speaker 04

  It's impressive.

• 1:15:57Yasi Salek?

  I give my email address to any company that offers me a mere 10% discount. Like I could not be more surveilled. I'm like begging to be surveilled. 3D hates Blue Lines.

• 1:16:07Speaker 04

  Still?

• 1:16:08Yasi Salek?

  No, I don't know. This is 96, but he was talking about the songs that he doesn't like on this album and Blue Lines and Lately were the ones.

• 1:16:14Speaker 04

  The song. I thought, okay.

• 1:16:16Yasi Salek?

  Oh, sorry. He hates the song, Blue Lines. No, he loves a lot of the other songs, but that song, he's just not a fan of. Be thankful for what you got is the next song. That's a cover of a William Devon song. It's a 70's R&B soul singer. I love this song. 3D said, "It's a sentiment for the 90's. What's the point in killing people for their Nikes? We're living in a time where nobody can be satisfied with what they've got because of the media. You're bombarded with stuff to desire all the time."

• 1:16:51Yasi Salek?

  Babe, wait till you hear about Instagram.com.

• 1:16:55Speaker 04

  Put a sentiment to a coma.

• 1:16:58Yasi Salek?

  You will. You want to talk about, not only are you bombarded with things to buy, there's a link right there. And then if you give them your email address, they'll give you 10% off. I'm literally prostituting myself.

• 1:17:11Speaker 04

  I.

• 1:17:12Yasi Salek?

  I'm signing myself up for years of spam to get like six dollars off.

• 1:17:16Speaker 04

  I unsubscribe from a few every day, but there will still be hundreds every day.

• 1:17:20Yasi Salek?

  You can never win. It's whack a mole.

• 1:17:24Yasi Salek?

  You have to, you have to move to Chechnya, change your name, get plastic surgery so the facial recognition doesn't work on you anymore, burn off your fingerprints and cut off your internet presence.

• 1:17:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:17:36Yasi Salek?

  But I can't.

• 1:17:37Speaker 04

  Here we are.

• 1:17:38Yasi Salek?

  Because I like streaming platforms and TikTok.

• 1:17:41Speaker 04

  Love TikTok. Anyways.

• 1:17:43Yasi Salek?

  Five man army.

• 1:17:45Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 1:17:45Yasi Salek?

  Let's fucking go bitch. Massive attack. Let's fucking go. I, this song is so cool. I think this song is the most Wild Bunch-esque song. Like it's the most like throwback to like that vibe. It's a song that they lifted called, um, from a song called Five Men Army, but all of them are on here. The first voice you hear on it is actually Willie Wee. It's not Daddy G. A lot of people think it's Willie or it's Daddy G. I love his line. She's always on time because the girl's got rhythm. So good.

• 1:18:27Yasi Salek?

  The song that it's based around is by Dillinger and Trinity, um, which is probably Daddy G's doing because that's like in his bag of stuff. I love Daddy G's verse where he goes, a turbo, turbo and a chant with the change. I'm not going to do it. Andy Daddy G, Wild Bunch Crew at large. Don't call me an officer, just call me a sarge. Mashing up the country, planning also abroad. Plan to go to America when I get my visa car or get a visa car. And then Tricky comes in, but getting a visa car nowadays isn't hard.

• 1:19:06Yasi Salek?

  And then Horace Andy is kind of in the back singing lyrics, which are lyrics of his own lifted from his like catalog of reggaeton songs. I just love this song. I feel like it's like, it's such a fucking vibe. It's so like bouncy, like, again, you don't, a song like this is not gonna exist on a future Massive Attack album. Like, it's very much of this time, of a Blue Lines era, of like, when they're so fresh in their influences. Love it. Alright, are you ready to come alive? Because the next song is Unfinished Sympathy.

• 1:19:41Speaker 04

  I'm awake.

• 1:19:42Yasi Salek?

  Tell me what you love about this song.

• 1:19:45Speaker 04

  So much to love. I mean, the drums that come, you know, the beat is just like incredible, the little chimes that are... Could be fine for my life to not like sing on this podcast, too. There you go, thank you.

• 1:20:07Speaker 04

  It's just so good. And this is one of the, you know, it's like, I, like I said, I was discovering them and going through, like, oh, let me go to the beginning and listen to the discography. Then you get to this song, you're like, oh, this song has been with me for like, you know, as long as I can remember.

• 1:20:20Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, this song was born before time.

• 1:20:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:20:23Yasi Salek?

  This is, God himself cut this and put it on earth for us.

• 1:20:28Speaker 04

  It's an incredibly perfect song. And the video too. I know, I know.

• 1:20:33Yasi Salek?

  Okay, you guys, for my big picture heads.

• 1:20:36Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:20:37Yasi Salek?

  One of the coolest music videos of all time. It was filmed in Los Angeles, right on Pico, started on actually 1311 South New Hampshire Avenue, and then it goes through 2632 West Pico Boulevard. You guys can go down there and do an homage. It's directed by Bailey Walsh, but more importantly, they hire a man called Dan Nies, known for what, Bree?

• 1:21:00Speaker 04

  Camera operator for David Lynch.

• 1:21:02Yasi Salek?

  On the film Blue Velvet. They were obsessed with films, Massive Attack, primarily like Robert De Niro movies. They were really... Into Taxi Driver, um, but they fucking loved Blue Velvet. And apparently they bothered Danise the whole shoot with questions about Blue Velvet so much. And he was like, I'm literally trying to operate a fucking Steadicam. It weighs a 60,000 pounds. But anyways, they hired him, not just because they love Blue Velvet, because he was one of the only people, I think, in Britain who could operate a Steadicam. It was kind of a rare thing at the time. And they needed that because it's one shot. It's one unbroken shot.

• 1:21:33Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:21:43Yasi Salek?

  This is a very 90s thing, which I wish they would bring back. It's a walking video, right? It's very like, um, Bittersweet Symphony, like that, it's like-

• 1:21:50Speaker 04

  They're talking about that. I mean, it's, that seems to be the song and the video, a nod to this one.

• 1:21:55Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:56Speaker 04

  Which came before it.

• 1:21:57Yasi Salek?

  But yeah, it's one of the coolest music videos I'll ever see. Also, all, there's no extras. There's just people that are like on Pico Boulevard. And it's really LA. It starts with this shot of like, what look like gang members? But I don't want to, again, cast aspersions. I'm not a cop. I don't know what they do in their free time. And there's kids and there's just people running air. It's, it's just really cool. And then it's just Sharon Nelson walking. That's who's walking. I didn't mention. And at some point, they're all in it, but at some point, I most noticed like 3D walking behind her in like a creepy trench coat.

• 1:22:28Yasi Salek?

  It's so great.

• 1:22:30Speaker 04

  Tracks.

• 1:22:32Yasi Salek?

  It's just so good. The title was inspired by Franz Schubert's Unfinished Symphony. Um, and it has two main samples. One is a percussive part from the song Parade Strut from jazz musician J.J. Johnson. And there's also a vocal bit, um, from the song Planetary Citizen by Mahavishnu Orchestra. We mentioned earlier, it's that background vocal that's going, hey. I can't sing, you should really do it. This song also appeared in the 1993 Much Maligned, uh, Sharon Stone, Billy Baldwin movie Sliver, which I saw way too young and actually it did disturb me.

• 1:23:05Speaker 04

  Not familiar with this one.

• 1:23:06Yasi Salek?

  My parents are immigrants and they weren't really like being on top of like what you should and shouldn't watch as a child and that's very cool in some ways and then in other ways you see Sliver when you're 11. You know? Um, and then Tina Turner later covered this song.

• 1:23:21Speaker 04

  So crazy.

• 1:23:21Yasi Salek?

  In 96. I think it's arguably the biggest song on the album, right?

• 1:23:25Speaker 04

  I think it's not even an argument, I think, yeah.

• 1:23:28Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:29Speaker 04

  Definitely.

• 1:23:29Yasi Salek?

  If you're like, I don't think there's an argument. It's not arguing, it's just, it is.

• 1:23:32Speaker 04

  I think that's just what it is.

• 1:23:33Yasi Salek?

  Okay, Bree. Wow. She is.

• 1:23:36Speaker 04

  What would you argue is bigger?

• 1:23:37Yasi Salek?

  No, you're right.

• 1:23:38Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:23:39Yasi Salek?

  Daydreaming was pretty big too, but no, you're right, it's.

• 1:23:43Yasi Salek?

  Safe from harm, each song.

• 1:23:46Speaker 04

  They're all great. Um, it's not, to me, it's not, it doesn't stand out as like, oh, this is the best song, but.

• 1:23:52Yasi Salek?

  No, but I think it's the most known song, yeah, for sure. Daydreaming is the next one, which I fucking love this song. It's just like, also, we didn't, haven't even said, but these songs are so sexual, they're just sexy, you know? Like, is that to do with the BPM?

• 1:24:10Speaker 04

  I think it's gotta do with whatever vocal style this guy's come up with, you know? Which I think we're probably gonna get to.

• 1:24:17Yasi Salek?

  We haven't, I've been, I've been being so good that I haven't said what's in my heart, which is that 3D rapping is pornographic, to me. To me, it is pornographic.

• 1:24:30Speaker 04

  Speak on it.

• 1:24:33Yasi Salek?

  I don't know what it is.

• 1:24:34Speaker 04

  There's something about it.

• 1:24:35Yasi Salek?

  The whispering, the delivery, the confidence, the British accent, like, really firing on all cylinders for me personally.

• 1:24:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:24:44Yasi Salek?

  So hot.

• 1:24:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, I have to agree, yeah.

• 1:24:48Speaker 04

  I have to agree, yeah. Yeah. Something about the way they record it too, it's like he's whispering in your damn ear.

• 1:24:53Yasi Salek?

  In my ear, in my fucking ear, and I'm like, this is so hot. No, it's, no, stop it.

• 1:25:12Yasi Salek?

  Daydreaming is just, it's fab. It samples a song called Mambo by Wally Budrow. This song is so beautiful because it has the strings. Like, it really elevates it to this whole other level. And apparently, there's a rumor, and I've heard it a bunch of times, so I think it must be true, that one of them, I think it was Mushroom, who really wanted the strings on it, sold his car to pay for the string players, because that's expensive, you know? Thank God.

• 1:25:39Speaker 04

  Shout out to him.

• 1:25:40Yasi Salek?

  Shout out to him. I also really love the little fiddler on the roof bit where, I think it's 3D, says, "If I were as a rich man," and then Daddy G comes in.

• 1:25:50Yasi Salek?

  I love it. It's a fucking, it's a phenomenal song. And the next song is Lately, featuring Sharon Nelson. I don't know why 3D doesn't like this song, he's insane.

• 1:26:00Speaker 04

  This is one of the others that he doesn't like.

• 1:26:02Yasi Salek?

  Again, in 1996, I don't know, but you said it, and it's in a book, and that's fair game for me, yeah. I wonder if part of it for him is he doesn't like things that are like maybe too directly referential of like, a style. He does seem to like, always want to like forge ahead. I love it. I think it's, again, you just put, like, you can't.

• 1:26:21Speaker 04

  It's just a vibe. This whole record is, you know?

• 1:26:32Yasi Salek?

  It samples an instrumental segment of the song, Mellow Mellow Ride On by the American soul singer, Lorel Simpson. Sorry, Lorel Simon. They were crazy dickers, is what they would do. And then the last song.

• 1:26:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, you're really good, that like, you know, that optimism, that...

• 1:26:50Yasi Salek?

  That ship sails, babe. The joy, the hope. Hymn of the big, any hymns are... They're leaving the building after this, babe, so you better enjoy it. You better, you better take a warm bath in the hymn of the big wheel sung by Horace Andy with Nana Cherry writing it. It's, it's so beautiful.

• 1:27:11Speaker 04

  It is.

• 1:27:20Yasi Salek?

  These are all sort of how these lightly political things like him and the big wheel talks about like one man struggles while another relaxes. It's about like, you know, class and all this other stuff, but it's just like, it's really gorgeous. 3D set about it. It does build a bigger picture than the rest of the tracks on Blue Lines because the rest are kind of unfocused. They just drift around and around in their own way, which is what we're into, rather than paint an obvious picture or leave a message. We're as worried about things like pollution as everyone else. It's just that we don't want to write about it so obviously. We ain't got no solutions to the problems. We're just the same as everyone else living it. We're just pointing out things to ourselves rather than to everyone else. It's just a story about a man talking to his son, talking about the future, or what's gonna happen. What's it all about? Just questions. We

• 1:28:04Yasi Salek?

  don't offer alternatives. That was in 91. It's just a perfect album.

• 1:28:09Speaker 04

  It really is.

• 1:28:10Yasi Salek?

  Start to finish.

• 1:28:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:28:12Yasi Salek?

  I don't care what 3D says. There's no misses. Everything is perfect. It hit number 13 on the UK album charts. Quite high.

• 1:28:20Speaker 04

  Wow, yeah.

• 1:28:21Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. It did really well. And then we gave it a 10 out of 10 upon release.

• 1:28:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, that was, that's crazy.

• 1:28:26Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. I mean, it changed music, I think, in a way, you know? Not just in a way, in many ways. I don't think they were expecting that. It's also like 90, it's 91. Like, so 91 music gets changed fucking 16 ways from Sunday, right? Neverland Nevermind, you knew I was gonna say that. Neverland Nevermind comes out in September. This is also the same year that Primal Scream's Loaded comes out.

• 1:28:52Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:28:53Yasi Salek?

  Which in its own way is this like, big music of the club or dance music, but in a totally different sector, you know? Yeah, it's a real what a time to be alive hours over here. I was not aware of Blue Lines in 1991 at nine years old, because it was just not that cool. And they didn't really break America.

• 1:29:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:29:16Yasi Salek?

  Not that if they had, I would have known about it, because again, I was nine, but I'll talk about how they didn't break America real quick. They did tour Blue Lines, which they had to figure out because again, they were like, we had no plans. This was not gonna be a thing. We were not gonna play live. So they kind of figure it out. They tour in Britain and then they go to America, which by all accounts is an unmitigated fucking disaster. They had to cancel their tour halfway through. He said the shows were, people were confused, what's happening? The big cities were okay, I guess, like New York, Chicago, LA. But he also said the radio interviews did not go well because no one gets their humor. I loved this quote. He goes, "We get to this radio station and no one's told us this guy's the most important DJ on the East Coast. He's massive and he

• 1:29:59Yasi Salek?

  interviews us. And even though we're trying not to be awkward, he's saying things like, 'Why do you do your music?' And we say, 'Because we like it.' And he says, 'But there must be some reason.' So I says, 'What would Aaron Neville say to that?' And he says, 'Aaron Neville is a close, personal friend of mine.' So I said, 'All right, Marky Mark, look at that bollocks.' And he says, 'Marky Mark is a close, personal friend of mine.' On the way out of the interview, he shakes my hand and says, 'You guys are gonna be really big in America. Nice one.' And then we get back to the hotel and there's a call from Cameron saying, 'Sunny Joe says they should drop you right away.'"

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• 1:31:45Yasi Salek?

  Okay, so they get back from America, from the cancelled tour, and things really start to fall apart. We thought we were doing great. We invented a genre, we're fucking killing it. Made a perfect record, like, things are going great. No, they're not. Shara Nelson leaves the group. I think, I don't wanna, you know, again, point fingers or say anything legally questionable, but I believe it was due to financial disputes. Um, everyone besides the three of them was like on a retainer, paid separately or whatever. So she's like, "Bye, I'm gonna go do my own thing." They also start to have problems with Cameron McVeigh, their manager. 3D said, "We fell out with Cameron, and we fell out with each other for a long time. We were doing jack shit, and Cameron suddenly said, 'You guys better start on your next album.'"

• 1:32:30Yasi Salek?

  "And we went to Virgin and signed the second deal for the album. And Cameron got his commission, took his percentage, and was gone. We had no manager and no co-producer since Johnny Dollar left with Cameron when he left the country with his tax problems." What? Does not expand on that, it's just randomly thrown in, like, what tax problem? Who had tax problems? Shara had gone, Horace was in Jamaica where he lives. Me and Tricky were living together, which was bizarre, because we were meant to be writing together, but we just used to go out and get pissed and did fuck all, so that was that. There was nothing going on, we just had to do our own thing, getting your own spirit together, exciting yourself with your own ideas.

• 1:33:08Speaker 04

  Those three D?

• 1:33:10Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, that's all there is, babe. All there is is getting your own spirit together, exciting yourself with your own ideas. They finally do get their spirit together and excite themselves with their own ideas, but it's not for two more years. For two years, they're doing fuck all. And now it's like, yes, like Frank Ocean will put out another album in 2020, nothing, like, maybe before we're all dead. But then it was like, you put out a fucking, you had a hit? You put out another album next year.

• 1:33:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:33:40Yasi Salek?

  Maybe two years.

• 1:33:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:33:42Yasi Salek?

  They don't even start working.

• 1:33:43Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:33:44Yasi Salek?

  3D said, "You get into a habit of not working, relaxing, collecting your thoughts. It just extends and goes on forever. You could just get into the complete cycle and never come back out and do anything again." Fair. So they started to make the next album with Nelly Hooper is the producer now because Cameron and Johnny Dollar have evaded the tax law or whatever is going on. I don't know. I'm just quoting. This is not me. Just the messenger. Exactly. Just the one that read the book. And they put out the album in 94, Protection.

• 1:34:15Speaker 04

  Guess what?

• 1:34:16Yasi Salek?

  Guess what, bitch?

• 1:34:17Speaker 04

  Another perfect track.

• 1:34:17Yasi Salek?

  Another fucking bona fide classic, bitch. Stone cold classic. Oh, sorry. You thought? You thought wrong, bitch. We're back. Nelly Hooper had just made a little album called Debut by a woman called Bjork. Are you familiar with it? You up on that one?

• 1:34:33Speaker 04

  Oh, my God. Yeah.

• 1:34:35Yasi Salek?

  Wow. Okay, so Nelly is feeling good. He's just done one of the best albums of all time. But

• 1:34:43Yasi Salek?

  there's some fighting.

• 1:34:46Yasi Salek?

  Nelly and Mushroom are clashing over the direction of the album. Mushroom wants to go more hip hop and Nelly and maybe also 3D want to go more experimental. I mean, again, this man has just made debut. He's like, let's fucking go. Let's party. At some point, the tensions get really high. Mushroom is like, bye, I'm going back home to my personal studio. I'll work on demos separately. 3D's in London, going out partying with, are you even ready for this fucking guest list of the partying?

• 1:35:11Speaker 04

  I'm ready.

• 1:35:12Yasi Salek?

  Nelly Hooper, Tricky, Michael Hutchins, Noel and Liam Gallagher, The Prodigy, Bjork and Goldie.

• 1:35:20Speaker 04

  I'm gonna cry.

• 1:35:20Yasi Salek?

  Get fucked. What do you think the cocaine conversations were amongst these people? I'm not saying they were doing cocaine. I just were imagining, should they have ever, they did not do it. Nobody does cocaine. But if they had done cocaine?

• 1:35:32Speaker 04

  I could cry just thinking about there.

• 1:35:34Yasi Salek?

  What do Noel and Liam Gallagher talk to Bjork about?

• 1:35:40Speaker 04

  Oh, man, I would love to know.

• 1:35:41Yasi Salek?

  And Tricky.

• 1:35:42Speaker 04

  Wow, yeah.

• 1:35:43Yasi Salek?

  Dream low rotation. Dream mirror, dream, dream mirror rotation. Anyways, that's happening. There's tension, which you can hear in the album, I think, in a, you know, maybe a positive way. Also, before the album's even fully done, because they did take fucking forever, because they like to take fucking forever, Nelly had already started working on the Romeo and Juliet soundtrack and other, Nelly Hooper, man, what a fucking CV, this bitch.

• 1:36:09Speaker 04

  Insane.

• 1:36:10Yasi Salek?

  God tier soundtrack. You know, in my opinion, the best of all time.

• 1:36:13Speaker 04

  I agree completely with you.

• 1:36:14Yasi Salek?

  And then a woman who you might have heard of named Madonna phoned him up.

• 1:36:20Speaker 04

  I've heard of her, yeah.

• 1:36:22Yasi Salek?

  Can you come work on bedtime stories? And he was like, bye. Okay Mushroom, sorry, do whatever you want. I gotta go talk to Madonna. I don't know if that's what happened, but that's my fanfiction. I thought this was interesting. Grant basically said that, just notice, like, in relation to the fighting, that the album is exactly symmetrical. There's five tracks on each side. One with Tracy Thorne, a rap song, one with Nicolette, a soundtrack-y song, and one with Horace. And he was, I don't know if he was trying to say like, we like divided it like custody or something? I'm not sure, but I thought, did find that kind of interesting.

• 1:37:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, that is interesting. I didn't realize that.

• 1:37:02Yasi Salek?

  3D said, "It ain't Blue Lines 2, that's for sure, but you could see it as a companion piece. I suppose it's more dreamy and soundtrack-y than before. This is like the weird second cousin or estranged husband of Blue Lines."

• 1:37:14Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:37:15Yasi Salek?

  Okay. Here's what Mushroom said. "On protection, we had a bit more electronic knowledge, and that played a much larger part in the music. Took away really from the basis of how we started, made it more technical. But the old knowledge was still there, and it's still a hip-hop album." You kind of really see like what that tension was, right? They were like moving, at least definitely Nelly Hooper and 3D are moving towards like, progress. Within what is possible. And, and I'm not saying Mushroom didn't want to progress, but I think he wanted to progress in a different way, you know? To keep that rootedness in hip-hop. This is a much less rooted in hip-hop album. So talk about the collaborators briefly. Tracy, motherfucking Thorne.

• 1:38:00Speaker 04

  Just one of the best to ever do it, oh my god.

• 1:38:03Yasi Salek?

  Put some respect on this woman's fucking name. Apparently they placed an ad in the NME looking for a singer.

• 1:38:09Speaker 04

  That is so funny to me.

• 1:38:10Yasi Salek?

  They were like, "We need a singer who sounds like Aretha Franklin or Tracy Chapman." Again, amazing singers. But then they completely went in a different direction and hit up Tracy Thorne from Everything But The Girl. Quick Tracy Thorne sidebar. And Everything But The Girl sidebar. They were an English pop duo formed in Kingston upon Hull in 1982. It was Tracy Thorne and Ben Watt. She had been in a band before that called Marine Girls. Fucking cool as hell. Indie pop pioneers. Tweed pop, if you're into that shit. You know who was into that shit? One man named Kurt Cobain. Because their album Beach Party was on his favorite, that Favorite 50 album list that they found in his diaries. It was very like the time of like Eugenia C83 tape, like that kind of music.

• 1:38:55Yasi Salek?

  It's all girl group. They loved Marine Girls. Massive Attack, it's probably 3D, I'm guessing, but I don't want to, I'm sure, grant to like. Then 3D said, we wanted to make a soul record, but in our own way. So rather than getting in another diva to replace Shara, we got in touch with Tracy. Cause her intimate way of writing really appealed to us. Do you feel like those are a bit shots fired at Sharon Nelson?

• 1:39:17Speaker 04

  A little bit, yeah.

• 1:39:18Yasi Salek?

  Here's what Tracy said. She told the author Melissa Chayman, um, whose book is behind me. It's actually the most extensive Massive Attack book that you'll ever read. She's French.

• 1:39:28Speaker 04

  Cool.

• 1:39:28Yasi Salek?

  I couldn't get to the bottom of this. Massive Attack is huge in France.

• 1:39:32Speaker 04

  It checks out.

• 1:39:33Yasi Salek?

  French people fucking love trip hop. They love a Buddha bar. They love a fucking Les Nubians. They love more Chiba, like they live for this shit. So I don't know why, but their biggest fan is this woman who wrote this extensive. And she interviewed Tracy Thorne and Tracy said, I was really surprised to be asked. I'd love Blue Lines and especially Sharon Nelson's vocals. And she seemed like a very hard act to follow. At that point, no one could have predicted how much the band were going to progress musically. Becoming much more eclectic and experimental. So although it seemed like a surprising choice when they asked me, I can see where they were going with it. It was very appealing for me to be able to work with them. It came at a stage when we as Everything But The Girl were having a resurgence of inspiration. And looking to try different things. So it was a great opportunity to experiment.

• 1:40:18Yasi Salek?

  This is also coincides. And I don't know what's a cart before the horse situation. But Everything But The Girl had also been working on. A remix of their 1984 song, Missing.

• 1:40:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:40:35Yasi Salek?

  With the American House DJ Todd Terry. And it actually comes out the month before Protection.

• 1:40:40Speaker 04

  So crazy.

• 1:40:40Yasi Salek?

  But I'm pretty sure from my sleuthing that it's Massive Attack's raising of Tracy Thorne's profile that causes that to take off. Because it doesn't, it doesn't chart super high until the next year.

• 1:40:54Speaker 04

  Interesting.

• 1:40:55Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, so I think, again, it's god tier song, the remix of Missing, obviously. But I think without her name being back on people's lips. Because Massive Attack was the fucking hottest act at the time.

• 1:41:09Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:41:09Yasi Salek?

  Perhaps people wouldn't have been checking for the 1984 remix song nine years later or whatever.

• 1:41:16Speaker 04

  That makes sense.

• 1:41:17Yasi Salek?

  It's just my two cents. So, fuck yeah, Massive Attack, bringing Tracy Thorne, goddess, back to where she belongs in the public consciousness. The other singer on this album, who's also amazing, goes by Nicolette. She was born Nicolette Soueton in Glasgow to Nigerian parents. She had an album in 92 called Now Is Early. 3D described her voice as Billie Holiday on acid. Kind of good.

• 1:41:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:41:43Yasi Salek?

  He said that they chose her because I think Nicolette's dreamy approach lets you off the hook a bit after the heavy emotion of Tracy. And then Tricky's back.

• 1:41:51Speaker 04

  He's back.

• 1:41:52Yasi Salek?

  Tricky didn't do his homework, though.

• 1:41:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:41:55Yasi Salek?

  Okay? And I think you know what I'm gonna say. Tricky, I just like to imagine, we're like, babe, we have to go to the studio, and he's like, okay, I got these lyrics. And it's like, they're also the lyrics for his solo album, but he just doesn't, or maybe it was the other way around, maybe it's him and the solo, who knows? But all I know is that there's significant overlap in the lyrics that he has in his songs on the Massive Attack album, and then the lyrics that appear on his debut album, Maxine K. And that's fine. Nobody got mad.

• 1:42:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, there's no rules saying that you can't do that.

• 1:42:33Yasi Salek?

  There are literally legal rules saying that you can't do that, but I don't think that anyone was gonna pursue this past.

• 1:42:38Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:42:39Yasi Salek?

  Specifically, obviously, Overcome on Maxine Kay and Karma Koma. But what he did was really cool, which is that he had Martina, at that time only going by Martina, Martina Topley-Bird, sing those same lyrics. So it is fucking cool that we have that, you know?

• 1:42:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:43:05Yasi Salek?

  A lazy king. I love it. Dog ate my homework. After this album, Tricky decides, bye.

• 1:43:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:43:12Yasi Salek?

  I'm not touring with you guys. Get fucked. I'm gonna go do my own thing. Again, I don't know if he said anything. He probably did.

• 1:43:17Speaker 04

  I think he probably did, actually, yeah.

• 1:43:19Yasi Salek?

  But, again, I don't know. I'm a fanfic. Let's go track by track.

• 1:43:22Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:43:23Yasi Salek?

  "Protection" featuring Tracy Thorne, starting off fucking strong, babe.

• 1:43:28Speaker 04

  It's one of my favorite songs of all time.

• 1:43:30Yasi Salek?

  Of all time.

• 1:43:30Speaker 04

  Top five, like, no question.

• 1:43:32Yasi Salek?

  What?

• 1:43:32Speaker 04

  It's my favorite song of theirs.

• 1:43:34Yasi Salek?

  What does it do for you, in your heart, in your soul, in your mind, in your spirit?

• 1:43:38Speaker 04

  It just, I don't know. It just is perfect. I, like, hardly even know what to say. There's like...

• 1:43:47Speaker 04

  Everything about it is perfect. I've, like, the production, but also her vocals, like... Oh, my god.

• 1:43:56Speaker 04

  Chills in this juicy jacket.

• 1:43:58Yasi Salek?

  Literally, I just thought about, I need some shelter.

• 1:44:09Yasi Salek?

  The beat on this song was created by Mushroom.

• 1:44:12Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:44:13Yasi Salek?

  He said the hi-hat is a one-bar sampled loop, then I programmed some James Brown snares and wah-wah over the top. And then added some keyboards. I just wrote it as a complete piece of music, without a song in mind.

• 1:44:27Speaker 04

  It's incredible.

• 1:44:28Yasi Salek?

  And then Massive Attack took that, sent it off to Tracy, and she recorded a vocal melody with lyrics and sent it back. Is that how making music works?

• 1:44:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's exactly... Actually, that's exactly how Sean and I work.

• 1:44:39Yasi Salek?

  Gorgeous. Okay, I'm learning so much.

• 1:44:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:44:43Yasi Salek?

  Actually, I already learned this from a little band called Postal Service.

• 1:44:45Speaker 04

  Okay, yeah, yeah.

• 1:44:47Yasi Salek?

  Famously.

• 1:44:47Speaker 04

  They did it first, yeah. Well, yes, Massive Attack did it first.

• 1:44:49Yasi Salek?

  Massive Attack did it first. It really is like me in the Love Actually scene with the signs, like, "To Me You Are Perfect."

• 1:44:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:44:58Yasi Salek?

  Protection, featuring Tracy Thorne. The lyrics? "Now you can't change the way she feels, but you could put your arms around her."

• 1:45:09Speaker 04

  It's so good.

• 1:45:11Yasi Salek?

  "I'll stand in front of you, I'll take the force of the blow." Protection.

• 1:45:18Yasi Salek?

  I'm Luteal again, just in case you guys are wondering. It's lute central over here, so apologies. Lutes is horny and also so sad, which is Massive Attack, it's perfect timing.

• 1:45:30Speaker 04

  It is perfect timing.

• 1:45:31Yasi Salek?

  Don't you feel?

• 1:45:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:45:33Yasi Salek?

  We should, Massive Attack makes music for the Luteal phase.

• 1:45:37Speaker 04

  Whether or not they want to.

• 1:45:39Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I think that they should consider that it's not trip hop, it's lute hop.

• 1:45:44Speaker 04

  I think they should consider that, yeah.

• 1:45:45Yasi Salek?

  Thank you.

• 1:45:47Speaker 04

  Lovers hip hop, lovers.

• 1:45:49Yasi Salek?

  Lute hop? Yeah, we did something there. Yeah, it's perfect, "You're a boy and I'm a girl." "You're a girl and I'm a boy."

• 1:45:58Speaker 04

  It's just so good.

• 1:46:02Yasi Salek?

  "Sometimes you look so small."

• 1:46:04Speaker 04

  And need some shelter.

• 1:46:07Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, it's just fucking amazing. It's amazing, it's perfect, I don't know what else to say about it.

• 1:46:13Speaker 04

  What about the music video?

• 1:46:15Yasi Salek?

  This is the leopard dress one?

• 1:46:16Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:46:17Yasi Salek?

  Oh, I look, by the way, the way I watched the music video, remembered it, combed every corner of God's internet to find a dress like that. I had a dress like that. The video is incredible, who, who directed this?

• 1:46:32Speaker 04

  Michelle Gondry.

• 1:46:33Yasi Salek?

  Michelle Gondry, I was gonna say it's Michelle Gondry, because it's, it is so whimsical.

• 1:46:36Speaker 04

  Nobody else could possibly conceptualize the video.

• 1:46:39Yasi Salek?

  It's all filmed, like, it's an apartment building, right, and you're seeing into different apartments.

• 1:46:44Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:46:44Yasi Salek?

  Like, 3Ds and one, like, Lang being depressed.

• 1:46:46Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:46:47Yasi Salek?

  God, it's good.

• 1:46:48Speaker 04

  But they were, they filmed it, you know, about how it was.

• 1:46:50Yasi Salek?

  No, tell me.

• 1:46:51Speaker 04

  Oh, my God.

• 1:46:52Yasi Salek?

  I don't know.

• 1:46:52Speaker 04

  You'll have to watch it again.

• 1:46:53Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:54Speaker 04

  They were all like laying down.

• 1:46:56Yasi Salek?

  What?

• 1:46:56Speaker 04

  On the ground. They're like laying on the ground and pretending like they're standing because the camera is top down on them.

• 1:47:02Yasi Salek?

  Even Tracy?

• 1:47:03Speaker 04

  Ev- yes, yes. Put, pull that shit up right now.

• 1:47:08Yasi Salek?

  Sorry.

• 1:47:08Speaker 04

  It's insane.

• 1:47:19Yasi Salek?

  It kind of makes sense now that I look at it, because it did always have a weird perspective. Yeah. Oh, my gosh, she's laying on the floor here.

• 1:47:28Speaker 04

  Yes, they're all laying on the floor.

• 1:47:29Yasi Salek?

  Looks like she's standing in a kitchen. There's a dog.

• 1:47:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, there's a dog.

• 1:47:32Yasi Salek?

  It's a glued, probably. Um.

• 1:47:35Speaker 04

  It's insane.

• 1:47:36Yasi Salek?

  She looks so cool.

• 1:47:37Speaker 04

  It's one of my favorite music videos of all time also.

• 1:47:39Yasi Salek?

  They, they are one of the great music video bands, Massive Attack, like, and they've worked with so many incredible directors, like we talked just now about Michel Gondry. Is it on this album that they do, yes?

• 1:47:53Speaker 04

  Jonathan Glazer.

• 1:47:54Yasi Salek?

  Jonathan Glazer. Okay, this is a perfect, this is controversial. I think it's my favorite Massive Attack song.

• 1:48:01Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 1:48:02Yasi Salek?

  I know.

• 1:48:03Speaker 04

  I respect that.

• 1:48:03Yasi Salek?

  You would think that I would go with female singer. But I-

• 1:48:09Speaker 04

  It's a really good song.

• 1:48:10Yasi Salek?

  Let's fucking go, Karma Koma. Are you kidding with this shit? You sure you want to be with me? I have nothing to give.

• 1:48:18Speaker 04

  This is the one where I was like.

• 1:48:21Speaker 04

  Where I was like, okay, let me listen to what he's saying this time. And I was like, oh.

• 1:48:25Yasi Salek?

  You don't want to know about that.

• 1:48:25Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:48:26Yasi Salek?

  You want to be with me? I have nothing to give. And I'm like, well.

• 1:48:30Yasi Salek?

  Never heard that before. This song was co-written by a Bristol band called Startled Insects, um, which were pals of 3D's. It ha- maybe I love it because I'm Middle Eastern and it has a Middle Eastern feel to it. The main rhythmic structure of the track is a loop taken from Nusrat Fatah Ali Khan. The song is Damast Kalander Mast Mast. I don't know if I said that right. And then the melodic refrain samples Alexander Borodin's opera Prince Igor. Specifically, the Plovstian dances. Also, don't worry.

• 1:49:12Yasi Salek?

  There's a sample of Tuvin throat singing.

• 1:49:14Speaker 04

  Oh, I was worried.

• 1:49:15Yasi Salek?

  That's right. The same sample that was also used by the KLF. They're just passing around the Tuvin throat singing. Samples that come from a documentary called Herders of Mongan Tiger. Welcome. Um, I'm sorry, this song is erotic. Karma Koma is erotic. It is like a romantic duet between Tricky and 3D. Jamaica and Roma. I can't explain it. There is the tension. It is. It's erotic.

• 1:49:45Speaker 04

  When I got to this point in the Google Doc, I was like, tears were coming from my eyes. Just the first line is, "The song is erotic?"

• 1:49:53Yasi Salek?

  And you were like.

• 1:49:54Speaker 04

  Actually, yes.

• 1:49:55Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Tricky told Melissa Chayman in 2015, "3D had a love-hate relationship with me." And I'm like, okay. And 3D told NME in 1994, "Me and Tricky have got this thing where we can only tolerate each other for a certain amount of time in the studio. We just end up fucking rowing."

• 1:50:12Speaker 04

  Fun. But it worked. It did something, yep.

• 1:50:17Yasi Salek?

  My favorite is at the end when 3D starts adding, "What? Karma Koma? Jamaica and Roma? What?

• 1:50:34Yasi Salek?

  Also, this little bit in the third verse, "Deflowering my baby," i.e. my baby mate, which we can't even get into, that's such a weird lyric. "I must be crazy, see, I'm Swayzy." This refers to, you guys, welcome to Film Corner again. This means I'm out. I.e., you're ghosting because it's referencing Patrick Swayze in the film Ghost.

• 1:50:58Speaker 04

  I think we've got to bring that back.

• 1:51:00Yasi Salek?

  "I'm Swayzy?" It's so good.

• 1:51:05Yasi Salek?

  "Digging a hole in your neighborhood, you're crazy, but you're lazy, must be lazy."

• 1:51:10Yasi Salek?

  I love it so much. Luteal. Lute spade, lute coma.

• 1:51:16Speaker 04

  It's a really good song.

• 1:51:17Yasi Salek?

  It's like-

• 1:51:18Speaker 04

  And a great video.

• 1:51:18Yasi Salek?

  Really long, okay.

• 1:51:19Speaker 04

  And a great video.

• 1:51:20Yasi Salek?

  We need to talk about the video.

• 1:51:21Speaker 04

  It's Jonathan Glazer's first music video?

• 1:51:24Yasi Salek?

  First music video.

• 1:51:25Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:51:25Yasi Salek?

  Filled with film references. Pulp Fiction, Barton Fink, The Shining. I mean Jonathan Glazer obviously went on to become-

• 1:51:34Speaker 04

  Pretty successful.

• 1:51:34Yasi Salek?

  Very successful filmmaker. It's just fab. It's the cult, the like richness of the colors. The little shining twins. The 3D of it all, the tricky of it all.

• 1:51:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's great.

• 1:51:47Yasi Salek?

  Mushrooms there were just like bleeding.

• 1:51:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, like bleeding.

• 1:51:53Yasi Salek?

  We already talked about that he used the same lyrics for "Overcome," Tricky did. They asked him about the sexual nature of the song. And he said, "Not at all. Even the parts that aren't, are about sex, ain't about sex." Like in "Overcome," you and I walking through the suburbs were not exactly lovers. Then it goes, "And then you wait for the next Kuwait." You could be walking down the street with your girlfriend. At the same moment Kuwait is getting bombed. It's to do with a moment in time. I'm trying to be three dimensional. It's about the world. I suppose there's a lot of sex and violence in the world.

• 1:52:27Speaker 04

  I think it is sexual. I think it is.

• 1:52:29Yasi Salek?

  Although, sorry, I totally didn't even mention that for a very brief period, a six month period between when Massive Attack released their first single and before the album came out, it was the Gulf War. And they had to shorten their name to Massive because it was too-

• 1:52:48Speaker 04

  Attack was too triggering apparently.

• 1:52:50Yasi Salek?

  Which I think looking back, I mean, they all are, but 3D is quite, uh, very politically minded, especially as he gets older. Uh, I think he's talked a bit about how he wished they hadn't done that because it was like stupid or whatever, but they did do that. In 95, they release a bunch of remixes of the song. It's just like a karma coma EP. Let's fucking go.

• 1:53:12Yasi Salek?

  Jeff Barrow, he's back.

• 1:53:14Speaker 04

  He's back.

• 1:53:15Yasi Salek?

  Um, he's back. He's also, he's released a little album in 93 called Dummy.

• 1:53:22Speaker 04

  Maybe you've heard of it.

• 1:53:22Yasi Salek?

  And Portishead. Or was it 94? That was 94. He started Portishead in 93. It won the Mercury Prize, Dummy in 95, beat out Oasis, Blur, Suede, Pulp, PJ Harvey, and Tricky.

• 1:53:35Speaker 04

  That is like the most stacked.

• 1:53:39Yasi Salek?

  I couldn't pick from those albums, like, gun to my head. The point being that Jeff Barrow is now no longer the sound operating T-Boy of the studio. He's now a massive success. He'd also done a bunch of remixing, um, for like Primal Scream and Depeche Mode and stuff. But the bassline on the Portishead remix of Karma Koma is the same bassline used by Serge Gainsborough in the song Melody from his 1971 album. You're welcome for that little bit.

• 1:54:14Yasi Salek?

  In 95, they also did another version called Fake the Aroma, uh, which was a duet between Daddy G and 3D, which is also quite good, um, for the Help album, which was a benefit album for the charity War Child. We talk about that a lot on here. And this becomes the version they perform live because obviously Tricky's not touring with them anymore.

• 1:54:32Yasi Salek?

  I think Protection, like, still has the texture of, it's, it's not cold, right? And there's bits of it that start to get a bit colder. But like a song like Three is like very, do you know what I'm saying?

• 1:54:50Speaker 04

  I think so. Yeah, I think like the warmth is still there from Blue Lines, but something that they, in Protection, they start kind of peeling some stuff back.

• 1:55:01Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:01Speaker 04

  And it's more, I don't want to say minimal because there's a lot going on in all of their records.

• 1:55:07Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:08Speaker 04

  But it's like understated.

• 1:55:10Yasi Salek?

  They, I mean, they definitely dial back the hip hop.

• 1:55:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:55:13Yasi Salek?

  Which I think does give a swing to things, you know, that is maybe a little bit missing now.

• 1:55:21Speaker 04

  There's like a repetitiveness to that, something that for some reason I always really gravitate to. I think there's just something addicting about it. Like I could, a lot of these songs are like seven minutes long.

• 1:55:29Yasi Salek?

  Karma come was so long. Thank God, it's not long enough. I still have to listen to it 20 times in a row. It's five minutes and 16 seconds.

• 1:55:36Speaker 04

  It can be longer for sure. Yeah. No, I love how it's like you just get into almost like a meditative state.

• 1:55:41Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. No, Protection is almost eight minutes long.

• 1:55:43Speaker 04

  That's, yeah.

• 1:55:45Yasi Salek?

  The next song is Weatherstorm. It's an interesting tension between warmth, vibe, coziness, and this like creeping sense of like

• 1:55:58Yasi Salek?

  isolation or something is amiss, something is off, something in the milk ain't right. You know, like, and I feel like that makes this album pretty special.

• 1:56:12Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm. I mean, we know this now, looking back on it, but it really does sit perfectly in between Blue Lines and the record that would come right after it, Mezzanine, you know, which like goes even more into that like isolated kind of darkness. No, the warmth has left the building.

• 1:56:27Yasi Salek?

  Sometimes I can't listen to them. I mean, I'm getting ahead. Yeah, because sometimes I'm like, oh, I'm already not feeling well. You know, like, I'm already like, I need Pat itself. We're gonna put this one on. Spying Glass is the next song. It's actually a cover of Horace Andy's own song that he put out in 1983. I love that they do that. They've done that a couple of times.

• 1:56:48Speaker 04

  It's cool.

• 1:56:49Yasi Salek?

  So they just like kind of re-engineer one of his own songs. It's also like, it's cool because it's so reverent of him, you know? Um, this has two samples. One is from Chapter Three by the Jamaican singer Joe Gibbs, and one from the 1973 Shaft in America soundtrack written by R&B musician Johnny Pape. That's a great song. Living the country.

• 1:57:16Yasi Salek?

  The next song is Better Things featuring Tracy Thorne. Co-written by Ben Watt of Everything But The Girl, um, has a sample from James Brown's version of Never Can Say Goodbye. It's the beat and the bassline. The lyrics?

• 1:57:34Yasi Salek?

  Salutes, babe. You say the magic's gone? Well, I'm not a magician. You say the spark's gone? Well, get an electrician. And save your line about needing to be free? All that bullshit. All that's bullshit, babe. You just want rid of me.

• 1:57:47Speaker 04

  So good.

• 1:57:51Yasi Salek?

  Her voice is really incredible. What do you think it is about her voice? It's just like...

• 1:57:56Speaker 04

  It's just, nobody sounds like her. It's singular. And it is. It's like so rich and... Yeah, I don't know. It's hard to describe. It's just perfect. And it fits so perfectly with these songs.

• 1:58:08Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. This is like, they fucking snapped.

• 1:58:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:58:12Yasi Salek?

  With Massive Attack plus Tracy Thorpe.

• 1:58:15Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:58:16Yasi Salek?

  It's really...

• 1:58:16Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:58:27Yasi Salek?

  The next song is Eurochild. This song has a real aggressive tension in it. And I feel like now that you know that they were beef central, you kind of can understand where it came from. It's ostensibly a political song about the state of Europe. It was like about the newly formed European Union, which 3D was kind of against.

• 1:58:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, wasn't happy about it.

• 1:58:51Yasi Salek?

  It was strange because at that point, the only people against the European Union were the Tories. So the right-wing people. But he, I mean, what he was saying made a lot of sense. He said, you know, "The unification of Europe is only gonna serve those already on the top of the pile, enabling them to trade more easily. Those who are disadvantaged aren't going to benefit. In fact, they'll probably lose their livelihoods because no one's gonna buy their local cheeses in the supermarket." He's a smart man.

• 1:59:17Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:59:18Yasi Salek?

  He said, "Follow the money." And this song also yielded a avatar, a cartoon image of a kid with a swastika, a knife and a fork, and a crown of thorns made out of the European stars called Eurochild.

• 1:59:36Speaker 04

  Yep, subtle.

• 1:59:37Yasi Salek?

  I think it was really cool how much they thought about the visual representation of everything they did.

• 1:59:42Speaker 04

  Of course.

• 1:59:43Yasi Salek?

  On this song, Tricky borrows some lyrics from his old favorite band, The Specials. We didn't mention that, but Tricky was really into The Specials.

• 1:59:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:59:49Yasi Salek?

  From the 1979 song Blank Expression, Tricky says, "I walk in a bar and immediately I sense danger. You look at me, girl, as if I was some kind of a total stranger." And that's from Blank Expression.

• 2:00:10Yasi Salek?

  Sly is one where I totally hear what he's saying about the Billie Holiday on acid. You know, like, it's like a cool, her vocal tone just has like a little Kermit the Frog in it. I don't know how to say, you know what I'm saying? It was a little, not in a bad way, in a cool way.

• 2:00:29Speaker 04

  Complimentary.

• 2:00:29Yasi Salek?

  Cool Kermit the Frog.

• 2:00:32Speaker 04

  I see what you mean.

• 2:00:32Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:33Speaker 04

  It's a very unique sound.

• 2:00:34Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I think it's great.

• 2:00:44Yasi Salek?

  This song samples "Africa Talks To You" by Sly and the Family Stone. Also, I, even me with my great powers, and I could have done some direct calls to my sources, but I didn't want to bother anyone for something that probably only 1% of listeners care about. But Vivian Goldman has a writing credit on this. Vivian Goldman is one of the coolest people alive. Vivian Goldman was this feminist post-punk artist. She was really involved in the punk scene in London in the 70s and 80s and in the reggae scene. She was Bob Marley's first UK publicist. She was like best friends with the Slits. She was, is, she's an artist. She's so cool. She was also in a band before all that stuff, but I'm like, how did you, who?

• 2:01:27Speaker 04

  Go with those calls.

• 2:01:30Yasi Salek?

  Jeanette Lee, if you know, because they're friends, if you know how Vivian Goldman came, if she wrote it with them, did they sample something she had already written? I need to know. I need to know. The next song is called "Heatmiser." They always kind of put like a more like cinematic, like instrumentally song right before the end of the album, and then the last song, kind of similar in a way to like "Him of the Big Wheel," on this one is "Light My Fire," sung by Horace Andy, a cover of the Dora song.

• 2:02:02Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 2:02:03Yasi Salek?

  It's great.

• 2:02:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:02:14Yasi Salek?

  So that's "Protection," an okay album.

• 2:02:19Yasi Salek?

  Definitely didn't let down the people that were waiting for three years for the next massive attack album. It went double platinum in the UK, hit number four on the UK Albums Chart. Nothing really hits in the US until "Mezzanine,"

• 2:02:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:02:36Yasi Salek?

  which only kind of barely hit.

• 2:02:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:02:39Yasi Salek?

  Do you feel "Protection" blazed ground in a different way than "Blue Lines" did?

• 2:02:46Speaker 04

  I think so because it's like building on kind of the ideas that we're starting with "Blue Lines." And it's kind of like that TH word sound is coming together even more here. The, you know, like, not only just through this, but like other bands such as Portishead, as we've mentioned, have also put out music. So it's like, you know, trip hop as a genre is like growing and like it's, the sound is kind of being honed in on.

• 2:03:13Yasi Salek?

  Totally.

• 2:03:13Speaker 04

  And I feel like "Protection" is kind of building on what "Blue Lines" started.

• 2:03:16Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:18Speaker 04

  And is still blazing new ground as well, I think.

• 2:03:23Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. I think you could almost make the argument that this album is way more typified of the trip hop sound

• 2:03:32Speaker 04

  Definitely.

• 2:03:33Yasi Salek?

  than "Blue Lines."

• 2:03:34Speaker 04

  Definitely.

• 2:03:34Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. While they like, they forged ground with that, when you go back, listen track to track, like, this is now way closer to what we have come to term trip hop than "Blue Lines."

• 2:03:47Speaker 04

  It's like "Blue Lines" was the predecessor. "Protection" is kind of like, here it is now, kind of, you know?

• 2:03:53Yasi Salek?

  To me, and we'll get into it, to me, this is the platonic ideal of trip hop.

• 2:03:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:03:57Yasi Salek?

  Because when you go to "Mezzanine," it gets to a different place, which I almost feel has left the trip hop genre in a way.

• 2:04:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:04:04Yasi Salek?

  Because I do think like, part of like, again, genres are fake and who cares, but like... But if we're just trying to use it as a signifier of what we're trying to talk about, which I think we both know what we're trying to talk about. I think that it's that intersection of where you can still hear the rooted references and the warmth is still there, but it's moved into this other arena where it is like the polarity of a bit more coldness, a bit more computer machination, you know? And it's living in that place kind of in between. Whereas like I think when you get to mezzanine and then obviously further like it gets a little pulled further towards the coldness and computerized side,

• 2:04:47Yasi Salek?

  which maybe in my mind that leaves like what I would imagine to be the typification of trip hop music. Before we move on, we have to mention, which is so good if you're like, if you really want to fucking vibe the goddamn fuck out at your house, like smoke a little weed, do the dishes for five hours, you put on No Protection.

• 2:05:06Speaker 04

  I was hoping that's what you were gonna say.

• 2:05:08Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I'm just like, time to meth clean the fucking closet, like.

• 2:05:14Speaker 04

  Or how about do like a 10 hour drive because that's what we were doing. I was making everyone listen to this in the van. We were just on tour for like way too long.

• 2:05:21Yasi Salek?

  How did you not crash the car? I would be like too vibed out.

• 2:05:24Speaker 04

  I was locked in.

• 2:05:26Yasi Salek?

  Um, No Protection is a remix album of the entire Protection album by the dub DJ Mad Professor. Um, and it's incredible and he makes every song 10 times as long and it's fucking, it's so good.

• 2:05:41Speaker 04

  It's really good.

• 2:05:41Yasi Salek?

  That came out in February of 95.

• 2:06:25Yasi Salek?

  October of 1995.

• 2:06:28Yasi Salek?

  Our friend Madonna's back. She is working with Massive Attack on her cover of the song "I Want You" for Inner City Blues, "The Music of Marvin Gaye: A Tribute Album." Nellie Hooper has made this introduction. They actually, apparently, Motown had asked Massive Attack to pick a track from Marvin Gaye's catalog for this tribute album. And the Madonna one was the third try that they had done. They had first tried to do one with Shaka Khan. And 3D said, "I phoned Shaka Khan up and she was dissing me big time. We sent about eight tapes all around the world and she was fucking up her tree." It's crazy. Fuck this, so rude. We thought, fuck it. She didn't believe in us. She thought we were fucking suckers. Daddy G said, "She thought we were a bunch of cunts from Bristol."

• 2:07:15Yasi Salek?

  Anyways, it didn't work out with Shaka Khan. Massive Attack then suggested Aaron Neville. "I don't know much." Aaron Neville is a brilliant singer. "I don't know much." A brilliant artist, but it was all lawyers. Like it was American corporate crime going on.

• 2:07:35Yasi Salek?

  And then Madonna came in and they became good pals. And that's a really fucking incredible cover. In this same face profile that I was reading the quotes from about Madonna, there is a small quote from 3D that says, "I saw Tricky the other day and he was going, 'Why'd you work with Madonna? It's bollocks.'" Blah, blah, blah. I goes, "What are you fucking talking about? You work with every pop star in London and call it cool. Why not go straight to the top and work with one of the most enigmatic superstars of our time? It's a short life."

• 2:08:06Speaker 04

  It's real.

• 2:08:06Yasi Salek?

  Still beefing with Tricky in the face. In that, I think this is the same article, uh, 3D said, "Portishead have kept their heads down. We've always kept our heads down. But you know, you can get into the papers. You've got the microphone in your hand. Go blah, blah, blah. Talk shit, slag everyone off and get press. Works every time. Everyone knows it. And Trix has recreated his whole life around it. He's become a new character. Blown himself up. Fucking cool. If he wants to do that, more power to him. But it's not our style. He's still the same geezer I knew. He's fucking cool. I don't give a fuck." Sounds like you do give a fuck. Lady Doth protests too much.

• 2:08:44Speaker 04

  Oh, man.

• 2:08:45Yasi Salek?

  Okay, so in 97, Massive Attack kind of tried to start working on a new album. They, guess what? They keep arguing over direction. Mushroom still wants to keep in the hip hop direction. 3D wants to evolve. It's not happening. The band starts working at this time permanently with the producer Neil Davidge, who had gone to school with Mushroom and Nelly Hooper. Also, at some point in this year, Radio had come to ask Massive Attack to remix OK Computer.

• 2:09:11Speaker 04

  Insane.

• 2:09:11Yasi Salek?

  All of it.

• 2:09:12Speaker 04

  Insane. All of it is insane. And I wish we had that so badly.

• 2:09:17Yasi Salek?

  Ed O'Brien even talked about it on MTV. They were excited, but I think Massive Attack was like, we have to finish our own album. I'm so sorry, we gotta do our homework. You could argue OK Computer was probably partially also influenced by Massive Attack.

• 2:09:27Speaker 04

  I think for sure.

• 2:09:28Yasi Salek?

  Because they toured together.

• 2:09:29Speaker 04

  Oh, okay.

• 2:09:30Yasi Salek?

  And also, just like, everything that came out after Blue Lines was influenced by Blue Lines in somewhere. I know that I must, you know, if it's in that vein, you know? All right, 1998. Mezzanine, the third studio album of the collective Massive Attack. The first album with no Tricky, because obviously Tricky doesn't want to be part of this anymore. The vibes are really bad on the making of this album. So bad that Mushroom leaves the band after this.

• 2:09:58Speaker 04

  He works on the record, but then leaves before it comes out.

• 2:10:01Yasi Salek?

  And again, there's no way to know, I mean, there is some places where I'll point out, but like, how much he was involved and how much he wasn't, given if they were fighting all the time, but he is involved, definitely. I mean, I feel you here, you can hear the conflict.

• 2:10:17Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm. I mean, it's intense. It's a very intense record.

• 2:10:20Yasi Salek?

  Very intense record. They had tried to contact Elizabeth Fraser back in 94. She did not reply. But in the meantime, she had started a relationship with the drummer from Spiritualized, former drummer who had left, Damon Reese, and they had moved to Bristol, along with the bass player of Spiritualized, who had also left the band. They had both left after Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating in Space, and they were working with the Insects, and so now they had a direct line to Elizabeth Fraser. They were like...

• 2:10:47Yasi Salek?

  Outside, outside her house. Hey.

• 2:10:49Speaker 04

  Respectfully, I understand.

• 2:10:51Yasi Salek?

  Totally. And she was like, oh god. No, it sounds like, you know, she's just, she goes by her whims.

• 2:10:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:10:56Yasi Salek?

  As she should. Another thing about, I think, this album that's important to note is that 3D and Neil Davidge kind of formed this nucleus of a musical relationship. I'm guessing like in the absence of, well Mushroom is being sort of edged out in a way because they don't want to go in this direction. I don't know because I wasn't there, but 3D gives me the energy of like, I'm not getting involved in all that. You guys, okay, like I'm here and I'm happy to participate, but like I'm not, whatever you guys. They were gonna call this album damaged goods, like the Gang of Four song. A lot of, I couldn't find any direct things, but the broader thing that I kept reading was that like 3D kept wanting to push a punk direction and maybe not directly sonically,

• 2:11:39Yasi Salek?

  but maybe if it was just like sampling some more aggressive things. And Mushroom was not about that life.

• 2:11:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:11:46Yasi Salek?

  He was like, fuck that. I don't really like punk.

• 2:11:48Speaker 04

  It really did not like guitars is what it kind of seemed like.

• 2:11:51Yasi Salek?

  But then they settled on the name Mezzanine. And here's what 3D said. "It's that particular point in the day when the night before feeling turns into the morning after feeling, and you're up and you're with someone and it's just you two against the world. That idea reflects me, my kind of lifestyle. Drugs." This is a really druggie album. I think we should talk, we should say that.

• 2:12:08Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 2:12:08Yasi Salek?

  I'm not busting anyone. It's, it's very directly in the lyrics. I point this out because I think it is very interesting. The terrain traversed between Blue Lines and Mezzanine reminds me so much of the terrain traversed between Primal Screams Loaded, which also came out in 91, like Blue Lines, and their album Exterminator in 2000, in which they're these like poles of a decade. And one starts off really warm, vibey, hopeful. Loaded is like, we're at the party, you know, like, it is party and it's, but it's warm and like, hope. And then by the time you get towards the tail end of the decade, it's like cold and suffocating and hangover and like the party's fucking over babe.

• 2:12:53Yasi Salek?

  You know, like you are still up from the night before. Like a jogger has jogged by with a green juice and you're like questioning my life's choices.

• 2:13:02Speaker 04

  Why did this happen to me so recently?

• 2:13:05Yasi Salek?

  Listen, I was not, it's never happened to me because I'm a good girl and I don't do bad things.

• 2:13:09Speaker 04

  I was completely sober, but it still happened to me.

• 2:13:12Yasi Salek?

  It still feels bad.

• 2:13:12Speaker 04

  It still doesn't feel right.

• 2:13:14Yasi Salek?

  You were playing video games, weren't you? You were playing video games.

• 2:13:17Speaker 04

  Busted, busted.

• 2:13:19Yasi Salek?

  Anyways, I just, I just found that was really interesting.

• 2:13:21Speaker 04

  I do like that quote a lot.

• 2:13:23Yasi Salek?

  Also, to, after the 3D's thing about mezzanine, Daddy G said, "The mezzanine? I think Dee spends half his life there. I don't think he knows whether he's coming or going." So that's a mixed my, that was funny. And 3D even said to Spin in 1998, the theme of this album is, "It's partly a journey through nightlife, but it's also about the difficulty of relationships." They'll both do your head in. This album is urban solitude. It is loneliness. It is isolation. You know, so much of the 90s was about discovering these new genres and like, bringing them into, into community and all this great stuff, right? But then with, with the rise of technology,

• 2:14:08Yasi Salek?

  which was also supposed to unite and bring people together, it creates such a massive splintering, you know? And like, we're not even into the fucking technology that we have now. But you really feel that in this album. It was also composed under the specter of like, the endless tension in the Middle East, evergreen state, and we're still. That's just forever. Isn't that funny? We're so in reruns. But, you know, we talked about the Gulf War that had started off the decade and then, you know, the US had like done the Desert Strike in Iraq in 96 and it's just, the vibes are bad. 3D says, "I was really keen to get in some of the new wave stuff. I feel like we really missed out on using that influence. Everybody working in Bristol now has some connection to that period.

• 2:14:53Yasi Salek?

  So for the first few weeks in the studio, I was sampling Gang of Four's Entertainment, Wires, Chairs Missing, The Ruts, 999. Most of it wasn't working, but it was a way of exorcising some demons." And the same article Mushroom says, "I was never done with punk."

• 2:15:07Speaker 04

  Hater.

• 2:15:08Yasi Salek?

  He just doesn't like punk.

• 2:15:10Speaker 04

  I respect it.

• 2:15:10Yasi Salek?

  They say he brought two albums with him on the tour and it was Tribe Called Quest Beats, Rhyms and Life and Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. He said, "We have seemed to reach a saturation point now, but in the seventies and eighties, people were really exploring new formats, whether it was electronics or in images. I look back on a lot of those albums and I think, wow." Again, they were coming from two different places. That's all that to point that out. 3D said, "As people, we were in a completely gray area when we were making Messing. None of us knew what the other wanted. Maybe we didn't care either, which is even more destructive. It could be the end for all I know, but this is definitely a transitional period. We've got a lot to sort out." That was in 1998. Well, let's get into it.

• 2:15:50Speaker 04

  Guess what?

• 2:15:51Yasi Salek?

  Guess what?

• 2:15:52Speaker 04

  It is another perfect record. You don't like it as much?

• 2:15:56Yasi Salek?

  No, I love it. Okay, well, I think, I think it's definitely another perfect record. I don't spend as much time with it because I do find it challenging.

• 2:16:05Speaker 04

  It is the one I spend the most time with, like No Contest.

• 2:16:07Yasi Salek?

  Really?

• 2:16:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:16:08Yasi Salek?

  All the way through, start to finish?

• 2:16:10Speaker 04

  Start to finish.

• 2:16:11Yasi Salek?

  Oh, let's take it up. I mean, listen, I love it and don't get me wrong. Like, there are...

• 2:16:15Speaker 04

  Angel?

• 2:16:17Yasi Salek?

  What's going to... Angel is my man, Horace Andy.

• 2:16:22Speaker 04

  Have you seen them live?

• 2:16:24Yasi Salek?

  No, I haven't seen them live. Isn't this such a fucking travesty?

• 2:16:27Speaker 04

  It's a travesty.

• 2:16:27Yasi Salek?

  And a tragedy. Yeah, Angel is, they really snapped with that one. They made this specifically for Horace Andy, 3D and Mushroom. Mushroom didn't like the guitar part. They end up writing the final version of the song in one day because apparently 3D had tried to get, um, Horace Andy to sing some songs from Straight to Hell by The Clash, but Horace Andy did not want to do that because it had the word hell in it and he was like, absolutely not. And Daddy G was like, well, why don't you sing a version of your song, You Are My Angel, which is a Horace Andy song. And it's so good. It's, but here's the thing, here's why I find it challenging. It's like, it's so... Depressing.

• 2:17:04Speaker 04

  Well, well, yes.

• 2:17:05Yasi Salek?

  Well, well, yes.

• 2:17:07Speaker 04

  That's just, that's, I guess.

• 2:17:09Yasi Salek?

  I'm fighting for my life over here.

• 2:17:12Speaker 04

  I just embrace the depression, I guess. That's why, I don't know, this record just, it like resonates with me.

• 2:17:19Yasi Salek?

  Big padded cell hours.

• 2:17:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:17:21Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:22Speaker 04

  It's also, though, and this whole record, but this song is like the night time driving song to end all night time driving. You know, it's just like.

• 2:17:30Yasi Salek?

  This is the album where it starts to become like so filmic. Like, these are really cinematic songs.

• 2:17:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:17:43Yasi Salek?

  It is not their most streamed song, but their second most streamed song.

• 2:17:47Speaker 04

  Really?

• 2:17:48Yasi Salek?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:17:48Speaker 04

  Oh, wow.

• 2:17:49Yasi Salek?

  After Teardrop. The next song is Rising Sun. This is a song about doing drugs.

• 2:17:56Yasi Salek?

  Daddy G, why you want me to take, why you wanna take me to this party and breathe? I'm dying to leave. Every time we grind, we know we severed lines. Where have all those flowers gone? Long time passing, why you keep me testing, keep me tasking? You keep on asking. Is this song about cocaine? Maybe severed lines, maybe. The first line of this song is, I see you go down to a cold mirror. Again, I am not making things up.

• 2:18:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, no.

• 2:18:19Yasi Salek?

  The breadcrumbs are here.

• 2:18:22Speaker 04

  You're just following them.

• 2:18:24Yasi Salek?

  I see myself in there upon my lover. It's how you go down to the men's room sink. What are we doing in the men's room?

• 2:18:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:18:37Yasi Salek?

  It's a really fucking good song. But it's dark. That's all I'm saying, because it is dark. All right, let's go, let's fucking, Dr. House, he's about to solve the fucking, his, it's over. It's Kawasaki disease, and I can't believe you idiots didn't see that. Um, I'm sorry, massive attack, I apologize. It's not my fault.

• 2:18:56Speaker 04

  They agreed, they let this happen.

• 2:18:57Yasi Salek?

  And then they took it back.

• 2:18:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:18:59Yasi Salek?

  I wonder if it was because they knew. But the cat was out of the bag.

• 2:19:03Speaker 04

  There's another similar thing, I'll wait until the song comes up. But I feel like they do this, things like that kind of a bit.

• 2:19:07Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Okay, let's story time. The first notes of Teardrop emerged in April 1997 because Neil Davids was playing around in the studio and Mushroom showed up and he liked something Neil was playing on the harpsichord. And he was like, "Oh, I want to work with you to flesh out this song." And he adds his own beat to it and some instrumental parts and he wants a soul singer to sing it. But also, he sends this demo, which at that time called "No, Don't," to Madonna. But by the time she responded that she wanted to do it, 3D and Daddy G had already sent it to Elizabeth Frazier. So Madonna couldn't do it. This did not make Mushroom happy. He also hated the version Elizabeth Frazier did, which is crazy. He removed his beat from the song.

• 2:19:52Yasi Salek?

  He said, "Nope." And then Neil and 3D made a collage using the percussion from another song they had been writing, which was apparently heavily influenced by Talk Talk's "Spirit of Eden", which 3D had been listening to on repeat during the making of this album. And the beat, which you can't even ima-- I don't know what Mushroom's beat sounded like, but the fact that the, kind of the whole crux of this song is that the beat sounds like a heartbeat. Doctor House is here. It's a doctor show. Can you imagine, like, the music supervisor were like, "Bring in this heartbeat type song, because doctors, you know."

• 2:20:27Speaker 04

  Perfect.

• 2:20:28Yasi Salek?

  And the rest is history. Could you, this song with Madonna and not the heartbeat?

• 2:20:32Speaker 04

  Thank god.

• 2:20:33Yasi Salek?

  It could have been really cool. We don't know. We love Madonna in this house.

• 2:20:37Speaker 04

  But I just can't, you can't, I can't imagine the song being any different, you know?

• 2:20:40Yasi Salek?

  I don't know. There's a sample in it from the jazz song "Sometimes I Cry." Perfect. Les McCann. Also, while Liz Frazier was writing the lyrics to Teardrop, she was informed while she was writing the song. She was informed of the death of Jeff Buckley, which happened on May 29th. And she had obviously very famously covered his father Tim Buckley's "Song of the Siren" with "This Mortal Coil." And they had met and had a brief but intense romance. And they had worked on a song together. The now mythical, unreleased "All Flowers in Time Bend Towards the Sun."

• 2:21:15Speaker 04

  It's my favorite song of all time.

• 2:21:17Yasi Salek?

  What is it about, we say it's unreleased, but you can, it's 25, it's on YouTube, you can go listen to it.

• 2:21:23Speaker 04

  Well-- First of all, Liz Fraser and Jeff Buckley are actually my biological parents.

• 2:21:28Yasi Salek?

  I see, okay, I understand.

• 2:21:30Speaker 04

  They're my two favorite vocalists and like the people that have influenced me in my life the most musically. So when I learned about this, you know, it like ruined my life.

• 2:21:39Yasi Salek?

  Right, you're like, well, this is my whole personality now, unfortunately for you guys.

• 2:21:44Speaker 04

  Literally, this song existing is my entire personality, but it's just so, again, it's pure. It's so beautiful and because it's because they didn't intend for anyone to hear it, you know? They made it for fun because they were just smitten with each other. They both have the most insane voices of all time. And I, I literally feel guilty every time I listen to it because I know, and I think she feels differently now, but for a long time, she was pretty upset.

• 2:22:10Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, specifically, she said, why can't you guys just fuck off and let something just not?

• 2:22:15Speaker 04

  I totally agree and I totally respect that, but the fact that it is already out there, I can't unhear the song.

• 2:22:21Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, it must feel like, like I can see both sides because it's such an incredible song. And like the fans are just like, thank God for this, but it must feel so invasive considering that it was like such a private moment. And also that he passed away, you know? So there's just like no consent on one side. I don't know, it's, but it is incredibly, it's incredibly a song.

• 2:22:48Yasi Salek?

  So all this has transpired and Liz Fraser hears about Jeff Buckley's passing while she's writing the lyrics to Teardrop. And she says, she was interviewed in The Guardian about it, like years later. It was a very rare interview, she doesn't really do interviews. And she said, I just wish I had been more of a friend. His career was everything to him and I wish I had been more understanding, happy with a different kind of relationship. I missed out on something there and it was my fault. I, there was something about that they broke up because he was just too touring and busy and stuff.

• 2:23:20Speaker 04

  Too free spirited, you know, whatever. Yeah, didn't want to be tied down.

• 2:23:24Yasi Salek?

  But she said that when she learned about his passing, that was so weird. I got letters out and I was thinking about him, like writing Teardrop. That song's kind of about him. That's how it feels to me anyways. Like, listening to it with that lens. Arm hair is up under the Susie hoodie.

• 2:23:44Speaker 04

  So yeah, the kind of the rumor, I don't know if it's like, if she's straight up said it or not, maybe it's because of this quote here, but there, some of the lyrics or the words that she uses were supposed, supposedly lifted from these letters that he had written to her. So that's kind of what she's saying there. Yeah.

• 2:23:58Yasi Salek?

  I didn't realize that.

• 2:24:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:24:00Yasi Salek?

  Ah, do you think love, love is a verb?

• 2:24:03Speaker 04

  That, if I'm being honest, as

• 2:24:05Yasi Salek?

  Love is a doing word?

• 2:24:07Speaker 04

  I, that sounds like some shit that he would have written, absolutely.

• 2:24:11Yasi Salek?

  I'm way too, I'm way too premenstrual for this, actually.

• 2:24:14Speaker 04

  Watch the doc, they show so many of his letters, unfortunately, which is also a whole nother conversation.

• 2:24:19Yasi Salek?

  I deserve hazard pay for actually doing this right now, this close to my period.

• 2:24:24Speaker 04

  You do deserve hazard pay. Um, I think, yeah, I totally believe it. I think we'll never know, but I totally, I totally buy that. But these are some of his words that he had written to her that she used in the lyrics for this song.

• 2:24:37Yasi Salek?

  God damn.

• 2:24:39Speaker 04

  I mean, it's heartbreaking, too.

• 2:24:40Yasi Salek?

  All of it informs why it's such a powerful, like, you can't hear this song and not feel some type of way. It's impossible. I mean, there's the emotion in her voice, there's the lyrics, there's the construct of the, the beat, there's the icicle ding ding nature. I don't know how to say it, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's just.

• 2:25:04Speaker 04

  She was also, I believe, pregnant at the time they recorded it.

• 2:25:06Yasi Salek?

  Pregnant at the time they recorded it. And then crazily, when the video comes out, it's an animated fetus in utero, but they didn't know she was pregnant.

• 2:25:15Speaker 04

  It's crazy.

• 2:25:16Yasi Salek?

  Really crazy.

• 2:25:26Yasi Salek?

  It's terrifying. I hate it, actually, to be honest. So sorry, massive attack. I love you so much, but this music video, you can keep it.

• 2:25:31Speaker 04

  I'm so sorry, but I completely agree with you.

• 2:25:33Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, that's, I don't, not, not for any-

• 2:25:35Speaker 04

  I'm not a huge animatronic fan, and animatronic baby just really freaks me out.

• 2:25:41Yasi Salek?

  Sam Mendes also wanted this song to be the central song in American Beauty.

• 2:25:47Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 2:25:48Yasi Salek?

  Which is really crazy. I mean, it ended up being that song that was composed for American Beauty, but like, you can totally hear maybe the inspiration was drawn from this song.

• 2:25:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:25:56Yasi Salek?

  Cause the band said, no, they were like, I think they were probably just like, it's been in enough things now. Yeah, fucking, fucking maker.

• 2:26:03Speaker 04

  Really is.

• 2:26:04Yasi Salek?

  Emotionally distressing, but absolute banger. Um, the next song is Inertia Creeps.

• 2:26:09Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:26:10Yasi Salek?

  I love it, except it feels like someone's gonna come to my house and murder me.

• 2:26:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, I, I, I understand.

• 2:26:15Yasi Salek?

  This is more like O3D is whispering in my ear, but also he has a gun to my back and a knife at my throat.

• 2:26:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, I saw a very funny comment on a YouTube video, I think just under a music video. Perhaps it was this one, maybe that's, I don't know, but, um, someone said, Robert Denia is like if Damon Albarn was a serial killer and respectfully.

• 2:26:35Yasi Salek?

  Respectfully?

• 2:26:36Speaker 04

  I kind of agree. A hot serial killer.

• 2:26:39Yasi Salek?

  A hot serial killer doesn't actually kill anybody, but who has just a menacing energy that is incredibly attractive.

• 2:26:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:26:53Yasi Salek?

  It's a great song.

• 2:26:54Speaker 04

  It is a really good song.

• 2:26:55Yasi Salek?

  It samples Turkish Sivatelli music, um, which the band discovered while partying in Istanbul. They were at like some cheesy belly dancer show, I guess. And, but the music was banging and Mushroom went and got some of the tapes the next day and then they sampled it for him. Yeah. Um, also samples the 1977 song Rock Rock, uh, by the post-punk band Ultravox. So 3D got his way on that one. 3D said this is about the end of our relationship.

• 2:27:20Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:27:21Yasi Salek?

  It's about being in a situation, but knowing you should be out of it. But you're too fucking lazy or weak to leave and you're dishonest to yourself and dishonest to the other person. You're betraying them every day and the whole scene feels like it's closing in on you. The idea is a combination of movements propelling yourself forward and pulling yourself back at the same time. Inertia.

• 2:27:38Speaker 04

  Dark.

• 2:27:39Yasi Salek?

  It's a dark song.

• 2:27:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:27:40Yasi Salek?

  This whole album is a dark album.

• 2:27:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:27:42Yasi Salek?

  There's like a bit of light cracking through and beauty and like teardrop, but like then we get right back down to inertia creeps. The next song is instrumental, it's Exchange, um, sampling Isaac Hayes' Our Days Will Come. Very nice. Good break, good breather. Then it's Dissolved Girl. Do you have a lot to say about Dissolved Girl?

• 2:28:01Speaker 04

  God, it's such a good song. This is like one of my favorite songs of theirs also. Um, and what I was kind of alluding to earlier with them, like having teardrop-y in the, you know, soundtrack of House, but then pulling it.

• 2:28:13Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:13Speaker 04

  Weirdly Dissolved Girl plays like at the beginning of The Matrix, which

• 2:28:17Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:17Speaker 04

  One of my favorite movies ever, one of the best ones he's ever made.

• 2:28:19Yasi Salek?

  It's not on the soundtrack.

• 2:28:20Speaker 04

  But it's not on the soundtrack.

• 2:28:21Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:21Speaker 04

  It's like, so they were-

• 2:28:22Yasi Salek?

  That happens often.

• 2:28:23Speaker 04

  Does it?

• 2:28:23Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:24Speaker 04

  I have seen him talk in other interviews where they were like, cause they would get asked all the time to, to do this stuff, which they did do sometimes, but he just felt like- Having your music be in a soundtrack for like big Hollywood movies, usually you're just part of the marketing to them. It's not really about the music. It's really just about their marketing strategy.

• 2:28:43Yasi Salek?

  Which does make a lot of sense.

• 2:28:44Speaker 04

  And they didn't want to participate in that. And then having to like, you don't know what other artists are on it that you're being lumped in with. And you know, I think he's just kind of a control freak, which I respect.

• 2:28:52Yasi Salek?

  You admire. Wait till Blade Two comes out, though.

• 2:28:55Speaker 04

  Also a big fan of Blade and Blade Two. But it's just, it is kind of criminal that it's not on the soundtrack. Um, cause it's the opening song and it's like so iconic.

• 2:29:04Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, it's kind of a main, like a main piece. The vocals on the song are by a woman called Sarah J. Sarah J was a singer from Sheffield, um, unknown that Massive Attack's new manager had discovered. This is like a Bjorky song.

• 2:29:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:29:18Yasi Salek?

  You know what I mean? Could you not imagine in an, in an alternative universe this being a Bjork song?

• 2:29:22Speaker 04

  It kind of feels like Army of Me, but slowed, slowed down.

• 2:29:26Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:35Yasi Salek?

  I actually love Man Next Door. Horse Andy just really fucking brings it every time.

• 2:29:40Speaker 04

  He really does.

• 2:29:41Yasi Salek?

  Man Next Door is a cover of a ska song that was composed and adopted by John Holt and first recorded by his group, The Paragons, in 1968. That song was based on the original composition, Quiet Place, by the soul R and B artist Garnet Mims and the Enchanters, which Horse Andy had covered that version. So in a, in a roundabout way, this is once again Horse Andy covering himself.

• 2:30:09Speaker 04

  Legend.

• 2:30:11Yasi Salek?

  This has a sample of The Cure's 1015 Saturday Night. Couldn't, gun to my head, I couldn't identify it for you. Um, and the Led Zeppelin drum break from When the Levy Breaks.

• 2:30:21Speaker 04

  Sick.

• 2:30:22Yasi Salek?

  Uh oh. Are you ready to talk about the song that you don't care about at all and have no relationship with? Called Black Milk?

• 2:30:29Speaker 04

  I love Black Milk.

• 2:30:30Yasi Salek?

  Several months ago, we did A Crime, in which she posted just a mere snippet of herself covering this song with a beat that you built completely yourself out of samples of a video game. Is this correct? And I believe this is correct.

• 2:30:46Speaker 04

  That is true. The rumors are true.

• 2:30:49Yasi Salek?

  And I was like, what am I fucking meant to do with this little snippet? Where's the whole goddamn song?

• 2:30:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, here's, here's what happened.

• 2:30:59Speaker 04

  I just thought it would be fun to make this little cover and loop these samples. I just took a bunch of samples from Silent Hill, another incredible soundtrack and like collection of songs and all the sounds that go into those games and are also very trip hop inspired.

• 2:31:14Speaker 04

  But I just threw it up on TikTok just for fun, thinking that, you know, my friends would see it or whatever and think it was funny and not that anybody would else would see it.

• 2:31:23Yasi Salek?

  We didn't think it was funny. We thought it was beautiful and moving and we wished there was more of it.

• 2:31:26Speaker 04

  Well, so yeah, unfortunately I picked like an eight minute song that I didn't intend to finish.

• 2:31:32Yasi Salek?

  Welcome to my life.

• 2:31:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, so now I learned, I learned that lesson. It took a little while and I did finish it. And it's out now.

• 2:31:47Speaker 04

  We're very lucky to have such a thing in our lives and the original is pretty good too. It's an incredible song, just her vocals, you know, it's like, again, it's such an understated.

• 2:31:58Yasi Salek?

  You're not my eater, I'm not your food.

• 2:32:00Speaker 04

  Dude, the lyrics are so insane too.

• 2:32:02Yasi Salek?

  Fuck me up bitch.

• 2:32:03Speaker 04

  They go so hard. The lyrics go so hard.

• 2:32:06Yasi Salek?

  Love you for God, I love you for the mother.

• 2:32:09Speaker 04

  And now, now that we're talking about this, I'm wondering, are these more letters from Jeff Buckley?

• 2:32:13Yasi Salek?

  Or, I mean, is the mother stuff referencing, cause she's pregnant?

• 2:32:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, true, very true.

• 2:32:20Yasi Salek?

  I don't know. Maybe, maybe, maybe little column A, little column B.

• 2:32:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's a beautiful song. The melody is just unreal.

• 2:32:37Yasi Salek?

  I mean, I just think these work really perfectly too because you don't know what this woman is saying. That's one of the most classic Elizabeth Fraser things.

• 2:32:46Speaker 04

  More than ever.

• 2:32:46Yasi Salek?

  More than ever here though, yeah. Even, even later, they do another track together, Silver Spring?

• 2:32:52Speaker 04

  Silver Spring, yeah.

• 2:32:53Yasi Salek?

  She's, she's fully back on her bullshit of like, I have no idea what this woman is saying. This is Celtic elf language and like, good on you. But here, yeah, it is the most discernible, but it's still indiscernible enough. You know, that it works kind of perfect. Okay, title track.

• 2:33:09Speaker 04

  It's a good one.

• 2:33:10Yasi Salek?

  It's really good.

• 2:33:13Yasi Salek?

  I do like his voice.

• 2:33:14Speaker 04

  You like that one more than Inertia Creeps?

• 2:33:15Yasi Salek?

  No, Inertia Creeps is better.

• 2:33:17Speaker 04

  You, okay, okay.

• 2:33:18Yasi Salek?

  I mean, they're both really good, but Inertia Creeps has like a, it's so catchy.

• 2:33:22Speaker 04

  It is, yeah.

• 2:33:24Yasi Salek?

  It's also creepier. Okay, what about Group Four?

• 2:33:27Speaker 04

  Love Group Four.

• 2:33:28Yasi Salek?

  I like Group Four because you get both. I feel like you don't get 3D on the other two Elizabeth Fraser songs.

• 2:33:33Speaker 04

  I love having them both together.

• 2:33:33Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, and it almost feels like she goes even higher in her register and it, the, the like contrast between then the male voice and then this like very like.

• 2:33:43Speaker 04

  That's the stuff.

• 2:33:43Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, that's.

• 2:33:54Yasi Salek?

  And then the last song is sort of a callback, or it is kind of the same song as the instrumental in the middle exchange, but now it has Horace Andy on it. Kind of ends on a hopeful note.

• 2:34:05Speaker 04

  It does, yeah.

• 2:34:06Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Well, yes, Mezzanine, once again, I, for, to me, you were perfect. You're a little creepy and it's a little difficult for me to spend long periods of time with you, but.

• 2:34:16Speaker 04

  It's so funny to me.

• 2:34:17Yasi Salek?

  It is known as their like magnum opus. Like this is considered the, the like best Massive Attack album.

• 2:34:24Speaker 04

  I also think most people would say if, you know, what is the quintessential trip hop record? I think a lot of people would point to Mezzanine as kind of being the best example of that sound.

• 2:34:34Yasi Salek?

  I like to be controversial and have my own opinions.

• 2:34:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm very interested in that. I think people just really maybe not accurately associate it with the colder, darker, more electronic kind of sound and kind of like not really acknowledging their earlier works or not, just not knowing.

• 2:34:52Yasi Salek?

  Again, genre means nothing and like they move all around, these artists that came from the same place. Like Tricky also like goes in like a thousand different directions with his solo work and he gets on some wild fucking shit. But like to me, it's like Maxine K, Dummy and Protection are just like, they live together in a way that I can really understand. And then they start to all splinter off, you know? Everyone goes off in different directions. Like Third is such a departure by the time you get to Portis' third album, you know?

• 2:35:26Speaker 04

  But yeah, it's like I don't even know what you call that anymore.

• 2:35:28Yasi Salek?

  What do you even call that anymore? But you don't need to call it anything. But I, I do think like the whole point of genre is like, if I'm being generous, not to hem in artists, but more to like. Give people a map to find more of what they like.

• 2:35:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly. It's just like how people like to make process things and understand them and like how to talk about them.

• 2:35:49Yasi Salek?

  If we're being ungenerous to sell fucking shit, which is also a reason that it exists, but like, you know, I think Daddy G and uh maybe 3D also, but definitely Daddy G said that eventually is like, yeah, like actually it's cool that like there was sort of a catchall that allowed people to find more of the thing that they liked, you know, and I think that is a good way to, you know, put it. Again, I did go into some fucking wild Buddha bar shit later and I, you know, I was by this time, like it was like tail end of high school is when I started getting a little bit into Massive Attack.

• 2:36:22Speaker 04

  I was gonna ask you, yeah, what your story was.

• 2:36:24Yasi Salek?

  Well, because I got the um soundtrack for Stealing Beauty. Dummy comes out in 93 and I do remember Sour Times being on MTV and like hearing it on the radio and then getting more into it with the soundtrack because I sort of started to discover like the broader world of like, I'd never heard Cocktoe Twins, you know, 15, 14, 15 years old. And then I, I got more into like rave stuff. Which I didn't really go to raves because I was living in Singapore, I went to clubs. So I was sort of discovering more like rave music through club music. I don't know, this is all kind of led me, it's all kind of led me to underground hip hop, which

• 2:37:06Yasi Salek?

  so then I had picked up Massive Attack and then I got really into DJ Shadow. And then I remember in college being super into Thievery Corporation, which is kind of maybe what, what people talk about when they talk about the like hotel lobby trip hop, but I do, I loved Thievery Corporation. In the year 2000, that shit was good. That shit was fucking like, we hadn't really heard stuff like that before. And then, you know, we can get into the 07 of it all and whatever. That stuff is all good in its own way too, but it doesn't have the edge, I don't think that Massive Attack had brought to it, but anyways, that's my. Story. Well, guess what? This album fucking slayed. It hit number one UK charts, UK dance charts. It even charted in the United States.

• 2:37:46Speaker 04

  Teardrop was on the radio for sure.

• 2:37:48Yasi Salek?

  Number sixty on US Billboard, didn't really like, you know, it didn't kill in that way. But yeah, Teardrop was on the radio, I think. Now, they tour the album. Mushroom's still in the band. Liz Frazier tours with them. Um, in November of nineteen ninety-eight, Mushroom plays his last show with the band and he leaves the band like a year later, formally. In two thousand and one, Three D and Neil Da- Davidge as Massive Attack do a remix for the Dandy Warhols. The song Godless. I just wanted to say that because I love the Dandy Warhols and that song is sick. Um, Three D is becoming increasingly outspoken about politics and anti-war in particular.

• 2:38:24Speaker 04

  King.

• 2:38:25Yasi Salek?

  Fucking king.

• 2:38:26Speaker 04

  Fucking king.

• 2:38:26Yasi Salek?

  Always on the right side of history. He had become close friends with Damon Albarn.

• 2:38:30Speaker 04

  Another absolute king.

• 2:38:32Yasi Salek?

  Well, and we should mention that like Damon Albarn, you could say essentially modeled gorillas off of Massive Attack. Like, he was really into what Massive Attack was doing, also like wanted the freedom of not being in a rock band. He even called himself Two D.

• 2:38:47Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm. It's so funny to me that they actually became good friends. Because you would, you would think that there was a high chance it would have gone the other way.

• 2:38:54Yasi Salek?

  Like, single white female? Get out of my fucking life, bitch?

• 2:38:57Speaker 04

  But they're like, they're bros.

• 2:38:59Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, they're bros, totally.

• 2:39:00Speaker 04

  Which I love.

• 2:39:00Yasi Salek?

  Around this time, Daddy G tells Three D, I want to take a break. I'm forty-one years old. I'm tired from all this touring. I'm about to become a father, a real Daddy G. And so he said, he told World Magazine, don't even know what that is, but found these quotes. Um, D and I weren't getting on that well, musically or personally. So I just decided to walk out. I never really had it in my mind that I would leave the band for good, but it's really hard working with D sometimes. He's so headstrong and has to have things his way. That can build confrontation. He has to have total control of everything he does. So G is like, bye, I'm gonna go do this. Three D and Neil Davidge are working on the album. Um, D is looking for new singers. Like, he even tracked down Nina Simone to the south of France, which is so crazy. And then guess who he reached out to? I don't know much.

• 2:39:46Yasi Salek?

  That's right, Aaron Neville. He banged Aaron Neville's line. Aaron Neville's come up a lot more in this doc than I thought he was going to. And unfortunately, I have the kind of Tourette's where I have to say, I don't know. As you should, honestly. Every time it comes up. So hopefully it doesn't come up again on the doc. But none of that led anywhere. And then a kind of a huge world event comes to really color the making of the next Massive Attack album. That's September 11th. Neil Davidge said, "What really kickstarted the making of A Hundredth Window, which is the next Massive Attack album, was September 11th and the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers. I remember being in the studio and getting a phone call from our manager saying, 'Put the TV on.' We felt as if we were watching a science fiction movie.

• 2:40:30Yasi Salek?

  The feelings that followed pioneered that album. We also all had been through some kind of crisis. We felt pretty isolated, extremely isolated indeed, individually and politically." And then 3D said, "I'm naturally quite a dark character inside, and it was a dark time. Post-September 11th and the Iraq War, it was symptomatic of the isolation, having to do it alone. It was painful, but everyone was demanding a Massive Attack record. I'm pleased by the way it turned out, but I couldn't make a record like that again." So that's kind of like what is in the background of them making A Hundredth Window. And like what he was saying there was, he didn't really necessarily want to make a Massive Attack album with him being the only Massive Attack member there, but... He was being pressured.

• 2:41:13Yasi Salek?

  He was being pressured and G was not going to participate and Mushroom was gone. So while they're working on this, him and Damon Albarn, again, Kings, organized two concerts to raise money for Afghanistan relief. Because of course after 9/11, what happened? We invaded Afghanistan. And they looped in Tony Blair to do the same because 67 British citizens were killed in the attacks. And so he used that sort of as his reasoning. They also took out, I don't know if it's around here, but at some point they take out these huge ads. We'll get into it, the enemy anti-war ads. So that's 2001. 2002, they're working, working on, this album takes a long time. They also do a song called "Eye Against Eye" featuring Mos Def for the soundtrack of Blade.

• 2:41:56Yasi Salek?

  This song I heavily fucked with because I loved most of it. I was deep in my underground hip hop bag at this point. Yeah, so it was September of 2002, 3D took out an ad in the NME with two messages, no war on Iraq and wrong war. Slogan suggested by his pal Banksy and he gets really involved, marches, protests all around London, just again, king shit. Um, in light of all of this, it makes total sense to me why the main female voice that is recruited for the next album of Massive Attack is Sinead O'Connor.

• 2:42:26Speaker 04

  It's perfect.

• 2:42:27Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, like, given the political nature and the outspokenness, like, who better to tap? So that album comes out in 2003, it's called A Hundredth Window. Again, we said it's only 3D that works on this album. He said, "The idea for me to keep it together is just that it's a creative outlet. The thing with Massive Attack as a project is that it's meant to be ambiguous. The whole point was the ability it had to develop and evolve and change without being firmly attached to the faces or personalities within the group. And that is still a key factor in the survival of the band. That's what's gonna keep it together. Because it's not about two people being in the same place at the same time, operating on the same level." But in the same article, and this is in The Times that same year, he said, "I dreamed that Mushroom Grant and I are still in the same band.

• 2:43:08Yasi Salek?

  It's post-split. That's acknowledged in the dream, but we've got over our differences and we're working together again. I don't know if that's a good omen or just wishful thinking."

• 2:43:19Speaker 04

  That's sad. Yeah, the universe was like, "Oh, you're depressed when you made mezzanine? Here, let's have all of your bandmates leave and then 9/11 will happen."

• 2:43:27Yasi Salek?

  Massive terrorist attack that changed the landscape of the world.

• 2:43:30Speaker 04

  Now make, how, yeah, go ahead, make a record now.

• 2:43:33Yasi Salek?

  This one I can barely listen to.

• 2:43:35Speaker 04

  Really?

• 2:43:35Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I mean, I think it's really good.

• 2:43:37Speaker 04

  Because of the heaviness of it?

• 2:43:38Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, it's just like, it's, 3D doesn't use any samples on this album. He, he makes the choice because that's what they've done. He wants to do something different. I think, I'm sure that was like, definitely his decision for expanding and progressing, but also, you know, the people that were the great sample choosers are gone.

• 2:43:56Speaker 04

  Right.

• 2:43:56Yasi Salek?

  But they use a shit ton of computers. This is prime Pro Tools time. They're using all this technology. 3D said, "I, because of Mushroom leaving and G being unavailable, people thought it was gonna be a real guitar fest, big and dark and heavy, but being stubborn, I didn't want to prove everyone right, so I did completely the opposite."

• 2:44:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:44:15Yasi Salek?

  Oh, he also doesn't rap, he sings.

• 2:44:16Speaker 04

  Yep. He really said, let me do the opposite of what everybody

• 2:44:20Yasi Salek?

  Everyone's saying.

• 2:44:21Speaker 04

  Liked about the last few records.

• 2:44:24Yasi Salek?

  I think not using samples and using a shit ton of computers just made this the coldest, most machine-like.

• 2:44:31Speaker 04

  And then the artwork is also just like, it looks like just shattered ice.

• 2:44:35Yasi Salek?

  They literally

• 2:44:35Speaker 04

  Shattered glass.

• 2:44:36Yasi Salek?

  They made full-sized humans out of glass and shot them while Nick Knight took photos. It, it, it's extremely icy. It's like saturation all the way down. Like, it's very cinematic. But it's the least warm, least vibey, least rootsy. Where, no hip-hop, no reggae, you know, like, I mean, if there's no, but it's muted.

• 2:44:57Speaker 04

  Yeah. It's still a great record, though.

• 2:44:59Yasi Salek?

  It's still a great record. Don't get me wrong. It's phenomenal.

• 2:45:02Speaker 04

  Just totally different.

• 2:45:03Yasi Salek?

  I'm just saying it's totally different. It's like, it is almost like they've moved the slider across the Massive Attack records.

• 2:45:08Speaker 04

  But it still does sound like Massive Attack, you know?

• 2:45:10Yasi Salek?

  For sure. As, as Daddy G said, he's like, it's still a Massive Attack record. He's like, it sounds like Massive Attack, but it sounds like what 3D? He's like, it sounds like what I think 3D wants Massive Attack to sound like.

• 2:45:20Speaker 04

  I forgot to mention, we're talking more about Mezzanine. Mezzanine is the first and the last time that 3D was the, like, actual lead producer of the record.

• 2:45:29Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:45:30Speaker 04

  Um, which is also kind of crazy to me since it was also, I guess, outwardly the most successful. All the records were successful musically to me.

• 2:45:36Yasi Salek?

  You mean because Neil Davidge is involved in Hundredth Window?

• 2:45:39Speaker 04

  I guess 3D was like, leading the production on Mezzanine and then stepped back from that as well on this one and then never kind of returned to that, which is very interesting to me. Cause the production on Mezzanine is like, so incredible.

• 2:45:50Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:45:51Speaker 04

  Anyways.

• 2:45:52Yasi Salek?

  That is really interesting. It's even Sinead O'Connor's voice sounds so different on here. Like, the way they produced her voice. The richness and warmness is not there. It works perfectly with the songs. This is not a, again, it's not a diss or a pejorative. It's just like, I'm just noting it.

• 2:46:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:46:09Yasi Salek?

  The title of the album refers to this 2000 book by Charles Jennings and Lori Fina called Privacy and Security in the Age of the Internet, which I guess was like, had some line in it about how 99 of your windows open online are secure, even if the hundredth window remains open, you're vulnerable. But 3D read that and it was like, what I actually felt about the Hundredth Window when I I saw it written down was that it's more spiritual place. The third eye, the window to the soul, the whole idea of the place where you can communicate without thinking, examining the world without your personality being in the way. The hundredth window is the one you don't close. It's the one you've got no real control over. It sounded celestial to me, almost Buddhist. It's a window in your head where people can look in and you can see out without fear.

• 2:46:49Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 2:46:49Yasi Salek?

  This man's mind.

• 2:46:51Speaker 04

  Genius.

• 2:46:52Yasi Salek?

  We didn't mention that nothing compares to you.

• 2:46:55Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 2:46:56Yasi Salek?

  Sinead O'Connor, a cover of the Prince song was produced by Nellie Hooper. So another tie in.

• 2:47:02Speaker 04

  I didn't realize that.

• 2:47:02Yasi Salek?

  Um. Boldly starts with a song with 3D singing. That's the first song.

• 2:47:11Speaker 04

  His first time singing, right? And yeah, first song of the record.

• 2:47:23Yasi Salek?

  But also it starts like boop, boop with these like very computer sounds.

• 2:47:27Speaker 04

  It's like, it sounds like you're like floating alone in space or something and like.

• 2:47:30Yasi Salek?

  It's, it's computer.

• 2:47:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:47:38Yasi Salek?

  Okay, so the next song is What Your Soul Sings featuring Sinead O'Connor. I love all the Sinead O'Connor songs on here, but my personal favorite is A Prayer for England.

• 2:47:46Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 2:47:46Yasi Salek?

  I find that one to be really moving.

• 2:47:48Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 2:47:49Yasi Salek?

  Um, I guess 3D asked Sinead to write a song that was like a prayer and she was like, bet. And it's a literal prayer. She's, really is just such a perfect person for this because she is such a fighter and such a believer in causes and, and fighting for the, the underserved and children and. It was, it was pretty inspired to have her on here.

• 2:48:20Yasi Salek?

  Your friend Damon Albarn has

• 2:48:22Speaker 04

  Bestie.

• 2:48:23Yasi Salek?

  fairly audible backing vocals on the song Small Time Shot Away. Horace Andy, of course. There's no album without Horace Andy. He sings "Everyone" and "Name Taken." I think overall this is a great album. This is, if I had to rank them, this is my least favorite Massive Attack album.

• 2:48:38Speaker 04

  I think I'd probably agree with you on that.

• 2:48:40Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:48:40Speaker 04

  Yeah. Kind of like starting over again in a way because he was, you know.

• 2:48:45Yasi Salek?

  Sure, it's just him.

• 2:48:46Speaker 04

  With everyone gone, it's down to just him.

• 2:48:47Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:48:48Speaker 04

  He now has the freedom to do whatever he wanted. So he was kind of, you know.

• 2:48:52Yasi Salek?

  But he doesn't really because he has everyone's expectations, which he didn't before. It's like, who knows what he would have done if he had all the freedom but was just himself. I mean, you can never know, but it's interesting because it's not free if you're reacting against something.

• 2:49:03Speaker 04

  That's very true.

• 2:49:04Yasi Salek?

  It is the album that you would imagine would be made, given all the things that we just spoke about, you know? And given the prism of Robert Delnaiya's mind, which is something very-

• 2:49:18Speaker 04

  You say prism or prison?

• 2:49:19Yasi Salek?

  It's honestly either one, babe. Whatever you heard is correct. Yeah, whatever you heard is right. It hit number one too, though. Massive Attack was quite popular at this time. Two weeks after the release of this album, the police raided Robert Delnaiya's house right before they were supposed to go on tour. And they arrested him as part of Operation One, which was a huge crackdown on child pornography on the internet, which obviously had nothing to do with, um, which is so strange.

• 2:49:43Speaker 04

  Cottic.

• 2:49:43Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, and you're like-

• 2:49:44Speaker 04

  This Wikipedia article is insane.

• 2:49:46Yasi Salek?

  It's insane.

• 2:49:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, I didn't know about any of this.

• 2:49:48Yasi Salek?

  It's insane.

• 2:49:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:49:50Yasi Salek?

  And they took his, all his computer equipment, his videos, and then a month later, they returned it all and they were like, "Sorry, you know, you're cleared." But not before they leaked it to the tabloids. And he had all this fucking shit. Like, people were like, but apparently in the book I read that he was actually very like, touched because like, everyone he knew and fans-

• 2:50:08Speaker 04

  Had his back.

• 2:50:09Yasi Salek?

  Had his back. "We know that you didn't do that." He even said, he was like, "I've been very open about sex and pornography and like, I wouldn't like, this is not my fucking thing," you know, like, it must have been really fucking stressful.

• 2:50:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:50:20Yasi Salek?

  And then talk about like surveillance state, you know? And then they go on tour. This is when their tour shit gets really interesting and I really wish I had been able to see some of this. I think some of it's online because now they have the capabilities thanks to computers and three giant LED screens and stuff. And with this collective called UVA, 3D co-designed these screens that on this tour, just the whole time they would display these like really horrible and chilling facts about what was happening in Iraq. All the death tolls of the civilians, the Iraqi deaths, the American deaths, the amount of oil being consumed around the world, the chemicals that were found, the weapons that were found. And then plus data from the stocking chains. It was like, they really were like an art installation about how fucked up the world is.

• 2:51:04Yasi Salek?

  And they also had a line every night that counted the number of weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq and every night it read zero. Pretty fucking amazing. It is. Just, yeah, it just really fucking amazing. Um, the next year, 3D worked on the soundtrack for the film Danny the Dog, produced by Luke Besson and directed by Louis Leterrier. He's, he does a lot of soundtrack stuff later. And then in 2006, Massive Attack had to release their contractually obligated compilation album because they were signed for like six albums in a compilation. It's called Collected, um, and it has three unreleased songs. Joy Luck Club featuring Debbie Claire from the band Oom, that one's good. False Flags, which is a very political song with just 3D, also a good song. And then Silver Spring, another collaboration with Liz Frazier.

• 2:51:49Yasi Salek?

  Once again, really back in her Liz Frazier bag. And since 2005 or 2006, 3D had been working with, he's been involved in various charities and we talked about his anti-war stuff, but he had been involved with this foundation called the Hoping Foundation. Hope and optimism for Palestinians and the next generation, um, in which he helped fund programs for children in Palestine. Again, what's it like to always have been on the right side of history since? Banksy too. Another reason that people had this like theory, they were always in the same place. Banksy was doing all these like installations in Gaza. Um, in 2007, 3D and Davidge scored three soundtracks, In Prison My Whole Life, Battle in Seattle and Trouble the Water.

• 2:52:33Yasi Salek?

  In 2009, 3D and Grant went back to the studio, Grant's back, um, to work on their, which is kind of crazy if you think about it, that's 10 years since the last album Grant worked on because that was mezzanine, 1998. And they do their fifth studio album, Heligoland. How do you feel about Heligoland?

• 2:52:50Speaker 04

  It's great.

• 2:52:51Yasi Salek?

  I know. They really have made anything bad.

• 2:52:53Speaker 04

  They really never miss.

• 2:52:54Yasi Salek?

  I know.

• 2:52:55Speaker 04

  Even though they changed their sound quite a bit, it's still... Everything they've done is great.

• 2:53:02Yasi Salek?

  It really is so good. Like, you would not expect their, like, fifth album in 2010 to still be really good. But it's actually fucking amazing. They tapped Tune Day from TV on the Radio. Um, Dave and Alburn's on here.

• 2:53:17Speaker 04

  Hope Sandoval.

• 2:53:17Yasi Salek?

  Hope Sandoval. Again, the fucking murderers row of female singers that they have tapped, like...

• 2:53:24Speaker 04

  They really won the lottery. How does it feel to be God's favorite?

• 2:53:29Yasi Salek?

  How does it feel? They had... Also, Martina Topley-Bird is on this, which is very funny, given that she was the main vocalist of Tricky and also is baby mama.

• 2:53:36Speaker 04

  There's some drama about that, of course.

• 2:53:37Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. I'm sure. Well, I'm sure... What, 3D was like, "Oh, we're just gonna ask Martina. No big deal. No one's gonna care." Like, um, but, you know, I'm not interested in fighting petty, small-minded stuff like that. They were also... This was killing me. They were supposed to work with Mike Patton of Faith No More. Leslie Feist from Feist. I love... I will have loved to hear a Massive Attack Feist song. And Beth Orton, who also amazing, but those didn't happen. Also, Sharon Jones, Patti Smith, and David Bowie were, I guess, reached out to. Um, or tracked or paired them. And also, um, there were some talks with Tom Waits.

• 2:54:21Yasi Salek?

  This was very funny because what 3D said was he tried to talk to Tom Waits on the phone, and Tom Waits kept calling him Steve. And he'd be like, "No, it's Dee." And he'd be like, "Steve?" And he's like, "This is not gonna work. I'm sorry." I really like "Hell of a Lamb." I do feel like they hit the end there with "Hundredth Window," with like, the coldness, the machines, and then kind of bounced back to a warmer place. Obviously Daddy G is back, and I think that adds to it. 3D said, I think it's got a, definitely a more organic feel. I love the song with Martina Topley-Bird, "Babble."

• 2:54:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's really good.

• 2:54:53Yasi Salek?

  I really love her voice.

• 2:54:54Speaker 04

  She's a great voice.

• 2:55:03Yasi Salek?

  Obviously Horse Andy is back I didn't mention, but we're not making a fucking Massive Attack album if Horse Andy is not in the building.

• 2:55:10Speaker 04

  Him in 3D just holding it down.

• 2:55:12Yasi Salek?

  Just holding it down.

• 2:55:14Yasi Salek?

  Damon Albarn plays keys and synth bass on a couple of these songs, which is very cool. He's in the mix. One of the Horse Andy songs is called "Girl, I Love You" and it's, again, a drastically reworked version of a song he had originally written. It's fucking great, but I think probably the standout track is Paradise Circus.

• 2:55:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:55:31Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, featuring Hope Sandoval. Which, you watch TV? It's on TV. It was licensed to the BBC series Luther. It was in Gossip Girl. Season 2, Episode 4. It was in the show Revenge, which is a great show if you haven't watched it. Season 2, Episode 6. And also in True Blood. They really didn't care about licensing, I guess, to TV during this. They were like, "The money in my hands." The song is really fucking good. You could see why they would put it in so many TV shows. So evocative of like, a feel.

• 2:56:13Yasi Salek?

  And then there's the song with Damon Albarn, "Saturday Comes Slow." You love that one?

• 2:56:17Speaker 04

  Yes, I do.

• 2:56:18Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. How do you rank the albums?

• 2:56:22Speaker 04

  I really don't like...

• 2:56:23Yasi Salek?

  You're not a ranker, I know. It's a masculine trait.

• 2:56:27Speaker 04

  I rank on my personal preference. I can do that, but not based on what I think is better. Because I think they're all genuinely, I think they're all great. But Mezzanine is just like...

• 2:56:35Yasi Salek?

  That's number one for you with a bullet?

• 2:56:37Speaker 04

  Then Protection.

• 2:56:38Yasi Salek?

  Then Protection.

• 2:56:39Speaker 04

  Then Blue Lines. Then Helicole Land. Hundredth Window. Okay, what about you?

• 2:56:43Yasi Salek?

  I'm not doing it. I know, isn't that so fucked up? I know. It's my show, though.

• 2:56:49Speaker 04

  Fair enough.

• 2:56:52Yasi Salek?

  I feel really powerful. Um, all right, let's bring it home. In 2011, it was the 20 year anniversary for Blue Lions and they were doing some like release stuff and they reconnected with Mushroom.

• 2:57:02Speaker 04

  Yay.

• 2:57:02Yasi Salek?

  They hadn't talked a long time and 3D said it's been a happy dream communicating with Mush again. In 2013, they collaborated, Massive Attack collaborated with the British documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis for these like several shows around the world that were like live show film screening hybrids with Horace Andy and Liz Frazier. They were called Massive Attack V Adam Curtis, kind of like an old school sound system clash. These sound really fucking harrowing. If you've ever seen an Adam Curtis documentary, you know the vibes I'm talking about. He's just like, hey, did you know everything is fucking the worst and you're in hell? That's kind of the general tone. The idea is to provide a dark commentary on power and the illusion of democracy.

• 2:57:44Yasi Salek?

  In the worldview of Curtis, known for his documentaries, The Century of the Self and The Power of Nightmares, technocrats and global corporations have established an ultra-conservative norm, which is meekly accepted by the millions affected by it. The internet and algorithms have created a fake enchanting world, which has become a kind of prison. So what you're seeing here in the backdrop of Massive Attack is like images of Chernobyl, September 11th, the war in Afghanistan juxtaposed with pictures of like pop culture, Jane Fonda, horror movies, um, movies about disasters that took place before 2001, which is actually kind of crazy how many of them show like big buildings being destroyed. It's crazy. They also did a bunch of covers at this.

• 2:58:25Yasi Salek?

  They covered Songs by Suicide, Jesus and Mary Chain, Nirvana, The Arches and Bauhaus. Um, it sounds fucking incredible.

• 2:58:31Speaker 04

  It sounds amazing.

• 2:58:32Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:58:32Speaker 04

  It's crazy. There's like not like a, like they didn't like professionally record and like release it.

• 2:58:37Yasi Salek?

  No.

• 2:58:38Speaker 04

  I found some clips online, but...

• 2:58:39Yasi Salek?

  It must be professionally recorded somewhere, but I think they didn't release it. Cause these are these art installations. Everything I read about it was that it was like they were hard to sit through.

• 2:58:47Speaker 04

  I will say, I don't know if they've, if they still collaborate with him on like their recent visuals, but like when I saw them, it was not that far off from this.

• 2:58:54Yasi Salek?

  Oh, interesting.

• 2:58:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's like just you're being barraged with like really intense imagery and messaging, you know, throughout the whole.

• 2:59:02Yasi Salek?

  I heard that recently, and I, I didn't check this, but they've been playing with facial recognition technology. Did they do that at your show?

• 2:59:09Speaker 04

  No, that's a new thing.

• 2:59:10Yasi Salek?

  That like... So they would just scan the audience and then show your fucking data on the screen?

• 2:59:16Speaker 04

  It's, I think, not real. They had to like come out and say-

• 2:59:18Yasi Salek?

  Oh, really?

• 2:59:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:59:20Yasi Salek?

  Okay, cuz that like blew me away.

• 2:59:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, it would be really, really insane if they did that.

• 2:59:25Yasi Salek?

  They're probably not allowed, right?

• 2:59:27Speaker 04

  No.

• 2:59:27Yasi Salek?

  Legally, yeah.

• 2:59:28Speaker 04

  I'm sorry to break the illusion.

• 2:59:30Yasi Salek?

  No, that's fine. I mean, I think, I think the, the end result is the same.

• 2:59:34Speaker 04

  It looks like it.

• 2:59:35Yasi Salek?

  Which is the reminder that they can't, that people can't do this. So this is always possible.

• 2:59:39Speaker 04

  Yeah. It is really cool.

• 2:59:41Yasi Salek?

  Here's a little Bree moment for you, a little Bree tidbit.

• 2:59:43Speaker 04

  Bree moment?

• 2:59:44Yasi Salek?

  Well, just something I think you will like, an intersection of your interests.

• 2:59:47Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 2:59:47Yasi Salek?

  In 2015, 3D did a remix, a remix? 3D did a remix of Noel Gallagher's song, "The Right Stuff," the high-flying birds. And Noel Gallagher said, "I remember being at the Brits in 1995 and Dee offering to do a Massive Attack remix of 'Cast No Shadow.'" This is what we could have had as a society.

• 3:00:05Speaker 04

  Imagine what the world would be like if we had that.

• 3:00:08Yasi Salek?

  Massive Attack remix of 'Cast No Shadow.'

• 3:00:10Speaker 04

  Forget OK Computer.

• 3:00:12Yasi Salek?

  You just want that.

• 3:00:13Speaker 04

  Respectfully, just give me the 'Cast No Shadow' remix.

• 3:00:16Yasi Salek?

  And then in 2016, they put out their last, I think, the last-

• 3:00:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:00:20Yasi Salek?

  Piece of like original music that they've done, not piece, but like EP, um, called Ritual Spirit, which is most marked by the return of, not mushroom, but Tricky.

• 3:00:31Speaker 04

  Crazy.

• 3:00:32Yasi Salek?

  Tricky came back.

• 3:00:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:00:33Yasi Salek?

  They buried the hatchet.

• 3:00:34Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 3:00:35Yasi Salek?

  Or I don't know if they did or not.

• 3:00:36Speaker 04

  I think they have. I feel like everyone speaks kind of fondly of each other these days.

• 3:00:40Yasi Salek?

  I mean, we're old now.

• 3:00:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:00:41Yasi Salek?

  Who's got time? No one's got time to be fucking throwing darts in the face magazine or whatever. And now we're all just, we're all just vibes. I really like this. It's a four-track EP. It has Ritzmanuva, who's an incredible, um, very OG British rapper. Um, Ezekiel is someone I wasn't familiar with. Young Fathers, who I fucking love. That's my favorite track on here, "Voodoo in My Blood," is what it's called with Young Fathers on it. It's so good. And then the last track is called "Take It There," and it has Tricky in it. It is really good.

• 3:01:10Speaker 04

  It is really good.

• 3:01:11Yasi Salek?

  Again, they don't miss.

• 3:01:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:01:13Yasi Salek?

  And last I heard was that in December of last year, in an interview with NME, 3D said that they were gonna release new music this year. It is November.

• 3:01:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:01:25Yasi Salek?

  They said it's been ready since 2020, but it's been held up by label disputes. And he also said they rejected an offer to play Coachella. This year because of its environmental impact, once again.

• 3:01:36Speaker 04

  Standing on business.

• 3:01:37Yasi Salek?

  Standing on business. But yeah, I hope new music, this 2020 new music from them emerges.

• 3:01:43Speaker 04

  I have so too, because I just want to see them again, too, really, you know?

• 3:01:46Yasi Salek?

  You feel like they need a reason to tour?

• 3:01:48Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 3:01:49Yasi Salek?

  I know. I'd like to go. I've never seen them. I'd really like a crack.

• 3:01:52Speaker 04

  Oh, my god, we have to go together. Yeah, you need a crack.

• 3:01:54Yasi Salek?

  That sounded weird, but unfortunately, that's the way we're gonna have to end it. Um, Bree, thank you so much. I feel like this went really well.

• 3:02:02Speaker 04

  Thank you for having me. I'm so glad you think it went well. I think it went well.

• 3:02:05Yasi Salek?

  Do you feel weird about ranking the albums?

• 3:02:08Speaker 04

  It's okay. I think I stand by my, you know, I stand by my ranking.

• 3:02:13Yasi Salek?

  Yeah?

• 3:02:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:02:14Yasi Salek?

  I honestly just couldn't do it. Okay, I'll do it. We'll end it, okay. I think, I think number one for me might be Blue Line.

• 3:02:22Speaker 04

  I think that's a good choice.

• 3:02:23Yasi Salek?

  I think Blue Lines and Protection are probably one and one somehow.

• 3:02:25Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 3:02:26Yasi Salek?

  And then Mezzanine.

• 3:02:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:02:27Yasi Salek?

  And then Heligoland. And then Hundredth Window.

• 3:02:33Speaker 04

  We're the same. We just swapped Mezzanine and

• 3:02:36Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 3:02:36Speaker 04

  And Blue Lines and Protection.

• 3:02:39Yasi Salek?

  So not the same?

• 3:02:40Speaker 04

  Not the same at all.

• 3:02:40Yasi Salek?

  Okay. Well, come back next week for a new episode of Bandsplain.

• 3:02:53Yasi Salek?

  If you liked what you heard today, subscribe for more episodes of Bandsplain. Our guest today was Bree Morell. This episode was produced by Rob Sunderman and edited by Adrian Bridges with help from Justin Sales. Video animation and graphics are by John Richter. Executive producers for Bandsplain are Gina Dalvak and me, Yasi Salek. Our gorgeous and catchy theme song was composed and performed by Bethany Cosentino and Jennifer Claven, and graciously recorded by Carlos de la Garza in Los Angeles, California. Special thanks to our producer emeritus, Producer Dylan, aka Dylan Tupper Rupert, and also Sean Fantasy, Jeanette Lee, Gareth Sager, and Silver Spring's Hot Yoga. Come back every Thursday for a new episode of Bandsplain on Spotify

• 3:03:38Yasi Salek?

  or wherever you listen to or watch podcasts.

• 3:03:47Yasi Salek?

  I wanted to say something and now it's like, where did it go?

• 3:03:50Speaker 04

  It happens to me all the time.

• 3:03:51Yasi Salek?

  Where did it go?

• 3:03:52Speaker 04

  It's my biggest fear. I don't know.

• 3:03:56Speaker 08

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