Another year nearly over and I'd thought I'd better write a quick blog post about what Massive Attack have been up to in 2017. Compared to 2016, this year has been relatively quiet, but we can only hope behind the scenes that its also been a good productive year for the band and that we can expect new music (and maybe, just maybe, a new album!) in 2018.
So here's a rundown in bulletpoint form of all Massive Attack news in 2017. See you all in 2018!
Setlist from the recent Asian tour.
In late November, Massive Attack conducted a small Asian tour consisting of 1 Hong Kong date and 2 Tokyo dates. The setlist and stage production was pretty similar to what they did on their Summer 2016 tour. Martina Topley-Bird was not present on these dates (so no Teardrop or Paradise Circus was played).
3D did one interview (his only one of the year) with the Hong Kong press during this tour that you can read the transcript here on Twitter. No talk about any new music or album but some new info regarding him working on some new kind of crypto-currency involving graffiti.
In other touring news, Massive Attack announced a few European festival shows in Summer 2018. This hints at a larger tour next year with quite possibly new music to coincide with the tour. The tour dates for next year can be viewed here.
We know from this Techcrunch article published in November, that Massive Attack have further and more ambitious plans for their Fantom app they released last year. 3D has apparently begun a startup company (also called Fantom) that is working to produce innovative AR (augmented reality) solutions for other bands and artists. We also know from last year that 3D is collaborating with a Miami based AR company called Magic Leap that will hopefully produce some AR app for the next Massive Attack album/tour.
Probably my favourite bit of news this year was that Wire finally got a full length release in 2017. For anyone who doesn't know, Wire was one of Massive Attack's rarest tracks that they originally produced back in 1997 for the Welcome To Sarajevo soundtrack that never got officially released at the time. For many years, a 3 minute length demo of this track floated around the internet that was unfortunately missing the 2nd half of the song. In November 2017 however, Sara Jay, the singer on the track located the original demo of the track she had done with Massive Attack and uploaded it to YouTube. For a Massive Attack completist, it was very nice to finally hear the full length version of this great track!
Both 3D and Daddy G were spotted at the launch event for the new iPhone X in California in September. Not too surprising I guess that they are both Apple fanboys!
In a bit of retro news, in August the BBC released a awesome previously unseen interview with 3D filmed back in the 1980's about his graffiti background and the tagging and hip-hop culture in Bristol at the time. You can check that video out on YouTube here.
Daddy G filmed a quick interview with the BBC about his approval of the name change of the Colston Hall in Bristol, to try and distance itself away from its slavery background. You can check out that video on Facebook here.
Back in June, the American band Algiers were spotted in Massive Attack's studio working on new as yet unreleased material with the band. Very likely that Algiers will feature in some way on the next Massive Attack album.
Daddy G did a couple of solo endeavours this year away from Massive Attack, when he remixed the GonJasufi track Your Maker and also provided vocals on the Ghostpoet track Woe Is Meee.
The track He Says He Needs Me, a collaboration with Young Fathers was released on the soundtrack album to the Assassins Creed movie in early January. This version was a shortened version of the track that originally debuted online in late 2015.
Massive Attack snapped at the launch event for the iPhone X in California in September 2017.
American band Algiers in the Massive Attack studio in June 2017.
After a few mild teases in the last few days on their social media channels, Massive Attack announced today the arrival of a new 3 track EP entitled Eutopia. So at least we can say that 2020 isn’t a total write-off at least!
Another year nearly over and I'd thought I'd better write a quick blog post about what Massive Attack have been up to in 2017. Compared to 2016, this year has been relatively quiet, but we can only hope behind the scenes that its also been a good productive year for the band and that we can expect new music (and maybe, just maybe, a new album!) in 2018.
While Massive Attack are busying themselves with touring around Europe this month, earlier today on BBC6 Music we got the first taste of what presumably is the next Massive Attack EP. When the Ritual Spirit EP came out last January we were promised at the time another EP (with Daddy G taking the reins from 3D), that would come out in the Summer. Well it looks like that promise has been delivered upon.