Massive Attack

Massive Attack is a collaborative music production duo from Bristol, UK. Working with co-producers, as well as various session musicians and guest vocalists, they make records and tour live. The duo are considered to be progenitors of the trip hop genre.  DJs Grantley "Grant" Evan Marshall (a.k.a. Daddy G or "G"), Andrew "Andy" Lee Isaac Vowles (a.k.a. Mushroom or "Mush") and graffiti artist-turned-MC (later turned-singer) Robert Del Naja (a.k.a. 3D or "D") met as members of DJ/MC partying collective, The Wild Bunch. One of the first homegrown soundsystems in the UK, The Wild Bunch became dominant on the Bristol club scene in the mid-1980s. Andy Vowles left the band in early 2000 to pursue other interests.

Massive Attack's style is often thought of as being experimental. The duo have talked of how they have a different creative approach to each album and "avoid the obvious." Some of their most noted songs have been without choruses and have featured dramatically atmospheric dynamics, conveyed through either epic distorted guitar crescendos, lavish orchestral arrangements (such as swelling, sustained strings or flourishes of grand piano) or prominent, looped/shifting basslines, underpinned by high and exacting production values, involving sometimes copious digital editing and mixing. The pace of their music has often been slower than prevalent British dance music of the time. These and other psychedelic, soundtrack-like and DJist sonic techniques, formed a much-emulated style journalists began to dub "trip hop" from the mid-nineties onwards. In an interview in 2006, G said, "We used to hate that terminology [trip-hop] so bad. You know, as far as we were concerned, Massive Attack music was unique, so to put it in a box was to pigeonhole it and to say, Right, we know where you guys are coming from." This is " Teardrop" off of their 1998 release Mezzanine.

www.massiveattack.com

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