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Well first off, two things.

One, the new Massive Attack track  “Summertime” featuring Scarlett Johansson (needs no introduction, I’m sure) is out digitally from ITunes and Amazon.com as of today on the soundtrack for the Mexican thriller, “Days Of Grace”. Secondly, it is’nt really what you might think i.e. a collaboration.

It’s just a glorified remix track that probably got more attention than it deserved when news of the Scarjo/Attack track broke nearly a year ago last May.

I think alot of people were under the impression that Scarlett and Massive had collaborated directly together in the studio or something. Miss Johansson already recorded a cover version of this George Gerswin composed track back in 2006 for the celebrity covers album “Unexpected Dreams”. Massive just took her vocals from that recording and just did what they’re good at, breaking it down, re-interpreting it to be pretty far removed from the original and giving us all some ear candy to listening to.

Here is the original 2006 recording of “Summertime” with Scarlett’s vocals.

Good for comparsion’s sake with the new Massive remix.

The press release for the Days Of Grace soundtrack said April 3rd for the digital release date, but from what I can see, the Days of Grace soundtrack was postponed a week until the 10th. The physical release of the album won’t be until 8th May.

Personally, I’m holding off hearing the song until the CD release I’ve pre-ordered arrives next month, or until some enterprising individual sticks them on Youtube.

But here are the ITunes and Amazon download order links:

(Summertime – Song Only)

(Days Of Grace – Full Album)

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(Summertime – Song Only)

(Days Of Grace – Full Album)

Judging from the ITunes sample, it reminds of some of the remixing stuff Massive were doing in the post-Mezzanine phase of their career – the All Main Courses remix of “3 Libras” springs to mind. Lots of distorted vocals and looped up atmospherics. Honestly not really doing anything for me, but I’ll pass on judging it until I hear the full thing. I was hoping more for them to keep some of the orchestral arrangements from the original track.

Of course, I would love to know how much of this remix  is 3D’s and how much is Tim Goldsworthy’s doing, who is also credited with the track.

Goldsworthy (of DFA records fame) as you may know came on board to help produce parts of Heligoland, and it seems he’s been kept around on the payroll. It’ll be interesting to see what he contributes to any future Massive Attack recordings.

Speaking of which, there’s actually more Goldsworthy to be found on the Days Of Grace soundtrack. The purely instrumental track “Permanent Shade” features him along with Euan Dickinson – the engineer at Massive Attack studios/100 Suns, for anyone whose not a Massive Attack nerd! So there’s actually another Massive Attack track (sort of) on this soundtrack.

The rest of the Days Of Grace soundtrack has some other pretty notable names on it. I’m looking forward the most to hearing some of the Atticus Ross tracks, whose basically Trent Reznor’s right hand guy these days.

The film itself looks good from the trailer, and it’s apparently getting alot of critical buzz in its native Mexico. Here is the official site for the film and it’s IMDB entry.

So after getting to the end of all this, if you want to share your thoughts on the “Scarjo/Attack” track, then please do in the comments area below or on the linked forum topic. Thanks.