I'm a bit late to the game here (pun intended), as by now its been reported by just about every major gaming publication on the planet but, the final tracklisting and release date for the Halo 4 soundtrack was announced yesterday.
Halo 4 is shaping up to be THE game of the year and as most of us should know, Massive Attack alumni Neil Davidge is taking on the task of providing the in-game score. I can't wait to hear the results, and wish Neil the best and that all the new fans he has garnered from the Halo gaming community will appreciate what he's got in store for them.
IGN have done a new interview with Neil and also posted up a fair amount of samples from the soundtrack for everyone to judge. Good for whetting the appetite for the main course, which will be on the 22nd October. I'll just post one of the samples on here - Awakening, probably my favourite that I've heard so far. As good a tune as any to blast a few aliens to. :-)
Halo 4 Special Edition Soundtrack
There's also the welcome addition of a remix album that is also being released alongside the regular album with various DJ's having a go at reinterpreting Neil's soundtrack work. One of those DJ's being Gui Boratto, who already remixed Massive Attack's Paradise Circus, a couple of years ago to great effect.
The remix version of the soundtrack will only be available as part of a special limited edition that comes with a lot of other goodies, which are always nice if you can afford it, which in this case is £50/$75. I know I've already put myself down for one. ;-)
So, I'll probably come back to this topic on the blog in or around the 22nd October once I get to hear the soundtrack in it's entirety. In the meantime, I've got to get myself an Xbox 360. :oops:
With that admission out of the way, I'll just finish this post with an embed video of Neil being interviewed at E3 in Los Angeles last June about the soundtrack.
Mezzanine will be 20 years old now this April. I don't know about you but I definitely feel a bit older having typed that. Mezzanine was my gateway drug into not only Massive Attack but into alternative and electronic music in general. Bear in mind I was in my earlier teens at the time, but Mezzanine really shook me up the first few months I listened to it and changed my opinion of what music could be.
Embedded at the top of this post is a new documentary entitled "Where Do You Draw The Line?" from WordSmith Productions who have generously uploaded the entire hour long documentary to Vimeo for free as of today.
Close to two years after first getting word of this project, (check out this blog post of the initial announcement in May 2013), the end result of the unique but maybe not altogether surprising pairing of Del Naja and Yorke was just released online as a free stream via Soundcloud.