2007/2008
Newsworthy Events From 07' And 08' Arranged From Latest to Earliest Chronologically
After just over five long years of no significant update to the official Massive Attack website, today marked the launch of a new look design and aesthetic for massiveattack.co.uk (also asseccable from massiveattack.com). The site is no longer promoting 100th Window and instead being entirely made out of Flash is using standard HTML/PHP (which should be more easily updateable) with Flash being used just to load up the background images/videos and music loops. Other improvements on the site include and RSS feed of the major news items/blog enteries and search feature which is archiving all the old videos that have been hosted on massiveattack.co.uk for the last 10 years. The first few news entries on the new site, reiterate the big news from yesterdat regarding Massive Attack's appointment as curators of the Meltdown Festival this year in London, while also reminding vistors of the exciting news of an upcoming summer tour and the upcoming releases of three new Massive Attack produced soundtrack scores for the motion pictures In Prison My Whole Life, Battle In Seattle and Trouble The Water. The three preceeding links will take you to the official websites for the respective films.
The now old and defunct former Massive Attack site is still (like other old iterations of the official site) asseccable from this address: massiveattack.co.uk/start.html.
Announced today was official word from the organizers of the Meltdown Festival held annually in London that Massive Attack were to follow in the long line of other distinguished artists by being curators of this year's festival. Meltdown is an annual music festival held at the Royal Festival Hall, part of the South Bank Centre in London, UK. Since its inception in 1993, the festival has been curated by a single person each year, usually a notable musician or composer such as, David bowie or Morrissey in the past. Massive Attack appear to be the first band (rather than a individual) to ever curate the event. In the initial press release for the event Massive Attack stated, [Quote] - “It's an honour to host Southbank Centre’s Meltdown Festival and to be in such inspiring company as its previous curators. In addition to the music, we want this year's festival to have a strong political and visual element to it to reflect our influences and obsessions. Our aim is to mix it up a bit by instigating collaborations that make sense and probably some that don't”. The Meltdown festival will take place from 14th to the 22nd June and the full lineup choosen by Massive Attack has been promised to be released shortly.
Today was the first date in a small mini-tour for Massive Attack consisting mainly of Iberian shows with one held in the UK. The first show was at the BEC in Bilbao, Spain with the sixth and last show being at the Pilton Fayre in Glastonbury, UK on the 21st September. Not only this, but a brand new and previously unheard of song in any form, was debuted at these shows called 16 Seeter featuring Horace Andy on vocals.
The new U.N.K.L.E album, War Stories is released on this day. Once again, as with the last U.N.K.L.E album, James Lavelle has managed to rope in his friend 3D for another collaboration named Twilight. This follows on from the recent remix work U.N.K.L.E did on False Flags and the song Invasion that appeared on U.N.K.L.E's Never Never Land in 2003.
Massive Attack launched their official My Space page today, finally following many of their musical peers in doing so. Like the majority of MySpace pages, the Massive Attack page contains a streaming music player, numerous photos and pictures and a community areas for fans to leave comments and communicate. Of particular note is the streaming music player that has a previously unheard of dub remix of Risingson called the the "Setting Sun Dub 2".
The campaign against the UK Governments proposed Trident Nuclear renewal took place the River Thames in London, UK on this day, when The Greenpeace Arctic Sunrise docked in the shadow of Tower Bridge played host to a 50 strong choir. The choir Sense of Sound performed a piece composed by Damon Albarn of Blur. Entitled 5 Minutes to Midnight the performance represented a peaceful demonstration against renewing Trident and against Britain possessing nuclear weapons. Directed by Hannah Eidinow with visuals designed by 3D of Massive Attack, and contributions from Brian Eno, 5 Minutes to Midnight followed the launch of www.no-bomb.com an anti trident website, announced the week before. The picture directly below this article is one of four of 3D's new paintings for this project. "Five actors will join the choir on the Arctic's deck in a cycle of meditations using public statements, quotations, reports and statistics on the British government's part in this debate," said director Hannah Edinow. Opposition is growing to the government's efforts to rush through a decision on Trident renewal. Greenpeace director John Sauven said: "It's not too late to stop Tony Blair wasting billions on new nuclear weapons. Trident is a cold war relic designed to destroy Russian cities and has no place in 21st century Britain".
The first of Massive Attack's three benefit shows on behalf of the HOPING Foundation, took place today at the Birmingham Academy in Birmingham, UK. The other two shows were held in the following two days at the Brixton Academy in London, UK.