Massive Attack’s Robert “3D” Del Naja and Grant “Daddy G” Marshall have been busy since the group’s last album – almost three years ago – and may have enough material for two different albums in the near future.
Del Naja has been working on a film and live performance project with documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis, titled Massive Attack V Adam Curtis, which premiered at the Manchester International Festival this year. In an interview with Stereogum, Del Naja said that the film and the music for it evolved together during the collaboration. Additionally, most of the tracks in the film are cover songs and remixes of original music.
The upcoming New York show premieres on September 28 and is the final in a trilogy of shows that Curtis and Del Naja did, the first two being in Manchester and Germany. There may be plans to adapt it for more places next year.
STEREOGUM: I know it’s been a couple of years — almost three years — since the last Massive Attack record. How do you feel this experience speaks towards the future of Massive Attack?
ROBERT DEL NAJA: It’s funny. Even while we were putting the show together, I had a bunch of tracks I had been working on for the next record. But since this show, there are almost two different records to be had out of it. There’s one that I feel like making that’s almost a soundtrack to a film that doesn’t exist based on some of the experiences of the show. Instead of working on a record that has a particular sound, maybe a record that sounds like it was compiled by a filmmaker from different times, places and genres. At the same time, the tracks I’ve been working on and the tracks that G’s been working on may fit more conveniently into the Massive Attack timeline. I don’t know what would be better — I veer toward the side of doing something completely different. And maybe this experience is going to inform that.