27/06/2018

THYLACINE - 'War Dance'


Must-watch video.

Thylacine is a French musician, saxophonist and electronic music crafter who has been greatly inspired by some of my Bristolian friends...

Here is his last video, directed by Cyprien Clément-Delmas, inspired by the situation in Ukraine.
Thylacine has worked in Russia, looking for sounds and stories to create some of his albums, especially in Siberia, where he met with traditional shamans.

Deeply disturbing and very moving at the same time, this "dance" is a call to end these ravaging ongoing conflicts that affect millions of lives everyday.



THYLACINE - 'War Dance' (Official Video)





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En français :

Thylacine nait en 2012 lorsque William Rezé jusqu’alors saxophoniste dans différents groupes mais à la recherche d’une plus grande liberté de composition passe à la musique électronique. Puisant dans des influences tel Massive Attack, Four tet ou Moderat, il déploie une musique puissante à la fois entrainante et émotionnelle.


Sur Les Young Fathers, le mouvement BDS et le festival de musique allemand de la Ruhrtriennale



J'ai traduit la tribune en français :


Patti Smith, Massive Attack, Viggo Mortensen parmi plus de 70 artistes exigeant la liberté d'expression sur la Palestine



Crédit photo: Ross Gilmore/Redferns
Young Fathers à Glasgow en 2015 



Artists for Palestine UK publie (ci-dessous) une version plus longue de la lettre ouverte publiée dans l'édition imprimée de mardi du Guardian, avec la liste complète des signataires.

La déclaration répond à l'annonce que le groupe primé Young Fathers a été invité, désinvité et ré-invité au festival artistique Ruhrtriennale en Allemagne, suite à des demandes de renonciation au soutien au mouvement mondial de boycott, de désinvestissement et de sanctions (BDS) le soutien des droits des Palestiniens. Le groupe a refusé et a réaffirmé son soutien aux principes des droits de l'homme. Maintenant, 79 artistes, écrivains et producteurs de tous les domaines des arts au Royaume-Uni, aux États-Unis, en Allemagne et ailleurs, ainsi que des personnalités comme Desmond Tutu, Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky et Angela Davis, parlent de ce qu'ils disent forme alarmante de censure, "blacklisting" et répression ".


Pas exception à la liberté d'expression pour la Palestine


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Nous, artistes, écrivains et personnalités publiques soussignés, sommes perturbés par les tentatives allemandes d'imposer des conditions politiques aux artistes qui soutiennent les droits de l'homme en Palestine. Nous sommes heureux que le tollé international ait convaincu le festival artistique Ruhrtriennale de revenir sur leur décision répressive d'annuler une performance des Young Fathers, après qu'ils aient refusé de se distancer du mouvement mondial Boycott, Désinvestissement et Sanctions (BDS) pour les droits palestiniens.

La décision antérieure de Ruhrtriennale était une forme particulièrement alarmante de censure, de "blacklisting" et de répression.

Nous saluons la position d'un autre festival allemand, Morgenland, qui a résisté à une tentative similaire de répression de la liberté d'expression.

Nous sommes fermement opposés à toutes formes de racisme et de discrimination fondée sur l'identité, y compris le racisme anti-noirs, le sexisme, l'antisémitisme, l'islamophobie et l'homophobie. Les mesures non-violentes de conflit pour mettre fin à l'occupation illégale de territoires palestiniens par Israël et aux violations des droits de l'homme avec le racisme anti-juif sont fausses et dangereuses. Il dénie aux Palestiniens leur droit de manifester pacifiquement dans la poursuite de la liberté, de la justice et de l'égalité et sape la lutte contre l'antisémitisme.

Bien que nous puissions avoir des points de vue différents les uns des autres sur le mouvement BDS dirigé par les Palestiniens, nous sommes unis pour considérer qu'il s'agit d'un exercice légal de la liberté d'expression. Le boycott, qui fait partie intégrante des droits humains universels et vise à rendre justice aux communautés marginalisées et opprimées est une tactique légitime et non-violente. Elle a été utilisée dans le monde entier, y compris contre l'apartheid en Afrique du Sud et les lois de Jim Crow sur la ségrégation aux États-Unis.

En affirmant cette position, nous sommes d'accord avec la Fédération Internationale des Droits de l'Homme (FIDH), l'Union Américaine des Libertés Civiles (ACLU), l'Union Européenne, plusieurs gouvernements européens, des centaines de juristes européens, des organisations et des figures juives progressistes internationales, plus de deux cents rabbins américains et des centaines d'ONG européennes.

À l'heure où l'extrême droite et les forces xénophobes gagnent du terrain, nous devons être plus vigilants que jamais pour défendre et défendre les valeurs démocratiques, y compris la liberté de conscience et d'expression.



Patti Smith, à Londres, en juin 2018



Massive Attack à Paris en février 2016, par Mélissa Chemam



Signée par :


Mai Abu ElDahab, directeur, Mophradat
Tunde Adebimpe, musicien
Antonia Alampi, co-directrice artistique, SAVVY Contemporary
Nir Alon, Artiste
Julia Aranda, Artiste
Mohammed Bakri, Acteur
Saleh Bakri, Acteur
Jeff Barrett, fondateur, Heavenly Recordings
Yves Berger, artiste
Judith Butler, philosophe
David Calder, acteur
Noam Chomsky, linguiste, philosophe
Julie Christie, Acteur
Caryl Churchill, dramaturge
Jarvis Cocker, musicien
Molly Crabapple, Artiste, écrivain
Liam Cunningham, Acteur
Angela Davis, militante politique, universitaire
Lawrence Dreyfus, directeur, Phantasm viol consort
Tania El Khoury, Artiste
Brian Eno Compositeur, producteur
Reem Fadda, conservateur
David Farr, écrivain, réalisateur
Chiara Figone, Archive Books / Kabinett / Journal
Marina Fokidis, conservateur, écrivain
Rebecca Foon, musicienne
Peter Gabriel, musicien, fondateur, WOMAD Festival
Dani Gal, Artiste
Danny Glover, acteur
Carl Gosling, enregistrements célestes
Ian Ilavsky, Co-fondateur, Constellation Records
Iman Issa, Artiste
Ghada Karmi, écrivain, universitaire
Aki Kaurismaki, Réalisateur
A.L. Kennedy, écrivain
Naomi Klein, écrivain
Judith Knight, co-directrice, Artsadmin
Hari Kunzru, écrivain
Paul Laverty, scénariste
Mike Leigh, écrivain, réalisateur
Mason Leaver-Yap, conservateur associé, KW Institute for Contemporary Art
Ken Loach, Réalisateur
Jens Maier-Rothe, conservateur
Jumana Manna, Artiste
Miriam Margolyes, Acteur
Yann Martel, Auteur
Massive Attack, musiciens
Thurston Moore, musicien
David Morrissey, Acteur
Nicholas Mirzoeff, théoricien de la culture
Danny Mitchell, enregistrements célestes
Leil Zahra Mortada, cinéaste
Viggo Mortensen, Acteur, écrivain, artiste
Karma Nabulsi, professeur de politique
Mira Nair, Réalisateur
Bonaventure Ndikung, fondateur, Savvy Contemporary
Paul Northup, directeur, Greenbelt Festival
Rebecca O'Brien, productrice de films
Ilan Pappe, historien
Jocelyn Pook, Compositeur
Cat Power, musicien
Jeremie Pujau, Artiste
Fanny-Michaela Reisin, présidente, Ligue internationale des droits de l'homme
Michael Rosen, poète pour enfants, diffuseur
Eran Schaerf, Artiste
James Schamus, Scénariste, producteur, réalisateur
Eyal Sivan, Réalisateur de documentaires
Harry Leslie Smith, écrivain
John Smith, artiste, cinéaste
Patti Smith, musicienne, poète
Jesse Smith, musicien, activiste
Desmond Tutu, archevêque émérite de Cape Town, Afrique du Sud
Alice Walker, écrivain
Roger Waters, musicien
Eyal Weizman, architecte
Vivienne Westwood, Designer
Don Wilkie, Co-fondateur, Constellation Records
Tim Wilson, fondateur, Festival VAULT
Tim Wise, écrivain



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Lien vers la tribune originale :
https://artistsforpalestine.org.uk/2018/06/26/patti-smith-massive-attack-viggo-mortensen-demand-free-speech-on-palestine/


BRISTOL / PARIS : 1998 - 2018 - Conférence le 4 juillet


Bonjour à tous,

fan de Bristol, de musique électro, de Massive Attack, de Banksy et de leurs collaborateurs...

Un mot pour vous confirmer la rencontre de mercredi prochain.

Je suis invitée par la librairie Le Grand Jeu à présenter mon livre le 4 juillet prochain à l'Alternatif, à la Défense :
9 Voie des Pyramides,  92800 Puteaux
Conférence en images et sons d'une heure qui sera suivie de Q/R. 
Ce sera à partir de 19h45. 





1998 - 2018:
2018 compte es 30 ans d'un groupe hors norme, les 20 ans de l'album Mezzanine, les 20 ans du 'Mild Mild West' de Banksy... 
Bristol est une ville unique! 



Il se trouve que Banksy était également à Paris récemment, comme en témoignent ses récentes oeuvres sur la crise des réfugiés...


Photos : par Mélissa Chemam



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Sur L'Alternatif :
https://lalternatif.net/agenda/

Sur Le Grand Jeu :

Un article sur le livre :



Pour écouter ma dernière conférence : à Nantes au Trempolino :

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Pendant ce temps, Massive Attack commence une tournée en Europe et nous mettons la dernière touche à la version anglaise du livre qui paraîtra en Royaume-Uni d'ici la fin de l'été...

Et je serai à Bristol ce week-end, pour une discussion sur l'album Mezzanine, justement, le 1er juillet, en partenariat avec le site Classic Album Sundays de Colleen Murphy....

Merci au Grand Jeu pour l'organisation de cette soirée côté français. 

Au mercredi 4 juillet donc. 
L'Alternatif
19h45.

En espérant vous y voir!

Bien à vous tous,
melissa 


Ruhrtriennale festival, Young Fathers, and Palestinian rights


Open letter published today by a large group of artists to support the three members of the Scottish band Young Fathers:


Ruhrtriennale festival wrong to expel Young Fathers over support for Palestinian rights



Massive Attack, Patti Smith, Danny Glover and Viggo Mortensen among signatories to letter in defence of BDS movement



 Young Fathers performing in Glasgow in 2015. Photograph: Ross Gilmore/Redferns


We are disturbed by attempts in Germany to impose political conditions on artists supporting Palestinian human rights. We are glad that the international outcry has convinced the Ruhrtriennale arts festival to reverse its repressive decision to cancel a performance by the Young Fathers, after they refused to distance themselves from the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights.
Ruhrtriennale’s earlier decision was a particularly alarming form of censorship, “blacklisting” and repression.
We welcome the stance of another German festival, Morgenland, in resisting a similar attempt to suppress free speech.
We stand firmly against all forms of racism and identity-based discrimination, including anti-blackness, sexism, antisemitism, Islamophobia and homophobia. Conflating nonviolent measures to end Israel’s illegal occupation and human rights violations with anti-Jewish racism is false and dangerous. It denies Palestinians their right to peaceful protest and undermines the struggle against antisemitism.
 While we may hold diverse views on BDS, we are united in considering it a lawful exercise of freedom of expression. Boycotts that are anchored in universal human rights and aimed at achieving justice for marginalised and oppressed communities are a legitimate nonviolent tactic. They have been used worldwide, including against apartheid in South Africa and the Jim Crow segregation laws in the US.

This is the view of the EU, hundreds of US rabbis, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and hundreds of European NGOs. 


Mai Abu ElDahab Director, Mophradat 
Tunde Adebimpe Musician
Antonia Alampi Artistic co-director, Savvy Contemporary
Nir Alon Artist
Julia Aranda Artist
Mohammed Bakri Actor
Saleh Bakri Actor
Jeff Barrett Founder, Heavenly Recordings
Yves Berger Artist
Judith Butler Philosopher
David Calder Actor
Noam Chomsky Linguist, philosopher
Julie Christie Actor
Caryl Churchill Playwright
Jarvis Cocker Musician
Molly Crabapple Artist, writer
Liam Cunningham Actor
Angela Davis Political activist, academic
Lawrence Dreyfus Director, Phantasm viol consort
Tania El Khoury Artist
Brian Eno Composer, producer
Reem Fadda Curator
David Farr Writer, director
Chiara Figone Archive Books/Kabinett/Journal
Marina Fokidis Curator, writer
Rebecca Foon Musician
Peter Gabriel Musician, founder, Womad festival
Dani Gal Artist
Danny Glover Actor
Carl Gosling Heavenly Recordings
Ian Ilavsky Co-founder, Constellation Records
Iman Issa Artist
Ghada Karmi Writer, academic
Aki Kaurismaki Film director
AL Kennedy Writer
Naomi Klein Writer
Judith Knight Co-director, Artsadmin
Hari Kunzru Writer
Paul Laverty Screenwriter
Mike Leigh Writer, director
Mason Leaver-Yap Associate curator, KW Institute for Contemporary Art
Ken Loach Film director
Jens Maier-Rothe Curator
Jumana Manna Artist
Miriam Margolyes Actor
Yann Martel Author
Massive Attack Band
Thurston Moore Musician
David Morrissey Actor
Nicholas Mirzoeff Cultural theorist
Danny Mitchell Heavenly Recordings
Leil Zahra Mortada Film-maker
Viggo Mortensen Actor, writer, artist
Karma Nabulsi Professor of politics
Mira Nair Film director
Bonaventure Ndikung Founder, Savvy Contemporary
Paul Northup Director, Greenbelt Festival
Rebecca O’Brien Film producer
Ilan Pappe Historian
Jocelyn Pook Composer
Cat Power Musician
Jeremie Pujau Artist
Fanny-Michaela Reisin President, International League for Human Rights
Michael Rosen Children’s poet, broadcaster
Eran Schaerf Artist
James Schamus Screenwriter, producer, director
Eyal Sivan Documentary film-maker
Harry Leslie Smith Writer
John Smith Artist, film-maker
Patti Smith Musician
Jesse Smith Musician, activist
Desmond Tutu Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa
Alice Walker Writer
Roger Waters Musician
Eyal Weizman Architect
Vivienne Westwood Designer
Don Wilkie Co-founder, Constellation Records
Tim Wilson Founder, Vault festival
Tim Wise Writer


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Also publisher on the site of Artists for Palestine:

https://artistsforpalestine.org.uk/2018/06/26/patti-smith-massive-attack-viggo-mortensen-demand-free-speech-on-palestine/





Patti Smith, Massive Attack, Viggo Mortensen among 70+ artists demanding free speech on Palestine

Artists for Palestine UK is publishing (below) a longer version of the open letter published in tomorrow’s print edition of the Guardian, with the full list of signatories.
The statement responds to news that the award-winning band Young Fathers were invited, disinvited and re-invited to the Ruhrtriennale arts festival in Germany, following demands that they renounce their support for the global movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) in support of Palestinian rights. The band refused, and re-affirmed their support for human rights principles. Now, 79 artists, writers and producers from all fields of the arts in the UK, the US, Germany and beyond, plus public figures including Desmond Tutu, Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky and Angela Davis, speak out about what they say is an “alarming form of censorship, “blacklisting” and repression”.

No Palestine Exception to Freedom of Speech[1]
We, the undersigned artists, writers and public figures, are disturbed by attempts in Germany to impose political conditions on artists supporting Palestinian human rights. We are glad that the international outcry has convinced the Ruhrtriennale arts festival to reverse its repressive decision to cancel a performance by Young Fathers, after they refused to distance themselves from the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights.
Ruhrtriennale’s earlier decision was a particularly alarming form of censorship, “blacklisting” and repression.
We welcome the stance of another German festival, Morgenland, in resisting a similar attempt to suppress free speech.
We stand firmly against all forms of racism and identity-based discrimination, including anti-Blackness, sexism, antisemitism, Islamophobia and homophobia. Conflating nonviolent measures to end Israel’s illegal occupation and human rights violations with anti-Jewish racism is false and dangerous. It denies Palestinians their right to peaceful protest in pursuit of freedom, justice and equality and undermines the struggle against antisemitism.
While we may hold diverse views on the Palestinian-led BDS movement, we are united in considering it a lawful exercise of freedom of expression. Boycotts which are anchored in universal human rights and aimed at achieving justice for marginalized and oppressed communities are a legitimate nonviolent tactic. They have been used worldwide, including against apartheid in South Africa and the Jim Crow segregation laws in the United States.
In affirming this position, we are in agreement with the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the European Unionseveral European governmentshundreds of European legal scholars, international progressive Jewish organizations and figures, more than two hundred U.S. rabbis and hundreds of European NGOs.
At a time when far right and xenophobic forces are gaining ground, we need to be more vigilant than ever in defending and advocating democratic values, including freedom of conscience and expression.
Signed:
Mai Abu ElDahab,  Director, Mophradat
Tunde Adebimpe,  Musician
Antonia Alampi,   Artistic co-director, SAVVY Contemporary
Nir Alon,  Artist
Julia Aranda,  Artist
Mohammed Bakri,  Actor
Saleh Bakri,  Actor
Jeff Barrett,  Founder, Heavenly Recordings
Yves Berger, artist
Judith Butler,  Philosopher
David Calder,  Actor
Noam Chomsky,  Linguist, philosopher
Julie Christie,  Actor
Caryl Churchill,  Playwright
Jarvis Cocker,  Musician
Molly Crabapple,  Artist, writer
Liam Cunningham,  Actor
Angela Davis,  Political activist, academic
Lawrence Dreyfus, Director, Phantasm viol consort
Tania El Khoury,  Artist
Brian Eno  Composer, producer
Reem Fadda,  Curator
David Farr,  Writer, director
Chiara Figone,  Archive Books/Kabinett/Journal
Marina Fokidis,  Curator, writer
Rebecca Foon, Musician
Peter Gabriel,  Musician, founder, WOMAD Festival
Dani Gal,  Artist
Danny Glover, Actor
Carl Gosling,  Heavenly Recordings
Ian Ilavsky,  Co-founder, Constellation Records
Iman Issa,  Artist
Ghada Karmi,  Writer, academic
Aki Kaurismaki,  Film director
A.L. Kennedy,  Writer
Naomi Klein,  Writer
Judith Knight,  Co-director, Artsadmin
Hari Kunzru,  Writer
Paul Laverty,  Screenwriter
Mike Leigh,  Writer, director
Mason Leaver-Yap, Associate Curator, KW Institute for Contemporary Art
Ken Loach,  Film director
Jens Maier-Rothe,  Curator
Jumana Manna,  Artist
Miriam Margolyes,  Actor
Yann Martel, Author
Massive Attack,  Band
Thurston Moore,  Musician
David Morrissey,  Actor
Nicholas Mirzoeff,  Cultural theorist
Danny Mitchell,  Heavenly Recordings
Leil Zahra Mortada,  Filmmaker
Viggo Mortensen,  Actor, writer, artist
Karma Nabulsi,  Professor of Politics
Mira Nair,  Film director
Bonaventure Ndikung, Founder, Savvy Contemporary
Paul Northup, Director, Greenbelt Festival
Rebecca O’Brien,  Film Producer
Ilan Pappe,  Historian
Jocelyn Pook,  Composer
Cat Power, Musician
Jeremie Pujau,  Artist
Fanny-Michaela Reisin,  President, International League for Human Rights
Michael Rosen,  Children’s poet, broadcaster
Eran Schaerf,  Artist
James Schamus,  Screenwriter, producer, director
Eyal Sivan,  Documentary filmmaker
Harry Leslie Smith, Writer
John Smith,  Artist, filmmaker
Patti Smith,  Musician, poet
Jesse Smith, Musician, activist
Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa
Alice Walker,  Writer
Roger Waters,  Musician
Eyal Weizman,  Architect
Vivienne Westwood,  Designer
Don Wilkie,  Co-founder, Constellation Records
Tim Wilson,  Founder, VAULT Festival
Tim Wise,  Writer

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24/06/2018

Boom For Real: A new film on Jean-Michel Basquiat's early years


Out in the UK now:


Boom For Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat - Trailer





Boom For Real explores the pre-fame years of the celebrated American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. In theaters May 11th. #BoomForReal http://www.boomforrealfilm.com/



"Boom for Real review – a vivid portrait of Jean-Michel Basquiat" 


- Guardian







Banksy's take on our cruel immigration policies, Paris, June 2018



Update on Monday morning: the first mural shown hereafter has already been vandalised... Covered with blue spraypaint.


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Been paying a visit to these murals.

Appeared mid-week in Paris, around World Refugee Day, June 20, they are attributed to Banksy.





This one is on a wall aside a centre for migrants. About 20 young men from Sudan, Eritrea and beyond, are currently staying outside of it, on the street with no water and no food.







This one is in the 19th arrondissement.





It's obvious the artist wants to highlight the lack of compassion Europe has shown to refugees in the past three years.

Let's hope it will draw the right attention to the crisis, the right way, with humanity and respect.


20/06/2018

"Mezzanine": the highlight of the British multicultural dream...


I did reply to a few questions asked by a journalist from Dazed and Confused magazine.
I would not have chosen this title... For sure Not. More like "Mezzanine": the HIGHLIGHT of the British multicultural dream...

It's not over yet.

Change is inevitable in every society. And when newcomers bring so much talent, they're an inspiration.

"Massive Attack’s music is a testimony for sure of the richness of any social mix and diversity. It’s a beautiful story, and a rare story that can only inspire in our days of neo-conservatism and division.”

Massive Attack’s Mezzanine and the death of the multicultural dream

Massive Attack for Dazed & Confused, 1998

Following its 20th anniversary and with a new book about the Bristol band on its way, we look back on their fraught third album

“When the Wild Bunch started,” Andrew ‘Mushroom’ Vowles told Mixmag in 1998, cutting a haunted figure in a cover story on the return of Massive Attack, “we called it lover’s hip hop. Forget all that trip hop bullshit.” Apparently, Vowles couldn’t stand doing interviews, because he always got “the same bag of questions they’ve pulled out the journalists’ vending machine”. It sounds like sour grapes now, but read the whole story, and another picture starts to emerge.

Massive Attack were formed in Bristol in 1988. Rising from the ashes of The Wild Bunch, a sound system crew that helped establish the beginnings of the ‘Bristol sound’ (“lover’s hip hop” refers to lover’s rock, a smooth reggae subgenre originating in London), the group were a loose coterie of collaborators focused on a trio of key players. There was Vowles, a hip hop fanatic with mixed Dominican-British ancestry; Robert ‘3D’ Del Naja, a graffiti-artist and punk of Anglo-Italian extraction; and Grant ‘Daddy G’ Marshall, a second-generation Barbadian immigrant whose love of soul and reggae began with the ‘blues parties’ his parents used to throw when he was a kid.

Exploding out of the scene in 1991 with Blue Lines, the group’s sound spoke to romantic ideals of a modern, multicultural Britain that’s constantly embattled in 2018. But the trio were a combustible mix in the studio and, by 1998, long-simmering tensions within the group had come to a head. “You’ve talked to the other two and they’ve said something different, haven’t they?” Vowles says later in the Mixmag interview, which is actually three interviews for the price of one: Vowles, Del Naja and Marshall all taking turns to hold forth without the inconvenience of having to listen to each other speak. Suddenly, Vowles seems unsure of himself, paranoid: less like a man with low opinions of the music press, more like a man who’s scared the thing he helped build is being taken away from him.

The group conducted all their interviews separately for the release of Mezzanine, their landmark third album which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. They recorded it separately, too: if Radiohead’s OK Computer was Sgt Pepper’s for the ‘Xennial’ set – that sub-generation of kids who came of age on the cusp of the digital era – then Mezzanine was its White Album, a creative tour de force that was also a portrait of a group in the process of unravelling.

Released in April 1998, the album was hit by delays resulting from Del Naja’s compulsive tinkering, and internal disagreements that would eventually see Vowles leave the group. Del Naja, stung by criticism of the group as making ‘coffee table music’, wanted to bring a post-punk direction to their sound. He professed to have “grown out of” hip hop to anyone who would listen, much to the annoyance of B-boy Vowles, who famously rowed with him over the merits of Puff Daddy in one interview. (Another feature from the time took its title, simply, from an accusation levelled by Vowles during the record’s making: “Are we a fucking punk band now?”)

With backing from Marshall and producer Neil Davidge, Del Naja eventually got the upper hand in the unfolding civil war within the group, but not without Vowles landing a sneaky suckerpunch or two along the way. Mushroom wanted a soul singer to lay down the vocal for “Teardrop”, a glittering highlight of the album he built around Davidge’s circling harpsichord melody, but Del Naja and Grant pushed for Liz Fraser, lead singer of shoegaze pioneers The Cocteau Twins. Vowles, in retaliation, offered the track to Madonna in secret, which the rest of the group discovered by way of an email from the pop star’s manager, saying she would love to sing on the track.

In the end, Mezzanine had a harder, dubwise edge inspired by Del Naja’s love of post-punk luminaries like PiL, Wire and local heroes The Pop Group. It felt like a logical end-point of British punk’s flirtation with reggae some 20 years previous, a dense, paranoid swirl enveloping tracks like “Inertia Creeps”, “Risingson” and “Man Next Door”, a moody cover of John Holt’s 1968 reggae song about a noisy neighbour. In its prevailing mood of paranoia, the record was in tune with other albums from the Britpop hangover years (OK Computer, Pulp’s This Is Hardcore, Blur’s self-titled 1998 effort). But there’s another side to this story, one that goes to the heart of Massive Attack’s story as one of the most compelling adverts for multiculturalism Britain ever produced.

Mezzanine broke the band in America even as it broke the band full-stop. Vowles left Massive Attack in 1999; Marshall followed him out in all but name two years later. Their follow-up, 2003’s 100th Window, abandoned sampling altogether in what felt like a pointed break with the past. When Grant returned to the studio full-time in 2007, the group’s sound had evolved to the point where he was able to joke that he was “here to put the black back” into Massive Attack.
Massive Attack - Dazed cover, 1998
Massive Attack on the cover of Dazed & Confused, 1998Rankin
But Melissa Chemam, author of the forthcoming book Massive Attack: Out of the Comfort Zone, cautions that the group’s evolution should not be read as a simple transition from ‘black’ to ‘white’ sounds. “One dimension of the band’s music disappeared with Mushroom’s departure, for sure – the hip hop way of producing tracks, based on beats and samples,” she says. “But the band would have evolved anyway. That’s part of their DNA. They produced the equivalent of an album of new songs for the compilation album, Collected, in 2006, and one of the highlights was ‘Live With Me’, a song 3D wrote with Terry Callier, probably the most ‘soul’ song the band had written since ‘Unfinished Sympathy’.”

In fact, says Chemam, one of the keys to Massive Attack’s success as a group was the fact that, due to Bristol’s melting-pot scene of the 80s, its members had internalised influences from across the musical spectrum before they even played a note. “They grew up  with a passion for both reggae and punk, because Bristol has long been a multicultural city. Each member inherited different tastes regardless of their own family and culture. Because Bristol had a small but fascinating underground scene... DJs with a Caribbean background became passionate about punk, and Anglo-Irish-Italian MCs and musicians learned early about African-American trends in music and reggae from Jamaica. Massive Attack embody this hybridisation inside each of their members.”

The group’s celebrated debut, Blue Lines, arrived in 1991, bringing trip hop into the public consciousness at a time where hip hop, house, baggy, rave and, later, reggae all enjoyed a moment in the sun on the singles charts. But Mezzanine feels rife with intimations of darker times ahead. It was released less than 12 months into Blair’s Labour administration, in 1998, a year that saw a threefold increase in the number of migrants coming to the UK. The following decade saw rising immigration figures reflecting the realities of an increasingly globalised workforce, especially after the expansion of the EU in 2004, but the numbers only told part of the story. As a 2015 Guardian investigation into New Labour’s immigration policies observed, the 7/7 terrorist attacks, global financial crisis of 2007 and media scapegoating of immigrants combined to lay the ground for the ‘hostile environment’ policies of today, abetted by the failures of neoliberal policies in creating social cohesion. From there it’s a direct line to Brexit, and the arguments that continue to swirl around national identity today.

In fact, the group might never have materialised at all had Grant’s parents been forced to leave the country when the musician was a child. “I remember when I was a little kid in the late 60s, when they really clamped down on the immigration laws,” he told Dazed in an interview from 1998. “They said that anybody who’d been living in the country for less than seven years had to reapply for immigration. Quite a lot of my dad’s friends didn’t qualify for that and some of them had to go back. Even my dad and mum were going around trying to make sure that they were all right.”

I was interviewed on BBC Radio Bristol - by Laura Rawlings, yesterday (28/05/2018), to talk about my book on Massive Attack, Bristol and social change through music & art.
You can listen here:  https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p066rpnl 
— Melissa Chemam (@melissachemam) 

Britain had extended UK citizenship rights to all Commonwealth subjects in 1948, as a means of attracting labour to rebuild the country after the second world war. But successive governments spent much of the 60s and 70s attempting to row back on this position, finally leading to the Windrush scandal of this year, when it was revealed the Home Office had been deporting legal immigrants who’d been resident in the UK for over half a century.

“(In the 70s) the British government struggled with unemployment,” says Chemam. “And by then, the former Caribbean colonies like Jamaica and Barbados had become independent. So the supply workers called in the 1950s, after World War II, to rebuild the country, were suddenly not so welcome any more. And many had to face paperwork issues, visa refusal and so on. Many had to leave.”

For Chemam, who spent time reporting on Brexit and the refugee crisis of 2015 for the different radios, the parallels with today are clear: “The situation is indeed quite similar for foreign workers today, except that the UK isn’t exactly in a financial or commercial crisis in 2018. Now, despite the fact that Britain is one of the richest countries in the European continent, it is also one of the most unequal. And by far the least open to receiving immigrants from warzones. (Massive Attack’s) music is a testimony for sure of the richness of any social mix and diversity. It’s a beautiful story, and a rare story that can only inspire in our days of neo-conservatism and division.”

Two years on from Brexit, the battle for Britain’s soul is still raging. Mezzanine stands as a thrilling reminder of what can be won – and lost – when we decide how we feel about the proverbial man next door.


Massive Attack played the Eden Project on June 15 and 16

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