Massive Attack's new EP is called 'Eutopia' and addresses our need for CHANGE

Massive Attack "surprisingly" released a new EP called Eutopia this Friday, 10 July 2020.

This release come after the band's last three releases in 2016, EPs titled Ritual Spirit, The Spoils and the rarer Dear Friend, in limited final editions, featuring James Massiah. 

Massive Attack x Algiers - Eutopia EP

This unusual set of three songs is quoting Thomas More’s 16th century book Utopia, and includes audiovisual release available on YouTube, created by Robert Del Naja with a team including documentary filmmaker Mark Donne and Anthony Tombling Jr at Unit 3 Films.

The pieces are featuring the American band Algiers, American singer-songwriter Saul Williams, and their Scottish friends of Young Fathers, along with three key political speakers: 

 -Christiana Figueres, who wrote the UN Paris Climate Agreement; 

 -universal basic income theorist Guy Standing, from SOAS university; 

 -and Gabriel Zucman, the professor behind the “wealth tax” policy in America. 

Created in different lockdown location including Bristol, the songs and videos address the need for global change— via visuals from AI artist Mario Klingemann, who worked with the band and the filmmaker Adam Curtis for Massive Attack’s Mezzanine anniversary shows in 2019.

Massive Attack x Young Fathers - Eutopia EP

Massive Attack said in a press release:

"Lockdown exposed the best aspects and worst flaws of humanity. That period of uncertainty and anxiety forced us to meditate on the obvious need to change the damaging systems we live by. 

By working with three experts, we’ve created a sonic and visual dialogue around these global, structural issues; taking the form of climate emergency, tax haven extraction and Universal Basic Income. 

The spirit of this EP, its elements and ideas have nothing to do with naïve notions of an ideal, perfect world, and everything to do with the urgent & practical need to build something better. 

In this sense, Eutopia is the opposite of spelling mistake."

The NME described it this morning as a "stunning audio-visual EP."

Massive Attack x Saul Williams - Eutopia EP

The video should be available in French, Spanish and German soon, and a vinyl release might be on the way...

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Melissa Chemam