Released 10 February 2003 100th Window
(2003) Danny the Dog
(2004) Release date 10 February 2003 | Length 73:52 Artist Massive Attack Label Virgin Records | |
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Recorded 2001–2002, Sony Studios Genres Trip hop, Electronica, Electronic dance music, House music, Minimal techno Producers Robert Del Naja, Neil Davidge Similar Massive Attack albums, Trip hop albums | ||
Massive attack future proof studio version
100th Window is the fourth studio album from the Bristol-based trip-hop group Massive Attack. Of the band's original core trio, the album only features Robert Del Naja. Andrew Vowles departed shortly after the release of Mezzanine, and Grant Marshall refused to participate in the making of the record.
Contents
Released in February 2003, 100th Window was written and produced by Del Naja and Neil Davidge, and features vocals from Horace Andy, Sinéad O'Connor and Damon Albarn (performing as 2D). It is the first album by the band that made no use of samples, and contains none of the jazz or jazz fusion stylings of the Blue Lines or Protection recordings.
Background
Work on the album started in early 2000 at the Christchurch Studios in Clifton, Bristol. Massive Attack recruited Lupine Howl (a band made up of ex-members of Spiritualized) for the new album. In a November 2001 interview, Lupine Howl's lead singer Sean Cook described the sessions as "very experimental ... that essentially consisted of kinda minimal loops and noises that were fed to our head phones from the computer up in the control room. Then we would have this sort of extended jam session playing along to them and they would do various things to do the loops. Sometimes they would drop out the loop, sometimes they would start processing it with effects and delays and stuff like that, to try and make it change in various ways and see what that would do in terms of our playing. They also had a strobe light in the live room, which they controlled from the control room. They would kind of put that on and speed it up to dictate the intensity and try to affect the way we played with the lighting. It was a really good laugh; we got some good stuff. I mean, hours and hours of stuff, which they have taken back and cut up and arranged and done their things to."
In a 17 July 2002 posting to Massive Attack's forums Del Naja wrote that over the course of time, the band had become "very unhappy with the shapes being formed", and that by the beginning of 2002 they had discarded most of the material that was written up to that point. As a result, Lupine Howl is not credited with any contributions to the final album. However, one song from those sessions, "Nature of Threat", was later made available for download on Massive Attack's website.
Reception
Initial critical response to 100th Window was positive. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has received an average score of 75, based on 25 reviews.
Track listing
All tracks written by Robert "3D" Del Naja and Neil Davidge except tracks 2, 4 & 6 written by Del Naja/Davidge/O'Connor
Personnel
Orchestra arrangement by Craig Pruess, Neil Davidge and Robert "3D" Del Naja
Songs
1Future Proof5:39
2What Your Soul Sings6:39
3Everywhen7:39