Currently comprised of Robert “3D” Del Naja and Grant “Daddy G” Marshall, Bristol, UK-based trip-hop pioneers Massive Attack can trace their origins back to when founding members Del Naja, Marshall and Andy “Mushroom” Vowles split off from soundsystem and party crew The Wild Bunch in 1988 to form what was intended to be a split-off production trio. And although over the years there have been a few lineup changes — Vowles acrimoniously left back in 1999 and Marshall has left and retuned to the project at various times — the members of Massive Attack have collaborated with a number of artists including Carlton McCarthy, Shara Nelson, Horace Andy, Neneh Cherry, Everything But The Girl‘s Tracy Thorn, Cocteau Twins‘ Elizabeth Fraser, Sinead O’Connor and Tricky and the result has been that the act has managed to be both critically and commercially successful: Mezzanine and Blue Lines landed on Rolling Stone‘s 500 Greatest Albums of All Tme list with Mezzanine and 100th Window both landing at number 1 on the UK Charts. Along with that, the act has won a number of awards including a Brit Award for Best Dance Act, two MTV Europe Music Awards and two Q Awards.
EP title track “Ritual Spirit” is that latest single off the pioneering act’s Ritual Spirit EP and the single is a collaboration with vocalist Azekel that pairs tribal and Eastern-leaning drum programming, a looped and shimmering psych rock-leaning guitar sample with Azekel’s ethereal falsetto bubbling over and floating into a sinuous and sensual mix that possesses an intimate and unsettling tenseness . The song dives into its narrators fractured psyche, revealing someone who seems on the verge of an emotional breakdown while feeling as though the song could conjure evil spirits.
The recently released music video features supermodel Kate Moss, who as it turns out is one of Del Naja’s closest friends and a huge Massive Attack fan, dancing in the dark with a bare light bulb illuminating the room and her body. And as Del Naja explains in press notes “She perfectly captured the essence of this track… intimate and ritualistic. We edited it back in Bristol to keep it raw with no re-touching, I didn’t want to lose the spirit of that moment.”
