Album review
Massiave Attack have shared a new audiovisual EP called Eutopia. Co-written and produced by 3D (Massive Attack’s Robert del Naja) and Mark Donne, the trip-hop pioneers’ latest was recorded in three different cities during lockdown and features collaborations with Algiers, Saul Williams, and Young Fathers. Check it out below.
Drawing from Thomas More’s 16th century book Utopia, the EP also tackles issues such as climate change and tax haven extraction, featuring contributions from Christiana Figueres, who wrote the UN Paris Climate Agreement, Professor Guy Standing, founder of the Universal Basic Income Principle, and Professor Gabriel Zucman, who invented the US “Wealth Tax” policy.
Speaking of the project, Massive Attack said in a statement: “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.”
They added: “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.”
Eutopia marks the group’s first new material since 2016’s Ritual Spirit. Last year, Massive Attack went on a Mezzanine anniversary tour alongside Liz Fraser.
