Despite the forthcoming release of a brand new EP and issued press statements to the contrary, Massive Attack‘s fifth LP is not yet a done deal. The news comes from Robert “3D” Del Naja, who explained in a recent interview with The Guardian that the followup to 2003’s 100th Window is far from completion, or as he put it, “in a kind of state of flux.”
The problem, such as it is, he says, is one of perfectionism. They’ve actually recorded “about three” albums in the last six years, then binned two of them. And then there’s the way Massive Attack work: “We don’t have a solid format, a group of people we work with. After touring an album, you have this strange void that follows it, where you feel slightly displaced, like you’ve just finished with the circus and you’ve got to find a new job. You think, OK, what shall we do next. And you’ve got all these options. You don’t know where to start.”
But this idea of perfectionism, and the pressure that comes with it, might eventually bring some good, as bandmate Grant “Daddy G” Marshall revealed in a separate interview with Undertheradarmag.com (via NME).
“An album is a big concept to take in and now people want more than the playlist you give them, they want to make their own playlist,” Marshall said. “People expect more than 45 minutes of music. So, maybe we’ll give them away and they can make their own compilation of the tracks that we have.”
So, what exactly do they have? Currently, according to Marshall, there are “10 tracks we’ve mixed or are mixing right now,” with a total of 22 having been worked on in the studio. Included are guest appearances from Blur’s Damon Albarn, Elbow’s Guy Garvey, and Martina Topley-Bird.
Neither gentlemen gave a name for the future full-length, though current rumors have it being titled LP5, or when we can expect to hear it.
