In the past, Massive Attack have lent their own support to the Zerodb campaign which protests against such torture methods as the ones discussed in harrowing detail within this video. This new semi-documentary approach for the Saturday Come Slow video marks Massive Attack at their most blatantly political yet, at least so far as their promo videos are concerned.

In other related touring news, while this is a completely unconfirmed report, Massive Attack are hoping to stage a reenactment of the Vangelis soundtrack for Blade Runner with a live orchestra , while they are in New York this May, in the world famous Carnegie Hall. If this goes ahead as planned, it will be similar to when they, in conjunction with the Heritage Orchestra,  performed the Blade Runner score during their curatorship of the 2008 Meltdown Festival.

The current lineup of 2010 shows is as follows:

Mar 12 2010 - Kings Park Perth, Western Australia

Mar 15 2010 -  Opera House Forecourt Sydney, New South Wales

Mar 16 2010 - Opera House Forecourt Sydney

Mar 19 2010 - Royal Theatre Canberra, Australian Capital Territory

Mar 20 2010 - Sidney Myer Music Bowl Melbourne, Victoria

Mar 21 2010 - Entertainment Centre Adelaide, South Australia

Mar 23 2010 - Riverstage Brisbane, Queensland

Mar 25 2010 -  Vector Arena Auckland, Auckland

May 7 2010 – Sound Academy Toronto

May 9 2010 -  Sound Academy Toronto

May 11 2010 - Terminal 5 New York, New York

May 12 2010 - Terminal 5 New York, New York

May 18 2010 - Wiltern Theater Los Angeles, California

May 19 2010 - Wiltern Theater Los Angeles

May 25 2010 - Warfield Theater San Francisco, California

May 26 2010 - Warfield Theater San Francisco, California

May 29 2010 – Malkin Bowl, Vancouver, Canada

May 30 2010 - Sasquatch Festival George, Washington

Jun 18 2010 -  Southside Festival Neuhausen auf den Fildern

Jun 19 2010 – Hurricane Festival Scheeßel

Jun 23 2010 - IN Music Festival Zagreb

Jul 1 2010 – Hove Festival Arendal

Jul 2 2010 – Heineken Opener Festival Gdynia

Jul 3 2010 – Volt Festival Sopron

Jul 5 2010 – Heineken Jammin Festival Venice

Jul 9 2010 – Moon & Stars Festival Locarno

Jul 18 2010 - Melt! Festival Gräfenhainichen

Aug 1 2010 – Fuji Rock Festival Niigata

Aug 27 2010 - Cabaret Vert Charleville-Mézieres

Sep 3 2010 – Sportpaleis Antwerp, Antwerp

Congratulations go to…

AdamRisingson who won first prize (CD, book, T-shirt and badges)

Dissolved who came  in second (CD and T-shirt)

and Tenenbaum in third (CD)

You should receive your prizes by next week!

Thanks again to everyone who entered!

heligoland competition winners prizes

I have also scanned in the inner sleeve artwork for Heligoland which you can view by clicking on the thumbnail images at the bottom of this post. Much of the artwork produced for Heligoland, will only be available on the deluxe vinyl/CD/book edition which will be available within a few weeks from The Vinyl Factory, who also produced the limited vinyl edition of Splitting The Atom a few months earlier.

I’ve gone and gathered together a group of quotes from a few of these interviews to present here, to highlight some of the more revealing info gleaned and also offering you the links to read all the interviews in full. Enjoy these words of wisdom from the band!

A remix album of Heligoland by Burial is very unlikely to happen. This rumor was started by G in an interview last year, where he expressed his appreciation for Burial’s music and how it would be his wish for Burial to remix the new Massive Attack album. By G’s own later admission his statement was taken out of context, to mean that Burial actually was remixing Heligoland, when in fact he was not. – “I think I might have had too many drinks the night I made that statement. I started a fire, didn’t I? It was our total admiration for Burial, that’s what it was; it sort of spilled into enthusiasm about him doing something for us.” - Daddy G (The Skinny)

The current plan is to release an EP with the leftover material from the Heligoland sessions at some stage this summer. One track in contention for that EP is Red Light, a song co-written with Guy Garvey, which the band have been working on now for over 2 years and still haven’t quite perfected yet. An early demo sample of Red Light can be heard on this video extract from the film “In Prison My Whole Life”, courtesy of NeilDavidge.com. – “It will probably be made up of tracks that we didn’t put on this record and maybe some new stuff as well. We’ve got this one called ‘Red Light,’ which we wrote with Guy [Garvey], which we’ve been playing live for two years and we still can’t finish it. To be honest, I still can’t make the promise it will be finished because it seems to be a really evasively hard thing to capture. Some songs are like that. Some happen instantly and some continually trouble you.” - 3D (BBC6 Music)

3D first heard mention of the word “Heligoland” in a 2000 film know as Shadow Of the Vampire. – “I actually encountered it on the movie Shadow of the Vampire. Part of the film was shot there and it just says ‘Heligoland’ at one point and I just thought, ‘I love that word’. Initially it’s just really intriguing.” – 3D (BBC6 Music)

The oldest track on the album is Pray For Rain, whose vocals were recorded with Tunde Ademipde at TV On The Radio’s studio in Brooklyn back in late 2005. – “The Tunde track was a completely different song originally when we took it to New York and then it stayed on the shelf for like two years before we went back to New York and Tunde re-did a vocal which was completely different from the original vocal, which then informed how we finished the track, arranged it, re-arranged it, cut it up, changed the middle section.” – 3D (EMI.DE)

Of the collaborators on Heligoland, Hope Sandoval was the only vocalist who did not actually meet with the band, with all communication with her being conducted electronically. – “But he [G] sent over a great backing track for her to work on and we went from there. We never got to meet her, it was all done long distance.” – 3D (CrackerJack)

Atlas Air, originally went on for a further 5 minutes during its climax and more closely resembled the live version. It was also the final song to mixed and finished for the album. – “Well we had a version that was twice as long, we loved it that much and I was like ‘fuck I don’t care’ it all has to go on. The ending went on for five minutes and I thought it was a 12-inch dance tune but when it came down to listening to the record it started to feel slightly indulgent and it didn’t really show respect to the other tracks. We wanted more of a song-type structure so that it fits, when you get to the end of it you haven’t forgotten the rest of album.” - 3D (State.ie)

The track now called Babel, grew out of an amalgamation of two very different songs – “The track that ended up as Babel began life as two songs, one about falling in love with a porn star and the other about extraordinary rendition, but they ended up joined together.” – 3D (Sunday Times)

What the image on the front cover of Heligoland’s means – “The painting is of a culturally disorientated character or collage of things we’re being forced to look at by superimposition. Instead of being able to make our own minds up, the idea is is projected into us.” - 3D (The Skinny)

On the direction they are approaching the music videos to accompany the Heligoland songs – “We want to give the directors we work with a different space for it, so if we give you a small budget as opposed to a big budget and you make the film you want to the track you choose, and you can pull the track apart, we’ll give you the stems, you can do what you want…it’s just more interesting now. So the films we got are the directors personal visions, done on a very tight budget in a very lo-fi and intriguing way – possibly never to be seen outside of the internet.” – 3D (EMI.DE)

On the tragic death of Jerry Fuchs, who played drums during the recording sessions for Heligoland – “It was awful news. We heard while we were still on tour. It was atrocious. He was the sort of person who lit up a room when they came in. He was a really lovely, warm guy and a brilliant drummer.” - 3D (CrackerJack)

The reasoning behind going back to the drawing board after the 2008 tour – “I think we became victims of our own success in one respect, because it’s the first time the internet has impacted on us. We came back from our tour, and as far as we were concerned, the album was dead, ‘cos it had already been blasted all over the internet. And we just got bored with the tracks, to be honest. Either way, we felt that it didn’t have the cohesion that we wanted, and we wanted to put a bit more pep into the tracks.” - Daddy G (Entertainment.ie)

On how hooking up with Damon Albarn in his studio in late 2008 changed the course of the album – “It was a different energy and a different environment. We started to strip everything back and build it back up again. That feels like the start of what the album is now. The first incarnation didn’t have that. After we went into Damon’s studio it started to feel rounded. This record is a series of events — working with Damon, Guy Garvey, Martina, and so on — where chemistry came right.” - 3D (Telegraph)

The overall winner of the competition will receive:
1) A CD copy of Heligoland.

2) A Massive Attack T-Shirt (The winner can specify any one of the designs and sizes available from the Official Massive Attack Shop).

3) A Massive Attack 9 piece Badge Set.

4) A copy of the photo book “Wild Dayz”, a pictorial recount of Massive Attack’s early days as part of the Wild Bunch soundsystem.

The 1st runner’s up prize will be:
1) A CD copy of Heligoland.

2) A Massive Attack T-Shirt (The winner can specify any one of the designs and sizes available from the Official Massive Attack Shop).

The 2nd runner’s up prize will be:
1) A CD copy of Heligoland.

How To Enter:

Entering the competition couldn’t be simpler. All you need to do is leave a comment on this competition posting. You don’t need to say much, but please leave a line or two about how much you are anticipating the release of Heligoland. It’s very easy to leave a comment – as a guest (remember to include a proper email address) or even as a Yahoo or Twitter user. On the closing date of February 8th, the three winners will be picked randomly from the comments section and I will contact them shortly after that to arrange delivery of their prizes.

Thank you for visiting and good luck to the entrants!

Here's the competition prizes. Good luck to anyone entering!

Within the last week, a Seattle based alternative radio station, known as KEXP, has been playing  new tracks from Heligoland. They have already played tracks from the album such as Flat Of The Blade, Babel and Saturday Come Slow. From what we know, these were the first time these tracks have been publicly played, and has had many fans talking about them. You can try and email the station here and ask for a request of one of the Heligoland tracks.

The Japanese edition of Heligoland will include, as a a bonus track, a remix of a new previously unheard song called “Fatalism”. The remix is by Ryuichi Sakamoto & Yukihiro Takahashi of the pioneering Japanese electropop band, Yellow Magic Orchestra. You might be able to remember that Yellow Magic Orchestra were performers at Massive Attack’s Meltdown back in 2008. There is no word yet if the unremixed version of “Fatalism” will be released. The Japanese Edition of Heligoland can be bought from HMV Japan.

Finally, the photo below is one of the first to be released of  a recent photo shoot the band did with noted photographers Wareen Du Preez and Nick Thornton-Jones, who previously photographed Massive Attack for 100th Window.  More form this photo shoot will be appearing in the run up to Heligoland’s release.

The accompanying press release reads “Trip-Hop legends Massive Attack have released their new video for “Paradise Circus” (ft. Hope Sandoval) in support of their album, Heligoland, set to release February 9th via EMI’s Virgin Records. The Toby Dye directed video features former porn star, Georgina Spelvin, and her candid look on filming the infamous adult film, The Devil in Miss Jones. Original shots of the ‘73 hit (NSFW) are interlaced with Spelvin’s honest take on her physical and emotional state during the production of the film nearly forty years ago.”

After taking a little bit of time to digest it, my own personnel take on the video is that it less about sex/porn and more about voyeurism and the lengths people go to be on camera and be noticed.

That’s not the only bit of news concerning Paradise Circus. Similar to how he got the world premiere of Splitting The Atom, the Zane Lowe show on BBC Radio 1 last night debuted, the Paradise Circus song in its entirety. An audio rip of that premiere is available to stream in the jukebox player along the right hand column of the site here. That’s not the only addition to the jukebox either. You can also stream the Flash Dub of Psyche on there also. As its name implies, its a dub of the Flash Treatment mix of Psyche which originally appeared on the Splitting The Atom EP. This dub remix is available to buy now digitally from MassiveAttack.fr.

Finally in news about Heligoland, various Japanese retailers are reporting that a special edition version of the album will be issued which will contain a 28 page booklet and more interestingly a 2nd bonus disc. What’s on the bonus disc? Hasn’t been announced, but many are hoping that some of the missing tracks previewed live recently like Hartcliffe Star, Red Light, Dobro etc… might see the light of day yet!

The tracklisting for Heligoland will be:

01. Pray For Rain – Vocals by Tunde Adebimpe
02. Babel – Vocals By Martina Topley Bird
03. Splitting The Atom – Vocals by Robert Del Naja, Grant Marshall and Horace Andy
04. Girl I Love You - Vocals by Horace Andy (formerly known as ‘16 Seeter’)
05. Psyche – Vocals by Martina Topley Bird
06. Flat Of The Blade – Vocals by Guy Garvey (formerly known as ‘Bullet Proof Love’)
07. Paradise Circus – Vocals by Hope Sandoval (formerly known as ‘Harpsichord’)
08. Rush Minute – Vocals by Robert Del Naja
09. Saturday Come Slow – Vocals by Damon Albarn
10. Atlas Air - Vocals by Robert Del Naja (formerly known as ‘Marakesh’)

As widely reported for several months, the final vocalists appearing on the record will be Horace Andy, Tunde Adebimpe, Damon Albarn, Hope Sandoval, Guy Garvey, Martina Topley Bird and 3D and Daddy G. Speculating on the tracklist, there seems to be a few interesting omissions (bearing in mind that some of the tracks may have been renamed). Tracks which have been played live over the last few months on the European tour such as Hartcliffe Star and  Red Light appear to be missing. As for the new record’s title, Heligoland, its possible it refers to a small island off the coast of Germany which used to be a former British colony. More information on that can be found on Wikipedia.

There is also a promise of further developments happening soon before the February release date such as internet only promo videos for the bulk of the new songs, along with the release of b-sides and cut tracks from the new album for free online or possibly as a bonus disc on some special edition of the album!

The first of the videos to promote Heligoland will appear online at some stage next week!