Massive Attack: Heligoland

    Trip-Hop is not a genre that I know much about, but apparently, Massive Attack, who's been around since their first album release in 1991 with Blue Lines is one of its forerunners. In fact, trip-hop is often referred to as the Bristol sound, which is where the band is from, Bristol. To better give an understanding, trip-hop is sort of a down-tempo electronic music, like Björk's music most of the time.
    Massive Attack is made up of duo Robert Del Naja (a.k.a. "3D" or just "D")and Grant Marshall (a.k.a. "Daddy G" or just "G"). One former member is Andy Vowels (a.k.a. "Mushroom" or "Mush"). The threesome originally met in the mid 1980's as part of a Bristol group, or "sound system", called The Wild Bunch, a group of DJs and artists that played various club scenes in Bristol and London and sound-clashed other sound systems. Another aspect of the Bristol underground that became popular in the early 1990's was graffiti and Robert Del Naja was in fact a graffiti artist turned MC.
    Heligoland is Massive Attack's most recent album, coming out just this year (2010), and from which I heard the song "Girl I Love You" on WBER, 90.5 Rochester "the only station that matters". I figure this album was a long time coming, as their previous album 100th Window was put out in 2003. Nevertheless, there are some unique songs on this album that are worth checking out:

Track listing:
1) Pray for Rain
-vocals by Actor/Singer/Director Tunde Adebimpe, who is known for his role as the groom in Rachel Getting Married alongside Anne Hathaway; Brooklyn based band, TV on the Radio; and created the music video to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs song "Pin".
2) Babel
-vocals by Martina Topley-Bird, British vocalist who has a small solo career and has collaborated with Tricky, another trip-hop act. Her voice works really well with the atmosphere of this album.
3) Splitting the Atom 
-additional vocals by Reggae artist Horace Andy. This song has clear reggae influence and it is interesting to hear the different styles of all 3 voices as Del Naja and Marshall sing too.
4) Girl I Love You 
-vocals by Horace Andy again. Cool driving song with this deep deep bass plugging away throughout and an interesting set rhythm during some points.
5) Psyche
-vocals by Martina Topley-Bird again. This is like a splash of Muse thrown in, with arpeggiated chords
throughout and some really cool progressions that are so reminiscent of Absolution.
6) Flat of the Blade
-vocals by Manchester band Elbow member Gus Garvey. This has perhaps the most electronic base with lots of samplings and break beats. It sounds like Radiohead and Björk too when the synthesized string and brass sounds comes in.
7) Paradise Circus
-vocals by Hope Sandoval of Mazzy Star and Hope Sandoval & the Warm Inventions. There is a cool
chord progression played on the vibes and piano in this song.
8) Rush Minute 
-vocals by Robert Del Naja. This is another driving song with growing intensity and nice use of syncopation in the drum set that makes it sound like mixed meter.
9) Saturday Come Slowly
-vocals by Damon Albarn of the virtual band Gorillaz. This is a more melodic song that continues to grow as layers are added.
10) Atlas Air
-vocals by Del Naja. He has such a whispered but deep raspy voice. This uses some cool electronic manipulation as the song kind of fades away.

    Well, all that said, it is very difficult to explain how this group sounds, but they are definitely imo worth a listen with how unique they are and just the history behind trip-hop and the Bristol scene and how this group had such a large part in that. I especially love how they collaborate with so many different artists and how they seemingly carefully select the exact vocal sound they want for each song and its individual style. A fun fact about Massive Attack is that their song "Teardrop" from their album Mezzanine is the opening theme to the hit TV show House. Finally, make sure to scroll through the MixPod player to find two tracks: "Psyche" and "Flat of the Blade".