20 Years Later : Massive Attack - Mezzanine

Style: trip-hop, downtempo

I remember, oh about 11 or 12 years ago, when I had just taken the plunge into the world of music geekdom, endlessly reading reviews and articles, seeking out new artists and albums to add on my endless "to listen" list, I had noticed that this album was often mentioned as a landmark work from the 90s. Admittedly, I also remember ignoring it for the simple fact that the cover put me off (and I still stand by my opinion that it is an ugly cover). But after listening to DJ Shadow's renowned Endtroducing (and loving it), and upon further reading, I learned that Mezzanine is regarded as one of the three masterpieces of the Trip-Hop genre (with Portishead's Dummy completing the trio).

Mezzanine was definitely a grower. At just over the hour-long mark, it was then one of the longest albums I had listened to; It's essentially an hour-long listen of slow-tempo'd tracks, with most of them taking their time to build. And I had not yet developed the patience as a listener that I have today. However, right off the bat, there was no denying the strength of the first four tracks. Angel, especially, remains one of the most memorable openers: the ominous-yet-sexy bassline and riff,  the reverent vocals singing "You are my angel/Come from way above/To bring me love", and the rock-out crescendo are hard to forget.

There is an undeniable sensuality to the music, what with the slow, prominent basslines, the sleazy riffs, the whispered male vocals and the soft, angelic female vocals. There's a heavy sense of desire, of fulfilled and unfulfilled love and intimacy. But the brooding bass and and the dubwise effects give this album some sense of claustrophobia and dread underlying the lyricism, itself revolving around the themes of love, self-awareness, self-doubt, alienation and deception:

"I need a little love to ease the pain/.../You're not my savior/But I still won't go

/.../I could fake it/but I still want more"

For my money, Mezzanine is still an exceptional album, but where does it stand now, 20 years later? Where does it fit in the pantheon of electronic music, that has flourished exponentially this last decade?

I feel like it has since been overshadowed by Burial's early work, which showcases a blend of the bass dread from Croydon-era Dubstep, with the melancholic vocal samples manipulated like those in a Todd Edwards record - a combination which seems to resonate more with today's young generation. Even though Massive Attack's music share some fundamental elements with that of Burial's (namely, the Dub Reggae influence and the melancholic vibe), the latter is able to exert the cathartic reverberations of dance music and the UK rave music sound. This, I think, is more in line with today's tastes. What's more, I think that younger listeners are more interested in discovering House, Techno, Jungle, Garage,etc,  from the 90s than to listen to the rockist canon of album-oriented, "acceptable" electronic music that has, at this point, little new to offer.  

Notably, Mezzanine is regarded as the last great Trip-Hop album. I've even read people calling this the final nail in the coffin for the genre. Because, how do you top this?  And even though there have been new Trip-Hop acts that have sprung up in the new millennium, the genre remains attached to the 90s in the general consciousness (like Grunge is). In the mid-2000s, I think people still had hope that the genre would make a comeback, based on the strength of this, Tricky's and Portihead's works. It never did, of course.

Massive Attack did eventually make a comeback after a long hiatus. However, they have never been able to match this album. The music in this album has ambition, but it is never too ostentatious in its production tricks. This approach has permitted it to age gracefully. If this album sounds like a 90s album, it's because the Trip-Hop sound happens to be heavily influenced by Boom Bap (even then, only in regards to drum programming). Lastly,  its strength lies simply in its memorable songwriting. It might take a little patience to soak it in, but once the music grabs you, it never really lets go. I listen to it maybe once every two years now, but I'd be lying if I said that bits and pieces of this album don't pop into my head every now and then.

What Is the New Hardcore?

This rant is about Hardcore/bass rave music from the UK, not Hardcore Punk , sorry

During the 90s, British music journalist Simon Reynolds chronicled his experience with UK Rave music, witnessing its genesis during the Second Summer of Love. From the squelching sounds of Acid House, to the hefty breaks of  'Ardcore Techno, to the kinetic amen manipulation of Jungle, and futuristic bass exploitation of Drum N Bass, he, as many others, witnessed at first-hand the rapid pace at which rave music evolved from '88 to '95 (that's four genres in seven years, think about it) - shaped in warehouse and open-field parties, infiltrating clubs and pirate radio, and taking over the UK's youth.

Takings influences from American music (House, Techno, Electro and Hip Hop), Jamaican music (Dub Reggae and Dancehall), and European music like New Beat, Hardcore Techno (also called Breakbeat Techno) initiated a musical tradition recognized by some as the "Hardcore Sound". In his Red Bull Music Academy appearance, dubstep pioneer and Hyperdub label-head Kode9 describes it succinctly: "The hardcore sound came when electronic music clashed with Jamaican soundsystem culture in London". 

Hardcore was the result of a youth thirsty for all kinds of new dance music (even "getting" Techno before Americans did). It was the end-result of a youth having been exposed to Jamaican music, as it was supposedly not unusual to hear the heavy rumble of the bass, coming out the sound systems, when strolling around certain areas of London.

Hardcore was not just the sound itself, it was also the presentation: The DJ (selector) and the MC (toaster), the bass bins, the pull-ups (rewinds), the DJs competing and scrambling for "dubplates" (the exclusives, the VIP versions,  the unreleased tracks cut on 10" acetate records). Hardcore re-contextualized these Jamaican musical traditions in its new, twisted form of electronic dance music. It was normal to hear the MC, possibly of Caribbean origins, hyping up the crowd over the drum breaks, the subbass and the rave stabs. The British had created their own brand of sound system culture.

Simon Reynolds observed that Jungle and Drum N Bass had taken Hardcore Techno's elements and assembled them in new ways to form these respective styles. Even though they were new genres, they were a continuation of the Hardcore sound. It defined underground club music and pirate radio in London and, as we now know, the sound lived on in the genres of the new millennium. As Londoners got a hold of Garage House from New York, they wasted no time in morphing it into their own style. The swiveling swing of the 2-Step variant of UK Garage was the perfect host for the syncopation and bouncing subbass introduced during the Jungle era: sample, sample, sample.

In the early 2000s, Jungle and Drum N Bass, which were once on the bleeding-edge of, not just club music, but music in general, had become extremely formulaic, or even sanitized. But from the 2-Step Garage scene, in London, there emerged two new genres that continued the sound of Hardcore: Grime and Dubstep. 

In Grime, the MCing tradition of UK dance/rave/sound system music took center-stage, as MCs arrived from the Jungle and Drum N Bass scenes, in which their roles had once been to complement the DJ's selection. In Dubstep, a small group of producers and DJs - from London, Bristol and Manchester - came together to push the bass mutations even further into a weirder, fresher style. That deep, rumbling subbass that was part of the London soundscape became the focal point of the genre, taking influences from 2-step Garage, Broken Beat Techno, Dancehall, Drum n Bass and Dub Reggae.

By the mid to late 2000s, Bassline and Funky House (aka UK Funky) also made a sizable impact, the former pushing the sound of Speed Garage into more aggressive territories; and Funky, some sort of mutation between House, Grime, Afro-Carribean and West African club music. (sample).

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But what now? Around 2010, as the more aggro side of Dubstep (pejoratively called "Brostep") started taking over the world,  a new sound was emerging from the underground. Labels like Hessle Audio, 3024, Swamp81, Punch Drunk, NonPlus, etc, took cues from House, Techno and Electro, blending them with the dubwise approach of old-school Dubstep. 140 bpm went down to 132, and eventually in the 120-130 bpm territory. But this short movement didn't last long, or, better put, it never truly gave way to a solidified, cohesive, maybe even insular,  movement. Some continued it, a lot ended up doing formulaic House and Techno. Some even went back to Drum n Bass, or Dubstep, for example. Some seem to change style every couple of years, going to genreless beats to other, unclassifiable, genreless beats, sometimes delving into borderline pastiches of what is considered trendy, but never really trying to blend the many influences in a seamless way, as Hardcore had once done.

If there's one thing that has defined underground electronic music in the 2010s, it's the new fluidity that artists now have. Gone are the days of insular movements that, I believe, are required for the creation of new genres. Gone are the days of forced musical rigidity in the DJ's set. Of course, there are still purists, and they will always be there. But the internet has expanded people's tastes, making them more aware of the past and present, letting them get involved in local and global music. And the new DJing equipment has opened up new possibilities, enabling a new school of DJs to swiftly and seamlessly execute tempo and genre switches, going from rolling techno, to electronic reggaeton beats, to distorted gabber, for example. 

And, as it is evident now, the toast MC's are almost gone, no longer an essential part of the music. When one does make an appearance, it's usually because it's a celebrated MC from the past. Also, I have to say that comments such as "fuck this mc prick" and "shut up you mug" found on Youtube and Soundcloud have possibly left their mark on the culture, or they could be hints of changed tastes.

Still, we linger on with "the roots", content with keeping the "original sounds" of Grime, Dubstep and Drum n Bass alive. Recently, lo-fi house and outsider house have attracted new fans into the world of underground club music. What characterizes this music is, in my opinion, a sort of fixation on the past, a sort of old-school deep house revival. 

But what is the new Hardcore? Has the sound been reinterpreted into a new genre? Is it in the rolling, subbass-y beats of techno-meets-dubstep being pushed out by Kaizen, Livity Sound, Version, Timedance, etc? Is it in this deconstructed, post-club, industrial-meets-reggaeton-meets-traps-meets-baltimore-club that has risen in these last three or so years? Is it in the highly percussive, bassy works of labels like Nervous Horizon, Sans Absence? Or is it in all of these at once?

And to add to that, the "UK sound" isn't just the UK anymore, as artists from New York, Berlin, Los Angeles, Montreal, Amsterdam, Melbourne, etc, now make "UK bass" music.

I don't even know.