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Unless you've shunned all media in the last month or so, you'll know that Massive Attack have a new album out. Entitled 100th Window, it perhaps paints a less bleak soundscape than Mezzanine. Vocally, the line-up is different, with guest appearances on three tracks from Sinead O'Connor. Her distinctive voice adorns Special Cases, the first single from the album. Long-time Massive Attack collaborator Horace Andy appears elsewhere.

The core of the band has changed as well, with Robert Del Naja (AKA 3D) and Mezzanine co-producer Neil Davidge forming the creative partnership behind the new album with the other long-term Massive Attack member Grant Marshall (AKA Daddy G) taking some time out to become a real daddy.

GearBox spoke to Neil Davidge about the production of 100th Window - "We would start with a single idea, whether a sound, a melody, a chord structure or something like that. Then we build built things up step-by-step."

The album was pretty much written and recorded in a six-month period starting January 2002. Then a further six months were dedicated to the band's near-legendary construct/de-construct/re-construct working method. So, are their three Pro Tools systems an integral part of the song writing process?

"Absolutely!" Davidge exclaims. "We're not just using it for track laying or mixing. We sometimes take random sounds and then chop them around in Pro Tools to create a structure. I couldn't make music the way I like to make music without Pro Tools."

One of Davidge's biggest allies is the Wave Mechanics Speed plug-in, as Massive Attack frequently experiments with new tempos after instrumental tracks have been recorded. "Even if you feel it's lost something sonically, at least you have got to the point where you know it's time to book the musicians, with the confidence that it's coming together as an idea," says Davidge.

With the exception of some of Sinead O'Connor's vocals, which were recorded on location using an Apple PowerBook based set-up, 100th Window was recorded in Massive Attack's own Bristol based studio.

"We've got a good team down here," explains Davidge. "There's myself, there's Alex Swift who was assistant programmer on this album. Lee Shephard who engineered all the recording sessions and also did a lot of premixing with me. It wasn't just recording and writing we did here, there was a fair amount of mixing in the studio."

Suffice to say, if you're running your own small facility, you need some external support. Davidge is full of praise for GearBox, who supplied the team with the three Pro Tools TDM systems that they own, for the mastering of 100th Window an additional HD system was hired in to enable the tracks to be mastered at 192KHz.



"I've known Andy [Brooks] for some time and he's always been really good to us," he offers. "He's always gone out of the way to make sure we've got whatever support we need. Whether it's equipment or advice."

"We're fairly sporadic about the way we create music," says Davidge. "Ideas will occur and we'll want backup there and then. You have to have support from someone who will actually see it through; otherwise you keep coming up against a brick wall. GearBox have been brilliant."

For further information please visit:
100th Window
Massive Attack