100th Window is the fourth studio album from the Bristol-based trip-hop group Massive Attack.

History

Of Massive Attack's original core trio, the album only featured Robert Del Naja – Andrew Vowles departed shortly after the release of Mezzanine, and Grant Marshall was on a sabbatical to raise his young daughter. Released in 2003, it was written and produced by Del Naja and Neil Davidge, and features the vocals from Horace Andy and Sinéad O'Connor, as well as an appearance by Damon Albarn. It is the first album by the band that made no use of samples, and contains none of the jazz or fusion stylings of the band's earlier recordings.

Work on the album started in early 2000. Massive Attack recruited Lupine Howl (a band made up of ex-members of Spiritualized) for the new album. In a November 2001 interview, Lupine Howl's lead singer Sean Cook described the sessions as "very experimental ... that essentially consisted of kinda minimal loops and noises that were fed to our head phones from the computer up in the control room. Then we would have this sort of extended jam session playing along to them and they would do various things to do the loops. Sometimes they would drop out the loop, sometimes they would start processing it with effects and delays and stuff like that, to try and make it change in various ways and see what that would do in terms of our playing. They also had a strobe light in the live room, which they controlled from the control room. They would kind of put that on and speed it up to dictate the intensity and try to affect the way we played with the lighting. It was a really good laugh; we got some good stuff. I mean, hours and hours of stuff, which they have taken back and cut up and arranged and done their things to."^[1] Del Naja wrote in a 17 July 2002 posting to Massive Attack's forums that over the course of time, the band had become "very unhappy with the shapes being formed", and that by the beginning of 2002 they had discarded most of the material that was written up to that point. As a result, Lupine Howl is not credited with any contributions to the final album. However, one song from those sessions, "Nature of Threat", was later made available for download on Massive Attack's website.

100th Window received a generally positive, though somewhat muted critical reception, many arguing that whilst Massive Attack's previous three albums had all broken significant new ground for the group, 100th Window's dark, brooding sound was merely a continuation, although in some areas, less dark, of Mezzanine.^{[citation needed]}

The title of the album comes from the book "The Hundredth Window: Protecting Your Privacy and Security in the Age of the Internet"; this title is an allusion to the idea that one's security is compromised if even one window is left open. In a 2003 interview, Del Naja explained that, "There's always a way in, there's always one thing you'll leave and locks are undone, and something you've forgotten. It's a great analogy to the human psyche and the soul, and the way we're voyeuristic, we like to look at and see everything we can get our hands on, have that power and be able to look at other people and look into thoughts while closing ourselves off and keeping ourselves as private as possible."^[2]

Two weeks after the release of the album, Del Naja was arrested as part of Operation Ore, a police operation intending to indict users of web sites featuring child pornography. The charges were dropped a month later after no sign of such material was found on his personal equipment. The band was planning on touring Australia and New Zealand, but the tour was postponed due to the band's visas being revoked. Del Naja explained in an 11 April 2003 interview with The Guardian that British newspaper The Sun had apparently called the embassies in those countries, informing them of the allegations against Del Naja.^[3]

Track listing

All tracks written by Robert "3D" Del Naja and Neil Davidge except tracks 2, 4 & 6 written by Del Naja/Davidge/O'Connor.

1. "Future Proof" (vocals by 3D) – 5:38
2. "What Your Soul Sings" (vocals by O'Connor) – 6:38
3. "Everywhen" (vocals by Andy) – 7:39
4. "Special Cases" (vocals by O'Connor) – 5:09
5. "Butterfly Caught" (vocals by 3D) – 7:34
6. "A Prayer for England" (vocals by O'Connor) – 5:48
7. "Small Time Shot Away" (vocals by 3D, backing vocals by 2D (Damon Albarn)) – 7:59
8. "Name Taken" (vocals by Andy) – 7:49
9. "Antistar" (vocals by 3D) – 8:17
10. "LP4" (instrumental hidden track) – 11:23

Personnel

• Robert "3D" Del Naja
• Neil Davidge
• Horace Andy - Vocals
• Sinead O'Connor - Vocals
• Alex Swift - Additional programming and keyboards
• Angelo Bruschini - Guitars
• Jon Harris - Bass
• Damon Reece - Drums
• Stuart Gordon - Violin
• Skaila Hanka - Harp
• Craig Pruess - String conduction

Orchestra arrangement by Craig Pruess, Neil Davidge and Robert "3D" Del Naja

References

External links

• http://www.massiveattack.com/
• http://www.100thwindow.com/

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