Welcome to Music Monday – a weekly meme created by The Tattooed Book Geek – where we share the songs we love, the bands we like and the music we just can’t get out of our heads.
This week’s Music Monday is ‘Hell Is Round the Corner’, the incredible trip-hop track from Tricky. Sampling Isaac Hayes’ ‘Ike’s Rap II’, which also featured in Portishead’s ‘Glory Box’, Tricky’s trademark sound features elements of rock, hip hop, soul, ambient electro and reggae with additional vocals from Martina Topley-Bird.
And if the chill-out vibes weren’t already enough, Tricky, along with Massive Attack and Portishead, has also featured as the backdrop to my entire read through of the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch, making it the perfect backdrop to a thrilling urban fantasy.
Music, much like literature, has the power to drive your imagination; it can lift the soul and create real emotion.This is Bookish Beats, a feature which will showcase some of the soundtracks which have enriched the worlds I’ve found between the pages.
Massive Attack returns in this week’s Bookish Beats with their phenomenal album Mezzanine. This modern masterpiece is, without a doubt, one of my favourite albums of all time and after a countless number listens has become one of my go-to albums whilst reading. If you’re looking for a soundtrack to a beautiful gritty fantasy, whether its urban or epic or something in between, then you can’t go far wrong with Mezzanine. This album really is a beauty.
Mezzanine is a throbbing, beautifully strange and artistic album which brought a surge of electronica to Massive Attack’s trip hop sound. Released in 1998 to wide critical acclaim, Mezzanine became Massive Attack’s most commercially successful album and, almost twenty years later, it’s not hard to see why. This is an atmospheric and addictive musical masterpiece whose lazy, rolling and electronica suffused beats, and surfeit of wonderful vocalists, have you reaching for the repeat button time after time.
Mezzanine opens with Angel, an almost hypnotic track whose slow beat and drawn out vocals take you to another world entirely. Featuring the reggae singer Horace Andy, whose vocals also appear in every one of Massive Attack’s other albums (his contribution to Heligoland on the track Girl I Love You is one of my all time favourites), this is one artist who doesn’t fail to make his presence felt with this pulsating, rhythmic and incredibly haunting track. Man Next Door, a track which features Andy’s reverberating and beat led vocals, becomes increasingly addictive as it reaches its pitch and is one of my favourite tracks on this entire album.
But there is another outstanding vocal contributor to Mezzanine who is more than worthy of a mention. Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins, whose wonderful vocals also feature on The Lord of the Rings soundtrack on both Lothlorien and Isengard Unleashed, is a singer whose haunting and eerily addictive vocals contribute to some of the most stunning tracks on this album. Teardrop is arguably the most well known track on Mezzanine and for good reason; an emotive and incredibly beautiful piece, this is a track which ensnares you in Fraser’s vocals and refuses to let you go. But her genius doesn’t end there. Black Milk, another highlight from this album of highlights, and Group Four, one of my favourite tracks, both carry you above a steady underlying beat on a tide of Fraser’s haunting and brilliant vocals; vocals which truly make for a unique album.
Mezzanine is a phenomenal album which deserves its well recognised status. Horace Andy and Elizabeth Fraser make a stunning contribution and, for those of you who have yet to sample the Cocteau Twins or Andy’s other work, I urge you to check them out. Massive Attack never fail to impress and with Mezzanine have provided a wonderful backdrop to countless literary delights. This is one album which can’t be missed.
Music, much like literature, has the power to drive your imagination; it can lift the soul and create real emotion.This is Bookish Beats, a feature which will showcase some of the soundtracks which have enriched the worlds I’ve found between the pages.
This week we’re taking a break from my love of film and game soundtracks to listen to a band which have topped my list of favourites for an inordinately long time. Massive Attack have repeatedly produced incredible album after incredible album, and their perfect fusion of wildly differing beats and melodies have made them industry leaders in the rise of trip hop.
Heligoland, released in 2010, is Massive Attack’s fifth studio album and, with its seriously chilled out, downbeat vibes and lazy electro undertones, is the perfect backdrop to reading – and to urban fantasy in particular. This is an album which is soulful and atmospheric, and only gets better with each successive listen.
The opening track Pray For Rain, with its gentle vocals and rolling, lazy beat, sets the tone for the rest of the album, and fans of the brilliant crime drama Luther will instantly recognise its theme tune in the deceptively haunting Paradise Circus. Heligoland, which with Girl I Love You has produced one of my favourite Massive Attack tracks of all time, is a triumph of downbeat, rhythmic tracks which only become more addictive the more they are listened to.
This is an album of halves, an album which celebrates the fusion of different sounds and tones for maximum effect, and an album which makes one brilliant and mesmerising whole. Babel, a long-time favourite, succeeds in combining a fast-paced and tuneful melody with an understated and relaxed vibe made apparent throughout the entire album. Splitting the Atom contrasts a deep male vocal with an insistent, repeating melody which has a similar effect to Rush Minute, a track which combines a fast paced backing track with a soft and creeping vocal.
If you’re looking for an album which instantly gives off a city vibe and provides an effortless backdrop to any urban fantasy, then give Heligoland a listen. I can’t imagine reading Rivers of London without it.
Music, much like literature, has the power to drive your imagination; it can lift the soul and create real emotion.This is 
Music, much like literature, has the power to drive your imagination; it can lift the soul and create real emotion.This is 
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