Massive Attack vs Mad Professor Part II - Mezzanine Remix Tapes '98 (color vinyl)

Massive Attack have teased the existence of this album for a few years. The story goes that Mad Professor’s dub mixes of the Protection album (No Protection) did so well that the band commissioned a similar counterpart for their next album, the critical and commercial smash Mezzanine. For whatever reason, the full album never came out. Some of the tracks were included on the highly-collectable 12” singles released in support of Mezzanine more than 20 years ago, but at least a few of them are unheard or unreleased, and are now being served up in full for the first time ever. It’s remarkable what Mad Pro manages to accomplish using just the core elements of a track. He takes a pure razor and tape approach in “Risingson (Setting Sun Dub 2),” subtly rearranging the song’s parts, juxtaposing disparate loops on top of one another, delaying the snare into eternity. By contrast, he constructs an entirely new groove for “Angel (Angel Dust),” detaching the tune from its original manifestation as brooding doom metal lovers rock. The “Teardrop” dub recycles little from the original besides specters of a chord progression, a loose bastardization of the bassline and tiny snatches of vocals (Liz Fraser in dub = I can now die happily). There’s also dubs of “Inertia Creeps,” “Exchange,” “Group Four” (this one’s insanely deep) and non-album cuts “Wire” and “Superpredators” (itself a rework of Siouxsie & The Banshees’ “Metal Postcard”). In lieu of a new Massive Attack album anywhere in sight, this is the next best thing (truth be told, probably way better), and if No Protection changed your life like it did mine, this is essential. 8 tracks in total, comes on limited edition fuchsia colored vinyl, with original artwork by Aiden Hughes (he did the KMFDM covers) and additional design by Robert Del Naja,