August 24, 2000 18:09

FINISHED SYMPHONIES!

But watch out for their new jazz - or prog-rock - direction...

Massive Attack have recorded some 85 tracks in initial sessions for their new album.

The duo of 3D (Robert Del Naja) and Daddy G (Grant Marshall) are currently in studio in Barbados working through the ten hours of material.

Speaking on the band's website www.the-raft.com/massive, 3D explained that he began writing the album during Massive Attack's last tour. The 85 tracks were recorded during sessions with Lupine Howl at Ridge Farm studios in Surrey last September. According to 3D he and Daddy G retreated to the Caribbean in order to concentrate their minds on the task at hand.

"If we just sit in the Bristol studio, we'll just delve into it randomly," he said. "I want to go away and listen to them over and over again and write lyrics. We need to sort out which tracks work into each other well, which ones sit properly together and what kind of atmosphere they create together."

He added: "We want to be different and more exciting than the last album but still carry the trademarks forward... with the amount of material we've got for the new album it could go in a lot of directions."

Aside from 3D's assertion that the new material is "really dirty, really messy" the only indication of the direction the follow-up to 1998's 'Mezzanine' may take comes in his detailing of current listening habits.

"I've been buying records avidly a lot of '60's and '70s jazz and prog rock," he said.