Live Review: LISTEN: Massive Attack x NAS

This collaboration between MASSIVE ATTACK and superstar rapper NAS initially sounds more hip-hop than trip-hop. Say that five times fast.

But before you get your knickers in a knot and your tongue in a twist, realise that this fusion is natural, as trip and hip hop already share a down-tempo, bass-soaked bed. No stumbled utterance of the words trip, hip and hop will be meaningless in this instance.

Halfway through this epic genre-bending mash-up the bubbling trip-hop undercurrent simmering just below the surface swells to wash out the chunky beats, leaving an eerily ambient soundscape. The bad-ass bass falls away, leaving only sampled siren sounds and an unsettling pulse.

With every listen, more of MASSIVE ATTACK's familiar syncopated, irregularly rhythmic synths can be heard. Grimily atmospheric, dark intonations of a ghost-town in the dead of night and the unique rap stylings of the divine NAS will crawl under your skin and transport you into a world of drugged debauchery and gritty glamour that only those who lived through the 90s can imagine.

Words by Rebecca McCann

LISTEN TO MORE NEW MUSIC HERE