(01.11.08) David Dando-Moore is making Massive Attack nervous. His latest opus
as Detritus, Fractured, opens mid-phrase, hurling the listener
directly into the mix with a jet-assisted flyby of strings and beasts,
and Persian-inflected vocals weave through the symphonic fireworks of
classical bridges and ferocious breaks. The air raid of “Desolate
(5-Htp mix)” is followed by the ground assault of “Collide,” which
storms out of the stereo with equal force. It’s not until the third
track, “Detrimental,” that Dando-Moore takes a breath, and even then,
the orchestral Love Theme style of “Detrimental” is broken by tight
drum programming into an anthemic story of love given, taken, broken,
spurred, and won again.
Dando-Moore’s work has always has always been readily able to reach in
and squeeze your heart, using classical arrangements to get at the
soft parts of our psyches; and he lays down floor-ready beats like an
old DJ pro, knowing just how fast and hard the audience is willing to
shake their asses. But here, he pulls out new tricks, like the
samples of children playing in “Lethe” that makes the string-driven
melody that much more heartbreaking, or the bombastic guitar that
thrashes through the hardened beats of “Diolch” like Rammstein showing
up to play at your mother’s garden party.
“Shifts” wiggles with serpentine glee, scattering shards of broken
glass about the room, and while it tries on a few shiny dresses to
make you think that it isn’t completely feral, there something about
the way the beats move that say you shouldn’t turn your back on it
(and sure enough, the drum break explosion is just that sign of
uncontrolled chaos that you’ve been looking for). “Interrupted”
dances in the moonlight, an undulating downtempo track shifts back and
forth between the robust motion of a throbbing beat and the more
diaphanous delicacy of a string-inflected melody.
Oh, yes, Massive Attack should be afraid, as should Craig Armstrong
and David Arnold for that matter. Every movie producer needing a hip
orchestral breakbeat soundtrack is probably already dialing
Dando-Moore.
Fractured is out now on Ad Noiseam. [Purchase
