Trip-hop titans Massive Attack are stirring again. After years of near-silence, the Bristol collective revealed that they will finally drop new music next year, but with one very intentional omission: none of it will live on Spotify.

In a rare transmission on social media, the band announced a slate of freshly unearthed material: “From next year we will release a cache of work created in the recent past,” they wrote. “Tracks will be available physically and digitally via a new label with a Spotify exception.”

The choice isn’t just aesthetic or strategic; it’s political. Earlier this year, Massive Attack pledged to pull their catalogue from Spotify after CEO Daniel Ek’s multimillion-dollar investment in Helsing, a company developing AI-driven military drone technologies. Their stance wasn’t vague either. In their previous statement, they wrote:

“In the separate case of Spotify, the economic burden that has long been placed on artists is now compounded by a moral & ethical burden, whereby the hard-earned money of fans and the creative endeavours of musicians ultimately funds lethal, dystopian technologies,” the band said. “Enough is more than enough. Another way is possible.”

This declaration aligned them with the No Music For Genocide movement, a cultural boycott urging artists and rights-holders to remove or geo-block their music from streaming services in Israel. For Massive Attack, activism and artistic output have long existed on the same frequency, and this latest move only reinforces that trajectory.

Alongside the news, the band revealed the launch of a WhatsApp channel, promising “direct announcements on 2026 releases and special performances.” It’s a fittingly cryptic but intimate mode of communication from a group that has always preferred shadows to spotlights.

Massive Attack’s last official studio album, “Heligoland,” dropped back in 2010. Since then, fans have survived on sporadic EPs, most recently 2020’s “Eutopia,“ their first new music since the 2016 trio of ‘The Spoils’, ‘Come Near Me’, and ‘Ritual Spirit’. Whether the forthcoming material forms a full-length record or another conceptual EP remains to be seen.

What’s certain is that their next chapter arrives with intention; part creative revival, part political stand, and entirely on their own terms.

Follow MASSIVE ATTACK on:
Facebook | Instagram | X | Youtube

© All rights reserved to Massive Attack.

The following two tabs change content below.