John Richards

Good morning and welcome to the Thursday edition of the Morning Show with John! Massive Attack released Mezzanine on this day in 1998! Massive Attack use a variety of vocalists. This one is sung by the reggae singer Horace Andy. It's based on Andy's 1973 song "You Are My Angel." -- The original idea was to record a cover version of The Clash's "Straight To Hell," but Horace Andy wasn't happy singing the word "hell." Mezzanine co-producer Neil Davidge recalled: "We were literally rewriting songs while we were mixing... Angel (was) plucked out of thin air at a mixing session at London Olympic Studios. 3D and Horace went next door, were kind of throwing vocal ideas around... And we were messing around with the track, dropping things together. Then Horace put a vocal down and it was like, wow, s--t, that is magic." -- "It is quite probably the most used Massive Attack song in both TV and movie soundtracks ever, having appeared in countless different filmed media.": massiveattack.ie

Lamb are an English electronic music duo from Manchester, whose music is influenced by trip hop, drum and bass and jazz. The duo consist of producer Andy Barlow and singer-songwriter Lou Rhodes. They achieved commercial success with the hit singles "Górecki" and "Gabriel".

Closing track off The Chemical Brothers debut album Exit Planet Dust, with Beth Orton on vocals. www.thechemicalbrothers.com

"Hear me" finds HÆLOS comforting a loved one in a dialogue about belonging. Home is where the heart is: a true cliche but in this case, the band stops to consider why such often spoken phrases exist. As the lyrics comfort and sometimes plead, the instrumental paves new ground for the band as it fuses breakbeat with soaring synth lines and emotive piano. bit.ly

Groove Armada are an English electronic music duo, composed of Andy Cato and Tom Findlay. They achieved chart success with their singles "At the River", "I See You Baby" and "Superstylin'". The duo have released nine studio albums, four of which have charted in the UK Albums Chart top 50.

UNKLE was founded by James Lavelle, who started the influential Mo'Wax record label in 1992 -- the label was at the forefront of turntablism and trip-hop, as well as working with influential graffiti artists like Futura 2000 and Robert "3D" Del Naja DJ Shadow joined Lavelle in the first incarnation of UNKLE after Mo'Wax released DJ Shadow's masterpiece "Endtroducing..." (this track also features lyrics by Richard Ashcroft from The Verve)

"Morning John and All, Today is one of the hardest days of our life’s. We have to put down our sweet doggie. She’s been with us for 16 years and it’s time. Her name is Cali. If you could play Just Breathe or something fitting it would mean a lot to my wife and I. Thanks for all that you do! Here’s to Cali’s long puppy life. Thanks, Jason " ===== This tale of anxiety and self-harm was very real to Sia. The very night she wrote it, she attempted suicide by taking 22 Valium and downing a bottle of vodka, something she didn't reveal until a series of interviews in 2018. After, a phone call from an old friend convinced her to get sober. You are not alone. There are great people who want to help. Reach out if you need it. www.kexp.org

Celebrating 25 years of Mezzanine today! Originally released ten months before Mezzanine as part of a UK-only limited edition single -- and used to promote the band's 1997 tour With samples from "I Found A Reason" by The Velvet Underground, and "Practice Makes Perfect" by Wire massiveattack.ie

Check out the music video to this track from Depeche Mode here: www.youtube.com

New Depeche Mode! Performing at the Climate Pledge Arena November 26th. The name of the new Depeche Mode record is Latin for 'remember that you [have to] die', and is an artistic or symbolic trope acting as a reminder of the inevitability of death.

Celebrating 25 years of Mezzanine today! Andrew Vowles, the main songwriter of Teardrop, sent an early demo of the song to Madonna, as he initially wanted her to record the vocals for the song. However, bandmates Robert Del Naja and Grantley Marshall wanted Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins to record the vocals, feeling her ethereal style suited the feel of the piece. Although Madonna was very keen to record the vocals, the two-to-one vote ruled in Fraser's favor.

The Belgian band Hooverphonic formed in 1995 by original members Alex Callier, Frank Duchêne, and Raymond Geerts. The three first met up and formed a band called The Love Letter Boxes in 1994. They then called themselves Hoover, but later changed their name to Hooverphonic after discovering other groups were already using the Hoover name and to avoid any legal issues with the vacuum cleaner company. They became triphop icons when they released their first album 'A New Stereophonic Sound Spectacular' in 1996 .

Becoming X is the debut studio album by English electronic band Sneaker Pimps, released in 1996. The album marked the only appearance of Kelli Dayton as lead singer before Chris Corner replaced her on vocals for the band's subsequent albums. - sneakerpimpsmusic.com --- Celebrating the music of 1996 & 50 years of music on KEXP! - www.kexp.org

Formed in 1985 in Portsmouth, England by siblings Alison and Jim Shaw and named after the many mechanical cranes around the city's docks, Cranes are best known for the singular childlike vocals of lead singer Alison. bit.ly 'Shining Road' is the opening track off their third album, released in 1994.

Jungle Brothers are an American hip hop trio composed of Michael Small, Nathaniel Hall, and Sammy Burwell. Known as the pioneers of the fusion of jazz, hip-hop, and house music, they were the first hip-hop group to collaborate with a house-music producer.

"My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" was David Byrne's first album without the Talking Heads. Here's an in-depth look at the cultural and moral issues surrounding the album: www.getintothis.co.uk

Attica Blues is an album by avant-garde jazz saxophonist Archie Shepp. Originally released in 1972 on the Impulse! label, the album title refers to the Attica Prison riots.

As a teenager growing up in the ’80s in the suburbs outside Sacramento, California, Josh Davis, aka DJ Shadow, felt a huge distance away from the hip-hop centre of New York. However, that didn’t stop him falling in love with the genre and the idea of beatmaking. More importantly perhaps, he already understood that hip-hop could be about more than simply sampling a James Brown drum break and looping it. Davis wanted to take the form much further. "People like Afrika Bambaataa and Steinski and Grandmaster Flash showed me that hip-hop was so much broader than what people acknowledged it as being," he says. "It was about exploring music that you were denied access to." In the ’90s, Davis was to help reshape hip-hop into a form blending variously slowed-down or rapid, pyrotechnic beats with collages of atmospheric instrumental or vocal samples, creating a cinematic sound that was labelled trip-hop. It reached a landmark point with the 1996 release of the debut DJ Shadow album Endtroducing. bit.ly

Celebrating 25 years of Mezzanine! "Man Next Door" (also known as "Quiet Place" or "I've Got to Get Away") is a song written by Jamaican reggae singer John Holt and first recorded by his group The Paragons in 1968. The drum break is sampled from Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks." It also samples The Cure's 10:15 on a Saturday Night

"We were really obsessed with the tiny minutiae. If you sample a record, there's probably something hanging over from the bar before like a bit of reverb off the voice, which gives a tonality to the drum break. There might be somebody doing tiny chops in it, but they really muffled on an organ. You're not totally aware of them, but if they're not there it makes it sound super clean. We were always into kind of muddying the water bit and giving it some atmosphere." Read more from our exclusive 2019 interview with Portishead's Geoff Barrow and Adrian Utley for the album's 25th anniversary: bit.ly

"It's all part of the process We all love looking down All we want is some success But the chance is never around" "Part of the Process" was released in 1998 on Morcheeba's second studio album, 'Big Calm.' Watch the video here: youtu.be #YouAreNotAlone

"Good morning John and crew. Although I love "trip-hop", I have never been quite sure what all it incorporates. Would love to hear one of my trip-hop (I think) favorites if there is room for it. Loving the show today. David Holmes, Don't Die Just Yet from the Lets Get Killed Album Thanks for the music, Brant in Dallas" ===== David Holmes is a Northern Irish musician and composer. He worked as a DJ before releasing several solo albums that have incorporated elements of trip hop, big beat, electronic and rock. This song samples "Melody" by Serge Gainsbourg

At a time when mainstream electronic music commonly comes under fire for being one-dimensional music with little substance, Phantogram have broken these stereotypes by creating a blend of electronic and rock music with powerful vocals and lyrical themes that are relevant to youth culture. Lyrically, Black Out Days deals will mental instability but is backed by an upbeat track with a driving beat and an irresistibly catchy melody. It’s very common for electronic/pop music to be shallow in the sense that it doesn’t generally deal with heavy social issues, instead it’s usually just music to dance to, however Black Out Days doesn’t conform to this stereotype. The lyrical content is a big factor that makes this song so identifiable to it’s target audience. With lines such as "I’m hearing voices in my head and they’re not mine" and "a thousand voices howling in my head" it’s apparent that this song deals with the internal struggles of the writer and the mental issues that they are facing. Some of the aesthetic qualities of the song reflect this, for example the layered and harmonised vocal loops are indicative of the thousands of voices in her head. bit.ly

Celebrating 25 years of Mezzanine! Read DJ Riz's Rewind Feature on Massive Attack's third LP "Mezzanine" here: www.kexp.org

Tricky drew on his experiences in British drug culture, as well as the influence of his late mother Maxine Quaye, on this album. This track features a sample from Issac Hayes "Ike's Rap II" -- also used by Portishead on "Glory Box" from 1994's Dummy

DJ Morgan spoke with Portishead’s Geoff Barrow and Adrian Utley back in 2019 for the 25 year anniversary of their debut album 'Dummy'. Read all about it here: bit.ly/3AgOLcj This track, like the last, features a sample from Issac Hayes "Ike's Rap II" __ www.portishead.co.uk

Hideaki Ishi, better known by his stage name DJ Krush, is a record producer and DJ. He is known for his atmospheric instrumental production which incorporates sound elements from nature and extensive use of jazz and soul samples.

Tranquility Bass was the stage name of Michael Adam Kandel. Kandel was born and raised in Chicago, and he learned to play the guitar and keyboards at age 12. By age 15 he had begun to record experimental electronic music in his bedroom. He passed away in 2015.

Lyrically, this song is centered around clips of an interview with Rickie Lee Jones, who talks dreamily of the fluffy clouds in the Texas skies of her childhood. The conversation comes from a CD that was distributed to record stores and media outlets to promote her 1989 album "Flying Cowboys." Jones later said in interviews that the odd nasal tonality of her voice was the result of a heavy cold. The song also includes a guitar riff from American minimalist composer Steve Reich's "Electric Counterpoint," as recorded by Pat Metheny, and a harmonica sample from Ennio Morricone's "The Man With The Harmonica" from the soundtrack of the 1968 spaghetti Western, "Once Upon a Time in the West

Here's HÆLOS performing live in the KEXP studio in 2019: www.youtube.com

Here's HÆLOS performing"Pray" and more live in the KEXP studio in 2016: www.youtube.com

Lusine is the stage name of Seattle's electronic producer Jeff McIlwain. He was our guest DJ on Midnight in a Perfect World in 2015 and chose a terrific tech-house set: www.kexp.org -- Watch a live performance by Lusine in the KEXP studio in 2017: www.youtube.com

Martina Gillian Topley-Bird is an English singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who first gained fame as the featured female vocalist on trip hop pioneer Tricky's debut album, Maxinquaye. She also worked with him on his subsequent albums Nearly God and Pre-Millennium Tension

2001 album release from HALOU, the DIY project of husband/wife duo Rebecca and Ryan Coseboom, who began releasing tracks from their bedroom in the suburbs of San Francisco. www.halou.com

Celebrated 25 years of Mezzanine all morning! Have a great day! The third studio album from Massive Attack. The band's lead member, Robert Del Naja, conceptualized the album by shifting the focus towards a darker sound. www.massiveattack.co.uk