"We literally scrapped the whole lot and started again," confesses Neil.

"And we
started in more of a way that we'd been familiar with, where you would start with a
sound, and that sound would become a part, and that part would become a loop or
small musical arrangement, and then you'd start building over the top of that.
Again, because me and D both see music as a very visual thing, the textures have to
be there � we have to have those contrasts, whether we start with a small synth
part and then put some crusty guitars against that, or start with some beats and
create a picture from that.

"We needed to start from that very simple basis, sketching out an idea and then
filling it in. It had to be a building-block kind of process for us to actually
feel that it was what we wanted to try and do, otherwise it was too out of control.
We could appreciate the music that the band were making, it was very exciting, but
you couldn't take one single part and say that was the core of it � it just didn't
hang together. The bass line might work well with the drums, but you'd take the
bass line on its own and it didn't sound that great. So it was only when we wrote a
bass line that we wanted to hear on the record that we started to get to the core
of what we were trying to do on this new album.

"I guess it's always been an abstract process with Massive Attack. There's never
been logic to it, it's always been a gut thing � I don't approach things from a
cerebral point of view � it's always whether something does it for me or it
doesn't. And wherever I am dictates where I'm going."

This intuitive and cavalier approach helps give the tracks on 100th Window a real
sense of natural movement untouched by formulaic or standard structures. "There are
structures in the tracks, but it's always what comes before that dictates what
comes after," explains Neil. "I think people, especially these days, get four bars,
build that up and find another four bars to go with it � then one's your verse and
one's your chorus � and I don't find that particularly inspiring. I like things to
grow, in the same way that in a conversation you'll start at one point but you'll
end up somewhere completely different, and it will be a surprise and exciting
because who could have predicted that you would have ended up there? In the same
way I think that music has to have an element of surprise, there has to be a sense
of natural progression even if you suddenly drop a huge drum beat over a nice synth
part. It has to seem like that was the right move to make, but you can't get there
before you've done the nice little quiet bit. It has to make sense as a journey.
Too much music these days doesn't pay attention to what music should be about,
which is communicating ideas and feelings. If you get that bit right then you can
write unconventional structures and melodies that work."

"If you're making music and you know what's going to happen next then it just
becomes boring. I love the part of it where you try something, you don't know what
it's going to sound like, press go and it either sounds a complete mess or it
sounds amazing � and that's the bit I get off on. If you're surprised by what
you're doing then people listening to it will be even more surprised."

"I like turning sounds on their head � it's a challenge and by setting yourself
that challenge you're using your ingenuity, something that's very personal to you,
based on your experiences, your view of the world, so it becomes unique."

Theatre Of Sounds
100th Window, the title taken from a cult electronic security book written by
Charles Jennings, is an intense and multi-layered album. One of the band's self-
imposed briefs was to create an album that was warmer than Mezzanine but not
softer.

"We tend to set ourselves these impossible tasks: 'bigger but smaller', 'warmer but
not softer'," laughs Neil, "and we talk about it and get excited about the concept,
but there's always the practical aspect of how you can physically make it work. I'm
pretty nocturnal when it comes to making music, I work through the night a lot of
the time, and it's then that these conflicting ideas come together and actually
make sense, but it's not easy. It's a bit of a tall order to make an album that's
good and different. Especially these days it's almost an impossible task because
nothing is completely original any more � it's just not feasible. So you've got to
go to other places and set yourself almost impossible briefs to get somewhere
different, which is what we definitely did with this album. We challenged ourselves
in many different ways.

"This album's not going to be an album that you listen to once and go 'Wow, I
totally get this.' It's going to have to be an album that you listen to half-a-
dozen times before it starts to make sense. Most of my favourite albums, and the
ones that I continually go back to, are the ones that took me a while to get into
in the first place. After we've finished an album I can't tell if it's genius or
just OK � I won't be able to tell you that for maybe another six months. You just
try and put all your positive energy into it whilst you're making it and hope that
it represents what you were going through at that point. And it does represent
where we were at creatively through the making of the album."