Massive Attack Preview Three New Tracks Via Fantom App
Each can contains roughly one million copies of Mezzanine
Last year, Massive Attack commemorated the 20th anniversary of their third studio album, Mezzanine, by encoding it into DNA. And now, the pioneering electronic Brits have announced a reissue of the album in spray paint canisters containing that highly unconventional format.
The audio files were converted into 920,000 DNA strands and stored in 5,000 glass spheres, all tucked into a "Matt Black" aerosol spray can, ready for tagging and various circumstantially subversive activities. A release date has yet to be announced.
According to a press release, the group's 3D (who's long rumored to be the secret identity of the enigmatic street artist, Banksy,) half-jokingly noted the efficacy of encoding media into DNA as a future fix for storing back catalogs, though it's "unlikely to be adopted by street artists seeking anonymity.” Mezzanine is the second largest piece of media to be folded into strands of DNA.
While it's true that the world's demands for media storage has increased exponentially in the two decades since the album's initial release, it's hard to imagine the format catching on in any way. Still, this'll be one helluva collector's item upon arrival and could inspire all sorts of odd-ball formats moving forward.
Hear Massive Attack's Mezzanine below and hold tight for their next transmission.
