Graham Massey

Graham Massey
(Founder member of 808 State. Bjork recorded two tracks on their ’Ex:El’ LP, ’Ooops’ and ’Q-Mart’. Is currently collaborating with Bjork on a new EP, due out in late autumn.) She rang up out of the blue. She didn’t say who she was : ’a composer from Iceland’ is the way she put it, although I had an idea. She was listening to our ’90’ album and was looking for help on the drum programming side. I phoned that night to see if she’d do something for our album. She postponed her flight to Iceland, came up to Manchester the next day, and did two tracks in as many days. It was definitely a case of musical empathy. Björk in two words ? Strength and timebomb, especially now she’s in the mainstream. Her background has an anarchic streak, and it hasn’t died out yet. It is in a position to kick off, which is...

Select, june 1994

Graham Massey
Most acts were putting out seven-inches with throwaway lyrics like, ’Ooh, baby, baby’. But Björk took that culture and made an album with poetic lyrics. It blew everyone away. She never tried to fit in with any electronic movement, she just took the ideas and got personal with it.

Paper, September 1997

Graham Massey
Graham Massey was a real catalyst for me in the fact that I went out and did my own stuff. After being in a band with the same people for ten years, and part of me thinking and quite liking the fact that I would always be in Iceland and with my cuddly family and friends, and going on tour with the Sugarcubes, that was enough. Then, musically, I was craving something that didn’t fit into all that, and I felt slightly criminal by wanting something even more than that. So the person I contacted in ’89 or ’90 was Graham Massey, when I called I shyly asked if he wanted to hear my demos and whenever I went over and visited he was always completely enthusiastic and paternal. He would show me his record collection and funnily enough we both had the same collections, one of Reykjavik and one of...

David Toop Interview, 2002

Graham Massey
I’d got the their album ( 808 State) in 1990. I hadn’t heard that much foreign bands so when the Sugarcubes started travelling in ’88, I was like dying, and I’d go to concerts in Camden and walk in there and my first shock was like, it’s crap, there’s nothing creative here, because I’d built it up in my head. And then I ended up going to a club, and saw that energy at that time,’88, there. If you went to clubs enough and waited ’til five or six in the morning, there would eventually come up a live DJ, and you would hear music you’d never heard before, ever. And obviously, 808 State, because they just had that sort of that intellectual rhythm. I’ve always been really into rhythms. It wasn’t just like a "doof-doof-doof" ; it was very vibrant and they were physical, probably one of the few very...

The Times, 2 august 2001