Massive Attack X Tom Waits - Boots On The Ground [Blue]

Two of the most uncompromising acts in modern music finally share a record. Released in August 2026 on Play It Again Sam, Boots On The Ground pairs Bristol's great sound-system pessimists with the gravel-voiced patron saint of American back alleys, and the result is exactly as unsettling as that sentence promises. The accompanying film, assembled by Massive Attack with the photo artist thefinaleye, montages an American moment that has not been given a name yet.

The title track moves at a funeral crawl, Waits growling over the trio's signature low-end murk. Robert Del Naja, Grant Marshall and Stew Jackson produced, with Casey Waits on drums, Dan Moore on piano and Jackson handling guitar and synthesizer. Ben Baptie mixed it and Joe LaPorta cut the master, so the bass sits exactly where you want it and the vocal sits exactly where you do not.

The B-side is the reason to own the physical copy. "The Fly" is a Waits spoken-word piece written with Kathleen Brennan, dry and funny and mean in the way only he manages, and it exists nowhere else in this form.

This is the limited 45 RPM 12" pressed on EcoSonic, a 100 percent recycled PET formulation that comes out in a random red, white and blue mix, so no two copies match. All vinyl profits go to the American Civil Liberties Union and the US Immigrant Defense Project. Buy it for the music, keep it for the reason it exists.