Massive Attack have been taking aim at American data analytics and software corporation Palantir in their new live show, describing the company’s aims as “terrifying”.
The trip-hop giants have been sharing their stance towards the infamous surveillance tech company during the structure of their new live show, and during their set at Primavera Sound later this week, they be making use of “custom-made facial recognition software” that has been designed to “scan a 75,000-person crowd” and pull their faces up on screen, labelling them with satirical descriptors like “11 weeks no time off, burnout” and “unfinished books”, according to Novara Media.
Speaking to the outlet, the design is a jab at Palantir, which was founded 20 years ago by billionaire Peter Thiel and has financial backing from the CIA, with clients including the US and Israeli militaries, ICE, the FBI and the NHS.
After debuting the show in Helsinki, Robert Del Naja told Novara Media that he wanted to make people more aware of the company’s expansion from “kill chain tech” used in Gaza to now accessing the medical records of people living in Britain.
“We really need a much wider debate on the suitability of a company like this having such capture of our societal infrastructure,” he explained, going on to add that the criticism runs throughout Massive Attack’s two-hour set, and was made alongside regular collaborator Adam Curtis and London-based art collective United Visual Artists.
“One visual element represents how a Palantir Gotham monitoring and ‘decision chain’ interface might look,” Del Naja said. “Using facial recognition technology, it lands on groups and individuals – implying a consequential outcome for a given target.”
Novara Media have outlined how the software used by Palantir is able to merge with separate databases, reporting that ICE uses it alongside “body cam footage, data gleaned from social media and information gathered via Israeli-tech hacking software Paragon” to allegedly identify protestors who have resisted immigration raids.
The outlet also says that Palantir helps power Maven – the US military’s software platform – which was recently blamed for the bombing of a girls’ school in Iran.
“I find their declarations, objectives and moral framing pretty terrifying,” Del Naja added. “To enable AI systems to map police records, satellite tracked locations, health records and personal financial transactions and place all of that information – for the first time – into the hands of a company with an overt political agenda and social objectives of its own is a huge, potentially irreversible and dangerous overreach.”
One section of Massive Attack’s latest show, during the haunting end of ‘Girl I Love You’, also displays a quote from Peter Thiel that reads: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible”.
Last year, Massive Attack first demonstrated the satirical “facial recognition” section of their live show, and batted off claims that they were actually using data-recognition technology in their set.
“No Massive Attack live show has ever recorded or stored personal data,” they shared, adding, “Only government departments, relevant authorities & approved contractors can access public databases in the UK, & doing so in multiple cities/countries would be impossible.”
Massive Attack continued by highlighting the use of public facial recognition in the UK, writing that the government are “overreaching almost all other western democracies with their use of public facial recognition … while there is no specific legislation regulating police use of these systems.”
That announcement came just days after they introduced Kneecap to the stage for their huge show at the OVO Wembley Arena, describing them as a band “who refused to be silenced for their solidarity with the Palestinian people.”
Massive Attack have been consistent in their support for Palestine, among myriad progressive causes, recently vowing to boycott Spotify in response to reports that the platform’s CEO Daniel Ek has made significant investments “in a company producing military munition drones and AI technology integrated into fighter aircraft.”
Last summer, they played a powerful headline set at London’s LIDO Festival where they were joined by actor and activist Khalid Abdalla and Yasiin Bey (formerly Mos Def), and earlier this year Del Naja shared a statement slamming the “draconian government” after being arrested during a protest against the ban on Palestine Action.
The artist was among hundreds of fellow demonstrators who took to Trafalgar Square on April 11 to protest the ban on Palestine Action, and held up a sign that read “I Oppose Genocide, I Support Palestine Action”.
He was carried away from the demonstration by police and arrested on suspicion of showing support for a proscribed organisation, and later addressed the situation in a lengthy statement shared to Instagram.
In February this year, the band announced a handful of European live shows for this summer, and dates kicked off on May 27 with an opening night at the Veikkaus Arena in Helsinki, followed by a stop at the Dalhalla venue in Rättvik on May 30.
The Bristol trip-hop legends have not released any new music since the 2020 EP ‘Eutopia’. Their last full-length album was 2010’s ‘Heligoland’.
In an interview in 2024 with NME, the band’s Robert Del Naja confirmed that they had “some new music which we’ve been sitting on for four years”, and in November he shared that he was looking to release some of it in 2026.
