Massive Attack’s Blue Lines has come of age, and global communicator/Jedi knight/bass sage Mark Pritchard has given ‘Lately’ a neat tweak.

The track previously cropped up in Pritchard’s Rinse.fm session as Africa Hitech back in Summer 2012. According to Pritchard, the remix was intended for Massive Attack’s recent 21st anniversary Blue Lines box set, although it appears not to have seen the light of day in the final version.

Clearly conceived in the same spirit as Pritchard’s futureshocked Harmonic 313 work, the ‘Lately’ edit is a case of judicious tinkering rather than wholesale overhaul. Pritchard adds some tumescent bass, knocks the drum track out of joint, and fires off some dub chamber SFX for good measure. On occasion, Pritchard lets the track sing in its original form, highlighting just how much continuity there is between the Massive Attack/Wild Bunch/Smith & Mighty sound and contemporary bass-orientated experiments. An exercise in fine-tuning from a master engineer. [via Self-Titled Mag]