Meltdown moves from trip-hop to sci-fi with style

Sci-fi noir, legal crusaders and Grace Jones will collide at London's Southbank centre this June as part of the annual Meltdown festival, which is being curated this year by Massive Attack.
The Bristol trip-hop pioneers, who described the chance to oversee the multimedia festival as a "once in a lifetime" opportunity, will open and close the eight-day event with two different concerts at the Royal Festival Hall on June 14 and June 22.

The group will also live mix a Heritage Orchestra performance of Vangelis's soundtrack to Blade Runner, while the BFI IMAX will screen Blade Runner: The Final Cut, Ridley Scott's definitive version of his 1982 film.
The 15th Meltdown will showcase the work of the legal action charity Reprieve, which campaigns for prisoners around the world who cannot pay for representation. A screening of Taxi To The Dark Side, an Academy Award-winning documentary on the controversial death of an Afghan taxi driver, will be followed by a discussion with former Guantánamo Bay prisoner Moazzam Begg and Reprieve's director and founder, Clive Stafford Smith.

Grace Jones, described by organisers as the "returning queen of electro-soul and all-round international style diva", will perform on June 19. Other musical acts include Stiff Little Fingers, Gang of Four, Elbow, Tunng, and a few of Massive Attack's friends and collaborators such as Horace Andy, Mark Stewart and Martina Topley-Bird.

There will also be sets from Trojan Sound System, Saxon Sound System, Four Tet's Kieron Hebden and Peaches.

Massive Attack - aka Robert Del Naja and Grantley Marshall - are the first band to curate the festival. Tickets go on general sale on Friday.