Back in 2016, Massive Attack launched the Fantom app for iOS that contained parts of four new tracks that could also be remixed in real time. In a press statement at the time, Robert del Naja from the band called the app “a sensory music player that remixes and reforms songs uniquely using a variety of environmental variables including location, movement, time of day, heartbeat and the integral moving image camera”.

It was, as expected from a band like this, an intelligent and innovative use of new technology, blurring the boundaries between art and software. Now, as part of the 20th anniversary of their Mezzanine album, Fantom Mezzanine, as it is now called, is getting a fresh lick of digital paint and new functionalities, offering up interactive mixes of tracks from their classic album.

Users can play with the music in order to generate their own “sensory remixes” via the camera, touchscreen gestures, facial movements and motion signals, as well as sampling sounds from the world around them and creating videos.

But there is something much more topical and contemporary happening around the app – something more in keeping with the band’s interest in the possibilities of technology.

There is a tie-up with blockchain startup Blokur, which is providing “rights attribution” for the Fantom Mezzanine app. Blokur will track the usage of individual stems and audio assets within the app, producing a “dynamic rights structure” for every new piece of music that fans create using Fantom.

In many ways, this is a showcase for Blokur’s blockchain-based technology and how it could be used to build an accurate picture of how artists’ work is used in remixes, mashups and other derivative works – and ultimately to ensure they get royalties from that activity. File this as more of a dry run as it will be doing the tracking but, for now anyway, there won’t be royalties paid out.