Recording and Release
"Unfinished Sympathy" was recorded at Coach House, Bristol, and Abbey Road Studios, London. Vocals on the track are provided by English singer Shara Nelson, whom the group had known from their days as a part of sound system The Wild Bunch. Strings on the track were conducted and arranged by Wil Malone at Abbey Road, led by violinist Gavin Wright, and engineered by Haydn Bendall at Abbey Road. The track was mixed by Jeremy Allom at the Matrix Recording Studios in London.
"Unfinished Sympathy" was released as the second single from Blue Lines on 11 February 1991. At the time of the single's release, the group temporarily shortened their name to "Massive" at the advice of producer Cameron McVey, who worked with the group on Blue Lines, to avoid controversy relating to the Gulf War, which at the time had broken out recently. The group then reverted to their original name, Massive Attack, for the release of their next single "Safe from Harm". As a result of their temporary name change, covers of the single credit either "Massive Attack" or "Massive" as the artist of the song.
The song appears prominently in the 1993 film Sliver, and is present on the film's soundtrack.
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