What do Grace Jones, Gong and Stiff Little Fingers have in common? No points for thinking that they're all iconic acts from the 70's and 80s: the answer is that they're all appearing on the bill at London South Bank's Meltdown Festival this June. Each year a guest curator is invited to oversee this eagerly anticipated event. This year it's the turn of Massive Attack's 3D (AKA Robert Del Naja) and Grant (Marshall) who, according to Del Naja, have assembled a typically eclectic line up in an attempt to "encapsulate what we always did as a sound system, but put it on as an event".

Other performers at the 10 day event will include the Yellow Magic Orchestra, Elbow, Gang of Four,Terry Callier and Aloe Blacc, Primal Scream and Tom Tom Club. Massive Attack themselves will bookend the festival with a performance in the Royal Festival Hall on each of the opening and closing nights. A range of other cultural events will take place in addition to the music, including film screenings, spoken word performances and visual art exhibitions by the likes of Jamie Hewlett, Banksy and Insekt.

One guaranteed highlight is sure to be Day of the Figurines, presented by artists collective Blast Theory. This modern artwork is in fact an SMS game set in a model town populated by miniature figures. The game will be assembled in the foyer of the Royal Festival Hall, and will unfold over the duration of the festival with participation from members of the public who will decide the fate of the town and its population by text message. According to Blast Theory, the game is set against a background of "a fictional town that is littered, dark and underpinned with steady decay." Each day of game time represents an hour in the life of the town, during which players "are invited to make increasingly challenging decisions over the fate of themselves and other players in response to deteriorating circumstances".

As curators of the event, Massive Attack follow in the footsteps of previous luminaries such as Jarvis Cocker, Patti Smith, David Bowie and John Peel. No pressure then? "The worry is sustaining" says Del Naja. It will certainly provide them with a diversion from recording their next album, loosley scheduled for release in September. As with all the band's projects, this date can best be described as flexible, but whenever it arrives it's sure to be worth the wait.

Massive Attack's Meltdown takes place from Friday 13 to Sunday 22 June 2008 in and around London's South Bank arts compolex. For more information and tickets visit the Meltdown Website