Meat Beat Manifesto
Actual Sounds And Voices
[Nothing/Interscope]
Rating: 8.5
Entirely too much coffee running through my veins. The shakes are upon me, I
can't focus. My fingers are rubbing together, I can feel the skin sloughing
silently off, into my keyboard. I need to sleep soon, but the jitters have
overtaken me. My ears are burning. Gotta reach out... find something to drive me
into a mindless oblivion... a zen place alight with the fiery dance of aggressive
energy. Meat Beat is there for me again... oh, my precious Meat Beat. You never
fail me. Oh.
Jack Dangers and company can always be relied upon for their special brand of
heavy- bass grunching, hard- beat industrio-tek to help one get through moments
such as these. With the menacing bass lines buried under schizophrenic drums, and
bizarre samples emerging from the thickness, this music is meant for the black
rooms. White strobes, glassy stares-- Meat Beat Manifesto is not merely heard, but
felt deep in the intestines.
Where Danger's 1996 epic Subliminal Sandwich spent far more time and energy
on cross- genre doodling and experimentation, Actual Sounds and Voices
grounds itself sturdily in primal rhythmic themes. Clearly intended for fans of the
beat with an eye toward hard trance, the record emerges from a series of studio
sessions which were later sampled and reshaped into this final product. Texture
ranges from relatively low- key avant- jazzy on tracks like "The Thumb" to pure
electro beat on "Three Floors Above You."
Directions: open up your head, pour in the stimulants, plug your medulla
oblongata into the album. Allow the pulse to control thy heartbeat. Do not be
afraid. Let your ego go. Tease the fear, love the fear, Meat Beat will become
your fear. Yeh.
-James P. Wisdom