MEAT BEAT MANIFESTO

R.U.O.K. in Dub

CD/LP / Quartermass

Who is Meat Beat Manifesto nowadays and where does its interest in dub come from, toasters included? The answer to both question might be as simple as it is surprising. In short: Jack Danger and that interest in dub have always been there and the vocalists aren’t that important in his vision of dub anyway. In some ways Meat Beat Manifesto has always been Jack Danger by himself, since the records were all “written, produced and recorded by” him. Percussionist / drummer Lynn Farmer joins him on one song only on this record. DJ Collage, the vocalist comes in on five more tracks, but vocal samples from all over the world are almost on every record, which makes “…in dub” a true solo-release. And also the dub-like soundscapes and vibrating straight grooves have been there more or less. Yeah, most of the time less visibly, hidden beneath masses of industrial carnage or experiments with sounds and atmospheres born by the cold and destructive environment of the dark and freezing EBM-movement and kept alive somehow into the present.

Do you think eastern soccer-commentators make good game for happy and sunny dub, then you are mistaken, whatever the title of that track might insinuate (“Happiness supreme dub”). Especially in this musical environment. Even DJ Collage has to bear some heavy distortion on his vocals (“Retrograde Dub”). Most interestingly, in those parts where there are no drums and only the multi-levelled synthie- and noise-scapes, the music comes close to artsy Scandinavian drones such as Origami Antarktika. But that might come from the coldness and darkness of the music and the geographical connotation of the Arctic and Scandinavia with coldness and endless nights. To reword it: this could have been a great soundtrack to the movie “Insomnia” (with Robert DeNiro and Robin Williams in the darkest daylight I have ever seen.)

The heavy mind-altering-drug-drenched and trance-inducing aspects of dub are of course much more important in the electronic dub-genre (if I might call it that, to include the likes of Techno Animal, some Si.Begg, Scorn and maybe even some Sofa Surfers, you know the ones) than the ganja-smoking relaxedness-aspects. That at least is a part it shares with the old EBM-genre. If you can remember EBM you are older than me, which means really old. As far as I know, the only remains of true EBM live on somewhere as a sub-genre in the still vibrant gothic-movement, which I have never been interested in, so I only know from the cover of various magazines I see at the newsagents. I guess any review on Meat Beat Manifesto will come up with that sooner or later (Not regarding the fact that there aren’t a lot of real reviews anymore. What can you “review” in the nowadays common 50 to 60 words?) so, no real harm done. Back to the music.