Meat Beat Manifesto
Actual Sounds and Voices
Nothing Records [ 1998
(Tracks 15 / Total Time 72:57)
In the same way that William S. Burroughs inspired Jack Kerouac and Alan
Ginsberg to write the works that started the Beat Movement in literature, Meat Beat
Manifesto has been inspiring, and being sampled by, Techno, industrial and dance bands
that have seen far more financial success than this 12 year experiment in sound conducted
by Jack Dangers.
Actual Sounds and Voices is the fifth album by MBM and supposedly contains over 1000 samples mixed into the beats and synths that give the songs the specific MBM sound. A real highlight of the album is "Acid Again" where the ramblings of a burned-out woman are mixed into a bad trip soundscape that makes you believe she doesn’t want Acid Again.
Another high point for the album is "The Thumb." This 10 minute techno-jazz fusion not only shows that Dangers keeps up with the latest trends in the Drum and Bass world—break beats with jazz samples instead of disco—but that he can mix it up and keep it fresh and put that MBM spin on any music.
There are hard parts to this album but then there are also some softer parts. The music evolves from track to track but flows well over the whole. Scanning the evolution of MBM from 1989’s Storm the Studio to Actual Sounds and Voices you would find less of the in-your-face rap and punk and more compositions that focus on sound textures. The music rarely ventures far enough to be called ambient but then I’m sure most MBM fans are happy about that.
You can check out the official MBM site at www.brainwashed.com/mbm/ or go to www.smashedupsanity.com/nothingrecords/mbm/ for a really good overview of MBM and a great list of links.
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