Meg Lee Chin "Piece and Love" Invisible Records INV119CD 1999 (48:52)
Thing (3:48)
Heavy Scene (4:04)
Nutopia (4:25)
Sweat (3:49)
Swallowing You (4:43)
Sweet Thing (4:33)
Bottle (4:52)
London (3:56)
Deeper (2:59)
Swallowing You (Subgenius Mix) (11:43)
Meg Lee Chin (guitars, vox, keyboards, programming, mixing), Fuzz D. (sampled guitar), Steve Crittall (bass, guitars), Martin Atkins (drums, mixing, re-mixing, production), Lee Fraser (guitars, keyboards, programming), Mel Palmer (talkvox on "Sweet Thing"), Jenny B. (vox on "Deeper") and Martin King (keyboards and programming on "Swallowing You (Subgenius Mix)").
Meg Lee Chin is probably best known as one of the many past Pigface sirens. She has contributed vocals/lyrics to a mess of Pigface tours over the years and a few recent records, "A New High in Low", "Below the Belt" and "Eat Shit You Fucking Redneck". The past two years Meg has been holed up in her own Egg Studio feverishly working away on her solo debut with Invisible Records head honcho and main Pigface guy Martin Atkins manning the mixing desk. The result is a high quality batch of fun, great sounding songs. The beats and bass are low and heavy, if you're familiar with Pigface's "Nutopia" (which re-appears here) then you know what I'm talking about. All of the tracks are embellished nicely with layers of electronics, acoustic and electric guitars, and, of course, Meg. Meg's voice works really well in the studio and is always sexy whether she's crooning, speaking or delivering outright ear-splitting shrills. "Thing", "Heavy Scene" and "Swallowing You" rival the noisy intensity of "Nutopia". The remaining tracks are a bit more subdued but equally good. "Sweat" lays down a funky bass groove (courtesy of Lee "Bagman" Fraser of Sheep on Drugs), "Sweet Thing" has nice electric guitar licks and cool British accented 'talkvox' via Mel Palmer, "Bottle" shows that Meg is more than capable of handling all the instruments and vocals by herself, "London" features some piano tinkering and strange changes and "Deeper" has an infectiously catchy acoustic guitar hook chorus and dual vocals. The near 12 minute Subgenius (Martin King, formerly of Test Dept) remix of "Swallowing You" surprisingly begins as a gentle, almost acoustic rendition of the song then continues with an extended, beat driven electronic re-mix. All together, "Piece and Love" is a solid listen and the most impressive disc I've heard from Invisible in some time ... hopefully they give it the promotional push it deserves. The layout for the digipack by Racecar Graphic Design Chicago is also attractive, especially the front and back covers. My only minor complaint is that the album is a bit short, especially if you subtract the remix ... I want more! Look for Meg, along with Jared Louche (formerly of Chemlab) on the Invisible Records spoken word/rap/poetry "Beatbox Soapbox Tour" in October/November of '99, and a full blown band tour to follow sometime afterwards ...
Meg Lee Chin
Invisible Records
Where did I get this cd? - mail order via CDWorld.