 |
|
Meat Beat Manifesto, "Storm The Studio R.M.X.S."
Remixing a classic is no enviable task.
Tino Corp
I don't envy any of the artists who were tapped to participate in this remix project collecting new takes on tracks from Meat Beat Manifesto's early album, Storm The Studio. Over the years, Jack Dangers has proved himself the consumate remixer and beat architecht, and the original album is a seminal work fusing hip-hop, noise, musique concrete and so many other things that its influence wasn't fully credited until relatively recently. Storm The Studio R.M.X.S. provides potential remixers with the ultimate challenge, and the response to that challenge is cerainly mixed. The disc kicks off with a Meat Beat vs. D.H.S. mix that begins appropraitely with a bit of self-referential humor and one of the sickest synthesized voices ever laid to tape. Eight Frozen Modules updates "God O.D" as a glitchy, DSP-riddled tweakfest that is alternately interesting and just a bit too stretched to be funky. Twilight Circus Dub Sound System gives STS samples the requisite dub delay workout with a recreated bassline, and it's fun to hear classic Meat Beat drum breaks and vocal snippets processed in a different way. DJ Spooky turns in one of the record's grooviest and most substantial mixes despite not getting the memo that "Dogstar Man" was not originally included on Storm The Studio. Artists like Komet and Jonah Sharp bring their own signature sounds to the Meat Beat material, doing what Dangers has done for so long by taking bits of the original and completely bending them to fit their respective styles. The most serious misfires come in the form of a regrettably jerky beat thrown over one of the noisier sections of the source material from Antipop Consortium's High Priest, and a Merzbow mix that simply loops elements of what appears to be the original CD or vinyl with some uninspired hiss and noise. Scanner closes out the disc with a nice ambient retelling of "Reanimator" with some token stolen vocal sounds and his usual keen sense of space. All in all, there's undoubtedly something here that every Meat Beat fan will enjoy a great deal (like the straight-up drum-n-bass mix from DJ Swamp that morphs into a jungle/metal riff fest), and there will be tracks that don't offer much more than a novelty look at an old favorite. Through it all, the source material tends to outshine its new coat of paint, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
I don't envy any of the artists who were tapped to participate in this remix project collecting new takes on tracks from Meat Beat Manifesto's early album, Storm The Studio. Over the years, Jack Dangers has proved himself the consumate remixer and beat architecht, and the original album is a seminal work fusing hip-hop, noise, musique concrete and so many other things that its influence wasn't fully credited until relatively recently. Storm The Studio R.M.X.S. provides potential remixers with the ultimate challenge, and the response to that challenge is cerainly mixed. The disc kicks off with a Meat Beat vs. D.H.S. mix that begins appropraitely with a bit of self-referential humor and one of the sickest synthesized voices ever laid to tape. Eight Frozen Modules updates "God O.D" as a glitchy, DSP-riddled tweakfest that is alternately interesting and just a bit too stretched to be funky. Twilight Circus Dub Sound System gives STS samples the requisite dub delay workout with a recreated bassline, and it's fun to hear classic Meat Beat drum breaks and vocal snippets processed in a different way. DJ Spooky turns in one of the record's grooviest and most substantial mixes despite not getting the memo that "Dogstar Man" was not originally included on Storm The Studio. Artists like Komet and Jonah Sharp bring their own signature sounds to the Meat Beat material, doing what Dangers has done for so long by taking bits of the original and completely bending them to fit their respective styles. The most serious misfires come in the form of a regrettably jerky beat thrown over one of the noisier sections of the source material from Antipop Consortium's High Priest, and a Merzbow mix that simply loops elements of what appears to be the original CD or vinyl with some uninspired hiss and noise. Scanner closes out the disc with a nice ambient retelling of "Reanimator" with some token stolen vocal sounds and his usual keen sense of space. All in all, there's undoubtedly something here that every Meat Beat fan will enjoy a great deal (like the straight-up drum-n-bass mix from DJ Swamp that morphs into a jungle/metal riff fest), and there will be tracks that don't offer much more than a novelty look at an old favorite. Through it all, the source material tends to outshine its new coat of paint, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. samples:
- Shadow and Substance (DJ Spooky)
- STS Antipopulist mix (High Priest)
- Re-Animator - Kindle and Solace mix (Scanner)
