Meta Meat – an interesting name for an interesting idea. This project is actually a collaboration between Somekilos (of 2kilos & more fame), and Phil von (co-leader of Von Magnet), brought together through their love of percussion and rhythm.
Yes, the focus is on rhythm here, so there is lots of thwacking drums and other beat-making instruments, alongside a backing of various soundscapes built up over the course of the album. Having two artists explore the avenues of beat-laden tracks is quite intriguing.
“Backstitch” follows a rather ambient opener with quite a tribal sounding track. It is interesting, but not really compelling, the glitchy sounds being a welcome electronic addition. “Shudder” is an interesting one, starting off quite ambient, before slowly building into a stomping electro-techno hybrid, the rhythms powering their way to the front, as expected.
“Deepen” I like a lot. It is very atmospheric, in a dank, sticky, swampy kind of way. The electronic soup atmospherics, and slow, plodding rhythms create a track rich in sound, perfect to show off the rhythms of the two artists.
There are tracks that don’t quite hit me, and some that do. “Escapism” I love, as it is rich in sound and atmosphere. “Behaviour” I don’t, as not enough seems to happen at the beginning, so my attention span isn’t really kept until it does start to get going. “Converge”, the final track, feels like something we have been building too through the course of this record, it is powerful, intense and has bags of depth – a perfect closer for the set.
Overall, “Metameat” is an interesting album, full of lovely textures and rhythms. Just one thing, it all seems very… “niche”. By this, I mean I wonder who it is going to appeal to. I hope it does manage to find its way into people’s hearts. This is a brave album, which draws a lot of interesting elements from a seemingly simple idea.
