Meat Beat Manifesto & Merzbow — Extinct

Extinct brings together the king of Japanese noise Merzbow and British electro-industrial collective Meat Beat Manifesto. The two-track album runs around the thirty five mark-  and it finds seared, often dense noise-craft meeting jack-knifing, at points careering beat ‘n’ bass tones. Feeling like a more wild, unpredictable, and engaging take on the material found on  Merzbeat and related albums.

The album is released by the highly respected / long running UK label Cold Spring. It’s available as either a CD( which I’m reviewing), or a  ltd black or  red vinyl release. The CD comes presented dark red four panel digipak- this is covered with detailed maps of white geometric shapes. All in all a nice sleek & classy arty design that captures the layered, shifting, and darting sound found within.

First up we have “¡FLAKKA!” which is the longer the two tracks here at  the 20.27 mark. It opens with a fairly stark-yet-busy mix of muffled bass purr, lopsidedly gunning ‘n’ drill beats, and dodging tom twists. Fairly soon this is joined by a building  blend of trailing & moodily wail feedback, tonally cascading mid ranged shreds, and looping alarm like highs. At around the four minute mark the beats break for a moment for these slowed weird electro like moans- as the rest of the noise elements keep up the denseness. The beats come back in, but they now seemed more mangled/  messy- as if the noise has started to infect to actual beat & bass structure of the track. By round the seventh minute I’m make out this sadly wailing electro melody- this keeps trying to be fully heard in a snake charming like shift ‘n’ ebb, yet it keeps been obscured by  these mid to high end electro wails ‘n’ bay. By the 13th minute it sounds like the beat ‘n’ bass elements have become even more bent, and at points it sounds like these elements are running into each other like drunken chasing their tails dogs. By around the sixth minute the beats ‘n’ bass elements have moved into front of the sound- with these neat mood skipping ‘n’ scarping electro tone elements on top.

The second track is entitled “Burner” and after baying/ reverbing searing open we fall into a dense mesh of rapid shredding ‘n’ knocking beats. This is moved over by mid ranged tonal drags ‘n’ pulls, cluttering hisses, and tight electro twists ‘n’ turns. The whole thing feels wonderful claustrophobic and enclosing in it’s attack- as if it’s dragging it self deeper & deeper into it’s clogged & muffled  beat layout.  By the mid way point in just shy of sixteen minute track more pronounced and flitting highs & mids have appeared- so while this creates a feeling of opening up/ busyness, the beats are still misshapenly but rapidly tumble on & on.  We completely break at the ten & a half minute ( and I think) someone says “bone crushers” a few times- then we drop into a blend of thick rolling, jitter/ phasing beats, which slow get adorned with all matter of micro scapes, electro swipes, and clutter- with the whole thing in the end resolving in electro tonal rush & spurt- which gets bayed over by a few deep haunting elector wails/moans.

Extinct is very much a album that needs to heard on a decent pair of headphones- so as you can chart & fully appreciate the searing, stretching, and warping  beats, bass, and noise elements. I’m more than familiar with Merzbow’s output, but I’m ashamed to say this is my first taster of Meat Beat Manifesto- but I’ll most certainly be correcting that very soon!.