In what was actually performed live as part of the Ideal Festival in France, Jack Dangers (aka Meat Beat Manifesto) played live during a screening of the classic 1956 MGM cult film Forbidden Planet starring Leslie Nielsen and Anne Francis. These ethereal sound effects are captured in twenty-three thematic tracks that illustrate the quirky film, and at the same time give it a fully timeless quality. Dangers channels the era by creating sounds that are otherwise from a bygone time and space, but by retrofitting them to a time capsule that is nearly 50 years old, has refashioned our conscious thinking about how sound is perceived before, during and after.
Watery crescents delight with the soul of an analogue-based futuristic technology, leaving the audience with a wide span of trans-space that competes with the vortex of the unknown on tracks like “Love at the Swimming Hole.” The track meanders as the mortals tie their love knots. Complete with some of the most classic sound effects that you may find in films that present radars at great depths and other cool signaling devices, Dangers unveils a secret passion for the sci-fi side of his psyche on tracks like “The Mind Booster – Creation of Matter.” Here there are hints of what has appeared in latter day MBM material. The way the material is delivered is in the classical tradition of live jams being played during a silent film, a practice that is limited today, but in this case completely penetrating. However, I am not exactly sure how it works with a talkie. This provides a brain-shorting exercise, launching you into an altered state for its duration.
As if that were not enough, we are treated to an additional bonus disc of Sci Fi Sound Effects that Dangers concocted on his, and the world’s only known operational, EMS Synthi 100. This room-sized equipment delivers a full-force sci-fi montage of chilling to overtly eerie sounds. It’s a great collection of short, strange, chaotic and neutralizing tones. With all of the tracks running at under a minute and a half Dangers develops audio geometries in sound bytes here. Space transducers, laser guns, audio warfare, oh my!
Forbidden Planet Explored will be released July 20th on Important Records.
