Meat Beat Manifesto :: Subliminal Sandwich — The original 1996 Melody Maker review, revisited 30 years later

Originally published in Melody Maker on May 11, 1996, Mark Roland’s review of Meat Beat Manifesto’s Subliminal Sandwich captured the arrival of a record that would go on to become one of electronic music’s most influential and genre-defining releases; republished here with permission, 30 years on.

A feast of beats and all manner of exotic electronica

Forget all those “Now That’s What I Trip Hop” compilations. Forget also all the half-arsed post-modern samplist outfits who regurgitate large chunks of old soundtrack albums, couch it in cod theatrical mystique and are thought of as weird by people who play the album at dinner parties. Meat Beat Manifesto are back.

Jack Dangers has spent the last several years plunging into what could have been a one-way expedition into the history of sound. Before he made the step from post-rave dance progenitor, author of blueprints taken up with gusto by the likes of The Prodigy, The Future Sound Of London and Transglobal Underground, to pith-helmeted explorer lost in the jungle forever, Jack Dangers has managed to deliver this massive missive. Spread across two CDs (for a limited time, anyhow), Subliminal Sandwich is a feast of beats and all manner of exotic electronica.

A one-way expedition into the history of sound ::

On first listening there’s an apparent schism between the two CDs. The first is recognisable as your standard format; songs, some singing here and there, all in all not a radical departure from 1993’s Satyricon. Cut-ups from old toasting records have produced two of its most thrilling tracks; “Nuclear Bomb,” an irresistible rhythmic assault of dub bass, lush textures and the ranting toaster, and “Assassinator.” The monstrous “Cancer” a melancholy and bleak excursion, is another spine-shuddering high point. The second CD is a non-linear monster of an achievement. Apparently, the whole thing was put together using some super synth from the Seventies, the sort of gear used to generate sonic blurts for analysis on an oscilloscope. It’s not one long gasbag of sub-Orb pointless noodling though the machine has been coaxed into jumping through all manner of hoops.

“Mad Bomber/The Woods” provides an eminently suitable future soundtrack from the inevitable TV movie about The Unabomber while, as the rest of the CD gathers pace, gradually building into an almost painterly swipe of colours and textures. It arrives at Ketamine-induced nirvana with “Stereophrenic and “Simulacra” and understated, barely contained frenzy with “Electric People”

This record won’t be scorching into the Top 10, but all your favourite household names will be first in the queue to buy it. You really should be joining them.

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Illustration, Design – Rich Borge
Management [For Fastback Management] – Cathy Cohn
Mastered By – Brian Gardner
Photography By [Additional] – Jay Blakesburg, Todd Della Bella
Producer, Engineer – Jack Dangers
Voice, Bass, Waterphone, Bass Clarinet, Mellotron, Theremin, Synthesizer, Samples, Turntables, Other [Dishes] – Jack Dangers
Written-By – Jack Dangers (tracks: 1-1 to 1-7, 1-9 to 2-10), Keith Dobson (tracks: 1-8)

Subliminal Sandwich is available on Play It Again Sam, Nothing, and Interscope Records.