Meatbingo hacks, sawing out chunks of ugly sound before sowing them to disfigured and mangled figures. Leatherface meets Frankenstein meets Electronic music.
I still remember the first Skam record I bought. I was in secondary school and got Gescom’s This in the post, purchased from the then Pelicanneck now Boomkat shop. It has been one of the EPs I’ve set the standards of electronic music against, especially Electronica and IDM. Skam was the pioneering label of Electronica, a label that brought the likes of Bola, Jega and Boards of Canada to the ears of a ’90s audience. As a youth I followed the label religiously, bought the t-shirt, went to the 10 year anniversary night in Dublin, visited the dial-up internet unfriendly website regularly. But over the years the Manchester output has slowed and the quality, in parts, has not lived up to those halcyon days. Yet, they caused some serious fanfare last year with the much anticipated re-issue of Autechre’s Lego Feet project; a brilliant double LP. And so, the recent announcement of something new from Skam was always going to catch the eye.
I gave Trendy Robots a listen. Then another. Then a third. I couldn’t face a fourth. It’s hard to sum up what Trendy Robots is. It doesn’t really fit into any genres, which is probably a good thing. Some of V/Vm’s work was the nearest thing I could think of, maybe mixed with Breakcore, the likes of Knifehandchop. Between almost every beat there is change, chops of samples, chord switches, noise, fuzz and reverb. The title piece is somewhat similar to being cracked over the head repeatedly with a synth, a drum machine, a laptop, a radio, a TV and a microphone. Everything is overcut, sliced, bisected, chopped, diced and then minced. Musical hyperactivity, thirty disparate elements colliding into a car crash of disharmony. A sonorous slaughter house, with Meatbingo being both butcher and biologist. He hacks, sawing out chunks of ugly sound before sowing them to disfigured and mangled figures. Leatherface meets Frankenstein meets Electronic music.
It would be easy to continue fire abuse at Trendy Robots, but expletives would be needed.
There is maybe another angle. The tape, with its obvious artwork references to Daft Punk, is some form of protest against the rip-off culture that surrounded over sampling of Disco artists of old. A noisy and ear-bleeding demonstration, an aural manifestation taking the form of a sonic running sore. But is that a reason to buy this tape?
In a strange twist, Manchester’s premier electronic label has become part of the meat scandal of Europe that recently plagued Europe; selling a cassette that’s simply tripe.
Trendy Robots is available on Skam.
