Good loud sweaty music, very danceable with heavy rhythmic bias. Influences from around the world brought together and boiled in a laboratory distiller, then piped through a sonic Liebig Condenser to give a concentrated form of something fresh and exciting.
Melt Yourself Down is the new outfit fronted by Pete Wareham of Acoustic Ladyland and Polar Bear fame on tenor sax. Also in the band is Tom Skinner (Skinny / Sons Of Kemet) on drums, Ruth Goller (Acoustic Ladyland) and Satin Singh (Transglobal Underground) to mention a few. It’s a veritable punk/jazz/afrobeat/dance/electro/funk supergroup! These guys make intense globally influenced dance music full of a manic energy that lies somewhere between an amphetamine and ecstasy fueled all-nighter in a desolate field with some generators stolen from a roadworks site, and an all out head shaving stigmata inducing straight jacket prompting bout in the nearest secure psychiatric unit.
The two track limited edition vinyl release contains the tracks “Fix My Life” and “We Are Enough.” The former of the two has a searing sax riff introduction, swiftly followed by some African influenced percussion straight out of a ‘70’s Afrobeat record. The drums are right in your face, the whole thing is just a driving throbbing chaotic assault, with vocal stabs and complex electronic elements filling up any available frequencies and adding percussive jolts of electricity, as if to make sure we all have our brains fully firing on all possible channels. “We Are Enough” starts with some squeaky glitchy electronics leading into a driving percussion groove, again with heavy Afro-Funk influences. Then comes the inevitable sax riff in a frantic outpouring of distorted energy, as if to send a message to guitars everywhere: “you don’t have the monopoly.” Vocals come in and out in a verse chorus type way, just as you would expect I suppose, although saying that, what do you expect? This is music that takes what it wants from all quarters with flagrant and joyful disregard for protocol.
Good loud sweaty music, very danceable with heavy rhythmic bias. Influences from around the world brought together and boiled in a laboratory distiller, then piped through a sonic Liebig Condenser to give a concentrated form of something fresh and exciting. Yes, amazing stuff. I’ll leave you with the press release blurb from Leaf, the label who released this, I think it sums it all up nicely:
“Imagine, say, a hot, vibrating country, with a sea to the north, desert to the south, jungle to the east, mystery to the west. At the no-man’s-land heart of the fast, bothered capital city, salvation—a club, bar, dive. Approach with caution, for the production of pleasure, and wild nights. Will there really be a morning? The dedicated house band, Melt Yourself Down, blasting the four walls, a skittish, kinetic six of them, stars in their eyes, done with the compass, firing off in all directions at once, in total control, working up to breaking point, playing all the senses, leaving port, go, go.”
Fix My Life & We Are Enough is available on Leaf. [Release page | Bandcamp]
Nubian Nightjar mix by Meltyourselfdown on Mixcloud
