FLESHWORLD

FLESHWORLD, the third solo EP from prolific Washington D.C., now Cologne-based composer-producer SWAN MEAT, is the culmination of years' worth of work at perfecting a sound that draws from a wellspring of disparate sources & genres, shaping that fleshy amalgam into a monster both terrifying and lush. Her dedication to and love of maximalism is full-throttle, here, and each track on the five-track collection contains -- as is the artist's signature -- an explosion of ideas, which move seamlessly in & out of each other, oscillating. Breakbeats, harpsichord arpeggios, and distorted, 8-bit kickdrums move in disjunctive harmony with string arrangements even more soaring than those on her 2nd solo release, TAME; tracks like "MECHANICAL BULLGIRL" pay weird tribute to old Western soundtracks while sounding as though they could just as well be played through the loudspeakers on a demented, abandoned theme park. "SUCKLING," pairs a funk bass with a string arrangement that pays
tongue-firmly-in-cheek homage to Hans Zimmer & cohort; "DENTISTS TOYS..." & "LITERALLY SEETHING" are shameless tributes to anime & old Sega OSTs; "EUGENIA MARIONETTE," named after the troubled emo Youtube star, is, perhaps, the centerpiece of it all: a punk whorl of Y2K-core drum & bass riffs, heartbreaking vocaloid samples, and the words, whispered softly before a drop: something needs to change.

Change is, indeed, in the air: rejecting what she sees as a club scene scarred by its allegiance to technocapitalism, the fashion industry, and an elitist obsession with the fine arts, SWAN MEAT produces music that seeks to be good, great -- most importantly fun -- on its own terms, and revels in the joy(s) of fastidious micro editing, sound design, and being up 'til 4 am on energy drinks, dying and being actually more alive than ever at the same time.