A listener would be forgiven for thinking that “Postcards” is an Actual Sounds and Voices-era Meat Beat song for the first few seconds until the piano shows up and drags us back into the Manifesto’s modern age. “Postcards” and “Maintain Discipline” are the two tracks on Amazon, and they are both fantastic. Of most interest to anyone exploring the Off-Centre EP will be the inclusion of three brand new tracks - though the “brand new” label must be taken with a rather large grain of salt since two of the three new tunes have been available as free downloads on for some time. Off-Centre is the requisite follow-up EP, and those Meat Beat purists who were put off by the idea of Dangers’s fried-jazz tangent may still find something to enjoy in its six tracks. At the Center is a study in genre cross-pollination, melding the free-form tendencies of jazz with the strict structures of electronic music, resulting in a push-pull dynamic that’s fascinating to hear, even if it’s not always enough to grab the typical listener in the naughty bits.
On Meat Beat Manifesto’s most recent album, At the Center, Dangers attempted to tap into that groove, even incorporating instruments like bass flutes and clarinets, all while retaining the solid drums and beats that give his band its middle name. If there’s something that jazz has as a genre, it’s groove.
It actually makes sense that Meat Beat Manifesto would turn to jazz - Meat Beat head honcho Jack Dangers has always been about the beat, about the groove that will make the world nod its collective head.
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