Oliver!: The Meathooks - Manic Tribe N.Y.C (6 April 1992)

I’ve mentioned The Meathooks a number of times in recent posts, but this is the first opportunity there has been to put any of their music on here.  The whole of their Cambodia Soul Music album is up there for your delectation.  To jump to Manic Tribe N.Y.C go to 11:24.  I see it as a noisecore complement to the more melodic People To Talk To by The Mad Scene, in that it tries to reflect that fascinating angle of the city as a jungle - most obviously through the battering drum sound.  Peel was having none of it though, “The first person to describe them as aural art terrorists or similar gets their head kicked in.”

Listening to Cambodia Soul Music, I was struck by both how perceptive Peel had been in his picks from the album, both this track and Tribute which comes in around the 20 minute mark, had made my  lists.  However, I found the rest of the album to be really quite boring for the most part.  Peel’s tolerance for this kind of music often flummoxed people - how could anyone choose to listen to, as The Meathooks put it in the sleevenotes for the album, “Ten slices of claustrophobic headache” - but he knew what he was doing.  He believed that noisecore was a genre that should be championed, and if it needed him to act as sommelier for the masses, then so be it.  We couldn’t ask for anyone better suited.

Video courtesy of blackoperations