Album Type: Full Length
Date Released: 26/9/2014
Label: Nuclear Blast
“I”
CD/DD/LP track listing:
1). I (21:04)
2). Bleed (live) (07:33)
3). Dancers To A Discordant System (live) (09:49)
4). Pitch Black (05:57)
Bio:
Continuing with the momentum
of celebrating their 25-year anniversary, Sweden’s extreme metal deviants MESHUGGAH proudly announce the
re-issue of 2004’s one song EP, »I« on September 26, 2014 via Nuclear Blast.
Album artwork & concept are courtesy of MESHUGGAH drummer Tomas Haake, who comments on the EP’s mutant
resurrection:
“This 21 minute madness that
is the song ‘I’ is something we’ve always been extremely proud of!! Originally
recorded for Jason Popson/Fractured transmitter record label, this was a “one
off” that Nuclear Blast gave us the go ahead for - as we were under contract
with them. Our plan was to just quickly write a little nugget of a song to help
our friend Jason to kinda kickstart his label. It wasn’t quick however.
We ended up spending a couple months on this thing as it just kept
evolving and kind of took on a life of its own. This song is really different
as it wasn’t “written” in the normal sense, but recorded without anything more
than very open guidelines/ideas as to what kind of style we wanted each part to
have. For examples, the initial 1½ minute drumfill is an excerpt of around a 15
minute recording of me just randomly going off on a kick/tom fill. Once we had
chosen which part of it to use, we had to chart out the hits on paper and
guitarist Fredrik and Marten then basically used sight-reading/avista to get
the hits right while recording. And this is how we continued through the whole
song/process. We often get the question “When will you guys play ‘I’?” - And
though I’m sure it could be done with a lot of listening and hard work - It’s
really too unstructured a track. It would take up too much time and effort to
make sense.
We’re super stoked now, to
have this be re-released under the Nuclear Blast flag. Distribution and access
to this little demon of a song was never quite what we had wished back when this
was released, so we’re thrilled to see it be brought back to life!!
To further add value to this
re-release, we added a couple live tracks and another weird little track ‘Pitch
Black’ that some of our fans may have heard but probably not all, as it was only
released in a limited number.
Enjoy!”
»I«’s 21-minute title track has been
re-mastered and includes two live tracks recorded during the 2012 - 2013
Ophidian Trek World Tour, plus a previously unreleased studio track recorded in
July 2003 at MESHUGGAH’s own
Fear & Loathing studio in Stockholm, Sweden
The Band:
Jens Kidman | vocals
Marten Hagström | guitar
Fredrik Thordenthal | guitar
Dick Lövgren | bass
Tomas Haake |drums & voice
Review:
Meshuggah’s
2004 I EP is a piece of music unlike
any other. In plain terms, it could be seen as the conceptualisation of the
album Catch 33 which followed a year
later, but really it is much more than that. Reading deeper into its creation
you learn that not only is this a continuous piece of music or single ‘song’,
but it’s also one of the most complex creations of any band ever.
The
idea behind the I EP came from the
tour de force that is Tomas Haake and Fredrik Thordendal. Random spasmodic drum
patterns recorded by Haake were meticulously studied by Thordendal beat by beat
to create matching guitar riffs, which in turn were recorded and vocals layered
on top.
Split
into many ‘movements’ the pace doesn’t really slow. Only in breakdown sections
of ambient spooky guitar parts does the reprieve of polyrhythmic mayhem poise
to settle the insanity that is I.
The
composition is exactly what fans of Meshuggah are used to. Brutality,
complexity, savage low A tonality and ambience amongst pandemonium. It’s
impossible for any Meshuggah fan not to love this EP, so much of what inspired
future records can be heard for the first time in a condensed form appeasing
every want and yearning for that ‘Meshuggah sound’.
Remastering
an album of such significance in a bands career is a monumental task. To bring it up to a modern sound or just
improve the clarity of what has already been laid down, which is a hard
decision. Do you appease fans of the old, or fans of the new? What the remastering has achieved is finding
that happy medium. One noticeable thing about the original mix is that it felt
quite squashed and flat. The overly compressed sound was definitely something
that always bothered me as it subtracted hugely from the guitar tones and
buried the vocals. I can happily say now that everything is in its right place,
with the bass bought up to a level where it gives the guitars all the sonic
dimensions I could have hoped for. The ambient background guitars are full of
clarity to the point where you can actually make out each stroke and the drums
aren’t just clicks.
As
for the rest of the EP, the tracks included have been floating around for a
while. The live tracks greatly capture the live Meshuggah sound; a good balance
to the instruments is welcome as you can tell it was directly recorded from the
mixing desk. The bonus recording of ‘Pitch Black’ was originally given away for
free from Scion AV awhile after the release of Koloss, and is a solid track akin
to the album that preceded it.
In
all honesty, how can this get a bad review? Meshuggah fans everywhere are
constantly on the edge of their seat waiting for their overlords of chug to put
new material out. Talking to a Meshuggah fanboy is like talking to a Tool
fanboy, while there’s material they don’t listen to regularly, everything they
have done is the best thing you’ve ever heard. It’s like they have control of
our brain using some rhythmic morse code embedded into their songs or
something. Thanks for reading Y’all!
Words by: Asher G.
Alexander
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