Meth Math – M♡rtal

In Real Life

So 2020’s Pompi EP from Meth Math was one of the highlights of the year for me, despite the fact that I flounder to describe it any more accurately than the phrase “ketty reggaeton”. And this new EP is not very reggaeton. Which is fine but they have entirely pushed me down the rabbithole of reggaeton (tl;dr – Bad Bunny is a trans hero; Daddy Yankee is a banger machine; Ivy Queen is rightly called “queen”).

Meth Math are still inhabitants of bangertown, you’ll be happy to hear.They are also giddily excited by making voices sound like machines with pitching up and too much reverb and etc. So I guess the thing is that this is “pop music”, after a fashion, but pop music more informed by the excesses of reggaeton or J-pop (think the J-pop BIS) than by sensible bedroom drill or IDM.

“Catastral”, second track here, is probably my favourite song of this year so far, in that it sounds like Vengaboys having a panic attack (they list Vengaboys as an influence, which everyone should). There’s all sorts of hoover synths and whatnot here; but while it’s shiny, it’s not clean. Which frankly is the only way to make pop music, arguably.

Like so I get the impression that the producers on this are fairly well-heeled in a lot of the more grown-up sensible electronic music — there’s more than a dash of, say, AFX‘s ambient business or crisp glitchy sounds, but there’s a vocal presence enough to make it pop and key changes enough to make it songs. The fact that all their songs have this kind of bad drugs euphoria vibe — as in “not sure if coming up or having a heart attack” — and the vocals are opaquely treated to sound like elephant k-holes… these are all strong recommendations.

Also important to note the “Muro De Los Lamentos” operates well into the happy hardcore register, but sparingly, is about the strongest recommendation. As you’re well aware, happy hardcore is humanity’s finest genre. Beatific floaty vocals and the sort of reverb practice that will make production nerds weep.

It is SHORT which is GOOD. My review is probably already TOO LONG so I will STOP NOW.

-Kev Nickells-