This digital-only EP released as an appetizer for the latest MBM full-length is a deliciously weird mixture of the sounds and ideas that make Meat Beat records so wonderful and unpredictable.
 
If Answers Come in Dreams is a tasty dish troubled only slightly by sameness, Totally Together is the perfect companion piece—a kind of sampler platter of the many directions that Meat Beat Manifesto can go at any moment.It represents an artist not tied down to any M.O. or tempo or method and that is, after all, one of the things that I've always found exciting about Meat Beat Manifesto records.
The EP's four tracks feature plenty of squelchy, acid-inspired bass and dub-infected effects called up from the familiar Jack Dangers menu, but each song distinguishes itself in a way that the tracks from Answers do not.Whether it's the vocal hook from "Totally Together," the maniacal Speak N Spell from "TRS2," or the traditional breakbeat in "Moving Body" that is nearly drowned in bass, each song has character.If you told me that "TRS2" was a MBM remix of Kraftwerk, I wouldn't be surprised and the fact that it plays right alongside the bubbling electro dub of "4OUR" is just a treat.
We need more digital download releases like this where artists are free to experiment while knocking out a couple of tracks that don't feed into a full album.The expectations of connectedness and weight put on albums sometimes leave good tracks like the ones here without a home.I'll take an EP of this quality without a physical disc any day.