Storm the Studio

Storm the Studio is the debut album by English electronic music group Meat Beat Manifesto, released on 20 February 1989 by Sweatbox Records in the United Kingdom and later that year by Wax Trax! in the United States. Recorded in three recording studios, the album contains four compositions, each split into separate parts, that mostly originated as twelve-inch singles the band released in 1988. The record's inventive musical style features elements of industrial music, electro, dub, noise rock and hip hop music, and incorporates breakbeats, noise and sporadic rap vocals. The group also incorporated heavy usage of sampling in a fashion they compared to pop art. Television was a further influence on the record, and numerous items of television dialogue appear throughout Storm the Studio as samples. Named for a William S. Burroughs quote sampled on the album, Storm the Studio was greeted with critical acclaim upon release, and its dark tone helped distance Meat Beat Manifesto from the hedonistic dance music of the time. It has gone on to be considered a groundbreaking and innovative album, and has influenced numerous artists in the industrial, breakbeat, drum and bass and trip hop genres. It was re-released by TVT Records in 1993, Mute Records in 1994 and Run Recordings in 2003. A remix album, containing new remixes of the Storm the Studio by artists such as DJ Spooky and Jonah Sharp, was released by Tino Corp as Storm the Studio RMXS in 2003. Background and recording Swindon-based Meat Beat Manifesto began in 1987 when Jack Dangers and Jonny Stephens of the pop group Perennial Divide – who they had formed in 1986 and recorded the album Purge (1986) with – began releasing electronic side-project twelve-inch singles under the Meat Beat Manifesto name on Perennial Divide's label Sweatbox Records, the first of which was "Suck Hard" (1987). These were followed by the singles which later formed the basis of Storm the Studio, namely "I Got the Fear", "Strap Down" and "God O.D." After Perennial Divide's dissolution, the newly prioritised Meat Beat Manifesto began recording their debut album soon after, naming the projected album Armed Audio Warfare and scheduling its release for May 1988, but the tapes were destroyed in a studio fire before the album could be released.