With the lyric-heavy tunes we tend to see and hear on the radio or Hot 100 lists, it can be easy to forget how instrumentals have the ability to weave emotional evocations that can sometimes, ironically enough, transcend language. This makes Meorkat’s appropriately titled album, Instrumentals, all the more appealing, jam-packed with a winding array of heart-tuggers, eerie atmospheres, and motivational backdrops.
Among the many beautiful components of the album’s instrumental content is its ever-present solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, with every penny made from the album’s sales going straight to the movement’s funding. Not only does the album contain tributes to legends such as Little Richard and Martin Luther King Jr., but its complete lack of lyrics symbolize a key part of such solidarity; make space for black voices.
Eric Muir, the brain behind Meorkat, can truly do it all. His tunes are able to hit each point on the spectrum of desire, with the tender and domestic “Goodnight Dear,” whose light keys you could fall asleep with your loved one to, and the more distant and sexy “Luv Me Use Me,” whose whispers of lo-fi static amplify the distance and sexiness with hypnotic results.
Muir’s music also honours historical figures spectacularly. The tune “02041968,” the date of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Drum Major Instinct” speech, does this by sampling said speech as a sort of framework for the tune, while an inspiring instrumental track swarms around us; the deep bass grounding us in the importance of the world’s issues, the keys pointing our eyes to the horizon, to a better future that we all must fight for. “LR,” meanwhile, honours the late rock and roll icon Little Richard with a heartfelt piano melody over a 1984 interview with the artist; a touching tribute for a legend who left us only last month.
There’s no restriction on the energy in Muir’s tracks, either. The cheekily-named “Chill Rainforest Party” greets us with a rainforest’s atmosphere and synths that bestow visions of a sunrise, before easing us into a low-key hangout session with drums, keys, and various tropical birds. Conversely, the quizzically-named and just as quizzically-upbeat “Harakiri” takes inspiration from the musical cultures of Eastern Asia and combines it with percussive riffs and dream walking bells.
But Muir’s range doesn’t end there; we’ve felt his tunes vibe, dance, lull, and inspire, but they can also creep us out if they so choose! “The Brain That Wouldn’t Die” in particular is a very big and very creepy tune, with loud keys and ominous sound effects like crows and a little girl’s laugh. It very much feels like we witness the end of an alien invasion at the beginning of the track, while the latter half lets us bear witness to their new world order. Meanwhile, “Seen A Ghost” is straight out of a ghost-hunting SNES game; the bass and percussion set the creepy atmosphere, while the synth gives life to the poltergeist in question.
The standout of the album is “Muster Buster,” home to one of the most versatile synths in the world. The suave-yet-bouncy melodies gel perfectly with the low grumbles in the interludes between said melodies; appropriate for everything from a deep-sea dive to a zombie apocalypse.
With the saturation of vocalists in the spotlights of the music world, watching what a producer can do on a solo project is an exciting and satisfying prospect, and when that producer is Meorkat pumping out an album like Instrumentals, the satisfaction absolutely skyrockets.