One of Ireland’s very best genre-fluid experimentalists Meljoann walks us through Status – a bristling, truth-telling odyssey through queerness, class, digital resistance and emotional survival. Blending industrial pop, retro-futurist funk and slow jams, the album takes aim at Big Tech, cultural cringe and the exploitative mechanics of the music industry, all while staying defiantly heartfelt and fiercely DIY. Here, she breaks down each track’s origins – from leprechaun-coded short stories and algorithmic nightmares to jazz-nerd odysseys and FOSS-slow jams.
Rainbow Language (is for Losers)
This song is rooted in growing up queer, when rural Ireland was still very much theocratic. I came out in 1996, which is pretty early when you realise being gay was decriminalised in 1992.
Before it was a song, it was an experimental short story. A leprechaun-like hoarder of gold: to me it represents the power & wealth origins of religious oppression, and situates the whole thing in cultural cringe. The video is the most ‘blasphemous’ thing I’ve ever done (in public, that is). I like to make things appear as ridiculous as they really are: it saps their power.
Obscure
When I was a kid, I dreamt I found a new Michael Jackson tape in the attic. It was called ‘Obscure’. I can still remember the cover: a dusky blue background, Michael in silhouette; his features all shadowy.
Against some hard industrial beats, the lyrics are from the perspective of economically and algorithmically disadvantaged artists. We are defined by a set of social media numbers. Billionaires control the algorithms that determine these numbers. That’s fucked, isn’t it?
Secrets
I let myself go full ‘Motown bassline’ for this one. This whole track is pure sugary retro pop.
The song is about having to keep quiet in a really exploitative situation — such as, for example, the entire music industry — because you have no power.
The video documents a talk show that goes horribly wrong. It references ‘poverty exploitation’ 90s shows like Ricki Lake and Jerry Springer. When I shot this, I also made a real talk show. Only around 20 absolute heroes have seen it on livestream to date. Keep your eyes on mustics.com — I’ll put it up there, to an audience of potentially billions.
Bye
‘Bye’ is about hatching an escape plan from billionaire-owned Big Social. I think we are collectively realising these people do not have humankind’s best interests at heart.
The track features a guest verse by Scout Hardcastle. In the video, watch out for the little cameos from my personal favourite Big Tech oligarch scumbags: Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and Daniel Ek.
I’m leaving Instagram & Facebook on April 15th. Instead, I hang out on the Fediverse (Mastodon & other connected apps): a community-built, community-run alternative to Big Social. It’s a thrillingly neurodivergent space, full of empathetic, big-hearted people. I felt giddy and grateful when I found it.
Run
We live in a world where billionaires hoard more than any reasonable person would spend in 30 thousand lifetimes, and most of us can barely afford food. Less than 3000 human beings are tanking our presently habitable planet for the other 8 billion of us.
The track is full of chugging, metal guitars, bell-like synths and industrial beats. Delivering them lyrics through gritted teeth.
Translate Me
The lyrics of this song contain many actual weird, sexist things that music industry types have said to me – as does ‘Obscure’. They really believe they see the objective truth (which also happens to personally enrich them) and you are just some eejit that needs to be moulded into a sellable product. So, in this song I’m begging them to ‘translate me’ into this hyper-capitalist normative dialect they all speak, so I can make some feckin’ subsistence money.
Not really, though.
Data Ghost
It’s a dreamy journey through digital colonialism, and out the other end. Slipping through the cracks in the algorithm to find a real community away from social media.
The video is quite emotional — a nostalgic collage of my entire life as a musician. With permission of our crew, there’s behind-the-scenes footage of a music video shoot from years ago: on a freezing- cold roof of Hendron’s Building, Dublin. It makes me teary to think of the pure vibes that night.
Warning: guitar solo.
Insatiable
This is my self-indulgent jazz-nerd funk-fest. It’s got time signature changes. It’s got guitar and bass jams. It’s got this one repeating phrase that is so undulating it’s difficult to memorise. I live for geeky challenges like this.
The lyrics might be too sexy?
Broke
‘Broke’ is about our lives under capitalism. It’s literally a torch ballad about nothing you do every being enough, you’re just broke all the time. It’s feckin’ tough.
I appear naked in the video, to make my “content” even more frightening to social media algorithms. I wanted to express openness and vulnerability, and give a sincere fuck-you to Big Tech’s distaste for the human body.
ESC
I don’t think there’s been a sexy slow jam dedicated to FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) before? Well, here it is.
The answer to the smug question “what’s the alternative?” is: we are already doing it. Mutual aid, dual power networks. Art and technology already have strong traditions of production completely outside capitalism.
Anyway, please be soothed by this sound-bath. It’s an escape route.
Positive
I wanted to create the aural equivalent of a comforting, warm, sincere hug. A feedback loop of love, regulating our nervous systems.
The chorus actually came from a dream. I dreamt I was on the top deck of a bus, and two teenagers were watching a music video on their phones. Their faces looked soothed and happy, and I got a strong urge to make this track. It’s such a difficult world. I would love my tunes to provide relief for others. Other people’s art helps me feel less alone; I hope I can do this for you.
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