page_title: A Laughing Death in Meatspace
section_title: Tracks 7-9
hierarchical_section_title: A Laughing Death in Meatspace / Songs / Tracks 7-9
caption_attribution_description: Português: Cerimônia de troca de comando de 25 Unidades de Polícia Pacificadora (UPP) das 34 unidades implantadas em favelas da capital desde 2008
context_page_description: A Laughing Death in Meatspace is the debut album of Melbourne-based supergroup Tropical Fuck Storm, formed by members of The Drones, Palm Springs and High Tension. Wishing to step away from the more rock-centric sound that The Drones were known for prior to their final pre-hiatus album Feelin Kinda Free, the band utilized a range of obscure digital guitar effects, synthesizers, drum machines, and DAW software such as ProTools to create the music. Finished less than eight months after their first few live performances, the speed at which the album was recorded also had a heavy influence on its idiosyncratic sound, which combines genres such as punk blues, art punk, psychedelic rock and noise rock. The lyrics, written by Liddiard with contributions from other members, have been described as apocalyptic and darkly humorous; tackling subjects such as technological advancement, political polarization, socioeconomic inequality, xenophobia, culture wars and many others. The album title links a Silicon Valley slang for the physical world with the neurodegenerative disorder of kuru found in the Fore people of Papua New Guinea.
context_section_description: "Shellfish Toxin" is an instrumental. It begins with the sounds of "seagulls laugh[ing] and the rapid-fire of sci-fi weapons blast[ing] in the distance, incidental sounds eventually fading out as some guitar notes are plucked and synthesized tones waver. A slow drum arrangement enters, with a breathy vocal introduced as accompaniment." The song "gradually deteriorates like an acid trip at the beach gone wrong" and has been described as the album's most "anomalous" song. The "deliberately meandering instrumental [...] takes Liddiard into new territory" and has been described as "a queasily beautiful pastiche of surf-rock, Joe Meek and Frank Churchill-esque Hollywood schmaltz." "There’s a hymnal quality to this track" observes We Are Raw Meat, "think Twin Peaks theme meets St Kilda." In interviews, Liddiard stated that the song's title was a reference to the CIA project MKNAOMI "which used shellfish poisoning against enemy agents, which wasn’t made to kill them but make them feel dreadful and insane for a while. Maybe while they were on a mission or something."
  The "dreamy, sprawling" title track has been described as "a moody slowburner" that is "mostly subdued and slow, though balanced by moments of intensity." The song "concludes with an optimistic key change, sanguine chants pouring from a silo of twisted riffs and night terrors." Lyrically, the song takes the themes explored previously on "The Future Of History" "to [their] logical conclusion: the post-apocalyptic wasteland that’s left after Silicon Valley’s tech lords’ accelerationist philosophy has burned the planet to a crisp." "As is the trademark of other tracks on the album", notes We Are Raw Meat, the song "is a potluck of (pop) cultural references sewn into a pastiche embodying annihilation."
  The "ominous" and "hypnotic" final track "Rubber Bullies", the album's longest at over 6 minutes, opens with a "malevolent chuckle". It features "slinky bass" and "staccato guiatrs" that are "[a]nchored by Kistchin and Hammel, their rhythm section reserved and patient for most of the track’s runtime". Described as being driven by a "total sense of calamity", the song "details a world overloaded by advertising, run by “plutocrats and sycophants” and filled with “Foot long subdivisions/So cheap they won’t outlast/Your disapproval or their doormats”." The stream of consciousness lyrics are delivered "[w]ith the conversational pace of a man telling a story" and consist of "the narrator’s impressions of his surroundings and the futility of the experiences he details [...] [,] ending the album with [...] an air of pensiveness, the last words being, “Oh. How? Why? Where we goin’ now?”" They "[start] in a supermarket aisle - where the air conditioned air is too cold - before continuing the theme of ‘conditioning’ by riffing through a list-like barrage of consumeristic deathpits; alluding to the housing crisis in Australia as well as the morally vacuous vortex that is the relationship between landlords/developers/politics." Liam Martin, on the other hand, called it "a sermon to escapism and vapid travelers." The title of the track has been interpreted as a play on rubber bullets, which are "used to disperse riots and protests." On being asked about the Brazilian references (particularly to Rio de Janeiro and the UPP) in the final stanza, Liddiard revealed that most of it was personal in nature.
caption: The UPP (pictured here) is one of many Brazilian references present in the final stanza of "Rubber Bullies".
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