Philadelphia art-punks MESH tap into a healthy distrust of the American government on their latest single.
Citing influences from the likes of Swell Maps, UV Race and Uranium Club, the quartet’s wiry, blown-out sound is propelled by insistent warnings about a modern-day Manchurian candidate.
In a statement on the song, they describe how “CIA Mind Control” was loosely inspired by a 1988 episode of NPR’s Fresh Air, where Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter discusses his involvement in the Stanford University LSD trials.
“The trials were secretly funded by the CIA in an effort to see if psychedelic substances could be used to make people more suggestible, they said in a statement. “So they took him into this room, gave him a bunch of acid, and had him stare at one of those spinning hypno-wheels that you used to see in Bugs Bunny cartoons, then ask him what he was experiencing.”
They continued: “To their dismay, he would explain these insane visuals of Buddha floating in intergalactic mason jars or whatever insane thing he was seeing. So basically it didn’t work for their purposes. Instead, they just had all these college students licking the walls and talking about fractals. ‘CIA Mind Control’ is a sort of spoof on the idea of that project actually working. Someone getting dosed and becoming a Matrix-esque covert assassin.”
MESH’s self-titled debut EP is available May 21 from Born Yesterday Records.