[Read in full on NHAM]
It’s Not OK Computer by inpc
Review by @ethicalrevolution
I’m going to begin the review of this four track EP with a few adjectives that came to mind when listening to It’s Not OK Computer: Squelchy, crunchy, dark, deep, harsh, hostile, smooth and spacious.
The level of production on this release is out of this world. As to be expected you’d suppose from Adrian Sherwood’s sound engineer. A man who has recently toured Japan with Sherwood’s acclaimed release of 2025, and who worked with Brian Eno among others in the production of The Collapse of Everything.
Building in a somewhat unnerving manner, UK Drill feels like an introduction to a day in any UK town or city where you wake to the already constant hum of the busyness and get injected with more of the various intruding sounds of your surroundings as the day grinds on. Unlike the town/city, however, these sounds are not randomly crashed together but perfectly arranged in their space, combining to make a somewhat meditative soundscape of the harsh, shrill and deep.
Already released and doing the rounds in the NHAM sections of TIBtv is a video for UK Drill. It includes shots of CCTV cameras superimposed by Keir Starmer. Perhaps a nod to the fact that this UK Drill may well be more a comment on our surveillance state and the level of high alert than it is speaking to the music genre.
I’m Your Computer I’m Against You is an absolute banger. I can’t believe there’d be anyone who could not relate to it as they inescapably nod and jut their upper body to its beat. We’ve all felt (or perhaps more accurately, all continue to feel) the pain as our mechanical overlords take joy in making our life more difficult than it should be. This track provides a comforting humour in hearing our computers tell us what we always knew they were thinking.
State Intervention provides another delicious blend of the harsh and the smooth. It feels like we’ve been taken underground here. Somewhere perhaps away from the spying eyes, but maybe to a place not altogether different in its damp, dark and eerie surroundings. Savage.
Meta Data begins as if Massive Attack have entered the building. It’s a truly triumphant climax to this EP. Possibly my favourite track of the four (although that is subject to change on any given day!) it is captivating whilst maintaining the darkness of the rest of the release. It has a thickness to it that becomes pure arpeggiating gloop, in the best sense of the word.
Given the title of this EP, It’s Not OK Computer, it would be remiss of me not to mention that inpc (I’m Not Phil Collins) aka Mxtthxw Smyth is himself a radio head in as much that he broadcasts a daily show, spinning records from his shed in between commentary of FACTS alongside his trusty weather gauge, George (meow). It’s called The Kali Mera Show and you can catch it live Monday to Friday at 8am UTC or tune in on demand via Castopod.
