Mista Self-Isolation
M-G Dysfunction
Strange, torrid, funny, moving - the third full-length offering from the Leeds/London artist leaves listeners guessing to the last.
M-G Dysfunction, the project of Fred M-G (ZoZo/@chunk.leeds DIY space), returns with third full-length album Mista Self-Isolation. Released on 20th June by Panurus Productions, the record is the first M-G Dysfunction full-length release since 2021’s Nothing Clean, Nothing Pure and first non-single release since 2023 EP Maybe She’s Born With It, Maybe It’s Sertraline.
As anyone who has heard Nothing Clean, Nothing Pure or seen an M-G Dysfunction live show will know, things are never quite as they seem with this project. Drawing as much from Stewart Lee as Death Grips, MGD regularly pulls the rug out from under listeners just as they think they’ve sussed what he’s getting at. Scorching the earth with anger one minute and humour the next, MGD reveals himself as a kind of hyper-nihilist jester - someone scorning honesty even as the music itself seems as earnest as can be, or hiding knotty truths amidst seemingly frivolous asides.
Mista Self-Isolation is the fullest realisation of the M-G Dysfunction project to date - a record of trepidation and humour, of lopsided passion and warped poetics. This album is about surveying the wreckage of monoculture and navigating the act of making music amidst a land-grab of rights, melodies and rhythms by people who never liked music in the first place. It’s about properly honest artistic expression - what “keeping it real” looks like, sounds like, feels like in 2024. It’s about getting some official beats and saying fly shit over them.
FFO: Dean Blunt, Death Grips, The Bug, Stewart Lee, Laura Oldfield Ford, Jenny Hval, The Streets, Marie Davidson, David Shields, Julia Fox
Credits
Vocals on ‘Taystii’s Intro’ come from Tayyab Amin (DJ TAYSTII).
Samples used on ‘Roger Daltrey’ and ‘Cryptofacts’ supplied by Theo Gowans, the musician and artist best known as Territorial Gobbing and someone who formed part of the M-G Dysfunction live setup during the period in which Mista Self-Isolation took shape.
Additional mixing on ‘UKG (Ascension)’ and ‘Junglists Only’ by Paul Clark.
The first of those tracks previously appeared on the 2023 M-G Dysfunction EP Maybe She’s Born With It, Maybe It’s Sertraline. ’50 Words For Blow’ is a cover of Carroll Thompson’s ‘Yesterday’.
‘Doing Some Coke With You’ reprises the chord progression from ‘Yesterday’.
‘Junglists Only’ interpolates lyrics from Active Minds’ ‘Hobson’s Choice (Tune For Da Mandem)’.
‘Now I’m In Madrid and Can Drink’ features lyrics from Bridget St. John’s
‘Ask Me No Questions’ read by Naomi Macleod (Empire State Bastard).
’All That Is Solid Melts Into Deez Nuts’ features a passage from Keegan Bradford’s ‘All Hail West Texas Turns 20’, an anniversary retrospective on The Mountain Goats’ album of the same name published by Stereogum on 18/02/2022.
