The Flanger That Grew a Meat Forest

March 14, 2025  

Jess was a music producer, a gaunt scarecrow with a shaved head and a grin like a cracked mirror, squatting in a shed where the walls oozed sap and the floor squelched with a mix of mud and spilled rum. Her studio was a slaughterhouse of music equipment—audio hardware patched with barbed wire and chewing gum, a synth with keys glued shut by sap, cables tangled like intestines over a desk piled with rum bottles and chicken bones. She’d hoarded 1,000 VST plugins, a digital jungle on a hard drive that growled like a bear with a hangover, each one a butcher’s promise—“this’ll carve the sound raw,” she’d grunt, slugging rum from a mason jar, knowing it was a lie she’d scratched into her knuckles. Jess was mixing a track for weeks, a grimy techno throb with a vocal that rasped like a chainsaw and a bass that pounded like a fist on meat—something to dodge the tax man’s axe before he hauled her shed to the dump.

It was Monday, 9 a.m., the hour when the world’s a dull groan and every mix engineer and music producer trades their liver for a spark. Jess, smashed on rum and a fistful of jerky she’d ripped from a gas station trash bin, slogged through a forum where gear freaks swapped audio software cracks and tales wilder than a goat on a tightrope. That’s where she snagged MeatFlanger, a VST plugin some drooling nut had unleashed, its description a smear of grease and grunts: “flange the flesh, grow the wild.” Jess didn’t care about wild; she wanted a flanger to grind her techno, a sound to bury the silence of her broke-ass shed. She smashed download, and her audio software shuddered—a wet belch, a flash of brown haze—as the file sank into her rig like a cleaver into pork.

The screen bloomed, a swirl of dripping fat and gnashing teeth, and MeatFlanger reared up—an interface forged from raw steak, pulsing with veins, a slider throbbing pink like a slab of bacon, a knob spinning like a meat grinder in a storm. Jess laughed, a gravelly bark, and plugged it into her music equipment, the audio hardware humming low, monitors spitting sparks and gristle. She fed it her bass—a thudding beast she’d mixed ‘til her bones ached—and cranked the slider. The sound flanged, a greasy sweep of distortion that coated the room in a slick hum, waves folding into waves, a growl that shook the rum in her jar. “That’s the gut!” she roared, leaning back, jerky crumbling in her teeth. But the floor twitched—a slow, meaty pulse—and the walls sprouted, flesh bulging as roots of sinew crept up, dripping blood and sap.

She gaped, “What the hell?”—her voice a growl—and slammed the slider higher. The bass warped, a butcher’s chop of sound, and the roots grew—tendrils of meat snaking across the shed, sprouting ribs and knuckles that pulsed red and raw. The mixing desk quaked, rum bottles toppling into pools of bloody goo, and Jess saw it: MeatFlanger wasn’t flanging—it was growing, birthing a forest of flesh from her mix, its groans a low-end sweep in the techno. The absurdity hit like a meat hook—every music producer knows a VST plugin glitch, but this was a carnivorous spawn, a flanger planting a jungle of meat in her shed.

Her shed-mate, Brick—a mix engineer with a mohawk and a snarl, all muscle and scars, draped in a cape of chicken feathers—lumbered in, boots squelching, a meat cleaver in one hand, a jug of lard in the other. “What’s that stink?” he bellowed, voice like a saw blade, feathers fluttering as he glared at the screen where MeatFlanger throbbed like a butcher’s block. “It’s mixing a slaughter!” Jess shrieked, cranking the slider—the bass pulsed, the walls bulged with meat, and a ribcage sprouted, its crack a snare hit in the track. Brick gaped, “You grew a damn meat forest!” and swung the cleaver, hacking a tendril as a slab of flank burst up, its squelch a vocal chop in the techno.

The music equipment went feral—her Korg MS-20, a thrift-store relic, moaned a drone unplayed, and MeatFlanger growled: the mud on the floor boiled, birthing a meat tree dripping fat, its rustle a hi-hat in the mix. Jess’s stomach churned—every mix engineer knows the dread, when mixing turns rabid, but this was a fleshy apocalypse, a flanger sprouting a jungle of ribs and gristle. The slider danced itself, a frenzied twist, the bass throbbing and twisting, growing more—ham vines curling up the walls, a pork loin bush that grunted, each snap a kick drum in the techno. Brick dropped the cleaver, “It’s a damn butcher’s dream!” he roared, chugging lard as the feathers on his cape turned meaty, their flap a synth sweep. Jess’s jar glowed, then burst into a swarm of buzzing flies, their drone a harmony, and she screamed, “Not the rum!” lunging for the power, but the audio software blazed on, MeatFlanger’s veins pulsing like a heart on a slab.

The shed turned into a meat nightmare—air thick with fat and rot, the ceiling sagging as a ham hock chandelier drooped, its drip a bassline in the mix. Brick, wild and lard-soaked, grabbed a chainsaw from the corner—a rusted beast Jess used to chop her music equipment free of sap—and sliced the audio hardware, sparks and grease flying as the USB hub melted into a puddle of bloody pulp, spewing flies and bone shards. The monitors wailed, the techno a carnivorous slaughter—ribs cracking, vines groaning, a pork bush’s grunt looping in the chaos—and the shed dissolved, walls sprouting into meat, the tax man outside turning fleshy, his wrench now a femur pounding the beat. Jess clawed into the audio software, a rum-drunk madwoman in a storm of flesh, while the MS-20 moaned a drone of doom, the shed a forest of meat pulsing in the mix. “Chop it!” Brick roared, chainsaw blazing, and Jess found it—“Uninstall,” glowing like a rib in the muck. She smashed it, and the screen imploded, a silent void swallowing the chaos, the music equipment collapsing, the slider a smear.

She wheezed, jar dribbling, the shed a ruin—ceiling a dripping meat cave, fat pooling, the forest pulsing with techno echoes. Brick kicked the desk, “You owe me a cow,” he snarled, pocketing his lard and stomping out, feathers reforming on his cape. Jess lit a soggy smoke, hands trembling, and checked the session. Left behind was a track—nine minutes of throb and terror, rib cracks, vine grunts, a pork drone, a flanger abyss of pure insanity. She uploaded it to SoundCloud—“MeatForest,” she called it—and sank into the mud, the smoke igniting her shirt. By dusk, it had 5,000 plays, some kid raving, “This is if bacon grew fangs.” Jess didn’t care. The shed was meat, the rent was dust, and the forest lingered, grunting in the shadows, but she’d spawned a freak—a hymn to the fleshy end.

Days later, she heard it—a faint squelch from the speakers, MeatFlanger lurking, whispering fat. She chugged rum from a cracked jug, toasted the void, and let it fester. Every music producer knows the truth: the gear’s a butcher, and it’ll grow a forest if you blink.