Louisville-based creator Ryan Pierson has just completed the first season of “Meat Team,” an atmospheric and experimental combination of literature, music, and sound collage. At its existential core, “Meat Team” is a horror comedy program, with storytelling as its focus.
Pierson said in a Facebook post that “every episode is chock full of oddball characters, perplexing scenarios, illustrative scoring, and satisfying stories” all of which is apparent within the runtime of the first episode. The loosely themed episodes range from a narrative about a circle of hell reserved for drunkenly texting exes, to explorations of severe social anxiety, to the speculative experience of losing one’s spirit through continued medical procedures.
He says his conception of the series was an extension of his music philosophy, which he describes as “creating interesting rooms.” He thought, “instead of just creating rooms, why not put idiosyncratic people in those rooms and have them do things?”
Hosted on Acast and streaming on Spotify, there are five episodes in season one. Pierson’s plans for the series are to create an overarching plot across multiple episodes that will offer listers a sense of suspense. Drawing inspiration from his experience of finishing an installment of a piece of media and being left with the question “but what happens next?” he wants to explore ways to recreate that experience for his audience. It is something he has been thinking about and studying, so listeners can expect that kind of narrative technique in future seasons of “Meat Team.”
This article appears in Jul 3-16, 2024.
