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- Summary: The first solo instrumental release from British electronic producer The Bug collects the tracks from five EPs released between 2023 and 2024 into one album.
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- Record Label: Relapse
- Genre(s): Electronic
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Score distribution:
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Positive: 7 out of 7
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Oct 17, 2024Machine is as visceral as anything he's ever put out, but the album's use of negative space—a cornerstone of what, in that Electronic Beats interview, he identified as dub's "alien unknown quality"—creates a sense of heightened focus you don't get from his vocal albums. These tracks are certainly "floor weapons," as Martin has billed them in liner notes. But they'll work just as well for those looking to quietly meditate on bassweight at home.
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Oct 17, 2024Machine is an album of military rhythms, deep sub pressure, rasping bass synths heavy enough to take chunks out of the earth, and massive, driving, low-end drones that occasionally sound like weeping hairdryers. Yet, through all of that, there are glimpses of a melodic melancholia.
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The WireOct 21, 2024The album is a well-sequenced 50 minute statement that you can nod your head or trance out to. [Nov 2024, p.48]
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Oct 17, 2024Machines I-V is the Bug in pure club damage mode, and it's as heady and powerful as anything else he's done.
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UncutOct 17, 2024Martin’s work as The Bug has always dealt in heaviness, but Machine is particularly inspiring for its lethality, its intensity. [Dec 2024, p.32]
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MojoOct 17, 2024Martin’s sounds are of a grain so abrasive as to draw blood, but while much of Machine’s considerable power to thrill derives from Martin’s sonic extremism, there’s an impish creativity also at play. [Dec 2024, p.85]
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Oct 17, 2024Somewhere between King Tubby and King Buzzo, Machine may not have the irresistible grooves of 2003’s Pressure or the political resonance of 2008’s landmark London Zoo, but—by thudding leaps and earthquaking bounds—is easily the heaviest, ugliest, paint-peelingest record in an already seismic discography.