Since discovering antipodean experimental label Wood and Wire a few months ago, I’ve been pouring over their back catalogue looking for something special. While it’s all worth a listen (not least because I can’t help but feel that Australia has been under-represented in the field of avant garde electronic music), I felt like Machine Death’s self styled “new wave sludgecore” warranted a few words.
As crass as comparisons can be, an obvious point of reference for Machine Death’s sound would be Bristol’s Fuck Buttons; an association with a certain amount of subliminal appeal, given the visceral, machinistic names of both (and the fact that both are duos). However, I can’t help that a more apt comparison would be with Benjamin Powers’ Fuck Buttons side project Blanck Mass. Their sense of scale is certainly similar, but perhaps the best way to describe Machine Death is by opposition; as the Yang to Blanck Mass’ Yin.
Where Powers’ Blanck Mass painted soaring natural landscapes, Machine Death have created a music of combustion; mountains not made of earth, but concrete, steel and bilious, carcinogenic smog. This is not a music of beauty, but horror; of nature swept away by the mechanical, of gas chambers and the desolation of late capitalist society.
If that appeals to your morbid sensibilities, then download Machine Death’s self-titled album over at the Wood and Wire Bandcamp.