Artisit: The M Machine
Release: Metropolis Part 1
Release Date: Out Now
While rain pounds the UK like a 14 year old girl pounding a bottle of cherry lambrini at a bus stop Hit The Floor have found you a new EP to smooth away the weather blues.
While you may not have heard of them, you certainly will now The M Machine are a group from San Francisco who shrouded themselves in almost complete secrecy, they have shown themselves across some of electronic music’s biggest stages in the past year including EDC, Electric Zoo, and Global Dance Festival, have opened for some names too, like Empire of the Sun, Miike Snow, and Pretty Lights, and have and had glowing support from some of the biggest names in the industry, including Benny Benassi, Skrillex, and Porter Robinson. Metropolis Part 1 is their new 6 track release let’s rip it open and see what treats it holds.
Opening track Immigrants is a slow burning ease in to the album with typical house beats and dubstep influences it builds over it’s 6 minute duration picking you up and dropping you until you submit to The M Machine. It also sounds like I’m not the only one who has had Daft Punk’s Tron soundtrack on a loop.
Deep Search follows next and The M Machine stick to the Electro House camp in a paint by numbers track. Browsing and some may say improving on the Deadmau5 formulae that is classic with the genre. While I personally like Deep Search it does feel like a little bit of a ‘filler’ track and I did find myself losing interest in it by the halfway point.
A King Alone hits you next and it feels different, with faint, soothing vocal samples and simple bass patterns it seems to lift the whole record and restores my interest.
Faces changes the record again, moving into more of a indie dance area. The vocals are stronger now, the synths and bass have a little more punch and the track has a traditional feel, you can sense the thought pattern and structure.
Black moved the EP yet again, placing you back into electro house but things are a little unnerving the track starts with machine type sound effects then throws you in at the deep end, this is my personal highlight.
A Shadow in The Rose Garden could be classed as a remix of a track from an older The M Machine EP but in the real world all that is the same is the vocal hook. This is a huge ending to an awesome record and they have kept their erie, mysterious image and demeanor. I’d expect nothing less from a group that built their own light show from an iPad.
This whole record is a breath of fresh air in the current music landscape where things can get very repetitive and the secret I’ve been keeping from you dear reader is that this is actually a concept album, meaning that it has a story behind it, a story that plays out track by track, a story you can read
The M Machines Metropolis Part 1 is out now on iTunes and Beatport from Owsla
8.5/10
