New album, “The Machine”, out on October 4th!
Machine started life as a series of self-released “floor weapons” (to use Martin’s description), landing in instalments between 2023 and 2024 on the Bandcamp page of his own PRESSURE label. And now – always his intention – Martin has collated a single, powerful, unified statement from those EPs. The album detonates apocalyptic dread-tech mutations of crushing intensity, fusing a unique new strain of futuristic dub with deadly deep electronics and killer bass riffs worthy of the heaviest metal. It is, writes Martin, “ice cold and dystopian.” It celebrates “atmospheric pressure, and the joy of full body assaults, via oversized sound systems in undersized club rooms.” Machine also represents the latest metamorphosis of the Macro Dub Infection philosophy Martin germinated with the groundbreaking series of compilations he began curating for Virgin Records as early as the mid-90s.
As such singular music, few comparisons exist, but considering an instrumental SWANS in dub or Aphex Twin covered by Sunn O))) yields something close, though Machine turns up the crushing, pulverising intensity even further still…
Machine represents a cohesive and narrative journey through dystopian wildernesses. Throughout, the production shakes with scoured textures, black hole gravity, and deceptively crafted nuance, as Martin’s singular mastery of ferocious and annihilated bass music holds the record together in a visceral and pummelling assault. Indeed, Martin describes the EP sequence from which the album was culled as “separate parts of the overall puzzle that becomes fully realised on this longform album.”
As The Bug, Martin’s music is formed from an overwhelmingly explosive sub-bass pressure, as relentlessly in-the-red beat production amplifies mutant industrial sound design, fuzzed, expectant crackle, and bleak greyscale harmonics. Machine is no exception: no speaker exists big enough to withstand its weight. A fusion of William Gibson-inspired sci-fi and Jamaican sound system-influenced brutality, the record personifies the “killing sound” after which Martin named his legendary 7″ series that unexpectedly attracted the likes of Massive Attack and Grace Jones to his magnetic production style.
(Photograph by Jun Sato)
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