Acclaimed producer/musician Kevin Richard Martin joins Relapse Records for a devastating new double album titled Machine on October 4, Martin’s first solo instrumental record as his revered alias, The Bug.
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.
Out today on streaming services for the first time, listen to “Buried (Your Life is Short)” and “Bodied (Send For the Hearse)”, taken from Machine (both tracks streaming below). The former is earthmoving in its sheer weight, opening with a riff-made-machine synthesis of coruscating tectonics over a heavy-stepping beat destined to destroy dancefloors. “Bodied” begins with an acid-corroded 4/4 kickdrum, around which noxious fumes sputter and billow, spitting pure poison that no human body could survive. It is industrial-strength doom-riff-dub, as slow and low as sonics can go.
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 will be available in two vinyl versions (each version will have different artwork):
* Machine is the 2xLP version containing a sequenced 12 song collection of handpicked tracks by The Bug, extracted from the five Machine EPs - cut at 33 RPM and housed in a gatefold jacket with insert.
* Meanwhile, Machines I-V is also available as a Relapse.com exclusive expanded 5xLP deluxe box set collection, gathering all of the 21 songs from the five EPs - cut at 45 RPM and housed in a super deluxe ridged-board book with a poster.
Pre-order Machine and Machines I-V physical versions here.
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.
Over the decades of immensely varied projects, collaborations and releases, Martin has become infamous as a regular subverter of expectation. In 2008 - after his tempestuous, grimy album London Zoo on Ninja Tune, where he and grime MC Flowdan delivered the instant classic “Skeng” - he characteristically surprised with the formation of new trio King Midas Sound, whose alternating spoken word poetry and Japanese language vocals (care of British-Trinidadian dub poet Roger Robinson and vocalist Kiki Hitomi, respectively) created a storytelling mode new to his canon. Then came more collaborations as his palette and output expanded. Longstanding experimental composer Fennesz, post-metal impressionists Earth, and even the rarefied, mournful drone-folk of musician Grouper became foils for Martin to share his canvas. In 2019, following the trauma of his son’s problematic birth, he dropped all aliases and released the poignant Sirens, a heart-wrenching study of dread and aching paternal love in the most isolated ambient zone.
With such a monolithic discography (too long to list all), it is no surprise that alternative-metal royalty such as Big Brave, Steve Von Till (Neurosis), Aaron Turner (Sumac, Isis), Full of Hell, Nadja, and Primitive Man (also recent collaborators with Martin), have heaped praise on Martin’s music, hearing a kinship between metal riff-craft and The Bug's “floor weapons”. As The Bug, Martin has released music and toured with musicians such as Dylan Carlson (Earth), Al Cisneros (Sleep, Om), and his long-term soul brother Justin Broadrick (Godflesh, Napalm Death).
Having recently reissued The Brotherhood of the Bomb and Re-Entry by Martin’s Techno Animal project with JK Flesh (Justin Broadrick), Relapse Records represents a perfect home for Machine. Techno Animal reformed as Zonal in 2019 and released their acclaimed album Wrecked in collaboration with American poet, musician, and activist Moor Mother, also through the label.
Machine tracklisting:
"Annihilated (Force Of Gravity)"
"Shafted (Laws Of Attraction/Repulsion)"
"Sickness (Slowly Dying)"
"Vertical (Never See You Again)"
"Floored (Point Of Impact)"
"Drop (Machine Sex)"
"Hypnotised (F-cked up)"
"Inhuman (Let Machines Do The Talking)"
"Departed (Left The Body Behind)"
"Buried (Your Life Is Short)"
"Bodied (Send For The Hearse)"
"Exit (Wasteman)"
"Buried (Your Life Is Short)":
"Bodied (Send For The Hearse)":
