MACHIN3 GIR1 , as the cover suggests, exists to fuck with your brain. Pitchfork (god bless Pitchfork really for trying to explain every damn thing) calls them a blend of techno, grindcore, metal and experimental and we all know ‘experimental’ covers a lot of ground. It’s an interesting appellation for music, and the word may apply more to the listener than to the musicians who seem to know exactly what they’re doing. That’s not a knock coming from me. Why shy away from something new, that you may not have words or a name for? I’ve heard a lot of art called representational, but I’m not hard-pressed to believe that every single thing represents something that already exists. That’s such an ego-driven way to look at the world, isn’t it? Familiarity isn’t always what defines something and there are a zillion things in the world that exist despite that I don’t see them or recognize them. Call me… willing. I’m not afraid of a challenge. I’m not afraid to have my head fucked with, and when it comes right down to it, not all art has to be traditionally beautiful. Sometimes I prefer the ghastly, if you want to talk about representational. Reality can be ghastly, after all, like the image above. Reality can be a challenge. Were it not then we wouldn’t have been able to conceive of so many ways to escape it and control our emotional landscapes.

Let’s make this perfectly clear. I’m not special. I don’t see myself as better, or smarter, or more intellectually inclined. I am, however, willing to dig a little deeper for experience whether it’s pleasant or unpleasant. I am just willing. Sitting at the beach this weekend browsing this space with a friend, she said to me, “I’ve said this before. You are not browsing the same internet as the rest of us. Where do you find some of this stuff?” What’s the answer to that? It’s absolutely the same internet and there are plenty of people looking at the same things or none of this would exist in the first place. As much as I’ve said that if one can conceive of something, simply search the web and it already exists. More than that though, it exists because there is an audience for it. Whether it existed when something was created or not, the law of numbers dictates that it will find an audience. It may not be K-Pop magnitude, but there will be an audience, and people will pay for it. It’s just about numbers. Seven billion people can generate a lot of disparate ideas.

I suppose this might lead to the question of why me? Why do I seek this out. It’s simple for me though. I’ve said before that I need tools sometimes to break through the frequencies and flow of energy of the day to day world that jams me up and allows me free thought and free movement. There are vibrations I’ve never been able to move at. Consider it like jamming a transmission that’s interfering with reality. Throw something into it to jam the feed and cut into it with messages that at least seem more true. Perhaps this explanation isn’t working right now and the words will come at a later point. It might just come down to what I’m looking at or listening to seeming more honest. Whether it is or isn’t remains to be seen, but at least it’s not what I know to be false.

Does that make sense? I just want more honest experience. That’s it. It makes sense to me. It works for me. Machin3 Gir1 makes sense to me. It doesn’t necessarily make me feel good in a normal sense of feeling good. It does leave me feeling unfettered and unburdened, like a weekend away. It’s not necessarily a relaxing weekend but it’s not the weird, undifferentiated anxiety of trying to move along in the flow of the other signal. That’s all I’m looking for.

Freedom.