The Bug – Machine 1

On 2021’s Fire, The Bug returned with a violent reckoning, exploring the heat of rage through abrasive and intense dancehall mutations. Machine 1, the latest EP from the UK producer, takes a slightly different approach. Formulated especially for his conceptual soundsystem event PRESSURE, Machine 1 is a collection of four instrumental tracks that The Bug identifies as ‘futuristic dub.’

Existing somewhere on the spectrum between industrial noise and icy trap, the sound of Machine 1 pivots The Bug away from the fiery chaos of his signature grime dubstep hybridisations toward something more sedate, but just as sinister. 

Download and stream Machine 1 here

Machine 1 is swathed in intensely low bass, resulting in a deeply atmospheric experience. Everything is torn through layers of distortion, ominously plodding beats in the signature of dub acting as anchors of sorts. On Released (Need To Escape), the distortion becomes an exercise in tension, so that even when the track is reduced to decaying static, a sense of claustrophobia continues to grow until everything is unleashed in all its gnarly glory. Shafted (Laws Of Attraction / Repulsion) is barely recognisable as dub in the stricter sense, sounding more akin to Nine Inch Nails with its macabre, machine-like pulse.

“Slower, lower, hypnotic and basically dirty as f-ck, this E.P. is futuristic dub, as deep and monolithic as I could excavate this time round,” The Bug has said of Machine 1, the first in a planned series of similar EPs. The music here pushes the boundaries of The Bug’s style in the opposite direction of what’s expected from him, and in the process reveals a new side to an already multifaceted and singular visionary. 

Listen to Shafted (Laws Of Attraction / Repulsion) below.

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