Plant43 - Feeding the Machines (Plant43)

 

Title: Feeding The Machines

Artist: Plant43

Label: Plant43

Cat Number: 

Genre: Electro

1: Information Decay

2: Crawling Ghosts

3: Feeding The Machines

4: Anthropomorphic Alogorithms

5: Nature’s Warding

6: Absolute Inertia

7: Shifting At Dusk

8: Echoes In The Abyss

9: Rain Isn’t Real (Digital Only)

10: The Watching Owls (Digital Only)

‘Feeding The Machines’, Plant43’s latest long player, follows on from last year’s ‘Luminous Machines’ and maintains an annual run of albums stretching all the way back to 2018, except for the fallow year of 2022. And ‘Feeding The Machines’, while not going off in any radically new direction, toughens up the beats and, I think, puts them centre stage. The characteristic emotive, melodic hallmarks haven’t disappeared by any stretch, but the package feels more percussively reliant. A nadir of sorts is reached with ‘Nature’s Warding’, which blurs the liners between techno and electro, (even though it is recognisably the latter), and has a real big room feel without an ounce of compromise. Having said that, what comes next in the form of ‘Absolute Inertia’ is full on techno and even though passable, lacks that bit of syncopation that makes its predecessor more engaging. ‘Echoes In The Abyss’ is neither of one world or the other, slowing the pace down to a respiratory, portentous fugue state. It’s all good. However, it’s tunes like those that open up proceedings, such as the title track, which show this albums most dramatic and proficient side; sticking to the electro template, and amplifying the low end for maximum machine funk tomfoolery.