Crisis Generator - Machine Disease

When you think of the state of New Mexico -or if you've been there- vast mesas and immense canyons are what spring to mind. Add Crisis Generator to this panorama. I have listened to this act for many years and what is contained in this demo is not representative of his full range by any stretch of the imagination. If you like, I'll just dispense with the formalities and get right to what this sounds like. Organic. There's no set template which this artist operates with nor are there any vocals on this outing (although he does sing on a lot of his other work). There's a sci-fi theme which permeates what 'Machine Disease' contains, lots of borderline out of control sequencing. You almost think it's going to break the confines of format but amazingly, he pulls it back just enough to contain the well conceived mania inherent in his work. He gets out there beyond the pale sonically and somehow, you find yourself wondering: why hasn't someone done this before?

If Download would have continued on their hell-bent excursions into pure musical chaos ala Furnace, this would have been the result. It took a solitary figure in the Southwest to move past the impressive shadow cast by them and push those boundaries to their fullest. So many of these tracks give one the feeling of falling off a cliff into whatever lies beneath them; perhaps his surroundings have influenced him more than he knows.

Lots of strange progressions filter through the pieces he's done. Things slowly focus and then they're then grafted to a very curious palette of sounds and composition overall. Bear in mind that this work is in progress and who can say what the finished results will be. 'Machine Disease' is a snapshot of Crisis Generator in April 2011. Knowing how this guy works, these versions may well wind up scrapped outright or reconfigured beyond recognition. It's hell being a perfectionist, I'd imagine. Take after take after take but somehow it just never feels quite finished and neither does this EP, hence the rating.

I'm sure he has very grand plans for these songs, as they stand now I enjoy them immensely. A bit more refinement and I'd view them as absolutely necessary. One to watch, constantly in motion. Crisis Generator are the literal incarnation of evolutionary process. He's not for the clubs, he's not for the bothersome pseudo-intellectualist gnat who consumes vapidly and then moves on... he's for those who prefer, like Robert Frost, the road not taken. Apr 12 2011