diNMachine – Dance To
Reason
2014, diNMachine
Brooklyn is home to a lot of noise, depending on what part you
travel through. There’s perhaps no noise coming out of Brooklyn these days
quite like that made by diNMachine. The five-piece electro-art-rock outfit is
an anomalous collective that blends live instruments and computerized music to
create inventive, edgy and groundbreaking compositions. diNMachine features
Michael J. Schumacher, Hari Ganglberger, Nisi Jacobs, David Cardona and Eric
Martich. Along the way the band caught the ear of the one and only Bill
Laswell, who mixed Dance To Reason and brought some of his pure animatronic
musical grasp to the project.
Dance To Reason opens with "Sang Gween", an almost
disorienting mix of drum n bass and noise. The simplistic rhythm section is
blown over by an ever shifting mass of RF noise. "Minor Me" is an
original composition, but sounds strangely like a minor key variation on the
main riff from Yes’ "Shock To The System". The base of the
arrangement has a ‘Mad Max’ feel to it, and the layering of sounds organic and
electronic creates an infectious rhythmic tapestry that sweeps you off of your
feet. "Ground State" is a seventeen minute magnum opus that begins
with organic ambience and moves across a plethora of sounds and styles.
This is a stamina piece, with diNMachine creating something special here. The
folks who dig this are likely to be a fine tuned and lean subset of the music
marketplace, but also the sort of rabid fans that keep a band eating.
"Recht Tik" is similarly schizophonic, but at just over five
minutes is much more manageable for the casual listener.
diNMachine brings a bit of funky swing to "Tryad",
once again recalling the progressive tendencies of Yes, this time in intriguing
passages reminiscent of Steve Howe and Chris Squire. "Lpse" is a sparse piece of
mechanical madness, living through an occasionally frenetic bass line and
multitude of samples. Don't step away in the middle of this tune, there's
a lot of nuance, pithy and otherwise, to be missed. "Telepath"
tries for a party feel while maintaining a progressive feel. This runs out of originality
long before it runs out of room on the album, but it’s a fair effort
nonetheless. "5th Bass" goes yard with a rapid fire mass of sound
that's ambitious and overdone. There are some moments here, particular when the
cascades begin around three minutes in, but there may be ultimately too much
going on here for some listeners.
dinMachine gets major
points for ambition and musical prowess on Dance
To Reason. The instances where
ambition falls short of fruition are not for a lack of talent or vision. When you shoot high you’re going to miss occasionally,
but diNMachine scores more often than not.
Fans of integrated electronic rock and progressive rock will find a lot
to like on Dance To Reason, and the
band has laid a terrific cornerstone for a sound whose time, perhaps, has come.
Rating:
3.5 Stars (Out of 5)
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