Gig Review: Machine Wreckers @ Fringe in the 'Stings @ The 118, Hastings - 10/10/2024
Like a night blooming cactus that briefly flowers, Machine Wreckers come out about annually to wow an appreciative crowd before dissolving off to their many and varied other projects. This is a rare treat and we all know it.
The heady smell of fresh jasmine hangs in the air of the 118. Through the thick haze, through the leaves of trees, the four members of Machine Wreckers are visible only in form, silhouetted against the art filled walls. This is less a gig than an immersion - a sensory sound bath that fills the place in the chest where heart and breath meet and feelings are made.
They’re worried it might be too loud, but it couldn’t be. It needs to be loud to crack into the spirit. The novel composition of each movement is slippery - at once distal and yet familiar. Riffing on nature, it builds and peaks and soars like the erupting volcano projected overhead.
It’s as though they are showing us another way of being, as though by entering the space we are entering into a shared agreement to stop engaging in the ‘normal' nonsense our society prescribes and remember what it is to be earthly creatures, no different from the birds and the trees.
There’s little talk, only the concern for our eardrums, and a final impassioned plea to free Palestine - to care for every one of the other human animals that crawl this earth, who are just like you and me. The band's first ever gig, two years ago at Fringe in the 'Stings, had the tag line - Capitalism is Suicide. They play with the fervour of those who know that there is no such thing as apolitical art. But rather than preaching they lead by example.
Withers drums like a heartbeat, a life force. Thornton’s bass is an earthy rumble, Willie D interjects real bird song between melodious keys. Yates makes his guitar sing, coaxing each piece to its climax. Together they are more then the sum of their parts. It’s a conversation. A cacophony. A meditation. A communion. A catharsis.
Photo Credit: Simon Shaw
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