Machine Girl - The Ugly Art [2LP]

Machine Girl's The Ugly Art gets a proper double-vinyl pressing, putting a 2018 blast of digital hardcore across two LPs.

Behind the name is Matt Stephenson, the Long Island producer who launched the project in 2012 and has spent the years since smashing together punk, grindcore, rave, footwork, jungle and industrial noise. Drummer Sean Kelly plays on this record, giving the breakbeat chaos a human pulse that hits like a mosh pit armed with a sampler. The album first appeared in 2018 on Kitty on Fire, and its 2026 reissue arrives through Future Classic.

This Is Your Face On Dogs kicks the door in, setting the pace for an album that rarely pauses for breath. A Song Called Clive Barker tips its hat to the horror writer, Kill Screen borrows its name from the moment a video game breaks under its own strain, and the closer A Decent Man stretches past ten minutes, giving the record a long, strange comedown after all that velocity.

Ugly in the best sense and weirdly euphoric, The Ugly Art captures an underground act at full sprint. For fans of hardcore electronics with a punk heart, it is a record built to be played at a volume that rattles the windows and wakes the whole block.