On The Machine Starts to Sing, she still transmits a signature volatility; grief and a kind of sober resilience, however, are more pronounced and central to the project. Recorded during the Clouds in the Sky They Will Always Be There for Me sessions, the four songs included on Machine comprise a riveting coda for the band, who recently announced that this will be their final release.
The title song launches with a quiet hum and strum, unfurling like a dirge. Margolin’s voice is subdued yet understatedly mercurial, her images startling yet oblique (“They meet in the walls can hear them without listening / the thieves in their houses in bed with their wives”). A quiet steaminess is sustained. Around the 5-minute mark, the instrumentation grows serrated, raggedy, occasionally reminiscent of Sunn O))) or Kali Malone’s collaborations with Stephen O’Malley.
If the title track represents the band’s commitment to sustaining tension rather than drifting toward catharsis, “OK” segues into an experiment with melancholy stoicism or wistful matter-of-factness. Margolin leans in a confessional direction yet remains removed. In this way, she modifies her more usual brand of shambolic venting. Bolstered by a strummed acoustic and a casual drum part, the song oozes spontaneity, a product of the first take/best take approach. Margolin’s images convey a sense of loss (“Teacher why are you dressed in black / because my mother had a heart attack”), though there’s also a hopeful undertone (“So tell me if you hate yourself / and tell me if you change the world”). Her delivery is impeccable, her melody mesmerizing, transportive.
“Don’t Want to Dance” is the closest link to Clouds in the Sky, the track’s melody recalling that set’s closing track, “Sick of the Blues”. And yet, again, Margolin resists the urge to segue into default rage or a breakdown. Her own backing vocal is a subtle masterstroke, creating a mystical doubling effect while drawing attention to certain lines. When she concludes, “No need to talk about it / no need to cry about it / like dust it all just blows away”, she doesn’t seem to be voicing from a space of sarcasm or outright cynicism, as might have been the case with previous work. Instead, there’s a tone of acceptance, durability, a detached wisdom that lands as fresh or at least more intentionally honed than we’ve encountered before.
With the closing “Stay Lucky I’ve Got a Feeling”, Margolin again rides a sumptuous melody. The song is possibly the most buoyant track in the Porridge Radio catalog. “I’ve got a feeling inside of me / digging up weeds until something starts happening / I keep on listening”, Margolin sings, expressing her openness to the unknown. While she has employed much of the Porridge Radio discography to lament and/or rail against life’s challenges – bemoaning betrayal and questioning the legitimacy of love – she now makes peace with the uncontrollable, paradoxical, and impersonal nature of existence.
As the members of Porridge Radio go their own ways, we’re left with a sense of completion. If the band was created as a vehicle to address unresolved hurt and trauma, all the pain that sticks to the soul, then Machine points to the alchemical properties of art and the possibility of transcendence. The habitual has been overcome, longstanding narratives have been released. As Tom Petty would say, “The future is wide open”. Porridge Radio have forged a distinct, felicitous, and gripping swan song.
