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Experiments are currently underway to establish which portions of the sound are the ones which alleviate the symptoms of telomeric shortening. As part of this, Nothing Machine Therapy Recordings (NMTR) have been created using noises captured from the Nothing Machine and arranged for maximum effect. These Therapy Recordings allow the Technicians to spend periods time away from the Nothing Machine without a return of symptoms.To fund further research increasing the effectiveness of the recordings and to reduce the financial plight of the Technicians, they have decided to set up a fund to enable public donations and, as a reward for donation, make these recordings available to the public.
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NMTR v1 also can be downloaded
for a donation of £4 from
Reviews of NMTRv1
Brutal Resonance
CompulsionOnline
Hypnagogue
Obsküre Magazine
Side-Line Music Magazine
Vox Empirea
Was Ist Das
Brutal Resonance
To appreciate The Nothing Machine's release 'NMTR v1', you have to read the bio on their website first. Here, you learn they're a group of scientists and technicians who worked with or were exposed to the Z+ Machine (dubbed the Nothing Machine), part of a nuclear energy experiment. NMTR actually stands for Nothing Machine Therapy Recordings and the recordings here are, according to the group, designed send into remission the effects of telomeric shortening the members experienced as a result of exposure to the Nothing Machine. This allows the machine's technicians to spend time away from the machine without experiencing ill effects.
And so, we have NMTR v1, the first recording designed to grant much-needed relief to the Nothing Machine technicians. Presented as a single track lasting about 54 minutes, the album opens with the sounds of radio communications, creating an atmosphere of being in an old science lab. From here, the track evolves to become a slowly morphing melding field recordings processed and assembled to create haunting atmospherics. Layers move in and out during our restorative audio session. One remarkable thing about the release is that it feels very organic, and hearkens back to the days of early dark ambient/experimental recordings that relied heavily on field recordings instead of synth lines to create ambiance. Distant voices and the bleeps and bloops of mysterious machinery drive home the feeling of drifting disembodied through a cavernous research facility. Some synth lines and rhythms come in about halfway through the track, layered atop the droning, gradually evolving sounds of the field recordings.
At times, "NMTR v1" reminds me of early some Lustmord tracks, which is never a bad thing. That the group provides a background story which imparts a sense of purpose to the recordings is a nice touch, and adds to the listening experience. I hope these recordings help the Nothing Machine technicians heal so that they can return to create NMTR v2...for science!
Karl Middlebrooks 7/10
CompulsionOnline
NMTRv1 which stands for Nothing Machine Therapy Recordings Volume 1 is a mysterious release that fits quite nicely alongside the space explorations of SETI and the technological investigations of Clock DVA and more specifically their offshoot The Anti Group.
The Nothing Machine Therapy Recordings, included here on NMTRv1, were culled from the workings of the Z+ Machine, part of a project (British Z+ Pinch Inertial Energy Program ) designed to probe further the boundaries of Nuclear Fusion Technology in the hope of finding a solution to the world's future energy problems. The experiments were curtailed after 6 months after investigations proved that they had ripped a spherical hole in space/time which 'relaxed' out to a three square mile vicinity due to the elastic nature of reality when the Z+ machine was turned off. This resulted in a reconfiguration of the Z+ Machine which created a Nothing Containment Field (NCF) that 'sucked' back in these dispersed gaps to return the Reality Density (RD) of the surrounding area to that measured previously. Still with me? As the effects amounted to a pure nothing the machines were now referred to as The Nothing Machine.
The initial operation of the machines resulted in various side effects experienced by those working on the project. The symptoms included premature ageing. However it was found that the audio frequencies drawn in by the NCF put the condition into remission. These frequencies have been edited and refined to produce Nothing Machine Therapy Recordings, allowing the Technicians to spend time away from the Machine without the symptoms returning too heavily in the medium term. NMTRv1 are the first recordings released to the public.
Of course, this recording is a by product of experiments but the anonymous technicians have done a fine job in refining these into one expansive track of uneasy ambience. Shimmering frequencies and ringing tones nestle beside the ghostlike whirrs and creaks that emanate from the machines. At points it all gets sucked up into a vortex of deep swirling reverberations, churning out billows of ghostlike howl into a blur of foggy ambience. Elsewhere there is the sound of hollow taps, squelchy tones and the hiss from machines before the entire thing glides into dark ambient territory.
No background is given about the technicians nor their listening habits but it does seem they are channelling the celestial vibrations picked up by Cyclobe, the abstract workings mined by Nurse With Wound and the deep space reverberations explored by Lustmord. NMTRv1 sounds like the kind of dark ambient recording that the Canadian label Cyclic Law would release.
NMTRv1 clocks in at just over 53 minutes but strangely enough time seemed to pass by much more quickly....
Hypnagogue
Do yourself a favor, and before you listen to NMTRv1 from the collective called The Nothing Machine, go to their web site and dive into the backstory. Kudos to these folks for crafting their own very cool and detailed mythology around the release.
As far as the music goes, this is an hour-long deep dive into minimalist noisescapes, where rough-edged drones scrape across a wasteland scoured to the bone by sound. There’s a lot of vastness and emptiness at play, and a suggestion of something sinister pulling at the edges of reality. After all, these are the sounds required to stem the effects of the telomeric shortening that affected the technicians when the actual Nothing Machine managed to tear a hole in reality. You don’t get 'nice' out an industrial accident like that, after all.
This stretch of the disc is very good isolationist ambient, the textures held back enough to pack them with unpleasant emotional impact, a distinctly creepy feeling that pervades you even as the hypnotic dronework burrows a sinkhole in your ability to form conscious thought. At the halfway point a repeating beat drops in out of nowhere to mark a change of direction. A great touch that saves the disc from being a one-note work. Electronic skitterings run around the edges of the sound. (Which, to my ears, borders 'in an interesting way' on being tribal.) NMTRv1 changes faces a few times before it’s through, going from sparse electronic pulses to near-silence to grinding stacks of conflicting noise. Every new redirect is handled with expert-technician cool, and each recalibration of the Machine gives you a new dimension to try to push through.
Fans of dark ambient will want to fire up this machine immediately; others should approach with caution. NMTRv1 is capable of distorting reality. The effects can be surprisingly mentally liberating.
Obsküre Magazine
The Psychogeographical Commission et Missing Transmissions combinent leurs talents pour un projet qui explore encore une fois mais sous un autre biais les rapports entre l'espace et le temps, la réalité et le vide.
Ici, les lois physiques sont transgressées pour s'intéresser à un programme de recherche expérimental d'investigation pour le contrôle de la fusion nucléaire nommé la machine Z+. Il s'agit d'un générateur de rayons X qui a pour mission de trouver des solutions quant aux futurs problèmes du monde en matière d'énergie. Durant les premiers jours d'expérimentation, des effets inattendus se sont produits sur les techniciens qui passaient leur temps autour du réacteur. Un des effets secondaires fut le vieillissement prématuré. Les fréquences sonores produites par la machine sont aujourd'hui disponibles à travers cette série d'enregistrements, les Nothing Machine Therapy Recordings, dont voici le premier volume. Les musiciens y sont nommés comme des techniciens avec chacun un numéro, jouant à la fois le rôle de scientifique et de cobaye. Durant l'étude, les techniciens se sont plaints d'avoir des hallucinations sonores et visuelles, des variations de températures, une absence de notion du temps et des nausées quand ils s'éloignent de la machine. L'auditeur est invité à ressentir les mêmes émotions à travers ce travail raffiné et un savoir-faire indéniable pour poser des ambiances cosmiques, enveloppantes, riches, de véritables environnements sonores à écouter sur une bonne chaîne stéréo. Cotonneuse, cette musique épaisse et aérienne possède quelque chose de matriciel.
Attention à l'addiction.
78 % (Mäx Lachaud)
Side-Line Music Magazine
This is what I found on this project’s homepage: ‘The Nothing Machine is a remnant of the British Z+ Pinch Inertial Energy Program. A project designed to probe further the boundaries of Nuclear Fusion Technology in the hope of finding a solution to the world's future energy problems’. It all sounds interesting, but on one side, a kind of ‘mission impossible’ for a reviewer to get more about who’s hiding behind this project. On the other side, this project is a kind of side-project of The Psychogeographical Commission, another strange conceptual project we previously discovered.
I didn’t want to concentrate too much on the strange nuclear concept invented by The Nothing Machines and its musicians (renamed as technicians) rather than simply listen to the music.
The Nothing Machine has composed one single track that will get you in its grip for nearly 60 minutes. The composition is a pure soundscape composed with an impressive sound arsenal. You can imagine the mix of field recordings and experimental techniques like scratches and other fragmented percussion parts. You get the impression of recognizing sounds from the subway next to imaginary and abandoned factory atmospheres. One thing becomes rapidly clear when listening to The Nothing Machine; darkness rules over this soundscape. Buzzing soundwaves bring the listener into a state of confusion until finally joining a more experimental last part.
The least I can say is that musically this project has achieved a meaningful and minimal/experimental release in the genre. I personally prefer this opus to the work of The Psychogeographical Commission. It’s definitely dark and visionary like!
DP:7/10
Vox Empirea
La volontà alchemica degli scozzesi The Psychogeographical Commission, duo dark-folk/city-ambient già trattato nei mesi scorsi da Vox Empirea, segue per predisposizione itinerari sonori ultra-avanguardistici, raggiungendo sempre nuovi ed ancor più sofisticati traguardi. La creatività del leader S. ha recentemente architettato il side-project chiamato The Nothing Machine, nome riferito anche nella realtà ad un misterioso congegno costruito segretamente in Inghilterra, la "Z + Machine", destinato a sviluppare un ambizioso progetto sulla fusione nucleare chiamato "British Z+ Pinch Inertial Fusion Energy program". Il titolo "NMTRv1" quì ascoltato significa per esteso "Nothing Machine Therapy Recording Volume 1" e funge scientificamente tramite il suo suono da afficace antidoto in grado di ridurre o neutralizzare gli importanti effetti collaterali psicofisici subiti dai tecnici del laboratorio durante il periodo di sperimentazione trascorso accanto all'apparecchiatura. Danni neuro-sensoriali, percettivi, organici, stati di alterazione ottica, vegetativa, della termoregolazione; una sola traccia lunga poco meno di un'ora espone sia la fase prettamente medicamentale di questo sound-system, sia l'essenza dei sintomi descritti, esprimendoli attraverso diffusioni obscure-ambient dalle prcedure cariche di asetticità ed estrema freddezza. Sonorità aliene provenienti da ignote apparecchiature, pads opachi, sommersi, che raggelano l'udito, multispazialità elettronica, echi remoti: questo è il suggestivo campionario udibile nella release nuovamente promossa dalla Acrobiotic Records. L'impianto propagato da "NMTRv1" espande in un buio corridoio glaciali folate di materia radiocontaminata, onde che ricreano dettagliatamente l'impressione di vivere l'esperimento in prima persona, lasciando che sia il suono stesso a raffigurare attimo dopo attimo le visioni distorte e la sintomatologia fisica provocata dalla Z + Machine, in un insieme di rumore minimale, voci indistinte, dissonanze artificiali, cavernosi riverberi e vaporizzazioni tastieristiche. Lo scopo del disco è quello di evidenziare concretamente le significative potenzialità di quell'eccezionale programma nucleare oggi in stand-by, rimarcando inoltre la ferma volontà dei tecnici stessi coinvolti di completare l'originario programma sperimentale. Opera molto interessante, dal concept quantomai attuale e controverso. Al fine di comprenderne meglio il significato, esorto i lettori a collegarsi alla web-page ufficiale dei The Nothing Machine, ove reperiranno tutte le minuziose descrizioni riguardanti il trascorso test nucleare e la relativa cronostoria che ha reso necessaria l'edificazione di questa atipica "audio-cura". Musica per irriducibili estimatori dell'astrazione ambient più draconiana, della sua sistematica manipolazione finalizzata all'analisi degli effetti sulla nuda fisicità del corpo umano, escludendo aprioristicamente ogni coinvolgimento spirituale. Interagire con "NMTRv1" ad alto volume ed in penombra è un'esperienza sconvolgente, traumatica.
Was Ist Das
Are these strange transmissions from a failed scientific experiment that has defied the laws of Physics or a successful experimental concept album that defies the laws of music? Most likely the latter but I choose to believe the former, especially as it seems pretty convincing when you hear this album.
It is one epic work of strange, dense, unsettling ambience. Unearthly drones drift by like thick sonic fog while high pitched discordant sounds whistle by. On a good pair of headphones this becomes an unnatural storm of sound inside your skull but in a good way, like a forbidden pleasure or your brain pleasantly dissolving into paste.
In fact, this strange album seems full of oddly thrilling moments for addicts of strange frequencies. Nurse with Wound's most ambient abstractions or the most ethereal parts of Cyclobe could pass as distant cousins to this album but what really sets it apart is how relentlessly all enveloping it seems. The intensity levels sometimes reach that of taking-off in an airplane, all the while sounding like a chorus of ghosts tumbling into the blackest nebulas in in space.
It's a heavy cup of tea and no mistake, one that is best enjoyed on your headphones for the full impact and to protect the family and your pets from this magnificently warped brute.