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Formed in 1998 in San Francisco, California, by Vincent James. Machine Love has made a significant impact on the Internet music scene and the netways of sites like MP3.com and eMusic.com. Machine Love songs such as "Outside Time," "Mr. Flux," "Easy Turbo," "Stoner Girl," "Night Trip," and "Lost In Transport," have hit number one on their respective MP3 Electronic, Trip Hop and Alternative music charts. With over 350,000 downloads and streams so far, Machine Love has a worldwide fan base and has been added to the playlists of many top Internet based radio stations. Their songs are also in frequent rotation at several east and west coast nightspots.Six independent films have used Machine Love in their soundtracks. Six of their albums have been picked up by MTV Networks for use in TV shows such as ?ôRoad Rules?ö, "The Real World" and "Making the Band", and the music can also be heard on fashion show catwalks. All Machine Love material is written, recorded, and produced by Vincent James. James's lush soundscapes and melodies, funk grooves, and electronic noodling combined with Tad Ro's acoustic and electric guitar textures create a signature chill-out sound. Tracks often feature additional players who range from angelic sounding vocalists and... Read More ... intriguing spoken-word artists to piano, organ, and wind instrumentalists. This added talent is culled from a pool of Bay Area artists and other musicians worldwide who work with Machine Love remotely over the Internet.The duo's creative efforts intersect after James establishes the nucleus of a track; then Ro comes into the studio and lays down guitar. "Tad may spend hours and hours creating different layers of guitar textures?à then I go in the next night and splice away, sometimes using things he has done in a completely different context than it was first recorded," says James. "From there it's another week or so of layering even more things, perhaps other musicians on top of that. Then I go into mixing and producing mode for another week." The songs sometimes have unusual elements; James likes to use snippets of conversations from homemade audio and video recordings. The track "Last Day On Earth" from "Living in the Future" is one such recording, which opens with the retelling of a story about a homeless person that sounds like it was overheard on the street. Each song can take weeks to write and produce and often James works on several tunes simultaneously. Because of the time and care put into each piece, the end result is eerily organic. The funky rhythms, astral arias, and piercing wa wa of the guitar are all carefully crafted and placed layer-by-layer into each piece. Machine Love's musical influences come from a vast array of electronica, rock, pop, soul, and jazz artists: from The Beatles and Pink Floyd to Herbie Hancock and Miles Davis to Cold Cut and The Future Sound of London. James also has a special place in his heart for French and Italian film soundtracks of
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