Ben Neill had been a vital, if long silent, staple of the downtown New York music scenes, having previously released recordings of grimy, crepuscular electronics on the German Dossier label, most notably MAINSPRING. Shaking off the often 'neo-classicism' of that recording's experimental bent, Neill's thrust back into the mainstream was via GREEN MACHINE, perhaps the most unusual disc yet to surface from his Big Apple studio. This extraordinary disc posits folks like Jon Hassell, Byrne & Eno, Amorphous Androgynous, and some of the early-'90s ambient hardcore artists into new and uncharted waters, waters stirred up by Neill's highly evocative electronic sound palette and utterly compelling sound design. Lush, alive with all manners of organisms rustling in the undergrowth, preening electronics and curdled beats suggesting the evolutionary process itself, GREEN MACHINE reveals a synthetic heart at least partially made flesh. Just peer into the "Ether," which utilizes soaring electronic winds, woodblock bleeps, and turgid synthesized rainforests in depicting its febrile environment. And so Neill proceeded apace into the teeming underbelly of 90s electronica.