“SMELL THE SWEAT OFF MY SKIN / THAT’S THE STENCH OF THE WORKING CLASS.” John Rojas wrote that for “Voyeurism”, and he wrote it without deciding in advance to write about work at all.
“When we first started writing, we didn’t have a starting point, nor could I pinpoint what I wanted to say,” John said. “Since everyone is very busy, we tried our best to be efficient with our time. Once we entered the recording process, I realized that the lyrics were a natural stream of consciousness, reflecting my experience with labor, exhaustion, and frustration.”
That is the whole method, more or less. A band with jobs, working against the clock, finding out what the songs were about only once the songs existed. Sounds familiar?
Machinekit play punk through electronics, or electronics with punk arms, depending on which minute you catch them in. Glitches all over the place, but nothing running loose. The melodies get in and stay in, turning slowly rather than hooking you. If you grew up on Nine Inch Nails, 80s punk, Powerman 5000, or you remember the sound design in “Pi” better than the plot, you already know the kind of room this belongs in.
The five songs run from manic hyperpunk on “Rabbit Eats Wolf” to sludge on “Tumbleweed” to something they call locomotive electro-Songo on “Cauterize”, which tells you they have no interest in settling anywhere.
The title came first, and it came from a book.
“During the writing process, the title is where I first conceived the general theme for the entire record,” John said. “It just so happened that I was rereading Deleuze and Guattari, and they inspired the title, BODY WITHOUT ORGANS. Conceptually, I thought the title reflected a literal, personal, and philosophical significance to the music and the lyrics.”
“Although the original meaning is different, I reinterpret the concept and connect it to my current experience with labor and burn out.”
What he connects it to is specific and unglamorous. “I am a work-aholic, and naturally, the millions of things I take on tend to stress me out. Irrevocably, I’m spread thin and overwhelmed. As I’ve gotten older, my work-life balance hinders my creative process. I find that immersing myself into my art is now difficult because I’m constantly racing against time.”
The working has started eating the one thing he does for himself.
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“That pressure breeds frustration, making me feel that I am not in control,” John said. “However, I do experience visceral yearning for change, but end up confused by what it looks like in reality. It is an endless, ambivalent chase that leaves me feeling like Sisyphus.”
“This idea allowed me to illustrate the loss of control within my own body as if it is operating independently from my true desires.”
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“Voyeurism” opens the EP with John watching himself from the outside. “ALL EYES IN THE ROOM / LOOK DEEP INTO MY SOUL / I’LL POUR EVERY PART OF ME / UNTIL I LEARN TO MAKE MYSELF WHOLE.”
Then the sweat, the stench, the working class, and a lonely boy mass produced and meant to lose fast. “SPEED AND POWER WILL FUCK AND DOUR EVERYTHING I LOVE.” He keeps coming back to “BUT WHAT A WASTE OF TIME”, which is about as close as the EP gets to a chorus.
Machinekit started in 2018 in Los Angeles as John’s project, built out of his equal love for electronics and instruments, and it has taken in a lot of people since.
The current lineup is John on vocals, Ryan Janke on drums, Jeremey Trujeque on guitar, Sam “Slam” McAdam on bass and AJ Fructuoso on modular piano. The band describe themselves as “an agglomeration of chaos”, and that has held up across every reshuffle. John engineered and produced their last album, “Goddamnvanity”, himself at MachineHouse Audio, his studio.
“Body Without Organs” is out today, 3 August 2026, five songs, artwork by Louie Esteem. Stream it below.
“The inevitable by-product is being more emotionally and physically drained that I forget to do the things I love the most,” John said.
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