As we move towards creating machines with more human-like properties,
mathematician Alan Turing devised a test that a machine would have to pass
in order to be thought of as human. The test would pit a machine versus a
human in a game of 20 questions. A judge would be enlisted to -- after the
questioning -- decide which participant was the man and which was the
machine. If the judge chose incorrectly and labeled the machine as human,
the machine had passed the test and would be known as a Turning machine.


Turing Machine -- the band -- could certainly pass for machines, if need
be. Their music is very structured and often quite repetitive, played in
a heavy style that a machine might find appropriate. 


As far as I can tell, the only thing that gives Turing Machine away as
being human is the tension in their music. I can't imagine a machine being
able to develop tension, and yet, every Turing Machine song builds so much
tension before it finally breaks into a rage, it is no wonder that it often
takes well over five minutes for these songs to play themselves out. It is
also no wonder that Turing Machine's music has been all over MTV's Real
World lately -- every scene where they're developing tension, one of these
songs will play. Listen carefully next Tuesday night.


Having said that Turing Machine's songs are all rather lengthy, I should
point out that they do not get old. The songs are repetitive at times, but
the band throws enough curveballs into the mix that the only way you will
realize that a song is 7 minutes long is if you happen to look at your CD
player. Hell, even seeing these guys live (and having the bassist break a
strap and the guitarist cut his forehead open with his guitar in the first
couple songs of the set) the songs don't get boring. In fact, the more
people that are in the room, the better. As the tension is built,
song-by-song, you can feel the room explode when the band finally lets
loose.


Turing Machine are an instrumental rock band not unlike Don Caballero,
Trans Am or other heavy instrumental bands, but I think what sets them
apart from the crowd is their understanding of the dynamics of
tension. Grab "A New Machine for Living" and rest assured that it rocks 10
times as hard live.