What exactly is Machine Girl? As I saw them this Wednesday at First Avenue, it was the only question I had on my mind. When I started listening to Machine Girl in 2020, I was taken by their dedication to making raucous, breakcore inspired electronic music that always had a powerful, driving energy. When I saw them on Wednesday, they performed songs from their latest album 'PsychoWarrior: MG Ultra X' (2025) and selections from 'MG Ultra' (2024) and 'The Ugly Art' (2018). What I had apparently missed in 2020 was their deep cache of punk music, which now is at the center of their work.

Fittingly, they were able to assemble a proper punk rock crowd for their show at First Ave. Crowds were surfed (by both performers and fans), Juuls were lost, and pits were moshed. Machine Girl, like their music, were irrepressibly high energy, with songs like 'Come On Baby, Scrape My Data' and 'Status' as perfect platforms for Machine Girl to (literally) launch from. In fact, as Machine Girl’s frontman Matt Stephenson climbed the rails of First Ave’s balconies, I finally understood what Machine Girl is: a band dedicated to chaos. Whether it can be extracted from frenetic techno or heavy punk, they want to create a space for themselves and others to be completely untethered and lawless.

Machine Girl closed their show by bringing out one of their two fantastic openers, LustSickPuppy for 'Suck Shit', a song they dedicated to Donald Trump and his allies. Their other opener, Sextile, had started the show with more punk rock politics as they performed 'F Kristi Noem' for a Minneapolis audience clearly desperate for release. The song fit Machine Girl’s ethos perfectly: make music for people to excise their demons to.

Show Review: George Faseemo
Photos: Christian Garcia Garcia