Artist: E.W. Harris EP: Machine Living in Relief Genre: Indie Folk, Singer-Songwriter, Acoustic Release Date: x
E.W. Harris may have started this project as a joke—some barroom dare to make an acoustic folk record about robots—but what he’s ended up with is one of the most complete and imaginative indie folk releases in recent memory.
“Machine Living in Relief” isn’t a genre experiment—it’s a world. Set inside Harris’s long-running conceptual landscape “Rocket City,” the EP continues a sci-fi folk saga he’s been building over the course of five records. Think of it as a dystopian sandbox where Blade Runner’s neon rain gives way to backporch storytelling and creaky acoustic guitars. What’s surprising, though, is how naturally Harris marries the absurdity of his premise—acoustic songs about artificial intelligence—with the raw vulnerability of traditional folk music.
At its heart, this is a character study. Each song introduces a new voice, a different lonely machine trying to understand something human. And Harris doesn’t just use the concept as a gimmick—he lets it complicate and enrich his songwriting.
“Accidents Repeating” is a standout. Its haunting spaciousness recalls early Fleet Foxes, all echoes and melancholy, building to a final chorus that feels like a quiet revelation: the idea that maybe we’re not evolving at all, just looping, glitching, repeating our mistakes with slightly newer software.
“Chemical Fire” has some Chris Cornell in its DNA—emotionally heavy, lyrically cryptic, but delivered with clarity and restraint. Harris sounds like he’s channeled Cornell through a fingerpicked guitar rather than a Marshall stack. The lyrics are thick with metaphor, but they don’t feel obscured—they feel lived-in.
“The Nail Beside the Door” starts out in Dave Matthews territory before taking a turn Matthews never would. The addition of accordion introduces an eerie warmth, and the song pivots into something far more cinematic. It’s a reminder that Harris, while clearly fluent in folk, is never confined by it.
The EP’s weakest track might be “Treble Negative,” if only because it’s so stripped down compared to the rest. But even that has charm. It feels like Harris turned off the world and sang into a single mic under a bare bulb. It’s not polished, but it’s not supposed to be. It’s just another voice in Rocket City—one that bleeds human.
What makes Machine Living in Relief special isn’t the concept alone. Plenty of artists have built worlds. What sets Harris apart is how naturally he folds big ideas into acoustic textures. He’s a folk musician writing about transhumanism and AI—not to be clever, but because it’s a lens that lets him talk about alienation, purpose, addiction, memory, and regret without sounding like he’s complaining. It’s not sci-fi for the sake of aesthetic. It’s a thought experiment in emotional disguise.
And sure, we could throw out comparisons. There are hints of Paul Simon’s Graceland, a whisper of Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago, some Fiona Apple-level intricacy in the lyrics, maybe even a ghost of Orville Peck in the open spaces. But none of that quite nails it. Harris is one of those rare artists whose influences are fully metabolized. You hear echoes, but not imitations.
More than anything, Machine Living in Relief feels like an artist alone with his thoughts, somewhere quiet, mapping out a world in sound. The ideas are dense, but the music is inviting. You don’t need to know the lore to feel something. And that’s what makes this EP land—underneath the concept, there’s heart. And it’s still beating, even under the wires.
