Ænigmachine

Starting off writing songs for in a local band from DeKalb named the Forest of Love, Grant Mooney got his foot in the door of the music industry and learned firsthand what it takes to write good, meaningful songs and put on good shows. Growing tired of the band’s chemistry and the limiting guitar-drums-bass-vocals setup, Mooney broke the band up to start a solo career, and eventually settled on the pseudonym Ænigmachine. Drawing influence from artists such as The Smashing Pumpkins, The Mars V...

Starting off writing songs for in a local band from DeKalb named the Forest of Love, Grant Mooney got his foot in the door of the music industry and learned firsthand what it takes to write good, meaningful songs and put on good shows. Growing tired of the band’s chemistry and the limiting guitar-drums-bass-vocals setup, Mooney broke the band up to start a solo career, and eventually settled on the pseudonym Ænigmachine. Drawing influence from artists such as The Smashing Pumpkins, The Mars Volta, Radiohead, and Wilco, the music of Ænigmachine finds balance between skillful songwriting and ambience, and can best be described as tranquil, menacing, beautiful, ugly, surreal, melancholy, and uplifting. Covering a wide range of genres, Ænigmachine touches base with many different styles, such as alternative, acoustic, shoegaze, ambient, progressive, electronica, psychedelic, folk, post-rock, jazz, noise rock, and minimalism, and blends them all together to create his own tonal fingerprint. Mixing acoustic-based songs with layers of electronic sounds, he creates a literal and metaphorical dissonance between beauty and destruction, nature and technology, reality and perceived reality, that is apparent in not only the texture of the sound but in the lyrical content itself. The onslaught of sound effects and layering are written in a way that when performed solo live, an audience member unfamiliar to the artist doesn’t think that parts are missing. With his previous band, The Forest of Love, he did a number of shows at DeKalb’s House Cafe, as well as a few open mics in a few locations. The first order of business for Ænigmachine is doing more shows in the Chicagoland area, and writing and recording more songs. So with an catalogue of 30+ songs and a determination to open new doors while staying true to himself, Ænigmachine prepares himself for a long journey down the road less traveled, and with the aim to cross any obstacle in his way.