“Some say our music has polyrhythm, but it’s simply 4/4. I guess it confuses anyone who hears it for the first time”: How Peter Nordin navigated a 172bpm maze of nightmarish polymetric riffs on Meshuggah’s Future Breed Machine

Peter Nordin. Original bassist of Mushuggah.

Released in 1995 on Meshuggah's Destroy Erase Improve album, Future Breed Machine's 172 BPM maze of nightmarish polymetric riffs and over-the-bar-line figures is so maniacally complex, it can leave the most sophisticated listener wondering, “What the hell just happened?”

The syncopations are occasionally so severe that the track sounds like it's skipping uncontrollably, but the execution is eerily flawless. The most common reaction is simply, “How is that even possible?”