Bloomfield Machine creates music from the space where human feeling meets spontaneous electronic discovery. Based in Huntington Beach, California, solo artist Brian Kassan has shaped the project into a personal DIY outlet, writing, recording, performing, and mixing every piece from his apartment studio in Orange County. Across nine albums, he has developed a sound that values melody, texture, experimentation, and the freedom to follow an idea wherever it leads.
His ninth album, algorithm & blues, expands that identity through fifteen concise compositions lasting just over thirty minutes. The collection introduces a stronger guitar presence alongside Kassan’s keyboard work, bringing a rock dimension into a palette informed by classical music, classic rock, and electronic sounds spanning decades. The combination gives the album breadth while preserving the melodic character that defines Bloomfield Machine.
The emotional foundation of algorithm & blues comes from a period of loss and impermanence that unsettled Kassan’s sense of stability. He describes music as a source of purpose and emotional renewal, a place where feelings can emerge without requiring verbal explanation. That idea becomes the album’s appeal: the compositions function as subconscious expression, translating experiences that may be difficult to articulate into sound.
Kassan’s recording method is equally revealing. Planning has gradually given way to exploration. Ideas captured on an iPhone may provide a starting point, but increasingly he searches through a library of sounds and beats until a combination begins to take shape. This intuitive process leaves room for surprise, even leaving the creator wondering how each album emerged and whether the next creative spark will arrive.
The relationship between technology and humanity runs through the album’s identity. Poet and musician Ken Lee of Eleven Shadows responded to the finished work with liner notes that consider machines, emotion, memory, and the uneasy possibility of making peace with technology. His contribution reinforces the album’s central tension without reducing it to a simple argument about whether machines are good or bad.
For listeners discovering Bloomfield Machine, patience is part of the experience. The tracks reveal additional textures and relationships through repeated listening, making headphones an ideal way to appreciate their subtle construction.
Algorithm & Blues ultimately presents an artist using experimentation as a form of self-understanding, turning uncertainty, technology, melody, and human vulnerability into a compact musical world. Its honesty gives the project lasting relevance: creation itself becomes a genuinely human way to remain connected, curious, and grounded.