Mike Fisher's career in electronic music began with his role as the keyboardist and founding member of Machines of Loving Grace in 1989. Machines' first eponymous album enjoyed success on college radio, and their second album Concentration expanded their audience, with the single "Butterfly Wings" becoming a staple of then-trendsetting stations like KROQ in Los Angeles. 1994 brought the band's inclusion in the soundtrack to The Crow motion picture, with the track "Golgotha Tenement Blues." Machines' final album Gilt was released in 1995.

Fisher's new project is Amish Rake Fight, which moves in a different direction from his previous work. The first ARF album "Fellow Prisoners" is cool and thoughtful, elegant and complicated. Preferring attention to detail over prolific output, and melody over repetition, the Amish Rake Fight sound reveals a fine, even maniacal interest in small details and thematic subtleties.